Devil's Nest | Thursday Evening

[defenderofdesmoines]

While she and Diego had actually gotten back to town yesterday, and she'd even gone out and done a full round of jello shots, it wasn't until she was back behind the bar at the DN that she felt like they were really back. Maybe it was the sense of being back at work after a vacation. Maybe it was that it wasn't Halloween in here anymore (aside from that candy Octavia had gathered up, and Annie would be helping herself to that all night.)

Or maybe it was the way that as soon as Annie, with her highlights and vacation tan and a present for Tiny, burst through the door, Tiny almost immediately turned to go to the back.

"Tiny! Did you miss me?" Annie yelled, waving the luchador mask she'd bought at the Portalocity hub on their way back to Fandom. "I brought you a gift!"

Tiny, weirdly, did not appear to want a lucha libre mask. His loss, obviously.

~*Specials*~
Michelada
Paloma
Horchata

Comments

Bar | 11/3

[defenderofdesmoines]

Have a drink!

Re: Bar | 11/3

[pocketpretzels]

The axe range, as per usual, could have a hat plunked down atop one of the hanging axes, and Watts was going to have a seat at the bar.

“Mrs. Hargreeves!” he greeted. “You’re looking well.”

Re: Bar | 11/3

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I'm feeling pretty well, too," Annie told him with a bright smile. "Mexico was awesome. How are you, Mr. Watts? Have a good couple of weeks?"

Re: Bar | 11/3

[pocketpretzels]

“I did,” Watts shared. “Though your presence was missed,” he added, with a bit of a smile.

Re: Bar | 11/3

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Well, I have no plans to go much of anywhere for awhile," Annie assured him, and then paused as a thought occurred to her. "Though you know I won't be here -- Eric might not even be open, actually -- on the 24th, right? American Thanksgiving."

Look at her, remembering Canada had a weird, earlier Thanksgiving and she needed to differentiate!

Re: Bar | 11/3

[knife_bender]

Sure, they just spent two weeks with only each other as company, but Diego had already missed Annie. Which was sad, but he didn't not give a single fuck.

"You miss the drinks in Mexico already?"

Re: Bar | 11/3

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I miss the everything in Mexico, kinda. But mostly I couldn't think of a better theme," Annie replied, smiling at him and pushing herself up to to lean across the bar for a kiss.

She was not excluded from being sad in this regard.

Re: Bar | 11/3

[knife_bender]

Diego was happy to give over the bar kisses when requested. Those were, like, in his top ten favorite kind of kisses.

"Are the themes required?"

Re: Bar | 11/3

[defenderofdesmoines]

See, and there was a benefit to Tiny's swift exit and rejection of the luchador mask, since he was missing all the kissing!

"Summer always has a theme," Annie noted, clearly faintly self-conscious. Summer's bar nights were a lot to compete with, so Annie wasn't really trying to compete -- but she did take her cues from what Summer tended to do, as far as bartending practices. "And usually I'm pretty good at pulling one together."

Or out of her ass. One of the two.

Re: Bar | 11/3

[sword_chocobro]

Gladio had been getting his bar fix on Mondays while Annie was gone, and was mostly just dropping in tonight for Ignis' sake, so seeing her behind the bar again was a pleasant surprise. "Hey," he said, shirtlessly (of course). "Welcome back. Good honeymoon?"

Call it a hunch.

Re: Bar | 11/3

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Great honeymoon," Annie assured him with a bright smile, and figuring that lest that get, like, evocative, she added, "Mexico was so beautiful, and I learned to scuba-dive!"

Plus, she figured Gladio of all people would enjoy hearing about various outdoorsy things she'd done. (And she was kind of proud of that, anyway. She'd had to take a class!)

Re: Bar | 11/3

[sword_chocobro]

"Yeah?" The broad grin on Gladio's face in response to that made it pretty clear that Annie had figured correctly on that one; in fact, he almost looked a little impressed. That was something even he really hadn't ever done before. "How'd you like it? Something you'd recommend if I'm ever out that way?"

Hey, if he was coming to terms with the fact that he couldn't go home, at least he should start embracing the possibility of at least going other places while he was stuck here. Earth was a stupendously large world. Might as well enjoy some of it, right?

Re: Bar | 11/3

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Oh, you should super get certified -- it takes, like, five hours, and I think you can go diving in, like, lakes and quarries and stuff, even. Probably off the coast here, too," Annie noted. "But the water's really clear down where we were, so I saw like, a ton of wildlife. And I got to swim with rescued manatees, which was, like...adorable."

There were a lot (a lot) of pictures from this trip of a be-masked Annie swimming next to a lot (a lot) of nonplussed manatees.

Re: Bar | 11/3

[chef_chocobro]

This week had been a lot for Ignis, and while he had successfully managed to already mentally map the path to the Perk with precision, his next order of business was very likely to ensure that he did the same with the Devil's Nest. Caritas, true, was closer to the apartment and therefor easier, but he was never one to let easier influence his decisions. The Devil's Nest was just more familiar, and, right now, in getting accustomed to the lay of the land again, that went a long way.

It also helped that he could also make the appeal to Shane that, well, he was still underage for the Devil's Nest, and, therefor, had managed to be goose-free for the evening. He didn't feel great about that, but, well...

