hurt someone, save someone
Title: hurt someone, save someone
Author: vampire_gherkin
Character(s): Timothy McGee, mentions of Abigail Sciuto
Pairing(s): mentions of Abby/Tim
Genre(s): Gen/Het, Episode tag (3x10 Probie)
Word Count: 688
Prompt: firearm (ncisdaily, March 10th)
Author Note(s): English is not my mother tongue, therefore I apologize for any mistakes and welcome you to correct me. Apart from that this is not beta’d.
Disclaimer: NCIS, NCIS:Los Angeles and all characters and references therein are not owned by this community or authors in use of such. No infringement of any rights is intended.
Summary: Tim has elaborated his opinion about firearms throughout his whole life.
hurt someone, save someone
When he was younger it had been fun to play with the fake ones and dangerous to play with the real ones. Now it was still dangerous, of course, but in general he had a whole new attitude towards it.
As a child it had been fun to play cowboy and shoot the bad guys, now it was dead serious. Literally.
As a child he had only thought of the fake ones, he had played with them and after wanting to touch his father’s gun once he had learned to forget about that soon. He didn’t think of the threat such a weapon could be, after his father had told him not to touch them for his own good he had just learned to accept that. His young mind didn’t connect the fake shooting of his toys to any real damage that could be done by proper firearms.
When he grew older his sense for this danger increased. He started to really understand why his parents didn’t want him to touch his father’s weapons, or any weapons at all for that matter. His parent tried to teach him about the dangers emanating from any kind of weapon if misused, however he always wondered why somebody would want to use a weapon in the first place.
It took him a while until he understood there were two main reasons for that, both as different as day and night. Either to protect something, mostly oneself, or to threaten someone. It was easy for him to learn which of both was appropriate and which was not.
Now he had learned this important lesson he knew he had to run if someone pointed a gun at him. But he also knew grabbing a knife and stabbing a burglar would probably save him from getting kidnapped.
This knowledge about weapons made his feelings about them very ambiguous, but it also considerably shaped his sense of justice very early in his life. It was wrong to threaten someone and it was wrong to hurt someone, but it was not wrong to hurt someone in order to save yourself if he threatened you.
Now that he was grown up his attitude towards weapons, especially firearms, had changed again. It had been “hurt someone, save someone” for a long time, he had been hurt or threatened many times, but he had also saved himself and others numerous times. It was the moment he had hurt someone in order to save himself who had not threatened him that made him think.
He knew it was not clear whether his shots had killed that guy, but he felt guilty nonetheless. It was the feeling of hurting somebody who did not try to cause him any harm that troubled him. The man probably didn’t even hold a gun and yet he had to die because he, Timothy McGee, felt threatened and had the urge to save and defend himself. Save himself from a defenceless man. A defenceless man that didn’t do him any harm.
Sometimes he wondered whether it was really the wish to survive or whether he had just wanted to do a good job and arrest some bad guys. It saddened him it could be the latter, but it didn’t built him up it could be the first either. To him it was just an innocent man that probably died because of his weapon. His weapon that was supposed to protect him. His weapon that was supposed to protect many people.
No, it was not always “hurt someone, save someone”. Sometimes it was just an innocent life being at the wrong place at the wrong time getting into somebody’s way. Sometimes it was just an uninvolved bystander having to give his life because of something that wasn’t hurt and wasn’t save someone. Sometimes it was just the death of a person you didn’t know and didn’t want to kill, but he was dead anyway. Sometimes it just caused a damage where there was no threat intended.
Yes, his opinion about firearms had definitely changed. And not even Abby’s love and support could help him deal with that.
Author: vampire_gherkin
Character(s): Timothy McGee, mentions of Abigail Sciuto
Pairing(s): mentions of Abby/Tim
Genre(s): Gen/Het, Episode tag (3x10 Probie)
Word Count: 688
Prompt: firearm (ncisdaily, March 10th)
Author Note(s): English is not my mother tongue, therefore I apologize for any mistakes and welcome you to correct me. Apart from that this is not beta’d.
Disclaimer: NCIS, NCIS:Los Angeles and all characters and references therein are not owned by this community or authors in use of such. No infringement of any rights is intended.
Summary: Tim has elaborated his opinion about firearms throughout his whole life.
hurt someone, save someone
When he was younger it had been fun to play with the fake ones and dangerous to play with the real ones. Now it was still dangerous, of course, but in general he had a whole new attitude towards it.
As a child it had been fun to play cowboy and shoot the bad guys, now it was dead serious. Literally.
As a child he had only thought of the fake ones, he had played with them and after wanting to touch his father’s gun once he had learned to forget about that soon. He didn’t think of the threat such a weapon could be, after his father had told him not to touch them for his own good he had just learned to accept that. His young mind didn’t connect the fake shooting of his toys to any real damage that could be done by proper firearms.
When he grew older his sense for this danger increased. He started to really understand why his parents didn’t want him to touch his father’s weapons, or any weapons at all for that matter. His parent tried to teach him about the dangers emanating from any kind of weapon if misused, however he always wondered why somebody would want to use a weapon in the first place.
It took him a while until he understood there were two main reasons for that, both as different as day and night. Either to protect something, mostly oneself, or to threaten someone. It was easy for him to learn which of both was appropriate and which was not.
Now he had learned this important lesson he knew he had to run if someone pointed a gun at him. But he also knew grabbing a knife and stabbing a burglar would probably save him from getting kidnapped.
This knowledge about weapons made his feelings about them very ambiguous, but it also considerably shaped his sense of justice very early in his life. It was wrong to threaten someone and it was wrong to hurt someone, but it was not wrong to hurt someone in order to save yourself if he threatened you.
Now that he was grown up his attitude towards weapons, especially firearms, had changed again. It had been “hurt someone, save someone” for a long time, he had been hurt or threatened many times, but he had also saved himself and others numerous times. It was the moment he had hurt someone in order to save himself who had not threatened him that made him think.
He knew it was not clear whether his shots had killed that guy, but he felt guilty nonetheless. It was the feeling of hurting somebody who did not try to cause him any harm that troubled him. The man probably didn’t even hold a gun and yet he had to die because he, Timothy McGee, felt threatened and had the urge to save and defend himself. Save himself from a defenceless man. A defenceless man that didn’t do him any harm.
Sometimes he wondered whether it was really the wish to survive or whether he had just wanted to do a good job and arrest some bad guys. It saddened him it could be the latter, but it didn’t built him up it could be the first either. To him it was just an innocent man that probably died because of his weapon. His weapon that was supposed to protect him. His weapon that was supposed to protect many people.
No, it was not always “hurt someone, save someone”. Sometimes it was just an innocent life being at the wrong place at the wrong time getting into somebody’s way. Sometimes it was just an uninvolved bystander having to give his life because of something that wasn’t hurt and wasn’t save someone. Sometimes it was just the death of a person you didn’t know and didn’t want to kill, but he was dead anyway. Sometimes it just caused a damage where there was no threat intended.
Yes, his opinion about firearms had definitely changed. And not even Abby’s love and support could help him deal with that.