(love, or) A Feeling Like It (six)

[night_lyx]

He’s getting scared. His dreams don’t feel like dreams anymore. Not that they did recently but they progressed. They progressed from being just some nocturnal thing that was switched on only when his eyes were closed and passing on, evolving out of the tiny cage of nighttime and into waking life.

Flashes of this fiction crossed over so much that, even in the small miniscule moments where his eyes were closed in a blink, they cross over him. They flash like small bursts of light and he can’t catch them. When Arthur’s light touches meet with Merlin’s skin or fabric of his clothes, he thinks of them. They begin to act like memories.

In a lifetime, one accumulates a certain amount of memories, puts them in a pool in their mind and, sometimes, when it gets too much and there are too many feelings for one person in one moment in time, you take a dip in the pool, wanting to reminisce. But sometimes, they just spill out in a cascade of lifetimes and all the emotions that one consists of.

They’re like that.

Dreams shouldn’t do that. Merlin’s dreams shouldn’t make up a pool big enough to be overflowed; they should be small puddles he occasionally steps in.

This is all wrong; they’re all wired wrong. This miscommunication in how things are supposed to work inside his mind has caused a malfunction in his physical aspects: his magic.

It’s too much and Merlin can’t control it anymore. It’s not like before, with those small bursts of power and him shrugging it off before he resumes his daily life because, right now, his magic has become part of his daily life and he can’t stop it. He can’t control it and he is getting so, so scared.

He looks down at sees the palms of his hands outstretched and he almost wants to cry. but it’s not wanting to cry, this feeling, it’s like all his fear and his feelings and dark emotions are swelling up inside of him and they’re traveling up, from his heart to his throat to his eyes and they collect there, they want him to cry and make him see how weak he really is. How he can’t control who he is and how he’s close to losing every semblance of power he has left.

He’s tried talking about this to Arthur, to Morgana and Leon, but they don’t understand. But it’s hard because it’s hard to talk to people who don’t understand, who haven’t been in a situation as same as you are because it feels like you’re burdening them with your own problems and asking about the fact that just because you have a lot of feelings, they don’t need to, either. Despite this, it just feels like they can’t give you the best advice. They can’t give you the words you never knew you needed to hear until then.

So they sit there with their sympathetic looks and try to understand, they try to get where he’s coming from but their thumbs twiddle and their minds aren’t on him as much as their eyes are. How could they give anything else?

They don’t understand because they can’t. They don’t have dreams that don’t feel like dreams at all, they don’t have this constant anxiety, thinking everything just might slip through their fingers and they might never get it back, they don’t have this magic running through them alongside their blood and veins and things that make them human. They don’t have his absolute fear -for that is about the only word he can use over and over again, play on the records for as long as it can run, to describe the scatter of his life at this moment.

Because that’s what Merlin is, that’s what he comes down to. It’s not anxiety or nerves or anything else. It’s fear; he’s scared of who he is, who he has become and finally missing who he was before. His entire existence in this moment and all the moments after boils down to fear.

And suddenly, he’s scared of losing everything. He’s scared of losing Arthur, losing his friends, losing who he was once before the magic took over his being. He’s scared of losing the feel of his bed once his falls asleep, the smell of his mornings that suspiciously smell like cinnamon and nothing else, the sense of belonging everywhere but nowhere but with the people he loves.

There’s a part of him that wants him to be braver, to take the magic in as it comes, treat it like a guest instead of an intruder; a part of him that wants him to be strong, one that grips him by the shoulders and tells him he’s going to be alright and he’s not actually losing anything. a part of him that feels like his mother, caressing his cheek and reminding him that she’s there. But his mother’s gone and what’s the point?

So, for weeks, he grows weak, he takes the easy way out. He writes. He writes, so that the magic will flow naturally from him to his words. He stays up, sometimes all night, until Arthur comes to find him and wake him up from his daze, so that some of the magic that scares him to death goes away enough.

For weeks, her survives on caffeine pills and lost sleep that doesn’t feel lost at all -he feels like he’s dreaming in his writing, like he’s not sitting at his laptop but back in his dreams, in the high castles and blue skins and a man seemingly modeled after Arthur. For weeks, he opts for losing Arthur for a while so that he’ll have him longer. He’ll understand.

Merlin lives in those few weeks right now, when his fingers are numb but at least they’re not powerful, when he misses Arthur more than he can bear even if, in reality, he’s only seen him a few hours ago. He misses him, that’s the only truth that’s simple anymore.

But, sometimes, Merlin is mad enough to question his emotions because, occasionally, when he thinks he’s thinking about Arthur, he imagines him as an almighty light. He’s wearing a red cape over armor in these thoughts, with a great, golden dragon imprinted on the fabric. A crowd rests upon his head and he’s wearing it like a birthright. Then he remembers.

His Arthur is not illuminated by royalty and wears no sort of armor upon his person. His Arthur wears slacks -jeans when he’s going out but he doesn’t seem really happy about it whenever he does- and wears graphic tees like he’s a teenage boy and smiles with no inhibitions. His Arthur is illuminated by simply who he is and what he chooses to surround himself with then Merlin gets scared all over again.

He excuses himself from work and leaves the premises to get into his car and drive to Camelot Academy where his Arthur is. He has to remind himself he’s still there.

Merlin spends fifteen minutes in Arthur’s office until he comes for him. He’s having a class right now, he knows, but Merlin’s texted him that this will only take a moment or two.

“Merlin,” Arthur says when he sees him. Merlin feels like he hasn’t seen him in the longest time. He’s been writing beside him all this time but, sometimes, the distance or lack of it doesn’t matter. It’s what you do with the space you have. That’s what makes a relationship.

“I miss you,” Merlin says quietly so his words can’t be heard by anyone but Arthur.

