"You know, I still feel like we could have gone to the hunting shop three blocks down. It's closer to the apartment."
"Yes, but I'd rather take a few weapons with less bulk for Sterling and Lyla's first time shooting. They have yet to learn how to handle these weapons properly, and I would feel more comfortable if they were handling weapons closer in size to the pistols we use regularly than the rifle I carry on occasion. The hunting store doesn't tend to sell firearms of a size smaller than the rifle, save perhaps the vintage lever-action pistol you pointed out last time, but for all the style such a weapon offers it wouldn't be very effective in a combat situation.
"No, it will be easier for us to take a few pistols back with us as well as one or two ammunition boxes and other selected maintenance guides and equipment. That way we can be sure that, if nothing else, the two of us have replacement firearms should ours ever break or malfunction. I don't think it will come to that though; Sterling and Lyla should be rather good at this after some instruction, and I agree with your belief that the two of them would make excellent explorers and companions on these journeys out into the town alongside us. One day I believe you will all feel comfortable enough handling larger weapons like the rifle I sometimes use, but I do not wish to overwhelm them or proverbially 'throw them into the deep end' as it were. Better to let them learn with smaller weapons so they know how to handle and care for their weaponry first, and train them with greater weapons later."
Virgil nodded, conceding the point to his boyfriend's experience. Whilst the hunting shop was closer and, as a result, safer to visit, there was no way Virgil would have felt comfortable hefting around a rifle as his first experience with a gun. Cygnus was probably right to suggest making sure that the two of them could handle pistols with care and confidence first.
The gun shop they'd chosen to go to was somewhere around an hour away from their apartment, and the two of them had trodden the route several times before. Ammunition and supplies were always good things to grab if they happened to be in the area, and even with his initial misgivings about firearms he couldn't lie and pretend that the wall of larger weapons before the two of them wasn't enticing.
Cygnus hadn't much interest in that wall at the moment, since none of them had ever handled shotguns or assault rifles before and as such would have to effectively train themselves without any guidance unless they could find some sort of guide somewhere, and he'd instead opted for a relatively high-powered hunting rifle of the sort he'd used when he was younger on the outskirts of town for shooting clay pigeons if he was ever invited out. It wasn't the sort of clay pigeon shooting that the well-to-do country types liked, more of an excuse for criminals and gang members to handle firearms without too much suspicion from the police, but he had fired off hunting rifles a few times. That had come in handy more than once these last six months, since the rifle was chambered to a more powerful calibre than their nine-millimetre pistols and as such could deal more damage to the creepy fucking monsters that seemed to infest this city now.
Virgil had never really been interested in guns when he was younger, probably since he was raised as a girl and such things were seen as being too 'boyish' for him to be interested in, but he had found them quite interesting from a mechanical sense since he'd started using them. Not the really deep and complicated stuff, since he'd never really been much of an engineer in school, but just the surface level differences in things like different weapon's designs, or the calibre they were chambered for, or the loading mechanisms, and most of all why those decisions had been made when those weapons were being designed and produced. He found the more mechanical and logistical side of weaponry to be more interesting than how they felt when you fired them, or the skill required to effectively operate a particular firearm. Still, it wasn't like he had anything else to do in his free time out here apart from practice, so every now and again when they were in an area that seemed free of creatures he'd practice how fast he could reload his pistol and have it ready to fire again, or he'd set his sights on an abandoned and moss-covered car and see from how far away he could consistently hit it. It probably wasn't conventional firearm practicing, but in fairness to him the only member of their group who'd had any experience with firearms before meeting all of them had been Cygnus, and he'd not exactly been trained by licenced professionals.
To put a long story short, Virgil didn't really know what he was doing but had to try and practice anyway. It seemed to have been working fine so far though, so he wasn't about to change what he'd been doing anytime soon. His practicing methods had helped him work to put nearly two-dozen monsters into the ground at this point, so he had to be doing something right.
"Virgil, are you listening?"
He blinked back to the present, shooting his boyfriend a sheepish smile.
"Oh, sorry. Got lost in thought for a moment there. What's up, Cyg?"
His boyfriend shook his head a little, a small yet fond smile on his face.
"I said I was originally planning on picking out four more sidearms of the same model as the ones we use; two to train Sterling and Lyla with, and another two for spares in case any of them break beyond our reasonable ability to repair or if Madison or Wesley wish to join the others in training with firearms. I doubt either of them will be particularly enthused by the idea, but I feel it's important to keep our options on such a matter open at the moment. I asked you if you had any other ideas or additional things you wish for us to take back to the apartment with us while we're here?"
