More Merlin fic!
Title An Indefinite Article
Fandom: Merlin
Rating: High R
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin, Leon/Will
Warnings: Potential mental health triggers, homophobia and plenty of fairly graphic sex.
Summary: Modern College AU. As far as Arthur Pendragon is concerned, he is a straight law student. Meeting Merlin Emrys is going to change all that. Originally written and posted for this prompt kinkme_merlin prompt. Betaed very kindly by versipellis
(btw, I've set this in Lancaster University which has a slightly different system from most British Universities - in the first year, you do one major subject and two minor ones.)
Raw
Arthur was not gay.
He wasn’t against it or anything. Okay, sure, he joined in with all the usual locker room jokes with the guys and he laughed when Val or Gary said something particularly nasty about faggots because well, that was what you did, wasn’t it? But it wasn’t like he was going to go around beating people up or wrecking their lives or any of that shit. He just wasn’t gay and didn’t care to think about it all that much.
So he didn’t exactly expect to find himself so fascinated by Merlin Emrys.
Merlin Emrys was one of Arthur’s dormmates. They all had separate rooms but shared a kitchen and public bathroom. Arthur didn’t know any of his dormmates very well. He kind of liked Lance, who he’d bumped into a few times but mostly, they were just faces who were sometimes in the kitchen when he was heating up the microwave meals that he was pretty much living off when he wasn’t getting takeaways. He probably wouldn’t have registered Merlin’s existence at all if Val hadn’t pointed him out once.
“God, look at those two queers,” he said, gesturing and Arthur looked. Two guys, one with light brown hair, one with blacker hair. They were clearly engrossed in a conversation, laughing together and seemingly trying to push each other off the wall they were sitting on while they talked. Arthur blinked.
“I’ve seen them before,” he said. “That one with the big ears lives down the hall.”
“You poor thing,” Val said, voice laden with mock sympathy. “Better keep your door locked.”
“How do you know that they’re queers?” Leon asked quietly from behind them.
“Everyone knows about that guy,” Val said pityingly, jerking his thumb at the lighter haired guy. “He snogged some guy in the middle of the Square in Freshers Week. And he belongs to the Dykes and Fags Club or whatever it is. No one who wasn’t into dick would hang out with him.”
Arthur didn’t bother to get involved in the talk that then followed. He was already bored. He didn’t like to think about gay guys. Was that so weird? He was pretty sure he could beat either of those guys in a fight if they somehow got the urge to try and jump him. Really, who gave a shit?
A couple of days later, he got a sudden urge for juice in the middle of the night. When he headed to the kitchen, he saw that the light was already on. Arthur peered through the circular window in case it was the girl who he’d had a fight with a few days ago about stealing doughnuts or something stupid like that. It wasn’t. Merlin was standing at the sink, drinking a glass of water. He blinked when Arthur opened the door and frowned a little.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” Arthur said, knowing that his voice wasn’t exactly friendly and not caring. He went over to the fridge he used and started rummaging for juice. Finally finding it, he stood up and saw that Merlin was still watching him and suddenly wished that he’d bothered to throw a T-shirt on before leaving his room.
“What are you staring at?” he muttered, tearing the carton open.
“Nothing,” Merlin said flatly. “Is that even your juice?”
Arthur couldn’t remember. He shrugged and drank it anyway, enjoying the sting on his tongue. He could see Merlin scowling at him but pretended he couldn’t. He’d buy another carton of juice tomorrow. Really, what was the big deal?
“See you around then,” he said, crumpling up the carton and hurling it into the bin.
“Sure,” Merlin said. “I bet you wish you wouldn’t though.”
Arthur blinked.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I know who you are,” Merlin said. “And your little friends. Will’s my best friend - you think I don’t notice the looks? Don’t hear the remarks?”
“Hey, that’s not me!” Arthur protested. “I don’t give a shit about you, or your shitty friend! Do whatever the fuck you like with each other - I’m not interested in what gay guys do, all right?”
He stalked out of the kitchen, feeling pissed off. He didn’t see why anyone should get to talk to him like that in his own kitchen. He just wasn’t interested. Why did he get to be the bad guy when it was the others who actually said all that stuff?
He did his best to forget about it but to his annoyance, Merlin seemed to pop up everywhere after that. Arthur saw him in the campus shops, wandering around in the Square with his stupid gay friend, even coming out of lectures or seminars. Merlin never seemed to notice he was there which pissed Arthur off in a way that he couldn’t explain. He didn’t like people not noticing him. He certainly didn’t like it if he was noticing them and they didn’t seem aware that he existed. He knew that he shouldn’t care but somehow, he really, really did.
Normally, he would have ranted to his friends about it and the act of venting would have made him feel better but this time, he couldn’t do that. They’d all have stared at him like he was mad, asked why he was bothered by the fact that some queer didn’t like him, wonder why he wanted a puff to notice his existence. And since Arthur couldn’t answer that question, he knew that he couldn’t possibly mention it. So it just continued to stew inside him, making him feel uncomfortable and angry.
“What is it that’s upsetting you?” Leon asked him once when they weren’t around any of the others. “You’ve been really out of it for days.”
“Nothing,” Arthur said sullenly. “I’m fine.”
If he were going to talk to anyone, Leon would be the one to talk to. Leon was quieter, more thoughtful than the others. But Arthur knew that he couldn’t talk about it to anyone. Ever. Maybe if he let it boil around him inside long enough, it would eventually all boil away.
Only it didn’t seem to work like that. It just seemed to froth around inside him, getting more and more churned up into something he didn’t understand and didn’t want to understand. He threw himself into partying in the evenings, trying to shake it off or at least forget about it for a bit.
One night, he ended up bringing most of the guys back to the dorm with him since no one wanted to go home yet. They were all varying degrees of pissed and Arthur was really properly enjoying himself for the first time in ages. They were being pretty loud though and it was inevitable that someone eventually opened the kitchen door to yell at them. And Arthur supposed it was inevitable that that someone had to be Merlin.
“Some people on this floor are trying to sleep, okay?” he said, sounding pretty reasonable. “Could you keep it down a bit?”
“Oh fuck off, killjoy,” Val yelled and several of the others laughed. Merlin scowled.
“No need to get rude,” he said. “Although I suppose from you lot, you can’t expect anything better.”
