Arcane Asylum 5/16
Aug. 14th, 2010 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
new_kateTitle: Arcane Asylum
Fandom: Merlin BBC
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin and a bunch of less true pairings mentioned in the flashbacks.
Rating: NC-17 overall, PG-13 for this part.
Warnings for this part: deaths of minor characters
Summary: Modern AU. Originally written for this prompt at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
kinkme_merlin
Betaed by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
devikun
Word count: 9K for this part.
First part
Chapter index
Part 5: Fugue-2
"This war," said Will, "Is utter bollocks."
They were at their place on the edge of the hill, where they went to hang out alone, talk about really important stuff and sometimes do some small magic in the open. The chilly fog that hung about for the most of the day had finally started to thin out, but it was hazy in the distance, and the fields below them looked flat and bare, endless and boring. Spring was coming, but it was still an eternity away.
Will hunched against the sudden gust of wind and glared up at Merlin expectantly, awkwardly craning his neck. He stopped growing sometime in the last year, and still was getting used to being the short one.
"What?" Merlin asked.
"C'mon, don't you think it's utter bollocks?"
"I don't know. I mean, yeah, I agree, the intelligence reports are a bit dodgy."
"Fabricated is the word you're looking for."
"But it's not even about that, not really. People are suffering there. And we can help. Don't you think we should?"
"It's not that simple, Merlin! You can't just ride into another country on a white horse, blow some shit up and make everything better. It's not a fucking - fairytale! We know fuck all about those people and their lives. If we go in guns blazing we'll just mess it all up even worse!"
"Worse? People are getting tortured and killed! How can it be worse?"
"It can be. When there's a shooting war right in their home towns, so many more will die. It will ruin the whole country for years. And they'll hate us, even those who don't right now, and there will be more war and death. It'll be a cycle of vengeance, and it'll just keep spreading. We shouldn't go there. It will be a disaster."
"Your dad might not even get posted there," Merlin said as softly as he could, but Will still flinched like he’d slapped him.
"It's not about me or my dad," he hissed. "Don't you dare. He's not a coward, and I'm proud of him, and if he's posted I'm not going to... I'll be proud."
"I know, Will. I didn't mean it like that."
They were quiet for a while. Will had his back turned on him, to hide his face from the wind. He was shivering visibly and chewing on the tip of his pea coat's collar.
"So we're going to the war protest," he said eventually. "Me and you."
"All right," agreed Merlin easily. Will nodded to himself, breathed out harshly, sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve.
"Right," he said. "I've called the organisers already, so we're all set. We'll take the first train out on Saturday and then we'll try to catch the last train home. They said on the phone that we might not make it though, because there will be crowds and police and everything, so we might have to spend the night. I've got the money to get us in a B'n'B if we're stuck there."
"Looks like you thought it through. Nice. Very practical," Merlin said and stood closer, to shield Will from the wind with the bulk of his enormous parka. It was still far too big for him, more like a walk-in tent than a coat, but mum expected him to grow into it any day now.
"Well, yeah, fuckwit, one of us has to be."
He didn't at all expect any complications. Mum let him sleep over at Will's for years, let them go camping with Will's dad, had no problems with school trips and summer camps. She wasn't supposed to freak out over them going to the city for a day or a weekend. They were fifteen, after all. Practically adults.
"Don't even think about it," she said for what must've been fifth time. "In fact, you're grounded till Sunday. You'll stay right here, on this very couch, where I can see you."
"But Mum! Why?"
"Because," she finally stopped pacing for the first time since he asked if he could go, sat next to him and grabbed both his wrists, squeezing hard enough to make him squirm. "It's a protest. It can't be completely safe. At those things something always happens, someone will get hurt. And with Will there that's a certainty. I can just see him getting in trouble, and you rushing out to save him, and there will be panic, a huge crowd, police everywhere... And the next time I see you will be in up to five years, through the glass in the visiting room."
He started to object because that was ridiculous, irrational and paranoid, but the look on her face – her lips were white, shaking, and it was sickening to realise what he was seeing. His mother was scared. So scared she could start crying in front of him.
"Do you know what's been going on?" she asked. "After what happened in that psychiatric ward they're not putting sorcerers in mental hospitals anymore. Or in prisons. They've launched those maximum security facilities, just two for the whole country, and they shove everyone there. Murderers, psychopaths, former disciples, children, people with latent abilities who can do barely anything, they’re all locked in there together, all treated just the same. Because, they say, it's the only place equipped to contain sorcery. Nobody even talks about evaluating if a sorcerer is sane or dangerous, all they care about is proving you have magic. And then they take you and lock you up. Forever."
"But Mum..."
"And one day, they'll say they're no longer equipped to contain all that desperation and power in one place, and then..." she started, and her voice cracked, words turning into sobs.
"Look, all right! I won't go! Nobody will ever find out, they won't, I promise, mum. I promise."
They sat together, holding hands. He didn't dare to look at her till her breathing evened out completely.
"You're such a good son," she said.
He wanted to laugh and say something bitter and awful about being a freak and the reason she could never have a normal life. He even imagined telling her that maybe, if she had better taste in men, he wouldn't be born a mutant. He let the impulse wash over him and pass, and then he turned to her and smiled, as reassuringly as he could. She smiled back, still a little tearful, and gently traced the lines of his face with her fingertips.
"You're so grown up now. I used to think that once you're no longer a child it would be easier, I wouldn't worry so much. But it's just getting harder. Every day brings new things to worry about. You're almost a man, I can't keep you with me forever. Soon you'll have your own life. And I know there is so much you want to do, but you have to be careful. You can't let yourself be discovered."
"Right, no dangerous things for me, check. Guess I won't become a fireman after all. Or a soldier, not that Will even wants us to join the army any more. Or a policeman."
"You never wanted to be a policeman."
"Or an F1 driver. Or a bodyguard. Or any kind of celebrity, because I don't want to attract attention. Or a doctor," he carried on miserably. "Because what if somebody was dying on the operating table and I could save them? No, my great destiny must be being a janitor. Or a dog walker. Or maybe there are some exciting careers in dry-cleaning business I could pursue."
"Let's see you finish school and college first, then we'll worry about that."
"How am I supposed to tell Will that I'm not coming to the protest?"
"Just blame it all on your crazy old mum," she smiled. "I'm fine with that."
He couldn't do it over the phone, so he walked over to Will's place, composing increasingly lame and pathetic lines in his head. Will was going to be such a jerk about all this; they were going to have a fight and it'd take them hours to make up again.
"Look, I'm sorry! She's my mother, what was I supposed to do?" he yelled as soon Will opened the door. He got a little carried away with his internal conversation and forgot what he was supposed to start with.
"Mum freaked out, huh?" said Will, amused. "It's all right. Come in."
Will's father was on the front room couch, drinking Fosters with grim determination. Normally he'd give Merlin a firm handshake and a grin that was freakishly identical to Will's - their family resemblance was getting stronger every day, especially now that they were almost of a height. Today he just frowned at him sternly and gave him a curt nod.
"I'm not going either. The warmonger here has me under house arrest," said Will. "It's really a miracle that I'm not doing push-ups right now."
"Keep talking and you both will be," his dad said. "My own son, the one who's supposed to support me..."
"I support you! What I can't support is your arse-backwards moronic political stance. And why can't I have my own beliefs? Why can't you support that?"
"Will, one more word from you, and I'm confiscating your games console," dad said. Will rolled his eyes and proceeded to express his outrage through body language. "And, Merlin, I am frankly very upset with you. What's that about political protests? What's next, blowing up post offices? You were supposed to keep this one on the straight and narrow, be a good influence on him!"
"Since when?" asked Will and Merlin at once.
"Since you, due to some lucky genetic accident, look like a nice kid. So when you're both arrested for robbing an off-license you'll walk away scot free, and Will here will go down and get shanked to death in prison, and that's when you'll say oh, I wish I was a good influence on him, like Mr Matthews wanted me to be."
"Dad! How do you get from a war protest to robbing an off-license?"
"It's a slippery slope, my son, slippery slope."
Merlin stayed at Will's till late. Will's dad let them share a can of beer, gamed with them for a bit till all the factual inaccuracies in Duke Nukem got on his nerves, and started telling them army stories. That triggered another war debate, and Merlin and Will did end up doing push-ups together in the front room. Technically, Merlin didn't have to do anything Will's dad told him to, but he wouldn't let Will get punished alone.
"Silencing of political activists," huffed Will, "Our spirit won't be broken!"
When he went to the kitchen to check on the supper, his dad nudged Merlin and said:
"Seriously though. I know I'm not around much, and with the war on, I might be away a lot. Don't let that moron drag you both into anything stupid."
"Why I am suddenly the responsible one? Maybe I'm about to drag him into something, you don't know."
Will's dad smirked and gave Merlin another can of beer.
"Nah, you're all right. You're just a bit of a pushover, when it comes to Will. If he jumps off the bridge you'll jump right after him, 'cause you think that's what friends do. But what the real friend should do is say: 'Don't jump off the bridge, you stupid cock'."
"We just wanted to be politically aware, with a social conscience," Merlin sighed and sipped his beer, trying his best to enjoy the taste.
The Asian family at number 17 was having their annual bonfire bash, and everyone was invited. Will's dad brought two enormous boxes of fireworks, and placed himself in charge of all the pyrotechnics.
"Don't worry! I'm a professional!" he'd announce to the concerned parents, and would corral the kids to safe distance and make them do the countdown together, clap and yell 'Hurrah!' after every blast.
"How is he forty one? He's got the maturity of a toddler," said Will. They were both maintaining carefully detached poise, pretending not to enjoy themselves. It was pretty hard to do. The night was clear, a perfect cloudless black backdrop to the brilliant colours of the fireworks, and just breezy enough that the smoke didn't hang in one place, ruining the display. Everything was just right. They were wrapped up warm enough to stand still in the chill of the November night, they had cups of parched peas and a bottle each of some sickly alcopop, and Merlin's mum was just about to serve sticky pudding she’d brought. The acrid smells of smoke and the relentless crackling of the fireworks from all over town mingled with the smells of food and the hum of voices and laughter. It was as if the whole town was having the same party, and the festivity stretched endlessly into the night, all the way to the dark horizon. Everyone celebrating together, all of them friends and family, even the people he had never met and wouldn't ever meet.
Will's dad was shouting over the lawn for Merlin's mum to save him an extra helping of the pudding, and she was laughing, looking wicked, pretty and so carefree. Their parents didn't generally speak a lot, but when they were together they seemed to get along. And right then Merlin saw no reason why everyone shouldn't get along, why everyone in the world couldn't be joyful and stupid and shoot fireworks into the dark sky, and laugh as they bloomed against the black like little shuddering galaxies, each one a thousand brand new worlds of happiness. He suspected that he was getting drunk for the first time in his life, and felt very proud, uninhibited and wild, extremely cool.
"Bet you could do better," said Will. His head was thrown back, toward the sky, and a Roman candle that was just set off was reflected perfectly in each of his dilated pupils.
