Kink Me! #29
Kink Me! #29
*closed to new prompts*Welcome to Kink Me! Merlin #29!
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The title is from Wolfsheim's song 'Find You're Gone'.
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Arthur is there when Merlin wakes up. At first he blinks sleepily and squints at the lamps that are way too bright, and only several seconds after the realisation dawns. Arthur watches Merlin's facial expressions changing - from confused to frightened, from panicked to lost hurt.
"Hey", says Arthur squeezing Merlin's hand in his.
"Hey", says Merlin, all hoarse though he didn't scream from pain - the doctors told Arthur that he had lost consciousness once the car crashed into that blasted tree. "What happened?"
Arthur doesn't want to be the one telling Merlin that but he really has no choice with Merlin's eyes wide and Merlin's fingers cold and limp in his hand.
"An accident", says Arthur hurriedly because the pause has been far too long. "You drove right into a tree. Didn't you see it?"
"It was dark", the tips of Merlin's ears go pink, and he licks his lips. "And I was so tired... I think I fell asleep at some point."
"You could've called me, and I'd've picked you up."
At first when he learned about the accident he was scared shitless. Then he was angry, but it passed too while they operated on Merlin, so many hours on end, and he sat outside with a coffee in his hand and waited, cold fear coiling and rolling inside his stomach. He wouldn't know if the coffee was any good, but he remembered every flaw of the paint of the operation room door. By the time it was over, Arthur was just numb, and he doesn't feel strong enough right now to yell at Merlin for being an irresponsible idiot.
Merlin sighs. He doesn't like asking Arthur to do something for him because Arthur always agrees and does. Arthur knows that though he could never understand why it is so. Merlin lifts the blanket with his free hand and sneaks a peak at his body.
"I've broken some bones, haven't I? There's plaster and bandages all over. I feel like I'm in a Second World War movie, some injured hero of the battlefield, and you're the pretty nurse", he tries to smile, but it looks rather fake to Arthur.
"Didn't know that roleplay was your cup of tea", Arthur leans down and kisses Merlin - just because he can. Merlin's lips are chapped and dry and weak in their response and the familiar taste of Merlin is faint underneath sour pain and plastic tinge of the breathing tubes that were taken off only half an hour ago, but Arthur still loves every second of it. "We can give it a try when you are better", he promises running his thumb over Merlin's cheek.
"When will I be better, then?" Merlin smiles again and it's more genuine this time, but his eyes are still full of anxiety, guilt and unrest.
"They say you were thrown sideways by the impact and all bent over the seatbelt. There's something wrong with your spine, they don't know what exactly yet, and you legs are... well... not well", finishes Arthur awkwardly. "I can go talk to them now, maybe there's some update."
"Bring me something to drink when you are back, will you? Tea or water."
"Sure", Arthur leaves the room still numb and tense, but breathing seems to be a bit easier now that Merlin is awake. Everything's gonna be alright now one way or the other, isn't it?
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Merlin leaves the hospital two weeks later. In a wheelchair. Arthur carries him into the car and folds the wheelchair clumsily - he's not used to it, but he reckons he will be. Merlin is pliant and heavy in his arms when Arthur carries him to bed at home, and his lips are warm and scratchy on Arthur's neck. He's dependant on Arthur now and though he's never liked it he seems to be alright with it. After all, his struggling for doing things himself was partially the reason of all this.
"You should go to work", Merlin says while Arthur's fretting to bring some water and Merlin's laptop and the whole bunch pills that were prescribed by the doctors. "You'll ne missed."
"Work can wait till tomorrow. 'S not like the end of the world in happening right there and now. Do you want some cookies? Your mother sent us loads, I guess it's her motherly revenge for you talking her out of coming here from Ealdor the moment she knew."
"Nah, I'm fine", Merlin puts his laptop on his lap demostrating clearly that he'll be perfectly fine on his own if Arthur goes and tries to work right now. "I'll watch something it you give me the DVDs. And don't say Morgana doesn't call you six times a day with this question or that, so you'd better go and answer them all at once."
Merlin has a point - Arthur's unsufferable PA does call him all the time, because a company doesn't run itself without its CEO. But Merlin is more important, somehow, then the work of Arthur's life.
Merlin opens his laptop and looks at the screen so pointedly as if there's something interesting there already. Arthur takes an armful of DVDs from the shelf and puts them beside Merlin.
