Merlin braced himself against the sink, his knuckles white with tension, as he threw up. Tears rolled down his face like drops of rain, he choked back a sob but it came out either way. He retched again and then once more, before sniffing through his nose and turning on the tap. He filled his palm up with cool, clean water and drank it, washing out the bad, nasty, haunting taste. He looked up now, in the mirror. He looked haunted. His skin was pale as the moon that shone through his bed room window, his eyes sleepless as his nights. He was no more the than walking dead.
He set his jaw in a closed lock and slammed his hand against the mirror. Glass shattered, and blood streaked the mirror and glass fell onto the floor and onto the young man's hand. He yelled and hollered at the image of himself, shouted at the world asking it why, why? Why did it happen, why did he have to be so stupid and so weak? Was he not good enough?
He shook his head, " No, I am good enough, but he just didn't see it. It's his lost not mine."
But those were just words he forced himself to say, he didn't believe a word of them, not one bit. He turned away from his reflection fast but slipped and fell in a pool of water and went down in his ankle hard. He heard a crack and a moan escaped his lips as he landed hard onto the floor. More tears fell but he didn't try to stop them. He was useless just like he had told Merlin, and stupid, and….why?
He had been everything to Merlin, everything. He thought it was destiny the night they meet in the park when he had walked home late from school. He was nice and kind, he was everything that Merlin had wanted in a partner, and he understood Merlin. But that all changed when Merlin would not do what he asked. He had dumped him and yelled at him, said things that hunted Merlin now, but he did not hurt him, not touch him though maybe that would have been belter, Merlin had begun to think.
He should have listened to his friends, who really cared about him, damn him. Merlin tried to get up but he could not for he would only fall back down. He cried some more and rubbed his face with his fist and yelled some more only to muffle with his hands.
He looked up and on the sink saw something, a razor. Merlin licked his lips, no, he thought, he wouldn't resort to that, wouldn't be come what he had been called. Still he picked it up anyway and just looked at it. Just look not do. He heard the music from his stereo play soft music:
I can't even count the number of nights I wished tomorrow wouldn't come.
Without love or dreams, beaten by the rain
Crying, crying, crying, crying
To live just how I am now, without changing
what is it I need?
If you can't even believe in yourself, what are you supposed to believe in?
The answer's too close; I can't see it.
Merlin let the memories come to him, the soft smiles the gentle laughs…the harsh and jealous stares, the confusing notions…the real reason after all these years. He chose the wrong person. The person who would never hurt him, yet he had hurt him and gone with….
He heard the door of his room bang as someone hammered on it. He looked at it from where he sat; it was but a slimmer of a frame in his dark room that was once light and filled with books. The razor was still in his hands, and he flipped it up and down.
"Merlin open the damn door!" a male's voice shout and Merlin licked his lips. Was his mind playing tricks on him? There was no way Arthur was at his door, his ex-best friend and the guy who had liked-no loved- him but Merlin had been to foolish to see he was the one for him.
Black tears flow
inside of me and there's nothing else; just sadness
I can't even put it in words,
my whole body is releasing pain
and I can't face it all on my own.
In the middle of night, in tears it's not me but my face that I'm drawing
Hiding my sadness to make a smiling face;
make it stop, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop
"Merlin, please….open the door. I heard what happen, the dude was a prick, a big one. Please I am worried about you. Open up!" Arthur shouted through the door and the knob jiggled.
"Go away, Arthur. Why would you want to see me? To rub it in my face?" Merlin drawled to the door. He was surprised his voice was carried even that far.
He brought his leg up to his face and he hugged it, trying to push all past thoughts out. Just then the door busted open, the door hinge cracking and Arthur standing in the door way. He was still in his school uniform, the red shirt and grey slacks, his hair in his face. He looked just like he did when Merlin had ran past him when Kyle, the man he thought he had loved, crushed it all and told Merlin what he really thought.
Arthur stalked over, saw the razor him Merlin's hands and locked his eyes with Merlin, " Don't even think about it. He is not worth it."
Merlin tore his eyes away and said, " I am not. He's not worth it, I know it, but I am not either? I messed up? He didn't lie when he called me stupid, fool, and the other words he said."
Arthur bent down, his eyes soft and with a tint of sympatric light in them. His hands went forward and went to Merlin's face and Merlin jerked back with a wobble of lips and shaking of the head. Arthur closed his hand and he looked down, " Oh, Merlin. He wasn't meant for you; he is a dick and will be losing the best thing in the world. I should now….I lost you, my chance, Merlin, yet unlike him I still love you."
To live on without changing myself; is that the most
difficult thing in this world?
If you're giving me something make it something without shape
I don't need anything else to break.
Shedding black tears even as I scream
not even caring, the morning arrives
If I'm going to keep being battered
by these painful days
I just want to disappear far away
Even though I know that's selfish of me...
Merlin jerked his head around, his hands bloody as he smashed them against Arthur's chest, tears loomed down his face, his eyes too wide for one so broken, " Why do you love me? Why, Arthur? I am your friend; we would never have met was it not for that silly field trip to the hedge stone in England and you transferred to my school. I chose a bad guy who used me over you. Why me? Why am I crying yet I feel like laughing at it all?"
Arthur put one hand over Merlin's could feel his heart beat in his fingers, he grip it and used the other one to wrap Merlin in a hug, " I don't know, Merlin, but I love you because you are a smart, funny, caring guy who made me, me. You chose the wrong guy who did you wrong it's not your fault, Merlin," Arthur breathed and Merlin sobbed against him, " I don't know why you would laugh when you should cry. Cry because I should have made my choice of telling you long ago and now here I am begging. And Kyle is not going to bother you anymore….and I won't if you tell me to."
Arthur went to pull away out Merlin grabbed his hand and looked at him, his head falling against his chest, " Don't go, please. I am not ready for love, Arthur, but I need you and I learned from Kyle, I know it's not my fault, but please….I ask…..just give me time that is all and then maybe…."
Arthur pressed a soft kiss against Merlin's head and laid against the skink, the razor clasping to the floor with a hallow clang, just tears on it, no blood, Merlin against him and his breath soft and not gasping as it had been. He had experience bad love, it happed, Kyle said things that were not true and he had simmered thinking they were but now, he could rest and get back to life and his friend- maybe even love with the right man.
Black tears flow
inside of me and there's nothing else; just sadness
I can't even put it in words,
my whole body is releasing pain
" I shall wait forever if it means I get you and I would even leave again if it means to see you happy again. I would have you be the Merlin to my Arthur, just like the myth huh?"
They sat there for so long, but they had each other, a new future, just the two of them. Let the black tears fall, Merlin thought, his hands tangling with Arthur's, let them fall for in the end he was going to be okay.
So I am sick, I have an upper respiratory infection, nice huh? Thanks a lot weather. So I hope you like this story and review if you could would make me feel better and if not well it makes me happy you even read it! Cheers!