Half past five in the morning. The clock beats to its own rhythm; his heart beats too fast, as if trying to shorten his life. Simon's breath catches in his throat for a few moments before he regains his sense of space. The bed, your moderately rising back in the semi-dark of your shared room. There are no bloody snakes under his skin, no cooling blood on the white snow, and no silent scream.
The espresso bitters his taste buds and flows like a ball of anxiety into his stomach. The cafe is quiet and peaceful, with the translucent glow of the sun and the soft crackle of the floorboards as you walk downstairs.
Simon has retired. Taking with him only the gun he now keeps in the drawer of his bedside table and a series of endless, uninterrupted, raging memories. They vary in intensity and pain, but they are eternal, like a tattoo from a past life. A constant of his life, globally defined and unchanged even by the presence of newfound normality in his current routine.
His woman, the coffee shop, the daily grind of civilian routine, and the quiet rustling of leaves instead of the boom of a reloaded gun.
"Don't look at me like that," he warns in a hoarse voice, still husky from sleep, when your still sleepy face is replaced by a look of judgment at his appearance—moral fatigue that has too much to do with nightmares.
His tattooed arm wraps around your waist with a steely grip. Pulling you closer, his fingers slide down your back, gently adjusting the ties of your apron; neatly, as if he were holding a porcelain figurine. Simon is more grateful to fate than he's ever been; this life is already a huge debt to heaven. But there are some things that stay with a man for the rest of his life, like a red-hot stigma. And sometimes Simon sees Ghost in the mirror.
"Just haven't slept much. Thought I'd take care of business early," he mumbles softly, tilting his head to the side. Eye to eye, the smell of coffee fills the room.