Badass Lessons

Pan
It was an otherwise quiet Second Christmas Day when Pan went through the house and took stock of who was around and saw Grace relaxing in one of the common areas. Like usual the priest did not leave his room unless he was fully dressed to include his cowboy boots. This time though he looked like he was on his way out somewhere.
She's going to start suspecting he's up to something when he tells her to get her coat, they're going for a drive. This is the second time he's done it. At least Grace isn't stuck driving this time. They aren't going to the store.
"I been thinking," he says. Maybe he has been. He's looking more spry than he was six weeks ago when he first got back from the Verbena's farm way out in the hinterlands. Improved health leaves him more energy to think. "You know how to fire a weapon?"
---
Fast forward about an hour.
Pan pulls the red Toyota pickup truck that came back with him on one of his last trips up to Denver into the firing range near the state park and parks the vehicle. He looks a bit stiff letting down the tailgate to climb up into the truck's bed and open up the foot locker and remove a black half-moon canvas case and a small blue heavy-duty plastic case. Inside the canvas case is a rifle. The blue case has a pistol.
"Alright," he says with a grunt as he jumps down out of the back of the truck. Claps shut the tailgate. It's cold today but sunny. Pan squints against what's left of the daylight. "Ready?"

Grace
If this weren't something she'd been meaning to do (seriously, how do she and Kalen spend so much time together and yet not ever spend it at target practice?) she might have told Pan where he could shove her coat. Well, possibly more politely than that.
But this was her idea before it was Pan's you see? Just, he's the one who kicked her off her butt and made her go do it, which... okay. Fine.
She's not too talkative on the drive over, but she's not morose about her silence. More just watching the scenery. And when they arrive, she's still in a somewhat good mood. She hops out of the truck with an air of anticipation, because hey... learning something new, right?
"Yeah, I'm good." she says, and shoves her hands into her coat pockets to warm them against the chill.

Pan
At least Pan is content to just drive. In general he isn't the sort of person who feels the need to run his mouth constantly. He doesn't take the solitude or the enclosed space as an invitation to tell Grace all about the Virgin Mary and how her life would improve if she were to swap out Computers for Christ.
In all the time he's lived at the Chantry he's said very little about his beliefs or his paradigm. No one ever questions him on it. Only Sera talks about his prayer and his god as if she isn't afraid of it.
Grace is good and started out good. This wasn't something he sprang on her. She doesn't tell him this and he at least doesn't act as though this was some god-granted calling of his. They were both just sitting around not doing anything. Now they're walking across the parking lot and into a gun range that is busy considering the day.
The kids are off from school all week and plenty of folk took a long weekend to eat up their vacation time. Pan and Grace look a bit incongruous coming in together but the clerk is reading a magazine and doesn't give two shits about their relationship or what they're doing here. The priest pays for both their rental fees and takes their ticket. Hands Grace her ear cans and loops his over his forearm and then they're back outside.
"You ever fire a gun before?" he asks. It's a mild question. Has to lay down some sort of foundation. Grace doesn't strike him as the sort of woman who tolerates people telling her things she already knows.

Grace
"Nope. I always thought if I had a gun, it was more dangerous than without one," she says and shrugs. "I'm not so sure about that now."
She just leaves it at that, but yeah... not so sure about that, what with zombies and ghuls and whatever the fuck that was at the McDonald's. From the way people describe it, like all the animal goo that went into the grease trap in that place just up and decided that death was for suckers...
Grace gives a little shiver.
"So, yeah, I don't know the first thing. Sorry. Well, okay. I know which end the bullets come out of."

Pan
Given his profession and his history it would surprise few people if Pan were a humorless dour thing. He isn't. He cracks stupid jokes and seems to enjoy his own company as much as he enjoys other people's company but it's rare that he actually laughs.
When Pan laughs it shows his teeth and shaves off the excess time from his face and he actually looks the 45 years his driver's license claims he is. He has lines around his eyes from laughing hard and often. This laugh is short-lived but honest. That struck him as funny.
"Well," he says. "That's a start."
They walk down a foot-trodden path and out to their range. Pan sets down the rifle and the pistol cases and a couple boxes of ammunition and hooks the ear cans around his neck to free up his hands. Walks down the lane to pick up the target and move it closer. Around them the shots are close but infrequent. Rifle shots instead of pistol. It muffles the conversation once he's got the target where he wants it and starts to walk back towards her.
"First thing you gotta wrap your head around, talking about guns, is if you're gonna aim it at something you'd better be ready to kill it. I'm talking monsters, demons, zombies. People. Anything you're pointing at. Don't ever point a gun at nothing thinking you're just gonna slow it down, you dig?"

