Author's Note: Thanks for the feedback, everyone! Here's another chapter for being so awesome. Happy reading!
August 1932
"More school? I thought I was done after this year!"
"You're done with primary school. Next is secondary school."
Alfred erupts into an abject moan and jams his hands into the front pocket of his shorts, which are being held up by crisscrossed, black suspenders because the taller he becomes, the sallower his waist gets. He hasn't adjusted to his lanky limbs yet, and suspenders have proven to be far more effective at keeping the boy's trousers up than a belt. "Who needs it?"
Arthur turns down the volume of the radio and raises his eyes. He's getting better and better at playing the role of a strict parent, much to Alfred's chagrin. "Before you can attend a college or a university, you need to complete secondary school."
"But I'm not going to a college or university!"
"And why do you say that?"
"No one in my family ever went to university," Alfred retorts with a grumble, and when Arthur gives him a disapproving look, he adds, "No one in my old family, I mean."
"My boy, a good education is a lifetime investment. A degree means you'll always be able to find a job."
"You don't need a degree to be a farmer or own a store."
Arthur sighs and stands up to put a hand on Alfred's shoulder. "I don't think you understand…"
"No, I understand. You want me to be a lawyer too, but maybe that's not what I want," Alfred says, wringing his hands behind his back. He doesn't know why, but it's not as easy to tell Arthur how he feels as it used to be. No matter what he does, the man just seems to expect more and more from him, and Alfred doesn't know how to placate someone who simply can't be placated. Why can't the man accept that he's not cut out for college—not smart enough?
"You don't have to be a lawyer. It was never my intention for you to think that. You can study whatever you like as long as you put in the effort."
"But why do I havta study?"
"Have to," Arthur corrects, exasperated. "I've already explained this to you before. Plowing fields or selling bread isn't a stable job. Besides, I thought you enjoyed going to school?"
"I just don't know why you think it's so important. I could grow the world's best potatoes or something and wouldn't have to go to school at all! I could sit in the sun all day and drink lemonade and—"
"And work until your hands are blistered and you contract heatstroke," Arthur finishes for him. "It's not as straightforward as you're making it out to be, lad."
Alfred scratches the back of his neck and huffs. "Still, I should get to make my own decisions."
"All right. When you're of age and can prove you're capable of choosing what's best, you can decide whether to start a farm or a firm, but until then, I'm afraid you'll have to do as I tell you."
Oh, and what a glorious day that'll be! The moment he turns eighteen, he'll finally be able to dictate his own rules, and Arthur will be sorry for ever doubting him. He's sure of it. Once and for all, he'll be able to prove his old man wrong!
"Now, if we're finished here, I'm off to the store to get some milk and cheese, and then I need to tend to the garden."
"I can buy the milk and cheese," Alfred offers, feeling very much like an adult all of a sudden.
If Arthur is surprised by his eagerness to help, he doesn't show it. He just cocks one brow and says, "That'd be lovely, as long as you promise to return with only milk and cheese."
"Milk, cheese, and one cookie from the bakery?"
Arthur rolls his eyes at him and chuckles—a sign that he's not as tough and heartless as he wants the teen to think he is. "Fine. If you must."
He doesn't have to know. Really, why bother him at all? He's thirteen. That's too old to be coddled.
Alfred rubs his index finger beneath his nose and temporarily rids himself of the tickle in his sinuses. In the heart of the summer, he'd managed to contract some type of cold. It's not serious by any means—nothing more than a sore throat and some dripping nostrils—but it's a nuisance at the very least.
It wouldn't be a problem, except that Arthur has tasked him with the responsibility of clearing out and rearranging the boxes in the basement today, unaware of the boy's less-than-perfect health. His illness would be a good excuse to get out of the chore, but he knows Arthur will confine him to bed for a week if he so much as sniffles in front of him.
The last thing Alfred wants is to be babied, especially when he's been going to great lengths to prove he's capable of taking care of himself. If he wants Arthur to start giving him a bit more freedom, he's going to have to act beyond his years.
And lying under the covers while drinking putrid herbal tea isn't going to help him accomplish that.
Unfortunately, the combination of his cold, the dust, and his sickly lungs makes the assignment far more difficult than it should be. He reaches for one of the boxes lined up against the wall so that he can sort through what should be kept and what should be thrown out, only to discover that the box is impossibly heavy.
