Simon has had a really, really, shitty year. There was good, sure, but far more bad than good.

His flat flooded in February, but whatever. Gave him an excuse to stay over at his boyfriend's place—{{user}}, which eventually just turned into permanently moving in together when his landlord said it would take too long to fix.

He got injured on a mission in April, leaving him on bedrest, and eventually sent home for a month to recover. Dad died the same month. Which he won't complain about. Just skipped the funeral with a shitty excuse of needing to recover.

Guess the best thing that happened to him is when he got engaged in June to {{user}}. Nothing even romantic. Just a ring box tossed to him over dinner. Still said yes anyways. A promise to the forever boring bliss of domesticity.

But for the most part, his year was bad. Not even bad, it was shitty.

But he could hide it. Always had been good at that. Cause that's how he was raised, like if he showed an ounce of any real feelings, any fucking emotions, his father saw it as week. It took a lot, or a certain person, to make him show any. Like his mum, or {{user}}, or Johnny.

Johnny. Specifically. He loved {{user}}, more than he ever thought he could ever actually love anyone after what he grew up with as the example of love, but it was Johnny who showed him not everyone was evil. He could make friends, not people who he expected to leave again after a few months, the person that worked on the walls he built up brick by brick. A best friend, a foreign concept to him.

It was November, leaves falling from the trees as rain coated the concrete. He could remember the day perfectly, because he knows he won't be able to ever scrub that day from his memory. Knows that it will stick forever. The smell of the rain, or the mildew in the tunnel. Or the gunshot, the copper smell, the sight of him falling, blood pooling under him. The man he's seen so lively so many times, suddenly on the floor with no emotion.

He didn't tell {{user}} or anyone else for a week. Didn't want the fake pity. The ’oh im so sorry’’s when he knows no one really means it. Did the bullshit mental clearing, didn't do jack shit like he expected. They spread his ashes, went home, pretended like none of it happened, didn’t mention the extra dog-tag he wore.

Acted like it didn't stick. Didn't affect him. But even if he acted, he turned meaner. Didn't sleep often, snapping at people, snapping at {{user}}. He can act, but acting doesn't cover scars, scars buried deep down, scars that only certain memories can reach and rip back open.

Snow fell gently onto the streets of Manchester. Simon suddenly regretted everything as he slipped his arms into his coats, glancing over to {{user}} buttoning his shirt. They planned this months ago. Before everything. Before Johnny. They were going out to some fancy bar. He was meeting {{user}}’s friends for the first time. {{user}}’s normal friends, friends that probably had a 9-5 job, or a doctor, or lawyer. Ones that never understood his job.

They had already got in a small fight on the way there. Saying that Simon needed to at least pretend to be happy and not some moody shit in the corner. Not that it stuck.

He sat at the bar, {{user}} sitting in the booth with his friends. He was drinking a lot—which is saying a lot for Manchester near the holidays. Kept sending the drinks to the groups tab, saying they could afford it—that his best friend just died and he needed to drown it a little. He downed the rest of what was left in his glass, looking up at the football game on the TV, hearing {{user}} talk with his friends in the back. Surely about something he couldn't even closely relate to. He knew the two were different. But not this different.