Garrison and Adrienne - Prom

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

While chaperoning the senior prom, Garrison and Adrienne discuss prom dates, first crushes, and Garrison's undercover work. Then Garrison faces off against some teenage boys over Adrienne's honour.

Possible trigger warning for a couple passing mentions of abuse...

"I don't know why I agreed to this. I feel very old." Garrison Kane muttered, scanning the crowd of slightly rowdy teenagers. The prom at Salem Centre High School - 'Go Beavers!' - was the expected mix of horny guys, clusters of overly done up girls, and a class structure in place that could have come right out of Indian castes. The Principal had started to give the volunteers a run down of the roles of a chaperone until he reached Kane's name and qualifications on the list. It would be their first dance with an RCMP officer in attendance.

"You agreed to it because I threatened you," Adrienne reminded him sweetly, threading an arm through his. "And I agreed to it because I got threatened, and couldn't get out of it like I've done every other year. Do you think we could Carrie someone and get this thing to end early?" she suggested optimistically.

"We left our adult telekinetics at home. Maybe we can pressure one of the kids into an uncontrolled powers display and claim it was bikers on PCP later?" He suggested.

"I think we should definitely do this, yes," Adrienne nodded. She'd already gone around the room and used her powers in an attempt to forewarn the other chaperones about possible shenanigans that could happen later, and after she'd lost count of all the awkward teenage romantic encounters she'd seen with her precognition she regretted getting roped into this even more. She'd never even gone to her own prom because she'd figured it would be incredibly lame, and it looked like things weren't going to be any less lame now that she was chaperoning one. "Who'd you go to prom with?" she asked Garrison as she steered them towards the punch bowl.

"Alison McEwan. Sporty girl who had done gymnastics for years until she hit a growth spurt in grade ten. Switched to track and field with the help of some very well-tested sports bras." Kane snagged a couple of glasses of punch, giving the eye to a student with a suspiciously bottle-like shape in his pocket. Kane was actually all for underaged drinking - but part of that was having to work for it. "What about you? Or did you have one of those society coming out things instead? What do they call them, cotillions or something?"

Adrienne sniggered at his comment about the sports bras and followed Garrison's gaze to the student he was glaring at. Since the kids had a Safe Ride Home program in place, she wasn't too worried about the under-aged drinking, either. "You're talking about the Boston Cotillion, aren't you?" she inquired with a wince. "Yeah. My father insisted. Showing off his picture perfect family in public so they could enhance his reputation was important to him, particularly when he was so adamant at proving that two members of that perfect family didn't exist. But are you really surprised I went along with it? I mean, hi, have you met me?" She lowered her voice but kept her tone light. "You're talking to the girl who used to let her own father do... things... to her so she could feel wanted. I think it's been firmly established that I have a deep-seeded need for attention and admiration," she said with a wry smirk. "A cotillion would have been akin to a premium high for me at the time." She sipped at her punch and the smirk became happier. "But now I get that same feeling from helping a bunch of weird teenagers pick out dresses and watching them do really awful attempts at dancing and spiking punch. Go figure that, eh?"

Garrison gave her a sideways look, both at the tone and the contrast to the content of her words. "I assumed you had some kind of deal. But you were modeling and I assume in private school the rest of the time. So all I know, there's a traditional end of the year clam bake and servant flogging popular in New England Society instead."

"I wasn't in private school," Adrienne answered, shaking her head as she sipped more punch. "I had tutors while I was modelling. We weren't allowed to call them servants, and I wasn't allowed to flog them. And there aren't a lot of clams for clam bakes in Tokyo." She knew the wealth thing was an issue for him, and she hated pushing his buttons. Except when it was fun.

"Tokyo? You know, I always thought Frost was an odd name for a non-Asian."

"It just sounds odd because you're not saying it in Japanese," Adrienne smirked.

"No sex, no drugs, no wine, no women, no fun, no sin, no you, no wonder it's dark." Kane pointed at the student that was walking by. "Hey, Gleebait, I saw you guys jimmy the lock in the equipment room. If I check in ten minutes and find a genital reef waving in the currents, you're all going to the office. Do it out behind the bleachers like normal people. I guarantee we're not checking there."

Adrienne had no idea what Garrison was talking about, but he sounded all official and imposing, and the student had paled about three shades so obviously it was working. "I thought we just had to chaperone the gym?" she asked him, raising an eyebrow. "I'm afraid to leave the gym. At least I know they won't be having sex in the gym. I'm not setting foot in the bathrooms or the equipment room. Or any of the classrooms," she added, frowning. "There are just way too many places for awkward teenage groping to take place in schools. We should go back to the whole 'one room schoolhouse' thing. I bet that would cut down on teenage pregnancy."

"Technically the change rooms, showers and equipment room are part of the gym. Rest of the school is entirely up to the teachers to patrol." He took a sip of the sadly non-alcoholic punch. "Teenaged groping is healthy, so long as you make sure they've got a wheelbarrow full of birth control close at hand. I know you were a world beating model at that point, but didn't you have a teenaged crush?"

