Adrienne and Cammie; Logan; Amanda; Garrison

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

Adrienne finds a ring on a table during the barbecue and instead of asking who it belongs to, reads it and learns a little about Cammie's past.

It had taken forever, but Kevin had managed to drag Cammie out for the party. And when she finally managed to retreat again she had left something behind. She didn't even notice it was missing. A Class Ring with the year '2006' on it sat abandoned on a table, having just slid off the finger it belonged to.

It glistened slightly in the light.

Adrienne spotted the ring as she was searching for clean napkins since she'd spilled on her shirt again. She picked the piece of jewelry up with a raised eyebrow, wondering who it belonged to. It wasn't from Xavier's, of that she was certain. Putting a hand into her purse, she dragged out a wetnap and wiped down a palm. It might be more conventional to just ask whose ring it was, but it was easier for Adrienne to just read the thing and find out that way so she didn't have to talk to every single person at the picnic.



“You,” Cammie said as they lay sprawled in the woods near home, her voice thick with teenaged affection, “are such a sap.”

“What was your first clue?” he returned, smiling dumbly.

“When you got down on bended knee. It’s just your class ring. You’re not proposing to me,” she returned.

He nodded seriously, “You’re right. Everyone here thinks we’re already married, so that’s a step backwards.”

The scene shifted suddenly. Music was playing in the background, but it could barely be made out over the screaming and the sounds of panic.

“Oh God… Greg, open your eyes – don’t fucking do this to me…” Cammie said, shaking him by the shoulders to no response, his face was twisted and still. She turned and faced a blond girl holding out a left hand that was stained dark green, panic washing over her too, “Janice, I need your phone we have to get help!”

“…Get away from me… don’t touch me…!” the blonde backed away, tripping over her heeled shoes to do so.

“Janice!” Cammie turned her attention back to Greg on the floor, “Oh god…”



Adrienne pulled out of the reading by transferring the ring to her other hand and stared at it for a few long moments before setting her jaw and heading over to Cammie. "I think this belongs to you?" she said quietly, without preamble, holding the ring between finger and thumb.
Cammie looked over and her eyes widened and she grabbed it, "Jesus," she muttered shoving it in her pocket, "I need a new fucking chain. Um... thanks."


"Not at all," Adrienne answered. She half-turned to leave, hesitating slightly before deciding that grilling Cammie about her past wouldn't be the best idea, especially considering who she was dealing with. "Hope you're having a good time at the party," she added with a nod, and continued to walk away.
"Yeah, loads of fun. You know, if you got something to say you can just say it," Cammie called after her boss her tone for once not snarky. The hesitation wasn't overwhelmingly obvious, but it was one of those things you learned to pick up on.


Adrienne turned back towards Cammie. "I wanted to see who the ring belonged to so I read a little of its history with my powers."

"Uh...huh," Cammie said and looked around. It wasn't like there were a huge amount of people in the corner she had claimed as her own, "Since it's my ring I'm going to ask what you saw."


Nodding, Adrienne took a seat in a lawn chair. "You being given the ring, and your manifestation... at prom?"

Cammie flinched and looked around again, “It was homecoming, actually,” she corrected dryly. “Worst. Dance. Ever.”

"I bet." She wondered if the boy had lived but didn't think Cammie would want to talk about it. "If you want to talk about it..." That was what people said in these situations, wasn't it?

“Not really,” Cammie returned, “I heard everything I ever wanted to hear about it that night.”

"Yeah, I figured as much. I'm a bit relieved, actually," Adrienne said, huffing out a nervous breath. "I'm not good at the people-crying-on-my-shoulder thing, which you probably know by now."

“Yeah. Not really a crying person myself,” she tended to get angry and punch things, “So you don’t have to worry about that.”

"I knew there was a reason I liked you," Adrienne smirked.
“Can’t figure out what that is,” Cammie returned, with the bare start of a grin pulling at her lips, “And hey, ‘least I don’t have to give you my ‘don’t tell people’ speech. So I like you too, I mean, for more reasons than that. You did give me a job.”


"Well, the shoplifting figures at the shop have dropped completely off since I hired you, so it's worked out well for both of us, I think. How's the studying for the GED going?"


