LOG: Making A House A Home

[the_informant]

Who: Florida (Native), Texas (Native)
What: Finally redecorating
Where: Florida's Safehouse Alpha
When: Tuesday Evening, 10/20
Warnings:

It takes weeks to get her to listen enough to help him pick out things, even if it is half-hearted browsing through magazines. It takes almost as long to get her to agree to think of a color scheme for the bedroom they've already set bunkbeds and a bed up in for the visits they earn from the twins and Theta. And the battle to find the right plates for the kitchen is ongoing, mostly because Florida has found that she doesn't want to invest any time at all in that level of home-making. But today, Florida smiles, today is something different.

"Rex please, can't you just listen for a minute and go into the crate?" Florida begs their pup. He doesn't know how, but somehow the earlier streak the sweet creature had shown for his authority seems to have evaporated over time. Sure, he can reprimand Rex when he's truly misbehaving, he can get the dog off of furniture he's not allowed on, and he's just about managed to get Rex to not mope in the guest bedroom when the twins and Theta leave, but that's about it. His authority seems to have disappeared, instead invested with infinitely more loyalty and obedience in his wonderful girlfriend.

The dog, as much as he offers it love and affection and spoils it, is her retainer.

Maybe, he muses to himself, it has to do with how quick he is to roll over on discipline to give the pup treats or belly rubs or play with it out in the smallish outside dome he had made to make the pup more comfortable. Actually, it's almost definitely that seeing as Tex indulges the pet but still keeps an authoritative hand. But maybe it's also that he's home more with Rex. Came with the territory of her needing to be responsible for her family, physically training more, and spending more time out on jobs. Florida's slow scaling back from red-jobs hasn't put him off of his game, of course, but it does mean he's home here, or at base, or at the other house whenever they have the dog there enough to change out equipment and costumes to get information more often. Which leads to pampering.

Damn him, he is getting soft in his age. And right now he desperately needs the dog to listen so that he won't be underfoot when the truck delivering the new furniture, chief of which was the new convertible couch, arrives. That's the only way he's going to get Rex to go out to the dome and stay there for the length of time needed for even Adaptive's speedy movers to get the items into the house with minimal interior contamination. And even then they've got to keep the beastie out there for a few hours after the stuff is inside to make sure the internal filters, which work so much slower than airlocks, to be certain the house was safe enough for extended organic exposure.

Granted it's a perfectly clear day outside so he isn't too worried, but still, better safe than sorry.

"Teeeeex!" Florida calls for her, wondering where in the house she's gotten to. "Get this pup of yours into his crate, he won't listen to me!"

The dog is ALWAYS hers when it's not behaving.

Comments

[the_informant]

"Why isn't he so obedient with me?" Florida sighs forlornly when Tex arrives and their pup is already at her heel, sitting on his rump and staring up at her as he waits for more information on what she wants.

[soldierinblack]

"Might have to do with you giving him treats every time he looks at you sadly," she reminds him. She motions for the dog to head to the backdoor. "Outside, now." The demand is firm and she's heading with the dog towards the door so she can let him out into the dome to romp around.

[the_informant]

"Maybe," Florida sighs again, shaking his head. But the dog has obeyed and he smiles before moving to the couch. He needs to move the old one closer to the door but mostly out of the way of where the movers will be putting down the new one.

"I'm so excited."

[soldierinblack]

The dog is safely out of the way and if he's going to be moving the couch, then she's ready to help him. His shoulder may be world's better than before, but she's not about to let him risk it. "You figure out what you want to do with all the old furniture yet?"

[the_informant]

"I was going to call Omega over and see if your family didn't want some of it," Florida admits. "Their couch looks a bit old and quite stained from years of children. They might not mind this one. Even with the dog hair."

[soldierinblack]

"We can clean the dog hair off." It would be easy enough to do and if they have to get it professionally done, she'll find someone for that. "If they don't want any of it, Sigma might for his place."

[the_informant]

"OH, that's a wonderful idea too!" Florida claps in delight. "We'll talk to them both and let them wrestle over it if it comes to that. Don't want Omega to think we're favoring Sigma after all."

Omega has a delicate sense about Sigma's apartment after all.

