xp_logs | Felicia and Adrienne - Housewarming (Backdated)

Adrienne brings housewarming presents to Felicia and gets a tour of the renovated suite.

It was a sunny morning, and Felicia was content in taking full advantage of it, padding around her mostly finished apartment in her bare feet and simple lounge wear of leggings and thin, oversized sweatshirt. She'd been in the office - whether the actual XForce offices or a Starbucks pretending to be her office - all of last week, including a day of network travel, and she deserved a morning off. Tapping open Spotify she set it to a piano playlist and set her phone near the wireless speaker.

A knock at the door caught her attention from wandering towards the kitchenette to see if her coffee was done, and she pulled down a second mug from their hooks in the cabinet that apparently only contained hot beverage makings and things in which to contain them.

"It's open!"

Adrienne managed to get the door open with two fingers and used her hip to push it, precariously balancing a flat of potted houseplants. "Hey there!" she grinned at Felicia, using her foot to close the door behind her. "I think there's a queue forming up outside for tours of the brand new haven. I beat my way to the front of the line, hope you don't mind. I come bearing gifts." She held the flat out in front of herself so Felicia could see the herbs, violets, and succulents potted in tea boxes and the ornate white birdcage she'd planted a philodendron in. In between Ohio and her impending trip to Europe, Adrienne had wanted to give Felicia the plants out of a worry that they might not survive until her return. Kane hadn't been in the suite when she'd dropped by to get them, but the place had been more of a mess than usual and the plants she'd left in his care hadn't been watered in ages. Clearly he couldn't be trusted, so Adrienne had taken the time before her flight to visit her new friend.

"Well of course they are, they- Plant gifts!" Felicia exclaimed, abandoning her coffee to come over and help Adrienne. She grabbed the white birdcage, beaming as she spun it around, finger through the ring at the top. "Come in, they can go on the counter for now," she continued, leading her back the few steps into the kitchenette, still examining her prize.

"They're wonderful. The living room needed something in the window sill and this lovely will be perfect in one of the bedroom windows..." Felicia paused, peering between the small tins and the birdcage. "I'm not great at plants but I can mostly keep them alive. I recognize all the little guys from Pinterest, but what's in this one?"

"That's a philodendron," Adrienne explained with a smile, taking a pack of Miracle Gro sticks out of her back pocket and adding it to the counter. "I thought it would suit you. There's this old Katharine Hepburn movie where she has a philodendron," she elaborated. "You remind me of her." And Hepburn was one of Adrienne's favourite film stars, so that was a high compliment. "Hepburn, not the philodendron. Wait, please tell me you're old enough to have heard of Hepburn?" Except now she kind of wished Felicia hadn't so that she could explain. Or she could just explain anyway. "All her roles she played these whip-smart, sharp-tongued, take no shit from anyone, class oozing out every pore, ridiculously independent and just... fierce women."

Listening, Felicia began mouthing "philodendron" at the plant over and over, holding it up to her face. She nodded along to Adrienne's response eventually, looking over at her. "I've heard of Hepburn; I know exactly how much of a compliment that is. She's a legend. I haven't seen everything she's done but how can you not love Bringing Up Baby?" She grinned. "And not just because of the giant kitty. I'll have to take extra care of this, get it one of those watering globes for when I'm out of town."

"Those globe things are great," Adrienne nodded approvingly, grinning at Felicia's Bringing up Baby comment. "I use those things on all my indoor plants at all my houses. Oh," she realized suddenly, snapping her fingers, "I should tell you before I forget- philodendrons are poisonous to cats. If the one that lives in our suite is anything to go by, they're generally smart enough not to eat them, but, y'know. That's one of the reasons I put it in a hanging pot." She toyed with one of the leaves on the plant for a moment before letting it go and looking excitedly around Felicia's new suite. "So where do I sign up for the tour of this place?" she teased.

Laughing, Felicia put the cage down next to it's tea tin friends and spread out her arms. "Well, this is the kitchenette with living room. I didn't change much in here, obviously. Kept the white and just got some new furniture." Circling around the room, Felicia gestured vaguely to a tufted mid-century sofa in white and a plush reading chair, which were the obvious new additions, as well as a side table and storage table. The bar stools under the kitchenette island were similar to the old ones, but without seat backs, and several book cases had been added, including one wall that looked like they'd been built in.

