Jay & Garrison

[x-icarus.livejournal.com]

A Danger Room run with Garrison sees Jay through another failed test and Garrison doesn't let him out of the room until he agrees to try again. Even if its on the lowest setting.

[program terminated]

"What the hell was that?!" Jay shrieked as he dropped five feet to the ground. His wings splayed out and flapped once with his aggitation, trying to shake it out as he stood up fully, wanting more. When Garrison looked down at him, Jay knew, he knew he had gone too far and his hands covered his face, raking up through his hair as he angrily clawed at his scalp. A long screech fell in an exhaust as he vented out his frustrations at yet another screw up.

"That was the hostage. I say was because once the first wing blade went through his face at eye level, he became a victim instead. An ex-hostage. Ceased to be. Pushing up the daisies." Kane typed a few commands into the computer, his mouth on auto-pilot. "Its metabolic processes are a matter of interest only to historians. Gone where the woodbine twineth..."

"Okay!" came the nearly indecipherable shriek, pacing until he yelled at himself some more. He had to calm down, needed to calm and significantly did so as Garrison continued on, clearly ignoring him until the tone of his drawling on notched Jay down to where he could speak without the adrenaline rush conflicting his vocal cords.
His hands dropped against his thighs and he looked up, craning his head back and glared at what always seemed to be a commanding officer.

"Good. This time you didn't try to carve open the command booth. Aces for you." Kane said, as the window de-activated its hologram cover and Garrison could be seen looking out through it. "Like I keep saying, Jay. You can't just react. You need to keep what you're there to do in the front of your mind, and when you do react to something, remember what's involved in your objective. For example, if we're there to rescue hostages, you've got to remember that any sudden movement could be either terrorist or innocent, and override your first instinct."

"Ah dunno how to override it? It ain't like it's easy yanno? Ah feel like if Ah keep tryin' Ah might get it but Ah'd be lucky for it. It's like Ah can't tell the difference. All Ah know is that it's runnin' and Ah'm gonna skewer it. How can Ah tell when they run? Did that even make sense?"

"That's why they call it training, Emo Blue. We all have instinctive reactions to things; the old fight or flight reflex. In your case, your first reaction is fight. So, we need to temper that so that instead of a reflexive reaction, it becomes a controlled response. And that happens by doing it over and over and over until it sinks in and becomes part of you."

"But..." Jay's shoulders finally slumped and his wings drew back. "But that could take years!" he complained. "Years Garrison, years. Ah don't wanna work on this for years. Ah wanna do stuff with mah life--" he didn't know what. "And be something--" Again, he didn't know what. He tried to ignore the fact that he didn't ever know what was going on with himself, not at all.

"There's no shortcut, Jay. Faster you accept that, the faster this whole process goes." Kane sat back in his chair. "Do you know that I've been in training now since I was fifteen years old? Why? Because I can accidentally knock someone's head off the top of their spine if I lose control. You can turn a person into a skish kebab. Not fair? I agree with you. It's not. But it is what you have to deal with. So start dealing."

"Ah am dealin', fuckin' Christ," Jay snapped and pulled off his gloves, angrily walking towards the door. It wasn't that it was unfair, but it was the way of life now. He should have been accepting of this a long time ago only it aggravated him that he felt like he was on a treadmill instead of going anywhere.

"Sounded more like whining from up here." The door refused to open, as Kane propped his chin on his hand. "And we're not done until you do at least one clean run on this program." It was on the lowest setting, but Garrison had a pretty good hunch that it wasn't anything to do with the difficulty curve that was causing Jay problems.

Jay's fist angrily hit the door and he hissed. "Open this damn door!" Even when Kane refused, it only fueled Jay's aggrivation, which he knew he should have been paying attention too and arched his wings back, designated to carve it open if he had to. But then Jay stepped away, balls fisted and craned his head back, narrowing his eyes. "Ah ain't gonna get one clean run today, if ever!"

"Gosh, then you're going to need to arrange some kind of regular delivery service in here. And maybe a bucket. I'll talk to Kyle about that, and dig up the number for Dominos while you settle in." His voice sounded disconnected and alien over the microphone. "Seeing as you've already given up."

"Ah havn't given up! Fine. Run the goddamn program again," he threw his hands up over his head, walking out to the middle of the danger room. "This is bullshit. Ah should be up there, lockin' you inna room."

"Temper, temper, Blue. The only way to get up here is to do it right." Kane keyed up the sequence again. Jay was one of those people that needed to be pushed, and Garrison was happy to keep pushing him. Making him take some responsibility for once in his life. "So, ready to try it without the self-pity? I hope so."

He activated the Danger Room sequence again.