sixthiterationlogs | There were so many times I thought I have died

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There were so many times I thought I have died

WHO: Bobo Del Rey
WHERE: Both North and South Village
WHEN: First few weeks of February after returning
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: Will update if needed

There are so many parts that I have hidden and that I yet lost - Either village, First wk of Feb

Bobo Del Rey is dead. Long live the King.

Much as Bobo rallied himself with the others, almost glad to have found himself with Eddie, Venom and Karen in that hell that passed for a temple - and he's sure there's something in that about religion and belief and faith and facing the truth but fuck all that noise - but just because they're the ones he was with, and therefor cared enough to help, he's caught up in so much more.

Like the fact that he did care about others. It's been so many decades since he's cared, and a lot of torture both given and received, and now he's having to face the truth. He's dead. Except instead of being sucked into Hell for more torture, to be further tormented until the heir died once more as they always did, he is here. There is no return. There is no torture. There's just this, and he's not sure what that means. Not for himself, or the confusion that has been haunting him since this place.

But once they're assured everyone has made it back, and that things are back to normal, Bobo is doing his best to get back to a normal life. When in the southern most village, he works on the butcher shop, trying to pull everything together. Cleaning up the entire shop from top to bottom, turning all of the hides, and working to bottle the ink he'd made from tallow soot, leaving the little bottles on the counter near the soap that Watney made.

When back to the north, he can be found often working on the former police station turned barn where they now houses a myriad of animals, including the new baby groffle that somehow the cowboys had managed to bring back with them after the video. They weren't doing much better than he was, but none of them were talking about it. Instead they kept working.

So he works on splitting logs, and preparing the land to add a pasture to turn them out into until the weather turns and they can take them out further from the village.

There are so many colors that I still try to hide while I paint - Off Color

If Bobo is conflicted over who he is and the man he will be, having a moment of his device going a bit wonky is not going to fix that.

He hasn't bothered himself too much with what the device color means, or about these powers that some speak of possessing. His isn't what he knows as being a revenant, and he's not sure what to think of being given something else, but he knows one thing.

In his mind that change in colors is a possible sign of a weakness that he isn't willing to admit to others. Especially after he finds himself standing in the middle of the butcher shop feeling what he can only describe as sad over the state of the animals in various degrees of death and dismemberment around him.

Ripping up some rag pieces he's kept around into thin strips, he wraps them around is wrists, over the palm of his hand, using them to hide the device, before going about his business. Business that is less the business he's chosen for himself and more spending time seeking out others in the inn. Approaching others if they don't seek him out, quieter and less boisterous than he usually is.

It would seem if the images of his death aren't putting him in mind of his past, and what he might become or refuse to acknowledge, well then the powers that be aren't willing to give him a choice.

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It's completely out of character - he went fucking catatonic up on the mountain when he should have nutpunched Carl Brock (or at least the shrine. Could you nutpunch a shrine?

...why was he so focused on taking care of business? Violence wasn't the answer. Or plans. that was Stark's job. Okay no. Focus.)

He should have. As a kid. Done more. Been more but that's fine he can take things on now. He's a fucking symbiote host and it is past time he and V started pulling their weight.

Agreed. Hunting is an excellent place to start.

Two birds with one stone. Check on the crew, and maybe arrange for some sort of ...bird bringing back service? Some way to get 7 and Venom together (bro deserved some time with his special lady.) and...

He went catatonic. And now he's just fine?

"...Hey Bobo?" Enter one Eddie Brock, knocking on the door, "Dude? You around?"

When the life-shaking happens, it's instinctive to try and dig back into a normal routine. On returning from their mountain jaunt, Karen had bathed, slept, written down whatever seemed salient and bearable to put down, and then stepped immediately back into the norm. Meal times, updating the village records, setting and checking her snares — Lather, rinse, repeat. She's done this before, and it's supposed to be comforting, the familiarity, and maybe on some level it is. More often than not she ends up feeling mechanical and depersonalized — A whirring brain that exists outside a body going dutifully about its daily business.

But sometimes, that's just all you can do, is go on. If this place has taught her anything, it's that.

There's a single rabbit dangling from one hand as she shoulders open the front door of the butcher's shop. She might have taken it directly to the inn kitchen — There are plenty of people there who know how to dress a rabbit over there, including herself — but there's been that subtle tug, her mind refusing to shut down.

"Hey," she says as she pulls the door gently closed behind her.

Vasquez doesn't actually have the dog tamed, but he thinks he has it in control enough that he can leave and do other things. At least it gives him the time to go back to his routine, which means dropping off a drink and some smokes to Bobo, in case he wants them for his shift.

Once he's inside, he frowns when he sees the strips, gesturing to his wrists. "Did you cut yourself when you were butchering?" he asks, a bit wary, because that's not something that sounds like him. There's no one here that he trusts with a blade and a cut of meat so much, so it seems odd that he could slip like that.

When Bobo's back, Foggy makes a trip up to his place. He's leading the kirin along by their leashes, the box of chicks tied onto the back of one, padded to keep the warmth in the and chicks safe and warm.

