Author's Note: In lieu of a list of why I've been gone, accept instead this simple anecdote: Life sucks. Kay. Moving on to storie summarie... Little bit of a "different" tinge to this one. I don't know how to explain it, other than scrawling it out was a pleasant distraction from the near-anxiety attack I was subjected to while the accountant was in the office. Yes. That's right. I am terrified of the accountant. Not her personally, but the notion that she's going through my work just to be like, 'YOU SUCK AT EVERYTHING' makes me a little anxious. Spiders? Fine. Snakes? Sure. Clowns? No problem. Blood, guts, knives, guns? Whatever. Being a professional failure? Oh lord... haha. Anyway...
xGhostxStealth: Everyone deserves a little time in the spotlight, heehee. (:
panpanpeppermint: Queer As Folk... it sounds familiar... -Googles- OHHH! Never seen the show. D: Is it any good? But I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter. ^_^
XticktickboomX: I know what you mean. This fandom needs more yaoi STAT. Haha. I'm glad you find even my OC's enjoyable. (: Also, every time I look at your username, I immediately start humming "Tick Tick Boom" by The Hives. XD
duvalia: Oh, it's you. Lol jk ily. :D I think we've like... started sharing a brain cell or something, maybe? I dunno. Didn't we have a conversation about abusive smexings not that long ago? I don't remember. I wanted to give each pairing their own full thing, but it ended up just being drabbles, mostly based on pictures I picked up on 4chan. (Isn't that a scary thought? lmao). Why did I choose a different name for Archer? Because I didn't really remember writing him into "Drinking Games". I figured I might've, but I was too lazy to look. Because I'm an awful, awful fucking person. :D
xDoItForTehLulz: I'm glad to hear from a long-time lurker. :) Bwahaha. Chapter 15. That was... interesting to write, haha. Chapter 19 was also something that was interesting for me to do as a writer. I have a hard time picking favorites, so I have a tendency to just slash them all together. XD Duvalia's got a lot of that going on too. ;D
Ameij: Wheep! It's you. :D I like to think that the two would look after one another, especially if they're romantically involved. :3 In all honesty, I didn't intend for the "happy" ending to be an "illusion". Prolly shoulda clarified that, heh. That one was supposed to be pre-game, when Simon was actually still alive. But that could be an interesting take on the chapter... I'm still glad you liked it. :)
Simon had not been "the best choice" for an XO within the 141. He was not even "a good choice" as an Executive Officer. As far as John was concerned, Simon was "the only choice". His commendations and list of accomplishments certainly helped with the selection process, but the two had known one another for longer than they let on. A lot longer.
John and Simon met when they were eight and six, respectively. Their initial relationship had been cautious and wary. They talked first about whatever came to mind, slowly branching out to playing robbers, stealing cookies from the kitchen in a great heist, rarely getting caught, and never selling one another out if they were.
They helped one another with reading and writing and maths when their schooling started getting a little more serious, and for a long while it seemed they were completely inseparable. Just after John's eleventh birthday, things went south.
John swore he wasn't going, that he wasn't going to go anywhere unless Simon could come too. No, no. You have to go. It'll be okay. You can come visit Simon whenever you want. John would never admit to crying, and neither would Simon. But they both knew they were crying. John was old enough to understand the horror stories the older children told of kids being put into foster care to "ease the burden" on the orphanage they lived in. A kid in the system was one less kid the Sisters and Fathers had to watch. John eventually pulled himself together and told Simon to be strong and that they would see each other again soon enough.
Six months passed before they were reunited. Simon was in town, perusing the shops, looking for an unwatched counter so he could possibly steal a candy bar. He saw a familiar shape shuffle by and he immediately turned.
"John!"
The Scottish boy had always been the larger of the two, always standing a little taller and broader. After the six month separation, he seemed lankier, taller, more wraith-like. Although that was probably just how thin he'd become, how dark the circles under his eyes were. John tried turning to face his friend, but he stumbled. Simon had always been stronger than he looked and he caught his friend a little more easily than he would have been expected to. He pulled John the few blocks down to the orphanage where he started yelling for help. The responding medics were unable to separate the two of them. John had to nearly order Simon to go before the stubborn Brit would let him go.
The Sisters and Fathers wouldn't tell Simon what happened, and John wouldn't talk about it either. Simon just knew that he was the only person who could touch John without having him flinch away. Simon slept on the floor near his friend's bed until they were given a room together again.