"I'm still collecting decor for this room, since other than books, shoes, and clothes, I apparently don't have much," she continued. The chair had a plush throw tossed over the back, the couch a few throw pillows in gold, but the book shelves still had some spaces where vignettes would later go and there were obvious breaks in the wall space for art. "Come on, let's go see the good stuff."

"Ooo, I don't know if you're talking about the bedroom or the bathroom but I'm intrigued either way," Adrienne smirked, following eagerly along. "So you're liking it here so far?"

"It was tempting, but ripping out a bathroom was beyond my meagre decorating plus knowing a decent drywall guy skills," Felicia admitted, crossing the living room to head towards a set of frosted glass French doors. They passed the bathroom as they walked over and she pushed it's door open slightly more. "See? Just a new shower curtain from Anthropologie. This Xavier guy apparently sprang for decent bathroom fixtures and avoided walnut finishes, so it wasn't too much of a hardship."

She wasn't actively avoiding the question but it was easier to talk about decorating than the adventures of hey, you now live with a bunch of strangers. "It's a nice place, I complain but it's really just because I know what I like, not that it was a tacky nightmare."

"Nah it wasn't," Adrienne agreed. "It's funny, I never really even noticed the decor around here until you came around. It didn't even occur to me to change anything about my own space, even though I came to terms long ago with the idea that this place is home, that it is my own space, y'know? Well, I guess it's shared space now," she mused, wrinkling her nose at Felicia. "Which is why I can't knock down walls for a walk-in closet. Some people have all the luck."

Felicia nodded. "I get it. I just happen to come on it naturally. My mother was constantly redecorating when I was growing up, it used to make my dad nuts. He'd finally have accepted the new dining set and there she was setting up all new window treatments for the rest of the house. Apparently, no matter how hard you try, there's always at least a part of you that becomes your mother," she said with a bemused shrug. "Between that and Pinterest, I'm basically fucked."

"Becoming my mother... scary, but true, I guess. Unfortunately." Adrienne wrinkled her nose. "At least I went to rehab and have stayed sober to fight my narcotic addiction," she muttered, wanting to make it clear she was only a little bit like her mother. "What's Pinterest?" She asked, pausing to make an appreciative noise at the French doors leading to Felicia's bedroom.

"The short answer? A visual bookmarking system on your computer. It's also a social media and marketing tool, because everyone can see what you bookmark, or, pin, which is where it starts getting complicated. It's also also crack and a way to make sure nothing gets done all afternoon but you still leave with a sense of accomplishment," Felicia answered, giving Adrienne's shoulder a squeeze before pushing the doors inward. "I'll teach you if you want but more importantly... bedroom walk-in closet slash office! Feel free to jump on the bed, it's obviously the first thing I did."

Adrienne chuckled at the offer. "I think I'll have to pass, thanks. Despite having been a model in my youth, I'm not an exceptionally coordinated person. I'd most likely break something in the room or on myself." She was preoccupied with this Pinterest thing now. "I'll definitely have to get my ward to show me this pinning thing. I do enjoy getting a sense of accomplishment out of doing nothing. Wow, that bed is gorgeous. And where'd you get that fireplace mantle from?"

Felicia huffed a laugh, crossing the room to said fireplace and subtly tweaking the fresh floral arrangement that was always there in several different iterations, more to have something to do with her hands while she preened a bit than anything else. "It's an open invitation if you change your mind. And would you believe it came from one of those Habitat restores? Apparently there was this abandoned house out in one of the counties that was being demolished to it's skeleton, hole in the ceiling, severe rain damage, not much to salvage, but white marble? No rain damage there." Brushing her fingertips along the cool surface, Felicia continued. "I was lucky one of the guys on the team had a soft spot for old things and stayed late to box it up so it wouldn't be crushed the next day when they ripped out the paneling on that wall."

