Chapter Text
Daniel is a dark shape slumped more than sat at the kitchen table when he walks into their common area, and immediately alarm bells start ringing for Merritt.
Atlas’ sleep schedule is admittedly shocking, but his desire for work seems to largely outweigh the merits of staying up all night and being groggy by the morning. It’s not common to see him up and just… sitting in the darkness at 3am. All the lights are off, there’s no way he’s still working. The darkness lends a certain ambience to the scene, the slope of Atlas’ hunched shoulders poetic as much as it is desolate. Perhaps because it’s desolate.
Merritt’s always been like a bloodhound for out of character behaviour, and this is setting off every single one of those senses.
“Atlas?” He calls, creeping closer. He doesn’t want to make too much noise in case the kid’s worked too late while the light was still good and fallen asleep on his notes - that is not such an uncommon occurrence.
Atlas shifts in the chair, so he’s clearly not asleep. Goody. Hopefully they’re done with the fight from earlier, because Merritt really isn’t in the mood to rehash it now, and Atlas seems to be raring for an argument whenever and wherever. Merritt’s still trying to figure out that one: enjoyment of the adrenaline, some kind of self punishment, or just simply being a disagreeable person? It’s probably a combination of three; with people it usually is. Mentalism isn’t a science, it’s an art. Or a cheap scam, he supposes, if you’re Atlas.
Shrugging, he moves into the kitchen, flipping the switch for the kettle.
“What are you doing up?” He asks in the least sarcastic way possible, reaching up to grab the tea box. It's difficult; he’s not an inherently personable guy, kinda rubs people the wrong way. But if he rubs people the wrong way, Atlas practically skins them, and then pokes at the raw nerves a couple hours later. A little bit of personality adjustment, on both of their accounts, could go a long way in helping them survive this cohabitation. It’s typical that he has to be the person to put some effort in first. He’s certain it’s in some way a deliberate farce to hide behind, but Atlas truly is one of the most emotionally obtuse people he’s encountered.
He doesn’t get a response to his olive branch. Emotionally obtuse, strikes again.
The silence doesn’t feel comfortable, though. It feels charged, ready to snap. He’d say it’s the fight waiting to read its ugly head again, but this silence doesn’t feel like rage. Atlas isn’t shy when he’s angry: he’ll attack right out the gate. This silence is, yet again, out of character. It feels oppressive, like being watched over the shoulder, like knowing there’s something unfriendly waiting for you in the dark.
“I had some weird ass dream, I’d tell you but it’s most certainly not safe for co-workers.” He jokes, just to try and fill it, but the silence doesn’t abate, the joke falling flat with no responsive audience and thickening the discomfort.
He’s getting antsy now. Atlas is many things, but quiet is rarely if ever one of them. The kettle on, he turns to observe him.
His head is bowed down to face his lap, but his eyes flick up, just for a second, to glance at Merritt. He looks paler, in nothing but moonlight. Wan, sickly even; the rings under his eyes in stark contrast to the pale. He wonders if it’s taking a toll on even the instigator, this constant fighting. Atlas has some self worth issues, that much is obvious. Merritt would like to sympathise, really, but sympathy and insight are entirely different ballparks, and the knowledge that many of Atlas’ lash outs are down to his inability to reconcile his want for connection with his need for total unending control doesn’t make them any less annoying. They all have issues.
He has to admit though, no one looks like they’re being eaten up by them like Atlas.
As he watches, the man in question shudders and his spine loses another inch of height, curling further over his knees.
“Atlas?” He says again. The silence is becoming more than disconcerting, progressing to worrying, and he’s frustrated that after the blow up earlier it is yet again him having to make concessions, having to prod for answers and fretting about Atlas of all people.
Atlas who is doing nothing to abate this creeping sense of unease.
“Fine. Silent treatment it is.” He snaps, turning back around.
Atlas is a foreboding presence at his back, radiating something he doesn’t want to look at too closely, his silence a physical entity breathing down Merritt's neck, and it’s true what they say; a watched pot never boils. It seems to take an age for the water to be done, and by the time he flicks the extraction hood light on and starts brewing it, his foot is tapping impatiently in a staccato beat against the linoleum.
