shatterverse | (no subject)

Jo's hands met Rachel's. "You do." The rifle fell between them.

"This isn't about charging in, with single minded focus and vision."

Because Rachel had that. You couldn't miss it. Well.
Maybe the Winchesters could. Maybe even her boyfriend.

"Everything is a distraction in this. You have to handle it."

Rachel stares, flinching automatically from the touch - and letting the rifle drop to the ground between them.

Her face flushes. Less because of the admonishment and more because she'd just been played.

Through gritted teeth: "Fine" as she bends to snatch up the gun.

Jo let her hands meet and fall as Rachel did.

There are too many points. A playing field is never level.
Balance is never never something they will actually have.

She won't play nice. Not the way people did with her.
This isn't a safe haven from the storm. This a war torn world.
Where Rachel doesn't get to rely on keeping her face and body.

Jo took a few steps back just watching.

She's waiting now, expecting words and questions, distractions. Focusing on two things, the gun and the target and impressing her teacher, and making sure she isn't embarrassed again, that Jo doesn't get another one over her.

She expects the questions. She has the answers in mind. Her concentration on the gun is nearly as important and as such, the gun and the preparation for distraction are the only things in her mind.

The rifle echoes through the forest and a hole appears in the target.

Not dead center. But the best she's ever done.

Resentment and embarrassment are good teachers.
Jo's known them well over the years.
She's still a student there.
Especially recently.

"Better." Beat. "Again."

Rachel's jaw sets at the words but she doesn't move otherwise.

Her world zeroes in. There's nothing - empty space - but the target and the gun and Jo's voice, expected and silent and unnecessary. But present.

She fires again, closer to the target, body in perfect position and unmoving.

The tension is there.

But it's not stopped Rachel.

"Faster."

She does. Immediately, without question, lets the shot go without the pause she had before, loads with the same amount of care but without hesitation, fires again, reaches for the next magazine.

Again. Again. The adrenaline is in holding herself still and steady, remembering the precise motions to load, reload, fire, again, tension in her shoulders as she waits for the question and prepares her answer.

The target. The gun.

Jo's silence.

And then it happens.

At the fifth shot afterward.

Counting her load. Counting to shot.
Counting her shots. Watching her body.

It comes right as Rachel's fingers are moving between the load and the trigger. The explosive sound of a steel from steel, the force of a bullet, shot right over Rachel's hand, right over the rifle. If it makes two inches above her hand, and less than seven from her face, it's a miracle.

But it never once touches her, and Jo never flinches the whole time.

The target. The gun. And Jo's silence.

If she had claws or teeth or power, she would use that weapon to respond to the threat. But she has an extension of herself.

The butt of the rifle is swung hard at Jo's nose, Rachel's face blank and hard as her body swivels instinctively.

Jo takes it. Hard and straight.

Not to the face, the butt slams her shoulder turning fast.

She knows what to expect. In one second she went from irritant to deadly threat. And one within a foots distance. She has to catch herself on a rail, pain spasming through her arm, down her side, her spine.

But her nose isn't broken. And neither is her jaw.

And if she wants to compliment that Rachel didn't morph;
She gasps through pain, gritting her teeth, "You lose."

Rachel is breathing hard - but through her nose. Her face is hard, blank. Her eyes are small bright points.

They widen - slightly - when Jo speaks, and dart down to the gun in her hands, as if surprised to see it there.

Then her hands tighten on it, hard enough to turn her knuckles white.

"Don't think I did," she growls softly.

Jo's look is sharp and narrow.
"You hit me for shooting over your shot."

Not at you. Not beside you.
Someone shooting over her. With her.

Pain isn't a victory. Especially when:
"And you lost your whole focus on the target."

She's also pointing out Rachel won't be alone in the eventuality.
The reasons and situations it would take for Rachel to choose this.
But far be it for that to be a straight point from Jo.

Because when you aren't alone, the distraction isn't only words.

Rachel blinks, face clearing for just a moment. Because she did, she struck an ally. She hurt someone on her own team.

And that has her scowling again, face flushing with color.

"I've never hit anyone on my side before," she hisses, hands still tight on the rifle. "Not in a battle, not ever."

Jo rubbed her shoulder, blowing her bangs upward.
Trying not to focus on how good the pain feels through her.

"I shot James in the shoulder the first time he did it."

Close range. And no one heard the end of it for months.
Ellen Harvelle blistered the roof and everyone involved.

Breath coming hard, straight through her nose. An enraged bull - in black lycra.

But she gets it. It was a test. Almost a right of passage. It's shit but she gets it.

"You're lucky."

If she'd been in morph. If she'd had a weapon in her hands she understood. Images flash through Rachel's mind, things she's done to people on instinct, her on more than the animal's. Things that could have happened to Jo, blood and bruises and cold dead eyes.

Her hands tighten on the rifle because they'd be shaking otherwise.

"I trust you."

"You're an idiot."

Jo kept her gaze even.

"I'm not dead."

"You're lucky."

Her knuckles are white.

She has a point. Rachel's learned the lesson. But the point isn't the lesson so much as how well she's learned it, how well she'll accept the distractions, whatever they might be. Which means practice. Which means doing this again. Which means that some day, any day, during this, if she screws up and is in just the right circumstances, placement, timing, everything to be in morph, to see herself in battle, if she strikes...

Rachel takes a deep breath - through her mouth this time, open lips and eyes hard on Jo. "Don't do that again."

"Don't ask for things you don't want."

"I don't want to hurt you."

Jo shifted, and twirled a piece of blonde hair.
Her lips shifted to a smirk. Brittle but beautiful.

"Does that get me a free beer for my shoulder?"

Rachel blinks, then frowns at her. That is not the serious reaction she would have wanted.

Don't ask for things you don't want.

It's not untrue.

"...yeah. Sure."

She flips the rifle and offers the butt of it to her.