Garrison and Adrienne

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

After his drink with Jennifer, Garrison visits Adrienne to try and tell her what he's figured out regarding his feelings, but he is nervous and she is spectacularly obtuse, as usual.


Kane rapped lightly on Adrienne's door, once again back in his restrained mindset, keeping his returned strength in check. After years of practice, it hadn't taken long for him to slip back into control, and for the first time in months, he felt like himself again. Which, in this specific situation, was slightly terrified.

Wanting to have an early night after the stress of executing the allumwandlung and the flood of business she'd been attending to afterwards, the knock at the door roused Adrienne from bed. She hadn't been sleeping, but rather going over some papers by the bedside light, though she'd just been contemplating tossing them aside and closing her eyes. "Don't you know not to go knocking on the doors of old people after 9pm?" she shouted as she threw a robe on over her pyjamas and went to answer the door, assuming a student was on the other side. "Oh! Hey G-Man," she greeted with a grin when she unlocked and opened the door. "Get it? Cuz your name starts with a 'G', and you're an FBI agent? What's up? Is something wrong?"
 
"No, no. And I haven't been re-instated yet, so I can't really call myself an agent right now either." Zero to blather in one second. It was a new personal best. "I just wanted to see you- uh, see how you were doing after the whole London thing. You're alright, right?" 

It was pretty rare that Adrienne was the one being blathered at rather than the other way around, but since she had some experience being on the other side of the fence she took it in stride. "Sure I am." She waggled her bandaged hand at him. "Wishing I had a healing factor right about now as this thing is at the point where it itches like... what I'm assuming crabs itches like, but considering no one, including myself, got taken out by any of the Courts, I'm pretty happy with the results of the whole London thing, so I'm doing pretty well." She stepped back from the doorway and gestured him in. "C'mon in."

"Sure, thanks. Doc take a look at that when you got home?I'm sure she's got some kind of special-whatever to speed up the healing process." He awkwardly perched on the edge of her couch arm, fidgeting with his hands. 

Why the hell did he look so nervous? "She did, and she does," Adrienne answered, disappearing into the kitchen to turn the kettle on and make them some tea. "My powers seem to be fucking with it, though. But it's not a big deal. Want a cookie?"

"No, I'm good. See, I was actually out at Harry's a little while ago. Have you met Jen, the Professor's new consul? She asked me out for a drink."

"I have," Adrienne nodded, reemerging and sitting in the chair opposite the couch as she waited for the kettle to boil. "I first met her during an X-Factor case. Cool lady. I'm making some shoes for her, actually. Did you try the new burger on Harry's menu?" She assumed that was what he was trying to tell her- that he'd eaten at Harry's, although why that meant he couldn't make room for a cookie, Adrienne didn't understand.

"No. I mean," Kane started again, gesturing with his hands. "I was out for a drink with Jen. A kind of a 'hey, I think you're attractive, let's have a drink and get to know each other better' sort of drink. You know?"

"Oh." The good mood vanished instantly, replaced by sadness. "Well, I mean, yeah. Of course I know. You are attractive. I can see why she'd want to get to know you better. So you... came here to talk to me about... how your... drink with Jen went?" Didn't he have guy friends he could talk about chicks with?

"No, that's not it." That went bad quickly. Garrison fought down the urge to cut and run. His brain breaking event had also taken a large dent out of his self-confidence, as he was now prone to questioning things he used to be certain about. Including him. "See, I was having a drink with Jen, and she's really attractive and we get along and there are a lot of similarities and even, you know, that spark there. Like when you instantly know that you could be into someone?"
 
His brain finally registered the fallen look on her face and he waved his hands at her. "No, not like- what I mean is that all that was going on and- well, it was going on and I wished it was you sitting there instead." He rubbed the back of his neck, aware just how bumbling the attempt was. 

"Instead of Walters? Why, were you trying to talk about baseball?" Adrienne was still having trouble getting past the idea that Garrison had known 'instantly' he could be into Jen, so she wasn't really understanding what he was saying about wishing she'd been there instead.
 
Kane groaned and covered his eyes with one hand. This was a lot easier on HBO. "It wasn't because of baseball. It was an attractive woman that I might have been into except for the fact that I'm already into someone else. Enough to leave Jen with an especially awkward goodbye and come up to her room and make a giant ass of myself trying to explain it to her." 