“I miss you, too,” Arthur replies, almost just as softly. He feels it; he feels it, too, this distance between them that he desperately wants to close.

“I-” Merlin starts but Arthur stops him by leaning his body against his, pressing his chest against his and, god, he’s missed this.

Colliseum Town - Sondre Lerche

Merlin feels like a fighter, like he’s crossed through battlefields and survived -but maybe not in the way he expected to. He feels old and weary and sad. He feels like his life is coming to a slow and shallow end and he knows it, he knows he should be accepting that but he has to keep going.

He has to do this, has to finish this. He has to walk through empty castles and bedrooms that once occupied the people and memories he loved, carry his hands around him like weapons and finish what he vowed to be for until the very end.

He feels like there’s this entire life inside of him -one that isn’t entirely his- that he has to save. For him to do that, he has to keep writing. It’s not about controlling the magic anymore; he’s accepted the fact that it will always be there, whether he keeps it in check or not.

He’s still writing because he woke up one night and felt important. He’s still writing because he feels like he has to, like someone told him to, this great entity told him that it was important and, by doing this, it made him important. He could care less about his own importance, though; he just feels he has to. There’s an absolute need for him to drain himself of his energy and emotion to get this story told.

Merlin begins to live in these characters and sometimes he mixes them up with people in real life.

Morgana would suddenly be the enchantress who’s secretly plotting behind them and Merlin would have to be cautious with his words and actions but then she would smile and Merlin would remember. She’d never hurt him, just as Merlin’s sure he’ll never hurt her.

Lance would be the knight, the warrior, honed in glory until it was taken away from him by circumstances that weren’t his to tamper with and Merlin would have an urge to cry for him and his lover, who Gwen would become in this fantasy escapade from reality.

But, through all of this, Arthur never becomes someone else. There are glimpses, there has always been, but, no, Merlin sees Arthur. Arthur doesn’t see him though, in the way he’s used to. It’s like he’s angry and sad and Merlin is the cause of it.

Merlin misses kissing him like they used to. Merlin feels guilty for missing him, considering the fact that he’s always there, right next to him on the bed, across from him during meals, in his phone when he checks his messages, in the fabric of his clothes when he smells them. How is it one can miss another when they’re everywhere?

Maybe it’s because Merlin’s hand is always meeting with his pen or the touch of a keyboard and he can’t reach over to touch Arthur’s hand or kiss his knuckles or have him like he used to.

Arthur doesn’t understand, though, why he has to do this. why he has to miss out on planned dinner dates, why he no longer kisses him with as much fervor as he once did, why it only looks like he doesn’t love him when he does. He loves him more than anything, more than words can ever express, he loves him, he does. He’s aware that when he says it like this, it sounds like a lie but there no other ways to assure that it’s not.

His love, although many things nowadays aren’t, is real.

Part of him feels like he’s doing this for Arthur, too, so they could both understand. Merlin knows why he has to keep writing: to understand. There’s something in these words that aren’t just words but they’ve become a message to him. Arthur doesn’t get that, doesn’t get the point to all of this, he’ll probably think him mad but he isn’t.

He might be a tad off his rocker but he’s a writer. Didn’t someone once say that all greats were mad at some point in their lives? Not to say that Merlin’s great and all, of course.

He’s not a loon, though, he doesn’t slur his words or blur his realities for days at a time; he eats his meals and talks normally. He lives normally. He’s just occupied; his mind if full and sometimes he loses himself in order to flush it out but he always come to. Who hasn’t been like that at least once in their lifetime?

He’s not crazy, maybe Arthur will understand that. Maybe, after he’s finished with his words and this legacy, they’ll kiss. They’ll kiss better than they used to.

Today, he has to take a break from the writing -see? He can take a break!- because Morgana wants to see him and take him out for lunch. Just the two of them, there are no needs for significant others and pretenses, as it always has been with Morgana.

He steps into the flat and doesn’t realize how much he really misses it until he smells it. The olfactory sense is always stronger to trigger flashbacks, he knows; the smell of clean wood, potato chips and that smell clothes usually smell like after they’ve been worn but it’s not smelly, it’s kind of comfortable.

“Hey there,” Merlin greets her cheerfully.

When she turns around, it doesn’t look like she’s dressed at all. okay, so Morgana’s been known to just walk into a restaurant wearing a big t-shirt and tights like she doesn’t care but this is different, it doesn’t even look like she combed her hair (although, fairly, even when she doesn’t comb her hair, it still looks like a majestic waterfall. Were he not gay and actually a girl, he’d be jealous).

“Uh, hi?” Merlin says again.

“We need to talk, Merlin,” Morgana says and put her hands on her hips so it’s hard to take her seriously when she does that. “Merlin, I’m serious.”

“Okay.” they sit down at the seats at the countertop and it just feels so serious. “Look, if you’re worried about me, you don’t have to be-”

“I’m past worried, M, I’m scared,” Morgana doesn’t look at him. It’s like she can’t even bear to. “And not just for you.”

“Morgana?”

“Frankly, Merlin, I’m disappointed in you, Merlin, for doing what you’re doing to Arthur like this.”

“What exactly am I doing?”

“You’re leaving him, you’re drifting away.”

Merlin looks down, his mind suddenly interested in the grooves of the tips of his fingers. “I have to.”

“You don’t have to do anything except be there for the man you love. What the fuck are you doing, Merlin? You love Arthur, you’ve loved him more than I’ve ever seen you love anyone and I’ve seen you love a lot of people. What the fuck, M? You’re losing him, do you hear me?”

No, Morgana’s wrong. Merlin’s doing all of this for Arthur, it’s not like he wants to miss out on their life together. He’s doing this so he can start it, properly. He’s already scared of losing everything; Morgana’s words aren’t helping him gain any semblance of control.