That got him a lot of jeering and laughter. Arthur didn’t join in. Seeing Merlin in his hazy state had churned everything up again and suddenly the sheer injustice of some stupid skinny dweeb making him feel all this stuff he couldn’t understand was really pissing him off. Springing down from the counter he was sitting on, he marched over to Merlin and grabbed his arm, yanking him out of the kitchen and back into the corridor.
“What the hell?! Get your hands off me!” Merlin ordered but Arthur didn’t. He dragged Merlin to the nearest place that seemed even remotely private to his more than slightly addled brain, only to find that they were now standing in the bathroom.
“What is your problem?” Merlin demanded.
“You! You are my problem!” Arthur snarled back.
“Me?! All I did was ask politely if you and your morons could lower the noise level a bit! Everyone else wants it too and they wouldn’t have been so polite! You’re keeping everyone awake!”
“I don’t give a shit,” Arthur said, trying to get his thoughts into gear. “I don’t give a shit about any of them. You … you really piss me off, you know that?”
“You really piss me off too,” Merlin snapped. “Your point being?”
Arthur wasn’t sure he had a point. No longer surrounded by happy, drunken friends, he was beginning to sober up and was beginning to realise that perhaps dragging some guy you’d hardly ever spoken to into a bathroom and insisting that they were the one who had a problem possibly made you slightly crazy looking. He didn’t intend to admit that though. That would make him look even more stupid than he already did.
“You don’t get to boss me around,” he said instead. “You’re nobody, you know that? You’re just some little idiot who thinks he can tell me what to do. Well no one tells me what to do!”
“You know, for someone who insists that I don’t matter, you seem to stare at me an awful lot,” Merlin said, his expression mock-thoughtful.
Arthur felt his cheeks flush. He’d always thought that Merlin didn’t know that he was looking. To suddenly realise that he did was rather horrible.
“I haven’t been staring at you,” he said.
“Liar,” Merlin said. “I’ve seen you. You stare at me all the time whenever we’re on the same bit of campus together.”
“Only because I’m wondering what sort of freak you are,” Arthur said.
“You know,” Merlin said, voice tight with anger. “you really are the most insufferable prat I’ve ever been in the same room with.”
“And you’re just a loser!” Arthur spat back.
“You know, I don’t need this,” Merlin said. “Why don’t you just go back to getting pissed with your obnoxious little friends? I couldn’t give a shit about what you think of me.”
He tried to move past Arthur to get out of the door. Furious, Arthur grabbed at him again, yanking at his arms. Merlin stumbled and caught hold of him for balance and they ended up pressed up against each other, Arthur’s back to the door. Arthur suddenly felt a surge of shocking heat tear through him. His breath seemed to catch in his throat and his hands were suddenly sweaty. Merlin was only wearing thin pyjamas and Arthur could feel every bit of his body through them.
“G-get off,” Merlin muttered but his own breath seemed to be catching too. He wasn’t pulling away either. In fact, Arthur was almost positive that Merlin was pressing closer to him, their legs resting against each other, Merlin’s crotch against his. Arthur felt another surge of heat pour through his body, pooling unmistakeably in his groin. Merlin’s eyes widened.
“You - ”
Arthur didn't want to hear it, couldn’t hear it. He kissed Merlin hard and fast, almost biting down. Merlin kissed back instantly, grabbing at Arthur’s arms with surprisingly strong hands, digging his nails into Arthur’s skin. His tongue slid into Arthur’s mouth and Arthur moaned in shock. Oh God, this wasn’t, he’d never thought it would ever feel like this …
They were both clawing at each other now, Arthur’s hands in Merlin’s hair, Merlin’s under Arthur’s shirt. Every touch of his fingers on Arthur’s bare skin sent amazing jolts of sensation rippling down Arthur’s spine. When he pulled gently at Merlin’s hair, Merlin made a choking noise and arched his body right into Arthur’s, grinding their hips together. Somewhere in Arthur’s increasingly hazy mind it occurred to him that they really ought to be doing this in some place where they could lock a door and hardly thinking about it, he thrust Merlin forward and dragged him into one of the stalls. Merlin seemed to see the sense of this and fumbled with the lock with one hand, the other hand yanking at the fly on Arthur’s jeans.
“I want,” he said, and his voice was thick. “I want, I want to fuck you, I want … ”
Arthur moaned. He couldn’t help it. He grabbed at Merlin’s shoulders, yanking him back into another kiss, squirming and pushing against the hand that was now inside his jeans, stroking and fumbling with him. He didn’t care about anything but this any more, he just wanted more and more and more of it. He pressed his own hand against the thin cotton pyjamas and Merlin gave a wonderful moan, twisting under Arthur’s grasping fingers. He bit at Arthur’s throat, kissed and sucked and Arthur knew that he was going to leave marks and didn’t care. He just wanted more.
“Please,” he rasped. “Please … ”
Merlin moaned. He abruptly yanked down Arthur’s jeans and underwear and then pushed at Arthur, seemingly trying to turn him around. Arthur didn’t resist. Merlin’s hands were hot on his hips, guiding him, pushing him to lean against the cistern, to brace himself and he obeyed automatically, clutching at the cold porcelain and gasping at the continued sensations from Merlin’s hands.
“I … ” Merlin panted. “I really need to … oh God, don’t want to hurt you … ”
Arthur didn’t care. He didn’t care if Merlin tore him apart as long as Merlin didn’t stop. He pushed back against him pleadingly and felt Merlin kissing his shoulders, pressing their bodies together. Merlin’s fingers were suddenly in his mouth and Arthur sucked at them greedily because they were part of Merlin and he would take anything he was given right now, anything at all. Merlin licked the back of his neck and Arthur whimpered at it, helpless and pleading. Merlin abruptly pulled his fingers away and Arthur yelped as wet fingers slid between his thighs, fumbling slightly, finding his entrance, pushing so gently that they barely penetrated.
“Oh fuck,” Arthur croaked and hardly thinking, he pushed himself backwards and it did hurt even though Merlin’s fingers were wet and thin but he didn’t care, he didn’t because he could feel Merlin’s body close to his and Merlin panting and muttering “Oh God, I want you.” and Merlin’s cock was pressed against the back of his thigh and Arthur hadn’t known anyone could ever feel this much, that anything could feel so good.
