Callisto and Adrienne

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

Getting word of a possible Vanessa return, Adrienne heads over for a visit in hopes of catching up with her friend. Instead, she and Callisto open up to each other about coping and counselling and bond over missing the shapeshifter. And motorcycles.

It was when Adrienne got fed up pressing the buzzer and tried her keys in the door that she discovered the absence of deadbolt, mortise or chain barring entrance. That meant that Vanessa wasn't just not hearing her over the loud music playing inside: she still wasn't home.

The apartment was changed a little from when she'd seen it last. Callisto wasn't messy, exactly, so much as she clearly had a habit of leaving her 'projects' out when there was no one else to care about them lying everywhere. The project in question on this occasion being at least half of her bike laid out across a tarp in the middle of the lounge. Other than that, a row of noodle cartons lining the counter of the kitchen area suggested that the ex-Morlock had been spending at least a portion of her free time holed up here.

The woman herself emerged now, clad in pyjama bottoms and a threadbare tank top and rubbing her hand across her face in a way that suggested that despite the blaring rock station on the stereo (and the fact it was four in the afternoon), she'd in fact been asleep. Never the most expressive in the face department, there did nevertheless seem to be a small flicker of disappointment across her features when she saw Adrienne standing there.

"She's not home yet," she observed unnecessarily, moving over to the stereo to turn off the music. Then, "Buzzer must be broken again."

Adrienne noticed the disappointment and mumbled a sympathetic "sorry," feeling bad for making Callisto think she was Vee. "Were you sleeping? How did you manage that with the noise going on in here?" she asked curiously. Adrienne was a notoriously fussy sleeper, awake at the slightest noise, so the concept of someone sleeping through the rock music at that unholy decibel sort of fascinated her.

Callisto shrugged. "There's always noise going on," she said simply. "Traffic, conversation, music; 'sall the same." Stepping over the bits of bike, the brunette made for the kitchen counter, apparently foraging for food as she tested the weight of a couple of the takeaway cartons before finding one and, grabbing a clean fork from the dish-rack, turned to lean back against the worktop. "Sorry." Callisto shook the tub with a sheepish half-smile. "High metabolism, constant snacker," she added, as though Adrienne hadn't been around enough to already know this about the skinny metahuman. "Want some?"

"Sure, thanks," Adrienne nodded. She was also very much into the constant snacking and rarely turned down food. She set down the motorcycle helmet she was holding after pushing aside some other cartons to clear a space for it on the counter and picked up a fork. "So, what do you have going on in here?" she asked, gesturing to the bike.

Another shrug. "Killing time," she said shortly, glancing up at Adrienne and then back to her food. "Figured I'd use the space while I had it to myself." A brief purse of the lips, mild eyes skating across the other woman's face, the door, the disassembled bike, and then down again, back to business.

Adrienne gave Callisto a wry smile. "I miss her, too," she muttered. But then she wasn't sure if Callisto really wanted to get into the subject of Vee with her, so she gave her an out by changing the topic back to the bike. "Is there something wrong with it, or are you just tinkering?"

"Just tuning. Think she could run smoother but she's so souped-up at this point it's hard to tell. Thinkin' maybe I've gotta rebuild her from scratch again," Callisto said before lapsing back into silence, shovelling a few more mouthfuls of cold noodles into her mouth before putting the carton aside and pushing away from the counter, opening the fridge to inspect its contents. "How you been doing?" she asked now, back turned as she assessed her options. Used to be she'd know - whether or not she wanted to Callisto overheard pretty much any conversation that took place when she was in the apartment, so generally she kept up with what was going on with Adrienne simply because Adrienne talked to Vanessa. These days, though...

"I'm... uhh..." Adrienne wasn't really sure whether Callisto was just asking to make conversation or whether she actually cared. It was difficult to tell. They hadn't been close, really, but Adrienne didn't have a particular reason for why they shouldn't be. She had absolutely nothing against the woman. And they ran in similar circles now, with their ties to the school and X-Factor. Adrienne wasn't the best at opening up to people before she really trusted them, but she knew she needed to get better at trusting people, and thought that maybe trust came from opening up to them. So she scooped up a forkful of noodles, chewed for several moments, and shrugged. "Well, it's been a rough few months, between a member of the Hellfire Club trying to own my ass, getting shipwrecked on Magneto's Terrorist Island, and having a psychotic break, but I'm doing much better now," she commented with a slight smirk.

Callisto hadn't yet turned around, her head still practically inside the fridge as she surveyed her options. "Huh," her voice floated out. Then, "Sounds rough. Want a beer?"

"Sure," Adrienne answered without hesitation. Okay so the opening up thing had probably been a mistake, but at least Callisto wasn't running away from her or ordering her out of the apartment or anything. "So when you say 'rebuild her from scratch again," she inquired, "how many times have you, y'know, done that?"

"Only a couple," Callisto said, retrieving two beers from the refrigerator and turning to proffer one in Adrienne's direction, shutting it with her heel and twisting the cap off her own. She cocked her head, surveying Adrienne frankly. "You coping okay?" she asked, casually, as though she was asking after someone who'd said they had missed their bus home.

