paradisalogs | kissmas time

Tess is out running some errands, and Brock is an easy sight to spot, given his imposing size. As a result, she sees Brock, she sees the dog, and then she sees the goat.

She hates goats.

"What the hell?" she says, in passing.

That Tess has a strict opinion about goats specifically is a little concerning, but it's not important right now. What is important is that Brock has one on a leash. The leash is more like a chain, actually, because the goat kept chewing through the ones made of cloth or leather.

Goats.

"Hey," he says casually, maybe like he doesn't even know what she's so nonplussed about.

Tess hates all horse-like animals. Also, goats are just creepy, they have weird pupils that make her uncomfortable.

"Hey," she says, and she gives him the aforementioned nonplussed look. "What's with the goat?"

But Tess. This goat has a tiny heart-shaped white patch in its fur. Doesn't that make it automatically better? (This is what Molotov thought, anyway, so Brock just assumes... it's a girl thing. Why don't you like his heart goat, Tess????)

Anyhow, Brock thought he was doing a pretty good job of not looking out of place walking a baby goat down the street, so that's disappointing. He glances down at it. "It was a present. I guess."

That's probably the least enthusiastic thing ever, and he doesn't really need to give this woman more ammunition against his wife, so -- "I mean, for the cabin, you know?"

"I didn't realize you had to walk goats," she says, almost dryly. She much prefers the dog, anyway, even if she doesn't show it. Dogs are still scary, too.

Brock snorts. "Hell if I know. I'm from Nebraska -- we have corn everywhere, not goats."

There are goats in Nebraska. Brock didn't grow up on a farm, though.

"So you just assumed?" she replies, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, it needs... exercise," he says, gesturing a little feebly at the goat. He can't exactly have the goat play fetch, you know.

"Anyway -- stick around long enough and you'll pick up a couple pets, too. It pretty much happens to everybody sooner or later."

Tess gives the goat a rather skeptical look, trying to imagine herself with pets. Nope.

"Not very likely. I'm also not sure if that's more or less tolerable than what Joel's currently doing, which is picking up stray kids."

"There's a lot of that going around, too," he says mildly. Luckily that is something he's managed to avoid thus far, unless you count the fake magic impossible baby the castle likes to give them every Spring. Which he doesn't.

"So, what, kids plural? How many?"

He might find this funny. A little.

Tess laughs, lifting her eyes back up to Brock. Christ, he's tall.

"There's Ellie, obviously. She's fourteen and mouthy. Then there's Clem, she's eleven and really doesn't like me. Aaand then there's Jesse, who is twenty-something and a total dog. And that's just five months in."

Okay, now it's really funny. He laughs too, smirking down at Tess a little.

"Twenty-something? Tell Joel to cut the damn cord, already. This kid got problems or something?"

"He does," Tess nods. "But Joel's in his fifties. I think anyone twenty-nine and under with daddy issues is on Joel's dad radar, now."

"Ha. That's like half the castle," he says, cocking his head. "I hope you guys have enough guest rooms and juice boxes."

She's amused, but she looks at her feet briefly. She loves and respects Joel more than anyone else in the world. He's always loved kids, always been gentler on them and been reluctant to see them come to any harm, always turned his back and let her do the dirty work of shooting kids when it became necessary... but it's a little different in Paradisa. Seeing him with Ellie or Clem, seeing him go hang out with these obviously lost children, seeing the way he looks at them, hearing him talk about them fondly, that's not the Joel she knows as well.

And she can't help but be a little bitter about it, given that she's so used to being the unquestionable number one in his life. Few other things could drive her to comment on it to strangers.

"Honestly, the apartment feels crowded just with the three of us. God forbid the other kids move in," she replies, smiling. "But juice boxes... we've got that covered. In the mean time, I'm just going to keep resisting becoming 'Mommy.'"

If you stick around in Paradisa long enough, your priorities inevitably start to shift. So do the priorities of people you know. Brock's seen it happen -- it's happened to him, too.

It's a weird place.

Brock laughs again, sharp and monosyllabic. "When'd you show up here again? Around May, the castle likes to saddle us with kids of our own..."