“Please!” he begged shamelessly and Merlin was suddenly realigning himself, removing his fingers and grabbing at Arthur’s hips again, guiding him, pulling him, babbling meaninglessly about how he’d make it not hurt and how much he wanted this, this, this … And it did hurt, even though Arthur knew through the haze of pain and want that Merlin was holding back, not fully inside him, holding them still and steady while he groped and fumbled. But Arthur didn’t care, he didn’t care about anything except this not stopping.
A sudden sound. The bathroom door opening. Merlin froze against him and Arthur shuddered, hearing Val’s unmistakeable laugh and Gary saying something about too much beer. The door to the stall was locked but they weren’t exactly safe, if they made a noise, if one of the others looked, if they, if they …
Merlin was moving against him again. Slow, careful little thrusting moments, as though he couldn’t help himself. Arthur leaned on the cistern and bit his own arm to stop himself making sounds, jerking his hips desperately, aching and hard and wanting so much that he could barely stand it. He could hear Val and Gary talking to each other, the sound of one of them pissing into the urinal and it should have scared him stupid, should have left him flaccid and terrified, not be leaving him squirming and so hard that he thought he might die from it. God, if they saw, if they ever saw, they’d kill him, they’d hate him, he’d lose everything and he shouldn’t be thinking of them, picturing them seeing and getting hard, them as hard as he was, wanting to be touched and felt and sucked …
Merlin’s fingers brushed against his cock and Arthur sank his teeth hard into his wrist as he came, pleasure so intense that it nearly blacked out his vision. He felt Merlin’s own hips jerk and a strange feeling of fullness inside him. He heard the door open and then shut and he and Merlin were alone again once more.
Merlin pulled back from him slowly and Arthur shuddered, suddenly horribly cold. He straightened up, wincing at the ache in his back and thighs and didn’t turn to look at Merlin until he’d pulled his jeans back up again. Merlin was staring at him, his expression bewildered, as though he couldn’t quite believe what had just happened. Arthur understood that feeling all too well. He had to have gone mad. It was the only explanation.
“That … that didn’t happen,” he said at last.
“If you like,” Merlin said flatly. “I don’t care. I have … I have to go to bed.”
He fumbled with the lock again, half-falling out of the stall. Arthur watched him, feeling frozen to the spot. He stared down at his arm, looking at the bright red tooth marks he’d left in himself. The one on his wrist was bleeding a little and after a moment, Arthur stumbled out of the stall and stuck it under a tap, staring at himself in the mirror. His hair was a mess, there were purple-and-red marks blossoming on his throat and his eyes looked bloodshot. He looked a mess.
He didn’t go back to the still-rowdy party in the kitchen. Instead, he went to bed and curled under the sheets, absently fingering the bite marks in his arm and tried to get some sleep and to forget.
Open
When Arthur was seven, his father first told him that he was going to be a lawyer, just like him.
“But I don’t want to be a lawyer,” Arthur told him.
“Don’t be silly, Arthur,” his father said. “You’ll be an excellent lawyer. You’ll get used to the idea.”
Arthur waited. He waited and waited to get used to the idea. It never happened. He never wanted to be a lawyer. He thought it might be nice to be a professional swimmer. Or maybe join the army. Or possibly join stupid stepsister Morgana and work with people. But his father didn’t listen to any little hints. He didn’t care. He had a box that he wanted Arthur to fit in and as far as he was concerned, that was how everything would be.
From childhood onwards, Arthur tried desperately hard never to break out of the box that his father had made. There wasn’t any point anyway. It would only make everyone unhappy after all.
*
His wrist still hurt.
Arthur guessed it was kind of his own fault. He kept picking at it all the time, in lectures, in the locker room, when he was trying to sleep. Every time the tooth marks scabbed over, he was there, scratching and worrying at them. His wrist now had a permanently reddish circle with intermittent scabs. No one had noticed yet. Arthur mostly wore long sleeves or a wrist band of some kind. Val had mocked it, said it was very nineties but Arthur had ignored him. Better to have a slightly uncool fashion statement than to be a freak who tore chunks out of his own arm.
“You’re coming out tonight, right?” Val asked.
“Sure,” Arthur said automatically. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Hey, you’re going all emo these days,” Val said, grinning. “You can never be sure.”
Arthur didn’t bother to answer. They kept saying he was acting “all emo” and he supposed he couldn’t exactly blame them. His head was all over the place and he knew it. He couldn’t concentrate on anything for long, not on his societies, not on his courses, nothing. Leon kept looking at him worriedly and asking if he was okay. When Leon was around, that was. Lately, he seemed to be spending a lot of time away from them although he never really said where. Owain thought he had a secret girlfriend and Val said she must be dog-ugly if Leon was that desperate to keep her hidden. So far, no one had said anything to Leon about it. Arthur supposed that might be a bit too much like caring. You couldn’t risk that. Didn’t want to look like a sissy.
The club was loud and thick with dry ice. Arthur gulped back a few pints and watched Val dance with some girl who was way too pretty for him and Gary and Owain try to get some other pretty girls to dance with them and Leon quietly sip at his first and still only drink of the night and felt totally disconnected from all of it. He went to buy another drink, hoping that the haze of alcohol would make the world an easier place to stumble through and as he turned from the bar and surveyed the dance floor, he saw the cause of everything that was currently horribly wrong with his world.
Merlin Emrys was there, dancing with his stupid friend. He was wearing a black shirt and jeans and his head was thrown back. He looked wild and happy and Arthur hated him. How dare he be happy? How dare he be happy when Arthur’s life was falling apart? And it was all his fucking fault.
He couldn’t stop remembering. Couldn’t stop reliving Merlin’s mouth on his, Merlin shoving him against the cistern, Merlin gasping and moaning, Merlin, Merlin, god damn Merlin! Every time they saw each other, Merlin flushed and looked away and acted like Arthur wasn’t even there, like none of it bothered him except to be slightly embarrassing.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. Arthur looked at the display and closed his eyes. His father. He knew better than to ignore it. He’d long learned that lesson. He tore his eyes away from Merlin and stumbled into the bathroom, ignoring the other people in there and finally answering the phone. He closed his eyes and listened to his father demanding to know how his studies were going, if he’d made more friends amongst the other law students, was he in a club, was he drunk? He didn’t ask if Arthur had a girlfriend. Girls would be far too much of a distraction to a promising lawyer, wouldn’t they? Or maybe his father already had an idea arranged for him. It wouldn’t surprise him.
He hung up the phone and resisted the urge to throw it at the wall, settling for shoving it in his pocket and slamming his hands on the wall and hating the world.
