Devil's Nest | Monday Night

[defenderofdesmoines]

After the last couple of weeks, Annie was honestly kind of surprised that nothing weird had happened today. Yesterday had felt like a pleasant respite, after turning into a bat on Saturday. (She was not over that. She would never be over that.)

But today found her testing the beer taps to see if they smelled nutmeg-y, and peering down the axe range in case it was full of turkeys, or something. Tiny wasn't exactly overtly making fun of her, but Annie still felt the need to defend herself. "I would rather not be surprised," she explained, opening a cabinet and preemptively moving backwards in case a bunch of leaves blew out.

Nothing.

The first Monday in November was pleasantly quiet, even if she couldn't really believe it.

Comments

Have a Drink [11/2]

[defenderofdesmoines]

Mod Tiny if you want it to actually be good.

Talk to Annie [11/2]

[defenderofdesmoines]

Who isn't convinced that everything won't be spontaneously pumpkin-flavored, still.

Re: Talk to Annie [11/2]

[betterthanaplan]

Monday wasn't one of Duke's usual days for showing up at the Devil's Nest, but -- well. This weekend had been a Thing and he was in the mood to drink somewhere other than home. So here he was.

"Hey. Annie, right?"

Re: Talk to Annie [11/2]

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Hey!" Annie snapped her fingers at him in recognition, grinning. "Yeah, and you're Duke, right? With the talky rat. How's it going?"

Re: Talk to Annie [11/2]

[betterthanaplan]

"Well, the rat has since disappeared," Duke said, grinning back. "Instead I have a judgey raccoon girlfriend. But, uh." He looked around. "Don't think she's with me tonight."

He was pretty sure she was still pouting over him not still being a raccoon himself.

Re: Talk to Annie [11/2]

[defenderofdesmoines]

"She's not normally a raccoon, right?" Look, she had to check. "'Cause I was a bat this weekend, but it wore off."

You know, that old story.

Re: Talk to Annie [11/2]

[betterthanaplan]

"She is not normally a raccoon," Duke confirmed. "The island just kind of . . . does that sometimes. Even when it's not Halloween."

Re: Talk to Annie [11/2]

[defenderofdesmoines]

"That sucks," Annie said, more observationally than with any actual heat. "I'm getting to where I'm suspicious when weird things don't happen, though, so that's just one more to look out for." And she had been here just over a month, so...that was about right. "Can I get you a drink? Or have Tiny get you a drink, depending on what you want."

Re: Talk to Annie [11/2]

[betterthanaplan]

"Still learning, huh?" Duke asked. "Yeah, make me . . . whatever you're most confident about. I'm not picky."

Re: Talk to Annie [11/2]

[defenderofdesmoines]

"You get a beer!" Annie declared, grabbing a glass and heading to the taps. "This is my...fourth week at this? Eric totally did not care if I had any experience." So this wasn't her fault.

Re: Talk to Annie [11/2]

[betterthanaplan]

Duke laughed. "Well, best way to learn is by doing. And I'd love a beer, thank you."

Re: Talk to Annie [11/2]

[defenderofdesmoines]

"That's what everyone says, but I also think that in the name of people having good drinks I should keep letting Tiny do the complicated stuff," Annie said as she carefully poured the beer and set it before Duke. "I hadn't really anticipated having to learn to bartend when I moved here, but I guess it's good to be learning a new skill, you know?"

Re: Talk to Annie [11/2]

[betterthanaplan]

Duke nodded slowly. "Tell you what: I own a bar. Not here, back up in Maine. Training bartenders is something I'm going to have to learn anyway. So I am totally happy to be your guinea pig for your terrible first attempts at making drinks."

Re: Talk to Annie [11/2]

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Be careful, there," Annie warned him, raising a brow. "I made a truly foul mint julep a couple weeks ago." Which was more a flaw of mint juleps than of her new bartending skills, let's be honest. "Maine, huh? What brought you down here?"

Re: Talk to Annie [11/2]

[betterthanaplan]

"Well, you remember my rat telling you all about my terrible curse?" Duke asked. "My whole hometown's like that. So I ditched out for awhile. Landed here after about a decade of wandering the world, and eventually headed back up there to face the music. And then left. And then went back and then left, and went back and left and so on. And will probably go back again sooner than anyone wants me to, even though the place is literally destined to kill me someday, because . . . well. I'm kind of an idiot. Who is, for instance, perfectly willing to drink truly terrible cocktails in the name of helping out a pretty girl."

That wasn't flirting. Well, it wasn't deliberate flirting. That was just Duke being Duke.

Re: Talk to Annie [11/2]

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie just rolled her eyes good-naturedly, like someone who was fairly used to being told she was pretty, anyway. "I feel like if a place was destined to kill me," she said, slowly, "I would...not be there? Ever? But I guess that's also the thing about destiny, right? I bet it'd find you even if you didn't go back."

Not that she really believed in fate or anything, but now that curses were on the table, why not.

Re: Talk to Annie [11/2]

[betterthanaplan]

"True. Also, I've got friends up there who will quite possibly get themselves killed in my place. So. . . ." He shrugged, full 'what can you do?'

Re: Talk to Annie [11/2]

[defenderofdesmoines]

"So like, walk me through this curse of yours again," Annie requested. "You absorb people's powers if they bleed near you? Did I get that right?"

It had come partially from a chatty rat, so. Didn't hurt to check.

Re: Talk to Annie [11/2]

[betterthanaplan]

"I get a . . . charge. Out of absorbing powered people's blood," Duke explained. "Like . . . an adrenaline burst on steroids. I don't absorb their powers, though."

He was just going to leave the clarification at that if she let him, because the whole 'kill curses by killing people' thing wasn't really the sort of thing you talked about with a woman you'd met twice. At least when you didn't have part of your being on the outside of your body in the form of a very chatty rat, anyway.

Re: Talk to Annie [11/2]

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Well, my talkative dog wasn't exaggerating," Annie assured him. "Won't come up with me unless someone hits me with, like, a diamond cutter. But man, I have met some people with rough gifts," Gecko came to mind, "and that is one of the roughest."

She slanted a look at him. "Scale of one to ten, how likely is it that I'm gonna run into a psycho with a diamond cutter around here? Like, I've been here a month and I'm gonna say it's maybe a five?" Honestly, Barry probably had something lying around that would do it, now that she was thinking about it.

Re: Talk to Annie [11/2]

[betterthanaplan]

"At any given moment?" Duke tilted his head and then wobbled his hand. "Not too high. Maybe if one of the genius types gets bit by a gremlin. Eventually though . . . you'll probably run into someone. I mean, getting abducted and trapped in a volcano by an evil goat Santa Claus isn't likely to happen all the time, but it is how I stared the year this year."

Re: Talk to Annie [11/2]

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I feel like you just Mad Libbed at me," Annie joked, though not without a touch of alarm. "You can't just say 'evil goat Santa Claus' and not share what happened."

Axe Range [11/2]

[defenderofdesmoines]

Watch for turkeys! (There aren't any, but you know, be careful!)

Back Office [11/2]

[defenderofdesmoines]

Where there might be a vampire, but that's actually normal.

OOC [11/2]

[defenderofdesmoines]

Did I edit this comment four times because I couldn't get a gif to work, and then deleted and reposted because I didn't like seeing all the edits? PERHAPS.