genessia | [ action | closed ] I know you've been burned, but every fire is a lesson learned

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[ action | closed ] I know you've been burned, but every fire is a lesson learned

Who: Sanzo and Amberdrake
What: Drake has a peculiar request; the pacifist wants a gun.
Where: Hotel room
When: Late August
Warnings: nah

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Mercifully, Sanzo hadn't been pulled into any of the nightmares Amberdrake had had in the last couple of nights. He sat, now, at their small table with the priest, trying to read a book and failing; his concentration just wasn't holding up. Finally, he set the book down next to his tea.

"Genjyo," he murmured, "I have an odd request for you."

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Sanzo was immediately wary. This could be something very minor that Drake was self conscious about or it could be something very, very odd, there wasn't much room for a middle ground with the healer. He closed his newspaper and let it sag to the side so he could look at Drake properly.

"And what is that?" he asked, sounding as dubious as he felt.

Drake set both hands on the table, on his book, and sighed softly. He stared at them, not at Sanzo, debating actually making the request or not.

Hells, he'd had this debate for days, quietly inside his shields.

"...I want to learn to use a gun," Amberdrake finally stated. There as more, but this was a start.

"...Why?" Sanzo asked, surprised. He wasn't sure he should be, Drake wasn't weak or so narrow minded that he wouldn't defend himself for the sake of pacifism. A gun though... It was a fast kill if your aim was good but that wouldn't completely get rid of the effect through Empathy would it?

He folded up the newspaper and set it aside before crossing his arms. Drake's demeanor, and the request itself, gave him plenty of things to worry about. Jumping to conclusions and worrying himself over nothing wouldn't do either of them any good, so he'd wait for an explanation.

"If Kain or someone like him shows up on one of these worlds with us, I..." Amberdrake cleared his throat, and looked up, "...I'm not a pacifist out of philosophical reasons, you know."

"I assumed you weren't, you aren't that stupid." Sanzo had plenty to say about those that didn't defend themselves when they had the chance.

"Why are you interested in this now?" He had his theories...

"Everything that happened on Haven, happened because I got cornered and couldn't fend Kain off fast enough," Amberdrake looked down at his hands again, and frowned, "I've been having dreams about that incident... in short, I don't want to be such a liability again."

"I didn't give you permission to take credit for whatever mistakes I made during that," Sanzo snapped. Of course he was worried about Amberdrake suffering through those dreams and blaming himself on top of it. Aggression was the easiest way to respond, unfortunately.

"I won't object to teaching you to defend yourself but that's a shit attitude to have about it."

If he ignored that first part about mistakes, maybe Sanzo would too.

"I've fired your gun before," no, that wasn't a euphemism. If it had been, the next words wouldn't have come out of Drake's mouth; "I was awful at it."

Sanzo scowled, knowing Drake was avoiding the topic, but let it drop. He could get on his case about it later and made a mental note to do so. Drake wasn't getting away with that anymore than he let Sanzo get away with anything.

"You're going to be shit with it if you don't know how to use one," he said, his tone evening out as his annoyance and worry cooled. "Is that the only time you've fired a gun?"

"Of course," Amberdrake glanced up, "they don't exist on my world. I'm a good shot with a bow, but that's completely different."

And a bow, he couldn't just keep tucked away in a pocket of his robe.

"It'd be easiest to get you used to this gun-" Sanzo held up the small silver revolver, pulled from the cord belt of his robes. "-and get you something similar. If you have no objections to that."

"I have no objections to that," Amberdrake smiled a little, nervous about the weapon but determined, too. "I remember you making other guns on Haven fire holy bullets, could you do that to the new one?"

He also remembered that it was a massive pain in the ass for Sanzo to do, so he was hesitant to ask... but...

"I could," Sanzo replied, the grumpy reluctance in his voice suggesting it would be just as much of a pain as it had been before. "Exactly how powerful are the assholes you'd need a banishing gun for?"

He set the gun down on the table and recrossed his arms. It was a real concern if Drake was that worried about facing something that required a holy weapon to damage. Sanzo couldn't be sure that a banishing gun would be powerful enough, Kougaiji wasn't especially affected by it.

"If it's serious enough I can't just use Empathic projection or the Healing Gift to get out of..." Amberdrake shrugged. "If it's that vampire in particular, holy things hurt him worse. I doubt anything I could do would kill Kain, but he's the type who only understands violence. The more it hurts, the more of a point it makes."

And the more the Gift would backhand him after. But this was emergencies they were talking about. He could deal with the backlash later.