“I didn’t mean to.” Atlas says suddenly. His voice sounds apathetic and reedy, like he’s been crying for a long time and has nothing left to give any more, and the sentence is devoid of any context to understand it.
The hairs on the back of Merritt’s neck raise.
Something’s wrong.
“I really didn’t,” He repeats.
Merritt turns around.
The light is contained to above the stovetop, so it casts a pale wash on only half of Atlas’s face, but with it, it becomes obvious it wasn’t an illusion from the moonlight earlier, what he can see of Atlas’ skin is deathly pale, not even paper white but gray, like a corpse, and his eyes are red-rimmed. None of that is comforting, but what really triggers Merritt’s heart to start jackrabbiting is the expression on his face.
There’s nothing there. His eyes are like blank voids, like they’ve collapsed in on themselves and swallowed the rest of him. Any possible lingering doubt that Atlas is having a jab at him is immediately extinguished. He looks as though something has hollowed him out, pulled out everything important and left a shell behind, cold and lifeless.
Merritt abandons the tea immediately, hesitantly approaching the table. There’s something not right about all this, something that makes him, childishly, not want to approach at all. Like Daniel has gone somewhere he can’t follow and he’s stuck with this ghost.
Atlas doesn’t look up, just ducks his head and fiddles with something in his lap, his sleeve maybe? The lighting isn’t helping at all, it’s like a horror story around the campfire, torch light distorting faces into grotesque imitations of their daylight counterparts with harsh shadows.
“I didn’t mean to,” He repeats again, despondently, and Merritt is becoming really anxious now despite himself, despite the rational part of him that’s saying this is some weird prank, that Jack will jump out from behind the couch any minute now, they’ll all laugh, and he can call Atlas a dick and go back to bed.
He’s about to ask him, probably none too kindly because it's 3am and he’s tired, an old man, who doesn’t have time for shit like this in the witching hours of the morning, what the hell he means by that, when Atlas looks up.
This time, his eyes threaten to drown Merritt in their fear, it's so palpable.
“I didn’t mean to, I didn’t think… I didn’t think it would be so bad.” He says, and then his eyes unfocus, drifting to stare listlessly at the wall again.
“What would be so bad?” Merritt asks carefully. There’s tension here, a taut net of it spread through the room, easy to trigger, and he doesn’t know the consequences yet if he does. He takes another couple steps closer.
Atlas doesn’t respond, just keeps staring off into space.
Merritt takes another three steps forwards to stand next to Atlas’s chair, and on the final step, his sock lands in something wet.
“Oh for-” He curses, squinting to try and see what the culprit is this time. “How many times have I said-”
“I didn’t expect there to be so much.” Atlas says, and there’s life in it, in a way. Desperation. He wants Merritt to believe this, this is important to him, for some reason, and Merritt has no idea what he’s talking about.
He sighs, putting his foot back down and grimacing at the squelch.
“Look, Atlas, buddy, you know I love a good game as much as the next person but it's a bit too late for riddles-” He starts, hoping to get through this with their usual brand of flippancy, but when his hand claps down on Atlas’ shoulder to seal the deal, it meets soaked fabric.
“Wha…?”
“I just didn’t think it would be that much.” Atlas says again despondently, and when Merritt looks at his hand, the palm is red, almost inky in the moonlight.
He can’t ignore the chills now, every hair on his body is raised. The air goes totally still.
“Atlas.” He says firmly, “What is this?”
But he knows what it is, he knows and his heart knows because it's trying to thump out of his chest.
Atlas’s sleeves are plastered to his arms, the thighs of his pyjama pants sticking to the fabric where he’s resting his arms on them, and when he follows the path down, down, the puddle he stood in has spread out perfectly from the chair at the epicentre.
When he picks up Atlas’s arm, he doesn’t put up any resistance, just lets it hang lifelessly as it's lifted, his skinny wrist caught in Merritt’s larger hand. He stares down blankly as they both watch him peel up the fabric to reveal a mess of completely red skin, blood pulsing out at seemingly random points, the injuries obscured by the thick tendrils of crimson creeping down, some of it already trying to clot as it runs down.
“I didn’t think it would be so much.” Atlas whispers again.
Every cell of Merritt’s body pauses its activity, his brain spinning emptily. He hears himself suck in a sharp breath through the muffling of blood tirading through his ears, and then everything comes rushing back in. The blood is a hyper-technicolour crimson, the sensation of tacky stickiness where it’s been wiped on Merritt’s hand sharp like a brand.
