Under Your Scars || Sebastian Sallow x MC

Flashback - Five Years Earlier

And now you're in the stars

and six-feet's never felt so far

Here I am alone between

the heavens and the embers

In the Stars

-Benson Boone

____________

Fall, 1894

Sebastian POV

I stood alone, at the edge of a black sea.

On any other day, the sea was not a sea at all but a collection of my closest friends, even family. But not today. Each sorrowful soul in the crowd was nothing but a wave in the tempest, and I was the fragile cliffside they were beating against. One wrong touch, and I would crumble into the depths.

I was the only one in attendance who refused an umbrella, allowing the freezing November rain to sting my skin and soak my clothes. Someone was speaking, but I could not process anything they said. Their voice was muffled, as if I were actually under water. I might as well have been underwater with how drenched I was.

My tie was strangling me, but I lacked the willpower to remove my hands from my pockets to loosen it. I did not bother to adjust the hair falling down and clinging to my forehead. My finest shoes sunk into the mud, but I couldn't move from my spot under the old Alder tree. It would not have been so muddy if it weren't for the freshly dug hole in front of me.

To my right, a row of rectangular stones stuck out of the ground where I once romped as a child.

Each bore a name.

Annaliese Nichol Sallow

Beloved Wife and Mother

Henry Albert Sallow

Beloved Husband and Father

and last and certainly least,

Solomon Clyde Sallow

Beloved Brother and Uncle

I had rolled my eyes at the dedication when I first visited his grave, the day I reunited with Anne. It was clearly Anne's doing. He was far from beloved, at least as far as I was concerned, but if Anne truly felt that way then she could win that one. It was the least I could do for putting her in a position to bury him alone. Or bury him at all.