“Arthur?”
Merlin. Fucking, fucking Merlin. Arthur twisted around and stared into glassy blue eyes and a flushed, vaguely concerned face.
“Fuck off,” Arthur said as viciously as he could.
“Fuck off yourself,” Merlin said coldly, turning away from him towards the urinal. “You’re the one who seems to think the bathroom is your personal phone booth.”
“Unlike you, who just screws people in them?”
Merlin paled and Arthur was glad to see it. Why should Merlin be looking happy? Why should he have fun?
“I don’t do that,” Merlin said, his voice low. “I never … I’m not like that.”
“Sure seemed that way to me. Sure seemed like you knew just what you were doing,” Arthur sneered.
“Well, I didn’t! I don’t … I’m not gay, for God’s sake!”
Arthur laughed. He couldn’t help it. Merlin, stupid Merlin insisting that he wasn’t gay, insisting that he was the one who didn’t like cock. Merlin stared at him like he was crazy and took a step back.
“You have a serious mental issue,” he said. “You know that, right? There’s something actually wrong with you.”
“You did it!” Arthur yelled at him. “You made this happen! I was okay! I was fine. You’ve … I hate you!”
He lashed out, trying to connect his fist into Merlin’s face. Merlin jerked aside and grabbed his arm, trying to twist it. Arthur twisted in response and slammed Merlin against the wall. Merlin scratched at him like a girl and Arthur half-meant to head butt him and give him a bloody nose but somehow the movement went wrong and they were kissing, hot, frantic kisses and hips grinding against each other and Merlin’s fingers digging into Arthur’s shoulders. Arthur let him go only to grab at him again, pull closer, shoving his hands under Merlin’s silky black shirt to grope at his skin and Merlin shuddered.
“This again?” he croaked. “Is this what you want, Arthur?! To be screwed against a filthy wall?”
“Shut up!” Arthur hissed. “Shut up, shut up, you … I fucking hate you!”
He kissed Merlin again, biting viciously down on his lower lip. Merlin swore and yanked painfully on Arthur’s hair before moving downward, scratching the nape of Arthur’s neck then dropping his hands down to Arthur’s hips, clutching, scraping. Arthur yanked at him and they half-fell into the stall, barely coherent enough to slam the door behind them. Neither tried to regain their feet when they slumped to the floor. Merlin squirmed between Arthur’s legs, fumbling at him and Arthur thrust his hand into the waist band of those tight jeans, groping and seeking with rough fingers that made Merlin curse. He buried his face in Arthur’s neck, kissing and biting as Arthur palmed and rubbed at his cock, his head suddenly spinning with the fact that he was touching another man’s cock, he had his hands on Merlin and Merlin was whining and squirming and pressing against him, wanting it, wanting more of it and Arthur wanted too, he wanted so much …
Merlin bucked his hips suddenly and Arthur felt come splatter on his hand and wrist. Merlin was fumbling with Arthur’s jeans, babbling something incoherent about tasting and Arthur lifted himself slightly to help him yank at the jeans and boxers, pulling his hand out of Merlin’s jeans to help Merlin manoeuvre. Merlin half-fell between his legs and then his mouth, his mouth was on Arthur, sucking and licking and Arthur threw back his head and slammed it on the door without thinking because fuck, fuck, this was, this, oh fucking, fucking hell, this! He clutched at Merlin’s hair and Merlin made a faint little crooning noise, his body squirming, head bobbing slightly and Arthur closed his eyes and whimpered “Please, please … ”
He came into Merlin’s mouth and Merlin gagged and withdrew, leaving Arthur suddenly very cold. He stared blankly into Merlin’s face, taking in the dishevelled hair. Merlin’s lip was still bleeding slightly from where Arthur had bitten it earlier and there was come already drying on his chin from where Merlin had choked. Arthur looked at his own hand, looked at the sticky substance that remained. A lot of it had half-wiped off on the floor as he’d supported himself. He was sitting bared arsed on a filthy bathroom floor with another man between his legs and his ejaculate all over his hand.
“Oh God,” Merlin whispered, pulling himself backwards until he bumped into the toilet behind him. “Oh God, this … I … ”
“Leave me alone,” Arthur ordered him only it came out more like begging. “Leave me alone!”
He staggered to his feet, yanking at his clothes. Merlin didn’t move from his kneeling position, his head now slumped, shoulders shaking slightly. Arthur fled the bathroom, pushing past the crowds of people, desperate to get out. He had to get back to the university, he had to lock his door and hide and pretend that this had never happened.
“Arthur? Arthur!”
Someone grabbed his arm and Arthur twisted and saw Leon staring at him. Arthur shook his head and tried to pull away but Leon held tightly on.
“Let me get you home,” he said. “Let me see you home, Arthur. What’s wrong with you?”
Arthur didn’t answer. He let Leon pull him outside, let Leon flag them a taxi, didn’t pull away when Leon put an arm around him as they sat in the back.
“What’s wrong?” Leon asked him. “You can tell me, Arthur. I’m your friend. You can tell me anything. Please Arthur. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Arthur didn’t answer. He huddled inside himself and kept his fist tightly clenched to hide the stains and concentrated on the slow, steady throbbing from his wrist to try and make sure that he didn’t have to think.
“I want to help you,” Leon said, sounding sad as he helped Arthur find his key. “I … Arthur, you can tell me anything, okay?”
Arthur tried not to laugh. He couldn’t tell anyone anything. He went to bed and tried to pretend tomorrow would be better.
It wasn’t.
*
The third time they screwed around with each other, it was outside in the evening, shoved up against the wall, Merlin’s takeaway abandoned on the ground as he whimpered and pulled Arthur closer to him, biting his neck as Arthur ground his palm against Merlin’s crotch and bit his lip to stop himself moaning as Merlin’s fingers groped back at him. They both came in their trousers that night, staring at each other bewilderedly as they did, taking in everything. This time, Merlin was the one to run away and Arthur followed more slowly, trying to ignore the confused crunching in his stomach.
The fourth time it was in the kitchen. Arthur walked in as Merlin was cooking. He watched for a while as Merlin pretended to ignore him, then walked up behind him and stuck his hand down Merlin’s trousers, rubbing himself against Merlin’s back and feeling every shake that ran through his body as Merlin struggled to focus on the food he was cooking and not Arthur’s wandering hands. Arthur licked the side of his neck and Merlin’s hand jerked, spilling spaghetti sauce all over the stove but he didn’t seem to care.
