Chapter Text
In Oriflamme, the leaves were beginning to turn. This was the time of year when Dion felt the distance to home the most. It did not bother him much, and this year, he found it bothered him even less, to the point where it was merely an observation: In Oriflamme, the leaves were beginning to turn, and here in Twinside, they were not, because it was much further south. Here, they would remain green for another month, and it would remain hot for longer than that, before the temperatures would finally become pleasantly warm, then pleasantly cool. Only for one or two months would it actually be cold enough for snow to fall now and again, and to linger, and that period was still far away.
Part of it would be taken up by their winter break, and Dion would spend it in Sanbreque, where the cold came in much sooner and would linger much longer. When Dion left at the end of the break, he would return to a Twinside weeks away from the first brave flowers nourished by melting snow and a sun that grew stronger every day, while in Oriflamme, the cold would go on and on and on.
Dion never minded the cold. But he found that he did not miss it, either.
Neither did he mind the heat. It was rather pleasant on his skin, heating up his bones and driving out the cold that seemed to nestle there after nigh twenty years of seeping in through the cracks. Unfortunately, Dion’s skin made a bad conduit for it, turning red and sore easily and making Terence laugh at him as if he didn’t burn just as easily.
Dion had learned to be careful during his first two years in this climate, and usually, he stayed in the shade. Joshua, on the other hand, was bothered by neither the heat nor the sun; in fact, he seemed to soak up both and thrive in it. He easily got chills even on hot days if he was in the shade and there was a breeze, so he preferred to stay in the sunlight when he sat at the lake during his free hour on Friday.
After seeing him shiver once too often when he sat with Dion in the shade, Dion had decided that he could do with more direct sunlight himself and started investing in good sunscreen, and a hat.
Terence still laughed at him. Dion didn’t see what was so funny about it.
Rosalith, where Joshua had grown up, was not exactly known for its warm weather any more than Oriflamme was. In fact, seasons in that region consisted of a brief hot period and a brief cold period, separated by long rainy periods. So he felt a little silly for worrying that Joshua would not be able to handle the short Twinside winter and the time before and after when it would be warm rather than hot.
He probably owned a sweater, or two.
They met at the lake every Friday. Joshua was usually there first, reading in the sun or, taking notes, or sketching. Dion would have felt bad for interrupting him, but Joshua’s face lit up every time he saw him, and he always looked up long before Dion came close, as if he were looking for him. They had never agreed to meet there and neither had any obligation to appear, but Dion found himself turning down other engagements for his free hour just so he would not miss it.
Six weeks into the semester, Joshua did miss it. He was not there where Dion showed up, and while Dion sat down with his book and pretended not to wait for him, he still did not show up. The next Tuesday, he was missing from their shared political history lecture, which upset not only their lecturer.
It made Dion acutely aware that they had, somehow, never exchanged phone numbers. He did not know any of Joshua’s friends. There was no one he could contact to make sure Joshua had not been hit by a car or died of sudden, random heart failure.
Or maybe not so random.
Dion enjoyed their time together. He looked forward to it, and clearly, Joshua did, too. But for some reason, both of them appeared to be determined not to acknowledge it as anything other than lucky coincidence.
And now Dion was sitting in an information vacuum and remembered the long stretch of his childhood when he had thought Joshua was dead because there had been no one who could, or would, tell him otherwise.
He would be able to contact Joshua’s brother at his company if he absolutely had to. Clive Rosfield would not be happy to hear from him, but Dion would try it anyway if Joshua was not back this Friday.
…he really should just have gotten Joshua’s number when he had the chance. But every time the thought had crossed his mind, he had felt like he was overstepping a boundary.
Fortunately, Terence cared little for imagined boundaries or Dion’s complicated feelings regarding the Rosfield family in general and Joshua in particular. “I asked about your friend when I picked this up at the student office today,” he said when he threw a magazine onto the table between them during lunch break on Thursday. “Ninetails was there, and I know she’s one of his tutors. Seems he’s back to class today, so obviously, he’s not dead.”
“I wasn’t worried about that,” Dion lied, while picking up the magazine. “What’s this?”
“The latest issue of the University Journal. It contains all the essays the students who skipped classes or enrolled irregularly had to write to be admitted.”
Dion knew about those – during his first year, some friends of his had found great joy in picking apart those essays. In theory, they served to show that the student for whom an exception was made had the academic merit to justify it. The applicants had to write a lengthy essay on the subject of their major and then the school board would see if they were worthy. But in practice, the Crystalline College was too heavily funded by rich and influential families for their offsprings to fail, and so, this collection often only showed how being rich and influential served as a replacement for skill and hard work even in an academic context.
Dion did not doubt that many students much better than those whose essays he had read before were turned down because they were just barely missing the mark and where not rich enough to make up for it, or because their spots had been given to those who brought them. Some of the articles were genuinely good. Some were obviously heavily edited to sell them as at least passable and still painfully bad. In general, the semester’s first issue of the magazine was rarely bought by students for its academic contents, and more for the chance to mock their new classmates.
Joshua would have had to submit an essay, since he had essentially skipped all the entry level classes. Somehow, Dion had not thought of that before. Joshua had never mentioned it, perhaps aware of how much of a joke this process was.
“Page sixteen,” Terence supplied when Dion started flipping for the index.
“Did you read it?” Dion asked, finding the page in question.
“Yes. It’s good.”
Dion found the article. It was almost six full pages long and about the trade relationship between Dhalmekia and Waloed during the age of King Soronor III. It was not a topic that would immediately grab the interest of a lot of people.
“You read this?” Dion could not quite keep the incredulity out of his voice.