“What about you, huh?” Merlin feels like he’s lost all of his credibility because he’s fighting back when he actually doesn’t want to fight at all. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed the sneakiness these past few weeks or the late outings.” He just wants to fight because he doesn’t want to fight about himself.

“That’s different,” Morgana says to him. Maybe it is. He should stop being a child and hear her out.

“Like fuck it is. you’re a hypocrite, Morgana.” But he can’t.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” she yells. “I’M PREGNANT!”

His mouth goes slack of the things he wanted to say before. “Then why-?”

“Leon never-!” the rest of her words choke on a noose, suspended in the air.

His own words die, too. For a moment, they just sit there in silence, mad at each other, mad at themselves, mad at their circumstances. He’s lost his credibility, there’s no use getting it back so he leaves because he knows Morgana won’t break. Not like this. It won’t make a difference if he leaves.

They’ve been together for five months, almost six. It’s supposed to be a milestone, six months, but he’s pretty sure if Merlin continues to deteriorate like this, it won’t feel like half a year of a relationship should be celebrated because his presence is not felt.

The past month has not been a relationship, it’s been a one-sided affair where it feels like the other half of the bed is empty when it actually occupies a warm body and he’s waiting.

All his life, he’s felt like he’s waiting, for something he never knew or fully understood. He always thought it was love or at least a feeling like it, that’s why he searched the world for someone who could make him stop waiting. But it wasn’t love, not really. It was something bigger, a feeling that was wrapped up in things ancients forgot about, something he could never really decipher.

Nine months ago, he suddenly felt like he wasn’t waiting anymore. Nine months ago, he escaped his good friend’s engagement part to the cold day outside and found a boy -that’s what Merlin looked like then- wrapped up in layers, covered up like a comfortable croissant, looking like a turtle.

He made his thought loud and clear and the boy looked up, poking his head out of his collar and Arthur smiled to himself. This boy is beautiful. He’s all sharp cheekbones and blue eyes and long, slender fingers that manage to escape from the comfort of his sleeves, he’s beautiful; but Arthur’s ruined it, he told him he looked like a turtle and that is not a pick-up line at all.

There is no form of human being that can look back at such a comment and think of it fondly. Maybe this boy will.

Nine months ago, Arthur was sure he felt the sensation of falling in love -although, if someone asked him now what it felt like, he could only compare it to the feeling of jumping of a cliff or being punched in the gut in the most delightful way, he supposes falling love is different for other people. Nine months ago, he childishly thought that his waiting was done.

But it’s not because, still, he waits. He waits, not for a feeling anymore, but a person. A person he loves more than life, more than life’s opportunities and gateways to other realities. He waits for Merlin to go to sleep next to him, he waits for Merlin to say good morning and eat breakfast with him, for him to look up, to smile, to kiss him and to look like he still loves him.

Arthur feels like an outcast, a misfit in his own relationship. There is no hostility coming from Merlin, no hate or any form of negative feelings; he does not shrink away when he touches him, he responds when they kiss. It’s just the indifference -which hurts more than hate can ever hope to hurt- and the suspicion that Merlin’s only staying for Arthur’s sake.

Merlin doesn’t start anything, he’s just there. And Arthur can’t help but think that he doesn’t even want to be.

There was this boy, once, in high school. Arthur thought he was in love. In the mind of an adolescent like him, or any adolescent for that matter, he probably was. He had all the standard feelings teenagers got when their saw the person they liked walking down the hallways, hoping the hand they’d soon be holding was their own.

He got the butterflies whenever he saw him, the tuck-and-roll routine his stomach always did when he smiled -even when it wasn’t directed at him. His heart skipped a beat when he opened his locker and saw a message tucked in there between his Ec text book and notebook.

A few times, Arthur had prior engagements and couldn’t meet up with him when he wanted to. these times sent the sensation of a wild animal burrowing into his stomach. In the time span between when the boy was eager to meet him until he time they actually met haunted Arthur. Because he had other friends, that boy, and Arthur constantly wondered if he would find in them what Arthur thought only he had the privilege of having.

Maybe the boy would meet another, who would be a better listener, who would be funner than he was, who would be everything he never knew he wanted.

In short, he was scared of being replaced. Being replaced by someone who wouldn’t have meant as much if he had just been there; being replaced by a feeling that wouldn’t have been felt and it hurt. It hurt him even more when he wondered if the other boy even cared what he was doing to him.

And there’s that feeling again because he is being replaced but not by a person who offers more than what Arthur, not by a feeling like doubt or nervousness. No, he’s being replaced by Merlin’s own mind. It’s kind of the worst thing that he can be replaced with.

Merlin sees him in the way that hurts the most: like he’s there but he’s not important enough to capture his attention.

Arthur just wants a reason because it feels like he’s just barely holding on. He wants the reason to why Merlin’s drifting away in a boat for made for one, if he wanted to go off and ‘find himself’. He just needs the reason so he can decide if all the pain and hurt and ignorance and indifference are worth it for staying. His heart, his soul, it wants him to stay with Merlin because he knows he’ll never love another more than he loves Merlin but his mind, his body, it just wants him to leave because he’s tired. He is just so tired.

He needs Merlin to tell him something because that would still mean he’s part of his life.

He just can’t do this anymore because it hurts and he wonders if he could possibly be so in love but be so alone at the same time. He feels that, right now, he sees it Merlin’s unresponsive eyes, in his fingers that don’t even touch him anymore -or anything else, for that matter, except for his keyboard and his pen. He loves Merlin, with all his life and all the things contained in that, but maybe the Beatles lied.

Love isn’t all you need.