"I could," agreed Merlin, already imagining the whole sky set aglow with his power, his mind drunk-fuzzy, but pliant and quick. Maybe later at night they could sneak out and try something on their hill; everyone would just think it was more fireworks going off...
"Think my dad's trying to pull your mum. We better watch it."
It wasn't the first time he went for that joke, so Merlin just laughed without even looking over.
"You know," said Will, still staring upwards. "If he wasn't such a wanker, it wouldn't be a bad idea. Then we'd be, like, brothers."
"We are like brothers," said Merlin and slipped his hand into Will's. They were far too old and manly for hand-holding, but nobody would see it in the dark, hidden between their bodies, in the folds of their coats.
"More like a couple of fags," scoffed Will, threading their cold fingers together, and gave his hand a quick squeeze.
"Remember, remember the fifth of November!" recited Will's dad loudly, advancing on them. "Come on, lads, help me set up the big one."
"Leave them, you know it's embarrassing for them to even be in the same country as their dad these days," laughed one of the adults.
"My point exactly, it's the last time! This time next year they'd have failed their GCSEs already, and will be out on a pull, no time for us old farts. They won't have a proper bonfire again till they're parents. They better remember this one."
Will affected a huge put-upon sigh. His hand slipped out of Merlin's, and they both went over to the launch pad in the middle of the patio to fiddle with the massive, garishly painted rocket. Will was bickering with his dad, as usual, and Merlin was more of a hindrance than help, clumsy and giddy, dutifully concentrating on committing every second to memory, as if it actually was important somehow.
It wasn't like Will to skip college, even though almost every day he threatened to pack it in and get a proper job. He was always there, at their meeting corner, right on time; it was Merlin who was usually late and had to run uphill while Will made a show of tapping his wristwatch and yelled abuse at him. If not for Will, he'd hardly ever catch the right bus.
It wasn't like Will not to answer his phone. Since they’d both switched from pay-as-you-go to the proper contract they talked all the time when they weren't together, making sure they spent their minutes and got full value for money. By mutual agreement, they drew a line at calling each other from the bathroom.
Merlin kept redialling all through the bus ride, and all the way to the lecture. When it started, he switched his phone to vibrate and kept trying, carefully holding it under the desk, where the professor couldn't see. Lecturers went mental if they sensed a mobile phone around. It was like with bulls and red cloth, only much more deadly.
Ten minutes to the break the phone buzzed in his hand, and he ducked down to answer.
"Merlin," said Will. If not for the caller ID, Merlin wouldn't have recognised the voice. It was weirdly flat, devoid of any expression. "It's my dad."
Merlin waited, squeezing the phone harder. It was slippery in his hand, suddenly coated in sweat; his fingers were numb and wouldn't close properly on the plastic. Will wasn't saying anything; there were odd sounds on the end of the line, and he couldn't even figure out what they were.
"I'm coming over now," he said loudly, and bolted out of the lecture hall. The professor yelled something at his back, but he was already out of the door.
He couldn't wait for the bus, so he started running. Less than the half way there he was completely out of breath, vision blacking out, and his legs felt like chunks of lead haphazardly attached to his body. He leant against the bus stop post, just to try to get some air into his spasming lungs, and that's when the bus finally caught up with him. He got on, and regretted is straight away. Sitting still was a torture; he wanted to keep running, forcing his muscles to move, so he wouldn't have time to think and feel this slowly building, crushing dread.
The front door was unlocked. Will stood in the middle of the front room, staring at him with a face that didn't look quite like his, more like an ill-fitting mask stretched over his real features.
"Is he alive?" asked Merlin as soon as he could talk without panting. Will shook his head, slowly, like moving underwater.
He knew that already, deep down. If his dad was only wounded, however badly, Will wouldn't be like this. He'd be swearing down the phone, demanding to fly over and yell at his idiot father in person; he'd be livid and alight with energy if there was anything that still could be done.
Merlin walked over and grabbed Will in an awkward hug, because he didn't know what he could possibly say. Will swayed a little, fighting for balance, rigid all over, his every muscle locked tight and trembling from the strain.
"They came this morning," he said almost soundlessly into Merlin's neck. His voice reverberated through the hollows of their bones, more felt than heard. "They said, single bullet through the heart. He never felt it."
The room was trashed. All the shelves were ripped off the walls, books and DVD cases sprayed everywhere, some boxes crashed as if they were stamped on. The TV was pushed off the stand, and hung precariously just above the floor, one corner caught in the legs of an upturned chair, the other held up by the taught power cable still plugged into the socket. An unpleasantly familiar sour stench hang about the room. When Merlin glanced down he saw a half-dried puddle of vomit on the carpet, right by their feet.
He pulled Will tighter against himself, and he finally thawed up a little, leaned into it, and then sagged against Merlin, heavy and strangely cold all over.
"They brought papers," he said, his dry lips moving slowly against Merlin's collarbone. "I can't read them. Can't see the letters, even. I'm supposed to do things. Organise. Sign stuff."
"I'll call my mum now, she'll do that," Merlin said quickly. "She'll sort that all out. You should go to bed now. Rest a bit. Get warm."
He dragged Will up the stairs to his bedroom. Will went quietly, listless and pliant, the way he was when drunk and on the edge of passing out. Except drunk Will would be talking shit right now, giggling and attempting to sing; he never was quiet for more than a minute. Merlin stripped off Will's shirt, put him to bed and tucked the blankets around him. Will let him do all that, staring into the wall with wide open unblinking eyes.
"I'll be right back," Merlin said and dashed out into the back garden. He couldn't breathe, as if he was still running that five mile stretch; he sat down in the wild grass and forced himself to inhale deeply till he got dizzy.
Once he got her on the phone, everything got so much easier. He listened to her gasp, utter "no, no, no" and ask endless questions, and then they both were sobbing and talking too much, over each other. This was something they could share, help each other through, the way he couldn't even begin to share Will's grief.
He caught himself trying to put off going back in, and felt weak with shame. He didn't want to be near Will, didn't want to breathe in his misery, had no idea what to do to ease it. Every word he could say might make it worse, and Will didn't need it to be worse, neither of them did.
He went inside anyway. He felt terrified, paralysingly helpless, but he was more scared of leaving Will alone.
Will was still there, in the same position, staring at the same spot. His breaths were coming out noisy and shallow, worryingly irregular. Merlin sat on the edge of the bed, fidgeting with the blanket, and then, for the lack of better ideas, got under the covers behind Will and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
He stayed very still, waiting for cues, ready to back off at any time. Soon Will shifted and moved backwards, into his arms, his back flush with Merlin's chest. His shaky breaths got louder, stuttering. Against his skin Merlin could feel Will's throat working, clicking wordlessly.
"I'm here, Will," he said stupidly. He'd been searching for something right and comforting to say, but nothing else came to mind.
Will's whole body suddenly shook violently, over and over, and Merlin tried to grab him tighter, panicking, torn between keeping hold on Will and jumping out of the bed to call the ambulance, till he realised Will was crying.
It was awful only for a minute or so, until the tears came. Soon Will stopped sounding as if someone was pulling his guts out. He still was shaking hard, and occasionally would turn his face into the pillow and let out a growling scream, like he was trying to push something horrid out of his chest. Merlin held him tight, rubbed his back, and waited it out.
Will was getting warmer against him, his legs and arms loosening, relaxing slowly. His sobs were now hoarse and wretched, but also quieter, and finally Merlin let himself drift off a little and think about Will's dad.
He didn't think of Mr Matthews as any kind of substitute parent figure, not in the way Will tended to cling to Merlin's mum when he thought he was being subtle. But he liked him a lot - for how similar he was to Will, and for every single way they were different. He always treated Merlin just the same as he did he own son, which didn't always seem like a good thing at the time. But now he missed it with awful urgency. He tried to think of the good things, camping trips, the time they went to Alton Towers, movie nights, army stories. But all that came to mind was the way the man's face fell when they told him they wouldn't be joining the army. He didn't even try to talk them back into it, just mumbled dejectedly: "Well, that's up to you, lads," but right now Merlin would've given anything to take that back. If they'd just never told him - they still weren't eighteen, still plenty of time, why had they told him back then...
He let his tears spill and dribble slowly down his nose, into Will's hair. When he pulled back to wipe at his face he realised that Will was snoring. He must have cried himself to sleep, literally; he didn't normally snore, but now his raw, swollen throat was making scratchy rumbling sounds. Merlin pulled the blanked higher over them and tried to nod off, too.
When he woke, Will was crying again, very quietly, probably trying not to disturb him.
"Shh, Will," Merlin cooed, turned over and kissed the back of Will's neck before he woke up all the way.
"Sorry," he said and pulled back. "That was, um. Weird."
"It's alright, you wanker," said Will, laughing through tears. He grabbed Merlin's wrist and pulled it down, draping Merlin's arm across himself again.
There was a knock on the door; that could've only been Merlin's mum. Will didn't move, so Merlin couldn't either, and didn't have the guts to yell for her not to come in. When Mum peeked inside, that's how she saw them, in bed together. Spooning.
She didn't bat en eye. Her face was swollen, like she'd cried too, but overall she looked calm as ever, and Merlin felt a surge of gratitude and love for her that left him dizzy. He didn't even know he still had it in him to feel anything.
"I've made dinner," she said. "Come downstairs, you should try to eat something."
In the kitchen she gave Will a hug, and started saying she was sorry, but he pulled away quickly, hiding his face from her. They sat down and tucked into the sheppard's pie she's made while they'd been asleep in Will's bed.
"Will, I want you to stay with us for now," she said. "I've called the college, you don't have to come in till you feel up to it. Both of you."
"Thanks, Mum," Merlin said.
"I've called your mother. She'll be here tomorrow."
"I don't want to see her," said Will, chewing his food miserably slowly, like a man with toothache in every tooth.
"You don't have to. She'll stay in this house, she'll take over from here and make all the arrangements. Apparently, they're still married, so it'll be the easiest for her to do everything."
"Yeah. She was never stupid enough to divorce the military benefits."
Will swallowed another chunk of food, then suddenly bolted from his seat and retched into the sink.
"Shit," he hissed and turned the tap on. "Sorry."
"It's alright. Have some tea," Mum said. "I'll make you a toast later."
She'd found time to clean up the room. The broken shelves were still down, but she put them against the wall, stacked all the scattered things into boxes, and cleaned the carpet. The TV was back on the stand, showing a news channel on mute.
"Don't worry about anything for now, just take your time," she said. "We'll look after you, Will. You've always got us."
For the first few days Will barely said a word. They both quietly drifted around the house and through the town when they wanted some air. Will's mum called his mobile once she got into town, and he hung up on her.
Time seemed to fly strangely fast - they'd wake up, wander around, collapse on the couch mid-afternoon, unaccountably exhausted, and by the time they'd wake up from a nap and had dinner it was almost bed time again. Every evening Mum made a bed for Will on the couch downstairs; most days he ignored it and crawled into bed with Merlin. Merlin hadn't attempted to snog or hump him in his sleep again, and was a little bit proud of that.