“I can read,” Terence reminded him.
“This seems like a sacrifice of your time that you would not easily make,” Dion clarified.
“Not usually,” Terence admitted. “But once I started, I found that it’s…”
“Good?” Dion helped out when Terence seemed to have forgotten the word he had used before.
“A lot of articles are good,” Terence said. “And as boring as they can be. Sometimes they are so boring they seem to bend the boundaries of what should be possible for a human to produce. This one is actually interesting. I’d even call it entertaining. And I am saying that as someone who has no interest whatsoever in the trade practices of Waloed during the time of Soronor the Drunk.” He smirked. “Besides, I needed to know what’s up with the guy that you would so readily cheat on me with him.”
“We are not dating,” Dion reminded him, knowing full well that Terence was not serious but feeling the need to defend himself anyway. “And I am not dating Joshua either.”
“I’m glad you made that so clear.” Terence grinned over his lunch. “I was thinking about asking him to tutor me in political history, you know. I think I could use a little help.”
“No,” Dion told him.
Terence just grinned at him some more.
“He’s not your type,” Dion pointed out.
“He’s not your type either,” Terence reminded him. “But I’m not stuck on that. I mean, he’s smart, nice, and admittedly very pretty. I think I could overlook a few shortcomings for that.”
“No,” Dion said again and forced himself to eat his sandwich very calmly.
He had joked about Joshua tutoring him before. That had never happened – at least not deliberately. But sometimes Dion got Joshua talking about the contents of their shared class, and he was so enthusiastic and knowledgeable about it that Dion always walked away not only well educated but also looking forward to learning more.
But that was in person. If Joshua could get Terence interested in Waloedian trade relationships from five centuries ago just by writing about them, then he was truly a gift to academia. Dion was not sure he wanted to read about Waloedian trade history, and he already really, really liked the author.
He gave it a try anyway, starting to skim through the essay between one bite and the other, and by the time he was done, his sandwich was only half eaten and his lunch break was over.
“Huh,” he said.
“You get what I mean?” Terence asked.
Then he stole the rest of Dion’s sandwich and ate it while Dion was busy gathering his things for his next lecture.
-
Friday came, and Dion was back at the lake, and Joshua was there, waiting by the water, his face lighting up when he saw Dion approach. Dion felt something inside him relax and settle, and then he settled into the grass next to Joshua and raised his face as a sacrifice to the sun.
It was a cloudy day, but they were by the water and he knew he would pay for it.
“Let’s move to the shade,” Joshua suggested. “You’ll get a sunburn.”
“You’ll get cold.”
“I have a sweater,” Joshua pointed out. So he did. It was currently slung around his waist, but he stood and pulled it over his head, and then they had to move to the shade of the trees to prevent him from overheating.
Or so he argued, anyway. He did not look particularly warm even on the way over.
“It’s nice to have you back,” Dion admitted openly. “I was worried when you didn’t come last week.”
“Oh.” Joshua looked genuinely surprised, making Dion wonder if he would just not care if Dion suddenly dropped off the face of the earth. “I’m sorry. It was just a cold. I should have warned you. But I didn’t think it would make much of a difference if I leave you in peace for once.” He smiled bashfully. “And I don’t have your number.”
Dion nearly told him that while he liked this spot, the only reason why he came here every Friday was because Joshua also did that. But he only pulled out a piece of paper to scrawl down his number. “For the next time,” he offered, and a minute later, he had Joshua’s number as well and the world hadn’t ended.
Joshua asked him what he had missed in class on Tuesday, and Dion gave the best summary he could. It was not very good – his father would have been disappointed. Worse, it was probably not much use to Joshua. But Dion had been distracted by all the possible scenarios in which Joshua would never have come back.
Including the one in which Dion’s father had found a way to expel him from this university after all, possibly because he had found out about their meetings and did not like them…
Was Dion being selfish for allowing himself this time with Joshua? Was he going cause his father to mess up Joshua’s life again? Should he just stop and not come here anymore and drop that class after all?
“Would you like to go grab a coffee?” Joshua asked. “I think I need some caffein today. I’ll treat you.”
Ten minutes later they were walking back to their lake with paper cups from the campus café and Dion watched in fascination as Joshua shuddered and pulled a face after every single sip.
“If you hate coffee so much, have you considered not drinking it?” he suggested.
“No, never. Life is suffering and I must pay my due.” Joshua’s face was so serious that Dion couldn’t quite convince himself that he was joking until he sighed. “I’ve been feeling sort of tired lately. A medical student my brother is friends with suggested that I should try caffein to shake it off.”
“Maybe you should try sleep instead. You just came back from being sick. Perhaps that was too early.”
Now that Dion looked for it, he could see that Joshua was a little paler than usual, his rings beneath his eyes a little darker.
“I’ve wasted too much time sleeping already. Caffein it is.” Joshua lifted his cup to Dion in a mock toast and then downed a big gulp. A second later he doubled over with retching coughs, producing a lot of additional noises of general disgust.
More clouds covered the sky more thickly when they made it back to the lake, creating the best kind of weather for Fridays. It meant they could sit on the grass by the water without being in full shade and without Dion being in quite as much risk of burning despite his sunscreen. Joshua made it through most of his coffee and then gave the rest to Dion, who found it too sweet and watered down with milk in an attempt to make the taste bearable. He sacrificed himself to get rid of it anyway while Joshua downed half of the water bottle he had in his bag to wash it off.
“Did it help?” Dion asked. “With the fatigue?”
