A/N: The title is from Wolfsheim's song 'Find You're Gone'. Warnings: swearing, dirty talk, disturbing scenes of alcohol intoxication.

Arthur is there when Merlin wakes up. At first he blinks sleepily and squints at the lamps that are way too bright, and only several seconds later the realisation dawns. Arthur watches Merlin's facial expressions change - from confused to frightened, from panicked to lost and hurt.

"Hey," says Arthur squeezing Merlin's hand in his.

"Hey," says Merlin, all hoarse though he didn't scream from pain - the doctors told Arthur that he had lost consciousness once the car crashed into that blasted tree. "What happened?"

Arthur doesn't want to be the one telling Merlin that but he really has no choice with Merlin's eyes wide and Merlin's fingers cold and limp in his hand.

"An accident," says Arthur hurriedly because the pause has been far too long. "You drove right into a tree. Didn't you see it?"

"It was dark." The tips of Merlin's ears go pink, and he licks his lips. "And I was so tired... I think I fell asleep at some point."

"You could've called me, and I'd've picked you up."

At first, when he learned about the accident, he was scared shitless. Then he was angry, but it passed too while they operated on Merlin, so many hours on end, and he sat outside with a coffee in his hand and waited, cold fear coiling and rolling inside his stomach. He wouldn't know if the coffee was any good, but he remembered every flaw of the paint of the operation room door. By the time it was over, Arthur was just numb, and he doesn't feel strong enough right now to yell at Merlin for being an irresponsible idiot.

Merlin sighs. He doesn't like asking Arthur to do something for him because Arthur always agrees and does. Arthur knows that though he could never understand why it is so. Merlin lifts the blanket with his free hand and sneaks a peak at his body.

"I've broken some bones, haven't I? There's plaster and bandages all over. I feel like I'm in a Second World War movie, some injured hero of the battlefield, and you're the pretty nurse." He tries to smile, but it looks rather fake to Arthur.

"Didn't know that roleplay was your cup of tea." Arthur leans down and kisses Merlin - just because he can. Merlin's lips are chapped and dry and weak in their response and the familiar taste of Merlin is faint underneath sour pain and plastic tinge of the breathing tubes that were taken off only half an hour ago, but Arthur still loves every second of it. "We can give it a try when you are better," he promises running his thumb over Merlin's cheek.

"When will I be better, then?" Merlin smiles again and it's more genuine this time, but his eyes are still full of anxiety, guilt and unrest.

"They say you were thrown sideways by the impact and bent all over the seatbelt. There's something wrong with your spine, they don't know what exactly yet, and you legs are... well... not well," finishes Arthur awkwardly. "I can go talk to them now, maybe there's some update."

"Bring me something to drink when you are back, will you? Tea or water."

"Sure." Arthur leaves the room still numb and tense, but breathing seems to be a bit easier now that Merlin is awake. Everything's gonna be alright now one way or the other, isn't it?

Merlin leaves the hospital two weeks later. In a wheelchair. Arthur carries him into the car and folds the wheelchair clumsily - he's not used to it, but he reckons he will be. Merlin is pliant and heavy in his arms when Arthur carries him to bed at home, and his lips are warm and scratchy on Arthur's neck. He depends on Arthur now and though he's never liked it he seems to be alright with it. After all, his struggling for doing things himself was partially the reason of all this.

"You should go to work," Merlin says while Arthur's fretting to bring some water and Merlin's laptop and the whole bunch of pills that were prescribed by the doctors. "You'll be missed."

"Work can wait till tomorrow. 'S not like the end of the world is happening right there and now. Do you want some cookies? Your mother sent us loads, I guess it's her motherly revenge for you talking her out of coming here from Ealdor the moment she knew."

"Nah, I'm fine." Merlin puts his laptop on his lap demostrating clearly that he'll be perfectly fine on his own if Arthur goes and tries to work right now. "I'll watch something if you give me the DVDs. And don't say Morgana doesn't call you six times a day with this question or that, so you'd better go and answer them all at once."

Merlin has a point - Arthur's unsufferable PA does call him all the time because a company doesn't run itself without its CEO. But Merlin is more important, somehow, then the work of Arthur's life.

Merlin opens his laptop and looks at the screen so pointedly as if there's something interesting there already. Arthur takes an armful of DVDs from the shelf and drops them beside Merlin.

"I'll go buy some groceries then," says he feeling suddenly the odd man out in his own home. "Here, they wrote that you should take the yellow little ones every half an hour, and there's a salve for your spine but don't touch it, I'll help you with it as soon as I'm back..."

"OK." Merlin takes the A4 piece of paper with detailed prescriptions and kisses Arthur's knuckles - briefly, fleetingly, gratefully - and goes back to his laptop like nothing happened at all, but Arthur's heart clenches for some reason. "Go, it's alright, really."

And Arthur goes because what else can he do at this point, really? He keeps his mobile in his inner pocket so he won't miss a call from Merlin but Merlin doesn't call while Arthur's out.

Arthur buys a coffee after leaving the supermarket with plastic bags stuffed with everything he could think of - Merlin usually does the groceries, and Arthur is a tad at a loss as he doesn't actually know what they need - and, sipping it, he visits his office for a little while. Morgana sends him home almost immediately - apparently the woman thinks she knows best what Arthur and Merlin both have to be doing at the moment, and she can be persistant.

Arthur goes home with his coffee and lots of vegetables, flour, bread, sausages and whatnot, and thinks why is that that he's become not particularly welcome in his two favourite places in the world in one day.

He kisses Merlin when he's back. Merlin tastes like the little yellow pills although they are meant to be swallowed whole, not chewed.

Arthur reckons, he'll have to get used to it as well.

Arthur never actually got to the yelling thing – Merlin looks far too fragile and pale wrapped in their giant duvet, and Arthur's anger that appears when he remembers that Merlin's stubborness and wish to be independent led to what they have now shuts down every time. Eventually there's no anger anymore, and Arthur doesn't miss it.

They have new rituals now. Cooking together is replaced with Arthur trying to figure out a recipe that will be suitable for a sick person and Merlin reading his Spanish surrealists quietly in his wheelchair in the corner of the kitchen (Merlin says that even if he's injured there's no reason for him to fall back on his postgrad work, so he does a lot of reading for which he couldn't find time before). They don't go out anymore even though Merlin says it's alright if Arthur goes and has a relaxing evening. Arthur is sick of the word 'alright' and thinks of forbidding Merlin to use it altogether.

Also Arthur sends Merlin texts to remind him what pills he should take now. However strange it is, in text messages Merlin seems more carefree and cheerful than in person. Perhaps because it's almost like before, Arthur thinks. He doesn't know and doesn't ask Merlin about it.

Every evening, after dinner, Arthur turns Merlin onto his stomach and pushes the duvet and Merlin's t-shirt away to reveal his back. After that Arthur takes the tube with the salve from the nightstand and warms it carefully between his fingers before applying it to Merlin's back.

Merlin is quiet under Arthur's touch; he lies unmoving with his chin propped on his hands, and his shoulders are tense – Arthur sees it even under the oversized t-shirt. Arthur is glad that one can't see their own back without a mirror because Merlin's skin is a mess of scars which are still raw and bright: it will take many months for them to become pale and more or less invisible. Arthur imagines tracing every single one with his tongue – will it make Merlin shiver, will it make him gasp, or writhe, or moan softly like he does when Arthur teases him with featherlight touches for a long time? He saves the idea for later, though, – the doctors say Merlin doesn't feel anything from his waist down right now. Later, when Merlin's sensitive and strong and playful again.

Arthur always finishes rubbing the salve with a kiss between Merlin's shoulderblades. Merlin sighs deeply in response as if grateful for something that Arthur can't fully grasp or, the other way round, sad because of something that he never talks about.

Morgana can say what she likes – which she does anyway – but Arthur is a gentleman. He waits for a week and a half before trying to seduce Merlin after their teeth are brushed, the lights are off and the moonlight starts gathering in stain-like puddles on the floor. He's not after sex as it is seeing as Merlin is still far from recovery but, well, a little bit of affection would be nice. Arthur is hungry for touch, the tenderness and the passion that always accompany him and Merlin in bed; he feels like since the accident some kind of wall is growing between them and he can't even properly see Merlin behind it.

He caresses Merlin's shoulder with his lips and fingertips, that warm smooth skin he loves so much. Merlin is motionless, and Arthur would think he's asleep if not for the fact that his breathing is far too even and cautious.

"I miss it," whispers Arthur, and Merlin gives up pretending, opening his eyes. They look dark blue without a single spark, practically pitch-black in the darkness of the bedroom, and he's all the more pale for it. "I miss you inside me, your cock in my mouth, your legs around my back."

A fair share of dirty talk never fails to turn Merlin on. However, that doesn't seem to be the case – more than that, Merlin goes all stiff under Arthur like that person in a movie who was hypnotised and laid between two chairs, supported only at their neck and at their ankles but lying there nonetheless because they were told to.

"Arthur," exhales Merlin.

Arthur kisses his face with little silly kisses of care and fondness, over Merlin's eyebrows and hollows in his cheeks and the alae of his nose and the corners of his mouth. When he touches Merlin's eyelashes with his lips he feels wetness of bitter-salty taste.

It's tears.

"What's wrong?" Arthur cups Melin's nape and leans in to press his forehead against Merlin's. "Are you in pain?"

"No," Merlin says sounding like he has to drag the words out of himself while they are actively against it. "No, I'm not in pain. I just… I don't feel anything. I can't… I can't give you what you want. And it doesn't get better, the salve doesn't help, nothing helps, and I look at you and think that you are the most shaggable person in the world and I don't actually want to do anything with you because that part of me is long gone!"

Merlin catches breath, and Arthur notices distantly that Merlin's fingers dig deep into his shoulder as if he's trying to hold Arthur where he is. As if Arthur's going to run away.

Arthur covers Merlin's body with his and pulls Merlin as close as he can, and that's the last straw that breaks Merlin. He sobs silently into Arthur's shoulder and hugs him like he hasn't hugged even once during these three weeks and a half and Arthur whispers that it will be alright, everything will be fine, everything will turn out well because it must, because there's no other way it can end.

Merlin cries himself to sleep and goes slack and sleepy-warm still clutching at Arthur.

Arthur watches the moonlight move along the floor until dawn.

In the morning they go to the hospital for a regular check-up and some therapy that Merlin has to go through. His eyes are still puffy and red-rimmed despite the fact that he has slept for nine hours but otherwise he seems rested and calm. And he hugs Arthur tightly when he's carried to the car, and Arthur kisses the top of Merlin's head because he understands that this hug is all that Merlin can give him now. All that Merlin has at the moment, to be precise.

Arthur takes Merlin to the x-ray room and then to the therapy room where dr Gaius meets them as usually. Merlin trusts dr Gaius to make everything right, maybe because the man has something grandfartherly and reassuring around him but Arthur doesn't miss the uncertainty in his eyes under bushy white eyebrows and light, almost translucent eyelashes.

He goes back to the x-ray room to fetch the resuls stretching his wrists – he's still not really used to driving a wheelchair of all things, and it's quite heavy and hulky. The door is ajar and Arthur stops right outside to work on his wrists a bit more. The doctors inside the room are talking and Arthur recognises voices – dr Nimueh, dr Edwin Muirden, dr Lancelot du Lac and that little intern Freya Lake who takes to Merlin like house on fire and always manages to make him smile.

"It's hopeless," says dr Nimueh (is it a name or a surname? Arthur is not sure). "Look, he's deteorating day by day."

"We can't give up just yet," du Lac sounds resigned as if he argues out of sheer stubborness and can't help but see that Nimueh is right. "Therapy can turn the process back…"

"It never does if the process is detereoration," snaps dr Muirden. "It would take a miracle to at least stop it. Therapy is no miracle."

"So what you both are suggesting is basically to go to the young man and say that he's going to be a half of himself for the rest of his life?" du Lac is angry judging by his voice. "Aren't you too quick to make conclusions?"

"Well, it's better than giving your patients false hope for years before they consult someone else and commit suicide," hisses Muirden. It's a low blow, thinks Arthur but he can't quite sympathize with polite and charming du Lac because he's trying to figure out who they are talking about. It could be anyone, right? This hospital cares of thousands of patients, doesn't it?

"Shut up before I hit you," warns du Lac, and Muirden doesn't answer.

"It's been less than a month," says Freya quietly. "He still hopes a great deal. Let's wait a bit. Maybe, half a year? So that he can grow accustomed to what he has. It will be easier to accept that it's what's going to be the rest of his life." Her voice is high and raw as if she's ready to cry but she speaks steadily – it's obviously not an improvisation.

"OK," dr Nimueh sounds tired and broken. "We'll do as you suggest Freya. Will you take his results to the therapy room? He's got to be there with Gaius now."

"His partner always fetches them," there are sounds like folding paper that surround Freya's voice and the echo of her steps. "Arthur, that's his name. Tell him I've already gone to the therapy room if he shows up? You remember him, that stunning blond who looks like he owns the world."

