august shifts {open}

His mood had been drifting from irritation to a faint, free-floating moodiness when he was suddenly attacked. Viciously, violently attacked, was what he’d call it. Todd didn’t mind dogs, but to be gazing around a dazzlingly bright park and catching a breath of air one moment and then up to his ears in grass the next was never fun. “Ffff--!” That was about as coherent as he could manage as he was sent sprawling. Just as well, because it was very unprofessional to swear in uniform, and management had already given them quite enough warnings about that.

“Off, mutt,” he mumbled with a slight groan as he got up on one elbow, patting the dog’s muzzle at the same time as trying to push it gently aside. He did not want slobber all over him, thank you. Not very hygienic given his work. For a moment he’d thought that the Alaskan was some kind of wolf, and that was just a whole new world of trouble he didn’t want to get into. He sat up properly and scrubbed a hand through his hair when the dog bounded back towards his owner. Todd’s hair was usually very mussed; now it was positively explosive. He dusted some grass out of it and stayed sitting on the grass as the young woman approached.

He raised his eyebrows a bit when she arrived but quirked one corner of his lips up in a friendly enough greeting. “No harm done… I think,” he said, rolling his shoulders before clambering limberly to his feet. “Just as well, because my partner would have bust a gut laughing if he’d had to drive me back to hospital in my own ambulance.” And then the offer for ice-cream. Hmmmm. It was a hot day, and he’d just hate to get ‘heatstroke’ while on a work shift… so long as she wasn’t some madwoman who had set her dog on him on purpose. Well, you never know, do you? All right, Todd’s just kind of crazy and paranoid sometimes.

“If they have my favourite flavour,” he said generously, turning to face her properly. He noted the Captain America T-shirt, too. Perhaps she was just bucking on the recent trend, but he figured anyone that offered ice-cream and wore a Marvel shirt couldn’t be too much of a psychopath. “Ice-cream is extremely effective against trauma, you know. It’s a proven fact.” He looked as though he was considering holding out a hand for her to shake, but hers were full of leashes. Best to go the informal route, really. “Uh, I’m Todd.”

Oh, Todd would most certainly count the years of training for his EMT qualifications as ‘official’ and would be less than impressed with anyone that suggested otherwise. He got enough of the ‘well, you’re basically a taxi driver getting people to the real doctors, right?’ schtick at the hospital.

There have been many moments in Todd’s life that well and truly deserve the title ‘not his finest hour’… most hours, in fact. But backhanding a dog across the face would have been plunging to a new depth. Todd wasn’t one for violence; he saw enough of it, writing people’s jaws in place on Friday nights because ‘that vampire looked at me funny’ or ‘he was chatting up my girlfriend.’ Et cetera. “Eh, it wouldn’t have been such a big deal. I spend half my life over there already.” The girl looked like she could use some humour to cheer her up—she was acting like she’d just attacked him herself! Sweet, but he couldn’t have her fretting unduly. The most severe ‘trauma’ he picked up in the incident was a bruised ass.

“Mint choc chip,” he announced as he walked towards the stand, rubbing his lower back slightly as they went. “You know, I think favourite ice-cream flavours say a lot about a person. Though I’ve never even come across birthday cake ice-cream before.” Hmmm. Todd had a habit of putting people into boxes, and reading too much into everything. Neuroticism’s like that. What the hell did birthday cake as a favourite ice-cream flavour mean? “Guess that means you’re a rarity or something. Or that you like mashing two perfectly good things into one ungodly abomination of hyperglycaemic wonderfulness.”

Todd would have felt bad if he knew that Aislynn was on the skint side. He himself did okay for money—he wasn’t wealthy, but the hospital he worked for had to offer some sort of incentive for getting blood-splattered every day. He wouldn’t have minded paying. And he looked increasingly amused as she listed off the names of her dogs. “Right, so I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark here and say… you’re kind of into superheroes. Like, you know, a little bit.” He had to smile a little at the charming eccentricity of the fact that every single one of her many dogs was named for a different hero. He bent down to look at the one she’d called Batman. “This one’s missing the utility collar. No supervillain dogs, then?”

