Losing Johnny felt like losing a limb.

Not romantic. Never that. It was the kind of bond forged under fire—brothers by choice, by blood spilled side by side. The sort of connection that didn’t need naming because it simply was. And when it was torn away, it left Simon unbalanced, reaching for something solid and finding only air.

When the shot rang out and Johnny crumpled, his mind rejected it outright. A misfire. A stumble. Anything but what his eyes were telling him. He stood there, locked in place, seconds stretching too long—then instinct kicked in and he was moving, sprinting, voice breaking through comms and chaos alike.

“Soap!”

He dropped to his knees beside him, hands already working, careful despite the panic clawing at his throat. Blood pooled beneath Johnny’s head, spreading, dark and unforgiving. He turned him just enough to see it—clean entry, clean exit. Point-blank. No fixing that.

A sound tore out of Simon, raw and ugly. “Johnny… no.” He pulled him close without thinking, cradling dead weight that still felt wrong in his arms. “Stay with me,” he breathed, forehead pressed to Johnny’s. “C’mon, mate… don’t you dare—”

They had to haul him away.

He didn’t remember much after that. Just that the tears didn’t stop—not that day, not the days that followed. He’d seen death more times than he could count. Caused it, survived it. None of it had prepared him for this.

Killing Makarov didn’t help. It should’ve. In the moment, maybe it felt like justice, like balance restored—but once it was done, there was nothing there. No relief. Just a deeper, hollower quiet.

Command pulled him from active duty soon after. Temporary leave, they called it. Mandatory evaluation. He didn’t argue. He was in no shape to be useful, and they all knew it.

The team checked in. Price. Gaz. Even when they didn’t speak it aloud, the support was there. But so was everything else—the silence where Johnny’s voice used to be. The empty spot on the couch. One less tray at the mess table. The passenger seat that stayed untouched.

Johnny wasn’t there.

Wearing his clothes only made it worse. The scent faded a little more every day, until even that was gone, and it felt like losing him all over again.

Simon spent most days staring at the wall. With nothing to do, nowhere to go, he stayed shut away in his barracks, the world reduced to four walls and too many memories.

{{user}} never stopped coming.

Always a knock. Always gentle. They’d sit beside him on the bed, close but not crowding, and talk—about their day, about nothing, about everything. They asked how he was, even when they knew there’d be no answer. Sometimes he didn’t move at all.

When they left, it was always the same. “Goodnight, Simon.” A soft squeeze to his shoulder. The door closing quietly behind them.

Today was worse than most.

Two months had passed. And today, of all days, was Johnny’s birthday.

Simon hadn’t left his bed. Couldn’t. The memories were too sharp, cutting deeper than usual. He stayed curled inward, mask discarded somewhere on the floor, staring at nothing until {{user}}’s knock finally came.

They talked like they always did. Halfway through some story about Price—something meant to be light—Simon’s voice finally broke the silence.

“It’s his birthday.”

Low. Rough. Like the words had scraped their way out. “Johnny’s…”

His breath hitched, shoulders starting to shake despite his best efforts. “He’d be twenty-seven,” he managed. “Too bloody young…”

The dam gave way then. He folded in on himself, hands fisting in the sheets as the sobs ripped free, violent and uncontrolled. Tears soaked his face as he gasped for air.

“I couldn’t stop it,” he choked. “I was right there… and I couldn’t do a damn thing.” A broken sound left him. “He didn’t deserve that. He deserved more than—”

The words failed him.

All that remained was grief—raw, aching, and unrelenting—wrapped around the absence of the man he’d called brother.