The fifth time, it was in Merlin’s bedroom. Arthur was heading down the hallway one night, drunk and dizzy, when Merlin opened the door and stared at him before stepping aside and gesturing mutely with his hand. Arthur stumbled in and leaned against the door as Merlin sank to his knees and sucked him off, making soft whimpering noises and touching himself as he did it. Arthur watched dizzily and found himself mumbling encouraging things; yeah, like that, please, God, that’s right, please … and moaning when he saw Merlin come into his own hand.
“We have to stop doing this,” Merlin mumbled afterwards, wiping Arthur’s come off his lips. “We … this is insane, this whole thing …”
Arthur didn’t answer. He didn’t feel like he had anything left to say.
The sixth time, they did it in Arthur’s bed, Arthur pressing his face into the pillows, arching and crushing the sheets between his hands as Merlin straddled him, murmured comforting words in his ear as he slowly pushed inside him, showing him what it was like with preparation and lubricant, with the time to be more careful about what they did. Arthur yanked so hard that he tore a hole in the sheets when he came and he let Merlin bury his face into his shoulder and pretended that he didn’t notice that Merlin seemed to be crying.
Arthur stopped counting after the sixth time.
*
Will was gabbling away gleefully about his new boyfriend. Merlin was pretending to listen, doing his best to concentrate on the words. It was nice that Will had a boyfriend after all this time, especially one that clearly made him so ridiculously happy. Merlin had met Leon a few times and he seemed a nice guy and it was already clear that he was as besotted with Will as Will as with him. Merlin really ought to be happy. He was happy. Of course he was.
“We’ll have to find you somebody,” Will told him, finally reaching the end of all of Leon’s many virtues. “Somebody nice.”
“You mean somebody that you approve of,” Merlin said, again trying to smile and trying not to think of how much Will would not approve of what he currently had.
“Exactly,” Will said. “Only the best for my Merlin.”
“I’m not your Merlin. You have a boyfriend. Won’t Leon get jealous?”
“He already did a bit,” Will confessed. “It’s why I think we should make a project out of getting you a girlfriend. Just so he knows that there’s absolutely nothing to worry about. I mean, he knows already but it might just be safer, you know?”
“Sure,” Merlin said. “A girlfriend. Sure.”
He wanted a girlfriend. Of course he did. A proper, nice relationship, someone he could introduce to his Mum and take on a double-date with Will and Leon. That was all he’d ever wanted, wasn’t it? Someone nice, someone good, someone …
Someone who was not Arthur Pendragon. Someone who didn’t jam him against walls and kiss him until Merlin’s teeth cut the inside of his mouth. Someone who didn’t grind against him and claw and bite him until Merlin’s body was a mass of marks the next day. Someone who Merlin didn’t crave like some sort of drug, someone who Merlin didn’t fuck on an almost nightly basis without really knowing why.
“Merlin? Heeeeello?”
He’d zoned out. Merlin quickly blinked and looked at Will, who was frowning.
“You all right?” he asked.
Merlin knew that he ought to tell. That Will would want to know and could probably make sense of this madness. Will might know how Merlin could stop. How Merlin could sort this and do things properly and not get himself any further into this stupid bloody mess.
“Merlin?” Will sat down next to him. “Hey, you’re not feeling pissed at me, are you? You know I don’t mean it - I’m not going to force you out on dates or anything. I just … you know what I’m like.”
“Yeah, I do,” Merlin said, nudging Will gently. “And I’m not mad, stupid! I was just thinking.”
The moment where he could have opened up was gone. He chatted with Will for a bit longer, avoiding the topic of relationships completely until Will left. Merlin sat in his room for a while, then drifted into the kitchen, pretending to be making himself something to eat. After a while, he heard footsteps and then Arthur came in. They stared at each other for a moment and Merlin desperately hunted for things to say, something that would sound normal, something half decent, something not crazy.
“Coming to my room then?” Arthur muttered and Merlin felt his stomach squirm and he nodded his head and followed. Arthur’s room was a tip and he didn’t seem to have quite mastered changing the sheets but right now, Merlin really didn’t care. The moment the door closed behind them, they were kissing each other and as Arthur ground against him and choked out “Fuck me, please, I want this!” Merlin wondered dizzily how he was supposed to get himself out of this mess.
It was only quite a bit later that it occurred to him to wonder whether it was a mess he really wanted to extract himself from.
Part 2 here
Fandom: Merlin
Rating: High R
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin, Leon/Will
Warnings: Potential mental health triggers, homophobia and plenty of fairly graphic sex.
Summary: Modern College AU. As far as Arthur Pendragon is concerned, he is a straight law student. Meeting Merlin Emrys is going to change all that. Originally written and posted for this prompt kinkme_merlin prompt. Betaed very kindly by versipellis
(btw, I've set this in Lancaster University which has a slightly different system from most British Universities - in the first year, you do one major subject and two minor ones.)
Raw
Arthur was not gay.
He wasn’t against it or anything. Okay, sure, he joined in with all the usual locker room jokes with the guys and he laughed when Val or Gary said something particularly nasty about faggots because well, that was what you did, wasn’t it? But it wasn’t like he was going to go around beating people up or wrecking their lives or any of that shit. He just wasn’t gay and didn’t care to think about it all that much.
So he didn’t exactly expect to find himself so fascinated by Merlin Emrys.
Merlin Emrys was one of Arthur’s dormmates. They all had separate rooms but shared a kitchen and public bathroom. Arthur didn’t know any of his dormmates very well. He kind of liked Lance, who he’d bumped into a few times but mostly, they were just faces who were sometimes in the kitchen when he was heating up the microwave meals that he was pretty much living off when he wasn’t getting takeaways. He probably wouldn’t have registered Merlin’s existence at all if Val hadn’t pointed him out once.
“God, look at those two queers,” he said, gesturing and Arthur looked. Two guys, one with light brown hair, one with blacker hair. They were clearly engrossed in a conversation, laughing together and seemingly trying to push each other off the wall they were sitting on while they talked. Arthur blinked.
“I’ve seen them before,” he said. “That one with the big ears lives down the hall.”
“You poor thing,” Val said, voice laden with mock sympathy. “Better keep your door locked.”
“How do you know that they’re queers?” Leon asked quietly from behind them.
