Author's Note: Thank you all for the amazing reviews and continued support as always! I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint!
Trigger warning: This chapter gets dark - as in, a character starts doing dark, self-harming acts.
"Dad, I don't want to tell you how to make your baklava, but I think it's starting to burn."
"It's not burning, it's…crisping."
"That means it's burning," Madeline tells him as gently as she can before she wipes her hands on her pastel blue apron, steps over to him, and turns off his oven. "I think it's ready. I'll work on the syrup while you set it out to cool…Amelia, how is our entrée? Are you almost done with the chicken?"
"I think it needs another five minutes," Amelia says from across the loud, large kitchen—there are about six other groups of people at this cooking class in addition to the Turkish instructor, making effective communication near impossible.
"Okay, let me know when you think it's done."
Arthur puts on his oven mitts, takes the baklava out, and carefully places the baking pan on the counter without incident.
Madeline was right, it was beginning to burn. It's a good thing she noticed before he could ruin it any further. He's not ashamed to admit that cooking and baking are not skills he prides himself on. He can whip up a basic meal for sheer survival purposes, but nothing beyond that, and though it'll be edible, it's unlikely to be flavorful or anything close to delicious. He leaves the cooking to Francis.
"You should teach us some British recipes sometime, Dad," Amelia suggests with a toothy smile, and Arthur isn't sure if she's teasing him or not.
"Uhh, I'm afraid I don't know very many…My mother, however, used to be a wonderful cook."
Madeline glances at him over the saucepan she's tending to. "You rarely talk about your family."
Arthur takes his oven mitts off, places them on the counter and nervously laughs. "It's complicated, I suppose."
"But your mom—our grandma—used to cook?" Amelia asks, raising her brows with increased interest.
"Oh, yes…When she had the time. I'll never forget the Cornish pasties she used to make. She would have loved you both dearly. I'm sure of that."
"She died of breast cancer, right?"
"Yes."
Amelia frowns, bites her lip, and shuffles from foot to foot, occasionally checking on the chicken in her pan before finally saying what's on her mind. "Umm. What about your dad? You never mention him, except that you two didn't get along."
Arthur's chests tighten. He wills himself not to be sick. The smell of the food is starting to affect him. "It wasn't about getting along—he was merely absent from my life for a very long time, and he had an…abusive relationship with my family. But, that's all in the past now. It doesn't matter…"
"…What happened to your dad?" Madeline quietly asks, seemingly frightened by her own question.
"Well, uhh, he had a stroke, and he didn't recover…He was…medically brain dead after that…"
Amelia drops the fork she has been using to poke at the chicken and looks at him with another grave frown. "How old were you?"
"Twenty-five, I think…I had just finished medical school and was applying for residency. This was after my mother passed away as well. It was…an isolating time. I had to make some tough decisions and—oh, never mind. It is what it is," Arthur finishes, uncomfortable. He knows the girls deserve a better explanation than what he has given them. They have every right to be curious about his family (which is also their family now), but these are old wounds—very old wounds.
"I'm sorry," Madeline whispers, switching off her burner.
"No, don't be. It's all right. It's natural you've both asked me these things…"
"No, I didn't mean it that way. I meant, I'm sorry you had to go through that."
"Oh."
He clears his throat roughly, grabs an antacid from his bag and takes it, and then replies, "I wouldn't be here today if not for all of that…In the end, it worked itself out."
The girls both nod at him and offer him small smiles, soothing the ache in his chest.
"Ahh, shit! The chicken is burning, guys!" Amelia suddenly shouts, jumping with alarm.
"I told you to watch it!" Madeline chides.
Arthur simply shakes his head at the two of them and thinks about how lucky he is to still have a family.
London, 1989
He looks at a boy the wrong way.
