this hell we create || Sebastian Sallow

good days, bad days

A/N: Hello everyone! This time a content warning for dementia/ Alzheimer's disease. Please take care of yourselves, and, as always, enjoy. 💚

*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*

When Sebastian collapses onto the barstool, you can see the withdrawal written like plain English on his face.

"You know what I want," he croaks. "Please."

It's another typical weekday in a late summer heatwave. You pour him a stout and slide it across the counter, and as he guzzles it greedily, Adam's apple bobbing to the rhythm, you note the haggard look on his face. He's handsome, that's for sure, but today he's also worn down, stretched and contracted by the universe itself to leave this brittle husk behind.

"You looked like you needed that."

He slams the glass down.

"There are good days and there are bad days," he says, panting hard. "Today... today is a bad day."

He drags his thumb up his temple, plying one of the veins that protrudes across. He's sweating, from the heat and the relief, and you watch a fat droplet roll down his face. It sets a course along his jaw, down the sharp angle of his chin before it finally drips onto the back of his hand.

"You shouldn't stop immediately," you say, forcing yourself to look away. "You need to give time for your body to adjust."

"You think I don't know that?"

You say nothing.

He recoils a little. "Sorry. Shouldn't snap."

"Irritability," you mumble. "It's a symptom."

"That explains why everything is so fucking annoying today." His eyes meet yours. "You must've seen loads like me."

"Eight years' worth, yeah. You're not the first and you won't be the last."

"Have you ever..." He swallows. "How many have beat it?"

The answer leaps fully formed onto your tongue. None. None at all. You've seen people try, make promises to God when they're broken and on their knees... and you've seen those same people stagger their way back to your counter, begging for respite the only way they know how. Sometimes you never see them again, when someone imparts the sad news dressed in funeral black.

"Just because I ain't seen it doesn't mean it didn't happen – doesn't happen. It's possible." Sebastian is much too clever for lies and sickly sweet encouragement, but you stare at him straight anyway. "You survived the passing of your sister. That toughens a person. You can beat this."

Yet he thrusts his empty glass in your direction, a wordless plea that breaks your heart. You refill it in exchange for more coin, and Sebastian doesn't take his eye off your movements – pulling the leaver down, pouring the dark gold liquid, letting the foam float to the top. A skein spills over when you pass it back to him, and he draws his tongue up the glass slowly to lick it clean. You track it hungrily.

"It's all bloody pointless, isn't it?"

You focus on his eyes again, coffee, ground, chewed up and spat out.

"I'll keep trying. Every day I wake up and I just want to drink, and I tell myself no, because that's how it's supposed to be, but everyone knows I'll come back here. If Ominis took my feet I'd crawl on my knees, and if he took my knees I'd drag myself by my hands. I'd find a way. It just doesn't stop."