"You never had shoplifters," Cammie argued, "You have amateur rich kids who think they're being cool by failing to shoplift," she said. She had done it to survive and even before then she had a certain gift for theft, "And... um, it's going. I'm not taking a damn thing until I'm sure I can pass it all or why even bother?"


"Makes sense," the math teacher nodded. "If you need more help there are some t-shirts I've been eying lately that I think you'll enjoy."

***



When she brings him a beer, Logan picks up on Adrienne's feelings for Kane but neither one discusses it, choosing to stick to safer topics like cage fighting.

"I don't suppose there's anything that's not made of cow or pig here today?" Adrienne asked wryly as she approached Logan, two beers in hand. "Not that I mind the fact that that means I'm stuck with beer," she added with a shrug, offering one to the Canadian. "How have you been, Logan?"

"If it's not cow or pig or chicken, is it really worth eating?" he said with a grin, accepting the beer. "Thanks. And not bad, considering. You?" he said with something of a grin as he gave her a quick look-over.


Adrienne rolled her eyes. "I really shouldn't be surprised you said that, should I?" she murmured with a smirk. "I think the baked goods of the world are going to start a protest. Pies and cakes are going to boycott you now," she grinned. "I'm doing very well, thank you. I heard about what happened in Canada. I'm sorry."

"Hear the Snow Valley crew got a lock on baked goods." he said with a quirked eyebrow. "Yeah. Me too." he said, his eyes going just a bit guarded. "Last I heard it looks like Judd might be comin' out of his coma soon." he said. "Still touch-and-go, though."


"Well, it's good to hear that he might be coming out of it soon," she smiled ruefully. "I feel badly that I wasn't able to get anything off those dogtags you found. I would have liked to have seen them be of some use."


"You and me both, darlin'." he said ruefully. "Still, fuckers can't hide forever." he muttered.



"Between you, Garrison, and Lil, I have no doubt you'll catch up to them soon. If there's anything I can do to help, let me know?" It was easier to make the offer to Logan since she still wasn't able to face Garrison in the light of realizing she had feelings for him. "Have you made any headway in figuring out your own past?"

Logan didn't answer her question - it wasn't something he especially enjoyed discussing except with a select few. Pity was not something he especially enjoyed. "Got Nord crawling into some pretty dark holes asking questions as well." he said. "But yeah, if we need ya we'll call." he said, although it was likely pretty empty. Adrienne didn't strike him as the type to have the balls for the kind of world he apparently used to move in.


"Excellent. Besides my helpful powers, I haven't shot anyone in a while so I've been a bit bored," she grinned. "Well, except when I accidentally shot Kane in the ass."



Logan snorted at that. "Funny idea of foreplay you got there, girly." he said with vast amusement. "Pretty sure somethin' tiny and lace will get the job done. He takes gettin' shot kinda personal."

"Umm, well, if I ever find myself in the position of seducing him, I'll keep that in mind, thanks," Adrienne said, her tone confused. Surely he couldn't tell that she had feelings for Garrison? She'd told a couple of people, but couldn't see anyone spreading it around to Logan.



Logan just grinned at her. "Course, he also likes efficiency and competence." he offered, just to stir the pot a little. He didn't need anyone to whisper her secrets into his sensitive ears - he could smell it, see it in the tiny way her muscles jumped and twitched. Of course, he could be completely wrong, but on this one he didn't think he was.


Adrienne gave Logan a mocking relieved gasp. "Oh, thank God I'm neither of those things then, or he might be interested in me." She wasn't sure if Logan was joking or trying to offend, but she chose to assume he was joking and not bother to point out that she was perfectly efficient and capable at running her business and her classes and that it was just in her personal life where she was such a godamned mess. "I could be having to fend him off with a stick. Of course I could just sic Lil on him," she added with a wicked grin.



"Can't have that." he said. "Blood's too blue for that, folks might get the wrong idea." he said. "Or the right one."


Raising an eyebrow, the brunette stared at Logan for a long moment. It amused her that Logan implied she thought she was too good for Garrison, when the reason she'd been avoiding discussing her feelings with him was because she felt that she wasn't good enough for what he deserved. "Blood's definitely too blue, yes. An attractive, mentally stable, housebroken, upstanding officer of the law in two countries who hobnobs with the baseball elite isn't attractive to annnnnyone."