Grace
[Nightmares!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 1, 5, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )

Grace
Pan talks about the real object lesson here: that she'll have to be ready to kill. But that's the thing, right? She knows very well how her mind works in the heat of the moment. It calculates. It's only afterwards that she manages to feel for whoever might be on the receiving end of her coldness.
If she decides that something needs to die, and she has a gun, and she knows how to use it, there won't be hesitation...
She can see it now, spreading out in front of her, possible lives taken, possible lives saved, all because she picks up a gun here and now and learns how to use it. She shakes her head. Damnit, this is just a trip to the gun range. Don't be so dramatic!
"I dig, I dig."

Sera
Perception + Awareness - aka any reason for Sera to show up at the gun range?
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )

Pan
All this fresh air and moving around is good for him. A sedentary lifestyle is awful for someone who's trying to recover from a stroke. Besides the stroke he's had to contend with a massive abdominal injury and a leg wound. Pan moves like a man far older than 45 but his life before the zombie dog attack wasn't exactly sedentary.
Time was the Awakened populace of Denver used to stop by the Church of the Good Shepherd whenever they wanted to find him. Butted heads with the administrative assistant and tried hard to walk through the place ignoring the fact that it felt even more holy than other churches they had been in for the intensity of the light.
That felt like a long time ago. Plenty has happened since then. Grace contemplates her future mindset while standing in the cold-sharp sun. While Pan goes down on a knee behind her to unzip the hunting rifle. He holds it by the stock as he rejoins Grace. Box of shells in his other hand.
"Alright," he says. Hands the rifle to her. "I'll show you how to clean it later. Whenever you're loading it - well. You already know which end they come outta. Point that at the ground while you're opening the bolt lever and loading the shells. It's empty right now."

Sera
There is precisely no reason for Our Sera to show up at a gun range on an odd Saturday after Christmas and before New Year's and her party is probably still going on and god knows why she's out here except Coincidence, except Fate.  
But here she is, on a strange Thursday night, maybe a few miles away when she feels the doubled pull of their resonance and it's not Serafine driving, not Sera at all, because listen, she gives a fuck about people and knows, understands, deeply and immediately just how goddambed disastrous it would be if she were driving.
So: outside, a white van.
Sera's close enough that she can feel them both, beneath her skin, in her blood.  Close enough that she can see them, Pan at least, he is hard to ignore.  Maybe not close enough for them to feel her, but listen darlings, she'll he there soon.

Grace
What's that they say about guns? Always point them at something you wouldn't mind shooting, even when you're sure they're not loaded? Yeah. She makes sure of that one after taking the rifle.
"Opening... bolt lever, yeah," she says, fiddling with it. "Looks like this thing unscrews or something?"
Yeah, total noob here. Pan's guidance, however, gets her to the point where she can start loading shells, and she does keep the end pointed at the ground while doing so.

Pan
Pan stands behind her so he can guide her hands instead of just standing off to the side and telling her what to do. She has on her side the fact that she is used to working with technology and following instructions. If she can put together a computer she can load a gun.
The rifle eats five shells before it offers her resistance and he shows her how to chamber a round. How to take the safety off. The Remington is not as heavy as it looks like it ought to be but it's her first time swinging the stock up to her shoulder and steadying the grip with her non-dominant hand.
"If you decide you wanna use a rifle," he says, "you're gonna wanna practice just holding the thing steady, yeah? Even if you get a scope and a laser pointer, it ain't gonna do you any good unless you can hold it without shaking. Make sure the stock ain't on your collarbone or in your armpit. The bruise ain't pretty."
This is probably when Sera happens upon them: Pan is showing Grace how to stand with her feet shoulder-width apart without putting his hands on her. It involves using an invisible rifle so she can imitate his stance.