“I don’t know. It distracted me from it, in any case.” Joshua threw Dion a smile, but he still looked a little pale. “I still feel like I could lie down and go to sleep right here.”
He sounded a little frustrated as he said that, like this state was particularly annoying to him.
“Do so,” Dion offered. “You have another fifteen minutes before we have to go back. I’ll wake you up.”
“That would be a waste of time,” Joshua rejected the idea, although Dion did not know what other plans he had for the next quarter of an hour. It was not like he was missing anything.
So in reply, he just lay down himself, the gras soft and green under him only thanks to the occasional nightly rains. They became rarer as they moved towards the even dryer autumn and the grass was already beginning to get a little coarse.
The sun came out from a gap between the clouds and hit him in the face. It disappeared a moment later with Joshua repositioning himself to shield him, becoming just a dark silhouette framed by the light. Then the clouds closed and he became Joshua again, looking down at him with an expression that was almost a smile.
“My hero,” Dion mumbled. “Protecting me from sunlight.”
“Don’t tell me you have people stop the sun for you all the time,” Joshua teased.
“Never. You are the mightiest of warriors,” Dion assured him. “The one who can defeat a celestial body – but can he defeat gravity?” He reached for Joshua’s shoulder from his position on the ground and had a brief moment some panic-adjacent emotion when he realized that this was the first time he was touching Joshua in ten years beyond the occasional accidental brushing of hands.
But he fought it down and pulled, gently, and Joshua came down beside him, his face almost touching Dion’s shoulder. “Defeated by an even greater warrior,” he conceded.
“Close your eyes,” Dion ordered and very nearly turned to kiss his forehead as if that were something they did.
When he looked over at Joshua a few minutes of silence later, Joshua’s eyes were closed and his breathing deep and even. It seemed he had spoken true about his tiredness, though Dion had already had little doubt about that after the brave attempt to consume coffee to combat it.
He felt rather bad when he had to wake his friend ten minutes later so he would make it to his next lecture in time.
-
Most students preferred to have short days on Friday, getting into the weekend early. Most professors agreed, and there were not many classes on Friday afternoon. Dion was in one of the few that remained because they had to happen at some point and there were only so many time slots in the week. He did not mind the time. But his professor did, and the class was not one of the most entertaining ones.
It always left him glad he would be released into the weekend afterwards, in any case, even if the weekend was often filled with more learning and little else, especially as the exams got closer.
They were still far enough away. Dion would still spend some time learning and then, maybe, go meet some friends. Or he would study some more. He hadn’t decided yet.
Maybe he would just sit down and watch a movie or read a book at some point. But if he was home alone with no one to distract him or demand his attention, Dion tended to end up with his studies, feeling his time being wasted otherwise on superfluous things that had no value to the person he was expected to be.
The sun was just beginning to set when he walked off the campus after his last, meagerly attended lecture of the week. The days here were still as hot as in the height of Oriflamme’s summer, but they were so much shorter all year around, and the discrepancy between what he experienced here and what had been ingrained into his expectations throughout his life still threw him sometimes.
As every Friday afternoon, he let his gaze travel as he walked down the path. He spotted Joshua next to a car just outside the campus border and was surprised because this was the first time he found him here even though he knew Joshua’s last class ended the same time as his, and then alarmed because Joshua looked upset, and he was talking to someone who looked angry.
That was what the position of the man’s shoulders and the way he moved suggested, in any case. Dion could only see him from behind so those things were the only things he could judge him by.
At least Joshua did not look scared, as if he were about to be abducted or murdered. Both were valid risks for many of the students on this campus, but security around the place was tight and an abduction would probably not happen right outside the gate. And Joshua looked the annoyed kind of upset that indicated a recurring argument with someone familiar rather than anything dangerous or world-shattering.
Dion still walked over in case he needed rescue and found that the man who was talking at Joshua said things like, “It’s not optional, Joshua!”, and “You should know better,” and “I can’t believe you’re being so irresponsible,” and Dion began to understand why he was looking like that.
His posture was defensive in a very subtle way that Dion felt he should have missed and was surprised he didn’t. Joshua missed him, approaching, until he was very close, and when he saw him, his face lit up just a bit. “Dion,” he greeted him, instead to replying to whatever the man opposite him had been saying. “This is my brother, Clive.”
Dion took a look at the man from this front this time, and sure enough, that was Clive Redfield in all his messy-haired, broad shouldered glory, sporting an impressive frown on his face that communicated that Dion was an unwelcome distraction to whatever lecture he was giving his brother.
“My pleasure,” Dion said as politely as he could, resisting the urge to inch in front of Joshua. At least he managed to draw the fire of that glare to himself.
“Likewise,” Clive said. He did not seem to recognize Dion, who doubted he really saw him.
“Clive just stopped by to pick me up on the way home,” Joshua explained lightly. “For some reason.”
“There are two reasons,” Clive growled. “And one of them is this.” He grabbed his brother by the wrist and forced something into his hand that, when he withdrew his own hand, turned out to be a small pill bottle. Dion could not read the label before Joshua dropped his hand with the bottle in it, obviously already aware that they were.
“Why were they in your bathroom, and not with you so you can take them when you should?” Clive asked.
“Why were you in my bathroom?” Joshua asked back. He didn’t seem angry. He didn’t seem like much of anything, in a way that made Dion a little uneasy.
He was well aware that there was something going on here he had absolutely no context for and was no part of.
“I was checking if you had taken your medication with you,” Clive admitted openly. “And, oh look! You did not!”
“They make me tired,” Joshua said, sounding just a little bit annoyed and defiant now. “I come here to learn something. On your insistence, Clive. And in order to learn something, I have to actually be awake.”
