A Niceish Hotel | Night

[knife_bender]

Chalk this up as one of the most emotionally exhausting days of Diego's life, and it had to have been so much worse for Annie. He was more than happy to get her out of the Believe Expo and hole up with her in a hotel on Vought's dime (not that they knew that). It was a little surreal having to be incognito by paying everything in cash while Annie was off to the side in a makeshift disguise, but he could already see it was needed. It was all over the news whenever they passed a TV.

At least they managed to not get recognized on the way up to the room. Though, really, who would imagine Starlight hanging out with a guy that looked like Diego?

"Oh thank god there's a minibar," Diego said as soon as he opened the door to their room.

[For Annie and NFB due to distance! ETA warning for description of sexual assault in the comments]

Comments

[defenderofdesmoines]

"We're taking it all," Annie decided, trailing in after him. "Make Vought pay for every four-dollar candy bar."

What a day. She was still wearing Jessica's hoodie and jacket over her uniform as a disguise, though she was quickly pulling those off and folding them neatly to leave on a chair (and she'd be getting them, like, dry-cleaned out of gratitude. Or whatever it was you did with leather.) That had been crucial to getting her out of the expo and through the hotel without being recognized, but now that she was safely behind a door, it seemed a little overkill.

[knife_bender]

"I mean, I don't know if I can eat that many Snickers but I'll try," Diego said, shrugging off his own jacket.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I'll take them home with me," Annie said, maybe a little irrationally. "Snickers for the next year."

A lesser candy bar, but she'd take it.

She considered the room for a moment before just doing the natural thing and walking over to fling herself backwards on the bed. (She kept her boots off it, though. She wasn't an animal, just emotionally exhausted.)

"Jesus Christ, what a day."

[knife_bender]

Diego nodded in agreement, flopping down on the bed beside her. "How are you holding up?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie actually laughed, reaching her hands up to cover her face with a little groan before lifting one up to wobble it back and forth.

"Oh, you know." Horribly. She was doing pretty horribly. But it was also like a weight had been lifted, in a way. "I'll be okay. If you turn on TV, I'm gonna break it, though, warning you now."

As though he would, but Annie really couldn't take seeing her own speech again, and it was on all the channels.

[knife_bender]

"I won't," he promised, sitting up on his elbow so he could look at her better. "Anything I can do?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie smiled softly, sighing out a little breath. "You're already being amazing with putting up with all of...the everything." She paused. "I mean, today wasn't easy even before -- like, my speech and all. I know it's been a lot."

But at least now most of it was out in the open, and Annie couldn't deny how much better she felt for that, even if she'd spent a lot of the evening crying and had probably tanked her career.

[knife_bender]

"It's been worse for you," he said. "You've been dealing with it alone for weeks now."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"It's been hard," Annie admitted after a moment, nodding a little. After those weeks of acting like she was fine, it was a relief to actually allow herself to say that things were bad, and just how bad they'd been. "I probably should have...said something before now. Maybe it would have made it all easier for everyone."

But like she'd half-explained back at the expo, it had been, like, impossible to find the words to do so. She was pretty sure the only reason she'd managed to get through the story with Summer earlier this week had been that Summer herself had filled in the blanks before Annie had had to supply much.

[knife_bender]

"I understand why you didn't say anything," he said quietly. "I mean, I wish you had, obviously, but I get it."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I just --" Okay, but maybe she could say something now, was the thing. She'd already said the worst part, up on stage (and on television, and oh God, not thinking about how many people had heard her say the word 'dick' right now, nope.)

"I blamed myself," she said, hesitantly. "And I kept second-guessing whether I should say something to someone, and then I just decided I was probably overreacting, and tried to put it behind me and just, like, force myself to be fine, and...."

And that had been when she'd also decided it would be easier if she didn't see Diego that Friday she was in town, and then they'd had that awkward, kind of terrible time when he'd visited.

[knife_bender]

"Now you know it wasn't your fault, right?" he asked. "It's nobody's fault but The Deep's and Vought for enabling him."

There was absolutely no way Annie had been the first woman he had harassed.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I mean, yeah," Annie admitted with a little bit of reluctance. "Yeah, I know. And they've definitely known about this for awhile, based on, like --"

Annie cut herself off, shaking her head and blowing out a breath before trying again. "Do you want to know what happened? Like, what actually happened?"

Because she had just sort of cut to the punchline with what she'd said up there, but the details were what made it so hard to live with. But she would also understand if Diego, like, could not hear about this. Annie didn't know if she'd want to, in his position.

[knife_bender]

"Only if you want to tell me." He didn't know if would be cathartic for her, or if it would make things worse. He wasn't even sure of his own feelings on the matter. Like, yeah, there was some curiosity there, but just what he was imagining was enough to make him queasy.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I think I do," Annie decided hesitantly. She at least needed him to know about what had been threatened. "But I think I want to change, and I want the minibar involved."

And it wasn't as though she couldn't stop if it got to be too much for her to tell, or for him to hear. Annie was in control of this.

(Annie was in control of this. It was kind of a new feeling, after weeks of feeling helpless and weird and sort of lost.)

[knife_bender]

Diego gave her a small smile. "That's a great idea. Are you hitting up the candy or the alcohol?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I'm not choosing," Annie replied, pushing herself up to kick off her boots. "Both. All of it."

Tomorrow was already going to be a whole headache. Why not add a hangover to the mix?

[knife_bender]

"That works," he said, scooting off the bed. "What kind of hangover do you want tomorrow: rum, tequila or vodka?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Tequila," Annie answered, tossing her headband off...somewhere, followed by her gauntlets, and then she draped her cape over a chair as she wandered off vaguely towards the bathroom.

She returned a moment later with her face clean of tears and residual makeup, and was carrying a pair of fluffy robes. "Zipper, please?"

[knife_bender]

"I missed hearing that," he admitted, setting aside the mini bottle of tequila for her and mini of vodka for him. He wandered over, more than happy to comply with that request. "We're going to be super fancy hotel people with the robes, huh?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I am, anyway," Annie assured him, her shoulders relaxing with renewed lung capacity as usual once the zipper was down. "It's this or laying around in my underwear."

Which normally held some appeal, but maybe not during this story, you know?

"But they are really fluffy," she added, maybe a little wheedling because come on, Diego, don't you want to get drunk in a robe with her? Didn't that sound sort of fun after today's shitshow?

[knife_bender]

"Really fluffy, huh?" he asked, pretending to think about that for a moment. "Okay, you've convinced me."

To be fair, he hadn't brought any extra clothes either so even if the robes weren't fluffy he didn't have much of a choice.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"And I didn't even have to try that hard," Annie teased lightly, going onto her toes to press a kiss to his cheek before wriggling out of her uniform and tights and into the robe.

And now that that was taken care of, she could examine this little bottle of tequila a little better. Along with literally all the candy, which she grabbed from the minibar before resuming her place on the bed. "Hey, on the plus side, if I just got myself fired, I don't have to worry about Ashley would think of this," she noted, waving a hand at the pile of candy.

[knife_bender]

"Screw Ashley even if you didn't get fired," Diego said, pulling off the last of his clothes so he could shrug into the robe. "I think you've earned some candy and alcohol."

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie snorted, going ahead and opening up a Kit Kat. "I mean, Maeve gets to drink as much as she wants, apparently, and the guys can eat whatever. It's all such bullshit. Like, such bullshit."

The thing about being that honest about things earlier was that it was going to be kind of hard to put the genie back in the bottle, and while Annie was a little worried for her job, she also kind of wanted to go ahead and give Ashley and Ms. Stillwell a piece of her mind while she was at it, too.