![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schizoauthoress_libraryTitle: A Shooty-Stealy
Author: D.L.SchizoAuthoress
Rating: PG
Spoilers: based around the establishing scene in "I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (Season 19, Episode 4)
Warnings: guns and violence
Prompt/Fill: none
Word Count: 1885
Summary: Bank day is a very dangerous day. Julio on the day that Dwight Diddlehopper robs the First Bank of Springfield.
Note: If you watch the sequence with the bank scenes, they're pretty inconsistent for showing the hostages. I've tried to logic out why it keeps changing.
A Shooty-Stealy
It was just supposed to be a normal day.
Julio had gone in to the First Bank of Springfield to manage his and Thad's investment portfolios. Thad in particular had a complex, diversified setup that required help from a banking professional. He was pleased to see that Janet was working today -- she was very good at explaining the ins and outs of possible changes to his stocks and bonds without making Julio feel stupid for asking questions. He'd been in the middle of greeting her when he heard the gunshots.
"Everyone down on the floor, now!" the man with the handgun barked. He had hair that was more grey than brown, he wore khakis and an orange 'Hawaiian' shirt, and had he not looked so crazed, Julio would have barely noticed him.
Julio hurried to comply, and so did the bearded old man by the coffee carafes. Janet crouched behind her desk. From what he could see of the other bank patrons, they all knelt or lay flat as ordered, except for the man who'd come in last.
The long-haired man in the brown suit struggled with his long florists' box as the shooter took out one of the security cameras with a bullet. Julio realized, with a sinking feeling, that the box contained a rifle.
"This is a robbery!" He backed toward the shooter. "Not a separate robbery; we're together!"
That awful old clown -- and honestly, who went around wearing greasepaint all day? -- looked up and apparently couldn't resist asking in a snide voice, "You mean, like a couple?"
"No!" said the shooter in the orange shirt, at the same time the man in the brown suit said,
"Yes!"
Julio felt the smallest twinge of sympathy for the second man, though not that much. They were still robbing the bank and willing to shoot people for it.
"Oh great," an old lady sneered. Julio thought he might have seen her around the Simpsons' house... one of Marge's Charity Chicks, or something. He couldn't remember her name. They hadn't spoken much. "We're being robbed by Johnny and Clyde."
Quite a few of the other hostages started to laugh. Julio marvelled at how damn invulnerable straight people always seemed to think themselves. He put his arms over his head, and silently cursed that hateful old woman -- she might have set them off. More gunshots rang out, and the woman cried out, but when he snuck a glance at her, she seemed unharmed.
One of the bank tellers, Mr. Moleman, slowly reached for the alarm. Unfortunately, the shooter in the orange shirt caught sight of the motion about the same time that Julio did, and barked, "Stay away from that button!"
However, shooting at it was exactly the wrong thing to do. The alarms went off anyway, as the bullet smashed the casing for the button. The man cursed.
And Julio thought, 'Oh God, I'm going to die.'
****
After they'd managed to deactivate the alarm bells -- the robber with the rifle had blasted one and torn down the other -- the pair of criminals ordered the people in the bank into two groups. Julio and several of the employees were huddled against Janet's desk, where the man in the orange shirt could keep his eye (and gun) on them. Mr. Moleman and the other teller were ordered out from behind the safety glass and lined up with the bank patrons, and the man in the brown suit was keeping his eye on them. Marge was at the far end of this group -- Julio could see her impressive blue beehive over the edge of the desk.
An electronic ringing sounded, and the man in the brown suit exclaimed, "She's got a cell phone! We didn't plan for this man! We didn't plan for this!" He yelled -- in rage, or maybe panic -- and started firing at random. People screamed and cringed and tried to take cover.
Julio heard a new voice crying out in agony, heard glass shattering... and he kept his face turned away.
"Oh, no. Now it's murder, man! It's murder!"
