Adrienne/Garrison - Over Drinks

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

Backdated to Monday.

Garrison and Adrienne continue their normal baseball insults over drinks, and yet again just managing to dance around serious topics.



"Can you hear it? It's just on the edge of your hearing. It's that slow creeping sound coming out of Toronto and shut lofting over Lake Ontario." Kane said as he walked into the bar to meet Adrienne. He was coming from work, and was wearing his Blue Jays tie that she'd gotten him for his birthday. He walked over to where Adrienne was perched at the bar and leaned close to her ear, lips almost touching as he said with soft intensity. "Playoffs... playoffs... playoffs."

"I can't decide if it's the tie that's doing it, or the hat you made me wear in Florida," Adrienne said, making a face at Garrison and pushing his usual Moosehead in front of him. "Something's screwed up in the universe. I need that tie back so I can burn it with the hat on a full moon and spread the ashes in a grave sprinkled with chicken blood as I dance naked chanting 'no playoffs.'"

"I will totally donate my tie to you as long as it involves naked dancing with it. And I get to watch, obviously. Maybe take a few pictures. Purely for artistic purposes." Kane said, grinning as he slipped on to the stool beside her.

Adrienne arched a perfectly sculpted brow. "You're an FBI investigator and you've never found my nude pictures? Or do you just want nude pictures of me that involve Jays apparel?"

"Generally, hunting down nude pictures of your attractive friends without them giving them to you personally first is a good indication that you're a dick. And I'm not a dick. At least, not mostly." Kane took a sip and smiled expansively. "I can even smile benignly about the success of your Bosox since the Yankees are getting the every holy shit kicked out of them."

"No, not mostly," Adrienne conceded with a smirk, waving a hand at him in apology. She'd forgotten who she was dealing with for a moment there, having spent the afternoon at her office dealing with men who definitely fit into the category of dicks who would hunt down nude pictures of everyone they knew. "You're the face of generosity. I just don't want to place bets on you remaining so when your little Jays go on a twelve-game losing streak. You know the phrase 'the bigger they are, the harder they fall?'" She sipped at her beer. "I seem to remember a certain Canadian team that had a great record in April and an absolutely terrible May last year- so bad they fired their coach? You'll get your comeuppance and I don't want you moping around when it happens, so it's best I keep reminding you of what's going to inevitably happen soon."

"First of all, we now have Cito Gaston at the helm, who will personally go out and pinch hit if he has to in order to win. Secondly, your Sox have all kinds of fun days ahead of a geriatric Lowell, Ortiz and Veritek hobbling to the plate. My baby Jays will get rocked, but they'll be there at the end." Kane grinned over his beer. "How was work?"

"Gaston's been good for your boys, I'll admit," she conceded again with a nod. "But until Ryan and Litsch are permanently injured they're just going to keep blowing the games for you, and Cito can't pitch. It's not your hitting that's a problem this year," she pointed out, "it's your pitching. Even Doc doesn't mean a sure win anymore." She took a pull on her beer. "Work was work. I've been trying to phase myself back into more responsibility with my company now that summer vacation is a month away, and teaching is always an interesting experience in Mutant Academy." She grinned as she said it, though, not bothering to hide the fact that she enjoyed her position at the school. "How was work for you?"

"The usual. Crime, man's inhumanity to man, paperwork. I got to requalify at the range today, shot a 98. Just a half inch both times away from a 'probable'." In the Bureau, a 'probable' was a seemingly perfect score, and there was a wall at Quantico that listed the agents who had reached that mark. Fred Duncan's name was on it, Garrison's wasn't. "Badmouthing the Beej and Litsch aren't needed. Litsch's numbers were better than Dice-K's last year, Dirty Janssen is back in two weeks, and Snakeface Downs is in to cause hitters to wet themselves until Ryan is back."

Adrienne choked on her beer at hearing Garrison's nicknames as she chuckled amusedly. "You're still not going to make it to the playoffs on pitching." She gave a thoughtful pause as she pondered what he'd said about the shooting range. "Is that why you never take me shooting? Because you're embarrassed that you can only shoot a 98?" she teased.

"You've never asked me." Kane said simply, and waved for a menu. Not that he needed it, having committed the menu of Harry's to memory long before hand. "It will be on the hitting of A-Dawg and Lind and this year's Rookie of the Year, Lunchbox Snider that we will walk into the playoffs, and then send Boston's old men and Dustin Pederest back to the depths from which they came. Ted Williams himself will lurch up out of the grave to shake Cito's hand for freeing his beloved team from the grasp of the foul forces which have seized it. True story."

"Right," Adrienne said with a nod. "Because I'm always worried I'll intimidate you with my shooting prowess, and I don't want to undermine your manhood. Or maybe I'm worried that you'll arrest me," she shrugged. "Okay, the ghost thing is a little scary, but I've been hunting ghosts so I think I know what to do to be prepared. Why Lunchbox?"

"I think you're spending too much time thinking about my manhood, Adrienne." Kane said, kidding her. "Snider is Lunchbox because he's big, solid, and apparently likes to eat. That's what the rest of the team is calling him, anyhow. Seriously though, if you want to go shooting, just let me know. The field office has a range, and Duncan won't have any issue clearing you."

"Am I making you uncomfortable?" Adrienne asked, in an 'oh poor baby' tone. "Just wait til you see my shooting. Then your manhood will be uncomfortable." She took a long pull from her beer. "And of course you know what the team calls Snider because of the fact you and the Jays are like this." She crossed two fingers. "Hey, do you think you could do something for me? Do you think next time you talk to them, you could ask one of them to steal home, the way my Red Sox can do?"

