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Arthur didn’t know how they’d gotten to this point – standing over each other, seconds away from resorting to blows, without the possibility from walking away from the confrontation. Merlin was staring up at him with angry eyes, hurt eyes, and Lord knows what Arthur looked like. They both breathed out.
The evening had been so calm. The ending credits of Supernatural played on the screen – Arthur had taken advantage of the enforced isolation after he tested positive for COVID to catch up on his favourite tv show. Dinner had been a simple but delicious spaghetti – he had taken Merlin his plate, his partner still doing his course work. After a can of bourbon cola to wash it all down, he’d suggested to Merlin that they go to bed – maybe sleep in a little, have some breakfast in bed and watch some Doctor Who. He had been hogging the tv a little over the past week and a half, so Merlin should get a chance to watch his nerdy show (that Arthur refused to admit to enjoying, if only because Merlin could get so animated and engrossed in the twisted storylines).
It had just been a suggestion.
Merlin had said no. “I can’t go to bed yet Arthur, I’ve still got work to do.”
Arthur should have let it go. But as Merlin likes to constantly remind him, a dollop head can never take no for an answer. “C’mon Merlin, nothing can be so important that it needs to be down right now.” Alright, so maybe he was feeling a little neglected. They’d been home together for days yet had barely exchanged a handful of words. He had wanted to go to sleep with Merlin wrapped in his arms, wake up with a bony elbow digging into his stomach, or back, or wherever the impossible idiot managed to catch him.
“I can’t Arthur. I need to finish this assignment.” The lack of a nickname should have clued him in. No prat. No dollop head. No pompous arse.
But Arthur had to be a complete bonehead and push on. “Surely you can’t take a break for one night Merlin. Don’t you have an extension anyway, because of COVID?”
The glare Merlin had sent him – finally looking up from his laptop – was a horrid mix of exhaustion and fury. “The extension was for my other class Arthur. This essay is for my class on differential diagnosis in the neurosciences, that they had to expand from a normal reflective analysis due to COVID. It’s due next week. So no, I’m not going to take a break.”
Some concern had broken through Arthur’s exasperation here. “You need to take a break anyway Merlin. I don’t think I’ve seen you move away from your computer since…” Since I don’t know when, he thought. He’d been so caught up in his tv show, so concerned with his own mini holiday that he hadn’t even…
“I can’t sleep!” Merlin had shot to his feet. Away from the glare of the computer screen, Arthur could see the deep circles under his eyes.
“It’s easy Merlin. You just lay down and close your eyes. Maybe try to relax if you’re not too uptight.” That was where everything went wrong, Arthur thought. This is where I screwed up.
Merlin had thrown his hands up. “Oh, you’d know all about relaxing Arthur. You haven’t done anything but since this quarantine started! If you’d actually pull your weight around here, maybe I would have the time to sleep!”
“Pull my weight?” He’d spluttered. “Who do you think cooked you dinner tonight!?” A dinner that had long since gone cold, untouched, on Merlin’s desk.
“Who do you think made dinner every other night this week?” Merlin had shot back. “Certainly not you! You’ve been attached to the tv the second you came home!”
“That’s rich, coming from someone who’s been attached to his computer for months!” Alright, so maybe this had been building for longer than just these few days.
“I. Have. Been. Studying! Trying to become a doctor! You know, that endeavour you said you’d support me in? Haven’t seen you doing much supporting!”
“Maybe I wouldn’t have supported it if I knew it would take you away from me!”
Silence.
That is where they were now. Two men, standing across from each other in a cramped room, in a cramped apartment they couldn’t leave.
“Arthur…” Merlin’s voice was so quiet.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” Arthur immediately felt guilt like a rock in his stomach. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Then how did you mean it?” That fire was back in his eyes now. “C’mon, don’t hold back now.”
“Merlin, I…” How do can he put into words the way an empty bed feels, an empty couch or empty kitchen bench, the feeling of air at your side that’s meant to be filled with a person. How can he describe the loneliness of having someone there but so far away? Of having Merlin so close but never talking to him. “I miss you Merlin.”
