Lil and Adrienne (Backdated to February 22)

[x-diamondlil.livejournal.com]

Backdated to Sunday afternoon:

Adrienne and Lil cross paths in the gym and discuss anniversaries.


She didn't have the greatest of imaginations but Lil had no problem picturing Madison's face on the punching bag as she wailed away on it. Even her blooming relationship with Bishop couldn't temper the 'I Hate Men' attitude that had taken over her life and her estranged husband, being the primary reason for it made for a good primary target even if her bare fists were making contact with the leather covering instead of his face. The blonde had been in the gym for nearly two hours, lifting first before moving on to her current fixation. At least the frustration was good for one thing: fueling her determination to get back into peak shape as soon as possible.

"Picturing someone's face on that thing?" Adrienne asked with a smirk from a safe distance behind Lil. She was clad in workout clothes, dark hair straightened and pulled back into a tail and carrying a water bottle and tape for her hands. Watching Lil beating the crap out of the punching bag with such intensity was a little chilling- it seemed more like beating out frustration than a regular workout to Adrienne.

The taller woman snorted but didn't stop the pounding she was handing the exercise equipment. "Thought you couldn't read minds," she grunted between punches that had the bag and her ponytail swinging. Gone was any trace of the fun-loving blonde. Instead, Lil wore a mask of serious concentration directed solely on whoever's face she was imagining. "Makes for good target practice though."

"Can't read minds," Adrienne shrugged, going to the elliptical machine to wait for Lil to finish so she could take her turn, "maybe it's just wishful thinking that you're picturing someone's face on there. I know I am, and you're doing a better job than I could." She still hadn't shaken the funk she was in over Steven's death, and the fact that he was still prominently in her thoughts was frustrating her.

Shooting a quick glance at the brunette, Lil took a step back and kicked the bag hard, right where a head would be. "That as good for you as it was for me?" she asked Adrienne before resuming the hits. "'Cause the only thing that woulda made it better for me was if the sonofabitch was here to feel it."

The psychometrist could get behind someone taking out their aggression on a punching bag- she actually enjoyed it herself. But hearing Lil say that she wished the person she was pretending to beat on could actually feel it unnerved her slightly. "S'not Bishop, I hope?"

"Nope," she said, shaking her head which caused her ponytail to swing back and forth again. "Not him. Asshole husband." One more hard punch was followed through with would have been a knee to the groin before Lil stepped away from the bag and picked up her water bottle. She took a long swig and wiped her mouth on the back of her arm. "Not liking him more than usual this week."

Wrapping some tape around one hand, Adrienne gave Lil a look of sarcastic sympathy. She wasn't feeling much pity for couples these days. "You two have a fight or something? He find out about Bishop?"

Another sip and she snapped the bottle closed. "Haven't talked to the asshole in months. Just a bad time of the year."

"Must be the anniversary, is that right?" Adrienne prompted, finishing up with one hand and holding out the roll of tape to Lil so the blonde could wrap her other hand.

"Girl can't imagine smashing her husband's face to a bloody pulp for no reason?" she answered before taking the tape. "Just a bad time of year," Lil repeated as she wrapped the other woman's hand. She didn't want to talk about it, about what was fast approaching. What she couldn't escape.

"Girl can have lots of reasons," Adrienne shrugged. "Could be the anniversary of a lot of things you'd want to smash his face for, I suppose; not necessarily the marriage anniversary. Someone discovering an affair, or something like that."

Lil nodded. "Yeah. Could just be the weather or the time of year, after the holidays." She knew she wasn't fooling Adrienne but she frankly didn't care. "Weren't any affairs though. Well, only if you don't count the robot."

Raising an eyebrow, Adrienne nodded. "February's a bitch. When's your day?"

"Later this week," the blonde muttered, playing with the cap of her water bottle. She popped it open then snapped it shut. Open. Shut. "You got a day too or this just post-Valentine's Day crap?"

Adrienne took a few easy, warm-up swings at the bag, more to stretch herself out than anything. "This past Wednesday. Husband was murdered. Eight fucking years and it never gets easier. You going to tell me what yours is about or keep it under wraps?"

"You had it right the first time: wedding. Three years." Something she still couldn't wrap her brain around. "And I'm sorry about your husband."

The psychometrist waved off the sympathy. "I had him killed," she responded in a tone that might have made the words a dark joke, "so don't feel sorry for me." She pounded the bag vehemently. "Why don't you go up to Canada and get the anger out in a nice face-to-face screaming match? Seems to me like if you're getting this upset over your wedding anniversary you still care for the poor bastard."

