Jinglekill
Blair gazed at the carnage in something between horror and... awe.
"What did you do?"
Ellison shrugged, putting a brave and determinedly casual face on it. "Look Chief, the law is the law -"
"What law?"
"City ordinance against noise pollution... it wouldn't shut up, it was driving me nuts, okay?"
"Driving you... oh man, Mrs Donatello-Down-the-Road is going to have a fit when she finds out."
"So don't tell her."
Blair turned big, round eyes on him. "You think we can keep this secret? Jim, you shot it, man!"
"She shouldn't have let it get so loud, then."
"It wasn't! And even if it was, oh oversensitive Sentinel, you shot it six times!"
Okay, so four would probably have been enough.
"What are you going to tell the uniformed cops, that you thought it was a burglar, that you thought it was offering resistance or hiding a weapon?" Blair was on a roll, and rolled straight over anything Jim might have said. "Like what, plastic candy canes? Man, the throwback in you shouldn't be allowed to carry a gun at this time of year, but how do we explain this?"
Ellison didn't think pointing out who was the team obfuscator here was a good idea. "Don't see why we have to tell - and do you have to bring up the throwback thing again?"
"Jim, you shot her Singing Christmas Tree!"
"Yeah, but -"
"Six times, man!"
"Yeah, but -" Jim sighed. It has seemed like a good idea to the Sentinel in his brain at the time - but claiming it was a Sentinel thing was going to get him in a heap of trouble with his Captain (even if Simon couldn't stand Jingle Bells muzak either), and probably a heap of tests on heightened reactions to every muzak version of every cheesy carol that Sandburg could find before he'd agree to file the whole thing under "need to know, and no one needs to know"...
But hell, both the Sentinel and the cop still thought the peace and quiet were... well, worth the overkill.
-the end-