More glass shattered. When Julio dared to look up, the shooter in the orange shirt was standing alone... over the sprawled and bleeding body of a security guard.
The shooter took a slow breath, then another. And he turned to the others in the bank. "Get in the vault," he said, in a low dangerous voice.
As people hurried to get to their feet, Julio worried that there would be a panic, a rush for the secured enclave that held the safe deposit boxes. The shooter recognized this as well, and said harshly,
"One at a time, single file, move!"
****
Julio had not always lived in Springfield, and he was starting to think that rank incompetence was a common feature of its long-time residents. The robber shut the vault door, and the electronic lock automatically engaged. Julio, standing next to Marge and pressed up close to the bars because of how crowded the vault was, had an excellent view of the robber going through the door to the teller stations... and he soon had an excellent view of the robber throwing a fit.
"All these safes are locked!" He yelled, then demanded, "Which one of you employees has the master!"
A soft voice near the back of the vault spoke up. "I do..."
Julio suppressed the urge to sigh. That might just catch him a bullet. But he recognized the voice of Hans Moleman, and remembered that he and the old woman who'd been shot at were among the first into the vault.
More frustrated cursing from the robber as he stomped back to the barred door of the vault. Janet pushed through the crowd as he came closer, and she said,
"I'll tell you the code for the lock. The main safe has a fingerprint scanning pad, so you need to let Hans out to open that. He's the only one cleared to access it on this shift right now."
"All right, all right," the man in the orange shirt said impatiently. "Let's do this."
****
"Augh, dye pack!" the robber shrieked. "Man, that stings!"
He stumbled for a box of tissues on the stand provided for people to fill out their deposit slips, and somehow another dye pack went off in his face. Julio watched in confusion as Hans Moleman pushed a dummy teller into place at the teller station, ducking out of sight behind the counter as the robber stumbled back to the station.
"Dammit!" the robber wiped the blue dye out of his eyes, and caught sight of the dummy. "What are you lookin' at, huh??"
When he hit the dummy with the butt of his handgun, the dummy's top half burst in another wave of blue dye. Julio marveled at the strange security measures of his bank.
The robber groaned. "Is anyone else a dye pack? Tell me now, and I won't shoot you."
The bearded man with the cane raised his hand and said, "I..."
Whatever he was going to say was drowned out by a gunshot. Marge, Carl, and Lenny all flinched away from him. The old man rocked on his feet and clutched at his wounded shoulder.
"You said 'diabetic', right?" he gritted out.
The robber sighed, and pulled off his now-blue Hawaiian shirt. The white sleeveless undershirt underneath it had somehow gone unstained.
****
"It's not fair!" the old woman wailed, "I shouldn't die! I just came here to check the date!"
Julio didn't feel much sympathy for her, even as she started cry, but Marge clearly did. She held the old woman by the shoulders for a moment, trying to comfort her. Then she straightened up, steeling herself.
"Dwight, use your noodle," Marge said, addressing the robber. And only Marge would say it like that, Julio thought. She stepped closer, seeming to ignore the gun that Dwight was now aiming at her. "If you surrrender now, you're only looking at a few years in jail. I'll tell them you're a good guy!"
He trembled for a long moment, and said, "Marge, I can't go back to prison!" Dwight started to gesture with his hands, and Julio winced, noticing that his finger was still on the trigger. "I've got no wife, I've got no family... I've got nothing!"
In that moment, several red dots appeared on Dwight's chest. Julio was glad to finally see evidence of the police doing their damned jobs, even if he didn't relish watching another man die in front of him.
"If I give myself up, will you come visit me in the joint?"
Marge was taken aback by the question, and she started fiddling with the pearls on her necklace. Julio felt like he couldn't breathe. What if she said 'no'? This Dwight might shoot her, and they were at closer range than Dwight had been to his other shooting victim.
"Hey! If I can say yes to Chinese toys that kill kids, you can say yes to him," Krusty exclaimed.
