John J. Rambo (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
theydrewfirstblood) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ph_logs2024-07-02 12:33 pm
theydrewfirstblood) wrote in ph_logs2024-07-02 12:33 pm
none of my pain and woe can show through (July Catch All)
Who: John Rambo (theydrewfirstblood) & YOU! (Mostly. Couple closed starters below.)
What: July catch all for Da Hollow's Favorite Commando(TM)
When: Throughout July
Where: Baker Ranch, Temple of the Sacred Roots, Forest--all around, really
Warning(s): canon typical nonsense: war, violence, PTSD, police brutality, will continue to warn in comment subjects as I go, with extra warnings for coping with mental illness (PTSD, anxiety, depression), nothing graphic or disturbing but I know if I'm going through it, reading about it doesn't always help so take your measure and know ILU.
but my dreams, they aren't as empty (Ranch, ota)
After what happened among the cultists, learning about this eldritch bullshit...dying, coming back...
The tiny gold leaf he was clutching when he came back to himself remains in his pocket at first. He's got plans for it, and they all involve keeping the fucking thing on him at all times. He doesn't want to lose it, doesn't want to leave it laying around...doesn't want to be this irrational and paranoid about potentially letting one of the boys find it around the house.
That whole deal, the whole mess...John doesn't want it to touch them, even incidentally. He hasn't really talked about it with them, save to say that he wasn't in any shape to discuss it yet, and he's not.
But throughout the next few weeks, John can easily be found at the ranch, either by those on business or those with an open invite--or hell, those who get lost in the woods and end up on the new boundary of his property watching rabbits and hares roam free behind the specially constructed fencing. He's working hard...not to forget, but to cope with what happened.
He's also just plain working, because he wants to add a couple bedrooms to the house. Just in case.
If something else happens, if he needs to know his people are safe...he could use the extra room.
as my conscience seems to be (closed to Sigma)
Within a week of returning from...the bullshit...John's thinking of the others a lot. The ones that were there with him, the ones who had his back, the ones he was most fearful for.
He thinks of Sigma a lot. Guy's unstable, like John after a fashion, but there's something about him that reminds him so much of the colonel it hurts. It doesn't make him homesick, but gives him some of the same strange comfort he finds when he's spending time with Alex.
So he ends up dropping a note in the mail for Sigma--i just has his name, his phone number, and the offer use it if you ever need to or want to.
He also includes a date, time, and an offer to open a tab at the Oak & Iron if he's up for it.
Which is where John can be found, within about a week of the end of the cultist outing. He's at a table near the back, sewing--not fabric and thread, but leatherwork: a small pouch for the leaf that he can thread onto the cord that holds Serranai's bead.
Of course, he has no food or drink, despite Tasha's puppy dog eyes, but as he glances up again to see if Sigma's entered yet, her tiny blonde figure appears with a basket in hand, packed high with everything she could possibly hope for him to put away in a fucking week much less a night's dinner.
"I do eat, y'know." he reminds her.
"Of course, but this makes sure you eat well. Now hush, there's berries in there for Coco."
The aforementioned chicken peeks her head over the edge of the table, forcing John to grin as he sets his leatherwork aside to find Co's treat in the basket.
i have hours, only lonely (Temple, ota)
Thus far, John's communion with the goddesses has been private...but the more he learns, the more he finds himself turning to them, the more curious he gets.
So...he goes to the temple. Not a lot, but he attends a couple services, and a couple times he just goes to sit or to pray. It's nice, to sort of...do it right? Maybe. It does help, a tiny bit, to feel more like Serranai hears him when he talks to her, and if someone wants to join him in prayer or say hello after a service? He's not only open, but in a better mood for being there.
He still prefers the temple of his own making, though.
my love is vengeance that's never free (Forest/Wildcard, ota)
John does precisely that: visits his own temples to not merely pray, but reach out. He occasionally goes to the beach to give offerings to Kora: little driftwood tokens he's whittled into fish, coins, and bottles he's filled with broken shells and sea glass he collects from the sand. He'll walk along the water, toss them into the waves with a few words to her...
