Radar O'Reilly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
incomingchoppers) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ph_logs2025-05-06 10:27 am
incomingchoppers) wrote in ph_logs2025-05-06 10:27 am
but i wonder where you are [closed to current CR]
Who: Radar O'Reilly (incomingchoppers) and current CR
What: Mr. Rambo's gone. Radar tries to deal.
When: Early May
Where: Baker Ranch, Town Hall, the Leeds Estate, and all over
Warning(s): None yet; will add if necessary
on the night you disappeared, oh if i had seen it clear [locked to Baker Ranch residents]
He wakes up, and he knows.
He hears an echo of the ferryman's sigh; the whisper of water parting as the boat shoves back from the dock. The problem with echoes, though, is the delay between source and sound. He wakes up, he hears, and he knows it's too late.
Radar's probably never gotten dressed so fast in his life, even during a middle-of-the-night bugout. He bursts out the door with one boot half untied and his suspenders on the verge of snapping off. He doesn't care. He sprints as fast as he can the whole way to Baker Ranch, which isn't too fast at all on account of him having to catch his breath a couple times.
(He knows -- and pretends like he doesn't -- that this is different from the last time John vanished onto the ferry.)
i'm gonna find a way through, there's another life beyond the line [town hall + leeds estate]
There's so much to be done. Nobody realizes how much you gotta get in order after somebody's gone, but Radar's had to do it hundreds of times. Every soldier the 4077th can't save has to be processed before the morgue truck takes them, so he knows the shape of the aftermath pretty good, even if, individually, each one's on a smaller scale than this. This is more like --
well --
(There were no survivors.)
And Edgar's great, he's way better at all this than he was a year ago, but he doesn't know enough to run Baker Ranch. Not like somebody who grew up on a farm and knew the rhythms of the work by the time they were crawling. There's so much, and even someone like Radar can't do all of it plus keep working at Town Hall plus help keep the Leeds Estate in decent shape.
He crumples up five tries at writing a resignation letter before he just gives up and goes to tell everybody at Town Hall in person. Maybe it'll just be temporary. (He knows that's a big maybe.) But there's a lot to settle there, too, and all the conversations Radar has with his friends and coworkers get punctuated with fretful ramblings like, " -- and I wrote down everybody's coffee order when I was just starting out and a copy of it's still in my desk even though I got it all memorized now, top drawer, third folder down, and I checked on Yorick's cabinet last week and it's only got space for maybe ten more folders so you're gonna have to start a new cabinet before the end of May, and -- "
Dahlia and anybody else on the Leeds Estate grounds has to put up with him pacing around there, too, rattling off all the idle upkeep notes he's been cataloging even though he's not exactly officially her assistant anymore. And oh, jeez, if he moves out to the ranch permanent then he's going to be all the way across town from Dahlia. Sure it's not really that far, but it feels far, and what if something goes bad when he's living all the way out in the farmlands? What if Hawkeye or Father Mulcahy or Major Houlihan need him and he can't get there fast enough?
Somebody's gotta look after the ranch with John gone for good, though. So... so that's what he's gotta do. What needs doing. Just like he's always done.
i will be waiting for you on the other side of the frozen pines [wildcard]
In a rare idle moment, it's possible to catch Radar alone. Maybe on his front stoop with a couple of his animals gathered close; at the Temple, fussing helplessly over Serranai's altar (because somebody's gotta keep that in good shape, too, don't they? it's important. it's important. he loved her too.); on the green, just sort of... staring into space in absolute exhaustion. Or somewhere else, as he sleepwalks through all the mundane parts of life that still need doing in between the rest.
[you know where to find me if you want to plot <3]
incomingchoppers) and current CR What: Mr. Rambo's gone. Radar tries to deal.
When: Early May
Where: Baker Ranch, Town Hall, the Leeds Estate, and all over
Warning(s): None yet; will add if necessary
on the night you disappeared, oh if i had seen it clear [locked to Baker Ranch residents]
He wakes up, and he knows.
He hears an echo of the ferryman's sigh; the whisper of water parting as the boat shoves back from the dock. The problem with echoes, though, is the delay between source and sound. He wakes up, he hears, and he knows it's too late.
Radar's probably never gotten dressed so fast in his life, even during a middle-of-the-night bugout. He bursts out the door with one boot half untied and his suspenders on the verge of snapping off. He doesn't care. He sprints as fast as he can the whole way to Baker Ranch, which isn't too fast at all on account of him having to catch his breath a couple times.
(He knows -- and pretends like he doesn't -- that this is different from the last time John vanished onto the ferry.)
i'm gonna find a way through, there's another life beyond the line [town hall + leeds estate]
There's so much to be done. Nobody realizes how much you gotta get in order after somebody's gone, but Radar's had to do it hundreds of times. Every soldier the 4077th can't save has to be processed before the morgue truck takes them, so he knows the shape of the aftermath pretty good, even if, individually, each one's on a smaller scale than this. This is more like --
well --
(There were no survivors.)
