Who: Holly Strange & Erik von Brandt What: He's coming to her rescue in this reality too Where: Holly's family's house in San Diego, CA When: Saturday night, December 3rd 2016 Warnings: TBD. Mentions of alcohol & drug abuse, also death
It had been a long time since Holly had been this bad off. Long enough that she'd actually started to fool even herself into thinking that all of that was behind her. Not many people these days knew the old Holly, outside of her brother. The Holly that spent most of her free time strung out at a different club every night, and often started drinking again as soon as she woke up. That was the old Holly. She was never very happy, always depressed or angry about something, she was her own worst enemy. She was weak. Holly never liked to remember the person she used to be, and how long it had taken her to dig herself out of that destructive hole after she lost her twin sister. That was a wound that would never fully close, but for years now, Holly had learned how to manage it.
So much for staying on the somewhat straight and narrow. Holly still drank, still went to parties, but that was the new Holly. The Holly who didn't use booze and substances like a crutch, who knew when to cut herself off and was just as capable of having a good time without alcohol as she was with it. The Holly who was capable of being there for her friends and family, or what was left of them anyway. She was no stranger to losing people. It had started with her sister and it hadn't stopped there. Then it was her dad, who wasn't exactly the greatest guy on earth but he was still her dad. Her mom might as well be dead, for all that she'd never left that mental hospital, and Holly had never gone to visit her. The only person left in the Strange house was Holly, since Topher had moved out years ago, and she mostly stayed living in the house full of ghosts out of spite. She'd lost most of her family, and now she'd finally started losing her friends.
Holly had made plenty of friends over the years. Some better than others. Most of them had been people she'd met at raves that were great for having a good time with strangers but really bad for almost anything else. In all honesty, Colby had been the first real friend Holly had in years. Not that she didn't consider the other Young Avengers her friends, they were. She loved them all, but Colby? Colby had been her best friend, and now she was gone. She and Clay were both gone because of that stupid, horrible virus, and Holly had been left behind again. Just the story of Holly's life, apparently. Everyone died on her, and she always got to stay and try to pick up the broken pieces. Holly had never been very good at that, and this time wasn't really an exception.
For weeks following their deaths and long after the funeral, all she'd felt was a continuous state of numb. Holly had immediately backslid, though at first she'd actually made an effort to try and hide it from everyone. Her friends, her coworkers, her brother. She didn't want them to see how fast and far she'd already fallen. It'd started with some intense self-medicating at home that only got worse after that weird reality shift a month ago. Kate knew what had happened, because she knew about those things, and Holly just drank until she didn't care anymore. She'd started going out again, hitting a lot of her old haunts that she hadn't been back to since she'd gotten her life together. It was safe to say that Holly had hit rock bottom, and she was content on staying there.
Among other things, she'd stopped holding training sessions with her team. She was pretty sure no one else felt like training much right now anyway, and Holly couldn't bring herself to fake it. She only showed up to work out of formality, but it was so obvious she was off her game that Colin had mostly been sticking her on surveillance shifts, where Holly just ended up staring blankly at camera footage for hours. It had gotten to the point that she'd started having trouble keeping track of the days, everything slowly becoming one big, drunken, drugged out haze until she wasn't even sure which end was up anymore. Including tonight. Holly was all dressed up in her favorite black mini skirt and halter top like she had somewhere to be, but after 3/4 of a bottle of tequila, everything else had completely slipped Holly's mind as she swayed and stumbled around her empty house in four inch heels, the black eyeliner and mascara she'd so carefully applied earlier already smudging along her eyelids as she held the bottle to her lips and sang into it along with the Bon Jovi that was currently blasting from her stereo speakers. "Whooooaaaaa, we're halfway theeeere - whoooaaaa! Liiiiivin' on a praaay-er!"