Day 14: Write a scene where the character cries.

"Jax! Did--did you just...shoot that guy?" Steph asked incredulously, staring in disbelief at the guy who was now clutching his shoulder as red liquid gushed from it.

"Considering he's bleeding and you saw me do it, uh, yeah I did," I replied with a sigh, rolling my eyes. Her bottom lip was trembling as she just gazed at the guy, and I let out a sigh, knowing that I shouldn't have brought her.

"He's going to--to die!" she exclaimed, about to run over to the injured dude, but Bradley made sure to wrap a steady arm around her waist, ensuring that she didn't go anywhere.

"Uh, bro," Bradley began, struggling with the stubborn girl in his grasp, "she's your girlfriend, can you, like, take her or whatever?"

I let out an aggravated stream of air, and then captured Steph's hand in mine, holding onto it with a death grip. There was no way this chick was ruining everything and running away. "Babe, will you please, like, stop? He'll be fine. It's just a bullet."

"Do you hear yourself? 'It's just a bullet!'" she micked my voice, making it higher than it actually was. "Jax, he could die!"

"He's not going to die," Bradley told her, sending an encouraging thumbs up to the current victim with a hole in his shoulder. The dude looked like he was about to pass out, so I'd probably let Steph call 911 once this deal was over.

"Yes, he is!" she persisted. "Help him!"

"Babe, we shot him for a reason," I said as calmly as I could. "If we wanted to help him, then he wouldn't have gotten shot in the first place."

"I want to go home," she suddenly declared, crossing her arms over her chest. "Jax, I don't like this! I don't need a police record! I want to get into a good grad school--become a teacher! I'm going to die!"

"Steph," I groaned, "you were the one who said that you wanted to see what I did for a living, and I warned you that you weren't going to like it. You're staying until this is over."

"I didn't know it was going to be anything illegal!" she retorted back, her entire body still shaking with adrenalin.

"Jax! Bradley! Long time no see!" someone else suddenly greeted. My head snapped up in the direction of the voice as I noticed a figure standing by the entrance of the warehouse. He was dressed in a casual bussiness suit, which felt fitting for the occasion, for we were preforming a bussiness deal, after all. It wasn't exactly as professional and high-profile as buying stocks or hedgefunds, but it was definitely a job. The man had two large briefcases in his hands, and didn't even spare a second glance at the Dude Who Got Shot. He walked over to us, his eyes instantly moving towards Steph, eyeing her suspiciously. "Who's that?"

"Steph," she answered for herself, "I'm Jax's girlfriend."

The man turned to Bradley, mutely asking for elaboration on the matter. "Jax is currently whipped, she asked to see him in action, so here she is. She won't say anything," Bradley said quickly with that nonchalance about him that he always seemed to possess.

"And if she does?" he pressed.

"We'll shoot her," Bradley said, causing Steph's eyes to buldge out in horror. He looked over to her sheepishly as she clutched onto my hand as hard as she could. "Ha. Kidding!"

"That wasn't funny," Steph said with a pout.

"Children, children!" The man's voice echoed throughout the large storage place as he let out a low laugh. "Settle down, please! Now, Jax, do you have the latest shipment?"

"Of course," I said, stilling holding Steph's hand as I walked over to the small table behind me. I opened up the crate that had been labeled "FRAGILE" in large red block letters, and then peered within, glad that nothing had been misplaced. The man came over to where I was, and nodded his head as he looked over the cargo with a thoughtful eye. 

"Wait--that's what you do?" Steph said in shock, also looking into the contents of the box. "You sell freaking guns?!" 

"Illegally, of course," Bradley added less than helpfully.

"So, you're, like, an illegal arms dealer like they have on NCIS or whatever?" she assessed, calmer than I had anticipated.

"Actually, I am an illegal arms dealer," I corrected, subtracting the added "like" from her analysis.

"Oh! Thank goodness it's not drugs! Geez, Jax! You were scaring me there for a minute! I thought that you were, like, a drug dealer or something!" she laughed, taking it a lot better than I thought she would. Normally, I'd just lie to the girls that I dated, telling them that I was a waiter or something boring like that. With Steph, though, there was something different. I liked her, and figured that since we had already been together for over two months, telling her the truth couldn't hurt. Well, actually, it could hurt, but whatever.

