Baby Blocks

Day 9: Tuesday

Squall inserted his key into the weapons locker. Locker was a bit of a misnomer, since this was one of their largest storage rooms outside of the garage. They'd set it adjacent to the physical training rooms way in the back, and kept all the swords, staffs, guns, and countless other exotic weapons there. With a turn of his key, the lock clicked open and let him into the dark room.

The dry musty smell of a closet greeted him as he walked in between the metal grated shelves and hanging racks of blades. Besides weapons, the room also stored all the weapon cleaning supplies, which were what Squall was after now. The gunblade was a precision instrument and needed to be cleaned often for it to work properly. Otherwise it was just as likely to blow up in the user's face as the monster's. Cleaning it was Squall's favorite thing to do with his gunblade, next to swinging it.

He went way into the back, into an area smelling strongly of chemical solvents, and picked up some plastic bottles filled with dark liquid. Rinoa wouldn't let him clean his gunblade in their room. It was too much black powdery mess, even if he put a towel under it, and the ammonia scent would stay in the living room for days. He took the blade out of his hip holster, and knelt down to the floor. Making sure it was unloaded, he began disassembling it, starting by pulling out the barrel. He grabbed a small black wiry brush from the shelf, poured a little oil on it, and poked it into each hole to clean out the chambers. He tried to make each stroke, each push, as smooth and purposeful as possible.

A quiet noise at the front of the room alerted Squall, but he paid it little attention. People were coming in and out of here all the time. As the footfalls moved toward him, he knew this person was also coming towards the cleaning supplies.

"Hey, Squall," Irvine said. Squall flinched at the sound of the voice and politely looked up. He was strolling in with a long gun over his shoulder, wearing his full cowboy clothing and a big smile on his face. "Just getting some stuff for practice." Irvine patted him on the shoulder, to which Squall had to resist recoiling, and reached up to the top shelf. Squall had no desire to interact with him today, especially after being interrupted out of what was supposed to be a tranquil, solitary cleaning session. He tried to mentally project a Protect shield around him, trying to get him to go away.

"Got to get some ammo for the training center," he said. "Warming up my sniping skills for the mission."

"Uh-huh," Squall responded. He tried not to look at him, he just focused on his own cleaning procedure and nothing else. He tried to keep him out of his peripheral vision, if possible, just looking at his equipment. This was more awkward than words. Just focus on cleaning and get out of there.

"Yeah, I can take out a grat all the way at the other end of the training center with this thing. Take a look at this gun." He held out his long sniper rifle on both his hands. Squall took a cursory glance at it and went back to his business. "It's custom made. They sent it all the way from the Galbadian junk shop. It's got a 3,000 meter scope, titanium hammer and pin, 46 inch length, five round detachable box magazine, 3300 feet per second muzzle velocity, polished trigger, feels just like snapping a glass rod."

Squall barely nodded his head. Why wouldn't he just get his damn ammo and leave? There was nothing he wanted to talk to him about, and there was nothing he could say that Irvine wanted to hear. Was he completely oblivious to everything else that was going on? Did he forget he was gonna have a kid in a few months? It was like the only thing that existed for him now was his stupid fancy gun. His blood was boiling at his ignorant, flippant tone.

Irvine held it up vertically and took an admiring gaze himself. "Yeah, it's pretty spiffy. Only weighs twenty-two pounds. That's why they sent it to me early, so I could practice with it. Pretty soon, I'm gonna need to go outside to hunt monsters, I'll be so good." He grabbed a pack of high caliber rounds from the top shelf. "Yeah, these science team guys are pretty on the ball. I met a few of them when I was over there. It's all being led by this really old professor. And they have this science officer that's really cute."