“And healthy,” Clive countered. “For which you need these.”
“I do take them,” Joshua told him.
“What, every other day after midnight?”
“It’s enough,” Joshua insisted. “I am fine. And I don’t need you to manage or babysit me.”
“The fuck you don’t.” Clive seemed genuinely angry. It seemed like an overreaction to Dion, but he also kept thinking about how Joshua had been missing from class for a week and fell asleep during their meeting today. Clive ran a hand through his hair in frustration and then stopped to stare when his eyes fell on Dion, as if he had already forgotten he was there. Dion felt like he was completely irrelevant to anything that was going on, a feeling usually only his father managed to give him quite this intensely.
He got a glance from the corner of Clive’s eye, though, when Clive said, “Let’s take this home, Brother. This is not the right place for this discussion. And Uncle Byron came by and is waiting for us at home.”
“He is?” Joshua sounded genuinely surprised – pleasantly so. As far as Dion was aware, Byron Rosfield lived in Port Isolde, which was pretty much on the other side of the continent, so maybe “came by” did not quite encompass the occasion.
“I’m sorry,” Joshua then said, turning to Dion. Dion did not know what he was apologizing to him for, but he nodded as if it made perfect sense to him. “See you next week,” Joshua said further, and again Dion nodded and said something along the same lines in return. Joshua parted from him with a smile that saw him the way his brother’s scowl did not and got into the car they were standing next to. Clive got behind the wheel and they drove off, likely continuing the fight they were having before.
Dion looked after the car for a little longer than it was visible, trying to decipher the thoughts in his head. Then he turned around and walked down the street towards his own apartment.
-
“No,” Joshua said. “I refuse.”
Clive studied his brother: His expression, his posture. Joshua was looking straight at them, his face grim, his back straight and tense. He was going to fight them on this. Just like Clive had thought he would.
“This is not a debate, Joshua,” Clive growled. “And not doing it is not an option that you have!”
Diplomacy and empathy would probably work better here. But Clive was still angry about the pills and he didn’t have it in him to be patient when shit like that was exactly what led to situations like this.
“It’s my health,” Joshua insisted. “I am an adult. I can refuse all I want.”
“To what end?” Clive snapped. “To be dead by twenty-five? You won’t even make it to twenty-one at this rate!”
“You’re blowing this out of proportion!” Joshua snapped back, and Clive felt something inside his stomach drop, hearing the exact same words his father had used so many times they had taken root in Joshua’s mind and become part of his personality.
It made his anger flare up even more, and that anger was not directed at his brother this time, but that was where it would land if Clive allowed that part of him to take over completely. The part that believed that if he just yelled loudly enough and was angry enough, Joshua would have to understand just how serious he was, and how desperate.
“I’m afraid he is not,” said Uncle Byron from the other side of the kitchen table. His voice was serious, but calm, even compassionate, and Clive was so glad he was here.
Uncle Byron had been the first to receive Joshua’s medical report, being still listed as his guardian in this regard, and while he hadn’t said so, Clive did not doubt that he had come all the way to Twinside mostly so he could he here in person for exactly this conversation.
“Your surgery cannot wait until its originally scheduled date,” Uncle Byron insisted. “You’ve seen the test results yourself.”
The test results were on the table between them, and Joshua stared at them now; not to study them but as one would stare at a pile of rotten food, or a declaration of war.
“I feel fine,” he insisted. “It’s only a few more months. Just until the semester is over.”
“You won’t feel anything close to fine if we wait this long,” Clive pointed out. “It will cost you more than a semester if you don’t do this.” He understood Joshua’s frustration. At least in principle, he did. “You then have the entire break to recover and prepare for the next semester.”
“When I will have to start over,” his brother pointed out. “I already lost so much time.”
“And you will probably lose more, further down the line.” Uncle Byron’s voice was gruff but not unkind. He was stating what they all knew. “But less so if you don’t let it get too bad now. Postpone this surgery, and there might not be any more time for you to lose.”
Clive hated that he was right. It was a reality he always did his best to ignore and deny and now he couldn’t. He remembered against his will the times in the past when Joshua’s illness had nearly killed him, and then he looked over at his brother who now sat with his shoulders pulled up and his head hanging low so that his hair was hiding his face. Defensive and stubborn, and trying not to show his pain because he knew they were right.
“Don’t compare yourself with the progress of other people.” Clive tried for a soft tone this time. “They don’t have your problems to deal with. It’s okay to need more time when so much of it is taken from you.”
That wouldn’t be a comfort regarding all the friends Joshua might have made so far, who would move on while he fell behind. Again.
Joshua could have pointed that out, but what he said was, “Except for all the people who do have the same problems, and aren’t given the time they need because they aren’t rich.”
Clive nearly sighed. It wasn’t like Joshua was wrong. But while his brother struggled with the obstacles he had to deal with through no fault of his own, he also could not simply accept the ways in which he was lucky while others were not.
“True,” Clive admitted. “But their lot will not be improved one bit by you making your own life harder than it has to be.” He reached over to ruffle his brother’s hair and Joshua just ducked further into his shell. This time Clive did sigh. “It sucks, I know. But after this treatment you should be well enough to not have to worry about it next semester.”
“Half the classes I’m taking right now are only available during the winter semester,” Joshua told him. He lifted his head, just enough to look at them, then looked down again. “I’m losing an entire year again.” He shook his head, and then lifted it for real, having come to a decision Clive did not like. “No.”
“Joshua,” Clive warned.
“I’m not doing it,” Joshua decided. “I’m not going to start over and over and over. What is the point?”