"How are you holding up?" Mum asked one day, when she got him alone.
"Compared to Will? I'm awesome."
"He's pulling through, I think," she said. "Just - while he's grieving he might say and do a lot of things he doesn't really mean. I want you to keep that in mind."
"What?" he asked. "What's that supposed to mean? Is that about the - because it's not like that! We're just, it's not like that, I swear."
"Look, no, that's fine with me either way, you're both over sixteen, it's no longer any of my business. I just don't want you boys to hurt any more than you already do."
He simply nodded, because it was easier than arguing.
He started to lose track of days, and was just about to try talking Will into going back to college before they'd both go stir-crazy when Will finally spoke.
"Do you think you can bring him back?"
"Come on, Will, that's impossible. Don't."
"You don't know that. You said it yourself, you've never done really big stuff. You don't know where your limits are. Maybe you can."
"You're serious," Merlin said, suddenly chilled to the bone. "You actually want me to raise your dad from the dead."
"I want you to try at least. When his body gets here..."
"Will! Listen to yourself, that's insane! No!"
"You wouldn't even try?"
"No! It can't be done, Will, stop even saying it, I can't do it!"
"Can't or won't?"
"Look - I wouldn't even know where to begin. He'd have been dead for - no, that's crazy."
"You could practice on animals or something."
"Will, no! Think about what you're saying - what if, and I know it won't, but what if it works, and he'd be a, a zombie? He's your father! We can't do that to him!"
"We have to try at least," said Will, stubbornly clenching his jaw. "Are you scared? Is that what's it about? Are you afraid to use your magic? Because, I don't know what you're saving it for. Sure, it's a risk, but do you really think there'll ever be a better cause? No, this is it, Merlin, this is as bad as it gets. This is where you have to pull your finger out and stop thinking only about yourself and staying safe. We need your help, and you can do this."
"I can't, Will. Not this. I wish I could, and if there was some other way..."
"Fine," said Will. "I'm going home."
He left, and he wouldn't pick up his phone or answer texts. Merlin made up some story for Mum, and went to college the next day to keep himself busy, cowardly hoping Will wouldn't show up there. He didn't.
Merlin spent the rest of the day sitting alone in his room, too rattled to do anything. There was a fly buzzing at his window, and he watched it scramble against glass for a good half an hour. Then he got up and swatted it with a rolled up magazine.
He waited till its legs stopped shuddering and it stilled on the windowsill, a tiny dead husk. Then he cupped his palm over it and gave it a small jolt of his magic.
When he felt it bump into his hand, trying to fly out, he bit down a scream and jumped back onto his bed. The fly did a wobbly circle around the room, bumped into the glass a few more times, found the edge of the frame and flew out.
"All right," he said into the silence. "Right."
That didn't really mean anything. Insects were almost impossible to kill, anyway. Maybe the fly hadn't been dead. He remembered that story - if you cut off a cockroach's head it would die in about a week, from starvation. He wasn't sure if it was an urban myth or an actual piece of a secondary school biology lesson. But insects were wrong for this, in any case. He had to practice on animals.
Next day he went out to the motorway with a ziplock bag in his pocket. He found a roadkill, a broken corpse of a sparrow. He slid the bag around it, cringing in guilty revulsion, and brought it back to his room.
The bird was cold, bloodied, one of its wings a crushed mess. There was a torn wound on its small chest, and its head hung down limply, lolling about freely like it was only held to the body by the skin and nothing else. He couldn't even tell if its neck was broken. Maybe dead birds were supposed to be that way.
It would be horrid to revive it like this, mutilated and torn up. If he, by some miracle, succeeded, the bird would be in agony. He had to try fixing it first.
He spread his hand over the broken wing, trying not to touch blood-encrusted feathers, and began.
He didn't remember, and never actually knew in the first place, enough about bird anatomy to make any kind of informed decision. He simply let his magic flow in and guide him, concentrating on the intent. Make it right. Make it whole.
He tried not to think how disgusting it was: shattered bones moving inside the dead meat, knitting up together, stiff bits of flesh rearranging themselves. The bird was staring at him with blind black eyes, and he was afraid of touching its head to try and make it turn away. He felt sick to his stomach, but he wasn't done yet.
The wing finally looked like a wing again. With most of the feathers gone it looked more like one of the raw chicken wings on a supermarket shelf, stained with dark bruises under blue-white skin - and he was never going to eat meat again.
He left it alone and moved to the chest. The feathers there were tiny and soft, just fluff. He blew on them to get them to part and see the wound better, and then wished he didn't. There was something dark and wet sticking out of there, and he didn't know if he was supposed to take it out or stuff it back in.
"No, I can't," he sobbed to himself. "I can't."
"What are you doing?" asked his mother from the door.
He jumped and let out a startled shriek. She was standing in his doorway, looking at the dead bird and his hands, still humming from magic, and she must have seen everything.
"I was just..." he started, and realised that he had no explanation.
"You can't be - I don't believe this," she whispered.
"Mum, no, I wasn't really - I was just trying to make sure that I can't do this. That I can't revive things. And I can't! And I swear, I'll never do this again, I'll get rid of this now - "
"What the hell were you thinking?"
"I know, all right? I know! It's crazy! And I'll tell Will it's not possible, so he'll shut up and back off, and everything will be..."
"Will?" she asked in a chillingly even voice. "Will knows about you?"
He opened his mouth to say something, and was stuck there, uselessly working his jaw. He couldn't believe he let that slip out, just like that, after so many years of being clever and careful. It was the dead bird, and Will's zombie dad idea, and Will's angry, closed off face, it all paralysed his brain somehow, and now she knew.
"Mum," he said. "No. He will never tell anyone. He knew since forever. Since we were thirteen. He never told anyone, and he never will, I promise you."
"This," she pointed at the bird with unsteady finger. "This, what were you trying to do? Did Will ask you to raise his dad from the grave? And you're - are you practising?"
"I just wanted to..." he started, and trailed off under her glare. He never seen her like that - she might as well be looking at a stranger. A stranger she didn't like at all.
"Let me explain something to you," she crossed the room and sat on the bed, with the bird spread on the plastic bag between them. "If you did something to his father's body, not necessarily successful, but something people might notice, do you know what would happen? Will would be arrested as the most likely suspect. He would be taken in and interrogated as a warlock. I don't know what they do. But they have special dispensation. That can mean - anything. He would be interrogated till he confessed to sorcery, or till he gave them the real culprit. And if he did that, if he gave you up, he'd serve up to five years in prison for not reporting you earlier. He's old enough now, there would be no leniency."
"He'd never tell anyone."
"You know, I would love to hear you say that you'd keep quiet and let him take all the blame. But I don't think I'd believe you."
"I'm not going to do anything," he whispered, scared by her white, still face almost to tears. "Mum, I swear. We'll be safe."
"He's a danger to you. And you're a danger to him. Your power is a constant temptation to you both, and one day you will do something that gets you both caught."
"I won't. I really won't. Mum, please, don't be mad. I'm sorry."
"We're going to move away," she said. "We've been here too long, it's not safe anymore."
"But we can't leave Will, not now!"
"It's for his sake, too."
"But I have college," he muttered, already knowing that her mind was made up. "And it's hard to get jobs now, can we just..."
"We're not going to argue about it. Let's just - let's both calm down, have dinner and sleep on this, and tomorrow we'll start making plans."
"Where would we go?"
"We'll figure it out," she said. "We'll just keep moving for a while, as long as our savings will last, and then we'll come up with something. We'll be fine."
He followed her into kitchen, wondering belatedly why was she home so early. Then he remembered - she switched shifts at the store, she was doing a training course. She was up for a promotion. They were going to buy a car with the extra money, and next year they were going to go to Spain. It was going to be his first ever holiday abroad, to celebrate his first year of college. She kept joking that he was too grown up to vacation with his crusty old mum, and he was going to be bored to tears, he'd hate it. He looked at her as she moved around the tiny, tidy kitchen, sliding through the tight space between the table and the sink in a practised side-step, reaching for utensils and spices without looking because she knew exactly where they all were, they've been there for four years now.
This year she was turning forty. It was time she stopped living in fear, constantly ready to run, with a prison sentence hanging over her head. He knew what he had to do. He just needed the courage to do it.
"I'm not hungry actually," he said. "I'm going to go say goodbye to Will now."
"There's no rush. We won't leave tomorrow, it might take a few days. We need to pawn what we can - you'll have plenty of time with him yet."
"Yeah, I want to get it over with," he sighed. "Mum, I'm so sorry. For everything."
"It's not your fault, sweetheart, don't be sorry," she pulled him into a hug, and he clung to her desperately, trying his best to keep himself in check and not cry, and not say anything that would make her suspicious.
"I know it's hard sometimes," she said. "But you know that I love you and I'm proud of you, and I couldn't wish for a better son. The joy you bring me is worth anything. You have to remember that, always."
He smiled gratefully, blinking hard to stave off the tears, stumbled to the front door and got his parka off the coat hanger. Mum's favourite cashmere scarf was on the shelf, folded neatly. He grabbed it and wound it around his neck, messily, with too much bulk under his collar. He wasn't used to triangular scarves, but he'd have plenty of time to figure them out. Then he went through all their coats and jackets pocketing whatever change he could find, emptied Mum's purse of the money, and went out.
Will opened the door, munching on a cold sausage roll. He looked startlingly normal, as if the last week hadn't happened at all.
"Oh hi! I was about to call you," he said, beaming at Merlin. "Look - forget what I said, all right? That was crazy talk. Seriously batshit crazy talk. I'm... Hey, why are you wearing your mum's scarf?"
"Felt like it."
"Riiight. Well, anyway. Think I'm starting to get a grip now. I had this really great talk with my mother - are you coming in or what?"
"No, I have to go. I just wanted to check that you're okay."
"Yeah," Will said. "Yeah, I think I will be."
"Good," Merlin nodded, and abruptly grabbed him into a hug. Will shifted to stand closer and awkwardly patted him on the back with the hand still holding the sausage roll.
"No, really, mate, we need to stop with the cuddling. We're overdoing it, man."
"Yeah," said Merlin breathlessly, and pulled back to take the last look at Will's face. It wasn't a particularly handsome face, and right now it had extra zits and shaving rash on the side. But the thought of never seeing Will again pierced through him, nearly painful enough to make him groan out loud. He leaned forward and quickly planted a light, tight-lipped kiss on the corner of Will's mouth.
"Right," Will said, not looking all that surprised. "Should we, like, talk about this?"
"Nah," said Merlin, grinning at him like a loon. He must have looked pathetically soppy, but he couldn't help it: he wasn't even sad about their separation now, just happy to have known him. "Bye, Will."
He turned around and started walking.
He walked for hours, till his feet went from sore to numb and his ankles started hurting. The pavement under his boots quickly changed to gravelled hard shoulder with dusty frayed bushes that framed it on one side and cached at his coat as he brushed past. As it got dark, the road quieted slowly, with only an occasional car barrelling down past him at insane speed. He must have covered a good fifteen miles, but he knew that the moment he turned around he'd be standing right back on his porch, as if he never left. The lights inside would be on, the TV would be showing news on mute, and his mother would be on the front room couch with his discarded phone in her hand, waiting for him, worried sick.
