[CLOSED] IKEA and Gossip

[hatejakku]

WHO: Finn & Archie
WHERE: Nonah
WHEN: Feb 4th
WHAT: IKEA Shopping!
WARNINGS: N/A hopefully

Finn had never seen anything like this. Sure, okay, an entire store devoted solely to interior decorating was enough to blow his mind. But this-

What the hell was this?

Finn stood at the entrance, eyes glancing around at everything. Everything. He could own any of this. He had a job now. His own money. And he'd been saving it up, too. For what, he hadn't known, but this-

"This is a lot."

Comments

warnings: excessive yankee candle purchase

[h2no]

"And it's just the entrance," Archie says with a laugh, having stayed back slightly to get a big flat trolley. He joins Finn, claps his back lightly and starts on inside. The lobby is just as big as the outside, with the main path up to the actual warehouse and two others; one towards the kid holding area (with the sort of noise coming from it that would encourage anyone to stay the hell away) and the store restaurant, for those who've been shopping for longer than ten hours.

Laid out before them is the first section of the housing decoration-- many different dioramas of a potential living room and bedroom setups. Archie, pushing the trolley, wonders... how does this work? Do they just pick it up off the display...?

His line of thought is disrupted immediately when he spots something interesting.

"Look!"

[hatejakku]

"I can push-..." Even with one hand reaching out, Finn's voice drifts away when he hears the noise of kids playing and crying and doing whatever else they do. His head swivels around to look at the restaurant in the store, curiously being as nosey as possible.

Finn whips around to see whatever Archie's pointing out and finds a very odd light fixture. "Oooh," he lets slip, inching closer to it with a furrowed brow. It almost looks like how he imagined Starkiller looked like in its last few minutes.

"What do the strings-" It's not attached to a fan or anything. He pulls one and- "It moves!"

This is very nearly the coolest piece of modern engineering he's ever seen.

[h2no]

Straight in through the door and they already got a winner, huh?

"Damn!" he says, low and impressed. Archie moves to pick up a box of one of them, getting one for himself regardless if Finn will or not. "You want one?"

[hatejakku]

Finn plays with the string a beat longer, making the lamp transform back and forth. Then he blinks. He can own one of these!

"Yes," he answers, a bit too seriously for the occasion before grabbing up his own box. He puts it on the trolley with a bit of triumph. This weird thing is his! "What else should we get? What else do I need?"

Archie's the expert on home furnishing, after all. Finn has a vague idea, but he wouldn't have thought of- of-... of whatever this light thing is.

[h2no]

Archie just smiles a little, not thinking of the seriousness too hard.

"Hmmm..." He thinks, starting off with the cart again. "I think you technically have everything you need, but you could replace 'em with cooler stuff. Like a sofa that turns into a bed! Or-- that paint you wanted!"

[hatejakku]

"Sofas can turn into beds?" All in one! But Finn supposed one could use a bed as a sofa or vice versa. Couldn't they all do that? "I'm not sure what all I could replace. Or upgrade, even. Everything I have now is pretty great." Everything he was borrowing from Poe, that is.

"But I really want to get paint, yeah. They sell that here, too?" This place sold everything.

[h2no]

"Not all of them, but some can!" He chirps, pushing the cart and starting off again. "I think it does-- this is a home decor store, after all... oh! Did I tell you about iridescent paint? I think you'd really like that!"

Fortunately, this store is RP convenient and therefore the paint section isn't too far away from where they were. Archie crosses his arms over the handle of the cart.

"Just take all the ones you like. Even ones you like but you're not sure about. I don't mind paying!"

[hatejakku]

"Iridescent?" He'd heard about that sort of paint on ships, but surely he couldn't just-

Oh. That's a lot of paint.

Finn's arms hang at his sides, Archie's words barely registering. His eyes felt like they had never been wider. "This is a lot." How was he supposed to pick from all this? He still didn't even have a vague idea of what he wanted. "I-... Not iridescent. Let's-... Oh no."

The urge to just grab the first thing in reach was high.

[h2no]

Archie is delighted to see Finn in such shock. Maybe it's a little cruel to overwhelm him like this, but it can only lead to good things, right? He hardly cares if they walk out with a thousand dollars worth of paint.

He picks up a few cans, different shades of blue himself.

"That's why we get here in the morning. So you ain't rushed and can stay in this section as long as you want."

