Manny and Adrienne - blowing up the kitchen

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

Adrienne smells burning and attempts to rescue the defenseless pots and pans of the kitchen from Manuel. They talk of the Hellfire Club and Adrienne attempts to upstage him in the kitchen.



The food poisoning incident had made Adrienne wary of returning to the kitchen, but the smell of something burning had her sniffing curiously and turning back from her intended destination. She entered the kitchen and found Manuel and a lot of smoke. Her first thought was to disable the smoke alarms so no one else found out. "Are you baking yourself a congratulatory cake, White Bishop?" she asked, pulling out a chair to reach the smoke detector.


"Yes," Manuel said, turning around and wiping his hand with a cloth. The burning pans sat in the sink, under cold running water as he tried to cool them off. For all the good it was doing, it only caused more steam to rise up and he walked over to the windows, resting his cane on the sil before tried to pry them open. One gave, the other did not.

"I am not a cook. I know."


"Well, darling, you have many other talents, and we can't all be good at everything," Adrienne tried to console him, disabling the smoke alarm and then going to the window to try to help him pry the stuck one open. In a way, seeing Manuel's failure in the kitchen had only increased her already-good mood. She didn't even care if he picked up on her emotions: it would probably do him good to have a good dose of cheerfulness right now.


He gave her a brief thank you and left to turn off the kitchen sink. Standing back from the scenario before him, the kitchen was a disaster and he toyed with the idea of simply throwing everything out and buying new pans. He was not one to scrub, especially not here and he turned to Adrienne, noting how cheerful she looked.

"How much would I have to pay you to have you clean up this mess?"


Adrienne pondered this, screwing up her face in concentration. "Normally I'd say we just buy new pans," she informed him. "But since I'm feeling inclined to be generous towards you simply because you're in the Hellfire Club, I might consider cleaning up for you. Unfortunately, I don't do dishes. I don't wear laytex gloves and putting my wet hands on pots and pans would be a real annoyance for me with my powers. I may be tempted to dry," she amended, since she was in such a good mood. "What were you murdering in here, anyway?"


"I came across Laurie's pig and decided that she wouldn't miss it," he said. "Never mind cleaning. I will fill the sink and let them soak awhile." He moved forward, resting his cane against the counter and leaning on it as he made a face, fishing into the bottom of the sink to plug it up. "Please tell me your good mood is not because you had a night with Jacob Gavin."


Laughing, the psychometrist wrinkled her nose. "No, it's not. Are you terribly disappointed, darling?" She busied herself by taking more pots and pans out of a cupboard, then began rummaging through the cabinets and pantry.



"My first question is why are you suddenly calling me darling and the second is why are you so pleased with yourself? You must have done something wicked, or you would not be in this mood."


"I'm calling you darling because it seems more affectionate than Senor or Captain Cryptic, and I happen to have a lot of affection for you, and I am not so much pleased with myself as I am with a certain member of the Hellfire Club," she told him, beaming. "A lawyer, and a transplant from Boston, and a Black Court hanger-on. Philip Wharton. He's about the same age as my parents, and I've had several very advantageous meetings with him lately. You might have seen me with him at your investiture party? He was the first person I greeted after I left your side, and also the man I was speaking to when you returned from the dungeons or wherever it was you went."



He gave her a sarcastic smile, if only because he thought she was toying with him, but even then, her emotions gave her up as being nothing but honest and genuine. He supposed Darling wasn't too bad, but it was something Emma often threw around and he offered Adrienne an alternative. "Then call me Manny, but not darling." Because the alternative was so much better than what was being offered.


"Define adventerous," he said, even though it was advantageous, he knew it was the same.


"Uh... advantageous, not adventurous," Adrienne corrected, assuming the language barrier had confused him. "Beneficial. Not... adventurous. Although, I suppose to someone interested in genealogy or history, it might have been an adventure. I suppose I classify adventurous as fighting pirates or defusing a bomb. Maybe I've been here too long." It had been nearly a year, after all. "Maybe the meetings were an adventure for Wharton simply because of my obvious charm, wit, and business savvy and he felt it an adventure just being around me," she mused. There were still some vegetables on the counter from whatever he'd been making, so Adrienne began chopping them up. "But I meant beneficial meetings. I just received a call from him. He's managed to confirm my hereditary claim of membership to the Hellfire Club."