It's hard to pinpoint where the chain of events started, but all Arthur knows is that he's been secretly admiring Lucas from his physics lab for the past several weeks. He didn't think anyone noticed. After all, it's not like he would ever go up to him and talk to him. In fact, he's not even sure if Lucas knows he exists, but there's something about his eyes, and his hair, and that dimply chin that make Arthur feel emotions he doesn't want to feel. He knows it's wrong. He knows he should be turning his affections and attention elsewhere…Why can't he just be normal? There's no way Lucas is like him anyway. He would be disgusted if he knew he was being ogled by another boy…
Lucas has a girlfriend. And, without having to get into the deeper adolescent drama of it all, suffice it to say that she notices. She starts to tell Lucas's friends—his oversized, bulky, athletic friends—that the queer boy from physics lab has been lusting after him.
And that's all it takes for Arthur to get pummeled into the ground on his way home. Just three minutes away from the school building, the boys find him, knock him over, and start viciously kicking him in the head and stepping on his face with their grimy, mud-dampened shoes.
He doesn't scream. Or cry. Or even whimper. He just stares at the gray clouds above him and wonders how many more times he's going to have to go through this before he dies. How many more lives does he have left? Maybe this will be it. Maybe this will finally end him, and he's not even upset about it—in fact, he thinks he'd be relieved. At long last, he would be at peace.
One of the boys who now has him in a chokehold spits in his face. "Faggot."
He can't breathe.
His vision fades.
This is it, he thinks.
The freedom he's been waiting for—the release from this hell. He'll float from here and go far, far away—all the way to oblivion.
And it doesn't matter. He's a nuisance to his mother, and his father certainly won't care if he dies. He doesn't have any friends. Dylan might be upset for a few days, but he'll move on. Mrs. Flynne won't have anyone to remind her to take her blood pressure medication, but Mum will likely personally arrange for someone else to tend to her. No need to worry.
Nothing left to live for really.
He shuts his eyes and waits for total blackness.
But it never comes. It never fucking comes.
The hands around his neck release him, the boys' footsteps fade, and Arthur slowly starts to regain awareness and control of his senses. His hearing comes back first, then his vision clears a bit, but his left eye is swelling quickly, and he has a feeling he won't be seeing properly for a while.
His nose is bleeding again. He touches it—palpates the cartilage to check if it's whole and straight, and it's not. It's definitely displaced, and if the searing pain is anything to go by, it's probably broken.
Otherwise, the rest of his injuries are superficial. It appears that, yet again, he has evaded serious harm.
For a good four extra minutes, he stays prone on the ground and doesn't budge. Part of him doesn't want to get up. Maybe he can still will death upon himself from this position.
But when this also fails, he finally stands on wobbling legs and cries out in pain at the battered mess his nose has become. If he goes home looking like this, his mother will simply think it's his fault again—that he started a petty fight or involved himself in one intentionally. There'll be no sense in defending himself against her.
He needs to clean himself up. He could attempt re-aligning his own nose in front of a mirror, but he imagines it would be excruciatingly painful, probably just as painful as being stabbed with a knife was—at least he was unconscious for most of that experience.
But he'll be damned if he's going to go seek professional help. He can handle this on his own—he always has.
Everyone should still be at work, and he can be a little late to Mrs. Flynne's. Arriving an hour later won't make a difference. At most, Mrs. Flynne will be a little more irritated than usual.
So, he sneaks into the house, heads straight for the bathroom, and rinses the blood off of his face and out of his nostrils. Then, he sticks a rolled-up tea towel between his teeth, bites down hard, places his index and middle fingers on either side of his nose, and tries to push the cartilage into place with quivering hands.
His shrill scream is muffled by the towel, and his face goes completely red. Tears stream from his eyes involuntarily and his forehead begins to glisten with sweat.
Why did he think this would be a good idea again?
And then, it's over, but he cries and cries for as long as his heart allows him. It's not even about the nose—it's everything. It's the constant pain that comes from simply living.
The house phone rings before he can wallow any further.
He steadies his breath, wipes his eyes with the back of his hand, and picks up.
"Hello?"
"Arthur, why aren't you at Mrs. Flynne's? I just received a call—she's in hospital," his mother's sharp voice greets him.
The rest of the blood in his body feels like it drains out of him. "What? What happened?"
"She had a heart attack, Arthur."
"Where is she? What hospital?"
