Somewhere in Australia, Apparently | Saturday Morning

[defenderofdesmoines]

So, yesterday had been kind of a disaster, and really, Annie was still kicking herself for not seeing that coming. It wasn't her fault, exactly -- she'd moved past that line of thought -- but she absolutely had gotten caught up in the idea of planning and throwing this birthday party without really considering what Diego (and Five, but Diego was her bigger concern right now) actually would want.

Which was why they were now waking up to 600 acres of privacy. Annie had called in every favor she had, thrown her name around way more than she liked to do, and spent more money than she wanted to think about in the wake of the cakes hitting the ground. And while her assistant had promised her that what she'd secured for them (even on such late notice) was awesome, and they'd obviously had to trek up here last night before collapsing into bed, Annie was still kind of amazed once she woke up enough to look out the windows.

"Wow," she breathed as she sat up to look at the view, trying not to wake Diego yet -- they needed to talk about yesterday, still, but she also wasn't gonna deny the guy his sleep. Not after last night.

And the view would be here. Along with what looked like miles and miles and miles of quiet.

[for the dude and NFB for distance]

Comments

[defenderofdesmoines]

"But was it the right distraction?" Annie replied, shaking her head. "Because now I feel like I was just, like -- I don't know, putting pressure on you guys to have fun on your birthday when I could have been more...."

She waved a hand, searching for a word. "Supportive? Understanding?"

[knife_bender]

Diego sighed, moving to put an arm around Annie's shoulders. "You not being supportive or understanding has never been a problem. I thought...I thought I was doing better than I was."

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie leaned right into him, sighing out a little breath. "Yeah. And like...I know it's been hard." She'd had a pretty good idea that he wasn't doing as well as he'd been telling himself, at least -- especially after the previous weekend, when just about everyone else on the island had been visited by friends and relatives. She had just taken the complete wrong tack in trying to cheer him up. "I really don't blame you for last night, Diego. Like, I'm a little upset we didn't get into those cakes and we had to cut the party short, but -- do you want to talk about what happened? I missed most of...whatever started that."

Or she would have probably tried to break it up. Stupid hostessing. Stupid solo cups!

[knife_bender]

"I pushed him on why it was taking so long to find them. Got mad when he couldn't give me an answer," Diego said. "Then he called me dead weight and that's when I lost it."

[defenderofdesmoines]

Understandably, too, since Annie definitely had caught that he'd used that phrase a moment ago. Clearly Five had zeroed right in on a sore spot.

Annie took a moment to answer, thinking as she sipped her coffee. "Well, that was a dickish thing for him to say to you."

Yeah, supportive had never been Annie's problem.

[knife_bender]

Diego shrugged again. "I insinuated he was only trying to find them to stick it to Dad."

Which was Five's sore spot, as it turned out.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"So no one was really at their best," Annie acknowledged, reaching over to lightly rest a hand on his leg. "Because yeah, you shouldn't have said that, either. He's worried about them, too."

At least, Annie thought he was. That guest room situation was nuts, but dedicated. And Five had been downright nice to her, yesterday. She was pretty sure she'd seen emotions. (Ones besides anger, even!)

[knife_bender]

"I know," he said. "It's been a month. I don't know how much more sitting around doing nothing I can do without losing it."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"It's hard." And while Annie had been praying for the lost Hargreeves like it was her job, and had sort of done some googling, and had done her absolute best to distract Diego (maybe misguidedly!), she didn't know what else to do, right now. It wasn't like it seemed like Five wanted or needed help. "And yesterday was -- I should have realized how painful it was going to be."

She could have been more sensitive. Maybe that was the word she'd wanted.

[knife_bender]

"It took me by surprise too." Sure, his birthday always had a depressing/bitter tinge to it, but after everything they had gone through it was just so much worse. "You didn't have to whisk me away to Australia--even if this place is awesome."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I didn't even know we were going to Australia until we left," Annie admitted, shifting a little to press a light kiss to Diego's jaw. "I just told her I needed the best, most private vacation rental she could get me on, like, no notice. Just kind of felt like it was a good idea to get...away from all of that for a little bit."

Away from Five. Away from reminders of his siblings. Away from the guest room. Away from the party she shouldn't have thrown.

(Conveniently, away from this weekend, too.)

[knife_bender]

"It was a good idea," he said, bumping his nose against hers lightly. "I owe you one."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"You can think about that in December," Annie replied softly, smiling a little as she reached a hand up to lightly trace along his cheek. "I love you. Happy birthday, Diego."

Maybe the second try would be a little better. It wouldn't fix everything, but at least the pressure to have fun with an audience had been removed.

[knife_bender]

"I love you too," he murmured. "I still can't get over how cool this place is."

Come on, who hadn't wanted to live in a tree house as a kid?

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I can't believe it's a real treehouse." Like an actual house built up in an actual tree. "Six hundred private acres, too. No one but us for, like, miles."

And thankfully, their cell phones still worked, since Annie had checked on that right away. (Which meant that Annie had also received one more message from Vought this morning, and she, thus, had something of a belated birthday present. Sort of. He'd at least love it.)

[knife_bender]

"Just us and six hundred acres sounds amazing." And it was exactly what he needed right about now. "And a pretty big tub too."

Of course he noticed that.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Oh, you noticed that, huh?" Annie teased, leaning up to kiss him. "Big enough for two and then some."

Or at least two with a fair amount of movement.

[knife_bender]

"I'm happy with just two," he murmured before kissing her. He was feeling a bit better about this whole thing, now that they had talked it over a bit. Something they should have been doing all month, really.

[defenderofdesmoines]

Which was another area where Annie kind of felt like she'd fucked up -- she'd been trying to give him space and distract him, when in reality, he'd probably needed to talk about all of this more.

"I mean, you'd better be," Annie told him lightly, pulling back just a teeny bit and setting her coffee aside so she could snuggle up closer. "There's ATVs down below, too. And I think ziplining, if you want to be adventurous."

So he'd have some cool shit he could tell Steve about when they were back.

[knife_bender]

"I absolutely want to be adventurous." Diego set aside his own coffee so he could participate fully in the snuggling. Which consisted of him putting both arms around Annie and pulling her back down against the pillows so they could really snuggle.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"We can be adventurous in a little while," Annie decided, draping her arm around Diego and nuzzling her face into his neck with a soft, happy sigh. "We have time. The quiet's nice, right now. I could even get out of your hair for a little while later if you want even more quiet."

She was half-teasing, considering she was doing her best to wrap herself up in him at the moment, but she also meant it; she could go off on an ATV by herself for an hour or two if he needed some private brooding time. This was all about whatever Diego needed.

[knife_bender]

"You going away is like the opposite of what I want," he said, tightening his arms around her. "Someone has to protect me from the wildlife."

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie giggled, sliding a foot along his leg to just tangle herself up with him a little bit more. "I feel pretty confident that you could take a koala or a kookaburra or whatever. But okay. I'll keep you safe."

Twist her arm more.

[knife_bender]

"My hero," he murmured, running his hand down her back. "Don't forget the spiders and snakes either."

[defenderofdesmoines]

If some kind of terrifying Australian spider the size of her hand made its way up here, Annie was going to get hit with a hell of a cleaning fee for scorch marks.

"I can take some dumb snake," she replied as she tilted her head to press a soft kiss to his neck. (She was, of course, completely wrong about that.) "I also have kind of a present for you. Like, not a real birthday present, but I got something this morning that I know you want to see."

She had kind of thoroughly covered 'real' birthday presents, anyway.