Chapter Text
Everything will change when they solve this case. It's the first real V.I.L.E insider ACME has ever seen. Everything will finally start moving. Julia mentally repeats the lines to herself as Neil does a taste test of her toothpastes.
Honestly, she didn't think it could get any worse than after...after this evening. God it's an utter miracle chief trusted Julia with this idea. The universe had to temper her expectations after that victory. If not working with Carmen, then at least working with an allegedly former V.I.L.E agent. Why it could prove the existence of V.I.L.E without a shadow of a doubt. Prove Carmens' innocence and so much more.
Julia was especially desperate after how she messed up in Stockholm.
Not to mention how Carmen hacked ACME, causing the greatest data breach in history, right when Chief was starting to trust her. It was looking hopeless, so Julia really needed this new lead.
Neal's only condition is that he works only with Julia. It sounded good at first, now she regrets it.
Why are the bedsheets soaked? Her bed is completely and utterly, fucking soaked.
The blankets stick to the sheets and they are heavy with water. They also make this aweful, wet sloshing noise. Julia could feel a scream trapped in her throat.
She's a detective she can duduce this situation. The culprit? Well there's an incrimimating wet suit slung over the bedframe.
That slimy little eal!
"Neil!" Julia demands.
"What do you call this?" She points at her wasteland of a queen sized bed.
"I'm sorry Julia." Neal says. He comes in dressed in only his underwear. At least he took his wet suit off occasionally.
She crosses her arms and looks...surprised. Did he just-apologise for something? She's almost impressed
"I'm sorry." He continued. "I couldn't find the ice but I bought a couple beers on the way here." He then proceeds to pop one open using...his front teeth.
Julia wonders watches in disbelief. What would a dentist say?-actually, she'd rather not think about it.
"Wait-how did you buy that." Julia says and then hurriedly pads down her pocket. Her previously full pocket. At least she can stop looking for her wallet...
He slips intp the bed so smooth, like a knife cutting through butter. If she wasn't so pissed she'd be impressed.
Now she glares at him so hard, hoping it'll turn him to stone. If only she was Medusa.
All while he's chugging.
He then stops breifly when the bottle is already done, and lets out a long, satisfied sigh.
"Oh you gotta try this! C'mon, who cares about chief, lets wash the evening down." He says and holds a beer out to her, shaking it like a shiny keychain, as if he were entertaining a baby.
"I can't believe you're getting drunk in my bed."
Neil twirls the beer bottle between his fingers. "Seriously? Beacuse you really should have seen that coming." He chortles before turning his bottle up and downing the rest.
She pinches her nose bridge. "I don't think anyone would would look at you and honestly believe you're part of the most secretive criminal organisation the world couldn't even dream of."
"--I mean, are you even associated with V.I.L.E? For all chief knew you're just a slimy pickpocket who got cocky trying and failing to steal the masks in Venice and took advantage of our hopes for a get-out-of-jail-free-card."
"Well if I told you my secrets, they wouldn't be secrets now would they?" Not even a few seconds after Neal has said that and he's already slipped past Julia and is playing with the musuem brochure she's kept from Mumbai from her front pocket.
"Alright, let's say I'm conning you, then Chief thinks I'm a normal criminal. Which, by the way, you had to convince her I wasn't. And in the ten minutes that I've known her, it's obvious she never listens to you anyway. Why do you even care what she thinks?"
Julia tries to snatch the brochure back from him, Neil weaves out of the way and folds the brochure nicely onto the night stand.
Julia grasps it. "It's wet!" She gasps. She liked that brochure. "Nooo.." she murmurs as the paper starts to dissolve in her hand.
For a moment he looks ashamed, he even seems to wince when he sees Julia's face.
"Whoops!" He quickly switches up to smiling when Julia looks up at him fully.
She puts the brochure down in defeat. "Hmm" Julia rubs her chin and tries to look as if she's thinking.
"And if I tell her what you're a V.I.L.E spy whose trying to decieve his way back to his masters, informing them of our plans. What if your foolishness is an act? That wouldn't go unnoticed by ACME, and we wouldn't lose our grip. You'd be like a fish on a spear!"
Neil pauses "And you think Chief will belive that?" He's trying hard to sound as if he doesn't care, but his shoulders seem to stiffen when he says it.
"Why would she believe you over me?" Julia asks with a smile creeping across her face.
Neal pauses.
"Yeah, actually Why would she?" Neil responds with a chuckle.
Julia's is silent. Her mind quickly becomes a cornered tiger. she tries to find the words fight, but nothing wants to come out. It hurts too much because of what she knows...
"Look Argent, you are amoung ACME's finest, When your head is in the game." Chiefs words echo in her head." Chief didn't meant it be so...but having to explain herself, over and over again just to be met with dissmissal. It...Hurt.
Hell-not just dismissal, Stockholm was Chief going right over Julia's head. Perhaps even using her as unsuspecting bait for Carmen Sandiego.
Julia can't find an arguement because it would have nothing to stand on.
"My head is in the game, it's my heart that's not. This is about me realsing I need to believe in my work." Those were Julia's own words to chief that day, they ring loud in her mind now.
Neil wears a smug smile, he seems infested with that emotion. He's an ugly mushroom, batheing in the dead, rotting stump of her fallen dreams.
He's devouring her self-esteem until she's hollowed out.
Everything he does makes Julia's skin feel like cockroaches crawling over her while she pretends she has a grip lest her piers lose faith in her ability to handle him or handle anything. He's a pest.
"You know what, fine. You clearly don't want to help me, You're free to go!" Julia declares.
"You're just going to drop the case?!" Neil isn't looking smug anymore, his mind looks like it's scrambling to gather its scattered wits in front of her.
"Why?" Neil seems to beg.
Good.
"Actually, I'm dropping everything. I'm leaving ACME. I quit! I'll say you were just a pickpocket avoiding jail and you left once you got my wallet. Of course I still have my ACME key card. They won't want you. You. Are. Free. To. Go."
Neil falls silent.
Julia picks up the brochure on the night stand, and throws it out in front of him, letting it loose to drop to the floor heavy, pathetic and soaked. Like everything in her life right now.
She walks past him without looking, and slams the door behind her.