Frantically, he grabs both of Atlas’ wrists - christ, the other one is the same - and Atlas just crumples, swaying into Merritt and making no attempt to hold himself up any longer. He swears under his breath as he has to quickly adjust to support Atlas’ upper body, resting against his own chest, his wrists held between the two of them like a secret. Merritt squeezes with both hands to try and slow the bleeding, but he can’t see how successful the attempt is with them pressed together the way they are, and there’s blood oozing down the backs of his hands.
He is hopelessly, helplessly unprepared for this situation. He fell for the misdirection. Atlas had said “look here” and Merritt had looked. Hadn’t moved past his annoyance with the stage persona, hadn’t seen this coming.
He hadn’t seen it coming.
Atlas barely flinches backwards at the pressure on the wounds despite the certainty that Merritt is hurting him with the action, and seems to be unwilling or simply unable to support any of his own weight. The skin of his wrists under Merritt's palms is cold under the gore, literally bled of all its warmth.
He was right in his initial observation.
Atlas is like a corpse.
“Daniel, what did you do-“ He gasps, pointlessly really. He’s lost all control of the situation and his own reactions to it, it’s obvious to both of them what Atlas has done. It’s not so much clues as it is writing on the wall.
Atlas garbles something unintelligible into his shirt, trying to push back from him with one hand and then letting out a weak moan of pain at the action.
“Doesn’t…”
“Doesn’t what, Danny?” Merritt says, trying to hoist him up and off the chair, trying to remember where they’ve put their profoundly underprepared first aid kit. He never thought they’d need it, not like this, and the memory of throwing it somewhere to be forgotten about is fuzzy and unclear. Under the sink? On top of the fridge? What the fuck is he meant to do?
With some random surge of energy, Atlas shoves at him with his sharp elbows, bony points into soft flesh. Merritt lets out a stunned ‘oomph’, automatically pulling away, and Atlas goes tumbling to the floor in a heap.
“Doesn’t usually… not this much, it’s a lot, this time.” Atlas mumbles, dabbing at the mess on his arms with fingertips and staring fascinated at the blood transferred there. Sniffing, he uses a jerky hand to push his hair, matted to his forehead with sweat, out of his eyes. The movement leaves a smear of blood running halfway up his face, a perverse red against the frighteningly pale skin.
‘Usually.’
‘This time.’
Merritt feels sick. Thinking about it, he’s never seen Atlas in short sleeves, only his frumpy sweaters and dress shirts. He’s teased him for it. He’s enjoyed the petty hurt in his eyes at the jabs.
He pushes the chair in too sharply in his panic, the legs screeching against the tiles, approaching Atlas again.
At the movement, his eyes narrow, and he scrambles backwards to have his back propped up against the side of the kitchen counter. With shocking clarity and vitriol, he hisses “Get the fuck away from me.”
It’s impossible not to draw parallels to cornered animals.
He tries to think it through logically, through the panicked cycling of his own thoughts. Atlas has hurt himself. He went into the kitchen; waiting. On some level, some part of him realised this had gone too far. He was waiting, waiting for someone to come and find him. Unwilling to reach out first but hopeful the opportunity might present itself independent of him. And in walked Merritt. Now, there’s no way out, the decision was made for him, he regrets it, he’s humiliated, he wants out and he’s afraid and he can’t undo what Merritt has seen so he wants them both to just pretend nothing has happened.
Atlas is pale, sweaty, panting, and was borderline catatonic minutes ago. He’s caked in his own blood and the amount of it is starting to scream ‘hospital’. Merritt is not pretending nothing has happened.
He gets on his knees, trying to ignore how the floor is frictionless beneath him, slick with Atlas’ blood and offering no purchase as he draws towards the other man. Atlas twitches, eyes darting towards the door and jaw firming. He shifts to his knees.
He’s going to run. That’s what cornered animals do.
Merritt can’t let him.
Wounded animals as well, they hide in dark spaces, and they wait to die.
He grabs for the arms again, and in one swift motion, pulls Atlas down and flat to the floor, gripping the wrists and pressing them into the ground with all his weight concentrated on the bleeding area. Atlas tries to roll off to the side, lifting his legs up to kick, so Merritt flings one leg over him and settles on his thighs, pinning his waist to the ground.
