Who: Neena and her finches (Linette, Deryn) What: The Red Room says hello When: Today, a bit after 1pm Where: Neena's house. Rating/Warnings: R, triggers for guns and blood. Status: Complete!
Linette was worried about Neena. Ever since she and that...strange boyfriend of hers had broken up, Neena hadn’t been all that sober all that often.
And sure, they were just sort of staying with her but she wasn’t a bad person and she was concerned.
So she and Deryn were going to stage an intervention.
“Okay mère,” She grabbed Neena’s hand and pulled her into the kitchen. They’d at least gotten donuts?
"What did I tell you about speaking French at me in the morning?" Neena said, though it was more like a half-asleep, slightly-still-drunken drawl. Sure, things had been bad since her and Yondu's shouting match, but she had no one to blame but herself. He was right. She was gonna end up alone and married to her job.
And the two girls? Well, thank goodness she could blame how fucked up they already were on Russia. The thought did cross her mind that she probably should try to be a better role model to the two of them, but at the moment? Neena's field of fucks was empty.
"But hey... there's donuts!" She said, adding to the running commentary in her head. Which made her squint at Linette suspiciously. "Did you run out of money already?"
“It’s 1pm,” Deryn pointed out, opening the fridge and stealing one of Neena’s beers.
“We’ve got plenty of money,” Linette replied, reaching behind her to lock the kitchen door to prevent a quick escape from Neena.
“We’re worried about your drinking.” Deryn opened the bottle and knocked back half of it.
"Aw, fuck." Neena knew something was up the second Linette threw the lock, but seriously? An intervention? Coming from two fifteen year old girls, no less? She pulled open a drawer and got out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, glaring pointedly at Deryn as she tapped one out and lit it up.
"You're worried about ME drinking? Seriously?" Neena gestured at Deryn and at the bottle, sounding half amused and half angry. Or at least as angry as anyone could manage in her current state. "You're like... breaking at least two laws there. Right there. First of all, that's stealing. And also you're a damned teenager."
Wordlessly, Deryn pulled out a dollar bill, folded into a paper airplane and tossed it at Neena.
"That beer was way more than a dollar, kid." Neena said, dryly.
Again, Deryn pulled out a dollar, folded it and then flew it at Neena. And then for good measure she followed it with two quarters. Each bounced off the center of Neena’s forehead.
“Deryn,” Linette scolded.
Neena continued to stare blankly at Deryn as the quarters made contact with her forehead and clattered to the floor. This was absolutely ridiculous and she was either too drunk or too sober for it. She couldn't figure out which, and that was usually when she added whiskey to her coffee.
But there were no liquor bottles visible on the countertops anymore, nor in the higher places of the kitchen that most adults without fancy bars or cabinets liked to keep it. For her, that was on top of the fridge.
For good measure, she turned and checked the freezer for Vodka, only to find none. That's when she took a good long drag off her cigarette and turned back to them. "... It's fine. You don't know me, I'm always like this. Can I have my vodka back now? TELL me you didn't go stealing that."
“There is a difference between Neena Before Breaking Up With Yondu and Neena After Breaking Up With Yondu.” Deryn, as always, being blunt. She was Irish and raised in a Russian Black Ops facility, what about it?
“We think you should drink a little less,” Linette suggested.
“You’re not fun anymore.”
“I would not go that far,” Linette muttered. “But oui.”
"I'm not..." Neena frowned, and sunk into a chair. There was really nowhere to flick the ash, and it sort of dangled haphazardly off the end of nearly finished cigarette before falling onto the table. "You guys thought I was fun? Am I supposed to be fun? I'm not sure that's... you know... that's how that works and anyway fuck him. It wasn't supposed to be a thing."
Her hand fished a donut out of the box and she glanced at it for a second before putting it back.
That one had rainbow sprinkles on it. She just couldn't deal with mismatched colors all over her donuts at 1 in Afternoon-morning. "Do all of these have sprinkles!?"
“That’s mine.” Linette pointed at another box, “Those are yours, your favorites.”
Deryn shrugged, “You used to do things that weren’t just drinking or threatening to shoot your own boots off.”
“We still have to beat you at Mario Kart.”
"Those boots were threatening my existence," Neena argued. She rested her head on the table as her hand crawled over to the other box and started rummaging a donut out. Some of things the girls were staying actually did make sense, but she wasn't sure she was in the mood to entertain them.
"And I can't believe you actually think you'd beat me at any game I play."
“Those boots are a fashion disaster.” Linette walked over to her and put her hand on Neena’s shoulder. “Next time you’re playing blindfolded.”
Deryn’s phone rang, and she pulled it out. At about the same time, Neena’s phone chimed from the other room, like she was getting text messages. A lot of them.
Linette’s rang too, but she ignored it and patted Neena’s shoulder.
Hanging up, Deryn opened one of the drawers, withdrew a pistol, then turned, “расная комната передает привет.”
She fired, her first shot hitting Linette’s shoulder as she pushed Neena out of the way, the second shot hitting Neena square in the chest.
Neena had just dragged herself up from the chair, donut in one hand, on her way to figure out just who was blowing up her phone when she heard the shot. Only it didn't make sense. Normally she was the one on the highest alert for any kind of home invasions. There were guns and other weapons hidden all over her house, one was even strapped underneath the kitchen table. But that room had no entry points.
In short, she'd let her guard down. It had never occurred to her that any attack might come from the very girls she'd taken in.
There was no time to react, no time to even hear Linette scramble to push her out of the way. And when she turned to pull her own gun on Deryn, pain laced through her like she'd never experienced before.
This was probably when people were supposed to see their lives flash before their eyes. Instead, Neena fired off a shot in Deryn's direction (more to disarm her than injure her), and fell to the ground.
Linette stumbled to the ground, hitting her head on the table as she went down, but Neena’s shot was a lucky one, knocking the gun from Deryn’s hand and sending it skittering. She chose to flee, throwing Neena’s Keurig through the window and jumping through the opening.
"Fuck," Neena gasped out, as the immediate threat exited stage window. She really, really liked that coffee pot. But that was over, the gun was knocked away, Deryn was on the loose somewhere, and Neena realised that time was of the essence. She already knew the kind of shot she'd taken was one you didn't come back from unless you were very lucky, and there was no telling when her luck was going to change.
She let out a groan as she started trying to drag herself to the kitchen to take care of Linette, and that's when she realised how fucked she really was.
The blood from her exit wound was trickling down her back, but she couldn't feel her legs at all. Couldn't move them. Couldn't crawl over and see if her other charge was okay, or if she'd been turned, too.
Neena flopped to the floor, then, and decided she was glad she hadn't let go of her donut. She lifted it to her lips and then gurgled, "Ok google... call Logan."