Anything and Everything: A Long Family Christmas

Part 1

"Are you sure you want to do this?" asked Rose Long as she kept pace behind her son. They had just arrived at a Gun Range that Rose herself frequently used and now she was going to teach her son to shot, it wasn't that she wanted to teach him. It was because DJ was aching to learn.

DJ nodded, his mother had assured him that they had all the legal permits to shot any gun that they had and his mother had a lot of guns. From the two cases that she had brought with them to the range, there was a lot to choose from. And he wondered why his mother wasn't locked up in Jail?

"The Sawed Shotgun has a big kick," Rose said, her eyes twinkling in amusement as her slack jawed son looked over the weapons that she had brought, "I would recommend though that you learn to use a hand gun."

He looked up to her, a grin seeping across his face. "And why is that?"

"Because it's like learning to count," She instructed, crossing her arms around her chest and pointing to a handgun that was safely tucked into one of the spaces in the case, "I'd use that one, there's no kick, its silencer compatible and it's fun to use it if you use it responsibly, understand DJ?"

Her son spied her with a pleading look, and Rose's eyebrows in confusion. What was he getting at looking at her like he wanted something, and he knew perfectly well that if he pouted at her long enough, she'd break to his demands. "Alright you little munchkin, what do you want from me?"

"Can I fire your gun," DJ inwardly scolded himself for sounding like a child on Christmas morning, but he did want to do it, "If that's alright of course?"

Rose sighed. As an Agent of the CIA, she was required to keep her badge and gun on her at all times, for two reasons really, if they needed her and she was walking down the street, then she would have all she needed with her and it was for investigation purposes only. "Ehm, I don't know DJ."

"Mom! Please!" DJ asked again, sounding annoyingly petulant.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she lifted up her the hem of her sweater and pulled the gun out of the holster on her right hip. It might have looked a little crazy at first glance, but in the line of work that Rose was in, you needed to be a little crazy. Hesitating for a moment, she wondered if DJ was ready to start shooting guns at the age of fifteen. But who was she to talk? She started shooting them at the age of nine and she was a pretty damn good shot then. When DJ had asked Jake and her if he could start shooting weapons, Jake had no problem with it as long as she was there to watch over him and teach him the correct way to do it.

And she also knew that she was there to iron out any mistakes that he would make before he could ever fall into the habit of making them every time he picked up an gun. Gripping the barrel, she presented the grip to her son and she smiled when he took a firm grip of it. "Government Issued Desert Eagle. I have a dozens of them but this one is special because it's the very first gun that I was given by the superiors. Now what's the first thing that we do here?"

"Take the safety off?" DJ asked raising an eyebrow.

Rose nodded. "Do you know how to do that?"

"With you as a mother? Please, of course I do," DJ smiled easily before indeed finding and flipping the safety off with relative ease, "Next thing that I need to do is make sure that the clip is safely injected into the weapon."

The former Huntsgirl smiled. "We're at a Gun Range sweetie. Things are a little different, let me give you a hint. They go around your ears."

Rose was motioning to the smooth surface of the shooting station, and on it sat a pair of ear muffs, DJ sneered and turned back to his mother. "Are you serious? You've done this for life and you're not even injured or deaf."

She would have been flattered if that were the truth, but it wasn't. Holding up her left hand, she wiggled her pinky, ring and middle finger, no she did have an slight injury and not just to her hand. "I have nerve damage on these three fingers. I can't feel pain on them. And I'm also partially deaf in my left ear from standing about five feet away from a percussion grenade."

Turning on her heel, she proceeded to walk to a chair that was in the back of the narrow room and sit down. Rose hadn't told DJ that she was also doing this to buy time for Jake to Christmas shop, she also hadn't told him that Jake, him and the rest of the kids were going to go do something next week to get them out of the house and give her a chance to shop. Rose's blue eyes were twinkling with expectancy and amusement. "Show me what you got."

Before turning to the now moving targets, he offered her a smile that reminded her too much of his father at that age. "I learned from the best. I suppose how I do will reflect on your teaching skills as well, right Mom?"

"Sure it does honey," Rose sneered dryly at him before making a motion for her to do what they came to do, "Now shoot the damn target before they kill themselves. You know ignore the way your palms are sweating, or how people will think of you when they find that a child of mine cannot shot."

She smirked when she heard him grown, and then she leaned back into her chair with a sigh to watch what her son could do. And as the time passed on, she discovered that he was a great shot, he was able to hit the moving targets with ninety percent accuracy. Her eyes boggled with astonishment, and then she wondered if the ability to shoot guns was in their blood. "Damn DJ."

