ph_logs | and i'm ready to suffer, and i'm ready to hope

and i'm ready to suffer, and i'm ready to hope

Who: John Rambo and YOU!
What: Guess who's back? Back again...Rambo's back. Tell a friend. :P
When: a highly nebulous week and a half after Kitty's post because time is soup and I'm stalking that one HARD
Where: All around the Hollow
Warning(s): The usual stuff for John's canon--violence, PTSD, torture, etc., but also a tiny bit of self harmful thinking. It's been three years by his reckoning, and our boy's done a bit of backsliding.

it's a shot in the dark aimed right at my throat - Re-Arrival

He never fully forgot.

The memories never felt as tangible as they ought to, but they never fade altogether. He remembers waking up with a face full of feathers or fur, feminine giggling and warm, earnest smiles from a strapping young man. He remembers the touch of lovers, partners, the face of a demon that isn't a demon, one that makes him feel fondness and brings a smile to his face and is interspersed with flashes of white blonde hair and sad, dark eyes.

The one face he never loses, not even a little, is hers. The wild red curls, the antlers, the forest and the sugary taste of violets on his tongue.

It's for her that he gets permission to make an altar from the monks in Thailand, where he still goes every month to pray. It's the pain of longing that drives him into the fights, the homesickness. And he is, he's homesick.

...so of course he nearly drops a wagon wheel on his head.

When he's back in that room, with that white haired woman, he speaks before she can.

"Just send me back. Please...she's the spring. You're the winter. Life and death--of you remaining three, I think my vows to Serranai bind me as much to you as they do to her. You gave me this choice already. Answer hasn't changed."

The moment he's off the ferry, he reaches out to catch the arm of the first person he sees. It's been three years and a world for him--the recognition may not be immediate if he knows them.

"Hey--sorry, I'm sorry, but uh...fuck. How long since the Givingstide where that gingerbread house showed up? How many years?"

looking for heaven - closed to Baker Ranch

It happened again. Longer this time...shit shit shit fucking hell.

John borrows a horse from a local butcher he definitely remembers Co assaulting...

Okay, he stole it. Temporarily, he'll give it back--he needs to get home fast.

"Ed! Kitty! Radar!"

He's calling out in case they're out taking care of things. Because they would, of course they would. Especially Edgar, and Radar, propping up poor Kitty who's probably a mess. God knows why, but she's let him in and he went and left her because he's a fucking asshole.

"Hey! Ed! Radar!"

He slows the horse as he gets closer to the house, starting to worry despite having learned it hasn't been years, he didn't miss anything...

"Kitty?!...Anyone?...Where the fuck's--"

BAKBAKBAKBAKBAKBUKBUKBUKBUKBUKBUKBUKBUK!!! BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK!

John's heart squeezes painfully tight as he hears the familiar squawking--and before he's totally aware of what's going on, he's got an armful of furious chicken, wings flapping as he gathers her against his chest even as she tries to peck him with a strange, slow rhythm, pressing her beak against his neck and face repeatedly in that familiar gesture of comfort: chicken kiss.

"Hey--Co, hey, shhh, I'm here...I'm here, I'm here..."

He's weeping as he says it, burying his face in her feathery neck and shivering as it hits him just how much he missed this.

How much he missed home.

found the devil in me - open

It's maybe his second or third day back when he realizes why he was still getting his ass kicked once a month or so. It wasn't like Trautman said, that he needed to come full circle. It wasn't the soldier that needed the fighting, the bloodshed, the violence...

It was the wolf--and one night as he's considering going to bed, he realizes why he's felt so clear since he got back. He'd forgotten this part.

So, abruptly, at one point during the night, denizens of Baker Ranch will hear the door slam, and fairly soon the white balverine will be found tearing through the woods, hunting and just running full tilt. No humans are harmed, but a lot of animals die.

And, in the morning, many people will find packages on their doorsteps: fresh venison steaks, or stew meat, or even the odd freshly cleaned and plucked pheasant with a simple note that reads compliments of Baker Ranch.

{ooc: Feel free to run into John in the forest, or have received some gift of meat you may want to track him down and thank him for. ;p}

shake it off - wildcard

Choose your own John--I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

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Kitty's been tending to the ranch as best she can. Really, she's practically moved out here from the dorms, even though it hurts. The ranch has got to keep itself going, and life has to go on. Somehow.

When she hears a familiar voice calling her name and Co going absolutely bananas, she gets to her feet from where she had been crouched and whirls around, running towards the commotion, her headband jingling.