"C'mon, let go," he said out loud.
He felt a sharp push at his back and stumbled forward, and when he looked up again he wasn't even on a motorway anymore. He was in the middle of a dark, wet field, his boots sinking in the dirt. A mountain range rose at a far distance, black against grey night sky. It looked flat and immaterial, as if cut out of paper. In front of him the stark line of horizon was broken up by a patch of reddish ethereal glow, a heavy mix of fog and night lights rising to the sky; a big city.
A city sounded like a good plan.
He'd been to the city before, a few times on school trips, and had always envied the native city dwellers. Every moment of their lives they were surrounded by extraordinary, vibrant things, submerged right into the heartbeat of everything. This was where the real life happened, where they made the news that would be lapped up later by the people on the fringes, in small, sleepy towns made up entirely of beige terraced houses.
As they were dragged around by the teachers, sweeping through the city's sights and museums, just skimming the glossy surface of what was going on, he'd dream of really living here. Learning the real truths behind the carved façades of the beautiful buildings, exploring all the darks places between them, getting to know all the strange, odd people that moved through the street without looking around, each lost deep in their own thoughts.
He spent the day wandering in circles around the city centre, clinging to the tourist spots for their familiarity. He watched the tourists, trying to guess where they were from, basking in their holiday-making excitement, and fantasised about getting a job as a museum attendant, or a tour guide. A gatekeeper to the city, the one to welcome in all the starry-eyed travellers.
But the whole point of coming to the city was to become invisible, disappear in the crowd. There were thousands of people living on the streets, feeding off the land, completely under the radar of the law, with no paper trail, no attachments, no connections. It couldn't be that hard. If crazy old men could survive on the streets and still have money for booze, as all TV shows seemed to indicate, then he would definitely have no trouble here. He'd spend his days communing with the city, drinking in everything it was, with nothing to do all day but laze around and enjoy himself. No homework, no chores, no obligations. And at nights he'd huddle next to burning rubbish bins with the other vagabonds and listen to their stories. He'd be the mysterious one, the man with a sad, dark secret. He needed to get a pair of fingerless mittens.
He hadn't slept the night before, and had mostly been on his feet for two days now. By the time the city centre began to quiet down, slowly turning into a ghost kingdom of dark shop windows and huge empty buildings, he was too exhausted to move. He stretched out on a bench by the embankment and closed his eyes, listening to the dull hum of the thinning traffic in the distance and the soft lapping of water against stone.
He woke up when something long and hard poked him in the stomach. He jumped up, panicking, scrambling to get away. There was a policeman standing over him. The street lights glinted sharply on his helmet, leaving his face dark, hidden behind the glow.
"You can't sleep here. Up you go."
"Am I under arrest?" Merlin stuttered, glancing around for escape route and possible witnesses.
"Just get off my beat, son. Need directions to the shelter? They'd be full, though."
"No. Thank you. I'm ready to go home now, I think."
"That's a good lad," said the cop tiredly, lightly knocking his truncheon on the bench. Merlin got up and carried on walking, hunching over from the pain in his tired legs. He was cold now, and he desperately wanted a cup of tea. He'd drink it black right now, gladly.
He came to a bridge he only saw at a distance before, the rail one, plain and streaked from weather. Not a sight to put on a tourist brochure. But there was a light flickering underneath, and he headed toward it like a weary, hopeful moth.
The people around the tiny fire weren't old and crazy, and they weren't wearing fingerless mittens. They were mostly kids, some younger than him, all dressed and made up with such effortless, outlandish cool that he felt like a country simpleton in his parka, cheap jeans and old walking boots. As he approached they all fell silent, turned around and glared at him.
"I'll just sleep over there," he said and picked his way through rubble and rubbish to a darker corner, away from them. The ground was cold and uneven, but as soon as he settled down and propped his head against the wall, the soft soft darkness enveloped him all over, turning his muscles to warm jelly and numbing his mind till his thoughts became scattered, coloured, dream-scented. He never thought simply falling asleep could be such a sharp, complete bliss.
He was woken up by someone prodding and shaking him - again - and nearly lashed out in frustration, sore and groggy, even more tired than before. There was a girl kneeling over him. She had to be one of the kids from before, only now her mascara was running, streaking her face like a Halloween make-up.
"Help, help," she sobbed. "Raven's dying."
There were had been about twenty of them when he’d come came here, but now only four were left. A guy was wavering by the edge of the arch, muttering long strings of curses, and another one was by the dead fire, prone and still. There was another girl was by his side, rocking back and forth and wailing quietly.
"We weren't even doing anything," said the girl who woke him. "Nothing special. Do you know what to do? Please, do something."
"We need to call the ambulance."
"We can't! We'll be screwed, they all ran off already, and Raven's going to die! And we can't be arrested, we can't!"
"Right," Merlin said, blinking away sleep. "Okay. Call the ambulance and tell them where to find him. Use the payphone. And then go away, go home. I'll stay with him and cover for you. Go, run."
She nodded, sniffling and swallowing tears, grabbed the wailing girl by an arm and dragged her away. The guy had already disappeared, leaving Merlin alone with Raven.
Raven's eyes were open, but he stared intently somewhere above him and wouldn't focus on Merlin. He was jerking slightly from time to time, making tiny sounds like hiccups. There was a streak of something gross-looking on his cheek; when Merlin touched his wrist he felt the pulse pounding under his fingers fast and slurred, like a drumroll.
Merlin put his hand on the guy's chest and felt, nearly saw his heart, fluttering against the ribs, choking and stuttering, the red muscle straining and cramped, ready to burst.
"Okay, Raven," he said. "Yeah, I bet right now we both wish I'd practised on animals a bit more."
He pressed down with his palm and pushed forward with his magic, taking hold, testing his limits. It was easy. He could feel another's blood and flesh in his grasp just like he felt his black shirt under his fingers, the ground under his feet. He wrapped his power around the man's heart, soothing and gentling it like he would a frightened rabbit.
"I've no idea what I'm doing," he confessed into Raven's white face. He pressed the fingers of his free hand to the pulse point on his own neck and put all he had into matching their heartbeats, slowly, carefully. He could feel another life straining under the current of his magic, bathed in it, defenceless, surrendered. Just a moment of panic, one careless move, and he'd ruin it all, and it would be beyond repair.
Raven stopped shuddering. His pale-blue lips were filling with colour, and there was something resembling sense in his eyes now.
"Who are you?" he suddenly rasped.
"I'm a hallucination," said Merlin in what he thought would be funny, reassuring way, before he realised that wasn't the best suitable phrasing ever. Raven's eyes widened and began to roll back, which was probably not good. But his heart was beating slowly, steadily now, and Merlin didn't know what else he could do, except sit here and hold him, just so he wasn't alone.
He stayed like that till he heard a screech of a siren. The girl had called the ambulance after all; only then he realised that he hadn't thought she would. He waited for the footsteps and voices to drift close enough and skittered away, clinging to shadows and wrapping them around himself, the way he used to wrap light when he was little.
The city was a trap. He could see it now. It wasn't an adventure, or a gritty but feel-good comedy drama like the ones he used to watch with his mum. The ones he saw today could have been just spoiled rich kids whose usual game went a little wrong; the real homeless would be lost, exhausted and desperate people. They had no one looking out for them, and they would need help every day, all the time, and he would have to help them. He could never hide here. He'd flare up like a torch. The city was a mistake.
The train and bus stations would be closed now, and he wasn't even sure he'd dare to go there. He turned north of the river, and carried on walking.
He wasn't starving. Once, when his legs gave out and wouldn't move any more and he had to lie for an hour or so in an exhausted sprawl in a soft, furrowed field, he figured out how to make money. It was easy, as long as he turned small bills into bigger ones; once he grasped the general idea behind every pattern he could shift between them without much effort. He tried making money out of chocolate bar wrappers, but couldn't get the feel right. They were too smooth and sleek to the touch. The chocolate smell wouldn't go away either, though he didn't think that would make anyone suspicious.
He bought food from stalls and supermarket outlets, and he'd sleep in empty barns when he was in the country and found shelter behind warehouses when he wasn't. He lost count of those nights quickly. It could have been weeks, or it could have been few days. While he could he kept moving, because it kept him from having to think. He had no plan, no goals, and, as long as he kept to himself and stayed on the road, he had nothing to fear.
From time to time, as his mind began to wander, he'd find himself in a different place from where he was a second ago. It was a bit like that odd lurch that happened on the day he left home, when he found himself miles away from the motorway he'd been following. But these times he felt no push, not even a the smallest jarring sensation. He'd lift his eyes, and the scenery would have changed. He thought at first he was losing time, muddled with fatigue and the soul-sucking feeling of emptiness and aimlessness, which was exhausting in itself and kept building up every day. It took him a while to realise that he was, in fact, losing space.
He walked till he came to the sea.
It was grey and flat, its surface speckled with shifting dips and waves. It looked carelessly cast out of lead; even the shifts and moves of it were too solid, too heavy. It was nothing like the perfect blue of the seas in the tourist brochures, or the stormy white mess of the seas that were really Northern, not just in name.
He climbed down the dunes, crossed the heaps of flotsam and the stretch of the wet wavy sand and stood at the water's edge, letting the waves lick at the cracked toes of his boots. He lifted his foot and carefully tested the water surface with his sole.
He could feel the water resisting the pressure, tensions lines stretching taught from his heel to the distant horizon. He could just keep walking. He could walk across the sea if he wanted to, all the way to the other side, and try to settle in Denmark.
He pushed harder and let his foot sink to the bottom. The sand was muddy there, sticking to his soles like clay. Cold water seeped through the bootlace holes and bit at his ankles, and began soaking in through the thick leather, filling his boots.
He could just keep walking.
He stood there till he could no longer stand the constricting pain in his frozen feet. Then he staggered out of the water and followed the dunes along the beach, all the way to the town in the distance: glistening roofs, black church tower, a pier cutting into the sea, a few yachts bobbing among the waves.
It looked picturesque. Lovely even.
Next part
Fandom: Merlin BBC
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin and a bunch of less true pairings mentioned in the flashbacks.
Rating: NC-17 overall, PG-13 for this part.
Warnings for this part: deaths of minor characters
Summary: Modern AU. Originally written for this prompt at
kinkme_merlinBetaed by
devikunWord count: 9K for this part.
First part
Chapter index
Part 5: Fugue-2
"This war," said Will, "Is utter bollocks."
They were at their place on the edge of the hill, where they went to hang out alone, talk about really important stuff and sometimes do some small magic in the open. The chilly fog that hung about for the most of the day had finally started to thin out, but it was hazy in the distance, and the fields below them looked flat and bare, endless and boring. Spring was coming, but it was still an eternity away.
Will hunched against the sudden gust of wind and glared up at Merlin expectantly, awkwardly craning his neck. He stopped growing sometime in the last year, and still was getting used to being the short one.
