Angel in the Attic

It starts – or rather, it ends – like this: it's the night before Christmas, and Arthur is screaming the house down.

"Let me in!"

Merlin sits, back against the wall, knees against his chest, folded up on himself. The window behind him is just open, the cold night air creeping in, breathing down his back, fingering in his hair. He tips his head back against the wall, lets the air curl around his throat. The curtains flit and flutter around him, thin gauze skimming his face like wings, crumpling around him.

"Merlin! Merlin, let me the fuck in!"

Merlin shuts his eyes and lets Arthur shout. He's drunk. His words slap against the rough stone of the house, his voice hard and hoarse. And Merlin listens, doesn't move.

"Why? Why, Merlin? Why won't you just let me in?"

Because he can't. Not anymore. He can't let Arthur in, can't take his head in his hands and kiss him, can't keep giving in to him. He can't listen to those same words, over and over, I love you and I can't leave her and I'm so sorry, whispered in the half-light of morning, can't lie there, sheets scrunched up around him, and let him leave. He can't let Arthur take and take and take, tearing off pieces of Merlin until there's nothing of him left. He won't.

Arthur falls silent. Merlin breathes, slow, one two three, one two three, like a waltz. One two three, one –

"You fucking slut!" Arthur shouts, and throws a bottle through the window.

Merlin screams, glass shattering around him like rain, falling onto the curtains, dripping down his face.

"You just think it's a game, don't you? Fuck a married man, tick that off your list. You screw everyone over, and you don't care. You just don't give a fuck!"

Merlin cries then, gulping in air, heavy, dry sobs. He shoves the curtains away, the white fabric stained with blood, crawls away from the window. He collapses onto the bare floorboards, foetal position, hides his face in his hands, fingers splayed.

Arthur's wrong. Merlin loves him. Desperately, stupidly, ceaselessly. But he's a paper man and his heart's been burnt. And Arthur's the one holding the matches.

"I hope you're fucking happy. You got what you wanted. You always do, don't you?"

Arthur's wrong. Arthur's wrong about a lot of things.

Merlin feels a light brushing against his eyelids. He knows what it is. It's the house opposite, cheap student digs where a few lads live, the top window lit up, light falling into his attic. Merlin opens his eyes, slow. The boy is there. He's silhouetted in the window, like he is every night. Always for a few moments, before he shuts his curtains. Some nights, Merlin thinks he can see the shadows of wings, too. Some nights, he thinks he's going crazy.

Merlin never meant to watch him. But somehow he fell into the pattern of it. Of seeing him leave the house each morning, head down, hands in his pockets, breath twisting around his lips in the cold. Of sitting in the attic late at night, listening to the rush of leaves outside, the wind, the sounds of the old house, waiting for a strip of light to stretch across the floor. Merlin knows it's stupid. This boy probably doesn't even know he exists. (Maybe Merlin likes that. Maybe he likes being ignored. It's better than this.)

"Happy fucking Christmas!"

Merlin's almost forgotten about Christmas. Yes, he sees the snow and the blinking lights and the carollers stamping their feet in the cold, but it barely registers. (He hardly remembers what day it is anymore. He used to count out time in Tuesday nights. Arthur would tell Gwen he was staying late at work. He didn't stay late at work.) The church looks beautiful, lit up with candles, but Merlin can't bear to step inside. He's not one of God's children. Not anymore. He's one of the faithless, one of the sinners who don't want to be saved.

"You little slut!"

Merlin squeezes his eyes shut again, wants the darkness, the nothingness. He doesn't want to listen to this anymore. He doesn't want to be who he is anymore. He wants this to end. The world around him is burning and he wants to burn with it.

"You just screw around for fun, and you –"

"Stop."

The voice is low, insistent, cutting through Arthur's words. Merlin opens his eyes. The light is still on but the boy is gone.

"Fuck off."

"I said, stop."

"You fucking –"

Merlin hears something hard and muffled, a punch. A scuffle, the scrape of hands against clothes, of shoes against concrete. And then Arthur's screaming and screaming like he won't ever stop.

He stops.

Merlin sighs, relaxes into the floorboards, palms pressed against it. He drifts off like smoke.

Knock knock.

Merlin jerks awake. Gasps in air, as desperate as if his lungs were heavy with ash.

Knock knock.

He doesn't want to go to the door. He doesn't want to do anything. He just wants to lie here and cry. He doesn't move.

Knock knock.

But the boy will be there. Merlin knows, it's him. He should see him. He should thank him. Should apologise.

He gets up, goes downstairs. The house is hollow. Blackened and beaten and burning. The shell of what Merlin's life was. He opens the front door.

The boy is there. His breath catches in the air, like does is every morning, like he can breathe fire. His hair curls around his face. It's round, like a cherub's, but there's a darkness in his eyes that speaks of hell. Merlin wonders if there's a name for fire-breathing angels. He thinks it's demon. But demons don't come to save broken little boys, do they? Does anyone?

The boy says nothing. He just takes a step forwards, and kisses him.

When Merlin opens his eyes, it's light. It's light, and he's in the house opposite, he's in the boy's room, and there's something heavy on his chest. He looks down, sees the boy, his head over Merlin's heart. Maybe he was listening to it. He's asleep. He looks contented, his full lips twisted into a small smile. Merlin touches his dark curls, gentle, so he might not wake. He does, though, his pupils constricting when his eyes open.

"Hello," says Merlin.

"Hello."

Merlin's head hurts. Snatches of memory grasp at him. Torn paper and Arthur's screams and the smell of smoke and broken glass. Images, patterns. Nothing tangible. Nothing real.

"What… happened?" he says.

The boy shuts his eyes.

"The man who came to your house. He hurt you."

"Arthur."

"Arthur. Who was he?"

"We were… well, we were. And then we weren't."

The boy opens one eye.

"I see."

"I'm sorry," says Merlin, "About him. You didn't have to, you know. Arthur's just… he's like that."

"No. I had to. He hurt you."

"How bad?"

The boy looks at Merlin, lifts his head, eyes hard. He looks both young and terrifyingly old.

"He hurt you."

"And you – you hurt him?"

"I had to."

"How bad?"

"As bad as he hurt you. An eye for an eye. It's fair."

Merlin frowns.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Mordred."

"Mordred. Who are you?"

Mordred smiles, and opens out his wings.

"Where is he?" asks Merlin, later, when the police officers have all gone and they're lying together in his attic, Mordred's wings wrapped around him, the feathers soft against his skin.

"I took him down," says Mordred, "And then I came for you. And I didn't want to take you."

"Why not?"

Mordred runs his thumb along Merlin's bottom lip.

"I've never been much good at doing as I'm told."

He presses a kiss to Merlin's cheek. It burns.

"You don't need to think about him anymore. He can't touch you."

"No-one can anymore," says Merlin, and the bitterness is heavy on his tongue.

"I can. I'm going to take care of you."

"Like a guardian angel?"

Merlin laughs, and it hurts.

"You know," he says, stroking Mordred's wings with the back of his hand, "I don't think good angels have black feathers."

Mordred smiles.

"I never told you I was good."

Merlin hears it on the radio, later. Two young men have been killed in a house fire in Wales. Arthur Pendragon, 27, and Merlin Emrys, 26. Two students, Percival le Gros and Gwaine Orkney, living nearby, came back from a night out and saw the smoke. They called 999. One of them even went into the fucking house. He came out with seven per cent burns and a body. The firefighters found another one in the attic. The fire hadn't reached it. The smoke had.

They found the boy on his back, spread-eagled, a tangle of curtains and shattered glass around him. Everybody says he looks like an angel fallen out of heaven.