fandomtownies | JGOB | Saturday Afternoon

Entry tags:

JGOB | Saturday Afternoon

Since it wasn't supposed to snow until tomorrow, Annie was taking full advantage of being able to be out today. She'd gone on her usual Saturday morning run, had spent some time on the weight bench, and was now showered and cozied up in a corner of the bakery.

This, right here? This was why she worked out. So she could spend her Saturday afternoon with a latte and two Boston cream-filled doughnuts and her phone, and not fear the repercussions when she had to get back in uniform tomorrow. And while ostensibly she was working on answering emails and trying to monitor what her assistant was doing with her socials -- that shit really piled up during the stretch of her week that she spent in Fandom -- it was probably obvious from the occasional huff and even more occasional, "No, don't move there!" that she'd gotten absorbed in a game.

It was, like, a strategy exercise, okay?

[open!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Will had just picked himself up a couple of baked goods of his own, and was passing by Annie's table, absorbed in his own melancholy thoughts about missing Natalie, and Jay, and home, when-

"What?" he looked over at Annie, startled out of those aformentioned thoughts. What had he done?

It took Annie a second to realize she'd been heard, and when she glanced up at Will, she almost immediately fell into apologies. "Oh, sorry, Will -- my little knight moved across the screen to a square I super did not tell him to go to," she explained, turning her phone around so he could see the colorful little landscape on her screen. (Also, she totally had told the knight to go there. Touchscreen games were an art, that's all.) "How are you?"

"Oh," he realized. "I thought-" he started, cheeks turning red with embarrassment.

Thought what, that Annie had strong opinions about who could sit where in the bakery?

"I'm. Okay. Good. Got some bear claws," he held up the aforementioned baked goods for Annie to see.

"Ah, a man of taste," Annie teased, and you know what, she did have opinions about who could sit where in the bakery, albeit not especially strong ones.

Which was why she stretched a leg out and kicked out the chair across from her, just enough to be a clear invitation. "Wanna sit with me? My world conquest can wait."

“Aww, I’m flattered that you’d temporarily suspend your plans of world domination to hang with me,” Will said, sitting down in said offered chair.

And there it was again, that strange mix of resentment that he was stuck here but also genuine fondness for the people he’d gotten to know.

"I'm probably going to lose, anyway," Annie admitted, setting her phone down. "The other guys just got catapults."

This made perfect sense, obviously.

"Things are good?" she added, tearing off a little section of one of her doughnuts. "Did you, like, go home for the holidays or anything?"

Will was many things, but a master of hiding his emotions he was not, so Annie would be hard pressed to miss the way his face visibly fell at her question.

“I, ah. No. I sort of- can’t.” Which was edging dangerously close to things he Wasn’t Supposed To Talk About, but also, there were enough people who’d brought up being somehow magically or whatever trapped here that he hoped that’s what she’d assume he meant.

Thanks to a vague understanding of how the island locked Danny in place, Annie did make that exact leap, yes, and it earned Will some very sincere sympathy. "Really? Aw, man, Will, that sucks. I would offer to bring you home with me next time but my mother is kind of a lot. Are you at least able to, like, chat with people back home?"

It seemed like there were varying degrees of the locked-out thing. And from her vantage point of not actually dealing with this, Annie was pretty sure she wouldn't mind being kept away from her own version of her universe on occasion.

“No,” he shook his head. “I tried calling my brother on Thanksgiving, but didn’t get through.”

And then Agent Lee had given him a warning that the next time he tried anything like that, they’d be moving him to somewhere even more isolated than Fandom.

"Do you just have the one brother?" Annie asked, leaning her chin in a hand. "I'm always a little jealous of people with siblings."

Though less jealous than she used to be, considering she was staring down the barrel of five in-laws (and a ghost-in-law.)

“I think if my mom had her way there would’ve been a whole hockey team’s worth of Halsteads, but it’s just me and Jay, yeah,” he confirmed.

“And I wouldn’t be too jealous,” he added. “He was a real pain in my ass growing up.”

Edited 2022-01-15 20:22 (UTC)

"I hear that's what brothers are for," Annie offered lightly. "But my boyfriend's one of seven kids, so I've learned to be careful what I wish for. And, like, see again: my mom is a lot. Probably best that there was only one kid for her put onstage."

“I’ll have you know I was - and still am- a delight to have as a big brother,” Will informed her primly. This was of course not at all true.

