Chapter 456: Chapter 456: Held [Win – Win]

Arion stared through the glass, tears spilling faster than he could stop them.

Hot, frightened, humiliating tears that kept coming no matter how hard he tried to breathe around them. His chest hitched painfully. His whole body shook with it, and the awful thing under his skin kept moving, twisting through him in sharp, unnatural waves that made every attempt to calm down feel impossible.

He hated that Uncle Dax could see him like this.

He hated that the nurses could.

He hated that his father was a face on a screen and his mother was in another country and his body felt wrong and he was eight and hurting and everyone kept saying calm down as if calm were something he had misplaced on purpose.

A sob tore out of him.

Then another.

The physician said something about his numbers.

The nurse reached for his shoulder again.

And outside the glass, Chris swore softly.

Dax turned his head just enough to look at him.

Chris was already moving.

The outer door opened with a security override that should not have been used so casually and would, under almost any other circumstances, have led to at least three physicians filing formal complaints before dinner.

The medical staff inside the room reacted at once.

“Your Majesty—”

“You can’t—”

“The protocol—”

Chris ignored all of them.

He crossed the room quickly with absolute confidence that made people either move aside or get run over by silk and bad decisions. The diamonds at his collar flashed cold under the medical lights. His face was composed in that frightening, beautiful way it got when he had made up his mind and no longer cared if anyone approved.

Arion saw him coming and cried harder.

The physician moved to intercept. “Your Majesty, he’s unstable—”

“I noticed,” Chris said.

Then he reached the bed.

Arion made a broken, desperate sound and tried to curl tighter into himself even as he reached at the same time, all instinct, fear, and pain, his body no longer knowing whether it wanted to hide or be held.

That made the decision for Chris.

He bent down and gathered the child into his arms.

It was not elegant.

There was tubing. Wires. Blankets. One nurse nearly stopped breathing. Another made a tiny noise of professional horror. Chris adjusted around all of it with the swift care of someone who had held sick children before and did not particularly care that half the room thought this was madness.

Arion latched onto him immediately.

Small arms, weak from everything that had happened, still managed to grip with surprising force. His hands fisted in Chris’s shirt. He buried his face against Chris’s chest and cried like something inside him had finally split open. Real crying now. Body-shaking, hiccuping, miserable sobs that made his breath catch and stutter and made every adult in the room look either stricken or alarmed.

Chris sat on the edge of the bed and held him tighter, one hand broad over the back of his head, the other braced carefully between his shoulder blades.

“There,” he said softly, close to Arion’s hair. “There you are.”

One hand opened weakly, blindly, toward Dax too.

That did something sharp and immediate to the room.

Dax came to the bedside without hesitation and sat down on the other edge, close enough that Arion could feel him there. He placed one steady hand on the back of Arion’s head and the other against his back next to Chris’s, large and warm and impossibly calm.

“There,” Dax said quietly. “We’ve got you.”

The physician stepped forward. “Your Majesty, this could destabilize—”

Dax didn’t even look up. “Then watch him.”

That stopped her.

Chris adjusted Arion higher against his chest, and Dax shifted with him, helping without crowding, the two of them moving around the child as if they had done this before.

Arion cried and cried, great ugly hiccuping sobs that tore out of him with all the pain and fear he had been trying to swallow since waking. His small fingers twisted tighter in Chris’s clothes while he leaned into Dax’s hand every time another violent shudder ran through him.

“It hurts,” he gasped. “It hurts—”

“I know,” Chris said.

“I know,” Dax said at the same time.

That made Arion’s breath hitch again.

Chris kept one arm around him and used his free hand to smooth damp hair off his forehead. Dax’s palm stayed broad and steady between Arion’s shoulders, grounding him every time the mutation rolled through his body and made him tremble.

On the secure screen, Otto had gone perfectly still.

He watched his son cling to two people he trusted and looked, for one raw second, like a man being held upright by the simple fact that his child was not alone.

Arion turned his face just enough to find the screen through tears.

“Papa,” he hiccuped.

“I’m here,” Otto said immediately.

Arion cried harder again at that, but the panic was changing now. It was no longer a free fall. It was grief and pain and terror hitting something solid and breaking against it instead of swallowing him whole.

Dax’s hand moved slowly over his back. “Breathe.”

Chris lowered his head beside Arion’s and said, quieter, “With us.”

The room had gone so still that every uneven breath sounded enormous.

Arion tried.

It was ugly. Broken. Wet with hiccups. But he tried.

In.

Out.

Another sob.

Chris held him tighter when his breath snagged.

Dax kept his hand there, unshaken, his thumb moving once between Arion’s shoulder blades in a slow rhythm the child could follow if he needed something outside himself to count.

“That’s it,” Dax said.

The nurse nearest the bed looked at the monitor, then at the physician. “Heart rate’s still high, but not climbing.”

“Respiration’s improving,” the physician said quietly, sounding almost offended by the fact.

“Keep doing your job and don’t touch him until he calms down,” Dax said.

No one in the room seemed foolish enough to argue with success.

Arion was still crying, but now it had weakened into miserable little hiccups between sobs. He clung to Chris and leaned into Dax like a child trying to fit himself between two walls sturdy enough not to move.

“It feels wrong,” he whispered.

The words were small.

They hit like knives anyway.

Chris closed his eyes for half a second, then opened them again and kissed the top of Arion’s head.

“I know.”

Dax’s voice stayed low and certain. “That doesn’t mean it gets to keep you.”

Arion looked at him through swollen, wet eyes.

Dax didn’t soften the words. He never did. That was why children trusted him more than adults expected.

“It is hurting you,” Dax said. “It is frightening. It is not winning.”

Arion made another miserable, trembling sound and turned his face back into Chris’s chest, but his breathing steadied another little step.

Chris stroked his hair again. “There you are. Be furious later. Right now just breathe.”

Arion’s grip on Chris’s shirt tightened in offended agreement.

Dax gave the faintest shift – not a smile, but close enough that Chris felt it beside him.

On the screen, Otto exhaled slowly. “Thank you.”

Chris didn’t look up. “Don’t be grateful. We’re breaking protocol.”

“Six policies at minimum,” the physician muttered before she could stop herself.

Dax finally lifted his eyes to her.

“Then document that he responded better to comfort than isolation,” he said.

“Uncle… Dax…” Arion managed through hiccups. “I hate white.”

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