"I'll go buy some groceries then", says he feeling suddenly the odd man out in his own home. "Here, they wrote that you should take the yellow little ones every half an hour, and there's a salve for your spine but don't touch it, I'll help you with it as soon as I'm back..."
"OK", Merlin takes the A4 piece of paper with detailed prescriptions and kisses Arthur's knuckles - briefly, fleetingly, gratefully - and goes back to his laptop like nothing happened at all, but Arthur's heart clenches for some reason. "Go, it's alright, really."
And Arthur goes because what else can he do at this point, really? He keeps his mobile in his inner pocket so he wouldn't miss a call from Merlin but Merlin doesn't call while Arthur's out.
Arthur buys a coffee after leaving the supermarket with plastic bags stuffed with everything he could think of - Merlin usually does the groceries, and Arthur is a tad at a loss as he doesn't actually know what they need - and, sipping it, he visits his office for a little while. Morgana sends him home almost immediately - apparently the woman thinks she knows best what Arthur and Merlin both have to do at the moment, and she can be persistant.
Arthur goes home with his coffee and lots of vegetables, flour, bread, sausages and whatnot, and thinks why is that that he's become not particularly welcome in his two favourite places in the world in one day.
He kisses Merlin when he's back. Merlin tastes like the little yellow pills although they are meant to be swallowed whole, not chewed.
Arthur reckons, he'll have to get used to it as well.
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This part is at least PG-13 because there's some dirty talk.
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* * *
Arthur never actually got to the yelling thing - Merlin looks far too fragile and pale wrapped in their giant duvet, and Arthur’s anger that appears when he remembers that Merlin’s stubborness and wish to be independent led to what they have now shuts down every time. Eventually there’s no anger anymore, and Arthur doesn’t miss it.
They have new rituals now. Cooking together is replaced with Arthur trying to figure out a recipe that will be suitable for a sick person and Merlin reading his Spanish surrealists quietly in his wheelchair in the corner of the kitchen (Merlin says that even if he’s injured there’s no reason for him to fall back on his postgrad work, so he does a lot of reading for which he couldn’t find time before). They don’t go out anymore even though Merlin says it’s alright if Arthur goes and has a relaxing evening. Arthur is sick of the word ‘alright’ and thinks of forbidding Merlin to use it.
Also Arthur sends Merlin texts to remind him what pills he should take now. However strange it is, in text messages Merlin seems more carefree and cheerful than in person. Perhaps because it’s almost like before, thinks Arthur. He doesn’t know and doesn’t ask Merlin about it.
Every evening, after dinner, Arthur turns Merlin onto his stomach and pushes the duvet and Merlin’s t-shirt away to reveal his back. After that Arthur takes the tube with the salve from the nightstand and warms it carefully between his fingers before applying it to Merlin’s back.
Merlin is quiet under Arthur’s touch; he lies unmoving with his chin propped on his hands, and his shoulders are tense - Arthur sees it even under the oversized t-shirt. Arthur is glad that one can’t see their own back without a mirror because Merlin’s skin is a mess of scars which are still raw and bright: it will take many months for them to become pale and more or less invisible. Arthur imagines tracing every single one with his tongue - will it make Merlin shiver, will it make him gasp, or writhe, or moan softly like he does when Arthur teases him with featherlight touches for a long time? He saves the idea for later, though, - the doctors say Merlin doesn’t feel anything from his waist down right now. Later, when Merlin’s sensitive and strong and playful again.
Arthur always finishes rubbing the salve with a kiss between Merlin’s shoulderblades. Merlin sighs deeply in response as if grateful for something that Arthur can’t fully grasp or, the other way round, sad because of something that he never talks about.
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Morgana can say what she likes - which she does anyway - but Arthur is a gentleman. He waits for a week and a half before trying to seduce Merlin after their teeth are brushed, the lights are off and the moolight starts gathering in stain-like puddles on the floor. He’s not after sex as it is seeing as Merlin is still far from recovery but, well, a little bit of affection would be nice. Arthur is hungry for touch, the tenderness and the passion that always accompany him and Merlin in bed; he feels like since the accident some kind of wall is growing between them and he can’t even properly see Merlin behind it.
He caresses Merlin’s shoulder with his lips and fingertips, that warm smooth skin he loves so much. Merlin is mothionless, and Arthur would think he’s asleep is not for the fact that his breathing is far too even and cautious.
