It had been quite a while since Randall had last spoken to his friends back home - Simon usually had him running cross country to keep up with this rumor or that, even though lately the man had been content to let him hang about with Hershel.
Probably it was as important to Simon as it was to Randall himself - somebody precious to both of them who’d vanished off the face of the earth one day, whose last known location was ‘being dragged off by Targent goons’.
It was because Randall hadn’t spoken to his friends in a while that he’d opted to now, while Hershel was busy with spring planting and store things - and probably Scotland Yard things - and was thus significantly less liable to notice.
“Yeah - yeah, we found him.” He’d said, expecting the fuss made from the group likely huddling around the phone. Henry, Angela, and even Dalston had all been waiting for any new regarding their lost friend. “He’s doing pretty good now - or, as good as can be expected, considering what he went through.” Henry was the only one besides him who really knew the details of why, exactly, Hershel had vanished, and knew very well that spilling those secrets could jeopardize a lot.
All the others knew was that he’d been kidnapped.
How exactly did one even begin to explain it, anyway? A curse? A curse that made one eat people? There was no way that he could possibly frame ‘Hershel was run out of town for becoming a gods-damned magical cannibal’ in a positive light. No, it was easier to tell them that he’d been kidnapped, stolen away by some nefarious organization for nefarious reasons after Stansbury had so suddenly and mysteriously decided that Hershel was evil and had to go.
Even though being adamant that he, too, was as lost as the rest of them had quite damaged their relationship with almost everyone else in town, since, neither would they provide a satisfactory answer that was believable. ‘Hershel is a murderer’ just hadn’t been realistic to them. Quiet, calm, gentle Hershel - a killer?
Funny, then, that in the end it had been true. Randall still refused to tell them. So too, did Henry. It hadn’t been willing in the beginning, and from the sounds of it, continued not being entirely willing on his part for all the years to come.
“What do you mean, ‘what he went through’?” Came Angela’s concerned voice.
“W-well, the people that kidnapped him... didn’t exactly... treat him well.” He explained slowly, pacing in Hershel’s apartment. Hershel wasn’t there. He was in the Garden, and would be for hours. “They - they, uh... How to word it...” Blessedly, his friends didn’t interrupt, though if he knew them well enough, they desperately wanted to. “From what I know, and from what he let me know, they tried to... well. Break him. Mentally.” Gasps and other assorted noises of horror as they all rattled off questions at once, dying out as Randall immediately began hushing them. He wouldn’t answer anything if they were that noisy!
“You said tried, right? That mean they didn’t succeed?” Dalston, sounding as though he was hoping for a better story than was implied.
“I mean... Like I said, he didn’t tell me much.” Technically Hershel hadn’t really told him anything, Simon did, but Randall would happily lie if it meant the man’s identity stayed out of all this. He was paranoid enough already. “But from what he did tell me, after he escaped, it took a long time to...put himself back together.” Another pause, Randall grinning just a little as he heard Henry preemptively shushing them all.
“He’s not the same as he used to be.” Randall added, eventually. “Really prickly. Apparently he thought I sold him to the people that kidnapped him, so he... might have... just maybe threatened to - to commit violence. A lot of violence. On me. But we sorted it out - everything’s fine now!” Preempting the outrage. “He likes his solitude. Apparently one of the reasons he was so hard to find was because he changed his name. I don’t blame him, what little I know is enough to give a man nightmares... But yeah, he’s doing really well for himself now. Got a business and everything~” That got their attention, and Randall gladly latched onto it. Anything to get the topic off of Hershel’s sordid history.
But at least they knew he was okay, now. He’d had to. Even if he didn’t tell them where Hershel was (which he wouldn’t) and what Hershel had changed his name to (which he also wouldn’t) they deserved to know that he was, at least, alive and well.
Maybe one day even meet up with them again.
It would be nice to one day get the whole gang back together.
“You want to know the funny part about me and Simon tracking Hersh down? If he’d kept his head down like he had in his garden, while he was in London, we’d never have found him. Neither of us were looking for a green guy.
Much as I’d have preferred he didn’t cave to his old habits, if he hadn’t kept kicking up such a crime-based fuss, Simon would have had a much harder time tracking down any hints of him.”
Randall’s back - out in London, deeply invested in a book. He keeps noting things down, but seems increasingly frustrated the more he does so. Hershel is nowhere in sight.
Randall is alone - he appears to be deep in thought, Not paying much attention to his surroundings as ponders whatever it is that’s tangled him up so much.
“You wouldn’t believe how gorgeous Hersh’s garden is~ Used to be he was crap at caring for plants - he’d forget to water them all the time. To see him taking care of a whole city now... Oof. I’m proud of him, in a way.”
“It’s weird, to be around Hersh again. He’s a lot different, but... the same, in a lot of ways. Just more spiny about them~ Really nice to see him calm down from when I first spoke to him, and from the last time, before he disappeared. I can’t even imagine what he went through...”