“The point is not dying!” Clive nearly yelled.
“Which I might not do anyway,” Joshua argued. “I agreed to go to university because you wanted me to, and now I am here, I am going to go through with it, and I won’t cower in fear of every little cough that might be nothing. And if it’s more than that, so be it! I might just as well get hit by a car on the way to campus, that is no reason to never leave the house.”
“There is a difference between getting hit by accident and stepping into traffic!”
“And there is a difference between being genuinely at risk and letting your life be dictated by something you–”
“If you say ‘imagine’,” Clive warned, “I’m going to–”
“Maybe we can come to some sort of compromise,” Uncle Byron said. He sounded like a businessman now, but maybe that was the approach they needed. “I talked to your doctors, and I talked to your tutors, and I think there may be a way to salvage much of the semester for you without delaying your treatment for too long.”
Joshua stared at him, and his expression was dark, because while Clive mostly felt relief that there might be a way out of this stalemate, Joshua mostly did not appreciate being played.
“And you just remembered that now,” he challenged.
Uncle Byron sighed. “It is not an ideal solution. The best thing for you would be to have that surgery next week, and I was not going to offer you any alternative before I knew for sure that was completely out of the question.”
That sounded reasonable enough. Kind of infuriating to Joshua, but with sensible reasoning he would eventually have to accept. But it was also a lie. Their uncle had first presented Joshua with an offer that was so unacceptable for him that any alternative would seem great in comparison. Uncle Byron did not think that his new offer would go over all that well, so he had set it up in a way that gave it higher chances for success.
Now Byron winched ever so slightly as Joshua glared at him in a way that showed he had seen through that plan just as well as Clive had, even without ever having gone to business school.
“I think any suggestion would be welcome here,” Clive offered, trying to calm the tides by openly taking his uncle’s side. “I, for my part, am curious what you all came up with.”
Maybe it was a good idea to remind his brother that he was not only up against them, but also against all the medics and academics on their side.
Joshua turned his narrow-eyed stare towards Clive and said nothing. His posture spoke of rejection, but Clive didn’t worry too much, because Joshua was smart and would not do anything entirely idiotic just out of spite, and if he did, Clive would just sit on him until he passed out and drag his limp ass to the hospital himself. He could always deal with the fallout later. An angry brother was better than a dead one.
He would still prefer almost any other outcome over this. But he would exercise every bit of power at his disposal, right down to the rather superior strength of his muscles, if he had to, being fully prepared to sacrifice his relationship with his brother for his life, and it was very important that Joshua knew that.
It might just push him into the right direction.
At least he did not stop Uncle Byron from laying out his offer.
It was, in all honesty, a good one. Clive wondered if that was also part of the plan: Make Joshua expect the worst and then surprise him with something completely acceptable that he would be a fool to fight against. The idea was to schedule Joshua’s surgery for sooner than originally planned, but not as early as the doctors had initially suggested. In cooperation with the university, this would give Joshua time to complete his most crucial classes with special tutoring and have his final exams ahead of everyone else. He could then pick up where he left off in the next semester, all recovered and hopefully good for another few years. He’d have to work hard to get everything done in so short a time, but Clive did not doubt his brother’s ability to pull that off. He would also have to drop all classes that were not absolutely vital.
And this was were the resistance came in.
Joshua seemed on board with the plan, accepting it was sensible much quicker than Clive had expected after everything. But once they sat down to plan in detail which classes he would keep and which he would give up on or start over next year, he put his foot down for one of them.
“I’m not dropping political history,” he declared in that tone that said he wasn’t going to budge on this one. “It’s not optional.”
“But you don’t have to take it now,” Uncle Byron pointed out. He had apparently informed himself in preparation for this discussion. “It’ll be offered again next semester. And you only have to have finished it by the end of year three.”
“I’ll do it now,” Joshua insisted. “I can manage.”
“Not without pushing yourself to the point where this whole plan becomes moot because you’ll collapse and have to be hospitalized way ahead of schedule.”
“I’ll at least try,” Joshua decided. “If it turns out to be too much, I can still drop out.”
“But… why?” Clive asked, seriously stumped. “Why bother? There is no point!”
But Joshua only crossed his arms and looked at him in a way that said this was the end of the discussion.
-
Joshua stopped coming to the lake on Friday afternoons. This time, Dion did not worry about him because he didn’t know the reason for his absence. This time, he worried because he did know the reason for his absence.
Joshua had to rush through his classes so he could finish the semester ahead of schedule, and the free hour on Friday was eaten by the special tutoring he got. The rush was necessary because a medical procedure planned for later in the year had to be moved to a much earlier date. Joshua had told Dion this with a slight but notable air of irritation, as if this whole matter was inconsequential beyond being an inconvenience. If he hadn’t needed to give a reason for his absence, Dion was convinced that Joshua would not have told him at all.
For a while, Dion feared that his friend was actively dying. He started looking for signs of illness in him with an intensity that bordered on obsession whenever they met, which was now almost exclusively during their shared class on political history. At first, Joshua seemed well enough, and Dion told himself that he was overreacting.
Then he started to look tired. Then he started to look sick. Then he failed to come to class one week, and the next one, he all but passed out the moment it was over.
“I just came back a little too early,” he told Dion ten minutes later, after having talked him out of taking him to the campus doctor, or worse, call his brother. “I’m fine.”
That was the first direct information Dion had gotten on his condition in weeks – he did not like asking Joshua how he was feeling because he knew Joshua did not like to be asked – and it was completely worthless, being an obvious lie. “You need to take better care of yourself,” Dion said with soft reprimand in his voice. He handed Joshua another glass of water and Joshua took it gratefully.
