The cabin didn’t seem long abandoned, but Fitz had judged that it had been some weeks since the last time someone had come to check it, and much longer than that since someone had last lived in it, and so he’d decided to keep an eye on it. He and Nighteyes had gone to check on it a few times in the weeks since they’d first stumbled upon it, but while Nighteyes had occasionally picked up a relatively fresh scent, neither of them had ever stumbled upon someone living within the cabin, nor did it seem like anyone had taken up residence.
And so Fitz decided that the cabin must have been abandoned some time, but was used, occasionally, as a waypoint for the occasional traveller who was passing by.
He didn’t have much to move in. A bag full of clothes and some inks and dyes he’d been working on, a couple of jars of herbs and poisons he’d collected in his time in Vallo. The herbal that he’d started working on.
It was getting late in the season, and he was still weak from the healing he’d done after the Kraken attack – it would take some time for his muscles to build back up after his body had burned through his reserves to heal him – so he didn’t feel guilty about how small the garden he dug out was. He’d planted some potatoes, cabbages and radishes. He wondered if he should attempt to build a chicken coop before the winter’s snows came, or if he should wait until Spring. Building a stable for Myblack would probably best wait until the Springtime. He wasn’t sure how early the snows usually came to Vallo, but if he didn’t finish in time it would only cause trouble, and Myblack seemed happy enough at the Barns for the time being. Truth be told, she was probably happier there with the rest of the animal company than she would be stuck here alone with Fitz and his wolf.
He probably could build the chicken coop with plenty of time before winter, and while he would have preferred a couple of months of fine weather for the chickens to get settled, building something would help build his muscle up faster than only sitting around, working on his scrolls or mixing his inks.
It was a pleasantly warm afternoon as he sat out behind the cabin, and his hammering had helped raise a think sheen of sweat on his forehead. His muscles ached, but in a good way.
I suppose you won’t let me eat these chickens either, Nighteyes grumbled, worrying at the bone of what had been a haunch of beef.
“No,” Fitz confirmed. “These will be the same as the ones from back home.”
Nighteyes sighed, but then his ears perked up. He got to his feet and turned toward the path in a defensive pose, hackles up.
Someone comes.
Fitz finished affixing the wall to the frame of the coop, finishing as the man came into view around the bend. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, and went to stand next to Nighteyes, hand on his wolf’s broad skull, and waited.
Fitz was right about one thing, for sure - Hopper and El hadn't been living in the cabin in a while. She did better at the Fox Way house, with her friends, and he did better keeping an eye on them all. He was wildly outnumbered, of course, but he did his best to keep them from waking up in a ditch. Sometimes he cooked a vegetable - not often, but sometimes was better than never - and more frequently, he made sure everyone did their part in keeping the house from turning into a pig sty.
That was part of why he was out here at the cabin. The vacuum at Fox Way was on the fritz and he remembered he had one in a closet out here. What he didn't remember stuffing in a closet with a man and a wolf.
"Uhh…Can I help you?" Fitz moving closer to the wolf made his cop senses tense, but he kept his large frame as approachable as possible. "Are you one of them nature witches that lives out in the woods? I--" Hopper cut himself off with a frown. "Is that a chicken coop?
“It’s half a chicken coop,” Fitz answered, not taking his eyes from the man.
Part of him wondered why the man was asking if he could help Fitz, but after a moment it recalled Fitz to his manners. He should be the one asking the man if he needed anything.
“I don’t have much, but can I invite you in for some tea?” he asked, knowing even as he spoke that it was both too late and too hesitant to come across as a true invitation.
"You can--" Hopper laughed, but it was more of a surprised sound than a mirthful one. It hadn't occurred to him that there could be squatters in his cabin. Most people didn't wander out here and there were certainly safer and more well-constructed places to live, even if had fixed it up a lot since it first arrived. He huffed once more and shrugged his shoulders.
"I mean, since it's my cabin, I don't think I really need an invitation. But it's kind of you to offer," he smirked. "Think you could get the wolf to ease off a bit? This staredown is making me feel a little twitchy, honestly."
“He’s a dog, actually. He does look like a wolf though, doesn’t he? Nighteyes, down,” Fitz said, giving him a scratch behind his ear.
I’ll gnaw your hand off, Nighteyes grumbled at him, but he leaned into the ear scratch and laid down on his stomach anyway.
Give a little tail wag, Fitz suggested. The smirk in the thought didn’t make it to his face.
I take that back. I’ll be going for the throat. You won’t see me coming. He gave a grudging, half-hearted wag of his tail and let his tongue loll out of his mouth.
“I’m sorry. I hadn’t thought anyone was living here,” he added. “I hadn’t meant to intrude.”
Hopper raised a skeptical eyebrow, but it wasn't like he was an animal specialist. And a dog could do almost as much damage as a wolf. But he appreciated the more relaxed look of Nighteyes anyway. He stepped closer to get a better look at the chicken coop in progress.
"We don't live here. My daughter and I live in town. But this is our cabin from home. We stayed in it for a while until we found something less isolated." He scratched at his bearded jaw and squinted over at the house. "How long have you been--" He didn't say squatting, but it was a close call. "--Staying here?"
Fitz grimaced. “I thought it was empty,” Fitz said. He should have known that people were still caring for it. It must have been this man’s scent that Nighteyes had picked up; not some wanderer after all. And now, here he was, caught building a chicken coop on some other man’s property. He’d been too eager to find somewhere where he and Nighteyes could stay comfortably together.