Simon was thirteen and John was fifteen before he was told what had happened. Simon hugged his best friend while he talked about being beaten, starved, deprived of sleep, and stabbed before he managed to run away. John swore that as soon as he was sixteen, he'd get a job and he would find a way to take Simon away from the orphanage.
Simon was taken two weeks later. It was a clear, cold day in October and he'd been selected to go to a foster family. John "helped him pack" his few meager belongings. Just before he walked out of the door to their shared room, Simon threw himself at John, hugging him tight before kissing him and whispering "I love you". He meant to slip away, but John grabbed him and kissed him in return.
"I love you, too. Stay strong. If it gets bad, I'll come get you."
Simon nodded a little breathlessly and kissed his friend again before a slightly scandalized and impatient nun cleared her throat in the hallway. Completely unconcerned with Sister Mary Can Fucking Wait, he kissed John again, licking at the inside of his best friend's mouth for a moment before eventually tearing himself away and disappearing down the hall.
John was sent to a new foster home a few weeks after that and it was nearly impossible to track Simon down. He eventually got a job waiting tables at a snooty restaurant and, finally sixteen and old enough to emancipate himself, moved into an apartment with a coworker of his. He spent the rest of his time hunting for Simon.
Exploiting a few contacts and spending most of his spare cash on collecting information, he eventually found that his long-time friend had been put into a very highly abusive foster home. He apparently returned to the orphanage a few months after John had been sent to his own foster home, finding that John was gone and no one would tell him where he'd gone. Simon left the orphanage in the middle of the night a few weeks later. It took a few more days, but John eventually found the fourteen-year-old slumming it. He would sleep anywhere that wouldn't throw him out and he'd often resort to stealing food or charming people into giving it to him. When the weather was too cold or too stormy for him to rough it outdoors or when he needed a shower or would kill for a real bed, he'd either seduce or charm his way into someone's home. When John finally tracked him down, he was extremely underweight, had dropped out of high school, and showed signs of self-harm. John ignored his roommate's protests and brought Simon home.
"I looked for you," Simon frowned as he put his plate on the arm of the couch. John was forcing him to eat. Simon hadn't slept for a few days and he said it made his appetite drop. John refused to accept that answer.
"They took me not long after they took you. I tried finding you, but by the time I'd tracked your home down, you'd already run away. It's hard to track you down when you're living on the streets."
Simon didn't say anything, but he finished eating the little bit of food John put in front of him. Stephen left the apartment to start his shift at the restaurant. John knew it was about thirty minutes too early to be leaving, but he was silently grateful for the additional time with his friend. As soon as the door was closed and the lock was thrown from the outside, Simon lunged at John, clinging to his clothes and sobbing silently. John rocked as he held Simon, trying to comfort him.
"I blamed myself for so long when things got bad and you didn't show up. I was so convinced that telling you I loved you had disgusted you and sent you running... The first two days I was there, they ignored me and I thought I could handle it. I couldn't, John. The things they did to me... I kept thinking of how you were so strong during your first foster... They'd let me eat every other day if I was lucky. I could shower once a week. They'd get all their friends together and get high and beat me unconscious when their trips went bad... I can't tell you how many times that led to me waking up, tied to a bed being... fucking... goddammit, John."
The apartment had two bedrooms, with Stephen in the larger one and John occupying the smaller of the two. Simon tried insisting he'd be fine on the couch, but John pulled his friend to his own room. John kissed Simon for the first time since they were separated and he listened to the younger teen draw in a rattling breath as he tried to calm himself and put that careless persona back on. John kissed him until he gave up and eventually managed to cry himself to sleep.
Stephen had been initially wary of taking another teenager in, but John swore Simon wouldn't be a burden. Simon had been an artist when they were at the orphanage and he started selling whatever he drew to local businesses and the occasional passerby who were charmed by his disarming smile and his almost-playful-sounding accent. He didn't make much, but it was enough to help pay for food.
Simon didn't take up much space or eat much, and their water and electric were set numbers every month, courtesy of their lease with the apartment complex. Once Stephen got used to the notion that there was, in fact, a third person in the apartment, he started noticing it wasn't really a stretch on his income or John's. Sure, there were times when things were a little rougher than usual and he had to skip on a few luxuries, but Simon wasn't some god-awful, fucked-up, crime-addicted terror like he was almost half-expecting. He could tell John was in love with the blue-eyed Brit, and that was fine by him, as long as he didn't have to listen to it while he was trying to sleep.
