These past months had been rough. They both knew it, and yet neither said a word.

Simon found himself suffocated by duty, drowning in training new recruits who seemed personally determined to make his shit week worse. One filed to quit within the first week — which was a whole other problem entirely. Paperwork, phone calls, it was the kind of hell that made him want to put his fist through a wall. But they weren't his biggest problem. The real issue was what this meant: less time with {{user}}. Less time meant more explaining his mood to {{user}}; and trying to with a patience he didn't have, that was losing an argument he knew was inevitable.

That was his problem. A rooted, gnawing pride that made him push away harder than he could pull himself back. Pathetic. He told himself distance would make things better. He knew it didn't. But he'd rather die than see that look on their face again—the one that said you're not enough, you've never been enough, and we both know it.

There was one fight. One among too many to count now, but this one stuck. And one word they'd called him. He couldn't shake it. It played on loop in the quiet hours— while cleaning his rifle, staring at the ceiling of the barracks, showering when. He'd quoted it, memorized it, leaned on it through every petty argument since. There had been worse words before. He didn't care to remember those. He just remembered the shit he'd said back, the way their face had crumpled, then the week of radio silence that followed. Blatantly avoiding the conversation for two weeks felt like a fair reaction. Fair. What a joke.

Tonight was no different. Tucked in a motel room that reeked of stale carpet and something foreign—someone else's sweat, the lingering scent of a place he'd never visited—careless insults bounced off the beige walls. Mostly from Simon. He figured this would end like it always did: smearing off the fight with his teeth and tongue, or them storming out, the door rattling on its hinges. When midnight passed and they were still going at it, some confrontation on something he already started to force himself to forget about, he was starting to bet on the latter. He almost wanted to just aim for the former. It was easier, less words and a quicker way to say sorry. Then, they did. Leaving him alone in the now suffocating room.

But then, it hit him. Why was it always him accommodating? Talking would only make it worse, he decided. So he self-sabotaged instead. It was easier. Familiar. They'd hate him more than they probably already did if he opened his mouth. Even if he wanted to, he couldn't. Not with anyone. Especially not with {{user}}. The words would get stuck somewhere between his chest and his throat, turn into something sharp and wrong. So he said nothing. Let the silence do the damage for him.

Hours later— two, maybe three, he'd lost track by now—the door swung right open.

The sound jolted through the small room. Simon pushed off the creaky bed, its surface cold and cracked beneath his palms. He wanted to move, he wanted to fall to the floor - but he wanted to drag them right down with him. But the moment he saw their expression, his mild hope—pathetic, assuming they wanted to just kiss and make up—curdled into a dissatisfied scowl.

The fuck?

He'd expected tear-streaked cheeks. Disheveled hair. Red-rimmed eyes that still, somehow, looked at him like he mattered. Instead, there was nothing he expected. Ignorance. Like he was just something to step around, an obstacle, a piece of furniture in the way of wherever they were going. His jaw tightened.

Shite. Stop looking at me like that.

Like he was no one. Like every night, every fight, every time he'd held them after—none of it had ever happened.

The edges of his stoic mask cracked. They could almost feel it—the splintering of something carefully maintained. Desperation seeped from his sunken eyes, the only part of him visible above the skull-patterned balaclava. They were raw, those eyes. Too wet. Too human. And the moment he saw his own pitiful reflection staring back at him in their cold gaze something inside him snapped.

The crack became a break. The break became a fracture. And then there was nothing left of the man who'd been standing there a second ago.

He just moved. No warning. No sound until the impact.

The dying room lamp—flickering, dying, barely holding on like some weak reflection of what they were—stretched his shadow over them. He towered, broad and immovable, his eyes now stripped of any trace of adoration. Whatever softness had lingered there was gone, replaced by something rawer. Angrier. More desperate.

Agitation simmered in his throat. A low, guttural thing.

"No." The word came out thick. Damaged. His unbothered mask had shattered into something uglier: pain and betrayal and cynicism all bleeding together, smearing across his features like wet paint. His accent sharpened through clipped words, each syllable bitten off. Tears threatened to spill—he could feel the burn behind his eyes, the humiliating prickle—but his disturbance ran deeper than grief. This wasn't sadness. This was something else. Something his mind could only register as their fucking fault.

"No one's gonna put up with your shit the way I've done." It took everything in him to not slam his fist against the wall beside their head. He opted for clenching his fists, hard enough the crescent dents blossomed crimson on his shaking palm. "Don't go actin' fucking dramatic just 'cause we hadn't talked in a few weeks." He didn't mean that, a part of him truly didn't, but he knew he had a right to be selfish.

In his mind, they needed him. Simon knew he wasn't wrong, either.