f e m m e || f a t a l e

"Don’t worry about accuracy too much," He spoke, standing behind her, looking her up and down, trying to determine if her posture was correct. "Once you know the right stance and how your body reacts to recoil and pressure, your accuracy will improve on it’s own. We just want to work on getting you familiar with your gun." He took a hold of her hips, trying to act as if the gesture wasn’t sexual, turning her body slightly to the right. "Alright try it again," he then stated, stepping back, folding his arms across his chest. 

She had to try to hide her smirk when he turned her hips again, considering that his touch wasn't exactly necessary. But she exhaled, shooting again as he instructed. This one was a bit farther off. She shot a few more times, adjusting her stance until she found a position that allowed her to get closer to her target with ease. Finally she shot one straight through the heart. Again, she looked back at Adam. "Better?" She asked for his approval again, raising an eyebrow.

He examined her again, as she changed her position, only to disappoint him once more. He removed his hands from his hips and walked towards her, yanking the gun from her hands. He stood beside her, taking the position he wanted her to copy and raised the gun to take the shot. “See how I’m standing on an angle, rather than straight forward? If you stand like this, the recoil won’t be so harsh.” Bang! The bullet sliced through the paper target, straight through the heart. He handed the gun back to her and raised his brows, “Now you try,” 

Regardless, Astrid turned to look at him. "That helped, I think."

Drifter. Oh, how quickly he became fond of that name. It made him sound like sound kind of mysterious superhero. It was to stick with him until something better came along. There was a spark in his eyes as he mentally branded himself The Drifter. He nodded along to her words until she said one of his least favourite words beginning with N and so he shook his head. “Normal doesn’t exist, you know?” He said, as if he hadn’t just claimed to talk to ants. “Everyone does everything differently. There’s no such thing as normal and I wouldn’t want to be called normal. I think it’s a really mean thing to say actually.” It was odd how Astrid could answer his questions, refer to herself, and yet not actually reveal all that much about her — but that never occurred to him, of course. “Awesome! Do you enjoy it?”

"Yeah, I suppose you're right about that." she said, watching him carefully. When he didn't ask her to specify what her job was, she was partly surprised, but more so relieved. He didn't seem like the type to pry, and she didn't feel like explaining. "I do. Yeah, it's interesting. Fun." Her eyes swept him again, always studying. Johnny had so easily put her at ease, and now that she was over the initial shock of it, she was growing even more suspicious than usual. He could be anybody. He could be working for the Cesstations, he could even be on her side, sent to test her abilities. The possibilities corrected her careless state immediately, and she finally stood up. "Right, well...I should probably get going." 

One on one training huh? I like the sound of that. I like it so much we should do it again sometime. 

"Umm…" He hummed to himself as he looked up to the sky, to the clouds and the birds that flew by. It was honestly so rare for someone to take interest in him, especially to this extent that he wanted it to last as long as possible. "A job? I don’t think that’s really an option for me." He shrugged, still maintaining a joyful smile. "I’m not really good at anything, you see. And I guess I move around too much to work. But it’s okay. It’s not uncomfortable. I prefer it." He said but how could he prefer it if he hadn’t experienced anything else to his memory? He glaned at her with his head resting in the palm of his hand. "Do you have a job?"

"Yeah, you seem like one of those drifter types. Why not, though? I don't think I could see myself at most jobs, anyway. I've never been all that great at being normal." She flashed a smile, unsure of what it was about this man that was bringing all this honesty out of her. Maybe it was that he seemed so harmless. But to Astrid, no one was harmless. There was always a reason to be guarded. "I do." She said with a nod, unable to help the smirk that slipped onto her face. "I do have a job. Yeah, sort of." It was always a question she had to skirt around, and she'd have to do so especially with Johnny. She could only imagine how the boy who talks to ants would react if she told him she was training to be an assassin. 

