people are like push through the artblock keep drawing YOU. JUST. NEED. TO. KEEP. DRAWING. - like my guy i just came back from my yearly monthlong artbreak and shat out the best sketch of my little pookie bear
what you need to do is to sit back and chill, let your brain process everything for a bit and then keep going, the tiktok-ification of art is really doing a number on y'all
Let's play a game called "How Messed Up Is Your Fanfiction Taste?"
Basically, you check the boxes from [this link]. The higher the score, the more innocent you are. The lower the score, the more of a degenerate you are.
Here I was thinking I get an easy ride home, changing trains once, being at home at an acceptable time, y'know fun little Berlin excursion.
Yeah no. Not even two stations in and somebody had a medical problem and now we're waiting on the ambulance.
People shit on DB and German trains but like half of the time it's not even their fault. Not that it is whoever is in need of medical attention either.
Overall a very good trip but I don't do well with changing location as much as I did this time. Or maybe I'm just in a depressive slump again.
It was so much fun watching all the students in their uni overalls and I managed to grab some patches myself, can't wait to destroy my fingers with embroidery again.
pairing: OC!Whiskey x MootOC!Rosie (platonic)
words: lord knows, I'll tell you soon
cw: canon-typical violence/talk, attempt at military accuracy, espionage, government conspiracies, paranoia, mental breakdown/issues, physical/health neglect, flashbacks.
August 6th, 2023.
2139 hours.
Comrie, Scotland.
Whiskey's splayed out on the bed. She snaps a picture that catches only her tired eyes, knit eyebrows and poofy brown hair in the darkness of the room, before typing some random caption and shooting it off to Meabh.
It was typical for them to text through Snap. It was the only social app Whiskey kept after she left home 5 years ago. Her phone was void of other apps other than food delivery, youtube, her e-mail and Snapchat.
At the top of the screen, a pop-up appears, announcing the arrival of a new e-mail on her inbox. A Facebook one, from an account she long abandoned, along with her abandoning all other social medias. And yet, the name 'Holly Willi-' cut off by the character limit had her raising a brow.
Tapping at the notification, her e-mail client opened with an automated e-mail from Facebook alerting her that Holly Williams had sent her a direct message. Now that's new.
Holly Williams... That was one of dad's cousins. From Grandpa Willie's side of the family, if her memory served her. She remembers family dinners and barbecues spent together, her big Irish-American family getting together for the 4th of July, and Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
She hasn't seen her 'Aunt Holly' (even though the woman was really her first cousin once removed) since before she went to university nearly 13 years ago. What could the woman want now?
Clicking on the link, she's taken to the Facebook client page on her browser and after trying, failing, and reseting the password of her account, she clicks the DM tab and opens the message:
Hi Vicky dear, it's your auntie Holly. Hope you're doing well. I heard about your papa, my condolences. I hope it's not a bother but I reached out to your mama to talk to your daddy about some military things and she sent me your way because she said you're in the navy. I see you haven't uploaded anything in a few years so this might not even reach you but I could use your help very urgently and I'm frankly desperate. If you see this, is there anyway you could call me at this number? It's very important!!! Thanks. Aunt Holly x
Her brow scrunches. Since when does Aunt Holly need to talk about the military? Isn't she a professor? Whiskey clicks on her profile and checks her job listing. Right, she's a History professor in NYU. So what's this? Is this for some research study of hers?
But then again, she said it herself that she's desperate... And the tone of her message isn't the most uplifting one... She sounds like she's really in need of her help... And Whiskey has never been good at being heartless. Sighing and scratching her head, Whiskey sits up in bed.
She copies the number from the DM and calls it, hearing the repeated beeping of the call attempting to connect as Simon comes up the stairs and into the bedroom, sweatpants close to falling off his hip and wrapped in a warm sweater.
He raises a brow at her as she's holding the phone to her ear, signaling vaguely to indicate it's an important call, so he takes a spot beside her, with an arm around her waist.
"Holly Williams." The older woman greets on the other side, her voice professional, like she was waiting for a work call.
"Hey, Aunt Holly, it's Victoria." Whiskey murmurs, her southern accent suddenly triggering full-force, like it hasn't in over three years.
-
August 20th, 2023.
1321 hours.
Yonkers, New York.
"When you get there, please, you need to understand, she's... she's not herself."