Sera
He should put his hands on her.  He should probably put his hands on her.  The best things humans do involve their hands and their bodies and possible substances ingested, natural or fermented but certainly all Part of God's Plan.
Really they are unlikely to notice Sera at first if they haven't noticed her from a distance.
This is a drugs run or a booze rune or a something run. She is not here to learn to shoot a rifle she already knows how to shoot a rifle and moreover she does not care to practice just now.  Instead: something else, the kiss of sensation agianst their senses, their brief and sharpened awareness of her presence in their immediate surroundings.  Maybe they actually see her, leaning against a post, yeah, watching.
Oh Pan.  Shouldn't you teach Sera how to fire a rifle? Hands on, maybe.
Was that a wolf whistle?  God only knows.

Sera
(FYI that is probably my last post.  since bed.  :)

Pan
[perc + aware: WHO COULD THAT BE]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 7 ) Re-rolls: 3

Sera
Here is the reason for the coincidence: the Sexy Elf Costume Store is next door to the gun range.

Seriously, guys. World of Darkness.
Sera
(alright darlings - sleeep for lizes.  nini!)

Grace
[Perc + aware]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 7, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )

Grace
So, Grace tries holding it the way Pan is holding his invisible rifle, trying to keep the thing out of her armpit and away from her collarbone. It's not exactly perfect, which might be why Pan's trying to get her to adjust via mimic.
And then, there's a whistle. And a blossoming distraction which totally ruins what stance she had.
She turns, and there's Sera, watching, and she quirks up a smile before concentrating again on that freaking stance. The rifle barrel swings in the air at the target, not exactly shaky, more like wobbly. At least this time she doesn't have the stock lodged firmly in armpit.

Pan
And Pan too is distracted from teaching by the pierce of that whistle through the air. He doesn't jerk his eyes away from his pupil until his senses tell him who he is and then the rumble of his laugh cuts through the silence in his wake.
"Sera," he says like his voice is shaking its head too. "That's okay, try getting it up outta your--there you go. Alright. If you miss the first time it ain't the end of the world. Just try and get used to the recoil. It's a thirty caliber, yeah? Big shell. Gonna be kickback. Put your ear-things on before you pull the trigger. And make sure you keep your feet apart or it'll knock you on your ass."

Grace
[Dex 3 + 0 Firearms, +1 diff due to being inept at shooting = Hit?]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (3, 5, 6) ( fail )

Grace
"Okay," she says, letting the rifle droop a bit as she puts on the hearing protection and prepares herself for 'big shell, gonna be kickback'.
She levels the dangerous end at the target, trying to keep it still. But it wobbles enough to make her want to readjust again (get the damn thing out of your armpit, Grace, geez). And then, feet apart, squeezes the trigger.
She's off by a mile, the 'ear-things' do not help nearly enough, and that is a mighty kick from the thing. But it's a learning experience. She grimaces at Pan in fake-despondency.

Pan
At least he doesn't laugh at her. Her fake-despondency has him giving her a bracing closed-lipped smile and closing off the distance to show her how to discharge the spend shell and chamber another round. He has to raise his voice to compete with the ear cans and the echo of the boom despite them. This isn't a roar or a shout. Just an increase in decibel level to compete with the inherent violence in firing a weapon.
"You were real close for your first shot!" he says. 'Off by a mile' his ass. "Don't get discouraged, get that spent shell out the barrel and do the same thing you just did. You're gonna get it this time."
He leaves the casing lying in the dead grass but says nothing about it. They must be saving the ballistics lesson for later. Right now he just takes a couple steps back to give her room to aim.

Grace
[Dex 3 + 0 Firearms, +1 diff Again!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (2, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )

Grace
[Damage!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Grace
"Right," she yells back at Pan, and she's honestly not discouraged at all. Who expects perfection on the first go?
Guns aren't that complicated of machinery when it comes down to it. At least, this particular one is pretty simple, and she's thankful for that. Pan shows her how to remove the shell, chamber a new one, and...
Again with the standing still, trying not to lock her knees and keep her feet apart. And this time, she's got the look of dead seriousness to her. There are a few people whose faces she could be mentally pasting on that target, but really, that's not what she's doing. They're all dead anyway.
She's still wobbly, but this time, she squeezes the trigger at the right time during that wobbly mess, enough to hit the target. Enough to rip it up. She lets the trigger go, and gives Pan a thumbs-up. Success!