"Mr. Rambo?!" He'd wanted her to call him John or Rambo but the Mr. slaps on out of...apprehension? Fear that she's wrong?

Hearing the bell, for a second John is reminded of some wind chimes in a stall near the stick fights. He’d buy sweets there for the children at the monastery sometimes, when he lingered…

He couldn’t get rid of that association. Taking care of the kids, and those damn little bells.

Co pecks at him until he puts her down, like she knows what he’s about to do. Hearing that jingling, and her voice, John runs towards it with his lungs in a vise of raw emotion.

“Kit Kat?!?”

He follows the sound, follows his ears…and without realizing it, follows his nose until she comes into view…

…he’s not even aware of moving until he’s got an armful of teenage girl, spinning around and holding on tight and just fucking drowning in a warm wave of relief and affection that has his eyes streaming again.

“Kitty—fuck, Kitty, missed you…God I fucking missed you…”

Kitty squeezes him tight, sobbing.

"I was so worried," she says into his shoulder. "Thought you might be gone forever...hoping you'd come back."

She blinks her tears away. "You missed me? I thought...if you go back...that's it. You...you did go back home, right?"

"Nothing could keep me from you, Kit Kat." John murmurs, pressing his face into her hair, rocking her a little as Co struts over to press her feathery body to Kitty's calves. "Not the goddesses, not the universe, not anyone."

When she draws back and asks about where he went, he hesitates only a second before nodding. He hasn't really shared a lot of what he and Jon discussed when they put together their theory of what was happening, when John put together his about how they got here...

...but now he has proof, so he gathers her face between his hands, and he nods.

"Yeah, I went home, baby--but I didn't die. Happened to me once before, too. There's this theory I had, and now I know it's true: not all of us die. Lot of us just come from a moment we could have."

He pauses, then looks down at Co and back up at Kitty.

"C'mon--in the house, all of us. We'll sit down and talk about it. You too, Co."

Bukbuk. Buk.

"You been takin' care of Kitty? Not letting her work too hard?"

BukbukbukBUK! Buk BUKBUK! Buk? BUK!

"Thought so. Sorry, Kitty, the chicken ratted you out. You're taking a break, c'mon."

Kitty listens to his explanation fiercely, hope blossoming in her chest. She might not be full-on dead after all. She might not have killed Alec. That lifts an almost physical weight off of her shoulders, and she sniffles.

Nothing could keep me from you, Kit Kat. Not the goddesses, not the universe, not everyone.

She was starting to believe that.

When Co rats her out, she scowls down playfully at the chicken. "Traitor."

Buk! Co protests, strutting over to peck her ankle gently--then press her beak to the same spot.

Chicken kiss. Sorry, Big Sister, but Dad would be really mad if she didn't take good care of you. And taking care of you means snitching when you don't listen to her and sleep and eat and stuff why do you think she spends so much time chasing you and pecking your shoes when you work too hard.

"Welcome to my world." John snickers as he leads Kitty inside. When they get into the house, something in his chest loosens, and he can breathe freely. God, the smell of home--fresh greens, recent cooking, the mix of soaps and earth and animal musk and other, indefinable things that punch at the buttons in his head that scream Kitty, Radar, Edgar. Max, Alex, Siebren. People that have been here, that are here...

"I know it hasn't been that long over here...but I been gone three years on my end." he admits softly, pulling Kitty into his arms again for another hug. "Too fucking long without you. All of you."

He pauses, smirking a little as he reaches up to poke her headband, making it jingle.

"Mostly you. And the sleigh bells." he teases gently.

Deon's hunting, too.

There's no Fog hold on him anymore, but there's something inherent to the manticore about him, a prey drive, that isn't always fulfilled when he hunts regularly. Sometimes he has to do what he used to...just soar up into a tree...and wait. Wait for passing prey to wander into his kill zone, then swoop down and eat them alive. In the dark, with the accursed night vision he'd been bestowed, part and parcel of his cursed, twisted, monstrous body.

There's a thundering in the woods that causes a few deer nearby to stir from their slumber and bound away, game birds flushing out of their habitats, and Deon stiffens, keeping an eye out for whatever predator is now rampaging through the woods. Through his woods, as the monster in him thinks. Something bigger than him, but maybe not tougher. And it stinks, to his feline nose, of dog.

The white creature enters the clearing, obviously on the hunt. He briefly considers the pros and cons of staying put, ambush predator that he is, or confronting it. But - given the way it sniffs - it's probably caught on to his human/caracal/kestrel/venom/metal scent by now.

