Beyond the Breaking Point

Chapter 5

Here we are again, finally. Thank you all for your encouragement and kind words, it really means a lot. <3

Warnings: The usual about me not being a medical professional and some characters thinking that they know better than they actually do in regard to medical issues.

I really hope you'll enjoy the chapter! And if you can, please review. :)

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Chapter Five

Arthur observed his boys from a corner of the room.

The gentle rise and fall of Matthew's chest under the white sheets – aided by the ventilator, that much was true. And, at the same time, it was still moving. The vitals were still weak; the fever a bit too high, the blood pressure a bit too low (and that was all Arthur could understand and he was too afraid to ask for any specifications for anything he might discover would probably make things worse) but the monitors weren't an ominous, empty black.

A rational corner of Arthur's brain knew that they had been lucky. Matthew wasn't out of the woods yet – but the fact alone he wasn't dead and his conditions hadn't worsened was nothing short of a miracle. Things had started going downhill so fast... a few more minutes, and there could have been nothing to do.

Arthur knew that because he had been told so – repeatedly – by Dr Oxenstierna, Dr Wang, Tiina herself, and Gilbert Beilschmidt via Francis, apparently.

Arthur still couldn't bring himself to believe their words. "Sometimes, there is luck in misery," Francis had said – a clear encouragement to see the silver lining in their situation.

Arthur didn't agree with him. Even if it came with pretty packaging and a consolation card, rotten luck was still rotten luck. In an even crueller twist, rotten luck wasn't the sole culprit to blame.

Of course, there was no denying that Matthew had always been unlucky. Yet, it was something that could be worked around. Arthur not noticing he had been feeling sick – for days, most likely, which notion made his stomach churn – wasn't an issue of bad luck. No matter what everybody around Arthur kept insisting, with their pitying eyes and sickeningly soft smiles, that was neglect. Pure and simple neglect.

Then, of course, there was Alfred.

Alfred who was now sitting on the chair in front of Matthew's bed, slightly bent over his little brother. His fingers threaded through Matthew's hair in a gentle, soothing motion as he talked. It was mostly a stream of memories, fragmented recollections of the good time they had spent together. Of how strong and determined Matthew had managed to be, so many times. And Alfred's voice, for once, was soft and rich instead of too loud. Laced with such tenderness that it reached Arthur's chest like a stab.

He had almost forgotten Alfred could talk like that.

In fact, there were many things Arthur had forgotten about Alfred. When had he started seeing his younger brother as an edgy and rebellious teen – as an opponent he needed to defeat – instead of he the kind-hearted, if a bit overzealous, boy Arthur knew him to be?

Many small accidents had started forming a rift between them. Stubbornness – on both their parts – had dug it deeper. The constant pressure and stress weighting down on Arthur's shoulders certainly hadn't put him in the right mood for negotiations, either – but that wasn't an excuse.

On the other hand, pretending that Alfred was without faults would be disingenuous as well. Alfred had taken plenty of wrong decisions, lately. The matter with his failing grades and unwillingness to put any effort into school – for how Arthur was still convinced to be in the right – was no more than a triviality, if confronted with everything else that had happened. During that sleepless night, Arthur's thought has lingered several times on what Alfred had confessed the previous day. For how firmly he had held his conviction that Alfred's brief companionship with those wretched Jones twins had been a mistake, Arthur hadn't been aware of the full entity. If he let it sink, the fear for what had happed to Matthew – and how much worse it might have been – made him feel ill and shaky. In spite of the evident regret Alfred had displayed, Arthur doubted he had truly grasped how severe the episode had been. That was something he alone was accountable for.