They were sitting outside, on a bench at the back of the building, and they were mostly alone because the next classes had already started. Dion ought to be in a lecture on business negotiations right now.
“I am,” Joshua insisted, the note of frustration in his voice much more genuine than the lie about his physical wellbeing. “I already dropped every class I don’t need or can take later. There’s not much more I could possibly do to make things easier for me.”
“You didn’t drop the class we just left,” Dion pointed out. He had been wondering about that. “You could take it next year. In fact, I think you don’t even need it.”
“I don’t,” Joshua admitted, somewhat reluctantly. He looked into the glass in his shaking hands, now half empty. “It doesn’t matter if I fail it. But I’m not going to drop it.”
“Why not?”
Joshua did not answer right away. He turned his head to look at Dion, and Dion looked back at him, and then Joshua turned his attention back to his glass. “Because it’s the only class we share.” His voice was quieter than before, but no less steady.
Dion, for his part, felt like his heartbeat had to be audible not only to him.
But it was not. The silence between them lingered, filled with nothing, until he accepted that he had to say something if he did not want for his silence to be interpreted as startled rejection.
“I do not need this class either,” he said carefully. Joshua knew this, of course. “I can take it again next year, with you.”
Joshua looked at him, his hair hanging in his face more than usual and making him look tired. “That would be a silly thing to do, and I would not ask it of you. It would make everything until now a waste of time.”
“That’s what my father would think,” Dion said, somewhat painfully. “Looking only at how effective and useful something is.”
Joshua looked pained as well, and a little guilty, but Dion only thought about how he started out thinking the same way at the beginning of the semester and how he only now realized he had left that way of thinking behind. “I do not come here for the class,” he continued. He took a deep breath, fearing the opening of himself that seemed to come so easily to his friend. “I come here because you do, and it’s nice to share this with you.”
Now Joshua looked started, and then he looked down, either out of embarrassment or to hide the faint blush that was forming on his pale cheeks. “Even more reason to keep coming.”
“Not at all. It just means that the time so far was not wasted, and it will not be wasted doing these lectures over again.”
“You may not have the time for it.”
“Nor you,” Dion pointed out. “So maybe we will not take this class next semester. There are other classes. And…” He hesitated for only a second, and even that felt silly at this point. “There is no reason for us to only see each other because of our lectures. We should not need that excuse, don’t you think?”
Again, Joshua looked somewhat startled, and again, Dion’s heart beat too hard, while he waited for a response.
Joshua’s smile was small, and fleeting. “I have so little time now, for anything that is not related to learning.”
“You will have another lecture’s time, and whatever time you’d need for studying otherwise,” Dion reminded him. “And I’m not saying you should use that time on me. I’m saying you should use it to take it easy, and maybe there will be time for me here and there.” He took a deep breath. “What I’m saying is,” he said, “you should drop this class. I’m asking you to. And I will do the same.” Tentatively, but with less hesitation than he had expected of himself, he took Joshua’s hand. “It is not all we have, and it is not worth your health.”
For a moment, Joshua stared at him. For a second, Dion thought he saw his eyes fill with tears, but then Joshua hung his head and leaned a little bit towards him and without thinking anything at all, Dion leaned in as well until Joshua’s head rested against his shoulder.
They sat like that for a quiet, monumental moment, until Joshua took a deep, shaking breath.
“It feels like giving up,” he admitted. Dion had not considered that.
It changed nothing, but it brought his hand up to lay a comforting touch against Joshua’s cheek, just lightly. “Sometimes,” he murmured, “we need to choose our battles with care.”
-
Summer faded into fall and early winter as the leaves turned red and yellow. Only few trees would lose their crown and turn into barren skeletons for but a moment. Most native trees would brave the brief period of frost, white covering vibrant colors in a brittle layer of ice once or twice, before the warmth came back, and the leaves would turn green again without ever following the call of gravity.
The frost hadn’t started yet. It would fall fully into the winter break this year, and the green still lingering in the trees here and there reminded Dion of the time still left in this semester.
The time for exams was beginning. A time of learning and focus and reports to his father. He had not heard from him for months, but he would now.
He should be at home, studying, right now.
Dion had had plenty of time for studying lately, with little else to occupy his time outside of class. He had tried, and found the abundance of time no use when there was so much occupying his mind.
Joshua had called him the night before his surgery, as he had promised. And after that, silence, for a long time. Dion had known to expect that. It did not stop thoughts from wandering in circles around a place he did not want to go.
Having Joshua’s phone number was no use to him when there was no one to answer his texts. In the end, he had called the office of Joshua’s brother, half-expecting to be turned away on account of his family name.
“I know who you are,” Clive Rosfield gruffly informed him when Dion explained that he was one of his brother’s fellow students. “Joshua never shuts up about you.”
Dion fell silent at that, not sure what to do with this information.
“I wanted to inquire how he is doing,” Dion explained. “I am sorry for bothering you but there is no one else I can ask.”
Clive made a sound that Dion found hard to interpret. His father sometimes made that sound when faced with something he found ridiculous, or did not want to deal with, but he didn’t feel this was quite the same. “He’s alive, if that’s what you wanted to know.”
It was not – Dion had already known that, because word would have gotten out quickly if one of the Rosfield brothers had died. “I am glad to hear it, but I was hoping for something more than that.”
“I can imagine you were.”
Again, Dion did not know what to make of that. But before he could come up with a reply, Clive continued. “He hasn’t woken up yet, but you can come see him at the hospital tomorrow, if you have the time for it. I can’t imagine he would mind.”