"You mean like Pacey from Dawson's Creek? Or Mo Vaughn?" she inquired.

"I meant someone you were around. Unless you hung out with Pacey and Mo Vaughn. And if so, ew."

"Someone I was around? Is that a requirement for a crush? I guess I don't really know what the definition of crush actually is. What are the parameters here? Someone I was around and... wanted to sleep with, but didn't?" Adrienne sipped at her punch, pulling her flask surreptitiously from her purse and spiking it with some rum, then offering it to Garrison.

He waved it off. Fruity rum drinks led to being pressganged, or so he read. "More someone that was that first realization of desire, I guess. The one that got stuck inside your head and you wasted entirely too many hours thinking about."

"Oh. Then I guess it would be gelato. I had a lot of teenage desire for gelato when I worked in Milan, and spent way too many hours thinking about it. Especially stracciatella. That was my teenage crush. I was around it, but I couldn't have it, so there was a lot of teenage angst. Stephanie Meyer could have written a book about me and gelato."

"Well, I'm glad you decided to take time to answer me seriously." Kane said wryly, as he pointed two harassed looking teachers off towards the auditorium, where he'd seen a foursome with a bottle sneak off to a minute ago. "You really didn't have any kind of personal crush as a teenager? Or even later? I mean, it's okay if it was the case. But, you know."

"Yeah, sorry, but I can't think of anyone as a teenager," Adrienne answered honestly, putting up her hands helplessly. "You forget, all I thought about when I was a teenager was making the world, in general, love me. No one in particular, except maybe my family, but not in that way. I guess I was so focused on stepping over people to get to the top that I wasn't really so much about crushing on them so much as, you know... crushing them. But if we're talking later," she added, since he'd broadened the scope of his inquiry, "then yeah. That's an easy one. In fact, my crush is here tonight!" She stared at him pointedly. Okay, maybe it was a toss up as to whether she'd had a crush on Vanessa or Garrison first, but since Vanessa wasn't here, it was Garrison all the way. "Wait... you probably knew that already!" she accused with a smirk. "Didn't you? With your mad police skillz. You knew, and you were just trying to get me to admit it, weren't you?"

"You are profoundly weird sometimes." He understood on an intellectual level what Adrienne had been through; sustained sexual abuse by her father, a modelling career that had been largely drug fueled for a decade, and then her relationship with her ex-husband. It was easy to forget that many of the simple, normal elements of growing up had been denied to her; even something as small and silly as that first, unrequited crush on a classmate. He pulled her in for a brief hug, resting his chin on the top of her head. "But yeah, you saw through my plan."

Adrienne hugged back, touched by the gesture. "I knew it," she smirked, nuzzling his chest with her cheek when he rested his chin on her head. "So what became of Alison McEwan, do you know? Is she with a former model now, too? Or did she marry a fat retail manager and have two annoying brats and is a housewife in a split level in Scar-beria, with only her community musical theatre troupe to keep her from running away with her acting coach?" She wondered if he'd appreciate the fact that she'd picked up on the nickname for the suburb of Toronto from the television show that was on after Doctor Who. She was also basing her mental version of his prom date on the Alison character from the show, but he didn't need to know that.

"Not really sure. She was dating my buddy Steve and I think went to McMaster for biology or something after high school. But your version is possible. I'm just not willing to go to Scarborou- Scarberia to doublecheck."

"I don't think you and I would get out of Scarberia alive if we went in there," she smirked, even though all she knew about it was what she'd gleaned from the show's portrayal. It wasn't like Garrison's refusal to go there was doing anything to contradict that, though. "I mean, I've never been there, but it comes across as a place where Stepford Wives wouldn't be a big surprise. Or undercover Russian agents posing as squeaky clean citizens." And now her imagination was starting to run away with her. "Did you ever have to go undercover to bust anything like that in one of those gated community places?"

"Yeah, no. Scarborough is closer to a frontier town. Or one of those dytopian cities you see on those sci-fi shows the kids like. Sprawling low income housing, old apartment buildings, strip malls filled with dollar stores." It wasn't strictly true, but Garrison was from West Toronto and some things were simply culturally baked in. "I haven't personally been undercover in a gated community, but the only undercover work I really did on the force was out in Vancouver. Not a lot of gated communities."

"Okay, so yeah, I know that Vancouver is supposed to have a massive drug problem, so I'm assuming that's what you were there about, but I don't really get it?" Adrienne inquired. "I thought it was for the Newly Wed and Nearly Dead? That conjures images of gated communities, not crack dens."

"I worked narcotics in Vancouver. Mostly involved in the smuggling-trafficking side. Speaking a handful of Asian languages is useful there, especially if you're a young, white cop. You can go to karaoke places looking like any other drunk frat boy douchebag and the dealers in the table next to you never even consider you might be listening."