Victoria climbed out of the Uber and popped open the trunk, pulling out her black suitcase, and thanking the driver with a nod and a wave before he drove off.
Then, she stood in front of the brownstone townhouse, eyeing it up and down, with inquisitive eyes, before taking a deep breath and climbing the front steps to the stoop.
"She hasn't been the same, not after Alex passed away."
The doorbell rings inside the house for a few moments, before the door opens and a pale face regards her from the other side, strawberry blonde curls disheveled, eyes heavy with dark circles.
"Hey, Rosie..." Victoria greets gently. The woman knew she was coming, Aunt Holly having warned her. "It's me, Victoria... Vicky, remember?" She asks in a soft tone, hoping she's not too far gone yet.
"Vicky..." Rosie says softly as she regards the slightly shorter brunette with wild, crazied eyes but eventually nods and unlocks the door all the way, letting Victoria inside.
"When you see her, please... be kind to her. She's really struggling..."
Victoria remembers the last time she saw Rosemary. Victoria had to have been 16. Rosie had just graduated from college, and it was the summer. At the time, she always dressed in bright colors, a hippy style, with Birkenstocks galore... She was very put together, healthy, pretty. They weren't the closest cousins in the world, but they spent time together during the holidays; Rosie taught Vicky how to do her hair to keep her curls healthy; they spoke about boys...
Before coming here, Victoria had even checked her cousin's Facebook page, finding an old album of photos from family gatherings that included the two of them, when they were much, much younger (and happier). It had been so long since they last saw each other... She needed a refresher on her cousin's appearance...
But now, as she's getting let into the house, she realizes Rosemary looks like shit. Somehow, worse than Victoria had expected when her mother had reached out and told her all about the state she is in. Paranoid, manic, depressive and reclusive, Aunt Holly worrying her only daughter was schizophrenic. Her hair looks greasy and matted, and she seems like she's lived in the same outfit for multiple days, maybe weeks. The house reeks. She reeks.
"Nobody can get her out of the house... And she's not taking care of herself..."
The house is dirty and messy, take out containers and paper bags of food delivery strewn about, the trashbag in the kitchen overflowing, the laundry basket in the laundry room too. Every picture frame in the house has blue, yellow, or pink post-its over it, the mirrors as well. Victoria follows her cousin across the house, each step she takes crushing some trash, or nearly tripping over a clothes pile. She's dangerously close to becoming a hoarder, it looks like...
Victoria has to force herself to take a few deep breaths through her mouth and not her nose, so that she doesn't get sick. She knows it would not be helpful in her cousin's state.
Rosie's able to push some trash off the couch to make space for the two of them to sit, though she keeps a large gap between herself and Victoria, probably ashamed of her smell, or appearance, or doubting that she can trust her...
"Every time I try to talk to her... It's like I'm talking to a crazy person... She's my daughter, I love her, but she needs help..."
"Your mom told me some of what's been going on." Victoria begins as she sets her hands on her lap and looks at Rosie with her best attempt at showing empathy and kindness.
"What'd she tell you? That I'm going crazy? I'm not, you know?" Rosie says defensively. "She thinks I'm losing it, and that I need to be committed, but I don't." She assures the brunette.
"Well, no, that's not what she said." Victoria lied. Yes, it had been 100% what Aunt Holly had said when they met up the day before, after she picked Victoria up at the airport, having bawled her eyes out behind the wheel.
"Then what did she say?" Rosie asks directly, her brows knitting together in anxious worry, her hands already trembling on her lap.
"To be honest," Victoria continues, choosing her words carefully, "I didn't understand most of it... I think it'd be best if I heard it from you. Can you tell me what's been going on?" She asked in earnest.
And tell her, Rosie did.
For the next three hours, Victoria heard her ramble and ramble, more and more and more.
About Alex, about his missions, about how Rosie always worried he'd die in the field, how they pronounced him dead in 2019 but she never got to see a body, only his dogtags, and his grave is empty... Victoria thought that was pretty normal, average even... it was the normal treatment for soldiers who died in ways that made it so their body couldn't be recovered... Like during an explosion.
But then Rosie went on and on about how she feels like she's being watched, stalked, surveilled, how she gets stopped by cops too much, and keeps seeing the same faces around the places she usually goes to like Target or Walmart, how there's a van parked outside 24/7, how she's sure that there's cameras and microphones around the house... And it was all being too much.