...and he makes his monthly pilgrimage to the depths of the forest for Serranai. He gives her his offerings, he takes his meal under the tree he thinks of hers--and he spends more than a couple of hours there, trying to draw comfort from her presence. It's probably in his head, but he feels her more strongly here. Maybe it's the memory of her, but he swears that the forest is more alive here, the animals a little tamer--the odd flower a little more colorful.
The place isn't hidden--at least not by John. Find him here, deep in meditation, walking to or from this place with an empty basket in tow and a homemade longbow slung over his shoulder--or anywhere else, doing anything else. The sky's the limit.
((and if you need a personalized starter, PM the journal or hit me up on discord--the server proper, or privately at madwomanwithabox. :D))
theydrewfirstblood) & YOU! (Mostly. Couple closed starters below.) What: July catch all for Da Hollow's Favorite Commando(TM)
When: Throughout July
Where: Baker Ranch, Temple of the Sacred Roots, Forest--all around, really
Warning(s): canon typical nonsense: war, violence, PTSD, police brutality, will continue to warn in comment subjects as I go, with extra warnings for coping with mental illness (PTSD, anxiety, depression), nothing graphic or disturbing but I know if I'm going through it, reading about it doesn't always help so take your measure and know ILU.
but my dreams, they aren't as empty (Ranch, ota)
After what happened among the cultists, learning about this eldritch bullshit...dying, coming back...
The tiny gold leaf he was clutching when he came back to himself remains in his pocket at first. He's got plans for it, and they all involve keeping the fucking thing on him at all times. He doesn't want to lose it, doesn't want to leave it laying around...doesn't want to be this irrational and paranoid about potentially letting one of the boys find it around the house.
That whole deal, the whole mess...John doesn't want it to touch them, even incidentally. He hasn't really talked about it with them, save to say that he wasn't in any shape to discuss it yet, and he's not.
But throughout the next few weeks, John can easily be found at the ranch, either by those on business or those with an open invite--or hell, those who get lost in the woods and end up on the new boundary of his property watching rabbits and hares roam free behind the specially constructed fencing. He's working hard...not to forget, but to cope with what happened.
He's also just plain working, because he wants to add a couple bedrooms to the house. Just in case.
If something else happens, if he needs to know his people are safe...he could use the extra room.
as my conscience seems to be (closed to Sigma)
Within a week of returning from...the bullshit...John's thinking of the others a lot. The ones that were there with him, the ones who had his back, the ones he was most fearful for.
He thinks of Sigma a lot. Guy's unstable, like John after a fashion, but there's something about him that reminds him so much of the colonel it hurts. It doesn't make him homesick, but gives him some of the same strange comfort he finds when he's spending time with Alex.
So he ends up dropping a note in the mail for Sigma--i just has his name, his phone number, and the offer use it if you ever need to or want to.
He also includes a date, time, and an offer to open a tab at the Oak & Iron if he's up for it.
Which is where John can be found, within about a week of the end of the cultist outing. He's at a table near the back, sewing--not fabric and thread, but leatherwork: a small pouch for the leaf that he can thread onto the cord that holds Serranai's bead.
Of course, he has no food or drink, despite Tasha's puppy dog eyes, but as he glances up again to see if Sigma's entered yet, her tiny blonde figure appears with a basket in hand, packed high with everything she could possibly hope for him to put away in a fucking week much less a night's dinner.
"I do eat, y'know." he reminds her.
"Of course, but this makes sure you eat well. Now hush, there's berries in there for Coco."
The aforementioned chicken peeks her head over the edge of the table, forcing John to grin as he sets his leatherwork aside to find Co's treat in the basket.
i have hours, only lonely (Temple, ota)
Thus far, John's communion with the goddesses has been private...but the more he learns, the more he finds himself turning to them, the more curious he gets.
So...he goes to the temple. Not a lot, but he attends a couple services, and a couple times he just goes to sit or to pray. It's nice, to sort of...do it right? Maybe. It does help, a tiny bit, to feel more like Serranai hears him when he talks to her, and if someone wants to join him in prayer or say hello after a service? He's not only open, but in a better mood for being there.