“On stage?” he echoed, not up on that particular quirk of Annie’s universe. “What, like, doing plays and the like?”

Edited 2022-01-15 20:59 (UTC)

"Oh, no, my friend," Annie explained with a sigh and another little tear of doughnut, as though subconsciously reinforcing a point to herself. "You are looking at a former pageant queen. Plays would've been way more fun. I'm in a movie that comes out this summer, though, so I guess that's kind of like a play."

"Really?" Will couldn't keep the surprise out of his voice. "I never would've pictured you as- I mean, you're so nice." Admittedly, his entire understanding of the pageant world came from like, glimpses of reality television he'd caught while channel-flipping, so he had no idea whether that sort of... cutthroat drama was normal or just played up for ratings or whatever.

"There's a few of us," Annie said, grinning at him. Fact: there was, like, one of them, and it was Annie. "It helps that I have pretty showy powers, as these things go, so that always played well with the judges without anyone having to, like, get all Nair-in-the-shampoo behind the scenes."

"Not that I would have!" she hastened to add. "But, like, I have stories from the other competitors." Which was why despite being America's Sweetheart and all, Annie could sometimes still be a little awkward around the idea of making friends with people her own age -- particularly other women.

“Wait, so, you’re saying the superpowers stuff was part of the whole pageant scene?” Will asked, clearly incredulous.

Your world was deeply weird, Annie.

"Yeah, I was competing with other Supes," Annie said, nodding in a way that suggested that she did, indeed, know her world was deeply weird. "That always throws people here for some reason. If it helps, I can also sing and dance, so it's not, like, just superpowers."

That probably did not help, actually.

“But how does that- I mean- don’t you have, I don’t know, a secret identity or something?”

Pageants seemed awfully public.

"Yeah, so I technically won these as Starlight, not Annie," she explained with an easy shrug. "I don't wear a mask when I'm suited up, so it's honestly kind of crazy I don't run into that more -- but back home, it's, like, all sunglasses and hoodies all the time, if I'm out of uniform. I look like some kind of weird Unabomber cosplayer, usually."

Yeah, still weird, because like, did that mean kids parents’ picked out their codenames? Or worse, the kids themselves? Was there some poor kid out there stuck with a name she’d picked as a three year old?

“Huh,” he said. “I guess, I mean, people probably are used to seeing superheroes in certain contexts, too, right? So take you out of that context and they don’t always make the leap that hey, that’s Starlight shopping for oranges in the produce section of Jewel or whatever.”

Well, Annie had always been Starlight, but at least that was a good name? There were totally people out there -- the former Drummer Boy, for example -- who had decided they'd outgrown their early codenames.

"Exactly," Annie said, cocking a finger at him with an affirming nod. "And most people don't want to risk getting it wrong and fangirling out at some random lady trying to do her shopping, you know? It's like any kind of, like, famous person or whatever."

A pause, and, "God, you are the first person to mention Jewel to me in about a year."

“Really?” Will laughed, but it was a laugh tinged with that damn homesickness that had whacked him upside the head today. “Guess they don’t have those out here on the coast, huh?”

"Nope," Annie said, watching him with a very slight smile. "They also don't have my favorite coffee chain from back home in this universe. But portals make it a little easier, right?"

Even if she couldn't really go out and lay in a cornfield in her own Iowa anymore -- at least, not sans the Unabomber get-up -- she could go find some other dimension's Iowa, at least.

"Sure, I suppose. Haven't given any of those a try myself." Despite no longer being the New Guy, having lived through an invasion and the start of a new semester and all, he was still... pretty new.

He wondered if Agent Lee would find out, somehow, if he took a portal to some other reality. He wouldn't put it past her.

"It's not too bad, travel-wise," Annie shared. "Those are new to me, too, and it totally threw me for a loop a few times -- but my best friend also can, like, throw up a portal on command and it only takes one visit to the all-ice cream planet to get pretty comfortable with the whole multiverse thing."

“I’m sorry, the what?”

You said that expecting more or less that reaction, Annie. Admit it!

Well, totally. But at least she had chosen a pretty innocuous multiversal example!

"Do you know Summer? She bartends on Wednesdays at Caritas," Annie explained. "She seriously is the, like, expert on weird universes. Apparently literally anything is possible. Anything. Sentient denim."

Like. That was so much weirder than the ice cream.