You need hard work and commitment and the ability to look the other person in the eye and say something worthwhile, something they’ll jot down in the spaces of their mind so they’ll remember it one day when they’re old and grey; unhappy with a need to remove the un. And you need compromise and not let just one person lifting all his fingers just so he can wake up the next day and not feel cruddy all the damn time.

Arthur’s got nothing written in the notepad of his mind, nothing by Merlin, not for a long time, nothing that will make him smile. Instead of him being reminded of Merlin as a good thing, it’s bad, it’s hurting.

This is a fire and Arthur’s the comic book hero who’s dressed for it, who’s gonna rush into it, trying to save whatever he can.

“Hey, Merlin,” Arthur says, his first step into the wreck. It’s smoky and it’s getting into his lungs already. “I love you.”

Merlin’s head doesn’t turn as Arthur’s engulfed by the flames around him. His stretchy, superhero costume is itching and it suddenly gets two sizes too small and he can’t breathe. No one seems to be here, no one is calling back. It’s time to take drastic measures.

“Can we talk?” Arthur asks.

“Just a mo,” Merlin gives him the one minute finger and that hurts.

“No, now.”

Merlin stands up and walks towards him. He’s as gorgeous as they first met but the beauty is a bit deteriorated, like the burning house in his mind. The walls are peeling off and the fires are licking them clean but there’s beauty in destruction, he supposes.

“You know, when I say I love you, I expect my boyfriend to tell me that he loves me, too.”

“I shouldn’t have to tell you that. You know I love you.” Merlin is scoffing and the burning building is starting to collapse.

“It doesn’t hurt, Merlin, to be appreciated.”

“Don’t be so insecure, Arthur-”

“It’s not called being insecure when there’s absolutely nothing in this relationship that’s fucking secure anymore!” his voice is higher because he’s still calling out. There’s still a part of him that doesn’t want to leave this place empty-handed. And Merlin, whose face draws in the seriousness of what’s happening.

“I can barely feel you anymore and, the thing is, I’ve gotten so used to missing you and I need to know if anything in our relationship is normal anymore. You won’t tell me why you’re doing this, you only tell me that you need to understand, and you’ll tell me when you do,” Arthur sighs. “You’re going somewhere I can’t follow and the worst thing is that you won’t even let me follow.”

“What do you want, Arthur?” his eyes are hopeful and, for a moment, so is Arthur.

“I want the man I feel in love with. Do you see him? Because he doesn’t come around anymore. All I have is a crappy substitute who can’t even look at me long enough to give me a shit.”

“What are you-”

“You’re writing all the damn time and I should be happy. You’re being picked up and you have an opportunity and you’re happy, I can see it. I thought I was just being selfish and controlling and you didn’t need that and, fuck, I want you to be happy, don’t I? But the thing is, I’m not happy because you’re leaving and I just can’t care for both of us anymore.”

“My writing isn’t tearing me away from you.”

No one’s here, the flames are growing larger and larger and Arthur is so fucking scared he won’t make it out of this safely.

“It’s a touchy subject, I know, you can love it or hate it but it’s true.” Pause. “I keep caring about your feelings, how you would take things then apologize if I think I hurt you. And, you know what? That would be alright if you took care of my feelings, as well, you don’t. You don’t reciprocate anything, you don’t…”

“I still love you.”

“Yeah, and I you but maybe that’s not enough. I tell my kids, day in, day out, nothing comes easy unless you work for it. I should tell them not to work too hard either. ‘Cause then, they’ll end up like me. Miserable, alone and, most importantly, tired. So tired.”

Merlin leans in, so close that it’s intoxicating. “Arthur…”

Arthur can’t take it so he backs away, slowly, one step to the back at a time. “I’m done,” he surrenders. He needs to stop before his soul rots like this.

“Listen, the reason I haven’t told you this was because I know what kind of person you are. We’re not gonna come back from this. You’re not gonna let this go and I’m going to lose whatever it is I have left of you.”

Merlin looks like he wants to say something, something important, but he doesn’t. Because he’s leaving again only this time, Arthur’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to follow him. The building is gone and everyone is dead and he didn’t save anyone, not even himself.

He doesn’t want to believe the truth. He wants to think of the truth as an uninvited guest who knows the door when you’re hoping for the pizza but he surprises you, throwing slime on you instead. It’s a trick; it’s the kid from the flat below who’s up to his usual shenanigans. It’s not what’s supposed to happen but he looks around and everything is empty.

His clothes are packed into boxers, his books on a stack, one upon the other, and his other belongings -knick-knacks and whatnot- are stuffed into a plastic bag like it doesn’t matter. He imagines Arthur packing everything up in frenzy.

He doesn’t look mad but he doesn’t look calm either. His hair is plastered on his forehead from the hard work, his hands nimbly moving around the belongings Merlin thought were shared. He can see everything except his thoughts, the why of everything.

Suddenly, he knows why movies always have a soundtrack when couples break up, it’s to hide the fact that it absolutely hurts inside, the coldness that spread everywhere -up his arm, his neck, his chest until it curls around his heart if it hasn’t been broken yet. It’s to cover the sound of a heart breaking; the choked breaths one emits when he realizes that the one person he loves the most isn’t even his anymore, as he covers over his mouth, drops to his knees and stays there.

It hides the absolute truth people never tell you about when you lose someone like this, someone who you love, care about, did everything for, hurt with, laughed with, lived for. The absolute truth is not a secret at all, people can guess what it is, it’s the hurt that hurts more, that stabs you in the chest until you can barely breathe. And Merlin’s never wished for music more in his life, just to make his heart a little bandaged.

Merlin needs Arthur. Merlin’s had something bad happen to him and he needs to call his best friend so that they can come over with a pint of his favourite ice-cream and put John Hughes on the telly. He needs that comfort. But the problem is that the one he needs, his best friend, the one who’s supposed to mend his heart is also the one breaking it.