“I don’t get out much,” he said innocently. Birthday cake ice-cream sounded like the sort of thing one had to hunt down and find, and Todd spent most of his life working and what little free time he had either obsessing over his music collection, slugging it out with Jay or organising his apartment from top to bottom in far more many ways than was strictly necessary. “I dunno; if you like a flavour that not many other people like, it means you sort of stand out, right? It’s a good thing. Get off that beaten track.”

He waggled his eyebrows when she asked what mint choc-chip meant. What did it mean? What did it mean? Well… he’d always thought of it as a slight acquired taste, the sweet and the sting together, but like he was going to say that. Way too schmoopy for an emotionally stunted a manly man like him. “I guess you’ll have to find out from, I dunno, talking to me, then,” he said, reaching over to pick up the ice creams as they were handed over the counter. He held her towering ice cream out and then paused. “Want me to hold a dog or two, or can you manage?”

Loves sweets, animals and comics. He hadn’t known people like this existed anymore! And she smiled a lot, too. Who went around smiling at people, these days? It was a bit baffling. “Eleven animals? Do you run a petting zoo or something?” Holy crap, Todd couldn’t imagine having that many pets. Then again, he’d never had even one pet before. His mother wasn’t fond of animals, and since he’d moved out his job had taken up too much time for him to be a responsible petowner. Oh, yeah, and there was the whole ‘being responsible’ thing too. “Eh, I kind of ended up rooting for the Hulk anyway, though. Antihero! Antiheroes are where it’s at. Then again, Deadpool is a bit of a grim name for a dog.” There were some straight-up villains too that Todd quite enjoyed. Practically all of the Batman villains, for instance. Maybe if he ever loaded himself up with pets he should counterbalance: Joker, Scarecrow, Penguin, Ivy and Catdog.

“Of course I do,” he said, as though anybody who didn’t like comic books was clearly an imbecile. “But I haven’t been keeping up with them. Not for a few years now, actually. Work just never ends, you know? And I’m clearly not a…” His lips twitched a little into a smile. “…seasoned connoisseur like you are.”

“Many have tried,” he said in an exaggeratedly spooky voice before laughing slightly and shrugging. That was what he had to say to that. Just… shrug. Todd was something of a workaholic. His job made him feel more fulfilled than probably any other aspect of his life. Therefore he took on buttloads of extra shifts, ran himself ragged by taking up duty at ungodly hours of the night and morning, and basically never slowed down enough for a breather. Even just sharing ice cream in the park right now felt kind of weird, and technically he was on duty. Just waiting for some kid to break another kid’s nose with a football or something. “Oh, absolutely. We’re too hip for the mainstream nonsense. You take your birthday cake ice cream: I’ll have my jellybean vodka. Beautiful.”

The whole ‘lovers’ bit had him a bit confused but mostly amused. Tangling himself up in bad or stupid phrasing was something he did fairly regularly when he wasn’t working; it was kind of weird seeing it from the other side. Another reason he worked so much—he always knew exactly what to say and do with his work. At a party, on the other hand… good grief, was he lost. “As you were. I’m sure it’s none of my business what you decide to study in your spare time,” he said—again, innocently. A bit too innocently, really. “Sweet,” he said as she handed him the two leashes, wrapping them around his free hand. The other one was full of delicious, delicious mint ice cream. He looked down at the two calm, patient dogs. Awesome. They didn’t look like they were going to attack him. No worries. Phew.

“I have zero pets. Nada. My life is a pet-free zone.” He paused for a beat. “Unless you count my friend Jay, which I’m sure most of the population would. He requires about the same amount of care and attention as your average evil baby chimpanzee. But no actual animals, no. I can’t even imagine what having so many running around must be like. Don’t they tire you out?” The comedown from an adrenaline high was the one-hit KO of the hormone world. Todd had days that he got home and literally passed out. He couldn’t see himself handling multiple animal care. “Yeah, not really a job for the squeamish,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “Though we don’t get our own cinematic background music, which I think is kind of unfair because I would totally choose to be followed around by the heroic Star Wars theme as I action-roll to the rescue. Also? Horror movies are the best.”

He had to grin a bit at her description of the Hulk’s immense, pent-up rage. “Succinct. Yeah, turning big and green and hitting the furniture rarely solves your problems… but I do wonder if it was a little bit satisfying.”

