Who Saves The Saviour?

 📅 Late September, 2020

【ᴛᴡ ғᴏʀ ᴀʟᴄᴏʜᴏʟɪsᴍ ᴀɴᴅ ᴍᴇɴᴛɪᴏɴ ᴏғ sᴇʟғ-ɪɴᴊᴜʀʏ + ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ】

The year had been hell already. Chaos on chaos across the world, but with New York City in particular having felt like the epicenter of a Richter-scale-shattering earthquake. And the aftershocks had yet to end: Life ‘as normal’ was a far off dream yet. College had started again for Aetos, and this semester—the first to begin in the wake of the pandemic—was ending up mostly online, with an infrequent smattering of on-campus attempts at courses. The halls echoed emptily when walked down, now, and though mentions of frat parties had never piqued Aetos’s interest, their total absence was noticeable. Trepidation had replaced the fluid socialization from before, and everybody clearly felt the uncertainty of the future ahead. But despite the uprooting of so much else in life...some things remained unchanged. Unfortunately, they, too, were cause to worry.

Sethfire was still drinking. And sure, perhaps it was incorrect on multiple levels to refer to that as unchanged: It was still happening, but it was different now. Seth reached out these days. He didn’t drink until his inhibitions fled, leaving him to smash another mirror or spill his own blood. For two years he’d been opening up, smiling more, even socializing. But despite all improvements he was still drinking, and the second level on which that was un-unchanged meant that Aetos’s anxiety hadn’t ceased.
Day-drinking in the studio, or during rehearsal, or in the open—all used to be moves that Kato had stood fairly alone in. But Seth had gotten there, and Aetos couldn’t find a difference between Seth’s hip flask or imperfectly-palmed miniatures and Kato’s direct pull from a full-sized 750ml bottle; any distinction by way of “class” was lost to the overwhelm of worry.

Sethfire’s vaguely slurred, only-barely-pre-midnight “Could you come over, ‘Tae? I think I need you here” phone call was the third one that month, and though Aetos understood the impact of autumn’s approach on Sethfire and the reason the nights had grown rough enough for outreach, he couldn’t wrap his head around the number of new empty bottles he encountered in Seth’s recycling; not when he’d seen the bin a mere two days ago. He’d come in the door and immediately poured the last third of a shot left in that night’s bottle down the drain, his first action following his hello—but he was left reeling when he went to throw the offending container out of sight and was met by a drained fifth of vodka, a dry Hennessy half-pint, and another empty bottle of Jameson, waiting to be joined by its twin in Aetos’s hand. Aetos spun around and stared at Seth.
“How many of these are from today, Sethfire?!” he asked, gesturing fiercely to the bin; “I was just here two days ago! How much are you drinking?!”
Sethfire blinked at the sharp tone and walked slowly over, dragging his feet like a child on his way to a scolding. He peered into the recycling.
“...The vodka’s from yesterday,” he said quietly. “And the Hennessy wasn’t full; I just finished it today—”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?!” Aetos threw the Jameson into the bin hard enough that he was almost surprised none of the bottles broke. 
“Where is it, Seth, where do you keep all of this hidden?!” He wished his words would stop sounding so much like vitriol, but he couldn’t contain his upset, even with Seth meekly hunching his head in the face of it.
“I’m not hiding it...it’s….just in the lower cabinets, mostly…?” Seth said, gesturing timidly. 

Aetos wordlessly crouched down, threw open the indicated cabinets, and started pulling out bottles to pile on the counter. He felt exhausted and scared and guilty over his anger, but couldn’t keep from slamming the cabinet door shut with more force than necessary when he finally, frustratedly added the last of six fifths of whiskey from the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink to the collection of alcohol atop the breakfast bar. 
“...What are you doing?” Sethfire asked quietly from where he leaned, looking cowed, against the kitchen counter.
“Taking these and pouring them down the fucking drain,” Aetos said. He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice if he tried.
“‘Tae…” Seth’s murmur was guilty and tentative; something fragile underscoring the nickname and how it petered out.

