Old Soul

[divisionary]

Time seems to move slower now. There's less to worry about, less time spent running from one crisis to the next, less time spent worrying about what happens when the Division's sole remaining active Agent takes a moment to catch her breath. Part of that is the fact that they've broken the back of the Russians.

Taleb is still in rough shape. The least-severely injured of his cohorts are under lock and key down in the cells. (Not one of them can look Lindianne in the eye when she goes down there to question them. She doesn't look at them, either. It's difficult to reconcile facts.) JTF personnel and 42nd ID soldiers alike seem nervous about dealing with one another.

So much for the good mood from Valentine's Day.

Lindianne, as usual, is parked outside of Spook Country with a manila folder. Faye's been getting a lot of paperwork lately, so she's tried to lighten the load as best as possible. That means filling in requisition forms and reports for higher up the food chain. There's a half-eaten snack bar balanced on her knee as she writes.

There's a pause.

Then, casually, Lindianne leans back in her chair to peek around the corner at the SEALs. "Whoever invented paperwork was evil," she says casually.

Comments

[divisionary]

Scratch another name off the list.

Lindianne, breathing hard from the blitz attack on Voodoo, takes a moment to rally. She takes the simunition gun from Rabbit. She holds it up, sighting down the barrel at poor Voodoo. Then a smile spreads across her face. It isn't a nice smile.

"It would be my pleasure," she croons. "After all, I'm a Mets fan." The snicker that comes out of her would be enough to give even the most hardened NYPD cop the willies. (In the weeks to come, Lindianne will do everything she can to hide her own birthdate from the SEALs. Turnabout is not, in fact, fair play.)

There's no hesitation when she shoots him in the arm. With an exaggerated flourish, she holds the gun back out towards Rabbit. "Your weapon, sir."

The entire situation is so ridiculous that it loops back around to being funny.

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo grunts in pain, ducking his head and cursing under his breath as Rabbit accepts his weapon. "Thank you kindly, Agent Parker. We still have a lot of ground to cover, but this should make for a very nice start."

"When I get out of this shit, Rabbit, I'm going to kick your fucking ass-"

"Two counts of profanity in the presence of a court official." Rabbit shakes his head. "It's almost enough to make me lose hope. How will you pay penance for those charges, Brian?"

Voodoo rolls his eyes again. "Fuck you. Give me the fuckin' schnapps."

"Four counts of profanity in the presence of a court official." Rabbit smiles at Lindianne, twisting open the bottle before drawing out a shot's worth of liquid into the syringe. "This'll be fun to see through."

[divisionary]

She smiles back at Rabbit, snapping him a casual half-salute. "Not a bad place to start, Rabbit." A half-beat. "Eric."

A quiet reminder that she knows his name. She knows all of them now, except for Preacher. But Preacher is hard enough to understand at the best of times. She's never met anyone as quiet as he is. But he'll let it slip eventually. All she needs to do is be patient.

Her smile twists into something a little more sardonic. "Jesus, where'd you even find that stuff?" Probably from the National Guard. Nowhere in the city is going to have much decent alcohol left months after society fell apart. Very few places are going to have bad alcohol left. It's more useful as Molotov fuel or for bartering now.

Most things are.

She leans forward to look at Voodoo. "Brian, huh?" A chuckle. "Cute."

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo glowers at her before Rabbit approaches with the syringe, tapping his boot. "Open wide, Brian. You don't want a contempt of court charge."

Then, to Lindianne: "Conned some dogface truckers out of it. You'd be amazed at what a trident gets you with them."

With a roll of his eyes, Voodoo tilts his head back and opens up, and Rabbit squirts four full syringes of the schnapps into his mouth, one after the other. On the third shot, his eyes start to water, and on the fourth, he sputters and coughs as he swallows it down, shaking his head. "Jesus Christ-"

Rabbit tsks. "His Majesty will broker no mention of pagan idols in his presence, Brian. That's another charge."

"Fuck you. Fuckin' shoot me, you fuckin' prick."

"Another four charges." He tsks again, taking the pistol out and holding it butt-first to Lindianne. "You looked like you had some fun with it. Four shots, anywhere below the neck and above the belt."

[divisionary]

This time, there's some hesitation. Lindianne looks at Rabbit wide-eyed before looking at Voodoo. It takes a moment to steel herself before taking the pistol. "All right. That's fair game." No need to sight this time. She knows how it works. She knows it pulls ever-so-slightly to the left.

