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Hatred was a funny thing. Sebastian wouldn't normally consider himself a hateful person, but things hadn't been normal for months. Hate was all he could feel as he was ushered out of the precinct, his badge left notably behind.
'Temporary leave' they'd said. Just long enough for him to get a hold of himself, attend some classes, and sober up enough to do his damn job. He didn't need to look around to know that there were eyes on him as he made for the parking lot, didn't care to. He knew. He didn't need to ask the internal affairs officer who had filed the report against him. After years of working together, he knew that Joseph had been the one to report him. Knew that Joseph had only his best intentions at heart, knew that his intervention was the only reason that meeting didn't end in Sebastian being fired.
They pitied him. All of them. His coworkers, the chief, Joseph, everyone.
They didn't see him, they saw a husk. Something hollow. Empty.
It only made him hate them more. He thought that, maybe, if he hated them enough, he might hate himself a little less.
After all, it wasn't Joseph that left Lily with a babysitter so he would work a few hours longer. It wasn't Joseph who pushed Myra away, who called her crazy, who told her to let it go— to just move on after their daughter died. Joseph wasn't the one pouring whiskey into Sebastian's coffee every morning just to stop his mind from screaming. All Joseph did was write a report. And Sebastian hated him for it, but not as much as he hated himself for getting to this point.
When had it started? Was it really the fire or had there been problems all along? How much of the hate was grief and how much of it was him? Sebastian had always been a little rough around the edges, a little too invested in his cases. Was it his fault?
Myra leaving was his fault, sure, but she kept insisting that Lily was still alive. That some shadow organization had staged the fire and kidnapped their daughter. As if they hadn't buried her body. A closed casket with a bouquet of her lilies placed atop it. They had buried her. He was certain of it.
Sebastian swallowed those thoughts with whiskey. Drowned Myra's conspiracies and her desperate ravings alongside his sorrows. Hate was better than doubt— better than grief— and when the hate burned down the rest of his life, maybe the guilt would sting a little bit less, too.
He doubted it, but it was worth a shot.
Whiskey never went down smoothly, it scratched and clawed at his throat until it burned. It didn't fill the void in his heart and the rush of warmth in his chest made him feel like his lungs were on fire. Whiskey brought back the taste of smoke from that night.
It was all he deserved.