That weakness felt like additional weight on Aetos’s shoulders, and it plus the sleeplessness and stress...became just too heavy a burden to bear. He felt profoundly aware of his 8am lecture, of his lack of rest, of the gunshot crack that his heart made, breaking. Aetos spun around, his eyes finally filling with tears. 
“Don’t ‘’Tae’ me!” he snapped half-brokenly, “Don't stand there and say my name like it can fix this, like it can do anything for either of us! It’s been years, it’s been fucking years! I have class in the morning and I’m here! You need help!” 
Sethfire flinched and bowed his head; his posture and voice alike grew heavy under the weight of visible shame. 
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the floor. “I...I don't know what to do. I’m trying, but I...just...” He trailed off hopelessly, looking like a kicked dog and small despite his height. 
Aetos wiped the salt from his stinging cheeks, guilty but desperate. 
“I know you’re working, Seth,” he said, his throat aching, “I know you are, you’ve come so far and I’m not trying to take away from that; I’m sorry I snapped at you. I thank God every single day that Jazz hasn’t had to get you to the hospital again. But you can’t cure this all on your own.” Aetos tilted his hand towards the bottles of alcohol, then swept his arm vaguely outward. 
“Even if you’re not...fucking gutting yourself drunk, or smashing your apartment up, I’m scared. We’re all scared: Your effing liver, Seth! Your brain, even!” Aetos gestured some sort of amorphous desperation and barely resisted the urge to tear at his hair; “You wanted to be a doctor, so you know! Every day, even on the ‘good ones,’ you’re drinking poison and you know it!” Aetos dropped his arms to his sides. 
“God, every day…” he choked out, feeling the truth of his own words settle deep into the lump in his throat.

“It’s not exorbitant every day, though,” Seth murmured without conviction, his averted eyes a clear indication that he knew the protest was empty; “It could be worse…”
“It is exorbitant every day, and it’s gotten worse,” Aetos replied emphatically. “Even without additional hospital visits it’s gotten worse. You’re an alcoholic, Sethfire, you have a problem and you don’t need to be cutting your arms up to be killing yourself. We’re still all watching you die!” 
He stepped forward to look pleadingly up at Seth, a couple stray tears escaping the corners of his eyes. 
“You’ve come so far, Seth, you’ve come so far: You talk to us now, all of us. I get to hear you laugh. It used to be that Athena would tell me about her brother like someone unfamiliar. She’d tell me about his dry sense of humor and his inability to hide his smile when he found something funny. She’d say he had the most expressive eyes of anyone she’d met. And I’ve finally, finally gotten to meet that brother of hers, Seth. Please stop drowning him.”

Sethfire’s shoulders slumped forward brokenly and he reached out as if to touch Aetos’s face, but hesitated—so Aetos grabbed his wrist and pointedly leaned his cheek into Seth’s palm.
“Where do I go from here, ‘Tae?” Sethfire finally asked, his voice cracking.
“You get actual help,” Aetos said, soft but firm. “Professional help. Medical help. Detox, rehab, therapy. You need to stop drinking because you’re killing yourself and—” Aetos choked as tears blurred the edges of his vision again, “—and I can’t watch it. I can’t watch the man who saved my life die. The man I’ve fallen in love with, die. Please.”
Sethfire’s eyes seemed to be sinking back into a tired distance, and his hand dropped by a hair’s breadth as he began to withdraw.
“We can’t be together, Aetos. I can’t do that,” he murmured, shaking his head. There was an undertone of finality to his voice, as if that were the issue at hand.
“Okay. That doesn’t matter,” Aetos replied, and it seemed to stop Seth in his tracks—so Aetos chased the rarity of catching him by surprise: “It doesn’t matter,” he repeated, “I love you, yeah. You can love me back or not love me back, that’s all beside the point! You need help, Sethfire. That’s why I’m here. Not to win your heart; not for romance! I’m here because someone I care about needs help, desperately. I'm here because Athena, one of my closest friends, is watching her brother die. I’m here because ‘Key already lost Hunter—already lost his by-blood older brother—and now he’s at risk of losing the man he’s allowed to fill those shoes. I’m here because you deserve to live the life you’ve already started to take back! I’m here for my present-tense friend, not for a hypothetical boyfriend. So listen to me as your friend: Let me help you get help.”