Julio really hated that awful old clown.
****
As the SWAT team converged on the front door and grabbed Dwight, some of the other hostages approached the door. Julio hung back with the old man, as Dr. Hibbert finally took a look at his wounded arm.
"I can't believe you didn't do this sooner," he said to Dr. Hibbert.
"I didn't relish the prospect of being shot myself," Dr. Hibbert said tersely. "There was nothing I could do for that security guard. He was dead by the time he hit the ground. And Jasper here was keeping pressure on his own wound..."
He finished cutting away the sleeve of Jasper's jacket, and Julio took the scrap of bloodied fabric off his hands. Then Dr. Hibbert started on cutting off the sleeve of Jasper's shirt, above where the old man had a hand clamped over the sluggishly bleeding wound.
"Julio?"
Julio looked up, toward the glass front of the bank. Through the broken window, he could see his husband leaning over one of the wooden barriers in the police cordon.
"You can't go in there, sir," one of the cops said gruffly.
Carl Carlsson approached the two, and Julio could hear him explaining, "He's helping Dr. Hibbert with one of the old guys, the one who got shot. He's fine, though."
Julio saw Thad's shoulders sag as he sighed with relief, and then he turned his attention back to Jasper.
****
Dr. Hibbert escorted Jasper to the ambulance. Another cop was standing by the door, and watched as Julio got to his feet.
"Let's go," she said. And she escorted him out, a strong hand on his arm for support. By this time, they'd removed the body of the security guard. Julio still avoided looking at where the man had fallen, where his body had been shoved away from the doors by Dwight.
Thad was waiting, in the same spot that Julio had seen him last. Worry and fear was etched in every line of his face. And then he saw Julio, and his expression cleared into relief. Julio pulled away from the cop and rushed the last few steps to his husband. They hugged each other hard.
"Are you okay, honey?" Thad whispered in his ear.
Julio laughed, brief and bitter. "Not really. Can we go home?"
*-*-*-*-*
Continued in A Hurty-Healy
Author: D.L.SchizoAuthoress
Rating: PG
Spoilers: based around the establishing scene in "I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (Season 19, Episode 4)
Warnings: guns and violence
Prompt/Fill: none
Word Count: 1885
Summary: Bank day is a very dangerous day. Julio on the day that Dwight Diddlehopper robs the First Bank of Springfield.
Note: If you watch the sequence with the bank scenes, they're pretty inconsistent for showing the hostages. I've tried to logic out why it keeps changing.
A Shooty-Stealy
It was just supposed to be a normal day.
Julio had gone in to the First Bank of Springfield to manage his and Thad's investment portfolios. Thad in particular had a complex, diversified setup that required help from a banking professional. He was pleased to see that Janet was working today -- she was very good at explaining the ins and outs of possible changes to his stocks and bonds without making Julio feel stupid for asking questions. He'd been in the middle of greeting her when he heard the gunshots.
"Everyone down on the floor, now!" the man with the handgun barked. He had hair that was more grey than brown, he wore khakis and an orange 'Hawaiian' shirt, and had he not looked so crazed, Julio would have barely noticed him.
Julio hurried to comply, and so did the bearded old man by the coffee carafes. Janet crouched behind her desk. From what he could see of the other bank patrons, they all knelt or lay flat as ordered, except for the man who'd come in last.
The long-haired man in the brown suit struggled with his long florists' box as the shooter took out one of the security cameras with a bullet. Julio realized, with a sinking feeling, that the box contained a rifle.
"This is a robbery!" He backed toward the shooter. "Not a separate robbery; we're together!"
That awful old clown -- and honestly, who went around wearing greasepaint all day? -- looked up and apparently couldn't resist asking in a snide voice, "You mean, like a couple?"
"No!" said the shooter in the orange shirt, at the same time the man in the brown suit said,
"Yes!"
Julio felt the smallest twinge of sympathy for the second man, though not that much. They were still robbing the bank and willing to shoot people for it.
