THIRTEENTH SHOT

[dog_eat_dog]

[Dictated]

Some of you have really absurd names, you know that?

It's weird enough that some of you just have ridiculous hippy names like "Howl" or "Cloud" or "Vicious" or "Firethroat" or whatever but then there's all these pretentious names that are really titles. Not just a doctor, The Doctor, and there's a Fifth and a Tenth but who knows what happened to the others.

And then there's not just some guy named Lorax, but he's The Lorax. What the fuck is a Lorax in the first place? Fuck if I know, but maybe I should be honored to live up the hall from not only a Lorax but The Lorax. He sounds like a cleaning product mascot, like Mr. Clean.

I almost wish the castle had kept my nameplate Dog Eat Dog just so I could have a ridiculous name plate. I mean, mine doesn't even include a last name normally. Or maybe changed it to something smoother: Queen of Boston. The Queen of Boston.

Comments

[batteriesarehard]

Do Ben and Clementine count?

[dog_eat_dog]

I guess. [Amused.] Are you even old enough to be Ben's mother?

[batteriesarehard]

No, but someone's got to look out for him.

[If it hasn't been made apparent, most everyone focuses all their energy looking out for Clementine. Ben is a teenager, sure, but that doesn't mean he's any more capable of dealing with the things they have to deal with than Clem.]

[dog_eat_dog]

Yeah, I guess. He's also got to be encouraged to stand on his own two feet, though.

[batteriesarehard]

We're working on that. Teaching him to take care of himself doesn't mean we have to throw him to the wolves to get him to learn survival skills, though.

[dog_eat_dog]

Your baggage, I guess. There's a reason I never had kids.

[batteriesarehard]

I don't know, I think if you turned off the hardass routine every now and then you might surprise yourself.

[Maybe.]

[dog_eat_dog]

Do you seriously –– even for a second –– think it's kind to have kids in our world?

[batteriesarehard]

Not in ours, no. But we're not there now, I was just talking in the hypothetical sense.

[dog_eat_dog]

Hypotheticals are pretty useless, Carley. Being less of a hardass wouldn't change the world, it would just open me up to getting screwed over.

[batteriesarehard]

Are they? I'd be dead back home, you know. Left on the side of a road. My entire stay in this castle is a hypothetical kind of thing.

[dog_eat_dog]

I'm dead back home, too. Doesn't Paradisa make it even stupider to have kids? Someone's going to leave eventually. You're just borrowing against tomorrow.

[batteriesarehard]

I'm not saying I want to start popping out kids here while I have the chance, Tess. The way things are, I don't even-

[Is it possible for people who have come back from the dead to even get pregnant? Carley has no idea, but it's not even the point so she stops and sighs. After a moment there's a soft, dry laugh. What a fucking conversational topic.]

I'm happy with things the way they are here.

[dog_eat_dog]

Yeah, yeah. I guess.

[A pause, and then she adds:]

I feel like we should be talking about this over drinks.

[batteriesarehard]

I can meet you at the Death Match, then. That's the one you're more partial to, right?

[dog_eat_dog]

It is. Give me a few minutes to get dressed.

[batteriesarehard]

Sounds good. I'll see you there then.

[And it's right there on her floor anyway so Carley will probably arrive first, sitting at the bar and ordering herself a nice, big glass of red wine.]

action

[dog_eat_dog]

[Tess is there shortly after, sliding onto a bar stool and getting herself a mixed drink.]

Honestly, adopting older kids is probably the way to go. Less diapers, no stretch marks.

action

[batteriesarehard]

[Carley has to grin at that, straight back into the conversation with no time lost. Makes sense, when their time here could only be a finite thing.]

That's what I figure too. Is this something you've given thought to before?

action

[dog_eat_dog]

[Tess shrugs. This is a conversation she's had more than a few times with the women she's worked with over the years, and Carley's privy to that group only because she knows what it's like to live in a decimated country.]

There's only so much you can think about it. I mean, there have been scares over the years, but the kind of life I live is definitely not kid-friendly. You can entertain the idea but you can never really consider it a serious choice.

I mean, if you got knocked up when you could just barely feed yourself, would you even consider it?