#tho i mean ideally i just wouldn’t kill aisha but what do i know!🙄

[whoredmode]

i have a meeting i have to get to in like less than 30 minutes but first i’m gonna talk about the sr2 christmas story idea i had on my morning run

it’s several months after the end of sr2. dane vogel is dead, dex escaped, and eric gryphon is trying to piece things back together within ultor. the story opens at night on christmas eve. everyone’s kinda free to do whatever; obviously some saints are celebrating at the bases, some went home, others are just out and about. pierce is with his family, shaundi decided to spend this christmas with laura and tobias and their family, and anteros is spending the holiday at troy’s place. their relationship is kinda(?) more official atp. who knows. anyway so anteros and troy are making out on the couch, having had a lot to drink (spiked eggnog so it’s festive) and they were watching christmas specials but lost interest pretty fast. suddenly troy’s phone rings and he goes to answer despite anteros telling him to ignore it. he looks back at anteros, concerned after hearing what the call was about.

cut to johnny in the stilwater pd holding cell. a few hours earlier johnny had been in a bar by himself, trying to ignore all the christmas shit, drowning his sorrows in some cheap beer. several drinks in and some drunk guy started bothering him, recognizing him as johnny gat. the guy keeps harassing him, and even though johnny thought he was doing fine just ignoring him, finally the drunk remarks that johnny looks pathetic, drinking alone in a bar for the holidays since he doesn’t have a wife to spend it with—not anymore. johnny sees red. he breaks his bottle over the guy’s head and begins to smash his head into the bar repeatedly, finally pinning him down and punching him, beating him to death. an off duty cop smashes a bottle across johnny’s head, knocking him unconscious and taking him to the station.

cut back to johnny in the holding cell. he’s asleep on the bench. anteros and troy are just staring at him for a minute before anteros goes in to try to wake him up/carry him out. troy, using his authority, told the department to just let him go. they hesitantly do. anteros wakes up johnny telling him they gotta go (“johnny, get up, c’mon man let’s go home.” “they’re letting me out already?” “yeah, you’re lucky i’m sleeping with the chief.” “heh, that’s pretty funny.” “…..yeah. hilarious. now let’s go.”)

anteros takes him back to his apartment. they briefly consider just going back to troy’s place bc it was closer but….probably better if they didn’t. anteros lays johnny on his bed and waits a minute before asking what happened. johnny doesn’t feel like talking about it, but anteros can tell something’s very wrong.

this is the first christmas johnny’s had to spend without aisha. he’d never been huge on the holidays, but aisha loved it. and she made him learn to love it. he can’t bring himself to go back to their house. it’s empty and undecorated (what would she think?). in fact, he can’t bring himself to do anything that reminds him of her. not since she died. he believes if he just keeps his mind off her, that things will get better, but lately he fears that he’s just ignoring her. and that makes him feel worse. he’s stuck between two worlds; he wants to think about her, and he does, but sooner or later her death flashes in his mind and he’s in a cold sweat and doesn’t know what to do. he misses her. he misses her so goddamn much. he should’ve saved her. why couldn’t he have saved her?

it’s the first time anteros has seen johnny cry. he never thought he was capable of it, in all honesty. he seemed larger than life, a man of legend, but here he was, lying on his bed desperately rubbing the tears out of his eyes.

he just never thought this first christmas would be so hard. he thought he was doing well, but that guy in the bar sent him over the edge. his knuckles are still covered in dried blood. anteros tells him that maybe the first step is to just try to have a nice christmas. if it was her favorite holiday, maybe the least they can do is try to enjoy themselves. the holiday isn’t over yet, they still have an hour or so. she wouldn’t want to see him get shitfaced at some bar; she’d want to see him have fun with people he cared about. if he’s up for it, they just lit up a big tree outside the phillips building a few hours ago. should be pretty. johnny asks if they can set the tree on fire. anteros smiles.