Chapter Text
The drawing room of Bridgerton House was unusually quiet. The afternoon light filtered through the tall windows, illuminating the spines of books and the tea trays. Benedict sat in his favorite armchair, a sketchbook upon his knees and a pencil held between his fingers.
"If you continue to stare at that vase with such intensity, Benedict, you shall end up shattering it by the mere force of your thoughts" Colin teased, entering the room with a biscuit in hand. Benedict did not reply. He did not even smile. "Benedict?" Colin insisted, frowning.
Anthony looked up from his papers, seated at the writing desk not far away. "Leave him be, Colin. He is likely lost in one of his usual artistic inspirations."
But something was wrong. Benedict’s pencil slipped from his fingers, rolling onto the carpet with a dull thud. His gaze was not fixed upon the vase, but upon the void. His pupils were dilated, and his face had suddenly turned deathly pale.
"Brother?" Anthony stood, his chair scraping against the floor. "Benedict, do you hear me?"
Suddenly, Benedict’s body stiffened unnaturally. His back arched against the armchair, and a stifled gasp escaped his lips. Before Anthony could reach him, Benedict slid sideways, falling onto the carpet as his body was seized by violent convulsions.
"Benedict!" Colin cried out, dropping his biscuit, paralyzed by horror. He had never seen anything like it; the force of Benedict’s movements was terrifying.
Anthony, driven by a primal protective instinct, threw himself onto the floor beside him. "Move the furniture! Colin, move! Do not let him strike anything!"
The Viscount attempted to cradle his brother’s head, but his arms were trembling. To see the brother who was always so calm and vibrant with life reduced to such involuntary jolts broke something inside him.
"Anthony, what is happening to him? Is he dying?" Colin’s voice was thin, trembling. He had pressed himself against the wall, eyes wide as he watched Benedict struggle with his own body.
"He is not dying! Do not ever say that again!" Anthony roared, but tears began to streak his face uncontrollably. "Benedict, breathe... please, Benedict, I am here. I am here."
Anthony tried to turn him onto his side, as he had once seen a military physician do, but Benedict was a mass of tense, shaking muscles. The sound of clattering teeth and labored breathing filled the room, making the very air feel heavy.
Anthony did not even attempt to dry his tears. "Please, enough... enough..." he whispered, a desperate prayer directed at whatever God might be listening. He felt the utter helplessness of being unable to fight this invisible enemy that was torturing his brother.
Colin remained motionless, his hands pressed against his mouth. The family traveler, the one who thought he had seen everything, felt like a lost child. He could not reconcile the image of the Benedict who was laughing and drinking with him the night before with the man now struggling on the floor.
After what felt like centuries, the movements began to subside. The jolts became tremors, then Benedict grew heavy and still. The silence that followed was almost more terrifying than the seizure itself.
"Is it over?" Colin asked in a small voice, taking a hesitant step toward them.
Anthony did not answer immediately. He held Benedict close to him, resting his brother's head against his chest, frantically checking if he was still breathing. When he felt a faint, steady breath, Anthony collapsed, resting his forehead against his brother’s.
"He is alive" Anthony gasped, his voice breaking. "He is merely... exhausted."
Benedict let out a weak moan, his eyelids flickering. "An... Anthony?"
"I am here, Ben. We are with you" the Viscount replied, awkwardly wiping his face with his sleeve, attempting to reclaim his role as head of the family, even though his heart was still racing.
Colin knelt on the other side, taking Benedict’s cold hand in his own. "You gave us a mortal fright, you foolish artist." His voice was still shaken, but the relief was palpable.
In that gilded drawing room, amidst scattered drawings and tea grown cold, the three brothers remained united on the floor, waiting for the world to stop trembling.
After the storm, the silence that enveloped Bridgerton House was thick and protective. Benedict had been carried to his bedchamber. The first forty-eight hours were the most difficult. Benedict slipped in and out of sleep, confused and terribly weak. Every time he opened his eyes, he found a constant figure seated beside his bed.
