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Every day was the same. Drink, attempt, sleep, and repeat. Every suicide attempt left him emptier than the last. Nothing could kill him. He was destined to live forever. Forever alone. He had even attempted to kill himself with Arthur's sword Excalibur. Nothing worked.
He'd been attempting to cope in different ways for centuries.
He used sex, drugs, alcohol, cutting, burning, anything he could get his hands on to numb him. It was all temporary, nothing made him feel better for long. His newest attempt was to never get sober, but the more he drank the less it numbed. He lived in a small cottage a few miles from a nearby town. He spent most of his time alone, every now and then he had to go into town but that was rare and he refused to talk to anyone for long.
After Arthur died, he went back to Camelot. To Gaius. To Guinevere. And he couldn't handle it. Arthur was the only one he lived for, and now that he was gone? He had nothing to live for. But he couldn't die. He left Camelot trying to find a place he could hide. He made his way to Balinor's cave. He had lived there for years. Why couldn't Merlin? After a while he craved human interaction and started spending time in a small town. He had befriended a shopkeeper that reminded him of arthur. After spending time with him, he started opening up to a few more people from the village. Then he watched them all die. He vowed to never get attached to anyone again. He couldn't hurt if there was no one to lose. He started going to taverns, drinking heavily and then leaving with just about anyone. He hooked up with people almost every night to dull his pain. After a while it stopped working and he moved onto other methods of self soothing.
He even tried to just let himself rot. He stayed in his cave with nothing but alcohol. He refused to move. He refused to eat. He laid there for weeks wishing he would just die. That's when he started trying to kill himself. Every single way he could think of. All at the shores of the lake of Avalon. He wished he could be taken away like it took Arthur. And Freya. And Lancelot. And Gwaine. When Merlin got back to Camelot, he searched for him. He asked everyone. He couldn't lose anyone else. Eventually Guinevere broke it to him that Gwaine was gone. Merlin found his body and floated his body away in the lake of Avalon as well. If all of the people he loved died here, why couldn't he?
Attempt after attempt after attempt.
He screamed when he survived. You could hear the pain in his voice for miles. He would scream until his voice gave out. Begging for Arthur to come back. Pleading on his knees. After a while he started cutting himself, the suicide attempts weren't permanent enough but the cuts all over his body? They burned and they stung for days. When it wasn't enough he'd dig his nails into the freshest cuts willing it to bleed again. He let his blood flow into the lake. Hoping for anything. He ran out of hope very quickly. He tried to make the attempts into a game. Trying to kill himself in the stupidest ways, such as fighting for money. Did he need the money? No, but he soon discovered just how much he loved the feeling of fighting. He had been watching Arthur train and fight with a sword for ten years. He'd been able to decently hold his own with a sword, but he was nowhere near an expert. He quickly became one. He thought about all of Arthur's techniques, he had memorized all of Arthur's movements. He just never had any use for them. Now that he did, he never let anyone else win in a fight against him, but he took the hits well. He refused to leave a fight without bleeding. He realized that it felt better when others hurt him then when he did it himself.
He had also tried to read himself to death. He read anything and everything he could get his hands on. He learned new languages, every possible spell, just everything. When he was reading about different worlds he would forget about himself. He got lost in the pages. He was brought back by a story based on Camelot. It was all wrong but the painful memories came flooding back, leaving the happy ones to disappear into the past. He started writing his own story, but he realized he was slowly forgetting. That's all he had wanted for hundreds of years but now that it was happening he couldn't handle it. He sat down by the lake for days trying to remember every inch of Arthur's face, his voice, what he felt like. He couldn't remember what his laugh sounded like. He couldn't remember the shade of blue his eyes were. He couldn't remember how his hands felt in his hair. He laid there in a ball crying. The one place the new world had not been able to touch was the lake. He had hidden it from the world. Leaving it in peace. Waiting for the day Arthur was supposed to come back.
All of his coping mechanisms would stop working, he'd find something else, it would work and then it wouldn't, he'd try and find new ones, he would go back to old ones hoping they'd work again. Alcohol was his comfort, cocaine was another.
