It's a Saturday night special

[failedparenting]

Who: Anya Lehnsherr and John Winchester
When: Friday afternoon
Where: A secluded bit of forest by the coast
Summary: Shooting, heart to hearts, and fried food
Warnings: Guns.


[It's one of the rare days Anya and John actually made plans for a shooting lesson. He would rather not admit it, but John always finds himself looking foreward to these days, when he can relax and teach like he had with Sam and Dean years ago.

The whole notion of teaching a teenage girl to shoot was uncomfortable, at first. Shouldn't kids her age be learning how to attract boys and and put on makeup? That's what girls do, right? In any case, she was persistent, and he finally caved. He's glad he did.

Something about teaching Anya made him feel proud. He'd always wanted a daughter, and doing this somehow filled that longing.

Dammit, it's creepy when he put it that way.

In any case, it's shooting day, and Anya's late. John is getting antsy, but he's been a little high strung all day so it's not a big thing. She'd never been this late before. Is she okay? Did she forget? Is there some guy he needs to kill?

Goddammit, man, don't think like that. To calm his frayed nerves, he fishes out a can of lukewarm beer from his backpack and cracks it open.]

Comments

[fridgetothefire]

She smiles back, small but fierce and real.

"It's better than them finding me, right?" She checks her grip, then focuses, footsteps quiet in the leaf litter as she moves. It's not the same as walking soundlessly through ostentatious marble hallways, but the basic principles are similar. She doesn't quite follow him, walking about 15º off his trajectory, noticing his sightline and the way his shoulders are pointed, trying to get a different angle on whatever he's looking for.

john can sometimes be lazy :|

[failedparenting]

"Damn straight."

"There's fifteen targets in all. You find ten," he pauses to check if she's following him. Reassured, he starts moving again. "You get free dinner on me. And your beer."

They come to a clearing, and it's here where he stops He's already set up the rest of his things, a folding chair and and a few boxes of ammo. He heaves his tired ass into the chair and continues the lesson breakdown.

"You find less then ten before we have to pack it in before sirens, you get to run back to civilization."

Re: john can sometimes be lazy :|

[fridgetothefire]

"It better be a nice dinner," she tells him, grabbing just enough spare ammo - combined with what's loaded in her pistol already - to hit each target once. "As an incentive, I mean, given that I can feed myself fine."

The familiar stiff-necked pride is only thinly glazed with the smirk she gives him before slipping away between the trees. It's a point that a part of her can't not make. It's the first time she's ever had a chance to be independent, in spite of way distrust was pounded into her. That she can be self-reliant is hugely important to her.

Re: john can sometimes be lazy :|

[failedparenting]

"Whatever you want, kid, as long as you don't break my wallet."

He grins, and waves her away. As he watches her go, he thinks he should feel bad about this. He never did anything close to this for Dean and Sam. At least, they never got rewards like this. It was usually negative reinforcement with them.

He can't do that with Anya, though. OF course not. She's not his daughter. You can't just force someone else's girl to run five miles for missing a few targets.

For some reason, that particular thought makes John strangely sad.

[fridgetothefire]

The challenge is the time limit, more than the targets. Once she finds one, she could do them execution-style close-up if she wanted, he's not watching. That wouldn't be the point, but she could. But the task isn't honing a sharpshooting edge, it's the search. She takes a zig-zag grid along one side of the clearing, looking for bootmarks, disturbed leaf litter, anything. If she can track where John went, she can find where he put them.

Maybe he doubled back, left a dozen false trails. Maybe the targets are all in another area entirely. Maybe there are only nine targets.

She spots one, breathes, closes her eyes for a moment. She has to stop thinking like this, she's making herself crazy. John doesn't play impossible headgames, he doesn't lie and change the rules. Yet.

She hits the target. Scoops of a handful of shards as proof, then moves on.