Sethfire’s forehead was still creased by something, but from the uncertainty in his eyes it seemed less to be the resignation from before. He blinked a couple times and looked down; he seemed to have forgotten he was planning on dropping his hand.
“You’ve started living,” Aetos said, mustering all the powers of persuasion he had within him; “You’ve started living life and letting people into that life. It isn’t just your role in our lives I want to save; it’s your life. Your life where when this pandemic is over, you can take your little sister out to a cafe again and spend time with her! I want you to be able to do that without carting a fucking 50ml of Seagram’s 7 along with you so you don’t start shaking!”
Sethfire winced, and Aetos grabbed both his hands as his posture instinctively started to close.
“It hurts when I say it because it isn’t you!” Aetos said, clutching Seth’s hands in his up to his chest. “You know it isn’t you, Seth.”
“...No, it isn’t.” Sethfire’s voice was pained and low; his eyes were guilty. “...and she deserves better.”
“She deserves her brother.” Aetos stared determinedly up into Seth’s eyes. They seemed clearer. “Detox programs are accepting admissions; the pandemic hasn’t stopped them. There’s a rehab center here in Brooklyn, in Redhook. We can contact them. Now. Tonight.”

Sethfire cast his eyes down briefly and pressed his lips thin; his fingers twitched. The eye contact returned; now he was holding onto Aetos’s hands as much as Aetos was to his.
“Anarchy did it,” he said quietly. “Got clean.”
“Yes, he did,” Aetos replied. “And Chey. Chey got off methadone this year.”
“And you don’t smoke anymore.”
“I don’t.”
There was a slight tremor in Sethfire’s hands that Aetos tried to soothe with a squeeze. 
You can do this, Aetos thought at him; a telepathic plea of encouragement.

“Let me—let me call my sister first,” Seth stuttered. His hands fled to his phone and he fumbled in Athena’s number, avoiding Aetos’s eyes.
Athena picked up only a ring and a half in:
“Seth?” she asked. Her tone was one Aetos recognized—it was his own: Her voice itself strained by lethargic anxiety, the wear of years of worry over nighttime calls from her brother and what they tended to mean.
“Um. Aetos is here,” Sethfire said. Neutrality had finally escaped his grasp; the tremor from his hands found his voice. “He thinks that I should...Check myself into a rehab center. In Redhook? I wanted your...your opinion. Do you think...I should?”
There was a pause at the other end of the line, then a quavering, relief-stricken:
“...Yes. Yes, Sethy, I do.” Athena’s voice cracked; she sounded as young as Aetos had ever heard her and Sethfire’s shoulders dropped at the sound.

“...Okay,” he murmured into the phone. His eyes looked wet; he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I...I will, then.” He sniffed. “I love you. I’m sorry it’s taken so long.”
A broken breath on Athena’s end; something that failed to quite be a sob.
“As long as it’s happening now,” Athena choked out. “I love you too. You’re gonna call tonight?”
Sethfire swallowed hard and nodded, though Athena couldn’t see. 
“Yes. Just as soon as I hang up.”
“Then hang up. I’ll put some pants on and be over there by the time you’re done.”

They exchanged temporary goodbyes; Sethfire’s seemed to drag. Finally, though, he hung up and turned to Aetos again. He took a deep breath. 
“Alright. What’s...what’s the telephone number?”