Merlin - Paint the Skies Blue
Title: Paint the Skies Blue
Genre: AU (Modern), Angst, Arthur/Merlin Slash
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~3,900 words
Warnings: Serious illness/injury, reference to possible drug use
Synopsis: Merlin is painter with a secret. Arthur would prefer if the secret did not kill him.
Author’s Notes: Was in the mood to write some angst. The lovely threnodyjones was in the mood to ask if I wanted some purple with my prose. We were both in the mood to snark about priorities.
Disclaimer: I do not own this interpretation of the myths and am making no profit from this.
“I paint what I see.”
It was simple, honest, and just enough full of shite for Arthur to want to comment on it. He had wanted to point out just how pompous it sounded, how cliché, but instead the first thing to come out of his mouth was, “So obviously you do a lot of drugs.”
Merlin had laughed at it though, this ridiculous snort of a thing, and the two had spent the rest of the gallery gala lounging on under-stuffed couches and sipping over-priced champagne. By the end of the evening, Arthur had wished he too could see the world in such over-exposed and vibrant colours. They had exchanged cards as was right and proper for the evening and both had messages on their mobiles by the time they got home.
Seven months down the line and Arthur did not only have a key to Merlin’s fancy flat, he also had a key to the converted warehouse area where he did all of his work and actually spent far more of his time. It was an easy enough thing to drive from one to the other when he decided to surprise him with some bad takeaway and decent wine on a particular Thursday evening after closing a rather lucrative deal at the family business. Merlin had not been at the one and had mentioned the want to finish a particular piece, but Arthur was more than willing to just sit back and watch him work if it came to that.
He opened the heavy metal door with a resounding creak and let it slam closed behind him. He was immediately assaulted by the smells of oils and solvents and the faint bit of sawdust from the wood Merlin insisted on using to make his own frames. It was a warm and familiar feeling by now, tainted only by the fact that Merlin himself was not standing in front of his current work in progress, but the glistening on the canvas told Arthur this was a recent thing and he was either in the loo or crashed out after working through the night and into the next day again.
Arthur set his gifts down on the work table and debated tossing his jacket to the side though he was not completely certain if it was safe to do so. He did not hear the telltale sounds of water through the creaky pipes, so he wandered over to where both clean and discarded canvases alike were hung from a line to form a sort of privacy curtain and pulled back the rough fabric to reveal a much abused futon, coverlet stained with whatever last colours his lover had favoured, the layers of hues giving testament to his latest projects.
Bed empty, Arthur reached for his mobile to give Merlin a call. Perhaps they crossed paths without knowing, or perhaps Merlin had a meeting with a potential client or even just stepped out to grab a bite to eat on his own; it was not like Arthur had thought to call ahead as it was so rarely needed. No sooner had he pushed the button than Right Said Fred began to play from a heap of cloth and possibly clothing left on the floor beside a forgotten pillow.
At first Arthur was tempted to roll his eyes at Merlin’s forgetfulness, and then he recognized the baggy t-shirt and trousers for what they were - not discarded, but simply rumpled atop the form that had somehow never made it to the futon.
“Merlin,” Arthur chided. He crouched down and shook a bony shoulder, more than a little concerned when the mop of dark hair beside it did not seem to move. “That tired? At least try to get some food in you before you pass out for the night, yeah?” he tried, knowing his tone betrayed his worry.
There was no response though, so Arthur gripped the shoulder that much harder and tugged to roll Merlin fully over onto his back. He was met with a grey tinge to the normally already pale skin, and a face stained with something he feared was not a new shade of crimson paint.
“Merlin?” he tried, worry turned to outright panic. He shook the lax form beneath his grasp again and was rewarded with the briefest flutter of blue eyes for his efforts. His fingers easily found a pulse beneath the day’s worth of scruff, faint and fast but blessedly there. He prised Merlin’s eyes back open, one at a time, and did not like the ratio of blue to black.
The fingers of his right hand drifted back down to feel the reassuring throb of blood flowing just beneath the surface of the waxy skin, whilst the fingers of his left clumsily dialled for an ambulance. His mind swarmed with reassurances that there was nothing serious even while it pushed back thoughts of wondering just what his lover took to reach this state.
He surreptitiously checked Merlin’s exposed arms, not surprised to find only the small nick from when one of his blades had gotten away from him last week. He had seen every inch of the body before him and never once saw a needle mark, never saw anything more than a careless scratch or two that came with the territory of building and creating. But Merlin looked so pale, so thin and wane, that something must have caused this change. He knew better, knew Merlin, yet he could not resist the impulse to check again anyway, knowing the stories, knowing the lies.
