Sam and Adrienne - An Awkward Trail Ride

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

Sam and Adrienne test out Adrienne's newfound love of horses with a trail ride and Adrienne starts to feel slightly awkward in response to Sam's sweetness as they discuss Hallowe'en and teaching.

It'd been awhile since Sam had been horseback riding himself, having spent a good year away on Muir Island. He'd visited the stables upon his return, of course, but hadn't really went out riding or anything like that. Having a chance to hang out with Adri though, it seemed like the perfect occasion to get back in the saddle, literally speaking. He'd given her some lessons in the past and he was curious to see how she'd do with it now, if she'd been practicing herself since he'd last seen her. If not, well, it was still nice to be out riding, and she was good company too, so it was win win all around Sam figured.

"Hey," Adrienne grinned as she entered the stables. She nearly added 'pardner', but stopped herself as memories of the last time she'd used that word still made her cringe. Still, the fact that she had no fear of horses anymore was a nice side effect. "You ready to hit the open road, feel the wind in your hair?" Grabbing a saddle blanket and saddle, she moved to Ginger's stall.

"I am indeed, the question is, are you ready?" He smiled back at Adri as she arrived, having already saddled up his own horse ahead of time. "Should be a good day for it too, I reckon." The days were getting colder but sometimes that crisp, cool weather was enjoyable, for a certain amount of time anyway. "And how's Miss Frost doing on this fine day?"

Adrienne slipped Ginger's bridle on and finished securing her saddle. "Just fine, thanks. Hoping the weather holds out, y'know, indefinitely," she smiled, and mentally kicked herself for talking about the weather with him. Why were things getting awkward for her around Sam? "Trying to adjust to the switch from math to history. It's a big leap. Any tips for me?"

"I hear you, not that I don't like winter but I ain't exactly in a rush for it either." Cold was so done for him after this days in Muir, after all. He smiled back, then thought upon her question. He fiddled with the brim of his cowboy hat, which he always wore whenever he went out riding. "Well, the best advice I can give you would be to plan everything out well in advance. That's what I've been doing with English." While he did enjoy reading and wasn't completely lost in the subject, it wasn't one he'd really taught before. "Don't get me wrong, I'm sure y'know your history, but prepping really does come in handy for new stuff." He walked over to his horse, gently patting the creature's side. "Just like ridin' a horse, gotta take it slow at first but soon enough you'll be trottin' along no problem."

"Nice analogy," Adrienne laughed, leading Ginger out of the stable. "Now if only there was a spell or a curse to prep history classes the way there was to ride a horse to skip all that going slow stuff. How'd you make out on Hallowe'en, by the way?"

He chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. "I figured it was an apt one, given the situation." Sam lead his horse out as well along side of Adri. "It was interesting. I was on comms so I missed a lot of the fun, or so I hear." He'd helped take Nico down to fix things however and witnessed a bit of the insanity. "Need a hand getting up?"

"I can manage," the psychometrist grinned, putting a booted foot into the stirrup and swinging herself up onto Ginger's back like she'd been born riding horses. "Be glad you were on comms and not dressed up as, y'know, a vampire or something. You might still be trying to bite peoples' necks."

Sam watched her and looked a little surprised as she swung herself up into the saddle. "Dang, I'd say you can alright. That's great, Adri." He went over to his own horse and did likewise, hopping up onto the saddle and taking the reins in his hands. "Hah, right? That would've been a real mess alright." Normally comms was somewhat boring, if necessary and important, but he was glad that's where he was that night. "It sure seems to be helping you out though."

"Well, I got off easy compared to some other people," Adrienne answered, thinking of Garrison. She nudged Ginger into a walk, looking back over her shoulder at Sam. "Where are we heading? Quarry, maybe?"

"Quarry sounds like a good place, sure." He followed her, moving his own horse on forward. "It did get out of hand, didn't it? And yeah, some people had a pretty rough time by the sounds of it." Sam shook his head, wondering why things like that always seemed to happen to them. "I'm glad you're ok, then, Adri."

Was this getting awkward again? "Uhhh... thanks. You're sweet. I'm glad too. I'm just hoping this love of horses doesn't wear off while we're out here, because you remember how I used to be before this happened. I don't want you to have to deal with that again," she said with a chuckle. "Even though I have been getting better. But the year away didn't really help, I think it erased any progress you made with me before I left."

It wasn't intentional on Sam's part if it was, however her reply did make him wonder a little himself. It was just regular concern for a good friend, wasn't it? "You'll be alright, and even if so Ginger won't steer you wrong." She did have a good horse there, that was true, so there was nothing to be worried about. "Nah, you're doin' just fine. And even if you did, no worries, we can just give it a shot. It'll be like starting over fresh again or somethin'." Of course he was just talking about riding lessons here.

Adrienne's eyes went wide nervously as he mentioned starting over fresh, but she hoped he hadn't seen it as the trail was pretty narrow and they couldn't always ride side-by-side. "So are you enjoying teaching English this year?" she asked to go back to their previous, hopefully-less-awkward subject, "or should I be worried about being stabbed in my bed for stealing your subject?"

He hadn't noticed and moved on to the school topic when she did. "It's going alright, I suppose. Not my strongest suit but I'm managing. It's nice to have a challenge too, I guess, keeps it interesting." Not that he ever found history boring, of course, quite the opposite. "How 'bout you? Just say the word if you need any help with anything."

Maybe he was this nice to everybody? That was what Adrienne assumed, that it was just Southern hospitality and she was reading too much into things, so she tried, once again, to shrug off the awkwardness she felt. "I'll let you know," she answered with a smile. "Hey, at least you stayed within the arts field, right? So you didn't have to adjust your teaching style a whole lot? Or did you? I suppose history is a lot of textbook-work whereas English is a lot more disparate in its topics which means a lot of different types of reading materials for the kids?"

Part of it was certainly that, it was just how Sam rolled. He was also generally worried about Adri from everything that had went down with Vanessa, so he was being more concerned and therefore nicer than usual to her. He cared a lot about Adrienne, after all, so he wanted to ensure she was ok. "Alright, I'll hold you to that then. And yeah, I did, that's true. There's some crossover because, well." Hopefully he wouldn't sound too dorky here. "I like to think of History as telling a story too, y'know? So English is just more of that, only more fiction than fact, I guess."

"Not that much more from what I'm beginning to understand," Adrienne grinned. "There are a lot more... grey areas, disputed facts, skewed perceptions than I realized before I started to study the subject. You know... the whole 'history is written by the victors' trend which in the past thirty years has been supplanted by social history to give voices to the previously voiceless... you don't get that with math. Math's just black and white. But... math, on its own, doesn't really teach you about... life, really, when you think about it. You have to turn to history to learn about life. I guess that's why it's so messy and confusing. Life's definitely not black and white either."

And then she suddenly realized she'd been thinking out loud and probably sounded like a crazy person, so she pretended to be really interested in a particular tree she saw on the trail.

"No, no it is not, heh." Sam thought back to his past with Vanessa, that alone told him how many shades of grey there actually were and how things were far from black and white. Shaking his head, he readjusted his hat and steered his mount away from a large rock in the path. "So we've both had to make some adjustments but are persevering anyway. Go us, right?"

"Indeed. Go us. We are persever...ers," Adrienne nodded. "Persever...ants... you just teach English lit, right?" she chuckled. "Not the whole, language part of it? So I can't ask you for help on this?"

Even Sam had to think on that one for a few seconds. "Perseverant? I dunno if there is a common noun for that or something, hmm." He'd need to look that up now once they returned. "I will persevere and look into that." He grinned and winked at Adri.