Pan
Natural athleticism can make up for a lack of acquired skill. Grace might not be able to blow off a demon's head from across the room but knowing is half the battle. It would seem Pan is content to know her second shot ever in the history of Grace's nonexistent shooting career hit the target and could have slowed down a pursuer who meant her harm.
When she gives him a thumbs up he huffs out a laugh without bursting into that sunbeam smile she'd gotten earlier and returns the gesture. Great success!
She doesn't get to bask in her accomplishment though. Instead of coming over to her and showing her how to eject the casing and chamber another round the priest points to the bolt lever and stays right where he is. Apparently she's going to do that again.

Grace
[Dex 3 + 0 Firearms, +1 diff Again!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (3, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Grace
[Damage!]
Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 7 )

Grace
Grace gives him a nod when he points to the lever, and she points the rifle down again to expel the casing. Okay, so this isn't so bad...
She hefts the thing up again, and this time doesn't have to remind herself where not to jab the stock, and doesn't have to remind herself not to lock her knees. She sights down the length of it, trying to keep it steady, and it wavers just a little.
When she gives it her best shot this time, she's not playing around, obviously not. The target... well, there's not much left of it when she's done, and Grace, noob as she is, is a little surprised at herself. Pan, and maybe Sera might be able to see her mouthing the word "Damn," but she doesn't shout it loud enough to hear.

Serafi­ne
The way she saunters sometimes, Sera, like there was only one thing human beings were ever meant to do with their bodies.  Hint: the one thing does not usually involve a rifle.
That's the way she moves right now.
Out in the country, where the fuck ever, the mountains arrayed behind them, the snow-covered front range, cold air sharp in the lungs, the sun spilling that warm but strangely wan winter light everywhere: Sera.
She's fucking underdressed.  She must be freezing.   Thigh-high tights with an opaque vertical black stripe secured by visible garters.  Short little black skirt.  Cropped leather jacket, her hands firm in the pockets holding it mostly-closed, her shoulders set forward against the chill.  Doc Martin's rather than her usual heels, so maybe she knew where she was going after all.
She comes sauntering / scrambling down a slope when the shooting stops.  She's not wearing ear things, and doesn't have a rifle and picks her way through the brush toward them, and doesn't say anything to Pan at all, just sort of tucks herself against him like she expects him to hold her, and flashes Grace the edge of her smile, all red lips and white teeth.
"Nice shot."

Pan
Maybe they ought to set Grace up with a sniper scope and let her handle Thakinyan.
The apprentice mouths the same word that near broadcasts itself on the Chorister's face as he watches her relieve the haystack target of its head and part of its upper body but before he can issue her any sort of instruction other than remember how to do that again in the future here comes a barely-dressed Cultist scrambling down the embankment to join them in the row of ranges.
Pan reaches up to leave his ear cans hanging around his neck before he slips his arm around her shoulders.
"She tells me she never fired a gun before today," he says. "Expects me to believe that."

Grace
Grace grasps one of the ear-things (because it seems that is what we are calling them) and pulls it away from her ear so she can hear Sera. Nice shot. No shit, right? She gives Sera a returning smile. It says something about Grace, and possibly more about Sera that Grace isn't the slightest bit surprised or concerned about the other woman's state of dress in the cold. This is Sera, she's just going to be as bare as humanly possible, Grace has decided.
"Hey, you were watching, huh," she says to Sera. "Checking out my first gun lessons?"
She rolls her eyes at Pan at his comment, "Ha ha," she says, sarcasm-laden. "I haven't!"

Serafi­ne
Sera gives Grace a brief but scintillating little smile that still seems somehow brittle around the edges.  Maybe it's the sunlight, being out here before dark rather than after, without her usual sort of shadows.  Maybe some days are harder than others.
Maybe Sera does not really like guns.
Or maybe she does not like the things that drive people to fire them.
Still, Sera, half-dressed, tucking herself against Pan as he slips his arm around her shoulders, giving Grace that bruised and rather bruising look that is sharp and bittersweet and so goddamned lovely, the lifting her mouth closer to Pan's ear, nudging aside the ear-cans where they hang around his neck a bit with an animal movement of her neck.  "Maybe it's just fate."
Because, you know, it might be.