“Arthur, you know how much this degree means to me.” He did, he really did. Arthur was the one to hold Merlin, barely eighteen, when he broke down at his mother’s bedside after she lost her battle with cancer. Arthur was the one to push Merlin into going to university when he was directionless. Arthur was at every open day. Arthur was there when Merlin chose which degree, which courses, which days. He knew.
“I know, I know, I just… you might be here, Merlin, but you’re not here.”
“This – this quarantine has been hard on both of us,” Merlin hedged as he looked away. “Maybe it’s just cabin fever.”
“Maybe,” Arthur suggested as he took a step forward, “It’s you overworking and overstressing yourself. I know you don’t want to sleep, but you have to. You’re going to collapse at this rate.”
“I can’t sleep Arthur!”
This was more than just a deadline, Arthur thought with sudden clarity. He didn’t know how long Merlin had been spiralling, but now it was obvious.
“You can’t or won’t?”
Merlin’s eyes gained a wild quality. There was a shine to them, like he was holding back tears. “It’s… I can’t…” He shivered. Took a step forward. Collapsed into Arthur’s arms. Shaking hands grabbed at Arthurs shirt even as his shoulder became damp. Despite this, Merlin didn’t make a sound.
Arthur squeezed Merlin tightly, arms wrapped around shoulder and waist. “It’s okay Merlin. It’s gonna be okay.”
“Not it’s not!” Merlin’s voice was muffled but the desperation in it wasn’t. “He’s not gonna be okay!”
“Who’s not going to be okay?” His mind whirled. Was it Gwaine? His police partner (or as Gwaine liked to call it, his work wife) had been spat on by the same COVID positive bastard and was safely quarantined with his roommate Percy. Lance was still working, trying to stay safe despite his job as a paramedic. Maybe something had happened to him? Arthur hadn’t heard anything… Maybe it was one of the others – Elyan, or Leon, or Kay, or –
“Gaius!”
Arthur closed his eyes. “Shit…” He murmured. Gaius. The closest thing Merlin had to a father, and part of the inspiration for Merlin’s choice of degree. He was a diagnostician after decades of experience in the emergency room. Despite his age putting him at risk, the ornery doctor refused to stay home, and instead used every precaution he could to not get sick and still do his job. “Has something happened?”
Merlin shook his head silently, and Arthur breathed out a sigh of relief. At least there was that. “So… have you just been worrying?”
Pushing away with a scowl, Merlin growled out, “Don’t say that like I’m an idiot. I know he’s being careful; I know he’s not going to stay home, but I’m not going to stop worrying!”
“I know Merlin.” Arthur pulled him back in. “I just mean that you haven’t heard any bad news. Of course you’re going to worry – you should have told me instead of bottling it all up. I can’t help you if I don’t know you need help.”
Merlin rolled his eyes. “Maybe you should take your own advice, dollop head.”
That pulled a laugh from Arthur. “Oh don’t be such a girls’ blouse, Merlin. Don’t you know that real men don’t talk about their feelings?”
“Hmmm…” Merlin looked around for a moment before snuggling deeper into Arthur’s embrace. “I don’t see Lance around, so I’m not sure what ‘real man’ you’re talking about.”
“Alright! For that, I’m making you sleep!” Arthur lifted Merlin over his shoulder, ignoring his startled cries and bony elbows, and carried him to their bedroom. When Merlin hit the bed, he didn’t look impressed.
“I don’t like being manhandled prat. And I still have work to do!”
Arthur didn’t give him a chance to escape, laying on the bed and pulling Merlin down with him. Both arms were wrapped around Merlin’s chest now, and a leg was tossed over his thigh, so that Merlin was pinned to Arthur’s chest. Glancing down, he grinned. Merlin was doing his best to try and glare him into submission, but it was ruined by the jaw-cracking yawn and exhausted fluttering of his eyes.
“Work can wait till tomorrow. Cuddle now.”
“Humph, what a man…” Merlin drawled, rubbing his face against Arthur’s shirt. “Were you missing your cuddle time Arthur?”
“Very much so,” he whispered.
They still needed to talk about everything. Arthur would have to give Gaius a call, maybe convince him to take some time off if only for his pseudo-son’s health. Merlin still had classes to complete. There were new episodes of Doctor Who to watch.
But for now, there were two men, in a cramped bedroom, in an even more cramped apartment, completely dead to the world, and comfortable in each other’s arms.