“Everyone knows about that guy,” Val said pityingly, jerking his thumb at the lighter haired guy. “He snogged some guy in the middle of the Square in Freshers Week. And he belongs to the Dykes and Fags Club or whatever it is. No one who wasn’t into dick would hang out with him.”
Arthur didn’t bother to get involved in the talk that then followed. He was already bored. He didn’t like to think about gay guys. Was that so weird? He was pretty sure he could beat either of those guys in a fight if they somehow got the urge to try and jump him. Really, who gave a shit?
A couple of days later, he got a sudden urge for juice in the middle of the night. When he headed to the kitchen, he saw that the light was already on. Arthur peered through the circular window in case it was the girl who he’d had a fight with a few days ago about stealing doughnuts or something stupid like that. It wasn’t. Merlin was standing at the sink, drinking a glass of water. He blinked when Arthur opened the door and frowned a little.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” Arthur said, knowing that his voice wasn’t exactly friendly and not caring. He went over to the fridge he used and started rummaging for juice. Finally finding it, he stood up and saw that Merlin was still watching him and suddenly wished that he’d bothered to throw a T-shirt on before leaving his room.
“What are you staring at?” he muttered, tearing the carton open.
“Nothing,” Merlin said flatly. “Is that even your juice?”
Arthur couldn’t remember. He shrugged and drank it anyway, enjoying the sting on his tongue. He could see Merlin scowling at him but pretended he couldn’t. He’d buy another carton of juice tomorrow. Really, what was the big deal?
“See you around then,” he said, crumpling up the carton and hurling it into the bin.
“Sure,” Merlin said. “I bet you wish you wouldn’t though.”
Arthur blinked.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I know who you are,” Merlin said. “And your little friends. Will’s my best friend - you think I don’t notice the looks? Don’t hear the remarks?”
“Hey, that’s not me!” Arthur protested. “I don’t give a shit about you, or your shitty friend! Do whatever the fuck you like with each other - I’m not interested in what gay guys do, all right?”
He stalked out of the kitchen, feeling pissed off. He didn’t see why anyone should get to talk to him like that in his own kitchen. He just wasn’t interested. Why did he get to be the bad guy when it was the others who actually said all that stuff?
He did his best to forget about it but to his annoyance, Merlin seemed to pop up everywhere after that. Arthur saw him in the campus shops, wandering around in the Square with his stupid gay friend, even coming out of lectures or seminars. Merlin never seemed to notice he was there which pissed Arthur off in a way that he couldn’t explain. He didn’t like people not noticing him. He certainly didn’t like it if he was noticing them and they didn’t seem aware that he existed. He knew that he shouldn’t care but somehow, he really, really did.
Normally, he would have ranted to his friends about it and the act of venting would have made him feel better but this time, he couldn’t do that. They’d all have stared at him like he was mad, asked why he was bothered by the fact that some queer didn’t like him, wonder why he wanted a puff to notice his existence. And since Arthur couldn’t answer that question, he knew that he couldn’t possibly mention it. So it just continued to stew inside him, making him feel uncomfortable and angry.
“What is it that’s upsetting you?” Leon asked him once when they weren’t around any of the others. “You’ve been really out of it for days.”
“Nothing,” Arthur said sullenly. “I’m fine.”
If he were going to talk to anyone, Leon would be the one to talk to. Leon was quieter, more thoughtful than the others. But Arthur knew that he couldn’t talk about it to anyone. Ever. Maybe if he let it boil around him inside long enough, it would eventually all boil away.
Only it didn’t seem to work like that. It just seemed to froth around inside him, getting more and more churned up into something he didn’t understand and didn’t want to understand. He threw himself into partying in the evenings, trying to shake it off or at least forget about it for a bit.
One night, he ended up bringing most of the guys back to the dorm with him since no one wanted to go home yet. They were all varying degrees of pissed and Arthur was really properly enjoying himself for the first time in ages. They were being pretty loud though and it was inevitable that someone eventually opened the kitchen door to yell at them. And Arthur supposed it was inevitable that that someone had to be Merlin.
“Some people on this floor are trying to sleep, okay?” he said, sounding pretty reasonable. “Could you keep it down a bit?”
“Oh fuck off, killjoy,” Val yelled and several of the others laughed. Merlin scowled.
“No need to get rude,” he said. “Although I suppose from you lot, you can’t expect anything better.”
That got him a lot of jeering and laughter. Arthur didn’t join in. Seeing Merlin in his hazy state had churned everything up again and suddenly the sheer injustice of some stupid skinny dweeb making him feel all this stuff he couldn’t understand was really pissing him off. Springing down from the counter he was sitting on, he marched over to Merlin and grabbed his arm, yanking him out of the kitchen and back into the corridor.
“What the hell?! Get your hands off me!” Merlin ordered but Arthur didn’t. He dragged Merlin to the nearest place that seemed even remotely private to his more than slightly addled brain, only to find that they were now standing in the bathroom.
“What is your problem?” Merlin demanded.
“You! You are my problem!” Arthur snarled back.
“Me?! All I did was ask politely if you and your morons could lower the noise level a bit! Everyone else wants it too and they wouldn’t have been so polite! You’re keeping everyone awake!”
“I don’t give a shit,” Arthur said, trying to get his thoughts into gear. “I don’t give a shit about any of them. You … you really piss me off, you know that?”
“You really piss me off too,” Merlin snapped. “Your point being?”
Arthur wasn’t sure he had a point. No longer surrounded by happy, drunken friends, he was beginning to sober up and was beginning to realise that perhaps dragging some guy you’d hardly ever spoken to into a bathroom and insisting that they were the one who had a problem possibly made you slightly crazy looking. He didn’t intend to admit that though. That would make him look even more stupid than he already did.
“You don’t get to boss me around,” he said instead. “You’re nobody, you know that? You’re just some little idiot who thinks he can tell me what to do. Well no one tells me what to do!”
“You know, for someone who insists that I don’t matter, you seem to stare at me an awful lot,” Merlin said, his expression mock-thoughtful.
Arthur felt his cheeks flush. He’d always thought that Merlin didn’t know that he was looking. To suddenly realise that he did was rather horrible.
“I haven’t been staring at you,” he said.
“Liar,” Merlin said. “I’ve seen you. You stare at me all the time whenever we’re on the same bit of campus together.”
“Only because I’m wondering what sort of freak you are,” Arthur said.