He leaps down from the branch he's been perched on, landing in a crouch. Deon straightens, spreading his arms in a gesture of peace. If this thing's anything like the werewolves of Ryslig, it's probably got enough human in it to not attack him instantly. And if it does, well. His lion's tail is lashing slowly, stinger at the end poised and at the ready to envenomate if worst comes to worst.

When the creature drops down from the branch, John is only a little surprised. He knew he wasn’t alone, but the humanoid appearance is startling. He smells animals, plants…

Something twigs in the back of his head, enough to surmise he’s smelling poison, not just some form of fresh toxic flora.

So he stills as the man spreads his arms in a peaceable gesture—and cocks his head to one side just like a puzzled dog as he sniffs the air.

“…what are you?”

The voice is a growl, deep and lupine and distorted…and it is very soft, clearly intelligent as John takes a couple slow, careful steps forward.

“And why do you smell like poison? Do you need help?”

Oh, good. It's - he's - sapient. That saves Deon a scrape he'd rather not get into. Especially because, based on raw strength alone, he suspects he'd come off worst in that matchup.

At the first question, Deon smiles, a little bitterly, his lips thinning.

"That's a good question," he says. The bitterness from his smile leaches into his voice. "I suppose the best answer is 'human, once'. And I could ask you the same thing."

The concern bewilders him for a moment, and when he realizes what the creature is asking he lets out a hysterical little giggle. "Venom. It's mine. Nothing to be overly alarmed about. I'm...not harmed."

John nods, and as he considers the other guy's remark, his lips peel back just a little from his fangs, but it's silent. There's no threat to his stance, not even any other movement--and with the little huff of air that escapes him not quite like a snort, it could easily be interpreted as a smile of his own.

"Werewolf is as close as I've got, but it's not quite right." he admits, satisfied the other man's safe. Venom, not poison--that is interesting. "There were creatures like me in this area a while back, I got bit. They were...definitely a threat, but except for killing the one that bit me, I've never had a problem with controlling myself. I'm...me."

He pauses, then extends one clawed hand to him, open and inviting a handshake.

"John Rambo. I serve the goddess Serranai--if you're not hunting humans in these woods, you're a friend as far as I'm concerned."

Werewolf. Okay. That's familiar. And the explanation here is familiar enough, too - pop-culture werewolf, not forcibly-mutated-into-a-monster werewolf.

After a second, Deon shakes the offered hand with his own organic right one, not the orange robotic one on his left. His grip is strong, but not a toxic-masculinity-dominance-squeeze.

"Deon Wilson. I serve..." The orange robot antennae where human ears would be go back, but that's the only indication that he's uncomfortable with the answer - or at least, whatever the answer means these days. Besides, he's still wary of outing himself as a Fourth follower after that one Fog follower had beaten his ass just for daring to be devoted to his rival god.

He's been thinking about this for a while, in his home at the edge of the woods. What did it even mean anymore? The Fog's followers had been a sadistic cult, he knew that.

...had he been in a cult, too?

~~Fourth~~ God, Rambo was really cutting deep with simple talk, wasn't he?

"...no one, these days."

Then his caracal ears atop his head follow suit with his antennae, nearly flattening against his head like a displeased cat. They do tend to betray his emotions more often than not.

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't before. Not by choice. By a so-called god that made me what I am. And it killed a part of me every time." He smiles again, that thin unhappy smile. "I've quite happily excised human from my diet since I arrived. No danger of human-hunting from me. I can assure you of that."

John’s grip is powerful but careful—an approximation of his human handshake, which is firm simply by virtue of his strength without posturing, but here care is given to his claws.

And Deon…there’s something to the way he speaks that makes John feel an uncomfortable level of empathy. Being made into something Other, losing in the gaining, having to forcibly adjust in the aftermath…

He could be talking about recruitment to Special Forces with language like that.

“I chose Serranai. Every step—truthfully, I’m not sure anyone can serve the Mothers by force. They care too much.” John replies as he releases Deon’s hand. “I became aware of a cure for what I am, but…I feel I belong to her more this way. More a part of the forest, more a true hunter.”

John can smell it on him, despite the robotic parts. The lion’s tail, even the presence of venom…

A thought occurs to him, and he flashes that vicious looking curl of lips that is a smile again.

“Can you hunt without your venom? Without poisoning your prey, so it’s safe for eating?”

The Mothers. Deon keeps from flinching, but barely. The Fog had called them all her children, hadn't she?

(Lots of unexamined trauma here. Let's not examine it right now. Deon pushes down the unease and uncertainty, compartmentalizing it.)

