Chapter Text
It’s your eyes.
He notices them first.
They glance over from across the room, incredibly brief. You touch on everyone seated along the worn wood, cataloguing, categorizing, before turning your attention back to your friend, who seems to be in the middle of a story.
Like Johnny is.
“LT, ye even listenin’ to me?” Simon nods, but he’s still watching you. Tracing your spine, staring at the exposed skin on your neck. He imagines you smell like lavender, or citrus. Something spritely and soft. He conjures up the image of his thumb pressing into your bottom lip, and he wonders how plush it is.
You look like a perfect little treat.
And he’s in need of one.
“She’s bonnie.” Johnny sips his beer, eyebrow raised. “Like what ye see?” He shrugs. He hasn’t taken a woman to bed in years. It always ends up feeling wrong somehow, stale. Unease twists in his gut when clothes start to come off, anxiety trembles in the swell of his blood, and his scars begin to feel fresh. Torn open.
Sex makes him feel torn apart. Ripped to shreds.
But he’s not opposed to having another go at it. Not if you're the one taking his cock like a good girl.
There's something about you. You’re bright, like a little jewel, sparkling in the sun. A piece of something precious. Too golden to be tarnished, too sunny to be sullied by darkness.
He nearly swallows his tongue when you appear at the end of the bar, opposite of Johnny. You’re waiting to order another beer, he assumes, but you look over at him for too long, a second or two, and it tells him all he needs to know.
It’s in your eyes.
“Hi.” Your lips curve upwards at each side, a secretive smile, imparted only on him. His heart flutters like a school boy, young and naive all over again. His skin is hot, prickled under his clothes, hair on the back of his neck standing straight up.
Fuck, you're so pretty. You're perfect.
He's staring at your lips, memorizing the pert Cupid's bow, the soft color that shines when your tongue darts out to lick them.
Johnny clears his throat. Simon's brain catches up to his body. "Hey-"
An oversized brute jostles you, his shoulder nearly pushing you into Johnny. You blink, doe eyed, and then step back from the bar, allowing him to take up the space where you just occupied.
Simon grits his teeth, vision tunneling red.
Kitten doesn't have any claws.
That's okay, he thinks. You wouldn't need them, if you had him.
He wonders if violence scares you. If he beats this ogre to a bloody pulp, would you run from him? He takes in the confused crinkle in your brow, wide, shy eyes, and decides on a different tactic.
"C'mere love." He husks, extending his hand, pushing Johnny's stool over with the heel of his foot, carving out a space for you to sidle in between them.
You press against his thigh as you take your spot, leaning forward to talk to the bartender, and when you look over your shoulder at him, small smile tugging at your lips, he presses his palm to the small of your back.
"And... two shots of whiskey, please."
You're... everything.
Naked, laid out on your bed with your legs spread, eyes still wide and sweet, and he can barely get his mouth to work as he looks at you.
"Simon," you whimper in the dark, hands reaching, searching, and he kisses each finger like they're a decadent treat, one he'll never have enough of, "please."
Moonlight illuminates your face, shines across the curves of your body, and he has to blink multiple times to steady himself, to keep himself grounded.
Your fingers don't feel like razors. Your mouth isn't torture. Every soft word you give him is like a balm. You're everything.
And he's going to show you, he's going to make sure you know- you're everything.
He's going to fuck you face to face.
But first, he needs-
Your hand wraps around his wrist. "I'm on the pill." you whisper, desperate. "I want to feel you... I'm clean, if you-" The trust you're implying is a foreign concept, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he worries. You're going to let him fuck you raw? You're going to let him feel the clutch of your pussy, without any protection?
You're out of your mind.
But so is he.
"I haven't been with anyone in years." His accent is a rasp, heavy with desire. "And 've got a clean bill of heath."
It's a mutual agreement. And it doesn't take any convincing.
"You want me to fuck this pretty little pussy raw, sweet girl? Is that it?" His mouth covers yours, and then trails down to your neck, nips across the tops of your breasts. "Want me to fill you up?"
"Yeah," his fingers slide through your folds, teasing from top to bottom, swirling around your clit, "fuck, yeah, I want-"
"I've got a lot of cum for you, honey. You sure you can take it?" You clench around the finger he's slipped inside, and moan.
"Oh my god," Your spine arches, and he holds your hips, aligning himself before pushing into your body, melding the two of together almost perfectly.
Almost, because you're so bloody tight, it's like you're strangling him. He's not going to last.
"Relax," He murmurs, kissing your jaw, rubbing a slow circle around your clit. "There you go, that's my girl." It slips out, but you don't seem to care. Neither does he. Tonight, you're his. You and your body and your heart and your soul, belong to him. He'll mark you like you’re his. A fantasy, a wish, a far cry from reality.
In another life, maybe he'd have you forever. For real.