People think Merlin’s strong because he cares for others more than he does himself, they think he’s okay, people look at him talking and smiling at them and think, “Yeah, he’s gonna be just fine,” but he doesn’t think he will this time. he feels weak and mutilated by everything and he wants and needs just like everyone else.

Maybe that’s part of why he loves Arthur so much: because he makes him vulnerable, that he’s scared for as much as he cares. Arthur makes him feel real.

Merlin gets up from the floor and takes whatever belongings he can grasp in his arms in this moment and leaves. Once the door behind him is closed, he decides that he’s torn between the choice of coming back or never coming back at all.

He’s exposed now, his guard is down and his skin is feeling off, revealing a new coat of identity he doesn’t know he likes. He has a right to broken, he thinks, just to stand there with his arms around his boxes and just hurt because this has never happened to him. He’s been dumped, of course he has, he’s cried and wallowed and thought that he would be alone for the rest of his life but these emotions and thoughts have never been this intense.

So excuse him for having a 500 Days of Summer (dir. Marc Webber, 2009) moment.

Expectations
He goes into the lift, watches the lights blink as he descends, his mood going the same way. He looks down at the box, opens it up and just looks. He sees the snow globe they got the shoes and starts to smile. They were so happy then, entangled in each other’s arms, laughing and smiling. It was just another day to them, then, and perhaps it was. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to go down in the history of them but it’s there now. Maybe every day with Arthur is important.

The lift stops on his way down and Merlin tries his best to hide his tears. Only, when the door opens, he sees that he shouldn’t be. It’s Arthur, who looks him up in the miserable state he’s in. Merlin overlooks the details but he knows he says he’s sorry for everything even though he’s not sure what he’s apologizing for, and they kiss so nothing else matters.

They drop the box of memories but that’s alright because they’ll make new ones; better ones. They grab each other by the hand as the lift stops at their exit and they leave, into the dark of night, when it doesn’t feel that dark at all.

Reality
He goes into the lift, watches the lights blink as he descends, his mood going the same way. The lift stops at their exit and he leaves, into the dark of night, and it’s never felt darker.

Oviedo - Blind Pilot

He sees Morgana in his bedroom, not in hers, not in the kitchen or in the living room. They are all creatures of habit, so when they are out of line with their routines, something is wrong.

There is nothing anything wrong with Morgana, though, there is something worse. When something is wrong, people cry and their hurt show through the material of their own skin. But, no, Morgana is different; she isn’t crying but he can see her, the signs of her anxiety, anger and sadness. The downward turn of her lips, not really a frown, not really a smile either; the way her hands are clasped together when she’s sitting down; but most importantly, her eyes, her eyes that look at him but aren’t looking at him at all. They’re like glass.

That’s what Morgana is; Morgana is glass. A hundred-year-old piece of glass that ancients forgot and she is fragile and should be placed in a box titled ‘This Side Up’ and he’s scared that if he touches her, just for a little bit, she’ll turn to dust.

Morgana’s strong and he knows why she’s doing this, to make it seem like she’ll always be strong. He doesn’t want to break her so he leaves the room and makes her pancakes. He doesn’t know where Leon is, if he’s what caused the delicate state Morgana is in right now but she’s breaking and pregnant and who doesn’t need pancakes?

Merlin, Merlin doesn’t need pancakes; he’s already broken.

He puts a scoop of ice-cream on the pancake and delivers it to Morgana in her room. He doesn’t tell her to eat; she knows she has to eat so she does. Doesn’t smile, though, doesn’t do anything except eat. It looks like she’s waiting, waiting for him to ask or for Leon to get home.

Merlin leaves her be and goes to her room, picks out a few clothes for her to change into. Then he sees it. There’s no mess anymore.

A shared life has to have a mess, their own distinct sense of chaos. Clothes piled on top each other as if actual ownership doesn’t matter, sheets tangled together, two toothbrushes in the glass case but two different colours so that he doesn’t mix up hers for his because that’s the one thing she won’t share because she thinks it’s gross but he doesn’t see it. But there’s no mess.

Nothing’s different, nothing’s new. Every day present an opportunity to mess things up but there’s nothing today, nothing at all.

By the time she returns to Morgana, she’s abandoned her pancakes and has taken to lying on her side on his bed.

“Come on, sit up,” he tells her.

He strips her of her shirt and jeans to trade it with a t-shirt and short. She doesn’t mind and neither does he. In this moment, they only exist. He makes her sleep properly, with her head on the pillow and sheets tucked around her and he himself changes and scoots up next to her.

There are no consequences right now, or thought of the past or future, just the present. She looks at him and simply says, “I told him about the baby.” She doesn’t say if he was mad because that falls under the ‘past’ category or if she thinks he’ll be coming back because that would mean she’s thinking about the future.

“Arthur left me,” Merlin says, exchanging their truths. He doesn’t care about the empty apartment or getting him back, all he’s thinking about now is how warm he is.

In the dark hours of the night, Merlin wakes up for a moment. He’s facing Morgana’s back and it’s dark outside. “Morgana,” he says softly into her back, until the breath ripples the fabric of her shirt. “The world’s disappearing.”

Of course, he’s not talking about this world where he simply exists; he’s talking about the world where he lived.

Turns out, Leon doesn’t come home. His things stay in his and Morgana’s room like a constant reminder. For the first few days of existing, Morgana couldn’t bear to go into the room so Merlin had to pluck up the courage to her things for her.

It’s not like it doesn’t hurt him, too. Leon’s his good friend and to come into the room where he no longer sleep in, where he used to do everything but doesn’t anymore and still see his things there like it’s a silent promise, like he’s hugging him and saying, “Don’t worry, I’ll be back before you know it,” it hurt. But he figures he has to do it, for Morgana’s sake, because her hurt is worse than his will ever be.

