defenderofdesmoines | Mallory's House, New York

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Mallory's House, New York | Thursday Night

So today hadn't gone according to plan in...seriously, any way, at all. There had been considerable, unexpected violence, but at the same time, they'd managed to shed some real light on what kind of evil shit Vought was up to. And no one had died! (No one they knew, anyway. Lots of people had died, actually.)

Hughie had been in a stress-and-morphine-induced sleep since he'd been discharged from the hospital and tucked into one of Grace Mallory's guest beds, and since Butcher had been missing since they'd gotten home, Annie had to think he was probably either at his bedside or off talking to the Colonel somewhere. Everyone else had dispersed -- Frenchie and Kimiko were tucked into a corner of the spacious living room, while MM was on the phone with his wife out on the patio. And Lamplighter -- fucking Lamplighter, Annie would have never called that -- dozed restlessly in an armchair.

Annie and Diego, as the lone couple of the group, were getting the other guest room to themselves. "This beats the hell out of where we stayed last night," Annie said, trying for a little bit of levity once they'd excused themselves and gone up to their room. "There's a bed and everything."

Don't get used to that, guys.

[for the guy who's there with her!]

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"I know, right? Fancy," he said, flopping down on the aforementioned bed. "Of course anything is better than that pawn shop."

"Maybe we'll work out of here now," Annie said in a fit of absurd optimism, trailing after to join him on the bed. "Let the Kings have their hideout back."

She was normally kind of clingy and touchy and affectionate, but after the events of today, she was pretty reluctant to let Diego get further away than arm's length. It would take something pretty serious to get her to let him out of her sight again any time soon.

"Mallory doesn't really seem to be thrilled to have us here," he pointed out.

"I don't know if that lady is thrilled about anything," Annie pointed out, running her fingertips along his arm. And she didn't even know about the Lamplighter factor, which was almost certainly contributing to that already-severe woman's mood. "But it's good to see that, like, Butcher's not actually in charge."

Because Annie might like him slightly more after today, but he also didn't seem like someone who should...you know. Ever make the plans.

"Yeah that's actually really reassuring," he said, shifting a little closer to her. "I think I got the better end of the deal today."

"Seriously?" Annie asked, raising her brows. "Like...we couldn't see what was going on in there, but it looked like shit got really bad after Stormfront got there."

And she was just going to curl that little bit closer and drape one of her feet over Diego's, just to achieve as many points of contact as possible. Turning her back on the chaos at Sage Grove with Diego inside and just trusting that he'd be okay had been one of the hardest things she'd ever done, in a whole series of hard things.

"Yeah, okay, I saw some weird shit," he said. "Somebody's head exploded."

"What?" That was not a normal thing to say, Diego.

And, like, okay, it was irrational, but she was reaching up to run her hand over his hair anyway, maybe a little to reassure herself that his head was there and totally intact.

"Yeah, one of the patients, Cindy, that's her power," he said, happy to lean into that touch. "Lamplighter seemed terrified of her."

For good reason, actually. And he would just leave out the part where it was kind of his fault that she got out in the first place.

"I mean, I would be too. Did they all have violent powers?" Annie asked, looking pretty horrified. "'Cause, like, Hughie got hurt because some guy got out and had like a...psionic seizure or something that flipped the van."

And then Butcher had shot the living hell out of that kid, so there were clearly some things to work out still with whatever variation of V they were giving these adults.

"It seemed like it. This one guy threw up acid or something?" At least that's what it looked like. "...I had to use my powers to get rid of him."

Yeah he knew he broke the rules there.

Annie frowned slightly -- not so much that he'd broken the rules, but that it had been necessary -- as she moved her hand down to rub gently between Diego's shoulder blades. "Did anyone see?" she checked. "I told MM to treat you normal no matter what he saw."

Because yeah, she'd known that it was optimistic to think that Diego would get through all of this without having to throw a few knives.

"They all saw, Lamplighter included," he said with a frown. "I don't know if they really understood it or just think I have good aim. And can break the laws of physics."

"As long as they understand that you can't take a bullet," Annie said softly, and she was trying to keep her tone light but it had been a day so that lightness might not have quite...taken. She especially didn't like that Lamplighter knew, because she did not trust him, at all. "They seem pretty content to use me and Kimiko as human shields if necessary."

Which was fine with her, but meant that she wanted to be crystal fucking clear that Diego was not to be treated the same way, no matter how blatantly the laws of physics were broken.

He nodded, though he preferred if nobody was treated like a human shield. "They seem okay. Not Lamplighter, obviously, but the other guys."

He smiled slightly, sliding his fingers over one of her arms. "Wanna hear something kind of hilarious?"

"Absolutely." Annie's day had featured exactly zero hilarity, so yes, she would love to hear something kind of hilarious.

And she agreed, too, that the other guys seemed all right. Like, in that way, Diego had definitely lucked out today -- those three seemed like way more fun to hang out with than Butcher and Hughie had been, even if things had ultimately kind of worked out there.

"So one of the patients at the facility," Diego started. "His power...was that he had a giant penis. Not, like, porno big. I mean...like it was a couple feet. And it moved on its own."

"...what."

Okay, like, Annie had heard him just fine, but -- what. What.

"It moved on its own?" Annie asked in a scandalized whisper. "Like -- a snake?"

That was all she could picture. How did this guy walk? WHAT?

"Faster than a snake. It's hard to explain unless you see it for yourself." Hell, he saw it and he had trouble believing it. "It...it wrapped itself around MM's neck and started choking him."

It was really a dangerous situation, but it was also so funny since it hadn't happened to him.

"Oh my God." Look, if MM had been choked to death by a giant dick, this would not be all that hilarious -- but since he'd lived through it, it was...kind of funny.

Kind of really funny.

"That," she decided after a moment, clearly torn between laughter and concern (and kind of landing on laughter, yeah), "is the absolute shittiest superpower I've ever heard of. Oh my God."

And like, she knew Gecko.

(...though she did not know Gecko as well as she thought she did, since his powers were sort of penis-adjacent as well.)

"I mean, it was pretty effective," Diego said, laughing. "It took some knives and Kimiko punching it to get the dick off of MM."

"I mean, good job to both of you," Annie said, still looking kind of amazed by this development. "And...like, that's kind of a great story, at least? Now you can tell people you fought a guy with a superpowered dick!"

And by 'people,' she absolutely meant, 'Steve McGarrett, who will want to hear about this in detail.'

Oh, Steve was going to be like one of the first people he told, for sure.

"It was one of the weirder moments of my life, for sure," Diego said. "You can see why I thought I got the better end of the deal today."

Because there had been some hilarious aspects to it.

"Yeah, you actually might have," Annie agreed, sobering a little and wrapping an arm across Diego. "I was so worried about you in there, but it...sounds like it actually went sort of okay? I mean. No one's head got exploded. Poor MM and all, but...getting choked by a super-dick sounds like getting off kind of lightly."

Phrasing, maybe?

"Yeah the closest I got to worried was when they started talking about the drama between them and Lamplighter. It sort of distracted us from getting out of there," he said, wrapping his arms around her to pull her in closer. "I'm not going to pretend I know the whole story but Lamplighter seems like a real dick, so I'm sure the hate is warranted."

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