He goes around the back to where he can hear chopping and pauses when bobo comes into view.

Clearly, things didn't go great for him either, up there.

"I brought you some house guests back."

The shop is quiet, though neat as a pin. Soaps and bottles of ink on the counter, the wood gleaming, and there's a singular sound from the back room. A fairly constant woosh sound. A sound that pauses when Eddie speaks. For a moment he's not even sure about the voice, thinking perhaps in the meditative state he imagined his name. Then there's more.

Setting the knife on the counter with a clatter, leaning back far enough to be seen.

"Back here," he calls, realizing how's glad for the interruption to pull him out of his thoughts.

It's a common instinct. Leave it behind, pretend it isn't troubling you, and go about your life. Which Bobo is doing with gusto, including providing himself with work in the form of hunting down what he might find, without eyeing the groffle one more time before his roommates had his hide instead.

Of course, there comes to be a limit in how much one can clean, and hunt, and kill before the memories start coming back. Finding himself humming softly under his breath, songs he hasn't heard since his youth. Seeing a glimpse of the curve of a wooden wall from the corner of his eye when his thoughts are elsewhere and realizing that the saloon he first things of in that moment is long in his past, or the tree house he momentarily feels transported to will never again be their home. After a while it doesn't matter how hard you try and ignore the thoughts, how hard you work, they're still there.

So the sound of another voice, one that he instantly recognizes, does what hunting and wood chopping and tanning hides hasn't been able to do for him. It puts him entirely into the here and now.

"Karen."

Stepping out of the back, smiling as he brushes the loose fall of his longer hair out of his eyes.

"How are you?" Looking her over, certainly curious what brought here there. Spying the rabbit and the smile widens a bit. "Something I can help you with?"

Eddie moves expertly through the shop, concern and protectiveness welling up inside him. It's just because we were protecting everybody on the mountain.

Right. Absolutely.

The Eddie that appears is cautious but different. Straighter, less twitchy, far more put together then he was.

"Checking in on you." He pauses, "How are you?"

Oh but he smiles when the door opens and he sees Vasquez. Through all of this, if he has to think on when things started to change for Bobo? It was in meeting Vasquez those first moments after he arrived in this place. Meeting a man that might be a lover for a time, but more than that he's a friend. Someone that he's shared the truth of what he is before anyone else. Someone that he actually wanted to share a home with, have a life here with.

It's the start of the changes he's been feeling, and unlike being wary as he is about the emotions that are changing for him, he is glad to see the man.

Even if he tenses at that moment when he asks about the questions. He knows it looks odd, but the thought that this place is marking the changes in him, the way he feels, it leaves him nervous and unsettled, and he's not sure he's ready for others to see the weakness within him as well.

"Nono, it's just... it is letting me feel more comfortable," he says, even with Vasquez he's not sure if he's ready to talk about this, but he's likely to be the one he first speaks to. "Promise, it's all just..." He pulls the edges of one of them back, showing where the skin is whole and fine. "You doing okay? How's the pup?" He smirks then. "And the dog?"

Oh he's got jokes now.

There's a stack of logs to one side, broken down into fireplace size though not split. Not yet. He's just focusing on breaking down the larger trees he's brought back from further out to the North. Working hard to provide wood for himself, for the bakery and the forge. All that he can. Work and try and focus.

Glancing up with a quick startle at the sound of a voice, and then chuckling when he saw Foggy and the animals.

"You are a man that would be revered in my time. A man that returns horses is appreciated." And not murdered because of it. "You're a good man to make that hike for us and help."

"They're not horses. By any stretch of the imagination."

Foggy brings them forward and hand them over. "The chicks lived in the kitchen near the stove to keep them warm. And because my room had a kitten living in it and I wasn't sure how many chicks would survive that. I also fed the salamander a couple of times, just to make sure, but really, Leonardo did the bulk of the looking after. I just walked them over."

He looked up at Bobo. "How are you coping?"

Vasquez laughs warmly, seeing as he doesn't know how much he wants to think about Faraday being a 'pup', but he smirks lasciviously as he thinks about putting him through the paces of training a dog. "My pup is fine, my dog is, too," he guarantees, sprawling in a chair and getting comfortable so that he can settle in.

"More comfortable," he says, gesturing to them. He shrugs, because he doesn't really care, and it looks fine, it's just different. "I'm better than good. I think I'm in a relationship," he admits, which feels odd.

Bobo had never bonded with the revenants because of their shared torment. He took over because if someone didn't, lives would be taken. What happened on the mountain, up at that shrine, and all they'd shared because of it - even if against their will - and for Bobo there is a difference in how he feels towards Eddie and Karen. Venom too, even if he's really not sure how to handle this. He'd kind of always thought it was a monster friend thing, and not a those were Venom's eyes staring at him from Eddie's face kind of thing.

But then there's a loaded question out there and he takes a deep breath, huffing it out.