“I will make the time,” Dion promised, even as his thoughts were racing. What did Clive mean, his brother hadn’t woken up yet? It had been more than a week!
But Clive was not offering any more information. He merely told Dion when to be at the hospital, and that he would make sure he got in. Then he ended the call.
Dion did not get any significant studying done that day either.
-
Twinside had several hospitals, but Dion had known which one to find Joshua at. Because his brother had told him, and also because it was the only one that was an option: It was smaller than the others, private, expensive, and did not allow in any visitors unless the patients or their family had given their explicit permission.
True to his word, Clive had given that permission, and the clerk at the reception gave Dion directions to Joshua’s room before talking to someone on the phone to announce his coming. Giving the Rosfield family’s experience with the press, Dion could not help but appreciate this kind of security. In fact, he would have been shocked to find anything else.
But then, he would have been shocked by a less secure, less modern and well equipped hospital in general, because this kind of hospital was the only kind he knew. In fact, if someone from his own family had been hospitalized here, they would probably have warded off an entire wing just for them.
That’s how they handled it in Oriflamme, where generous donations from the Lesage family made sure they always got all the room they desired.
It was less extravagant here. At least the other patients in the area got to keep their rooms.
There was a man sitting on a chair in front of the door to Joshua’s room. He was reading something on his phone and did not seem particularly interested in anything that was going on around him. Dion would have taken him for a random person sitting in a random chair, waiting for someone, but he recognized the subtle signs of professional security. Certainly the doing of Joshua’s uncle. From all Dion had heard about him, Byron Rosfield was nothing if no protective of his nephews.
The man by the door noticed Dion staring at him and nodded slightly in greeting, before nodding towards the room to indicate he could enter.
Clive Rosfield was already there, sitting in a chair by the window. Obviously, he wanted to be there when Dion came to visit his little brother. Dion had expected nothing else.
Dion gave him a polite greeting, or thought he did. He was distracted by the figure on the bed, and he did not know what he had expected, exactly. Joshua, asleep on that bed, surrounded by machines that monitored his condition, probably. Not Joshua on that bed, surrounded by machines that kept him alive.
He was so pale and looked so frail that Dion was afraid to touch him, so he didn’t. He just stared.
“Don’t worry about it too much,” Clive said and stood from his armchair to lean against the window instead. He sounded tired. “Joshua’s surgeries never go well. He has survived every other, and he will survive this one as well. The doctors are optimistic that he’s going to wake up in a few days, probably.”
“Probably?” Dion did not know if he wanted to hear the answer. But Clive only shrugged.
He looked tired, too.
There was a chair next to the bed, and Dion took it. He was so distracted by staring at Joshua’s still, pale face that he nearly missed it. Then he took Joshua’s hand after all and held it very carefully, only after a second remembering that Joshua’s brother was there and that he was acting ridiculously. But it was too late to let go without embarrassing himself even further, so he didn’t.
The silence didn’t last long. “You don’t need to be so careful, you know,” Clive said. “He’s not going to break. And I’m going to leave you two alone for a moment, go get some coffee, so you can talk to him without me listening in if you want.” He didn’t actually move, however. “He won’t remember it, but that doesn’t mean he can’t hear it.”
“How do you know?” Dion asked. “If he doesn’t remember?”
“I don’t,” Clive admitted. “I just hope so. Puts me at ease, to think he knows he’s not alone. He’s been in a coma a couple of times, growing up, you know? For… extended periods of time. Making myself believe he knew I was there made it easier.”
Dion hadn’t known that. He wondered if Anabella did. “But that is not what is happening now,” he said, wanting it to be true through the sudden, icy dread.
“No.” Clive shook his head. “This is just my little brother, sleeping in, because his body demands some fucking rest.”
Dion found that he probably wouldn’t be able to fully believe that until Joshua opened his eyes. Maybe the same was true for Clive.
Clive, who still wasn’t moving. He was staring at Dion, and Dion was staring back at him, wondering what he was being stared at for.
“Joshua told me about you,” Clive said, instead of leaving.
“You implied as much.”
“I’m glad he made a friend here.”
“You don’t look too pleased about it,” Dion could not help but notice. That was undiplomatically direct. But he felt whatever grievances there were between them ought to be brought up sooner rather than later. “I am aware that with my family being what it is, I may not be the company you would like your brother to keep, but I assure you–”
“You’re here, aren’t you”? Clive interrupted him. “You wouldn’t be, if I gave a rat’s ass about your family. What I do care about is if you’re still going to be here tomorrow.
Dion knew this was not a question about his visiting schedule. “What do you mean?”
“Joshua is ill,” Clive told him bluntly, his arms crossed before his impressive chest and his voice suddenly hard. “He is always going to be ill, and I wonder if you are aware of that. It may all be very dramatic and novel right now, but he’s still going to be ill when the novelty has worn off. This–” he gestured towards his little brother on the hospital bed “–is going to happen again. Over and over. And I want to know if you are going to stick around for it.”
Still, Dion could only stare. He had known this, of course, but to hear it laid out like that made him feel uncomfortable and maybe a little afraid. At the same time, he felt attacked, unfairly so, and had to fight down a sudden rush of temper.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Clive said, his voice softening somewhat, as if he could read all the emotions Dion was careful to keep from showing on his face. “I merely want you to know what being Joshua’s friend entails. It means he won’t be there when you need him. It means he won’t be able to keep promises. Plans will get cancelled, again and again, because he simply won’t be well enough when the time comes. And that is annoying, I get it. It’s disappointing and I frustrating, or so I have been told. I need you to be aware that it is never going to get better, and then think hard about if you are willing to put up with it without letting that unreliability sour your friendship. And I understand if the answer is no. It’s a lot, and if you want to walk away from it, by all means, do. Just do it now.”