Pan
"Bah," the priest says to the seer as he rubs her shoulder.
She doesn't wear near enough clothing to keep out the cold of winter but it's fairly warm for the season. The sun helps. They're stood in a bright beam of it that has nothing to do with Pan's resonance. Neither the apprentice nor the disciple are Working right this moment but that didn't stop Sera from tracking their resonances down here.
No question from either of them. Fate and coincidence share space in the same boat.
"I was gonna have her empty the chamber for practice but they're gonna start charging me for dummies, the rate she's going." He thinks he's so funny. "Oye, Grace!" She needs to take her ear cans off. "You wanna keep shooting the rifle or you wanna try the handgun?"

Grace
She does take her ear cans off when he yells, and replies, "A handgun might not obliterate any more dummies."
Practical, this one. She lets the rifle point at the ground again, and just watches Sera and Pan for a moment, her mouth twisting up in amusement. He's a badass, Sera told her once. A badass teaching her how to shoot, not bad.
Like fate, perhaps.

Serafi­ne
Nothing stops Sera, really.
She could probably feel both of them, some days, from a million miles a way.
Sera says nothing about why she's here or where she was going and she is not especially inclined to participate in the firearms lesson.  She's just here for the ride, you know?
Turns her head, her mouth into his shoulder, her eyes halfclosing as Pan rubs her deltoid.  Then Pan makes that stupid fucking joke, with laughter in his eyes and the joke was more old-man funny than funny-funny but the spark in his eyes and his body spikes Sera's humor and she fucking laughs, so she's the one encouraging him.  Opens her mouth and tucks an arm around his waist like - oh, hey! I always hang all over priests - which she fucking does.
She probably wants to kiss him or something, Sera, but that's just how she is.
To Grace: "I can't tell if that's a yes or a no."

Pan
Fixation with the forbidden is one of the oldest tropes in the book. Temptation and the fall of man afterwards is the first story told in the book of Genesis after the prologue of God's days of work. Nobody pays much attention to the Cultist's physical freedom around the priest. Least of all Pan. He seems completely oblivious to it.
One of the first things out of her mouth was a question as to whether he wanted to make out with her in a confessional. Sera got a lecture instead. That's just kind of how he rolls.
"Alright," he says as he takes his arm off Sera's shoulders, lemme show you how to empty the chamber without firing any more rounds. You never wanna store a weapon with bullets in it, yeah?"
It's not as complicated as loading the thing. He makes sure she's paying attention as he aims the barrel into the dirt and pulls the lever up and back fast. She's fired three shots. Three thick metal worms fall into the dead grass and he stoops to pick them up. All this moving around today is good for him. Maybe he'll take up jogging or something after this. Get the old blood pumping.
No, seriously. This shit could be good for him.
He feeds the live rounds back to the box from whence they came and zips up the rifle. Perfunctory instructions as he goes: make sure you got the safety on. Make sure you got all the rounds out before you put it away. Blah blah blah.
He disappears for a few minutes after that to swap out the slaughtered dummy for a new one. Picks up the big hay creature like it hardly weighs anything and carts it back towards the attendant's stand.

Grace
Grace laughs at Sera, at her question of whether it's a good thing or a bad thing that dummies won't explode at the shot of a pistol. "Well, it might be more fun to blow things up, but I do need practice."
And one cannot practice without dummies. Ergo...
Pan shows her how to pacify the rifle, how to make it safer, though she has the sense that it's never really safe. Grace pays attention, right? She watches and listens like a master of watching and listening, a natural student if either of them has ever seen one.
And then, he's off, to go switch out dummies. As he turns to go, she turns to Sera. "He just, you know, said 'let's go to the gun range,' and I've been meaning to learn anyway," she says, without prompting. It's an answer to a question that hasn't been asked.

Serafi­ne
Sera shivers a bit when Pan lifts his arm from around her shoulders to show Grace how to Make a Rifle Safe and maybe it's the cold and maybe it's something else and mostly the movement is suppressed and compressed, centered in her spine and radiant, yes, but Sera does not make a show of it.  She holds it in.  It's just that she's not particularly expert at concealment and alone(ish) now she shoves her hands into the pockets of her leather coat and pulls the front tight around her body as if that might help, while simultaineously opening herself up to the warmth of the afternoon sun.
"Just remember," this to Grace, when she answers that unspoken question.  "That it's not the first answer.  Or even the second or the third."  Sera means: violence.  Weapons, war.  But of course she does.  Sera: wants, and loves and needs, and that is who she is.  "Good to know how to handle them, but don't put too much faith in those fucking things."
Her gaze tracks to Pan, in the distance.  Follows his movement through the firing range.  Flashes back to Grace, then.
"I did tell you he was a badass, didn't I?
Sera: vindicated by circumstance, again.
(PS: Dear Pan.  Sera knows some things even better for the heart than jogging.)

