xp_logs | Cecilia and Madelyn

Monday afternoon, the roomies go out for a sanity break, in the form of a trip to Harry's. Bonding, alcohol, and the willing exchange of blackmail material ensues.

"This is just further evidence of how whacked-out this place is," Cecilia asided to Madelyn as she followed the older woman into Harry's, squinting for a moment to try and encourage her eyes to adjust to the low light. Yeah, it didn't make sense to her, either, but, reflex. What're you gonna do? "I'm out drinking, and it's barely one in the afternoon. Or, more specifically, I'm out drinking." She sighed, and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'll find a table?"

"It's not so much the drinking as the out part," Madelyn said with a grin. "Out is very important, especially since it's not In. As in 'In The Medlab'. Very important distinction there." She gave Cecilia an encouraging pat on the arm. "Yeah, you get the table, I'll get the first round in. There's lots of nice shadowy corners for you to be anti-social in, even. What's your poison?"

Cecilia was dimly aware of the fact that she didn't flinch away from the pat, but she paid the thought no mind, nodding and scanning the room for a likely-looking, quiet table. "I truthfully have no idea," she admitted. "Just don't get me too wasted, and I think we can call it a victory... ah. There." She pointed towards a booth. "I claim this land in the name of Puerto Rico."

"Go plant the flag. I'll be right back." Madelyn vanished bar-wards, nodding at the barman who she recognised from the odd staff night out. She returned in short order with a beer (for her) and a hard cider for Cecilia. "Apple juice with kick, pretty much," she said, putting the glasses down before settling into the booth opposite Cecilia. "Here's to surviving what has to have been one of the more insane months the school's had."

Cecilia accepted the cider, giving it a thoughtful look as she leant back against the booth's cushions. Surprisingly comfortable. Huh. "So it isn't always like this?" she asked slowly, looking up with a slight tilt of her head. "I'm to be reassured, now, right? Yes? Please?"

"I won't lie and say it's never like this, but no, it's not usually this bad. We usually get at least a week between crises." Madelyn had a long swallow of beer and sighed in pleasure. "Oh, I needed that." She set the glass down and looked at Cecilia carefully. "You doing all right, roomie? Because it's all right not to be."

"A week without them would be lovely," Cecilia replied mournfully, eyeing her drink a moment longer before having a quick sip. "I'm.. no, not particularly," she admitted, propping her chin up in a hand. "Though the librarian did bring me some cookies last night and let me whine at her. And Domino let me have a small nervous breakdown on her on.. Friday, after Paul and the others got settled in. Sweet girls."

"Good to hear you had someone on catching duty." Madelyn gave a small shrug. "That's the problem with our profession I think, sometimes. There's very seldom someone to catch us when we need it, since we're the ones who do all the coping usually." She had another sip of beer, and went on, with a wry smile. "And we don't often ask for it."

"I'm learning to," Cecilia mused. "Asked for a hug on my own and everything. Truly, I am growing as a person." She indulged herself with a wink, before reaching over to lightly nudge Madelyn in the ankle with her toes. "And what about you? Need catching? It's in my contract, I think."

"Good for you," Madelyn said, pleased to see Cecilia wasn't one of those scary stoic types - they had a full complement of those already. "And if anything else happens, catching may be required - I had to let Moira deal with Nathan being a moron today, because I didn't trust myself to stick to the Oath. Hitting him with a blunt instrument was looking to be a good idea..." She realised she was rambling and put herself back on track. "I'll settle for you steering me towards a cab later."

Cecilia nodded, grinning wryly and casting a quick, shifty-eyed look around. "If it's any consolation, I whapped him upside the head during the Charley relief trip," she observed quietly. "I've offered Hippocrates my apologies, but really? Not that sorry."

"I think the old dead Greek forgives you. Nathan is enough to try the patience of any doctor. I don't know how Moira puts up with some of the stunts he pulls, I really don't..." Madelyn shook her head and distracted herself with more beer. "So, happy with the class schedules I sent you? I figured you wouldn't mind the two junior classes - the kids can be a handful, but they do love to learn."

"Me? Complain about being given a bunch of impressionable youths to order around?" Cecilia beamed, straightening enough for another drink of her own. "Very happy, yes, thank you. Though I warn you, I may scare some of them away from the medical field. I take it kind of scarily seriously, I'm told."

