xp_logs | LOG: Tandy & Adrienne : The discovery

After Adrienne has a meeting with Maddie about what had happened, a furious Adrienne goes straight to Tandy for answers.

Adrienne was still half-blinded with rage when she made her way to Tandy's suite after her meeting with Maddie. "Tandy!" she bellowed, pounding on the door. "Tandy, what the fuck?! Open this fucking door right now!"

Tandy jumped from the sudden pounding on the door, "Coming!" Tandy put down her laptop and made her way to the door. It was Adrienne and she didn't sound too happy with her, what did she do wrong? Her mind was racing, did she lie? Maybe cheat? No, Tandy never cheated. Oh god, maybe Adrienne found out about the secret stash of booze that Tandy had hiding in her closet. That had to be it, underage drinking was frowned upon right? But who spilled?

The teen opened the door widely to let Adrienne in, but she words couldn't come out of her mouth. From the look on Adrienne's face, Tandy felt like she was two feet tall. She had never seen anyone so angry at her in her entire life, seriously her mother never got mad at her. So this was entirely new and Tandy had no idea how to process it or even act on it.

When Adrienne saw Tandy's look and speechlessness, she struggled to dampen her anger. She didn't want to be like that. Scaring Tandy. She didn't want to scare Tandy. She was better than that. She'd told herself when she'd agreed to take responsibility of Tandy that she wouldn't be a parent to the kid- she'd be an older sister. Well, her own older sister had never yelled at her like she'd just yelled at Tandy. Emma didn't lose her cool like that. In fact, the only time Adrienne had seen her nearly lose her cool, with Molly's parents at New Year's, it had scared the crap out of Adrienne. She didn't want to be like that.

Okay, start over, then. Her face fell when she let go of the anger. "What were you thinking?" she asked in a much quieter tone. It almost sounded pleading. "You let Topaz drain your emotions?! Why the f... why would you do that?!"

Tandy relaxed a bit when she saw the Adrienne did too. Okay everyone was a teen once, everyone has a drink when they were underage. Right? "Uhh..." Trying to come up for a reason for the drinking - she was not prepared for what was said next.

"Oh....that. I don't know. It was an accident at first and when the I realized I didn't have nightmares I sort thought it was okay. She was happy to help...and I got sleep?" She ended her sentence with a question - Tandy really had no idea about the seriousness about he entire situation.

"You-you got... you got..." Adrienne felt like rapping her head against the wall. "No!" she finally cried out, exasperated, "no! It's not okay! No! Bad idea! You can't- you can't do that! You can't let someone- someone just... just, what? Eat you emotions? Suck them out of you?! What, so you don't have to deal with them? No!" she cried out again, and it was almost a wail. "No! Not good! You have to have emotions! Even when they really, really suck! You have to feel things! You can't let something... someone... take that away from you! Because if you keep doing it you'll need to do it. You won't be able to live without it. And do you know what that is? It's an addiction. You'll... you'll get addicted, and it'll become a crutch. You won't be able to live your life. At all. Do you get that?!"

Tandy bit her lip and looked down shamefully as Adrienne gave her the speech on why it was a bad idea. "I wasn't planning on getting addicted...." Though the past week Tandy had been seeing Topaz a lot more. "I am sorry I wasn't thinking about what could happen." Her voice was barely above a whisper as she spoke. "Wasn't thinking..."

Adrienne was still fighting the urge to shake Tandy, but she settled on another strangled cry. "No one ever plans on getting addicted, you- you.... arrgh!" Neck-wringing motions were made to the air between them. "How could you- how could... Christ! I knew this was gonna happen!" Now she sounded accusatory, though she wasn't accusing Tandy. More like the universe. "I knew if I agreed to be your guardian something like this was going to happen. You'd start staying out all night, or start sleeping around, or I'd hurt you, or you'd become an addict like me... I knew I'd do something to fuck all this up. To fuck you up. Well, are you happy now?!" she screeched, gazing upwards at... the universe, possibly. "Mission accomplished! I fucked her up!"

Tandy shrugged. No one ever told her that using powers on each other was a bad thing. She was still a very new mutant to this new world. A year ago she was just a normal teenager living in boring Shaker Height Ohio; now she had a demon who wanted her and Slenderman snacking on her. How was she suppose to act? She wasn't ready for this.