"She thinks she's being stalked, watched by the govenment, and like they're out to get her."
"Rosie... why would the government be doing such a thing?" Victoria asked her in earnest once she paused in her rants.
"You're not LISTENING!" Rosie complained, her body already having started to shake in distress as she retold everything to her cousin.
"No, no, I am listening. I'm just trying to understand." Victoria replied in an attempt to soothe her and gently took her hands in hers, which caused Rosie to tear up.
"It's NOT the government, it's the CIA!" The blonde shrieked and sniffled, trembling beside Victoria. "Alex was an agent... he..." She trailed off and shook her head. "Nobody tells me anything, I tried calling, nobody tells me!"
Victoria sighed and carefully scooted closer, taking a breath and daring to wrap an arm around Rosemary's form, in the gentlest of ways. "That tends to happen a lot, you know? They... well... when a soldier dies a gruesome death. They close the cases and put high clearances in place so that it doesn't shock the family." The brunette said.
"She's in complete denial, Vicky. She's living in her paranoia and delusion..."
"No!" Rosemary argued. "He's not dead, Vicky, he's not! Whatever... Whatever happened, they're covering it all up! They- he's not dead! They didn't even tell me how he died! Not even if it was heroic or anything!" She wailed as a hiccuping sob rattled her and shook her form against Victoria's side.
Victoria sighed and looked around the room. She was not equipped to deal with this. She half wished that Simon was here. He had dealt with people in altered states of mind, his brother, especially...
"You need to help me, Vicky... You're my only hope! You have to find out what happened. You know people, right? My mom said your mom said you're in the Special Forces! You know things?!" Rosie whined in a pitiful tone, her big blue eyes glued to Victoria's, and making her own hazel ones soften.
"I'll try, Rosie... But even I don't have that high of clearance..." Victoria replied in a soothing tone. "But I promise I'll try."
Victoria meant it. Her cousin might be mental and delusional, but, at least, Victoria could poke around a little bit and see if she could at least find what happened to the body...
"Where did you say he was sent to?" The soldier asked with a cocked brow, her hand gently rubbing Rosie's arm and shoulder in her best attempt at being comforting.
"In the Middle East... Urzikstan, I think..." Rosemary replied and looked up at Victoria. "You're going to look into it, right?" She pleaded.
Victoria nodded. "Of course I will." She replied and smiled at her, trying not to let the feeling of instant dread that was growing in the back of her mind from showing on her face.
Urzikstan... Price and Kyle were just there last year... Working alongside the militia there.
"Now... how about I help you give this place a tidying up... and you go take a shower, and try to relax, hm?" She offered.
Rosie's face began to flush a bit, with the sudden reminder that she had been neglecting herself and probably smelled so bad... And here was Victoria hugging her. "I probably should..." She trailed off and began pulling away from the other woman.
The brunette let her go and nodded. "Call me up when you're done, I'll help do your hair, how's that?" She offered and smiled kindly at Rosie.
Rosemary gulped and nodded. "Yeah..." She got up, beginning to shuffle out of the living room. She stopped by the door and turned back to look at her cousin. "Thank you for this... for everything..." She said gratefully.
Victoria shook her head. "Don't thank me. That's what *family*'s for, right?" She asked, though the word family, one she hadn't used in a while, left a bitter taste in her mouth. Rosie nodded and then disappeared back upstairs.
Once Victoria heard the bathroom door upstairs shutting with a loud thud, she bounced up off the couch.
Whiskey mode activated and she began looking around the room, pulling out her cellphone and turning on the flashlight to shine it off any hidden nook and cranny, like behind the TV, and inside the A/C vents.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Five fucking cameras, just in the living room and entryway alone. She doesn't want to imagine how many more are hidden throughout the house.
It seems that Rosie isn't as delusional and crazy as Aunt Holly thought...
Approaching the window, Whiskey pulls the blinds aside and pears out through the gap, pushing her back against the wall, looking up and down the street. She notices the white van parked a couple hundred feet away, advertising a dry-cleaning service. She knows immediately that that's where they operate from.
She almost wants to go over, with her pistol in hand, and scare them off. But she knows better than to fuck with the Agency... And, even more so, when she's not here as Whiskey, but as Victoria. As a civilian, with no armor, just a red halter top and jeans and boots, coming to visit her cousin.