Atlas bucks like a wild animal under him, gnashing. It’s nothing but instinct, and Merritt’s truly trying his hardest not to take it personally as Atlas’s fists escape from his grip and rain down on his back, no doubt destroying his shirt with all the blood. This is one of his favourite shirts, he got it from the 1988 AC/DC tour, one of the last ones he went to with his brother so it’s irreplaceable and white.
- Daniel Atlas, you asshole. He thinks acerbically, even as a litany of meaningless shushing noises spill out of his mouth, trying to get Daniel to do anything but fight him.
It’s a lost cause, Atlas as he knows him is gone. This is pure fear; his only option is to fight like he’s dying because to Atlas, he is. J. Daniel Atlas, the magician, is gone, buried under the weight of Merritt’s knowledge.
“I’ll fix it, get the fuck off me, asshole!” Daniel yells, and Merritt shuts his eyes, knowing they’ve lost before the distinctive clicking of a bedroom door opening even hits the air.
“Merritt? Danny? What- oh my God, what have you two done!” Henley cries, and he doesn’t need to open his eyes to know the horror filled look on her face. Daniel on the floor soaked in blood, Merritt pinning him down, he can understand the confusion.
“Henley,” he says, eyes still shut and trying to project as much calm into his voice as he can considering the circumstances and praying that’s enough to get her to listen. “Please can you fetch the first aid kit and leave it on the table.”
The silence behind him is stifling for a long moment, even Daniel, perhaps realising he’s opened the stage for more characters to witness this tragedy, has fallen still beneath him.
Then, a quiet “Okay”, unsure and scared and somewhat wet, but she pads away on bare feet and disappears into another room.
Atlas wastes no time in resuming his assault, doubling his efforts to escape before Henley returns.
But even that desperation isn’t enough to carry him. Daniel is fighting like his life depends on it, but he’s sleep and food deprived, still bleeding and Merritt is bigger, taller, and stronger. He’s not budging, even as he winces at the particularly harder punches.
“Get the fuck off me!”
It’s more of a shriek than speech, and Merritt isn’t surprised to hear Jack’s voice behind him, as unhelpful and unwanted as it is.
“What the hell?”
“Out!” Merritt yells with as much authority as he can, and he’s certain he can just about catch some whispering from Henley, and then more footsteps, but it’s largely drowned out by Daniel, who has given up on speaking and is just yelling at top volume, raking his fingernails down Merrit’s arms. He shifts his grip to further down his arms to try and move out of reach - he’s not even certain all the blood is Atlas’ by now.
Some distant part of him dreads the inevitable note from the neighbours after this fiasco.
“Get off!” Daniel screams, fist landing one last weak, uncoordinated attempt to get out to Merritt’s ribs, and then finally, finally, the realisation that against Merritt he stands no chance sinks in.
Unstoppable force, immovable object.
The scream dissolves into a wrenching sob, and at last, the tears come. His body untenses under Merritt, limbs falling limp and splaying out to the sides. The anger is gone as fast as it came, Merritt left whiplashed from the swinging intensity. But Atlas just has nothing left to give, exhausted from his own onslaught. With whatever last bit of strength he’s managed to retain, he turns his head as far to the side as his strained neck muscles will allow, as though it will shield the crying from Merritt’s prying eyes.
Daniel chokes on another sob, and gives a weak jerk of an attempt to get away, nothing substantive. Gently, so gently, Merritt slides his hands up his forearms, trying not to catch the damaged skin there, resting his palms over Daniel’s upturned one’s, and presses them down into the ground firmly, shifting his weight backwards so he can be resting over Daniel’s waist on his knees, bracketing him in but not putting his weight on him any longer.
“Are you done now?” He asks. It’s not his finest moment, a statement borne of frustration more than anything else, but he’s still reeling, exhausted, and aching from the scrap.
Daniel doesn’t respond, but his eyes screw shut so tightly it creases his entire face, his head turning impossibly further away.