"Anthony... you should sleep" Benedict whispered on the third day, his voice still hoarse.
Anthony, who had not removed his tailcoat and wore the marks of two sleepless nights beneath his eyes, shook his head. He had a book open upon his knees, but he had not turned a page for hours. "I shall sleep when I am certain you will not decide to faint again the moment I close my eyes."
There was a teasing tone to his words, yet Benedict saw the tremor in his elder brother's hands as he handed him a glass of water. The memory of the seizure was hazy to him, but the terror in Anthony’s eyes was a vivid image he was beginning to reconstruct.
Colin entered the room ten times a day, bringing something different each time: a tray of pastries that Benedict could not manage to eat, a new set of brushes, or simply a trivial bit of news regarding London society.
"I told Lady Danbury you have a dreadful bout of influenza" Colin said one afternoon, sitting at the foot of the bed. His usual lightheartedness was tinged with a new vulnerability. "But I do not believe she credited it. She looked at me as if she could read my very soul."
Benedict offered a weak smile. "No one deceives Lady Danbury, Colin."
Colin hesitated, then his expression grew serious. "I saw you... For a moment, I thought that..." He broke off, unable to finish the sentence.
Benedict reached out a pale hand and rested it on his younger brother's arm. "I am still here. I am merely a bit bruised."
The true healing began when Benedict asked for his charcoals. His hands still trembled slightly, but Anthony, with a patience that few ever credited him with, arranged the pillows behind his brother's back and held the album steady until Benedict found the strength to draw a line.
"The physician says it may never happen again" Anthony said one evening, as the fire crackled in the hearth, "or it may be something you shall have to live with. But whatever it may be, Benedict... you shall never be alone. Not in any place."
Benedict looked at his brothers. Anthony, who had wept for him, and Colin, who never left him for more than an hour. The shame he had initially felt for his vulnerability vanished, replaced by a deep warmth.
"I know" Benedict replied, finally feeling the weight of exhaustion lift. "I know that you will keep my head held high."
~~~
Weeks passed. Life at Bridgerton House had resumed its frantic pace, and Benedict’s episode had been filed away as a terrible, isolated accident. But within himself, Benedict had become a silent observer of his own body.
It was a family dinner, one of those occasions where Violet insisted upon having all her children gathered around the long mahogany table. The candles glowed, the scent of roast filled the air, and the laughter of Hyacinth and Eloise provided the backdrop.
Benedict felt the aura arrive in the middle of one of Colin’s sentences. Suddenly, the taste of the wine turned metallic upon his tongue. The sounds of the room began to rumble as if he were underwater, and a strange sensation of déjà vu enveloped him, dizzying and suffocating.
No, not here. Not before everyone, he thought frantically.
He tried to set down his goblet, but his hand did not respond well to his command. The glass clinked dangerously against the porcelain. Benedict attempted to stand, thinking perhaps the fresh air would aid him, but the moment he was on his feet, the room spun on its axis.
"Benedict? Dearest, are you quite well?" Violet asked, noting her son’s ghostly pallor.
Anthony, whose senses had remained on high alert since the first seizure, sprang to his feet even before Benedict could reply. "Ben?"
Benedict could not speak. His gaze became vacant, his eyelids began to flutter, and his knees gave way. He would have struck the floor violently had Anthony not lunged from the other side of the table with desperate speed.
Anthony managed to catch him by the shoulders, cushioning the fall, but Benedict’s body immediately began to stiffen.
"Oh, good God! Again!" Eloise cried out, leaping back as the plates rattled from the jerk Anthony had given the tablecloth in his movement.
"Everyone out! Take the younger ones away, now!" Violet commanded in a voice that brooked no argument. Despite the terror clutching her heart, her maternal instinct took command.
While Colin, his face ashen, escorted his sisters from the room, Violet knelt beside Anthony.