Huffing, she shakes her head and closes the blinds again. "God damn it..." She murmurs, already feeling her own paranoia rising and her hackles rising. She's going to need to pull some strings to find out what in the hell went so wrong in Urzikstan 4 years ago that now an innocent civilian is being surveilled.
With another sigh, Victoria turns and looks around the room, noticing all the trash and, with a deep breath, she sets down her belongings on the cleared couch and enters the kitchen to seek out a pair of gloves and a trash bag.
This is going to be a long fucking day.
-
August 20th, 2021.
0209 hours.
Victoria lies sprawled on the bed next to Rosie, the two girls staring at the ceiling.
It had been hours upon hours of tidying up and cleaning, but the house was finally clean, the trash taken out, and Rosemary much less disheveled.
They lay together, side by side, holding each other's hands, more for Rosie's comfort, which Victoria has acquiesced to. Victoria has a handle of bourbon in her hand which both her and Rosie occasionally take sips from.
"So you got married...?" Rosie murmurs and rolls her head toward Victoria. She's groggy, a mix of the alcohol, a full belly, a warm shower, a couple of melatonin gummies and the whiskey.
"Mhm." Victoria replies as she glances at Rosemary. "I didn't expect you to still be with dick boy." She quips.
The comment is funnier than Rosemary expected it to be, probably because of the state she's in, but she starts cackling aloud, snorting delightfully at it.
"Oh my God, I forgot he damn near showed his dick to grandma Patty while coming out of the pool." Rosie groans and shakes her head. "God, Alex was so embarrassed, he never wanted to go back!"
"That's what he was embarrassed of? Not that stupid fuckin' pube-looking mustache of his?" Victoria's comments, absolutely roasting the man, the alcohol having loosened her lips. "Did he still have that when he left for Urzikstan?"
Rosie once again has lost her mind belly laughing at the scathing comments her cousin made about Alex. Oh, how she needed the laughter.
"Noooo! It filled out. He had a nice thick mustache by then..." She replies and shakes her head, a soft smile on her lips.
"Well, at least there's that. I guess he outgrew his bad fashion choices." Victoria comments before she leans her head up to take another gulp of the bourbon on her bottle.
"Oh no he didn't!" Rosemary complains and suddenly seems to get a burst of energy, leaning forward to look at Victoria right in the eye. "He has the American flag tattooed on him!"
It's Victoria's turn to laugh, nearly choking on the drink, and causing the sweet, smooth alcohol to slide down her chin as she laughs. "Fuck off, no he doesn't?!"
"He DOES!" Rosemary insists. "And a bald eagle too!!!" She adds, which causes them both to laugh more, cackling at the ridiculousness. "I'm serious! Looked the eagle in the eyes once while he was balls deep in me.... You've ever tried getting a dick out of a dry pussy?"
This causes both girls to giggle again, nearly rolling around on the bed, tears forming in their eyes.
"God, and you married that man? He's been a fucking dork for decades now, Rosie!" Victoria complains.
"In my defense, we were drunk and in Vegas, okay?"
"YOU GOT MARRIED IN VEGAS?!"
"You know what?!" Rosie protests and points at Victoria. "We're talking too much about my marriage. What about you?" She asks in an accusatory tone.
Victoria rolls her eyes. "Don't change the subject just because you can't admit you have bad taste."
"Am not!" Victoria retorts. "I'm also married to a dork. But, unlike you, I have taste."
"How much of a dork are we talkin'?"
"Has a half-sleeve that's just straight up war motifs. Atom bombs, skulls, bullets..." She trails off. "And he wears a skull mask when he's out shooting terrorists."
"He WEARS what?"
Victoria shakes her head. "Don't make me say it again." She scrunches her nose, mock cringing.
"And you want to talk shit about me marrying Alex? You married, what, an emo?" Rosie quips as she tosses herself back on the bed, laughing again.
Victoria joins her, covering her eyes with her arm and giggling away, properly so, for the first time in three years. "God, we have bad taste, don't we?" She murmurs.
"You think it runs in the family?" Rosie asks with a playful tone and giggles again.
But this time, however, Victoria doesn't laugh. Instead, her eyes squint in suspicion and she suddenly sits up in bed, looking off into the distance.
How much of a coincidence would that be? Her husband, who is legally dead, who faked his own death and operates under an alias...
And her cousin's husband... who Lord knows what happened to him... But the CIA has their eyes on her, even though he's dead, so there's no reason to...