"What?" Merlin asked.
"C'mon, don't you think it's utter bollocks?"
"I don't know. I mean, yeah, I agree, the intelligence reports are a bit dodgy."
"Fabricated is the word you're looking for."
"But it's not even about that, not really. People are suffering there. And we can help. Don't you think we should?"
"It's not that simple, Merlin! You can't just ride into another country on a white horse, blow some shit up and make everything better. It's not a fucking - fairytale! We know fuck all about those people and their lives. If we go in guns blazing we'll just mess it all up even worse!"
"Worse? People are getting tortured and killed! How can it be worse?"
"It can be. When there's a shooting war right in their home towns, so many more will die. It will ruin the whole country for years. And they'll hate us, even those who don't right now, and there will be more war and death. It'll be a cycle of vengeance, and it'll just keep spreading. We shouldn't go there. It will be a disaster."
"Your dad might not even get posted there," Merlin said as softly as he could, but Will still flinched like he’d slapped him.
"It's not about me or my dad," he hissed. "Don't you dare. He's not a coward, and I'm proud of him, and if he's posted I'm not going to... I'll be proud."
"I know, Will. I didn't mean it like that."
They were quiet for a while. Will had his back turned on him, to hide his face from the wind. He was shivering visibly and chewing on the tip of his pea coat's collar.
"So we're going to the war protest," he said eventually. "Me and you."
"All right," agreed Merlin easily. Will nodded to himself, breathed out harshly, sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve.
"Right," he said. "I've called the organisers already, so we're all set. We'll take the first train out on Saturday and then we'll try to catch the last train home. They said on the phone that we might not make it though, because there will be crowds and police and everything, so we might have to spend the night. I've got the money to get us in a B'n'B if we're stuck there."
"Looks like you thought it through. Nice. Very practical," Merlin said and stood closer, to shield Will from the wind with the bulk of his enormous parka. It was still far too big for him, more like a walk-in tent than a coat, but mum expected him to grow into it any day now.
"Well, yeah, fuckwit, one of us has to be."
He didn't at all expect any complications. Mum let him sleep over at Will's for years, let them go camping with Will's dad, had no problems with school trips and summer camps. She wasn't supposed to freak out over them going to the city for a day or a weekend. They were fifteen, after all. Practically adults.
"Don't even think about it," she said for what must've been fifth time. "In fact, you're grounded till Sunday. You'll stay right here, on this very couch, where I can see you."
"But Mum! Why?"
"Because," she finally stopped pacing for the first time since he asked if he could go, sat next to him and grabbed both his wrists, squeezing hard enough to make him squirm. "It's a protest. It can't be completely safe. At those things something always happens, someone will get hurt. And with Will there that's a certainty. I can just see him getting in trouble, and you rushing out to save him, and there will be panic, a huge crowd, police everywhere... And the next time I see you will be in up to five years, through the glass in the visiting room."
He started to object because that was ridiculous, irrational and paranoid, but the look on her face – her lips were white, shaking, and it was sickening to realise what he was seeing. His mother was scared. So scared she could start crying in front of him.
"Do you know what's been going on?" she asked. "After what happened in that psychiatric ward they're not putting sorcerers in mental hospitals anymore. Or in prisons. They've launched those maximum security facilities, just two for the whole country, and they shove everyone there. Murderers, psychopaths, former disciples, children, people with latent abilities who can do barely anything, they’re all locked in there together, all treated just the same. Because, they say, it's the only place equipped to contain sorcery. Nobody even talks about evaluating if a sorcerer is sane or dangerous, all they care about is proving you have magic. And then they take you and lock you up. Forever."
"But Mum..."
"And one day, they'll say they're no longer equipped to contain all that desperation and power in one place, and then..." she started, and her voice cracked, words turning into sobs.
"Look, all right! I won't go! Nobody will ever find out, they won't, I promise, mum. I promise."
They sat together, holding hands. He didn't dare to look at her till her breathing evened out completely.
"You're such a good son," she said.
He wanted to laugh and say something bitter and awful about being a freak and the reason she could never have a normal life. He even imagined telling her that maybe, if she had better taste in men, he wouldn't be born a mutant. He let the impulse wash over him and pass, and then he turned to her and smiled, as reassuringly as he could. She smiled back, still a little tearful, and gently traced the lines of his face with her fingertips.
"You're so grown up now. I used to think that once you're no longer a child it would be easier, I wouldn't worry so much. But it's just getting harder. Every day brings new things to worry about. You're almost a man, I can't keep you with me forever. Soon you'll have your own life. And I know there is so much you want to do, but you have to be careful. You can't let yourself be discovered."
"Right, no dangerous things for me, check. Guess I won't become a fireman after all. Or a soldier, not that Will even wants us to join the army any more. Or a policeman."
"You never wanted to be a policeman."
"Or an F1 driver. Or a bodyguard. Or any kind of celebrity, because I don't want to attract attention. Or a doctor," he carried on miserably. "Because what if somebody was dying on the operating table and I could save them? No, my great destiny must be being a janitor. Or a dog walker. Or maybe there are some exciting careers in dry-cleaning business I could pursue."
"Let's see you finish school and college first, then we'll worry about that."
"How am I supposed to tell Will that I'm not coming to the protest?"
"Just blame it all on your crazy old mum," she smiled. "I'm fine with that."
He couldn't do it over the phone, so he walked over to Will's place, composing increasingly lame and pathetic lines in his head. Will was going to be such a jerk about all this; they were going to have a fight and it'd take them hours to make up again.
"Look, I'm sorry! She's my mother, what was I supposed to do?" he yelled as soon Will opened the door. He got a little carried away with his internal conversation and forgot what he was supposed to start with.
"Mum freaked out, huh?" said Will, amused. "It's all right. Come in."
Will's father was on the front room couch, drinking Fosters with grim determination. Normally he'd give Merlin a firm handshake and a grin that was freakishly identical to Will's - their family resemblance was getting stronger every day, especially now that they were almost of a height. Today he just frowned at him sternly and gave him a curt nod.
"I'm not going either. The warmonger here has me under house arrest," said Will. "It's really a miracle that I'm not doing push-ups right now."
"Keep talking and you both will be," his dad said. "My own son, the one who's supposed to support me..."
"I support you! What I can't support is your arse-backwards moronic political stance. And why can't I have my own beliefs? Why can't you support that?"
"Will, one more word from you, and I'm confiscating your games console," dad said. Will rolled his eyes and proceeded to express his outrage through body language. "And, Merlin, I am frankly very upset with you. What's that about political protests? What's next, blowing up post offices? You were supposed to keep this one on the straight and narrow, be a good influence on him!"
"Since when?" asked Will and Merlin at once.
"Since you, due to some lucky genetic accident, look like a nice kid. So when you're both arrested for robbing an off-license you'll walk away scot free, and Will here will go down and get shanked to death in prison, and that's when you'll say oh, I wish I was a good influence on him, like Mr Matthews wanted me to be."
"Dad! How do you get from a war protest to robbing an off-license?"
"It's a slippery slope, my son, slippery slope."
Merlin stayed at Will's till late. Will's dad let them share a can of beer, gamed with them for a bit till all the factual inaccuracies in Duke Nukem got on his nerves, and started telling them army stories. That triggered another war debate, and Merlin and Will did end up doing push-ups together in the front room. Technically, Merlin didn't have to do anything Will's dad told him to, but he wouldn't let Will get punished alone.
"Silencing of political activists," huffed Will, "Our spirit won't be broken!"
When he went to the kitchen to check on the supper, his dad nudged Merlin and said:
"Seriously though. I know I'm not around much, and with the war on, I might be away a lot. Don't let that moron drag you both into anything stupid."
"Why I am suddenly the responsible one? Maybe I'm about to drag him into something, you don't know."
Will's dad smirked and gave Merlin another can of beer.
"Nah, you're all right. You're just a bit of a pushover, when it comes to Will. If he jumps off the bridge you'll jump right after him, 'cause you think that's what friends do. But what the real friend should do is say: 'Don't jump off the bridge, you stupid cock'."
"We just wanted to be politically aware, with a social conscience," Merlin sighed and sipped his beer, trying his best to enjoy the taste.
The Asian family at number 17 was having their annual bonfire bash, and everyone was invited. Will's dad brought two enormous boxes of fireworks, and placed himself in charge of all the pyrotechnics.
"Don't worry! I'm a professional!" he'd announce to the concerned parents, and would corral the kids to safe distance and make them do the countdown together, clap and yell 'Hurrah!' after every blast.
"How is he forty one? He's got the maturity of a toddler," said Will. They were both maintaining carefully detached poise, pretending not to enjoy themselves. It was pretty hard to do. The night was clear, a perfect cloudless black backdrop to the brilliant colours of the fireworks, and just breezy enough that the smoke didn't hang in one place, ruining the display. Everything was just right. They were wrapped up warm enough to stand still in the chill of the November night, they had cups of parched peas and a bottle each of some sickly alcopop, and Merlin's mum was just about to serve sticky pudding she’d brought. The acrid smells of smoke and the relentless crackling of the fireworks from all over town mingled with the smells of food and the hum of voices and laughter. It was as if the whole town was having the same party, and the festivity stretched endlessly into the night, all the way to the dark horizon. Everyone celebrating together, all of them friends and family, even the people he had never met and wouldn't ever meet.
Will's dad was shouting over the lawn for Merlin's mum to save him an extra helping of the pudding, and she was laughing, looking wicked, pretty and so carefree. Their parents didn't generally speak a lot, but when they were together they seemed to get along. And right then Merlin saw no reason why everyone shouldn't get along, why everyone in the world couldn't be joyful and stupid and shoot fireworks into the dark sky, and laugh as they bloomed against the black like little shuddering galaxies, each one a thousand brand new worlds of happiness. He suspected that he was getting drunk for the first time in his life, and felt very proud, uninhibited and wild, extremely cool.
"Bet you could do better," said Will. His head was thrown back, toward the sky, and a Roman candle that was just set off was reflected perfectly in each of his dilated pupils.
"I could," agreed Merlin, already imagining the whole sky set aglow with his power, his mind drunk-fuzzy, but pliant and quick. Maybe later at night they could sneak out and try something on their hill; everyone would just think it was more fireworks going off...
"Think my dad's trying to pull your mum. We better watch it."
It wasn't the first time he went for that joke, so Merlin just laughed without even looking over.
"You know," said Will, still staring upwards. "If he wasn't such a wanker, it wouldn't be a bad idea. Then we'd be, like, brothers."
"We are like brothers," said Merlin and slipped his hand into Will's. They were far too old and manly for hand-holding, but nobody would see it in the dark, hidden between their bodies, in the folds of their coats.
"More like a couple of fags," scoffed Will, threading their cold fingers together, and gave his hand a quick squeeze.
"Remember, remember the fifth of November!" recited Will's dad loudly, advancing on them. "Come on, lads, help me set up the big one."
"Leave them, you know it's embarrassing for them to even be in the same country as their dad these days," laughed one of the adults.