"Just thought you should know one thing, girly." he said. "You fuck him up, you're gonna piss me off. You do not want that." he said, then smiled suddenly. "And we're outta beer. Do us both a favor, just bring the cooler over." he said. "Pig's got some done parts if you're hungry."



The threat didn't bother her the way it might have in the past. She knew Logan was just making his loyalty to Kane known. And she had no intention of fucking Kane up. That was why she wasn't telling Kane she had feelings for him in the first place. "I'll pass on the pig but I'll get the cooler," Adrienne smiled. "I'm on a liquid diet today. I can only have beer."



Logan barked out a laugh at that. "You an entertaining drunk, girly?" he asked with a grin. "A dance on the bar, shake your money-maker type?"



Adrienne gave him an over-the-top wink. "You'll just have to stick around and see, won't you? And just be glad there's no baseball within ten miles of me today, because when there's a game on I've been told I'm a verbally-abusive-to-stupid-umpires type."


"Once got kicked out of a bar in Saskatchewan for throwing a bottle of Jack through the TV." he commented. "Worst goddamned call I could ever remember seeing."



"And now I know why I like hanging around with you," she stated with a grin, tipping her beer towards Logan in a salute.


Logan returned it and then chugged down his beer. "Worth every penny." And every beating, but she didn't need to hear any of that. Cage-fighting really was a shitty way to make a living.



"This must have been during a football game?" Adrienne questioned. She didn't know a lot about Saskatchewan other than the fact that it was hard to spell but easy to draw on a map, but she did know that they didn't have a hockey or baseball team. "Or was this not an event where a Saskatchewan team was participating? Do they show other sports in Saskatchewan?"



"I know this is hard for you to understand, but even truck-stop bars can get ESPN." he said with a grin. "CFL game, if I remember it right." he said with a very, very momentary twitch.


"ESPN in Saskatchewan?" Adrienne asked incredulously. "Oh, wait, they have one of those teams, don't they? It's all they have? Other than wheat and ice fishing? And cage fighting?"




"Don't knock the cage fighting." he said. "Good way for a guy who heals to make a buck or two." he noted.



Adrienne's eyes widened with excitement. "Do you still do it?" She enjoyed watching people fight when both parties were complicit in it.


Christ, it was almost like the idea got her wet. "Not since I picked up Marie." he said. "Don't need to." But now that she'd put the bug in his ear...



"Too bad," the brunette muttered, deflated. "Oh well," she smirked, "maybe I'll catch you and Kane training some day and get my kicks like that. Healing factors, super strength... that's got to be better than a cage fighting match."


Logan just grinned.

***

After a mishap with a beer bottle, Adrienne tells Amanda she likes Garrison and the witch goads her into telling him, although Amanda proves un-goad-able when Adrienne tries to pry about Amanda's relationship with Angelo.

Pretending like everything was normal in front of Morgan was something Adrienne could only do for so long. Her friend was too observant to her moods, and Adrienne knew if she kept the act up for much longer she would slip up and Morgan would figure out she was trying to avoid talking about something, and Adrienne would confess to having feelings for Garrison. Not that she was trying to avoid telling the blue woman- Adrienne wasn't afraid to tell her. She just didn't want to tell her right now.
With the stated intention of going to mingle, Adrienne made her escape but found that when she'd turned away, the one person she wanted to avoid talking to more than Morgan was standing only a short distance away right in her line of vision. Eyes widening in panic, Adrienne spun away from the sight of Garrison so quickly she sloshed half her drink onto herself and let out a string of curses.
“Hey, whoa, where’s the fire?” came a familiar English-accented voice as Amanda appeared in her range of vision with a bottle of beer in one hand and a sausage in a bun in the other. “C’mon, there’s some napkins over here. Can’t have the fashion diva wandering around with shite all over herself.”
"Shit all over myself? Eew!" Adrienne exclaimed, making a face, "thanks for putting that mental image into my head." She followed Amanda obediently, however, smiling at the witch. "It's been a while," she commented, setting her beer down to pick up some napkins. Had she even seen Amanda since she'd joined the Hellfire Club? "What's new and exciting in the life of a Trenchcoat?"