Stephen didn't really have anything to worry about. Simon and John didn't fuck until Simon had been living at the apartment for almost six months, and Stephen was out of town with his girlfriend for the day. John had taken Simon to see some kind of stupid movie and they'd gone home still laughing about it and before either of them knew it, they were fucking like bunnies in John's room. And in the bathroom. And on the couch. Once in the kitchen. Also, the dining room table. It was after one of their more recent rounds (back in the safety of John's bed) that the older turned to the younger and said, "I'll be leaving when I'm eighteen."
John explained that he was going to join the Army because it was definite pay and he could send money back to make sure everything was fine... He wasn't sure how Simon would take the news. He was glad when his lover took it well and said he was thinking about doing the same thing, see how far away he could get from everything.
It was two months after John's eighteenth birthday that he was gone for training, leaving a sixteen-year-old Simon and the twenty-year-old Stephen to write to him and take care of one another. He returned home for a few days after his initial training was done and was surprised to see just how much Simon had changed in such a short period of time, how much taller he was, how he was no longer as lanky and wiry as he had been before. It may have been "questionable", but they fucked again when they got back to the familiar old apartment, and spent most of John's time home with one another. This time when John left, he made it back home just days before Simon turned eighteen. It wasn't quite the homecoming he'd been expecting.
Stephen and Klara had gotten serious and she'd moved into the apartment with him. Simon couldn't stand watching the two of them fawn all over one another, so he was rarely home. He started working all the time, took college courses when he could, was at the apartment long enough to sleep, shower, eat, change, and he was gone again. John, completely unaware of this new habit, unlocked the apartment door, hoping to find Simon. There was a letter on the refrigerator for Stephen saying he'd already eaten and to not wait up, he'd be at the pub. John knew there was only one pub Simon would go to, and he didn't like it.
It was a loud and busy place that didn't check IDs and didn't really care who you went home with. John shoved through the people, rather pleased to find the SAS uniform made people back away of their own volition once they saw his scowl. He was familiar with the bartender and demanded to know where Simon was. With a slight wince, Shae gave a grim nod to a booth in the back corner. John followed her nod and saw Simon toying with a beer bottle while flirting with a man John didn't recognize. He could tell Simon was flirting; he could see how plastic the smile was from across the bar; but only because he knew where to look. John leaned against the bar, watching the two of them interact. The man eventually walked off, probably to the bathroom, leaving Simon's smile to drop away. Simon turned away from the table, scouting the rest of the pub. John sat across from him and saw him tense slightly.
"I wasn't expec-" All pretense of the charming, innocent young Brit persona dropped away, replaced by shock and a glimmer of hope.
"J-John?"
"I wasn't expecting you to be working so hard to fill the opening in your bed." The hurt in John's voice was evident to Simon, but likely not to anyone else.
"I haven't seen you in two years, John. It was just a way to get off. It... It didn't mean shit."
"Well what the hell is this then?"
John looked over his shoulder at the man that had been chatting Simon up earlier. The man was clearly intoxicated, and not much of a threat. John stood, towering over the intruder.
"Sorry, Rhys. I've gotta go. Come on, John." Simon stood and weaved his way through the people, making his way to the door. John sent one final sneer at "Rhys" before following his lover.
Simon was a lot taller than he'd been when John left him. A lot broader and more muscular, too. They stood eye-to-eye now and Simon looked even less like a teenager than he acted.
"It was hard, not hearing from you for so damn long," Simon said, sending his lover a side-long glance.
"The longest we've been apart since we met, if memory serves," John smiled.
"Too bloody long," Simon agreed.
They walked towards the apartment again in silence. Simon slowly inched closer to the Sergeant and eventually took his hand. John smiled and gave his hand a gentle squeeze.
"You know... Stephen is going to be visiting Klara's family for the next few days," Simon hinted.
"Suggesting something?"
"That we've got two years of lost time we need to make up for."
They spent several hours just fucking, relearning one another. Simon missed feeling John inside of him. He missed the way John would whisper his name when they went at it. He missed the way John left hickeys all over his skin. He missed the way John's cologne stuck to him, how he could catch the fleeting scent of his lover from under his own clothing. He missed the way John wrapped around him when they were done fucking and would whisper to him until they fell asleep. He missed the way "I love you" sounded when it was grunted in a Scottish brogue.
John's fingers traced gently over familiar scars on Simon's chest, testament to his time in foster care and to the things he'd put himself through to survive on the streets once he'd run away. He kissed each of them before he reached for Simon's arms and kissed the obviously self-inflicted scars littering the pale skin.
