defenderofdesmoines | MCA #9 | Thursday Evening

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MCA #9 | Thursday Evening

Okay, not to be too - whatever about it, but this whole sangria night was one of those things that Annie felt like she'd kind of missed out on doing before because she hadn't had a lot of girlfriends growing up. (Not that she would have had, like, little gal pals over for sangria sleepovers in high school or whatever, but just the whole thing seemed like one of those rites of passage that Annie kept coming up against.)

So, in any case, she had made a big ol' pitcher of sangria (and in typical Annie fashion, she had poured pretty heavy so, like, bad news for her class tomorrow!), and she'd dug out a little tub of a foot mask she'd gotten for Christmas, because while her mani-pedi she'd gotten with Rey a couple weeks back was still holding up, winter was here and dry skin was a whole thing. She also lit a few of her big jarred scented candles, and you bet your ass she double-checked all her cute little similar-looking jars just to make sure there wasn't anything she'd forgotten to retrieve. (Not that having Summer find a stash like that would be nearly as embarrassing as it had been when Danny had, but you know, Annie felt like she couldn't be too careful now.)

[for she who is narratively mentioned, of course!]

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"Of course it is," Annie agreed, wide-eyed as she quickly counted the months between September and February, and - Jesus, "Five months? Summer. Summer."

Look, Annie considered herself a little on the conservative side when it came to these things, compared to her peers, and she'd only managed to hold off for a month with Diego. (And they hadn't even made things 'official' until a week or two later!) Five months was basically an eternity. Annie legitimately might have died. (Diego almost certainly would have.)

"Like - why? Sorry, that's nosy, but like, seriously, is he saving himself for marriage or something?"

Seemed unlikely, but Annie had known several people like that. Honestly, Annie had been a person like that into her late teens, until she'd learned how much harder it was to keep a promise like that when one had a cute boyfriend.

Holy crap, they were coming up on half a year. And here it didn't even seem that long ago when Summer was beinga total nerd about it having been a month.

She shook her head slowly.

"Honestly?" she said. "I don't think he ever really even thinks about it."

Which was...a lot. There was a lot to unpack there. At least on Summer's side of things, anyway. Barry got the benefit of being oblivious to it more often than not.

And even that sucked. Like she could really begrudge the guy constantly thinking about everything one less thing on his stupid brilliant mind...

"That literally does not seem possible," Annie told her honestly. "Like, look at you."

Seriously, Summer, look at you. How could he not.

"Like - " Annie added, taking a healthy swig of her sangria there before continuing, "even setting aside how adorable you guys are, and how I've seen him look at you - " Because you know what, heart-eyes recognized heart-eyes, yo, "- you're like, gorgeous, Summer. Of course he thinks about it. Fuck's sake, your New Year's dress!"

Annie helpfully did the universal hourglass-silhouette gesture in the air, because like, Summer.

In a moment, here, she'd get to something besides just sheer disbelief, but she needed a second to just express how incredibly, incredibly unlikely it seemed to her that Summer's boyfriend never thought about sexing her up. Like, please.

Annie. Annie. Bless your heart, honey, you were amaze-balls, but Summer (and the expression on her face) knew that she was just saying that because she was, you know, under Bestie Obligation. She totally appreciated it, though, even if it was so not even remotely true. Friend Gold Star on that one, Annie, it even sounded convincing!

"I'm serious, Annie," she said. "That dress is, like, how far I have to go to get even a blip on his radar. It's exhausting, and doesn't even work, so, you know, super great for the already tenuous self-esteem. And here." Summer shifted so she could pull out her phone, and started scrolling.

Give her a second. There was a lot of shit on her phone.

"I have receipts."

And she was so, so sorry, Barry, but she was now showing Annie that infamous text exchange.

Five months! This clearly meant professional friend intervention....or at least commisseration and sympathy...was needed.

It was convincing because Annie believed it!

She peered in at Summer's screen, frowning a little. And, like, Annie had never sent a text like that, but she totally would. (Perhaps one related to a vending machine, in another universe.) Because everyone knew what that kind of a text meant. Everyone. Even people who were born in the late seventeenth century, apparently.

