Devil's Nest | Thursday Evening

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie walked into the Devil's Nest tonight, and stopped in her tracks, frowning.

And then took a deep sniff, walking through the bar like she was letting her nose lead her.

"Do you smell --" she started to ask Tiny, feeling silly until she took another deep sniff, and said to hell with it. "Do you smell, like, pineapple and hot dogs?"

Tiny, of course, only smelled the pineapple -- and a hint of coconut, too, Annie was getting that now, too -- but then again, Tiny (and everyone else on this island, unless someone was hiding something well) did not have a fifteen week-pregnant nose, did he?

~*Specials*~
Whiskey Ginger
Pineapple Rum Cocktail
Chelada
Pineapple Margarita

[been a week, skipping the OCD, open!]

Comments

[sword_chocobro]

Gladio's eyes almost impulsively took a pass around the bar for any potential new meat-product architecture when he came in, now, on his way to his usual spot, where they then drifted to the specials board, and, finally, to the bartender as he settled.

"Annie," he said. "How's it going?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I'm good, Gladio. Maybe got more...pregnant in my nose, somehow, but good. How are you?" Annie replied, tossing a genuine smile his way, though she was clearly still a little distracted by this mysterious, confusing smell.

[hasaknightjob]

Marc came in after the usual amount of time after Steven got off work. He gave a dubious look at the specials.

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie knew to expect a dubious specials look at this point, so she just wordlessly held up a rocks glass with an answering lift of her eyebrows.

[hasaknightjob]

"So how are you doing?" Marc asked, which was effectively a confirmation.

[sword_chocobro]

"Pretty good, actually," Gladio answered, with a faint grin and a little bit of wonder over how different his answer might have been last week. Of course, he'd really latched onto the whole idea of the swinging pendulum, because it really did feel like that, and while it hadn't swung as far as it could over to the positive side (it never really did, and he definitely didn't expect it to), it seemed pretty ready to stay over there for hot minute. But you never did know, really, what might give it that nudge back the other direction.

"...so, do I want to know how you get...pregnant in your nose, or what that even means? Or am I better off just ordering my drink and moving on?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Good. I think it smells weird in here, but it might just be me," Annie confessed, making a little face as she grabbed the bottle of whiskey. "The joys of the second trimester, I think."

Eh. Half-right.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"It means it smells weird in here to me," Annie told him with a despairing shake of her head, "but not weird enough that I want to throw up or anything, and actually it smells good, but I can't place it, and I think just have, like, extra-pregnant nose."

Or! Or, her fellow bartender was gaslighting her about whether hot dogs had been a presence in the bar this week, but two things could be true.

"And," she added, breezing past that to focus on the much more interesting thing Gladio had said, "do I get to hear why that's qualified with an actually? Something particularly awesome happen this week, Gladio?"

[hasaknightjob]

"It's always a little weird in here," Marc said. "Course so's the damn island."

Though at least the island didn't smell of dubious meat products... yet?

[sword_chocobro]

Which was a bold choice, really, on Tiny's part, considering Gladio had been in the bar when the offending hot dogs had been most ubiquitous.

He'd even complimented it! Unless he planned to gaslight them both, if the matter came up again.

"More like nothing particularly not awesome happened this week," he offered out, feeling a little bad about it being a more pessimistic answer, but it was kind of the truth. The little nagging things that threatened to rub him the wrong way about being stuck here were at a minimum. "It's kind of hit and miss with that kind of thing; this week's just been more hits than misses."

In a game he felt he couldn't really actually win, though.

"And that's really a thing, huh?" he asked. "Pregnancy nose? Wonder if it's good enough to outsniff even Iggy."

[sword_chocobro]

Well, since it'd been so long since Gladio'd seen Marc and everything, it would really be remiss of him to not at least offer a nod and a lift of his drink in greeting when he spotted him along the bar.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Probably," Annie told him with a shrug, though now she was considering that. "Though he does have the whole, like, other-senses-enhanced thing on his side; I just have hormones making me sensitive."

A double-edged sword, really, considering that with great sensitivity also came great inclination to hurl, sometimes.