“We’ve only been here a few days. We don’t have much; we can clear out within the hour.”
"Whoa, hey, no need to rush off on my account." Hopper was still examining the outside of the cabin for other changes. The guy seemed to be good at making himself comfortable enough without damaging the structure as it was. And it wasn't like they were using it much. He frowned thoughtfully, crossing his arms over his chest. He wasn't sure if El would be upset about a stranger in the cabin or more upset if he kicked him out.
"You're an Outlander, right?" Hopper asked. "I think I've seen your face around on the network. And at fight club maybe? Do you work or just live off the land, or what?"
Fitz nodded. “I am,” he confirmed. “And you’ve seen me at Fight Club.” There was another man who often showed up at Fight Club who looked uncomfortably like Fitz, though their facial scars were different and Fitz’ nose had healed badly after a bad break when he’d been about sixteen. But there was no sense in trying to pretend that the man had been mistaken. “I do work, but I prefer to… live off the land,” he cocked a half-smile at that; it wasn’t a term that had been used back in the Six Dutchies, “when I can. There’s comfort in knowing that I can provide for myself when necessary.”
He brushed his hands off on his jeans, and then extended one out to the man; he’d learned pretty quickly that that was often the gesture made when meeting someone. “I’m Tom Badgerlock,” he said. “You’re…” he hesitated. He thought the man had only fought in one Fight Club since Fitz had started signing up, and he didn’t think he’d made it very far and so he hadn’t had many chances to be called into the ring, but the name came to him after only a little bit of searching. “Jim Hopper, right?”
"Yeah, but everybody just calls me Hopper." Hopper took Fitz's hand and shook it. "Not gonna lie, this is a little weird, but that's Vallo for you." He dropped his hand away and shrugged, taking a few steps towards the cabin.
"I'm not gonna run you out of here. It might as well be getting some use." He also had every intention of doing a little bit of digging about Tom Badgerlock. Because you could take a cop off the beat, but you couldn't stop one from being cautious as hell. "Just don't cook up drugs or kidnap people and hide them out here, you get me?" He pointed back at Fitz. "Also I need to get some stuff out of it while I'm here. You got anything private in there you don't want me to see?"
“My honour, I won’t,” Fitz said, well enough aware that he had little enough honour, but it wasn’t a lie; he had no intentions to kidnap anyone, and the garden he’d planted these last few days lacked any of the herbs that the garden he’d cultivated for years back home had held. He was suddenly certain, though, that Hopper would not have approved of the painkillers and poisons he’d grown in that garden, if he could even recognize the herbs for what they were. He’d found no carryme in all his wanderings of Vallo Forest or perusals of the local herbals, and he suspected that there was none in this world.
“But no, nothing.” Fitz had brought little enough with him to this cabin. A bag full of clothes in the local style that he’d bought since arriving, some pens and some inks that he made. He glanced toward the table, but he’d been working on a book of fables from his own world: there was nothing personal there. “If anyone should be concerned with intruding on one’s personal space, it should be me with yours. I am sorry if it’s weird. It’s not uncommon where I come from for someone to… take up residence in spaces that don’t appear to be used. But I should have known better; Vallo’s customs are not my own.”
"It's alright. Old habits, right? I'm set in my ways too." Hopper entered the cabin and headed straight for a trap door under a rug in the living room. There was no point in hiding it when he was going to take everything out anyway, so he threw the rug aside and pulled a few boxes out of the hiding space. There had been old files down here before, files about El, but they'd moved those. Now it was a hiding spot for spare weapons and some personal items of Sarah's that he hadn't been ready to have out in the open. He wasn't sure if he was ready now, but if he was loaning out the cabin, then he needed to at least try.
Once he had them all stacked in his arms, he stood and turned back towards Fitz. "Hit me up on the network if anything goes wrong out here. If it needs repairs or whatnot. I've done most of the work myself."
Fitz hadn’t missed the trap door; he’d found it near the end of his first day in the cabin and had looked through some of the things there; he was glad now that, after determining that there wasn’t anything especially dangerous to himself, he’d decided to leave doing a thorough inspection and clearing it out for a later date. But when Hopper went to it, he kept an appropriate level of surprise on his face to give the impression that he’d never known it was there at all.
“I’m sure I’ll be able to handle most repairs myself.” Well, perhaps not plumbing or electrical: both of those were entirely out of Fitz’ experience. “But I’d be happy to see you any time you decided to come by, if you ever decided you needed out of the city.” Fitz had hosted a few travellers when he’d lived in his cabin with Hap and Nighteyes, and while his boy had always enjoyed the company much more than Fitz had, he’d usually been glad enough to have it.
“Do you need a hand with any of that?” he asked.
"Nope, I'm good." Hopper probably could use some help. He was getting on in years. But damned if he'd admit as much. He adjusted his grip and moved towards the door. "And I'd rather you let me know. About any repairs that, that is. No offense. You seem real handy, but this is still my cabin and a safe place I want my kid to have if something happens to me."
He nudged open the door, awkwardly and gave a half-salute with his hand still holding the boxes. "Take it easy." His gaze shifted to Nighteyes and smirked bemusedly. "You too, pal." With that he stepped out of the house and walked in the direction of the closest waypoint.