“You need to learn more slang, you do.” Amanda finished off her food, brushing her hand off on her cut-off denim shorts. “And it has been a donkey’s age, what with you running off to do the whole vacation thing.” With a shrug, she continued, answering the other woman’s question. “Nothing so much new as doing lots of make up work to cover Pete and Remy being gone.” A shadow passed across her face briefly. “But we’re managing until they get back, any way.” Another shrug and she changed the topic. “What were you running off from so fast you spilled good beer?”
Adrienne didn't know anything about Pete and Remy being gone, but she noticed Amanda's face darken and sent a sympathetic look towards the younger woman before her own face went pale and she shook her head rapidly. "I wasn't running off from anything. Or anybody," she added quickly. "I'm certainly not avoiding anyone around here." Attempting to change the subject, she finished mopping at her shirt and asked brightly: "where are Pete and Remy?"

"Last I heard, Pete was at Muir for rehab." Amanda noted the change in Adrienne's complexion - something was definitely up. "Remy didn't come back from the last job in South Africa. We got a message that he was caught up with something, but that's about it. They're probably just working or something." Nervous fingers began picking at the label on her beer bottle. "'Tho' speaking of working... if you're going to fib about things, you'd do better to not try it on someone who lies for a living." She punctuated it with a wink to take the sting out of it.
"I'm sure they're just working," the brunette said to reassure her friend. "And I'm a great liar," Adrienne scoffed grumpily. "Well, I am when it's work-related..." Damn. Well, maybe telling Amanda would help the situation."You can't tell anyone," she threatened, pointing a finger. With a sigh she cringed in obvious pain. "I have feelings for Kane."

"'Feelings'?" Amanda repeated, eyebrow raised questioningly. "You mean more than 'let's go down to the pub and watch that funny game with the round bat' feelings, yes?" She understood perfectly well what Adrienne was talking about, but the other woman had a bad habit of using language as avoidance. And physically removing herself from a situation as avoidance. And pulling blankets over her head and going 'lalala' as avoidance, for that matter.
"Apparently," she answered, hands on either side of her head as if trying to squash the feelings out of it. "Manuel picked up on it and after he pointed it out, I started to realize it was true. Which is a complete fucking disaster because I can't tell him and I don't know how to make them go away. Damn feelings."

The witch frowned a little. "Um, I might be a little slow here, but why can't you tell him exactly?"
"Because! A million reasons! Because it's embarrassing, because I've never had to deal with these damn feelings before, because he doesn't feel the same way, because I think Morgan's in love with him..." She sunk into a chair on the smoker's porch, depressed.

"You sound like me back in the day when I realised I had a thing for my best mate," Amanda said with a wry chuckle, pulling herself up onto the railing and reaching into her pocket for her smokes. "So, you're going to avoid him for how long? Because he's bound to notice and wonder what's up."
"Can you give me some sort of invisibility spell that just works on him?" she suggested hopefully, not entirely kidding.

"With the way my magic works, I'd probably wind up turning him into a stretch of highway or summat." Amanda lit up and held up the pack to Adrienne, ready to toss it to her should she want one. "Look at it this way - is the embarrassment enough to flush what you have now with him drown the drain? 'Cause if you don't talk to him soon, he's going to assume you're pissed off at him, get offended like he did last time and then it's the two of you tearing strips off each other in our hallway. At least if you talk to him, you'll find out where you both are and if he doesn't feel the same way, you chalk it up to being one of those things. All part of the whole being a grown up thing," she added with a grin.

Pulling her lighter out of a pocket, Adrienne made a face. "Trying to goad me in to doing something unpleasant by insulting my maturity? Kudos." It had worked. Mostly because she didn't want Kane to be pissed off at her again. "I suppose it has been a few weeks of avoiding him," she added with a sigh. "Who's the best mate you had a thing for, by the way?" Just because she'd agreed to go talk to Kane didn't mean she wanted to do it right now.
Amanda tossed over her cigarette. "Angelo," she replied with a half-smile. "Of course, I spent ages fucking around being all emo and had to wait until he nearly got killed to actually tell him how I felt. You could have knocked me over with a feather when he told me he felt the same."
"That's sweet," Adrienne commented with a grin, inhaling deeply on the cigarette. "Well, not the 'nearly got killed' part. The feeling the same part is sweet. I don't really even know what I feel, so I know Kane doesn't feel the same way, and even if he did it would be a fucking disaster because I'd just fuck it up like I always do, but I really don't want to be emo about it. I don't think I could wear the clothes."
"Yeah, there's plenty of it around here as is, so you'd only get lost in the crowd any way," Amanda replied. Her expression grew a little distant, as if her mind was elsewhere. "And yeah, it was very sweet. That's Angelo, really. Sweet and kind. Perfect boyfriend, really. Sometimes I wonder..." She cut herself off. "Any way, you never know anything until you try. At least, not unless you're pre-cog." She titled her head at Adrienne. "You could always steal one of his socks or something, get a reading off it?"