"If you think it's necessary, I'll work on it, after you know how to use a gun without putting holes in yourself." Sanzo had a great deal of respect for Amberdrake's experience and skill, in the use of the Gifts he had and his hard to explain profession. Guns, however, were a whole different matter so he'd play it safe when it came to that. He hadn't forgotten the backlash Drake would suffer either, but it couldn't be helped when it came to self defense. It would hurt a hell of a lot more to not have an effective weapon, if he even lived, so Sanzo didn't dwell on it.

"I do want to know, do you think Kain or someone like him appearing here is a serious risk or is it the dreams?" He wasn't being judgemental with that question, he meant it. Drake had more experience with this world hopping business.

"Mostly dreams," Amberdrake answered, looking down again, "but I can't deny that I attract a certain kind of trouble."

He was a nice guy; a pacifist, and a Healer. That was like prime steak to some types of people.

"And while the odds are slim, it is possible that he'd show up here. We both did, after all. With or without memories of Haven... the last time I saw him, I paralyzed him in the street."

"That's a dramatic reaction for you." As far as Sanzo knew, anyway. He couldn't say he knew that much, but the way Drake was acting gave him enough information to guess.

"You want a gun to make it even easier to take him down then?" While a decent reason by itself, Sanzo went on, "And is your sole motivation to do so to not be a 'liability?'"

"Yes," Amberdrake's response was simple. Yes, that had been dramatic, yes, he wanted to take Kain down easier if it came up again, and... well, yes, he wanted to not be as big of a liability. All were 'yes'.

"You can't lurk in the background of everything I do, and neither can Genos. I have to... be better at this. Unruly clients, I can handle easily enough. Someone like Kain..." Drake tapped his fingers on his book, jittery with nerves at the very topic. "I once dug two of your bullets out of his spine and popped it all back together again. That's how durable he is."

Drake shook his head.

"I didn't know how he'd repay me, at the time. I can't make that mistake again."

Sanzo felt increasingly ill at every mention of this shithole vampire and the hints of what he'd done. It wasn't hard to put together what had happened. Specifics, no, but Sanzo could guess enough to make his skin crawl. He shifted in his seat, suddenly uncomfortable.

"I'm not going to dissuade you from saving your own skin," he said bluntly as he tried to force thoughts of his own part in that ordeal back. "It wouldn't kill you to be more interested in that than worrying about what'll happen to me. I have warning now."

Amberdrake's smile was faint, and sad. "I'm not going to have you standing over my corpse in real life, enar ves'tacha. And I won't have you getting hurt to pick up my slack, either. I can't be a fighter -- not truly -- but the more tools at my disposal in an emergency, the better."

"If I get hurt, it's my own damn fault. If you want to shoot yourself in the foot before you even pick up a gun, that's your business. I'll help you but not for my own sake." Sanzo couldn't pretend that he wasn't relieved that Drake would some long range protection. Drake's motivations made him uneasy, all the same, and it would be a bear of a task to talk him into thinking any different.

"You won't stop me from worrying about you anymore than I'll stop you from worrying about me," Amberdrake pointed out, "that's just how this goes."

"You're intolerable," Sanzo snapped in place of an actual argument. "If you're set on the gun, I'll show you how to use the thing when you're ready."

He could keep arguing and he sorely wanted to but it would be a long fight. Knowing how arguments usually went with Drake, he'd end up losing in the end no matter what.

"You have a firing range you use, do you not?" Amberdrake asked, "Is it near here?"

"Several blocks away." Sanzo shoved the gun back under his belt. It would find its way somewhere in his sleeves whenever he put his robes on properly.

"An hour walk if we're slow."

"Let's go, then," Amberdrake got up from the table, tea and book forgotten. Best to get the start of this out of the way! "But first, come here?"

Sanzo stood and pulled his robes up and into place. The breastplate was on the bedside table, he'd retrieve it after Drake was done with whatever. He was both curious and nervous about what Drake wanted as he drew closer.

Drake stepped closer yet, and leaned up to place a chaste kiss on Sanzo's lips. "Thank you, ke'chara."

Sanzo longed for the day he didn't feel like a bashful child whenever Drake surprised him with a kiss. Drake was so terribly kind and affectionate, he wasn't sure why he was caught off guard like this so often. But he was and he muttered something vaguely like "It's not a problem" before going to get the breastplate, a slight flush in his cheeks.

"Let's go," he said once his robes were in order and his voice came easier.

Amberdrake wasn't even subtle about enjoying that reaction; he grinned as he pulled on his own usual public garb, and then followed Sanzo out.

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[ action | closed ] I know you've been burned, but every fire is a lesson learned

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