#Idk if I tagged this well I’m hotboxing myself with an incense stick and lowkey tweaking out

[frescoisnotinthemilitary]

The Way of Another

Tags: MWIII SPOILERS, Angst, Major Character Death (implied and mentioned), Swearing, Simon is in denial of his feelings, resurrection??, will add tags when I think of them

A/N: Sorry for literally vanishing off the face of the earth. I’ve been cheffing it up over the last couple of days. This is proofread by me but unchanged. As AO3 tags will read, no beta, we die like men. For anyone waiting on the second chapter of Sweet Tooth (I see you), I’ll do my best to get that up next week (as if I haven’t been saying that for six months). Life has fucking sucked for the last few months, and I’ll leave it at that. I’ve already written too much here, so without further ado, I’ll just get to it.

This is like chapter .5, by the way. Y’all have been waiting weeks for me to post again, so I figured I owed you something. I hope this is sufficient until I can get myself to write something more

He never believed he’d adopt another’s mannerisms. Slip of the tongue, really. Kyle was getting on his nerves. He couldn’t have helped it. 

“C’mon, mate. Just take it off, let me see you!” Kyle urged, leaning over the back of a rec room recliner. “We’ve been working together a long time.”

“Oi, away and boil yer ‘ead.” Teeth clenched, nostrils flared, eyes widened. Simon squeezed his eyes shut, cursing himself, almost crushing his sandwich in his fingertips. “‘M sorry, mate. I didn’t mean”–he paused. “I don’t know what I meant. Just fuck off, yeah?” Brown eyes met brown eyes, and understanding threaded itself in the needles of the gaze.

Kyle pressed his lips together, inhaling sharply. “Yeah, sorry. Shouldn’t have pushed.” He glanced down at his hands, nails picking at his torn cuticles. 

It was pitch black when Simon awoke. He cracked his folded legs out of the fetal position and rolled onto his back. Chilled sweat rolled off his forehead, sinking into the pillow beneath his head. There was no shine in his eyes now—shadows swallowed any midnight glow that might’ve made its way under the thick door. 

Simon. 

He sat up, brushing a tickle of the quickly-drying liquid away from his eyebrow. Rubbed sleep from his eyes and threw his legs over the edge of the bed, whose aged springs creaked for help, to no avail. His phone screen read 02:47. Large fingers nimbly turned the knob on his bedside table, and a warm glow flooded the room. Darkness retreated back to the corners, freeing him from its hold. 

It was silent, with humid air stifling in the small space. Simon’s socked feet padded across the floor and he pulled the door inward, flooding the room with cooler air from the hallway. He stepped out onto the tiled hall, wishing he’d put on sweatpants, but persevering. 

The base was dimly illuminated only by the soft bluish light from the moon that filtered in through the windows, a glow that guided him through the well-worn twists and turns of labyrinthine corridors. He finally stepped into the kitchen, still bleary-eyed but more alert. He drifted around the room, eventually stopping in front of the coffee maker. 

The drawer under the counter protested ever-so-slightly as Simon pulled it open, finding the darkest blend he could think of. The jar was half-empty, the way it had been left. He grabbed a spoon and dumped exactly three spoonfuls of the grounds into the coffee filter. No more, no less. Simon carried the empty coffee pot to the sink and filled it to the line, then brought it back and poured the water into the corresponding area of the machine. 

The lid closed with a pop that almost made him start. A monotonous beep filled the room for a moment, then ceased, and Simon resided in silence again, until the soft gurgle of the coffee maker began.

The warm, rich smell inundated the space, flooding his senses-

Thought you didn’t like coffee. 

“Johnny.” The blond man whipped around, tearing his tired eyes open and searching around the empty room. A breath of warm air ghosted over his ear, taunting him. “Please don’t leave me again,” he whispered to no one. 

The coffee maker droned its harsh song, alerting Simon to the accomplishment of its task. He turned back, eyes downcast, and poured the dark liquid into a mug from the dish rack, not filling the cup fully. It steamed lazily, the only movement aside from him in the shadowy space. He stirred a spoonful of sugar into the bitter stuff and took a burning sip. The way he’d done it. 

(Tagging my dear friends because you all haven’t heard from me in a while: @kaeriustehe @forsaire @tapioca-milktea1978 @losersimonriley )