"Oh great," an old lady sneered. Julio thought he might have seen her around the Simpsons' house... one of Marge's Charity Chicks, or something. He couldn't remember her name. They hadn't spoken much. "We're being robbed by Johnny and Clyde."
Quite a few of the other hostages started to laugh. Julio marvelled at how damn invulnerable straight people always seemed to think themselves. He put his arms over his head, and silently cursed that hateful old woman -- she might have set them off. More gunshots rang out, and the woman cried out, but when he snuck a glance at her, she seemed unharmed.
One of the bank tellers, Mr. Moleman, slowly reached for the alarm. Unfortunately, the shooter in the orange shirt caught sight of the motion about the same time that Julio did, and barked, "Stay away from that button!"
However, shooting at it was exactly the wrong thing to do. The alarms went off anyway, as the bullet smashed the casing for the button. The man cursed.
And Julio thought, 'Oh God, I'm going to die.'
****
After they'd managed to deactivate the alarm bells -- the robber with the rifle had blasted one and torn down the other -- the pair of criminals ordered the people in the bank into two groups. Julio and several of the employees were huddled against Janet's desk, where the man in the orange shirt could keep his eye (and gun) on them. Mr. Moleman and the other teller were ordered out from behind the safety glass and lined up with the bank patrons, and the man in the brown suit was keeping his eye on them. Marge was at the far end of this group -- Julio could see her impressive blue beehive over the edge of the desk.
An electronic ringing sounded, and the man in the brown suit exclaimed, "She's got a cell phone! We didn't plan for this man! We didn't plan for this!" He yelled -- in rage, or maybe panic -- and started firing at random. People screamed and cringed and tried to take cover.
Julio heard a new voice crying out in agony, heard glass shattering... and he kept his face turned away.
"Oh, no. Now it's murder, man! It's murder!"
More glass shattered. When Julio dared to look up, the shooter in the orange shirt was standing alone... over the sprawled and bleeding body of a security guard.
The shooter took a slow breath, then another. And he turned to the others in the bank. "Get in the vault," he said, in a low dangerous voice.
As people hurried to get to their feet, Julio worried that there would be a panic, a rush for the secured enclave that held the safe deposit boxes. The shooter recognized this as well, and said harshly,
"One at a time, single file, move!"
****
Julio had not always lived in Springfield, and he was starting to think that rank incompetence was a common feature of its long-time residents. The robber shut the vault door, and the electronic lock automatically engaged. Julio, standing next to Marge and pressed up close to the bars because of how crowded the vault was, had an excellent view of the robber going through the door to the teller stations... and he soon had an excellent view of the robber throwing a fit.
"All these safes are locked!" He yelled, then demanded, "Which one of you employees has the master!"
A soft voice near the back of the vault spoke up. "I do..."
Julio suppressed the urge to sigh. That might just catch him a bullet. But he recognized the voice of Hans Moleman, and remembered that he and the old woman who'd been shot at were among the first into the vault.
More frustrated cursing from the robber as he stomped back to the barred door of the vault. Janet pushed through the crowd as he came closer, and she said,
"I'll tell you the code for the lock. The main safe has a fingerprint scanning pad, so you need to let Hans out to open that. He's the only one cleared to access it on this shift right now."
"All right, all right," the man in the orange shirt said impatiently. "Let's do this."
****
"Augh, dye pack!" the robber shrieked. "Man, that stings!"
He stumbled for a box of tissues on the stand provided for people to fill out their deposit slips, and somehow another dye pack went off in his face. Julio watched in confusion as Hans Moleman pushed a dummy teller into place at the teller station, ducking out of sight behind the counter as the robber stumbled back to the station.
"Dammit!" the robber wiped the blue dye out of his eyes, and caught sight of the dummy. "What are you lookin' at, huh??"
