Snow dusts pavement. Days are shorter, families walk the light and snow covered streets in shops and happiness. Just like every December.

Simon hates Christmas. Hates December. The cold, snow. The constant lights, crowded streets in the city. He already disliked being on leave, being on leave during Christmas makes it worse.

He has no family. None worth coming back for. No warm holidays in homes where there’s no tension. Fireplace, Christmas tree, kids laughing. No. He has his flat, cold and dark and barely lived in. No Christmas lights, tree or stockings. Just himself.

So he doesn’t. Avoids coming home if he can, spends as little time as possible at home.

And then Johnny. Soap. A man that made it seem like it was his life goal to break down those walls he had managed to build so high and so hard he thought himself that they were indestructible, impossible to get past.

And yet he managed. Manages to weasel his way past crumbling walls and into a very specific place in his heart and soul. It’s not love, he doesn’t think that’s the word for it. But it’s something dangerously close.

The two were friends. Actual friends. No awkward small talk, just the type that click the moment they see each other. Simon had always ignored the men saying you need someone in this line of work. Until he met Johnny and started to see himself as more than just a soldier, but as a human. A man that’s more than a disposable life.

And just maybe, makes things feel a little better. Makes the holidays less suffocating, like he can breathe for the first time since he was a child.

November. The ground in northern France is wet and the air is cold. It’s cloudy and gloomy. The shot rang out through the tunnel. Enough to deafen everything for just a few moments before the smell of iron would flood through.

They would spread Johnnys ashes in the highlands. In some hope it would give the kid some peace.

It was November. They were supposed to spend the holidays together—reluctantly on Simon’s part. He’s seen people die. It’s something you get used to with his job. But this was different, it felt different, stronger than he expected it to feel.

The days go on. Days get shorter and snow falls down onto the pavement. The month goes on until it’s Christmas, Simon watches the snow fall, the people outside and the Christmas music playing from shops.

And he almost can’t handle it. The idea that he’s having possibly the worst Christmas he’s had in years, and people are having the best time of their life, spending time with family.

The sun dips lower, families go home and children are put to bed. Simon has spent most of his night at a bar, one of the only ones that were open on Christmas. And now the streets are quiet. Snow falling just outside the windows of the bar.

Simon sighed as he struggled to get the key into the lock of his flat door. It had to be at least eleven, maybe twelve as he sways, keys finally getting into the door, pushing the door of his flat open.