He thought back to the last time he saw him. Normally that would have been a day, maybe two at the most, but Arthur had been working on a major contract and had simply been too exhausted by the time he crawled home at near midnight, only to stagger back in to work at sunrise. He had not wanted to bother Merlin with his odd schedule or stress, so it had been four whole days since he last saw him, five since it was more than a passing bite to eat before they went their separate ways again. Merlin looked as though he had barely eaten since, and Arthur feared how long he may have lain there, unconscious and with no one to call for help had he not arrived.
He followed the medics to the hospital, not willing to be crammed into that tiny space with beeps and whistles, not willing to see them stare accusingly at him for not having been there earlier, not having done more just for the sake of his career. As he drove, he wondered if he had made a mistake, if he would storm through the door to discover he had missed his chance and the person who had filled a hole in his heart he had barely knew existed was already gone.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he was promised Merlin was alive if not well, and that there were a battery of tests that still needed to be run. He recited what he knew thus far, which was not much, for either the fourth or fifth time to someone who looked vaguely official-looking and was then dismissed to a waiting room until such time they may need him. He took the opportunity to call Merlin’s agent, knowing Gwen would want to know what was going on and would likely appear before the night was over. On a whim more than anything, he rang his sister as well, told her voicemail he may be late or not in at all the next day and a short version of why. Then he sat back to wait.
Gwen came far sooner than he thought she would, demanded to know everything, raised hell with the nursing staff, and then sat down dejected beside him when they really and truly had nothing new to offer. She alternated between chewing on a thumbnail and flipping through her mobile, curls in disarray as they escaped whatever style they once held.
Her fiancé Lance came, and Arthur vaguely remembered meeting him before at a party over at Merlin’s disused flat. It had been far more comfortable and far less formal than the gallery gala, not that either Merlin or Arthur had paid much attention to decorum at either time. The man sat down for a total of five minutes before he disappeared again, only to reappear about twenty minutes later with takeaway for them all, reminding Arthur of the packages and the bottle of wine back at the studio and making him wonder if he even remembered to lock the door behind him, leaving priceless canvases unguarded.
Arthur was spooning up the last of some truly horrible curry when Morgana appeared. He let his surprise colour his features, to which she simply replied, “Really? It’s Merlin. Of course I am here for you, you idiot.” She then offered him a coffee that was more brandy than beans and made herself comfortable beside him to wait.
Far too long later, Arthur was escorted into a darkened room. Merlin laid there, an intravenous line and blood pressure monitor attached, but otherwise whole and complete. Arthur did not bother with the uncomfortable plastic thing masquerading as a chair beside the bed, but simply leaned slightly against the mattress as he bent down to press his lips to cool and dry forehead.
Blue eyes fluttered open before they winced at the dim light overhead. “Arthur?” Merlin asked, voice not much more than a harsh whisper.
“I’m here,” Arthur confirmed. He brushed a mess of fringe away from the pale face he loved so much and watched as Merlin seemed to drift off again. Just to prove him wrong as always, Merlin mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.”
Arthur sat beside him that night, though not idly. One was not the son of one of the most powerful businessmen in the world without some perks. With Morgana’s help and a few distracting lines to Gwen and Lance, he was able to dig deeper into just what caused Merlin’s little collapse and what could be done to prevent such things from ever happening again in the future.
His aide Leon called sometime around a late breakfast of rubbery eggs to let Arthur know that the only pharmaceuticals found in either the flat or the warehouse were purely prescription and nothing more than the migraine meds Arthur already knew Merlin took far too often. Morgana had someone bring her a laptop and she calmly hacked her way into supposedly secure medical files. It was there they found their first clue as to what may have happened, though the doctors had not yet uploaded the latest findings nor shared them with the non-relatives until permission was properly received.
Merlin slept on throughout all of this, though Arthur was tempted more than once to shake him awake and demand an answer, even if he was not certain the shaking would work or he truly wanted the truth.
“Your minions figure me out yet?” a groggy voice asked sometime near noon. Arthur looked up from the tablet he had been delivered and tried his best not to look surprised.
“You’re awake,” he smiled. “Did you need me to get a nurse? Water? Lunch? The doctors said you could eat as soon as you felt ready,” he babbled, failing to cover for his relief.