“I miss it”, whispers Arthur, and Merlin gives up pretending, opening his eyes. They look dark blue without a single spark, practically pitch-black in the darkness of the bedroom, and he’s all the more pale for it. “I miss you inside me, your cock in my mouth, your legs around my back.”
A fair share of dirty talk never fails to turn Merlin on. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case - more than that, Merlin goes all stiff under Arthur like that person in a movie who was hypnotised and laid between two chairs supported only at their neck and at their ankles but lying there nonetheless because they were told to.
“Arthur”, exhales Merlin.
Arthur kisses his face with little silly kisses of care and fondness, over Merlin’s eyebrows and hollows in his cheeks and the alae of his nose and the corners of his mouth. When he touches Merlin’s eyelashes with his lips he feels wetness of bitter-salty taste.
It’s tears.
“What’s wrong?” Arthur cups Melin’s nape and leans in to press his forehead against Merlin’s. “Are you in pain?”
“No”, Merlin says sounding like he has to drag the words out of himself while they are actively against it. “No, I’m not in pain. I just… I don’t feel anything. I can’t… I can’t give you what you want. And it doesn’t get better, the salve doesn’t help, nothing helps, and I look at you and think that you are the most shaggable person in the world and I don’t actually want to do anything with you because that part of me is long gone!”
Merlin catches breath, and Arthur distantly notices that Merlin’s fingers dig deep into his shoulder as if he’s trying to hold Arthur where he is. As if Arthur’s going to run away.
Arthur covers Merlin’s body with his and pulls Merlin as close as he can, and that’s the last straw that breaks Merlin. He sobs silently into Arthur’s shoulder and hugs him like he hasn’t hugged even once during these three weeks and a half and Arthur whispers that it will be alright, everything will be fine, everything will turn out well because it must, because there’s no other way it can end.
Merlin cries himself to sleep and goes slack and sleepy-warm still clutching at Arthur.
Arthur watches the moonlight move along the floor until dawn.
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* * *
In the morning they go to the hospital for a regular check-up and some therapy that Merlin has to go through. His eyes are still puffy and red-rimmed despite the fact that he has slept for nine hours but otherwise he seems rested and calm. And he hugs Arthur tightly when he’s carried to the car, and Arthur kisses the top of Merlin’s head because he understands that this hug is all that Merlin can give him now. All that Merlin has at the moment, to be precise.
Arthur takes Merlin to the x-ray room and then to the therapy room where dr Gaius meets them as usually. Merlin trusts dr Gaius to make everything right maybe because the man has something grandfartherly and reassuring around him but Arthur doesn’t miss the uncertainty in his eyes under bushy white eyebrows and light, almost translucent eyelashes.
He goes back to the x-ray room to fetch the resuls stretching his wrists - he’s still not really used to driving a wheelchair of all things, and it’s quite heavy and hulky. The door is ajar and Arthur stops right outside to work on his wrists a bit more. The doctors inside the room are talking and Arthur recognises voices - dr Nimueh, dr Edwin Muirden, dr Lancelot du Lac and that little intern Freya Lake who takes to Merlin like house on fire and always manages to make him smile.
“It’s hopeless”, says dr Nimueh (is it a name or a surname? Arthur is not sure). “Look, he’s deteorating day by day.”
“We can’t give up just yet”, du Lac sounds resigned as if he argues out of sheer stubborness and can’t help but see that Nimueh is right. “Therapy can turn the process back…”
“It never does if the process is detereorating”, snaps dr Muirden. “It would take a miracle to at least stop it. Therapy is no miracle.”
“So what you both are suggesting is basically to go to the young man and say that he’s going to be a half of himself for the rest of his life?” du Lac is angry judging by his voice. “Aren’t you too quick to make conclusions?”
“Well, it’s better than giving your patients false hope for years before they consult someone else and commit suicide”, hisses Muirden. It’s a low blow, thinks Arthur but he can’t quite sympathize with polite and charming du Lac because he’s trying to figure out who they are talking about. It could be anyone, right? This hospital cares of thousands of patients, doesn’t it?
“Shut up before I hit you”, warns du Lac, and Muirden doesn’t answer.
“It’s been less than a month”, says Freya quietly. “He still hopes a great deal. Let’s wait a bit. Maybe, half a year? So that he can grow accustomed to what he has. It will be easier to accept that it’s what’s going to be the rest of his life.” Her voice is high and raw as if she’s ready to cry but she speaks steadily - it’s obviously not an improvisation.
