knife_bender | 75 Godiva Street

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75 Godiva Street | Afternoon

It wasn't exactly the ideal anniversary conditions with Annie on bedrest and Diego being constantly ready to rush to the hospital at any moment, but today was the day so they had to make do. He got food delivered (Chinese food, spicy for Annie because he read that would help induce labor), and stopped by J,GOB to get a tiny cake for two (or four, rather). It wasn't a trip to another country or a fancy dinner, but they were going to celebrate, damn it.

"Heeeey," Diego said as he came into their room, arms full of food. "Happy anniversary."

[For the wife and allllll the Sunday SP]

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Hey, remember this time last year, when Annie had fit into the most beautiful dress she'd ever owned, and then they'd foolishly talked about going back to Mexico for this very occasion?

Well, hey. At least there'd been a babymoon? And maybe today, if that spicy food thing was true, they'd get a pair of pretty great anniversary presents?

Annie would not mind that. Annie would not mind that at all. (Future Annie might, when her children's birthday was also her wedding anniversary, and two weeks after the kids' father's and extended family's birthday, and also two weeks before Halloween -- but right now she was totally fine with having a hectic October for the next eighteen-plus years.)

"Did you get a cake?" Annie asked, totally able to smell the food from where she was comfily laid up against some pillows but also, you know, honing right in on what looked like a bakery box. "Happy anniversary, honey. I think I might have married the right guy after all."

You know, maybe.

"I got a teeny tiny cake." Since it had been over a week now, the place was pretty well set up to eat food while reclined so Diego didn't have to worry about a mess as he handed Annie the box from J,GOB. "Ugh, can you believe some people eat their old ass wedding cake for their anniversary?"

"Yeah, you're supposed to keep the top of it or something in your freezer," Annie replied, making a little face that morphed into an eager smile as she took the box to peek in at the cake. "I feel like that's a way to guarantee you spend your anniversary, like, sharing some romantic food poisoning."

True intimacy, right there.

"We'd end up in the hospital for different reasons than we want to be," Diego said, getting up next to her with the bag of Chinese still in his hand. "Got you kung pow chicken."

Just kung pow those babies right outta there.

See, and now that the cake had been peeked at, Annie could set it aside to actually focus on the food with protein and nutritional value. And after a week and some change, she'd gotten pretty good at the whole food in bed thing, even while doing her best to cuddle a little closer to Diego as he got settled in with her.

Easier said than done, of course. Diego definitely had cuddle maneuverability on his side, of the two of them, but Annie could at least reach to take the bag from him.

"Imagine trying to run around that corn maze we did a couple years ago." Again, Diego would probably be just fine -- if maybe like, marginally less preternaturally agile as he had been at the time.

"Maybe next year," he said, smiling at the memory. "We'll have to strap the kids onto us."

You know, just to be super sure they don't get eaten by corn demons or whatever.

"Maybe I'll compete better knowing it's not just my own honor at stake, but my son or daughter's as well," Annie replied, faux-solemn as she lightly, affectionately rubbed her belly in acknowledgement of said son and said daughter before shifting her attention to the important bag of food and reaching into it to distribute containers. "It's gonna be such a bummer if these kids aren't competitive."

But also Annie was pretty determined to let them be their own little people, too, so it was fine if they weren't. It would just be a bummer, considering how much fun Annie and Diego had with that.

"Genetically impossible," Diego declared, pulling out some General Tso's for himself. "Not with us as parents."

"What if they refuse to compete against each other?" Annie replied, predicting that could be a potential obstacle-slash-adorable-thing-she-would-actually-love. "I mean, woe unto all other little playground teams, I guess, there's that."

"They'll probably be like me and my siblings." Oh lord. "You know, competitive against each other until some stranger bitch tries to mess with us."

"That does sound accurate," Annie decided thoughtfully, glancing down to address her stomach. "Though you know what would be super cool, kiddos, would be to kick this all off with a race to see who can get out of Mommy first."

Only half-kidding. Maybe even just a quarter kidding.

"Not that, like, I'm not loving this still." Pregnancy was a miracle! But like, tons of women gave birth at eight and a half months. Tons! Maybe even most, when it came to twins!

"Oooh you want to make a bet on which one comes out first?" See, there was no way these kids weren't going to be competitive. "I vote Maggie, 100%."

"No way, Ben's got this," Annie said automatically, spearing some chicken with a fork because guess who was predictably bad with chopsticks? Right here. "And then whoever wins -- like, the kid wins huge, because they get to be the oldest forever."