Merlin turned his head in his general direction, and the simple action looked tiring. “You are avoiding the question,” he pointed out. Arthur opened his mouth to protest, but the very corner of Merlin’s lips turned up into a smirk. “I know you too well. There is no way you would let this pass.”
Arthur settled back in the chair he had been so ready to vacate and tilted his head in acquiescence. “It would appear you have far more than simple migraines,” he said, and tried not to sound accusatory.
Merlin leaned back into his pillow, but did not try to deny anything. “Started as migraines,” he corrected. “The doctor I first went to gave me medication for that, must have been a year, year and a half ago now.”
“And the second doctor?” Arthur prompted. He already knew the answer, held the findings in his hands and had only to turn the screen back on to see them.
“The second doctor thought is was something more, said he saw a shadow on one of the x-rays he insisted I have,” Merlin replied. He cleared his throat as though it was dry and Arthur readily jumped to offer him the little cup with its silly bendy straw. Thirst sated and cup set aside for now, Merlin continued, “He wanted to run more tests, but nothing else supported his findings. The migraine drugs kept getting renewed and they even worked some times.”
Arthur had not bothered to sit again, and now he leaned a hip against the metal bed frame and crossed his arms in front of him to resist the urge to reach out and feel for himself that Merlin was still alive. “And the times they didn’t?” he asked, suddenly feeling as though he could use a drink of water himself, or perhaps something stronger.
Merlin shrugged, or came as close to it as he could lying down. “I crashed,” he said simply. “Would sleep for a day, force myself up the next, and that was it. Nothing usually lasted past that, and nothing ever got this serious before.”
“Would you have even known?” Arthur snapped before he could stop himself. Merlin did not flinch though, he just lay there as if expecting such an outburst. Arthur gathered himself and forced himself to match Merlin’s calmness as he rephrased, “You could have been passed out for days and woken up, shook it off, and figured that was that. I know you, Merlin; I know how little the passage of time means to you when you get working or anything else catches your fancy. You could have slept for far more than a day and not noticed, and don’t tell me I am wrong.”
Merlin reached out and placed a gentle hand on a fist Arthur had not even known he had made. “I do have a clock you know, a calendar too,” he smiled without mirth. “Nothing worse than a twenty-four hour lie-in and a day of gorging myself on junk food later, I promise.”
“No passing out on the floor? No bloody noses with no apparent causes?” Arthur asked, bitter.
Merlin shook his head but it looked like the action cost him if the change in pallor was to be believed. He pressed on though, and insisted, “I have never passed out like that before, I promise. I’ve had a few bloody noses before, but who hasn’t? There was nothing like this, not that I ever remember.”
He seemed so adamant, but the phrase “not that I remember” echoed in Arthur’s mind and he simply could not let it go. He reached for the tablet and handed it to Merlin, supporting it when Merlin’s hands shook too much from the weight. It reminded him that the man beside him had just gone through a pretty rough night and should probably be busy eating porridge or gelatine or whatever they fed people before they were allowed cold takeaway and Chablis.
He watched as Merlin read the screen, took in the way he worried his bottom lip between his teeth, only to soothe it with a swipe of his tongue before he looked up at Arthur and asked, voice void of all emotion, “And you are certain?”
“I can get one of the nurses to pull up your actual file if you doubt Morgana’s work,” Arthur offered.
Merlin shook his head again, eyes bright with unshed tears. “I... I need to think about this,” he stuttered.
Arthur wanted to know what there was to think about. The shadow was far more than a shadow. The doctor had noted his suspicions, but there had been no tests for months. It appeared operable, not that it was a simple thing to slice open someone’s skull to perform surgery, but wouldn’t it be better to have it gone than pressing in against your brain, causing pain and unconsciousness and other complications?
There was something though, something about the way Merlin would not meet his eyes, the way he looked everywhere but the tablet and Arthur, that pinged something that tore Arthur to his core. “You knew,” he accused. “You knew and you said nothing. You knew and you chose to ignore it.”
That caught Merlin’s attention. His head whipped around and he finally met Arthur’s gaze. “I couldn’t ignore it, not completely,” he said, though whether it was a promise or a bland observation of fact, Arthur could not tell. “The headaches got worse and the doctors recommended another round of tests, but it was easy to put off because they found nothing last time. They kept giving me meds and I kept taking them. They told me that I would need an MRI by the end of the year if it continued, so I stored up what I could of the meds and only took them when I really needed them, took them when it was a true emergency and not when it was just flashing lights or a night of pain.”