"Mother, it is happening again, it is happening again..." Anthony murmured. Tears were already stinging his eyes as he tried to hold his brother in a safe position. To see Benedict thus, in evening dress amidst the remnants of a happy dinner, made it all the more cruel.
"Breathe, Anthony. Look at me" Violet said, as steady as a rock despite her trembling hands. "Turn him onto his side. Anthony, help me turn him, gently."
Together, mother and son coordinated their movements. Violet took a linen napkin and used it to shield Benedict’s head from the table legs, while Anthony held him close, trying not to weep upon his shoulder.
"I am here, my darling. Mother is here" Violet whispered, stroking Benedict’s sweat-dampened hair as the convulsions racked his body.
When the seizure finally ceased, the dining room was in shambles. Anthony did not release his grip, cradling his younger brother upon the expensive carpet, while Violet cleansed Benedict’s face with water, praying in silence that this burden might, sooner or later, become lighter for them all.
The return to consciousness was like ascending from the bottom of a frozen lake. The sounds reached him first: the rhythmic ticking of a clock, the crackle of the hearth, and a ragged breath, far too close to his ear.
Benedict opened his eyes, but the ceiling of the dining room seemed to rotate slowly. The candlelight, previously warm and welcoming, now pierced his pupils like needles.
"Easy, Ben. Stay down" Anthony’s voice was hoarse, nearly unrecognizable.
Benedict tried to move an arm, but it felt as heavy as lead, his muscles aching as though he had run for miles. He felt the texture of the carpet beneath his fingers and, suddenly, the scent of food and wine struck him, bringing back fragments of images: the dinner, the clinking of crystal, the worried face of his mother.
"I... what...?" he slurred. His tongue felt too large for his mouth, and the metallic taste still persisted.
He tried to lift himself, but a wave of nausea pushed him back. It was then that he realized he was still on the floor of the dining room, his head resting upon Anthony’s lap. His mother was kneeling beside him, her hands cold and gentle as they stroked his temples.
"It is all over, dearest" Violet whispered. Benedict saw that her eyes were glistening, and his heart constricted.
The mental fog began to clear, making way for a searing humiliation. He remembered standing, trying to flee the oppressive sensation, and collapsing before everyone. Before his sisters. Before his mother.
"Mother..." Benedict murmured, his voice trembling. "I... I am sorry. The dinner... I have ruined everything."
"Benedict Bridgerton, do not you dare" Anthony interrupted. Benedict looked up and saw that his elder brother, too, was fighting back tears.
"Forgive me... I did not wish to... to frighten you" Benedict continued, desperately trying to regain a composure that his body had just denied him. "Eloise? Hyacinth? I frightened them, did I not? I am a disaster..."
"Be silent" Anthony commanded, yet with an infinite sweetness, drawing him tighter against himself. "Never apologize for something you cannot control. Do you hear me? Never."
Benedict closed his eyes, overwhelmed by physical pain and shame. "It is so embarrassing, Anthony. To be... thus."
"To be what? Human?" Violet kissed his brow, wiping the cold sweat with a handkerchief. "You are my son; you are their brother. There is nothing to be ashamed of in being loved and protected by one's family."
At that moment, the door creaked open. Colin appeared with a blanket in hand, his face still pale but his gaze determined. He approached without a word and wrapped it around Benedict, then sat on the floor beside them, completing that circle of protection.
"The next time you wish to skip dessert, Ben, you need only say so" Colin joked in a thin voice, attempting to break the tension, though his hand trembled as he squeezed Benedict’s shoulder.
Benedict exhaled deeply, letting his head fall back against Anthony’s shoulder. The confusion was fading, replaced by an immense exhaustion, but surrounded by them, the dining room floor no longer felt like a place of humiliation, but the only place in the world where he was truly safe.
Benedict tried to dig his elbows into the floor, but his arms shook violently. The mere thought of remaining there, vulnerable on the dining room floor amidst the remnants of dinner, was unbearable to him.