And Annie already knew, without any experience herself, that, 'I'm 46 seconds older' was probably worth its weight in gold.

"You're on," Diego said, leaning over to give her a kiss on the cheek. "You're right though; whoever is the oldest gets to hold it over the other."

Unfortunately Diego hadn't had that luxury since he and his siblings where all born at the exact same time (don't think too hard about timezones).

He leaned over to talk to Annie's stomach. "You hear that, Maggie? Make Dad proud and get a move on getting out of there."

But hey, while you weren't thinking about time zones, you could also not think about how they were all different ages now. (Though Annie had witnessed firsthand how well trying to play the, 'I'm the oldest' card usually worked out for Five.)

"They can so hear you," Annie said, kind of amazed even still. The kids were definitely active in general, this late into things, but they also seemed to respond to their parents' voices. "Ben, buddy, you got this. Show your dad and sister who's a winner."

Just focus, infant son! That was the problem.

"This is the best kind of bet," Diego said. "No matter who wins it means they're here. You should start charging rent if they keep taking their sweet time."

"Is it weird to be like -- yes, absolutely, and rent goes up every day...but also I think I'll kind of miss them?" Annie asked, wrinkling her nose a little. "I mean, I won't, they'll be here, but it's crazy to think this part is almost over."

She was incredibly uncomfortable, but she also knew that she wasn't ever planning to be pregnant again, and she didn't want to forget this, either. (Not that she really thought she could.)

"Hell of a way to spend most of our first year married, though," she added, and now Diego was getting a cheek kiss.

"It's been a hell of a year, yeah." Pregnancy aside, there was the whole Wanda thing and then the hotel thing to deal with. "But I think we handled it like pros. We should be getting extra marriage points, actually."

They should have gotten to skip paper anniversary and right to gold with all the shit they went through in the last year.

Honestly, in comparison, the pregnancy had kind of been the easiest of those three. At least, Annie was pretty sure she wasn't gonna get thrown a third-act heel or face turn by her doctors during the delivery.

Or find out that one of the nurses was an alien.

(Though now that was totally in her head.)

"I mean, we knew we'd be the best at it," Annie pointed out. "We were the fucking best at being engaged, too."

Still not an actual thing you could rank, guys.

"We were!" It was totally a thing you could rank. "Gonna be the best at parenting too."

To be fair, the bar wasn't that high if the only other competitors were their parents.

Yeah, they just had to like, not be megalomaniacal child abusers and they had this in the bag. (Bonus points for not pulling a Mr. January and walking out, too.)

Though, honestly -- that was what kept Annie in check a little, as far as her expectations for what the twins might eventually be like. If their kids wanted to sit in their rooms and, like, assemble model airplanes, or do watercolors peacefully, instead of being athletic or into performing arts or whatever...then, that was fine. Neither of them had ever gotten a choice, and a choice was the least they could give their children.

(Their children who, like, would obviously love dancing, at the very least. Like. C'mon.)

"You know what's great about that," Annie pointed out, "is that like -- first of all, of course we are. But also, we can both win the individual titles of Best Dad and Best Mom, too."

"And one day the kids will bestow the titles on us via coffee mugs on Mother and Father's Day." Along with questionable breakfast, probably. But that was a risk when Diego and Annie cooked breakfast as well.

"I know being trapped in bed sucks, but I'm glad we have this time together," he admitted. "Quiet before the storm."

"Me too," Annie replied, reaching over to give his knee a squeeze. "And it honestly doesn't suck that bad."

Because it had been one week, Annie. One week.

"It's nice having this time for just us. No work, even." That awful one-day-a-week commitment, and all.

Diego snorted because, yeah, that one-day-a-week commitment was a bit of a joke.

"Probably going to be the last time for awhile," Diego said. "I totally want these kids to get here already but also, like, once they're here, they're here."

And if they wanted time alone for the first twelve or so years they would need to call a sitter. That was kind of scary.

They did, at least, have incredibly competent babysitters next door, who would also probably be very understanding about the inevitable several hundred checking-in texts they'd receive the first time Buck and Eddie watched the twins for an hour or two.

"And everything will be so different," Annie agreed softly, hearing the weight of that and wondering if, at some point, she'd feel some sort of regret at the change in their priorities. "I just hope we can -- like, stay us. A version of us."

They could be Best Mom and Best Dad without losing Annie and Diego, right?

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