Chapter Text
Joseph woke up. Laying on his back in the dark room, he despised his unfortunate state of affairs. The culprit lit up on the nightstand, the confining blackness, the four walls and the night laid heavy on his chest like lukewarm death.
Answering the call, the apartment stood around him quietly, the blue night trickling down the walls like paint. The digital clock on the windowsill turned to show 3:00 AM.
“He’s here”, a voice said. Joseph strained to listen; the message was muffled like it was being broadcasted from six feet under. The words were drowned out by the tireless sound of people, a deep heartbeat tempo billowing on top. “I had to kick him out, he was picking a fight with the regulars.”
“I’ll come”, Joseph said.
The voice thanked him profusely and continued with something, but it was tinned through the speaker and Joseph wasn’t listening anymore. He didn’t need to hear it.
He knew what he’d have to do. The next thing he came to was him circling the bar’s unsightly backyard for a parking spot. He’d made it there loyally, like something predetermined. Joseph was only relatively certain of the blurred images of him stumbling through the somber night. It felt like a groundhog day; other versions of the same night existed in his memory in a precarious chain. Joseph wondered why he agreed to keep repeating it.
Aware of the mundane reasons, the combination of his weak ego and strong sense of duty, Joseph rubbed his nose bridge behind the wheel. At this point, coming here was just a bad habit. He knew the route like the back of his hand, the veins and the crossroads always leading him back.
He sat in the car for a minute. Pretending to wait for a sign, Joseph watched the line of black trees frame the parking lot into infinity. The late fall had progressed to the weeks that anticipated snow; a single November snowflake crystallized on the driver's side window. Joseph turned on the heater before stepping out the door.
He ached for it to make sense, but the reason for everything was out of his reach. Hands clutched deep in his coat pockets, Joseph stepped over the crack on the sidewalk. He loathed the sight of this place, and could remember hating it before, every time. By now he’d regret coming, just like he always regretted it. There was only one thing to restore his objective, and Joseph found it there sitting by the dumpsters.
Looking at Sebastian Castellanos, his partner of ten years, curled up in his jacket on the street on a Tuesday night should’ve evoked some emotion in him. But it was a sight he’d seen too many times to count and therefore, it’d become painfully ordinary.
Sebastian sat on the sidewalk, underneath a ghostly spotlight. Joseph stood a few feet away, underneath a parallel streetlamp. Sebastian hadn’t noticed him yet, and probably wouldn’t; he often didn’t remember how he’d gotten home after the fact, but Joseph did. Joseph knew the spot he always ended up sitting in even if the man himself didn’t realize it, like he didn’t realize that stumbling to the same place night after night for him to find was the only way he remained loyal to him.
Joseph’s lips pressed into a thin line. He didn’t even know that he was waiting for him.
Sebastian swayed on the concrete, hanging his head between crossed arms. He didn’t distinguish from the other drunks around the block in any way. Joseph recognized him solely by the sense that this one was his.
My problem, Joseph corrected the thought. Still, looking at him he felt nothing, if not modest relief from seeing him here instead of under a Krimson Post headline ‘death by passing out in freezing temps’. But that was it. Somehow, he’d involuntarily been obliged to keep him from being a subject to those articles. Joseph intended to keep on it solely because he was competitive, and had been on a bit of a streak lately.
"Okay Seb, let's go" Joseph said, approaching him valiantly. He grabbed his partner’s shoulder, gave it a little shake. Nothing. Joseph tried to estimate the degree of Seb’s drunkenness from his appearance, the sunken posture and upside down turned collar. Tonight wasn’t looking very good.
“Sebastian, it’s me”, he tried again more assertively. The words choked in his throat. The night had started to spin around, the small hours like a physical weight on his shoulders and Sebastian still didn’t answer, only swayed sedately on his spot. The image of him blurred and it made Joseph suddenly hyper aware of how tired he was, hardly staying on his own two feet. Something unwieldy circled in his chest, something unpleasant. It wasn’t anger, not yet. Joseph grabbed the trench coat with both fists.
Putting all his strength and bodyweight to it he heaved the larger man to his feet. He wasn’t getting rid of it. Tonight was going to be the last time, he decided. He wouldn’t come here anymore. Balancing the drunkard as gracefully as he could, Joseph concentrated on dragging them forward, ignoring the relapse. Shifting his feet forward one step at a time the thought banged in his head, anxious and persistent.
Taking him home was all it was. Another favor. The thought strangled him a bit, but he couldn’t shake it, couldn’t leave him there. Any exceeding moral crisis was drowned out by the physicality of their situation; Joseph had to put all the might of his tired body to keeping them steady. They were making great, albeit slow progress to the car until Sebastian came to it abruptly and decided to lunge.
