paradisalogs | ☠ 041

His shoulders visibly slumped when she said that, when she actually acknowledged what he was doing. Well, it wouldn't work now. He didn't want to talk about it, because he was like, paralyzingly afraid that she didn't want to be with him anymore, if her viciousness toward him last night was any indication. Sure, he'd been a dick, but he had explained to her about his thing with food, his connection to cooking for somebody and family. So he had felt justified, ridiculously irrational or not.

He took some small comfort in the fact that Paradisa apparently didn't honor divorce, but that didn't mean she couldn't want a separation.

"I don't really know what you want from me," he said quietly, going back to frying this egg. "You already said you like, blame me for everything. So."

He paused, turning the egg over, then added: "I'm sorry I socked you in the face, if that helps."

She sighed and ran her hand over her face, silent for a moment. "I do not... I do not blame you for everything. I was drunk when I said that. But Brock, what do you think I should feel? I have to know that, out there somewhere, some version of you did love me enough to make room in his life, and we -- they -- made her. She is real, Brock. Andropov is not just castle magic, she is real somewhere, and I will never have her, ever, even though I spent years trying to make you mine."

Molotov looked away, distinctly close to tears, and swallowed, taking a second to steel herself before speaking again. "And you are just fine with that. So da, yes, I blame you. And I am bitter, and jealous, and miserable. I have to live here knowing that this, our marriage and our once-a-year baby, are all just little tastes of something that I should have had and you would not let me.

You always talk about your stupid Ventures and call them your family. Do you really not understand my pain? I do not have a family at all, Brock. Do you really think I should be stoic in the face of being tortured like this?"

"It's not -- Molotov, don't do that," he said, losing interest in the egg but unwilling to look at her. He turned the stove off and went to go dump it in the trash; he completely lost his appetite so he went to toss out the pancakes he'd made, too, talking through all of this, needing to keep busy.

"Don't tell me I don't love you enough. It's not like that. We're just different -- you weren't going to change for me, either. You were still gonna run around killing people for money, and don't even try to tell me you'd give it up for me. 'cause I know you wouldn't," he said, frowning at the stove because now he didn't have anything to do. After a pause, he took the skillets to the sink and started to wash dishes.

"I'm fine with it," he continued, his tone softening just a little, "because I can't change the past. I can't change us. But maybe in this other world, we're both a little more ... I don't know, flexible or something. I don't really know what you want me to do about it."

"You are right," she said, clearly upset by what he'd said, "I would not have stopped! What the hell do you think I can go, Brock? My skills are all I have -- being a gymnast is not exactly a money-making venture, and I am not even supposed to be in America. You really think I could just go get another job? Besides, I like what I do, and why should I have to quit? My life does not demand that live with strangers, or pledge my allegiance to anyone but those that I wish to. It is not predicated on someone else's ideas of good and bad, on what they think I should be doing. But if my work is all that matters to you about me, then I guess we know why this magic pretend bullshit is the best that we could ever do. You never could see the forest for the trees, Brock.

And I do not want you to do anything. I want you to care that you stole everything I ever could have had, every bit of family, anything!"

Alright, that did it.

He threw the dishes violently into the sink and whirled on her, glaring. "I didn't steal a damn thing from you, Molotov. I'm really fucking sorry I'm not as perfect as you, or that I actually want to do some good in the world, or that I know what duty is." That's right, he said 'duty.' Get over it.

"We couldn't work in the real world, and you know that. You know that! We're going to leave this place, and we're gonna go right back to our own lives, doing our own things, and nothing you say to me is gonna change that."

"Tell my father's grave that you never stole from me!" she yelled, shaking with anger, her eye flashing with tears. "Tell it to my eye in a jar that you keep on your fucking bedside table! Tell it to your mother, who I did not slaughter in revenge, or to the Ventures, who I tried to help, or to your backstabbing, cross-dressing mentor who I tried to ally with when he ran away and turned himself into a woman because he is a fucking coward! You do not know shit about goodness or duty, all you know how to do is follow orders and believe what other people tell you believe!"

Molotov punctuated this by throwing the nearest thing she could get her hands on (it was a glass).

"And I know that will not change, but at least you could care!"

"It was war," he bellowed over her, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. Jeezy petes, this lady could talk. "I killed your dad because it was war, you left me to die in a fire because it was war."

He swore loudly when she started throwing shit, because what the hell, lady. What the hell!

"Hey, I know a hell of a lot more about duty than you do, Little Miss Looks-after-nobody-but-herself. Do you have any friends in the real world? Do you try to do anything good? You take your contracts 'cause they make you money, so don't you tell me about goodness, baby."