[soldierinblack]

"Family comes first and worse case scenario, Sigma can get the old furniture at their house. They're the ones with more people living there still." Even if Tex desperately wants them living elsewhere. At least Sigma's out and Omega has a room on base. That has to count for something.

[the_informant]

"Ah, but this couch has a fold-away bed in it," Florida points out. "Less comfortable than the new one, yes, but Sigma could thus host the little ones at his place with this, whereas the rest of your family all has beds at your house, not to mention a spare."

But if she thinks it should first be offered to the house, then by all means he will allow it.

[soldierinblack]

"We'll talk about it," she assures him. The couch will go somewhere where it's needed, it's not something they need to figure out now. When it's out of the way, she goes ahead and plops herself down on it.

"When did you say they were getting here with our new crap?"

[the_informant]

"Should be another ten or so minutes by my best estimate," Florida answers as he sits with her and pulls her close to him. "It's not crap. It's stuff. Our stuff."

[soldierinblack]

"I know, you keep telling me." Our stuff. It's still something she's wrapping her head around. A lot of things have changed and she settles in against him with a shrug. "It's about to be a house full of our crap."

[the_informant]

Well, that he can accept and he laughs, kissing her forehead. "Fine. Our crap. Because you know you twisted my arm about this couch."

She ended up having the better part of the input on this one.

[soldierinblack]

"Oh yeah. I twisted your arm, but only after you begged me to say something about all the damn furniture catalogs you left around the house." Her words are accompanied with a playful jab to his side. She hadn't started off as a willing participant in this.

[the_informant]

"Because I want this remodel to be ours," Florida reminds her, not for the first time. Not for the last. "And your firmness on what couch we chose was wonderful."

[soldierinblack]

"We don't need a couch that eats us while we're trying to sit on it." There was such a thing as 'too soft' and they found several of those while searching. "We still need to put the wall decorations."

[the_informant]

"There is also too hard," Florida counters. Not that they looked at those. They wanted comfortable enough. "I figured the wall decorations, in here at least, could wait until we figured out how the furniture was going to sit out."

Because otherwise they might have to redo something because they found that a lamp needed moved or something.

[soldierinblack]

"Still have to get the bathroom and bedroom looking nicer," she says and nudges his shoulder. "And we can hang some of the twin's crafts up in their room."

[the_informant]

"Yeah, but that can wait a minute, right?" Florida asks, leaning in to kiss her hair. "I'd rather stay here with you for the moment."

[soldierinblack]

"You know we can do this later too, right?" It's a meager protest considering she's not bothering to move either. "We're going to need to make sure this couch is properly cleaned before we give it to anyone."

[the_informant]

"And yet, here you are, in my arms," Florida calls her on her protest. And then there is a knock at the door and he sighs. "Come on, helmet up."

[soldierinblack]

"I know the drill." She reaches for her purple helmet, it's habit now when she's not on jobs even if she's wearing nothing else to signify who she might be mercenary-wise.

She waits besides the airlock for the delivery to come in and is ready to direct them to where things should go for now. If they need to rearrange later they can.

[the_informant]

Definitely later to rearrange. The less time the seals are open, the better he'll feel.

But he takes the step of moving to the door and keying in the moving sequence at the panel. It allows both doors to unlock and open and once again his house is truly open to the elements. The very thought upsets Florida, he's lived on Adaptive long enough to develop the cautious fears of a native, but he gets the thing open and heads out, helmet on, to direct the men, who probably don't need direction.

"Yeah, just get it all in. The lady inside will tell you where to put it down, and if you don't listen, she'll probably break your hand or something to be sharp my fellows!"

[soldierinblack]

The seals are open and she's making sure to direct them in quickly and in such a way that all the furniture will fit and be in without any lag time to shove things out of the way. Never mind that they're professionals, but goddamn this is the first set of real furniture she's ever had a hand in purchasing and she wants to make sure none of it is scuffed before it even gets used.

When everything is inside, she's already inspecting every inch of it to make sure the condition is perfect before they're sent on their way.

[the_informant]

Florida is happy to send the men on their way, happy to have the house resealed so it can go through an internal decontamination while they inspect everything.

"We can move the stuff we don't need into the garage I suppose," he notes as he moves to inspect the legs of the new end table for the couch. It seemed to be in good shape even though he'd thought it was bumped against something.