Merritt sighs. He’s not made for this. He can’t deal with this. He’s struck with the sudden, intense desire to call someone else in to help, someone older, more sympathetic. It feels like waking his parents up when he was sick as a kid. But Merritt is a grown ass man, his parents are long dead, and Atlas is barely past being a kid. Only two years Jack’s elder, a fact that seems to slip under the rug considering Atlas carries himself like a cantankerous 60 year old, whereas Jack radiates youth like he’s the fucking fountain of it.
He’s a grown man with a bleeding, terrified kid pinned beneath him, no matter what the other tries to make him think. He is the adult here.
He looks at Atlas. He’s visibly trying to calm down, pinning his lip with his canines and chest jerking every so often with the force of suppressed sobs. He looks frighteningly young, snot slipping down his upper lip and two red splotches high on his cheeks. He hasn’t stopped panicking; the nature of it has just changed.
“Kid, breathe.” Merritt says. The jerking is increasing and Atlas hasn’t made a single noise.
“Atlas. Daniel. Breathe.”
Atlas shakes his head angrily as much as he can with it pressed to the ground, face still screwed up. Stupid fucking kid is actually going to suffocate himself.
Merritt makes a decision, removing his hands from Atlas’ palms and hoisting him up by the underarms to rest against the kitchen counter in an imitation of his position before. Then, he presses the other man’s back to the wall, forcing him upright with hands on his shoulders.
“Breathe.” He orders, and when that doesn’t work, he snaps a finger by his face and repeats it.
It’s not really hypnosis, but maybe something about the voice is enough, because Atlas sucks in a heaving breath, so fast that he gags on the shuddering exhale. The clogging of his throat is obvious, thick inhales and whistling exhales.
With the dam broken, a fresh wave of tears is tracking down his face, Atlas tries to bend over on himself but is prevented by Merritt’s firm grip on his shoulders. The sight is pathetic, not in a demeaning way but in a very literal sense. Atlas isn’t tall, but his personality makes up for it. Now, he seems to be shrinking in front of Merritt’s eyes. The desperation with which he’s trying to not cry and the complete lack of success in that endeavour is hard to watch, somehow much worse than if he wasn’t trying in the first place.
He’s just a kid.
Aw, hell.
Merritt tucks his hands behind Atlas’ shoulders, and brings him in, wrapping his arms solidly around him, not in restraint, but embrace.
Atlas, surprisingly, doesn’t fight this time. Instead, he doesn’t react at all for a moment, and then, hands come up to clutch at the back of his shirt, hesitantly at first, and then with urgency, like Merritt will rescind the touch or simply vanish if he relaxes his grip even slightly. The sobs lose their gasping, suppressed quality as he audibly gives in, slumping into Merritt’s hold and crying quietly into his shoulder. His fingers twist into the fabric, and Merritt has accepted the shirt as a lost cause at this point.
Sharp breaths hitch into his shoulder. He would expect the intimacy to feel more foreign than it does, but it's all too easy to rest his head on top of Atlas’, exhaling heavily. His hair tickles at his nose, smelling of sandalwood and old paper. It should feel uncomfortable, invasive, even, but somehow it's the easiest thing he’s done tonight; holding Atlas tightly because he’s still trembling and if he can’t hold himself together, maybe Merritt can keep the pieces in place long enough for them to fix this.
He’s hyper aware of the injuries, still bleeding, slowly, but still. He hasn’t done anything for them beyond applying what little pressure Atlas couldn’t shake off, and he’s anxious to check them over, finally get this cleaned up, make a plan. Assess whether they need to get Dylan involved in this so they can go to a hospital, and the implications that would have for Atlas and the Eye. There’s no point doing anything until Atlas calms down though, unless he wants a repeat of earlier, so it's with reluctant patience that he waits it out until the sobs quiet, and then stop, Atlas growing still and silent in his arms, but making no move to extricate himself.
He wonders when the last time he was hugged was, putting that thought away to be processed later when it makes something twist sharply deep in his gut.
He allows Atlas a few minutes of the calm before he pulls back. Atlas’ fingers twitch spasmodically, unwilling to relinquish their hold on the cotton material, but eventually they slip away. He draws his knees to his chest, resting his head on them, eyes red and blinks slow.