Arthur steps back and to the wall to his right led by pure instinct. The door opens wide and Freys hurries past with some x-ray pictures without noticing Arthur. Dr du Lac and dr Nimueh leave the room after her and they are not in a hurry so they don't miss Arthur in the shadow of the door.

"Well," says Arthur. "There's no need for me to fetch the results, then, seeing as intern Lake has already gone to the therapy room."

Words feel like pebbles in his mouth grinding against each other clumsily and tasting like sand and earth. Arthur turns away from the doctors and goes along the corridor to the therapy room accompanied by Nimueh's quiet "Fuck."

Merlin looks hopeful studying the results of his x-ray. He doesn't know shit about how to read these pictures but Gaius gives them to him with a smile and Merlin evidently thinks it's a good sign. Arthur feels sick knowing that this smile is as fake as a fake thing in the land of fake things.

"See, your spine bones have been shattered here, here and here," shows Gaius. "They are starting to heal now, that's a slow process but they will surely not resemble stray noodles in your soup in a few months."

"Will they recover fully?" Arthur can't stop himself asking as if a naughty goblin is controlling his tongue.

Freys winces at that and looks at him frightened. Gaius lookes confused for a second but then he looks just tired. He knows that Arthur knows.

"The salve we are using has been fabulous at the clinic trials and obviously it's meant just for the kind of trauma that mr Emrys is dealing with. Ninety per cent of similar patients recover fully with proper treatment." He doesn't say outright lies and this should make Merlin suspect but it doesn't. Though it does make Arthur angry and makes him think what it is that one is supposed to do when one or somebody one loves doesn't fit the lucky ninety per cent. What happens when the logical cycle of being injured and being cured is broken, shattered to pieces just like Merlin's spine? Arthur doesn't really know and he's fucking bone-chiling terrified by understanding that he will have to know it because the injured stage is likely to go on forever, his own and Merlin's personal forever.

"Thank you," says Merlin sincerely.

"You're welcome, young man, you're quite welcome." Caius takes the handles of the wheelchair. "Let's put you to some therapy, that will do you good." His voice is soft and fond when he talks to Merlin though they are just a doctor and a patient. Merlin is able to melt ice with his shiny smiles, probably, Arthur always thought so. It's just that right now the ice inside Arthur has apparently grown immune to them, and it feels so cold and tight in his chest.

Merlin is taking a nap after lunch. Arthur is not sure why but he just takes the open book off of Merlin's evenly rising and falling chest and pulls the duvet higher so that Merlin's bony shoulders wouldn't feel cold. Then he slips out and goes to the living-room where there is his laptop on the coffee table.

Arthue has a blog. No one knows about it – well, perhaps, Merlin knows since he knows more about Arthur than any person in their right mind would want to but he never says anything if he does. Arthur uses a pseudonym in his blog in case anyone he knows ever stumbles across it; he's prince028 and it is a really lame name up to anyone's standarts but Arthur doesn't care – and it's nice not to care once in awhile. He started the blog three years ago when there was no Merlin in his life but he already felt that biting need to talk to someone and no one trustworthy enough was around. He thought of buying a goldfish that would be making bubbles out of its mute round mouth while he'd be telling it about his day but registering on a site was easier and didn't even require standing up from his chair.

He writes all kinds of things in his blog but avoids carefully any details that may compromise his anonymity and he doesn't really want to write about business deals or post his photos or recall his nights out in written form listing every bar he visited – for that he has his workmail, a Facebook account and no time or wish correspondingly. He posts all kind of stupid things that come to his mind and he never stopped writing in the blog even after he'd got to know Merlin whom he could trust with his pride (and that is sometimes more to him than his life so it counts for something). He writes about how the colour of his shoelaces matched the colour of the pavement one morning, and how much colder the floor seems at night when it's all quiet and he walks barefoot along the corridor to the kitchen to get a glass of water, and how he looked out of the window last night and linked the lights of the city below with a line in his imagination and what he got looked exactly like the constellation of Orion in his old encyclopedia for children. Sometimes he writes about Merlin calling him 'my partner' because it's just his luck to be dating someone with the rarest name in the whole of the United Kingdom and says utterly idiotic things about him like how Merlin loves strawberry jam and how he grows some ridiculous fat violet flowers on the windowsill and stuff.

The decision to have a blog was a strike of genius – it is like talking to someone and not talking to anyone at all because nobody was subscribed to his blog. Arthur liked it fine but a few months later readers started to appear. There weren't many but they were there and sometimes they even commented on this entry or that wishing him luck or seconding something. Arthur is pretty sure he didn't know any of them in real life and wondered idly what they could possibly find interesting in his blog but he never bothered to ask and they just went on being subscribed. It doesn't feel much different than back when he was writing for no one but himself.

Today he clicks the 'new entry' link for the first time during last month and types:

My partner is crippled for life.

It feels more like I'm the one who's in the wheelchair with only a half of his body working. I suppose thinking that makes me selfish but I can't help it.

I am helpless.

Suddenly typing an entry seems the stupidest and the hollowest thing he can do about the mess that his life has turned into and he posts it as it is and turns off comments to this one, just in case.

He closes his laptop with a sharp thwack of plastic hitting plastic and sits there for some time while Merlin sleeps behind the next door.

"My parther is crippled for life," repeats he out loud and it should probably sound ominous or heartbreaking or nerve-wrecking or something along those lines but it sounds just like any other words. Like, 'The weather is terrible today, don't you think?' 'Well yes, but I have a crippled boyfriend who can't and won't touch or kiss me or look at me twice anymore and I don't pay all that much attention to the weather' 'Lucky you, it drives me insane all day and I don't have any distraction' 'Lucky me indeed. Could you pass me the salt?' Arthur laughs not feeling that anything is actually funny.

He has a quick and rather unpleasant wank in the shower before making some dinner for tonight and heading to work.

Morgana doesn't kick him out to take care of Merlin today but her glare says she wants to.

Arthur really couldn't care less.

Next time they visit the hospital Arthur doesn't talk to the doctors whose not-so-private conversation he has overheard and they don't seem eager to chat with him as well. Freya keeps shooting looks full of terror in his direction – she must think he told Merlin everything the moment they were alone and ruined whatever hope Merlin still clung to, and for some reason the fact that Arthur hasn't done any such thing - yet - doesn't make her believe that he won't be a cruel douchebag around his crippled partner. Maybe she's right to be so afraid of that but Arthur doesn't want her to be right.

When the therapy is over for today, dr Gaius asks Arthur to stay behind for a minute.

"I can take you downstairs myself," offers Freya quickly to stop Merlin from asking what it is that needs to be discussed with Arthur in secret. "You never told me about that time after which you started hating French fries."

"Hate is a strong word," Merlin snickers. "But I really really really don't like it."

Freya giggles recognizing the song reference and drives the wheelchair away so swiftly that Merlin is out before he can even say goodbye to Gaius.

Arthur lifts his eyebrow at Gaius expectantly.

Gaius lifts one of his eyebrows as well. It looks properly intimidating but Arthur doesn't find it in himself to be genuinely impressed.

The battle of eyebrows lasts for almost twenty seconds. Then Gaius looks away and sits down heavily.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell him right away."

"I'm not going to," Arthur shrugs. He isn't, that is true. Not because he wants to go along with the plan that Freya made up – who's the real douchebag here after that, if you don't mind Arthur asking? – but because he is not sure what he would say and what Merlin would hear in between the words he'd choose. "Not today and not tomorrow anyway. Is that all you wanted to talk about?"

"Yes Arthur, that is all," Gaius dismisses him with his first name all of a sudden as if he is somehow closer to him because both of them are lying to Merlin every day and every hour. Arthur hates that it actually sort of makes them closer a little bit and hate is not a too strong word this time.

In the car, before starting the engine, Arthur kisses Merlin – first on the lips but it feels so wrong for the lack of enthusiastic response from Merlin that Arthur ends up with a peck on his cheek and looks out on the road all the way home.

Merlin is reading something again and Arthur doesn't ask what it is.

Arhtur has never been the one for rash or bold decisions. For all that he runs a huge company it's just a branch of his father's business empire and most things in his life were decided for him – and one can't really blame Arthur because one certainly doesn't have a father like Uther Pendragon. Even if it's been seven years since his father moved permanently to New-York where the company is headquartered, Arthur still feels his shadow looming over him every day. Usually the world spins around smoothly and Arthur is just taken away by the flow of convenient and well-organized events but now it's not the case.

He can't see himself living with Merlin for years to come and not having sex. Probably they could find some way to satisfy Arthur – Merlin's hands and mouth are still in perfect working order after all and there are sex toys – but Arthur knows that Merlin doesn't really want that anymore and the idea that Merlin will be calmly planning the next chapter of his postgrad work while jerking him off makes him feel miserable and sick. He doesn't see himself leaving Merlin in this state because he loves Merlin just as much as he loved before and the lack of sex is the only thing that really disturbs him – he doesn't mind helping Merlin to deal with his body needs, cooking, cleaning, shopping, bringing every single useful and entertaining thing to the nightstand so that these things are within an arm's reach for Merlin. But he can't stand cold nights and kisses without heat, he really can't. One isn't a kinesthetic for nothing and Arthur's sensory system is crying out loud at night when Merlin is an inch apart from him but could as well be a mile away.

He thought of staying and cheating on Merlin sometimes, going to clubs and pulling one night stands just to get an orgasm and forget about sex as it is till the next night he goes but it sounds way too pervert for him. He knows Merlin would know. Perhaps Merlin would even like to talk about those that Arthur'd fuck not bothering to ask their name to demonstrate that it doesn't concern him as long as Arthur comes back home to him because that is what Merlin is – kind and understanding and forgiving and so damn sensible for all his idiocy. He can't see himself coming back late and smelling like sweat and sex and desperation and going to the same bed as Merlin.

Basically, he doesn't know what to do but the suspicion that he has to make some decision that will almost surely ruin his life one way or the other nags at the back of his mind constantly.

He spends his morning at work with Morgana giving him some papers to sign and leading him to the conference room when needed, and reading some stock market statistics for the previous week but generally just tuning the world out and doodling in his notepad as if he's taking notes. But all his pen leaves on paper is pretty crude images depicting wheelchairs and tubes of salve.

Just before lunch he sends Morgana to eat earlier than usually and googles HR agencies on his own.

After a few calls he has appointed an interview with nurse Percival who, according to the secretary of the agency, has excellent experience and possesses every appropriate quality that there is from physical strength to modesty and responsibility. He hopes at least a half of it is true because he needs someone good to look after Merlin during the day.

Arthur calls Merlin to tell him that he hires a nurse. Merlin sounds actually relieved and says that he was anxious that Arthur's company suffered because Arthur paid more attention to Merlin's needs that to deals and negotiations. He also says thank you shyly and tenderly and Arthur hangs up with a feeling that he can't properly breathe.

When he can breathe again, several tears burn their way down his cheeks. He washes his face with cold water and holds a staff meeting after lunch composed and competent as always.

While driving to the agency he thinks of Merlin.

The first time they met is still vivid in his memory. It happened in a club one night. Merlin was at the bar when Arthur saw him drinking some frilly colourful cocktail with his lush red lips wrapped around the straw and the collar of his shirt hanging low so Arthur had a nice view on those delicious sharp collarbones of his. They were both relatively sober as it was still early but had drunk enough to feel young and irresistible and bursting with energy and, to sum it up, completely invincible.

In half an hour he kissed Merlin's lips for the first time and found them soft and sweet from the cocktail and positively intoxicating. In twelve hours he woke up with a medium-sized hangover and sleeping Merlin beside him with those lips still puffy from kissing and sucking and caressing, and now open and letting out a bit of drool. He liked that morning so much (excluding the hangover, that is) that he repeated it many times until he didn't have any other mornings.

He thinks that maybe he should write about it in his blog but it seems for some reason too intimate to ever tell anyone. Maybe because it's all in the past now and these memories of days and nights filled with affection and lovemaking to the brim are nothing but memories, bright and happy and completely useless like the photos from his first school trip, and if he lets them go into the world he'll lose them forever.

He thinks he's being sappy and pathetic but he doesn't see what he can do about it.

Nurse Percival reminds Arthur of mountains and Stonehenge – he's just that big. It means he'd be able to lift skinny Merlin just like Arthur lifts his pen and it is good. Also Percival appears to be quite laconic but not in that no-nonsense macho way that is sometimes so appealing to school bullies but in a considerate and reassuring way and that is good too.

"You'll have a separate bank account where your salary will be coming to," says Arthur. "I will pay you what it says in the contract and if you do anything extra for Merlin when he asks – like going to the library for him or buying something urgently, etc – you will be paid extra. Evenings after seven o'clock and weekends will be your time off. Are you alright with that?"

"Yes, mr Pendragon," says Percival, and that's pretty much it.

Percival starts this very day – there's a lot of time left till seven and Merlin is alone – and Arthur leaves work at five feeling guilty and goes for a walk along the Themes. It's cold and windy today, and Arthur stops feeling his fingers after five minutes but he doesn't mind. Maybe if he walks long enough his heart and brain will get frozen too and he won't be pulled by them in a dozen of different directions at once.

