The Night We Met- Modern Merthur (Arthur returns)

Chapter 6

Gwaine finished Rio and found Rio 2 to play next, but before he pressed play he got up to go to the bathroom. When he got into the bathroom he found that there was no toilet paper left, so he called out for Merlin but the warlock didn't seem to hear him. He began up the stairs, skipping one or two on the way up. Surprisingly, Merlin wasn't in any of the rooms, until he saw that the bathroom door was locked. "Merlin," he called out, "I don't know what you're doing in there but hurry up." There was no response. "Are you awake?" Now he was getting worried, what if Merlin passed out inside? "Merlin? Mate? Reply or I'm going to break down the door," still no sound, "alright then." He stepped back and then with all of the momentum he could gather, bashed his shoulder against the door. "Ow," he muttered, the door hadn't budged, "damn it." He shook the doorknob. Gwaine rushed down the stairs again, jumping over the sofa to grab his phone off the coffee table. He found Arthur in his contacts and pressed the green call button. He held the phone to his ear. "Arthur?"

"Gwaine?"

"You guys need to get here, now."

Leons voice came onto the phone, "what's wrong?"

"Merlin. He's locked in the bathroom and he's not responding."

"We're coming," Arthur ended the call and Leon looked at him urgently. Arthur knew what that mean't; drive. He put his foot on the accelerator and turned to go back down the street. They parked the car and rushed into the house. Gwaine was at the front door when they entered.

"Upstairs or downstairs?" Leon asked.

"Upstairs." Leon ran up the stairs with the other two in tow.

"What's going on?" Arthur frowned as they stood in front of the bathroom door.

The curly haired man sucked in a breath, "Merlin's had some problems in the past. Hurting himself kind of problems." Arthur bit his lip, he didn't know. He hadn't expected Merlin's depression to be that bad.

"The doors locked, it wont open. I tried," Gwaine rubbed his shoulder in pain.

"Did it ever occur to you to pick the lock?"

"I'm sorry, I don't think when I'm stressed," Gwaine said with his hands on his hips.

"Or you just lack common sense. Merlin has loads of things lying around," he wandered into Arthurs room and came back with a bobby pin. "Let me deal with this." He opened the door with ease and went inside, shutting the door behind him. Gwaine and Arthur stood outside eavesdropping. Leon kneeled before the boy on the floor. Blood was staining his shirt and splattered on the floor, Merlin had his eyes closed, weak.

"Merlin?" Leon questioned softly, his eyes flickered open as his name was called. "Where's the first aid kit?"

"Bottom drawer, on the right," he croaked. Leon calmly got the box out of the drawer and sat in front of Merlin.

"Are you okay?" Merlin shook his head. Leon held out his hand for the boy's injured arm. "What triggered it?"

"This morning, at the library-" he hissed as Leon cleaned the blood off his arm.

"Sorry," Leon apologised.

"There was a boy. His name was Arthur too. Arthur went in to get him and for a moment I thought...The mother said Arthur was dead and I didn't know. I thought I failed again," he trembled.

"You don't deserve to go through that again," murmured Leon whilst wrapping bandages around Merlin's wrist. He watched the knight take care of him and felt a wave of regret.

"I'm sorry," he whimpered and the tears began to fall, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You shouldn't have to do this. I'm sorry. I haven't done anything in ages and now I've relapsed. You shouldn't take care of me. I'm sorry, Leon," Merlin sobbed tugging on his hair.

"Hey, no. Don't. Nobody said this was going to be easy. The least I can do is help you, now that I'm here. Don't say sorry," he held the crying boy against him, one hand on his head which was buried in Leons shoulder. Merlin was like his brother and he hated times like this when he would have to see him in pain. His body shook against the stronger man, Leons shoulder was covered in tears but he didn't mind. "Can you stand?" He surveyed Merlin.

Outside, Gwaine and Arthur stood listening. When the sound of Merlin's cries floated through the crack in the door, Arthur realised how severe the problem really was, how broken the boy with the snarky remarks truly was. His heart snapped. And when Leon appeared with Merlin leaning against his side with his own blood staining his shirt, looking defeated, Arthur wanted to take the small magician and hold him so tight so that he could never slip away. Leon took Merlin away to his room past the other two who didn't even try hiding that they were listening in. The room was a disaster, blankets a mess and clothes everywhere, somehow Arthur's armour ended up there too. Leon ignored the mess, carefully perching Merlin on the edge of the mattress and searching the room for clean clothes. There was a blue t-shirt hung up in the open wardrobe, almost the same colour as the tunics Merlin wore back in Camelot. He aided Merlin in getting rid of the old white long-sleeve he had on and replaced it with the t-shirt. Then, he tucked Merlin under all the sheet's and a duvet bundled on top of the bed, "try to sleep. You need it." After dimming the curtains, he began to leave.

"Thank you, Leon," Merlin's quiet voice came muffled from beneath the layers he was under, but Leon understood and smiled, shutting the door behind him.

Arthur's head snapped up when Leon came out of the room, "is he alright?"

"It'll take a while," he saw the worry in Arthur's blue eyes and added, "he'll get better, he always has."

Gwaine and Leon started down the stairs but Arthur turned back to look at Merlin's door. He made his decision. The two knights had already gone, so Arthur reached for the handle. Merlin lay on his side staring at the closed curtains, when he heard the door open, he turned his back to them so he could see the door.

"Can't sleep?" Arthur guessed.

"I don't know why Leon bothered, he knows I won't," hummed Merlin, sitting up. Arthur caught sight of his freshly bandaged left arm, his gut twisted inside of him.

"Well, I think it's about time we try again," Arthur settled, climbing into the bed beside the raven haired man.

"If you're going to sit there, I guess we'll have to keep you entertained," he lifted his uninjured hand to do some magic, "Gwaine won't mind if I steal it from him for a bit."

"Should you be doing magic?" Arthur lilted, "I mean, doesn't it disturb the healing process?"

Merlin rolled his eyes, "hush, Arthur." The television came through the door, plugging itself into the wall. The remote landed in the king's lap. "Choose something." Arthur scrolled past multiple movies, nothing seemed to be interesting except for the fact that Merlin sat beside him. Moments later, he felt a weight against the shoulder, glancing to his side, he saw that the boy had fallen asleep and his head had fallen against Arthur. Sweet, almost happy, Merlin looked in his slumber. He pulled out his phone from his jacket pocket. This would be the second picture in his gallery. Inching his head back to the TV, Arthur clicked on the first movie he saw, something called Love, Simon. Reassured that Merlin was close to him, so he could be there for him as he should've been from the beginning.

Merlin had a lot of scars. Arthur had noticed during the duration of the movie that his arms were covered in multiple lines, some faded more than others, in different shapes and sizes. Even his face had a few that you could just barely see if you looked as close as Arthur was looking at him now. He must've fallen asleep after the movie ended because when he woke he saw that two plates of dinner -probably from Leon- sat on the bedside table, untouched as they had never woken up. It was now early morning and Merlin was still asleep, though not against Arthur's shoulder anymore, he'd migrated to the pillows. The king crept out of the room and out into the hallway. He realised that he had never looked around the sorcerer's house properly, that led him to the living room and his eyes wandered onto the multiple notebooks on the shelf.