From Here On Out, I Wear This Face For Both of Us

Winter was always the hardest season for Toby. It was a span of four months where his breathing cannula just about never left from under his nostrils and every breath had his lungs crackling just as loud as the flames in the mansion's fireplace. He couldn’t sleep without shooting up in a coughing fit sometime around three and he couldn’t venture from his room without feeling lightheaded and dizzy.

His brothers, Ben and Freddy would always come in and lay at Toby's side on the nights when it was so bad he could barely breathe even with his oxygen. He’d gotten used to the lump at his side shifting to rub at his back when he'd jerk awake into crackling coughing fits. But one night, he wakes to find that lump sitting perched on the edge of the mattress. His silent and dull eyes staring out the frosted window, stoney face illuminated by no more than the dim moonlight.

"Are you alright, Ben? It's late." Toby wheezes.

Ben turns his head to look at his brother, an emotionless smile plastered thinly on his face. His eyes are dull and it makes Toby's heart pound hard in his aching chest. Ben’s fingers fiddle with a rope in his lap. His fur-insulated black leather jacket sits slung over his shoulder. 

"What’s wrong?" Toby asks.

Ben shakes his head, "Nothing," He says. His healthy lungs let out a hearty sigh that Toby can’t help but envy. He laughs, "Nothing is wrong. I’m going to go for a walk."

Toby frowns and lets out a crackling cough, "A walk? It’s- It’s nearing one in the morning. Can’t it wait until the sun rises?"

Another shake of his head, "It can’t," He says. "Father would never let us go out in weather like this."

He's still smiling as he rises from the bed and starts silently down the hall. The jacket slips from over his shoulder and Toby watches as his steps just barely pause. His thin fingers grip tight to the rope coiled in his hand and his bare feet continue forwards.

"B-Ben, your coat." Toby tries to call, but his raspy voice doesn’t reach too much further above a crackly whisper. His stomach churns. Ben can’t go out without any protection against the cold. He’d end up with lungs just as crackly as Toby's. Toby would just have to bring it to him himself.

His oxygen cannula pulls as he starts towards the hallway. He debates gabbing the cart that his mother, Georgia, had gotten him to pull his tank along with him wherever he went. But the stairs are already creaking with Ben's steps and if Toby didn’t hurry, he’d be out in the cold without a jacket. So he ditches it, and wrapped in his blanket and wearing nothing more than his light blue wool-knit pajamas and slippers, he follows his brother down the stairs.

When he reaches the floor, Ben is nowhere to be seen. The door is open wide, cold air barging its way into the house with no remorse for anyone inside it. Toby feels his breath hitch and he coughs as his eyes scan the barefoot footprints left in the snow just beyond the door. Looking over to the line of shoes neatly lined up to the side, he spots the pair labeled 'Ben's' sitting there idly and untouched.

"No," Toby whispers. In the blink of an eye, the jacket is falling from his hand and Toby's weak legs are carrying him swiftly out the door.

"Ben!" Toby shouts as loud as his aching chest will allow. He gets no answer.

He rounds the house and sprints out to the courtyard. His aching lungs cough and cough but he doesn’t stop. Not until his vision is blurring at the edges and he’s standing before he and his brother’s favorite oak tree. It had been merely a sapling when they were six and first found it. In eleven years, it’s grown into a strong and healthy tree.

Ben sits perched on its thickest reachable branch. The rope is already tied and the smile on his face is still there. Toby stares up at him with teary eyes.

"You shouldn’t be out here," Ben says.

Toby wheezes, crackly and strained. "B- Ben, what are you- Why are you-

"Don't fret," Ben says. "This is where I’m supposed to be. It’s my fate. It’s alright. I’m going to that better place."

"N- No," Toby says

He sobers, "If I don’t do this myself father will kill me. You know what they say about twins around these parts... We're nearing eighteen. This is the only other way out."

"But-

"It’s okay," Ben says. "It’ll be okay."

Toby's teary eyes look away. He pulls his blanket tighter around his shoulders as the freezing wind whips over his shivering body. His chest aches and he can barely breathe.

"And, Toby?" Ben says softly. The pale boy looks up to meet his brother’s eyes. Ben smiles, "Merry Christmas."

The tears cascade down his cheeks as he rips his eyes away from his brother’s form. Sounds of creaking tree branches fill the stiffly quiet air. There are no sounds of struggle, just a faint yelp that falls into accepting silence. The dark at the edges of Toby's vision takes over the whole of his sight, and with wheezes and sobs, Toby is collapsing into the snow.

When he opens his eyes next, he’s shivering in the arms of the family's nurse, Emily. Over her shoulder, through lidded eyes, he can see that Ben is no longer tied up to the tree. They’d already handled it.

"You should not have come out here," Emily tuts, "Especially without your oxygen or a proper coat. You know your lungs can’t handle the air this cold and dry."

When she lays him down on the infirmary’s bed and starts treating him for hyperthermia, he feels a soft hand fall over his forehead and catches the mournful eyes of this family’s butler. His mother and Freddy are weeping at his side.

"I am so very sorry, my boy," Perler speaks just as Toby is once again falling unconscious.