"They seem..." He struggles for words. Undemanding? Chill? Normal??? "They seem like they're not about to start a holy war," he says, because, well. That's what it had been, hadn't it?

At the question, Deon nods, once. "It's paralytic, cooks off at about 50° Celsius anyway, so as long as the meat is cooked properly it's fine. But I do hunt without it, for what I sell in town." Stealth, like a lioness in the savannah grass, like an owl swooping down on silent wings towards an unsuspecting mouse. The stun of weight and claws, the mercy of breaking a neck if it goes well, the thrill of a chase pounding in his veins if it doesn't.

He used to prefer the chase, despite himself.

"It's not pretty, but it works."

John nods, encouraged. He's hardly a natural predator himself, but there's never been any denying that he's always gotten satisfaction out of an active hunt. Snares and traps are for survival, but the focus of the bow, the tense waiting for the quarry to get within range of a knife or a spear...

There's purity in that. Honesty--not violence but the cycle of life and death, one sustaining another.

"Let me show you how I found my way to Serranai." he offers, extending a big, clawed hand to him to shake. "Not trying to convert you, just...showing you how they operate. How I chose. It started with a meal, though, and for that? In this form, I like to collect my own. We'll hunt. Together."

There's shouting coming from not far away. "Dammit, Co, you little maniac, what --"

And it breaks off with a choked splutter as the person shouting rounds the corner of the barn and sees exactly what Co has been squawking about.

"... John?"

John realizes, as he comes into view, that he’s forgotten Edgar’s face. Not the shape or detail, nor the color of his eyes or his hair.

He’s forgotten what it feels like to have those eyes on him, seeing and searching and trusting. He’s forgotten how it feels to see it and know he’s loved, he’s worthy, to see that face and feel as held and connected as he did the moment he pulled on that sweater at Givingstide—fuck, he needs that sweater…

He settles for setting Co down (she’s pecking at him anyway, go on Dad go see Big Brother he missed you) and rushing him, wrapping Edgar in a fierce hug as his eyes tear again.

“Edgar.” He sighs, clinging to him. “Fuck, I’m sorry…I didn’t choose to leave, I’m so fuckin’ sorry, Ed…I’m here, I gotcha…”

Edgar meets him halfway, cannoning into him hard enough to drive half the air out of his own lungs, arms going around his shoulders and gripping tight.

"You're all right?" he demands, hoarse and muffled against Rambo's shoulder. "You're not -- what happened?"

"Didn't die. Then I got stupid again." John replies, his own voice muffled until he draws back enough to look into Edgar's face, grinning before tousling his hair and embracing him again.

"M' okay. Went home for a sec, but I'm back. Missed the fuck outta you, though. Are you okay? I was dreaming when I left, that nightmare shit..."

"Yeah, the -- we were all in that shit, nightmares and good dreams all together, and we had to get out together. Was --" He swallows, lifts his chin, starts again with a deliberately lighter tone. "We were kind of worried, you know, like maybe you got lost in there somewhere. Shoulda known better, yeah?"

"Damn right." John assures him, not remotely light as he gathers Edgar's face between his hands, then pulls him in and smacks a kiss against his forehead. "Goddamn fucking right."

Even on the days when he questioned his sanity, he felt the hole of Edgar's presence. Quiet and steady, but never fully still--doing his job, reliable as the sun, with flights of shouting at a stubborn piece of farm equipment or a holler to check a delivery to the Oak and Iron or a raucous belly laugh at some stunt one of the animals pulled.

He saw Edgar's face in the eyes of every little boy and girl running around the temple. When the itch wasn't under his skin to break and bleed, they were the reason--he was the reason that John would fight for the money to help the temple, to make their lives better.

"Second Mortanne snagged me, I told her to save it 'n send me back--not leaving you kids for love or money. Period." John concludes, holding Edgar's gaze. "You hear me?"

He nods hard, swallowing, holding still for once.

And then bursting into motion, grabbing for John's arm to tug him toward the house. "C'mon, we gotta tell everyone you're back. And you gotta tell us where you've been -- you said back home? What've you been doing there then?"

All this while either hauling him along by main force, or loping in half-circles alongside him like a dog bounding too fast for its favorite human to keep up.

Chris was among those who woke to a venison steak delivery one morning.

There's a basket full of sweet rolls left at Baker Ranch the next day, and a small jar of orange marmalade tucked in near the top. Chris likes their little jokes and references.

This time the note included says, quite simply, 'Free on Wednesday afternoon'. So John knows when Chris will be at their house, should he want to catch up.