He still prefers the temple of his own making, though.
my love is vengeance that's never free (Forest/Wildcard, ota)
John does precisely that: visits his own temples to not merely pray, but reach out. He occasionally goes to the beach to give offerings to Kora: little driftwood tokens he's whittled into fish, coins, and bottles he's filled with broken shells and sea glass he collects from the sand. He'll walk along the water, toss them into the waves with a few words to her...
...and he makes his monthly pilgrimage to the depths of the forest for Serranai. He gives her his offerings, he takes his meal under the tree he thinks of hers--and he spends more than a couple of hours there, trying to draw comfort from her presence. It's probably in his head, but he feels her more strongly here. Maybe it's the memory of her, but he swears that the forest is more alive here, the animals a little tamer--the odd flower a little more colorful.
The place isn't hidden--at least not by John. Find him here, deep in meditation, walking to or from this place with an empty basket in tow and a homemade longbow slung over his shoulder--or anywhere else, doing anything else. The sky's the limit.
((and if you need a personalized starter, PM the journal or hit me up on discord--the server proper, or privately at madwomanwithabox. :D))
no subject
“They call it a war, but it was more of a disaster than anything.” John replies with a shrug, staring down at the ground for a second. “Happened in the 1960’s in my world, and…and it was the kinda place where you really needed someone to trust if you were gonna make it out alive.”
Because ‘make it home’…not even John really made it home. No one did.
No one could.
no subject
no subject
Co proves her wrong.
"You can always deal with a backstabber." John points out, a flicker of sadness touching his features that's slowly smoothed away by something softer, thinking of Co and those fucking Vietnamese pirates that set the both of them up. "You can't always deal with bein' alone. Not sayin' you should trust everyone, but...you always got yourself if you got no one else. Trust yourself, and you can...prop yourself up on even a traitor. Limp by, y'know?"
He had to do that with the pirates--with Murdock. Even then, though...he had Co, and he had Colonel Trautman.
Which makes him regard Kitty again--this fucking child who's killing him, being this wise this young. He's different, he knew the score as a kid, but a nice girl like her?
"How old are you, anyway? You're too young to have figured that out already." he huffs with a wan smile, reaching into his basket for a flask of chilled water he kept in his icebox for a cold drink, passing it over to her.
no subject
When people come trying to kill you, and when you find out that you're basically a walking time bomb, it kind of makes you a little bit cynical.
"Lucky me, I've got good friends. And people looking after me. Them I trust with my life."
CW: non graphic mentions of child abuse
John sighs, lowering his gaze. For a second, he’s taken back to his own childhood—being her age, running with the boys on the res or taking shit from the ones who didn’t think anything of giving a “white boy” a hard time. The old men looked after him…
…but Dad should have been the one to look after him, and he’s got the mementos to remind him of how badly Dad failed in that respect.
“I’ll sleep better at night if I know any of ‘em are here.” He finally replies, looking up again as he sets the violets down where she can reach them. Thoughtlessly, his hand drifts up to the green glass bead hanging from a cord around his neck, with a flower trapped inside. A small leather pouch hangs beside it, but it’s the smooth glass bead his fingers go to, finding comfort in the smooth texture in his hand.
Fifteen, man…shit.
no subject
When that mage had come to kill her - well, retire her, to use the euphemism - back in al-Andalus, he hadn't hesitated. He threw up that shield to block the curse intended for her, and he hadn't come out of it unscathed.
And then she got whisked away into the Triskele's auspices, and her life had gotten weirder and weirder ever since.
"That's how I ended up with a whole family, though, so it probably wasn't all bad." She sounds cheerful, but there's a clear veneer of making-the-best-of-trauma under her words. "Now I've got a mom and dad and cousin and uncle and they're all pretty great. And Rowan, too, I guess." She's not even sure where the faun would fit in any family unit equivalent. Weird grouchy second cousin?