“You knew,” Arthur repeated, not knowing why he felt so betrayed. It was not his health that was hidden from him, just that of the man he loved. He also could not help but think of the constant pain his lover must have been in. Merlin thought he took the medication in only the most dire of situations, whilst Arthur thought he took it far too often. What was it like in between? What was Merlin like without the chemicals and painkillers running through his bloodstream?
“I... suspected,” Merlin relented. He dropped the tablet to his lap and scrubbed his hands through his hair, the cords sticking and pulling until Arthur reached to help and Merlin just tugged himself free.
“Why?” Arthur asked. It was the number one question on his mind, and he finally felt ready to voice it.
Merlin looked to the window, to the machine pumping vitamins and nutrients beside him, to the ceiling, and then finally to Arthur. “What if they took it away?” he asked. He sounded so timid, so scared, it nearly broke Arthur’s heart.
His gut reaction was to tease that taking it away was rather the point, but he knew Merlin was talking about more than just the mass pressing against his brain. He had read the studies and suspected Merlin had as well. The likelihood a simple surgery would not be enough and months of painful treatments were to follow and even then full recovery could be in doubt. The chance of surviving the surgery, but being changed. Different personalities coming to the forefront, different tastes upon the palate, different colours in the world around them. The surgeries had been far more successful in recent years than ever before, but that did not mean they were perfect. Yes, there would be recovery time, but the patient lived, the patient loved again. But if that patient was changed, would that love be the same?
“You’re afraid the colours will go away,” Arthur surmised. “That your talent is dependent upon this burden you bear.” It only hurt him a little that Merlin was more concerned about losing his art than losing his life, losing him. Merlin would not be Merlin without it, and likely thought himself as good as dead if he could not express himself in the only way he knew how.
“Every gift has a cost,” Merlin said, sounding as though he was quoting someone else, likely his mother or father from his spotted tragic past that Arthur had yet to fully suss out, even with the resources at his disposal. Merlin quirked his lips, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “What if this is the VAT on my artwork? What if taking it away takes it all - the painting, the studio, the contracts, you? Even if the cost was my art, everything that I thought was my life up until this point, if I lost you too...”
Arthur gave in to the urge to kiss away the little furrow that had formed across Merlin’s pale forehead. “I can’t promise things will be the same, but I can promise it won’t take everything,” he swore. He gripped Merlin’s hands, careful of the tubes he still bore, and willed him to believe his words. “I will be here, with you, for as long as you need me and as long as you’ll have me.”
Merlin squeezed his hands lightly in return and mused, “That could be a very long time.”
“I’ll be here,” Arthur smiled.
“And I may be quite an arse during some of this time,” Merlin confided.
“So, nothing changed there then?” Arthur replied, earning both an eye roll and a swat on the arm for his troubles. Serious now, he asked, “Do I go get the nurse so we can sort out what needs to be done?”
Merlin hesitated and, in that moment, Arthur saw all of the doubt and all of the trust reflected in his eyes as clearly as the blue sky and ridiculously fluffy clouds that drifted by outside the partially shaded window. Reluctantly, finally, he nodded, and Arthur released a breath he had not know he had even held.
Later, much later, after biopsies and horrible haircuts and a fair amount of terror and a prolonged recovery time due to fate deciding the proceedings were not stressful enough as they stood, after stitches and scars and antibiotics and far too many inappropriate jokes about the value of a certain artist’s work skyrocketing should he just give in and kick the bucket already, after Arthur worried himself into an ulcer that he thought only his sister knew about until Gwen stopped by with a pint of milk and a pointed look, then and only then, was there a moment of peace.
Arthur opened the heavy metal door to the warehouse workspace, the air slightly stale and smelling of dust and dried paint. He led a reluctant Merlin in and did not even try to remove the ridiculous knit hat he had pulled down low over his ears, only the barest tufts of dark poking out at the bottom. He opened tubes and readied knives and spatulas that he knew near nothing about and propped up a clean canvas stretched taut against its wooden frame. He opened windows and ordered bad takeaway and situated Merlin smack dab in the middle of it all, tools in hand and padded stool at the ready should standing prove too much for him even now.
That night, he sat back with an over-spiced curry and a decent Merlot, white workshirt stained the colours of the rainbow, and watched as Merlin turned to him, smile wide across his features and a bit of blue smeared across his brow, and found the most beautiful image he had ever been gifted with viewing. Merlin sank back into his arms and finally, finally the world seemed in focus once more.
End.
