Angelo, Jean, and Adrienne - The Electric Ssssssslide (Mack so hilarious!)

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

Some unconventional methods are employed by all to combat Adrienne's fear of snakes.

Having never been in the Danger Room before, Adrienne had no idea what to expect. She generally knew what she was getting into- being desensitized to... something she was afraid of, whatever Angelo programmed that to be- but didn't know what that process would entail. So she had dressed for the gym, in a t-shirt and jogging pants. The room she entered was empty, just a big empty, clinical-feeling box, with a set of windows at the top, from where she could see Angelo. That must be the control room? Adrienne gave him a wave but stayed in the middle of the room, not sure if he wanted her to join him or if he was going to come out and join her.

Angelo grinned and waved back, then turned on the intercom. "What animal do you want to start with? I put in a few different ones, it wasn't difficult."

"Umm... zero? Can I choose zero animal to start with?" she asked plaintively. "I dunno, I guess a horse would be silly since we have those in the stables. Oh. I guess that goes for mooses as well. So..." she made a face. "Snake? But it can't actually touch me, right?"

"It'll only be a hologram", he assured her. "You can get as close as you feel good with, but no touchin'. Not yet, anyway, maybe in a while I can make a drone look and act like a snake..."

"For the love of Christ, please don't!" Adrienne cried out, eyes wide.

"I said 'in a while'", Angelo pointed out hastily. "The whole point is workin' up to it in stages. This is just, like, one tiny step up from lookin' at a photo."

The DR doors opened with a click and a whirr and Jean hurriedly walked in. She figured it'd be better for her to stay with Adrienne to try to help keep her calm. That and if she accidentally hurt herself trying to run far away she could help.

"Sorry. Lost track of time grading papers," she said, then glanced up to Angelo and smiled before looking toward Adrienne.

"What'd I miss?" She paused.

"Judging by the terrified expression something scary?"

"I do not want to do this," Adrienne replied in answer to the question about Jean missing something scary. "I do not want to do this. I do not want to do this. He wants me to face down a damn snake that might one day touch me. I don't want to do this. Facing your fears is for... wizards or hobbits or something like that... I don't want to do it. I want to not be scared of every animal on earth but I don't want to have to face them. This is so not cool."

Jean put her hands on Adrienne's shoulders then met her eyes.

"I know you're afraid. I know every part of you wants to run and hide. But...you can't run forever. The only way for you to not be afraid is to know what you're afraid of by being exposed to it," she said. She took a step closer.

"It's natural to fear being harmed. And sometimes it can happen. But if you think about all you've experienced, how much you've been against. You were able to overcome it. Most people wouldn't last five minutes after all you've been through but you did. You were stronger. You beat it. This, this is just something else for you to overcome."

Jean smiled. "You did it before, I know you can do it now."

Huh. Does Jean know exactly what to say to me because of her powers, or just because she's crazy smart and kind and perceptive? Adrienne thought to herself. But I guess it doesn't matter, cuz no matter how she does it, it worked. I mean, she's right about everything. I feel really silly now. Oh shit, telepath! Suddenly embarrassed at all the fuss she was making now that Jean had provided her with context, Adrienne blushed. "Okay," was all she said, knowing she'd already said way too much in her thoughts. "Let's do this. Hey Angelo, can you program some sort of virtual sword for me I can use to kill the virtual snake or something? Or like, virtual huge boots I can use to stomp on its stupid face?" she smirked, feeling much more like herself. She knew he'd already told her that it wasn't going to touch her, though, so she was mostly joking.

"No, you can't kill the snake", Angelo said with a kind of amused feigned sternness. "It's a harmless little hologram snake and that would ruin the point. Here goes." He reached over and hit a button on the console.

An enormous python suddenly appeared in the middle of the room and despite the resolve Jean had helped her find, Adrienne screamed. She kept herself from running away, however, which she supposed was a good first step. To keep herself from entirely freaking out, she turned to one of her tried and tested defense mechanisms, sarcasm. "You know how guys like to drive enormous trucks or Hummers to make up for having small cocks?" she asked Jean, "and how the bigger the vehicle is, the bigger douchebag the guy is because he's so insecure about his small penis? Do you think snakes are like that? How, this one is so big because it wants to overcompensate for how much of a tiny-knobbed douchebag it is? And I should really be more scared of little snakes because those are the really competent ones, but this one's really just a harmless douche?"

If Jean heard Adrienne's thoughts she didn't seem to react like it. Instead she crouched down to touch snake gently on the head. The snake did not move, save for the flick of its forked tongue.

She laughed. "First thing's first," she said, then nodded down to the snake.