"Or a soft spot for you," Adrienne suggested with a smirk. She sat down on the bed and bounced up and down a little, because Felicia had offered and she didn't want to be rude. "But, judging by the trend you started of people around here starting to do renos, I'm sure those guys are going to get a bunch of business off you so I'm sure they all have a soft spot for you." After a couple bounces she rose from the bed to take a closer look at the marble fireplace mantle. She put her hand on it and took a Reading of the mantle's history, which also gave her an increase to her knowledge level of marble, which had until now been set at zero. "Wow. This is exquisite. I can't believe the shape it's in. Especially with the house being so dismal and the original owners being such floozies who never maintained it properly. There're no scratches or pits and there's no staining despite the rain damage to the property."

"Okay, maybe that too," Felicia admitted, looking not one bit guilty; she liked people who worked with their hands and treated them well, artist, contractor, designer, chef. They made the pretty things, after all. She watched Adrienne's powers at work, fascinated, with her head tilted slightly to the side. "You know, you told me about it, but that is so much cooler to see in person," she said, ignoring for a moment the outcome of said demonstration. "I mean, I know it's in good condition because I can see it, because I was told how bad condition the rest of the house was in. But you... just know. Like a teeny fraction of Wikipedia in your head at all times."

"Yeah, sometimes it's pretty handy," Adrienne smiled. "Of course, other times it's a massive pain in the ass. Especially when it's not working properly and you get the history of every bloody thing you touch," she smirked ruefully. "And it used to be that whatever I saw, no matter how unimportant or traumatizing it might be, stayed up in my head forever and I could never forget it. And everything just kept piling up in my brain. So that really sucked." It was a massive understatement to describe the psychotic break she'd suffered, but, contrary to her powers, Adrienne was very much about living in the present, and didn't like to dwell on what was in the past.

"Now that I know how to delete things from my head, I'm much less apprehensive about using what I can do. Hence the whole 'detective squad' thing I'm doing now," she grinned. "Contrary to what I would have people believe, I'm not just in it because I look damn good in a fedora and trench. How about you?" she asked, randomly brushing petals from the flower arrangement with her fingertips, unable to resist the feel of a silky flower. "Do your powers ever malfunction on you?"

"Okay, I guess it balances out then, because that sort of sounds like the worst. I mean, glad it got sorted out and is handy now, fashion bonuses aside, but Christ." Felicia made a face, crossing her arms. "I get malfunctions, but never that bad, and mostly because I don't have much control over specifics to begin with. Honestly, we didn't even know I was a mutant until several years after when I must have manifested. I've always been good at whatever I wanted to be good at," she said, pausing as she drummed her fingernails against her arm, looking out the window. She seemed to come to some kind of conclusion, and continued. "But yeah, I've had a instance where something bad enough happened it caused me to lash out. It wasn't pretty and I had a hell of headache afterwords, however, so I'm not pumped to repeat it."

Adrienne watched Felicia's body language as she contemplated what she chose to say and a wave of nervousness hit her, wondering if her new friend would say something sad that would require Adrienne to comfort her. That would be terrifying. But what Felicia said wasn't too scary. Adrienne could deal with that. "Oh yeah?" She made herself sound intrigued by the 'something bad enough' comment so that Felicia could elaborate if she felt like it. If she did, Adrienne would just have to try her best to not totally suck at being supportive. "So... lashing out, you mean with your powers? Did you... want to talk about what 'wasn't pretty' about it? Like, are we talking what Centino does with the lucksnaps where he was upset with me for firing one of my employees so he managed to make it so I ripped my hose, lost an eyelash, and destroyed one of my favourite blouses with coffee? Plus the Keurig got stuck on 'descaling mode.'" She gave Felicia a wry smirk. "Something like that?" she asked, keeping her tone casual and light so Felicia wouldn't feel pressured to talk about the particulars if she didn't want to.

Felicia barked a short laugh. "It was more of an "I'm going to throw this vase and everything that could possibly be destroyed in this room, will, thus creating the most destructive Rube Goldburg machine ever" type scenario, honestly. I save the wardrobe malfunction for people I just don't happen to like." She had a faint look of surprise on her face when she finished, the corner of her mouth still lifted, and turned away, walking towards what had been the hallway separating the two rooms before the reno.

"Come on, closet time," Felicia said, over her shoulder.

"Ooo, I was wondering when you'd get to the best part!" Adrienne squealed happily, clapping her hands and following eagerly along.