Johnny and Laurie, Saturday Morning

[x-dangersense.livejournal.com]

Johnny runs into Laurie practicing archery. Hilarity (or at least terror) for all.



If you'd asked him, Johnny would have denied avoiding going outdoors for the most part with every fibre of his body. It wasn't denial if the last time he'd spent a lot of time out he'd been doing some gardening and almost hurt someone which had fed into his whole outside is dangerous thing. It wasn't true but he would have. And, to prove to himself that he wasn't avoiding anything he'd gone for a run to relearn the old paths around the mansion, heading up toward the archery range.

He'd gotten progressively more and more anxious on the run as his danger sense pinged for patches of mud, loose stones that might trip him up, birds and potentially weak branches that might fall and kill him. Basically, as far as his danger sense was concerned, the entire world was full of things that might kill him in the face a lot. He cleared the rise at the back of the range and it flared even more strongly than it had previously. Johnny tripped over a rock and stumbled, twisting with amazing speed to ensure that he remained on his feet and looked around frantically for the source of it. There was no-one around but Laurie.

Laurie was in full draw, the line of the bow string pressed against her mouth to help her sight the target before letting go with the smooth movement of long practice. She'd adjusted slightly for the current windy condition but the arrow went just wide of the bulls-eye, hitting the next ring out, much to her frustration. No matter how long she practiced, she could never get the bulls-eye every single time. She knew it was just one of those things, and the truth was she'd only been doing this regularly since she started studying here but it was still frustrating. She was going to have to see if she could find an archery club, there was only so far you could train yourself with books.

"You okay?" she asked finally, having seen Johnny out of the corner of her eye, even if she hadn't wanted to break concentration to enquire after him till now. "I would have thought the gym was a better place for practicing gymnastic moves though."

He leaned over, resting his hands on his knees and trying to take deep, calm breaths and ignore the tingle at the back of his skull. "I. Yeah. I uh, I got kind of startled. I didn't know you were out here." Maybe he should go back inside, where there were fewer things to set his powers off. "I didn't know you did archery". That's it. Try to sound normal, Johnny-boy.

"I find counting sometimes helps, or trying to solve maths problems," Laurie replied, seemingly at random. She smiled as he glanced up at her, shrugging in response. While she had a feeling that Johnny was basically suffering from a powers manifestation, it was close enough to the panic attacks she'd been having lately that she figured similar coping strategies might help. "I took it up not long after I came here, it gives me something that isn't school work or world saving to focus on, even if I don't get to practice as much as I used to."

"I- huh?" Woot. He sure did have eloquence down today. "So, uh, yeah. Archery. It looks like fun."

"Sort of, well, that's one reason to do it certainly," Laurie noted, walking toward her target to pull the used arrows and place them back into the quiver currently hanging at her hip. "I find it helps train my visual accuracy at long distances as well. And I was talking about dealing with anxiety attacks before, although I would think yours are more powers related then any underlying panic condition."

Johnny nodded. "They're why I'm here. I need to find a way to stop them again so that I can actually have a life. So, what do I count?"

"Whatever you want to," Laurie noted, finally slinging the bow she'd been using across her back and gesturing back toward the mansion. "You want to head back, or you got some more exercise to do?"

"I think I might, uh, head back inside," Johnny muttered. "I'll walk you back."

"After you, kind Sir," Laurie replied, making an expansively formal gesture for him to go before her as she followed up behind. "What sort of techniques have they got you working on with your powers so far, if it's not too rude to ask?"

Johnny shrugged. "I kind of hide indoors a lot. They're not too bad when I'm doing gymnastics things so I do that a lot. Maybe because I know what I'm doing there. I keep thinking maybe I should like, steal some weed or beg Doc Jean for some Valium or something but I haven't done that yet."

"I don't think that's the way to go," Laurie replied with a smile, wrinkling her nose at the mention of bedding Jean. Teacher and student relationship were just ick in general as far as she was concerned, let alone for purposes of drug related activities. "Although I might laugh if you have that thought anywhere around Jean. I've been helping Megan a bit with meditation since she arrived, if you wanted I could see if any of the same techniques might work for you. I could suggest it to whoever is helping you with your powers training at the moment anyhow."

Johnny took a deep breath and looked over at Laurie. "Do you really think that would work?" he asked quietly. "I'm mostly doing gymnastics stuff right now, since my danger sense is quietest when I'm moving." The idea that it could work was almost too good to be true. "When can we start?"

"Whenever you like," Laurie noted with a grin, wondering if she'd ever been that enthusiastic about her own meditation exercises in the beginning. "And it might, although I won't promise anything up front. All we can do is give a few techniques a try and see what works best for you. Walking meditation might be a place to start, actually, given what you said about moving quietening it down."

"Wait, you can do this when you're walking around?" Johnny stared. "I thought meditation was all... candles and sitting in a corner going 'ommmmm' and being bored. Could we go inside to the gym and try it now?"

"There's a lot of different ways to meditate," Laurie replied with a grin, wanting to giggle at Johnny's shock but maintaining what she considered an adult composure. "And yes, yes we can. I figure the earlier you start, the better you'll feel."

"Yeah. That would. That would be good," Johnny said.