"Saint John and Saint Elizabeth's."
"Can I go?"
"Where are you?"
"At home…I wasn't feeling well after school. I stopped by to take some paracetamol before I was going to go to Mrs. Flynne's," he lies, but it sounds convincing enough, especially considering how nasally his voice currently is.
"Do you have a cold?"
"Something of the sort," he says. "I'll go and visit, if that's all right. Is she…?"
"I don't know…I haven't heard from anyone yet about her condition. I'll come and join you in a few hours."
"Okay."
"You're a good boy, Arthur…Mrs. Flynne has been speaking very highly of you, it seems."
"Has she really?" he asks, and more tears roll down his scalding hot cheeks.
"Yes…I love you. I'll see you in a bit."
She hangs up, and Arthur bursts into a fit of sobs though he's not sure why. Is this all his fault? If he'd been on time, would he have been able to do something? To call for help sooner? To prevent this?
His mother is wrong.
He's not a good person. All he does is make the world a more terrible place.
After spending a whole hour this morning trying to explain to Francis why he would not be needed at his appointment for his MRI today, it seems he should have saved his energy. In the end, Francis tags along anyway, insisting he will be able to make himself useful by driving– after all, for safety purposes, Arthur is no longer allowed to drive now that he's had a seizure. He's been doing just fine with taking buses to get where he needs to go—he even took the bus with the girls the other day to go to that cooking class, and all was dandy.
"It's important to have someone who loves you there," is what Francis says as they're heading out the front door.
"But you didn't have to take the day off of work for this…"
"I wanted to. Who wants to be in a hospital all by themselves?"
"I won't be in a hospital—it's a radiology center."
"Same thing, really."
Once they arrive—they go through the usual dance: checking-in with the receptionist, filling out a form, waiting, and then more waiting…
It feels degrading as a medical professional to be in this position, and although he's been through several embarrassing encounters now since that initial car accident, it's still as degrading as it's always been.
When his name gets called, Francis stands up to go with him, but Arthur explains that he can't come—only the patient can go into the room.
The room is cold—as expected. He's left alone for a minute to change into another damned gown. He hates this.
Then, he lies down on the table, is given a pair of earplugs to block out the sound of the MRI machine, holds still, and…
He falls asleep.
Honestly, it seems he can fall asleep just about anywhere nowadays, and it's even more humiliating than having to wear a gown. He gets woken up by the technician, who tells him the scan is over and he can change back into his regular clothes. He'll have to do some more sitting around in the waiting room before he can get his results from the radiologist.
Francis embraces him as soon as he's back, comments about how cold his hands are, and then holds them in his own to warm them up. "How did it go?"
"Fine. We'll have to wait to speak to a doctor now."
"Did they show you the images yet?"
"No."
Francis sighs, squeezes his hands, and then plants soft kisses on his knuckles. "Okay. I'm sure it'll be all right, mon cher."
They wait longer than they should—a warning sign to Arthur that it isn't all right. It's the first red flag.
The second red flag is when they get called into a consultation room and there's not one, but two doctors waiting to greet them.
To spare them all, Arthur speaks first once he's seated, already having his answer, "It's inoperable, isn't it?"
One of the doctors looks at him in alarm, twiddles the ballpoint pen in his hand, and quickly shakes his head. "No, no, no. It's operable. That doesn't mean the procedure is risk-free, of course, but it's operable."
Francis gives off an audible sigh of relief, and Arthur knows he should be happy and relieved as well, but it appears he's still struggling to feel any emotion about all of this. In many ways, it doesn't feel real. Somehow, it feels like, yet again, he is beating the odds—surviving against all of the hurdles being placed in front of him. Is it fortune? Or just a greater power having a good laugh at him?
"Given your reactions, I assume you'll want to go through with the surgery then?"
Arthur nods and takes a moment to feel a bit foolish for jumping to conclusions. "Yes."