Everyone except Barry.

"Oh my God, he didn't get it," Annie breathed. Like. Annie was very lucky as far as these sorts of things went, in that Diego could be a little dense sometimes, but at least he followed along just fine when it came to this stuff. (Again: even a guy who had never had a cell phone until November would know what u up? meant, she was sure.)

"Okay. Okay. First of all? I know it doesn't work this way, but your self-esteem should not even be a thing, you are beautiful and it's not you. This is just - like, a challenge." Sure, let's frame it as a challenge! "But it does sound exhausting. And - God. No wonder you're going fucking crazy."

Summer had even made this huge deal about how even people born in the late seventeenth century knew what that meant!

So maybe it had just been karma all along.

Summer's eyes went wide for a moment with an acknowledgement of thank god Annie understood where she was coming from, and then she shook her head again and poured herself a little more sangria. "The jello line, by the way," she said, "was a direct reference to earlier that week, when he'd come into the store covered in jello from an accident in class and when I offered to help him get cleaned up, his response was basically 'naw, I'm good'..."

And there went a good chunk of the way toward her next refill!

"Don't get me wrong, Annie, I do love a challenge, but I think I may have gone way over my head with this one."

"He - can he read other cues?" Annie checked, moving past disbelief into concern that maybe this was something beyond obliviousness. (Not that the obliviousness was, you know, ideal.) "Because like, you are not subtle in these texts, and the jello thing sounds, again, obvious in the cutest like, wink-wink kind of way, but...."

She was going to need a refill herself, here.

"But like you guys are saying 'I love you,'" she noted, skeptical. "Like, you guys skipped right over sex and went to love, which is super romantic, but did you...accidentally actually skip the sex?"

Edited 2021-02-04 22:21 (UTC)

"Oh, god," Summer groaned, leaning back on the couch, wilting as if just the thought of that was too much to bear. "Can that even be a thing? This whole thing has been completely ass-backwards from what I'm used to; I usually start with the sex, and then go from there."

She didn't usually get very far, true, but still!

"That can't be a thing," Annie decided, shaking her head. "'Cause like, sex is fun to start and then it's better when you're in love."

At least, Annie thought so, even if she couldn't quite bring herself to tell literally the only person who needed to hear those words that.

"Okay. I know this sounds crazy, but have you talked to him about it?" she added, frowning in thought. Annie was usually a big fan of talking out one's feelings (notable exceptions above not withstanding), but she'd also never felt like she needed to spell something like this out for Diego, let alone any past boyfriend.

See, now, and talking about it was a pretty logical conclusion, wasn't it? Which is why Summer had thought about this, and that it might come in this conversation, so that was in the bank of responses she'd already considered and she sighed, sitting back up again, leaning forward as she got into it.

"Okay," she said, "so here's the thing with Barry. Barry is...not good...socially. Like, and he overthings things...a lot. And that leads him to overcompensate. That's why he goes overboard on gifts. That's how Pancakes ended up with a million toys, I got a solar converter for my ship on, like, our first date, that's how you'll probably be pretty hard pressed to find someone on this island right now who doesn't have some nifty little gadget or thing or leg that Barry made for them. Which is great and sweet, because that's also Barry. He's sweet and kind and honestly one of the nicest people I have ever met, but this is a guy who, when it was his turn to pick a movie for movie night, instead of just, you know, picking a movie he liked, he put together a whole algorithm that was supposed to calcute the perfect choice based on who even knows what data...

"Which failed, by the way," she felt compelled to add. "He wound up with something from an alternate universe where my parents never had me and so my dad went on to be a big movie star and broke ground by being cast as the female romantic lead in Titantic.

"Anyway," she concluded, "that said, I feel like the moment I do try to talk to him about it, his brain's going to kick into that overthinking, overcompensating overdrive and then it's going to be impossible to know if he's actually doing it because he wants to or just because he knows it's what I want."