They crashed against the passenger’s door, Joseph taking the brunt of the fall. At the last minute, he thought annoyed, squished between Sebastian’s arm and the car roof. Pull yourself together, Seb.
“Hey, Jo”, could be heard from next to him. Joseph perked at the first sign of comprehension for the night, turning to look at his partner. He watched as Sebastian straightened sluggishly, shifting his hands underneath himself. He waited for him to gain enough balance to stand on his own. Maybe he’d get in the car without a fight, Joseph hoped. His hopes were high.
Sebastian had no such plans. Instead, as the smaller man attempted to detach himself from the tangle, he grabbed him and pulled him back underneath him wholly.
Sebastian crushed Joseph between the car roof and his chest. Joseph’s hands flung up to resist, but Seb stood three inches above him and was easily at an advantage anytime he chose to. He collapsed against him, and Joseph struggled to get a hold of the armful of him he’d suddenly received. Whatever had inflicted this fit of intoxication was strong; Sebastian’s head hung past his shoulder, and Joseph found himself having to hold him up simultaneously with trying to fight him off.
Sebastian gave up on his thought process, if there ever was any, and just leaned into him. Joseph’s back arched as he tried to move back, but there was nowhere to go. Seb sank into him with every exhale, with every inch he was allowed to. Joseph settled into it, having no other options. He watched the dark sky over his shoulder. He waited.
Sebastian stirred. Turning his head from where he’d slumped, his breath was hot and heavy on the side of his neck. It hit Joseph just how much he reeked of alcohol, how he wasn’t even looking at him but somewhere deep into the abyss as he slurred:
“You come here often?”.
Then the sky turned more complicated, on Joseph’s glasses its reflection of little lights merging and submerging into each other over the empty parking lot. Behind Sebastian’s head a car screeched as it took off into the night, and it was getting harder for Joseph to breathe, and it’d been getting harder for his heart to handle the damage.
He knew he’d have to make it stop. So Joseph took it all, and put it away in a small place inside of him. And the empty space that was left, flooded with anger.
With newfound vigor Joseph reclaimed his hands and pushed, and the fabric of Sebastian’s vest wrenched as he was tugged towards the open door and forced in. Joseph circled the car to the driver’s seat after slamming the door in his face. The mute, solid anger seeped through every little of his movements as he put on his seatbelt and reached for the ignition; but his intentions were halted by one last insurmountable detail.
Sebastian lounged on the passenger seat like a drunken king, still unbuckled and with no intentions of changing his state. He did this every time he got the chance, and Joseph was yet to define if it was to piss him off or because he was an idiot.
“Sebastian”, Joseph pronounced with a warning tone. “Put on your seatbelt.”
Sebastian laughed. He was too drunk to read in between the lines, making Joseph’s passive-aggression futile. Out of the garble that came out of his mouth, Joseph made out the words “make me". It was intentional.
Now, Joseph knew how it was going to go. It made him angry and humiliated, placed a block of dry ice on his chest, but there was nothing he could do about it. He decided to just get it over with.
Joseph unbuckled himself. Moving over the center console to Sebastian’s side, one knee on the edge of his seat he reached for his seatbelt. He wasn’t surprised as Sebastian’s hand slid on his ass, tried to pull him onto his lap. Joseph had been through this ordeal before. He knew the only track drunk Sebastian’s drunk brain knew, and as Seb went straight for the kiss, he was stopped by a firm hand to the face. Joseph held Sebastian by the jaw while sneaking his other hand between them, fastening his seatbelt.
He retreated to the driver’s side and started the car. After the fact Joseph added the incident to a lengthening list of things to dispose of, stuffed to the murky corner of his mind. He wasn’t getting rid of it.
They drove in silence for a while. The streetlamps’ yellow spilled over the roof of the car and in in a continuous stream, washing them down. Joseph was still majorly annoyed. His anger took different shapes and forms, moving in the dark spaces between the arbitrary light. Slowly it shrunk back into the high density cube he kept it in, where its damage was contained to eating him from the inside. His hands clutched the steering wheel tight, fingers curling around the ring like squeezing air out of a windpipe. His feet remained steady on the pedals.
The car rolled to a halt towards a red light. Waiting for it to pass he felt more in control, the vehicle standing still by command. The heating whirred in the cabin. Joseph was shivering, but the warmth built up gradually, and soon he wouldn’t notice it anymore.
He glimpsed at his passenger. Seb had gotten bad again lately. It was so obvious in hindsight -Joseph had observed his decline for weeks, but it’d been unforeseen that he’d end up like this. Joseph had conducted this fetch three times this month alone. Hell, the bartender knew him by name!
