A Shy, Solitary Creature

His smile stayed exactly where it was for several seconds because his brain simply refused to move any faster than that, refused to understand that words arranged in that order could possibly mean what they obviously meant, refused to acknowledge that his lungs had suddenly forgotten how breathing worked.

Another message appeared.

I'm sorry.

And another.

You deserve someone better than me.

Then finally.

Please don't call.

The room kept moving.

Someone shrieked with laughter somewhere behind him.

A bottle shattered.

Someone turned the music louder.

Someone kissed someone else in the hallway.

The world continued with breathtaking indifference.

Merlin stared down at the messages until the letters blurred into meaningless black lines, then, almost absently, looked at his right hand.

The Claddagh ring sat where it always had.

Heart facing inward.

Love taken.

His thumb found it before he'd consciously decided to move, and with one tiny scrape of silver against skin, he twisted it around until the heart faced outward.

Love given away.

The simple motion carved something open inside him so completely that he had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop whatever sound had been climbing his throat from escaping, because somehow physically turning the ring hurt more than the breakup itself, because it transformed a text message into something tangible, something visible, something he could never unknow once he'd looked down at his own hand and seen the heart pointing away from him.

He slipped his phone into his pocket before anyone could notice the trembling in his fingers, plastered on a smile that stretched too wide to be convincing, and walked directly into the kitchen.

Someone shoved a plastic cup into his hand.

Someone else yelled, "Merlin! Drink!"

So he did.

The beer disappeared in one swallow.

Then another appeared.

Then someone handed him a shot.

Then another.

Then something blue.

Then something that tasted like melted gummy bears.

Then whiskey.

Then vodka.

He stopped keeping track after that because counting required concentration and concentration required thinking and thinking led back to three little messages sitting unanswered in his pocket, so instead he drank frantic determination that frightened even him, chasing silence at the bottom of every cup only to discover that grief floated.

Arthur watched from across the room as Merlin accepted another drink from someone he'd never even met before, watched Merlin thank them with a smile so polite that Arthur felt something twist unpleasantly beneath his ribs, watched him immediately knock it back without even checking what it was.

"Merlin," Arthur said when he finally intercepted him near the hallway.

Merlin looked up with glassy blue eyes and grinned.

"There you are."

Arthur frowned.

"You've had enough."

"No."

"You absolutely have."

"No," Merlin repeated cheerfully, already reaching around Arthur toward someone's outstretched bottle, "I haven't had enough yet because I can still remember things."

Arthur caught his wrist.

Merlin blinked.

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

"Merlin."

"Nothing happened."

Arthur didn't let go.

The silence stretched.

Then Merlin laughed.

It was the ugliest sound Arthur had ever heard come out of him.

“Kyle broke up with me”

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"When?"

Merlin pulled out his phone with fumbling fingers and thrust it toward Arthur before immediately thinking better of it and stuffing it back into his pocket.

"Couple hours ago."

"You've been drinking since then?"

Merlin considered the question with exaggerated seriousness.

"I've been trying."

Arthur looked down automatically as Merlin gestured with both hands while speaking, and that's when he noticed the ring.

The Claddagh.

Turned outward.

Arthur had never really paid attention to it before beyond vaguely remembering Merlin explaining what it meant one rainy afternoon months ago while they were waiting for a bus, laughing that his gran insisted everyone in the family wear one.

Now it faced away.

Arthur understood immediately.

His chest hurt.

Not because Merlin was suddenly single.

God knew Arthur had spent years wishing for exactly that while simultaneously hating himself for wishing heartbreak on someone he loved more than oxygen.

No.

It hurt because Merlin looked so small despite being the tallest person Arthur knew, because there was something vacant behind his smile that shouldn't have existed.

"I'm fine," Merlin announced.

Arthur stared.

"You are spectacularly not fine."

"I just..." Merlin whispered, suddenly sounding terrifyingly sober despite the alcohol slurring every other word, "I don't know what I did."

Arthur's heart broke cleanly in half.

"You didn't have to do anything."

"I keep thinking there must've been something."

"There doesn't have to be."

"I would've fixed it."

Arthur closed the distance without thinking and wrapped both arms around him.

Merlin went completely still.

Then, as though someone had finally given him permission to stop pretending, every muscle in his body seemed to give out at once.

He folded.

Arthur had to tighten his grip to keep him upright as Merlin buried his face against Arthur's shoulder, breathing in short, shaky bursts that never quite became sobs. Sometimes grief simply hollowed you out until standing became an act of extraordinary effort.

"I turned the ring around," Merlin mumbled into Arthur's shirt.

"I know."

"I hated doing it."

"I know."

"It felt..." Merlin swallowed hard. "Final."

Arthur closed his eyes.

He wanted, with an almost unbearable intensity, to reach down, turn the ring back around, kiss the back of Merlin's hand, tell him someone would choose him every single day for the rest of his life if only he'd look up and notice who had been standing beside him all along.

Instead he simply rubbed slow circles across Merlin's back.

"Come on."

"I don't want to go home."

"You don't have to."

"I don't want to think."

"You don't have to tonight."

"I don't want people looking at me."

"They won't."

Arthur carefully pried the half-empty bottle from Merlin's fingers before steering him toward the front door, ignoring every questioning glance they received because none of them mattered, not compared to the way Merlin leaned unconsciously into his side.

Outside, the cold air wrapped around them in blessed silence.

Merlin shivered.

Arthur shrugged off his jacket without hesitation and draped it over Merlin's shoulders.

"It's not fair," Merlin whispered after several minutes, staring at nothing, thumb unconsciously brushing across the outward-facing heart on the ring again and again as though he still couldn't believe it had to stay that way now. "One text."

Arthur looked at him, at the boy who apologized when other people stepped on his feet, who remembered everyone's coffee orders without trying, who collected mugs from charity shops because he couldn't bear leaving them behind, who loved with his whole heart every single time despite how dangerous that was.

"No," Arthur said quietly, "it isn't."

Merlin nodded once.

Arthur wished, not for the first time, that it were possible to physically hand someone your own heart just for one evening, just long enough to let them rest inside the certainty of it, because if Merlin could have seen himself through Arthur's eyes then he would have known there had never been anything lacking in him, only someone else incapable of recognising what they had been given.