"I told you I was good," He grinned back at her, "It just comes natural."

Rose nodded and stood up from the chair, then walking back to the table were the case was still open. She let her fingers drift over the grips of the weapons and she stopped when she came to a thick grip of a Sawed Off Shot Gun. Lifting it out of the case with ease, she gripped the bottom of the barrel and walked over to the stand that was next to her son. It took five seconds for the targets to begin moving across the range, Rose smirked when she saw the look of incredulity on her sons face and then she brought the weapon up.

Cocking the barrel, she blew a hole through the first target, and then the other and in less than two minutes, all of the targets had a massive hole through them. Setting the gun down on the smooth surface of the range stand, she looked over to her son and smirked at his lowered jaw. "Just because was able to shoot a hole through seven pieces of paper in two minutes doesn't mean that I'm crazy. It means I'm better than you at this."

"Give me a few years Mom," DJ smiled after coming out, "I'll be just as crazy."

"The hell you will," retorted Rose, sticking out her tongue.

Jake Long didn't know why he had brought his daughters and his sister, but Rose was already busy distracting DJ so that they could come out and do this with some ease. His oldest son had reached that point in his life when we would start to drive and even though it was almost pointless to have a car in New York. It would give him that sense of independence that he knew all teenagers would crave. He spoiled Alyssa with a car of her own when she turned old enough, and Jake was confident that he would do the same thing with Rachel, Michael, Daemon and Kailey when they reached that point.

But for the time being, he had to focus on DJ and what DJ wanted in life, he was a mama's boy, he adored his mother and he would go so far to say that he was closer to his mother than he was to him. Jake wouldn't complain about that, he had been there with his own father and he hadn't talked to the man in twenty five years. "Money really isn't an issue for me, I just want quality."

"We always have quality in mind Mr. Long," The car salesman said with a smile that could easily be described as a feral leer, "How is that Mercedes treating you Mrs. Sindacco?"

Rachel, Haley and Jake all looked to Alyssa who looked at the man with a surprised expression. "We got that car eleven years ago. You remember that?"

"You father practically gave me a blank check, how could I forget?" He responded with a false smile that sent a shudder down all of their spines at once. Jake looked at his daughters and his sister, they had begrudgingly come along with him. But he wanted their opinion on this, Rachel and Alyssa knew their brother very well and he liked to think that his sister knew DJ as well.

"This puppy is straight off of the assembly line," The Salesman continued making a sweeping gesture to a sleek, black, almost glass looking Mercedes Benz. "I'm sure that it'd be adequate enough for a new driver."

"How much?" Jake asked, he might have said that money wasn't an issue, but he would be damned if his son would trash and wreck a half a million dollar Mercedes Benz. Maybe there was a difference between a teenage girl and a teenage boy owning a car outright.

The Car Salesman folded his arms behind his back. "$550,000, plus taxes and expenses and all of the packages of the car, it has a five year warranty and you have two free years of complementary service at our on sight garage."

Haley choked.

Rachel rolled her eyes.

Alyssa scoffed.

Jake simply smiled, a smile that all three of the women knew to be a false smile teetering on the edge of a scowl and possibly more. They all knew that the Car Salesman had to play his game correctly to avoid a thrashing from Jake, and that were sure that wasn't even possible with the man's chose profession. "Now what are the odds that a teenager could trash the inside of that car and then wrap it around a pole? I mean, let's say my son somehow manages to cut that fancy lining in there and then crashes it?"

"W-Well that would be…" He trailed off as Jake approached him.

There was a dark amusement in his eyes and all three of the women couldn't help but giggle and snicker, "…unfortunate for you. Because when I sink Five Hundred Grand into that, and it get's wasted all because you wanted to con me into buying one, I'm going to come back here and find you."

A silence fell over the group, and the three women found themselves looking back and forth from Jake to the Car Salesman. "Are you threatening me?"

"Yes," said Jake with an affirmed nod and stepping forward.

"Oh – Ok, I think we can figure out a little discount for you," The man said sheepishly, making a motion for the party to follow him to the office complex.

Jake turned and faced his daughters and sister. "Works every time."

Authors Note:/ This will be a five part story, I can easily say that the last part will be posted on Christmas Eve if nothing else gets in the way of my plans. I actually have to work Christmas EVE of all days and imagining that no one will bother me on CHRISTMAS EVE, I'll write it while I'm on my shift. You know I am still pissed about that, I found out earlier today and I've been walking around like a steamed vegetable all day. Anyway cheers!