“You know,” Merlin said, voice tight with anger. “you really are the most insufferable prat I’ve ever been in the same room with.”
“And you’re just a loser!” Arthur spat back.
“You know, I don’t need this,” Merlin said. “Why don’t you just go back to getting pissed with your obnoxious little friends? I couldn’t give a shit about what you think of me.”
He tried to move past Arthur to get out of the door. Furious, Arthur grabbed at him again, yanking at his arms. Merlin stumbled and caught hold of him for balance and they ended up pressed up against each other, Arthur’s back to the door. Arthur suddenly felt a surge of shocking heat tear through him. His breath seemed to catch in his throat and his hands were suddenly sweaty. Merlin was only wearing thin pyjamas and Arthur could feel every bit of his body through them.
“G-get off,” Merlin muttered but his own breath seemed to be catching too. He wasn’t pulling away either. In fact, Arthur was almost positive that Merlin was pressing closer to him, their legs resting against each other, Merlin’s crotch against his. Arthur felt another surge of heat pour through his body, pooling unmistakeably in his groin. Merlin’s eyes widened.
“You - ”
Arthur didn't want to hear it, couldn’t hear it. He kissed Merlin hard and fast, almost biting down. Merlin kissed back instantly, grabbing at Arthur’s arms with surprisingly strong hands, digging his nails into Arthur’s skin. His tongue slid into Arthur’s mouth and Arthur moaned in shock. Oh God, this wasn’t, he’d never thought it would ever feel like this …
They were both clawing at each other now, Arthur’s hands in Merlin’s hair, Merlin’s under Arthur’s shirt. Every touch of his fingers on Arthur’s bare skin sent amazing jolts of sensation rippling down Arthur’s spine. When he pulled gently at Merlin’s hair, Merlin made a choking noise and arched his body right into Arthur’s, grinding their hips together. Somewhere in Arthur’s increasingly hazy mind it occurred to him that they really ought to be doing this in some place where they could lock a door and hardly thinking about it, he thrust Merlin forward and dragged him into one of the stalls. Merlin seemed to see the sense of this and fumbled with the lock with one hand, the other hand yanking at the fly on Arthur’s jeans.
“I want,” he said, and his voice was thick. “I want, I want to fuck you, I want … ”
Arthur moaned. He couldn’t help it. He grabbed at Merlin’s shoulders, yanking him back into another kiss, squirming and pushing against the hand that was now inside his jeans, stroking and fumbling with him. He didn’t care about anything but this any more, he just wanted more and more and more of it. He pressed his own hand against the thin cotton pyjamas and Merlin gave a wonderful moan, twisting under Arthur’s grasping fingers. He bit at Arthur’s throat, kissed and sucked and Arthur knew that he was going to leave marks and didn’t care. He just wanted more.
“Please,” he rasped. “Please … ”
Merlin moaned. He abruptly yanked down Arthur’s jeans and underwear and then pushed at Arthur, seemingly trying to turn him around. Arthur didn’t resist. Merlin’s hands were hot on his hips, guiding him, pushing him to lean against the cistern, to brace himself and he obeyed automatically, clutching at the cold porcelain and gasping at the continued sensations from Merlin’s hands.
“I … ” Merlin panted. “I really need to … oh God, don’t want to hurt you … ”
Arthur didn’t care. He didn’t care if Merlin tore him apart as long as Merlin didn’t stop. He pushed back against him pleadingly and felt Merlin kissing his shoulders, pressing their bodies together. Merlin’s fingers were suddenly in his mouth and Arthur sucked at them greedily because they were part of Merlin and he would take anything he was given right now, anything at all. Merlin licked the back of his neck and Arthur whimpered at it, helpless and pleading. Merlin abruptly pulled his fingers away and Arthur yelped as wet fingers slid between his thighs, fumbling slightly, finding his entrance, pushing so gently that they barely penetrated.
“Oh fuck,” Arthur croaked and hardly thinking, he pushed himself backwards and it did hurt even though Merlin’s fingers were wet and thin but he didn’t care, he didn’t because he could feel Merlin’s body close to his and Merlin panting and muttering “Oh God, I want you.” and Merlin’s cock was pressed against the back of his thigh and Arthur hadn’t known anyone could ever feel this much, that anything could feel so good.
“Please!” he begged shamelessly and Merlin was suddenly realigning himself, removing his fingers and grabbing at Arthur’s hips again, guiding him, pulling him, babbling meaninglessly about how he’d make it not hurt and how much he wanted this, this, this … And it did hurt, even though Arthur knew through the haze of pain and want that Merlin was holding back, not fully inside him, holding them still and steady while he groped and fumbled. But Arthur didn’t care, he didn’t care about anything except this not stopping.
A sudden sound. The bathroom door opening. Merlin froze against him and Arthur shuddered, hearing Val’s unmistakeable laugh and Gary saying something about too much beer. The door to the stall was locked but they weren’t exactly safe, if they made a noise, if one of the others looked, if they, if they …
Merlin was moving against him again. Slow, careful little thrusting moments, as though he couldn’t help himself. Arthur leaned on the cistern and bit his own arm to stop himself making sounds, jerking his hips desperately, aching and hard and wanting so much that he could barely stand it. He could hear Val and Gary talking to each other, the sound of one of them pissing into the urinal and it should have scared him stupid, should have left him flaccid and terrified, not be leaving him squirming and so hard that he thought he might die from it. God, if they saw, if they ever saw, they’d kill him, they’d hate him, he’d lose everything and he shouldn’t be thinking of them, picturing them seeing and getting hard, them as hard as he was, wanting to be touched and felt and sucked …
Merlin’s fingers brushed against his cock and Arthur sank his teeth hard into his wrist as he came, pleasure so intense that it nearly blacked out his vision. He felt Merlin’s own hips jerk and a strange feeling of fullness inside him. He heard the door open and then shut and he and Merlin were alone again once more.
Merlin pulled back from him slowly and Arthur shuddered, suddenly horribly cold. He straightened up, wincing at the ache in his back and thighs and didn’t turn to look at Merlin until he’d pulled his jeans back up again. Merlin was staring at him, his expression bewildered, as though he couldn’t quite believe what had just happened. Arthur understood that feeling all too well. He had to have gone mad. It was the only explanation.
“That … that didn’t happen,” he said at last.
“If you like,” Merlin said flatly. “I don’t care. I have … I have to go to bed.”