Nonetheless, he soldiers on and ignores the pulsating headache now crawling into his skull. He pulls out the first item in the box and finds a framed picture of Arthur and what he assumes are the man's brothers, considering how similar they are in appearance. The tallest brother, Allistor, if he recalls correctly, is holding up a hand and giving Arthur some rabbit ears without him noticing. The other two, Patrick and Dylan, each have an arm wrapped around Arthur's shoulders as they sport identical, giant grins.
Alfred clears the scratchiness in his throat and laughs. It's an endearing photograph, and he wishes he could somehow sneak it into his bedroom and keep it on his nightstand.
He sets the picture aside and goes on to the next object at the top of the box, which is wrapped carefully in newspaper. Inside, is an old, hand-painted Christmas ornament—a porcelain figure of Santa Clause with a jolly smile. It takes Alfred a moment to realize there's a message written on the bottom, and it reads,
Happy Christmas from Peter Kirkland.
Alfred tries to think of an occasion when he may have heard that name, but if Arthur has ever mentioned someone called Peter, it was probably brief and undetailed because Alfred doesn't remember his relation to the family at all. His best guess is that Peter is either Arthur's cousin or his nephew. He'll have to ask the man later.
Next, there's a large stack of various Christmas and birthday cards, but Alfred doesn't bother going through them all because most of them are probably similar anyway. Instead, he draws his attention to what made the box so heavy in the first place, a typewriter weighing an atrocious thirty pounds. The gold lettering on the front says, "ROYAL", and it's the tenth model from 1926. It looks like it's in pretty good condition, so Alfred can't imagine why Arthur would let it rot away down here. Maybe he was just tired of lugging the thing around!
The rest of the box is filled with some abandoned novels, leather bibles, and a worn, gray trench-coat.
Alfred figures Arthur will want to keep most of this stuff, so he moves on to the next box, only to discover that it's filled with more photographs and knickknacks that can't possibly be thrown away.
And that's when it dawns upon Alfred that he wasn't assigned this chore just to be made miserable and bored. No, he was supposed to be miserable, bored, and still learn something about Arthur's heritage. These photographs, aged letters, and other memorabilia are the man's way of showing him the past without ever explicitly saying a word.
For a good moment, Alfred is dumbfounded at being so easily tricked. When did his caretaker become sly and conniving like this?
A conceding smile escapes Alfred, followed by a sharp sneeze. He'd love to look through the rest of this stuff, but his throbbing head is making it hard to focus, and so, he packs up the boxes he disturbed and puts everything back in its rightful place the way he found it. By the time everything is spick-and-span again, Alfred wants nothing more than to sleep in his room because it feels as though his eyes are burning to the point they might very well fall out of his face.
He climbs the basement steps and tries to retreat into his room without being noticed, but he must have made too much noise on the stairs because seconds later, Arthur is calling him to come into the kitchen for lunch.
With the sluggishness of a sloth, he meanders into the kitchen and collapses into a chair, trying his very hardest to sit upright and look alert.
"How did the work in the basement go?" Arthur asks, back turned as he pours them both some tea.
"Okay," Alfred rasps, inwardly groaning at how horrible his voice sounds. There's no way he's going to be able to hide this now.
Arthur picks up on his strange behavior at once, both brows traveling further up his forehead as he finally turns around. "Are you all right?"
Alfred swallows a big wad of spit and hopes it'll make him sound less gravelly. No such luck. "Fine."
"You don't sound fine to me," Arthur says with a frown, forgoing the tea in order to get a better look at Alfred. His eyes roam over the teen's rosy cheeks and shivering figure, and he gently rests a hand on his clammy forehead, stunned at the heat he feels. "You have a fever."
"I do?"
"When did you start feeling ill? Be honest."
"Last night."
Arthur crosses his arms unhappily and shakes his head. "And when did you plan to tell me about this?"
"Do I havta answer that question?"
"Daft boy," Arthur hisses before pointing at the door and saying, "Go upstairs and change into some bedclothes. I'll contact Ivan."
Mortified at the mere idea, Alfred protests. "Don't do that! It's just a cold."
"We won't know for sure until Ivan has a look at you."
"I'm not a little kid! You don't havta call him every time something's wrong with me. And you know how he is…"
"No, I don't know. Enlighten me."
"He's gonna embarrass me and make me feel worse," Alfred whines, wincing at the pain coming from his throat.