And that was kind of a big deal for her. She wished it wasn't. It would be easier if it wasn't.

"Most of the time I even try anything, anyway, it's just like..." She waved a hand over her face. "Bluescreen. Like he can't even process it."

"Oh, Summer." That was a lot more complicated than what Annie had considered, initially, and look at that, it was time for more sangria already.

Though it was at least in part because while she didn't know Summer's dad, she was still picturing a guy who didn't look totally unlike Jerry Smith in the iconic, 'Jack, I'm flying!' scene, now. Like. Wow.

"I was gonna say just to go for it, if talking doesn't work," Annie ventured, wrinkling her nose in thought. "But if the bluescreening is a problem and he can't process it, then like, I'm guessing you're not getting any, like, other hints - " Oh, God, how to phrase this one. Annie was a few glasses of sangria in, so she wasn't like, too shy to say it, but you know, one wanted to be delicate and respectful when discussing one's friend's boyfriend. "- like, with guys, it's usually pretty easy to tell if they're into it? But if that's all not clicking, then I doubt any amount of, 'Surprise, honey, do you like my new bustier?' or whatever's gonna make a difference?"

Oh, if only it could have been that scene, Annie. If only!

"Not gonna lie," said Summer, with a tilt of her head as she focused on one particular word in all of that, "I could potentially be super into that, but, no, I don't think that's it. I have sort of wondered if maybe he's asexual, which, you know, hey, totally valid and I absolutely respect that..."

It was just going to be super awkward because she very much was not.

"...but it definitely doesn't feel like it when we kiss..."

Summer would have wound up sounding pretty wistful with that last statement even without the sangria; the sangria just seemed to make it that much extra in its long-suffering yearning.

"If he is asexual," Annie offered, "then that's still not a reflection on you." Just because she still felt like she needed to reassure Summer that, like, none of this was on her, because she was obviously beautiful and Annie personally would kill to have her figure, thank you. "But it doesn't sound like it. It just sounds like - I don't know, nerves or something, when things get going."

A pause as she poured herself more sangria and a thought occurred to her, and she darted a glance over at Summer. "Wait. Barry's, like, old - " Roughly about as old as her own boyfriend, so you know, given value of 'old,' "- so I didn't think of this, but...he's not a virgin, is he?"

There was a long, long pause.

"Fuuuuuuuuuck."

Followed quickly by, "No. No way. Is that, like, even possible?"

But, ohmygod, that would explain so. Much.

"I mean." Annie was actually considering this seriously, now, though that sangria fog was a little denser than before. "Barry's cute, so it seems unlikely, but...that's what it sounds like? Or else maybe he's just, like...kinda inexperienced, or it's been awhile? Maybe he's intimidated by you."

By you and your hotness, Summer.

"I mean, that's fair," Summer allowed, after a moment. "I guess I kind of am a force to be reckoned with..."

"Especially," Annie added, "if he's...shy. Or inexperienced. Like, you are a force to be reckoned with, and that can be a lot to live up to."

Take it from Annie, who was still occasionally amazed that she managed to keep Diego's interest given her skinny hips and her weird bony elbows and her still-new discovery that you could have sex in places besides a bedroom with the lights off.

"But," she added reluctantly, "I do think you should probably talk to him, just to clear that up. But, like, talk to him while you're both doing something unsexy. Like you should both be in parkas or something. So there's no pressure."

Summer snorted a little at that, sliding a grin over at Annie. "I love that you say 'unsexy' and immediately go to parkas."

Summer was thinking maybe something more along the lines of a super gross planet to trudge through, one with really big bugs, because then it was not only unsexy (well, it could be a little sexy, but that was probably the wine talking*), but then of things got too bad, she could just feign being attacked by bugs or sucked in my slime to avoid talking about it any further!

But then just thinking of that made her groan and slouch a little again. "Ugh. This sucks. And this is why I don't talk about things. It leads to revelations that I might be dating a twenty-seven year old virgin..."