Merlin felt this world disappearing, as well. How could he not? All the tings he thought he knew about it, the sure truths he thoughts would never be erased (“Leon would’ve loved to have kids,” “Arthur would never leave me,” “Morgana would never break like this,”) were actually being erased. He just doesn’t know what to believe in anymore.

One day, they come home from their normal Saturday dinner -just the two of them, they still can’t bear to be with anyone else- and they find that everything’s too clean. Leon came back and took his things. There’s no promise anymore, no silent words, no reassuring hug, no apparent hope that Morgana’s unborn child is going to have his father in his life.

Merlin can see suddenly see the kid running around in the apartment, he’s kind of faceless, sketching paper over his face, blurring him but he’s there. Running past them and laughing. Although blurred, Merlin knows, somehow, that he’s beautiful and perfect.

Right here and now, he knows they have to stop. They have to stop merely existing; rocks exist but they don’t live. Merlin and Morgana need to start living. They need to talk and face everything. Because it’s been weeks -maybe even months, he doesn’t even know. They’ve silently become each other’s only family, each other’s shells of people and each other’s excuses and Merlin’s beginning to wonder if that in itself is healthy. They’re not even reasons anymore, they’re small excuses.

Morgana looks at him like she knows, like she’s seen the child running around, too. Maybe she has a different version of him, but still him. Maybe she can actually see his face, his smile as he happily lives among the realities of all of them. Then, she smiles just a little.

“I’ll go make us some cocoa,” Merlin says to her.

They get out of their clothes, shredding them like they’re versions of their old lives. They sit at the table. It’s been a while since they sat here; they were always alternating between the countertop and the couch when they were still a three-piece band.

They’re alright though, the two of them together, or they will be. The rest is just a matter of semantics. There is no fully describing this feeling, this odd space between existing and living. This feeling has occurred to him before, once, during high school.

When he and Will had a falling apart and Will wouldn’t talk to him but Merlin didn’t know what he did wrong. He started hanging out with other guys from the swim team and Merlin was left alone like that. One day, though, Merlin started approach their friendship as if there was nothing wrong at all. Soon enough, nothing was.

Will had to, eventually, return to his own life but Merlin was alright because he knew that they were okay. he smiled because they were happy, he smiled sadly because he still had the fear their friendship was in danger but he smiled -wider and wider and wider- because he had the proof that he was still Will’s one and only. Completely heterosexually, of course.

It’s this feeling now, happy and sad and happier -and happier and happier- that he feels right now, looking at Morgana. Happy and sad and happier.

She ships her cocoa and looks at him back. She starts telling him about everything. Three months ago, the intermission between the highlight of Merlin and Arthur’s relationship and the deterioration of it, Morgana got the normal symptoms of a pregnancy. The morning sickness, the moods and whatnot.

Like other women whose pregnancies weren’t expected, Morgana shrugged it off but, unlike most of the others, she ignored it because her relationship depended on it.

Men like Leon are rare, those gentle types that occasionally remind you of Bambi and you were his Thumper. There’s a reason others rarely found men like Leon because, in the end of the day, they couldn’t give you what you want.

Morgana needed a steady boyfriend that could look beyond what was presented in front of him and a stabile relationship that was nice and comfortable with a sex drive to match.

But Morgana didn’t need a baby, she didn’t to see herself in another small, human being, didn’t need to give someone the opportunities never presented to her, she didn’t need a normal kind of family, mummy, daddy and baby makes three. But, once again, and the end of the day, it was something Morgana -and only Morgana- wanted.

It was hard for her to find out, just like that, over a casual lunch that Leon didn’t share the same aspirations. She was childish to think she could change that. When she finally went to the doctor’s, she was torn. Whether she wanted the possibility of a child. She was torn between the needs of her relationship and her own desires. Morgana supposed she chose already. She was childish thinking it might actually save her relationship.

She used to think that Leon didn’t want the same because he didn’t understand. He didn’t understand what a nice, normal family could do for a child. Morgana doesn’t want to walk around like a cliché because her mother died in childbirth and her father was absent so much that she had to take care of herself but it’s true. She doesn’t mind being cliché and being normal by other people’s standards because she can’t help but feel like she hasn’t been normal for a while.

When she told him, a few weeks after she told Merlin, Morgana lost hope already. She couldn’t change what Leon wanted or didn’t want and she didn’t want to, just as she hoped he might not try to change hers.

She supposed telling him the truth and letting him leave like that was the last good thing she could do as a girlfriend. Being part of a relationship means letting the other person do what he had to do even if you didn’t want it. That’s the great truth of it all, isn’t it?

“A relationship doesn’t mean two people coming together as a single, almighty entity, it means being two different people and letting that run its course,” Morgana tells him.

“That’s deep,” Merlin says, eliciting a small laugh from her. It’s too early for real laughs but Merlin can remember how beautiful Morgana is when she’s happy. Right then, he decides they’re the only two people who can never leave each other.

And, suddenly, he knows why Arthur left because he’d been pushed up against a wall since their first real kiss and was tired of holding the burden of a shared life with only one pair of arms. He was tired and he needed a rest because Merlin was starting to forget whole parts of himself in the words that were supposed to contain everything. So Merlin realized all he could do, all he should and owed to Arthur, was to hand him a blanket and let him rest alone.

They develop a kind of mantra between the both of them. One day at a time.

They sound like a motivational team that’s been paid by a few high schools to tell the kids that ‘it’ll get better’ or some other shit they’re supposed to eat up. Merlin doesn’t know about others but he’s not going to feed lies to teenagers saying there’s no burden they can’t carry because there will be. They need to be told that life’s hard and unfair and sometimes the people you love the most leave.

