forgivetheinsubordination | IC Contact

FROM: vakarian.garrus@cdc.org

I'm at the east side of camp. Bring the gun they issued you.

[Guess who's got two thumbs and is heading toward the east side of camp, carrying a standard issue gun extremely unsafely?

THAT'S RIGHT.

This girl.]

Reporting for duty!

[That's enough to jolt him out of his melancholy.]

Erin. Stop. Point the gun down.

[He's already up and moving as he speaks, surprised that she'd be so careless. Maybe he shouldn't be. But thankfully it means that his subharmonics are more in the 'ordering around' range of things instead of anything else, even if it's just for the moment.]

[In her defense, she's accustomed to handling the sorts of weapons that don't go off without some significant intervention from their handlers, so don't be too hard on her Garrus.

Erin pulls up short and faintly wide-eyed when Garrus barks at her--that's a new range of subharmonics she doesn't need a translation from him to figure out--but she does adjust her hold on the gun so it's aimed safely at the ground instead of god knows where else.]

Thank you.

[He feels a little guilty for snapping, but it's lost in the sea of everything else he's dealing with. Taking the gun, he makes sure the safety is on. For a moment he just holds it, a little lost, before holding it back out to her.]

You've gotta be careful.

[And now that the danger's gone, the edge also gone from his subharmonics and all he sounds is sad. Garrus takes his own rifle off of his back and models for her.]

Hold it like this.

[Ah. He sounds wrong. Garrus strikes her as the overly caring type, and she's pretty sure that if someone in their drop group had kicked it, he'd be upset about that, but as far as she can tell, everyone--or at least, all the important everyones--made it. Which makes the slightly wilted hum puzzling.]

I am careful.

[She's grumbling right back, a little unhappy about being snapped at--by Garrus of all people--but not so unhappy that she doesn't at least make an effort to hold the unfamiliar weapon correctly. ...Well. ...At least she's trying, but she's not gonna get many points for accuracy here.]

[Garrus puts his own gun back and starts gently correcting how she's holding the gun, wordlessly at first.]

How you hold it matters.

[He's trying to focus, trying to use this as a distraction from other things, but it's not working that well. Especially not as the adrenaline ebbs from making sure she didn't shoot herself.]

Impacts your aim, the recoil, everything. And sometimes, if the safety's not on, if you wind up with a bullet in your foot. You weren't holding it well.

[While Garrus has managed to get his main tones together, his mandibles aren't as high on his face as they normally are, and his subharmonics are entirely dragging.]

[Erin actually likes Garrus, which is the only reason she allows him to manually correct her grip. She would yank away from most people, but. Garrus is special. For certain values of special. So she tolerates it, pays attention to his adjustments to her grip and remembers the way it feels for later.]

And you're not holding yourself well. Who shot you in the foot?

[Because that hum doesn't sound right at all, and she doesn't need to see his mandibles droop to know something is wrong. And to know that maybe when "something is wrong" isn't the best time to instruct someone on the best way to carry a weapon. She pulls away, remembers to keep the gun aimed at the ground this time. No pointing it at anybody's foot.]

Are you sure you wanna be teaching me right now?

[He watches her move the gun away before looking up at her face.]

I can handle guns in my sleep. And yeah. I wanna be teaching. I...

[Garrus needs the distraction. He doesn't want to dwell, but he can't shake this.]

Broke up with Noh-Varr. Trying to find things to do so I'm not thinking about it. It's not working that well.

[And yet it had needed to be done. He knows that. He just wishes he could convince himself that it's true.]

...Maybe you're distracting yourself the wrong way. Unless teaching is fun to you.

Normally it is.

[His voice is quiet as he shoves his hands in the pocket of his hoodie, the hoodie that Noh-Varr had given him. It's warm and comfortable and Garrus isn't ready to put it away for a while yet.]

Never broken up before. Don't know any other way.

Never been broken up before either, so I can't help you.

[...Granted, to be broken up, she'd have to have someone to break up with. But talk to her about unrequited love, Garrus. That's a thing Erin understands all too well.]