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This entry was originally posted at http://cat-77.dreamwidth.org/377074.html. Current comments
Genre: AU (Modern), Angst, Arthur/Merlin Slash
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~3,900 words
Warnings: Serious illness/injury, reference to possible drug use
Synopsis: Merlin is painter with a secret. Arthur would prefer if the secret did not kill him.
Author’s Notes: Was in the mood to write some angst. The lovely threnodyjones was in the mood to ask if I wanted some purple with my prose. We were both in the mood to snark about priorities.
Disclaimer: I do not own this interpretation of the myths and am making no profit from this.
“I paint what I see.”
It was simple, honest, and just enough full of shite for Arthur to want to comment on it. He had wanted to point out just how pompous it sounded, how cliché, but instead the first thing to come out of his mouth was, “So obviously you do a lot of drugs.”
Merlin had laughed at it though, this ridiculous snort of a thing, and the two had spent the rest of the gallery gala lounging on under-stuffed couches and sipping over-priced champagne. By the end of the evening, Arthur had wished he too could see the world in such over-exposed and vibrant colours. They had exchanged cards as was right and proper for the evening and both had messages on their mobiles by the time they got home.
Seven months down the line and Arthur did not only have a key to Merlin’s fancy flat, he also had a key to the converted warehouse area where he did all of his work and actually spent far more of his time. It was an easy enough thing to drive from one to the other when he decided to surprise him with some bad takeaway and decent wine on a particular Thursday evening after closing a rather lucrative deal at the family business. Merlin had not been at the one and had mentioned the want to finish a particular piece, but Arthur was more than willing to just sit back and watch him work if it came to that.
He opened the heavy metal door with a resounding creak and let it slam closed behind him. He was immediately assaulted by the smells of oils and solvents and the faint bit of sawdust from the wood Merlin insisted on using to make his own frames. It was a warm and familiar feeling by now, tainted only by the fact that Merlin himself was not standing in front of his current work in progress, but the glistening on the canvas told Arthur this was a recent thing and he was either in the loo or crashed out after working through the night and into the next day again.
Arthur set his gifts down on the work table and debated tossing his jacket to the side though he was not completely certain if it was safe to do so. He did not hear the telltale sounds of water through the creaky pipes, so he wandered over to where both clean and discarded canvases alike were hung from a line to form a sort of privacy curtain and pulled back the rough fabric to reveal a much abused futon, coverlet stained with whatever last colours his lover had favoured, the layers of hues giving testament to his latest projects.
Bed empty, Arthur reached for his mobile to give Merlin a call. Perhaps they crossed paths without knowing, or perhaps Merlin had a meeting with a potential client or even just stepped out to grab a bite to eat on his own; it was not like Arthur had thought to call ahead as it was so rarely needed. No sooner had he pushed the button than Right Said Fred began to play from a heap of cloth and possibly clothing left on the floor beside a forgotten pillow.
At first Arthur was tempted to roll his eyes at Merlin’s forgetfulness, and then he recognized the baggy t-shirt and trousers for what they were - not discarded, but simply rumpled atop the form that had somehow never made it to the futon.
“Merlin,” Arthur chided. He crouched down and shook a bony shoulder, more than a little concerned when the mop of dark hair beside it did not seem to move. “That tired? At least try to get some food in you before you pass out for the night, yeah?” he tried, knowing his tone betrayed his worry.
There was no response though, so Arthur gripped the shoulder that much harder and tugged to roll Merlin fully over onto his back. He was met with a grey tinge to the normally already pale skin, and a face stained with something he feared was not a new shade of crimson paint.
“Merlin?” he tried, worry turned to outright panic. He shook the lax form beneath his grasp again and was rewarded with the briefest flutter of blue eyes for his efforts. His fingers easily found a pulse beneath the day’s worth of scruff, faint and fast but blessedly there. He prised Merlin’s eyes back open, one at a time, and did not like the ratio of blue to black.
The fingers of his right hand drifted back down to feel the reassuring throb of blood flowing just beneath the surface of the waxy skin, whilst the fingers of his left clumsily dialled for an ambulance. His mind swarmed with reassurances that there was nothing serious even while it pushed back thoughts of wondering just what his lover took to reach this state.
He surreptitiously checked Merlin’s exposed arms, not surprised to find only the small nick from when one of his blades had gotten away from him last week. He had seen every inch of the body before him and never once saw a needle mark, never saw anything more than a careless scratch or two that came with the territory of building and creating. But Merlin looked so pale, so thin and wane, that something must have caused this change. He knew better, knew Merlin, yet he could not resist the impulse to check again anyway, knowing the stories, knowing the lies.
