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Devil's Nest | Thursday Evening

Tiny was still carving pumpkins today -- at least, he had been, before he'd urgently needed to go look at something in the back when Annie started opening up about her current complaints about Late Stage Pregnancy. (Maybe this, more than Annie's body's need for rest, or doctor's orders, was a good reason why she'd be going on maternity leave in two weeks.)

But in any case, between his bringing the theme without her asking, and the fact that Annie was going to miss the bulk of pumpkin spice season thanks to said maternity leave, today's specials were pretty easy.

~*Specials*~
Boozy Pumpkin White Hot Chocolate
Pumpkin Spice White Russian
Pumpkin Spice Mule

Given that she was caught in a pumpkin spice haze -- Annie had helped herself to some of that hot chocolate, minus the booze, of course -- it would take Annie a little while to realize that the music tonight was actually just one song, on repeat. (It would take her longer still to get sick of it, too, but that hour would be coming as well.)

[and OPEN!]

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"Probably should have expected that," Gladio noted, nodding at the specials board as he settled into what he felt he could now shamelessly dub 'his spot.' The nod then drifted to Tiny, with a greeting, and then to Annie.

"How's it going?"

"I am nothing," Annie admitted, with a little roll of her eyes towards her own specials board, "if not an occasional basic bitch. Hi, Gladio. It's going okay!"

And if you knew how to read Tiny, his face was saying a whole lot there from where Annie wasn't looking at him, because he'd just gotten to hear way more than anyone ever needed to about compression socks and why she was wearing them now.

"Relatively okay," she amended, since, you know, six weeks away from giving birth and all, as she pressed a hand to her lower back and tried to turn the maneuver into a sort of shimmy to go along with the Earth, Wind and Fire of it all. "How're you?"

Marc headed in after the usual delay due to needing to switch things out with Steven. "Hey. Getting close to the end here, huh?"

"Week thirty-three," Annie shared, grooving her way over to grab a cocktail napkin preemptively. (And not without a little, "nah-nah-nah, something in September," sung to go with it.) "T-minus six weeks until launch, at this point."

Which was probably another reason maternity leave needed to be a thing soon, since -- well, ideally, there'd be something of an early launch, here. A full 39 week pregnancy with twins? Well, that would just be cruel.

"How's it going, Marc?"

Not long after Marc arrived, there was Watts, who sat down with his usual flourish.

“You look-“ how to say this? “About ready to burst.”

Probably should not have gone with that.

She was shimmying and grooving with those twins in there. It was an impressive show of badassery, quite frankly.

"All right enough," he said. "Got anybody coming to town for that visitor thing?"

Annie had to snort out a laugh at that, at least, and took a moment to consider her response before knocking lightly on the wooden bartop.

"I'd rather my water didn't break, like, here and now," she noted, lifting a brow lightly. "But I wouldn't exactly mind not going the full six more weeks to full term, honestly."

The kids were like, full-fledged -- if small, and very soft-skulled -- babies, now. She could really get on board with just going ahead and getting the birth part out of the way a little early, really.

"How's it going, Llewellyn?"

The greatest legacy of the 70s, possibly, was the abundance of songs that anyone, in any body, could groove to. What a gift.

"My buddy Kimiko's coming," Annie shared, smiling over at him as she poured a whiskey. "Steven and Llewellyn both met her last year. And Kimiko doesn't usually travel alone, so probably one of the guys we work with, too?"

Fingers crossed for MM. Annie was in even less of a mood than usual to deal with Hughie or Butcher.

"You guys?"

“Really well, as a matter of fact,” Watts informed her with a grin. “So everything is ready for their impending arrival?”

"Layla probably," Marc said. "She's curious about the new place. Not so much Crawley. Nice guy but not really a talker."

Said, yanno, Marc.

Edited 2023-09-21 14:35 (UTC)

"Can't complain," Gladio answered easily, with a little bit of a sympathetic smirk for both bartenders. "Especially compared to some."

His chin quirked toward the board.

"What one would you recommend?"

"Just about," Annie assured him, though there was a trace of nervousness there if you were looking. "I think we have, like, every possible baby accessory you can get, and I think they're all even put together, now."

So much assembling of things. So much.

"New house is all good?" she added, since she figured that's where the really well was tied up.

"Oh, weird," Annie replied, with perhaps just a touch -- a touch -- of playful sarcasm. "I wonder what that's like. He's coming along, too, then?"

"Well," Annie told him, with an air of breaking bad news gently, "none of them are blended, tragically. But I think you've liked mules before, right? In the copper cup? The other two are all, like, milky, if you're feeling like that kind of a vibe."

What an unappealing word milky was, incidentally. Ew.

“The new house,” Watts declared, “is lovely. Did you know there is such things as little shelves one can put along the walls for cats to walk along? Because Midnight discovered as much and has been making them for Raphael wherever he goes. It’s quite charming, actually.”

Unless you were Marc and kept finding yourself startled by a cat who was suddenly at eye level. But Marc also hadn’t actively discouraged the cat from playing this little game nor had he banned him from his bedroom, which said rather a lot.

“And we’ve a library, if you can believe it.” She’d met both Steven and Watts, she could probably believe it. “Even sharing with others, I’ve never had so much space to call my own before.”

Edited 2023-09-21 15:30 (UTC)

"Fancy," Annie replied, widening her eyes in admiration. It took her a second to cotton onto the fact that 'Midnight' meant the house, which (...who?) was sentient, and like, she just needed to not think about that too hard, if only to not have to wrestle with the interrogative pronoun question. "You know, somehow I actually can believe that there's a library, yeah. That sounds really cozy, Llewellyn."

“With a proper fireplace as well,” Watts added. “Not that it’s seeing much use now. But once the weather finally turns… as you say: cozy.”