Oh, god, this put so much into perspective. And there goes another mark for Summer to start feeling more self-conscious about than she already was with her experience. Jesus Christ, she'd sang 'Like a Virgin!' at him that one time!!

"Please," she gushed at Annie, "tell me things are at least still going good between you and Diego, so I can live vicariously through you, or go on your own rant about something so I don't have to kind of hate you a little bit.

"Weird time-traveling brother with rage issues doesn't count," she added with a long important sip. "You already told me about that. Unless there are," a hand waved in the air, "developments.

__________
*It was not.

Edited 2021-02-05 01:22 (UTC)

"Parkas are deeply unsexy," Annie had to point out, because they were - plus, honestly, with the way Annie and Diego in particular tended to operate, being attacked by super gross bugs would probably lead to some kind of 'you looked hot fighting that bug' back-and-forth, and like - parkas. Parkas were unflattering on everyone.

Anyway.

Annie took a long sip of her sangria, slanting a look over at Summer. "Things with Diego are wonderful," she admitted, feeling a little bad about potentially seeming like she was bragging, since, like, she was very much not dating a virgin, no. (They'd moved a couch the day before. Like, things were great there.) And the thing was, there were kind of developments with the Five situation, but the apocalypse was kind of a downer and Annie didn't want to end up in some kind of wine-drunk crying place.

"We have like, the opposite issue as you guys," she added thoughtfully, shrugging a shoulder. "Like - the physical stuff is A-plus, he's amazing, I'm really lucky, but like...." She chewed on her lower lip, weighing her words. "I dunno, I've never felt like this about someone before, and I keep talking myself out of telling him so because I really want to make sure I get, like, the timing right? Is that dumb?"

Annie was pretty sure it was at least kind of dumb.

Edited 2021-02-05 14:18 (UTC)

"I don't know if I'd say that the exact opposite," Summer murmured, because, okay, yeah, Annie was definitely one of those people she'd feel genuinely happy for that things were going great for, definitely in the 'well, if I'm not getting any, at least my friends are' kind of theoretical way, but actually hearing just highlighted how unfair it kind of was. She took a long, thoughtful sip of her own and then shrugged.

"Perfect moments like that are overrated anyway," she said, "but it's not dumb. There's a lot to be said about sort of a spur-of-the-moment spontaneity, too, y'know? Like, Barry said it after we found out the planet we were on was actually my grampa's secret pooping spot. He went on this whole thing at New Years about how he wished it could have been more like that night, you know, the whole dancing and the evening and everything was so perfect, and, yeah, that would have been amazing, but I think...I'm glad it happened the way it did because it was just so much more genuine, y'know? Anyone can feel that way on New Years Eve, but when someone tells you they love you on a literal toilet planet, you know they really mean it...."

Then a beat later, she followed it up with: "You should totally tell him, like, during the next invasion or whatever, like, you're both all prepped and ready to go rushing out there to kick ass and then you totally spill your guts, hit him with this super memorable kiss that is honestly way too dangerous in the middle of a fight if done right, and then just charge out there, kick some ass, and see what happens when the dust settles. That'd be epic as fuck."

And, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, she'd just said what she'd just said, but it would make a much better story than toilet planet.

[[ sorry for the loooooong pause lol, yesterday turned into A DAY. ]]

"I mean, yeah, if someone tells you they love you on a literal toilet planet," Annie agreed, her nose wrinkling a little in spite of herself, "that's - that might actually be true love. Whereas yeah, that's the thing - something like New Year's, it's like, are we just caught up in the romance of it all, et cetera, et cetera." Not to mention that, anyone with eyes might have told Summer they loved her with that dress involved, like, damn.

"But," she added, holding a finger up, "epic as fuck is also kind of our style? Or at least, like, superhero-y shit kind of is. Like, the second time I ever ran into Diego, I beat the everloving hell out of him kind of by accident - " only kind of, because it wasn't like she'd slipped and thrown him into a wall, she just hadn't recognized him or expected to have knives thrown at her, "and I was Starlight the first time we kissed. So that would, like, fit. But then like, my favorite stuff with us is just the kind of normal couple stuff, too." Like how the first time they'd slept together had just been normal couch-cuddling that had predictably escalated, but she didn't want to, like, rub her amazing sex life in Summer's face, here.

