I'm a fighter

"Okay," Annie told her mom. "Let's go over the plan again."

"Drive straight to Gen's in Sedona," Donna told her, frowning in thought, "cash for gasoline, no hotels." She paused, debating whether to say more, and added, "I don't want to leave you here, Annie."

"I'll be fine," Annie replied, much more confident than she looked or felt. She was still hurting from Black Noir, and it wasn't as though she'd been sleeping great prior to all of this.

Donna nodded, turning to go. "Okay, really -- how old is he?" Donna had been quiet on the issue of the mysterious boyfriend she'd finally met (and she even kind of liked him!), but she really had to ask. She was too discreet to ask about the scars, but she'd noticed those, too.

"He's twenty-nine and he saved your life, Mom," Annie replied testily, rolling her eyes. "So -- give it a rest, okay?"

Donna nodded, holding a hand up placatingly before reaching into her purse. "Here. You need a new one," she told Annie, pressing a tiny gold cross into her hand.

Annie looked down at the cross and sighed. "I'm not going to wear it," she replied.

"I don't care if you wear it," Donna said reluctantly. "I just...want you to have it." She'd feel better knowing that. "I love you, jellybean."

"I love you too," Annie told her, smothering her irritation over the cross down, and leaning forward to hug her mom tightly.

( just chillin outside this pawn shop, until some friends show up! )

( pizza and TV party! which will surely go totally fine! (no, it doesn't) )

[preplayed with knife_bender, hatesparadise and grenadesandohana! warning for descriptive gore, because my canon, you guys. Adapted from The Boys 2.07, 'Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker' and 2.08, 'What I Know.' NFB, NFI, OOC continues to be welcome!]

Annie had received a series of texts from her mother this morning, asking to meet since apparently Donna had come to New York, if Annie wouldn't come back to Iowa to talk to her. And this time, Annie had answered. Too much was going on to keep ignoring her, and with Stormfront....

It was just too big a risk to leave Donna on Read right now.

Annie had reluctantly left Diego at Grace Mallory's house outside of the city, where Hughie was convalescing on the couch and MM and Butcher were apparently taking a meeting with what looked like Victoria Neuman (and honestly, Annie had no idea how Congresswoman Neuman factored into any of this, but...like, sure?) She was fairly sure he'd be safest there, and once Kimiko and Serge (and Lamplighter, what the hell?) all woke up, maybe they could reconvene in the city and start digging their way out of this nightmare?

She sat at a table with her sunglasses on and waited, anxiously prodding at her burner phone like that might produce new information if she kept refreshing enough.

( Unicorn frappes and knockout gas incoming )

[taken from The Boys 2.07, 'Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker,' and NFB/NFI/OOC welcome!]

The sun was shining, it was a balmy eighty or so degrees, and the massive open-air concert-slash-carnival-slash-mass-conversion-event that was Believe Expo was under way!

There were multiple stages set up, featuring worship singers (with actual, wide-spanning angel wings), motivational speakers (whose motivational speeches all had a real specific, Christ-is-the-answer sort of tone), and tents with different panels and roundtables taking place in each.

There was also totally a carnival, with rides and everything, as well as concessions featuring typical carnival fare. There was also totally an abundance of merchandise booths, featuring charming items like T-shirts featuring generic figures and reading "MARRIAGE = ONE WOMAN + ONE MAN," or posters with Homelander saying FLY STRAIGHT, and pretty much anything you could want with a crucifix or the phrase #Believe on it!

Welcome to Believe Expo!

( Arrival )

( Starlight's Roundtable for Teens )

( Homelander's Speech )

( And more mingling )

( Starlight's Speech )

( And afterwards )

[Lots of this is lifted right from The Boys 1.05, 'Good for the Soul,' and Billy Butcher shows up in this post so please consider yourself warned for liberal use of the C-word, as well as general homophobic/misogynistic/nationalistic gross shit (though that's not Butcher's fault.) Preplayed with *deeeeeep breath* knife_bender, apocalypsehow, thatwaslucky, somethingwithturquoise, firstofitskind, grenadesandohana, hatesparadise, superjoanjett, stykera, and badassprodigy. Good god no this is not open for interaction (I coded almost 500 comments, ffs), but OOC is so, so welcome!]

Annie loved her mom, but after two months of living on her own, having her around constantly was a little...stifling. They'd spent all day yesterday volunteering together - and of course Annie had been Starlight at the time, which was great for press but not the best for her conscience - before falling asleep in front of the first Translucent movie on the couch together. That was kind of nice, although it was less nice when Donna had prodded her daughter awake at five and sent her out to the backyard in the dark.

Annie had adjusted her training schedule since moving to Fandom, and so this wasn't exactly her favorite thing - especially considering that she had to double up her leggings and hoodies since it was thirty degrees, Mom and she hadn't really packed for this, and especially-especially because Donna followed her outside to coach. Someone had relaid the bricks on the side of the garage since Annie had been in Fandom, providing a fresh canvas for her to punch into, and so that was how she spent most of her morning - with her mom cheering her on through the garage wall, or following her over to yell that she could go higher while she did pull-ups, or to encourage just one more set of burpees.

By the time Annie was ready to work with the car - which was the one thing she'd kind of missed in Fandom, since it wasn't like she had exactly the same thing to practice with - she'd had enough. Not of training, but of her mother. And so she obligingly pressed the old car up over her head, tipping it entirely onto its front tires so her mom could take a picture, and then reminded Donna that she had said she needed to call Aunt Gen and it was probably late enough in Arizona to do that, now. (Please.)

When her mom had finally bustled back into the house and Annie had a moment's peace to herself, she sat down on the trunk of the car to check her texts and figure out some music. Training alone had gotten to be something of a luxury that she hadn't appreciated until now, and she really didn't really think she worked any less hard without someone yelling at her the whole time. 

Especially considering she was going to try to flip the car, once she had the exact right playlist figured out. 

[open for calls and texts with the caveat that my industry is affected by Black Friday so *weeps*]