Laurie and Garrison log (Backdated to Thursday)

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Backdated to Thursday 18th February 2010

Laurie catches Garrison heading to Harry's and decides to tag along.



Laurie had spent much of her afternoon studying in her room, but had eventually been driven out into the rest of the mansion by a need to see sunlight and possibly retreive something that wasn't eaten out of a box, or drunk through a straw. She was thus headed on her way down the main stairway of Xavier's and toward the kitchen when she saw Garrison heading in the opposite direction.

"Hey," she said, in what she hoped was a friendly way.

Kane waved offhandedly but didn't pause. He was on his way out for the first time since getting back from the Middle East. The horrible bruising had finally subsided, as his more significant injuries had been caught up with, and now his healing factor was able to focus on the worse looking but mostly cosmetic injuries. There was a game coming on in an hour, and he'd already reached the final levels of stir crazy to make his way out for any excuse.

"Where you going?" Laurie asked, turning and following him down the stairs and out the door.

Kane flicked her a quick, suspicious look, although never slowed. "I have an appointment at Harry's. Apparently there's entirely too much beer at the bar and he wants me to see if I can help with that."

"Mind if I tag along?" Laurie asked, falling into step beside him as they headed for the front door.

It had been a snap decision, she'd not even known she was going to say it till the words were out of her mouth. But, she supposed if he said yes then it might be a chance to get to know Garrison better, and perhaps grow some kind of understanding between them.

"To drink beer at Harry's?" Kane shook his head with tired befuddlement. Never, in a million years, would he understand this woman. "Yeah, okay. This should be interesting."

"To drink soda, anyhow," Laurie noted with an amused smile. She waited for him to proceed her out the front door and then followed out behind. "Harry doesn't let you drink if you're under 21. More beer for you, though."

"I'm a representative of the Canadian government." Or was, Kane neglected to say. "Much like diplomatic immunity, a direct radius around me is subject only to Canadian drinking law. Besides, it's Briar's shift today. Harry's day off."

"Beer it is then," Laurie replied, knowing it was a complete contradiction to a stance she'd held almost since the moment she reached Xavier's, but she'd learnt that there were bigger things to worry over then drinking ages. If it gave her a way to connect to another member of Xavier's, then she could wave her usual stance on such things, at least in this one case, much as she had with Marie-Ange and her suitemate. "Although I'm not much of a connoisseur, you'll have to tell me what's good."

"Whatever is cold that she serves to me." Kane said, turning up his coat collar as he went out the down and into the snow covered walk towards Harry's.

Laurie fished out mittens as she followed, pushing them onto her hands before she slid her beanie out of her pocket and set it over her head. Her bout of pneumonia had made her almost paranoid about keeping healthy these days, and she was extra careful when going out into the snow.

She couldn't think of anything to say to that, and so stayed silent for the moment. There was more then enough time to chat when they reached Harry's.

***

Laurie wrinkled her nose at the taste of the beer, but swallowed the sip she'd taken. If she had to choose, then she could quite honestly say she preferred wine to beer. Bitter had never been a particularly favourite flavour of hers, and her current beveridge was bitter as hell.

"So, you're looking a lot better then you did when you first got back," Laurie noted, focussing back on her companion.

"That's why they call it a healing factor." Kane said, watching the game on television. He was on his usual bar stool, arms crossed in front of him, leaning on the bar with a pint at his elbow and a bowl of mixed pretzels and peanuts nearby. Briar had given him the look when he'd ordered for himself and Laurie, which clearly stated that the blonde bartender expected him to take responsibility for the marginally underaged woman if she was drinking.

He'd switched the televison over to the Leaf's pre-game, considering that his subsidizing of the MLSE direct satellite channel at the Harry's was a good investment and took a sip of his Moosehead as Kessel finished his pre-skate drills.

Laurie watched for awhile, taking another sip of her beer and wondering if it tasted better the more you drank. Perhaps it was just that eventually you were so drunk you didn't care what was going past your tongue.

"You always come to Harry's to watch baseball?" she asked, wondering if she could get any more awkward. She really did need to work on her small talk abilities.

"This is hockey, Laurie." He said, taking a sip from his pint as the Blues filtered on to the ice. It would be the last regular season game before the Olympics, and Laurie or not, he wasn't about to miss it. "Spring Training doesn't start for another... twelve days or so."

"Right," Laurie said, looking at the television screen again, she refused to let the embarrased blush get any further then her face, and noted to herself that paying attention to things outside her own head was probably a good idea. "I never could get the point of hockey."

"The puck goes in the net. It doesn't need to be overanalyzed." Garrison knew he wasn't being particularly easy on the girl, but she'd decided to limpet herself to him for whatever reason was running through her head today. It probably wasn't fair of him, but he couldn't shake the instinctive feeling that Laurie was ultimately too weak, too fragile for the life she claimed she wanted.

"Not the game, the violence," Laurie replied, rolling her eyes at him. "I don't get what the point of the violence is. It always seems counter-productive to actual winning."

"Really? And what makes you say that?" Kane said, his voice apparently pleasant, although Laurie hadn't known him well enough to recognize the undertone to it.