CW: semi-frank discussion of child abuse & wartime torture
"If you call him 'dad' and he lets you," he replies carefully after a moment, "you were never his responsibility. You were...are...his family."
He hesitates, then reaches up to his collar, freezes, and then hooks a finger in it. He tugs it down just enough to show the very end of one scar among many that sits high on his chest, tip nearly touching the center hollow of his collarbone.
"I got a bunch of these in the war." he explains. "Chest and back both...but there's one on my back I didn't get in Vietnam. One single scar--and I got it when my dad shoved me into a china cabinet. Your dad? Blood or not, he's the one doin' it right. And anyone on his side is probably the same kinda person: the kind of family you deserve. One that loves you."
no subject
She rubs the back of her hand against her eyes, trying to keep the tears that threaten to spill out in place. It's one thing to know it yourself, and it's another thing totally to have someone who doesn't know you from Adam confirm it just because of something you said. Anyone on his side is probably the same kinda person: the kind of family you deserve. One that loves you.
A real family. Not the fake one that had been implanted in her mind, not the bastards that had built her. A real family. And now she'd lost them.
Kitty puts her hand back in her lap and looks at the scar that John's showing her. Rough scars are nothing new to her. Aside from the curse marring his body, Alec's got quite a few. So does Uncle Baz. Hell, he and Beck had lost eyes and Uncle Baz had lost a leg, and they all accepted it as...just part of what they'd signed up for. (Rowan was down a leg, too, and Kitty was still a little afraid to ask how. The thaumic specialist was in no way a field agent.)
But she hasn't seen any scars caused outside of combat, nothing big like he's talking about.
She sets her jaw stubbornly. "I'm going to kick your dad's ass," she declares.
no subject
That, however, is weird, but that same tender burst of warmth he feels for Radar and Edgar is pleasant under his skin--not the pain he associates with physical contact, but more like...
...more like the things he's felt around Serranai. Connection that doesn't hurt.
"Well, anyone that wants to beat my dad's ass can't be bad." he quips, nodding a little. "Listen, I know this may be weird? But I'm gonna put it out there, and I'm not takin' it back any time soon: you ever want a place to stay that ain't the Oak & Iron or that boarding house that's been opened up, head out to Baker Ranch, northwest of town. You can come and go as you please, but it's a safe place you can call home. I got a couple guys that visit or stay sometimes, Edgar 'n Radar--Ed's a little older, but Radar's just a few years older than you. There's nothing you gotta do to earn your place there, but if you want you can help around the house--chore stuff like taking a turn on dishes or something."
He pauses, then shrugs and decides to hell with it.
"And if anyone hurts a hair on your head, you tell me and I swear they'll never touch you again."
no subject
"Thanks," she says quietly. "I'd like that, I think."
When he comes over all protective, though, she looks a little quizzically at him. "You're sure about that?"
Not a normal response to that kind of declaration. She rubs absently at the splotchy scar on the inside of her right wrist - it looks like a chemical burn, almost, but the skin is tough and shines like copper. No normal wound this.
no subject
"Don't talk much, so if I say something I usually mean it." he replies with a small smile, glancing at the scar she's rubbing. "I'm not a good man, I won't lie, but I'm a...pretty simple one. I stick around folks I like, I avoid folks I don't. You mess with someone I like, I'll make you stop...and how far I go always depends on the other person."
His gaze doesn't leave that scar as he says it, and when he looks her in the eye again, there's that shadow of a threat--but it's not directed at her. It's remote, distant--staring past her and into the rest of the world that might want to do her harm.
"I just know what it's like to be your age and not feel safe. Making sure I can give you that--make you feel safe--means a lot to me. Whatever shape that would take."
no subject
Kitty knows that look in his eye - she's seen it before. She doesn't want to imprint on this guy like a baby duck, but so much about him reminds her of Alec. She massages her wrist again. It's not hurting, but that's probably because she hasn't tried to use magic today, and it's always a crapshoot about whether that thing'll act up anyway.
"Thanks," she says again, as quietly as before, but smiling this time.