The car pulled steadily forward in a green wave. Sebastian had been nearly incomprehensible earlier. He could usually cut it off before he entered that state. Joseph glanced out at the passing darkness. It had to be because it was nearing the anniversary. Had it already been two years?
Joseph’s mood was pulled lower by this realization. His own daughter had turned five this year, the same age as Sebastian’s kid had been. He couldn’t imagine this world without her. He didn’t love anything in this world as purely as he loved her.
He gave Sebastian chances long after everyone else had given up, because he understood his chase for a life long passed while he was chasing something that had never existed.
Joseph’s grip on the steering wheel lessened. His contemplation was interrupted by a hollow sound from the passenger seat.
Sebastian had curled into his jacket, forehead against the foggy window. His mood had taken a 180 degree turn, his new demeanor contrasting its predecessor disorientingly. What had triggered it was a mystery. Joseph strained to make sense of his jagged voice that filled the silence.
“Don’t leave me, Joseph” “Joseph, you’re all that I have left”
The words came out in an inseparable howl and sank deep underneath Joseph’s skin before he could avoid it. Joseph winced. Sebastian was right. They both knew it, he just hadn’t heard him say it out loud before. The massive responsibility clawed its way into him with force, making damage all the way to his core.
Joseph stared at the dark road in consternation. Usually Seb babbled some nonsense about Myra, or work, or even Lily. This was different: he could feel his heart beat an angry and painful rhythm in his chest. It flipped some switch in him that he’d been unaware of. Something Joseph had kept strictly isolated from his work -yes, he considered this an extension of his job -bled into his conscious mind and mingled with his thoughts, interfering with his mission. It stopped all rational thought and locked his body in like reacting to physical pain, like under threat.
Joseph was left with sheer, cold dread. He hit the pedals with force.
The car swerved to the side of the road abruptly, making Sebastian sway sideways in his seat. Stuporously he examined his new surroundings as they appeared: the stopped motion, the vehicle haphazardly parked, the headlights still on.
He turned to look at who was in the driver’s seat. It was Joseph: hands still holding the wheel, face gently lowered between them. It was as if somebody had forgotten to blow air into him, like the God behind his eyes had gone absent.
It was dead quiet. Sebastian inched closer, perplexed about this man who he’d never seen before, not like this. Aware of his approaching Joseph took a deep breath, correcting himself.
His jacket shuffled in the dark as he lifted himself up, turning sideways in his seat. Pressing against the driver’s side window Joseph breathed against the bars of his cage, glaring at him.
“That’s unfair, Sebastian.”
Joseph’s whisper floated in the darkness like a spark. In the split lightning casted by the headlights Sebastian could see the wounded expression on his face, the crudity of the small hours taking their toll on him. The stare in his black eyes was unrelenting. Joseph pulled back, a motion he was used to, the only motion he knew. He thought he should’ve been angrier. He thought he shouldn’t care.
"You get how that's unfair to me?"
Sebastian stared back with a blank expression. He was in no condition to take responsibility for anything, but Joseph blamed him anyway. He blamed him for everything he’d done to him, the nothing he’d made him. He felt like a shooting star: the grand vision of his life and career burning out while he circled down to sit in the car with him. Dying out in the dark…
Sebastian crept closer over the center console. Joseph slid lower in his seat, trying to shoo him away but the bastard couldn’t pick up cues even if he’d put his whole body into it. Seb grabbed his knee. Joseph flinched. Staring into the blind eyes of the beast, the man he trusted more than himself, he thought he shouldn’t care.
Sebastian reached towards him. “Don’t”, Joseph said, but his voice was quiet and hoarse, much the same as his had been. He didn’t want it, not like this. Sebastian looked serious and intent. Joseph couldn’t protect himself as he pushed his thumb underneath his glasses and clumsily, violatedly, wiped away his tears.
Joseph’s eyes adjusted through the water. The particles of the small hours buzzed in the low light; Sebastian’s hand on the side of his face was heavy and warm, and it devastated him. He knew he should’ve walked away a long time ago; he wished he could. Joseph felt more abandoned than in years. But there was gentleness in Sebastian’s actions; a worried look in those brown eyes that always made him forgive everything.
It was unbearable. Suddenly Joseph felt out of place, splayed out on his seat, Sebastian’s bulky frame halfway on his lap. The weight of their history squeezed down on his chest as the heel of Sebastian’s palm brushed against his lip, and Joseph couldn’t breathe, couldn’t let it be pulled out of him. He felt the tug, his pathetic little life tied to him. He wanted to pretend that Sebastian understood it.
On the other side of the windshield, the starry night kept spinning towards the morning, his human failings gleaming before his reflection.