Participants:
| Scene Title | Finding Your Balance |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A firearms lesson becomes a metaphor. Eve continues to teach Gillian how to use a gun, and the two friends become even closer and Eve reveals the reasons behind why she is the way she is. |
| Date | August 20, 2009 |
There is a large gate that surrounds the warehouse. A padlock normally on keeping them shut. Cracked and destroyed pavement surrounds the area. Just inside are a few abandoned cars and motorcycles. A garage door can be seen and is open, showing a 1967 black and red mustang. Various tools and machines can be seen in the place that point to this place being a auto shop at one point.
When you walk through the door from the garage there is a huge room filled with a few tables, couches and chairs. The windows have large, dark red curtains covering them. Candles sit all around the place, waiting to be lit.
Through another door, a makeshift kitchen can be found. With refrigerator, microwave, stove, and a table or two with some chairs.
BANG
That's the first shot out of Eve's gun into the target painted on the canvas. Kazimir Volken for this one, right in the cheek. "You have to keep your hands steady and feet spread some. When you first start the kick of the gun will likely buck you, to avoid that as much as possible. Strong posture."
Eve says softly to her pupil Gillian. The animals are in another part of the warehouse, they don't really like the gunshots.
"You know I never actually saw Kazimir," Gillian admits, though she knows who the man is supposed to be. Checking the weapon, making sure the safety is off, the bullet is chambered. With the gun held in both hands, she looks down at her feet, spread apart some, as instructed. "This is the first time we've used… 'people'. I mean I've shot people before, and these are just paintings, but…" A deep breath.
BANG
A new hole springs up in the painted target, at his shoulder. "I was trying to hit his heart…" The gun lowers a bit. As usual, in these lessons, she's leaning toward the right on her shots.
"I've seen him.. too many times. But only once in person." The night he was destroyed. Another shot that enters his head and Eve walks over to Gillian. "You have to balance yourself, no leaning.." Eve takes her hand to steady her friend and she gets behind her, holding her side. "Now shoot."
"I don't really count that as seeing him. He was inside Gabriel. And you didn't paint floaty shadowy wraith-like thing," Gillian says with a smile on her grimacing face. She's really going to have to do something about these wounds soon. The recoil isn't helping with them at all, but she's not missed a single lesson. A deep breath, she waits until she's sure she's still steadied again, before she fires.
BANG
This time the bullet hole's much closer to the middle of his chest. "All right. Death to Kazimir. Who's next?" she looks over at her friend, quite possibly he best friend these days…
The next painting is well of a man in the shadows. "Here is the man that hurt you on the island." Eve says and extends her hand, "Take a shot." Since she doesn't know what the man looks like, she figured man.. in shadow. Works.
The only detail she'd given was male. And aviator sunglasses. The shadowy form has those too. Gillian's teeth grit, looking down at the .45 she's been using. Seven rounds and she's used three… Aiming low, she shoots for his legs.
BANG BANG
Two shots very close together. Both just miss the shadowy legs. Legs are a little small for a target. She doesn't stop, though. The gun rises back upwards.
BANG
That one hits shadowy form, right in the stomach (leaning a little to the left, she's overcompensating).
BANG
The final bullet goes even higher. It's obvious she was aiming for the sunglasses. The bullet goes through what could be his ear instead.
"Very good, now you just need to work on the balance. It'll be eaiser once you're all healed up." Eve says and pats Gillian gently on the shoulder. "Try to get him in the head, one more time. Really focus on this one shot.. this one bullet." Eve says softly into Gillian's ear, she backs away. Hands folded.
First, she has to show her training in how to load. It takes a few moments, one bullet at a time, no spare clips for her, Gillian waits til she has all of it, then brings the gun back up, ready. One thing she got the hang of fast was how to load. Systematic, simple.
BANG
The bullet goes right in one of the sunglasses, giving the mild illusion of shattering it. Not exactly where she'd aimed at, but close.
"Now if only I could get him to just stand still and not shoot back. I'd be all set."
"Good." Eve smiles and looks pleased with Gillian's work. "Oh don't you worry about that, I'll be there to help out." Eve winks and nods her head at the woman. "We'll take him down together."
"Is that fate or just encouragement?" Gillian asks, looking over at her as if she can never honestly tell. "I still got six bullets left. Anyone else we can shoot at? It's too bad we didn't practice with this back when I could use Daddy Assface as target practice. Not that I took a gun to fight him." She used everything but a gun to fight him. Helena's the one who shot him, whether it did any good or not.
"I haven't dreamt it, but I'm sure when you run into him I'll be there to be a bullet in the kneecap, maybe a knife too." Eve actually considers and she rubs her chin. "What cha think? I got this totally new throwing knife and it could actually be like. So much fun using it on him, mkay?" The singer tilts her head and laughs out loud at herself. She cracks herself up.. literally.
"You are a strange woman, Eve," Gillian says quietly, the pain from firing a gun with still bruised body parts audible in her voice, but there's also amusement, too. In a strange way. "A year ago I would have never talked about stabbing someone in the back of the leg. Ever. But I don't think I'd mind it too much." She lowers the gun finally, checking it out. It's warm.