Tandy almost started to cry, the last thing she wanted was Adrienne having second thoughts. The last thing she wanted was a repeat with a relationship that she had with her late mother. "I am not using, I haven't slept with Clint...I am still a virgin if you must know...and you used?" She didn't mean to blurt that out. "You didn't do anything wrong. I am sorry. I am the fuck up...I always have been." Tandy know had tears in her eyes, her worst fear was about to come true. She was going to be left alone again.

The tears weren't lost on Adrienne, who appreciated that Tandy was actually having an emotion. She was usually stoic, even when she wasn't having her emotions sucked out by someone. "So you get that you fucked up?" was all she said, though. It was rare for her to talk so little, but she wanted to make sure Tandy really did understand why exactly Adrienne was so upset before she said anything further. Like Vanessa always said, sometimes people just weren't worth your effort. She needed to make sure Tandy was before she made any further effort here.

The girl nodded, "I didn't know." And brought up her legs to hide her face, she went from feeling good to feeling like shit. "I am sorry I didn't know."

"Okay," Adrienne replied as she sat down next to Tandy. She took a couple deep breaths to steady herself so that when she spoke again she didn't sound angry. "You didn't know." That was a good place to start. "So now you know. Right? And you... you get why I'm so... really, really upset?" She was wringing her hands together in her lap. "You get how dangerous what you did was? To... to have your emotions taken away... I mean, I'm sorry that you're having such a shit time right now, I really am, and I get it. Believe me. I used to use cocaine to make myself feel better, the way you've been using Topaz. But you can't do that. You can't use magic, or mutant powers, or drugs, or sex, or... I dunno, excessive amounts of cake... to keep yourself from dealing with life. Because that's what you've been doing, even if you didn't understand that. You're using something bad for you to keep you from coping with your life, and it's coping that lets you move on and heal and get better. You aren't dealing with your issues in a healthy way. And it's going to make you weak if you keep doing it. I don't want you to be like that. I don't want you to have to depend on those things. I want you to be strong." She wanted Tandy to be better than she was. "You get that, right?"

The teenager nodded but didn't lift up her head, "I just wanted to sleep without the drugs thing. And when Topaz did that, I didn't dream. I just slept. I just wanted that. Not being afraid of what is lurking in the dark - in my dreams." Finally she looked over at Adrienne, "I wanted to be normal again."

"But..." Adrienne finally figured out precisely what was bothering her. "But I thought that's what I was helping you with?" she said, voice strained. "I guess I just thought that... that you trusted me to help you, instead of doing something... like that. I've been trying really hard. It's not easy, y'know? But I was trying, and now..." She cut herself off before she said anything else, not trusting herself now, to not say something stupid and embarrassing.

Tandy wiped away her tears, "I am a teenager Adrienne, we think we know everything. I do trust you, I just...was afraid that you might find me a little troublesome if I had to sleep on your couch each night when I couldn't sleep. I don't want to be a burden...to have you think maybe my mom was right about me all along."

The urge to shake Tandy was returning, but Adrienne quashed it. "I wouldn't have offered to let you stay with me if I thought you'd be troublesome, or a burden," she muttered, still sounding hurt. "Like you say, that's your job. You're a teenager. And I'm not your mother."

Biting her lip rather hard as she was silent, letting Adrienne's words soak in. She was ashamed now as she looked away, unable to look at Adrienne. Her skin felt like it was on fire but it was glowing faintly. "I am sorry."

"I appreciate that," Adrienne nodded. "So." She paused to try and restructure her thoughts. "What are we gonna do about all this?"

Tandy closed her eyes and took a deep breath in and then out, "I will talk to Mister Haller."

"Really?!" Well, that hadn't been the response Adrienne had expected, and surprise showed on her face as well as in her voice. "I mean... yeah. Good. That's good. Look, I know shrinks suck, but Haller knows his shit, alright? He really gets stuff. And the important thing is that he's going to give you the ability to sleep better, and it's going to be you learning how to do it for yourself, instead of relying on some crutch to do it for you, which is the coward's way out, right?"

The teen really didn't want to go to anyone else about her problems. They would make her talk about things about her past and how she felt about it all, that was something she was trying to avoid. "Yea. So you don't hate me?" Looking up at the adult.

"Uhh, what?" Adrienne recoiled from the question as if struck. "No, of course not. I'm really hurt that you did this, kind of disappointed because it's a dumb thing to do and I know you're smarter than this, and I'm still kind of feeling like you don't really understand that if you keep doing shit like this, I'm going to get thrown in jail because I'm your guardian and I'm supposed to be looking after you and as a former addict I'm already on thin ice with the court about being your guardian. But I don't hate you." To prove her point, she hooked an elbow around Tandy's neck and pulled her close for a hug.