"Sometimes we help smuggle drugs, actually," Bradley said, making me want to smack him.

"Can I just see my guns now?" the man said with a dull tone, not amused in the slightest by our witty banter.

"Yeah, sorry," I apologized, momentarily losing contact with Steph as I picked up one of the guns with both hands. I held it cautiously, about to hand it off to the man so that he could inspect it, when I did probably the dumbest thing a guy in my profession could ever do: I pulled the freaking trigger.

It was a complete accident--it really was. I assumed that it wasn't loaded, but as a nice little bullet poked its way into the palm of my hand, I learned that I was sadly mistaken. I had freaking shot myself. My hand was bleeding, and it hurt so freaking much. I let out a stream of colorful words, dropped the gun (thankfully it didn't discharge once again), and then held my hand. Shit.

Then, as if shooting myself in the hand wasn't bad enough, it got worse. After the swearing came the crying. I wasn't trying to cry. Legit, I was a man. Men weren't supposed to cry. And yet, here I was, in the middle of an arms deal with my girlfriend, partner/best friend, and a client, and I was crying like a baby. It just killed so freaking much that I couldn't stop the onslaught of tears that erupted from my eyes. I was such a freaking idiot.

"Jax! Are you okay?" Steph was the first to speak.

"I shot my freaking hand, do you think I'm okay?" I snapped back, the pain seering through my entire body though it was just a flesh wound.

"Well, at least you know how that guy over there feels now!" she said with an edge to her tone that I couldn't deal with right now.

"Shit. Jax, what do you need?" Bradley finally decided to take intiative.

"Gauze," I mumbled, "get me gauze."

He sent me a salute, and then jogged away, leaving me with Steph and the customer. I was in the middle of a major sell, so just because there were freaking tears streaming down my face and I had just gotten shot (well, shot myself), didn't mean shit. "So, uh, at least we know the gun works, right?" I tried to joke.

"It's a nice machine," the man said, unfazed by my incident. "Five hundred like we discussed?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "Cash."

"And as for the other gun?" 

"Steph, can you carefully go grab the really big one in the box?" I requested, biting my tongue as the blood poured from my hand.

Hesitantly she nodded, and extracted the "really big one" from within the container, carrying it with more caution than I had. "This one?" she questioned.

"Yep," I said with a jagged intake of air.

"Wow," the man remarked, "it's a beauty. Two thousand?" I nodded. He handed Steph one of his briefcases that undoubtedly contained the required amount, and she tentatively accepted it, watching the transaction with eager eyes. "It's all in there. Pleasure doing bussiness with you, Jax. I'll see you in two weeks."

"Yeah, see ya," I replied. He bent down to pick up the gun I had shot myself with and dropped, in addition to the really big one, and put them in his other breifcase--which had been empty--and then just strolled out of the warehouse like nothing had happened.

"I got the gauze!" Bradley proudly announced, rushing back over to us with a first aid kit in his possession. He ripped out a roll of thin white stuff, and threw it to me. As I had done so many times before (geez, that sentence was screwed up--like, I had only gotten shot a few times), I managed to pull the small bullet out of my hand in a single take, aware that shrapnel would still be left. Then, I wrapped the gauze around my hand a few times, covering the area of the bullet hole. I bit the edge off with my teeth, and then somehow tied it up with the use of only one hand. Thankfully, I hadn't shot my dominant hand, so I was all good. Like, who actually used both hands, anyways?

"Jax," Steph said slowly.

"What?" I barked, making her flinch.

"You're still crying," she pointed out.

"Ha. Yeah, she's right, dude," Bradley laughed. "So, I'm assuming everything went well?"

"Minus me getting shot, yeah," I told him with a sarcastic coating to my words.

"You should really be more careful, Jax," he scolded with a mocking snort.

"So, uh, is this usually how thing go down at your work?" Steph asked, staring at my hand--the injured one, obviously.

"Yep. Just another regular day in the office," I smirked with a shake of my head. "Except normally, I don't shoot myself."