"I wish... I wish to stand" he murmured, his voice gradually returning to a normal pitch, though it remained cracked.
"It is too soon, Ben. Wait a moment" Anthony cautioned, slipping an arm around his waist to support him.
"No, Anthony. Please."
The Viscount read the plea in his brother’s eyes, the desperate longing to reclaim a shred of dignity after being betrayed by his own body. He exchanged a swift glance with Colin, who nodded immediately, setting the blanket upon a chair and positioning himself on the other side.
"Very well. But let us do the heavy lifting" Colin said, with a gravity he rarely displayed.
Together, Anthony and Colin applied leverage beneath Benedict’s arms. As they rose, Benedict’s world swayed dangerously. His head fell back for an instant, and a low groan escaped him as the blood drained from his face.
"We have you. We are holding you" Anthony repeated like a mantra, tightening his grip on Benedict’s shoulder.
Violet rose first, throwing open the doors to the hall and gesturing for the servants to stay back. The journey toward the grand staircase was a slow procession of ragged breaths and shuffling feet. Benedict was practically suspended between his two brothers; his feet barely brushed the steps, while his left arm weighed heavily upon Anthony’s neck and his right upon Colin’s.
Halfway up the stairs, Benedict gasped. "I look... I look like a drunken old man" he tried to jest, but his breath was short and his eyes struggled to remain focused.
Anthony did not laugh. He merely tightened his hold, feeling Benedict’s ribs shudder beneath his fine coat. "You look like my brother, Benedict. And I would carry you to the very peak of a mountain were it necessary. Now, move that foot and speak no more nonsense."
From his side, Colin kept his gaze fixed upon the top of the stairs, his face taut with effort and emotion. "Just think of the bed, Ben. One step at a time."
When they finally reached the threshold of his bedchamber, Benedict was spent, sweat beading his brow despite the chill of the corridor. The brothers guided him to the edge of the mattress, easing him down with a delicacy that was almost sacral.
As Violet began to loosen his cravat with expert, maternal fingers, Benedict looked at his brothers. Anthony was still there, standing before him with sleeves rolled up and a face full of concern. Colin leaned against the bedpost, his gaze fixed upon his brother as if to ensure he would not vanish.
"Thank you" Benedict whispered, finally letting his head sink into the pillow.
Anthony took his hand once more, squeezing it hard. "Never thank us for this, Benedict."
Violet had just stepped out to speak with the servants, leaving her boys alone in the room. Just as the tension seemed to ebb and the safety of the bed appeared won, Benedict’s body gave one last, violent signal of protest.
His face, already pale, took on a greyish hue. He clapped a hand to his mouth, his eyes wide with sudden panic. "Anthony..." he managed to choke out, but the sound was cut short by an involuntary heave.
Anthony did not recoil. There was no disgust, only a readiness born of visceral love. "Colin, the basin! Quickly!"
But there was no time. Benedict doubled over, seized by a wave of violent nausea, the brutal consequence of the shock to his nervous system. He retched directly onto the carpet while Anthony held him firmly by the shoulders to prevent him from tumbling from the bed.
"It is all right, Ben. Let it all out, do not hold back" Anthony murmured in a steady voice. With one hand he brushed the hair from Benedict’s sweat-slicked brow, while with the other he rubbed his back in slow, constant circles.
Colin arrived a moment later with the silver basin and a pitcher of water, positioning himself on the other side. Even he, usually fastidious, did not flinch. He helped Benedict rinse his mouth, passing a wet cloth over his face with a tenderness he had never shown before.
When the nausea finally subsided, Benedict remained suspended in Anthony’s arms, drained of all energy. The silence of the room was broken only by his short, labored breathing. Then, came the tremors.
It was not a physical tremor like the seizure; it was a shudder of the soul. Benedict began to weep. These were not the quiet sobs of a wounded man, but a desperate, exhausted crying—the cry of one who feels utterly humiliated and overwhelmed by something he cannot control.