Virgil nodded, thinking for a moment on what they might need whilst speaking.
"I think that sounds good, to be honest. Apart from the additional Heckler and Koch pistols we should probably grab the ammunition, like you said about earlier, but there are a few other things I wanna look at and grab."
"Like what?"
"Well," he started, rattling off of the short list in his head, "the first thing I thought of is that this gun shop is bound to have targets for use as practice somewhere, right? I figured it might be good to grab a few of them at least if we're going to train Sterling and Lyla, since it'll be a lot easier than trying to set up a line of empty cans and bottles like they do in the movies. Safer as well, since we won't risk walking on broken shards of tin or glass whenever we go up onto the roof afterwards. We are training them on the roof of the apartment building, right?"
Cygnus nodded, still with a small smile painted across his features, and gestured for Virgil to continue.
"Well, I'd rather not find Sterling's impaled his foot on glass as a result of him playing football up there after target practice. Second thing I thought of was maybe getting some silencers? We haven't used that sort of thing so far since I know you said they're a bit more difficult to carry around, but it would mean we're a lot less likely to attract unwanted attention from any other monsters in the area. Apart from that there's really just one other thing I wanted to check, and that's less something for us to take back and more something for us to do for future reference."
"And what would that be, dear?"
"They're bound to keep an inventory of this place somewhere, right? That means that we'll be able to find it and see exactly what they've got stored here, for future reference and in case there's anything we're missing on our look through that might end up being useful to us, Si yeah, that's what I think we should grab. Targets, ammunition, silencers, and a manifest or ledger or inventory log or whatever."
Cygnus nodded in agreement, though there was an element of slyness to his smile now.
"Ah, I believe the term you're looking for would be 'suppressors', not 'silencers'. But yes, your suggestions are certainly valuable ideas. I'm not sold on the idea of using the suppressors, for I maintain my stance that they make the firearm more unwieldy, but I also understand your position. If it is amenable to you, since it only works if all of us use the suppressors so I cannot compromise with you that way, we could take a selection of suppressors back and do some research on how to better store and use them before we actually make the decision on whether or not we think it's worth it."
Virgil nodded once more. That sounded reasonable enough to him. Cygnus was right as well; if only one of them used a silencer, or suppressor or whatever it was called, then it was sort of useless. It wasn't like one of them using something to dampen the sound of their firearms discharging would make the other any quieter, so they did need to make this decision as a group. Well, a group of two since the others hadn't even learned the basics yet, but still.
"Yeah, that works for me. So, looks like we've got a fair haul to grab for the others in that case. Do you think they'll be particularly receptive to this? I mean, I know Madison always wrings her hands every time we mention needing to use our guns, but the others are all... well, they haven't asked us to use them yet, have they?"
Cygnus shook his head.
"They likely won't be overly excited, no, but they're not against it either. Madison is, yes, but the others are relatively neutral on this issue. Tell me, do you think that training someone like Lyla, who has such a great propensity for impulsive actions, is a good idea? I do not mean to disparage her, nor to come across as though I'm insulting her capabilities, I only ask as a genuine question. Do you believe she will be as impulsive as normal with a firearm, or do you believe she'll turn herself around and recognise the severity of what we will put into her hands?"
Virgil's partner turned away a little, visibly embarrassed, before continuing.
"I'm actually more worried about her becoming less impulsive in her daily life if I train her to use this. A foolish worry I know, but I still fear how she may respond to the responsibility of knowing how to discharge a firearm."
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Virgil nudged Cygnus' side, giving him an empathetic smile.
"I think you're worrying too much, and that's coming from me. Lyla can be impulsive, yes, but we've seen with our own eyes just how careful and measured she can be when the situation calls for it. Hell, we see it every day with how she cares for her brother; the amount of care that goes into her actions may be easily missed, but I don't think she's as impulsive as most of us think she is. She's still more impulsive than the rest of us, don't get me wrong, but I think she's as impulsive as we might think.
"As for your other point, well, I don't think we need to worry about her losing her optimistic and free-spirited edge either. She's not as impulsive as we think, but she's certainly not going to be less impulsive in her day-to-day life. When she's out with us maybe, yes, but not back at the apartment. I understand you're worried, because when are the two of us now worried about something or other, but in this instance you don't need to be. We'll teach them together, and we'll ensure that nothing else changes. Sterling will listen to you and take your critique on board more readily than anyone else's, and Lyla will understand the severity of what we're asking them to do and act as sensibly as we could ask for. They're good people, Cyg."