But in this life, he'll take what he can get, and you let him. You let him take and take and take all night long, on your back, face bared to him like he's the brightest star and not the darkness haunting dreams. You kiss him like it's real, and when he comes inside you once, and then twice, you let him stay there, locked tight, staring down into your eyes. He rubs your cheek with his thumb, and you smile. He presses his forehead against yours, and your cup the back of his head, gingerly kissing him, carefully, like you know. Like you can see him.
You say his name. You moan it. You scream it. It's never sounded so good, and he wonders if this is what it's like- to have and to hold.
In the morning, before the sun rises, he stands at the foot of your bed, watching you sleep. He wishes you'd wake, wants you to open your eyes and ask him to stay, hopes you'll roll over and realize he's not there and call his name-
It's all a fantasy. Something that could never be more than what it was in that moment, in the moonlight, a secret held between two strangers, the first breath in the dawn.
He brushes his lips across your forehead one last time, and then disappears down the hall.
Out the door.
Out of your life.
Simon appreciates where Kyle has decided to put down some roots.
He likes this part of the city. It's busy, but manageable, and Kyle's managed to find himself a decently sized home, one big enough to accommodate both Simon and Johnny when they're on those swing days between missions. There are enough beds or couches for when the three of them get pissed at the pub down the street and have to stumble back nearly crossed eyed.
Of course, he never talks about the other reason why he finds this neighborhood so charming, but he suspects both the boys know.
He likes to hold onto your memory like a little secret. Knowing you're possibly still living in this area, in that flat, is enough to bring him out to the pub after they all get back to the house and crash.
Kyle's mouth twists into a mischievous smirk, and he glances at Johnny before honing his sights. "Fancy a drink, LT?"
It's been just over a year since Simon has been here. He rubs his palms against the bar top, trying to casually glance around, searching for something he knows he won't find. He can still hear you, still smell you, still feel your skin against his. He's spent the last year jumping from mission to mission, country to country, plane to plane- and above the carnage and the sounds of killing and fighting-
he still hears your voice. His name on your lips. When he closes his eyes to go to bed at night, it’s your face he sees, lulling him to sleep.
A fantasy.
"Did ye get her number, at least?" Johnny interrupts his memories, and Simon shakes his head.
“Better off that way.” He rolls his shoulders, stretching sinew and bone, trying to force his body to relax. It’s always like this, between ops. He’s stuck in fight mode, wires all crossed, head still fuzzy. Every now and then, his ears will ring, and he tries shake it loose, echoes of gunfire popping inside his skull.
He chooses to drown it out.
All three of them do. It works well enough, and they stumble back to Kyle’s, taking their respective places strewn across the house, Simon falling asleep face down in the guest bed without another drunken thought.
The sun cracks through the blinds too quickly. He stomachs a tea, and advises the Sergeants he’s heading back early to wrap up some paperwork, and steps out onto the street.
It’s later than he’d like, sidewalk already bustling with throngs of people, and he pulls his nondescript black ball cap farther down over his face. The sun is warm, glaring onto the back of his neck until his jacket almost feels claustrophobic. His hands fall idle as he walks, so used to holding a weapon or clicking the mic open on a radio, he doesn’t know what to do with them at rest. Doesn’t know how to hold them. There’s a void there, a void everywhere, etched into his skin, a whisper of the man he should’ve been.
The sidewalk may be busy, but he doesn’t miss a face. He never does, it’s a part of the job, but when his eyes glance across a woman who looks just like you- his entire life stutters to a stop.
You have a baby strapped to your chest. A chubby, round baby who kicks their feet when you lower your head to murmur something to them, palm flat against their belly.
You have a baby? You have a baby. There’s a pang of sadness in his heart, a swell of disappointment as he rationalizes what he’s seeing, the proof of you belonging to someone else, having a life with someone else, loving someone else. He only had you for a night, and he knows it, but he can’t pretend he hasn’t been seeing your face every time he closes his eyes for the past year.
It’s closure. A final nail in the coffin. The end of something that never was.
You’re just as beautiful as he remembers, a sunny spring day, a bouquet of overflowing flowers. Does your hair still smell the same? Would you still make the same noises for him?
Reality brings him back to life earth. Are you in love, or married, or with the father?
And then you turn his direction, closing the gap, failing to notice him standing like a stiff board in the middle of the sidewalk until you’re too close, eyes darting up and up-
to meet his.
Your mouth drops open. An ocean of people flow around where you’re both frozen in place, and he gives you a sheepish smile. “Uh, hey.”
Your hand cups the back of the baby’s head, and you look panicked, scared, before you blurt out the one thing he didn’t expect:
“I didn’t know how to contact you.”
Wait… what?
You’re startled.
He can tell just by the way your eyes pinch at the corners, your shoulders high and tight beneath your ears. You’re flustered, you’re stressed, rubbing small circles on the baby’s back, playing with the hem of the their hat.
Your discomfort, the unease radiating from your frame, combined with the saw blade currently buzzing through his brain, nearly makes him dizzy.
Still, even in this moment, you leave him breathless. He feels the same itch, the same swell of emotion as he looks at you, drinking every single detail in like a starved man.
He tries, and tries to make the connection.