They don't get frozen though and he warms himself in the supermarket standing near the shelf with fresh bread baked right here in the back rooms. He buys a strawberry pie for Merlin and a grapefruit for himself and goes home.

The grapefruit appears to be really bitter. Arthur doesn't complain.

Merlin likes Percival judging by what he tells Arthur in the evening. Percival is tactful and efficient, and the only thing that makes Merlin restless now is the fact that a good nurse costs a lot and Arthur's paying for everything. Arthur thinks if it will be really rude to say that now Merlin can hardly go and pull a shift or two in the nearest coffehouse or bookstore for the sake of his independence.

It's not even that the money that Arthur pays to Percival is of any significance to him; he pays more to have his car properly washed and cleaned every week. Sadly, this kind of argument makes Merlin either miserable or angry, so Arthur settles on keeping his mouth shut just this once.

"I'm grateful," says Merlin awkwardly when the pause becomes unbearably huge and torturous. "For being there for me, you know. I don't know what I'd do without you."

Arthur knows that Merlin is sincere. What would seem an attempt at flattery or at attacking his bank accounts or his bachelor status coming from any other person is painfully true and honest coming from Merlin. Merlin most probably wouldn't give a fuck if Arthur lost all his money tomorrow and would just say that they'd have to really cut down on that overpriced African coffee that they both like shamelessly. Merlin never asks Arthur for anything other then being himself and almost never accepts anything else.

But he knows how to express his feelings and does just that whenever he deems it necessary. It always catches Arthur unawares and leaves him vulnerable, and Arthur thinks right now, with his heart thudding heavily somewhere at his throat and at the pit of his stomach at the same time, that it's the only thing he could ever hate Merlin for. If he ever could hate Merlin on principle, of course.

"You'd probably stay over somewhere that night and wouldn't be hurrying back to our place exhausted and in the dark," says Arthur and it's probably the wrong thing to say but then he doesn't know what the right one is like.

Merlin winces, and Arthur muses that maybe Merlin has thought of that himself before but has shooed the unkind and hopeless thought away. That would be very Merlin-ish.

"Don't say that."

"It's true."

"There's a thousand of things that made everything happen the way it did. It's not like I'd be perfectly safe if I never met you."

"Is that what you told yourself while thinking about it?" asks Arthur. It might sound a bit too mean even for him, the Certified Prattish Clotpole, but he honestly wants to know and doesn't imply anything. He's got enough shit on his mind these days as it is and doesn't want to add some more by offending Merlin.

Merlin doesn't wince this time but his fingers clutching the blanket on his lap are white and unmoving.

Arthur goes down on his knees, takes Merlin's hands in his own carefully and kisses his fingers lightly, those slender delicate fingers that he secretly worshipped before and for some unfathomable reason worships even more now when they will never touch him the way he wants them to again. "I'm sorry," says he resting his head on Merlin's lap. It feels like a solid rock in the middle of a storming sea. "I'm sorry so much. I didn't mean for it to look like… that."

There were days when apologies had to be practically dragged out of him forcefully. This one slips easily from his tongue because it's not for what he feels guilty about.

"I know you didn't," says Merlin and his voice is soft and sad as if he sees through all of Arthur's confused cowardly thoughts and never says anything just out of pity for either Arthur or their relationship that is no longer what it once was. "I love you."

Arthur feels his mind burning and his mouth getting dry on the inside and his lips quivering and he suspects that he might just be at the very edge after which he'll simply go nuts and won't be bothered by anything anymore, and it's not like Merlin has never said it before but this time it means something entirely new and Arthur doesn't know what and he can't even ask to explain. He just knows that Merlin strokes his hair and this little physical contact goes throughout his whole body like a shot of tequila and makes him feel warm and dizzy and watch the world becoming somehow fuzzy around the edges until he dozes off for a little while still sitting on the floor by Merlin's wheelchair.

Percival takes a lot of Arthur's former duties but two things are left as they were – firstly, it's Arthur texting Merlin to remind what pills he has to take right now and never mind that Percival knows that schedule by heart and Merlin probably does as well since it's already been more than two months. Secondly, every evening after Percival leaves and Arthur makes up some dinner for himself and Merlin, the latter turns over with an effort and Arthur rubs the (totally useless) (deceitful rubbish) salve into his scarred back. He finds it both comforting because at least it's a legitimate reason to touch Merlin and gut-wrenching because the smell and texture of the salve stay with him all evening however thoroughly he washes his hands and remind him every second that he hasn't told Merlin yet. No one has.

"I don't feel anything," says Merlin once. "It's so strange. You're sitting on my legs and touching my back and I'd never know that you're doing that if it weren't for the sound of you breathing."

He doesn't sound broken – he sounds like he's starting to adjust to what he has and Arthur thinks: shit, Freya's plan's working, he loses hope on his own, is it better if he loses it all in one go or should I go on keeping silent?

"Well, good for you then," says Arthur. "You always complained I was too heavy whenever I was on top of you, remember? None of that trouble anymore."

He keeps his voice under control to make sure that it is cheering and carefree, not offensive. However, he must be utter rubbish at this control thing when it comes down to his partner because Merlin props himself up on his elbows and looks back at Arthur over his shoulder – and he doesn't look particularly cheered.

"I think I was an idiot then," says Merlin evenly.

"Oh," says Arthur because he can't think of anything better. The sharp smell of the salve tickles his nostrils and he sheezes.

Merlin turns away once again lying down with his cheek on the pillow.

Arthur tries to take the smell off of his palms with soap and pumice tonight; it leaves his skin pink and raw and still stinking ever so strongly with the (fucking) (bloody) (useless just like him) salve.

Percival usually comes early, greets Arthur with a polite nod and goes straight to the bedroom to wake Merlin while Arthur has his scarce cup-of-hellishly-strong-coffee breakfast standing by the counter. This time, though, he stops for a second to cast a longing look at the small coffee machine.

"You want some?" Arthur asks because looks like this one are social cues he's learnt not to ignore.

"If it's not too much trouble," Arthur can swear that it's the longest sentence that Percival has ever uttered in his presence. "I slept in today, didn't have time for anything."

Arthur puts his mug down and flicks the switch – the coffee will be not so strong because Arthur's too lazy to put a new spoonful of grinded beans into the filter but it should be drinkable and better than the instant in any case.

They wait in companionable silence for the machine to start humming busily and pouring the hot brown liquid into a clean guest mug.

"Thank you," says Percival wrapping his hands around the mug which suddenly looks small. Perhaps a goblet like the ones from the Middle Ages would suit Percival better but Arthur and Merlin don't have one of those.

"You're welcome," Arthur mutters gazing out of the window at the bleak sky.

They have coffee together the next day and the day after that. And then Arthur catches himself checking out Percival's arse in tight jeans as he walks out of the kitchen and oh God Arthur thanks all heavens that Percival doesn't look back because if he did he'd find his employer glued to the floor, a bit flailing and gawking mindlessly like that goldfish that has never been bought.

He's half-hard imagining briefly what it'd be like to squeeze these taut spheres and how warm and simply human they'd be under his touch so he runs away not having finished his coffee. Well, he's already awake as much as he can be so there's no need to pump himself up with coffeine, is there?

At work he opens his blog and logs in. There are several private messages for him that all flash sympathetic and caring phrases at him as he scrolls the page down. He deletes them all without answering and types a new entry:

I am disgusting.

I betrayed him today and it felt so good.

He turns comments off once again. He thinks it really counts as betrayal even if it's not more of one than the thoughts he has about leaving or cheating or using Merlin as a sex doll.

And it actually felt good notwithstanding that Percival could or could not be completely straight. Just imagining that there could be something more than a peck on the cheek and holding hands. In fact Arthur doesn't need either of those he just needs to be fucked well and proper out of his wits.

Merlin used to do that for him after especially stressful days. He took a couple of Arthur's ties from the drawer and tied Arthur's wrists to the headboard and teased him for what felt like eternity and fucked him senseless until Arthur was a puddle of happy, sore and very infatuated jelly. Sometimes it was against the counter, sometimes on the couch, sometimes on the floor – and Arthur threw away the rug after the first time because they both were itchy for two days with rug burns. And more often than not they made it to bed where Arthur could make Merlin writhe and gasp and thrust as much as he liked.

Merlin used to love all of it without put-upon modesty or restraint. He laughed afterwards rubbing gently the traces from the ties on Arthur's wrists or new cloth burns or unexpected bruises and said he could do much better writing a postgrad in sex than in some vague foreign literature. Arthur agreed wholeheartedly but apparently the system of education in Britain possessed some major flaws which didn't allow the true talents of youth to be revealed.

Arthur sobs and shakes without tears and accepts the cup of tea that Morgana brings silently.

He can't help but wonder if she'd put a doze of laxative into this cup if she knew what he's decided to do.

In the end it's easier to accomplish than to nick a candy from a baby's hand. He calls his father to talk for a minute and a half and calls Percival to leave a message on his answerphone and gives Morgana a to do list and packs whatever personal items he keeps in the office into a plastic bag and makes several more phone calls to arrange and to confirm and to instruct and to order.

He feels strangely numb again, even number than that day which he spent looking at the door of the operating room and not thinking of what he'll do if Merlin doesn't make it. Funny, though, it never occurred to him then to ask nimself what he'll do if Merlin does make it essentially but still not quite.

He leaves work early, tail between his legs, fear and disgust and exhaustion lumpy in his chest and the plastic bag plus the briefcase in hand. A taxi is waiting to take him to the airport.

When the pretty stewardess demands that the mobiles are turned off, he complies. His finger is a millimetre away from the button when the whole phone shudders in his unpleasantly sweaty palm and Merlin's name and photo pop out on the screen.

Arthur looks at the photo for good thirty seconds memorizing Merlin's face with his tongue stuck out and his eyes shining with fondness and then turns the phone off to never turn it on again.

At least that's what he plans to do or, rather, not to do.

The plane takes off and Arthur doesn't know how it could do that with such burdensome excess baggage as his guilt. Modern machines are indeed so perfect that they resemble magic.

He sleeps through most of his journey and his dreams are dark and empty and dusty like old attics.

Arthur takes a sip of his Irish coffee as fresh sweat starts pooling in his armpits staining his crisp white shirt. The coffee isn't actually Irish it's just called so on the menu but it has some unidentifiable liquor in it and it's hot. Which is why the decision to order it when the heat outside is melting the pavement probably wasn't the wisest one in his life but what's done is done.

Nothing, as it is, stops Arthur from ordering something cold and preferably with chunks of ice-cream but this little stupid litany of his about what's done is done. As if him drinking the coffee he doesn't like will help him with something he tries not to think of.

"Excuse me, is this chair occupied?"

He looks up at a pretty girl he doesn't know – her hair is light brown like milk chocolate and her eyes are big and warm and sincere on her undeniably beautiful calm face.

"No," he says. "Sit here if you like, sure."

"Thanks." She sits down gracefully and sips at her capuccino.

Arthur looks at her one more time before staring down into his cup again hoping that it'll be the least bit interesting this time.

"I'm Mithian," she says and it sounds like a question.

"Arthur," he says. His head begins to ache. He'd never had a hint of headache before he came here, to California. It must be the heat; there's never a proper rain and it's always stuffy.

"Nice to meet you," she smiles but he can't smile back and just nods stiffly.

"Nice to meet you too. Are you waiting for anyone?"

"No. I just thought I could use a coffee – I had a tiresome morning. Are you waiting for someone, then?"

"Nope," he manages to flash a smile – one of those that he keeps in the business box in his head, that are meant to be blindingly charming while never reaching his eyes. "No one to wait for, I'm afraid. I'm just spending my lunch break here."

This is how it goes or, to be precise, how it should go. The proper and decent way of doing it. An accidental coffee in a coffeehouse decorated brightly like a Christmas tree, effortless small talk where one reads between the lines and never says things one thinks out loud, exchanging names and arranging the next meeting that will count as the first date. His father would be so proud. Mithian would look wonderful beside him, miniature and flawless like a porcelaine doll. And even without thinking that far ahead, just sex with her would be good. She looks like a girl who knows what she wants.

"You work nearby?"

"I do," Arthur admits. "I moved here from England a couple of days ago. What about you? Do you work somewhere in the neighbourhood?"

"No, not as such." She takes another sip. Arthur makes a point of watching her lips cover the rim of the cup but it's not so exciting a view as it could be if he met her about three years ago. "I just had the afternoon off and decided not to have lunch in the office canteen."

"This place seems good," lies Arthur. He doesn't like the overcrowded place with creaky furniture, he doesn't like the 24/7 heat, the American accent thick like gravy and annoyingly flippant, the sunglasses tan he gets already, the echoing quiet emptiness of his enormous flat, the way people smile all the fucking time without meaning it. In conclusion, after only two days he hates it here in California rather passionately.

