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Tweak says, "I like tea~"

Violet Ward ♛ Cinderella (theothershoe) wrote in thereincarnates,
@ 2011-07-20 00:45:00

Entry tags:

annie cash, grace cash

Who. Grace and Annie Cash
What. The Cash sisters are both on their own little recon missions. Bumping into each other and lots of WTFing ensue
Where. On the outskirts of Gondor, Middle Earth
When. Wednesday afternoon, July 20 2011
Warnings. TBD?

Grace had been running around like a chicken with her head cut off for the past week. Not exactly a new thing for the sassy, Texan bred princess but even for her, she'd been feeling stretched pretty thin these days. Working for X-Factor by day while doing errands for the Agency and going undercover in the Resistance by night, she was doing the job of six people instead of three. After awhile even the toughest nails would start to feel it, but nothing ever stopped Grace Cash. Not completely. Just like nothing ever stopped Cindy. They always found a way to keep going and still kicking ass in the end. It was just the way the Fables were wired.

For the past three days Grace had been stuck in Middle Earth pretending to do recon for the Resistance. Most of the time she was able to keep her triple life miraculously neat and tidy, but the thing about having more than just a double life meant that sometimes you couldn't prevent things from getting a little messy. This week was a pretty shining example of just how unpredictable and chaotic it could be. She'd had to call in sick at X-Factor because of her prolonged absence, a fact which had her worrying enough as it was while she was on the (other) job. Working as a personal assistant was only supposed to be her cover, but Connor and Stu couldn't even buy the right coffee beans without her so the fact that she had to send in that mousy haired, incompetent temp for the past three days in her place only made her more grouchy. The hazards of the job(s) were many and varied? She'd never admit that it was actually because she liked working for those guys more than anything else.

That, and for the past three days she'd been seeing nothing but rolling hills and open field. Even the most beautiful scenery got repetitive after awhile. She missed the mall. On the third day she finally reached the outskirts of Gondor, shouldering the pack on her arm as she stopped under the shade of a tree to rest for a minute before starting the hike down into the city. Normally a trip through Middle Earth would take closer to a year like in the books but Grace could say one thing about the Resistance. They sure did have some handy dandy tools. The R&D department had given her a homemade teleportation device they'd strapped to her wrist and told her 'it worked in theory'. Well lucky for Grace it had worked, if only in short spurts, but at least she hadn't ended up in pieces scattered across the globe. Not that that thought would have deterred her, she and Cindy just weren't living life to the fullest unless they were living it on the edge with fancy gadgets. It was just like having Bigby for a boss again. If Bigby was the head of a secret corporation of scary, psychotic murderers...

Grace scoffed to herself and her life choices as she yanked her water bottle out of the side of her pack and plopped down in the grass, resting her elbows on her knees and looking out into the distance. This whole recon thing could stand to be a little more interesting than it actually was. Of course, the second she thought that, that's when she caught a rustle in some nearby brush out of the corner of her eye. Her gun was in her hands in an instant as she rose on her legs to a low crouch. If someone was watching her, they were about to get a face full of a very unhappy Cinderella.

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toolupthen
2011-07-20 07:56 pm UTC (link)

Annie wasn't sure just how cut out for recon she was. For one thing, she'd been grumbling a good deal of the time that she was actually in human form about where she was assigned to. While she understood why Tatiana had sent her to Middle Earth--wolves were faster, had better senses, and were just better off in the terrain than humans--she still couldn't help wishing she'd been assigned to Chicago. Certainly there was more shopping and less mud there. Secondly, she was supposed to be checking things out, gathering intel for Camelot. Instead her brain was elsewhere; namely, on the fact that she shouldn't have told Leon about Camelot right before she went on a damn mission. That was stupid. Unavoidable given how awful a job she'd done lying, but still incredibly stupid.

There was also the small problem of clothes. Where as Jacob had the benefits of being able to wear big shorts so that when he went back to human his privates were still covered, the same didn't work for Annie. For one thing, her hips were a lot more lean than Jacob's, but she was still taking on his full wolf form. Shorts baggy enough for that would never stay on her. Which meant that immediately after being a wolf? She was naked until she could get the clothes on that were in the bag she'd tied to her leg.