When he hit the dummy with the butt of his handgun, the dummy's top half burst in another wave of blue dye. Julio marveled at the strange security measures of his bank.
The robber groaned. "Is anyone else a dye pack? Tell me now, and I won't shoot you."
The bearded man with the cane raised his hand and said, "I..."
Whatever he was going to say was drowned out by a gunshot. Marge, Carl, and Lenny all flinched away from him. The old man rocked on his feet and clutched at his wounded shoulder.
"You said 'diabetic', right?" he gritted out.
The robber sighed, and pulled off his now-blue Hawaiian shirt. The white sleeveless undershirt underneath it had somehow gone unstained.
****
"It's not fair!" the old woman wailed, "I shouldn't die! I just came here to check the date!"
Julio didn't feel much sympathy for her, even as she started cry, but Marge clearly did. She held the old woman by the shoulders for a moment, trying to comfort her. Then she straightened up, steeling herself.
"Dwight, use your noodle," Marge said, addressing the robber. And only Marge would say it like that, Julio thought. She stepped closer, seeming to ignore the gun that Dwight was now aiming at her. "If you surrrender now, you're only looking at a few years in jail. I'll tell them you're a good guy!"
He trembled for a long moment, and said, "Marge, I can't go back to prison!" Dwight started to gesture with his hands, and Julio winced, noticing that his finger was still on the trigger. "I've got no wife, I've got no family... I've got nothing!"
In that moment, several red dots appeared on Dwight's chest. Julio was glad to finally see evidence of the police doing their damned jobs, even if he didn't relish watching another man die in front of him.
"If I give myself up, will you come visit me in the joint?"
Marge was taken aback by the question, and she started fiddling with the pearls on her necklace. Julio felt like he couldn't breathe. What if she said 'no'? This Dwight might shoot her, and they were at closer range than Dwight had been to his other shooting victim.
"Hey! If I can say yes to Chinese toys that kill kids, you can say yes to him," Krusty exclaimed.
Julio really hated that awful old clown.
****
As the SWAT team converged on the front door and grabbed Dwight, some of the other hostages approached the door. Julio hung back with the old man, as Dr. Hibbert finally took a look at his wounded arm.
"I can't believe you didn't do this sooner," he said to Dr. Hibbert.
"I didn't relish the prospect of being shot myself," Dr. Hibbert said tersely. "There was nothing I could do for that security guard. He was dead by the time he hit the ground. And Jasper here was keeping pressure on his own wound..."
He finished cutting away the sleeve of Jasper's jacket, and Julio took the scrap of bloodied fabric off his hands. Then Dr. Hibbert started on cutting off the sleeve of Jasper's shirt, above where the old man had a hand clamped over the sluggishly bleeding wound.
"Julio?"
Julio looked up, toward the glass front of the bank. Through the broken window, he could see his husband leaning over one of the wooden barriers in the police cordon.
"You can't go in there, sir," one of the cops said gruffly.
Carl Carlsson approached the two, and Julio could hear him explaining, "He's helping Dr. Hibbert with one of the old guys, the one who got shot. He's fine, though."
Julio saw Thad's shoulders sag as he sighed with relief, and then he turned his attention back to Jasper.
****
Dr. Hibbert escorted Jasper to the ambulance. Another cop was standing by the door, and watched as Julio got to his feet.
"Let's go," she said. And she escorted him out, a strong hand on his arm for support. By this time, they'd removed the body of the security guard. Julio still avoided looking at where the man had fallen, where his body had been shoved away from the doors by Dwight.
Thad was waiting, in the same spot that Julio had seen him last. Worry and fear was etched in every line of his face. And then he saw Julio, and his expression cleared into relief. Julio pulled away from the cop and rushed the last few steps to his husband. They hugged each other hard.
"Are you okay, honey?" Thad whispered in his ear.
Julio laughed, brief and bitter. "Not really. Can we go home?"
*-*-*-*-*
Continued in A Hurty-Healy