Tess raises an eyebrow.

"Isn't that already what's happening?"

He shakes his head, gesturing vaguely -- he's still holding a leash, so the goat sort of follows his hand.

"Like, magic babies who look like you and your, uh... 'partner.' Luckily me and Molotov always get paired up for that, but I've heard horror stories..."

Tess has to pause at that so she can fully wrap her head around the implication there.

"So the castle gives people their theoretical, impossible children," she replies, considering. "And then, what, they all disappear? Die? Where are all those kids now?"

She feels her stomach twist and sink. Theoretical children.

He's still trying to figure Tess out. But it's good to know that this sort of thing affects her; the more jaded you are coming in to this shithole, the quicker you hit rock bottom.

"Yeah," he says vaguely, rolling his shoulder. "They, uh... live in another world, I guess? Like -- if you figure that our Earths are totally different worlds, and that Paradisa is a different world too... apparently the kids live in something like that. An alternate planet where their magic parents are really together."

So in an alternate universe, she could have kids with just about anyone. It's hard to swallow, but perhaps no harder than magic, life after death and a world without cordyceps.

Tess just shakes her head, pushing back any of those thoughts before they can sink their teeth into her.

"So for a week, the kid's parents are flipping out because their baby's gone."

Brock just looks at her for a second, then sort of awkwardly glances away. "I, uh... never really thought about it that way before. It happens... a lot, so -- I mean, I've had the same kid for three years, and she never said anything about that."

Which isn't really an excuse. As far as his magic daughter knows -- Andropov... appropriately named for his and Molotov's kid, he thinks with an almost criminal amount of dryness -- her parents sometimes take her to a magic castle for a week. She's at the age where she doesn't really seem fazed by too much. But she gets older every year...

"It's possible time doesn't pass when they're in Paradisa. I guess. They always come back older, though, if you get the same one. Sometimes people don't."

Tess falls silent for a moment, looking down at the goat so her expression doesn't give too much away. She's worried, suddenly, not for herself but for Joel –– as perverted as it all is, she'd feel the impact less than her partner, who still seems to freeze up at times when expected to interact with children. A child coming and going, coming and going, year after year, somehow theirs.

And then she raises her eyes to Brock again. (God damn, he's tall.)

"Well, I hope I don't end up in that shit show." It's easier to brush it off as humor. "I'd be the worst mother ever."

If Brock notices any worry in Tess's demeanor, he doesn't comment on it. It's a touchy subject for a lot of people, children and parenthood -- Molotov turns into a mess every year once their magic impossible baby goes home. He knows that they can't ever have kids in real life, but loss has always come easier to him, so it's never bothered him quite as much as her. He doesn't really know why.

He laughs instead. "Yeah. Friend of mine was such a shitty mom that the castle just stopped giving her kids," he says, grinning, and for some reason is compelled to take a step closer to Tess, gazing down. It's after Christmas, but he forgot that the stupid mistletoe is still around...

"Could happen to you, too."

"Hopefully that wish will come true," she replies, with a bit more genuine humor. She doesn't know why, but she smiles up at him, all coquettish. She moves a hand to his forearm, almost thoughtlessly.

"I'd drown the kids in the tub for holding me back."

Yeah, that's just fine. Nothing wrong here; nothing wrong with talking about drowning hypothetical children suddenly being a turn-on. Everything is great right now.

Brock is still holding a leash, even as he moves his hand to press into the small of Tess's back, gentle and firm. "Yeah, well. Let's hope it doesn't come to that," he says, voice low tilting his head down closer.

Of course not, Brock. Nothing wrong with it at all. Tess gives Brock one of those elevator gazes as he pulls her in closer, almost sizing him up, and then she's looking up at him through her eyelashes. Hey, gorgeous.

"Here's hoping, then," she replies.

He's tall enough that when he tilts his head down, she still needs to rise up on the balls of her feet to reach his mouth, kissing hard.

There is extra nothing wrong with this, too! This is totally fine and he's happy with this turn of events. Tess is a pretty cool lady, and he likes competence, and she's also actually in his age bracket for once, so that's a plus.