Which was the whole reason she was in the brush in the first place. Being a wolf was great for the travel and the senses, but she had smelled people, and she was better off as a human. It was less likely she'd get shot or something as a girl than as a big ol' beast in the middle of Middle Earth. Last thing she wanted was an arrow in the behind. She was finishing pulling her shirt down over her stomach when she stepped into view, instantly swearing in her thick, Texan accent when she came face-to-face with the barrel of a gun. Apparently the whole theory about being safest as a human was moot in these lands.

"Lord have mercy!" She threw her hands up, eyes widening when she connected the gun to its owner, eyebrows instantly furrowing in confusion. "Gracie? What in Sam Hill are ya doin' here? This ain't even close to M-Town..."

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theothershoe
2011-07-20 09:25 pm UTC (link)

It took a few seconds for it to fully register for Grace that she was pointing a gun at her own sister, and then her face immediately morphed into a hard frown. What the fuck was Annie doing here? Well this was just great. Her life wasn't already messy enough that now she had to deal with her sister walking in on her undercover operations? For as much of a planner as Grace was, she was having a hard time coming up with a quick cover story off the top of her head. Aaron was going to kill her.

So, she did the next thing that came to mind. She reacted on her most basic instinct, to keep them out of the line of vision of anybody else who might be around. Which was probably no one, but you could never be too careful, especially when you were a spy. Grace and Cindy had learned the hard way that they couldn't afford not to be paranoid a long time ago. Better safe than sorry, and now her family was involved. Of all the times to get in deep with the family drama.

With a frustrated grunt, Grace didn't respond but yanked Annie by the collar down to the ground and back into the brush. Now that they were safely away from prying eyes, she dropped her gun to her hip where she was now crouching and stared incredulously at her sister. "Me The hell are you doing here, little sister? Business trip my ass!"

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toolupthen
2011-07-20 10:56 pm UTC (link)

Gettind dragged down into the brush wasn't exactly what Annie was expecting, and considering how damn tall she was, it wasn't a pleasant experience either. Her body crunched over and then hit the ground with a displeased grunt before she could wrestle herself free of her sister's grip. No matter the height difference, Grace's strength was always enough to put her over the top.

"Nuh-uh!" Annie said quickly, waving her finger at her sister as she scrambled into a seated position. She had been about to stutter out an explanation when the realization occurred to her that Grace hadn't answered her, and the hell if she was going to be the first to cave. Besides, she wasn't sure she could come up with a logical excuse as to why she was trolling around Middle Earth alone with a bag tied to her leg.

"Gracie, I asked ya first, and it ain't polite not to answer a question. This ain't New York, and I can't see either of them charming bosses of yours around. What on earth are ya doin' in the middle of Hobbitland?"

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theothershoe
2011-07-21 04:14 am UTC (link)

Great. This was all just... great. The one time Grace lets her guard down for a second, and she gets caught red handed. She was just damn lucky it hadn't been someone else, but still. This was bad. She kept Annie out of what she did for a reason. The work she did was dangerous. It was the kind of work that got family members and loved ones killed long before you if you weren't careful. Grace was careful. Too careful. Sometimes it even scared her just how good she was at the game of deception, but it was what had kept her and the people she cared about alive up until this point so she wasn't about to question it.

Now a monkey wrench had been thrown into the works and Grace wasn't sure what to do. Tell Annie the truth? The whole truth? Just part of the truth? Or none of it. She knew Annie would believe almost anything she told her as long as it sounded plausible, but something about the prospect of lying to her face after just getting caught made the older Cash sister sick to her stomach. She loved most aspects of her job, but lying wasn't exactly at the top of the list of things she loved about it. It was the skin tight outfits.

"Polite? When the hell have we ever cared about polite? How in the hell did you-" Grace paused, sitting back on her heels as her jaw dropped and she took another hard look at her sister. The way she was dressed, the bag tied not so subtly to her leg... Grace knew that get up, she knew it better than most. She looked like she was on a mission. "Annie," Grace said slowly, eyes narrowing as she finally lowered her gun all the way to the ground, a new fear rising in her gut. "This isn't funny. You see those not so distant mountains? That's Resistance territory, so I'll ask you again. What are you doing her?"

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toolupthen
2011-07-21 05:07 am UTC (link)

"Well I care about polite when you ain't tellin' me the truth!" Annie said, waving her hand to accent her points. A second later and she was folding her arms across her chest in the same way she always had when she was about to be stubborn with the wicked step-bitch. Usually in those times it was accompanied by a foot stomp and some whining to daddy about unfair treatment. It never got her anywhere, but it sure annoyed the woman enough to be worth it. Now it was just a sign of annoyance. Even her head rocked some.

