(Untitled)

[weary_head]

Dean waited for the echoed boom of the shotgun to stop bouncing back to him from the trees before he walked forward, picking up the empty shells. Maybe John wouldn't have cared for him wasting powder this way, but the fact was, after the ups and downs of the last month Dean needed the release, and there weren't any bars on the island he could go

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[loaded_wolf]

"Oh, it's you," Angua said to get Dean's attention, a ways behind him. She thought the bangs were thunder at first, some new kind of storm come to wreak havoc on them. But then she was reminded of the night in the boarding house and had come running. She was still catching her breath.

"What the hell are you shooting?"

[weary_head]

Dean turned, eyes a little wide at the anger in her voice.

"Just some empty cans," he said, raining slicking down his neck as he angled his face out of the rain. "I was...gonna give them back?"

[loaded_wolf]

Now that she had determined it was safe to come closer she did, slowly, like a prowl. She hardly noticed the rain, though it plastered her hair down her neck and back.

"Mm, what'd those cans ever do to you?" she asked, wondering the purpose. She hadn't thought Dean would need practice, but maybe it was a skill that got rusty as any other. Even if it did just seem to her a simple aim and trigger pull.

[weary_head]

He held his ground, but with the way she was moving towards him, it was a near thing.

"What?" he asked. "You never wanted to make some noise?"

[loaded_wolf]

"No," Angua answered with a raised brow, and once she reached him she looked past him at the cans. The few left standing. "I've only wanted to tear things up."

[weary_head]

"Maybe it's time to shake things up a bit," said Dean, shoving down the odd mixture of want and fear. He knew that what Angua meant by tearing up and what he meant were near enough to the same thing these days, but they hadn't always been.

He let the gun spin barrel down with one finger in the trigger, holding it out to her.

[loaded_wolf]

Angua eyed the gonne with trepidation, but Dean's words felt like a challenge. She took the gonne from him, half-expecting to feel something, but it was heavy in her hand and that was it.

"You'll have to show me how."

[weary_head]

"Okay." The rain that fell between them was chilly, and Dean shivered, rolling his shoulders against the wind.

"C'mere. I'll show you how to hold it first, then we'll load it and let you take a shot."

[loaded_wolf]

"Okay." Angua stepped closer, her body tense, poised with some unconscious desire to claim dominance. It wasn't just the weapon, it was her unfamiliarity with it and Dean's mastery of it.

She tried to hold the gonne as she'd seen him, but knew it wasn't right.

[weary_head]

Dean watched her, then stepped forward, holding his arms out to straighten her own. "You'll get used to the feel of it. The weight of it." He curled her elbow to his satisfaction. "You can brace against your other arm if you need to."

[loaded_wolf]

She still didn't like it. She didn't trust it. But maybe that was part of what made this suddenly feel very necessary.

"How do I aim?"

[weary_head]

"With this thing, don't gotta do much more than point," said Dean, stepping behind her. "Shotgun's not a precision weapon. It fires a spray of bullets, or in this case rocksalt." He looked over her shoulder to test her aim, such as it was. "Taking a hit off one loaded up with lead is deadly. One shot kill on a human."

[loaded_wolf]

"I imagine so," Angua said quietly. The sound alone made it seem like it could take down trees.

She wanted to know how to shoot it. She didn't know why, when she thought about it no answer came, she only knew she did. Maybe that was part of the power it had, even if Vimes said it was different here.

Angua shifted to look back at Dean, doing her best to ignore the rain and the cold it brought. "Am I ready to load it?"

[weary_head]

"Not quite," said Dean with a low chuckle. He lined their bodies up, guiding her arms with his own behind them until she had both hands on the gun. "Aim with the right, support with the left," he murmured, pushing a foot between hers to widen her stance. "There's gonna be one hell of a kickback, so keep your feet apart."

[loaded_wolf]

Dean's touch was warm against the chill from the rain, but she did her best to ignore it and focus on how to shoot the gonne. She moved her feet accordingly, digging her boots into the mud. "Alright," she said, steeling herself.

[weary_head]

This close to her, it was hard to concentrate on the gun, but a gun was a dangerous thing in even well-trained hands, and now was not the time to get distracted.

"Line up your target with one eye," he told her. "Right over the top of the barrel."