And she knows it's going to bruise no matter where she shoots.

"Nothing personal," she says to Voodoo as she points the pistol at him. "You know that." The first shot is to the shoulder. The second, to the bicep. The third, to his ribs. The fourth is a textbook shot for center mass. She quickly hands off the pistol to Rabbit before taking a step back.

"Don't even think about it," she says blandly. "My birthday is a secret." Now she winks at Voodoo. "And you'll never find it." No revenge for him.

[boston_bruiser]

It's all the better, really - considering how many simunition rounds and shots of schnapps they burn through before it's done, whatever payback Lindianne would get on her birthday would be just as bad, if not worse.

They alternate between shots for what seems like forever to Voodoo, and yet, the fun cannot last forever. An hour into the shenanigans, and their simunitions are completely spent, the bottle of schnapps empty. Voodoo looks like a wreck - his FROG shirt is dotted with wax and impact marks from all the simunition rounds, and in some places is stained with blood from where the impact has broken the skin. He's visibly drunk, too - what insults and provocations he throws out are slurred, and there's a glossy look in his eyes as he shakes himself off and bows his head, readying himself for the next round.

Rabbit sighs, regarding the scene before him. "I'm out, Parker's out - you got any more mags, Preacher?"

Preacher shakes his head. Rabbit sighs again. "Well, damn. And here I was hoping we'd be able to go a little more. -just one last thing-"

Quickly, he pulls a disposable camera out of his vest, lines up Voodoo in the viewfinder, and snaps off a shot. The resulting picture will look like this: Voodoo slack against the duct tape, sloshed out of his mind and his shirt bloody, and looking straight at the camera with a glossy stare.

"-there we go," he says, tucking the camera back into his vest. "Okey-doke - Preacher, watch the passageway. Parker," he says, producing a knife and cutting through the duct tape, "help me get his drunk ass out and to his bunk, would you?"

[divisionary]

"Yeah, yeah, I've got him," comes the answer from Rabbit's left. (Along with a blatantly-telegraphed grab for the camera. She's not going to let her own blackmail material stay in his hands forever.)

The instant Voodoo's arm is free, she slings it over her shoulders. He's a big guy; lugging around a massive machine gun will do that for a person. She staggers for a moment before shifting her posture. "Up you get," she half-croons. "Easy now, easy. No more schnapps for you, Brian."

No. Calling him by his real name feels strange. After so long spent with the SEALs, months under the metaphorical gun, those names are the ones that feel right. They're not Eric or David or Brian. They're Rabbit and Mother and Voodoo. Just like she's not Wraith. She's Parker.

SHD rules of engagement state that anonymity is the way to go. You use codenames and make sure no one knows who you are. The only place that information is kept is on ISAC. That little orange smartwatch is the only link to what makes an agent more than just a spook.

But the situation has changed. There's never really been a point to the subterfuge. It gives the civilians hope to have a name with the face. Less and less often is Wraith in use. Now it's just Parker. That seems right.

"Jesus, Voodoo, lean the other way. You're crushing me here."

[boston_bruiser]

Rabbit smirks and angles himself just out of Lindianne's reach - that camera is still safe and sound, and probably going under lock and key once they get back to Spook Country. "Just a heads-up - if we get a callout, and he's still blotto? Mother's probably gonna have you hump the pig."

(That'd be a sight to see.)

"Fugg you," Voodoo slurs, dragging his feet along the floor as he hangs like a dead weight in their grip. "Woulda- would kicked your fuggin' asses if- if you hadn't jumped me-"

"Yeah, well, you'd probably still find a way to trip over your own feet, pal," Rabbit says, grimacing as he pulls him along the hallway, Preacher taking point and ensuring the coast is clear. "Jesus but you're a fat fuck. We need to get you on some Jenny Craig."

The only response is a string of muttered curses from Voodoo as he makes himself even more of a dead weight between the two of them, Rabbit straining with every foot. "C'mon - don't be a bitch about it-"

It takes Preacher helping out to muscle him back to Spook Country and back into his bunk, but once they do, Rabbit leans down to slap a piece of paper onto Voodoo's chest, upon which is typed official-looking legalese.

"Your pardon from King Neptune himself."

As the three of them crowd around his bunk and his glassy eyes move amongst each of them, Rabbit smiles, socking him in the shoulder.

"Happy birthday, you lunkhead."