Adrienne giggled and took another drag on her cigarette. "I could try. It might be better than going in without any clue as to what he's going to say. Future readings are usually pretty sketchy, though." The change of topic hadn't escaped her attention and she raised an eyebrow at the younger woman. "Reading things in the present isn't so hard though. Are you trying to avoid being an adult and talk about something on your mind?"

The witch blew out a cloud of smoke and poked her tongue out at Adrienne in a suitably immature fashion. "Not really. Just haven't seen a lot of Ange lately. We're both so busy, it gets easy to let things just go on automatic, you know?"


"Yeah, I know," she commiserated with a wry grin. "Except my automatic probably involved a lot more bruises than yours does. Still, if you don't like automatic," which was the vibe she was getting; that automatic wasn't so great, "maybe you two should mix things up a bit? I recommend chocolate sauce." Or leaving him, but that didn't seem like a polite thing to mention to a friend. Besides, Amanda knew perfectly well that she'd never cared for Angelo all that much in the first place.

"Not exactly what I meant, but it's a thought. Maybe when Nate's back on his feet, we'll be able to work out our schedules. Mind you, that'll be when I get called off to some remote point of the planet for three weeks doing Trenchcoat work." Amanda snorted wryly and finished off her beer. "Well, I'm out. Want to go find a refill for what you ended up wearing?"


"Ooo, and maybe it'll be work where you get to bring home a bad guy finger!" she teased, stubbing out her cigarette and rising. "Yes, I think I need several more before I go talk to the Boy Scout."

***

Garrison has the perfect awkwardness-breaker when Adrienne tells him how she feels about him.

Drinking a lot of beer had seemed like a good idea when Adrienne had decided she was going to talk to Kane, but now that she was headed in his direction she was feeling rather queasy. Possibly slightly intoxicated. She had two more bottles in her hand and held one out to Kane like it was a shield as she came up to him. "So, um... you guys didn't do so well against Texas, did you?" she asked by way of preamble.

Kane looked up from his ribs, shrouded in a haze of grilling meat and heat distortion. He accepted the bottle gladly, draining a third of it in one long swallow. "Yeah, I have come to the decision that I will narrow the concept of 'win' down to how Adam Lind did at the plate. If he did well, it is a win, regardless of the score. It's either that or I cut both wrists with my commemorative 1993 World Series glasses and toss myself into the pool."

The Jays' record not withstanding, Kane had all too many reasons to be gloomy. While they'd been patiently digging for information, nothing new had come to light following the deaths of the Alpha Flight team. Judd remained in a coma, although his condition had stabilized. He'd seen Lil at the mansion this morning, vaguely recalling a message that she was coming to pick up her things. Mainly, the Canadian had buried himself under a pile of work, and tried his best to make something good come of it. His method of dealing with things was turning out to seemingly be a waste of time.

"How about you? Other than clinging to a couple of games up in the wild card race and dealing with the fact that 2004 is now a joke, how was Boston?"


"It was magical," Adrienne said brightly. His pain over the Jays had cheered her up somewhat. Even if she screwed up things between them by telling him she had feelings for him, and embarrassed herself half to death, it was nice to know that at least her team was doing better than his. "There's nothing like sitting in your box at Fenway with a beer and some fries, listening to the roar of the crowd as your team sweeps the Blue Jays."

"There is something to be said for heavy steroid use to help augment a team, it's true." Kane nodded sagely, more than happy to use the drug test failures as a balm for the disasterious season for the Jays. "Better go slow on those fries though. Lose the girlish figure, end up one of those bitter former models who only designs ugly clothes for anyone size zero to punish them..."



"Are you calling me fat, Boy Scout? Are you attacking my appearance because you're bitter about my team?"


"I said you didn't want to lose the girlish figure. That implies that you currently have a girlish figure. There's actually a compliment somewhere in there if you want to dig for it a bit."