Lil blinked hard at the older woman. "Excuse me? You had him killed?" She couldn't be serious. Couldn't be because there was no way she'd be that flipant about it... would she? "And I already had a screaming match with him. Already gave him a beat down too before I left. I don't wanna talk to him and I don't wanna see his face unless I'm picturing it on whatever I'm throwing around." The blonde purposely left out any mention of whether she did or didn't still care for the 'poor bastard.'

"They call me the Black Widow of Boston," Adrienne deadpanned. "The reality television show where the camera follows me around everywhere airs in the fall. And this is just the anniverary of my first husband's death. The death of my third is coming up in March." She added some footwork to her practice, though she was clearly distracted from concentrating fully. "If you're not willing to communicate with him why not just end things?" she prodded, noticing that Lil had avoided any mention of caring about her husband, "bring Bishop into full-time boyfriend duty?"

"Sure they do," she replied, rolling her eyes at the brunette. "And I'm a fucking jungle princess who fights cavemen on cable." Lil couldn't help but chuckle. At least it was something to take the edge of her anger that didn't involve smashing things. "It's complicated. He's gotta be the one to make the first step this time. And even if I did cut ties permanently, I wouldn't 'bring Bishop into full-time boyfriend duty' yet anyway. I want some space; to breathe and be stupid and know that I'm not gonna get too twisted up in the first guy who shows interest which is why we aren't sleeping together."

"I don't picture you as a jungle princess, more an Amazon," Adrienne pointed out, "with lots of leather. Maybe that's what I'll dress you up as if I do a mutant photo shoot." She delivered a few combination assaults to the bag before frowning in confusion. "How long do you wait for him to make the first move before you realize he's not going to? I don't feel like punching things anymore," she announced suddenly, putting her arms down at her sides and grinning at Lil. "I feel like shooting things. Want to shoot things with me? You think Bishop would take us to the shooting range? I need a police escort on account of my being the Black Widow of Boston."

"Valkyrie but I ain't wearing a pointy hat in no pictures. Going all Xena's cliche, too." She'd been the brunt of many jokes along those lines growing up. "We do a shoot and I wanna be dripping in diamonds and furs."

Lil's shoulders tensed at Adrienne's first question. The wording of it made her frown and the desire to attempt to tear the bag to shreds started to swell again. "I ain't waiting, hence Bishop. Maddy comes to me tomorrow telling me he's done with the Box and getting his head fixed and then proves it? That's a different story but I haven't heard a word from him either way so... I'm not standing still." The idea to shoot appealed to her but the escort didn't. "I could ask him to take you but I'm not really up to seeing him today, all things considered. Sorry."

"Diamonds, got it," Adrienne said with a nod, filing that bit of information away. "Can you be wearing diamonds, furs, and nothing else? Or will those pictures just be for my private collection?" she teased, then shifted gears. "Maybe he'll call for your anniversary, or show up, or something," she suggested, though her tone indicated that she was only saying it to voice how unlikely she actually thought it was. "You don't have to ask anyone to take me anywhere," she added, eyes narrowing. "If I want to go to the range with Bishop I'll ask him myself; I'm sure he doesn't need you to set up his appointments for him." The prospect of Lil screening Bishop's company for him reminded Adrienne a little too much of how Steven had attempted to control her, and how much she despised it. "How about Garrison instead?"

"You let me keep the diamonds, I'll let you make the prints poster-sized," Lil said with a shrug but her heart wasn't in the snarking. Especially not when Adrienne mentioned Madison coming to the mansion. The thought alone had her wishing she was alone again but the brunette getting defensive snapped her back into the moment. "I didn't mean it like that," Lil bit, her own frustration up. "I don't know how well you know him and the way you said it made it sound like you were asking me to ask him and I'd rather not be around him over the next few days." She grabbed her towel and flung it over her shoulder then took a couple steps back to give them distance. "You talk Beaver Boy into going and I'm in."

Adrienne waggled an eyebrow suggestively. "I wonder if the folks at Cartier would agree to that." She started unwrapping the tape from her hands. "I don't know him as well as you do, but I take shooting lessons from him when our schedules suit." Her green eyes narrowed in on Lil's name for Garrison. "Beaver Boy?"

Arms crossed over her chest as Lil's eyes shifted to Adrienne's face, sparking with the most life that had been in them all afternoon. "He never told you about that?" she asked innocently. Dear Garrison, Payback's a bitch and her name was Brickhouse. "Shortly after my eighteenth birthday, a group of us from Beta went out to a bar..."