The Perk | Thursday Morning

[knife_bender]

The luggage was gone, but it had helped minimally when it came to Diego's mood. He had stopped being angry over the whole book situation--at least as far as Annie was concerned. At this point he felt a little ashamed about telling her he needed space. He missed her. A lot. 

He knew it was as easy as sending a text but he didn't know how to start it, which was why he ended up at the Perk thinking it over a large black coffee. "I'm sorry" seemed silly since he hadn't done anything wrong. "I'm an idiot" would be truthful since he was almost always an idiot, but probably not appropriate given the current situation.

There was an obvious answer, but the aforementioned idiot thing was in the way of him coming up with it.

[Open]

Comments

[apocalypsehow]

Five had done the sane thing and avoided people when that stupid luggage started up. Because it would be awkward to explain the whole 'murdered a lot of people to get back here' thing.

And tedious.

"Diego," he said, teleporting into the seat across from him. "You look terrible."

Emotional turmoil? Gross.

[knife_bender]

Couldn't you just walk, Five? Really.

"Big talk coming from a guy in a schoolboy uniform."

[apocalypsehow]

"Says the low rent Ratman," Five replied without missing a beat.

Ah, sibling love.

[knife_bender]

"Well now I'm not buying you a muffin." He hadn't planned to in the first place but now he was really not going to do it.

[apocalypsehow]

Yeah, Five doubted it for some reason!

"You were going to buy me a muffin."

[knife_bender]

"I could have." If he was an entirely different person.

[apocalypsehow]

"Uh huh."

[knife_bender]

"Oh shut up," Diego said, sighing. "You get attacked by luggage yesterday?"

[apocalypsehow]

Five made such a face at that. "Yes. Unfortunately."

[knife_bender]

"Get anything good?" he asked. He had to admit some of his were pretty creative.

[apocalypsehow]

"You want to compare what we got?" You know what? No, that sounded about right for their family.

[knife_bender]

"I didn't say compare," he said. "I was just asking if you got any interesting ones. The apocalypse one was a surprise."

Because he totally forgot to be worried about it.

[apocalypsehow]

Which must have been nice!

Five sighed and rolled his eyes, but did actually try to come up with one that wouldn't cause too many questions. "There was one that just said 'unable to form normal, human connections' which I think might have been universal for our family."

[defenderofdesmoines]

So on the one hand, the Perk was totally like, the scene of the crime, and Annie was a little reluctant to come back here just yet.

On the other, it was morning and she literally required coffee to function, especially since last night had been kind of a late one, what with all the asteroid-shooting and ice cream planet-visiting. And the crying. There had been crying in space, at least a bit of it, and you know what, the novelty of that didn't help Annie forget the reason why she'd been crying.

And like, wouldn't you know it, there was the reason she'd been crying sitting right over there, and if she had noticed him a second sooner, she might have turned and actually left because she really did want to give him the space he'd asked for. Instead, she just sort of...lingered over by the counter to get her drink, studiously looking at her phone because maybe he hadn't noticed her and she could just, like, leave with her coffee and keep giving him his space. (And maybe she could find another new place to cry! She hadn't cried on the beach yet!)

[knife_bender]

Diego got up immediately when he spotted Annie and walked over to her. He really didn't want her to leave. "Hey."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Hey," Annie replied, pocketing her phone. (She had just been looking at her own home screen anyway. Super convincing, January!) "Um, how are you?"

There. That was a good start. Even if Annie was stamping down a little spark of hope that had bloomed at Diego coming over to her instead of ignoring her, like she had kind of thought he might.

[knife_bender]

"Could be better." The last two days had been pretty miserable. "Sit with me?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie was quiet for a second, then grabbed her (incredibly conveniently-timed) latte and said, "Sure. Okay."

Maybe she'd have to save beach-crying for a different day. Not that she was getting her hopes up, but...look, she was pretty good at reading Diego, and this seemed sort of promising.

[knife_bender]

It was probably also promising that he was pulling out a chair for her at the little table he commandeered.

"How have you been?" he asked.

[defenderofdesmoines]

He got a little smile for that, even as Annie answered honestly, "Not great. I assume you got a bunch of luggage yesterday?"

Because being chased around by bags all day had not exactly helped things, for Annie.

[knife_bender]

"Yeah, it sucked," he said. "Danny and I got into it too."

[defenderofdesmoines]

That was a little worrisome, since Danny had, you know, been there to witness Annie's little lapse in judgement. "Over what?"

[knife_bender]

"You know what," he said, taking a sip of what would be his third black coffee of the day. "It's fine, I don't want you to feel bad about it. Danny brought it on himself."

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie watched him, quiet for a moment as she tapped her nails lightly on the side of her cup. "Yeah, and so did I," she offered. Definitely more than Danny had, she thought, not that she knew what had been said (though she could take a pretty good guess.) "I wish I could take it back, Diego."

[knife_bender]

"I know," he said. "I know you didn't mean to hurt me either. I shouldn't have told you to go."

He hadn't really wanted to, but at the time it felt like it was something he was supposed to do. Probably the lingering effects of spending so much time alone.