It's actually so totally fine that he lets go of the leashes -- both of them -- to slide one hand up to hold the back of her head, fingers curling in her hair.

Competent adults, rare specimens of a dying race.

Tess relaxes in his arms like she's meant to be there, and she gets an arm around his neck to hold herself that much closer to him. There's a wonderful moment there that feels just right, and then Tess abruptly locks up and fumbles to get a hand against his chest and push to pry herself away. Suddenly she's struggling like a trapped cat.

"Let go of me!" she snaps.

True words.

Brock is actually getting into this. He likes kissing women, women are great, kissing is awesome, everything is fine. When her arm goes up around his neck, he starts to slide his other hand down. But then something weird happens, and he's still into it but she's... not? Whuh? And there's a moment of complete confusion as Brock's brain struggles to catch up with what is actually happening.

His immediate response is to snap her neck, muscle memory reacting to the feeling of desperation flailing against him, but he's able to shut down that line of thinking fairly quickly. Instead of murdering her, he holds both hands up and takes a huge step back.

"Whoa. Okay --"

Just like that, Tess is on alert again and fired up, and the second Brock lets her go, she puts her own space between them, too. She puts one hand behind her, reaching for the gun in the concealed holster in the back of her pants, and for a few heart-pounding seconds she has the impulse to draw and fire.

But she doesn't, mercifully. She breathes deep and swallows the urge to devolve into any fight-versus-flight mentality.

"Jesus Christ," she swears, frustrated. "This fucking place."

It would be bad if she did, because out of all the various ways Brock has been injured through the years -- hit by trucks, exposed to the vacuum of space, etc -- his ultimate weakness is pretty much getting shot. He doesn't like it. He doesn't like it so much that he tends to immediately pass out when it happens.

But, no, she doesn't. Brock keeps his hands up for a few long, tense moments, then slowly lowers them to his sides when it looks like she isn't going to deck him.

"Yeah... it happens. Sorry about that."

Tess just scoffs, looking away for an instant, and her heart keeps on pounding for another minute.

"Your wife isn't going to kill me, is she?" she says, almost joking. Almost.

Goooood question. Brock rolls his eyes up toward the sky, then realizes that he let go of the leashes at some point -- he is going to have to hunt down this stupid goat, apparently, since the dog is just lying down nearby.

"Probably not?" he says, which probably doesn't sound very convincing. Oops. "Uh, we have kind of an agreement about this shit... magic kissing doesn't count, right. It'd be kind of hard to get pissed about something you didn't even mean to do."

"Well, thank fuck for that," Tess replies.

She's noticed the animals are loose, too, but she's somewhat relieved that the dog is just chilling, at least. Tess just doesn't like animals.

"What does the castle even get out of this?"

The dog is relatively chill except when Spike is around, really. It used to belong to Kate Kane, though, so that's... something that makes sense.

Brock snorts, fishing in his pockets for a cigarette. "Who the fuck knows. Used to be that people got all flustered and embarrassed and whatever -- but now everybody's kind of used to it. I don't think the castle's all that smart. Old habits, I guess."

"That's so ridiculous. It'd be so easy for just one sicko to use it as an opportunity to assault people."

Tess puts a hand out, two fingers extended in that give-me-a-smoke sort of way.

"Yeah... I don't think the castle is too concerned about morality like that," he says mildly, obligingly handing her a cigarette and flicking his lighter on for her.

"You haven't been here for those real great times it locks complete strangers in rooms together yet, have you?"

"So this place is like three seconds away from being Castle Rape," Tess replies, dryly. She leans in to light the cigarette and then brings it to her lips. She doesn't smoke much these days, though she knows she could if she really wanted to –– nicotine or not, you go a decade or do without so much as a whiff of tobacco or the sight of one and they kind of slip beyond your mind, beyond your priorities. "I'm at about four months."

Cigarettes are one of the few luxuries that Brock will wish for, actually. He tries to get everything else from the city -- he's sure the wares the townspeople will sell and barter are just as magic-based as anything wished up from the castle directly, but it makes him feel better. Less dependent on stupid magic castle bullshit.