Merritt doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t want to provide something to fight against. Instead, he just seats himself next to Atlas and takes an arm, pulling a crumpled but hopefully not used tissue from his pyjama pants pocket and using it to wipe away both the encrusted and somehow still sticky blood to get to the skin underneath it all. It snags on the raw edges of skin, the damage revealed slowly but surely; they’re still weeping, but barely. Probably run out of blood to lose. They need cleaning properly, dressing. Atlas still may need a hospital, for the blood loss.
He sighs again, reaching for the second arm.
It pulls out of his grip, but not with any force.
“I can do it.” Atlas asserts, voice dry and croaking.
“I know.” Merritt says simply, reaching again. This time, Atlas lets him take it. This arm receives the same treatment. The cuts here aren’t quite as devastating. Daniel is right handed, so it makes sense. It’s something Merritt had never considered would make sense to him.
“Merritt?” A voice softly calls, with timing so impeccable it’s clearly been planned. “It’s here.” Henley says, laying the first aid kit on the table gently, as if any noise will set everything off again.
“Are you…”
Merritt gets to see the moment she spots the cuts and connects the dots. It’s not pretty. Her eyes narrow, and then well up within seconds, her hand flying to her mouth.
“Oh God.” She whispers, eyes locked onto Atlas’ arms. They almost look worse now, partially cleaned up. It’s too obvious, too undeniable what they are. There’s nothing for them to hide behind, with Atlas unable to bluster his way out of this. Neat lines, some small, some gaping, running from wrist to shoulder. He doesn’t know if Henley is close enough to see the foundation of scarring they lay on; mostly white wisps, so many it almost just looks like an expanse of paler skin, piled on top of each other, others pink, shiny, and clearly still waiting for their turn to fade. He hopes she can’t. Hopes she’s spared that, at least.
“Come on, Hen.” Jack murmurs, coming up behind her and linking his arm into her, gently guiding her away. “Let’s give them a moment.”
Henley nods blankly, allowing herself to be turned and led, hand shaking where it’s lowered at her side.
Jack gives him a complicated look from behind her back as they leave, troubled eyes flicking between Atlas and him.
Merritt isn’t quite sure how he has become the sole person designated to fix this. Perhaps just luck of the draw, he was the person to find Atlas, so it’s his responsibility. Or age, maybe, they expect him to be wiser. Maybe it's simply that he’s the least emotional of them all, still functional in the face of crisis. It's a poor reason to make him the fixer. He’s less empathetic; that isn’t a good thing for Daniel.
What he can do is address the very physical threat here. Atlas is subdued now, thoroughly exhausted out of any semblance of defiance. It’s crushing to witness, Atlas finally brought to his knees under the weight of the world, defying the myth of his own existence. It does, however, make his job much easier.
Atlas is limp and uncoordinated as Merritt hoists him up, one arm under his shoulder and wrapped around his back for support, but he doesn’t fight as Merritt practically carries him into the bathroom, sitting him on the closed toilet and leaving him to continue his intense stare at his knees.
He leaves him there with a level of worry he’s unused to, like leaving a baby in the other room, a litany of different sharps housed in various cabinets flit through his mind at speed as he walks back to the kitchen and retrieves the first aid kit. He wastes no time in grabbing it, and is nearly out of the door in seconds when he hesitates. He strides back in, snatching the almost entirely decorative blanket off of the back of the couch and throwing it over his shoulder.
When he returns to the bathroom, Atlas is blissfully intact, or at least, not any more injured than when he left. He’s been gone less than two minutes, but the sight eases an intense fear he didn’t realise he was harbouring in his chest. He wraps the blanket around Atlas’ shoulders, still quaking with tremors, and sits on the thin rim of the bathtub to dig through the first aid kit for something useful.
He comes up with some alcohol wipes, gauze pads, band aids, and a singular cloth bandage. It’s not a particularly lucrative loot and feels laughably insignificant in the face of Atlas’ injuries. It’s all he has though, and for now it’ll have to do.
When he has his supplies prepared and looks over to Atlas, he’s staring at the blanket with a kind of apathetic confusion. He hasn’t made any attempt to pull it around himself.
Merritt has to do everything around here.
Clean the dishes Merritt, mop up the spilled cereal Merritt, hypnotise the marks Merritt, clean up Atlas’ mental breakdown Merritt, teach the children how to keep themselves warm Merritt.