Dion kept staring at him. That speech did not serve to make him feel any less accused of crimes he had not committed, but it also made his heart ache to think why Clive likely felt the need to give it.
Just like Clive had suggested, he held Joshua’s hand a little firmer. “I won’t,” he said.
It was not pride or stubbornness that formed his words, not was it ignorance of the reality Clive spoke of. Dion was not comfortable sharing this fact with Joshua’s brother and so he would not do it, but he had spent years keeping an eye out for any scrap of information he could collect on Joshua and how he was doing. He knew Joshua was not well and probably never would be. He had seen Joshua’s health fail him again and again in the short time they had been reacquainted. He had worried every time his friend did not show up for class.
Yet he had to admit that it was one thing to know it intellectually, even to see it, and another to hear it laid out in front of him like this by someone who had lived with it for many years.
For it were not Clive’s words that shook him, it was the deep, resigned exhaustion underlying them. Dion had been lonely all his life, every relationship he ever had taking a backseat to his achievements and his father’s approval (and yet here he was, in a hospital room to hold the hand of someone who did not even know he was here, instead of studying for exams he for the first time struggled to care about, and maybe that was his answer right there). He was not used to caring about anyone that much on a personal level and thus had a limited understanding of what it meant to watch a loved one suffer. But he could recognize that Clive loved his brother dearly, and he was beginning to admit to himself that he did too, if maybe not at all in the same way.
And he realized that right here and now, he was looking down a road that would lead to years of pain and worries and exhaustion and hardships that would make him wonder why his grades, of all things, were something he had ever invested energy into worrying about. Maybe a lifetime of it.
The focus of his entire life would shift. Already he could feel it beneath his feet; the turning of the earth.
This was the moment where he could still walk away from it without being the bad guy. He could be graceful about it. Diplomatic. He had learned, although it had taken him years to realized this, how to let people down elegantly from a young age.
All he had to do was let go of Joshua’s hand, leave, and give up any right to learn if he was going to be okay tomorrow, or the day after, or at any time at all, ever.
Change was terrifying. So was admitting to himself that the life he was living right now wasn’t happy, it was simply familiar, and therefore safe. There was nothing safe about the alternative.
Dion was aware that Clive did not expect him to vow eternal love and commitment to his brother. All he wanted was an assurance that Dion would not be an asshole about Joshua missing appointments and cut him out of his life for having to cancel plans. But that was not enough for Dion, he realized. Even if he would only ever be Joshua’s friend, it was a friendship he was going to commit to with more than just the bare minimum. Dion’s own heart would not let him do any less.
It was a commitment that would not be able to share the spotlight with his father’s ambitions. A part of Dion already dreaded his next trip to Oriflamme and his father’s judgement of every expectation he would not live up to, but in that dread he also found that he had already made his decision.
Joshua might not live through this year. He might not live through any year after. But even if the worst happened, Dion would not regret the price he would have to pay for the time he had with him as much as he would regret turning his back now, after everything.
After Joshua struggled through his class just to be with him, and then gave it up, because Dion had asked him to.
This was not just about Joshua and whatever relationship they might have in the future. This was also about what kind of person Dion wanted to be.
And he found that he wanted to be someone who could be a friend to Joshua Rosfield much more than he wanted to be Silvestre Lesage’s son.
Besides, Joshua’s hand was warm in his, and the thought of letting it go was so unappealing as to seemingly fall into the realm of the impossible.
“Weren’t you going to grab a coffee?” Dion asked, at the end of a lot of silent contemplation.
Clive grunted. “You’re trying to get rid of me?”
“Actually, yes,” Dion confessed. “As you suggested, there are a few things I want to tell your brother and I would rather not you hear them. Nothing concerning, I assure you. Simply… private.”
“I bet.” Clive finally pushed himself away from the window. “You better not use any dirty words in there. Joshua cringes every time you say so much as “fuck” in his presence.”
Dion fought the – albeit distant – urge to cringe himself. He had gotten better with swear words after leaving home, but all the students who surrounded him came from high houses and it showed in their manners. “I shall do my best to refrain,” he promised.
Clive had reached the door but hesitated. Dion was aware that he thought he might come back here and find Joshua alone, and it kind of looked like he was thinking about getting angry about something that had not happened yet and, in fact, never would.
It would have been amusing to watch, had Dion not been so shaken by reshaping his entire being a moment ago. Of course, Clive was not aware that had happened because he could not, in fact, read Dion’s mind, so Dion decided to take him out of his misery.
“If it is not too much trouble,” he said, “I would appreciate you bringing me a cup as well. And maybe a sandwich. Considering I am going to be here for a while.”
Clive thought about that for a moment. “You know what?,” he finally said. “Fuck you, Lesage. You can get your snack yourself once I’m back. It’s enough that I’m giving you space, I’m not running errands for you.”
“Language, Rosfield,” Dion warned him. “Your brother can hear you.”
“Well, fuck him, too. He can wake up and tell me to shut up if it bothers him so fucking much.”
Somehow, Dion had a feeling that he would be desensitized to at least this particular swearword very soon.
Joshua remained frustratingly unconscious. It seemed that he had, as the saying went, no fucks to give about his brother’s choice of words, right now.
Well. There would be time for that later.
The door fell shut behind Clive as he left, and after a moment of silence, Dion held Joshua’s slender hand between both of his and began to talk.
8 Juli 2024