SUMMER OF 51's Day 2: Wildcard Prompt “Safe”
That’s the link to the story on A03. This is a post-”Understanding” fic: I’ve been wanting to explore Johnny’s dislike of guns, and when I rewatched the episode the other day, this started brewing.
Here’s the start of the fic:
“I mean, you don’t just walk into a bank with guns, anymore. Guns are a bad deal, Roy. You know, you could accidentally shoot somebody and kill ‘em…”
–Johnny Gage, “Understanding,” Season Three.
On the way back to the station from the almost robbed bank, Johnny thought to himself how most people would think it odd that he could put himself in the shoes of the two robbers, two people brandishing guns, even though he hated guns. The robbers had been in quite a fix, and it wasn’t like he couldn’t feel wanting to have the money. He’d been able to imagine easily how tough their situation was, and his brain had quickly grabbed onto trying to solve their problem, or the general problem of how to rob a bank, especially without hurting anybody. No real good solutions, turned out. Just, not a good idea at all.
That hadn’t been all of it, of course—he’d also been nervous, as he’d said to the one robber, maybe more than nervous. And while everything he’d said to them had been real, it also wasn’t all of the story. He wasn’t a fool—he knew that keeping their attention like that, getting friendly with them, might help him and Roy and the hostages somehow. It was weird how in a situation like that he coped by just talking. He hadn’t known he’d end up finding something to say that would convince them to give up, it had just worked out that way.
It wasn’t so different than talking with victims or their loved ones, making conversation, showing interest and asking questions, so that as a result they cooperated more later when something difficult had to be done. And while he’s seen the robbers’ dilemma, he hadn’t forgotten the poor man he was treating, or the hostages in the other room, and he’d felt grateful Roy was looking out for them. And some part of him had tracked the guns the robbers had been so carelessly waiving around the entire time, had been on edge about it until they and the hostages were out of there.
It had felt all kinds of unreal at the time, the whole reason he’d started with the breathing to try to relax, which had gotten the whole conversation started.
In that moment when one of them had pointed a gun right at him, after he’d gotten cross with them about messing with the med box, it had definitely not felt real.
It hit him, then, as Roy drove them closer to the station. That man could have shot him. Or Roy. It might be true that after thinking about it they didn’t want to risk the punishment for murder, but he knew that people didn’t always think about what they were doing under stress—they saw that all the time when they were trying to help people on runs. The robbers had injured a guard earlier that day, after all.
He felt his breathing get labored, saw small dots at the edge of his vision, and felt dizzy. No fancy technique was going to help him when it was this bad.
Roy was talking to him as he backed into the station, but Johnny couldn’t take it in. “…might not have intended it, but you probably saved our lives back there.” Pause. “Johnny?”
He looked up at Roy as though from a far distance, not a few feet away in the Squad. “Johnny? What’s wrong?”
“I—uh—I’m not sure.” He breathed in deeply, unsteadily, and tried to focus on Roy’s concerned eyes. “I—I think I really don’t like guns.”
