Fortress in the Ghetto

It took a few reloads, but eventually he finished. After a bit of an awkward movement, he got himself down, and was soon on his feet. "Well, it says 'Aveira' if you don't mind awful handwriting... Gunwriting? Leadwriting? I like the last one."

Aveira ran down to the paper, tore it off, and ran back. She eagerly ran her hands across the bullet holes, reading her name. It wasn't perfect, but it was certainly better than most people could have done. "It's perfect! Thank you!" She giggled childishly, a huge smile on her face.

"You're very unpredictable, you know that?" Matthew smiled at her as he put his gun up.

"Am I? Maybe you're just not unpredictable enough," she suggested.

"Perhaps." He looked back at her, removing his ear protection. "Anything else you'd want to do?"

"Dance with me!" she said excitedly, not removing her ear protection. She grabbed his hands and spun around with him. Her childish side had taken over, filling her with a bubbling happiness.

He complied, moving about the room with her. He smiled at her despite finding her behavior to be odd.

Aveira laughed happily and kissed him slowly. "You're more obedient than I'd expected," she teased.

"Would you prefer I say no?" He smiled. "You haven't yet asked me to do something that I would rather not do."

"Then you enjoy dancing and wasting ammo?" she asked coyly, wrapping her arms around his waist and tilting her head up. A slight shake of her head sent the large headphones sliding down to her neck.

"With as much ammo as I have, yes. This is what I do when I'm frustrated. I shoot things. Not always paper. Ballistic gel, fruit, and two-liters make great targets." He smiled, not even addressing the dancing part.

Grinning, she stood on her toes and kissed him once more. "Do you get frustrated often?" she asked curiously.

He smiled and kissed her. "Sometimes. It's more than frustration, really. Some people write poetry to express themselves, some just cry or dance about. I shoot things. Happy or sad."

"Like you shot me?" she teased. She knew that she'd been the one to shoot herself, but she was almost positive that he didn't know that. It had been his gun and she'd been handing it to him at the time. It wasn't impossible to think that he'd been the one to pull the trigger. It wasn't difficult to make people "remember" things that never actually occurred. These sorts of errors happened all the time and were especially likely to occur during times of great trauma, such as shooting the woman you'd just slept with.

Aveira vaguely wondered if she could convince him that it was all his fault. That would be amusing. He may be her official boyfriend, but that didn't mean she loved him or anything. She didn't even really care about him yet. After all, she'd only just met him. At the moment, he was just an idle fancy to pass the time with. Nothing more.

His smile faded instantly. "Yes." He said nothing more. He hadn't slept yet since he had shot her, and had spent a good amount of the time in the target range.

She frowned and stroked his face softly, slowly. In a voice as gentle as silk, she told him, "I forgive you, you know. In fact..." Their dancing had taken them closer to the gun wall. Aveira ran a hand over a pistol behind her. "You can do it again if you want to." There was an eager note to her voice that no sane person would have had in this situation.

"Oh, HELL no..." He said, pulling her hand away from the gun.

She laughed softly. "You've already done it once. What's the harm in doing it once more?" She smiled brightly and pulled the earphones off her neck, setting them on the table beside her. "It's not like I'll die. We both know I can't."

"Not gonna happen..." He shook his head. "I'll have to find someone else for you to... I'm still not even sure."

She pulled away and grabbed a gun. Aiming at the targets behind him, she shot. The gun clicked, empty. That was probably a good thing. "You haven't asked about that," she pointed out, meaning her miraculous recovery. "I should be dead, but I'm not.

"I'm used to not asking. Not a lot of questions can be asked in my line of work. I am pretty damned curious though..."
Matthew smiled. Only an idiot would leave his guns loaded. Well, Matthew did have some loaded ones hiding away, but a combination or key would be needed to get to those.

"You're much calmer about this than I thought you'd be," she observed with a grin. "Will you load this for me?" she asked, holding out the gun. "I'm not good with these, but I'm pretty good with archery. It can't be too different, can it?"

"Put the headphones back on." Matthew walked over to one of his ammo boxes and began loading a magazine.

She did as he asked, putting them back on and bringing him the empty pistol. "What's your favorite gun?" she asked curiously. "To shoot with recreationally, I mean."

"It changes every now and then." He put his headphones on, then loaded the gun and pulled the slide back.