Grace
"Yeah," she sighs. "I gotta say, at first, I didn't really... You know, he feels weird," she says, trying to put the essence of Pan in a way that's not too terrible. Weird. Yes, let's go with that. It's easier than explaining how she feels constantly judged by the cold sun that is Pan.
"And, I know, about the guns, Sera. It's just... I don't have your skills. I can't just make people run away or stop or something, and... and zombies, Sera," she hisses out that last bit in a tense whisper. "I can't hide from everything and just wait until I can protect myself, I have to go out and learn how. But you're right."

Serafi­ne
"Alright," is Sera's rather agreeable response to Grace's protestations, about skills and guns and zombies and begin able to protect herself.  The Cultist looks rather more somber in that moment, the gleam in her eyes quiet, this brief but deep and aching sadness suddenly liminal about her.
"Just remember running away's an option, too.  Sometimes it's the best option.  You don't have to save the world.  Or fight it.  Or blow it the fuck up.
"You just gave to change it.  Even if it's only a little bit."

Grace
"Running away is going to be the best option for me for a long while, I guarantee it, Sera," she says. Whether she'll actually use that option... Well, that depends on who needs saving, right?
She hasn't had the greatest track record at running away from life-threatening ordeals lately. She infiltrated a secret lab, for crying out loud. But you know, sometimes you run away, sometimes you have to help others run away.

Pan
It would appear as though they've found one of the few places where Pan can go from one fixed point to another without running into one of his parishioners or the next of kin of one of his parishioners or someone who remembers him from the Narcotics Anonymous group he used to run or any of the other million places he has been in the last two decades where people recognize and want to reach out to him. Have him reach out to them.
He transports the wounded hay dummy back to the attendant's stand and brings back another one without incident. Carries it like the dense mass that it is and not like it has sentience or cognizance and then he comes out of the distance tall and black-clad like he's got all the time in the fucking world.
Can't hear what they're talking about because he cuts across the galley to park the new dummy with its intact head in the place where its comrade fell. He pats it on the crown like to reassure it before he starts to walk back towards the women.

Serafi­ne
"Just remember that, Grace," Sera tells her, her voice quiet, her dark eyes lifting over Grace's shoulder to track Pan's movement on the range.  Affection in her eyes so deep and dark it seems painful.
For both of them. All of them.Everything.
"That's all I ask."
And without really knowing why or wherefore, and just like that, Sera is on the verge of tears.  She blinks rapidly like its the sun that got in her eyes, and maybe between the two of them they'll summon the grace to believe her.

Grace
For a split second, Grace is looking at Sera with an 'oh shit' expression on her face, and then her gaze flits to Pan, as if to ask him what to do.
She remembers Sera, in the Chantry, on the couch, how tactile the woman is. She reaches out for her hand, and perhaps Sera would more prefer a hug, but Grace's efforts are awkward at best even with this. "Sera..."

Pan
His hands are in the pocket of his coat as he rejoins them. He has missed the entirety of the conversation but given what they went through a few months ago and what is happening now and how he knows Sera to experience everything all at once it does not surprise him that he left them alone for five minutes and now one of them is nearly crying.
"What's the matter?" he asks. Rhetorical: "You allergic to fresh air?"
He knows better. He also saw that blinking attempt to stave this off. Sometimes he's capable of mercy.
"Grace, lemme show you how to load a pistol. The girl at the front desk said not to worry about exploding another target, they got plenty of hay."

Serafi­ne
We will not discuss what Sera would prefer, at least not in polite company.  Grace reaches out, all awkward, for Sera's hand and there's a kind of mercy in Pan's deliberate papering over of the moment and there's even this edge of bright and painful mercy in Sera, see: Grace reaches out for her hand and Sera takes Grace's hand, firm, and squeezes, still firm, all yeah, that helped or even just 'I'm still here or something and then lets go.  Pan asks if she's allergic to fresh air and that tension in her as she holds back the tears or tries to hold them back.
One or two slip by.
They always do.  "Fucking daylight, man," Sera agrees with Pan, giving him a ragged sigh of agreement or commisseration or something.
And Grace: a sharp swing of an expression.  Too bright.
"Kick that dummy's ass, Grace."

