Lacuna ✔

Deimos stared at the remaining liquid in his glass and tried to remember how many times the bartender had refilled it already. The haziness in his head told him more than enough times, the gnawing pain in his heart told him that there was a long way to go until he should stop drinking. His momma always admonished him for thinking too much with his heart.

He knocked back the last sip and raised his hand, a gesture more successful in getting the bartender's attention than all the shouts around him. Maybe it also helped that he'd been here the last five nights as well.

He nodded in thanks and continued to stare at his by now full glass. Honestly, he didn't care what went down his throat, he just cared about how quickly it stopped the churning thoughts in his head which usually happened a long time before the ache in his chest faded even the tiniest bit. It was about treasuring the little things in life, wasn't it?

Slowly, he dragged his eyes back up, met with his own reflection in the mirror behind the bar. Unfortunately, not even the low lights could hide his bloodshot eyes, the unkempt stubble on his chin and cheeks and the greyish colour of his skin.

He knew he'd lost weight as well. Magazines warned about the hidden calories in alcohol but they didn't tell you how effective an alcohol based diet was. Two weeks and his cheeks looked haggard and he had to tighten his belt at a hole more than before.

The sight was hauntingly impressive. If he was honest with himself he despised how much power this had over him but when he tried to drag himself out of that hole he realized how little power had remained in him. It felt like an endless spiral down, no rock-bottom in sight yet.

He sipped his drink, watched the bustling crowd around him.

The bar wasn't fancy, more of a pub really. And he wasn't the only lost soul around which was a bit relieving although sad at the same time. Now and then he would catch glimpses of empty eyes and hunched over backs, weighed down by an invisible burden. He knew that those figures were a better representation of himself than the reflection in the mirror.

"What are you drinking?"

He was startled out of his stupor, hazy mind taking embarrassingly long to realize he'd been spoken to.

"Huh?"

The man looked at him. "What are you drinking?" A flick of the wrist indicated to his glass.

Deimos furrowed his eyebrows. "A lot."

The man didn't laugh, merely tilted his head the tiniest bit to the side. Deimos saw that he had long hair, kept together at the back of his head in a messy bun. Involuntarily, Deimos wrinkled his nose - those hipsters.

Impressively efficient, the stranger waved down the busy bartender and got a glass of wine.

"Wine?" Deimos scoffed in disbelief. Wine in a cheap, kind of rundown dive in North London - hilarious.

"Drink of the gods," the man simply said and raised his glass in a silent toast. Still confused, Deimos drank with him.

Weirdo. Then again - looking at his reflection - he was a weirdo as well.

He glanced at the stranger. His skin was fair enough for his ancestors to come from this rainy, cold island in an equally as cold sea, the sharp jaw and prominent cheekbones on the other hand contradicted this observation. Here, the rain washed away all sharp angles, people a blurry mass behind a curtain of water. Scandinavia perhaps, or even more to the East.

They both stared straight ahead at the row of bottles on a shelf behind the bar. Jameson next to Smirnov, Riesling next to Bacardi - an army of friends for whoever needed a bit of solace.