Fly Away to a Cafe

[halfbread]

Who: Everyone who wants in!
What: The V-Day Café! (Yes, that's what we're going with, no, you can't make WWII jokes.)
Where: The Big House
When: Valentine's Day, mostly evening but various times
Warnings: I have no freakin' clue, it's probably going to depend on individual threads

At 6:00 sharp, the doors are officially open on the first ever Camp Half-Blood Valentine's Day Café. The two biggest rooms on the first floor of the Big House have been turned into dining rooms, one decorated in a much more traditionally "romantic" oeuvre for couples and the second into a relaxing place to hang out just among friends. Both rooms are serving the same menu, and both have a good number of tables set up to accomodate visitors. As people finish eating, the waiters and waitresses will roll around a dessert cart for people to make selections from. Enjolras will be incredibly reluctantly providing serenades in the romantic dining room with some assistance from Cosette, while Chiron's boombox has been borrowed and tuned to the local pop station for the casual dining room. Have fun, everyone!

Comments

[findthisdistracting]

"I'm paranoid and broken, too," he says quietly. Maybe it's not quite as bad as Annie's is, but it is still true. "But I can take care of myself, and I know you won't hurt me."

He takes that hand and gives her a small, cautious smile. "I am, too. So let's be scared together, okay? Maybe my mom'll help us out somewhere along the way. She likes me, I'm pretty sure." It's mostly a joke, meant to break the tension, but he gives her hand a gentle squeeze in any case.

[annieisntokay]

"But you don't know that," she says earnestly, her nails digging into her thigh under the table.

"Finnick, we don't know what I'm capable of. Not fully. You could be in love with the girl who murdered her entire family. We just don't know. Ask Percy- I've hurt him before. He's woken me up in the middle of the night because I'm screaming and when I wake up, I'm hitting him, reaching for my weapons." The level of honesty in her voice terrifies even her, as she looks at Finnick across the table. He needs to know what he's getting into, if they're going to be together. Fully understand who Annie Cresta is, and what she's capable of.

"And I don't know if I'm going to kill him or kill myself."

[findthisdistracting]

"I know I don't. But I'm not scared." He knows it's silly to say even as he says it, but he's absolutely serious.

"I could have -- I mean. I'm capable of some pretty crazy things too. Like if you were hurt, I don't --" He trails off for a moment. "I want to be with you. With all of you, even the bad bits. We'll get through it."

[annieisntokay]

"You should be scared, Finnick. I wish you were. I just- I couldn't live with myself if I hurt you. I want to be with you, too! More than anything! I just will never know why you want to be with a girl like me. With me. How you can say how you can help me when I can't even help myself."

She blinks back tears she hadn't even realized were threatening to fall. "But I want to be with you, too. More than anything."

[findthisdistracting]

"Then let's do it." He won't reach for her hand, not yet, but he does place his on the table, open and waiting.

"I don't know either, but I can't -- I told you already, I can't get you out of my head, mermaid. I think I'd know if it were just a -- temporary thing, but this doesn't feel like it. So." He gives her an almost shy smile, there.

"Do you wanna make this official?"

[annieisntokay]

"Uhm..." Oh gods. Just look at him. He was handsome and earnest and she'd seemed to have really upset him, with her assumptions and fears. And here he was... But if this was a joke...

It wasn't. He'd promised. And she liked him. A lot. She'd had a crush on him since she could remember, and now...

She pries her hand off of her thigh and places it on top of his. "Yes. I do. I really do."

[findthisdistracting]

--The way his face lights up should be answer enough, there, and he's just kind of beaming, before he squeezes her hand.

"I -- uh. That's great," he says, at a bit of a loss for words. Okay. No. He was going to play it cool. This was totally normal, having the girl you've been dreaming about for months finally say yes, right? He didn't need to act like an idiot.

"And hey, look, we picked an appropriate day and everything."

[annieisntokay]

"We did," she says with a soft smile, squeezing his hand back. "But that puts a lot of pressure on us both. I mean, if we make it to next year. Or any time after that. Or-" she stops.

"I'm going to stop talking. Right now."

[findthisdistracting]

"I'm an Aphrodite kid, there's probably pressure on me anyway," he replies with a slightly doofy grin. --And it's a good thing Annie stopped talking, because she's getting a rather thorough kiss.

[annieisntokay]

This lack of talking is actually pretty good. Because kisses. Lots of kisses. Warm happy, Finnick kisses. And those, ladies and gents, were the best kind of kisses.