He misses Merlin so much that he dives into his work non-stop just to avoid thinking of what he left behind because if he thinks he feels a gaping hole in his chest and he literally doesn't know what he should or can or must do this very minute as loneliness, self-loathing and unending desperation crash on him like a tsunami. For someone who, supposedly, has boldly cut the links to the past and moved on he's disappointingly devastated. It's ironic that now, when he fled England to be able to get laid whenever he wishes he doesn't get any. Not that nobody wants him – in fact, yesterday he thought of buying a fly swatter to defend himself from some of his new colleagues who thought his English accent cute and his arse perfectly peach-like. It's just that it's hard to be on the relationship market again, after almost three years of being with someone and being… well, happy. He's got all time in the world to adjust and start walking free again, right?

He doesn't think if Merlin – crippled and abandoned and most probably still forgiving – will ever be able to walk free after all this, in both the literal and the metaphorical sense.

Maybe not, he thinks before remembering that he doesn't think about it.

"Yeah," says Mithian and Arthur is sure that she doesn't like the place as well but agrees since he said so.

He thinks that maybe she decided to stay and drink her coffee here because she liked him and wanted to talk to him. This thought really shouldn't make him as umcomfortable and shifty as it does.

"I have… I had this partner," says Arthur. "I'm bi, so… Well, he was injured in an accident. Badly. Paralysed for life from the waist down. I took care of him for almost two months. Hired a good nurse, brought him anything he wanted, made sure he took his pills, etc, etc."

"Do you still take care of him?" asks Mithian. She seems genuinely interested though Arthur may be indulging in self-deceit here and she may be just wishing now to have never started a conversation with this sweaty weirdo.

"No. I left him. I couldn't be there for him when we… weren't a couple anymore. Do you think I did the right thing breaking up with him like that?"

"What did he say when he learnt that you were breaking up with him and why you were doing that?" asks Mithian softly. Her voice would be soothing if the topic of their conversation didn't make Arthur nauseous.

"I don't know," Arthur doesn't know why he tells her all that but once he began he can't stop as if all these things burning his guts from the inside are now rushing outside out of their own volition. "I didn't tell him that we were breaking up. I just never came back home from work. I couldn't say that to him, I was just too afraid of what he'd say."

Mithian frowns.

"Afraid?"

"He wouldn't be angry or something," expains Arthur. "He would understand. He'd let me go and be happy with someone else because he's a giant idiotic martyr like that and he would mean every word of encouragement. I couldn't face that, not yet anyway."

Mithian frowns deeper and says nothing.

"I left instructions for the nurse, for my PA and other people," adds Arthur in a futile attempt to find at least one tiny excuse for himself. "I left money in abundance. I just erased myself from his life, that's all."

It doesn't make what he did sound any less nauseating, though. That's what's written clearly across Mithian's fair face.

"Well," she says after a pause. "You broke up with him and moved to another country. Are you happy now with someone else?"

"No," says Arthur honestly. "I am as far from happy as I am from him." He doesn't mean it like that, he was just referring to the comparative vastness of the distance, but whatever he says these days seems to come out twisted and tangled so he is, firstly, misunderstood, secondly, never sure if he really didn't mean it that way. Things like that are tricky, he thinks.

Mithian looks at him with unabashed and sort of final pity like at a glass figurine which has fallen on the floor and broken into a million pieces.

However unlikely it seems after such an unconventional beginning, he and Mithian do exchange their phone numbers and have coffee together again the next day. It's better than sitting in the office and feeling that he's coming down with a cold because the air conditioning works too well and that he's being boiled in his own skin at the same time. He can't help but suspect that she pities him more than actually likes, but it doesn't matter since he doesn't talk about Merlin again and doesn't try to hit on her. There's plenty of other fish in the sea and he prefers to try and be friends with a woman who actually listened to his filthiest and most detestable secrets and bought him a doughnut after that. One with strawberry jam, for that.

His days pass quickly full of work and glimpses of Mithian and stern phone talks with his father. It's OK as he can only spare ten minutes for a shower and fall asleep in the evening. To be honest there's no practical need for him to work that much but he does knowing that exhaustion will bring him dreamless sleep of the coma type. Considering this, he almost panicks when on Friday evening his American PA, Leon, wishes him a nice weekend before leaving the office.

Arthur didn't take the weekends into consideration. They mean he won't be able to work and will have the whole day to himself. He doesn't want it and, after several minutes of struggling with himself, he calls Mithian.

"Hi," he says. "I know you're bound to have some plans already but would you like to spend some of this weekend with me?"

"And be a buffer between you and your consience, is that what you mean?"

"Are you a shrink or what?" Arthur tries for indignant but fails quite spectacularly.

"No, but I wanted to be one when I was at school," she laughs. "I even entered the uni intending to become a phychologist and I'd be one right now, hadn't I dropped the idea of education itself."

"Why did you do that?"

"Silly little things, us, women," draws Mithian in a singsong voice. "I fell in love and followed him where he went. He went as far as Africa and got eaten by a grumpy lion."

"You're kidding?"

"Only partially," she smiles judging by her intonations. "He hadn't got eaten though I wished for some time that he had. He slept with some African woman who didn't wear a bra and liked handsome European volonteers while I was sleeping in the next tent. That was it for me."

Arthur is at a loss as what to say apart from a very tactless notion that Mithian seems to live or at least have lived in an absurd romantic comedy like Bridget Jones or Love Actually.

"Anyway," Mithian has mercy for his inability to sympathize properly, "I don't mind being a buffer for a bit. Meet me tomorrow at noon at that godawful coffeehouse by your work, alright?"

She takes him to the ocean. It's huge and reflecting sunshine and strikingly blue (like Merlin's eyes when he tries to keep from laughing and the sparkling mirth in the eyes is the only thing giving him away) and it laps at Arthur's feet and shins when he and Mithian sit down on the beach having taken off their shoes and rolled up their jeans. Mithian has some apples and a bottle of cranberry juice and shares them with Arthur.

"You never answered my question," he says looking at a shiny apple but not feeling inclined to bite it.

"Which one?"

"Do you think I did the right thing breaking up with him like that?" repeats Arthur.

Mithian doesn't answer for an excruciating minute.

"Do you expect to see his face on the pillow beside you every time you wake up and then remember that it's never going to happen?" asks she all of a sudden, sounding so sad that Arthur looks away.

"Yes," he says hoarsely. His chest is clenching and unclenching, and there must be some obstruction in his throat that prevents breathing. "God, yes, I do."

"I don't get to decide whether or not you did the right thing with your life." Mithian offers him a disposable cup with the juice and he downs it in three greedy gulps. "But I can say that I'd give up everything I care about to be so loved."

He half-chuckles and half-sobs involuntarily at this.

"What kind of love is that if I left him because he'd got crippled and we couldn't fuck anymore?" snaps he.

"If it were that simple you wouldn't be attempting to throw a tantrum right now and crashing the poor apple like a barbarian," Mithian moves to lie back and covers her eyes from the sunrays with her hand. "You'd be planning on how to get into my pants, wouldn't you?"

"I don't give a shit about your pants." Arthur is miffed and confused and scared out of what's left of his mind. Very much so. The apple has five hollows now; they correspond to the shape of his fingers that are covered in sweet juice. "What happened to your promise to be a buffer?"

"I never promised," Mithian reminds him. "I said I didn't mind."

Arthur returns home early in the evening – Mithian, unlike him, has her own life and can't spend the whole day with him. He paces through his living-room for ten minutes trying to pay attention to whatever it is on TV right now, but when he understands that he doesn't know whether it's a news report or an action movie he puts on his shoes and goes to the nearest store.

He buys two bottles of whiskey, a pack of the strongest beer that there is, three bottles of cheap red wine and two small bags of salty fried peanuts. Back in the living-room he turns the TV volume up and makes it as far as the first bottle of whiskey and three peanuts when his thoughts start slowing down and blissful oblivion hugs him gently until the pain and loss shrink in size and become almost bearable. He sobs from relief digging his fingers into the thick carpet and falls asleep curled around the untouched beer.

He starts with the beer the next morning when he wakes up with a lingering memory of a dream in which he chased Merlin through a crowd at a Christmas party trying to trick him into standing under a mistletoe.

After the fourth can Arthur throws up but manages to forget that the dream chase turned out to be indeed successful.

On Monday Arthur is sure that sunglasses are a gift from heavens because the sun that was mildly irritating so far is pure torture for his eyes right now. His head is about to crack like a watermelon, and generally he feels like shit. He's never drunk so much at once in his life as he has this weekend, but it helped and he holds no grudge against his body which doesn't know to cope with it. However, this colossal hangover has its own unexpected bad side-effects: Leon, being a kind and considerate person, thinks that bosses after an evidently eventful and cheerful weekend need a bit of loyalty and sympathy to recover and clears his schedule before lunch and puts a strict minimum of paperwork on Arthur's desk together with water and aspirine. And Arthur, after the aspirine and two glasses of water, finds himself alone in his office with pretty much nothing to do. It's bad, it's positively disastrous. He thinks of calling Leon and demanding to be given something to do but his voice isn't quite there this morning and, besides, he's sure that in such a state he'll screw anything he tries doing.

He feels weak and lost and attempts to write something in his blog but no words come to his mind and he gives up. Instead he opens a new tab and goes to Facebook.

The art of Facebook stalking has never been interesting for him: he's hardly shy and unpopular and he can talk to whoever he wants without collecting information about them like a spy. This time he creates a fake account and visits dr du Lac's page.

Dr du Lac is going to marry some very happy-looking curly woman, and Merlin is among his friends as well as several other people whom Arthur knows. He looks at dr Gaius's page and laughs histerically until Leon peeps through the cautiously open door to make sure that everything's alright when he sees that Gaius has been dating for years Merlin's scientific advisor, professor Alice, a woman with soft dimples on her cheeks and a razor-sharp tongue.

Dr Nimueh doesn't have a Facebook page, it seems, but Freya Lake does and it's covered with kittens all over – the girl must have some unhealthy attachment to felines, Arthur thinks not quite finding it in himself to be sarcastic about unhealthy attachments. He checks Percival's page to find that Percival has bought a motorbike recently and went out yesterday for a pizza with his girlfriend and some friends. Arthur clicks to see the photo of them all in the pizzahouse and there, in the right upper corner, between Percival and some smug raggedy-looking stranger, just there is Merlin.

Arthur stares at the photo feeling something swell in his eyes and his heart miss several beats. Merlin looks thinner and smaller, perhaps because he's beside Percival, but he smiles at the camera and the smug stranger has his arm over Merlin's shoulders. He wears his favourite faded T-shirt with a picture of a creepy smiling mushroom which Arthur's never liked and the metal arm of the wheelchair reflects the lamplight and looks blinding white.

He revels in Merlin's smile, in his cheekbones, in his eyes crinkled with sincere laughter, in the slight bend of his head that means Merlin's feeling flustered; he drinks the sight of them like he drank water fifteen minutes ago. His hand is trembling when he stretches it to touch Merlin's cheek on the screen. The liquid crystals are warm and send small ripples around his fingertip under pressure; Merlin's face is blurring a bit and Arthur lets his hand drop on the table.

He meets Mithian for lunch as usually. She stirs her coffee though she doesn't put any sugar in it and looks thoughtful.

"What are you thinking of?" Arthur asks. He doesn't like silence because it makes him think of what he'd like to forget.

"What is he like?" Mithian looks at him serious, her lips in a thin line.

"Who?"

"Your ex-partner. What does he look like? Is he a nice person? He seems to be one from what you told me."

"Why do you ask?" Arthur feels nauseous and it has absolutely nothing to do with all the alcohol he consumed.

"I want to know."

"What if I don't want to talk about it?"

"If you don't, then it's fine to change the subject. But you do."

She's right though Arthur is not going to admit it explicitly. He swallows and pushes his plate with a piece of fruit cake aside.

"He's got blue eyes," Arthur says. It's as good a detail to start with as any. "He's tall, taller then me, and he's thin as a stick though he eats all kinds of junk food and never does any sport. He likes Pink Floyd and The Big Bang Theory, he hates washing up and will do anything you ask for a chocolate sundae. His hair is black, that true raven black that you see on the packs with haircolour. His cheekbones are prominent and sharp almost enough to cut paper, and his hands look like they belong to a pianist but classical music makes him fall asleep – if it's not Grig, God knows why. His mother wanted him to be a doctor but he went for literature and even learnt Spanish to read his Borges and Jiménez in the original. I quit smoking because of him – he's allergic to tobacco and I didn't like him sneezing every time he kissed me. His smile can overturn mountains and make rivers flow back 'cause it's just radiant like a fucking nuclear station."

Arthur's tongue is dry and he stops to sip at his coffee.

"I love him," he says quietly but his voice goes traitorously high-pitched at the last word. "I love him, Mithian, I'd give up my own healthy spine if they could transplant such parts of body from one person to another. I'm a shitty piece of nothing without him but I can't be myself with him either."

He feels drained, empty like a tap when the water's off in the whole street and there's only deafeningly screeching air inside the pipes. He thinks that Mithian is being deliberately cruel to him but he doesn't really mind. Not now after he spent his morning looking at all Merlin's photos that are there on Facebook.

"Ah, Arthur," Mithian sighs.

She doesn't offer him comfort. He doesn't ask for it.

