☠ 062

[molotov]

Who: Molotov and you, maybe
What: Fireside sitting in the lobby, thinking, talking, drinking
When: The middle of the damn night!
Where: Lobby
Rating: Ehhh probably like PG-13 at most

The lobby never really got silent, not with the noctural residents and everyone who seemed to come and go at all hours, but it did get quiet if you waited up late enough, and Molotov needed a little bit of quiet.

Sure, she could have stayed up in her room, could have sat in bed next to Brock as he slept, even though she couldn't sleep herself. But something about it made her want to leave, want to just be in front of the beautiful, if slightly "majestic generic", fireplace down in the lobby.

So she'd put on some pajamas and wandered downstairs, taking a seat on the sofa closest the fire. The castle provided a blanket to cover her legs with, and a mug of red wine hot chocolate that never seemed to need refilling, and Molotov couldn't help but think it was the nicest thing the castle had done in a while.

And there she sat, alone and silent, gazing into the flames as the lobby traffic died out more and more.

Until you came along.

Comments

[samson]

Brock is a heavy sleeper nowadays.

It's something that never ceases to worry him, much in the same way he was worried that being with the Ventures had turned him domestic. Dulled his senses. And in the same way that he worried what committing to Molotov would do; what it would mean to admit he loved her and wanted to marry her.

This is dangerous though, not just a matter of pride. If he can sleep through his wife leaving the bed, what else can he sleep through? When was another weird-ass monster in a cheap suit going to roll up and pull his heart out again?

So it's with some mild concern that he wakes up to find that Molotov isn't there. When the hell did she leave? How long had it been? It's not so much he's upset that she left (or at least he stopped being upset once he checked the name plate), but rather that he didn't even notice. He's going soft. It's dangerous.

Brock takes a minute to pull on a hooded sweatshirt before he goes looking for her, hands in the kangaroo pouch and cigarette in his mouth. He finds her down in the lobby (the first place he looked, really), and takes a minute to just look at her before heading over.

"Hey," he says softly, tone neutral. "You okay?"

[molotov]

Sometimes Molotov thinks things like this are on purpose. She occasionally finds herself nearly in a coma, and suspects that the castle just likes to fuck with all their sleep cycles. The better to keep them off-guard, she guesses.

But on the other hand, the Cocktease-Samsons do have a pretty amazing mattress. Don't blame yourself, Brock. Blame the Tempurpedic.

Molotov twists her head back when she hears him, then nods and takes a sip of cocoa, looking back at the fire. "Couldn't sleep," she says simply, her legs shifting a little under the blanket.

[samson]

Maybe he'll start sleeping on a 20-year-old mattress again, that seemed to work out pretty well for him back at the Venture Compound. Oh, he slept fine -- but if he so much as heard a creak in the floorboards, he'd be up with a knife in his hand.

Of course, maybe part of it is that there isn't the ever-present thread of supervillains fucking shit up in the castle. In fact, Brock can't really remember the last time there was a supervillain here. That 'Mr. Many' guy over a year ago, maybe. It's kind of nice. Like a vacation. Though that could be why the castle has been throwing a lot of weird, scary shit at them lately -- the residents themselves weren't providing enough trauma, right? Jesus.

Brock's mouth twists a little at that response, then he leans over the back of the sofa, looking at her sidelong with a small smirk. "I coulda helped you with that, you know. I'm pretty good at making you tired."

[molotov]

Plus, usually when really fucked up shit happens, it's not in the middle of the night anyway. Sure, world changes are in the middle of the night, but a bad mattress wouldn't stop that. The real evil shit happens right out in the open in Paradisa, doesn't it?

She gives him a sharp look, then reaches up to gently shove his arm. "Shut up. That isn't what I mean, you child."

[samson]

Excuse you, Brock got his heart torn out in the middle of the night. That happened! It really happened. And nobody even saw it.

Brock snorts, then reaches in his pocket for a cigarette, lighting up. Because what kind of dude doesn't think to shove cigarettes and a lighter in his pocket when he's going out to look for his wife in the dead of night? He takes a slow drag on it, then takes it out his mouth to offer it to her, pinched between his fingers as he exhales smoke through his nostrils.