"Great. You'll have to speak with your surgeon about the details of the procedure, but I can tell you that you'll be put under general anesthesia and the procedure usually lasts between three to five hours," the older of the two doctors—who Arthur assumes is the attending—says. "You can then expect to spend anywhere from five to fourteen days in the hospital depending on how you're doing afterward. You'll feel tired and rundown for the first two months, but things should gradually improve after that."
"And how long will he have to wait to be scheduled for the surgery?" Francis asks.
"I wouldn't be able to tell you that. It all depends on the neurosurgeon. Given the severity of symptoms—maybe you'll be on the waiting list for only a month. This would be considered an elective surgery, though that probably sounds strange, so there will be a bit of a wait."
As usual, Francis asks most of the questions while Arthur sits back and imagines the possibilities—hemorrhaging, sepsis, cardiac or respiratory arrest...It's not as simple as getting one's appendix taken out, but it could also be worse, he supposes. And while he's not fond of the idea of having a metal plate in his skull for the remainder of his life, it's either that or live with the misery of this meningioma until it finally drives him into the ground.
The second doctor is merely on a fellowship and not of much use. He follows along with the conversation and recites some basic facts about meningiomas. Then, they open the floor to more questions, but Arthur has nothing to ask or say. He knows what's going to happen to him, and it's not going to be pleasant, to say the least. He'd rather not discuss it any longer and avoid the subject until the actual surgery, frankly.
Once Francis has been placated, they say their goodbyes and leave. All that's left now is a visit to the neurosurgeon Oxenstierna referred him to next week and then the real waiting game will officially commence.
"How are you feeling about all of this?" Francis asks him once they're back in the car.
Arthur puts his seatbelt on and notices there's a bottle of water in the passenger's side cup holder. It wasn't there before…Francis is doting on him again, and he's not going to stop.
Well, he's definitely not going to have any water to drink now.
"Nothing really."
"What do you mean nothing?"
"Well, all there is to do is get the surgery."
"Aren't you nervous about it?"
Arthur shrugs his shoulders. "I don't have a choice, so it doesn't matter how I feel about it, now does it?"
"That's not the right attitude to have."
"I apologize that my attitude doesn't meet your standards."
"Oh, here you go again."
"How did you expect me to respond?"
"For someone who's severely ill, you sure have the strength to talk back," Francis huffs, pointedly keeping his gaze on the road. "I left that water there for you for a reason. Drink it."
"No, thank you. I'm not thirsty."
"I didn't ask if you were thirsty. I said to drink it."
"Stop mothering me, or it's going to be a very long month," Arthur snarls through gritted teeth. "You're going to give me another migraine."
"Don't blame it on me—blame it on yourself for getting agitated when I'm trying to help."
It's uncomfortably hot in the car. Arthur puts a hand on his suddenly dizzy head and mumbles, "Pull over."
"What? No, I'm not letting you get out of the car to throw a fit again like you did last time."
"I'm not going to throw a fit, idiot. Unless you want me to vomit on the dashboard, pull over."
"Merde," Francis swears, immediately slowing down and putting his blinker on before stopping at the next corner. "Sorry, I didn't realize…There has to be a plastic bag in the back somewhere. Hold on, mon amour."
"I have no control over whether or not I can," Arthur replies with a low groan, undoing his seatbelt and opening his door. How many more times is he going to have to go through this until he gets some relief? The cold, early-winter air that clashes with his face feels heavenly.
Francis finds a plastic bag, comes rushing back, and crouches in front of Arthur. He passes the bag to him and then rubs his back with one hand while the other sweeps his bangs off to the side.
He's clammy and disgusting. He doesn't know why Francis isn't absolutely revolted by him.
"That's strange," Francis whispers, pressing his palm more firmly against Arthur's forehead. "You're warm, mon cher. Did you catch a cold? I'm not surprised…Your body is under a great deal of stress…"
Arthur isn't in a state to respond because a second later, he loses what little nutrients and fluids he has been wrestling into his system. The episode leaves him in his now routine paroxysms— shaking, sweating, and coughing all at once. He concedes and decides to take a few sips from the water bottle Francis left him after all, if only to wash the taste of stomach acid from his mouth.
