(no subject)
Title: I Can't Fit Into Your World Anymore, But I Still Need Somewhere to Fit.
Fandom:Merlin
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin
British/American stuff: mac = waterproof coat. tatty, tattiness = beat up, old, I wrote mom as mum because I don't know any other American spelling and there was no point in switching between British and American spelling all the time.
Beep. Beep. (Eyes open, pull self up,)
Arthur, I want you to tail a cyclist who just entered the bridge, over.
Click. (Already fully clothed, walk to the door,)
Why? Over.
Click. (Cold wet air hits face, now awake completely,)
Just cycled on, 2 am, only wearing a T-shirt and jeans, this weather? Don’t doubt me Arthur, just get on it? Over.
Already out the door, over.
***
His dark hair is damp from the rain (the sort that isn’t rain enough to warrant an umbrella, but rain enough to completely soak you through if you happen to only be wearing, say, a thin white cotton T-shirt) and he’s curled up on the floor on the safe side of the railing, so small Arthur hadn’t seen him at first, only his bike, and his chest had constricted at the familiar idea of someone he’d never even seen dying beneath his feet, the ‘what ifs’ ready and waiting for him to collect his thoughts.
The man’s arms, despite being tight around his knees, are shaking with the cold and just the emotion that rolls off him in waves like Arthur hasn’t felt with any other jumper makes Arthur certain Owain was right to radio him.
He lets his mac rustle as he approaches, so as not to startle the guy, and drops down beside him.
“Lovely weather.”
The guy doesn’t even glance at him.
Arthur looks him over again. There’s nothing definable that could be said about who he is. He’s not wearing anything interesting, not even a watch, the T-shirt and jeans facing Arthur with the perfect black canvas. He’s slim, really slim, but that could be from anything; extreme poverty to expensive diets and personal trainers. His shoes are converse (or imitations) but the shitty thing about converses (and the jeans now you come to mention it) is the tattier the better, so the guy could again, be dirt poor or stinking rich or even just hate shoe shopping.
In short, nothing that Arthur could use to trigger the guy.
So, wild, tactless stabs in the dark it is then. (Luckily, those are Arthur’s specialty - if you’re aiming to piss people off enough that they wanna stick around long enough to punch your face in. Which, Arthur insists, is better than nothing.)
“Quit your job yet?”
Strange, that normally gets a glare.
“Nothing worse than sending off an angry letter to your absent employee only to find out the reason he’s absent is ‘cause he’s topped himself.”
Nothing.
Arthur tries to figure out what that says about the guy’s relationship with his employer - or maybe lack of employer - and comes up with nothing. But keep talking, that’s the key. Never know what it might be, but there should be something to keep him here.
“Where’re you meant to be, huh? College, shared flat?”
The age is a complete guess, but one based on the evidence on hand. Might make him think of whatever home he has anyway.
“Who’s gonna report you missing?”
Arthur inwardly winced at the low blow. It was a low blow, but when the guy was ignoring all the higher blows . . .
“What about your mum? Can I call her? Your body’ll probably not be found you know, she’ll have no idea.”
The guy snorts. Mumbles something into his knees. “Too right.”
Arthur’s inner self made the kaching motion with it’s fist for making the guy start to talk.
“Won’t listen to you though. Think you’re trying to take her away from Will.”
Arthur waited a few seconds, to be sure the guy wouldn’t say anything else. “You sure she wouldn’t come? If she knew where you were?”
The guy shakes his head and presses his face eyes hard into his knees. A couple of droplets of water hit Arthur in the face.
“She won’t come to the Principal of the College, she won’t go to employers, she won’t come here.”
Don’t press painful stuff. If he failed in changing the guys mind he’d set it. “Who’s Will?”
“ ‘s a friend. Met him aged 14, fucked him when we were 16, he died age 18 and mum still makes him breakfast. And I have to join. ‘S only polite.”
Arthur makes a non-committal noise.
“Kinda hard to eat breakfast with your boyfriend properly when the only one who knows what he’s saying is your mum.”
Arthur looks the guy over. His face is very wet and his eyes are screwed up, but it’s rainy and windy and Arthur probably looks the same.
“Is that why you want to do this then?”
Like a blunt, but very forcefully jabbed pole, as someone has once told him.
“I - - I don’t - - I want -”
The guy swallows.
“- I’ve done this before.”
Arthur can’t think of anything else to try but the “clinical-but-direct thing” the seminar phone-hotline thing he’d been taught.
“Done what before?”
“Just - - just stayed places. The tops of buildings. The aisle with the paracetamol in it. I didn’t stay in the gun shop very long.”
“Why -” Arthur licks his lips, “-why do you think you haven’t done it yet?”
“The thoughts - - the thoughts are calming. They’re more normal? I don’t know what mum’s thinking, and I don’t know what would happen if I died, but no-one else has to know the first one and everyone thinks about the second.”
“Yeah?” Arthur breathes.
“Death is certain. It’s simple and it has nothing to do with made up people and made up conversations. Blank. I - - I appreciate that.”
“Okay, so if you just - - if you just want a place that’s not your place? Somewhere nothing to do with there? Do you think you could come back to the office with me? Can you do that for me?”
The guy turns to look at him.
Arthur keeps babbling. “Hot drink? We’ve got the proper quality stuff down there, coffee shop quality. What do you like? Tea? Coffee? Hot chocolate?”
And now the guy’s blinking real fast and sucking in his lips a bit and now he’s nodding and that’s good.
That’s good.
“Okay,” Arthur stands up and pulls the guy up too. He reaches into his bag and pulls out something blanket-shaped and wraps it around the guy, keeping his arm around him for warmth. “I’m Arthur.”
“Merlin. What’s this?”
“It’s a waterproof towel.”
“ . . . a what?
“Well, it’s a towel stitched to a wipe-clean tablecloth, but it dries you without attempting to dry the rain. One of the ironworkers made it.”
And they’re walking back through the mist (it’s only a hundred yards or so) and Merlin is leaning really heavily on Arthur, his mini-stumbles whispering to Arthur that the guy is exhausted and needs a bed.
And Merlin mumbles, “Arthur?” and forgets how to move his feet again.
Arthur picks him back up and goes, “Yeah?”
“How come I didn’t get a waterproof towel before?”