"You're not coming back after this, are you?" Whispering didn't hide the hurt in Simon's voice.
"I don't know when I'll be back, Rye," John admitted.
"You're SAS now," Simon smiled.
"For now."
"Planning on getting out soon?"
"My CO said something about getting transferred to an elite unit."
"More elite than the SAS? Whose bed were you filling," Simon teased.
"I don't know when I'll be back from this, Simon."
"I'll be in the army myself soon enough."
John didn't say anything and neither did Simon. With John being "super elite" and Simon starting at the bottom, they would likely never see one another again. They both knew it and they both felt that knowledge wrap around them and attack them with an army of Meanwhiles and Neverweres, commanded by the Could've Been King.
"I'll miss the hell out of you," Simon whispered.
"I'll send my letters here. Have Stephen forward them to you. So we can always keep in touch."
"I'll do the same."
Simon and John refused to leave one another for the remainder of the time John had to spend home. It wasn't exactly a "tearful" goodbye, but they each whispered "I love you" at least a dozen times before finally separating and going their own ways.
Stephen kept up his promise to both of them. He received letters from Simon and forwarded them to the most recent address he'd gotten from John, and vise-versa. The letters from both of them slowed to a trickle and eventually stopped completely. He received letters himself from both of them. He found that John was generally called "Soap" now because of his tendency to clean up any possible loose ends before calling it a completed mission. Simon had been picked up by the SAS, much like John had been, and had earned himself the moniker "Ghost". It made sense when you thought about how quiet, stealthy, disarming he'd always been; Simon was one man you never saw coming.
"We've gotten word of an 'exceptional' Lieutenant within the SAS. They say he's harder to kill than you are," Shepherd smirked.
"I'll believe it when I see it, Sir."
"You might've seen it already."
"Sir?"
"According to his record, he's from the same city you are. Same orphanage, too, if memory serves."
Without thinking, John pulled the file from the General's hands, looking it over.
"I'd like to transfer him in, Sir."
"You don't even know what he's capable of."
"I know exactly what he's capable of."
"You trust him?"
"With my life and the life of everyone in my team."
Simon half-expected the transfer to the 141. Since he'd lost contact with John, the military was the only thing he had going for him and that was good enough for him. He spent a little time looking for his long lost lover, but he eventually ran out of the time to do so and the will to keep disappointing himself. He arrived at the base with orders signed by a "General Shepherd". He said as much to someone who introduced himself as "Boomer", who led him to the officer's housing across the base, explaining the Captain he'd be reporting directly to was injured, but still wanted to see him. Boomer swung the door to the small house open, yelling something along the lines of "the new Limey being here". Simon stepped into the small living room and Boomer closed the door. He heard footsteps from the hallway and he stopped. There was something definitely familiar about this Captain, about the way he stood, the way his eyes were flashing. The haircut was clearly not regulation and he hadn't shaved in at least two days... But underneath that it was still-
"Tavish?"
"Rye."
Simon didn't move for a long while, staring at "Captain MacTavish" from behind his mirrored sunglasses. He removed the sunglasses and the balaclava, tossing them carelessly aside before striding up to his long-lost friend, pulling him close and kissing him harder than they'd ever kissed before.
"This is the longest we've been apart since we met, if memory serves," John smiled when they parted.
"Too bloody long," Simon whispered, echoing a conversation years since finished.
"I transferred you in the second I saw your name on the list. Didn't even consider anyone else."
"It was a General who signed the papers," Simon frowned.
"Fewer objections to his signature."
"Whose bed have you been filling," Simon teased, again reliving their long-lost moments.
"Mostly kept an empty bed."
"Then we have some lost time to make up for. Unless your injuries-"
"They're bullshit. Damaged ankle and a few cracked ribs. Suffered worse in foster care."
Simon pulled John down onto the couch and they held one another in silence for a few long minutes.
"I looked for you every chance I got. It's hard to track someone down when they don't exist half the time," Simon chuckled.
"I kept an eye out for you. I couldn't clear your transfer in until you got to the SAS; Shepherd's rules. I think I might've teared up a little when they had you listed MIA on a classified mission."
Simon knew that meant John had cried himself to sleep when he'd been buried alive during The Mission. He kissed John again in a silent apology for worrying him, even though he couldn't have stopped his lover from worrying.
"No more transfers. No more moving around. I'm tired of waking up alone," Simon growled.
"Agreed."
"Good. Now let's start making up for that lost time," the Lieutenant leered. John found no reason to disagree.