"Riiight. You're such a flatterer. And a sore loser. Why the hell is it I have feelings for you, exactly?" Uh oh. "Did I say that out loud?" She stared at her beer, frowning at it accusingly, even though she'd used the drinking to fortify herself for telling him which was exactly what she'd done. Still, a little more tact might have been nice.



"Um, what?" Garrison's head whipped up from the careful watch of his grill so fast it looked like it had been yanked back by a wire. "Wait, run that one by me again?"



"Ugh. Just kill me now," she murmured, pained. "I'm going to die of embarrassment. I went and got feelings for you from somewhere. I dunno how because this has never happened to me before and I don't know what they mean and I don't think I'll ever be fit to be in a relationship again even if that is what these feelings mean and you don't have feelings for me so the whole thing is just tragic, really." She fought the urge to flee, gripping her beer bottle with a white-knuckled hand, but stood her ground to hear what Kane had to say.

"Huh." It was really more of a grunt, as Garrison stood there holding his tongs in the air, wearing a 'Be Canadian, Eat Beaver' apron, and looking slightly stunned. It was only the even more distressed expression on Adrienne's face that pulled him out of his shock. Adrienne was in to him? Seriously?

"Wow. I mean- yeah, wow, eh? I was more expecting you to announce you were dating Jason Bay or something. Which would mean you'd be stuck moving to Toronto, because that is so where he's going next year, by the way. Am I babbling? I'm babbling. Right. Wow. Okay... uh, yeah."



"Do you want me to slap you out of it?" she suggested, eyebrow raised. He was killing her right now, just a little, making her wait for a coherent answer. It didn't seem like this was going well at all.


"Uh, no. Actually, come here for a sec?" He gestured with his tongs.



"Uhh, if you put the tongs down?" she suggested, a little bit afraid, moving closer in slow, nervous steps.

Kane dropped the tongs on the plate by the grill and stood, just looking at her for a moment.


"You know, neither of us do awkward well. You fidget and clam up, I babble, neither of us gets even close to actually talking to each either, as opposed to dancing around issues." He considered for a moment, and put his hand on her shoulder. "There's only one way to break this tension, Adrienne." Kane said, his voice low and slightly throaty.


With a flick, he tossed her into the pool.


Garrison sat down at the edge of the water, letting his feet dangle as she surfaced sputtering. "Tension broken. I know I feel less awkward now. Do you want to go to dinner next week?"

Gaping and dripping, Adrienne swam over to the edge. "You threw me in the pool?!? I spill my fucking heart to you and you throw me in the fucking pool?!?" She shot out of the water, locked an arm around his neck, and attempted to drag him in after her. " I've been known to enjoy dinner. You really want to try, what, dating?"


Due to Kane's strength, there was no way he was going anywhere he didn't want to, but he still picked her up at the waist and plunked her, dripping and fuming, on the deck beside him. "How about we try a date, and see where that goes before we worry about anything else, eh?"



Wringing out her hair, Adrienne sat placidly next to him. "We can do that," she agreed. Exploring where things went seemed like a good idea. At least Kane wanted to try a date and see what happened. He wasn't shying away from her at her mention of not feeling ready to be in a relationship, the way Morgan seemed to have done. Plus, Adrienne didn't feel any sexual tension between the two of them. This was an entirely different ball game. And one she thought she might want to play.

"But not at Harry's," she warned playfully, putting both arms and one foot on his back and pushing as hard as she could to try and get him in the water.

"No, the last thing I need is Lil sniggering--" Kane cut himself off, remembering that she'd gone back home for good. Another part of Alpha Flight coming apart. He shook the thought from his mind, distracting himself with a bemused look at her attempts to duck him without moving him an inch. "I'm thinking some where in the city. Something nice, where I can show off my abilities to use a range of different forks correctly."

Garrison finally rolled his eyes, picked her up by the foot, deliberately held her over the water, and dropped her in again.


Before she could offer some sort of reassuring comment about Lil, Adrienne found herself sucking in water once again and surfaced with an enraged cry. "Stop doing that!" she growled with a chuckle, "or I'm going to use a range of different forks on you!"

"See, I'm just trying to help you stay cool on a very warm day, and you don't even thank me once." He splashed her lightly with his foot. "Haven't even had our first date, and already she's taking me for granted."