"I am sorry... God, I am so sorry" Benedict sobbed, burying his face in the crook of Anthony’s shoulder. "It is ghastly... I am... I am such a burden..."
His tears dampened Anthony’s skin, mingling with the sweat and the grime of that terrible night. Benedict felt reduced to a child, stripped of every ounce of dignity before the brothers he had always sought to support with his art and good humor.
"Look at me, Benedict. Look me in the eye" Anthony commanded, gently forcing him to lift his head. "You are not a burden. You are my brother. I care nothing for the carpet. The only thing I care for is that you return to us every time that darkness takes you."
Colin sat on the edge of the bed, taking one of Benedict’s trembling hands in his own. "We are family, Ben. We have seen worse, and we shall see our way through this together. There is nothing to be ashamed of here. Only us. Only the Bridgerton brothers."
Benedict continued to weep for several minutes, letting all the fear, exhaustion, and tension of the preceding months flow out. Anthony cradled him as if he were six years old again, until the sobs turned into deep breaths and Benedict, exhausted to his very marrow, let himself go against the pillows, his eyes red but finally at peace.
Night had fallen over Bridgerton House, bringing with it a heavy silence, broken only by the crackle of the dying fire and Benedict’s irregular breathing. Anthony had not moved an inch. He had removed his soiled jacket, remaining in his shirt and waistcoat, and had rolled up his sleeves with quiet efficiency.
Beside the bed, a basin of cool water reflected the dim light of a single candle.
Anthony dipped a linen cloth into the water, wrung it out with care, and began to pass it over Benedict’s forehead. The heat radiating from his brother’s body was worrisome; the muscular exertion of the seizure had left him burning and spent.
"Is it too cold?" Anthony whispered, seeing Benedict flinch slightly at the contact.
Benedict shook his head weakly, keeping his eyes closed. "No... it is fine. Thank you, Anthony."
With a devotion that only an elder brother who has seen too much suffering can possess, Anthony continued his task. He passed the damp cloth over Benedict’s temples, his neck, and his wrists, seeking to wash away not only the sweat and the illness, but also that sense of filth and humiliation that he knew weighed upon his brother’s soul. Every gesture was steeped in a tenderness the Viscount rarely allowed the world to see.
As Anthony leaned over to rinse the cloth once more, he felt a weak hand catch his wrist. He opened his eyes and found Benedict’s gaze fixed upon him, lucid and still veiled with fear.
"Anthony... do not go" Benedict murmured. His voice was small, stripped of the usual irony that characterized him. "Please. Stay here."
Anthony froze, his heart aching with the sheer pressure of the moment. "I am right here, Ben. I am going nowhere. I shall sit in the armchair."
"No" Benedict interrupted him, another tremor shaking his shoulders. "Sleep... will you sleep here with me? As we used to when we were small and the storms came?"
That request tore down Anthony’s final defenses. There was no Viscount, no austere head of the family. There were only two brothers who had just faced the abyss together.
"Of course. Of course, Ben" Anthony replied, a lump forming in his throat.
He pulled off his boots and, with extreme caution so as not to disturb the mattress, lay atop the covers beside Benedict. As soon as he settled, Benedict curled against him, seeking the warmth and stability that only Anthony could provide. He rested his head upon his elder brother’s shoulder, finally feeling the steady beat of Anthony’s heart beneath his ear.
Anthony draped a protective arm around his shoulders, pulling the quilt up over them both. "Close your eyes, Ben. I am here. Should it happen again, I shall catch you before you can even fall. I promise."
Benedict let out a long breath of relief, the lingering tensions finally deserting his muscles. "I know" he whispered against Anthony’s shirt.
That night, within the safe walls of the bedchamber, the darkness held no more fear. Anthony remained awake for a long while, watching over Benedict’s breathing and stroking his hair whenever his brother stirred in his sleep, until he too, overcome by exhaustion and relief, surrendered to a dreamless slumber.