He grabs the corners and tucks them around Atlas’ shoulders firmly. The pyjama shirt he’s wearing is obviously thinning and providing paltry heat in their cold apartment, and he’s had the sleeves rolled up for God knows how long now.
Atlas blinks slowly at him, and then back down at the blanket like he’s not sure how it or he got there.
Merritt doesn’t ask permission, or give a warning touch, he simply rips open one of the alcohol wipes and runs it over the closest cut to him, ignoring Atlas’ hiss of pain at the action. Carefully but efficiently, he wipes away the blood that has accumulated since they were last cleaned, and scrubs the shirt fibres out of the broken skin, pausing only when Atlas’ huffing breaths of pain threaten to escalate into whimpers. Then, he methodically allocates the supplies. The largest cuts, the ones still attempting to bleed, get the gauze pads, trimmed in half with the nail scissors in the kit. The smaller ones, which really could use the same treatment, get band aids that cling precariously to skin, threatening to slide off as the cuts underneath still weep slightly.
He’s midway through his ministrations when Atlas speaks.
“I can do it.” He says. He’s been watching the whole process unfold with a mix of morbid fascination and disappointment that makes Merritt antsy.
It’s a sentiment he’d expressed earlier. Merritt doesn’t find it to be completely honest. Atlas could do this, potentially. The blood loss and disorientation cast doubt on that ability, but physically, yes, Atlas could probably do this without his help. Whether he would? Merritt finds it unlikely. None of the scars, even the largest that should have had stitches, show any signs of care or attention.
Subconsciously, Merritt has been compiling reasons Atlas might have done this - does do this - and providing comfort after the fact isn’t even on the list.
“No, you can’t.” He says, too tired to sugarcoat it only longer. They can’t keep ignoring the elephant in the room.
“You hurt yourself.”
Atlas stiffens under his hands, the muscles in his forearms tensing and rippling the mauled skin there.
“I- I knew what I was doing, it’s just-“
“Atlas.” Merritt snaps. “You hurt yourself. Okay? Can we just say that? You do it a lot. I can’t let you unhurt yourself by yourself.”
“I’m not seeing when you became my keeper, you have no right to tell me what I can and can’t do. It’s not a big deal, so why don’t you just fuck off back to bed and leave me-“
Jesus, every time he thinks he’s finally exhausted himself, there’s a fresh wave of fighting energy ready to make his life hell.
“Stop.” Merritt says firmly. His resolve is wavering, the irritation is growing. “Just- shut the fuck up, for once. I get you’re doing your whole ‘don’t get near me I’ll only hurt you’ routine but it’s a little too late for that in every meaning of that phrase and I don’t want to hear it.”
Atlas doesn’t speak again, and he doesn’t try to bolt, but he doesn’t untense. It’s awful to say, but Merritt can’t bring himself to regret the harsh words. He’s been pushed so far beyond his emotional bandwidth this evening he can’t even see its confines anymore and he truly wants nothing more than to get them both into bed and sleeping.
He can’t imagine the sleep is going to do much for this specific exhaustion, but he can hope.
He needs some strength for tomorrow. Atlas is going to have to go to a doctor - it can wait until morning, he’s clearly not at any risk of imminently succumbing to blood loss, but the wounds are too severe for a drug store trip to suffice.
He wraps the one measly bandage around the arm tightly, trying to cover every band aid and the gauze all in one to hold it all in place. It’s a sloppy job, and he has to consciously unclench his jaw at the sight. Tomorrow. They’ll fix it tomorrow.
For now, it’s time to just get some fucking sleep.
Atlas is blissfully complacent as he’s led back to his bedroom, Merritt’s hands holding both his shoulders and the blanket they’re wrapped in firmly.
He doesn’t react at all as they breach the threshold and Merritt’s fingers tighten at the sight of the mess of smeared blood on the floor, one smudged footprint just visible extending from the edge. There’s a similar smudged but recognisable outline of fingerprints on the light switch casing, where Atlas, despite everything, has clearly still remembered to turn the light out before leaving.
Fastidious little fucker.
Sitting innocently in the centre of this chaos, a thin sliver of metal glints in the moonlight, a lone and silent witness.