"I ain't being funny, Grace, I know that's Res--" Annie trailed off, and soon her eyes were narrowing suspiciously at her sister. It wasn't general knowledge that the Resistance had Mount Doom. Annie knew because she'd been debriefed through Camelot, given a map to follow, and shipped off on her mission. As far as she knew, it was only Camelot and the Resistance that had that information, and Grace wasn't in Camelot. If she was, Annie would've known.

"Gracie, how'd you know them mountains belong to the Resistance? That ain't somethin' everybody..." Annie swallowed. "Lord help me, you ain't with them, are ya? Are you off your rocker?!"

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theothershoe
2011-07-21 10:57 pm UTC (link)

Grace opened her mouth and immediately closed it again, falling into a short silence while she more thoroughly gathered her wits. Annie knew this was Resistance territory? How was that even possible. Grace and Cindy were well versed in making things up on the spot when they were caught off guard, but this was her sister. For a second she actually wished she was being interrogated by psycho killers instead, at least then she'd know the correct response. She'd just tell them to shove it up their tight asses, but she couldn't say that to Annie.

She sat in silence for a few minutes, regarding her sister with a more calculating look as she began to relax, the shock wearing off and being replaced by a quick mind that was considering every possible angel she could take. When she finally spoke her voice was low and careful, much different from the near panic it had hinted before at the prospect of Annie getting mixed up in all this insanity.

"Sounds like we're both lying here, Annie. Not just me." She paused, licking her lips and exhaling slowly as she finally sat down fully and crossed her arms over her knees, rolling her eyes at her sister's accusation. "If you even have to ask me that, you really don't know much about me."

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toolupthen
2011-07-22 02:27 am UTC (link)

The silence was unnerving. It shouldn't have been; every moment of silence that passed by was a moment where she didn't have to come clean in her exploits with Camelot to her sister. The problem was that Annie knew her sister--knew all Cashes, really--being quiet was never something to feel safe about. Her brain was always working, and normal times meant Annie loved that about her. Right then? She really wished her sister had the IQ of a fly; it would be so much easier to get away with lying to her.

Annie reached down to untie the back from around her leg, instead slinging it over her shoulder like a normal person. She didn't need it tied if she wasn't in wolf form, and the less weird she looked at the moment, the better.

"Well I ain't really thinkin' you joined up with the loonies!" Annie said in exasperation, even flailing a bit as she continued on trying to explain herself without giving too much away. The problem was that she was never that great of a liar to those who knew her, and when she got emotional it was worse. Things slipped out that shouldn't.

"Ain't nobody know about this place 'cept the Resistance and Camelot, and I know for a fact your pretty behind ain't working with Camelot 'cause I woulda seen--" Annie stopped and pursed her lips together. That was a lot more than what should've been said, which meant that in a couple of days alone she was zero for two. "I just ain't cut out for undercover, am I?"

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theothershoe
2011-07-22 07:33 am UTC (link)

"Maybe you are, maybe you're not, but I'll give you a free pass this time since it's me you're slippin' up with and not some psycho murderer who would torture you for weeks before they'd string your body up on a telephone pole. Just don't forget how damn luck you are." Grace hadn't actually meant to put it like that, but the minute Annie more or less revealed that she was in Camelot, all of Grace's red flags went up instantly. This was not good.

Now, Grace was firmly neutral. As in, she didn't buy into Camelot or the Resistance's pretty speeches. Her loyalty lay with the sane(er) people who didn't make a habit of following bullshit, but she wasn't clueless. She knew what both sides were capable of, especially to each other. The truth was the opposite of pretty. Grace had more or less sealed her fate a long time ago, to say that she didn't want this for Annie would be a severe understatement, but she tried her best to reign most of her panic in as she finally found words again.

"You're wrong about one thing, sugar. Resistance and Camelot aren't the only ones who know these things. There's a lot more than just them out there doin' their part and I'm one of those other people that they can't know about. You with me so far? Good. Now how about you explain to me just what the hell you think you're doin' with Camelot?"

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toolupthen
2011-07-22 02:50 pm UTC (link)

There weren't many times that Annie would admit, even just to herself, that she had things in common with a character from Twilight. While Jacob was on the least-annoying end of the scale for the series--something that didn't say much, all things considered--she tried to put distance between herself and....lamer things. Unfortunately, this was a case where she just couldn't do that. She'd never been a girl who had problems with self-esteem, but being able to turn into a wolf had done nothing less than make her downright cocky, and when Grace gave her less-than-subtle warning about getting strung up by the Resistance, Annie couldn't stop the amused snort that came out.