Once Tess has her cigarette lit, Brock pockets the lighter, exhaling a stream of smoke through the corner of his mouth, away from her. Castle Rape tho, hyperbolic much...

"As far as I know, nothing like that's ever happened... in the like three and a half years I've been here. I mean, we got a pretty good sized vigilante crowd; somebody who pulls that shit is getting killed as soon as word gets out."

Tess lets the cigarette hang from her lips for a moment, and then she takes it between her fingers to reply.

"Do you seriously think everyone's going to announce that, though? You live in a cabin in the woods. People don't always air their dirty laundry on the journals," she says, pointedly. She gestures at the space around them. "Don't take it personally, but what makes you think word would get out?"

Wow, excuse you, the cabin is a vacation home. That he goes to daily. But he doesn't sleep there, that's the important part. That's not really relevant though, so he lets it go.

"Yeah, that's what I mean by 'as far as I know,'" he says, frowning and looking at the ground for a second. It's fucked up to consider that something like that is going on under their noses... the place is so small and the population is dwindling; it seems like word would get around pretty quick. But what does he know; his experience with gossip is largely contained to a bunch of grown men who dress in stupid costumes and give themselves puns for names.

"I guess that's one of the drawbacks to not really having any kind of police force here. Not that everybody trusts cops, but..."

"I'm loving not having law enforcement, personally," Tess replies. "Law enforcement never did jack shit about rape, anyway."

She looks away from him, just to glance aside at the animals to make sure they haven't gotten into her blind spots. (Tess just doesn't like animals. They're even less predictable than humans, and she doesn't trust people all that much, either.) And then she turns her eyes back to Brock, a little unimpressed and a great deal tired. She's lived in this world for four months, and sometimes she feels like a ghost or something a little unreal –– all of them with their ideas of justice and community gatherings and all that, her who used to believe in those things.

As she's gotten older, the part of her life before infection has slowly become smaller and smaller. Her memories of childhood and growing up in a normal world have vanished under the more vivid memories of firefights and smuggling deals and ruling their fucked up world as best she could manage.

They're from so many different times and places, but they at least all share some common idea of justice.

"I have no idea how you can have faith in something like that."

By this point, the dog has fallen asleep and the goat has wandered back -- which Brock is kind of grateful for, because he seriously didn't feel like looking down alleyways for a little baby goat. Why did he even bring it out with him, so stupid...

Brock can't say he has a whole lot of experience with what the law enforcement does about rape; he worked for the government for half his life, but most of that was on assignment playing bodyguard. Plus he's not all too sure that Tess's idea of cops is the same thing as his. He has no idea what kind of world she comes from, but it probably... isn't... good.

He doesn't answer her right away, just sort of turning his eyes up to the sky. Brock's not naturally a very wordy person, so it takes him awhile to build things like this up.

"I have faith in people," he says eventually, looking back down at her again. "I was in black ops for 20 years. The Office of Secret Intelligence, which is supposed to fight villainy and kick evil's ass and all that bull. But they never tell you how much red tape trips you up -- how much doing your job right keeps you from doing the job you want to do."

He pauses to take a drag off the cigarette, exhaling a plume of smoke up toward the sky.

"So, like, I quit, right? Me and a bunch of guys who worked there quit. And now we do the job we signed up to do in the first place, outside the law. There are good people out there, Tess," he says, ashing the cigarette. "Just like there are bad ones."

Secret police type crap, Tess thinks. Jesus christ.

It makes her nervous in a way, even if he's quit, even if there's nothing here motivating him to do anything of the sort. She's been long-aware that she's the villainy or evil that they hunt down, and even if she's been too little of a threat to them for the past few years for them to bother, there was a time where she was far too big for her britches and she'd gone down hard for it. She'd gotten away with basically nothing but her life and a few connections.

She knew that red tape was what allowed her to get away with at least that, too.

"I know that," she replies, finally. "But come on. Good people will do bad things if they think they can get away with it, or if their back's against the wall. Why bother treating them like good people when they're just one tight situation away from ditching their morals? Anyone can be a good person in a place like this."

kissmas time

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