Later on the day he locks his office from the inside to avoid Leon or somebody else's intrusion and calls Merlin. He remembers the number by heart because that first morning Merlin left it written on a post-it on the fridge and Arthur looked at it every time he entered the kitchen and he sort of never took it off. He calms himself with a reasonable thought that Merlin won't recognize him – he has a new number now, he won't say anything. There's nothing wrong with it. Maybe it will even help him truly leave Merlin behind once he hears him for real, not in a dream.

Merlin picks up after four signals.

"Hello," he says. Arthur closes his eyes feeling that the tired and low sound of Merlin's voice is absorbed by his skin, his ear, his very essence. It touches something pathetic and small inside Arthur and makes it shiver in completely ecstatic masochistic joy. "Hello?" he repeats, more loudly.

Arthur hears voices in the background – it's Percival and Freya so maybe they're in the hospital. But there's also a song playing and someone Arthur doesn't know is laughing so maybe it's not the hospital. It doesn't really matter.

"Hello!" Merlin insists. "Hey, I can't hear you an' I'm going to hang up now, will you call me back?" He stops with the last word not quite off his lips and Arthur hears the rhythm of Merlin's breathing change, go faster and ragged as if he's been running for miles. "Arthur?" Merlin whispers softly and hurriedly. "Arthur, is that you?"

Merlin's voice is broken now as if the thought of Arthur makes a switch flick and Merlin becomes something like what Arthur is now and not that shy and adorable guy in the pizzahouse surrounded by his friends.

Arthur makes a strangled "Yes" die somewhere on the way from his throat to his lips and hangs up as quickly as he can. He waits and waits mortified but Merlin never calls back probably thinking that he's got it wrong and it wasn't Arthur at all.

Arthur finds out that very night that he can't sleep. He lies in his big but undoubtedly empty and cold bed, his thoughts rushing to and fro, feverish, his fingers troubling the cloth of the sheets. He replays the few words heard today from Merlin in his mind time after time like a broken tape-recorder and he misses Merlin so dead-fucking much like he'd miss a limb but so much more and he turns and tosses and squirms endlessly haunted by those casual "hello"s and that croaky, hopeful and hopeless "Arthur, is that you?" Yes, he thinks, yes, that's me, and he hunches up in the middle of the mattress with a can of beer still left from the weekend and drinks it choking and spluttering on his brand-new duvet.

Beer helps him sleep, and he starts drinking it every night. Sometimes it's wine, sometimes something else. Arthur doesn't really care about the taste, all he's looking for is a wave of steady heat hitting from his stomach to every cell of his body and thick tasteless fog in his head shortly afterwards.

"You look like shit," Mithian says on Thursday meaning it, and Leon keeps giving him concerned looks.

Meanwhile, Arthur feels a little bit better. Alcohol never leaves his system fully, it just doesn't have time before a new doze arrives, and Arthur's pain is numbed thoroughly and he can think. Well, anyway it's better than before – without the alcohol but with Merlin constantly on his mind like a great voluminous cross on the rest of Arthur's life. Maybe he's finally moving on?

He works passionately and fiercely. His job is creative indeed: Uther Pendragon's empire doesn't specialize in anything in particular, its main strategy is to buy dying companies whatever they do or make – from flowers delivery to steam-motivated diamond drills – and either rebuild and control them or rebuild and sell at a considerably higher price. The trick is to find a company that's easy to buy and easy to rebuild and not to invest into real dead ends. Uther is sometimes not above making a CEO or two believe that their company is falling apart while it in fact isn't. Arthur usually resents this policy – it looks dishonest to the extreme degree though he never says that in front of his father – but suddenly he finds it to be incredible fun.

He spends his mornings bribing and flirting and hinting; he spends his afternoons persuading and arguing and signing. On Wednesday he makes it up to six good-looking small companies in one day swallowed whole by his ever unsatisfied business outbreak and celebrates it with sake which is too sweet, and foul when warm. He doesn't call Merlin again though he wants, for some reason – maybe to tell him that Arthur's getting free, at last, but it's not good to gloat about such things, is it. He tells Mithian:

"I think I've moved on, I'm quite alright now."

If the word "alright" laced with memory of Merlin saying it so often during those last two months boils and burns on his tongue like Greek fire, she doesn't have to know. She can't know but she doesn't believe him either way and tells him to stop it.

He doesn't listen to her.

It's Friday night again and Arthur is alone with only four bottles of whiskey to guide him through the weekend for company. He expects it to go smoothly but this time it's all wrong.

Instead of hot calmness there's whirling anxiety coming up from the pit of his stomach. He loiters around his flat – apartment, they say, aparrrrtment, idiots them – and waits for the quiet oblivion to come but it's definitely late. Arthur feels nervous as if waiting on the first date and this allusion makes him giddy with laughter, it's just so hilarious and he can't stop giggling and chuckling and catching breath between the hiccups of excitement until he crashes into the corner of his coffee table and falls down on the floor.

It hurts and Arthur thinks that maybe he's broken his pinky finger and he'll have to wear plaster on it for weeks and it's just so unfair, he needs all five fingers intact, he has to stretch Merlin's small arse properly until it's all open and slick for him and Merlin is begging to get the fuck on with it and take him, so pliant and obedient at times like this. And then he remembers that there's no sunny-smile goofy-grin cheeky-smirk Merlin for him anymore and there's no one at all but coldness and total vacuum-ical lack of touch and it feels like there's no one in the universe left alive and warm and soft and safe because he hasn't touched anyone for so long and couldn't make sure that life still exists.

He scrabbles to stand on his feet grabbing the very same corner of the table that sent him to the floor in the first place, little devious shit. Something wild and uncontrollable rears its ugly head inside him and Arthur supposes it means he's gonna throw up – well, it happened to him before, and he's learnt to do it where there isn't a carpet so that he won't have to clean more. But he doesn't throw up, he just feels his guilt and pain and confusion and the overwhelming gut-wrenching need to beg for Merlin's forgiveness right here and now rise up and clutch at him and bite big bleeding chunks of his flesh out and wrap him in cold sweat and blazing fire until he's drowned in them unable to think or see or scream or breathe ever again.

He inhales next time when the window of his living-room suddenly appears shattered into pieces and his hand is red all over when he tries to press it to his chest to make the air go to the lungs where it belongs. He fumbles for the mobile in his pocket, desperate when the tiny sleek gadget slips through his trembling fingers, praying to all gods he knows from history lessons at school that he fishes it out alright and pushes the right buttons.

Some god does appear not to be very busy on Friday night just like Arthur, and the latter hears signals in his ear. The air seems to escape him and he reaches out through the window to catch it by its evasive windy tail and drag back and he even climbs up the windowsill to be able to do it better. The heat in the street of only an hour earlier has at some point turned into bone-chilling coolness and there are dark clouds covering the sky, and Arthur guesses there's gonna be a thunderstorm. He doesn't care as long as the mobile connection holds through all the lightnings and thunders.

Merlin picks up.

"Hello?" he sounds careful as if recognizing that mysterious number of some idiot who called only to stay silent.

At the sound of his voice Arthur's whole body trembles with painful delight and he almost loses his footing on the slippery windowsill.

"Merlin," he says in a singsong voice like Mithian sometimes does. Only she doesn't say "Merlin," she doesn't know this name, Arthur kept it secret. "Meeeeerlin," he draws just for the sake of it because this name is curling and purring on his tongue and doesn't wish to let go.

"Arthur?" Merlin is shaken and he speaks in that kind of choked falsetto only when he's hit in the stomach – with a football or something. Arthur wants to ask who was so stupid as to have hit Merlin, his Merlin, but this can wait. There was some more pressing matter at hand.

He wanted to tell Merlin something. If only he could remember clearly what it was.

A lightning bolts into the ocean far away from Arthur, and the thunder growls over him displeased at his shabby memory.

"Merlin," he says again because it seems the right thing to say. "Merlin. Merlin."

"Arthur, that's really you," Merlin says, and Arthur doesn't know what it is in Merlin's voice: hatred? Resentment? Joy? Disgust? Tired indifference? The word "joy" looks really out of place amongst all the other big scary words but Arthur leaves it there for moral support. "It was you then, on Monday."

"Yes," he says, he knows this phrase by heart, "yes, that's me Merlin."

Merlin doesn't say anything and Arthur tries jerkily to remember what he wanted to say. It was something important, very important.

"Did you want to say something to me?" Merlin asks after a way too long pause. "Why are you calling?"

"Yes, I did, I do," he says again and squawks indignantly at his own incoherence.

"Arthur are you drunk?" there's a frown in Merlin's voice. It should never be there, there must always be a smile.

"I think," Arthur says, and speaking is so hard, it's as if his mouth is made of stone and clunking metal, "I'm going to die."

"What do you mean?" the frown gets deeper and Arthur kicks the window frame in frustration because it all goes wrong once again and he still doesn't remember what was so vital that he called Merlin right away eager to say that.

He slips this time and falls back into the room heavily like a sack of potatoes. Or the woolsack, the one from the Parliament, the wool must have become like rocks or at least potatoes over the years.

The mobile flies out of his hand and falls on the floor some three metres away but it's working – Arthur can hear Merlin calling him. He tries to reach the phone and say that he's fine but he only crashes into the coffee table once again and it breaks into thick shards without any warning.

The last thing he hears before the world goes black is Merlin's voice calling his name. It's nice. Very nice indeed.

If Arthur's life was a fairytale he'd wake up to Merlin by his side, sad and resigned and thoroughly annoyed but ready to forgive, hold Arthur's hand and kiss his scull-cracking headache away. Instead he opens his eyes to see white hospital ceiling and Mithian standing by the window with her back to him speaking on the phone. His hearing is kind of buzzy and fuzzy as well as his sight but he can't really do anything in order not to eavesdrop.

"Yeah, I know," says Mithian. Her voice is quiet and sympathetic. "I told him that much. No, not really, I met him a couple of weeks ago after he'd just moved here. What do you think? He was a wreck Merlin. He still is. No, I don't know what that meant but I think next time he won't be that lucky. He was right actully, he could die."

Arthur stops paying attention as soon as the name makes its way into the moor of pain that is his head and he understands who she's talking to. It's his own phone she's holding.

Mithian chuckles softly while Arthur tries to move his numb-stuck lips and demand that she give the phone and Merlin's voice inside back to him where they belong.

He recalls all of a sudden that they actually don't, not anymore, and it stings.

"According to the doctors he was highly intoxicated. In fact he could die of that alone, it was just too much. Then his coffee table fell in shards right onto him and they say he's incredibly lucky. One shard falls half an inch to the left, he loses an eye, another shard falls just a little bit harder, and his jugular is cut open, that kind of a loser what-if luck. What? Well, he's gonna be covered in quite a considerable number of scars for everyone to see for the rest of his life but otherwise he's gonna be fine. His blood's been cleaned twice."

Mithian stops talking and Arthur tries hard to make out the words from that static noise that Merlin's voice seems to be now and he can't.

"I know," she says. "I'll tell him, alright. Are you sure you don't want to talk to him yourself? He's gonna be awake soon."

I am awake you stupid woman, Arthur wants to say but he feels a plastic tube in his mouth and throat and whatever it is there for it prevents him from speaking quite effectively.

Mithian says some falsely-cheery goodbyes and snaps the phone shut and Merlin is so far away now not wanting to talk to Arthur ever again. It's only fair taking everything into consideration but Arthur's heart is hot and heavy in his throat, right by the damn tube, and his eyes are wet and burning just like his whole face is burning miserably with shame.

She turns to him and sits down on the chair near the bed. She looks like she didn't get much sleep today and her hair, usually immaculate, is sticking out from a loose ponytail in three different directions.

"I'd advise you to do some thinking while you're sober and have nothing else to do," she says. "I'm still not inclined to tell you what you should do with your life but what you've been doing with it lately is likely to cut it short in the nearest future. I'd rather not see it happen even if you're the biggest jerk in California and your ex-partner says he doesn't care and doesn't want to talk to you sounding like he's gonna spend the rest of his day crying after he hangs up. I hope you can find the strength to take your head out of your ass for once and look around."

It's not a conventional speech one expects to hear from an-almost-friend when just awake in a hospital after a near-death experience but Arthur doesn't expect Mithian to be conventional he only wants her to be honest and that she always is.

"You want something?" asks she, clearly finished with the vital stuff. "Food, water, morphine?"

Arthur wants water and morphine and preferably together and at once but he doesn't feel like he deserves any of it. He'll survive without it anyway, that much is clear. He shakes his head and regrets the movement immediately as his head and neck give him absolutely new notions of hurting and weakness and nausea.

She leaves him alone with a promise to be back tomorrow. He follows her going with his eyes and turning his eyeballs even in the slightest hurts as well. There's really not much to do apart from lying down and thinking but Arthur doesn't perform the latter as he falls asleep at some moment.

He's been dozing off and on during the night and the morning is unusually gray for California so he spends about half an hour figuring out if it's still a dull morphine-induced dream or not. He thinks of Merlin then, about his trembling high-pitched voice and the hurt frown he heard that Friday night. He remembers now what he wanted to say – and one doesn't have to be a genius to guess what it was (is) but the whiskey must have shut his brain activity down as it is.