So? Did he leave you or did you leave him?

[He doesn't know if he wants to talk about it, really, but he had invited her out here and nothing else is helping. Maybe talking will.]

I left him.

[He can't regret it and yet he does. It had to happen. There hadn't been a way to move forward that wasn't going to hurt one or the both of them more, but already Garrus misses the way he could just curl up with the Kree and talk. His choice had taken that from both of them.]

I love him. And he wasn't going to return that. All I... All I could have done was prolong things until there was nothing left to prolong.

[A slow decline that would have left all of the memories tasting like ash. At least he could still hold on to them, this way.]

Loving someone who doesn't love you back is pretty stupid. That was your first mistake.

[Poor Garrus. If he was hoping for a sympathetic ear, Erin's just ran out. The things Garrus is saying are hitting a little too close to home for her comfort, so she tunes him out entirely and lifts the gun again. Distractions are good. Aiming at a tree, even better.]

How do I shoot things?

No, really.

[There's bitterness in his voice.]

Good to know you can just decide not to do that. Some of us haven't evolved to that point yet. And you shoot things by learning the gun, learning how to aim the gun, taking the safety off, and firing.

[If you want to state the obvious, Erin, you can get some obvious statements right back.]

Do you wanna tell me my mistakes, or do you wanna learn?

I'm still here, so I wanna learn. Where's the safety?

[Don't you buzz at her like that, Garrus, she's helping distract you!]

Stand up straight.

[Telling him he shouldn't have fallen in love with someone who didn't love him back isn't helping, in his opinion. He already knows he'd been stupid.]

The safety's on until you're standing straight and holding the gun right, and then it can come off. Speaking of, you hold it like this.

[He takes his own rifle and models how to stand. There's some annoyance in his subharmonics still, but at least he's not dipping back into the sadness.]

[She makes a face at the continued tone of his subharmonics, but she stands up straight and mimics the way Garrus is holding his own weapon.]

Like this?

[She lets it dip--deliberately sloppy? Maybe.]

[He just wants to be loved back. That shouldn't be too much to ask. Except it is, and he shakes his head before reaching over and gently correcting the way she's holding the gun.]

If it's too heavy, we can work on weight training instead.

[There's no judgement to that. She's not used to dealing with weapons, and weapons are heavy.]

[More things she knows all too well. Someday she'll tell Garrus about Garrett, but now is not that time.]

No thanks. I do weight training and suddenly I can't slip into the small places anymore. I'll pass.

[She lets Garrus correct her and...then holds it slightly sideways.]

Better?

Better, but not there yet.

[He's not sure if she's doing this on purpose or if she's just that bad with weapons. It's not annoying, but it does make him wonder if she's trying.]

Here.

[He shifts her hands again.]

Feel the weight of it, just like that. Let it balance in your hands so that you can hold it steadily. You don't want the gun shaking or loose.

[The more he has to correct her, the less he talks about things she doesn't want to hear. So that's good.]

I'm glad mine is small.

[She holds it loosely, not enough to drop, but definitely too loose to be safe if she actually fired--yes, Garrus, this is definitely deliberate at this point.]

Small, but still dangerous if you hold it wrong. Are you trying to learn, or not?

[Garrus puts his hands over hers, tries to tighten them around the weapon.]

Be safe and secure, Erin. Don't handle a gun if you're not gonna pay attention.

I'm learning.

[She was less difficult with Garrett, years ago, but she was smaller and shyer then, too.

Still, she is paying attention, and she lets Garrus correct her as needed, holding it properly at last. Almost comfortably. She'll pick this up quick once she deigns to put her mind to it. Better?]

[She is, and his mandibles draw in again. He's being harder on her than he tends to be, and while a fraction of that is because of what she'd said, most of it isn't her fault.]

Right. All right. And that looks good. Take a minute, get used to the weight of the gun there, yeah? Because once you are, we'll move to looking through the scope and finding targets, but I don't wanna rush.

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