Adrienne took the beer with a nod and a "thanks" and opened it by wrapping the cap on the hem of her shirt and twisting. After a long guzzle she wiped her mouth with her hand. "I think I am, yeah," she nodded, answering as casually as the question had been asked. "Onwards and upwards, right? Nothing else much you can do. Everyone's being really supportive. I know I'm lucky to have as many people care about me getting well as I've got. I'm still not really used to people caring, y'know? Or, I guess, I'm not used to letting them care. Not pushing people away. So it's been kinda weird. And I just... I was really wishing Vee would finally be home so I could finally catch up with her in person, y'know?"

Callisto shot her a brief, tight smile. "Yeah," she said, before lifting her beer bottle to her lips for a similarly long slug. "Yeah. I know."

Adrienne nodded in response, guessing that Callisto knew exactly how she felt. Still, there was nothing that either of them could do about the Vee situation, so she changed the topic. "How are things at the shelter? You're still working there, right?"

"Yeah, yeah," Callisto said, brightening slightly - almost imperceptibly really since none of Callisto's facial expressions had a terribly wide range. "I'm, um. I just passed my second round of exams, actually, for a counselling qualification."

"That's fantastic," Adrienne praised with a grin. She didn't know anything about what obtaining a counselling qualification entailed, though. "How many rounds are there? How frequently do you get to take the exams? And what does passing the second round mean? Is there a certain age group of kids you can counsel now, or, like, you can counsel them when you're supervised or something?"

Callisto shook her head. "I'm already about as qualified as I need to be for these kids to be honest - you can do youth support work with in-house training provided you pass your background checks..." Callisto paused for a dry smirk at this - there was no way she passed an 'honest' background check. "It's really just a certificate that'd make me more employable if I actually wanted to get a job doing this stuff one day. Which, y'know, probably never happen, but the shelter might have better luck applying for grants and stuff if there are better qualified people working there."

"Ahh, yeah that makes a lot of sense," Adrienne nodded. She shared Callisto's smirk at the background check comment. Adrienne didn't know a whole lot about the other woman, but she knew that Vee trusted her implicitly (which made Adrienne think that whatever she might have done in the past to make her smirk at a background check probably didn't make her dangerous to Adrienne), and she also knew that Vee had to get Doug to fudge background checks for her, so if Callisto was in the same boat for similar reasons as Vee, Adrienne had no problem at all with it. "Are they hard-up for money right now? Wait, that's probably a dumb question, isn't it?" she added with a chuckle. Adrienne liked to think she'd been pretty generous with her money now that she had it back, but some causes she wanted to aid monetarily had slipped her attention, and the District X shelter had, unfortunately, been one of them.

"Li'l bit," Callisto said with an amused quirk of her eyebrow. "When are we not hard-up? Still, we manage. Y'know." Another shrug, another swig from her bottle, and seemingly talking about her own life reminded her of what Adrienne had said about herself, because she returned to it now. "Look, are you really doing better? I mean, I know I'm not... but if there's anything I can do..."

"Thanks. I appreciate that," Adrienne smiled at Callisto, sipping more of her beer and nodding. Callisto didn't usually seem super social, so Adrienne appreciated the offer and the concern even more than she might had it come from someone else. Particularly because Callisto seemed to be offering to fill the space Vee had left, if Adrienne was reading between the lines. "It's too bad your bike's in pieces, or I'd suggest you and I have a race," she smirked. "How are you with bike shopping, though? I've been meaning to get a new bike for ages, but haven't gotten around to it. You seem like a handy person to have around a showroom..." she mused, looking at the dismantled bike in the lounge. Callisto definitely seemed like she knew her way around bikes!

Callisto chuckled. "You don't wanna race against this one - she's pretty souped-up," she said. "I'm more about fixing broken stuff than buying new stuff. If you were going for something classic and didn't wanna pick out a dud I could probably help you with that, make sure no one stiffs you and fix up what you got," she offered - it was clear that this was a much more attractive prospect to her than following the other woman around a showroom of pristine, unused machines.

Adrienne pondered that offer. She hadn't really done a lot with mechanics in the past, at least not in a really hands-on way. But in her youth, when she expected to take over Frost Enterprises from her father, she'd developed some interest in mechanics and electronics. And she was very much into building things like shoes and dresses. Was a bike all that different? She liked the idea of repairing something, taking out the bad and putting in the good, no matter what it was. Metaphor for life, and all that, wasn't it? And spending more time with Callisto, if she really was serious about doing this, was something Adrienne wasn't at all adverse to. "That sounds really interesting," she answered, eyes wide as she thought about it. "You'd really be into that idea?"

The other woman shrugged lightly again. "Fixed up your boyfriend's car for him," she said with a slight smirk. "Only fair that I fix yours up too."

"Well, I hate that ugly car, but I guess it does run pretty well," Adrienne joked. "So yeah, that would be awesome!" She was quite excited now.

"Hope you've got a taste for classics, then," Callisto said with her own quiet brand of amusement. "I know a couple places we can go, just... text me or whatever sometime when you're free."