But, despite all this, they still use this mantra because they’re grown up and seen shit in their lives. They have the right to look back and realize some of the advice they were given in their youth are actually beneficial.

One day at a time.

Soon, a few days after their conversation, Morgana left Merlin’s bed for her own room. Sure, it was weird for Merlin to wake up alone in the bed and grow the fear again that he was alone but, then, he opened the door to Morgana’s room and grew the pride, instead. She was breaking through the sadness that covered her in the month Leon was gone.

She wore that sadness like a jacket, she did, one strapped to her body like. One that had sentimental value and she simply didn’t want to take it off even if it smelled because it was comfortable and familiar. Slowly, she was starting to take it off.

He charts her progression like some people chart stars, from when she started sleeping on her own, although she divulged to him later that she had some nightmares for a few nights, and her growing belly, to the fact that she could smile again. When they were existing, during that painful time of intermission, she could barely smile. Now, she’s close to okay.

Of course, no one can fully be okay in just the span of two months because that would feel like they were never really broken in the first place. Because broken people need to heal, they need time to feel like their heart is in the right place, they need to get up in the morning feeling cruddy and wishing it won’t be the same when night rolls around again.

But she’s close to being okay. Merlin thinks it’s because of the kid coming. He needs to stop referring to it as an ‘it.’ it’s a boy, He’s real and he can’t help but think that he saved their lives. This boy who’s going to come out and be loved by his mother and his lovable gay uncle (he makes it sound like the kid’s life is going to be a sitcom or something) has saved them just by being there.

He’s not going to know that his very existence drove his father away; he’s never going to know that because he’ll be protected by the both of them. He’s going to be educated in literature by Merlin and he’ll be strong and he’ll know better than to let insults get to him. He’ll be everything Merlin and Morgana couldn’t be as children. He supposes that’s what every parent feels when they get a kid.

Only he’s not a parent, he’s not a father. Even if Morgana would, one day, ask him to be her kid’s adoptive parent, he could never do it. As much as he really doesn’t like what Leon did (because he could never hate Leon) he’s still this boy’s father and if Merlin takes that away from him, then he’ll be betraying the memory of him, the memory he had of Leon that seems untainted by all of this.

Despite all of this, Merlin wants to be a part of his life and he inevitably will. He’ll be there for his firsts not only because he has to but because he wants to. He wants to be in every important part of this boy’s life just so he knows how grateful he is to him. Just the possibility of him, the chance of him, that’s worth more to Merlin that this kid will ever understand.

To see Morgana picking up the pieces of her life again makes Merlin realize he has to, eventually, do the same. He’s been neglecting his friends and his work has been mediocre because he knows how Edwin looks at him. The only reason he still has a job is because Edwin has a soft spot for him and he can’t bear to let Merlin be the homeless guy in the corner selling books and unintentionally making his words slur.

Last week, he went to meet with some of the people at Cenred Publications, just to see what they wanted for him. He felt like his dreams were coming true, all of them, because he’s here, being sought out by one of the few good publications in UK that can make his name more than a name.  It can make him feel proud that it’s his name.

The collection of short stories is an easy concept; they spent a year or so scouring the neglected publications of magazines and newspapers across the nation, looking for equally as neglected writers. It’s a risk, of course it is, but they’re Cenred, they have the influence to make bad choices and, by the end of the day, let them be forgotten. Merlin doesn’t want to be forgotten, though. Not just like that.

He called up a few of his fellow writers and it turns out that he’s not the only one in the excited/nervous category, a lot of the others are just as caught up in the same bundle of nerves. Except one guy, named Donald something-or-other, who was cocky as hell and wondered why it only took them now to realize what a great writer was. Merlin expects him to be the most criticized out of all of them.

Writers, real ones, are never supposed to be confident; they’re supposed to question everything they do. They’re supposed to scrutinize all of their work and crumple everything up, throw it in the bin and have a fit. They’re supposed to inspect every line and comma; every sentence and punctuation; simply everything. Real writers are scared to death.

The meeting made him agitated and frightened but he’s just so, so excited. It’s kind of that feeling you feel when you find something you love to do close to you, in your reach (it might be a desired course in uni, it might be a love, it might even be a kind of hope) and you just want to stretch out your hand but you’re scared that there’s a cavern below your feet and if you stretch too far, just so, you’ll fall down. But you always stretch out your hand, don’t you?

So he starts sitting down at his table again, touches the carvings made by him (a lifetime ago, it seems) and takes out his laptop and starts writing again. It’s a good feeling, just writing because the job requires him to, missing the dire need of absolutely needing to write until he goes mad.

Merlin wants to stick with the idea that he wasn’t mad then, during the month or so the writing consumed him like a fire and licked his relationship clean of everything it held, but he knows he shouldn’t. There was reason in his doings then and he still wants to believe they’re still valid as reason. But he’s not.

It wouldn’t be right to the truth, it wouldn’t be right to Arthur, to not regret how his mind ruined his relationship. But neither would it be right to himself to regret what he did. He thought he was doing the right thing, after all. Maybe he was.

But, still, he can’t bear to open the document containing the story that set his life into a downward spiral. He’s grateful for its existence yet very pissed at it.

The world, for him, is still there. It’s a blur around the edges but it’s there. It’s close to disappearing, but, right now, it’s where it was before everything happened. The occasional dream, the occasional magic, his life is fitted into occasions now. This is good, this is called surviving.

One day at a time.

“Hey, M,” Morgana says to him now. They’re sitting outside the apartment, on a bench with a few sandwiches. Morgana’s about eight months along now (he can’t believe they’ve been like this for four months, just the two of them and look at them now. They’re almost normal) and she looks like a mother now. He doesn’t really know what mothers look like but he guesses that they all share a warm, maternal expression all the time and they’re all glowing from the inside out.

