An Infallible Reason 6
6: now my compassion slowly drowns me
Arthur wakes up with a decision already formed in his mind - Merlin needs to stay with him. The way he sees it, it's best for everyone; they spend most of their free time together these days anyway, and this way, Arthur feels more at ease having Merlin so close. Granted, after the holidays, Arthur will have to go back to work and Merlin will be staying alone again, but Arthur's more confident in the safety and fun of his apartment than Merlin's.
Merlin, however, has different ideas.
“I can't stay here, I don't live here, I don't have any of my stuff here, I don't even know where you keep your groceries!”
“You can, you do now, we'll bring your stuff after breakfast and they're in the fridge, mainly,” Arthur replies over the newspaper, hoping he sounds authoritative and commanding in spite of the mild headache he woke up with.
“Very funny,” Merlin snorts, putting his tea mug down with more force than necessary. “I don't need a nanny, you know.”
Arthur is grateful for the paper hiding most of his face, because he can feel that he's blushing and he shifts uncomfortably in the chair, something Merlin would've easily noticed but for the paper. So what if he prefers to be able to keep an eye on Merlin? He's just being a good and concerned friend. So what if, circumstances notwithstanding, he likes the idea of Merlin living with him? That's perfectly normal. These are not excuses for wanting to be in control, he decides, it's indignation and righteous anger.
“I'm not trying to play nanny,” he tells Merlin, trying to sound as offended by the idea as possible. “I just think it's the most practical thing to do. Now, let's go get your stuff.”
Merlin doesn't look convinced, but he obeys anyway.
~*~
The rest of Arthur's holiday time off gets progressively more uncomfortable as days go by. It turns out that his brief argument with Merlin on that first morning was just the beginning. It's not that Merlin is demanding or difficult to live with - he doesn't go out in the evenings and come back late (on the account of rarely ever going out), he doesn't ask for Arthur's help when he drops by his apartment to get something, he isn't picky about the food he eats, he even offers to pay some rent once he finds a job as an editor for some online newspaper (it doesn't pay much, but he does it from home, which is, Arthur assumes, more important to Merlin right now). In fact, Merlin is a model tenant, the kind of flatmate most people would give their right arm for, quiet and unobtrusive and easy to ignore, pretty much the exact opposite of the Merlin Arthur first met. Merlin is Arthur's obligatory loud, obnoxious, socially inept friend, seemingly the polar opposite of Arthur himself. That's the person Arthur met, the person Arthur hired, became friends with and eventually fell in love with. Arthur wasn't looking for the perfect roommate, he wanted to live with Merlin.
But Merlin hasn't been himself ever since that November night. He's been quiet and withdrawn, practically antisocial. He's been spending his time gazing passively at the TV and reading books Arthur knows don't interest him (some of the business handbooks that Merlin's read in the last two weeks are boring even to Arthur; someone like Merlin, who couldn't care less about running a company, would normally never pick them up). It's like a stranger has taken over Merlin's body and now Arthur lives with a person who looks exactly like Merlin, but is actually completely different.
Of course, Arthur is not an idiot - he's known all along that Merlin is not really the annoyingly chipper, dangerously curious man still looking for himself anymore, but it's not until they've been sharing an apartment for a fortnight that he really sees how profoundly Merlin's changed. It's not just the continued distancing from other people (Merlin is still wary of physical contact; although he will occasionally sit close to Arthur or brush past him in the living room or let their fingers touch as they pass each other mugs and plates, he still flinches when Arthur touches him without warning) and the world at large (Merlin likes to stand on the balcony or in front of the building, sometimes he will go for a walk in the morning, before Arthur is even up, but he's only left the block once - when he went to the store with Arthur, and he never goes out after dark anymore), or the near-constant silence (Merlin never really starts the conversation and only answers in short, clipped sentences) or the lack of interest for pretty much anything (everything he does seems and feels automatic, like he's only doing it because he doesn't know what else to do); it's more than that.
It's the way Merlin stands, slouching, and walks, dragging his feet on the ground, and sits, like he's trying to fold in on himself, be as small as possible, hide, disappear. It's the way he talks, on the rare occasions that he does, quietly, almost always with an intonation of a question. It's the way he eats, picking at his food like a child who doesn't like vegetables. It's the way he doesn't take care of himself anymore, often wearing the same clothes for days, showering twice a week and never bothering to comb his hair. It's the way his hands shake, the empty, dead look in his eyes. And the mood swings, how one minute he's just sitting on the couch, and the next he's throwing things, or going to Arthur's spare room (now Merlin's room) and shutting the door behind himself. Arthur never goes after him, feels like would be intruding and wants to give Merlin at least the semblance of privacy he clearly seeks, even though they're both aware that Arthur knows Merlin runs to hide the fact that he's crying.
And then there are the nightmares. Merlin goes to bed late, sometimes not until dawn or not at all, and rarely sleeps for more than a few hours at a time. Arthur can hear him in the adjacent room, pacing around or working on his laptop with quiet indie music playing, just barely loud enough for Arthur to register it. And even when Merlin does fall asleep, the nights are always restless, with a lot of tossing and turning and shouting, and on several occasions loud thumps that Arthur is pretty sure were the sounds of Merlin falling off the bed. It disrupts Arthur's sleep pattern as well, because every time Merlin wakes up, screaming or, more often, crying, Arthur can't help but sit up with eyes wide open and wonder if tonight is the night he should go over and try to console Merlin. The only times Merlin really rests are those when he drifts off while reading or watching TV, but Arthur figures that's really more passing out from exhaustion than it is actually falling asleep.
Perhaps the worst thing is seeing that nothing is really changing. In the beginning, Arthur had the illusion that Merlin was getting better, and after he realized he was wrong, he at least had hope things were changing. But now, living with Merlin, seeing him all the time, watching him live like a foreigner not only in Arthur's flat, but in the world itself, like a pale shadow of his former self, Arthur knows that all the progress he thought Merlin was making has lost its momentum (or maybe it has always been just a mask, a show Merlin put on for him), and Merlin is now stuck in the middle, between utter despair, shock, probably disbelief, and getting better, stuck and not going back, but not moving forward either. And Arthur has no idea how to help him, give him the push that he so obviously needs.
Being at home becomes almost painful, and when Arthur goes back to work in the middle of January, he's actually relieved. He feels guilty like never before, granted, but he is undoubtedly, undeniably, immensely glad to have some time away from the torture of seeing Merlin waste away.
{-7}: now i'm standing on the rooftop, ready to fall;
i think i'm at the edge now, but i could be wrong