Johnny blinked innocently at her statement. He couldn’t say anything if that was what she preferred. To him, it was sad but he learnt through meeting person after person that everyone was different so perhaps she liked living the life of isolation. Maybe she truly was happy that way and who was Johnny to correct that? “Alright. That’s cool too.” He said as he cracked one of his famous smiles. It was genuine. “Umm,” he hummed as he messed with his hair, “Kinda. I just live anywhere. I don’t really have a home. You know, sometimes really nice people let me stay at their home but I don’t really stay long.”

Johnny’s lips parted for a brief moment, a second to ponder about how one couldn’t believe in true love. It seemed like this conversation was like a fickle roller coaster with triumph one second and perplexity the next. He hummed to himself, finger tapping on his chin as he contemplated how to respond, which was highly uncharacteristic of him. “True love…” He muttered, biting down on his bottom lip. “It’s like… There’s nothing greater than true love, you see. It doesn’t have to be a boy and a girl. Um, true love can be between family, or just… I don’t know between anyone really. As long as it’s honest. Yeah, as long as it’s honest.” He nodded to himself, proud of stringing up what he deemed to be a rather academic response. Maybe he wasn’t as stupid as people called him. He glanced back at Astrid, and he couldn’t help but wonder whether or not Astrid was one of the many disheartened people who had once been in love and had turned cold from a broken heart. “No, no, no.” He shook his head quickly, a little too quick for he felt a little dizzy. “Ramen speaks English. He’s real smart, that’s one of the things that attracted the King’s daughter to him but, I don’t know, I’ve been hanging around here for a while and I can kind of read the grass messages.” 

Astrid listened silently to his explanation of true love. She was sure he was right, but...she couldn't think of anyone that she truly loved. Did she even love her own mother? Maybe deep down, but not enough to desire any connection with her. And who else did she have? Her brother, the one person she might have actually cared for, had died years ago. Father? She hardly even knew him. "I'm just more of a loner. And I prefer it that way." She said, her voice a bit colder than she'd meant for it to be. Johnny was certainly an attractive man, but he was one that claimed to talk to ants. One who asked strangers to cut his hair underneath a bench. One of the crazies. "Okay, right." She said, fighting the urge to not look at him like he was insane. Reading grass messages. Astrid shook her head slightly but moved beyond the subject. "Do you just...live here? Like, under the bench?"

Johnny nodded back in a similar fashion, or what he thought was to be a similar, when in reality his was far more genial than the one she offered. It had always been a problem: filtering the negative and only accepting the positive. Like now, any condescending gesture or tone was left behind and he emptily accepted her sarcastically agreeing comments and focused on her beauty and the fact that she was willingly spending time with him. His brow furrowed once more at her comment. This time he seemed rather hurt as a breath caught up in his throat and he cleared it before speaking. “What do you mean? Ants are real. Ants are realistic. Ants can be in love and they can have stories about love and go through tragedies just like us.” He brought his arm back around, a little defensively. “You really think we’re the only ones who go through the realistic stuff?” He asked in a genuine curious manner. He didn’t know Astrid, he didn’t know her at all. Hell, he only just met her but it was weird to him that someone like her would hold be so narrow-minded. At her question, his famous smile appeared once again. He glanced at her once before looking at the grass, eyes full of wonder. “Ramen told me. He and the King’s daughter have ran away together. I’m not sure where they are but you’re not allowed to tell anyone the story or the King might overhear and send soldier ants after them, okay? You’re not allowed to tell anyone, okay?”

Astrid was amused once again at his concern over the small matter, along with the fact that all of her sarcasm seemed to be going right over his head. "Well alright, sure. I believe it. Ants can have feelings, okay." She corrected herself, a hint of a smile on her face. "I was mainly talking about the moral of the story in general. The girl coming back for him. The true love. I've never bought into that kind of stuff." For once, Astrid wasn't entirely sure how to conduct herself around this man. She was always quick to figure people out, target their weaknesses, and interact with them accordingly. But Johnny was different from anyone else she'd ever dealt with. When he answered her question, Astrid gaped for a moment before a smile spread across her face. "Ramen told you." She repeated. "The ant. You speak ant?"

Something torturous