He’s coming home today
This isn’t something anyone ever wanted to deal with. Watching someone live through the same hell you had already experienced once before felt like watching a cruel cosmic joke. Johnny knew what hell Jae was in for. The guilt that would eat at him. The nightmares. The late nights. The hypervigilance. The swirling storm of pain, both mentally and physically that he will want to bury and try to move on from. If he was anything like Johnny was, those instincts that were trained into him would make it difficult to just find a moments peace in safe places even.
He didn’t even know this kid. But they were both Marines, and Jae had completed the mission that took his Simon away, so he felt like it was the least he could do.
Upper brass wasn’t going to be here at the hospital, so Johnny wasn’t going to be spotted…
There it was. That shocked anger and grief from being left behind. From your whole world being ripped from your hands and you are left wondering why you were still standing there. The questions that would go unanswered because no one would have a good enough reason for why you were left behind. You just were and that was it. Johnny wouldn’t have an answer, Garth wouldn’t, Grim wouldn’t.
Johnny twitched slightly, deep seated jealousy flaring up in his stomach like rising venomous bile at the fact that Jae can even have a normal reaction. God he hated the creature he had become. But despite that, he turned and carefully wrapped his arms around him, keeping him pulled to his chest. The… empty hollow chest were no heart beat more than once every 20 seconds and his breathing was so shallow it was hardly there.
“He didn’t lie, he just didn’t know.” There wasn’t much in the way of comforting words he had to offer as he still asked himself those questions when he looked at Simons tag around his neck. “I’m sorry… i’m so sorry.”
Every sob and tear that left the younger man reminded him of the nights he spent alone, wondering what the point was after losing everything. There were nights he spent with his face buried in a pillow to mask the sound of his pain from anyone who might be close enough to hear. And even then when he was out on tour with Sec, and living the high life along side the rockstar, every shot he took, every cigarette that filled his lungs with smoke, and every night with a stranger, he hoped would be one step closer to his undoing. Kill off his liver, burn out his lungs, maybe someone would off him because he accidentally picked up their girl. But no. He was still there. Every morning.
Even after years later, when he let his mind settle and he made peace with the fact that he was left behind, there was a voice in the back of his head that called him to the void. He was probably one of the few of Secs staff who routinely was Psych evaled and let the papa into his mind to clear out cobwebs. Now in death he longs for eternal rest but his deal says otherwise.
“I know I’m not who you want, but I got you…”