>As I walk into our room Ellie has that look on her face again. The one she gets when she's about to launch my laptop across the room. I place the two cans of cola I'd fetched for us to drink down onto the ground as I stride forward to beat her destructive impulse.

Fucking Yanks!

>Her declaration is angry and bitter, she hasn't even noticed me enter the room. The lid snaps shut and I manage to get in front of her right as she frisbee tosses the laptop right into my balls. I double over, using an arm to pin the laptop to my legs. My mind struggles to work out if joining the soprano choir is worth not having to buy a new laptop, and if, as a rifle waffegeist it's simply just her nature to throw things as Ellie realises what she's done and panics.

OhGodAnonI'msosorryIdidn'tmeantoI'msorryareyouokayI'msorry!

>She scoots to the side of the bed she's sat on, pulls the laptop from between my limbs and sets it down, before trying to rub my crotch with her hand, thinking it'll make it better. I groan a small no as I take her wrist and guide it along the side of my body, drop to my knees and pull her into a hug, using her to straighten my back as I go down.

>”I'll be okay in a minute, you tell me what's wrong.” I say to her. I already know, she's been on that geistchan website again. Next time I'm on leave I really will ask my brother to block it, he's a nerd, he'll know how to do it.

They're calling me a shitty rifle online again.

>She wraps her other arm around me and hugs me back, crushing her more-than-ample breasts against my chest as she rests her chin on my shoulder. She sniffs loudly. Her scent fills my nostrils, cleaning oil, plain soap and a slight hint of gunpowder.

I know I had problems back when I was an a1 but I'm an a2 now, I'm better now. I am, aren't I?

>Her voice trembles as she speaks. The L85a1 got a terrible reputation as a rifle, but improved vastly when it was upgraded to the L85a2. Ellie was known about back in her a1 days, being one of three L85a1's to have demonstrated having waffegeists. After the upgrade, the three waffegeist vanished, until I was issued the rifle that Ellie was during training, and she woke up again in the middle of an exercise, becoming the only active waffegeist in the British Army. She immediately attached to me, and my career was pretty much decided for me right there and then, I was going to be an armourer whether I wanted to be or not, until I quit or got fired. Not what I wanted when I signed up, I'd wanted to train as a driver, the idea being that I'd have a skill I could use in civvie street when my service ended. I can't complain, the guys I work with are all good lads, even my officers are pretty level headed, and the work is enjoyable. I've been told I've got a knack with guns. Maybe that's why Ellie woke up while issued to me. She wasn't the same rifle she had been. As an a1 she'd been cocksure, full of energy and didn't care about her reliability issues in the slightest. Now she was insecure, her feelings easily hurt, shy and full of doubt in her self. I reach up behind her head and remove and toss the hair claw restraining her long, mousy blonde hair. It falls against her back and I start running my fingers through it.

>”How many rounds have we shot together?” I ask her. She pauses to think about it.

It... It must be thousands.

>”Exactly, and how many stoppages have you had?

I've not had any that were my fault, it was duff ammo.

>”Exactly. And what is some American nerd gonna know about a gun he's never even shot before? Just what he's heard on the internet, right?”

Right.

>”The M16 had problems too when that first got issued didn't it?”

Yeah.

>”What's the current issue M16 again?

M16a4

>”Exactly. They only had to change you once to make you perfect, they've had to keep doing it with the M16.” I tell her. What I don't tell her is that I don't give a shit about the M16 and don't know what changes were made. “Now look at that photo next to my bed. That's my favourite photo in the world, do you know why?”

>She looks at the photo. I know she's not keen on it because of the goofy smile on her face, but eventually she answers my question.

Because it's got your kids in it.

>”Because it's got the three most important people in my life in it.” I tell her. The photo is of Ellie and my two children, my son and my daughter both sat in her lap hugging her. “I love you, and so do those kids.”

>She squeezes me even tighter and begins to sob.

“You're a good rifle, but it wouldn't matter even if you weren't because you're so much more than that. We'd love you if you couldn't hold a magazine, if you broke your butt pad every time you fired and if you jammed every two shots.”

>We stay there hugging until she's all cried out for a good, long time. Some people might think I'm wrong in the head for loving her the way I do, but they don't know her the way I do, they don't see the cheerful, fun woman hidden away behind all the doubt and nervousness, they don't see the smile she smiles only for me.

>I keep telling myself I'll get my brother to block that website because I hate seeing her hurt like this, but at the same time I know that I won't. She likes going on it, she likes being able to interact with other waffegeists and their shooters. She's the only L85 with an active geist. I imagine being the only one gets lonely, but being able to talk to other geists probably helps with it. I don't wanna be the one that takes away from her.