"Take a breath, I pull myself together. Just another step until I reach the door..."

[breakablehearts]

Who: Sam and Mark (with Justin and Sasha)
What: "If it takes you forever, I want you to know if you fall, stumble down, I'll pick you up off the ground."
Where: A private hospital in Sydney, Australia
When: Following this, this and this

Being a cardiothoracic surgeon, Sam wasn't unfamiliar with ICUs but he would never get used to visiting family members in them. The Campbell family had been dealt more than its fair share of blows over the years but this life-threatening car accident that had now landed both Justin and Sash in one, with no one really coping that well with the new, was one of the biggest blows Sam felt. It was definitely a bigger struggle in the wake of being told he had cancer, but he was holding onto the reassurance that it was one of the most treatable forms. It was going to be awhile before he started responding to treatment and began to feel physically better, though. He could do without his IV pole proper right now.

Still, he knew it was a necessary evil. Grateful that he could be mobile with it and had the green light from his admitting doctor to go to the ICU for a bit. Regardless of the circumstance, he knew Mark wasn't in a good headspace and that meant no matter how wiped out Sam was feeling, his place was at his twin's side and the first step was checking if he was okay. Their mum had left Sam a note while he was asleep that Justin had been rushed back to surgery. If Mark was barely holding up before then, he would be in a tougher place now.

He waited until the nurses allocated to monitoring Justin and Sash's connected rooms gave him the all-clear to go in but hesitated just a moment or two at the door when the sight of Justin and Sasha confronted him. He didn't let himself get stuck on it. Guiding the IV pole into the room, he sat down in the vacant chair by the one Mark was slumped in at Justin's bedside. He didn't say anything, he just put his hand on Mark's shoulder.

Comments

[breakablehearts]

Sam slowly wet his lips and shook his head. "No, I don't, Sparky. I really don't. I don't underestimate anything about that poor kid. He's more capable of shouldering things than all use adults are collectively. It's his urge to take care of the people he loves that complicates this because right now, how he is, he's not well enough to. You have to remember his past dissociative amnesia and any blow could cause that to relapse. He might check out again and it might be for a very long time. He knows you're sick, he knows I am. But I guarantee you right now, he can't calibrate that and I don't want to pressure him with anything more than is absolutely vital." He saw the change in Mark when something must've crossed his mind and hit him hard, so he put his arm around him, squeezing his shoulder. "We'll get through it, Sparky. We always do. And look... okay. I would do it in that fictional scenario. It would be just part of the process. But any future kid in that scenario would be nothing more than Justin's cousin. Not his sibling." And that's where he finally got to the crux of the struggles.

"Sparky..." He sighed wearily and rubbed his forehead between eyes where a painful headache was setting in. "That's like asking why you're not pissed at Justin for walking into the ocean at Bondi. You have a mental illness. You didn't let anything happened. You're unwell, you need treatment. You're self-sabotaging and that's destructive. It's as simple and as complicated as that. I would never be pissed at you for any of this. I might get frustrated and upset because as you know in caring for Justin, sometimes things can get too much but fuck, I would never blame you. You're blaming yourself enough for everyone and that's why you're ill and it's exacerbating. Come here..." He pulled Mark into a hug, holding him close and rubbing his back. "I love you, okay? I need you to never forget that. We'll get you back on track and then you can take care of me with my shit."