He thought back to the last time he saw him. Normally that would have been a day, maybe two at the most, but Arthur had been working on a major contract and had simply been too exhausted by the time he crawled home at near midnight, only to stagger back in to work at sunrise. He had not wanted to bother Merlin with his odd schedule or stress, so it had been four whole days since he last saw him, five since it was more than a passing bite to eat before they went their separate ways again. Merlin looked as though he had barely eaten since, and Arthur feared how long he may have lain there, unconscious and with no one to call for help had he not arrived.
He followed the medics to the hospital, not willing to be crammed into that tiny space with beeps and whistles, not willing to see them stare accusingly at him for not having been there earlier, not having done more just for the sake of his career. As he drove, he wondered if he had made a mistake, if he would storm through the door to discover he had missed his chance and the person who had filled a hole in his heart he had barely knew existed was already gone.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he was promised Merlin was alive if not well, and that there were a battery of tests that still needed to be run. He recited what he knew thus far, which was not much, for either the fourth or fifth time to someone who looked vaguely official-looking and was then dismissed to a waiting room until such time they may need him. He took the opportunity to call Merlin’s agent, knowing Gwen would want to know what was going on and would likely appear before the night was over. On a whim more than anything, he rang his sister as well, told her voicemail he may be late or not in at all the next day and a short version of why. Then he sat back to wait.
Gwen came far sooner than he thought she would, demanded to know everything, raised hell with the nursing staff, and then sat down dejected beside him when they really and truly had nothing new to offer. She alternated between chewing on a thumbnail and flipping through her mobile, curls in disarray as they escaped whatever style they once held.
Her fiancé Lance came, and Arthur vaguely remembered meeting him before at a party over at Merlin’s disused flat. It had been far more comfortable and far less formal than the gallery gala, not that either Merlin or Arthur had paid much attention to decorum at either time. The man sat down for a total of five minutes before he disappeared again, only to reappear about twenty minutes later with takeaway for them all, reminding Arthur of the packages and the bottle of wine back at the studio and making him wonder if he even remembered to lock the door behind him, leaving priceless canvases unguarded.
Arthur was spooning up the last of some truly horrible curry when Morgana appeared. He let his surprise colour his features, to which she simply replied, “Really? It’s Merlin. Of course I am here for you, you idiot.” She then offered him a coffee that was more brandy than beans and made herself comfortable beside him to wait.
Far too long later, Arthur was escorted into a darkened room. Merlin laid there, an intravenous line and blood pressure monitor attached, but otherwise whole and complete. Arthur did not bother with the uncomfortable plastic thing masquerading as a chair beside the bed, but simply leaned slightly against the mattress as he bent down to press his lips to cool and dry forehead.
Blue eyes fluttered open before they winced at the dim light overhead. “Arthur?” Merlin asked, voice not much more than a harsh whisper.
“I’m here,” Arthur confirmed. He brushed a mess of fringe away from the pale face he loved so much and watched as Merlin seemed to drift off again. Just to prove him wrong as always, Merlin mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.”
Arthur sat beside him that night, though not idly. One was not the son of one of the most powerful businessmen in the world without some perks. With Morgana’s help and a few distracting lines to Gwen and Lance, he was able to dig deeper into just what caused Merlin’s little collapse and what could be done to prevent such things from ever happening again in the future.
His aide Leon called sometime around a late breakfast of rubbery eggs to let Arthur know that the only pharmaceuticals found in either the flat or the warehouse were purely prescription and nothing more than the migraine meds Arthur already knew Merlin took far too often. Morgana had someone bring her a laptop and she calmly hacked her way into supposedly secure medical files. It was there they found their first clue as to what may have happened, though the doctors had not yet uploaded the latest findings nor shared them with the non-relatives until permission was properly received.
Merlin slept on throughout all of this, though Arthur was tempted more than once to shake him awake and demand an answer, even if he was not certain the shaking would work or he truly wanted the truth.
“Your minions figure me out yet?” a groggy voice asked sometime near noon. Arthur looked up from the tablet he had been delivered and tried his best not to look surprised.
“You’re awake,” he smiled. “Did you need me to get a nurse? Water? Lunch? The doctors said you could eat as soon as you felt ready,” he babbled, failing to cover for his relief.