"Gracie, ain't nobody stringing me up if they can't catch me, and they ain't catchin' me if I go wolf on them." She gave her sister an amused grin and reached over to accent it with a playful shove. In the middle of Middle Earth on a dangerous mission? Please. This was Grace. It was hard as hell being dead serious around her sister. "You're gettin' all ahead of yourself."

However, Grace's revelation knocked the smile right off her face. Annie's eyebrow shot up in surprise. "I think I'm followin' ya, but... Hell, that ain't nothin' like being a secretary. You need to teach me how to lie like that." Annie paused and let her gaze drift to the horizon where the Resistance's territory lie. Mount Doom. They couldn't get more cliche if they tried, scooping up the bit of Middle Earth reserved for evil to start with. "I think what the hell I'm doin' is puttin' my shiftin' to good use and helpin' push back the bad guys. Ain't no use sittin' on the sidelines if everybody's gonna die on me."

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theothershoe
2011-07-22 10:30 pm UTC (link)

"This isn't a joke, Annie!" Grace snapped loudly at her, deflecting her shove and shoving her back harder. Her face immediately morphed back into that hard frown and it stayed that way as she leaned forward in an attempt to lower her voice but keep her tone steady. Grace was normally an even tempered, fun loving gal, but there was a few things she actually took seriously enough to react appropriately to. Her sister and the Resistance were one of them.

"You think this is a game? Christ. I should have known. You can't have been with them more than what. A few weeks? A couple months? And they're already sendin' you out on dangerous missions, not havin' the sense to get you trained up enough that you don't take a group like the Resistance as a damn joke? 'Course not. This is why I don't fight for either side, one thing that can be said about both of 'em is they don't train their people right. When things are heatin' up they just recruit and throw you right smack dab in the middle of the fryin' pan and expect you to swim. Shit, Annie. Are you really this dumb?!"

Grace huffed, trying to take a deep breath and failing miserably as she sat back and clapped a hand to her forehead in an attempt to calm down. It didn't really work. "You're not gonna survive two damn seconds if you can't even lie. What the hell are you doing in recon? I don't care if you're a werewolf, little sister. And you know what? They won't care either. You have no idea the kinds of people they got in that group of psychos and some of them? You bet your ass they could string you up and kill you, wolf or not. Don't make jokes when you have no idea just what the hell you're getting yourself into, which you clearly don't."

And how could she know? She wasn't pretending to work for them, Grace was, but Grace couldn't get into that for Annie's safety and the other people Grace worked for. Didn't change the fact that Grace was in full on panic mode now. She'd never been so serious with her sister in her life, but if there was ever a time that time was now. She'd seen enough of the people working for the Resistance to know that everything she'd just said about them was one hundred percent true.

"... I'm sorry," she eventually said, taking deep breaths and forcing the anger out of her voice. "It's just. You are really barking up the wrong tree here if you think this is going to be a piece of cake for you, Annie. It's not. Far from it. And now I've got you to worry about on top of everything else."

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toolupthen
2011-07-25 06:25 pm UTC (link)

"Hey!" Annie protested instantly as soon as Grace started on her tirade. There was something to be said for both girls; mainly, when it came to southern cliches, the one they fell into the most often was their fiery tempers. Grace was angry--and well in the right to be, even if Annie was having a hard time seeing it just then--but it was fueling a fire in Annie's belly that made her clench her jaw hard to refrain from saying anything she would regret. This wasn't like fighting with some pervert at a bar whose feelings she didn't care about hurting, this was her sister.

"I ain't stupid, Gracie, I know it ain't a game. Christ! I wasn't born yesterday!" Annie tried to interrupt the lecture to no avail, and when it was obvious it hadn't worked, she even managed to pout at Grace with her arms folded across her chest. It wasn't done on purpose, but it was a habit she had whenever Grace had the upper hand. Which was often. She couldn't deny that her sister was the more clever Cash, even if it was a painful thing to admit.

"It doesn't take no genius to know what kinds of people they got workin' for them! All you gotta do is turn on the news. You see that guy they strung up from the overpass? He was one'a ours. Or them people killed by that virus thing? I ain't no safer sitting out than sitting in, and at least if I'm in I can know I tried to help, even if I suck at it." Annie pushed a piece of her hair out of her face with more force than was necessary and let out a long sigh. This was a mess.