He wouldn't call otherwise. He's too scared to hear what Merlin might have to say to him.

He closes his eyes and reaches for the nightstand to take the phone.

There are about seven missed calls from Merlin. He must have hung up then to try to find some sort of help for Arthur from Britain and called back again while Arthur was unconscious. Arthur strokes the small buttons with letters and numbers on them with his fingertips; they feel warm and smooth like they always do but the sensation doesn't help Arthur calm down.

He pushes the call button and puts the phone to his ear as his resolve is crumbling with every second.

"Hello Arthur," says Merlin.

He might have really been crying for all that Arthur understands in his intonations. And he, Arthur, is the reason for it.

"I'm sorry," says Arthur to deal with it first, before he acts like a coward again and abandons the stilted conversation.

"What for?"

That is a question Arthur doesn't know how to answer.

"For leaving you," he says confused. "For being a jerk and a piece of shit and a selfish coward. Well… something like that."

"Oh," Merlin says weakly. "But it's alright."

This fucking word again, Arthur thinks.

"Alright?" he repeats.

"It's alright Arthur," now Merlin really sounds resigned but it's not a good resigned, it's the bad one, the bitter one. "The only thing I blame you for is not telling me that you're leaving. It's my legs that are paralysed, not my brain. I understand that you felt trapped and… and disgusted and not loving me anymore and all kinds of things you thought you shouldn't've felt. But it's alright. I'm a cripple, there's hardly a single person in the world who wants to spend the rest of their life tending to me – well, apart from my mother, that is, but she's my mother so that sort of doesn't count here. I just wish you'd told me before you went to the USA and befriended a nice woman, not two weeks after, when I've already figured all that out on my own."

Arthur listens to that with his eyes wide and his mouth opened idiotically.

Why, why does everything he does or says come out in such a roundabout perverted way that he has always to explain that no he didn't mean it like that? Arthur struggles with the urge to laugh as it's hardly the time to look for the funny side of the situation.

"Merlin, I…" he starts.

"Listen Arthur," Merlin interrupts him. "For what it's still worth to you, I accept your apology. But please don't call me anymore. This breakup was not of the 'let's stay friends' type, don't you think? It's… hard for me to hear you. I hope you will be happy without me."

"But Merlin, that's the point, I can't, just can't, there no fucking way for me to be happy without you!" shouts Arthur as if being loud makes his words clearer but he's too late because Merlin hangs up as soon as he says all he's wanted to say and while it was not in its form as terrible as Arthur imagined it's far, far more terrifying in its finality, solidity and openness.

He calls Merlin back immediately, time after time, but Merlin's phone is off.

Arthur goes to work on Monday, still weak as a kitten but certainly refreshed in comparison with the last week. Leon looks a bit worried about him especially with those bright scars all over his cheek, neck and forehead, and Arthur asks for a cup of tea and half an hour of solitude.

The American tea is awful – well, not really, but it's not what Arthur's used to so he drinks it like medicine because it's fresh and helps him deal with his thirst and smells fine. He sips at it while it's still hot and goes to book a ticket online.

He has made a grave mistake and he's determined to make up for it. He doesn't know how yet but he knows that he must get back to England as soon as he can – not that something bad is going to happen as all the worst things seem to have already happened to both him and Merlin but he has no reason to delay what he should have done long ago.

He doesn't snatch a single company today. In fact, he could but he can't be bothered, not really. He has a flight to catch this evening. When Leon leaves at six Arthur wishes him all the best and tells that he leaves and most probably forever.

"Take care," says Leon.

He looks so young, unharmed and unmarked by what he has experienced in his life and Arthur thinks if he should also wish him to stay that way. But in the end he just says goodbye and spends ten more minutes at work to rub some soothing cream into his scars – they grow dry and itchy in the evening and they still hurt quite a lot. Then he goes to his empty flat with only three untouched whiskey bottles in the corner of the living-room and packs some things distractedly.

He will see Merlin soon. And he will do his best to explain.

The flight to England goes fine, and it's early morning when Arthur is standing outside his and Merlin's flat – only Merlin's now – and willing himself to knock. He has no luggage with him, he left it at the airport in the left-luggage room and he stands now only in his work suit rumpled and creased from the flight, eyes red-rimmed from the lack of sleep and with some pretty enormous butterflies in his stomach. That feeling of fluttering is nauseating.

Arthur lifts his hand and knocks on the door.

It's late enough already for Percival to have come to take care of Merlin so when the man opens the door Arthur is not surprised.

"Good morning," he says. "I'd like to come in."

"I don't think there's any need for that," answers Percival.

Arthur looks him in the eye confused.

"Merlin is still asleep. And I know he doesn't wish to see you."

"I need to talk to him. It's important."

"You've already said all you had to when you left him," Percival says stern and disapproving.

"Look, just let me in, OK? Merlin will decide for himself if he wants anything to do with me."

Percival shakes his head and Arthur bites down the urge to laugh histerically because it's just so ridiculous.

"I can fire you right away," he reminds. "I'm the one paying you to take care of nim."

"Do it then," Percival doesn't waver. "I came to think of myself as his friend more then as hired help. I'm still not going to let you disturb him."

There's not much Arthur can do against a protective Percival – Arthur's fit but he's weak right now from what happened over the weekend and anyway Percival is stronger than Arthur at his best so making it inside by force is out of the question. And he doesn't seem to be succeeding in persuading him either.

Arthur swallows and tries again.

"I want to say sorry. I want to explain that I was afraid and stupid but I'm not anymore."

It feels uncomfortable to peel all shields and defences off his heart in front of almost a perfect stranger but if that's what Arthur has to endure to get to Merlin he will do it.

"Don't you think you're too late to apologize? And I know you told him you were sorry over the phone so there's hardly a need to be repeating yourself."

How bloody talkative you are when I don't need it, Arthur thinks. The thought of Merlin sharing his conversations with Arthur with Percival is a tad bitter. Maybe Merlin told Freya as well and someone else. Maybe while Arthur was busy trying to drown himself in his guilt Merlin has actually moved on.

What if Merlin doesn't need him anymore?

The idea chills Arthur to the bone despite bright morning sunshine unusual in London. He acted all the way like he was the one to decide where their relationship would go and if it had a right to exist but it takes two people for having one. Merlin always did what he wanted despite Arthur's opinion and partly it was why Arthur fell in love with him in the beginning. What if he does not feel anything for Arthur now except contempt and disappointment?

Arthur doesn't know what to do with this idea. If it is so than he's to be chucked out of Merlin's life once again and now it will be for ever.

"Please," he begs, anxiety and fear like a knife in his guts. "Let me see him. Just for five minutes. I have to. I need to."

"Excuse me," says Percival, "I've got to prepare Merlin a breakfast and call the hospital for the new therapy schedule."

And with that he shuts the door into Arthur's face. Arthur hears the lock clicking.

He closes his eyes feeling his scars twitch and start to hurt all over again.

There's an urge to drink and Arthur's fighting it. He knows that a few cans of beer will bring him temporary oblivion and relaxation but he also knows that it's not the decision of his problems so all he does is rubbing some more cream into the scars.

He retrieves his luggage from the airport and checks in at a hotel which is one of the nearest to Merlin's flat. He concentrates on putting on some more or less decent-looking clothes and goes to some cheap café nearby to have his late breakfast.

His coffee is too hot and definitely tasteless; he methodically chews greasy chips with gravy which seems to consist mostly of pepper and then some more pepper. The grease stains his fingers and – luckily – coats his tongue lavishly so that all the pepper doesn't burn a hole through it. Arthur eats and makes up in his mind an explanatory speech that he knows he owes Merlin and maybe his friends as well; he tries to find words that are most clear, precise and short. He isn't sure he'll be able to gain their attention for more than half a minute before they start throwing accusations and listening only to themselves. Well, Merlin wouldn't be like that but he's gotta find a way to talk to him directly first.

The café gathers more and more people – clerks and managers coming to have their brunch cheap and quick and those who just want a hot coffee to hold while walking along windy London streets. Arthur watches them without really paying attention and he startles and almost overturns his saucer with gravy when someone touches his shoulder. He looks back and recognizes probably the last person he wants to see right now: Hunith, Merlin's mother.

"Good morning," he says because it's always the right thing to be polite to your (ex-)boyfriend's mum.

"Morning Arthur," she looks at him cautiously as if expecting him to turn into some sort of debauching scoundrel right here and now. "It's you then. I wasn't sure but I thought I'd go and see."

She doesn't add anything and Arthur stands up nervous.

"Would you like to sit down?" he offers moving out a plastic chair for her. "I can get you a coffee or a tea or anything else you want."

She watches him fuss and fret and blush painfully as if she estimates him this very moment. It seems to him he's failing this enigmatic exam and he asks her looking down at the worn and time-polished surface of the table: "Please."

This word serves as a magic password to whatever's going on in her head and she sits down putting her bag by her chair.

"A cup of tea with milk would be nice," she says. "And I actually wanted to buy a few of caramel doughnuts that they bake here for Merlin so you could order some as well."

"Caramel? But he likes strawberry jam best," Arthur says before thinking that it's hardly the place, time and company to start such arguments and shutting his big mouth.

Hunith sighs.

"Strawberry jam it is then," she says looking very tired. "I suppose now you know such things better then I do, it was you who lived with him for the last three years."

Arthur escapes – well, retreats – to tell the sleepy-looking cashier what he wants to order and comes back with steaming tea and four doughnuts in a small paper bag; three of them are with strawberry jam, one is with caramel just in case Arthur's wrong as he's been wrong so much recently that he isn't sure Merlin hasn't for some reason changed his tastes drastically.

"Percival has told me you came this morning," Hunith stirs her tea which is completely devoid of sugar just like Mithian does with her coffee when she's thinking hard about something. "He said you wanted to talk to my son."

"I still do," confesses Arthur. "Want to talk to him, that is. I… want to apologize. I really want to be with him again – in case he'd still like to have me around."

Hunith hums a few tacts of some undefinable melody and takes a sip of her tea which is still scalding hot. Arthur breaks a chip in his fingers in two not feeling hungry anymore.

"Why did you leave him, Arthur?" she asks, and oops, Arthur realizes that he's going to burst of embarassement and shame and cover all the walls in the café with his blood and flesh if he's telling Hunith about how much he missed sex with Merlin.

"It's… complicated," he says sounding like someone is strangling him. His scars feel like they are on fire from all the blood that rushed to his face. "But it's not what he thinks it is at all."

"I really want to know Arthur," says she softly like he wasn't the one who betrayed and hurt her son and was part of the reason for him being crippled in the first place. Like she still sees something in him which Percival didn't see this morning, something worth forgiving and loving.

He inhales deeply. He can't let Merlin in his life down again, not now. And he can't let Hunith believe that such essentially insignificant thing as Merlin's inability to walk or play football (he never played anyway so it wasn't that much of a loss, was it) could make him flee to another country.

"Well," he says and she listens intently. "It wasn't that he got paralysed. I didn't mind taking care of him – I even liked it as it was, because he never let me take care of him before like a four-year-old who insists on doing everything by themselves. I wasn't… disgusted by helping him do anything he needed. He's wrong to think so. There was just this thing."

"What thing?"

Arthur screws his eyes shut and dives right into. That's his habitual way of dealing with things that are unpleasant, dangerous, humiliating etc but have to be done. Closing eyes is not obligatory but the second part is.

"We couldn't have sex anymore. His paralysis is from the waist down so he just wasn't interested in it anymore. Moreover, he wouldn't even touch unless it was necessary, he wouldn't hold my hand unless he wanted to express some special gratitude or something, he'd never cuddle at night. I was so used to just feeling him nearby all the time one way or the other that it was like I was missing a limb or two myself. He grew so cold," Arthur risks opening his eyes. Hunith's face is calm and she listens. That's a charity not everyone can afford while talking to him these days so he goes on. "Our relationship was cold. Like, physically cold. I wanted to touch him so much and I knew he didn't care for that anymore. So I ran away to try and find some warmth outside of what I felt – still feel – for him."

"Have you found any?" Hunith asks.

Arthur chuckles bitterly and touches the scar on his cheekbone, right under his eye. Hunith glances at the scar but doesn't ask how he's got it.

"No. No, I haven't. There is no outside. That's only ever been him, Hunith. Even if he hates me now, and he has every right for that…"

Arthur stares into his coffee that's gone cold long ago and doesn't know how to finish the sentence because he doesn't know what'll happen if Merlin doesn't accept him. There's a pit of unknown stretching beyond rejection and it has no definite shapes or sounds or smells or feelings inside it and Arthur does his best to kick it out of his mind 'cause it's unbearable.

"He doesn't," Hunith's voice is gentle and if she were as straightforward as Mithian she'd let out some pity, Arthur is sure of that. "If he did, he'd be fine with you gone but he is not."

"Does he still love me?" it's not a thing that a mother is supposed to know about her child – or, for that matter, any given person is supposed to know about another one – but Arthur's catching straws here before he can confront Merlin himself.