Merlin turned his head in his general direction, and the simple action looked tiring. “You are avoiding the question,” he pointed out. Arthur opened his mouth to protest, but the very corner of Merlin’s lips turned up into a smirk. “I know you too well. There is no way you would let this pass.”
Arthur settled back in the chair he had been so ready to vacate and tilted his head in acquiescence. “It would appear you have far more than simple migraines,” he said, and tried not to sound accusatory.
Merlin leaned back into his pillow, but did not try to deny anything. “Started as migraines,” he corrected. “The doctor I first went to gave me medication for that, must have been a year, year and a half ago now.”
“And the second doctor?” Arthur prompted. He already knew the answer, held the findings in his hands and had only to turn the screen back on to see them.
“The second doctor thought is was something more, said he saw a shadow on one of the x-rays he insisted I have,” Merlin replied. He cleared his throat as though it was dry and Arthur readily jumped to offer him the little cup with its silly bendy straw. Thirst sated and cup set aside for now, Merlin continued, “He wanted to run more tests, but nothing else supported his findings. The migraine drugs kept getting renewed and they even worked some times.”
Arthur had not bothered to sit again, and now he leaned a hip against the metal bed frame and crossed his arms in front of him to resist the urge to reach out and feel for himself that Merlin was still alive. “And the times they didn’t?” he asked, suddenly feeling as though he could use a drink of water himself, or perhaps something stronger.
Merlin shrugged, or came as close to it as he could lying down. “I crashed,” he said simply. “Would sleep for a day, force myself up the next, and that was it. Nothing usually lasted past that, and nothing ever got this serious before.”
“Would you have even known?” Arthur snapped before he could stop himself. Merlin did not flinch though, he just lay there as if expecting such an outburst. Arthur gathered himself and forced himself to match Merlin’s calmness as he rephrased, “You could have been passed out for days and woken up, shook it off, and figured that was that. I know you, Merlin; I know how little the passage of time means to you when you get working or anything else catches your fancy. You could have slept for far more than a day and not noticed, and don’t tell me I am wrong.”
Merlin reached out and placed a gentle hand on a fist Arthur had not even known he had made. “I do have a clock you know, a calendar too,” he smiled without mirth. “Nothing worse than a twenty-four hour lie-in and a day of gorging myself on junk food later, I promise.”
“No passing out on the floor? No bloody noses with no apparent causes?” Arthur asked, bitter.
Merlin shook his head but it looked like the action cost him if the change in pallor was to be believed. He pressed on though, and insisted, “I have never passed out like that before, I promise. I’ve had a few bloody noses before, but who hasn’t? There was nothing like this, not that I ever remember.”
He seemed so adamant, but the phrase “not that I remember” echoed in Arthur’s mind and he simply could not let it go. He reached for the tablet and handed it to Merlin, supporting it when Merlin’s hands shook too much from the weight. It reminded him that the man beside him had just gone through a pretty rough night and should probably be busy eating porridge or gelatine or whatever they fed people before they were allowed cold takeaway and Chablis.
He watched as Merlin read the screen, took in the way he worried his bottom lip between his teeth, only to soothe it with a swipe of his tongue before he looked up at Arthur and asked, voice void of all emotion, “And you are certain?”
“I can get one of the nurses to pull up your actual file if you doubt Morgana’s work,” Arthur offered.
Merlin shook his head again, eyes bright with unshed tears. “I... I need to think about this,” he stuttered.
Arthur wanted to know what there was to think about. The shadow was far more than a shadow. The doctor had noted his suspicions, but there had been no tests for months. It appeared operable, not that it was a simple thing to slice open someone’s skull to perform surgery, but wouldn’t it be better to have it gone than pressing in against your brain, causing pain and unconsciousness and other complications?
There was something though, something about the way Merlin would not meet his eyes, the way he looked everywhere but the tablet and Arthur, that pinged something that tore Arthur to his core. “You knew,” he accused. “You knew and you said nothing. You knew and you chose to ignore it.”
That caught Merlin’s attention. His head whipped around and he finally met Arthur’s gaze. “I couldn’t ignore it, not completely,” he said, though whether it was a promise or a bland observation of fact, Arthur could not tell. “The headaches got worse and the doctors recommended another round of tests, but it was easy to put off because they found nothing last time. They kept giving me meds and I kept taking them. They told me that I would need an MRI by the end of the year if it continued, so I stored up what I could of the meds and only took them when I really needed them, took them when it was a true emergency and not when it was just flashing lights or a night of pain.”