"My point exactly, it's the last time! This time next year they'd have failed their GCSEs already, and will be out on a pull, no time for us old farts. They won't have a proper bonfire again till they're parents. They better remember this one."
Will affected a huge put-upon sigh. His hand slipped out of Merlin's, and they both went over to the launch pad in the middle of the patio to fiddle with the massive, garishly painted rocket. Will was bickering with his dad, as usual, and Merlin was more of a hindrance than help, clumsy and giddy, dutifully concentrating on committing every second to memory, as if it actually was important somehow.
It wasn't like Will to skip college, even though almost every day he threatened to pack it in and get a proper job. He was always there, at their meeting corner, right on time; it was Merlin who was usually late and had to run uphill while Will made a show of tapping his wristwatch and yelled abuse at him. If not for Will, he'd hardly ever catch the right bus.
It wasn't like Will not to answer his phone. Since they’d both switched from pay-as-you-go to the proper contract they talked all the time when they weren't together, making sure they spent their minutes and got full value for money. By mutual agreement, they drew a line at calling each other from the bathroom.
Merlin kept redialling all through the bus ride, and all the way to the lecture. When it started, he switched his phone to vibrate and kept trying, carefully holding it under the desk, where the professor couldn't see. Lecturers went mental if they sensed a mobile phone around. It was like with bulls and red cloth, only much more deadly.
Ten minutes to the break the phone buzzed in his hand, and he ducked down to answer.
"Merlin," said Will. If not for the caller ID, Merlin wouldn't have recognised the voice. It was weirdly flat, devoid of any expression. "It's my dad."
Merlin waited, squeezing the phone harder. It was slippery in his hand, suddenly coated in sweat; his fingers were numb and wouldn't close properly on the plastic. Will wasn't saying anything; there were odd sounds on the end of the line, and he couldn't even figure out what they were.
"I'm coming over now," he said loudly, and bolted out of the lecture hall. The professor yelled something at his back, but he was already out of the door.
He couldn't wait for the bus, so he started running. Less than the half way there he was completely out of breath, vision blacking out, and his legs felt like chunks of lead haphazardly attached to his body. He leant against the bus stop post, just to try to get some air into his spasming lungs, and that's when the bus finally caught up with him. He got on, and regretted is straight away. Sitting still was a torture; he wanted to keep running, forcing his muscles to move, so he wouldn't have time to think and feel this slowly building, crushing dread.
The front door was unlocked. Will stood in the middle of the front room, staring at him with a face that didn't look quite like his, more like an ill-fitting mask stretched over his real features.
"Is he alive?" asked Merlin as soon as he could talk without panting. Will shook his head, slowly, like moving underwater.
He knew that already, deep down. If his dad was only wounded, however badly, Will wouldn't be like this. He'd be swearing down the phone, demanding to fly over and yell at his idiot father in person; he'd be livid and alight with energy if there was anything that still could be done.
Merlin walked over and grabbed Will in an awkward hug, because he didn't know what he could possibly say. Will swayed a little, fighting for balance, rigid all over, his every muscle locked tight and trembling from the strain.
"They came this morning," he said almost soundlessly into Merlin's neck. His voice reverberated through the hollows of their bones, more felt than heard. "They said, single bullet through the heart. He never felt it."
The room was trashed. All the shelves were ripped off the walls, books and DVD cases sprayed everywhere, some boxes crashed as if they were stamped on. The TV was pushed off the stand, and hung precariously just above the floor, one corner caught in the legs of an upturned chair, the other held up by the taught power cable still plugged into the socket. An unpleasantly familiar sour stench hang about the room. When Merlin glanced down he saw a half-dried puddle of vomit on the carpet, right by their feet.
He pulled Will tighter against himself, and he finally thawed up a little, leaned into it, and then sagged against Merlin, heavy and strangely cold all over.
"They brought papers," he said, his dry lips moving slowly against Merlin's collarbone. "I can't read them. Can't see the letters, even. I'm supposed to do things. Organise. Sign stuff."
"I'll call my mum now, she'll do that," Merlin said quickly. "She'll sort that all out. You should go to bed now. Rest a bit. Get warm."
He dragged Will up the stairs to his bedroom. Will went quietly, listless and pliant, the way he was when drunk and on the edge of passing out. Except drunk Will would be talking shit right now, giggling and attempting to sing; he never was quiet for more than a minute. Merlin stripped off Will's shirt, put him to bed and tucked the blankets around him. Will let him do all that, staring into the wall with wide open unblinking eyes.
"I'll be right back," Merlin said and dashed out into the back garden. He couldn't breathe, as if he was still running that five mile stretch; he sat down in the wild grass and forced himself to inhale deeply till he got dizzy.
Once he got her on the phone, everything got so much easier. He listened to her gasp, utter "no, no, no" and ask endless questions, and then they both were sobbing and talking too much, over each other. This was something they could share, help each other through, the way he couldn't even begin to share Will's grief.
He caught himself trying to put off going back in, and felt weak with shame. He didn't want to be near Will, didn't want to breathe in his misery, had no idea what to do to ease it. Every word he could say might make it worse, and Will didn't need it to be worse, neither of them did.
He went inside anyway. He felt terrified, paralysingly helpless, but he was more scared of leaving Will alone.
Will was still there, in the same position, staring at the same spot. His breaths were coming out noisy and shallow, worryingly irregular. Merlin sat on the edge of the bed, fidgeting with the blanket, and then, for the lack of better ideas, got under the covers behind Will and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
He stayed very still, waiting for cues, ready to back off at any time. Soon Will shifted and moved backwards, into his arms, his back flush with Merlin's chest. His shaky breaths got louder, stuttering. Against his skin Merlin could feel Will's throat working, clicking wordlessly.
"I'm here, Will," he said stupidly. He'd been searching for something right and comforting to say, but nothing else came to mind.
Will's whole body suddenly shook violently, over and over, and Merlin tried to grab him tighter, panicking, torn between keeping hold on Will and jumping out of the bed to call the ambulance, till he realised Will was crying.
It was awful only for a minute or so, until the tears came. Soon Will stopped sounding as if someone was pulling his guts out. He still was shaking hard, and occasionally would turn his face into the pillow and let out a growling scream, like he was trying to push something horrid out of his chest. Merlin held him tight, rubbed his back, and waited it out.
Will was getting warmer against him, his legs and arms loosening, relaxing slowly. His sobs were now hoarse and wretched, but also quieter, and finally Merlin let himself drift off a little and think about Will's dad.
He didn't think of Mr Matthews as any kind of substitute parent figure, not in the way Will tended to cling to Merlin's mum when he thought he was being subtle. But he liked him a lot - for how similar he was to Will, and for every single way they were different. He always treated Merlin just the same as he did he own son, which didn't always seem like a good thing at the time. But now he missed it with awful urgency. He tried to think of the good things, camping trips, the time they went to Alton Towers, movie nights, army stories. But all that came to mind was the way the man's face fell when they told him they wouldn't be joining the army. He didn't even try to talk them back into it, just mumbled dejectedly: "Well, that's up to you, lads," but right now Merlin would've given anything to take that back. If they'd just never told him - they still weren't eighteen, still plenty of time, why had they told him back then...
He let his tears spill and dribble slowly down his nose, into Will's hair. When he pulled back to wipe at his face he realised that Will was snoring. He must have cried himself to sleep, literally; he didn't normally snore, but now his raw, swollen throat was making scratchy rumbling sounds. Merlin pulled the blanked higher over them and tried to nod off, too.
When he woke, Will was crying again, very quietly, probably trying not to disturb him.
"Shh, Will," Merlin cooed, turned over and kissed the back of Will's neck before he woke up all the way.
"Sorry," he said and pulled back. "That was, um. Weird."
"It's alright, you wanker," said Will, laughing through tears. He grabbed Merlin's wrist and pulled it down, draping Merlin's arm across himself again.
There was a knock on the door; that could've only been Merlin's mum. Will didn't move, so Merlin couldn't either, and didn't have the guts to yell for her not to come in. When Mum peeked inside, that's how she saw them, in bed together. Spooning.
She didn't bat en eye. Her face was swollen, like she'd cried too, but overall she looked calm as ever, and Merlin felt a surge of gratitude and love for her that left him dizzy. He didn't even know he still had it in him to feel anything.
"I've made dinner," she said. "Come downstairs, you should try to eat something."
In the kitchen she gave Will a hug, and started saying she was sorry, but he pulled away quickly, hiding his face from her. They sat down and tucked into the sheppard's pie she's made while they'd been asleep in Will's bed.
"Will, I want you to stay with us for now," she said. "I've called the college, you don't have to come in till you feel up to it. Both of you."
"Thanks, Mum," Merlin said.
"I've called your mother. She'll be here tomorrow."
"I don't want to see her," said Will, chewing his food miserably slowly, like a man with toothache in every tooth.
"You don't have to. She'll stay in this house, she'll take over from here and make all the arrangements. Apparently, they're still married, so it'll be the easiest for her to do everything."
"Yeah. She was never stupid enough to divorce the military benefits."
Will swallowed another chunk of food, then suddenly bolted from his seat and retched into the sink.
"Shit," he hissed and turned the tap on. "Sorry."
"It's alright. Have some tea," Mum said. "I'll make you a toast later."
She'd found time to clean up the room. The broken shelves were still down, but she put them against the wall, stacked all the scattered things into boxes, and cleaned the carpet. The TV was back on the stand, showing a news channel on mute.
"Don't worry about anything for now, just take your time," she said. "We'll look after you, Will. You've always got us."
For the first few days Will barely said a word. They both quietly drifted around the house and through the town when they wanted some air. Will's mum called his mobile once she got into town, and he hung up on her.
Time seemed to fly strangely fast - they'd wake up, wander around, collapse on the couch mid-afternoon, unaccountably exhausted, and by the time they'd wake up from a nap and had dinner it was almost bed time again. Every evening Mum made a bed for Will on the couch downstairs; most days he ignored it and crawled into bed with Merlin. Merlin hadn't attempted to snog or hump him in his sleep again, and was a little bit proud of that.
"How are you holding up?" Mum asked one day, when she got him alone.
"Compared to Will? I'm awesome."
"He's pulling through, I think," she said. "Just - while he's grieving he might say and do a lot of things he doesn't really mean. I want you to keep that in mind."
"What?" he asked. "What's that supposed to mean? Is that about the - because it's not like that! We're just, it's not like that, I swear."
"Look, no, that's fine with me either way, you're both over sixteen, it's no longer any of my business. I just don't want you boys to hurt any more than you already do."
He simply nodded, because it was easier than arguing.
He started to lose track of days, and was just about to try talking Will into going back to college before they'd both go stir-crazy when Will finally spoke.
"Do you think you can bring him back?"
"Come on, Will, that's impossible. Don't."
"You don't know that. You said it yourself, you've never done really big stuff. You don't know where your limits are. Maybe you can."
"You're serious," Merlin said, suddenly chilled to the bone. "You actually want me to raise your dad from the dead."
"I want you to try at least. When his body gets here..."
"Will! Listen to yourself, that's insane! No!"