Marc noted the sarcasm but he approved of that kind of thing. He gave Annie a nod to show appreciation. "Nah, not him. He'll stay put. Keep keeping an eye on things for us."

"Yeah, I kinda got that feeling," Gladio admitted, a little ruefully. "The mule sounds good, let's go with that."

Because, yeah, Gladio was definitely thinking the same about Annie's choice of words, there.

"Think you got many more bar nights in you?" he wondered. "Tough it out until the end?"

"We probably have -- what, a month?" Annie tried, squinting a little in thought. "It stays hot so long here, but like, I want it to be colder so bad. Speaking of -- pumpkin spice drink for you?"

Feelings would not be hurt if he declined. Pumpkin spice -- like White Claw -- might not be for everyone.

"But that's nice that Layla's probably coming," Annie offered as she set his whiskey before him, since she'd definitely gotten the impression that this Layla was pretty popular in the Spector-Grant-Watts household. "We've been surprised before, so it's nice to know who's actually coming in advance. Be able to plan for, like, putting people up on the sofa or whatever."

Marc took the whiskey and gave her a toast with it before drinking. "We've got a guest room this time."

Then, since Annie had seen his and Steven's apartment, clarified, "And actual one, not just a room I'm using for storage."

Watts eyed the specials, and then shook his head. “A glass of syrah will do, thank you.”

Nothing against pumpkin spice, really. He rather enjoyed traditional pumpkin-flavoured foods like soup and pie. He just… didn’t want it in his drink.

"Funny you should mention it -- I actually have an official deadline on that, courtesy of my doctor," Annie replied, snagging a mug and starting on his drink. "October 5th is gonna be my last day until the new year."

Which sounded both like so much time, and also almost none. But parental leave also didn't need to stretch that far when she and Diego each only worked one day a week, she supposed.

"So, like, you and Tiny enjoy the holiday season," she continued, a little playful. "Take pictures of whatever he makes out of marzipan for me."

"Expecting visitors often?" Annie wondered, since Diego's siblings had been a contributing factor to their ongoing need for a guest room. (Less of a concern now that time-traveling assholes who did not know how to knock, apparently weren't around so much, but still.)

Steven and Watts came up with the floorplan," Marc said, to explain who the ones thinking of visitors had been. "Well, most of the floorplan. I put in the gym and the weapons locker."

Also his own ensuite bathroom which was totally because he didn't want to share with Steven and Watts and not a comfort thing. For realsies.

That just meant more pumpkin drinks for Annie, thank you! Minus, you know, the vodka and such.

"You got it," Annie replied with a good-natured thumbs up as she took to the wine, muttering, "Syrah...syrah...." under her breath as she traced a finger along the bottles.

She'd get it in a second. (Though she probably would have had better luck if she had better wine knowledge, and knew to look near the shiraz.) In the meantime, though, there was totally going to be a certain danciness to her search, thanks to the (ubiquitous, repetitive) music.

"Oh, don't worry," Gladio assured her, "I won't let you miss out on any of it. Maybe I can even drag Prompto in here with me a couple of nights and he can really take some shots that'll be worthy of Tiny's artistry. Real professional for you.

"But that's good," he said, "couple more weeks to get in there before you're all-in on motherhood."

“My thanks.”

That’s all right, Watts could be patient. Though he was watching that danciness with mild amusement.

"That sounds about right," Annie mused. "I feel like if you put Steven in charge of the gym, you'd get mixed results. Though probably, like, lots of affirmations and stuff."

Encouraging Post-Its on the mirrors, affirming posters, you know? Probably a lighter touch on, like, practice hitting-people-in-the-face stuff.

"Similar results with putting you in charge of the library," she added, in fairness.

"You know, this song has been playing since I got here?" Annie shared once she finally found a bottle and grooved with it over to the glasses so she could pour him one. "I'm gonna be so earwormed tomorrow."

Which was a tough break, on the twenty-second of September.

"Unless my kids are the type of people who think punctual means early," Annie noted with the requisite knock to the bar to stave off her own self-jinxing, there, "yeah. And honestly, you guys'll probably get better results out of Tiny than I do."

You know, Annie was really starting to get the feeling that Tiny might not...like, love her?

"I'm gonna have to do Halloween specials soon," she realized, since she would be missing them. (And last year she'd missed Halloween thanks to her honeymoon, too!)

"Agreed," Marc said, because that was indeed a fair point all around. "So you doing anything special for your last day? Throwing a party or anything?"

“Ear… wormed?” Watts echoed, scrunching his face up in mild confusion at the unpleasant-sounding term.

"Slang for getting a song stuck in your head," Annie supplied without missing a beat. She really should have known better on that one, but to be fair, she was being aggressively earwormed at the moment by Earth, Wind & Fire, and it was distracting.

"Psh, I already had a party in my honor earlier in the summer," Annie pointed out, waving a hand. "Not really? It's going to be weird to take three months off, though."

Three months off from...working once a week. What a strange transition, yes.

"You don't strike me as the kind of person who enjoys doing nothing," Marc said. "Not that kids are nothing but compared to work and interacting with people."

“I see,” Watts said. “I am familiar with the phenomenon, at least. And the ear part I certainly get. But worm? That just sounds like a deeply unpleasant experience.”

You know, just for that, maybe Gladio should come in on some different nights and see if there wasn't another bartender deserving of his Third Favorite spot. Clearly, Tiny needed to put a little more respect toward his first favorite.

"Isn't all the pumpkin spice sort of tied in with all the Halloween stuff?" asked Gladio, who was thinking he should brush back up on all his Earth holidays again. He used to know so much more about them, too...

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Devil's Nest | Thursday Evening

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