The pronouns at the end of his sentence nearly tripped her up again, but Adrienne stayed with him this time. "So, umm... you came here to explain that you're into me, but that... you don't want to be because you want to be into Walters?"

"I swear I'm going to throw myself out the window. I'm trying to tell you that I realized that I don't want to be with her or someone other than you. I want to give us another chance."

It wasn't often that Adrienne didn't have something to say, or didn't at least open her mouth and just let words spew out, but this was one of the rare times she was speechless. But the shrill of the kettle finally snapped her out of being dumbstruck and she opened her mouth to let words spew out. "I... umm... Okay. Okay, uhh... one second. No committing self-defenestration."

She went into the kitchen to make the tea but mostly just stared at the counter for a while before forgetting why she went in there in the first place. "You want to give us another chance," she repeated, giving up on the tea and coming back to the living area. Okay yeah maybe it was time she stopped making him do all the heavy lifting in this conversation and contributed something. "That's... yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I'd... I'd like that too." She'd only been wanting another chance for more than a year now, after all. "I'd like that very much. I... sorry, I'm still kind of worried this is a nightmare and you're going to turn into some innards-eating zombie I have to fight off with the table lamp. I've had that particular one a few times. But this is real, right?" Not that she'd admit it to him, but it was actually less a fear that he was a zombie and more a fear that as soon as she started believing it, Wyngarde would jump out and kill the illusion he'd constructed to torment her, but she wanted to believe it, very badly, so she forced it out of her mind and grinned happily at him, all of a sudden too happy to say anything at all.

"I'm pretty sure being an innards eating zombie would be slightly less embarrassing than my explanation, so yeah, I think it's probably real." He said, finally relaxing a little. She had said yes. "Look, I know it's kind of sudden and it's going to take time to figure it all out, but yeah, I'd like to give it another shot. Not to try and just jump back to what we were and all that, but figure out where we are now with all the changes."

When he seemed to have relaxed, at least enough to speak more clearly and sound more like she was used to him sounding, Adrienne felt herself relaxing as well, snorting at his zombie comment. "I think I could get on board with that plan," she nodded, still grinning. "And hey, I'm sorry you got so embarrassed, but I gotta say this beats the first time we had this conversation... when I got thrown in the damn pool." She glared at him pointedly, but was still too happy to hold the expression for long.
 
"I could throw you in the pool again if you prefer. I've got my powers back, so you could kick and flail as much as you want." He offered, mostly kidding. 

"Did you?! That's great! I'm happy for you. I mean obviously not about the threat of being thrown into the pool despite all efforts to resist," she muttered, trying the glare again, "but I'm glad you got them back. Don't get me wrong, watching a man sweat with effort at the gym isn't necessarily always a turn-off, not when he looks like you, but it was kind of disconcerting to see you struggle."
 
"Yeah, I don't like the whole needing to exercise thing. I'd rather this way; drink beer incessantly and eat crap food to maintain a fabulous body." His grin matched hers. "So, uh, how do we do this? I should take you out? Yeah, I'll take you out for dinner. Friday. You good with Friday night?"

"Yeah, I'm good with Friday night," she answered slyly, nearly adding in a quick 'thanks for the advance notice, now I'll know not to wear underwear,' but worried that after his warning that he didn't want to jump back to how they were the comment would be pushing things too far. "Y'know, I'm really glad I don't have to feel bad about beating you for not having to exercise," she exclaimed to announce her attack, hitting him around the shoulders and arms a little. "It's really offensive that you can get away with the lifestyle you do and not work tirelessly to maintain your body, I just gotta say."
 
He caught her wrists gently, the touch of skin on skin between them sudden. "Friday night. Dinner. I'll pick you up at seven?" 

Her breath hitched, though not from fear, when he caught her wrists. Oh, screw it. She couldn't not be herself with him. If she pushed too far, she would deal, the way she had been for over a year. "Friday night. Dinner," she parroted. "I'll be not wearing underwear."

Kane paused, looking at her oddly before finally releasing her wrists. "OK, I'm going to go now. Not fair and I'm going to go." He said, although the smile hadn't slipped as he let himself out. "Tomorrow."