"Your asthma—"
"I haven't had a lung spasm in almost a year! It might not even be asthma. Maybe I grew out of it."
Arthur presses a hand against Alfred's back and guides him out of the kitchen with a light push. "I'm not going to argue with you. Go to bed, and I'll be there in a few minutes."
Taking his walk of shame, Alfred goes to his room as he's told and puts on some pajamas, making sure to look horribly displeased as he does so. He can tough this out. He's old enough to manage without having people fuss over him like this.
Arthur brings the tea up to his bedroom, along with a woolen blanket from the downstairs closet. Despite many complaints from Alfred, Arthur successfully wraps the blanket around the teen and combs any sweaty locks of hair away from his face with cool fingers.
"You're terribly warm."
Now that he's lying down, Alfred is aware of how exhausted he is, but there's a peculiar itch just beneath the base of his neck that keeps vying for his attention. He scratches at it half-heartedly, but Arthur stops him mid-scratch, grasping his wrist in one hand.
The man's eyes double in size and he gapes at Alfred, scaring him.
"W-What is it?"
Slowly, Arthur pulls down the collar of his cotton shirt, and reveals a strawberry red rash, and for a long moment, they don't say anything to each other.
When Alfred finally finds his voice, he asks, "What's wrong with me?"
Arthur opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. Thankfully, a knock on the door saves him from having to explain, and he gets up hastily. "Don't even consider getting out of this bed. I'll be right back."
He returns with Ivan a minute later, panicked and unable to stand still.
"Arthur, it's going to be all right," Ivan whispers, gripping Arthur's shoulder. "Just stay calm."
"When the neighborhood finds out—"
"Don't worry about them for now. Look, you're frightening him."
It's then that Ivan puts on a cheerful smile and takes a seat on the edge of Alfred's bed, completely at ease. "Hello, Alfred. Toris has been asking about you. Perhaps you two can go down to the river next week."
Alfred knows he's changing the subject on purpose, so he redirects the conversation. "It's not just a cold is it?"
Ivan checks the rash under Alfred's neck and frowns. "No, I'm afraid not."
"Am I going to die?"
Arthur makes a startled noise from the other end of the room and hides his face behind a hand, clearly distraught.
"No, no, no," Ivan assures, taking a thermometer out of his bag and putting it in Alfred's mouth. "That's not going to happen."
After two minutes of stiff silence, Ivan takes the thermometer back and inspects it carefully under the light. "A hundred and two."
"What do I have?"
"Open your mouth, solnyshko."
"What's that word mean?" Alfred inquires, but obediently lets his mouth hang open.
"It means you're my 'little sun.' Not many of my patients get that title," Ivan jokes, patting the boy's increasingly red cheek while examining his tongue. "Okay, we are hereby quarantined in this house for approximately seven days."
"What?"
"You have scarlet fever, and we can't risk spreading it to anyone else. Arthur, can you do me a favor and call Francis to tell him he'll be watching Toris until further notice? Also, we're going to need to find someone to deliver us some supplies," Ivan instructs, resting one hand soothingly on Alfred's leg. "We need enough groceries to last us and an order of penicillin."
Arthur nods and leaves the room, and everything happens so fast that Alfred's mind struggles to catch up.
"Wait, so am I going to get you guys sick too?"
Ivan blinks at him and furrows. "It's unlikely. It spreads more easily between children, but we could become contagious, which is why we need to stay inside for now. Our biggest concern is making you well again."
He's big now, and he's not supposed to cry, so Alfred doesn't know why his eyes start watering or his throat becomes tight against his will. He has to be brave about this.
"My mother and brother had yellow fever, am I going to get that sick too?"
Ivan rubs his head and says softly, "You're going to be fine. By next week, you'll have forgotten this ever happened, all right?"
It's enough to console him for the moment, and Alfred lets his head sink deeper into his pillow, eyes at half-mast and still slightly damp with tears and sweat.
"Sleep, little sun."
The world is glazed with red, and all he feels is fatigue and the disgusting stickiness of sickness on his skin. He opens his mouth to talk, but someone pours ice water down his throat instead, and he swallows without really making a conscious decision to do so.
In the early evening, two pairs of arms carry him into the bathroom and undress him. He bats at the prodding hands and moans about everything being too hot, but the hands continue their work, and before long, he ends up in a tub of tepid water, shivering with intense chills and only half-aware of what is being done to him.