Now that he refused to get sober, and went on again to try to kill himself everyday, he started to grow hope for Arthur's return. Why? When he was trying to drown himself in the lake, he saw Arthur. He saw his reflection in the water. He then proceeded to swim through the entire lake looking for him. He did this everyday. He knew what he had seen and he was going to find Arthur. They were going to be together again. He was going to see Arthur again. He was going to touch Arthur again. He had to. He had been alone for so long, knowing if he got attached it would destroy him. He had once had the fear of accidentally replacing Arthur. Would it be possible for him to love someone else the way he loved Arthur? No. His heart was with Arthur. The day Arthur died, Merlin's heart would never beat for another. There was no one even close to him. Arthur was Merlin's other half. Two sides of the same coin. He was nothing without him.
He had drunkenly made his way back to the lake. He laid on the shore. Drinking himself to sleep. Today was the anniversary of Arthur's death. Every year on this day Merlin relived his death all the pain brought back to torture him over and over forever. He fell asleep in the warm sand. He gave up on caring about himself a long time ago.
"Oh Merlin." Arthur had walked out of the lake to find Merlin asleep in the sand. He knew all of the pain he had lived through. He knew all of what Merlin did to self medicate. He had begged to come back. He would scream to be let back. So he could comfort Merlin, tell him he was here and he wasn't going anywhere. They told him not yet. It wasn't his time to come back. So he just watched him live miserably. There were times he couldn't take it. He would shut his eyes and plug his ears not being able to handle seeing Merlin in so much pain.
He had been staring at him, too scared to touch him, afraid it wasn't real. He fell to his knees beside him. He ran his fingers over his arm, then his face. He started to cry. He could touch merlin. He couldn't believe he could actually touch him. He wanted to wake him but also had seen what he had gone through that night and wanted to let him sleep. He sat on the sand and waited for the sun to rise.
He woke up in the sand and as he did, he heard a voice. He had to be hallucinating. He whipped his head around and couldn't believe his eyes.
"Arthur?" The question came out breathy and barely there. He crawled over to him. Hesitant to touch him, scared he wasn't really there. Arthur took his hand, lifted up to his face so Merlin could feel he was real. He was really here with him. Merlin traced his hands over Arthur's face and tears started falling down his face.
"Don't cry, Merlin please." He said it desperately as he wiped the tears off of his face. Merlin had run his hands down to Arthur's shoulders. Still not convinced he was really here. After a few minutes of shock, he finally pulled Arthur into a hug. Fully enveloping him with his body. He had moved so suddenly he caught Arthur off guard, but the second he realized, he wrapped his arms around Merlin and just held him as he cried into his chest. Arthur whispered into his ear,
"I missed you." Merlin shook his head at this.
"You were dead." Merlin choked the words out.
"I'm back now." He said as he lifted Merlin's face to look at his own.
"Why now? I needed you." Arthur couldn't believe Merlin thought he was gone by choice.
"Don't think for a second that I was gone voluntarily. I begged to come back to you. It didn't matter how much I screamed. They wouldn't let me. All I wanted was to be here with you." This only made Merlin cry harder. But he was here. He was really here. Merlin eventually pulled himself together. He wiped the tears off of his face and let all of the pain of the past melt away. It didn't matter what happened. All that mattered was now. He was here. He was here. Arthur watched Merlin and all he wanted to do was kiss him. He needed to be closer to him. He needed to be with him. Time had kept them apart for so long, now that they were together they were going to actually be together. He had to wait for the right moment.
"I missed you more than anything in the world." Merlin said it so quietly, and Arthur cupped his face in his hands once again and kissed him. He kissed him gently at first, but it quickly grew more passionate. They were finally together. Nothing was going to take Merlin away from him again.
"I can't believe this is real. " Merlin said again.
"It's real. It's so real." Arthur repeated the words, making sure Merlin actually heard him. He had been alone for so long. Neither could believe it was actually real. Merlin pulled him up from the sand, and he said,
"Are you ready to go home?" Arthur nodded, taking his hand and following him to his new home. His home with Merlin.