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Devil's Nest | Thursday Evening

Annie still had that song stuck in her head that she'd woken up with yesterday, because last night's dream about Alex had been even more vivid than Tuesday's.

"I first saw you in my study hall, that's right," she sang under her breath as she got set up today, making herself a virgin margarita to kick things off.

But there was no accounting for taste, clearly, because while some people might find it funny to have the words, "I wanna love you just like Brad loves Jen; Like Megan Fox, you're my perfect ten," sung to them with what Annie felt was sort of hilariously intense boy-band eye contact -- millions of teenage girls had loved that, like, ten years ago, you know -- Tiny was weirdly not one of them.

Whatever, his loss. 'Rock My Kiss' continued to be a (bizarrely, heavily dated) bop.

~*Specials*~
Strawberry Margarita
Strawberry Mojito
Strawberry Bellini

[the OCD is still on vacation. open!]

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Gladio really felt as though he'd really had a day, not necessarily bad, not necessarily good, but undeniably full, and so winding up at the Devil's Nest at the end of it just felt like the exactly right way to end it. He belatedly seemed to realize there was a bit of foliage in his hair from his traipse through the woods a bit earlier, and he plucked it out and seemed to think twice about just tossing it as he found his spot at the bar. Set it down almost reverently instead, followed by a small box that he shoved a little forward toward Annie, then took his seat with a nod.

"Annie. How's it going?"

"Better than it was, because Gladio, that sure looks like it might be for me," Annie replied with a smile as she glanced towards that box.

The foliage was less interesting than maybe-a-present, of course, but it was still amusing. (And also made Annie kind of glad that she'd decided not to actually take that team-building class, as interesting as it had seemed to her! MM would have probably appreciated some extra insight from her corner, these days, but it also did not seem like a great class for one's second-into-third trimester.)

The foliage was entirely unrelated to the class, actually, and had entirely to do with some other, separate urge to go scavenging through the woods for..something. He still wasn't quite sure what, which was driving him, an avid scavenger, a little bit crazy.

She'd actually have done great in today's class, probably, but subsequent classes? Yeah, probably a good call there.

"Wouldn't you know it?" he said, his faint grin pleased and pretty proud of himself. "That's exactly what it is. Not much. Just some of Nell's teas that she says might help. I figured you're probably having a helluva a time with things right now, between the weather and just generally everything."

"Oh my God, that's so nice of you." Annie's eyes were wide as she opened the box to peek (and sniff, because tea usually smelled great.) "Yeah, the weather is making everything, like...way worse, and the kids are mobile now, and...."

Annie just kind of made a, 'and so on,' gesture, still smiling widely at the gift. "But thank you. Both of you. Nell's such a sweetheart."

Hinty hinty hint-hint, la la la. Not that Annie, like, suspected anything there.

Why, what in the world could there possibly be there to suspect?

"No argument there," Gladio agreed readily; you'd have better luck arguing that water was dry, really. "And mobile? I guess at least you don't have to worry about them straying too far, at least?"

Was someone getting a brief memory of constantly chasing after Iris not being able to stand still? And an even more, sudden, ridiculously vivid image of the time Noctis has been the one to bring her back, with a little clench in his chest as the thought of the little fist-bump between them and how everything changed for them after that?

Oh sure, nothing to see there.

"They kick," Annie explained, though she was also very prepared for her kids to eventually be really quick crawlers; it just seemed likely to her that the offspring of people as competitive as she and Diego would want to get moving as quickly as possible. "It's super fun. And like, I'm sleeping super weird this week and I haven't figured out yet if it's just a baby thing or what, so -- " She picked up the box of tea, drawing it to her chest in thanks. "Super appreciated, Gladio. First drink's on me in exchange, okay? What're we having?"

Gladio nodded, in a way to say that he appreciated her gratitude for the teas, but it wasn't really necessary, before he had to smirk.

"You even have to ask? The one with strawberry, obviously."

"Good choice," Annie replied with a bright smile and a wink she couldn't even help. And congrats, Gladio, since you were leaving it up to her, she was going to choose for you, and she was leaning Bellini mostly because making Gladio drink out of a champagne flute was funny to her. "So how's it going? Your class start off okay?"

Was Gladio going to be disappointed that he didn't end up with the margarita, since he always liked to get the blended drinks on Annie's nights? Yes.

Was that disappointment going to be assuaged for the same reason that Annie had gone with the Bellini? Absolutely.

"Pretty good," he answered. "Pretty easy start, we just had everyone sort of get to know each other, you know, since teams work best when you're not a bunch of strangers. At least in our experience. But it feels good....working as a team again..."

And if his voice got a little softer at the end there, well...sure, they'd been ten years without him, except in the end, but maybe it was the dreams,maybe it was just the teamwork class as a whole, but it was hard to ignore that their team was always going to be....incomplete.

Sometimes you had to change it up in the name of giving a giant man a very dainty glass. (And also, this way Annie was serving the whole set of her specials for once, amongst her patrons. A bar miracle, honestly.)

"'Cause all three of you guys are teaching it together, right?" Annie checked, clocking that softening as she poured strawberry puree into a glass, and offering out a sympathetic little smile of her own. "So that's kind of nice. You're like, modeling teamwork for them, too."

Gladio nodded. "That's the idea," he said. "Teach by example and with the lessons. Prompto's idea, really, and a good one, too, especially since Shoe Guy wasn't sure about teaching again. He won't admit it, but it's a lot of work when he goes into something solo like he did the last couple of times. Which, there's another teamwork lesson in action, too, accepting that sometimes, having a team on hand can be a big benefit."

"We can't all do everything," Annie agreed with a nod. "In my experience, that's a huge part of teamwork -- accepting help gracefully, and with acknowledgement that you're all stronger together."

A lesson she had not learned at all from The Seven, but in fact, from the Hargreeves siblings.

"But," she acknowledged, "for someone as -- independent as Shoe Guy seems, I bet that doesn't always come all that easily."

"You can definitely say that again," Gladio agreed with a snort, and a slight shake of his head. "You'd be surprised, back home, how much time could sometimes pass before we saw him again, he'd just go off for months a time, doing his own thing. We all kind of did, after a while..."

There was that softening again, a slight trailing off, and a few things unspoken. That he'd never really made it very easy for him. That, once Noctis was gone, it seemed harder and harder to find reasons to stick together...

"But the job at the diner's helping a lot. Glad that remodel finally got squared away. And so is Nell's thing on Tuesdays. I keep telling him he needs to get a bar night, and then he accuses me of taking them all for myself."

"I don't think many people visit here on Wednesdays?" Annie offered thoughtfully as she placed the completed Bellini before Gladio with a little flourish -- and honestly, she felt kind of bad about the quietness of DN Wednesdays, considering that Octavia had to compete with the hottest jello ticket in town. (But -- and it's not like Annie really knew her -- she also wondered if Octavia didn't prefer the quiet, anyway.) "That might be a thought. And...I didn't know he was coming to Tuesdays at Nell's with you."

Third-wheeling, huh, Shoe Guy? Chaperoning, was it?

Shoe Guy would, for the record, like to maintain that he considered it more like reconnaissance, with a bit of...gentle goading and nudging on the side.

"Maybe I'll throw Wednesdays at him," Gladio nodded again, although that had its own issues, thanks to that hottest jello ticket in town being a major brain drain, "see if it sticks. But, yeah," here, he smiled softly, with a faint little amused huff to go with it, "it's been turning into quite the little shindig, which is good. I know she was hoping it might get her a little more used to having more people around, pretty sure we'll try to drag Prompto and Liz and the little squirt into it at some point, too."

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Devil's Nest | Thursday Evening

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