ph_logs | we stand shoulder to shoulder (veteran's social)

we stand shoulder to shoulder (veteran's social)

Who: John Rambo (

theydrewfirstblood) & The Pumpkin Hollow Veterans' Association
What: Leveling up veteran's poker night with a barbecue
When: post-Blight
Where: Baker Ranch
Warning(s): General warnings for John's canon: violence, police brutality, PTSD, torture, etc., and likely similar for many other veterans here, check for further warnings throughout

(NOTE: Treat this as a gathering, but I personally will be backtagging into this for the duration of September, so don't be a stranger!)

Poker Night is something John looks forward to every month, but he got it into his head that it could be fun to do a little more, so he talked to a few people, did a little extra work...

...then the damn Thatcher's Blight hit and everything went to absolute shit.

Fortunately, the whole thing's blown over now, and once he's sure everything around the farm is as clean as it's gonna get? John goes through his stores and decides he's got enough food and drink for all--and tacks up a notice on the bulletin board just below that for the regular poker night, with a date and time as well as his phone number and address.

VETERAN'S SOCIAL, BAKER RANCH--BBQ & DRINKS, POTLUCK OPTIONAL

The event starts a few hours before dusk. John's set up a ways from the house with some tables, chairs, and blankets for those who want to go full on picnic style. It wouldn't be a veteran's night without poker, so there's a game going at one of the tables while another holds plates of food--regular game coming off the grill, along with a few other pieces of meat he picked up for those who aren't fans of game.

And, because Co is around, there's no visible chicken on the grill. Ever the pragmatist, there's a couple casseroles of simple baked chicken on the table, alongside some sides John's put together or any offerings that come along as part of the optional potluck. There's not a lot of alcohol, but John's got the last bottle or two of his little dandelion wine experiment available, as well as a couple other things. Mostly it's water, tea, coffee--tamer offerings.

Speaking of the animals, John's turned loose the ones he treats as pets: Sam the rooster spends the whole night chasing after and trying to wrangle Co, who makes no bones about harassing newcomers for adulation. Those she knows, if they sit still too long, will end up with a happy chicken nesting in their lap...one that will remain quiet only so long as you offer the bare minimum of scritches and pets. Dare to ignore her, and angry clucking will ensue. John's mare, Helga, can also be seen grazing around the goings-on, shy but not unfriendly. If a hot breath puffs on the back of your neck, she's just curious--if you pet her, she'll swish her tail happily and move on.

There's also a newer member of the family, whose only just getting big enough to let socialize: Bao, a female cottontail rabbit whose still young, but no longer too much of a baby to keep isolated. Though she spends a good portion of the night in John's arms when he's not busy, she does hop around loose, sticking close to John and to Co, who can be found very rarely nesting in a patch of grass with Bao tucked against her feathery side, gently attempting to "preen" Bao despite her lack of feathers.

And while this is, ostensibly, the veteran's social, any of Baker Ranch's varying degrees of resident are invited to the party, so if there's new faces about? Relax, they don't bite--unless you have food, then watch your hands. They're probably teenagers, and they don't discriminate when it comes to their appetites.

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"Ah. Yes, I suppose perhaps I am." Siebren startles at the friendliness, but figures out how to put a smile on his face. "I haven't been here before, so I will perhaps need guidance. Where is everyone gathering?"

If he looks much more like someone's lost math teacher than a veteran, well. He didn't ask for this.

It's okay, Radar doesn't look like much of a veteran either! Neither do three-quarters of the guys in his unit. Siebren barely looks out of place at all to him.

"Oh, we're all setting up over there," he says, pointing toward the tables and chairs a small distance away. "But if you got ice cream we oughta get that inside until later so it doesn't melt. C'mon, over here."

He beckons for Siebren to follow him toward the house.

"I'm Corporal Radar O'Reilly, sir, what's your name? I think I seen you around the library sometimes."

"Dr. Siebren de Kuiper. I work at the library, yes. Someone needs to be able to reach the top shelves beside Lev."

That's mostly meant as a joke. Mostly. But he can dust even the highest places, given the whole floating thing.

Radar breaks into a laugh. "That's the one really tall guy, right? Dr. Anzu's husband -- uh, partner?"

(Radar still doesn't quite get the whole gender thing, but he's trying.)