"Ah," he said, raising his brows and continued to make it seem like he was doing something in the kitchen, rather than just simply waiting for her to help him scrub the pans. "Maybe charm is what you have, wit not so much," Manuel added drily and fetched himself a glass of water. "So now, instead of using me to get into the Hellfire Club, you have your own access. I believed you were going to ask me to sponsor you, or at least that was what you were leading up to."


Adrienne tossed a dish towel at Manuel and made a face. "Well, we can't all have the scathing De la Rocha wit, darrrrling," she teased. "And I was not going to ask you to sponsor me! I was just using you to get into the parties, not to get into the club as a member! No offense, but everyone there knows you play on Emma's side. And while my sister and I may tolerate each other away from the prying eyes of the media, we have a public image of loathing that we need to uphold. If one of Emma's Court brought me in, I would be thought of as being on Emma's side, which would isolate me from the Black Court, and I don't want that." She filled a skillet with the chopped vegetables and turned on the stove to a low heat. "I'm guessing you made charcoal because you had the burner turned to high?" she mused. "I can benefit Emma, and your White Court, a lot more if I'm seen as being a completely neutral party, or even if the Black Court thinks I favour them."

He thought she was awfully talkative today but then, Manuel was inclined to let her talk, if only to talk herself into an oblivion and completely ignore anything he had to say. That suited him well. "My loyalties are questionable, do not kid yourself. Simply because I stand on one side does not mean curious stares believe I am on that side. My father was a Black Court member. I am under no illusion that many think I am not within the right ranks of colour."


Adrienne nodded, listening as she stirred the vegetables and went to the fridge searching for some sort of sauce to fry them with. "I know about your father. I've read the files, and read some things around the Hellfire Club mansion with my powers. I think it's better for you if people in the Black Court are questioning your loyalty to the White. If they think you could switch ranks, you're in less danger, right? It's more... adventurous... for you this way," she teased. "What were you trying to make, really?" she asked, still peering in the fridge while her vegetables were beginning to burn on the stove.


"Don't ask." He didn't want to talk about the food he'd tossed together, under the assumption that cooking honestly should not be that hard and that you could throw anything together and it would taste just fine. Obviously, this assumption was wrong. "I am curious as to why you think it is less danger? There is never less danger and if you are traitor, it is more likely you will have a knife in your back before you can even think about it. "



She turned to address him, the fridge door balanced against her hip, forgetting about the vegetables. "But if the Black Court thinks you're betraying the White for them, they would have no reason to stab you in the back. And the White Court contains a rather powerful telepath, so obviously she's going to know you aren't playing the traitor. And as you said, if you think about it, she'd knife you before you knew it, but you'd still have to think about it so at least if you did think about it and she did stab you, you'd know you deserved it." It made perfect sense to her, but she wasn't sure Manuel would understand. "I'm not saying it's not dangerous. Why do you think I'm not pressing for a place in the Court? I'd rather inherit a membership based on the fact that my father was a member of the Boston chapter-" which made a lot of sense now that she thought about it, knowing her father's predelictions- "and just play the game on my own, my allegiances equally questionable by both Courts."



Manuel nodded. "If that is what makes you comfortable in the end." Her reasoning made sense to him, but then , she did not know what went on, the depth which his blood penetrated the Hellfire club. He wasn't simply a member, he was always within it, whether he wanted to be or not. It was apart of his prestige and he felt very little in terms of revealing his own secrets. The past was easy to talk about and clear up with a bottle of Scotch. The present was not so easy, especially not where Shaw or Emma was concerned. Few rarely had his best interests in mind.



"I am comfortable," Adrienne assured him, then her nose wrinkled and her eyes widened. "I do, however, smell something burning."


"Perhaps a little too comfortable?" Manuel asked, glancing over at the crackling food.


Adrienne rolled her eyes as she turned off the burner and started fanning the smoke towards the windows with a dish towel. "Thanks for the help, there, darling." The vegetables were a half-charred mess, and she stared down at them in dismay. So much for trying to show Manuel how it was done.


Manuel looked at the mess , a moment of silence for their poor attempts. "Shall we throw it all out and go shopping? I know of an excellent restaurant and Valentia needs to be picked up from school." The pots would have to be replaced, after all. "We'll split the cost."


"I'll fetch Driver," Adrienne agreed with a nod, tossing the skillet into a trash bin.