“OK”, dr Nimueh sounds tired and broken. “We’ll do as you suggest Freya. Will you take his results to the therapy room? He’s got to be there with Gaius now.”
“His partner always fetches them”, there are sounds like folding paper that surround Freya’s voice and the echo of her steps. “Arthur, that’s his name. Tell him I’ve already gone to the therapy room if he shows up? You remember him, that stunning blond who looks like he owns the world.”
Arthur steps back and to the wall to his right led by pure instinct. The door opens wide and Freys hurries past with some x-ray pictures without noticing Arthur. Dr du Lac and dr Nimueh leave the room after her and they are not in a hurry so they don’t miss Arthur in the shadow of the door.
“Well”, says Arthur. “There’s no need for me to fetch the results, then, seeing as intern Lake has already gone to the therapy room.”
Words feel like pebbles in his mouth grinding against each other clumsily and tasting like sand and earth. Arthur turns away from the doctors and goes along the corridor to the therapy room accompanied by Nimueh’s quiet “Fuck.”
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Merlin looks hopeful studying the results of his x-ray. He doesn’t know shit about how to read these pictures but Gaius gives them to him with a smile and Merlin evidently thinks it’s a good sign. Arthur feels sick knowing that this smile is as fake as a fake thing in the land of fake things.
“See, your spine bones have been shattered here, here and here”, shows Gaius. “They are starting to heal now, that’s a slow process but they will surely not resemble stray noodles in your soup in a few months.”
“Will they recover fully?” Arthue can’t stop himself asking as if a naughty goblin is controlling his tongue.
Freys winces at that and looks at him frightened. Gaius lookes confused for a second but then he looks just tired. He knows that Arthur knows.
“The salve we are using has been fabulous at the clinic trials and obviously it’s meant just for the kind of trauma that mr Emrys is dealing with. Ninety per cent of similar patients recover fully with proper treatment.” He doesn’t say outright lies and this should make Merlin suspect but it doesn’t. Though it does make Arthur angry and makes him think what it is that one is supposed to do when you or someone you love doesn’t fit the lucky ninety per cent. What happens when the logical cycle of being injured and being cured is broken, shattered to pieces just like Merlin’s spine? Arthue doesn’t really know and he’s fuckung bone-chiling terrified by understanding that he will have to know it because the injured stage is likely to go on forever, his own and Merlin’s personal forever.
“Thank you”, says Merlin sincerely.
“You’re welcome, young man, you’re quite welcome”, Caius takes the handles of the wheelchair. “Let’s put you to some therapy, that will do you good.” His voice is soft and fond when he talks to Merlin though they are just a doctor and a patient. Merlin is able to melt ice with his shiny smiles, probably, Arthur always thought so. It’s just that right now the ice inside Arthur has apparently grown immune to them, and it feel so cold and tight in his chest.
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Thanks for this quick update.
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You're welcome! This text kind of pours out of my fingers so it is really quick.
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Merlin is taking a nap after lunch. Arthur is not sure why but he just takes the open book off of Merlin’s evenly rising and falling chest and pulls the duvet higher so that Merlin’s bony shoulders wouldn’t feel cold. Then he slips out and goes to the living-room where there is his laptop on the coffee table.
Arthue has a blog. No one knows about it - well, perhaps, Merlin knows since he knows too much about Arthur than any person in their right mind would want to but he never says anything if he does. Arthur uses a pseudonym in his blog in case anyone he knows ever stumbles across it; he’s prince028 and it is a really lame name up to anyone’s standarts but Arthur doesn’t care - and it’s nice not to care once in awhile. He started the blog three years ago when there was no Merlin in his life but he already felt that biting need to talk to someone and no one trustworthy enough was around. He thought of buying a goldfish that would be making bubbles out of its mute round mouth while he’d be telling it about his day but registering on a site was easier and didn’t even require standing up from his chair.