"Alright, I want you to take three steps toward the snake, no more, no less. We're going to start slow. Just focus on taking those three steps. The snake will not harm you. I promise. We're right here."

"It can't bite or constrict", Angelo backed her up. "And I'm right here to turn it off if you get too freaked."

"Constrict?!" Adrienne squeaked, "bite?!?!" She blew out a nervous breath, trying to focus on the voices of her two coaches, reminding herself that they were here, of their own time, to help her, and she couldn't let them down. "It can't harm me. It can't bite or constrict. Okaaaay." She took a tentative step forward. "I definitely owe you guys beer. Thanks for doing this. You know, if I run away screaming and forget to thank you later." Biting her lip, she took the remaining two steps Jean had asked her for.

Jean winced a little when Angelo's encouragement garnered the unintended opposite reaction. She laughed.

"You're welcome but it was Angelo's idea for the desensitization. I just took it a step further."

Silent a moment, she nodded to the snake.

"When you look at the snake you think it will bite or constrict, right? In order for the snake to try to constrict around you or bite it has to feel threatened. Acting nervous can make the snake feel threatened. Most of the time most animals want to get away from the giant human instead of fight it. So in order to prevent it from feeling threatened the first thing we need to do is practice you being calm," she said. She took in a breath.

"This is going to be hard, but I want you to take the last step toward the snake. Whatever you are feeling, your skin crawling, the unmistakeable urge to flee, ignore it. Take a deep breath, count backwards. Treat this like a mission. Your goal is to remain close to the snake without running. If you do so you will be saving a life: your own. You can beat this, Adrienne."

"I have to save my life from this snake that is just a hologram and can't hurt me! Okay men, this shit just got real," Adrienne exclaimed in her best action-movie-hero voice, doing some karate chops in the air as she took a step towards the hologram. It was strange, how Jean urging her to treat it like a mission and talking about goals and saving her own life, with Angelo assuring her that it couldn't hurt her because it was only a hologram, worked together to make the entire thing seem like one of her video games. Which calmed her down considerably. "I'm calm, asshole," she told the snake. "You don't scare me. I'm a giant compared to you. So I'm gonna get close to you and you're going to get intimidated and get off my motherfucking plane!"

Of course, actually standing in front of something that looked so real was quite different from seeing it in a video game, and she felt a lot of her false bravado leeching away as her skin began to crawl and her hands started to shake.

"Just look at it from there awhile", Angelo suggested. "Now you took that last step. Look, I'll even make it stop moving."

"Can you make it like, do the Macarena or something?" Adrienne suggested with a smirk. "I totally think watching it do that would alleviate my fears forever."

"It doesn't have arms or legs", he pointed out, amused. "But I could probably come up with some sort of dance."

Jean tried very hard not to laugh but a soft giggle wound up escaping anyway.

"I think we may need to still take it slow. If it starts to move again before you're ready I'm afraid you'll start to freak out again and forever connect snakes to the Macerena in a bad way. Let's try something a little different. Angelo, can you create a replica of Adrienne? I think if you see yourself touching the snake without fear it may help."

"Just make sure you get my boobs right!" Adrienne called up to Angelo with a smirk, glad to have something to think about other than how damn close she was to the damn snake.

"Yeah, I can do that", he said confidently. "Just give me a few to pull your image off the Room's camera and get it set up."

"You do know getting your boobs right would imply having him stare at them for a somewhat extended period of time?" Jean said, laughing.

~Angelo,~ Jean thought to him. ~Actually, let's do the Macerena thing, but maybe have the duplicate Adrienne AND the snake do it? I want to surprise her since she doesn't think it's going to happen anymore.~ And laugh at the absurdity of it at the same time. Jean liked the idea actually but she liked the idea of her not expecting it even more.

~On my cue when you have it ready?~

"I'm a former model," Adrienne scoffed, still not taking her eyes off the snake as she addressed Jean, "when people stop staring at my boobs for an extended period of time, I gotta believe something's not right anymore. How long people stare at my... holy crap, what the fuck is that?"

Blinking, Jean looked around for the source of Adrienne's sailor moment. "What?"

Adrienne managed to take her eyes off the scene in front of her long enough to send Jean a death glare before her gaze fell back on the sight of a holographic version of herself dancing the Macarena with the snake. It was all just so absurd she had to laugh about it. "I hate you, Angelo!" she yelled through giggles.


"No, you don't", Angelo said brightly through the microphone. "And I dare you to see a snake ever again without thinking of this."

"I'm not taking that bet!" Adrienne yelled back. Yeah, she was never going to be able to see a snake without thinking of this.