"Then what's up? I would've figured you'd his the gym or something," he says, ignoring the fact that the lobby is the first place he checked.

[molotov]

That was not the dead of night, it was more like... late evening. And since no one could speak anyway, I'm not sure how a shitty mattress would have helped the situation. Especially because Brock wasn't sleeping at the time.

Molotov takes the cigarette and drags off it before offering it back, along with her mug, in case he's thirsty. She shrugs and looks at the fire as she exhales. "I don't know. Winter, fireplace, I thought it might be nice," she says vaguely, her voice soft. "You know, I haven't lived anywhere it snows like this since I left home."

[samson]

Brock eyes the mug and takes it along with the cigarette, taking a small sip. The contents are a little surprising, and he eyes it even harder.

"I'm pretty sure you spiked your hot cocoa like this since you left home," he says mildly, handing the mug back to her and putting the cigarette back in his mouth. "You should've come visited me more. We get a lot of snow. Granted, it pretty much always melts unless you're up in the mountains, but..."

[molotov]

"Shows what you know," she snorts, taking her drink back. "I usually spike with rum or kahlua. Anyway, visiting you is one thing, visiting the idiots you like to live with is another. Are you going to come sit with me or not?"

To punctuate this, she lifts the blanket a little, exposing her long legs folded up underneath it. The lobby is mostly empty, so it's not like anyone will see him being a little mushy with his wife, playing Winter Wonderland or whatever.

[samson]

"Aren't you cold?" he says instead of answering her, though he does move around the side of the couch to sit down next to her. "Maybe you should've used one of the thousands of bathrobes you have lying around."

Granted, all the bathrobes are made of shit like silk, which is not very good at keeping a person warm, but whatever.

[molotov]

"The fire is warm," she tells him, leaning against his side and taking another sip from her mug. "And those are not for keeping warm anyway." Because they are made of lace and silk and nothing else. She has no fleecy robes with hoods, Samson!

[samson]

Brock eyes her mug. "I thought we said no wishing," he answers, which is not actually an answer. Maybe he just wants to nag her, okay. Somebody has to do it.

"Don't tell me you're starting to trust this place again."

[molotov]

"Nyet," she groans, turning her side into his side. "It was just there, the castle gave it to me. Passive wishing, cannot be helped. Besides, I am not so afraid of cocoa. It is not a holiday."

With a quiet sigh, she looks at her mug again. "I think the castle can be nice sometimes, when it wants to."

[samson]

Wow, okay. He rolls his eyes, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. "You're kidding, right? Don't get all Stockholm-y on me."

[molotov]

She groans again, louder and more whiny. "No! But some things are nice! Like Andropov. Some people do not get their children back, and we do. That is nice."

[samson]

Ugh, he pushes her head. Whining! "Knock it off. Anyway, what about when it doesn't bring her back? This place is a fucking monster. You need to be ready for anything. Don't get soft."

[molotov]

Molotov is allowed to whine, she is a grown woman! She punches his thigh lightly. "I am not soft, I am tired. Can't I have one night, a night where nothing is happening, to just drink a mug of cocoa? Besides, I do not have a fucking cow to milk and a cacao tree to make chocolate from."

[samson]

"Not when it's magic castle cocoa," he says dryly, though she has a point. It's impossible to do anything on your own here. Even if you get most of your stuff in the city, from the townspeople -- like Brock does -- there's no real way of knowing if that isn't under the castle's purview as well.

"You're soft, though. So am I. When's the last time we actually did some real work in this place? I don't even know when the last time I killed somebody was."

Not counting those weird frolicking guys in straight jackets.

[molotov]

"I don't know what you want me to do about that," she says, leaning her head into the crook of his underarm. "Our jobs are obsolete here. Most people's are. We cannot just kill people for no reason, and nothing else we do will keep us 'hard', or whatever you are implying. I train most days, but a punching bag is just a punching bag, you know?"