"If they're scared off, then maybe it's not the career for them," Madelyn replied, thinking of Clarice. The girl showed so much promise, but definitely needed discipline if she was going to get anywhere in the medical field, and Madelyn wasn't sure she could. She wouldn't give up on her just yet, though. "It's something that ought to be taken seriously, I think. Lives in our hands, and all that."

"I knew there was a reason we got along," Cecilia smiled, casting a sidelong look towards the bar before drawing her legs up and sitting crosslegged. Much more comfortable. "I may have to try and channel my pre-med professors.. I like to think they did good work."

"Looking at the evidence, I'd say they did." Madelyn ignored Cecilia's blush and sudden interest with the table top. "And while I like teaching, I have to admit, the little ones aren't really my forte. The only small children I've ever had much to do with are my kid sister and my cousins, and they were small sticky annoyances for most of my adolescence."

"Kids are much easier to tolerate when you're only renting," Cecilia agreed, smiling wryly down at her drink. "Besides. You can torment them more that way. You know, I think I may have convinced the librarian's little brother to take his vitamins for her? I should ask, I forgot to. Bad me."

Madelyn laughed. "Renting's pretty much the only option for me any way - where would I find time? And I do like teaching the older kids. Which is why you have yet again saved me time and trauma. I don't know how I coped BC." She grinned and elaborated. "Before Cecilia."

She couldn't help rolling her eyes, grinning in amusement. "Careful. You'll give me an ego. Or over-inflate the one I already have, rather." Cecilia idly drummed her fingers against the sides of her glass, silently cursing herself for not bringing a pen and some paper. "Want to know something really pathetic? Since, as my roomie, I think you're entitled to bribery material, so it's only fair I provide it during our bonding excursions."

Raising her eyebrow, Madelyn looked at Cecilia over her glass. "Sounds ominous," she said. "Go on. If you want to, that is."

"Wouldn't have offered if I didn't," Cecilia pointed out reasonably, grinning wryly. "Besides, I've been doing a lot of bottle-emptying over the last few days, and you know, it actually does seem to help? This is minor, anyway." She shrugged, and smiled cheerfully. "Never had a date. Ever. You, darlin', are rooming with a lady who's never so much as been kissed. Does much to explain my temper, I imagine."

One eyebrow was joined by the other - Madelyn's look of surprise was almost comical. "Not even in your wild and feckless youth?" she asked, teasingly, but mentally resolving to ensure Cecilia at least had regular social outings. Fun was good for the soul, one of her own professors had liked to remind the more workaholic students.

"What wild and feckless youth?" Cecilia replied, trying very, very hard not to laugh at Madelyn's expression. "I've been a social leper since I was six, honey. The wildest I ever got was jumping rope."

"And I thought _I_ was anti-social..." Madelyn snickered and shok her head. "The last date I remember was... God, back in my FBI days. As a recruit. If you can call playing pool and drinking beer a date."

"I think it can count," Cecilia said after a moment's thought, nodding to herself. "But, as established, I'm far from an expert. We may need another opinion on that one."

"Or research. A survey, maybe." Madelyn chuckled into her glass. "So, hypothetically speaking, should the urge ever strike, what kind of person would it take? Since we're gathering blackmail material and all."

"I'm.. honestly not sure," Cecilia admitted, frowning in thought and trying to keep the confidence from leaking out of her posture too obviously. "It isn't something I've ever given any thought to.. though I am very, very sad that Paul is gay, and I've told him so more than once." She pouted. "Not fair at all."

"I think you're not alone in that regard. Paul is one fine-looking man, regardless of his calls for a paper bag for his head at the moment..." Madelyn didn't miss the slight change in posture, the minute hunching of the shoulders. "Did you see the plush toy Clarice sent down for him? He says it's stalking him."

"Paul is a pretty man," Cecilia agreed, sighing mournfully. "Pretty, and logical, and takes me out to dinner to help stave off a nervous breakdown for a few days." Perfect man. Truly. "Oh.. no, I haven't seen the toy she sent. I haven't peeked in on him, yet.. for both our emotional states' sakes, really." She made a face. "I'm intending on spoiling him rotten once he's on his feet again, though."

"It's a Hello Kitty. Very pink. It's disturbing." Madelyn finished off her beer and waved at the barman for another. "And yes, Paul is good people. Much spoiling once he's upright again, which, God willing, should be sooner rather than later."

"I don't think causing patients mental trauma is a very doctorly thing to do," Cecilia mused, arching an eyebrow. "Poor Delphine must be very confused. There's a large, hideously malformed kitty in with her papa, and her perfect self is stuck elsewhere.. though I think I saw her with Hank yesterday. I'm allowed to think it was very, very adorable, right?"