"I know that. God, do I know that. How the hell did I end up surrounded by people as good and pure as the five of you?"
Virgil slipped his hand into his boyfriend's, interlocking their fingers.
"By being just as good and pure as you think we are. Now come on, we're almost there. Then it's just a matter of making sure nothing's made a home in there since our last visit before we begin looting."
Cygnus smiled at him, and Virgil pretended not to see his boyfriend swipe at own eyes as he replied.
"Yes, but at least we won't lack the firepower to take any creature down whilst we're there."
"Too right as well. Now come on, lets get inside."
----------------------------------------
"Look, I'm just saying, I think it's ironic that we're carrying pistols for protection inside a gun shop. That'd be like taking twenty quid with you to the bank in case you needed some money just afterwards; it's redundant, since you can just take what you need out when you're there."
"Yes," Cygnus replied, sounding so exasperated that Virgil could practically hear the man's eyes rolling, "but what if you encountered something- or I suppose in that analogy, what if you needed to spend money before arriving at the bank? Say you came across... I don't know, some kind of paid-entry barrier before you got there? You'd be glad you brought the money with you then."
Virgil groaned.
"Yeah, okay, now I get it. Stop being right all the time!"
That made his partner give a short burst of genuine laughter, which Virgil was loathe to admit but did take the edge off of both his anxiety and his frustration once more. The two of them had been searching through the store for at least an hour now, and hadn't been able to find an inventory log anywhere. They'd found the pistols they were looking for already, and as a result four more Heckler and Kock 'universal self-loading pistols' had been packed up and placed in Virgil's backpack. Cygnus, for his part, had placed two boxes of nine-millimetre ammunition in his backpack, so Virgil couldn't really complain about the distribution of weight. Ammunition itself wasn't heavy, but a box of one-thousand rounds was a hell of a lot heavier than the pistols were. Virgil had offered to split it evenly, with one box and two pistols each in their backpacks, but Cygnus had been adamant that he was fine.
He had always been a fair bit stronger than Virgil, which was sometimes annoying but did make things like this admittedly easier. He wasn't ridiculously strong by any means, and hardly looked as though he'd be as fine as he was with heavier weights, but he was still fairly strong.
Still, for all Virgil's bluster and overthinking, carrying two boxes that weighed somewhere around thirty pounds each wouldn't be too difficult when it was being carried with the muscles of the back instead of the arms. Cygnus probably wouldn't break a sweat.
At the moment the two of them were, still, very frustrated at their inability to find one of the things they'd came here for. How hard could a manifest of some sort be to find? There was probably one on the computer terminal on the desk out in the back room, but neither he nor Cygnus were particularly keen to sit there guessing what the password might be for the rest of the afternoon, so they'd instead elected to just look around and hope for a paper document of some sort. They hadn't had any luck so far.
"Okay, I'm about ready to call this a day. Do you wanna start looking for surpressors and targets then get out of here?"
Cygnus looked back over at him, then checked the watch he wore around his wrist.
"Yes, I believe that might be a prudent course of action. We still have another hour before we need to start moving, but looking for the other items we came here for while we still have plenty of time certainly seems like the best course of action open to us. Don't be disheartened love, knowing our luck we'll happen across the manifest at some point when we're not looking for it anyway. Things have an odd way of turning out in our favour after a little while, wouldn't you agree?"
Virgil nodded, half paying attention and half rifling through a couple of drawers and storage boxes.
"Yeah, agreed. We've got enough on our plates at the moment without trying to find this manifest. Any chance of taking one of these big fuckers home with us?"
He pointed over his shoulder to where a pair of honest-to-God machine guns were mounted on the wall behind the counter, and Cygnus all but exhaled his soul through his mouth as he registered what Virgil was asking.
"Virgil, you and I both know that trying to take that thing back home with us will not only tire us both out beyond belief, but also upset Madison who isn't even keen on the rifle being kept in the apartment with us. What do you think she'll say if we show up at the door with a
"It's your apartment; you're the one who paid for it and who lived there before everyone fell off the face of the earth."
"Are you suggesting I tell Madison to simply 'get over it'? That seems rather rude."
Virgil stopped for a second in thought, then nodded in agreement.
"On second thought, yeah, you're right. That would be a dick move. Ah well, plenty of fun to be had with the smaller weapons we've already got, no need to be greedy I guess."
Cygnus patted him on the back, moving to crouch next to him and open up another of the storage boxes.
