Devil's Nest | Thursday Evening

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie had had a pretty big week. She and Diego had found a house they liked, and the ball was already moving on...well, moving. And good thing, too, because while Annie hadn't developed any new symptoms -- her morning (any time) sickness was still in full effect, her headaches came and went, and she was pretty much always running at a maximum of about 75% of her usual energy -- most importantly...she had a little bump.

It was just a little bump, the slightest protrusion of her stomach. If you didn't know her well, you might just credit a big meal, or a little water retention.

It was enough to send Annie running into the arms of a slightly-baggy hoodie, all the same.

~*Specials*~
Elderflower Rose Gimlet
Cherry Blossom
Mezcal Margarita

[open, no OCD because I am having a Week.]

Comments

[hasaknightjob]

Marc wasn't the kind of guy to notice a bump. Even if he did he certainly wasn't the kind to talk about it.

Talking about a drink order, on the other hand, he could do.

"Hey."

He could also say "Hey."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Hi Marc," Annie greeted him with a smile, already hovering a hand near the whiskeys with a speculative raise of her brows. "How's it going?"

[hasaknightjob]

Marc nodded in confirmation of the drink order. "All right enough."

He'd had two whole weeks of no personal bullshit going on. For Marc this was practically ecstatic.

"You?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Pretty good. Diego and I are buying a house," she shared, snagging the bottle she usually poured from and a glass. "Which means I'm about to be moving, so it's all probably about to get a lot worse."

Said good-naturedly, but also in the tone that someone who knew what moving a combined household was going to entail, sigh.

[hasaknightjob]

"Have fun with that," Marc said. "Steven and I just bought a lot of new shit when we came here."

Though it helped that they kept Steven's apartment in London. No need to get rid of old stuff either.

[sword_chocobro]

And of course Gladio was there, shirtless and nodding a greeting and probably with his own groove from leaning on his now preferred spot at the bar.

"Annie."

With maybe a bit of an added, speculative lift of his eyebrow to see if she had anything else to say for herself this week in particular.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Gladio!" Annie had, like, no poker face, ever, at all, so don't mind her looking quite pleased with herself. "How are you? How are things?"

She had a good idea how some things were. Just some.

[sword_chocobro]

Don't pay any attention to the disparaging shake of Gladio's head, Annie. The real thing to note here was the faint grin he wasn't really bothering to hold back too much.

"I'm good," he assured her. "Things're good. How are you?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I'm all right," she answered, which was both honest and a little more evasive than the real answer (but, you know, she also didn't want to be that person who suddenly started answering, 'How are you?' way too honestly just because her body was housing some guests for a few months.) "Probably not as good as you are, but all right...."

And there was a flash of, just, like, total unrepentance, since she'd also caught radio earlier this week, too.

"Drink?"

[sword_chocobro]

And there was a faint urge to contest how good he was doing, really, but he wasn't about to bring the mood down and be that guy who pointed out that it was all pretty surface-level compared to the whole being stuck here thing, but, instead, he shifted his attention to the specials board with a lift of his chin.

"The Cherry Blossom one going to come out the way I'm thinking it might?" he asked.

[hasaknightjob]

Marc gave a nod of greeting in Gladio's direction.

[sword_chocobro]

Gladio nodded back and lifted his....very pink drink in greeting back.

"Marc. Good to see you, man."

[hasaknightjob]

"Does it taste like real blossoms?" Marc asked, more curious than anything else. He'd had things with rosewater in them before.

[sword_chocobro]

"I don't think I've eaten enough blossoms to really tell," Gladio admitted, "but it's more cherry than anything else."

Then, a slight grin.

"I'll buy you one, if you want."

[pocketpretzels]

“Good evening, Annie,” Watts greeted as he spun down into his seat. “How are you tonight?”

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie smiled and, after casting a glance down the bar, actually lifted her hand and wobbled it in a 'so-so' gesture. "Better than I was last Wednesday," she offered, raising her eyebrows at him and shrugging. It was kind of nice having another someone who knew. "How's it going, Llewellyn?"

She was still kind of handling his name like it was made of verbal glass, but she'd gotten a little more confident in her pronunciation since last week.

[pocketpretzels]

“Quite well,” he informed her. “Steven and I successfully made a soup over the weekend.” Was it weird to still be pleased enough with that to consider it news, this many days later? Maybe, but like Watts cared about weird.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Congratulations?" Annie replied, totally unable to keep the question out of her voice. "Is making soup hard? Normally I just, like, open a can."

And, like, this guy made bread and pies, so Annie figured soup was probably somewhere equivalent on the cooking scale? (Annie was not really correct, but Annie also still wasn't sure how air fried things, so her kitchen skills were something of a work in progress.)

[hasaknightjob]

"Watts," Marc said. Look, he had two whole words in his saying hello vocabulary today!

[pocketpretzels]

“Marc,” Watts replied. “How are you doing?”

[hasaknightjob]

Marc shrugged to indicate not much change from Tuesday. Yes, after seeing Watts he'd had a conversation with Lucifer at Devil's Nest in which Lucifer mentioned being capital-G God but don't expect Marc to consider things like that worthy of note.

"You?"

[somethingwithturquoise]

When Summer did eventually make it into the DN that evening, she was still dolled the fuck up (this was a club, after all, technically, right?), but it seemed like way less of a production this week and almost more like an afterthought.

Well, an afterthought that was still forethought enough that she was still positioning herself at the bar with particular attention to cuteness, but that could also have just been muscle memory, at this point.

"Hey, Annie."

[defenderofdesmoines]

Afterthought or no, Annie dutifully gave her an exaggerated once-over and then brought her hand up to fan herself. "Summer, babe, second week in a row you're in here making me question the whole mostly-just-dudes thing."

But, more subtly, her glance darted back down to Gladio again, speculatively. Going for a second (third, given the news about Tuesday?) play? Should she try pitching this bouquet of glammed up Summer to Marc instead, maybe? One wingwoman, reporting for duty.

[somethingwithturquoise]

Summer followed that darting glance for a moment and returned it with a roll of her eyes, but no amount of eyerolling was going to keep the dumb grin off her face, try as she might to keep it off. But it wasn't like that right now, the thing she was working on now was much more nuanced than that. Most of the heavy-lifting (cue rimshot) there was a gym thing now, and she was, genuinely, just here to see Annie tonight.

Although she was hardly going to just throw away a good opportunity to flounce around in a cute sparkly dress, thank you. She'd always prided herself in her multitasking.

"If I'm only just now making you question that," she stated, "I have really been slacking off, but thank you. I do what I caaaan."

And a slight grin with a faint touch of envy over the nice comfy looking hoodie before asking, "How are you doing?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

And honestly, Annie was just going to kind of transparently long for cute, sparkly, dress-flouncing with a sigh. She hadn't tried, but she knew there was no way her uniform fit anymore. Just a matter of time before the rest of her adorable wardrobe was off-limits.

"First of all -- let's also credit that mistletoe kiss the first year I was here," Annie reminded her, with the absolutely cheesiest, flirtiest look she could muster. "But I'm fine. I look like hot garbage next to you, but I'm fine."

Though she was comfortable, and that was worth just about enough to offset her sparkle-envy right now.