"I think he does," Hunith says. "And right now it cripples him worse than the paralysis."

"I think I can imagine what that feels like," says Arthur, and Hunith nods, her eyes distant and dazed in some memory that most probably has nothing to do with Arthur or Merlin or their misfortunate relationship.

Hunith and Arthur exchange phone numbers as they leave the café – she promises to text or ring as soon there will be a good enough opportunity for him to see Merlin alone. Right now, she says, he's at the hospital with Percival and then he is going to visit his scientific advisor and then maybe they'll fetch Hunith and some more people whose names Arthur didn't know to go to Freya's place to watch some silly modern comedy or other. Merlin's going to be surrounded by a living shield of fiercely protective and actively Arthur-resistant friends the whole day but maybe in the evening there will be a chance when there'll be only Merlin and Hunith at the flat which Arthur has once thought of as his home too.

Arthur spends his day avoiding his father's calls – one more person whom Arthur didn't care to forewarn about fleeing to another country, that habit of his has really already become somewhat disturbing – and rubbing the cream into the scars which are incredibly itchy today and eating lunch in the early afternoon and walking around the hospital, the university and the house hoping to catch a glimpse of Merlin and waiting, waiting, waiting. He looks at his phone every minute and a half – he knows because every time he checks the time and if Hunith has called or texted and he just hasn't heard. Maybe she's forgotten, he thinks. Maybe she told Merlin about meeting him in the café and Merlin proved to her that he didn't love Arthur anymore and she didn't know how to tell him to go away and never come back on her son's behalf. Maybe damn Percival just wouldn't leave Merlin alone tonight suspecting that Arthur might come again and disturb Merlin (which is pretty much what Arthur is going to do so who could blame the man). Maybe Hunith's phone broke or she's run out of money or something. He can't help but invent new and new reasons for not having been summoned yet and they drive him mad slowly but surely.

He tries to distract himself with some shopping – buying something for Merlin, something that would catch his eye and make him smile, but he can't think of a single thing now when he doesn't know whether Merlin's going to tolerate him anymore. If Merlin were a girl Arthur'd go for some flowers but Merlin loves dusty books and waffles with syrup much better and buying a book is risky – what if he has it already, what if he doesn't like it – and coming for a serious talk with a plate of waffles in hand seems a bit stupid.

If it turns out for the best Arthur'll be able to bake them himself, after all, he learnt how to after Merlin got paralysed.

Merlin's paralysis feels like a part of him now, a natural one like the blue colour of his eyes ans the softness of his lips. And even when Arthur imagines that the best variant is to spend the rest of his life with Merlin never getting either any sex or even an affectionate hug in the morning it still looks… well, alright to him. At least he'd get to hear and see Merlin and while Arthur always thought he was a kinesthetic, thus favouring his tactile part over all others, these things proved to be awfully important as well.

It's thirteen past seven when Hunith sends him a text and Arthur runs feeling a bit dangly and clumsy with the anxiety and uncertainty flooding him all over. He makes it to the door of the flat quite intact though which is good 'cause it's not like he's in dire need of several more scars or something. He knocks and there's Freya on the doorstep.

Damn.

"You?" she exhales sharply recognizing Arthur after two full seconds of trying to match this scarred exhausted face with what she remembers of him. "Why are you here?"

Arthur tries to answer but Freya doesn't pause to listen to him.

"Have you come to mess with his head, you shithead?" she hisses and her eyes are furious slits now and she looks like one of those cats from her Facebook when it's really angry and frightened and ready to claw its attacker's eyes out. It's so unlike her to swear that Arthur first blinks in astonishment and only then manages to shake his head relaying the message of "that's not what I've come to do at all, actually".

"Let me in," he asks quietly.

Freya looks like she's going to let him in only over her dead body but Arthur's lucky and there will be no killing mad interns tonight: Hunith appears in the hall behind Freya and touches her shoulder.

"Let him in, please," she says and Freya steps aside looking deeply wounded and betrayed.

Arthur lets out the breath he didn't quite realize he was holding and rushes past both of them casting a grateful look at Hunith.

The flat is pretty much like Arthur remembers. Strangely enough, his DVDs and books are still on the shelf and his tie that he forgot to put back a fortnight ago choosing what to wear to work is still on the handle of the wardrobe. It looks like he never left and Arthur can't draw anything sane and logical out of it, not yet.

Merlin is in the bedroom, lying over the blankets and looking at the screen of his laptop. There's a cup of tea on the nightstand and it's been Arthur's cup back when he still had a right to be here. Merlin bought him that cup, huge and depicting a fussy cartoonish knight brandishing his sword in front of an obviously bored dragon.

When Merlin looks up to see who's here it looks like his blood turns snowhite at once – he becomes so unnaturally pale in several moments flat and his eyes are wide and unmoving as he stares at Arthur, positively petrified and shocked to his very core.

"Hi," says Arthur lamely. There's something swelling and rising and burning in every part of him – his throat, his chest, his eyes, all over under his skin. And his knees are so weak they can actually buckle any second now. This is all very strange but it somehow feels right.

"H-hi," says Merlin.

Diving right into it, Arthur reminds himself. Though this time he isn't going to close his eyes.

"I'm here to say sorry. And to explain that I don't care that you are paralysed and I never did and there were… other reasons for me to leave. And," Arthur hurries to say that before Merlin comes to his senses and throws something heavy at him because Merlin can do just that when he's honestly pissed off, "to say that I love you. And I want to be with you if you still need me."

He bites his bottom lip nervously and watches Merlin become a bit less deadly pale and think for awhile that feels like ages.

"Arthur," Merlin frowns looking at Arthur as intenly as Hunith did in the morning. "Are you drunk again?"

Well, the answer proved to be not so encouraging. But then again Merlin is actually talking to him and Arthur's not the one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"I'm completely sober," Arthur insists. "I... I just can't live without you."

"It looks to me like you've made quite an effort to succeed in this," says Merlin and Arthur hears hurting and anger and unMerlinlike sneery mocking in his voice.

Arthur flinches but doesn't step back.

"I was an idiot then," he repeats what Merlin said to him back then not knowing if Merlin recognizes it but even if he does there's no sign of it. "I wanted to touch you so much but you didn't like it anymore. It felt… too lonely."

"You do realize that nothing's changed yeah?" Merlin asks holding his laptop closer to his chest like a shield. "That I'm still unfit for sex – if that was the real reason for you to have discarded me like a banana skin – and I will never be. I'm a cripple. Life with me is unpleasant, full of hard work and lacks the reward you'd like to get, like, completely and absolutely. And whatever delusions brought you back now you'll be out of here again soon enough so could you please stop this ugly farce this instant and get the fuck out of here!"

At the end of this Merlin is shouting at the top of his lungs, his cheeks reddening and his eyes glistening with upcoming tears. He looks at Arthur like the latter has just come to torture him, to cripple him more and betray once again and kill whatever's left alive of him after the first time; there's something like desperate hatred in his face and also such utter, raw, helpless vulnerability that Arthur feels his own heart thumping in his throat and the skin around his fingernails crack open from how strongly he's clenched the door-post.

"Merlin…"

"Get! Out!"

And Arthur gets out because that's what Merlin wants but he doesn't do so before he says feeling like he's fallen from the roof and has nothing to lose these last moments of his life:

"I'm getting out now but I'll be back tomorrow because I mean every word I've just said."

Freya's glare as she shuts the door after him may actually set his T-shirt on fire.

The next day Arthur comes early in the morning – earlier than Percival. Hunith opens the door and lets him in and offers him a cup of coffee while Merlin is sleeping.

He holds his coffee in a mug he doesn't recognize, it must be new, and watches the pale dawn falling on Hunith's face. She looks both younger and older in this light and her eyes are distant and thoughtful again.

"Why did you listen to me back in the café?" asks Arthur. It's not like he minds that conversation at all but he'd never think she'd be so forgiving when the situation concerned Merlin.

Hunith shrugs and moves a plate with small alphabet cookies that Merlin loves so closer to him. Arthur takes one, that says "Y," to dip it into his coffee.

"I know what it's like to be left," she says as a matter of fact. "I remember how inconsolable I was for the first few weeks thinking that he can come back crowling but I won't take him. And I know now that I'd take him back anyway, any time but he never came."

Arthur tries to figure out something to say but Hunith doesn't seem to need any consolation now – as she's obviously talking about Merlin's father she can't be in much pain here, it's been more than a quarter of a century since he left.

"You came back and said you wanted to explain," Hunith sighs. "I don't know if my proud boy prefers his pride or some inner peace in the end but I couldn't not give you a chance."

Merlin is sound asleep when Arthur enters the bedroom. Arthur watches him under the massive duvet – so skinny, so small, so peaceful now that nothing of the daylight world is troubling him. Merlin's face in the dawn looks not younger or older but ageless like ocean waves and his angular features are ethereal now as if he's not a man but an idea, one of those eternal concepts that he rattles on about in his postgrad. He could always look like that but whenever Arthur saw this in him, this mixture of air and dream and unearthly breathtaking beauty, Merlin was quick to break the spell with a devilish grin or a joke or a clumsy movement or, most often, with a hungry needy kiss. His newly acquired sexlessness, however, prevents Arthur from expecting any such thing now.

Arthur touches Merlin's cheek reverently, stupidly afraid that Merlin's going to melt into the air under touch like dreams do – the more you try to remember it, the faster it slips through your fingers. But Merlin is solid enough and Arthur runs his fingertips along the hollow under Merlin's cheekbone feeling more deeply in love than ever before.

The touch awakes Merlin and he mumbles into his pillow:

"Five minutes mum."

Arthur can't hide the smile tugging at his lips and says:

"Good morning."

He feels Merlin stiffen at the sound of his voice. The spell is broken – there's no ethereal creature now, there's an unhappy man who wouldn't trust Arthur with his heart again.

"What are you doing here?" his worlds are a bit muffled by the pillow as he won't look at Arthur.

Maybe it's not honourable to come here like that when Merlin is at his weakest, sleepy and in his pyjamas and with no one to defend him nearby. But Arthur tried to be honourable and it didn't work out that well.

"I've come to apologize again and to ask you if you still want me in your life." Arthur contemplates whether he can or cannot ruffle Merlin's hair that curl in morning disarray at his nape. His fingers itch to do that but it feels like an assault of a kind and Arthur keeps his hands to himself.

"I accepted your apology over the phone." Merlin turns over and moves to the far side of the bed, as far from Arthur as he can without falling to the floor. "You can go and mind your own business now."

"I can't."

"Why?"

"Because I love you."

Merlin chuckles at that. This chuckle sounds less like laughing and more like something big and angry with sharp claws is tearing Merlin from the inside.

"You said the same thing regularly before you fled," he reminds looking at the ceiling.

"I know. But I'm not going to flee now."

"How am I supposed to know that? What if I say alright, come back, and one day I wake up and you're gone again to fuck someone who has two healthy legs at their disposal? Every time you're out of the room could be the last I see you," Merlin sounds defeated and hopeless. He's too open in the morning to try and resist Arthur with shouting or hurt looks and Arthur holds Merlin's heart on his palm right now.

"It won't happen again. Never."

"Why, because you love me so much that you went and castrated yourself or took some pills that would prevent you from wanting to fulfill your first and foremost instinct to reproduce?" Merlin's words are filled with poison and it makes Arthur's scars feel like someone has spilt acid on them. "It's never going to work Arthur. You'll just hurt me again and waste more time here. Go. Leave me alone."

Arthur doesn't move because leaving now even if only to return later would look like he's heeding the advice and running away.

"There's always my own hand and the shower," says Arthur. "It's alright. It doesn't really matter if I want sex, I don't want it from anybody else anyway. In fact, during those two weeks I didn't even think of it though it was supposed to be the gist of it. Nothing matters without you."

"Have you read a sappy novel and learnt some of the most hideous quotes before coming here?" Merlin turns over to his side, his back to Arthur. His legs, a deadweight, don't move that easily and stay awkwardly tangled.

Arthur stands up, goes around the bed, takes the duvet off Merlin's body, kneels beside the bed and says:

"Can I?.."

And before Merlin can forbid it Arthur takes his limp legs and rearranges them into a more comfortable position so that their weight won't drag Merlin to lie onto his back again. When he looks at Merlin's face again there are feverish red stains on his cheeks and he opens and closes his mouth mutely like a fish out of water.

"I'm sorry," stumbles Arthur hastily looking down to Merlin's knobby knee that's right under his nose. "I didn't mean to… be intrusive on your personal space. I won't do it again unless… unless you want me to."

Merlin is silent for a long minute. And then he says:

"Go, Arthur. Don't ever come back. Please."

Arthur could never resist Merlin saying "please". Merlin's pleading was the ultimate weapon to crash Arthur's stubborness; his eyes wide and hopeful, his voice a fraction higher than usually – it hit Arthur's heart directly and made him do anything. Anything at all. He'd jump from the roof of a skyscraper if Merlin asked, probably; though Merlin never asked anything really difficult or unpleasant. Until now.

