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_logs2024-08-23 10:45 am
theydrewfirstblood) wrote in ph_logs2024-08-23 10:45 am
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.
theydrewfirstblood) & The Pumpkin Hollow Veterans' AssociationWhat: 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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"An attendee? Do you mind saying who? I won't start anything, I promise."
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He lowers his voice. It's a lot flatter all of a sudden. "I think its name is Bastion. Not hard to miss. It's a giant frakking robot with a bunch of cannons strapped to it."
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His whole body's strung taut. Crichton's bewilderment doesn't help; there's a flash of completely undeserved anger in the back of his mind -- how do you not get this -- because it isn't as if Gaeta actually explained to more than a handful of people. So: time to explain.
"I don't have a home," he says, as evenly as he can manage, "or a civilization to speak of, because of what robots similar to Bastion did to the Colonies. I can't be around it."
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"I'm sorry, man. I get it. I'm not going to try and tell you to just trust my word for it when you got a damn good reason to feel the way you do. If you want, I can tag along with ya?"
He feels like maybe he shouldn't just leave the guy to go off on his own with those old horrors so close to the surface. He's been there, too.
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"If you want." Automatic, the equivocating starts. "I, ah, I don't want to make you leave if you'd prefer to stay; gods know everybody could use a party after last week."
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"Sometimes, parties can be a bit much for me. So, no, I really don't mind. I like hangin' out with you."
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"Well," he says with forced lightness, "it's mutual, sir. So..." He chances another swift glance around, then picks up his plate -- empty enough that he doesn't feel too bad about discarding the few remaining scraps -- to drop it off in the big wash basin Radar's manning a couple yards away.
After one last exchange of pleasantries with a couple other attendees, he tips his head toward the fence line and starts walking.
"I wasn't planning on going anywhere in particular after this," he confesses. "Got any ideas?"
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"How do you feel about finshin'?"
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Where else will he ever get the opportunity? Not like you can go fishing on a battlestar.
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He waves for Gaeta to follow as he starts for the water, careful not to go too fast so he doesn't leave his friend in the dust.
"Dad an' I used to go fishin' together all the time. It was one of my favorite ways to spend time with him. He taught me everything I know about it." His voice is loud and animated as he keeps on going. He's excited to teach Gaeta. "It came in pretty handy when I got marooned on an island one time in a dead zone where no electricity would work. Managed to feed myself that way for weeks."
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"Now I'm a little sad they didn't teach us fishing as part of our survival training," he says with a small huff of laughter. "Everything else we learned in basic about what to do after a crash landing, but no fishing? Bet what you caught tasted a lot better than field rations."
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"I can tell you right now it sure did," he answers with a laugh. "I was having oversized lobster most nights. Least, that's what it tasted like. Shame I didn't have any lemons to spritz it with but, you know, not bad for being marooned. Beats that other time when we ran out of rations onboard Moya and started fighting over space crackers."
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At least, Gaeta didn't. No guarantees about Starbuck or the like.
" -- but when our food processing ships failed, we spent a few extremely precarious weeks trying to keep it together until we found a new protein source." Gaeta grimaces. "Which was algae."
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"Eugh," Crichton says, sticking out his tongue. "Algae... my condolences, man."
They've reached the pier now, so he goes to his little hide-ee-hole and pulls out a bucket and a rudimentary cane fishing pole with a wire. He clearly made it himself.
"Well, the good news is we don't need any algae, the bad news is we do still need bait. This is the not so fun part, digging for worms and grubs. Fish need something to bite."
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"All right," he says gamely. "Uh, is there a particular area that's best for finding worms?"
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"There is, yeah. Wet soil is where you're gonna find 'em. The muddy area around the water and under stones is our best bet. Check under a few of those small boulders over there, I bet you'll hit the jackpot." And not have to get his hands too full of mud, either.
"Put the ones you find in this bucket," he's pointing at his bait bucket on the ground now. There's a few dead bugs at the bottom of it already. "Start with a handful each. Can always dig for more if we need to."
Time to connect with nature, Gaeta.
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(Ugh.)
Well, it's still better than hovering around the barbecue waiting for a giant frakking robot to show up. Bracing on his cane, Gaeta rolls up his pantslegs a little -- giving Crichton a good view of his wooden right leg -- and gingerly lowers himself to the ground to start digging. Whenever he finds a worm, he tweezes it out between thumb and forefinger and deposits it in the bucket just as gingerly.
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When he finally gets down on his knees himself, it's with a groan and a snap-crackle-pop of his back. Damn, getting old really does suck. One of the side effects of life slowing way down day by day is how much more time he has to notice that.
"They're not gonna bite you," he teases as he plunks a big juicy earthworm into the pail. "You don't have to be so careful about it. If you wanna hear something really gross, though?" The pause is just for show, Gaeta, unfortunately, does not get a choice. "On Moya, we used to use big grub-like bugs to brush our teeth. Can you believe that?"
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"Oh gods, really? Ugh," he shudders, and it's pretty clear he means every bit of the disgust this time. "And I thought the replacements we came up with when we ran out of toothpaste were bad. How? Why?"
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At least they're only feeding these ones to the fish. Luckily, it doesn't take a whole lot longer for them to pile together a good starter meal for the sealife of Marrow Isle. Sure, Gaeta has to touch them again when Crichton hands off one of the poles and shows him how to bait his hook, but not for too long.
wrap!