What if it really is a cover-up? What if he's only legally dead, just like Simon?
"What?" The blonde beside her asks in a gentle tone, eyebrows knit together. "Vicky, what's wrong?" She prompts, worried.
"...Nothing." Victoria replies as she lays down again after a long moment of silence. "Just realized I have to call Simon and ask him something..." She replies dismissively.
for @lyralein - told you she'd get more than that.
and also @crashtestbunny , @superhero-landing , and @loveandplanet bc you love Whiskey and Ghost
pairing: OC!Whiskey x MootOC!Rosie (platonic)
words: lord knows, I'll tell you soon
cw: canon-typical violence/talk, attempt at military accuracy, espionage, government conspiracies, paranoia, mental breakdown/issues, physical/health neglect, flashbacks.
August 6th, 2023.
2139 hours.
Comrie, Scotland.
Whiskey's splayed out on the bed. She snaps a picture that catches only her tired eyes, knit eyebrows and poofy brown hair in the darkness of the room, before typing some random caption and shooting it off to Meabh.
It was typical for them to text through Snap. It was the only social app Whiskey kept after she left home 5 years ago. Her phone was void of other apps other than food delivery, youtube, her e-mail and Snapchat.
At the top of the screen, a pop-up appears, announcing the arrival of a new e-mail on her inbox. A Facebook one, from an account she long abandoned, along with her abandoning all other social medias. And yet, the name 'Holly Willi-' cut off by the character limit had her raising a brow.
Tapping at the notification, her e-mail client opened with an automated e-mail from Facebook alerting her that Holly Williams had sent her a direct message. Now that's new.
Holly Williams... That was one of dad's cousins. From Grandpa Willie's side of the family, if her memory served her. She remembers family dinners and barbecues spent together, her big Irish-American family getting together for the 4th of July, and Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
She hasn't seen her 'Aunt Holly' (even though the woman was really her first cousin once removed) since before she went to university nearly 13 years ago. What could the woman want now?
Clicking on the link, she's taken to the Facebook client page on her browser and after trying, failing, and reseting the password of her account, she clicks the DM tab and opens the message:
Hi Vicky dear, it's your auntie Holly. Hope you're doing well. I heard about your papa, my condolences. I hope it's not a bother but I reached out to your mama to talk to your daddy about some military things and she sent me your way because she said you're in the navy. I see you haven't uploaded anything in a few years so this might not even reach you but I could use your help very urgently and I'm frankly desperate. If you see this, is there anyway you could call me at this number? It's very important!!! Thanks. Aunt Holly x
Her brow scrunches. Since when does Aunt Holly need to talk about the military? Isn't she a professor? Whiskey clicks on her profile and checks her job listing. Right, she's a History professor in NYU. So what's this? Is this for some research study of hers?
But then again, she said it herself that she's desperate... And the tone of her message isn't the most uplifting one... She sounds like she's really in need of her help... And Whiskey has never been good at being heartless. Sighing and scratching her head, Whiskey sits up in bed.
She copies the number from the DM and calls it, hearing the repeated beeping of the call attempting to connect as Simon comes up the stairs and into the bedroom, sweatpants close to falling off his hip and wrapped in a warm sweater.
He raises a brow at her as she's holding the phone to her ear, signaling vaguely to indicate it's an important call, so he takes a spot beside her, with an arm around her waist.
"Holly Williams." The older woman greets on the other side, her voice professional, like she was waiting for a work call.
"Hey, Aunt Holly, it's Victoria." Whiskey murmurs, her southern accent suddenly triggering full-force, like it hasn't in over three years.
-
August 20th, 2023.
1321 hours.
Yonkers, New York.
"When you get there, please, you need to understand, she's... she's not herself."
Victoria climbed out of the Uber and popped open the trunk, pulling out her black suitcase, and thanking the driver with a nod and a wave before he drove off.
Then, she stood in front of the brownstone townhouse, eyeing it up and down, with inquisitive eyes, before taking a deep breath and climbing the front steps to the stoop.
"She hasn't been the same, not after Alex passed away."
The doorbell rings inside the house for a few moments, before the door opens and a pale face regards her from the other side, strawberry blonde curls disheveled, eyes heavy with dark circles.