Grace
[Perception+Subterfuge = Sera, what's wrong, really?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Serafi­ne
Sera: manipulation + subterfuge
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )

Serafi­ne
Sera is still in a lot of emotional turmoil after all the recent events and the site of Grace shooting brought it back and that's not really something Sera can suppress.  She tends to feel whatever she's feeling intently and entirely and she's not ashamed or afraid to cry, so much as she is trying to protect Grace at least from her own pain.  And here's Pan and the zombie dogs and Pan's going to go fight a goddamned demon and - and - and -
So yeah, she loves things so much, it is sometimes hard not to cry.  Grace might get the idea that Sera has particularly intense feelings about some people, Pan and Grace especially.

Grace
Grace is usually at a loss when it comes to how to act, how to behave, how to be around people. But thanks to luck or her tendency to joke around or what have you, it usually works out okay. Except for times like this. When Sera starts crying, it opens up unpleasant emotions, and she wants to fix it so that they will stop.
But it seems Sera doesn't want fixing. Grace lets go. Pan's better at this, he does what really needs doing (doesn't he always?). Sera tries to hide. It doesn't work. But Grace just nods, like she's getting the point finally. Just let her be. Let her cry, and ignore that fact, as much as it might hurt.
She follows Pan's lead. "Yeah, okay. The way I'm going, I'll manage to blow it up with a pistol, so that's good to hear."

Pan
Before he leads Grace back towards the galley Pan reaches out a hand to grasp the top of Sera's head. He's done this once before. When she wasn't sure if a certain Etherite was real or the product of too many colliding pharmaceuticals. Patience was not something her head made up and he does not pat the Cultist like he patted the hay dummy. It's a callback without words.
And then he's ambling back to where they were when she came down the slope. Going down on one knee again to pop open the pistol case and show Grace what's going on in there.
"All you gotta do," he says, showing her because the pistol is tiny compared to the rifle,  tinier still in the big priest's hands, "is make sure the safety's on, load up the clip, push the clip into the stock, chamber a round, safety off, point it at the thing you wanna shoot. You don't gotta chamber a round every time, it's a semi-automatic. All you gotta do is pull the trigger. It'll keep firing until it rounds outta rounds."
He demonstrates loading the thing so Grace doesn't have to fumble through it herself. In an ideal scenario she'll practice assembling whatever she ends up getting for herself in her spare time. This is just a crash course. No more fending off zombie dogs and ghuls with mental compulsion and fire rained down from the heavens.
When he gets to his feet again he is stiff from the cold but not unused to it. He spends so much time on his knees the rising doesn't bother him anymore. He hands the gun to Grace stock first and stands behind her to move her hands where they're supposed to be on the gun's grip.
"Like a puzzle, yeah? Now put your feet apart like you done before, only face the target head-on, yeah? Bend your knees a little. You wanna absorb the recoil with your arms. Keep 'em straight so the gun don't kick back and hit you in the face. Alright. You got this."
With that he steps back to keep Sera company.

Serafi­ne
Oh, Sera gives Pan a tight but grateful little smile.  Shining because her eyes are shining and she's blinking against the tears but a couple escape and slip down her cheeks and the air feels bright and hot and cold and charged and his hand is warm and solid and real on the crown of her head.
Her eyes close.
Then he steps away, begins to instruct Grace in a way that gives Sera time to scrub away the tears, her palm against her cheek, time to wrap her arms around her torso, to ward off the cold or hold herself in, it is hard to say.  By the time he comes back, she is under better control and gives him a grateful little bump of her shoulder against his, before she tells him, and by extension Grace, "I gotta go."
And so she will.