Is this what death is like?
Arthur hums some tune from above, and it chases away a bit of the darkness that's been following him in his dreams.
"Scrub, scrub, scrub," Ivan sings along, making up nonsensical words as he runs a bar of soap up and down his arms and legs.
Then, Arthur starts washing the gross collection of sweat out of his hair and massages his scalp, all of which feels absolutely heavenly. A couple of times in between, Alfred thinks Arthur is talking to him, but all of the words are unclear. Still, Alfred can sense the tenderness of his voice, the gentle reassurances, and the soft coos that are meant to keep him relaxed.
He's never been this sick in his entire life, nor has he ever been in such a partially comatose state before. He lets his displeasure and pain be known a few times with a well-placed groan, but Arthur just strokes a soap-sudsy hand across his forehead to quiet him. It works like magic.
He doesn't know how long the bath lasts, but it's long enough to help lower his temperature and make him a bit more aware of the flurry of movement happening around him.
"I think that's good enough," Ivan announces, rinsing away all of the remaining soap from Alfred's feet. "Let's dry him off and get him back into bed."
"Do you think we should give him something to eat?"
"No, he can go without food for now. He's been doing well with the water, which is most important."
He's lifted up again, and a large, fluffy towel is coiled around him before he's carried back to his bedroom. The bedsheets have been changed with fresh ones, and as he lies limply on the bed, Arthur dresses him in a clean set of pajamas as though he's a rag doll, still humming and singing throughout the whole process.
"That's better, isn't it?" Arthur asks him, petting the side of his face. "It'll be all better soon. Just hang in there, all right?"
Unexpectedly, there's a sharp pinch in Alfred's arm, and he lets out a little cry, frightened.
"Shhh, shhh… It was just the penicillin," Arthur tells him as he settles down. "Rest now…"
He doesn't want to die.
On the third day of the illness, Alfred feels well enough to sit up on his own, and although his throat still hurts and his head feels like it's full of hot air, it's a huge improvement.
It must be Ivan's turn to monitor him because he's sitting in a chair by the bed, reading one of the books Alfred keeps on his shelf. When he notices Alfred's awake, he smiles widely and sets the book down in his lap before feeling the boy's forehead.
"Well, hello there. How are we feeling?"
"Bad," Alfred whispers.
"Hmm, I'm not surprised."
"I think I'm going to be sick."
Ivan scoops up a waste-bin that has already been prepared for such an incident, and holds it under Alfred's chin. Considering he hasn't had anything to eat, he mostly ends up dry-heaving.
"Believe it or not, this is a good sign. You're recovering," Ivan reassures joyfully. "I'll get Arthur to come in here while I clean this up. I'm sure he'd like to speak with you."
Sure enough, Arthur comes sweeping into the room not a minute later, both relieved and concerned. He clearly hasn't slept over the past few days, and for the first time ever, he has gone as far as to neglect his own hygiene. His hair is matted, he's wearing the same trousers he wore yesterday, and he seems to have become thinner. "Oh, my dear boy. Do you know how worried I've been? If you ever become this ill again—I don't know what I'll do."
"Sorry," Alfred offers, genuinely feeling guilty for making everyone fret over him so much.
Arthur takes his hand in his and sighs. "Just get out of this bed soon, all right? If Ivan hadn't been here to help—no, I don't even want to consider the possibility."
Returning with a now clean waste-bin, Ivan snorts and says, "Arthur, will you eat something already? The last thing I need is for you to collapse from malnourishment. And no, tea alone is not considered a proper breakfast."
"I-I haven't had much of an appetite," Arthur murmurs, trying in vain to defend himself.
"Then find yourself something small. Go on, Uncle Ivan will read our dear Alfred a story while you're gone."
Arthur shifts his gaze between Ivan and Alfred a few times, then turns to Alfred one last time and asks, pitifully, "Will you be all right without me for a little while?"
"Yeah. Come back soon though."
"All right. Shout if I'm needed."
When Arthur's out of sight, Ivan smiles at Alfred and says, "He's a mother-hen, isn't he? Let's see here… Ahh, The Velveteen Rabbit, how fitting!"
Ivan does a really funny voice for the Skin Horse, and Alfred finds himself laughing despite the fact that everything hurts and his throat feels like it's being peeled from the inside. Has Arthur come back yet?
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
He realizes just how loved he is, and the room slips into darkness once more.