"You wouldn't even try?"
"No! It can't be done, Will, stop even saying it, I can't do it!"
"Can't or won't?"
"Look - I wouldn't even know where to begin. He'd have been dead for - no, that's crazy."
"You could practice on animals or something."
"Will, no! Think about what you're saying - what if, and I know it won't, but what if it works, and he'd be a, a zombie? He's your father! We can't do that to him!"
"We have to try at least," said Will, stubbornly clenching his jaw. "Are you scared? Is that what's it about? Are you afraid to use your magic? Because, I don't know what you're saving it for. Sure, it's a risk, but do you really think there'll ever be a better cause? No, this is it, Merlin, this is as bad as it gets. This is where you have to pull your finger out and stop thinking only about yourself and staying safe. We need your help, and you can do this."
"I can't, Will. Not this. I wish I could, and if there was some other way..."
"Fine," said Will. "I'm going home."
He left, and he wouldn't pick up his phone or answer texts. Merlin made up some story for Mum, and went to college the next day to keep himself busy, cowardly hoping Will wouldn't show up there. He didn't.
Merlin spent the rest of the day sitting alone in his room, too rattled to do anything. There was a fly buzzing at his window, and he watched it scramble against glass for a good half an hour. Then he got up and swatted it with a rolled up magazine.
He waited till its legs stopped shuddering and it stilled on the windowsill, a tiny dead husk. Then he cupped his palm over it and gave it a small jolt of his magic.
When he felt it bump into his hand, trying to fly out, he bit down a scream and jumped back onto his bed. The fly did a wobbly circle around the room, bumped into the glass a few more times, found the edge of the frame and flew out.
"All right," he said into the silence. "Right."
That didn't really mean anything. Insects were almost impossible to kill, anyway. Maybe the fly hadn't been dead. He remembered that story - if you cut off a cockroach's head it would die in about a week, from starvation. He wasn't sure if it was an urban myth or an actual piece of a secondary school biology lesson. But insects were wrong for this, in any case. He had to practice on animals.
Next day he went out to the motorway with a ziplock bag in his pocket. He found a roadkill, a broken corpse of a sparrow. He slid the bag around it, cringing in guilty revulsion, and brought it back to his room.
The bird was cold, bloodied, one of its wings a crushed mess. There was a torn wound on its small chest, and its head hung down limply, lolling about freely like it was only held to the body by the skin and nothing else. He couldn't even tell if its neck was broken. Maybe dead birds were supposed to be that way.
It would be horrid to revive it like this, mutilated and torn up. If he, by some miracle, succeeded, the bird would be in agony. He had to try fixing it first.
He spread his hand over the broken wing, trying not to touch blood-encrusted feathers, and began.
He didn't remember, and never actually knew in the first place, enough about bird anatomy to make any kind of informed decision. He simply let his magic flow in and guide him, concentrating on the intent. Make it right. Make it whole.
He tried not to think how disgusting it was: shattered bones moving inside the dead meat, knitting up together, stiff bits of flesh rearranging themselves. The bird was staring at him with blind black eyes, and he was afraid of touching its head to try and make it turn away. He felt sick to his stomach, but he wasn't done yet.
The wing finally looked like a wing again. With most of the feathers gone it looked more like one of the raw chicken wings on a supermarket shelf, stained with dark bruises under blue-white skin - and he was never going to eat meat again.
He left it alone and moved to the chest. The feathers there were tiny and soft, just fluff. He blew on them to get them to part and see the wound better, and then wished he didn't. There was something dark and wet sticking out of there, and he didn't know if he was supposed to take it out or stuff it back in.
"No, I can't," he sobbed to himself. "I can't."
"What are you doing?" asked his mother from the door.
He jumped and let out a startled shriek. She was standing in his doorway, looking at the dead bird and his hands, still humming from magic, and she must have seen everything.
"I was just..." he started, and realised that he had no explanation.
"You can't be - I don't believe this," she whispered.
"Mum, no, I wasn't really - I was just trying to make sure that I can't do this. That I can't revive things. And I can't! And I swear, I'll never do this again, I'll get rid of this now - "
"What the hell were you thinking?"
"I know, all right? I know! It's crazy! And I'll tell Will it's not possible, so he'll shut up and back off, and everything will be..."
"Will?" she asked in a chillingly even voice. "Will knows about you?"
He opened his mouth to say something, and was stuck there, uselessly working his jaw. He couldn't believe he let that slip out, just like that, after so many years of being clever and careful. It was the dead bird, and Will's zombie dad idea, and Will's angry, closed off face, it all paralysed his brain somehow, and now she knew.
"Mum," he said. "No. He will never tell anyone. He knew since forever. Since we were thirteen. He never told anyone, and he never will, I promise you."
"This," she pointed at the bird with unsteady finger. "This, what were you trying to do? Did Will ask you to raise his dad from the grave? And you're - are you practising?"
"I just wanted to..." he started, and trailed off under her glare. He never seen her like that - she might as well be looking at a stranger. A stranger she didn't like at all.
"Let me explain something to you," she crossed the room and sat on the bed, with the bird spread on the plastic bag between them. "If you did something to his father's body, not necessarily successful, but something people might notice, do you know what would happen? Will would be arrested as the most likely suspect. He would be taken in and interrogated as a warlock. I don't know what they do. But they have special dispensation. That can mean - anything. He would be interrogated till he confessed to sorcery, or till he gave them the real culprit. And if he did that, if he gave you up, he'd serve up to five years in prison for not reporting you earlier. He's old enough now, there would be no leniency."
"He'd never tell anyone."
"You know, I would love to hear you say that you'd keep quiet and let him take all the blame. But I don't think I'd believe you."
"I'm not going to do anything," he whispered, scared by her white, still face almost to tears. "Mum, I swear. We'll be safe."
"He's a danger to you. And you're a danger to him. Your power is a constant temptation to you both, and one day you will do something that gets you both caught."
"I won't. I really won't. Mum, please, don't be mad. I'm sorry."
"We're going to move away," she said. "We've been here too long, it's not safe anymore."
"But we can't leave Will, not now!"
"It's for his sake, too."
"But I have college," he muttered, already knowing that her mind was made up. "And it's hard to get jobs now, can we just..."
"We're not going to argue about it. Let's just - let's both calm down, have dinner and sleep on this, and tomorrow we'll start making plans."
"Where would we go?"
"We'll figure it out," she said. "We'll just keep moving for a while, as long as our savings will last, and then we'll come up with something. We'll be fine."
He followed her into kitchen, wondering belatedly why was she home so early. Then he remembered - she switched shifts at the store, she was doing a training course. She was up for a promotion. They were going to buy a car with the extra money, and next year they were going to go to Spain. It was going to be his first ever holiday abroad, to celebrate his first year of college. She kept joking that he was too grown up to vacation with his crusty old mum, and he was going to be bored to tears, he'd hate it. He looked at her as she moved around the tiny, tidy kitchen, sliding through the tight space between the table and the sink in a practised side-step, reaching for utensils and spices without looking because she knew exactly where they all were, they've been there for four years now.
This year she was turning forty. It was time she stopped living in fear, constantly ready to run, with a prison sentence hanging over her head. He knew what he had to do. He just needed the courage to do it.
"I'm not hungry actually," he said. "I'm going to go say goodbye to Will now."
"There's no rush. We won't leave tomorrow, it might take a few days. We need to pawn what we can - you'll have plenty of time with him yet."
"Yeah, I want to get it over with," he sighed. "Mum, I'm so sorry. For everything."
"It's not your fault, sweetheart, don't be sorry," she pulled him into a hug, and he clung to her desperately, trying his best to keep himself in check and not cry, and not say anything that would make her suspicious.
"I know it's hard sometimes," she said. "But you know that I love you and I'm proud of you, and I couldn't wish for a better son. The joy you bring me is worth anything. You have to remember that, always."
He smiled gratefully, blinking hard to stave off the tears, stumbled to the front door and got his parka off the coat hanger. Mum's favourite cashmere scarf was on the shelf, folded neatly. He grabbed it and wound it around his neck, messily, with too much bulk under his collar. He wasn't used to triangular scarves, but he'd have plenty of time to figure them out. Then he went through all their coats and jackets pocketing whatever change he could find, emptied Mum's purse of the money, and went out.
Will opened the door, munching on a cold sausage roll. He looked startlingly normal, as if the last week hadn't happened at all.
"Oh hi! I was about to call you," he said, beaming at Merlin. "Look - forget what I said, all right? That was crazy talk. Seriously batshit crazy talk. I'm... Hey, why are you wearing your mum's scarf?"
"Felt like it."
"Riiight. Well, anyway. Think I'm starting to get a grip now. I had this really great talk with my mother - are you coming in or what?"
"No, I have to go. I just wanted to check that you're okay."
"Yeah," Will said. "Yeah, I think I will be."
"Good," Merlin nodded, and abruptly grabbed him into a hug. Will shifted to stand closer and awkwardly patted him on the back with the hand still holding the sausage roll.
"No, really, mate, we need to stop with the cuddling. We're overdoing it, man."
"Yeah," said Merlin breathlessly, and pulled back to take the last look at Will's face. It wasn't a particularly handsome face, and right now it had extra zits and shaving rash on the side. But the thought of never seeing Will again pierced through him, nearly painful enough to make him groan out loud. He leaned forward and quickly planted a light, tight-lipped kiss on the corner of Will's mouth.
"Right," Will said, not looking all that surprised. "Should we, like, talk about this?"
"Nah," said Merlin, grinning at him like a loon. He must have looked pathetically soppy, but he couldn't help it: he wasn't even sad about their separation now, just happy to have known him. "Bye, Will."
He turned around and started walking.
He walked for hours, till his feet went from sore to numb and his ankles started hurting. The pavement under his boots quickly changed to gravelled hard shoulder with dusty frayed bushes that framed it on one side and cached at his coat as he brushed past. As it got dark, the road quieted slowly, with only an occasional car barrelling down past him at insane speed. He must have covered a good fifteen miles, but he knew that the moment he turned around he'd be standing right back on his porch, as if he never left. The lights inside would be on, the TV would be showing news on mute, and his mother would be on the front room couch with his discarded phone in her hand, waiting for him, worried sick.
"C'mon, let go," he said out loud.
He felt a sharp push at his back and stumbled forward, and when he looked up again he wasn't even on a motorway anymore. He was in the middle of a dark, wet field, his boots sinking in the dirt. A mountain range rose at a far distance, black against grey night sky. It looked flat and immaterial, as if cut out of paper. In front of him the stark line of horizon was broken up by a patch of reddish ethereal glow, a heavy mix of fog and night lights rising to the sky; a big city.
A city sounded like a good plan.
He'd been to the city before, a few times on school trips, and had always envied the native city dwellers. Every moment of their lives they were surrounded by extraordinary, vibrant things, submerged right into the heartbeat of everything. This was where the real life happened, where they made the news that would be lapped up later by the people on the fringes, in small, sleepy towns made up entirely of beige terraced houses.