The sweet rolls go over like gangbusters at Baker Ranch, as does the marmalade. No way in hell has John forgotten that little reference--Chris making sure he ate was one of the first true acts of kindness John had experienced in years around the time of his arrival.

And he does, too--he misses Chris, hates how busy life has gotten even if it's been good all over. So, Wednesday afternoon, Chris does get a visitor.

...well, three: John, Co, and Bao, the cottontail rabbit he's raised from a pretty little baby and who has joined his little emotional support menagerie. He normally doesn't cart her around like Co, but after going home, knowing he got through things--that the burial in his dream was real, that she's been avenged?

He wants to keep both her namesakes close.

He's not empty handed, either, knocking on the door with his own basket of food: his fry bread, a bottle of dandelion syrup, and a scant few of the hot dogs harvested carefully from his special little box.

And when Chris answers the door, John's waving a red gingham napkin in his hand with a smile.

"White flag didn't seem appropriate." he teases. "How you doin', bud?"

"Still figuring out if I fit in the space I take up here," is Chris's probably-too-honest response to John's probably a small talk question. But they do smile back and let John step inside, menagerie and all.

When John steps inside Chris's house, he might pick up on an air of... stillness. Almost like an abandoned house, for all that Chris has certainly been occupying this place.

(John is Chris's first guest in a while.)

"Well, you'd leave a hole if you were gone, so leave that there." John admonishes, but there's no heat in it. Just a...well, equally honest truth to the gentle, mock playful retort as he walks in. He can feel that...hollow note in the space. It's not messy or unlived in, just--the kind of just left of in order that comes from being alone too long.

He's been living in that state for the last few years away.

"I can relate, though." he admits as he enters, turning to face Chris as they shut the door. "Was feeling like that during the holidays before I left 'n came back again...memories, y'know? Last year, me 'n Sam..."

Well, Chris was around for how a lot of that fallout went down.

Chris probably made that fallout worse, truth be told. They've done a lot of sticking their nose into various things, and ruining what others have.

So again, not sure if they fit the space they take up in this place. If this place is any better for having them here.

"Memories hound me a lot, too," is what Chris actually says, because they know the rest wouldn't be helpful at all.

The arm he grabs isn't actually Yellow's. Yellow had come to peep at the Ferry, see who might be arriving, but his hopes for FarmJohn to come back had already started to burn low and crumble into ugly little mouthfuls of ash and cinder.

So when he hears that absolutely unmistakable voice, sees the guy himself catching the attention of a townsperson--

Yellow has never missed anyone before. He's never lost anyone. Not in any way that mattered, not at the time, not at all. He hasn't known what to do with the feelings about losing John. All of that knocks good sense out of his head, smothers the bit of himself that says he shouldn't startle the man, and Yellow blinks nearly from one side of the harbor to the other so he's close enough to grab a fistful of Rambo's plain linen shirt.

He doesn't know what to say. He's just hanging on and staring, a boy wreathed in angry shadows and threads of yellow like phantom limbs.

Edited 2025-02-13 02:39 (UTC)

John…can’t explain how he knows. He’s forgotten, in his panic and fear and desperation. The change he underwent, it means less than nothing knowing how long he may have been gone.

He’s not aware of the scent that screams Yellow in his hind brain, or the way every animal instinct recognizes him. He just knows something shifts, and he lets go of the man he grabbed and turns just before Yellow is there, gripping his shirt, wreathed in shadow and power and pain.

It’s been three years, but he remembers the warnings of that man…his name, what was his name…

“It’s me, I’m real.”

He reaches out for Yellow, slowly but without fear. He lays his hand on his shoulder, pulls him into a hug and then he’s suddenly clinging because…because he’s home. He’s holding Yellow and he’s home, and it only hits him just then how much it hurt to leave.

“I’m sorry, kiddo—I didn’t choose to leave, and the second I saw Mortanne I told her to send me back here. But I’m back, and…fuck, Yel, I missed you so damn much…”

John barely gets to finish talking before Yellow wraps human arms around him, and immediately decides that's not enough arms. The tentacles are formed from shadow and have a strange internal starlight, something distant and foreign that speaks of deep, cold places humans haven't seen. The tentacles themself are warm and strangely soft and there's four-- no, scratch that, seven of them.

Yel-- It's a nickname. It's a nickname, from his name, the one he's decided to keep.

He's crying. He's gotten good at remembering tear ducts, so at least it isn't blood this time.

"Missed you," is what he manages. It seems like the most important thing to say.

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and i'm ready to suffer, and i'm ready to hope

looking for heaven

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found the devil in me

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heaven we hope is just up the road

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found the devil in me

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a shot in the dark

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