"I'm sorry, you mean stealing home off of Andy Pettite that Hill did last year, and obviously the bench coaches of your team have been watching obsessively to get anything useful from Ms. Ellsbury? Yeah, I could, but they're likely to just keep hitting the shit out of the ball instead." Kane ordered a pound of wings, hot, and leaned his arms comfortably on the bar. "In terms of shooting, the only way I'll be uncomfortable is if you start waving it in my direction."

"No, I mean stealing home this year, cuz who cares what happened last year? Last year's stats don't matter at all anymore, except for the part about my team doing better than yours. I want you to tell Hill to steal home this year. It can be off Pettite again; I'm not picky, so long as it's not off Papelbon." It was time for another beer. "I don't wave the gun at people. I've never been good at that."

"See, only people who can't hit the ball out of the infield with their twiggy little arms need to steal home. Hill takes home by sending the ball into the upper level." Kane checked the score. "Again, if you want to shoot, just give me a bit of warning and I'll make some arrangements for you."

"I can think of many things I'd rather be doing with you," Adrienne said in a teasing tone, "but I can settle on trips to the shooting range." She drained some of her new beer. "At least the guys with twiggy little arms aren't going to get busted for steroid use like your Hill most likely will. There's something to be said for wily brains over brawn, I think."

"That would require any of the Bosox to have brains, Adrienne. And how did we get back to my manhood, eh?" Kane nudged her with his shoulder. "Things not going so well with whats-his-name that you're looking for someone else to break your nunship now?" He tone was light, teasing, as opposed to being serious.

Adrienne raised an eyebrow. "I didn't say anything about your manhood. You inferred that all on your own. Who told you about what's-his-name?" she asked, curious.

"You know that my job is investigating things, right? The badge didn't get handed out with a ten page overview of law enforcement in my spare time." Kane noted wryly, and grinned. "Also, Morgan told me. What I learned from my uncle Pete; some people are natural information sources."

"Ooo, you and Morgan?" she asked, waggling an eyebrow. She knew they were friends, but after Morgan's pseudo-confession about being in love with Garrison, a meeting between them meant more to Adrienne than it might have before.

"Not that I wouldn't say yes to it, and certainly if accused I will wholly support the rumour, but I get the feeling that she's into Sam enough that I'm not really an option." Garrison laughed. He liked Morgan a lot, but she'd never seemed to want to be more than friends, and he respected that enough not to push anything.

"I wouldn't be so sure about you not being an option," Adrienne said in a sing-song voice. "Would you really say yes to fucking her?" Something had flickered in the pit of her stomach, but she kept her tone light.

"Yeah, that's real funny, Adrienne." Garrison shook his head. "I really don't know, to be honest. I suppose it would depend on the circumstances. I think it'd really depend on why she wanted to and what was involved in all that. I mean, I like her a lot, but I'm not going to get into something that isn't going to work and fuck up our friendship just because she's hot, eh?"

Adrienne sipped beer contemplatively for a few moments, gathering her thoughts. There were a lot of them, none of which she particularly wanted to confront at the moment. "I've a feeling, in regards to circumstances, that why she wanted to would have a great deal to do with being in love with you, and what she would be involved in would be a relationship with you," she pointed out. "You'd rather stay friends than get laid?" she asked conversationally. It didn't surprise her- she just wanted to hear him say it.

"I'd rather not lose a friend just to get laid." Kane said. He shrugged, a little self-consciously, not sure how they got to talking about his sexual ethos all of a sudden. "I've had some partners in the past that just wanted to keep the sex casual, and I'm fine with that. Other people don't, and I don't want to pretend that I'm interested in something I'm not just for a night in the sack."

"Okay," Adrienne said with a nod. "Want to go shooting this week?"

Garrison blinked. "Oookay. Is there a scorecard of topics or something that I didn't get?" He said, nudging her. They'd gone from baseball to his possible sex life with Morgan to shooting practice. Either something was on her mind, or this was her slightly more crazy than usual week.

"No..." Adrienne nudged him back. "I just figured that after I asked about your sex life, you'd feel obligated to ask me about mine and we really, really don't need to talk about that." She gave him a grin. "I only keep scorecards on dates." His wings arrived and Adrienne debated taking one just for the sake of being mean, but decided that having to eat meat wasn't worth it. "I meant to tell you earlier- I saw your response to Forge's post on the journal system the other day, about the assault?" She smiled at him. "I liked it a lot. I just wanted to tell you that." She hadn't trusted herself to reply to it, personally, so she'd been glad Garrison had said exactly what she wanted to say.

"Well, seeing someone who is supposed to be a trained X-Man talking about attacking her ex because he was being a dick gives the younger people here ideas, and the last thing anyone wants to do is follow down Jennie's path. All it would take is one fight in town where one of the students loses control, and suddenly the mansion is in the middle of a media frenzy like you wouldn't believe." Kane said. As he'd mentioned to Jennie, his response to Forge hadn't been about her. It was about underlining that violence should always be the last resort to everyone else who might have taken it differently. "Besides, it's a cop thing. I'm already pretty dodgy with the law doing the whole X-Man thing, and I don't want to muddy the line any further."

"Such a good Boy Scout," Adrienne grinned, nudging him again. "You'd rate high on my scorecard for that, you know."

"You are such a fucking tease, Frost." Kane said with a smile. "And keep your hands away from my wings, eh?"