It had been a long, long week. And Shane had been, understandably, a little reluctant to let Ignis out of his sights now that he was back. He needed a break.

He tried not to depend on Gladio's presence as a guide too much, either, as he made his way over to the bar beside him, paying close attention to all of his other surroundings, as well, listening carefully as he felt around for a seat and settled in, trusting that the excellent choices in wine wouldn't have diminished in the apparently short amount of time in which he'd been gone.

And, yes, he was fully prepared to deal with Gladio trying to slip him one of those Cup Noodle^TM atrocities at some point this evening. He couldn't see, no, but his sense of smell was working just fine, thank you.

Re: Bar | 11/3

[defenderofdesmoines]

While Annie had of course defaulted to greeting Gladio (who, frankly, she was starting to expect to see on Thursdays as regularly as she saw Mr. Watts), she had not expected to see Ignis.

And while she'd hurried over to greet him with at least the same effusiveness as she'd given Prompto -- only Gladio was getting the vault-over-the-bar treatment, sorry -- there was something in his movements that gave her a little pause. She could see he had scars on his face (though, again, she had sort of come to expect that with the guys' return, even if Prompto seemed to have mostly gotten off light with a kind of unfortunate beard thing), but it wasn't until she was close enough that she really got what she was pretty sure she was seeing.

"Ignis?" she asked softly, taking care to angle her voice towards him. Just in case her hunch was right. (And she really hoped it was not.) "Shoe Guy, is that you?"

Re: Bar | 11/3

[chef_chocobro]

Unfortunately, the subtle shift in Ignis' attention toward her was lead by his ears, not his gaze, though his head did turn her way. There was maybe the slightest crease of confusion on his brow as he rooted around for the familiarity of a title like Shoe Guy, and, once he managed to find it in that overextensive catalogue of data that was his brain, he let out a soft breath of a laugh, and smiled faintly.

"Now there's something I haven't thought about in a while," he noted, then nodded. "Annie. Gladio mentioned that he wasn't sure if you'd be back yet this week. I understand congratulations are in order. I'm sorry to have missed it, but I hear the event was nothing short of spectacular."

Re: Bar | 11/3

[hashtag_chocobro]

When the invitation went out to spam this post with chocobros get some drinks with the guys that evening, Prompto wasn't sure he'd take them up on it. He was tired from staring at data and expenses and coding all day, he also had his other job in the morning, and with Liz feeling bad, he wanted to be there for her if she needed him. But she'd actually been the one to (lightly) insist that he go and not let how she was feeling keep him away from spending time with his friends, so he was here, showing up a little bit later, but it was not difficult to find Ignis and Gladio (especially Gladio) and join them, although he didn't think he'd be sticking around for too long, and he was going to constantly be checking his phone for messages.

Re: Bar | 11/3

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Prompto!" Annie greeted him cheerily. "How's it going? How's Liz and the baby?"

Again, she had not had a chance to catch up on radio since she'd been back, so hopefully all of those answers were good things or she maybe just really stepped in it, whoops.

Re: Bar | 11/3

[hashtag_chocobro]

"Hey, Annie!" Prompto greeted her back just as cheerily. Well, he tried, anyway, but, again, he was a little worn down from this week, but an effort was made! And mostly succeeded, too, he felt. "Good! It's going really good! Well, I mean, actually, Liz is kind of having a rough time of it this week, but, I mean, she's growing a whole little person right now, that's bound to just be expected, right?"

There was just a touch more genuine concern rather than conversational banter, despite the fact that several days of frantic and frequent googling had assured him that, yes, yes, it was to be expected and nothing to worry about, and actually pregnancy was legitimately horrifying enough that he was honestly a little surprised Verstael had opted for the streamlined method of cloning because that dude definitely seemed to approach life with the question of 'what will cause the most pain and suffering, actually?' at the front and center.

But anyway...

"And, hey, how was the honeymoon? Looks like you got some sun! Did you have a good time?"

Re: Bar | 11/3

[pocketpretzels]

"Mr. Argentum," Watts greeted, because while he'd noticed the sudden descent of chocobros upon the pub, he didn't actually know the other two, although he'd certainly spotted Gladio around here and there. As Prompto's own narrative noted, the guy was hard to miss.

Re: Bar | 11/3

[hashtag_chocobro]

Surely, the fact that Gladio seemed entirely ignorant of the existence of shirts when Watts was likely to have seen him out and about didn't at all contribute to his hard-to-missability, either...

But there was something nice about being the one in a flock to garner a greeting.

"Heeeeeey, Detective!" Prompto grinned to see him, lifting his (probably one and only for the night) drink in a salute. "How's it going? Good to see you, man."

And then he winced, slightly, because you'd think after so long, he'd manage to be better about saying things like that around Ignis, but nooooo....

Axe Range | 11/3

[defenderofdesmoines]

Have an axe!

Re: Axe Range | 11/3

[sword_chocobro]

Did you think there'd be three chocobros in a bar together with axes in it and that they wouldn't take advantage of it?

And what did it say about them that it was actually the blind guy who was the best at it?

(To be fair, none of them specialized in the axe as a weapon, and it was more to the point that Ignis really was that good, even if he'd much preferred to have worked with daggers than axes).

Back Office | 11/3

[defenderofdesmoines]

Have a vampire!

OOC | 11/3

[defenderofdesmoines]

I would like to have a nap.