“You knew,” Arthur repeated, not knowing why he felt so betrayed. It was not his health that was hidden from him, just that of the man he loved. He also could not help but think of the constant pain his lover must have been in. Merlin thought he took the medication in only the most dire of situations, whilst Arthur thought he took it far too often. What was it like in between? What was Merlin like without the chemicals and painkillers running through his bloodstream?
“I... suspected,” Merlin relented. He dropped the tablet to his lap and scrubbed his hands through his hair, the cords sticking and pulling until Arthur reached to help and Merlin just tugged himself free.
“Why?” Arthur asked. It was the number one question on his mind, and he finally felt ready to voice it.
Merlin looked to the window, to the machine pumping vitamins and nutrients beside him, to the ceiling, and then finally to Arthur. “What if they took it away?” he asked. He sounded so timid, so scared, it nearly broke Arthur’s heart.
His gut reaction was to tease that taking it away was rather the point, but he knew Merlin was talking about more than just the mass pressing against his brain. He had read the studies and suspected Merlin had as well. The likelihood a simple surgery would not be enough and months of painful treatments were to follow and even then full recovery could be in doubt. The chance of surviving the surgery, but being changed. Different personalities coming to the forefront, different tastes upon the palate, different colours in the world around them. The surgeries had been far more successful in recent years than ever before, but that did not mean they were perfect. Yes, there would be recovery time, but the patient lived, the patient loved again. But if that patient was changed, would that love be the same?
“You’re afraid the colours will go away,” Arthur surmised. “That your talent is dependent upon this burden you bear.” It only hurt him a little that Merlin was more concerned about losing his art than losing his life, losing him. Merlin would not be Merlin without it, and likely thought himself as good as dead if he could not express himself in the only way he knew how.
“Every gift has a cost,” Merlin said, sounding as though he was quoting someone else, likely his mother or father from his spotted tragic past that Arthur had yet to fully suss out, even with the resources at his disposal. Merlin quirked his lips, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “What if this is the VAT on my artwork? What if taking it away takes it all - the painting, the studio, the contracts, you? Even if the cost was my art, everything that I thought was my life up until this point, if I lost you too...”
Arthur gave in to the urge to kiss away the little furrow that had formed across Merlin’s pale forehead. “I can’t promise things will be the same, but I can promise it won’t take everything,” he swore. He gripped Merlin’s hands, careful of the tubes he still bore, and willed him to believe his words. “I will be here, with you, for as long as you need me and as long as you’ll have me.”
Merlin squeezed his hands lightly in return and mused, “That could be a very long time.”
“I’ll be here,” Arthur smiled.
“And I may be quite an arse during some of this time,” Merlin confided.
“So, nothing changed there then?” Arthur replied, earning both an eye roll and a swat on the arm for his troubles. Serious now, he asked, “Do I go get the nurse so we can sort out what needs to be done?”
Merlin hesitated and, in that moment, Arthur saw all of the doubt and all of the trust reflected in his eyes as clearly as the blue sky and ridiculously fluffy clouds that drifted by outside the partially shaded window. Reluctantly, finally, he nodded, and Arthur released a breath he had not know he had even held.
Later, much later, after biopsies and horrible haircuts and a fair amount of terror and a prolonged recovery time due to fate deciding the proceedings were not stressful enough as they stood, after stitches and scars and antibiotics and far too many inappropriate jokes about the value of a certain artist’s work skyrocketing should he just give in and kick the bucket already, after Arthur worried himself into an ulcer that he thought only his sister knew about until Gwen stopped by with a pint of milk and a pointed look, then and only then, was there a moment of peace.
Arthur opened the heavy metal door to the warehouse workspace, the air slightly stale and smelling of dust and dried paint. He led a reluctant Merlin in and did not even try to remove the ridiculous knit hat he had pulled down low over his ears, only the barest tufts of dark poking out at the bottom. He opened tubes and readied knives and spatulas that he knew near nothing about and propped up a clean canvas stretched taut against its wooden frame. He opened windows and ordered bad takeaway and situated Merlin smack dab in the middle of it all, tools in hand and padded stool at the ready should standing prove too much for him even now.
That night, he sat back with an over-spiced curry and a decent Merlot, white workshirt stained the colours of the rainbow, and watched as Merlin turned to him, smile wide across his features and a bit of blue smeared across his brow, and found the most beautiful image he had ever been gifted with viewing. Merlin sank back into his arms and finally, finally the world seemed in focus once more.
End.
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