"Hey, Rosie..." Victoria greets gently. The woman knew she was coming, Aunt Holly having warned her. "It's me, Victoria... Vicky, remember?" She asks in a soft tone, hoping she's not too far gone yet.
"Vicky..." Rosie says softly as she regards the slightly shorter brunette with wild, crazied eyes but eventually nods and unlocks the door all the way, letting Victoria inside.
"When you see her, please... be kind to her. She's really struggling..."
Victoria remembers the last time she saw Rosemary. Victoria had to have been 16. Rosie had just graduated from college, and it was the summer. At the time, she always dressed in bright colors, a hippy style, with Birkenstocks galore... She was very put together, healthy, pretty. They weren't the closest cousins in the world, but they spent time together during the holidays; Rosie taught Vicky how to do her hair to keep her curls healthy; they spoke about boys...
Before coming here, Victoria had even checked her cousin's Facebook page, finding an old album of photos from family gatherings that included the two of them, when they were much, much younger (and happier). It had been so long since they last saw each other... She needed a refresher on her cousin's appearance...
But now, as she's getting let into the house, she realizes Rosemary looks like shit. Somehow, worse than Victoria had expected when her mother had reached out and told her all about the state she is in. Paranoid, manic, depressive and reclusive, Aunt Holly worrying her only daughter was schizophrenic. Her hair looks greasy and matted, and she seems like she's lived in the same outfit for multiple days, maybe weeks. The house reeks. She reeks.
"Nobody can get her out of the house... And she's not taking care of herself..."
The house is dirty and messy, take out containers and paper bags of food delivery strewn about, the trashbag in the kitchen overflowing, the laundry basket in the laundry room too. Every picture frame in the house has blue, yellow, or pink post-its over it, the mirrors as well. Victoria follows her cousin across the house, each step she takes crushing some trash, or nearly tripping over a clothes pile. She's dangerously close to becoming a hoarder, it looks like...
Victoria has to force herself to take a few deep breaths through her mouth and not her nose, so that she doesn't get sick. She knows it would not be helpful in her cousin's state.
Rosie's able to push some trash off the couch to make space for the two of them to sit, though she keeps a large gap between herself and Victoria, probably ashamed of her smell, or appearance, or doubting that she can trust her...
"Every time I try to talk to her... It's like I'm talking to a crazy person... She's my daughter, I love her, but she needs help..."
"Your mom told me some of what's been going on." Victoria begins as she sets her hands on her lap and looks at Rosie with her best attempt at showing empathy and kindness.
"What'd she tell you? That I'm going crazy? I'm not, you know?" Rosie says defensively. "She thinks I'm losing it, and that I need to be committed, but I don't." She assures the brunette.
"Well, no, that's not what she said." Victoria lied. Yes, it had been 100% what Aunt Holly had said when they met up the day before, after she picked Victoria up at the airport, having bawled her eyes out behind the wheel.
"Then what did she say?" Rosie asks directly, her brows knitting together in anxious worry, her hands already trembling on her lap.
"To be honest," Victoria continues, choosing her words carefully, "I didn't understand most of it... I think it'd be best if I heard it from you. Can you tell me what's been going on?" She asked in earnest.
And tell her, Rosie did.
For the next three hours, Victoria heard her ramble and ramble, more and more and more.
About Alex, about his missions, about how Rosie always worried he'd die in the field, how they pronounced him dead in 2019 but she never got to see a body, only his dogtags, and his grave is empty... Victoria thought that was pretty normal, average even... it was the normal treatment for soldiers who died in ways that made it so their body couldn't be recovered... Like during an explosion.
But then Rosie went on and on about how she feels like she's being watched, stalked, surveilled, how she gets stopped by cops too much, and keeps seeing the same faces around the places she usually goes to like Target or Walmart, how there's a van parked outside 24/7, how she's sure that there's cameras and microphones around the house... And it was all being too much.
"She thinks she's being stalked, watched by the govenment, and like they're out to get her."
"Rosie... why would the government be doing such a thing?" Victoria asked her in earnest once she paused in her rants.
"You're not LISTENING!" Rosie complained, her body already having started to shake in distress as she retold everything to her cousin.
"No, no, I am listening. I'm just trying to understand." Victoria replied in an attempt to soothe her and gently took her hands in hers, which caused Rosie to tear up.
"It's NOT the government, it's the CIA!" The blonde shrieked and sniffled, trembling beside Victoria. "Alex was an agent... he..." She trailed off and shook her head. "Nobody tells me anything, I tried calling, nobody tells me!"