Grace
[Dex 3 + 0 Firearms, +1 diff Again!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (1, 4, 7) ( success x 1 )

Grace
[Damage!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Grace
She puts the ear-thingies back on after Pan finishes with his explanations of how to work the gun. Best to keep one's hearing intact.
This time, Pan shows her the way to hold the gun with his own hands, he doesn't use an invisible pistol. And you know what, that's okay. She expected this the first time, with the rifle, and then he went and danced around her with one that wasn't there. It's just a bit uncomfortable, that's all, but this whole thing is just a bit uncomfortable too.
She turns to look at Sera, but the gun stays right where it is, like she's afraid to move it lest she point it wrong. Grace sends Sera off with a smile in that little glance. Okay. It's okay. It's going to be okay. For real.
And then... yeah. It's not as hard to keep the pistol from lodging in her armpit at least. That would be quite an accomplishment. She returns to figuring out how to place herself, how to stand, how to brace for the kick of the weapon in her hands.
All that prepping and fixing up and standing correctly seems to do some good, because when she finally does line up her shot and fire, it does its job. The recoil kicks her arms back a bit, but she doesn't allow it to smack her in the face. Good job. Go her.

Pan
Later the story will persist that this was an idea she had been kicking around with Kalen long before Hydra and L'Ultimo Giorno and it was just some semblance of serendipity that had Pan carting her out here to acclimate her to holding onto and firing a weapon. Prayer and insight didn't have nothing to do with it. Just boredom. Neither one of them had anything better to do that day.
And it was a good day. Sera showed up long enough to remind them of the weight behind the decision to aim a weapon at anything. Here it is that the Chorister is showing her how to use one. He who ought to be some sort of champion for the sanctity of all life and the possibility of a nonviolent resolution of every situation imaginable.
Given what passes for common knowledge about the man that would be a crock of shit.
After Sera leaves he comes to stand closer like to keep an eye on her. At least they've passed the discomfort event horizon in case he needs to step in to keep her from shooting herself in the foot. The only thing she's shot so far is the target.
"Good!" he says when she pulls away the earmuffs. "Try pressing the trigger more than once this time, see what happens."

Grace
[Three-Round-Burst! 3 Dex + 0 Firearms + 2, +2 diff]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 4, 5, 7) ( fail )

Pan
[i think the dice roller is just broken.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 2, 2, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )

Grace
Well, luck has a way of abandoning even its most beloved individuals, and for Grace, the time has come. She can't blow up dummies forever, especially not with her level of skill. Which, by the way, is still nil, despite the previous success.
She doesn't know why, but the gun jams, goes 'click', stops working. Maybe it's the way she mashed the trigger too fast, or... or something. She looks at it instead of looking down at the target, like staring at the gun is going to solve the problem.
"I... screwed something up. Uh, yeah. Is it... safe?" she asks Pan. Maybe she thinks now it's going to go off at any second or something.

Pan
[damage roll just for shits and/or giggles]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Pan
It's almost like he did that on purpose. He raises his voice to overtake the earmuffs.
"As long as you keep that barrel pointed away from you," he says. Stands behind her to take the gun out of her hands to show her what to do. His arms are long enough he crowds her but isn't actually touching her. "If that happens when you're in the middle of firing at something, don't panic. You just got too many rounds pushed up in the chamber. Let the magazine out. The release is on the side here--"
So she gets a lesson in firing and clearing a jam on the same day. Lucky apprentice.
Just for the sake of testing the gun once the chamber is cleared Pan adopts what has to be one of the laziest shooting stances in the shooting range's history. In general the priest's posture is sloping. He doesn't seem invested in the outcome of this little demonstration. Either he's going to hit the target or he isn't. All he wants to do is show Grace it's possible to fire the gun quickly. That it won't jam every time.
That sometimes the risk of a jam pays off and you shoot your target full of holes. Between Grace's first single shot and the hale of overkill Pan just unleashed they would have killed a humanoid.
"You wanna try again, or you had enough?"

Grace
Okay, so it might be best to end on a high note, but in a way failures are a high note when one is learning. If you just keep being lucky, there is little chance of finding out anything new.
Once explained, Grace takes the gun jamming in stride, watches everything like a good student. Pan fills the straw target full of holes in quick succession, all nonchalant, like it's nothing. And yeah, well, it's Pan, so it probably is nothing to him.
But it's not nothing to her. Grace is a bit worn out, between Pan and Sera, and her own issues. It's just, there's a reason she's out here, and it's not to have fun exactly. When you're shooting straw, that's easy to forget. Sometimes, it leaks through though.
"I've had enough, I think. Still, good day, I think, right? I learned a lot," she says, trying to give Pan a compliment there. "I'm hungry, you hungry?"
It's a total change of topics. And it's totally on purpose. Get Pan's stomach involved and he has reason to leave too.