As they were dragged around by the teachers, sweeping through the city's sights and museums, just skimming the glossy surface of what was going on, he'd dream of really living here. Learning the real truths behind the carved façades of the beautiful buildings, exploring all the darks places between them, getting to know all the strange, odd people that moved through the street without looking around, each lost deep in their own thoughts.
He spent the day wandering in circles around the city centre, clinging to the tourist spots for their familiarity. He watched the tourists, trying to guess where they were from, basking in their holiday-making excitement, and fantasised about getting a job as a museum attendant, or a tour guide. A gatekeeper to the city, the one to welcome in all the starry-eyed travellers.
But the whole point of coming to the city was to become invisible, disappear in the crowd. There were thousands of people living on the streets, feeding off the land, completely under the radar of the law, with no paper trail, no attachments, no connections. It couldn't be that hard. If crazy old men could survive on the streets and still have money for booze, as all TV shows seemed to indicate, then he would definitely have no trouble here. He'd spend his days communing with the city, drinking in everything it was, with nothing to do all day but laze around and enjoy himself. No homework, no chores, no obligations. And at nights he'd huddle next to burning rubbish bins with the other vagabonds and listen to their stories. He'd be the mysterious one, the man with a sad, dark secret. He needed to get a pair of fingerless mittens.
He hadn't slept the night before, and had mostly been on his feet for two days now. By the time the city centre began to quiet down, slowly turning into a ghost kingdom of dark shop windows and huge empty buildings, he was too exhausted to move. He stretched out on a bench by the embankment and closed his eyes, listening to the dull hum of the thinning traffic in the distance and the soft lapping of water against stone.
He woke up when something long and hard poked him in the stomach. He jumped up, panicking, scrambling to get away. There was a policeman standing over him. The street lights glinted sharply on his helmet, leaving his face dark, hidden behind the glow.
"You can't sleep here. Up you go."
"Am I under arrest?" Merlin stuttered, glancing around for escape route and possible witnesses.
"Just get off my beat, son. Need directions to the shelter? They'd be full, though."
"No. Thank you. I'm ready to go home now, I think."
"That's a good lad," said the cop tiredly, lightly knocking his truncheon on the bench. Merlin got up and carried on walking, hunching over from the pain in his tired legs. He was cold now, and he desperately wanted a cup of tea. He'd drink it black right now, gladly.
He came to a bridge he only saw at a distance before, the rail one, plain and streaked from weather. Not a sight to put on a tourist brochure. But there was a light flickering underneath, and he headed toward it like a weary, hopeful moth.
The people around the tiny fire weren't old and crazy, and they weren't wearing fingerless mittens. They were mostly kids, some younger than him, all dressed and made up with such effortless, outlandish cool that he felt like a country simpleton in his parka, cheap jeans and old walking boots. As he approached they all fell silent, turned around and glared at him.
"I'll just sleep over there," he said and picked his way through rubble and rubbish to a darker corner, away from them. The ground was cold and uneven, but as soon as he settled down and propped his head against the wall, the soft soft darkness enveloped him all over, turning his muscles to warm jelly and numbing his mind till his thoughts became scattered, coloured, dream-scented. He never thought simply falling asleep could be such a sharp, complete bliss.
He was woken up by someone prodding and shaking him - again - and nearly lashed out in frustration, sore and groggy, even more tired than before. There was a girl kneeling over him. She had to be one of the kids from before, only now her mascara was running, streaking her face like a Halloween make-up.
"Help, help," she sobbed. "Raven's dying."
There were had been about twenty of them when he’d come came here, but now only four were left. A guy was wavering by the edge of the arch, muttering long strings of curses, and another one was by the dead fire, prone and still. There was another girl was by his side, rocking back and forth and wailing quietly.
"We weren't even doing anything," said the girl who woke him. "Nothing special. Do you know what to do? Please, do something."
"We need to call the ambulance."
"We can't! We'll be screwed, they all ran off already, and Raven's going to die! And we can't be arrested, we can't!"
"Right," Merlin said, blinking away sleep. "Okay. Call the ambulance and tell them where to find him. Use the payphone. And then go away, go home. I'll stay with him and cover for you. Go, run."
She nodded, sniffling and swallowing tears, grabbed the wailing girl by an arm and dragged her away. The guy had already disappeared, leaving Merlin alone with Raven.
Raven's eyes were open, but he stared intently somewhere above him and wouldn't focus on Merlin. He was jerking slightly from time to time, making tiny sounds like hiccups. There was a streak of something gross-looking on his cheek; when Merlin touched his wrist he felt the pulse pounding under his fingers fast and slurred, like a drumroll.
Merlin put his hand on the guy's chest and felt, nearly saw his heart, fluttering against the ribs, choking and stuttering, the red muscle straining and cramped, ready to burst.
"Okay, Raven," he said. "Yeah, I bet right now we both wish I'd practised on animals a bit more."
He pressed down with his palm and pushed forward with his magic, taking hold, testing his limits. It was easy. He could feel another's blood and flesh in his grasp just like he felt his black shirt under his fingers, the ground under his feet. He wrapped his power around the man's heart, soothing and gentling it like he would a frightened rabbit.
"I've no idea what I'm doing," he confessed into Raven's white face. He pressed the fingers of his free hand to the pulse point on his own neck and put all he had into matching their heartbeats, slowly, carefully. He could feel another life straining under the current of his magic, bathed in it, defenceless, surrendered. Just a moment of panic, one careless move, and he'd ruin it all, and it would be beyond repair.
Raven stopped shuddering. His pale-blue lips were filling with colour, and there was something resembling sense in his eyes now.
"Who are you?" he suddenly rasped.
"I'm a hallucination," said Merlin in what he thought would be funny, reassuring way, before he realised that wasn't the best suitable phrasing ever. Raven's eyes widened and began to roll back, which was probably not good. But his heart was beating slowly, steadily now, and Merlin didn't know what else he could do, except sit here and hold him, just so he wasn't alone.
He stayed like that till he heard a screech of a siren. The girl had called the ambulance after all; only then he realised that he hadn't thought she would. He waited for the footsteps and voices to drift close enough and skittered away, clinging to shadows and wrapping them around himself, the way he used to wrap light when he was little.
The city was a trap. He could see it now. It wasn't an adventure, or a gritty but feel-good comedy drama like the ones he used to watch with his mum. The ones he saw today could have been just spoiled rich kids whose usual game went a little wrong; the real homeless would be lost, exhausted and desperate people. They had no one looking out for them, and they would need help every day, all the time, and he would have to help them. He could never hide here. He'd flare up like a torch. The city was a mistake.
The train and bus stations would be closed now, and he wasn't even sure he'd dare to go there. He turned north of the river, and carried on walking.
He wasn't starving. Once, when his legs gave out and wouldn't move any more and he had to lie for an hour or so in an exhausted sprawl in a soft, furrowed field, he figured out how to make money. It was easy, as long as he turned small bills into bigger ones; once he grasped the general idea behind every pattern he could shift between them without much effort. He tried making money out of chocolate bar wrappers, but couldn't get the feel right. They were too smooth and sleek to the touch. The chocolate smell wouldn't go away either, though he didn't think that would make anyone suspicious.
He bought food from stalls and supermarket outlets, and he'd sleep in empty barns when he was in the country and found shelter behind warehouses when he wasn't. He lost count of those nights quickly. It could have been weeks, or it could have been few days. While he could he kept moving, because it kept him from having to think. He had no plan, no goals, and, as long as he kept to himself and stayed on the road, he had nothing to fear.
From time to time, as his mind began to wander, he'd find himself in a different place from where he was a second ago. It was a bit like that odd lurch that happened on the day he left home, when he found himself miles away from the motorway he'd been following. But these times he felt no push, not even a the smallest jarring sensation. He'd lift his eyes, and the scenery would have changed. He thought at first he was losing time, muddled with fatigue and the soul-sucking feeling of emptiness and aimlessness, which was exhausting in itself and kept building up every day. It took him a while to realise that he was, in fact, losing space.
He walked till he came to the sea.
It was grey and flat, its surface speckled with shifting dips and waves. It looked carelessly cast out of lead; even the shifts and moves of it were too solid, too heavy. It was nothing like the perfect blue of the seas in the tourist brochures, or the stormy white mess of the seas that were really Northern, not just in name.
He climbed down the dunes, crossed the heaps of flotsam and the stretch of the wet wavy sand and stood at the water's edge, letting the waves lick at the cracked toes of his boots. He lifted his foot and carefully tested the water surface with his sole.
He could feel the water resisting the pressure, tensions lines stretching taught from his heel to the distant horizon. He could just keep walking. He could walk across the sea if he wanted to, all the way to the other side, and try to settle in Denmark.
He pushed harder and let his foot sink to the bottom. The sand was muddy there, sticking to his soles like clay. Cold water seeped through the bootlace holes and bit at his ankles, and began soaking in through the thick leather, filling his boots.
He could just keep walking.
He stood there till he could no longer stand the constricting pain in his frozen feet. Then he staggered out of the water and followed the dunes along the beach, all the way to the town in the distance: glistening roofs, black church tower, a pier cutting into the sea, a few yachts bobbing among the waves.
It looked picturesque. Lovely even.
Next part
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Date: 2010-08-28 04:04 pm (UTC)Will's father's death turned all that comfort and love and safety upside down. The picture you painted of the devastating aftermath was vivid and emotional and terribly raw. It's no wonder Will begs Merlin to make it all better and it's no wonder he tries. Hunith's reaction was also true to the character you've written. She needs to protect her son just as fiercely as he needs to protect her.
Running away was really his only option. I love the details of his taking her scarf and Will's reaction to the new look and that kiss that they don't need to talk about because it's the only one Merlin's going to give him.
Merlin's journey is heartbreakingly lonely after those years of seeming normalcy.
This is all making for a fantastic read.
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Date: 2010-08-28 10:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-29 12:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-29 09:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-03 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-03 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-02 12:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-02 05:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-06 02:47 am (UTC)Peace,
Bubba
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Date: 2010-10-07 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-25 12:08 am (UTC)I LOVED your development of Merlin and Will's relationship, and how it was slowly turning into more without them really needing to talk about it or do anything to make it happen, it just was. It felt so natural and realistic for their age in that way, especially with Will's father's death being a catalyst. A death, btw, which was heart-wrenching to read about and we barely even knew the guy! Wow that's quite an achievement!... I can't believe how intense these last two chapters have been. It's almost as if it's a story within it's own right! From Hunith's panic for Merlin, to Will's relationship with his father, it was just gorgeous and completely and utterly intoxicating to read.
I can't wait to read more! Even if reading about Merlin being homeless is hard to bare.... bless him. Oh and btw, loved the idea of Merlin being able to walk on water so that he could walk forever! That is slightly mind-boggling and completely brilliant! Loved it!
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Date: 2010-10-26 06:55 pm (UTC)I so hope you enjoy the rest of the story! Thank you again for reading and commenting, I really appreciate that! <3
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Date: 2011-06-09 12:05 am (UTC)Brilliant.
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Date: 2011-06-17 09:35 pm (UTC)