"Who else should I look after, asshole?!" she screeched, standing up to point at him accusingly. "I do not have any family, thanks to you, so all I have is myself. I am not going to adopt stray dogs just because that is what you do!"

She threw something else, a knick-knack this time. "And da, I have friends! What friends do you have, moron? People you were forced to live with for twenty years? Other loser mongrel rejects from the OSI? Hunter? It is not like you are some social butterfly with a vast network of close friendships! The only people you know outside of your little bubble are strippers and sluts! I am friends with people that you could never dream of. And do not talk to me about goodness! What are you doing that is so good? You spent twenty years fighting with The Monarch, for god's sake!"

"Fuck it!" he said, angrily toweling off his hands and then stomping over to her, arms spread wide. "What it comes down to is you're pissed you loved me too much to avenge your asshole of a father. That's all it is! So take your fucking best shot, Molotov. Kill me right now, if it'll make you stop hating me so much!"

"My father wasn't an asshole!" she yelled, smoothly pulling her pistol from its holster. "And I do not want to kill you, but if you say one more fucking word about my father, I will."

"So you do love him more than me," Brock said quietly, approaching her to the point where he had to crane his neck down to look at her, where he stopped and just frowned. "So, fine. That's all this is. You didn't love me enough to make it work either."

Molotov didn't even think about her next action -- it was pure instinct. She smacked him across the face with her gun.

"Do not ever say that to me again," she said, voice shaking. "I tried, I tried so hard. How dare you say I did not love you enough? You would not stand by and let me insult your mother, so do not try to make my father into an excuse."

Brock's head jerked with the force of the blow, and he blinked a few times before looking down at her. He paused to touch his fingers to his mouth, where there was a thin trickle of blood.

"Molotov, you never forgave me for killing him," he said, still frowning. "I don't know what else that could mean, except that you love him more."

"He was everything I ever had," she said, so soft that it was almost a whisper. "You would never forgive me if I killed the Ventures, and they are not even your real family."

He just looked at her for a second, frowning deeply. After a moment, he sighed, finally lowering his hands to his sides and looking away from her.

"Then I don't know what we can do."

Molotov let out a small laugh of disbelief. "So, what, I am not allowed to love my own father anymore?" She was quiet for a moment, then blinked away tears and moved back from him. "This is not about me loving my father more. It is about you being jealous of a man who is nearly twenty five years in the grave. If my choice has to be you or him, then I do not know what to tell you, because I love you both."

Edited 2012-06-08 05:42 (UTC)

"I'm not jealous," he said with a frown. "You're the one who brought him up. And you're the one who's still pissed at me about it. I don't know what to tell you, 'cause if you can't forgive me, then I really don't know what we're going to do."

"What's to forgive?" she asked, incredulous. "You have never apologized or felt remorse. I am not going to forgive you just because I love you, or because we are married. That is not how forgiveness works. It is not a right for you to be forgiven, Brock. I brought him up because you lied and said you never stole a family from me. Even you cannot believe that."

"If he killed me, would you forgive him?" he said immediately, frown deepening. "You know him better than me, would he have told you he's sorry?"

"He would have apologized for the fact that he allowed me to love you at all," she said, "and no, I never would have forgiven him. I might not have said anything to him, I might have still obeyed, but I never would have forgiven, even for a second."

Brock was getting tired of just standing there, so he sat down heavily on the sofa, head in his hands. "I can't apologize for something I'm not sorry for," he said quietly, looking vaguely at the floor. "It was war. I'm not sorry I did it."

He paused, squinting a little, trying to figure out how to put this into words. This entire conversation was not Brock's strong suit. "I'm sorry I had to do it," he continued slowly, a bit haltingly. "I don't even know if I had to. I know he would have done the same thing to me. But mostly it was just ... I guess it was because of you that I did it. I wanted to hurt you. Bad.

"So I'm sorry I wanted to do that."

Molotov was silent for several very long moments, walking away to the other side of the room and leaning against the wall.

"So it was not war," she finally said. "You just wanted to make sure we could never be okay. You wanted to hurt me so badly that I could never heal, no matter what happened. Why? Because you loved me?"

"No, that wasn't about you," he said, looking up sharply. "Well ... okay, it was about you, but not you. It was about the woman who killed my partner, not the woman I loved. You just wound up being the same person."

"Your partner wasn't dead," she said, her voice flat and measured, her eye just an angry slit. "So you did not hurt the woman who killed your partner, because she does not exist. There was only the woman you loved."

"I know that now," he said with a frown. "So I guess I'm sorry I made a mistake. But he still would have killed me if he had the chance, so I don't ... I mean, should I be sorry I got to him first? Would you want me dead instead of him?"

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