And Edgar's great, he's way better at all this than he was a year ago, but he doesn't know enough to run Baker Ranch. Not like somebody who grew up on a farm and knew the rhythms of the work by the time they were crawling. There's so much, and even someone like Radar can't do all of it plus keep working at Town Hall plus help keep the Leeds Estate in decent shape.
He crumples up five tries at writing a resignation letter before he just gives up and goes to tell everybody at Town Hall in person. Maybe it'll just be temporary. (He knows that's a big maybe.) But there's a lot to settle there, too, and all the conversations Radar has with his friends and coworkers get punctuated with fretful ramblings like, " -- and I wrote down everybody's coffee order when I was just starting out and a copy of it's still in my desk even though I got it all memorized now, top drawer, third folder down, and I checked on Yorick's cabinet last week and it's only got space for maybe ten more folders so you're gonna have to start a new cabinet before the end of May, and -- "
Dahlia and anybody else on the Leeds Estate grounds has to put up with him pacing around there, too, rattling off all the idle upkeep notes he's been cataloging even though he's not exactly officially her assistant anymore. And oh, jeez, if he moves out to the ranch permanent then he's going to be all the way across town from Dahlia. Sure it's not really that far, but it feels far, and what if something goes bad when he's living all the way out in the farmlands? What if Hawkeye or Father Mulcahy or Major Houlihan need him and he can't get there fast enough?
Somebody's gotta look after the ranch with John gone for good, though. So... so that's what he's gotta do. What needs doing. Just like he's always done.
i will be waiting for you on the other side of the frozen pines [wildcard]
In a rare idle moment, it's possible to catch Radar alone. Maybe on his front stoop with a couple of his animals gathered close; at the Temple, fussing helplessly over Serranai's altar (because somebody's gotta keep that in good shape, too, don't they? it's important. it's important. he loved her too.); on the green, just sort of... staring into space in absolute exhaustion. Or somewhere else, as he sleepwalks through all the mundane parts of life that still need doing in between the rest.
[you know where to find me if you want to plot <3]
no subject
"Of course I don't wanna do it." The words spill out of him, and he's too worn down to catch them before they do. "I don't wanna be on the whole other side of the island from Dahlia. I don't wanna be all the way out here if Hawk or Father Mulcahy or Major Houlihan or anybody else at Town Hall needs me, workin' so much I don't have time to check on any of you. I don't wanna be in charge of something so big 'cause somebody died again. I want Mr. Rambo to be here and -- " his voice splinters, " -- and I want everything to go back to how it was but it's not gonna, so what's the point, I-I wanna go home -- "
There's more he could say, but by then he's crying too hard to say it.
no subject
Somehow, they'll manage. They'll improvise and make it up while they go along.
It's not fair that people can withdraw from your life as easily as they can insert themselves, that you're left with another gap, another headstone, another face that will slowly wear away with time. (It's not fair that home for Radar is another world away, that one day this will all end, and goodbyes will have to be said - but none of that now.)
What she does know is to to stay where she is. Shading him from the relentless sun, keeping the uncertain shapes of the dark off his back. Witness to his grief, shielding the shape of his sorrow from unfriendly eyes. She's got him. Walter O'Reilly isn't being left to manage alone.
no subject
What he wants most of all is to do right by John. And if that means doing a whole lot of individual things he doesn't want to do... well.
(He wants to be on a farm even more familiar than this one. He wants the chance to feel like his own age and not somebody ten years older. He wants to be younger still, tucked in with his teddy bear and a kiss on the forehead, even though he's spent so many years wanting the exact opposite. How does anybody ever survive the heartbreak of growing up?)
"I'm sorry," he gasps reflexively against Fever's shoulder. At least he's got this: a friend holding him with all her steadiness brought to bear, reminding him that one loss doesn't mean the whole world has ended. Even if it feels like it, a little. And even if he can't stop apologizing for breaking down so badly. "I'm sorry."
no subject
Here is what she has slowly been finding out: one does not need to be a caretaker of all things to be a caretaker of their own. When hands reach out, hold them. When arms are open, open yours. When someone needs permission to not be okay, grant it. It's terribly simple, when people think it is so complex. So simple that it's easy to get tripped up in the warp and weft of it, thinking you need to do more and be more in order to be a friend. Even when it feels like a miracle that a friend is there at all, accept them. Radar chose to give her another chance, and for that mercy, Fever will not question him. All she needs do is show the gratitude for it, bit by bit, moment by moment.
She thinks, instead of verbally responding - pulls at the sound of forgiveness until it might resonate loud enough to override some of whatever he hears in his own mind. Whatever makes him think he needs to apologize for grief and uncertainty, for being mortal in the end. He was forgiven before he ever said it. He always will be. Fever holds him a little tighter, and hopes he can hear it through everything else.