"You're on bedrest. Understand? That's it. I've had it," Francis says, taking the now soiled plastic bag away from him and disposing of it in a garbage bin.
Arthur's not going to argue. Sleep sounds divine. He could sleep for an eternity and probably still not feel fully rested. And yes, now that he thinks about it, he is feeling a bit feverish. Either Madeline gave him her strep or another patient shared something with him.
"Well, I suppose it's a good thing then that I'm on sick leave," he grumbles.
"That's the spirit."
London, 1989
Mrs. Flynne does not die of a heart attack.
She dies of sepsis.
Fucking sepsis—something completely preventable. How do you survive a heart attack only to then become septic as a result of a shoddy care team? It's not fair. It's negligence, and it's maddening.
He wants to tear down the walls of this hospital and sue everyone for all the money they're worth, but he's not sure how to do that. Plus, he doesn't think any amount of yelling at a doctor or nurse will quell the resentment in his chest.
Mrs. Flynne didn't deserve to die this way. She deserved better. She deserved more than a grandson who didn't want to look after her. She deserved a loving family and all of the cats her heart desired and the right to curse as many children and teens who would go by her house as she felt necessary. She deserved better food than the eggs and tea Arthur would attempt to make for her. She deserved friends, more people who would be patient with her, and a life outside of her house. She should not have been house-bound the way she was. Arthur should have taken her to the park or out to the shops—something. Most importantly, she deserved people who cared about her, including the people at this hospital.
But it's all too late now.
Long after she is removed from her bed and her limp body is taken away, Arthur sits in her hospital room and stares at the white walls and the sad window to his right. Outside, there are children kicking a football down the street and talking loudly to one another, but inside, it's distressingly quiet.
He checks his watch—Mum and everyone else are likely still at work. Mum said she would come and see Mrs. Flynne, but there's nothing to see anymore. By the time she arrives in two hours, not even the nurses will remember who Mrs. Flynne was, as their minds will be too preoccupied with their living patients.
He gets up and decides he's going to go home. Staying here any longer would be fruitless.
It all starts to sink in on the tube ride back, and it takes all of his willpower not to cry like a child again. When he lifts a hand up to rub his face, he quickly draws back because of his sore nose, and he is reminded of all of the injustice he's seen today. It's all shit. The world is an awful, awful place.
By the time he reaches the Kirkland family doorstep, he has entirely disassociated from his body. He goes through the motions of taking off his shoes, throwing his rucksack on his bedroom floor, and stealing Alistair's walkman yet again. He walks down the hallway, traces his footsteps back and forth, and pictures his seven-year-old self at the base of the stairs, clutching a Lego block and asking when Dad is going to come home.
He looks back at Alistair's room and remembers when he used to share it with Patrick—when they were still all children who often ended up rearing themselves. Always taught not to feel. Always be tough. Always passively accept it when things fall apart.
He enters his mother's bedroom. It's more barren than it used to be—much like the rest of the house. Did Mum and Dad ever sleep in this bed together? Probably, but he was too young…All he knows are pitch-black nights of his father crawling onto the couch downstairs and mumbling drunkenly to himself.
Did they ever really love each other?
He grabs his mother's doxylamine again and clutches the box in his right hand.
"I am a passenger
And I ride and I ride
I ride through the city's backside
I see the stars come out of the sky
Yeah, they're bright in a hollow sky
You know it looks so good tonight."
Since when does Alistair listen to Iggy Pop?
He holds the box up to the light—little pills that look like stars if you squint hard enough…
It never comes. It never comes. It never comes.
But it took Mrs. Flynne.
And he'll be damned.
"He looks through his window
What does he see?
He sees the silent hollow sky
He sees the stars come out tonight
He sees the city's ripped backsides
He sees the winding ocean drive."
Calmly, he takes a glass from the kitchen, fills it to the top with tepid water and returns to his room with it and the box of doxylamine. He lies down in his familiar, cozy bottom bunk, and, one by one, pops out the tablets until he loses count of how many are in his hand. The soothing tempo of the music begins to sound like a lullaby.
He stares at the pills for several minutes. A few begin to melt in his palm.