"Indeed. There's no sense in being greedy at all. Here, would you mind helping me open this one? I think it might be a box of paper targets, and if it does turn out to be so then I'll duct tape it back up and then carry it back."
"Sure, lemme just grab my knife."
Virgil pulled out his bowie knife and cut along the packing tape along the top of the box, gliding effortlessly along the surface of the object and cleanly opening it so that Cygnus might be able to see what was inside. True to the man's hunch they were met with the sight of a large stack of small paper targets, the sort you might find on any gun range or training course. It made sense that a shop like this kept a stock of them ready for any potential bulk-orders, because it would certainly make their lives easier to just hand over a box of a thousand instead of one-hundred bags of ten that the public could buy.
"Well, that sorts that out I guess. You sure you wanna carry this one back?"
"I don't think it'll fit overly well in my backpack at the moment, what with the boxes of nine-millimetre ammunition. Why, do you believe there might be space in yours? I didn't want to presume, especially with the four boxed pistols in your backpack, but it would admittedly make things a little easier for me."
He shrugged, sliding his backpack off and opening it up. Taking out the four small boxes containing pistols he hefted the box of targets up, which admittedly took him a fair bit of effort, then placed it within his bag. After that he began placing the guns back inside, having not wanted them to be placed beneath the rather heavy box of targets.
"Yeah, that looks like it fits to me. The suppressors might have to hang loose in your bag though, if that's fine with you?"
"Of course," Cygnus replied almost immediately, "I'm more than happy to take as much weight off of your hands as possible. You know that."
"That's true enough. Now lets find us some silencers."
"Suppressors."
Virgil waved away his boyfriend's correction with a "potato poh-tah-toh", then continued looking around the store.
"Hey," he started after a little while, trying to break the silence, "do you think that the others even know where we go most days? I mean, I know we don't exactly hide it from them, but we don't really talk about it much until we get back and the day is done. Do you think they try guessing where it is we're going on any particular day."
Cygnus furrowed his brows, clearly deep in thought.
"Well, it would make sense for them to ponder as to our whereabouts throughout the day I suppose. They do sometimes ask where we're going in the coming days, but I'd be surprised if any of them remembered every detail. After all, we've visited somewhere around a quarter of the town in-depth at this point, so our friends can't be expected to remember every location we visit. That would be far too much to keep track of without a dedicated map."
"Like the one in our room, you mean?"
His boyfriend nodded by way of confirmation.
"Indeed, like the one in our room. We don't often invite the others back into our room though, at least not when they might be expected to take notice of our notebooks or the map."
"But they clean our room as well while we're out gathering food and supplies. I reckon they probably take quite a bit of notice but don't know exactly what to make of our markers and notes without one of us there to explain them. That's probably what they do, actually; they probably look at our map and notes and make guesses as to where we'll be headed on that day."
Cygnus chucked again, his rumbling laugh setting off Virgil's own giggling.
"I think we may be getting to ahead of ourselves where our friend's thoughts are concerned. It's entirely possible that, and hear me out here, they have their own lives outside of our perceptions of them and as a result they think about what we're up to remarkably little."
Virgil, still giggling, descended into real laughter.
"No, that's- no they don't! You fool, don't you see that they spend all day crowding around the door of the apartment, waiting on our safe return! They're like nervous mothers who's sons have gone off to fight in a war, impatiently looking outwards that they might find us! What do you think of that, huh!?"
Cygnus laughed again and flicked him on the nose.
"I think you've been spending too much time listening to Lyla's dramatics. Now come on, we still need to find these suppressors."
Virgil gave him a mock salute as his laughter subsided, wiping away a tear with his other hand.
"Aye aye, captain! I'm on the case!"
And with that he stood up, hit his head on the shelf above him, and found himself face to face with a scrap of paper labelled 'attachments' on a drawer as he rubbed the back of his head.
"Huh. That's some good luck I guess."
"Virgil dear, you just hit your head. That's the opposite of good luck."
"Not that!" He exclaimed, rolling his eyes for the millionth time that day. "I'm literally looking at a drawer labelled 'attachments'. That's what a suppressor is, right? An attachment? That's like, sights and lasers and stuff, right?"
Cygnus walked over, nodding. There was an amused and perhaps slightly surprised look on his face as he opened the drawer.
"Huh. Looks like you found it first time. Good on you, V. Now lets get some of these loaded. If there's anything else you think you'd like then don't hesitate to grab it."
Virgil nodded, smiling widely.
"Grab anything I like the look of, huh? Can do, Cyg."
Now that sounded like a damn good idea.