"I don't want you to go to jail." Her eyes grew big as she looked up at her mentor. "I had no idea you were an addict, no clue." She leaned into Adrienne as hugged her back.

"Thanks, I don't want to go to jail either," Adrienne replied with a shaky laugh, holding on to Tandy to keep her against her side. "Well, I've been clean for over fifteen years now, but as far as the court's concerned, I could still relapse. It's like a brand as far as the rest of the world's concerned, y'know? It never goes away. That's why I can't let you become an addict," she added, but didn't press the issue any further than that. "Plus, with the trouble the Black Court gave me with the IRS, and the fact that I had my husband killed, I'm not going to be in any good books with the authorities... well, ever. They're going to be watching us like hawks, all the time, just waiting for me to screw things up with you."

"Fifteen years? That is like...I was like one years old when you stopped. That is my entire life." Tandy looked up at Adrienne. "But isn't there meetings for those?" She sat up and looked at Adrienne for a long moment. "Black Court and you were married?" A little shocked then she suppose to be, it was her that was in trouble here. "Well, Uncle Mike thinks you are a good choice and he is a holy man. Connect with the Pope and stuff."

"Well, your uncle believes in second chances, I guess," Adrienne shrugged, amused by Tandy's calculation of Adrienne's years of sobriety. "And yeah, there are meetings. I go every Thursday. And yeah," she laughed, "I was married. But my husband... wasn't a good guy." Adrienne didn't really want to get into her relationship with Steven with Tandy, but she figured she could use it as another object lesson, so she spared the details and went right to the point. "I found out with my powers that he was going to kill me, so I paid someone to kill him. But that was wrong. It was like what you did with Topaz. I used someone else to get out of doing something I found too difficult and scary to do myself, which was to face something unpleasant and overcome it myself so I could move on as a stronger person. And for a long, long time, that haunted me. I wish I had been strong enough to face what I was afraid of and stand up for myself back then. I don't want you to be like me. And already you're not, because you have people who want to help you," she added pointedly. "You just have to trust us."

"I think he is one of the few." Tandy said wiping her eyes again. "Well I like Topaz. I didn't want to talk to her just to use her." The word trust, she couldn't trust adults because of her own experiences but for Adrienne she would try. "I can try...For so long I have been on my own. No one to help me besides me, you know? It is weird that people want to help."

Adrienne did shake Tandy a little now, but playfully, squeezing her shoulder before letting her out of the hug. "I know it's weird," she commiserated. "It was weird for me, too, at first. You'll get used to it, though. Eventually. Because I'm not going away. You're stuck with me now. You're not going to be alone again. Speaking of which," she muttered, "I should go talk to Garrison. He wanted to go away to New Zealand in a couple days, but I'm gonna tell him I can't go. I don't want to leave you right now."

Tandy's eyes widen as she quickly said, "NO GO!" Giving Adrienne an innocent look, "I mean...Mister Kane needs a break...you know the New Mutants causing him all that stress. Just think about if he doesn't go...it would be horrible. Think of the kids!"

Adrienne chuckled a little, but she shook her head. "I should really stay here with you. Make sure you're not going to do anything crazy like this again."

Thinking for a moment as she fixed her eye makeup as it smeared a bit, "We skype each day? I really don't want you to miss a trip to New Zealand."

Still unsure, Adrienne bit her lip. "I'll check with Haller. And your uncle. If they think it's alright that I go, then maybe. But if I do, yeah. We skype every day. And when I get back, I think you and I should move into a suite together. What do you think?"

"Move into a suite together? Can we do that?"

"I don't see why not," Adrienne shrugged. "There are a lot of two-bedroom suites that are empty. And in a couple months if there are no more... incidents," she said pointedly, "and you want to move back in with your friends, we can re-evaluate. Alright?"

Tandy thought about it and then nodded, "Alright."

"Okay. You wanna go get some food or something?" Adrienne suggested.

"Yes please. Maybe a hamburger and some fries and a milkshake..." Tandy stood up and took a deep breathe in and then out. "I am still a little...teary eye and skin is forever glowing. I am going to go and grab my hoodie just in case I need to hide."

"Alright, take your time," the brunette nodded.

"Two seconds." Walking into the bedroom and walking out while trying to get the hoodie one. "Okay we can go."

"Motorcycle or car?"

Tandy paused in her step and went back into her room and grabbed her leather jacket and walked back out. "Motorcycle."