"You ain't sorry," She rolled her eyes, but there was no affection lost there. "And you ain't gotta be. But I don't think it's a piece of cake, I just ain't gonna sit here and worry every second that I'm gonna be some Resistance creeper's bitch. It ain't how I work, you know? And it ain't gonna help me do nothin' if I'm worryin' all the time." Annie paused and eyed Grace again, once more letting her eyes narrow suspiciously. "What's everything else you gotta worry about?"

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theothershoe
2011-07-26 10:23 pm UTC (link)

"All the more reason to be more careful than you're being, Annie. Notice how I had my gun on you before you even had time to reach for your own? You can't mess up like that in front of one of them and expect to live." Grace could have said more, she could have kept lecturing for hours but she stopped for a moment to catch her breath, mentally preparing herself to continue. As much as she wanted to be completely honest with her sister about what she was doing, she couldn't be. It wasn't just her life and her career at stake if the wrong people found out.

It also took her a few seconds to recover and not burst out laughing at Annie's pouting. Leave it to her little sister to always pull the pout and stomp when things got ugly between them. Grace had to love that about her. When she finally spoke again she was much calmer, though her voice had lost none of its firmness as she sat back and relaxed most of the tension in her body.

"No I'm not, and I can't tell you. At least not until I'm sure you could actually keep your mouth shut under intense interrogation." She paused, forcing the sharpness out of her tone and smiled a little. "Daddy would have a damn heart attack if he knew the sorts of daughters he'd raised."

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toolupthen
2011-07-28 08:59 pm UTC (link)

"Alright, alright, your message has been sent, Gracie. I'll be more careful. But I ain't lettin' this go, you know! You ain't in Camelot or the Loony Squad, so just what in the hell are you doin' out in the middle of nowhere?" Annie gave her sister a stern look--or what Annie attempted to pass of as a stern look considering she'd never quite conquered the art of pulling anything over on Grace. All of her secrets were now bare on the floor for the older Cash woman to know about, but other than the fact that Grace somehow knew what all of this was, Annie knew nothing regarding Grace's reason for being there. The realization that Grace had gotten that much information without giving much in return was more than a little frustrating.

Annie looked down at the ground and picked at her shirt, trying to buy a couple of minutes while she tried to come up with a strategy in her head. If it was somebody else, she knew she could do it. She'd been damn good at charming out information even before she joined the war. But with Grace? The girl knew every trick Annie ever tried, and the guilt over lying to her sister got in the way of coming up with new ideas. It was more than just inconvenient.

"I can keep my mouth shut, I just ain't good at lyin' to you." Or Leon, but adding another name to the list wasn't likely to help her cause, so she kept quiet. Until Grace's last statement made her laugh. Only the Cash sisters would joke around in an intense situation like this one. "Damn right he would. The old man has a heart attack just over all them clothes I like to wear. He ain't ever gonna recover if he knew we're out being reincarnate soldiers or whatever. That girl would probably celebrate, though."

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theothershoe
2011-07-29 12:42 am UTC (link)

"Well that's a damn relief at least," Grace looked at her with a pointed smile. She didn't exactly enjoy having the upper hand, but she couldn't say she didn't find it a little convenient that her sister couldn't lie to her. And even though the idea of giving Annie any information that could be used against her under heavy interrogation made Grace's stomach churn, she could at least give her something. Annie had always been the softer of heart of the two Cash sisters, and sometimes Grace wished she was a better person herself. Maybe then she'd feel guilty enough about this to give her the whole truth.

"Okay, Annie. I'll tell you. But you gotta keep this a secret, okay? You can't tell anyone. Not even Leon," she added as an after thought, making meaningful eye contact with Annie to emphasize her point. Then she took a deep breath and shrugged, resigning herself to the fact that her perfect record of keeping her double life completely top secret now had a fat black mark on it. In her head, Cindy was still cursing up a storm.

"I don't work for them. Not really. But I am deep in the loony bin working undercover. Now, before you ask, I cannot tell you who my boss is. That's top secret information and no one can know who doesn't know already. Lot of people's lives at stake if the wrong people found out, not just mine. Seriously, Annie. Promise me right now you won't ever say a damn word. We're not Camelot or Resistance. We're something else." Something better, she thought quietly to herself but didn't voice it.

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