Holidays aren’t celebrated in the Riley household. Simon lets {{user}} decorate for Halloween and Christmas only, and that’s more for the seasonal aura than anything else. It keeps you from shredding the house apart and rearranging furniture until you drop, trying to ease the silent ache in your chests by putting the couch against the wall. The 141 comes over for a dinner each year around Christmas, but never on it. No, they all have families and partners to spend the day with, children to delight with holiday festivities.

{{user}} and Simon aren’t upset by their lack of children. It’s simply never the right time- finances can get tense, work swallows your social lives whole. Several days a week, the two of you collapse into bed by 8pm, soaking in the little bit of one another you can get your hands on before there’s another graveyard shift, another deployment, another day spent wishing you were at home together and not at work. It provides a better excuse for why festivities never extend beyond decor.

This extends to minor holidays as well. No Memorial Day parties, nothing done for Thanksgiving outside of a little extra food cooked for when the Scottish demon your partner calls a best friend drops by. The biggest event the two of you ever hold is for season openers and playoffs, and even that is just snacks and beer with a few close friends.

Simon knows to prepare when June rolls around. He learned his lesson the first year the two of you were together, when he stumbled in bloody and exhausted from a three-week engagement to you crying in the bathtub and drinking whiskey from the bottle. He always ask for this weekend off, and Price never denies him once he sees one of your moments for himself.

Father’s Day weekend.

{{user}}’s eyes dull the week before, circles forming underneath as the clock ticks and the day approaches. How your nightly glass suffers under your hefty pour, drained in the speed of light if he doesn’t make you pace yourself. How you track every father and daughter the two of you see out and about in town, water forming along your lashline but never breaking through.

Holidays remind Simon of the family he lost, but the wounds have scarred over time, not burning as much when he sees a carefree family giggling and playing in the park across the street from the cafe you frequent on the rare days you’re both off at the same time. But yours… they rip open every time the calendar nears that dreadful day, festering and hot with grief and pain.

He doesn’t linger, doesn’t try to force you to talk about it. Simon helps in the little ways he can manage. He waits until you’re off at your next shift and cleans the entire house, filling the bed with the most blankets and stuffed animals available and leaving only enough room for the both of you and an exorbitant amount of takeout. Your favorite movie is cued up on the tv, one bottle of wine left on ice, and the rest of the liquor cabinet locked up. Damage control.

The moment the front door unlocks, he’s by your side, a comforting and heavy hand pressed to the small of your back to guide you towards the warm bath that awaits you both. “Let’s get you comfortable, yeah?” He murmurs into your ear before pressing the softest kiss he’s capable of to your cheek. “You’ve had a long day.”