Victoria sighed and carefully scooted closer, taking a breath and daring to wrap an arm around Rosemary's form, in the gentlest of ways. "That tends to happen a lot, you know? They... well... when a soldier dies a gruesome death. They close the cases and put high clearances in place so that it doesn't shock the family." The brunette said.
"She's in complete denial, Vicky. She's living in her paranoia and delusion..."
"No!" Rosemary argued. "He's not dead, Vicky, he's not! Whatever... Whatever happened, they're covering it all up! They- he's not dead! They didn't even tell me how he died! Not even if it was heroic or anything!" She wailed as a hiccuping sob rattled her and shook her form against Victoria's side.
Victoria sighed and looked around the room. She was not equipped to deal with this. She half wished that Simon was here. He had dealt with people in altered states of mind, his brother, especially...
"You need to help me, Vicky... You're my only hope! You have to find out what happened. You know people, right? My mom said your mom said you're in the Special Forces! You know things?!" Rosie whined in a pitiful tone, her big blue eyes glued to Victoria's, and making her own hazel ones soften.
"I'll try, Rosie... But even I don't have that high of clearance..." Victoria replied in a soothing tone. "But I promise I'll try."
Victoria meant it. Her cousin might be mental and delusional, but, at least, Victoria could poke around a little bit and see if she could at least find what happened to the body...
"Where did you say he was sent to?" The soldier asked with a cocked brow, her hand gently rubbing Rosie's arm and shoulder in her best attempt at being comforting.
"In the Middle East... Urzikstan, I think..." Rosemary replied and looked up at Victoria. "You're going to look into it, right?" She pleaded.
Victoria nodded. "Of course I will." She replied and smiled at her, trying not to let the feeling of instant dread that was growing in the back of her mind from showing on her face.
Urzikstan... Price and Kyle were just there last year... Working alongside the militia there.
"Now... how about I help you give this place a tidying up... and you go take a shower, and try to relax, hm?" She offered.
Rosie's face began to flush a bit, with the sudden reminder that she had been neglecting herself and probably smelled so bad... And here was Victoria hugging her. "I probably should..." She trailed off and began pulling away from the other woman.
The brunette let her go and nodded. "Call me up when you're done, I'll help do your hair, how's that?" She offered and smiled kindly at Rosie.
Rosemary gulped and nodded. "Yeah..." She got up, beginning to shuffle out of the living room. She stopped by the door and turned back to look at her cousin. "Thank you for this... for everything..." She said gratefully.
Victoria shook her head. "Don't thank me. That's what *family*'s for, right?" She asked, though the word family, one she hadn't used in a while, left a bitter taste in her mouth. Rosie nodded and then disappeared back upstairs.
Once Victoria heard the bathroom door upstairs shutting with a loud thud, she bounced up off the couch.
Whiskey mode activated and she began looking around the room, pulling out her cellphone and turning on the flashlight to shine it off any hidden nook and cranny, like behind the TV, and inside the A/C vents.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Five fucking cameras, just in the living room and entryway alone. She doesn't want to imagine how many more are hidden throughout the house.
It seems that Rosie isn't as delusional and crazy as Aunt Holly thought...
Approaching the window, Whiskey pulls the blinds aside and pears out through the gap, pushing her back against the wall, looking up and down the street. She notices the white van parked a couple hundred feet away, advertising a dry-cleaning service. She knows immediately that that's where they operate from.
She almost wants to go over, with her pistol in hand, and scare them off. But she knows better than to fuck with the Agency... And, even more so, when she's not here as Whiskey, but as Victoria. As a civilian, with no armor, just a red halter top and jeans and boots, coming to visit her cousin.
Huffing, she shakes her head and closes the blinds again. "God damn it..." She murmurs, already feeling her own paranoia rising and her hackles rising. She's going to need to pull some strings to find out what in the hell went so wrong in Urzikstan 4 years ago that now an innocent civilian is being surveilled.
With another sigh, Victoria turns and looks around the room, noticing all the trash and, with a deep breath, she sets down her belongings on the cleared couch and enters the kitchen to seek out a pair of gloves and a trash bag.
This is going to be a long fucking day.
-
August 20th, 2021.
0209 hours.
Victoria lies sprawled on the bed next to Rosie, the two girls staring at the ceiling.