He closes his eyes, imagines he is lying on a boat going down the Thames River, and all he can see are London's lights and the bruised navy blue sky. Then, he pours the pills into his mouth. They clack against his teeth and taste bitter when they meet his tongue. He drinks a bit of water and holds it in his mouth with the tablets for a long moment.
He doesn't pray. In fact, he hasn't been to church in ages ever since Mum stopped making him go, but he supposes if this is really it, he ought to do at least one religious act, if only to make his inevitable time spent in hell slightly more bearable. Penance—he was never very good at that.
He traces the sign of a cross over his lips with his thumb and swallows.
"Would you like a bedtime story? Maybe a lullaby?"
"Oh, shut it."
Francis chuckles at him and pecks his increasingly red nose with a kiss, causing his nostrils to flare from an impending sneeze that then rattles him to his core.
It seems he really does have a cold—his first cold in several years. What a bother.
"Bless you, mon cher. Tea? And soup?" Francis asks brightly before shoving him into bed and pulling the duvet over him. "And your multivitamin that you don't take often enough?"
Arthur doesn't offer a response aside from an ineloquent moan and a feeble, "Could you turn out the light?"
"Of course," Francis coos, and cool, pleasant darkness fills the room a second later. "Shout if you need something. I'll be back in a little while."
He nods even though Francis can't see him any longer. His husband leaves the bedroom door cracked open, allowing just the smallest bit of light to shine through—not enough to aggravate his head, but just enough to make him feel secure and not isolated.
...
"Dad? Are you sleeping?" a voice whispers as he's trying to get comfortable.
"No, what is it...? Please, don't turn on the light."
Amelia peeks her head in, pushes the door open a bit more, and asks, "C-Can I come in?"
Given the tremble in her voice, something isn't right.
"You should be asleep, Amelia…You can come in but don't come too close—I don't want you catching my cold."
"Too late, I've already got it. Actually, I think I gave it to you. Sorry. I've had a runny nose for two days…"
Arthur clicks his tongue, sits up a bit, and tries to narrow his eyes to get a better look at Amelia. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"I didn't want to worry you. You've got too many problems already."
"Come here."
Obligingly, Amelia hops into the bed and cuddles up to him, wrapping a hand around his arm. "Yeah?"
"You have to promise me something."
"Oh, no."
"Promise me you won't hesitate to tell me whatever's on your mind or when you're feeling unwell, no matter the circumstances," he says before setting a hand on her forehead. Sure enough, she's equally as warm as he is.
"Okay. I promise."
"Thank you…Now, there's something else you wanted to talk to me about?"
"Oh, yeah…I can't sleep."
"Why not? Because of your cold?"
"That, too, but also…I keep thinking about your surgery. What if something bad happens?"
"Nothing bad is going to happen," Arthur assures her, petting her hair. "You leave all of that worrying to me, all right?"
"Okay…I love you, Dad. I can't help but be really worried about you."
"I love you, too, and I know, but please try not to worry."
Amelia hums in agreement and puts her head on his chest. "Remember when you were talking about your dad the other day?"
"…What about him?"
"Did you love him? Even though he wasn't that good?"
Arthur sighs and lets his eyes close. "…Yes, very much so. I was disappointed in him. I expected more from him. And I suppose if I hadn't loved him, I wouldn't have cared as much as I did…It's difficult to explain. I think that for many years, I felt shame for caring…But then he died, and I was there…It put things into perspective."
"I'm sorry."
"There's no need to be…Now, you should get some rest, poppet."
"Can I stay here with you for a while?"
"Oh, all right."
It doesn't take long for Amelia to doze off in his arms. He dips his head, kisses her cheek, and pulls her closer. It's only then that he notices that she has a septum piercing! He wants to be furious! When did that happen? And how could she not tell him? She's still grounded so when in the world did she find the time to do this? Worse, what if she gets an infection? Does she know how to properly maintain it?
He silently fumes about it for ten minutes until he remembers his own youth…
There's no doubt in his mind that Amelia is certainly his daughter.
And that terrifies him.