When Merlin says "please" Arthur thinks that he must stand up and leave. But he can't. It's entirely selfish of him but he knows the second he leaves the house he'll be lost. There'll be no purpose to his life, there'll be no sense in it; he'll probably just stand at the entrance without thinking, without understanding where and who he is. They say they sometimes find people like this, lost mad lonely people, standing in the streets with their minds blank and their eyes frightened. It's Arthur's instinct of self-preservation that makes him stay despite Merlin's "please".

"I'd leave if I knew for certain that you don't love me and don't need me anymore," says Arthur softly. "I… I'm not sure that there's only resentment for me."

It's true what he says. His instinct can be overrun if Merlin has truly moved on, those committing suicide do that everyday in great numbers so it shouldn't be that hard.

"It's your way of saying that you know I still love you and you can come and go as you wish because I'll just have to go and stuff any 'cons' I may have up my own arse, I presume," Merlin comments, his voice even.

"You know it's not what I'm trying to say," Arthur absorbs the casual "I still love you" like the sand in a desert absorbs the water, swallowing it all in less then a second greedily.

"It looks like I don't know anything about you, Arthur."

It is a well-aimed blow though Arthur doesn't know if Merlin planned for it to hurt so much.

"I never knew you can leave without so much as a word, as at least a fucking note on the pillow or something. I never knew you can come back thinking that saying sorry will fix everything. I never knew you loved sex with me more than actually me. In fact, for how long have you known that I'm never going to recover? Since the day you ran?"

It's definitely planned and while Arthur is ready to take whatever punishment he deserves for what he did the idea of being reproached for what he didn't do is offensive like a lash of a whip.

"No! I knew long before that."

"And you never told me."

"I wanted to. I… couldn't find the words."

"And you couldn't and couldn't and couldn't until you decided that it's too hard, all this words-finding thing, and it's best for everybody just to exclude them from communication."

Arthur touches Merlin's hands, lightly, cautiously. Merlin doesn't jerk his hand back right away and Arthur manages to snatch, to keep for himself the feeling of the warmth of Merlin's fingers and the sleepy softness of his skin.

"I was an unforgivable idiot," admits Arthur. "There's no reasonable excuse for that. All I can say…" he stops because he's never told anyone these things before, not Mithian, not Hunith. But he needs to tell Merlin. "I was scared."

"Of what, for God's sake?" Merlin rolls his eyes and bares his teeth in a crooked mocking smile lacking true cheer. "What was so frightening about me that you couldn't face it?"

It's not the supportive atmosphere that'd make speaking his mind more comfortable but Arthur isn't looking for one. He's not the injured party here in any sense of the words.

"You grew distant. You didn't chat in the car you just read all the time but before it was impossible to shut you up. You… refrained from touching – I know, I know, but it's not about the sex. It just looked like you didn't need me close to you anymore. And then I hired Percival who could do everything I did for you much better than I ever did 'cause it's his job. And you were happy and your usual chatty self with Freya, and you told me all the time that I should go to work when I wanted to stay indoors with you, and…" Arthur's out of breath so he stops. His lips are trembling as well as his hands and he clasps his fingers to make it less noticeable. "I was scared you didn't… want, need, love, didn't… anything me anymore."

"And you decided to go ahead." Merlin's voice is level and Arthur can't guess what Merlin thinks of all that. "To be the first to dump the other so you'd get hurt less than you thought you could."

Arthur nods.

"This is the most idiotic insecure bullshit I've ever heard in my life," Merlin says. "But…"

He's silent for several minutes and Arthur waits patiently for him to finish what he's started saying.

"But it's so you."

Arthur looks up at Merlin's face for the first time and dares to smile and find Merlin's hand with his own again.

Merlin sighs like he's making a decision he knows he'll regret later and lets Arthur just sit there and hold his hand for a long, blissful time.

To say that Percival is not happy to find Arthur near Merlin is to say nothing; his jaw stiffens in anger and he looks at Arthur like he's going to take him by the nape like a naughty puppy and throw him down the stairs – not like he'd treat a puppy at all, Arthur thinks. Merlin doesn't seem to find it in himself to say that it's alright and Percival doesn't need to bother so it's up to Hunith to save Arthur's skin from more scars. She takes Percival by hand and leads him to the kitchen where there's probably more coffee and cookies now.

Merlin keeps silent, and Arthur does as well. It's as if they've already said all that could matter to each other and all extra words are superfluous after that; there's quietness that's never been between them before because they were both just so recklessly full of life and never thought that could change.

"Do your scars hurt?" asks Merlin all of a sudden, his voice gentle.

"Yes. Sometimes quite a lot."

"Good," says Merlin.

"Do yours ever hurt? At least like phantom pains or something?"

"No. Never."

It's good to be hurting, thinks Arthur. It means you're still alive.

He knows Merlin thinks the same even if he keeps the thought to himself.

Arthur still goes to the hotel in the evening – quite late, when there's only him, Merlin and Hunith at the flat. Merlin is around the whole day throwing worried looks in his direction every time Arthur stands up to go to the toilet or make a cup of tea or help Hunith with the dinner plates. Arthur goes to the hospital with Merlin and Percival – who's still brittle and waiting for Arthur to do something irreparably srupid and cruel. Dr Gaius lifts his eyebrow at Arthur and Arthur just holds on tighter on the handles of Merlin's wheelchair.

Every time Arthur comes back from the kitchen or toilets or wherever it was he takes Merlin's hand in his and kisses his knuckles lightly. It's a signal – I'm here, I'm not going anywhere. Nevertheless, there are shadows under Merlin's eyes at the end of the day and he looks a total nervous wreck especially when it gets dark outside.

"You should probably go," he says. "To… where you're staying. You can come back tomorrow… if you want."

"I do," Arthur says and it sounds way too pompous like they're marrying and he agrees to take Merlin Emrys as his lawful wedded husband.

Well, that's kinda what it means, even if it's twisted, tangled and upside down like everything else in Arthur's life.

He leaves the flat after squeezing Merlin's hand one more time and kissing Hunith on the cheek. She smiles at him closing the door.

The hotel room is dusty and stuffy. Arthur opens the window and takes a bottle of mineral water from the mini-bar. It's stale but it's wet and that's all he needs. He's excruciatingly tired and he's already thinking about taking a shower and going straight to bed when his phone rings.

It's his father.

Oh bugger.

Arthur thinks about it for several seconds and picks up.

"Good to hear you at last," says Uther sounding irritated. Arthur can understand why.

"Good evening to you too," he says toeing his shoes off and going to the bathroom.

"I believe you should explain to me your actions over the last few days."

"Maybe I shouldn't." Arthur searches the drawers for a toothbrush and some soap.

There's ominous silence on the phone. His father was always much prone to dramatic effects. Arthur likes them too but not now. Now is not a good time to play the game "who overintimidates whom" – not to mention that Arthur has won this game just once in his life, when Uther disapproved of Merlin, poor literature student with no contacts, no chance to give birth to a grandchild, no business ambition etc.

"Why did you leave the San-Diego office?"

"I wanted to go back to Merlin."

"I was under impression you were going to leave him for good."

Well, Arthur was under a similar impression so he can't really blame his father. He fishes the tiny toothbrash out of the drawer and puts it on the edge of the sink.

"It was a mistaken impression. I'm planning to spend the rest of my life with him."

The words feel good and right on his tongue. Arthur wants to repeat them right away and taste them properly but he doesn't because that would sound downright stupid.

"Are you insane Arthur? You can't just up and leave because you suddenly changed your mind and decided to waste your time on him again…"

"If you say something like that one more time I'll hang up immediately and never pick the phone up again." It feels good, to be free from what Uther thinks, what he approves or disapproves. It's not his opinion that matters to Arthur most – it just took him a pretty long time to realize.

Breathing becomes easier when he thinks of that and the muscles in his neck and shoulders that he didn't know were tense relax.

"I can do what I consider necessary. I can up and leave, for one."

"Such kind of attitude gets employees fired."

That's not a threat Arthur's afraid of.

"Fire me then," he knows he sound too flippant and careless for such a conversation but a whole day with Merlin buzzes in his blood like champagne and he feels the king of the world. He can do anything. He can afford anything. Nothing really bad can happen to him because in the morning he'll come to Merlin again. "I don't care."

"Stop it Arthur. You must be drunk or high, I presume."

"Nope," Arthur flips a small bottle with shampoo open. "I just… got my priorities sorted anew, that's all."

"I take it mr Emrys is now your top priority?"

"I love him father." Arthur sits down on the edge of the bath. He sobers up suddenly and he speaks now dryly and curtly.

"You'll never be able to have a full life with him," Uther reminds. Arthur finds his father referencing to his sex life mildly disturbing.

"What is a full life? Is it a standard you made up and thought everyone else should follow? Does a full life mean to leave the one I love to fulfill your own expectations of what my life must be like?"

He asked Uther similar questions years ago when they fighted over Merlin as a fact. He didn't get any definitive answers back then.

"I just want you to be happy," says Uther after a long silence. He sounds so old and tired, like a rock that's been beaten by the wind and waves and storms for many millions of years but still stands where it always was.

"I am."

"You're delusional."

"Ask me again in a decade or so," Arthur suggests. "Goodnight father. I really want to go to sleep now."

Uther hangs up without saying goodnight and Arthur feels vaguely guilty. Things have never been fabulous between him and his father but they at least had some kind of fragile balance which is no longer there. Perhaps he shouldn't've been so straightforward as bordering on rude. But then again what's done can be fixed later, can't it?

Arthur takes a shower and falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

He comes back in the morning. Merlin's already awake though it's too early for him and when Arthur enters the room there's a small smile on his lips.

"I didn't think you'd really come."

"I always will."

Arthur sits down on the bed and bends to kiss Merlin on the lips. Merlin answers him still sleepy warm and that sort of hazy clumsy that lingers with one just after one wakes up. That would be an interlude to a lazy and tender lovemaking before but now it stays pretty platonic all the way through and it feels strange.

Arthur's the first to break the kiss and rest his forehead against Merlin's.

"You want some coffee?"

"Do you still want to fuck me when you kiss me?" asks Merlin.

"Yes," says Arthur because it's obvious.

"Well you can't unless you're interested in necrophilia and rape all at once and as far as I know you've never been. What are you going to do? You're half-hard now, what are you going to do about it?"

"I suppose I will this hard-on to disappear now and maybe I have a wank in the shower later." Arthur shrugs. It doesn't bother him half as much as it bothers Merlin but he's not sure how to explain that so that Merlin will understand.

"Do it now."

"Do what?"

"The wank. I want to see you jerking off right now in front of me."

"Why?" Arthur's confused and a little bit giddy and maybe he's just still asleep and that's a dream that's never going to be a part of reality. But Merlin's determined face is real enough for Arthur to obediently move a couple of feet away and unzip his jeans.

Merlin watches him taking his cock into his hands and under this steady blue gaze it's hardening quickly and readily. Arthur starts slowly paying more attention to the expression of Merlin's face than to what his body wants.

"Harder," Merlin demands. "As you like it. Faster. Do it."

Arthur complies and moves his fist fast and rough. At first it's dry but then the pre-come smears all the way down and the friction is smooth. Merlin licks his lips but he doesn't look like he's disgusted with what he sees.

Athur sweeps his thumb over the head and can't hold back a small moan. Merlin closes his eyes briefly at that and Arthur stops.

"You don't have to look," he gasps. "If you… if you don't want to you should look away. Or I may take it to the bathroom."

"No, it's alright," says Merlin and this goddamn word makes Arthur considerably less aroused at the top speed. "I want to see."

Arthur doesn't argue back because he really wants to continue. And he continues under Merlin's unwavering gaze and it turns him on so much that he doesn't last long.

The shirt is ruined, he thinks trying to steady his breath through a heavy post-orgasm haze. He looks at Merlin and finds that Merlin looks back at him intently as if expecting to see something specific but not seeing it yet.

"Are you OK?" asks Arthur softly.

"Are you?" echoes Merlin.

Arthur smiles, wipes his hands on his shirt – it's ruined anyway – and covers Merlin's finders that clench over a handful of the duvet with his own.

"I am. I'm more than OK. But I don't know about you."

"Was it enough, with me just watching?"

What Merlin really asks is "Am I enough, is this enough because I'll hardly ever be able to offer more, am I going to be enough for any considerable amount of time, can I trust you again or should I kick you out right now before you hurt me so much that I will be broken and never fixed again?" Arthur can hear Merlin's voice pronouncing it in his mind.

"It was perfect," says Arthur and he's saying the truth.

Merlin looks at him for a few seconds more as if verifying the words and then he says:

"Yes."

"Yes what?" Arthur's confused once again.

"Yes, I want some coffee."

Arthur zips back up and borrows a clean T-shirt of Merlin's because there's also Hunith in the flat, after all, and goes to make the coffee.

There's a new dawn outside, with the pale sun outlining the dented city horizon and shining delicately on the metal top of the coffee machine. Arthur smiles at the sun as the mug – the one with the knight and the dragon – is being filled with hot bitter liquid.

His scars itch and twitch mercilessly.

He'll ask Merlin to rub the cream into them later.

the end