He releases Atlas, who sits heavily on the edge of the bed, and quickly picks it up, flicking it into his pocket to be dealt with later. He performs a quick scan of the room, finding evidence of Atlas’ distress earlier - books splayed out from their shelves, drawers left ajar, the room looking lived in in a way Atlas never typically abided - but no other blades. It wasn’t a surprise. If Atlas didn’t want him to find something, he had little hope of doing so against his wishes.
He snags a shirt from one of the open drawers, and chucks it at Atlas.
It hits him in the side of the head, which despite everything, brings a smirk to his face at the other’s startled expression.
“Change.” He says, shortly. He draws the line at dressing and redressing the kid like a night nurse. For a long moment, it seems like this is yet another line he has drawn in the sand just to immediately step over as Atlas simply stares at the fabric in his hands.
Then, a flush creeps up his cheeks, and he motions with his eyes defiantly.
“Seriously?” He questions incredulously, but turns all the same, giving Atlas some privacy to change.
He doesn’t give any indication of where he is in that process beyond a muffled grunt of pain, and Merritt counts down from 60 seconds with no small amount of impatience before he turns, finding Atlas lying flat on the bed, hands twitching compulsively as though desperate to tug at sleeves that didn’t exist. Somehow, Merritt seems to have grabbed the only t-shirt in Atlas’ entire wardrobe.
He feels suddenly redundant in the room. The adrenaline is a wispy memory by now, and the awkwardness of his own uncertainty feels insurmountable without a clear task to set his mind to.
He doesn’t know how to progress this forwards, and clearly Atlas isn’t any more clued in. He wants to go to bed.
“...Good night?” He offers, sarcastically, and then curtly, “You should get under the covers. Keep warm.”
“Sorry.” Atlas blurts right as he’s walking away from the bed.
“What?” Merritt says dumbly, brain switching off now the promise of a soft, horizontal surface is drawing closer.
“I’m sorry.” Atlas whispers.
“For what?” Merritt asks, genuinely curious. This is likely the most down Atlas’ defences will ever be, and whatever he feels is the biggest crime tonight could provide valuable insight to be used later.
“For… making a mess.”
It was too much to hope that he said ‘for hurting myself’, it expects decades of habits to be erased in one night. But Merritt still finds himself disappointed at the answer.
“…We’ll talk in the morning.” He says, Atlas flinching away from the words.
“It’s… okay.” He tries. This is the bit he’s not so good at. If Atlas was literally anyone else he would simply hypnotise them to sleep at this point and be done with it. But Atlas isn’t anyone else, so he has to put at least some effort in. “Everything’s alright, and we’ll work it out tomorrow. We need to sleep.”
It doesn’t seem to abate the lingering anxiety at all, the platitude undeniable false - everything is not okay - but it’s the best he can provide at this point. He meant the we. He’s exhausted and fast becoming useless.
He manages to make it to the door this time when Atlas whispers “wait.”
He turns back, anger starting to claw up his guts. If his return to sleep gets thwarted one more time, he can’t promise his fraying patience will last.
“What?”
Whatever it is, Atlas isn’t willing to say, staring unflinchingly at the bedspread. Perhaps he doesn’t know, if Merritt’s being charitable. He just needs something.
The bed swallows him whole, a tiny figure shrinking in the middle of it.
Aw, hell.
“Move.” He says gruffly, making a shooing motion with his hand. “Come on, mush mush. If you think I’m sleeping in your crappy chair you really are a lunatic.”
That one threatens to pull an actual smile from Atlas, and he does, after a moment, move to only take up one side of the bed.
He’s not sure if this is what Atlas was asking, but it’s something easily provided and clearly not totally unwanted at the very least. Atlas had somehow wrangled the biggest bed out of all of them, a monster of a thing that can more than comfortably accommodate the two of them. Despite his exhaustion, he’s unsure of his ability to sleep in a separate room anyways. There are so many avenues for pain in this room, and no one watching to make sure they aren’t taken advantage of. He has no idea where the razors are, but the existence of more is undisputable. The one in his pocket seems to burn a hole into his own skin - it's too close to Atlas, it feels, even barricaded by cloth.
The thoughts are turbulent, but Merritt’s exhaustion easily outweighs their urgency. With Atlas stiff and tense on the very opposite side of the mattress, but taken care of and safe for the time being, the bone deep exhaustion wins out and Merrit rolls over and drops off the ledge of sleep in seconds.