Counterpoint - Deadly Force

◊   ◊   ◊

Branch

Ink Burns

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

This is a work of fanfiction, produced according to the principles of transformative fair use as put forward in US copyright law, and abiding by the custom and practice of fan-produced work in Japan, where the source texts were created. No author is in any way affiliated with any of the creators of the source texts, nor with the companies who distribute their products, nor any other rights holder, and these stories were not authorized by either the creators or the producers. Ink Burns is a fan site and the material here is freely provided for the enjoyment of fellow fan-community members; there is no commercial infringement.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 US license at the Ink Burns fanfiction archive (http://alltrees.org/archive/).

Published on 2005-12-09 12:46:56.

Attributions can be made by author's name and a link to the archive.

This ebook edition was published on May 16, 2012 by the Ink Burns fanfiction archive.

Counterpoint - Deadly Force

Some reflections, while Hawkeye cleans her guns. Drama, I-3

Lisa was cleaning her guns. Cleaning them thoroughly enough that she could store them when she was done.

Oil streaked her hands, and she knew she had a smudge of it on her cheek, where her wrist hadn't been quite clean enough to brush aside her hair without smearing. It didn't bother her. There were things you couldn't clean without getting dirty. Attics. Guns.

Countries.

She held the mainspring of her second pistol up to the light; no, that was just a bit of uneven oil, not scoring. She wiped it down carefully.

She liked her guns. Killing made her reluctant to eat for a day or two, but the guns themselves were clean and precise and definite at all times. They were solid. And if she was fast and accurate, then so were they. She didn't have quite the... relationship with them that a lot of the other sharpshooters did. But, then, she hadn't been there for the same reason most of them had.

Lisa knew she'd been lucky. She could easily have been assigned to some command other than Roy's. As it was, she had been able to fire most of her bullets in direct defense of the handful of people she knew and valued in that army.

She wiped her hands and started reassembling the parts.

She didn't understand the other way; didn't comprehend how anyone could shoot just because they were told to, with no personal reason of their own. It was some strange kind of abstract insanity, as far as she could tell.

She fished out her second screwdriver, the one Winry-chan had re-ground to make the perfect fit more so, and delicately tightened the screw. One last careful pass with the oil cloths and she slid the guns into their holsters. She hesitated when she started to put them in the storage box, though.

Roy understood the other way.

Slowly she put her guns back on the rack in her front closet.

TBC