She took a sip of her sangria, thinking about it, and added, "It's kind of weird, actually, because I've never actually been with a guy who liked...both Annie and Starlight. Like, I have a couple super-exes and I was even on a team with one, and I've tried to make it work with normal guys but that always turns into a shitshow of like, me needing to pretend that I can't kick their ass because oh no, fragile male egos, and like...I don't know. Diego just likes me with the cape or not. It's the weirdest thing."

At least, it was the weirdest thing for her, and it was totally one of those things that just sort of made her feel weak-kneed and pretty absolutely sure she loved Diego when she thought about it.

[no worries, I figured as much!! <3]

"That's the weirdest thing?" asked Summer, brows lifted almost incredulously before she shook her head, sipped some sangria, and totally passed Annie a look. "No, Annie, the weirdest thing is all those lame assholes who couldn't see how awesome both sides of you are, because, I mean, it doesn't matter if it's Annie or Starlight, it's all you, and you're amazing, and, god, what is wrong with most guys and why are they so stupid?

"I mean, I'm sure Diego really is great," she should, like, actually talk to him one of this days, "or else you wouldn't be so nuts for him. Obviously that's not everything," and it wasn't a rant about Diego by any stretch of the imagination, "but seriously. Liking both sides of who you are should be, like, baseline. And also super easy, like, what the fuck?"

But, honestly, it took her two seconds to remember her own high school boyfriends to confirm, that, yeah, most average dudes in the world suuuuuucked.

"Oh, it's a whole thing," Annie assured her, shaking her head. "Like, I've put off so many normal guys because I'm stronger than them and they can't deal with it, or they're into the super-girl thing to a weird degree, and then on the Starlight side of things, I'm kind of a minor celebrity back home and, like, my ex-teammate and I were kind of a...minor celebrity couple for a hot second until he cheated on me, so like - Annie doesn't really fit there, either."

She swirled her sangria, rolling her eyes. "But, like, Diego agrees with you," not that he knew about the whole Drummer Boy situation, though Annie was pretty sure that would only reinforce Diego's feelings on the matter, "and it's like, the best. The weirdest, but the best. I think it helps that he's both like me and not. And that he's older. Guys our age largely kind of suck, I think."

At least, the ones Annie had dated had sucked. And Diego had told her himself that she wouldn't have liked him at twenty-three, so there was that.

"Yeaaaaaahhhh," Summer agreed slowly, suddenly wondering just how old Creepy Head Space Stalker Asshole was, even if that was so not even remotely the real issue there, "you're not wrong. I mean, look at us. You, me, Rey...all of us with older dudes."

She actually had no idea how old John was, but she was pretty sure it wasn't early twenties, not unless being a pirate was waaaay harder on a person than she'd have even thought.

And she was definitely going with older instead of more mature, because she knew Barry's sense of humor way too well for that to apply.

She felt like she should have added a bit more wisdom to that, too, but, right at that moment, if there was some deeper connection with that she was supposed to make, the sangria was holding it a secret from her, or something.

Yeah, John seemed, like, Old. Like John might have grey hairs. He was distinguished.

(And please, Annie had also chosen older rather than mature, because Diego had his moments, but that was never going to be an appropriate full-time descriptor for any Hargreeves.)

"I think guys take longer to figure shit out," Annie decided. "Like emotional things and like, settling into their personalities."

And really, she meant sex things, too, because like, there was a knowledge base and level of patience there that she hadn't experienced much with her few forays out with guys her own age - but clearly that was not a universal truth, so she added, "Like Diego straight-up told me I wouldn't have liked him when he was my age. And I can't even picture John younger, and Barry - honestly, he was probably even less chill." Not that she'd ever consider Barry chill as he was now, but if this theory held, then he probably had mellowed a little over the years.

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