[samson]

Brock grunts, moving his arm from around her to wrap it around the back of the sofa instead, hooking his ankle over his knee. "Yeah. Hell if I know."

He pauses to drag off his cigarette, exhaling the smoke in a thin stream as he looks at the ceiling.

"I dunno. I miss actually doing important shit. There's never anything important here, though. Sometimes I play carpenter or mechanic but it's... not, uh. The same. Right? Like forced retirement," he says, then scoffs. "I always figured I'd die in the field or something. Not fuck around with a little homestead."

[molotov]

Molotov goes quiet for a few moments, curling tighter against him when he stops actively holding her. No, husband, don't be distant!!!

"Would you rather be dead?" she finally asks, her brow knit as she looks down at her hands. "Were you happier... before? Before we 'settled down', before it was us instead of just you and just me?"

She definitely sounds like she has more to say, but she cuts herself off instead, gripping tightly at her mug.

[samson]

Wow, jeez, he's just trying to have a conversation with her as equals! It's hard to think of her as a contemporary when he's all holding her, okay. Which is part of the problem, too; it's hard for him to reconcile his natural tendency toward domestic bullshit with the part of him that's a hardcore murderous spy when he... doesn't actually have an outlet for the latter.

So she's not far off, though not for the reasons she's thinking.

Brock grunts again, rolling his eyes. Even after years of being with her here, he's still not good at this feelings jam shit. "No. I'm just bored as hell all the time," he says, glancing at her. "If there was something to do here, though -- for either of us -- then we wouldn't work out. I guess it's a catch-22."

[molotov]

They can be equals and still snuggle! What the fuck, did that mean he thought of her as lesser or something when they were being domestic? She thought they were partners in this marriage, goddamn it. And let's be real here, he was kind of inclined toward domestic bullshit even when he did have an outlet. Molotov bets he's crocheted little doilies and put them all over SPHINX headquarters!

SPHINX-abandoned-building-in-the-Ventures'-backyard. Whatever.

Molotov frowns more deeply when he says that, then inhales sharply, like she's trying to suppress her natural reaction. "We could work out," she mumbles, looking more and more miserable the longer they talk.

[samson]

Excuse you, they were not doilies, they were latch hook rugs. There's a difference.

"Look, we wouldn't be together if it wasn't for this place," he says with a frown, leaning back a little to get a better look at her. If she starts crying, that just lends more credence to his theory that they are getting irresponsibly soft. "The perfect storm of no bullshit politics getting in our way."

[molotov]

Well, whatever, they were ugly either way! Ugly and super Holly Homemaker bullshit, and he was doing it even when he had "something to do".

When Brock sits back, Molotov scoots away, no longer willing to try and be the relationship advocate in this discussion. "We could have been together, I wanted to be together!" she snaps, then reels it back in. "Bullshit politics is your meaningless excuse, it always has been. First you loved your government more than me, then you loved the Ventures more than me, and then you loved Hunter even more than me, even when every single one of them let you down over and over. But I have always been there, offering you a way out, something unconditional."

She looks over at him, and there might be just a tiny shimmer of a tear in her eye, but it's a tear of frustration, not sadness. "You always rely on 'politics' to be your excuse. Do you even want to be married to me, Brock? Or am I just a last resort, because you can't have America or the Ventures or fucking Hunter Gathers?"

[samson]

Molotov's 'unconditionality,' of course, isn't as simple as she's making it sound. He couldn't turn his back on his beliefs and his morals just for one woman, even if he loved her more than anything. But none of that really matters here; beliefs and morals hold a lot less weight when you're living in a magical castle that feeds on your soul and fucks with you for fun.

He doesn't say anything about that, though. He's tired of having this argument.

"Look," he says again, turning to face her. He takes his cigarette out his mouth and ashes it onto... the floor, because why the fuck not. "It just works out here. It's not complicated here. Stop overthinking things; of course I want you. This place is a monster, but at least it gave us this chance."

He sighs, rubbing at his face, then peers at her from between his fingers. "So maybe I shouldn't complain so much."