Todd probably drank slightly less than the average man his age—until he hit an emotional crisis of some sort, at which point gallons of precious ethanol was snatched cruelly away from the world forever. He’d done the drinking, the pot, the all-nighters at university. Now he was fairly sensible, if only because he’d started worrying so damn much over the last few years. He was paranoid. “I didn’t invent it myself… I think it’s one of those word-of-mouth inventions. Like L-plate joints.” He was such a great public figure, here in his paramedical uniform and all. Such a role-model.

“Chicago’s full of eccentricity,” Todd said, spreading his arms out as though inviting her to take a look around. “You know, sometimes I feel like the only sane person in this city.” And that one needs no commentary.

“Ah, having no life. Hear, hear! Join the club. I spend my time carting grannies between hospices or trying to refrain from telling people like junior over there to man the hell up.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the Sunstroke Kid—the reason he was here in the first place. Todd’s co-worker appeared to be trying to chat up the kid’s mother… and succeeding. “Maybe that’s what we need to get us out and about more. Fellow goblin-people who are just as reclusive. We’ll make a big gang and take the city by storm.” Maybe. In an idle daydream as he sat parked outside of a supermarket waiting for a callout to crackle over the radio. Honestly, Todd couldn’t see himself ever being a social butterfly. He didn’t mind—he enjoyed his own company! But… well, you know. It got a bit samey after a while.

He nodded along re: horror films. Todd was a bit of a junkie himself—an adrenaline thing, no doubt, though these days lots of horror films were accidentally hilarious as opposed to scary. Either that or gory shock-fests that had no impact on him whatsoever. “Simplicity’s the stuff. Have you seen the Paranormal Activity films? Best horror movies to come out for a long, long time, and most of the point is that you don’t see the monster. And the budget was so low that a lot of the stuff they did was just, you know, super tricky filming that I don’t know the methods of. Unless…” Eyebrow raise. “It was real.” Ha, ha.

He had to laugh at that—but at the same time as her, so it was as though he was laughing with her. He was, really. Oh, bless her. He wanted to wrap her up in a blanket and put her on a high shelf somewhere. Not in a psychopath-y sort of way. Just in a… keeping her out of trouble sort of way. And now here he was again, unable to stop himself from wanting to take people under his wing. He could barely look after himself, let alone others! Sometimes he could have sworn most of his friendships were based on a mutual assurance of rescue from self-destruction.

“You’re a crazy dog lady—they’re a little more manageable,” he said conspiratorially, even leaning in somewhat as though trying to avoid being overheard by someone else. This was pure wisdom, after all, not to be dispensed for nothing. And then it turned out that she worked for Crazy Jay himself. He choked a little on the bite of ice-cream cone he’d been nibbling at and then laughed. Brilliant. How he loved to undermine his bropal. “Yeah, that’s the one. Good grief. I literally can’t imagine working for him, and neither do I want to. My condolences.” To be fair, if Todd worked for Jay, there would probably be a lot more dual bullying than there is in your average employee-employer relationship. “Though the bookshop’s a good place. I recommend it highly. And bring things to trade! It doesn’t operate on money.”

When she mentioned her doggies, he handed the leashes back to her. My, but she could scarf down an ice cream. Todd could eat fast when he wanted to—and had to a lot of the time, caught between emergencies at work. Actually, maybe that was why he preferred to take it slow when he could. In any case, he was getting quite into this uprising of the socially awkward. “Vive la revolution,” he said, cracking a proper grin. His entire face changed when he smiled for real. “I bet we could do it. If all else fails, we lay down a trail of poptarts for them to follow, all the way to a house party.”

He huffs a soft laugh at the voice, though he’d raised his eyebrows in surprise when she’d confessed that she hadn’t seen Paranormal Activity. No way! They were brilliant, in his opinion. Almost all suspense, with some great payoffs in the form of well-timed jump-scares. “I know! And it’s kind of charming even when you can see the set shaking as they run from the slasher, and the make-up for the monster is obviously made of breakfast cereal and mincemeat. Though sometimes they do it right, and when they do it right…” The Todd Barclay Nod Of Approval. “It’s awesome.”