#I know the deaths are a part of johnny and boss paying for their hubris and rash decision making and shit but fuck man

[izzy-b-hands]

I played Bleeding Out tonight, so naturally I’m having Boss/Gat/Aisha thoughts and wound up writing another ‘Eesh has died, but Johnny is out of the hospital now and back home with Boss, and no one is equipped for this emotional upheaval but it’s here all the same’ thing.

Using one of my more recent Bosses, Ellis. If you’ve happened upon any of my SR stuff from the past year or so, you’ve probably read something with him in it already kladsfldjsa

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“Thought we weren’t doing rings,” Ellis remarks, silver band in hand.

“Yeah,” Johnny mutters. “Well. I bought us rings. Wear it or don’t.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Johnny won’t look at him, and the third ring sits between them on the coffee table.

“Gonna give it to the funeral home?”

“Not sure yet. She didn’t get to wear it, so what would be the point in keeping it to wear myself, right?” Johnny asks. A hand worries at the bandages under his shirt.

“Don’t fuck with that.”

“It itches,” Johnny grumps. “I survived being fucking vivisected damn near, if I want to itch the fucking thing-”

“I don’t want you in the hospital again,” Ellis interrupts as gently as he can. “That’s all I meant.”

“Do you think she’d want it?”

“To be put on her in the coffin?”

“At all,” Johnny’s eyes are stuck to the ring.

“You know she would have said yes. You’d talked about it, and we’d worked out how it would work with me-”

“Should have just gotten two.”

“Would it help if I do it?” Ellis asks. “You tell me if you want it at the funeral home, and I’ll take it there. If you want a chain for it so you can wear it like that, we’ll do that.”

He doesn’t expect Johnny to move and join him on the couch, or to lay down and set his head in his lap.

But he plays with Johnny’s hair, and rubs his back. “Take the night and think on it. They said we could bring anything we wanted to go in it damn near up until the burial itself.”

“Think they could put me in there?”

“Don’t fucking say that.”

“You blame me for wanting it?”

“No. Just don’t like hearing it, since I damn near had to bury you with this,” Ellis replies, hand lingering down lower, at the bump of the bandages under Johnny’s shirt.

“Nah.”

“Yeah, I fucking did,” Ellis insists. “You didn’t have to sit there and watch yourself nearly bleed out while that fucking asshole-”

“Trent did his best,” Johnny sits up slowly and wraps an arm around him. “His route, I’m told was-”

“Bad. He’s banned from driving right now, as a result,” Ellis sighs. “Because who the fuck thinks, ‘oh, we need the hospital immediately, but we’re being followed by rival gang members, let’s fucking do a jump from the road to the roof of a building below it, and-”

“I’m okay,” Johnny interrupts. “I’m breathing. He did fine.”

“Any room in that coffin for me too?”

“We’ll have to ask. Eesh would be pissed though.”

“At having to share, or us giving up?”

“Maybe a little bit of both,” Johnny muses. “It’s not a big coffin, so maybe the sharing. That’s why she had us buy that new mattress-”

“Because we either replace it with a bigger one, or Ellis is gonna keep falling out of bed,” Ellis quotes. “She was right. It is really nice, not falling out of the bed because it’s too small. Kind of too big now, isn’t it?”

Johnny peers around the house, and his voice catches in his throat. “Would you hate it if we went to your place near the hideout, maybe?”

“No,” Ellis will never say it aloud to Johnny, but every day and night they’ve spent in Aisha’s place, what had been their place, all three of them...

He sees it. Over and fucking over again.

The chair she was tied to and her body limp in it, and the blood on the walls, and the flowers cut and tossed to the floor, and her head-

“Boss?”

“Should we call Pierce or Shaundi to come get us?” Ellis asks.

“I don’t think I can handle any questions,” Johnny says. “If Carlos was still here-”

“He’d pick us up and not say a single fucking word if we asked him not to,” Ellis gives up and buries his face into Johnny’s neck. “I don’t wanna undo all the work we’ve done. But if I could have two things, just two-”

“I know. We don’t get that though. But we can get revenge.”

“Maybe some sleep first?”

“Never thought I’d hear you say that,” Johnny chuckles, but there’s a bitter note in it. “Have you been sleeping at all?”

“You know I haven’t. I keep coming down here at night,” Ellis murmurs against Johnny’s skin, just loud enough to be audible. “Because it feels like she’ll be down here. And I’ll untie her, and she’ll shout at us for fucking up, and then she’ll come upstairs to bed.”

They wind up taking the train, where they stay until the sun rises, sleeping as the cars follow their endless loop around the city.

#text post #long post #not to be overly emotional abt video games but yes I do get teary eyed and or cry every time I watch Aisha die bc like. plot wise I get why #but from a I love her and wish she could have been in every single game somehow point of view like. why #I know the deaths are a part of johnny and boss paying for their hubris and rash decision making and shit but fuck man #they don't show that much but that's even worse it's fucking brutal and when you play the game more than once you Know when it's coming #but it still fucking rips my heart out of my chest and I hurt for Johnny so much #ddk fucking. nails that dialogue as the shitty Saint npc drives to the hospital and he didn't have to Do That but he did and it's so good #but it tears me apart bc he keeps telling her how sorry he is and that he's coming and he's dying but his only thought is Eesh #I'm done and maybe I should pop the game back open since I'm not that tired anyway rn lmao