video | i got a pair of wings for my birthday

[lyingheart]

[ Annie has damp hair she's wearing in a braid draped over her shoulder, sitting next to Krieg at a wood table, water glasses and what might be alcohol in frosted glasses before them. They're both facing the camera. Annie isn't smiling, but she's holding her one hand up making a victory sign in the least enthused manner ever. ]

Puck, just take the photograph already.

[ Krieg, bemasked as always although presumably?? Also drinking?? Is a little more into this whole photo session than Annie - he leans in next to his buddy and also flashes a victory sign...behind her head. Classic. ]

You gotta say "CHEESE", Honeyshine!

[ She starts frowning, eyes slanting to look askance up at him. ]

Why the hell would I shout cheese—

[ She's cut off as the sound of singing begins, a cupcake with a candle burning brightly in the middle being placed down in front of her. Puck shifts the camera to show the serving staff gathered behind the two diners, everyone smiling as brightly as the candle burns. Happy Birthday to you~ Annie is almost cut out of the frame, but what can still be seen of her face has her eyes going from blinking down at the cupcake, to wide open with the whites showing. What the legitimate fuck?! ]

Because when you say it you smile! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BIRTHDAY GIRL!!!!

[ The servers finish the song with a loud, “Happy 18th Birthday, Annie!” which anyone who knows she just turned 17, actually, might tip off about why she has a beer. Annie has hunched her shoulders, and the camera's starting to shake as Puck laughs silently. Annie gives Krieg a flat look, plucks the still burning candle out of the cupcake, and without a hitch in her movements, shoves the pretty, frosted cupcake into his masked face.

And blows out her candle. ]

Happy birthday yourself.

[ Krieg, his mask now caked in confectionery, just laughs. ]

PffffmnahahahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

[ The video ends as a small, barely there smile curls her lips up at the corners while he laughs and the servers look on in slightly distressed confusion. ]

Comments

[schachmeister]

[At least one of them has a tolerance (however little) for alcohol. After Armin's one embarrassing encounter with literally just a sip of alcohol, he's been steering clear of it. Thank you, but no. He'll stick to tea and coffee. Supposedly those stunt your growth but Armin is starting to think that perhaps, just maybe, that promised growth spurt of his is never actually going to arrive.]

One person's manure is another's fertiliser. Perhaps your view of yourself as a poor conversationalist is just that: one person's view.

[lyingheart]

[ she'll be your stunt liver, Armin, though who knows what she'd be like drunk, and may we never find out if she'll drunken fist her way out of a given situation

in the moment, she rests her cheek in her hand, elbow on the table. her eyes are partially closed, lashes curved and slanted. ]

Such sweet words. You're a good person at heart, Armin. Or at least a kind one.

[ he's a good part of why she was caught--and that's her fault. no real regrets. those are tied up in things she's been strangled by since before her earliest memories. so she smiles, a small, lopsided half quirk of her lips that doesn't reach her eyes, but that's why her eyes are partially closed. her expression is harder to read than usual. ]

It's enough to make my heart race.

[ misleading words without Knowing, but that's quite likely the point. not that she feels anyone particularly cares. enjoy this conversation, idle audience! ]

[schachmeister]

[Annie is really hardest to deal with like this. A difficult moral question he can counter, same with an accusation or even an unpleasant truth. These played flirtations though? Despite knowing they are feigned, they still fluster him.]

If you keep talking like that, someone might end up thinking you are serious.

[lyingheart]

[ She's smart and not above being petty. It amuses her on some level that this flusters him, but it's to her advantage, too; she has had to regard the possibility of flirtation and the concept of seduction as a tool, even if she also threw it out because it was a ludicrous one for her to ever use.

So this is partly for distraction (his or hers? she wouldn't say), partly for amusement, partly because of every single subject he'd happily talk about, she wants to speak about none of them.

Her cheek lifts out of her hand, fingers trailing over the curve of her jaw and down to her throat, resting there. Her eyes are properly looking at him through the camera now; her head canting just a degree to the right. ]

But do you?

[schachmeister]

I never considered myself your type.

[Not before all of this, but definitely not since he has heard the truths Annie has to tell. Some things are too complicated.]

[fuelthefire]

[Shouted from some distance, but this is Krieg who is Very Good at shouting, so it's definitely totally audible to Armin.]

Honeyshine please don't break Blondie his dragon turtles need him to come home when he's done having adventures!!!

[lyingheart]

[ Annie looks back toward where Krieg is, then snorts. ]

You heard the man. You're not allowed to be my type; I'd break you, and your Lapras need you after you're done with Victory Road.

[ She hasn't bothered to look at the screen before waving her hand at it, dismissing the whole thing just like that. She calls back to Krieg: ]

Is bending him allowed, or is that also not good?

[ what does that even mean (nothing, really) ]

[fuelthefire]

[Still shouted from a distance:]

You should ask him, not me!

[And then shouted even louder, because apparently now he's talking to Armin:]

ONLY LET HER BEND YOU IF YOU WANT HER TO, BLONDIE!!

[schachmeister]

[As if Annie wasn't flustering enough already, Krieg has to get involved in the proceedings. And even if nobody is actually interested in anyone else, it's still embarrassing enough for him to bury his face in his hands for a moment.]

I'll... keep it in mind, thank you.

[lyingheart]

[ She's not helping, since the whole exchange from Krieg catches her off guard and prompts her into laughing, something she tries covering up by slapping a hand over her mouth and disappearing from the screen, having leaned over to try and force herself to stop laughing.

It's sort of working. Armin can still hear hr muffled laughter, and those peculiar gasps for air that come alongside them. It's so delightfully absurd, and laughing is something she so rarely does, it's kind of nice. Perhaps especially at Armin's expense, because Annie is no saint, and it's cathartic.

Yeah, Armin! Only let Annie bend you if you want her to!!! ]