"And -- like, okay," Annie continued, splaying her hands on the bartop thoughtfully, and giving him a look. "I think we need to try to inject your week with some awesome. Beyond the drink, anyway."

Which, obviously, would be a highlight of his week even during an especially awesome one, rightfully.

[pocketpretzels]

Neither Watts’s nose nor any other part of him was pregnant, but-

“Does it smell of fruit in here?”

[defenderofdesmoines]

YET. Y E T.

"Yeah but the island is weird in a way where like one time I fought sentient strings of Christmas lights with my husband," Annie replied, waving a hand at him as she poured and slid the drink over on a cocktail napkin. "This is a little more mundane weird, I feel like."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Pineapple, right?" Annie asked, seizing upon that because thank you, Watts, it was not just the babies' fault, then! "And something else, under the fruit."

Also, coconut? But she was pretty sure she might be imagining that one or conflating it thanks to the pineapple scent.

[pocketpretzels]

"Is that what that is?" Watts had tried pineapple, of course, but had not had it nearly enough to recognise the fruit by scent. "If there's something else, I can't quite place it," he admitted.

[sword_chocobro]

"He can smell me opening up a Cup Noodle^TM from practically across the whole damn island," Gladio murmured with a shake of his head, "I swear."

But he was going to take a moment after that, to admire and appreciate Annie's earnestness to this new goal of hers, and met it with a grin.

"I'm not that lacking in awesomeness," he assured her. "It has been a pretty awesome-filled week, actually." A nod to the attention paid to his word choice earlier. "But now you've got me intrigued about how you intend to find ways to squeeze more awesome into it."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Whatever I'm getting under the fruit is kinda salty," Annie told him, frowning as the smell seemed to disappear on her again. "And it like, comes and goes. I don't know. Probably just pregnancy nose, honestly. How're you, Llewellyn?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

Well. Goal number one: subtly investigate what sorts of things might have made Gladio's week awesome. Maybe, since she didn't have appointments in her universe on Tuesday next week fingers crossed, she could swing by the gym again, do a little recon?

But also, more importantly, she had a ready answer. "You seemed pretty content when we had the werebeasts," she observed, shrugging a shoulder. "Ever think about taking that show over to the mainland, see what kind of trouble you can stop?"

She would not, for the record, recommend taking the giant sword on a first outing. Maybe test those waters a bit beforehand.

[pocketpretzels]

“Thinking on how much things have changed in the last year since I arrived here,” Watts said. “And you are- well, I hope, strange scents aside?”

[sword_chocobro]

Okay, then, the slightly less giant katana it was, then!

But Annie's proposal was getting a little bit of a confused, albeit intrigued, kind of look.

"Didn't think they had much of a problem with that kind of thing," he said, "over on the mainland."

If they did and he'd been missing it? He was honestly going to be just a little bit pissed about it.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"The strange scents are just part of the deal," Annie assured him. (Except also someone had had a whole hot dog situation in here and was lying to her about it now.) "But I'm good! The kids are apparently the size of navel oranges this week."

Annie actually hadn't looked ahead, and wondered if by week thirty-two or three, she'd be happily (?) telling people what types of melons the twins resembled?

Maybe don't think about that!

"And -- wow, has it been a year already?" she asked, looking impressed.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Less, like, rabid giant pigs," Annie hedged, splaying her hands a little more apologetically, "and more like -- muggings? That used to be Diego's and my go-to date night, before -- "

She just waved vaguely at her bump, because, like, obviously that was why their crimefighting dates had been put on a back burner for awhile.

"But like, I have thrown so many Peeping Toms into trashcans," she added, lifting her brows. "Diego's gotten a ton of purses and wallets back from snatchers, that kind of thing. The cops can't be everywhere, after all."

[pocketpretzels]

If it helped any, melons were not really on Watts’s radar? At least, the metaphorical kind.

“It has,” he nodded. “I arrived at the beginning of the month, last year.”

[defenderofdesmoines]

Metaphor was less the concern than the idea that someday, these children had to actually exit their mother, and it was cute that they were growing steadily until reality struck in October.

"Wow, time flies," Annie noted, blinking a little as she considered how different things were -- even things that weren't actually personal to her -- from this time last year.