I didn’t know how to contact you.
What does that mean?
It feels monumental, feels like there’s a black hole opening in his stomach, sucking his heart out into the universe to be obliterated.
It’s just there on the cusp, teetering on the edge.
I didn’t know how to contact you.
“I’m uh,” the baby’s tiny arm flings out a little fist towards your chest, and slide your finger into their grip, smoothing your thumb across, what he imagines, is very soft skin. “Do you have a minute?”
He nods wordlessly.
The cafe is quiet.
Simon can’t see the baby’s face. They have your complexion, your hair… but he doesn’t know what they look like. Not really. He doesn’t even know if they’re a boy or a girl.
He doesn’t know anything, and inside this out of control situation, he yearns for it. The plan. The knowledge, the ability to plot and counter plot the next move.
This… instability, this lingering question in the air-
fills him with fear.
An earl grey sits in front of you, spiraled steam curling in the air across the table, where you’re rocking a little bit, side to side, swaying like a sailor.
You worry your lip between your teeth. "I know this is kind of... a shock." He blinks. "I tried to find you, I scoured social media, I went back to the to the pub and asked if anyone knew you, I had them look through all their credit receipts from that night, but... everything was a dead end. It was like you were a ghost." His lips twitch.
"Why?" He thinks he knows, thinks he understands now, but he needs to hear you say it, needs to watch your lips form the words. You stare down at the table before taking a long, deep breath, placing your hand protectively against the back of the baby's head.
"This is your son, Simon."
And there it is.
He's a dad. There's a tiny life, a tiny piece of him, in this world now.
He's a father. A father, to a son, just like his brother was. A father, to a son, like his own father was, and his father before that. A vicious, endless cycle. One his brother vowed to break, and did.
One that terrifies Simon now.
The first words out of his mouth are unintentional, and cruel. "Are you sure?" He winces as soon as it splays out in the silence, and you wilt into a shade of embarrassment.
"I uh, yeah. I'm sure. The pill isn't foolproof and we weren't exactly... careful. I... um... there's no one else." You grimace, averting your eyes, and his stomach clenches.
"I didn't mean-"
"It's fine." You wave it off, keeping him at arms length. You keep your gaze down, and he curses himself. Making a mess of it already.
He's very good at compartmentalizing. It comes with the job, always has, but in this moment, he's struggling to stopgap the flow of consciousness that seems to be melding together by the minute. Worry, panic, fear all roar at the forefront, but beneath them, buried by mountains of darkness- shines something unexpected.
Happiness. Hope.
A baby.
Something possessive thrums inside him, beats in the veins of his heart. It's reverent, identical to way he felt the first night he met you, the night the two of you made him. Together.
You had his baby. You did. The girl who was everything. The sweet girl who took him like you were made for him.
No matter what happens, no matter where you go, he'll always be the man who gave you a baby. Who gave you his son.
It's sick, how pleased he feels. How satisfied. Something long buried in the genetics of human beings, now rearing its head inside his own.
You were everything, and now- you always will be.
His throat is suddenly very tight, nose stinging with effort to allay his emotions. "What's his name?"
"Orion." You smile, timidly, but tears shine in your eyes. "I really like stars. I used to tell him all about the constellations when I was pregnant. I call him Ry for short." Orion.
"I like it." He tells you gently, and you smile again, more confident.
"I'm glad." He studies you. You're beautiful, possibly even more so now, but there's a thread of exhaustion pulling across your face, like you haven't slept in a year.
A new realization settles in his bones like a chill, and his stomach pitches. He thinks he might sick.
You said there's been no one else, so you've been alone? Did you do this on your own? Do you have family, friends? Anyone to help you?
He's no fool. He watched Beth go through it all, struggle through it all, even when she had support.
And he was the asshole that walked out of your life that morning, not caring for the consequences. Not caring for you.
He missed it. He missed all of it.
"I'm sorry I left that morning without... saying anything. I'm sorry I wasn't here. I'd take it back if I could." Your lips part in surprise, and then you nod.
"I- thank you." The baby fusses, tiny cry sounding from your chest, and you fidget with the carrier, pulling him free. "Do you want to hold him?"
Orion fits against his chest perfectly. It's like he was always meant to be there, nestled on top of his forearm, staring up at his dad. Simon is painfully and hyper aware of the little activity in the cafe, the people coming and going, but it does nothing to stop the tears that wet his cheeks.
"You're a natural." You whisper from your new seat next to him, hand smoothing over the back of the baby's head. "I knew he had your eyes, I remembered them so clearly. When he was born, it felt like I was looking into them all over again."
There are a million things he needs to say, to explain, and a million questions he needs to ask. Already the clock is ticking down to the time that he'll need to report on base. Already, the curtain is closing on this tiny piece of heaven he's found himself inside. He needs to tell you, have a frank conversation with you about his job, his life, everything.
But when he looks down at Orion, slowly falling asleep in his arms, and then looks up at you, he decides everything can wait.
The world looks different now, and he's never been more grateful-
and terrified.