[hatejakku]

"That's really thoughtful of you," he mutters, figuring he shouldn't be shocked by how smart Archie seems to be at this point.

Finn took a deep breath and got down to it. "No whites and blacks. And no reds." He wanted color. He wanted life.

Why were there 20 shades of green, though? What the hell is a primer?

"I'll-... I'll return what I don't use." Yeah, that'll work. Right? That works. Finn grabbed two greens, one dark like the jungles on Takodana and another light like the hills of D'Qar. "What's the best blue, you think?" he asked, grabbing an orange that reminded him of BB-8. Archie seemed to like blue. Might as well get his opinion.

[h2no]

"Of course! Just take everything you think you want then we can sort through it later. Though maybe it would be better to take some of the small test samples for the ones you're not sure about..."

Archie saunters over to the sample bin and pulls out a silver test tube and some varying colours of teal with glitter in them. Sometimes you just like to sparkle!!

"I like deep blue... lemme see if there's...ah!" He holds out a colour swatch he'd dug out of the shelf, flicking it open to the blue part.

[hatejakku]

Oh no. Just when Finn finally found the handle, Archie brought out the sample bin and color swatches. He thought that there was just what was in front of him. Nope. Turned out there was a whole world of this stuff.

"Okay," he mumbled to himself, grabbing a deep blue off the shelf. "I, uh- I'm gonna need a lot of samples." He started rummaging through them, picking out particular bright colors almost at random. "How are there so many to choose from? How does anyone pick?"

[h2no]

Archie clears a space in the cart, making something of a little barrier in the corner with the two lamps they picked out. He puts his own chosen paints around to reinforce them. Working smart.

"Put them all in here, they're free, anyway." A beat. "You know you could probably just get enough samples and make your living room some kinda impressionist paintings with different colours every few inches..."

It's not clear how serious that suggestion is.

"Generally you just know the sort of colours you like looking at. Like--" He points at a dank, ugly green shade. "That? Do you feel an urge to pick that up and put it on your wall? I feel like deep down, you know immediately."

[hatejakku]

"That's a good idea," Finn says with a gasp at the samples plan. That's brilliant! And they're free! It would be much better than wasting a lot of unused paint. That said, he felt reluctant to put away the colors he already picked out... He'll make this work.

Finn pops his head up to eyeball the green shade Archie pointed out... His head tilts, studying it. It sort of looked like some of the worst things he found while on sanitation duty, so not exactly appealing but at the same time fascinating for seeing it in such a totally different environment. "Probably not," he eventually answers. "You ever scrubbed the bottom of a septic tank in a starship with a complement of over 40,000 beings after inspection skipped monthly checks twice in a row? It kinda looked like that."

[h2no]

"Probably," he says with a snort. Maybe there's a limit on samples? Fuck if he knows.

"Oh..." His expression turns grim at that. "I had no idea you did sanitation... I suddenly feel like when I've put grunts on latrine duty I made a horrible mistake..."

[hatejakku]

Finn just nods like it's no big deal. And it's not, honestly. Not even close to the other stuff he did. "It wasn't that bad, usually. Just terrible when other people didn't do their jobs." Or were too dead to do their jobs.

He grabs a few samples of various colors, packing them into the little hole they've made. "You had grunts? Were you an officer or something?"

[h2no]

"No kiddin'," he says, none the wiser.

"I, ah. Led a team. Lead one. Only a hundred or so people strong, but..." He trails off a little. "Ah, I miss all them weird bastards an' their insubordination. Sway me with their sad expressions, they would! I'd end up buyin' them a buncha pizzas..."

[hatejakku]

Awww. Finn smiled at the idea, not even trying to picture Phasma taking pity on anyone in his former squad. "Sounds like you were good at it."

[h2no]

"Yeah," he says, looking down at one of the deep blues he picked up, a smile slowly spreading across his face. "I guess I was."

He lets himself bask in that acceptance for a moment, then looks back at Finn. "You can get a clear glittery paint for the top of any of these as well. You like shiny shit? Who doesn't?"

[hatejakku]

"You-" Finn's face falls as he thinks about it. A finish? Just for decoration? "Wait, they make that? Yeah! Yes, I wanna try it!"

[h2no]

"They make everything," Archie says with a laugh, picking up the relevant paint.

"Are you ready to move on? Next is furniture."