"Wait... you speak Asian languages?" How had she known the man for several years and never known this before?

"Yup. Three fluently and I can get by in a couple more. That's what my mother did for a living - she was a Pacific Rim language specialist and interpreter. I could speak Mandarin fluently before I started kindergarten. Vikks is the real polyglot though. Over the phone, she can pass for Chinese to native speakers in a heartbeat."

Adrienne's eyes were wide and her eyebrows raised with interest and admiration. "Vikks and I need to go drinking sometime real soon. Because we could have so much fun DrunkDialing people now that I have this knowledge. I'd invite you to join us," she teased, "but whenever Vikks and I get together you always end up trying to stab yourself, which is kind of a buzzkill."

"Yeah, I'll pass. Hearing my hilariously obvious shortcomings bantered about is just behind the graphic details of my sister's sex life in terms of things that I love to spend an evening doing. You to have fun. I'll spend the night having a drink at home, standing in the corner and kicking the cat." He mock groused.

"When did you get a cat, and why are you abusing it? I hope it claws your face off if you kick it." Adrienne didn't like animals very much in general, but she didn't condone kicking them, either.

"You're being very literal tonight. Have the teenagers unsettled you?" Kane looked up. "Also, the captain of the lacrosse team is currently making thrusting motions with his hips while taking a shot of your ass with his iPhone. Hey, meathead!"

"Fuck you..." The response drifted over the floor back to Kane, and the Canadian smiled.

"Oh. Oh yes. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Thank god for idiot jocks."

Adrienne wrapped her arms around him and kissed him until she had to come up for air, mainly as a display for the meathead. "I'm always literal," she smirked, wiping her lipstick off his lips with her thumb. "I thought you learned that the first time we met, along with the fact that I itemize my responses to questions. I thought that's what you liked so much about me? Or do you only like me because I inspire jocks to take pictures and fantasize?"

"I somehow doubt any of that is the case. The reasons I liked you when we first met are far more shallow, and the reasons I like you now are far more complex." Kane shrugged out of his jacket and handed it to her. Underneath, he was just wearing a collared polo shirt, which was fitting enough to show his remarkable physique. "Excuse me for a moment. I have to defend your honour."

The laughing cluster of jocks fell silent as he approached, nervous laughter petering out. Kane was only six foot, but he was broad shouldered and deep chested, and under the mixed party lights of the dance, the definition in his frame was more obvious than normal.

"Boys, this is what we call a life lesson about to happen here. For example, when you see an attractive woman out in public, the proper response is not to make fucking motions, take pictures of her without her permission," he plucked the phone from the teen's fingers and touched the pad. "or refer to her as a sexy whore - spelled wrong - to your friends by text. It is disrespectful, and guys like me don't like it when their girlfriends are disrespected. Guys like me being cops. FBI, actually. Which, oddly enough, is the exact same group that will open an investigation on the possession of child pornography if your seventeen year old girlfriend sent you shots of her tits that you've got saved in this phone." The teens went white, and Garrison smiled.

"Good, we have an understanding. Treat women with respect, boys. In the long run, it will get you laid a lot more, and is unlikely to get the shit kicked out of you in a parking lot and a sexual predator label slapped on your criminal record." he passed back the phone. "Have a night, boys."

Behind him, the teens slipped away back into the crowd as Garrison walked back and collected his coat from Adrienne.

Adrienne tried not to look surprised when he returned. She knew defending peoples' honour was just the sort of thing Garrison did, because he was a good person; she'd seen him fight tyrants and terrorists and take down corrupt governments and all other manner of unpleasantness. He'd stood by her in defeating Jason Wyngarde and helped her face her role in Steven's murder, because doing so was the right thing to do. But she'd never seen him do anything quite like that before, and she was deeply touched. Not that she'd tell him that now. She'd tell him that when they got home. Or maybe just show him. "Wow, I didn't even know I had honour," she deadpanned, still keeping her eyes on the spot where he'd confronted the boys as she turned to give him a chaste kiss on the cheek. "But it's nice to know I do, and that you're willing to defend it."

"Of course you have honour. It's important. Besides, acting like a knob is part of being a teenager. I was probably no better. The thing is that hopefully, they'll think twice about doing it next time, and maybe even take the lesson to heart." He shrugged. "Or not. Anyway, it never hurts to try, Besides, they don't know that shots of you in your underwear are all over the internet already."

She let out an amused snort at that, snickering. Sometimes she forgot that little bit of information herself, being as computer-inept as she was. "Yeah, or they'll never look at another woman again, because you've just scarred them for life. Like the cheating girl in Hot Tub Time Machine," she told him, smirking. "Or, the sight of you without your jacket turned them all gay. It wouldn't surprise me."

"Somehow, I doubt." He checked his watch. "And we are almost free. Want to continue this conversation at home, or did you just want to make out under the bleachers?"

"I'd say bleachers, but it occurs to me that if we did that, we'd just be waving temptation in the faces of the picture-taking teenagers."