"Clarice wanted so badly to do something for him I didn't have the heart to refuse," Madelyn admitted. "And neither did he. Although the expression on his face was priceless..." She chuckled, and smiled at the barman as he set another beer down in front of her. "Hank and Delphine, now there's an exercise in hair balls..."

"I'm fairly sure Hank doesn't bathe in that fashion, dear," Cecilia mused, arching an eyebrow in amusement. "Though I will grant that Delphine may wind up hacking up some blue next time around. I hope she'll forgive me if I mock her a little."

"Wait until you have to sweep the floor in the medlab - there's more than one type of hairball, and some of Hank's sheddings look like small blue tumbleweeds. I keep expecting Clint Eastwood to pop out and tell me to go for my guns." Madelyn grinned as Cecilia snorted into her drink.

"I should tattle on you," Cecilia mused, reaching for a napkin to clean up the very small spill that resulted from her snort. "Casting aspersions on his grooming. Tut."

"He shouldn't have eaten the last chocolate donut," Madelyn said with mock-dignity, which last all of two seconds in the face of Cecilia's look. "Hank's actually vrey good about that sort of thing, but hey, I have to get my digs in occasionally. Friendly rivalry."

"We wouldn't know anything about friendly rivalries, no," Cecilia chuckled, nodding sagely. "It isn't like I actually like Alison or anything. Noooo. Completely insane white girl who can't drive. Not an absolute sweetheart at all. Nuh-uh."

"Of course. Your secret's safe with me," Madelyn replied solemnly. "And she is. A sweetheart, that is. Hank adores her, and with good reason."

"She let me hide in her room for a while, after Hank brought me up to speed on some of the mansion's resident sources of insanity," Cecilia grinned, though she did have the grace to look a little bit sheepish. "He, ah.. broke up a small debate Clarice and I were having in the kitchen, in regards to laws and how they apply to everyone, genetic freak or otherwise."

Madelyn nodded, remembering something of a kerfuffle on the journals. "Interesting topic for the kitchen," she said. "What brought all that on? Clarice isn't usually the sort to start first meetings with philosophical quandaries."

"Illyana'd mentioned Sarah to me, and I was still fresh enough in the school that I hadn't had opportunity to really ask the faculty about it to find out if it was rumor or not," Cecilia shrugged. "So I asked if Yana'd been pulling my leg or not."

"Ah." Madelyn's expression because the carefully-schooled professional mask. "Sarah's... a problem," she said at last. "But if Charles thinks the school is the best place for her, then I'll bow to his judgement. The man knows what he's doing."

"Hank explained it very well," Cecilia chuckled, waving a hand. "Apart from the vague discomfort in regards to having her living under my feet, I understand and agree with the reasoning behind it. Better to have her somewhere she marginally wants to be, where she can get psychiatric help, than off in a place she wouldn't hesitate to bust out of in true human blender fashion."

"True," Madelyn said, reluctantly. At Cecilia's puzzled look, she elaborated. "I've got a criminal justice background - several years with the FBI, before I came here. It's... difficult. A whole lot of training is telling me she should be punished for what's she's done, not petted."

"Sick people need treatment," Cecilia agreed, propping her chin up in a hand with a tired sigh. "I just need to keep reminding myself that I can't go back to NYU, lest I crack and throw stuff back in my bags to get away from the crazies. Xavier's has its crazies, but NYU has Friends of Humanty pamphlets in my old professor's coat pocket, so I think I'm better off with you people. At least if I die at Xavier's, it'll probably be an accident."

Madelyn frowned at the mention of FoH. "Bigoted assholes," she said definitely. "Unfortunately, the world's full of them. But least Xavier's is making a start. It's just a long slow haul, unfortunately." This time she did reach over and squeeze Cecilia's hand. "And nothing is going to happen to you. Not even by accident. I'd have to find a new TA, and that would just not do."

Cecilia managed a small grin, and as she was beginning to recognize that personal contact wasn't half-bad, returned the squeeze, just a little awkwardly. "I'll try not to stand near any distressed nuclear bombs for the foreseeable future," she promised quietly. "And I won't get any ideas about trying to burn myself out, either. First, I wouldn't know how, with this thing. And secondly, it didn't even work, so why waste the effort?"

"Good call." Madelyn gave Cecilia's hand another squeeze before reaching for her beer again. "Drink up," she said. "There's a lot more relaxing to be done."