"Yeah, if it weren't for you two, guys like me would be up a tree without a paddle whenever we wanted a book, huh? Glad they got you both around. Here we go -- "

He holds open the front door of the house so Siebren can float inside.

"It's a far cry from the work I'm more accustomed to, but I like it. It's also low-stakes. If I have a particularly bad day, I can call in without anything falling apart."

In he does float, looking for the right place to stow the sorbet.

"That's always nice," says Radar, a little wistful. "I guess it's kinda the same for me most of the time -- at least nobody's gonna die if I gotta take an extra day on a report for Miss Leeds. This last week with the outbreak, though, whew. It was just like being back in Korea."

And then, as he escorts Siebren over to the icebox and opens it so he can put the sorbet inside... idly, without quite realizing, Radar begins to whistle.

Siebren flinches at hearing that song; Nyarlathotep had also gotten it stuck deep, deep in his head. He can't quite resist the traditional line.

"What is that melody?"

"Huh?"

Radar blinks up at him, amiable as ever -- if puzzled by the look on Siebren's face.

"Oh, I dunno. It just popped into my head."

"You should be careful with things that just pop into your head. Sometimes, they're placed there. Sometimes they have meanings." He's not mad, he just doesn't want to think of Nyarlathotep influencing this young man.

Oh, so -- oh. Ohhhh. Maybe Siebren had the music stuck in his head and Radar accidentally overheard. He tries not to wince; even if Dr. de Kuiper's not mad, he's acting awful serious about a little song.

"I know, sir," he says, contrite. "I hear a lot more stuff than most people, though, so sometimes I can't help it when things pop into my head."

"The last time I heard that song, it was because Nyalathotep was...singing?...it to me. There might be a danger in having it in your head. I don't want you to draw its attention."

The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.
The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.
This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

He hears a weird buzzing then; feels it, more like, like the way the sky winds up for a good crack of thunder during a bad summer storm. The way a radio antenna shakes and hums a little before the lightning finds it. It's something worse than electricity about to strike, though. Annihilation, he thinks, and isn't even sure if he's the one thinking it for a second.

Radar shivers as he tries to shake it off. "Nyarlathotep," he says, a little slower as he tries to get the pronunciation right. "That's..."

Oh, jeez.

"That's the god they were killing all those people for, right? A couple months ago?"

"That is. That was. Well, years ago, but we all witnessed it a couple months ago."

Time is very complicated here.

Time seems to get a little funny in Radar's head, too, when Siebren says that. It skips backward a couple seconds, then forward a couple more, before the needle resettles into its proper groove and Radar just thinks of that blood-spattered room he dreamed about. He swallows hard.

"I forgot you were there too." Realizing how that might sound, Radar hastily covers with, "When everyone went missing I was calling around trying to figure out who all might've been out there. I shoulda remembered your name was on there, sir."

"It's fine. I was probably very quiet, especially toward the end. When it was with me, in the dark, before the sacrifice." No hard feelings, really.

"Maybe," he says, unsure. Radar fidgets, trying not to listen to the melody that's still circling the air like a whining mosquito.

Then, reluctantly: "...I think if Nyarlathotep was gonna notice me he would've already."

"It's entirely possible you have been noticed, without it acting yet." Not to scare you or anything, Radar.

"Yeah," says Radar, grimacing. He's not scared, exactly -- it's like hearing there's a sniper outside camp, knowing you gotta step lightly until everybody's sure they're gone. But it's definitely unnerving. "I, uh. When everybody was there I had a dream about it. I think I was kinda there too, or watching from way off somehow."

"How curious. If someone or something wanted you to be aware of that event without being there, that's likely significant somehow. Either something allied with you or working against it wanted to draw your attention to the matter."

Huh. From the look on Radar's face, it's clear that idea never crossed his mind.

"You think so?" Curious. "I mean I figured it was just me hearing stuff again, except, you know, seeing the stuff too this time, I didn't think anybody but me had anything to do with it."

"If you're a receiver, what's to say that transmitters, broadband or otherwise, aren't possible?" Leave it to a scientist to see it that way.

"Yeah." Slowly. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I never thought of it like that -- me, a receiver, and everybody else being transmitters I mean. So I guess all you'd have to do is get all the antennas aimed right for me to hear it."

Radar chuckles, a bit uneasily.

"Boy that's gotta be a lot of antennas, though."

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we stand shoulder to shoulder (veteran's social)

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