"Alive, which is apparently better than I could be doing, so least there's that." And it's what he keeps telling himself, not thinking about if he'll return. He doesn't doubt Wynonna will finish them off without Bobo there to keep them under control. He's in Hell for good this time, and therefor this world is just about all he needs.

"Hanging in there," he says after a moment, thinking about his words and being honest in that. If only for Eddie's sake. "You? You doing okay?"

"They're the equivalency of what we have here. Hell, I always thought cars should count the same, and stealing one was a death sentence," he says, shrugging. "How it used to be."

He takes the leads though, moving in to scritch one of them, stroking along the kirin's neck.

"It's a real kitten, right? Or one of those bird things?"

He's seen others with them, after all.

"I'm surviving. I mean, been through worse. It wasn't Hell, after all."

"I'm not a fan of the death penalty. And New York doesn't have it, which is good." He understands there are times it seems like a solution, but he isn't comfortable with giving people that power, the right to decide who lives and who dies.

"It's a real kitten. Lynn. He's a cute little bugger." He slides his hands into his pockets, rocking on his feet. "Yeah, I know, you've been to Hell, nothing compares, but that doesn't make it easy or not traumatic. Trauma is trauma. So how are you doing?"

"I wasn't. My dad fucking makes me go catatonic. My therapist said it's because I have unresolved issues with identity and self-expression since he didn't give me an opportunity to-something-something-something."

He waves his hand, "It's not important. Point is I'm feeling better now. Despite how weird that is."

There's something very different about him. He seems stronger, more focused, more aware, "...What can I do to help you?"

"In the time I'm talking about taking a man's horse was a death sentence. And it was big business. Had to do something to stop it," he says. "But then there's a lot that involved just killing people in that time." As well he knew.

"Huh. Hadn't know there were any, so that's good to know," he says with a nod. Though he can't help but to laugh at that reaction.

"It makes it easy though. You just focus on that and nothing else is as bad," he says, sighing as he moves to head for the police station to get the kirin settled in, assuming that Foggy will follow. "So apparently? I'm a dead man. Shot and condemned back to Hell instead of being tortured on Earth."

"I know, I know. I still don't like it. On principle."

Foggy does follow, expression briefly pained. "I'm sorry. I am so sorry. I can't begin to imagine."

He doesn't know what else to say.

He chuckles in a low voice. "Be thankful you never had to deal with it. I know exactly the man you would have been, and they would have eaten you alive." Just as they had Robert.

"Yeah, me either. I've managed to avoid that fate longer than any other revenant has. And worse? If I had stayed there, I would have been happy for it." Without Willa, taken in by Black Badge, but... "I have here now, and I'm glad for that."

"Bobo, for all my squishy deliciousness, remember that I am a high paid, corporate defence lawyer." Foggy smiles. "I'm not saying I could survive what you went through, but I'm not as breakable as you think. I promise."

They all have here and now. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"I'm saying men like Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp loved eating good men alive," he says, tones bitter in that moment. "It's nothing to do with thinking you're weak. And..." He stops himself, not looking at Foggy though as he considers his words. "I know you would survive, because I was much more like you than I was like them before Hell. And I survived, didn't I?"

And he believes that. In so many ways.

"Help me get the chicks out of the box and settled in? We built up the corner for them," he says, the inside of the "barn" set up with areas for stalls, as well as a coop without a roof. Not yet.

"I'm not a good man, Bobo. When the going gets tough, I promise you, I walk away." Not exactly his proudest trait, but an honest one.

"Yeah, sure. They didn't get a lot of space in the Inn. I kept them in Karen's room, don't tell her, please."

He glances back at him, arching a brow. "You think that makes you a bad man?" He's truly confused by that given the things he's seen from so many in his time. "That makes you a survivalist, Foggy, not a bad man."

And he truly believes that, though he pauses and then laughs at that.

"Karen is a strong woman, but I'll keep this secret for you." Maybe. He's amused though.

"Yes. I gave up on my best friend." He picks up one of the chicks carefully, nestling it in against his chest. "Still, we made do, didn't we? Blocked off an area so you didn't run around in the wild."

Bobo pauses at that, turning to look at Foggy, frowning. "Explain to me, Foggy. Explain about this giving up?"

Because he knows he's not the best judge of character, but that is hitting a bit close to home depending on what truly happened."

"Or because your dad was a fucking asshole that needed to be gutted like a fish and his head put on a pike for all the other abusive assholes, but sure. Let's got with your therapist's analysis," Bobo says, apparently and obviously having feelings on what he's seen of Eddie's past.

His head cants, considering Eddie for a moment. To hear Venom speak of him, the things that Bobo has seen, he's a lot like Robert Svane. A good man, if a bit timid. Now he's waving away this past that's holding him down and says he's feeling better. Bobo isn't feeling at all better, and wonders what he's done to get to that point. Might be helpful for himself.

"I was actually about to start working on collecting soot for ink, and bottling what I've made. It's kind of tedious but if you want to help, the more the merrier."

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There were so many times I thought I have died

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Off Color

1st Week

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