“I know Summer,” Will nodded. “Steve and I hang out at Caritas some nights after-“ he trailed off. Yeah, the shooting lessons weren’t exactly a secret, they’d been mentioned on the radio a few times, but taking about it still seemed… weird.

“Sentient denim,” he repeated flatly instead. “Just- why?”

That was an impressive amount of plaintiveness he managed to inject into a single word, there.

It was also pretty rhetorical, for the record.

Edited 2022-01-16 17:28 (UTC)

"I have no idea. Summer seems to have no idea?" Annie suggested, taking another bite of doughnut with a shrug. "But that's for sure one of the weirdest things she's told me about."

The screaming sun was also pretty bad.

"McGarrett, right?" she added, shifting to the topic of Steves. "He's good people. I work out with him sometimes when I want to hate myself."

"McGarrett," Will confirmed. He was vaguely aware of there being another Steve on the island, but they hadn't actually met.

"He's pretty great," Will agreed. "Told me about those early morning swim-and-runs though, and no thank you."

Will was by no means out of shape, but his approach to fitness was far more casual than either Annie or Steve's would be.

"Oh my God, Will? Will." Annie leaned in a little, as though about to share something terrible that Steve had done -- which, like, accurate. "The stairs. He does them on purpose! Sometimes twice! Like, it was super helpful when I was training to be competitive last spring, but like -- he is a madman."

But also, you know. Her tone was also doing some work here, insofar as he was one of her favorite madmen.

"I'm pretty sure it's a Navy thing," Will said, making a face. "I ha- had a coworker back home, he'd probably love running those stairs too."

"I mean, it helps me feel like I earned my pizza and doughnuts," Annie remarked, "but like. Insanity. And we always get lapped by Captain Rogers, which is so unfair -- but Steve is also a faster runner than I am, so maybe that takes a little of the sting out of it."

Getting lapped by Captain America probably felt a little better when your mere mortal SEAL self could still leave a different superhero in your dust?

"Captain Rogers?"

That'd be the other Steve, Will.

"His first name is also Steve," Annie explained. "Blond guy, shoulders out to here, very like...all-American. He's a hero from a different universe."

A pause, and an only slightly-fangirly, "His powers are way better than mine, though."

"Yeah?" Will asked. "I'm still getting used to the entire concept of superpowers. What's his deal?"

"He's super strong -- I can lift a car but I think Steve can lift, like, a house -- and he has this, like, magic shield he can throw like a frisbee," Annie shared, miming the throwing and then sort of...wincing. "It's much cooler than what I'm describing."

"I would gladly take either one of you with me to an accident scene," Will admitted. "Super strength would be so useful."

"I can also cauterize wounds," Annie offered, always eager to help. "I can't tell you how glad I am to have a real doctor around, though, because before you it was like -- hey, Annie can cauterize wounds and also we have band-aids!"

And also she was pretty sure Stark's glowiness had to do with healing or something, but she wasn't totally sure on that. (And she knew Liam's glowiness did, but that wasn't for her to share, either.)

"So far the biggest disaster I've dealt with here got re-set the next day," Will said, trying not to sound too put out about it, because, well. In the end he really would rather people not get shot.

"Buck promised me if I ever had to give him stitches that I could sew it in a cool pattern, like a star or something," he told her, clearly amused. "Unless it's on his face, of course."

"I could see that," Annie sighed, though again, it was affectionate. "Though hopefully, like, we don't run into anything that would require him to get hurt." Because then that might mean a fire, and like -- she super did not want to deal with a fire. For lots of reasons, not limited to how useless her powers would be in such a situation.

Eh, if we broke the fourth wall here a bit and went to look at a meme or two, Buck would... probably be okay with like, a little fire.

"I know," Will sighed. "I'm not exactly chomping at the bit for people to get hurt either, but..."

Basically, if you were a first responder of any sort on this island, you had a lot of free time on your hands.

Maybe they should all start, like, a knitting circle or a book club or something.

"My boyfriend's one of the cops," Annie replied sympathetically, "and most of his time is spent on the phone with cranks. I get it. Give it, like...three months. These things go in cycles. Graduation'll probably be wild."

It seemed like kind of a tradition from what she understood?

Will couldn't help but look away at that, focusing intently on picking a piece off his bear claw. As much as he liked the people here, even found some of the weirdness of the place charming at times, he-

He wanted to be able to go home.

He didn't really want to be here long enough to stick around for the school graduation.

"Wild, huh?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

JGOB | Saturday Afternoon

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject