Tandy and Adrienne - Darkness Within Aftermath (Backdated)

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

Adrienne returns to the mansion at Tandy's request after Tandy's demon cult ritual encounter and discuss a number of things including the ritual, Europe, demon-banishing, and Tandy's fight with Sue.

Dragging her suitcase haphazardly behind her, Adrienne buffeted it up the staircase and down the hallway to her suite door, where she pushed a tangle of disheveled hair out of her face as she fumbled for her key. In a testament to how much she'd changed since coming to the mansion, she only paused for a second over the thought of going over to Garrison's to get cleaned up before pushing the thought out of her head. After receiving Tandy's request that she return and then catching up on the mansion news in bed at her Boston townhouse, she'd just grabbed her suitcase and shoes and headed out to the car. She was still in her pyjamas, hadn't brushed her teeth or her hair. But she would sort herself out after she checked up on Tandy.

Pushing the door open with more energy than she meant to use, Adrienne ended up half-stumbling through the doorway, suitcase clattering behind her. It hit the tendon in the back of her foot and she cursed loudly, jerking the handle to get the case away from herself and running it into the table that stood inside the door to house keys and sunglasses and other detritus that was meant to be taken along when one went outside. Assorted items clattered off the table and then the table itself fell over. "Shit!" Adrienne could see a form huddled on the couch, and really hoped that Tandy hadn't been sleeping. Because if she had been, she probably wasn't anymore.

Tandy didn't get much sleep the night before and so when Adrienne walked into their suite the teen sat up. Lowering her hoodie to reveal a large bruise forming on her head with two stitches, Tan looked like she had been through hell and back. "Hey." She said with a dry voice. "You came back..."

"Heeey, Starlet," Adrienne answered guiltily, feeling bad about the noise. "Of course I came back." Seeing the bruise, she forgot about the suitcase and the table and went over to the couch, sitting down gingerly, as if it might hurt Tandy. "Please tell me this came from a brawl over a boy in a discotheque in Paris," she murmured with a sympathetic wince, pointing at the bruise. As usual, her immediate reaction in these types of situations was a really lame attempt at humour.

The blonde shook her head no, "It came from a fight I had with Sue." Tandy paused and wondered how much Adrienne knew. Someone at the mansion had to have filled her in already. "Did you hear about what happened in New York?"

"Not until this morning when Summers informed the staff," Adrienne admitted, eyebrow raised over Tandy's mention of fighting with Sue. She wasn't sure if it was a joke or not. The tone was sincere, but Tandy did a really good deadpan, so Adrienne couldn't puzzle the comment out. "I mean, I saw Amanda mention something 'demon-related' happening in New York yesterday," she explained, using air quotes, "but I had no idea you were involved."

Tandy's lip trembled a bit, "It was D'spayre...she..." Tandy unzipped her hoodie to reveal her tank top and turned so her back was facing Andriene. On her back was a brand mark of a symbol of some sort. "They preformed a ritual and..." Tandy quickly put back on hoodie. "...I remember everything." She started to breathe heavily as the memories started to swell up in her mind. Leaning over Tandy held her head and squeezed her head tight. "I can still see him in my head."

Adrienne hesitated for a moment, eyes growing wide as she stared with mounting dread at the brand and the teenager telling her things that Adrienne couldn't fix with money. But blinking snapped her out of her inaction, and she wrapped an arm carefully around Tandy's shoulders, pulling her close. She put her chin on Tandy's head, idly wondering if Tandy could be taught how to go on the astral plane and erase her own memories the way Adrienne could, or if that was just a result of her own power set. "We're gonna figure out how to make that stop, okay?" she said quietly, with more confidence than she felt. "It's gonna be alright. Everything's gonna be okay."

"I had no control over my own body. Like I was watching it happen but...he was doing it. The Professor said I have no hitchhikers." She lowered her head and stared at the couch. "Just memories."

Keeping hold of Tandy, Adrienne made a face and swallowed hard, forcing herself not to dwell on the comment about having no control over her body, about watching it happen but having 'him' do 'it' to her. There was no way she could let herself go down memory lane with that topic. "That sounds horrific," she said once she'd built her personal walls up a little more; "I can't even imagine. Luckily there are lots of people around here you can talk to about how to deal with that. And hooray for being hitchhiker free. I mean, that's good news, right?" It was probably a stupid thing to say, but she was grasping at something that would move them past the other stuff.

Tandy nodded a bit and gave out a heavy sigh. "I said something to Sue and we got into a fight. I think it had demon influence but...we haven't talked since."

Surprise crossed Adrienne's face that Sue had actually caused the damage to Tandy's face rather than it being a joke as she'd hoped. But she brushed the comments off with a wave of her hand, stroking Tandy's hair affectionately. "You'll talk. Don't rush it. Actually, I'm kind of surprised this is the first teenage-girl-fight I'm hearing about," she teased. "Movies led me to believe teenage girls fought as often as they breathed. Hopefully they got the part right where things always get patched up, though. Otherwise," she suggested with a waggle of her eyebrows, "I can always try to use money and favours to keep her out of college..."

"Well it is strange. Sue and I..." She sighed and leaned her head into the back of the couch. "No. I don't want her to hate me. I mean, I almost did try to kill her and turn her into a creature of darkness....the look on her face..."

"Sweetie, Sue's a smart girl," Adrienne soothed. "She's gonna understand that you didn't try to kill her. Like you said, you were under demon influence. She'll understand that. I mean, she lives here. It's not like people here don't get possessed all the goddamned time, right?" She couldn't get the image of the brand Tandy had shown her out of her mind, so she switched conversation topics abruptly. "Can Amanda do anything about that brand for you? Or should we go to the tattoo parlour and dress it up with flowers or something?"

Tandy shrugged again, "I don't know. I emailed her." She pulled her knees up before turning to lay down on Adrienne's lap. "I did have fun in Europe by the way."

Adrienne chuckled and resumed petting Tandy's hair, braiding randomly and absentmindedly. "Well, I'm glad to hear that, at least. Which countries and cities did you visit?"

"We went to Paris, then up to small villages to the North of Paris before hitching a ferry ride to England. There we took a train into England and went as far as Ireland. Then we came back down and entered Germany. We were planning on taking a train over to Amsterdam and then over to down into Greece. We didn't get that far."

"I'm sure you'll get back there another time," Adrienne murmured. "The pot and the prostitutes will always be there, along with the sun, the lettuce-less Greek salads, and the shirtless European men. But if you're really upset that you missed that stuff, I'm sure we could find suitable substitutions around here somewhere. I mean, there's always Colorado for pot, right?" she teased. "Vegas for prostitutes. And sun, I guess. Actually, the lettuce-less Greek salad might be the toughest to find." She wrinkled her brow as if in serious thought about the question.

Tandy couldn't help but smile at Adrienne, "True. I have wanted to try a pot cookie and lettuce-less Greek salad." She touched gentle where her stitches were and winced, "I think I'll stick around home base for awhile longer."

"I wouldn't blame you if you never wanted to leave this room again," Adrienne replied, smiling back. It made her happy that she'd been able to get a smile out of Tandy. "And I'm fairly certain I can procure you a pot cookie. Or brownie. So you wouldn't have to go anywhere for that. I bet I could get a prostitute to come here if you want one of those, as well."

"Thanks for looking out. And I'll pass on the prostitute, it would be awkward."

Adrienne nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah. Plus, Namor might get jealous," she muttered, giving Tandy a sideways glance and a conspiratorial smirk.

"I..don't think he would. He was there when...he...they made me drink his blood."

"Whoa. That's messed up," Adrienne muttered, adding Namor to her mental list of People To Get Information About All Of This From. "But Namor doesn't seem like the kind of person who would let a thing like that bother him." Adrienne didn't know much about him, but she knew she liked him purely for that reason alone. "So what's the status of these demons now? Summers didn't actually say. Are they all dead? Or banished or whatever?" She'd been planning to save that question for Amanda, whom she was going to visit later today, but the whole 'drinking blood' thing pushed the question of whether they might return and how to prevent that from happening to the forefront of her mind.

"It was pretty gross." Tandy whispered, remembering as soon as the blood touched her lips and the staff pulsing, pulling her to look at it before she felt him enter her. Looking at her arms for a moment thinking she would start seeing the glowing symbols over her skin again. Her mind started to remember into Dweller's memories when she jumped at Adrienne was speaking to her. "What? Demons? Uh..." Tandy wrapped her arms around her and turned on her side, still lying on Adrienne's lap. "Spite is dead. I am not sure who killed her. It was either SWORD or Amanda and the gang. D'spayre I think is trapped inside her master prison and...Dweller...he who dwells in the dark...is also back where he belongs." Her hand came back up to her shoulder and touched the mark. "I don't think he can be killed...they tried before. A long time ago."

Adrienne gently took Tandy's hand away from the mark and held on to it firmly. "Probably Amanda and the gang," she theorized. "SWORD are a bunch of idiots, and Amanda's good at getting rid of demons. She helped get rid of my dead husband when he was haunting me. Of course he was a ghost, which is probably different, but demons and ghosts are probably in the same genus or something, right? I bet she can figure out a way to kill this Dweller asshole, too. There has to be some way to kill it. I'm gonna talk to her later. If she needs money to do more research or whatever, I'm gonna make that happen."

Tandy just nodded. Maybe, there is a way. It seemed that the only thing left behind by Dweller besides the mark was his memories. There might be something there. "I would also hate to be haunted by ghost. It is weird, I never thought any of these things were possible three years ago. I mean, I thought they were figurative. My Uncle believes...he isn't going to like this one bit."

"But the scary part," Adrienne added to Tandy's mention of thinking 'these things' were figurative, "is thinking that a lot of these things would probably happen to you even if you didn't live here." Sure, the mansion definitely exacerbated some peoples' encounters with the freaky and deadly, but Adrienne was starting to realize that sometimes bad things happened based purely on who you were and not where you lived. "And at least if you live here, smart people can come save you when shit happens," she said by way of comfort. "Oh Christ, yeah." Adrienne's face contorted in displeasure as she thought about Father Michael learning what had happened. "He's probably going to have kittens. Or a stroke. Has anyone told him yet?"

"I think so too. I mean me living here didn't cause Nathan to do that to my parents." She shivered at the thought. If she didn't know the people she knew now she would had been a demon a long time ago. "No. I don't think so. Maybe the Professor? Or Mr. Summers?" She put her hands on her face and curled into a little ball. "I don't want to know how that will go."

"Yeah, I think if no one has already, we should leave that one to the Professor." Adrienne went back to braiding Tandy's hair. "Talking to a priest about demons seems like something you should only do if you're old and have a bunch of degrees from British schools." She jumped when she heard a thud coming from across the room, then swore at the cat that had just leaped in from one of the windows. It made a beeline for Tandy, headbutting the hands she had over her face. "Someone's happy you're back," she muttered, rolling her eyes at the animal. "It slept on your bed every night."

The blonde teen nodded in agreement, even though that Priest happened to be her uncle. Tandy moved her hands and made an open arm to allow the cat to snuggle up against her. "He did? I think cats know things we don't."

"Yeah, that's what makes them scary," Adrienne mumbled, though she gave the cat a begrudging pat on the back. "You sleepy, or did you wanna watch a movie? I think TCM's doing twenty-four hours of Barbara Stanwyck. I think Breakfast for Two's on. Or," she added with a smirk, "I think SyFy's doing a 'genetically modified animals-slash-natural disasters threatening humanity' festival in honour of Sharknado 2?"

"I slept a bit at Amanda's office. Actually I don't remember. It all happened so fast. Either or is fine, I am just going to lay here."

"'I am just going to lay here,'" Adrienne repeated, "hey, I think that's the name of Amanda's sex tape." She reached for the remote control with one hand and continued to pet Tandy's hair with the other. "Well, go to sleep on me if you feel like it. The world's your oyster."

"I was wondering what was on that tape." Tandy said wearily as she cuddled the cat and closed her eyes as she laid on Adrienne's lap. "If I start glowing...please duck and cover."

"Yes ma'am," Adrienne nodded, giving Tandy a casual salute even though she wouldn't see it. "I know the drill. Just relax now. It's all over; everyone's safe. Don't worry about anything right now. Out of deference to you, I'll even protect the damned cat if you start glowing. I promise."