It had been hours upon hours of tidying up and cleaning, but the house was finally clean, the trash taken out, and Rosemary much less disheveled.
They lay together, side by side, holding each other's hands, more for Rosie's comfort, which Victoria has acquiesced to. Victoria has a handle of bourbon in her hand which both her and Rosie occasionally take sips from.
"So you got married...?" Rosie murmurs and rolls her head toward Victoria. She's groggy, a mix of the alcohol, a full belly, a warm shower, a couple of melatonin gummies and the whiskey.
"Mhm." Victoria replies as she glances at Rosemary. "I didn't expect you to still be with dick boy." She quips.
The comment is funnier than Rosemary expected it to be, probably because of the state she's in, but she starts cackling aloud, snorting delightfully at it.
"Oh my God, I forgot he damn near showed his dick to grandma Patty while coming out of the pool." Rosie groans and shakes her head. "God, Alex was so embarrassed, he never wanted to go back!"
"That's what he was embarrassed of? Not that stupid fuckin' pube-looking mustache of his?" Victoria's comments, absolutely roasting the man, the alcohol having loosened her lips. "Did he still have that when he left for Urzikstan?"
Rosie once again has lost her mind belly laughing at the scathing comments her cousin made about Alex. Oh, how she needed the laughter.
"Noooo! It filled out. He had a nice thick mustache by then..." She replies and shakes her head, a soft smile on her lips.
"Well, at least there's that. I guess he outgrew his bad fashion choices." Victoria comments before she leans her head up to take another gulp of the bourbon on her bottle.
"Oh no he didn't!" Rosemary complains and suddenly seems to get a burst of energy, leaning forward to look at Victoria right in the eye. "He has the American flag tattooed on him!"
It's Victoria's turn to laugh, nearly choking on the drink, and causing the sweet, smooth alcohol to slide down her chin as she laughs. "Fuck off, no he doesn't?!"
"He DOES!" Rosemary insists. "And a bald eagle too!!!" She adds, which causes them both to laugh more, cackling at the ridiculousness. "I'm serious! Looked the eagle in the eyes once while he was balls deep in me.... You've ever tried getting a dick out of a dry pussy?"
This causes both girls to giggle again, nearly rolling around on the bed, tears forming in their eyes.
"God, and you married that man? He's been a fucking dork for decades now, Rosie!" Victoria complains.
"In my defense, we were drunk and in Vegas, okay?"
"YOU GOT MARRIED IN VEGAS?!"
"You know what?!" Rosie protests and points at Victoria. "We're talking too much about my marriage. What about you?" She asks in an accusatory tone.
Victoria rolls her eyes. "Don't change the subject just because you can't admit you have bad taste."
"Am not!" Victoria retorts. "I'm also married to a dork. But, unlike you, I have taste."
"How much of a dork are we talkin'?"
"Has a half-sleeve that's just straight up war motifs. Atom bombs, skulls, bullets..." She trails off. "And he wears a skull mask when he's out shooting terrorists."
"He WEARS what?"
Victoria shakes her head. "Don't make me say it again." She scrunches her nose, mock cringing.
"And you want to talk shit about me marrying Alex? You married, what, an emo?" Rosie quips as she tosses herself back on the bed, laughing again.
Victoria joins her, covering her eyes with her arm and giggling away, properly so, for the first time in three years. "God, we have bad taste, don't we?" She murmurs.
"You think it runs in the family?" Rosie asks with a playful tone and giggles again.
But this time, however, Victoria doesn't laugh. Instead, her eyes squint in suspicion and she suddenly sits up in bed, looking off into the distance.
How much of a coincidence would that be? Her husband, who is legally dead, who faked his own death and operates under an alias...
And her cousin's husband... who Lord knows what happened to him... But the CIA has their eyes on her, even though he's dead, so there's no reason to...
What if it really is a cover-up? What if he's only legally dead, just like Simon?
"What?" The blonde beside her asks in a gentle tone, eyebrows knit together. "Vicky, what's wrong?" She prompts, worried.
"...Nothing." Victoria replies as she lays down again after a long moment of silence. "Just realized I have to call Simon and ask him something..." She replies dismissively.
for @lyralein - told you she'd get more than that.
and also @crashtestbunny , @superhero-landing , and @loveandplanet bc you love Whiskey and Ghost
