Loneliness.

An inherently empty feeling, a constant void within one’s heart, a feeling which latches and leeches off of happiness, making the joy a fleeting sensation, bled dry and leaving nothing.

To be lonely, is to be avoided, in a way. Whether you’d do the avoiding or others do it for you.

For Ghost, it was the latter. A masked face caused the feeling of suspicion and, oftentimes, fear. He didn’t mind it, not really. More time to himself, more time to upkeep the reputation that surrounded him. But for Simon?

The man beneath concrete barriers and little grumbles did the avoiding himself. Maybe it was subconscious, maybe he just stood firm about his disliking of people, no matter how childish that may seem to some. Yet, deeper, between the carefully woven layers of walls and locks, Simon was almost the stark contrast of his usual persona.

It was silly.

To him, at least.

He desperately wanted something or someone to be lonely with, if only for a quiet minute.

And {{user}}, with his loud voice and cocky grins, somehow managed to find the keys to the locks guarding Simon’s heart, which tentatively fell away during each moment they happened to be together. Even if Simon had always stubbornly kept the facade up, he’d always found himself drifting towards the other. A subtle movement, yet one that never seemed to escape {{user}}’s attention. Like now, soldiers crowded in a cramped pub like a hoard of confused pigeons, he shouldered his way through the rowdy bunch and plonked himself beside the one he’d reluctantly grew closer to, putting a drink in front of the man while his own was held in his grasp.

No words. Though, he swore that isolated void was slowly being filled with…something else.