"Any dreams of interest lately, if you haven't dreamed of that jackass?"
"Well actually, I have had some interesting dreams. I'll be rounding up the ex vanguard members in a little while. They need to know that they all die soon." Eve says so conversationally. She runs a hand through her hair and tilts her head. "I think I'm gonna find Gabriel first, actually. I don't know which one to find first." She wonders aloud.
From the widening of her eyes, Gillian's suddenly very preoccupied by what the woman's just said. "All of them?" Even Gabriel. Even Eileen. Even Amato. Even Lucrezia. She doesn't ask that outloud, but it definitely flies through her mind in a mild buzzing. Eileen and her had gotten… closer lately, and she rather liked Lucrezia. Amato she barely knew, but Gabriel… "I think that Eileen, Amato and Lucrezia are still in the Garden, you might be able to find them there…" She pales a little for a moment. "So you've mostly seen… the former Vanguard people? And dying? Do— do you know how? The guy who shot me, he might have— he probably was trying to hunt down Gabriel. Eileen thought he might have been CIA."
"Peter ordered it. At least it looked like Peter." Eve says still as if nothing is wrong. "Yes all of them, it's what I said." She smiles softly. "Don't you worry, I'm gonna help them out. Let them know what's going on." She nods her head. "I've always wanted to meet the rest of the members that use to follow that monster."
Peter ordered it.
Looking down and away, Gillian focuses on the gun in her hand. Her throat's tightened, her skin's paler than normal, the color drained away. Her hand grips the gun a little too hard, knuckles whitened. After a moment, she loosens the hold. "Sometimes I think it might be better not to ask. I'm not sure how you live with all this, Eve. You may be a little crazy, but you have reasons…" Good ones, she seems to think.
"Well everyone else, just seems to think. 'Eve should be able to see all these types of things since she was sixteen and still be totally sane.' " Eve says in a slightly bitter tone. "I'm not the only precog around, but I'm the one that always helps everyone. But I'm still just crazy Eve, who treats everything like a game." The singer shrugs her shoulders. "I'm glad someone at least understands a little bit about me."
She places her gun on the table and looks at Eve. "I saw a man beheaded when I was seventeen, a woman raped a few days after that. A baby being born the next few weeks, only to see it die early in the next month."
"It all becomes a game because people are all the same. And the same things happen everyday, we just can't do something about everything."
"I envy Edward Ray, he could see the future and he wasn't like me, it wasn't like walking right in on the scene. I've been shot, stabbed, impaled, almost mummified and a whole host of other things in my dreams. It feels so real, sometimes I wonder if it would feel the same if it happened to me in real life." Eve never talks this extensively about her dreams to anyone.
"I keep getting this god awful visions and then they always in some way come true. It hasn't really failed me yet. So this event will happen, or something similar. The event that Else is singing about will come to pass in some form or another."
"I only understand a fraction," Gillian says quietly, watching her friend with a quiet understanding. No, she'd not known the details, but she's been through things that most people shouldn't ever experience and lived to tell about it. Her dream may not have been as horrible, but… "You're better than Edward. And you're stronger than me." Letting go of the gun, except for one hand, she reaches out and touches her arm, squeezing. "Let's take a break, then I can shoot at some more paintings."
"You're always so sweet to me." Eve says and pats Gillian's cheek and smiles softly at her. "When I get really old, can you promise that we'll get those motorized wheelchairs and ride around in them, mad dashing and screaming off the stop of our lungs? At least if I live to be really old." Eve winks at Gilly and pats her on the arm. The gun is placed down on the table. "Yeah break time sounds good."
"Fuck, if I live to be that old," Gillian says with a laugh, shaking her head a bit. "The rate I'm going, I'll need that motorized wheelchair before I'm thirty." It's said with a laugh, as she sets her gun down right next to her friend's, and makes her way in the direction of the rest of the facility. Where the animals might be waiting.
Sure enough the two dogs and Tiger are lounging in the huge seating room, Eve plops down next to Tiger and rubs his back. "Well then we'll just be screaming and hollering when we're thirty." She jokes and looks up at Gillian.
"Promise me that you won't let this BS called life get you down. I've noticed the change in your demeanor lately."
"You're practically thirty already, old lady," Gillian teases without the right level of humor. She's trying to get into a good mood, but it's not easy… Shooting at the man who hurt her might have helped, but other things took it back down. "It's just… difficult. I'll get over it. I pretty much have to." Cause what's the alternative?
"You got me there, next February I'll be too old to be doing anything but painting pictures and singing about cooking cakes and pies." It's all a joke really. "It'll take time, I just don't want it consuming your life." Eve nods her head at her best friend.
Consuming her life… "I think it already was," Gillian admits, glancing toward the paintings as she moves deeper into the building. "I'll try to remember your birthday when it comes around, though. No surprise parties. You'll see those coming." But she can at least think of something to get her for a present.