He writes all kind of things in his blog but avoids carefully all details that may compromise his anonimity and he doesn’t really want to write about business deals or post his photos or recall his nights out in written form listing every bar he visited - for that he has his workmail, a Facebook account and no time or wish correspondingly. He posts all kind of stupid things that come to his mind and he never stopped writing in the blog even after he got to know Merlin whom he could trust with his pride (and that is sometimes more to him than his life so it counts for something). He writes about how the colour of his shoelaces matched the colour of the pavement one morning, and how much colder the floor seems at night when it’s all quiet and he walks barefoot along the corridor to the kitchen to get a glass of water, and how he looked out of the window last night and linked the lights of the city below with a line in his imagination and what he got looked exactly like the constellation of Orion in his old encyclopedia for children. Sometimes he writes about Merlin calling him ‘my partner’ because it’s just his luck to be dating someone with the rarest name in the whole of the United Kingdom and says utterly idiotic things about him like how Merlin loves strawberry jam and how he grows some ridiculous fat violet flowers on the windowsill and stuff.
The decision to have a blog was a strike of genius - it is like talking to someone and not talking to anyone at all because nobody was subscribed to his blog. Arthur liked it fine but a few months later readers started to appear. There weren’t many but they were there and sometimes they even commented on this entry or that wishing him luck or seconding something. Arthur is pretty sure he didn’t know any of them in real life and wondered idly what they could possibly find interesting in his blog but he never bothered to ask and they just went on being subscribed. It doesn’t feel much different than back when he was writing for no one but himself.
Today he clicks the ‘new entry’ link for the first time during last month and types:
My partner is crippled for life.
It feels more like I’m the one who’s in the wheelchair with only a half of his body working. I suppose thinking that makes me selfish but I can’t help it.
I am helpless.
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He closes his laptop with a sharp thwack of plastic hitting plastic and sits there for some time while Merlin sleeps behind the next door.
“My parther is crippled for life”, repeats he out loud and it should probably sound ominous or heartbreaking or nerve-wrecking or something along those lines but it sounds just like any other words. Like, ‘The weather is terrible today, don’t you think?’ ‘Well yes, but I have a crippled boyfriend who can’t and won’t touch or kiss me or look at me twice anymore and I don’t pay all that much attention to the weather’ ‘Lucky you, it drives me insane all day and I don’t have any distraction’ ‘Lucky me indeed. Could you pass me the salt?’ Arthur laughs not feeling that anything is actually funny.
He has a quick and rather unpleasant wank in the shower before making some dinner for tonight and heading to work.
Morgana doesn’t kick him out to take care of Merlin today but her glare says she wants to.
Arthur really couldn’t care less.
* * *
Next time they visit the hospital Arthur doesn’t talk to the doctors whose not-so-private conversation he has overheard and they don’t seem eager to chat with him as well. Freya keeps shooting looks full of terror in his direction - she must think he told Merlin everything the moment they were alone and ruined whatever hope Merlin still clung to and for some reason the fact that Arthur hasn’t done any such thing - yet - doesn’t make her believe that he won’t be a cruel douchebag around his crippled partner. Maybe she’s right to be so afraid of that but Arthur doesn’t want her to be right.
When the therapy is over for today, dr Gaius asks Arthur to stay behind for a minute.
“I can take you downstairs myself”, offers Freya quickly to stop Merlin from asking what it is that needs to be discussed with Arthur in secret. “You never told me about that time after which you started hating French fries.”
“Hate is a strong word”, Merlin snickers. “But I really really really don’t like it.”
Freya giggles recognizing the song reference and drives the wheelchair away so swiftly that Merlin is out before he can even say goodbye to Gaius.
Arthur lifts his eyebrow at Gaius expectantly.
Gaius lifts one of his eyebrows as well. It looks properly intimidating but Arthur doesn’t find it in himself to be genuinely impressed.
The battle of eyebrows lasts for almost twenty second. Then Gaius looks away and sits down heavily.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell him right away.”
“I’m not going to”, Arthur shrugs. He isn’t, that is true. Not because he wants to go along with the plan that Freya made up - who’s the real douchebag here after that, if you don’t mind Arthur asking? - but because he is not sure what he would say and what Merlin would hear in between the words he’d choose. “Not today and not tomorrow anyway. Is that all you wanted to talk about?”
“Yes Arthur, that is all”, Gaius dismisses him with his first name all of a sudden as if he is somehow closer to him because both of them are lying to Merlin every day and every hour. Arthur hates that it actually sort of makes them closer a little bit and hate is not a too strong word this time.
In the car, before starting the engine, Arthur kisses Merlin - first on the lips but it feels so wrong for the lack of enthusiastic response from Merlin that Arthur ends up with a peck to his cheek and looks out on the road all the way home.
Merlin is reading something again and Arthur doesn’t ask what it is.
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