Notes: Review replies coming soon, promise. Do not doubt that I seriously appreciate getting them, though. Next one shouldn't take much more than a fortnight, since it's a good way towards being done already. And, because I feel the need to say it again, read the warnings from last chapter. This one fits into the previous one, when Merlin is incommunicado, but it works better alone, I think. And enjoy is really the wrong sentiment here, so I'll just not say it. Peach.
We Are Young
Oceans
Sometimes Merlin knows it's coming. He's yet to work out what triggers it, really, why some days are darker than others, why sometimes every single thing reminds him of her and the life he lost with her, but sometimes it's detectable in advance, predicted in days that seem progressively darker no matter how brightly the sun shines, hours that drag like the friction between tectonic plates, sentences that he misses the end of despite his best efforts to pay attention.
Sometimes it isn't. Sometimes the crushing pressure of his depression strikes suddenly, as unanticipated and endlessly dark as nightfall in the middle of the day. Sometimes it bursts into bloom without warning, sweeping him away into a vast emptiness that is less about Freya's absence than it is himself and all the ways in which his life has been blown off course because of it.
He takes his pills each day, talks to his shrink once a fortnight, goes running in the park with Arthur every few days, eats his five a day and fish on Fridays, everything he's supposed to do to be healthy and happy. He does everything he is supposed to do, but Merlin lives in the real world rather than one of dreams and films and novels, and what is supposed to work doesn't always. The dark days come back, almost as all-consuming as they were in the past, without his permission, whether he anticipates them or not.
Today it is unexpected.
Merlin wakes up without breath, without a heartbeat, with only a crippling emptiness in place of everything that keeps him whole. He wakes up weighed down by an exhaustion that is not only bone-deep but heavy in his mind, twisting everything he tries to be nowadays into the blank, bleak mess he was before he got the help he needed and wasn't strong enough to ask for. It is endless, a lake so dark and deep and ice cold that the only solution is to stay in bed, wrapped up in a nest of quilts and blankets and suffocating warmth that doesn't stop him from feeling frozen on the inside.
Morgana appears around lunchtime, letting herself into the house and telling him something about Gwen calling when Merlin didn't show up for work. There is the gentle clunk of a mug being put down on his bedside table before she pulls away enough of his blankets that she can burrow in beside him, wrapping her arms around him.
The pressure lessens a little as she holds him, her faced pressed against his hair, and he finds he can breathe again. "I remember when," Morgana says, her voice the gentle thing he's only ever known it to be for him on days like this, and Merlin falls asleep to her telling him about the first day she and Gwen took Freya shopping with them, her tone saying we loved her too even when her words don't, in a way that manages to lighten his loss, sharing rather than trivialising it.
When he wakes again it is night and Gwen is curled up in the nest beside him, somehow having managed to make her way in there without waking him. Lancelot and Will sit at the foot of his bed, both looking up from their game of cards frequently to glance at him, neither commenting when they see he's awake, while Leon stands by the door, strong and silent and steady as a rock. Elyan and Percival are in the living room, their conversation barely audible over the soft hum of the TV, and the angry hiss of Morgana's voice as she paces in the hallway doesn't quite cover the sound of her feet on the carpet as she paces.
"You bastard," she says. "You utter, selfish bastard. The next time I see you, Arthur, I swear to God I-" she breaks off, muttering about fucking voicemail and bastards and brothers.
"Morgana," Merlin calls, hoarse and tired, wrestling himself to seated, jostling Gwen as he does so despite his efforts not to. He doesn't need to tell her to leave it, not when he sounds so utterly wretched that just his voice has her rushing into the room, hair askew and clothes rumpled from her lying in his bed all day. She pushes her mobile into Leon's hands – there waiting for it, like he always knows just what she's going to need from him – and sits next to him, hauling him back into her arms before his tears can start properly. Gwen wraps herself around him from his other side and Lancelot rests a hand in his leg while Will makes a face like he thinks it's all disgustingly soppy but stays regardless.
"I'm sorry," Merlin manages to gasp, and it's a good thing that he can be amazed by the fact that they're all putting their lives on hold for him, to be with him when he's broken and buried by his illness, because it means this is getting easier already, that this time it's only going to be a single day of feeling like this rather than two or three, a week or more. "I'm sorry," he repeats, because they give so much for him, far more than he deserves, and ask for nothing in return.
Morgana, whose sharp edges soften more for him than anyone outside of this house could ever believe; Gwen, who loves so much she should burst from it; Will, who still sees in the wreck of a man Merlin is the boy he once was, whole and healthy and capable of one day coming back to them. Lancelot, patience deeper than the ocean; Leon, steady as a rock, calmer than the most placid lake; Percival, who Merlin didn't even know back then but maybe because of that manages to hold them all together so much easier; Elyan, the physical embodiment of not letting the past define the future.
Arthur.
Even Arthur, who will be the best friend imaginable for days after this – watching whatever Merlin wants to watch without complaint, eating what Merlin likes even when he hates it, bending over backwards to try make amends for Freya dying and Merlin trying to follow her though no one has ever, ever suggested that they blame him for it – but will never, ever be here when Merlin most needs him to be.
