Devil's Nest | Monday Night

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Hey, so were you a little kid this weekend?" Annie greeted Tiny, who barely looked up from the glass he was wiping. "I was. I was four."

And when he didn't answer her, Annie continued, "It would've been kind of funny if you'd been little this weekend."

Aaaand cue Tiny starting to walk away from her.

"Because you would've actually been tiny!" And off he went into the back, where he likely couldn't hear her yell, "It wouldn't have just been ironic!"

Anyway. The bar was open, Annie was here, and she was her normal five-foot-six.

Comments

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[hatesparadise]

Danny felt the need to check in on Annie now that the weekend was over. He'd be checking in on a few folks for many reasons.

"Didn't explode from the sugar, huh?"

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[defenderofdesmoines]

"No, and thank you for being the one adult to make sure I ate something real all weekend," Annie told him with a smile. "I did my absolute, four year-old best to make sure I ended up in a diabetic coma."

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[hatesparadise]

Danny waved that off. "You reminded me of Grace at that age. She would have only eaten cookies and chicken nuggets if she had her way."

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[defenderofdesmoines]

"A woman of fine taste," Annie declared, her smile widening. "Turns out if you take a pretty restricted kid and give her free rein to do whatever, you get - gosh, I think I probably are a dozen donuts on my own, over the course of the weekend."

Sprinkles. Everywhere. Everywhere.

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[hatesparadise]

"I cannot even begin to imagine the over-tired meltdown that followed that," Danny replied, joking even as he looked a little like he wanted to go yell at someone for doing that to a kid.

It was, sadly, far from the worst thing he'd seen inflicted on a child in his career, though.

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[defenderofdesmoines]

It had only gotten worse as she'd gotten older, too!

"It was not pretty," Annie told him. "Neither is the sheer amount of sprinkles in my apartment right now."

Crushed into so, so many surfaces.

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[hatesparadise]

Well, someone was going to get a hug at this rate.

"I just had a mess of pillows scattered around to keep Steve from re-breaking his arm playing The Floor is Lava."

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Genius," Annie told him, wide-eyed. "He seemed like a little bit of a handful, too. Told me all about surfing - which, you know, was basically a superpower to a kid from Iowa."

Seriously, little Annie had found tales of Hawaii maybe even more impressive than little Steve had found her actual powers.

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[hatesparadise]

"Nah, he was just a kid. Adult him is the handful. Kids are meant to be little boundary pushers," he replied with a fond grin.

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I'm sure I don't need to tell you this," Annie said, similarly fond, "but you are clearly a great dad."

Like, seriously. Perfect balance of structure and letting the little terrors be little terrors.

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[hatesparadise]

"I try my best," he granted her. "Probably would have wanted more if things between my ex and I hadn't deteriorated like they did."

Actually did have more, but that was a season off from being told to him.

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Grace is very lucky," Annie replied. "And there's still time for more. You're, like, what - fifty, fifty-five?"

Accompanied by a wink. She wasn't that bad at guessing ages.

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[hatesparadise]

"Oh, for that I'm not leaving a tip at all," Danny said with the normal level of good natured annoyance. "We can't all be in our twenties."

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[betterthanaplan]

"I believe I may owe you a muffin."

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[hatesparadise]

"Nah, I think I bought breakfast for a fair amount of kids." Because of course he did. "You still itching to buy alcohol and cigarettes now?"

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[betterthanaplan]

"Alcohol, yes. Cigarettes are horrifying." Duke shrugged. "I do owe you a 'thank you' at least, though. Thanks to you cluing me in, I actually slept in a bed this weekend instead of hiding in a wall in an abandoned building."

Last time this had happened, he'd woken up very cramped and very sore.

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[hatesparadise]

"...you did that before?" Jesus, Duke.

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[betterthanaplan]

"As I recall, I was convinced that if anyone could find me come Monday morning, they'd make me go to school." Duke shrugged. "Which apparently was a fate worse than . . . sleeping rough, anyway."

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[hatesparadise]

Danny had to press his fingers to the bridge of his nose at that. "You know what? I can see that."

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[betterthanaplan]

Duke's childhood had been . . . a bit rough. To say the least.

"So how many kids did you end up looking after this weekend, all told? I seem to recall meeting a very young Steve, so that's at least one. . . ."

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[hatesparadise]

"You, Steve, Annie," he said with a sigh. "Thankfully I wasn't a kid too."

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[betterthanaplan]

"I don't know. Might've been fun to meet tiny Danny. I bet you were a pistol."

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[hatesparadise]

"I once used toy handcuffs to handcuff my kid brother to a zoo cage because he was being bad, so..."

Just curly blond hair and serious cop energy.

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[betterthanaplan]

Duke barked out a laugh. "Wow. You were just born 40, weren't you."

Re: Talk to Annie | 1/11

[hatesparadise]

"Well, in my defense, I'm pretty sure he was being bad."

And it set up their dynamic to the bitter end.