"Well, they get penalties for it, don't they? So that takes out your best people when they could be winning you the game," Laurie noted, warming to the topic. "You would think that violence was the end choice, not the first one. But people always cheer when it happens, the worse it is, the bigger they cheer. I just don't get it, it's not like it's helping their team win."

"You don't get penalties for violence. You get penalties for fighting and for violence that violates the rules of the game." Kane said quietly. "A hard check into the boards, a slapshot, a bail into the crease across the line of the puck are all violent moves that do a great deal to help a team win. If you're talking about penalties, in most sports there is a basic sense of an eye for an eye; you fuck with one of my teammates, I will take you down to show you aren't allowed to do that without consequences. You might say that they are helping their team win by taking the consequences themselves." It was also obvious Garrison wasn't just talking about hockey.

Laurie thought about it for a moment, digesting both what he was saying, and the underlying current to it. She supposed she could see what he meant, although she doubted she would ever get to a point where she'd like it.

"I think I can understand that, but what do you do if they don't back down though? When eye for an eye becomes 'scorched earth', wouldn't it have been better to make them stop some other way?" she asked, hoping he would take it as the geniune question it was, and not as some sort of judgement call.

"There are times that there is only one way to stop something from happening. It's largely understood, which is in part what keeps it from getting disasterious."

"Only to people who follow the rules," Laurie murmured before taking another sip of beer, which seemed to be growing on her the more she drank. "What is it you really think of me, Garrison? Every time I even get near you I feel like I've got something to prove, and I hate that I can't just let that go."

"I think that you mistake being judgmental for having integrity, and you're so afraid of being considered weak or shallow that you take stupid risks, make rash decisions, and say dumb things because you think you can prove people wrong. These aren't uncommon traits for a teenaged girl, but frankly, I haven't seen you grow beyond them." Kane said, his eyes still following the screen. It wasn't his responsibility to make things easy for her, and maybe a little truth would get through her self-denial.

Ouch...Laurie took another sip of her beer and turned her eyes to the screen, following the game only coincidently as her mind processed what he'd said. He wasn't wrong, it was just a bit of a shock to hear it laid out so, without even an attempt to soften the blow.

She looked down, brushing hair behind her ears as it fell softly around her face, she wasn't here to hide, but she didn't know what to say either.

Kane applied himself to his drink, waving for another round. Laurie's silence didn't concern him. The girl either would or wouldn't believe what he said. In his opinion, Scott had botched Laurie's training by convincing her that she was special and different. Some people reacted better when told they weren't, and that it was their responsibility alone to make themselves different if they wanted to fight for it.

Laurie was on her second beer now, but even the small buzz that told her alcohol was beginning to do it's work didn't make words come easier. Every time she thought of a response, she abandoned it as meaningless, or simply not really what she wanted to say.

"What would you do right now, if you were me?" she finally asked, shoulders dipping slightly from her normally perfect posture.

"Grow up. Accept the fact that it is a very big world that you know next to nothing about." Kane said slowly, feeling his way through the words carefully. "The most important thing that separates a kid from an adult, Laurie, is the realization that it is not all about you. So next time you want to tell someone what you think the world is, keep your mouth shut and actually think about what they're saying as opposed to talking at them."

Garrison shook his head, for the first time taking his eyes off the game "You're dating a mercenary; a guy who's job is to go out and get shot at, and two weeks ago, you were telling the world that you'd never really thought about the fact that he is going to hurt at the very least. You made a decision to be with someone while doing your best to ignore what they do because it doesn't fit your worldview or you don't want to handle it. That's dangerous, Laurie, especially considering what we do."

"I talked to Morgan after that conversation on your journal," Laurie noted, meeting his eyes, her fingers tapping softly on her glass. "She actually said basically the same thing, and I followed her advice then, so I won't disagree now. Garrison, can you accept that you won't always see me acting as a complete grownup, but that doesn't mean I'm a kid either? I'm only nineteen, and I'm trying, but I'm not always going to get it exactly right, first go. If I say that I'll always try to listen, will you at least give me the benefit of the doubt?"

"No. Because you haven't earned that yet. In fact, what you have proved up to this point is that you are a kid." Kane took a long pull and leaned back. "If you want the benefit of the doubt, start proving that the mistakes aren't who you normally are first. Once you do that, then we can talk about getting the benefit of the doubt."

"Wouldn't that mean you'd have to have more contact with me then simply journal entries and X-man training?" Laurie noted, taking another sip of beer. "I'm not saying you're wrong, just that we don't exactly spend a lot of time chatting."

"If it isn't noticable in general, it means it isn't happening, Laurie." Garrison winced as Kaberle was nearly checked out of his skates against the boards. "Look, you're not going to prove anything today, so relax. If you're really serious, consider what I said. Ears open, mouth shut, and think about what people are saying and why before you jump in with what you think. You'll find that talking to people earns you a lot more respect than talking at people."

Laurie nodded, thinking that this was at the very least a start, and she could live with that.

"Which team are you following?" she asked, turning back to the game.

Kane looked from the television, with the giant white maple leafs and 'Toronto' on the blue jerseys, to Laurie, and then back to the television before sighing and waving for more beer.