“Yeah, M,” Merlin replies. They do this sometimes, just call each other M&M and then joke about how they’ll be a famous pop duo called M&M or maybe just feed each other candies when they’re bored.

“I wonder what you name kids,” Morgana ponders.

“I dunno. What do you wanna name your kid?” Merlin asks.

“Something good and normal. Not like Merlin or Gwaine. I swear, were your parents drunk when they named you?” Morgana laughs. “Maybe Sam, Sam’s a nice name. Or Henry.”

“Henry’s a good name,” Merlin nods.

“Henry Faye-Knight,” Morgana rolls the name around her tongue. Faye-Knight. “Sounds about right.”

“Sounds wonderful.” Merlin holds her hand, just so she knows.

But, then, her grip tightens until it feels like a vice securing itself around him. “Morgana?”

“You’re gonna hate this, I swear you’re gonna, but,” Morgana looks at him and he immediately knows this is serious, “I think you’re gonna be meeting little Henry very soon.”

“What are you-?” then he sees it. “No shit. Shitshitshitfuckdamnbuggerwankshite.”

“Will you please stop cursing in front of my son and take me to the bloody hospital already?”

“Jesus fuck, woman, one of us has to be calm.”

“What’re you looking at me for? I’m the one about to give birth to a human being. Why don’t you calm your tits?”

“Because I don’t have any!”

“This conversation is getting ridiculous; just get your car and drive, damn it all.”

He helps Morgana hobble to his car that’s somehow conveniently parked right across the street from them. Maybe he knew, subconsciously, that he was about to gain a new family member today. Maybe he was psychic. Morgana was right, this conversation was getting ridiculous.

Before he knows it, Morgana is comfortably -well, not really- in her hospital bed, twiddling her thumbs. He doesn’t know how to feel, how does one normally feel in a situation like this? He feels out of place, for one, because the doctor asked him if he was the father and when Merlin said he wasn’t, she actually looked relieved (in his defence, Merlin is wearing his Gay Pride t-shirt) and because it’s clear Morgana needs someone else.

He feels awkward because he’s torn between calling Leon and not calling Leon. One thing’s for sure, he feels like he can’t do this alone. And Morgana can’t, either.

She tells him to call Gwen because she’s someone they need a situation like this. So he does but she doesn’t pick up. All he can do is text her and pray that she shows up. She will, won’t she? Gwen always shows up.

Only she doesn’t.

Arthur does.

“My apologies, dear cousin, Gwen couldn’t make it. She sent me in her place. Next best thing, eh?” Arthur says to Morgana. “How are you doing?”

“I’m okay,” she nods. She looks at Merlin, clearly more concerned about him and she will ever be for herself. He nods to her, letting her know he’s fine, he will be.

Arthur looks beautiful, beautiful as he’s always been. He’s smiling and happy and making polite conversation with Morgana and the nurse. He looks like he was never broken. Why should he have been? He’s beautiful and he always will be. The worst thing is that beauty used to be his to share, to bask in, his alone. And now it’s just there in a safe distance. That’s what gets him.

He feels the anger, curling around his heart and fist like an unwanted guest in your house, the one that politely takes off their shoes, thinking that will be enough to land in your good graces, one that comes with all the good intentions but only comes through with a teaspoon of awkwardness and a cup full of things you can’t say.

The anger boils in him, watching Arthur so happy, with his smile and his golden hair. But, somehow, the anger is exhilarating, like there are no limits or inhibitions, no more reasons for lying to Morgana and Leon and himself, that he is fine. The anger, if nothing else, feels like Arthur.

They say that when you’re nervous, time flows slower and you’re stuck there trying to untangle yourself from everything you feel but they’re wrong. It flows faster and faster because Merlin could’ve sworn that, five seconds ago, Morgana was still sleeping but, now, Morgana is being wheeled off into the delivery room and Merlin’s suited with gloves and scrubs. Arthur is, too.

Right, so, they’re going to be there when Morgana delivers a child that doesn’t belong to either of them. This is going to be awkward and disgusting.

But it isn’t because Merlin’s too occupied with Morgana. Her breaths are being delivered in puffs and tears are rolling down her cheeks.

“Hey, hey, you’re alright, yeah?” Merlin tells her soothingly. He’s going to be smacked for being corny later but, right now, it doesn’t matter. “One thing at a time, you’re gonna be alright, that’s it.”

Arthur holds her other hand and strokes her hair because he can’t do anything else. For a moment, just for a moment, Arthur looks at him like he’s expecting him to do something, like magic the pain away or something. And, for that one moment, Merlin feels like it’s alright to kiss him.

Then, it’s over. Dear Lord, it’s over.

“Congratulations,” the doctor says, handing the little boy over to the nurses.

“You’re still sticking with Sam or Henry?” Merlin asks as he sees, from the corner of his eyes, the nurses wrapping this child, this real human being that has saved their lives, in blue blankets until he looks like a miniature croissant.

“Henry sounds nice,” Morgana says sleepily as her eyes start to flutter close.

They transport her back to her room and little Henry along after them, which leaves Merlin and Arthur alone.

What he expects to happen is a sudden brush of bare skin as they are stripped naked of their rubber gloves followed by a stare that is like pointing a stake into his skin, it hurts but it’s over, the wait’s over. Morgana would fall asleep and they would feel the urge to escape this clinical room, wherever, wherever that is not here. They would not say anything because Arthur will grab his wrist and drag him into a supply closet where it is far too cold and far too hot at the same time and strip him, until the stench of hospital and newborn babies and things they never could say disappears along with his clothes and all that remains is the promise of tomorrow embedded in their goose bumps, stroked in their hair, melted in their sweat and swirling around in their breath.

That’s why, maybe, it doesn’t happen.

LAST PART