He fumbled with the lock again, half-falling out of the stall. Arthur watched him, feeling frozen to the spot. He stared down at his arm, looking at the bright red tooth marks he’d left in himself. The one on his wrist was bleeding a little and after a moment, Arthur stumbled out of the stall and stuck it under a tap, staring at himself in the mirror. His hair was a mess, there were purple-and-red marks blossoming on his throat and his eyes looked bloodshot. He looked a mess.
He didn’t go back to the still-rowdy party in the kitchen. Instead, he went to bed and curled under the sheets, absently fingering the bite marks in his arm and tried to get some sleep and to forget.
Open
When Arthur was seven, his father first told him that he was going to be a lawyer, just like him.
“But I don’t want to be a lawyer,” Arthur told him.
“Don’t be silly, Arthur,” his father said. “You’ll be an excellent lawyer. You’ll get used to the idea.”
Arthur waited. He waited and waited to get used to the idea. It never happened. He never wanted to be a lawyer. He thought it might be nice to be a professional swimmer. Or maybe join the army. Or possibly join stupid stepsister Morgana and work with people. But his father didn’t listen to any little hints. He didn’t care. He had a box that he wanted Arthur to fit in and as far as he was concerned, that was how everything would be.
From childhood onwards, Arthur tried desperately hard never to break out of the box that his father had made. There wasn’t any point anyway. It would only make everyone unhappy after all.
*
His wrist still hurt.
Arthur guessed it was kind of his own fault. He kept picking at it all the time, in lectures, in the locker room, when he was trying to sleep. Every time the tooth marks scabbed over, he was there, scratching and worrying at them. His wrist now had a permanently reddish circle with intermittent scabs. No one had noticed yet. Arthur mostly wore long sleeves or a wrist band of some kind. Val had mocked it, said it was very nineties but Arthur had ignored him. Better to have a slightly uncool fashion statement than to be a freak who tore chunks out of his own arm.
“You’re coming out tonight, right?” Val asked.
“Sure,” Arthur said automatically. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Hey, you’re going all emo these days,” Val said, grinning. “You can never be sure.”
Arthur didn’t bother to answer. They kept saying he was acting “all emo” and he supposed he couldn’t exactly blame them. His head was all over the place and he knew it. He couldn’t concentrate on anything for long, not on his societies, not on his courses, nothing. Leon kept looking at him worriedly and asking if he was okay. When Leon was around, that was. Lately, he seemed to be spending a lot of time away from them although he never really said where. Owain thought he had a secret girlfriend and Val said she must be dog-ugly if Leon was that desperate to keep her hidden. So far, no one had said anything to Leon about it. Arthur supposed that might be a bit too much like caring. You couldn’t risk that. Didn’t want to look like a sissy.
The club was loud and thick with dry ice. Arthur gulped back a few pints and watched Val dance with some girl who was way too pretty for him and Gary and Owain try to get some other pretty girls to dance with them and Leon quietly sip at his first and still only drink of the night and felt totally disconnected from all of it. He went to buy another drink, hoping that the haze of alcohol would make the world an easier place to stumble through and as he turned from the bar and surveyed the dance floor, he saw the cause of everything that was currently horribly wrong with his world.
Merlin Emrys was there, dancing with his stupid friend. He was wearing a black shirt and jeans and his head was thrown back. He looked wild and happy and Arthur hated him. How dare he be happy? How dare he be happy when Arthur’s life was falling apart? And it was all his fucking fault.
He couldn’t stop remembering. Couldn’t stop reliving Merlin’s mouth on his, Merlin shoving him against the cistern, Merlin gasping and moaning, Merlin, Merlin, god damn Merlin! Every time they saw each other, Merlin flushed and looked away and acted like Arthur wasn’t even there, like none of it bothered him except to be slightly embarrassing.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. Arthur looked at the display and closed his eyes. His father. He knew better than to ignore it. He’d long learned that lesson. He tore his eyes away from Merlin and stumbled into the bathroom, ignoring the other people in there and finally answering the phone. He closed his eyes and listened to his father demanding to know how his studies were going, if he’d made more friends amongst the other law students, was he in a club, was he drunk? He didn’t ask if Arthur had a girlfriend. Girls would be far too much of a distraction to a promising lawyer, wouldn’t they? Or maybe his father already had an idea arranged for him. It wouldn’t surprise him.
He hung up the phone and resisted the urge to throw it at the wall, settling for shoving it in his pocket and slamming his hands on the wall and hating the world.
“Arthur?”
Merlin. Fucking, fucking Merlin. Arthur twisted around and stared into glassy blue eyes and a flushed, vaguely concerned face.
“Fuck off,” Arthur said as viciously as he could.
“Fuck off yourself,” Merlin said coldly, turning away from him towards the urinal. “You’re the one who seems to think the bathroom is your personal phone booth.”
“Unlike you, who just screws people in them?”
Merlin paled and Arthur was glad to see it. Why should Merlin be looking happy? Why should he have fun?
“I don’t do that,” Merlin said, his voice low. “I never … I’m not like that.”
“Sure seemed that way to me. Sure seemed like you knew just what you were doing,” Arthur sneered.
“Well, I didn’t! I don’t … I’m not gay, for God’s sake!”
Arthur laughed. He couldn’t help it. Merlin, stupid Merlin insisting that he wasn’t gay, insisting that he was the one who didn’t like cock. Merlin stared at him like he was crazy and took a step back.
“You have a serious mental issue,” he said. “You know that, right? There’s something actually wrong with you.”
“You did it!” Arthur yelled at him. “You made this happen! I was okay! I was fine. You’ve … I hate you!”
He lashed out, trying to connect his fist into Merlin’s face. Merlin jerked aside and grabbed his arm, trying to twist it. Arthur twisted in response and slammed Merlin against the wall. Merlin scratched at him like a girl and Arthur half-meant to head butt him and give him a bloody nose but somehow the movement went wrong and they were kissing, hot, frantic kisses and hips grinding against each other and Merlin’s fingers digging into Arthur’s shoulders. Arthur let him go only to grab at him again, pull closer, shoving his hands under Merlin’s silky black shirt to grope at his skin and Merlin shuddered.
“This again?” he croaked. “Is this what you want, Arthur?! To be screwed against a filthy wall?”
“Shut up!” Arthur hissed. “Shut up, shut up, you … I fucking hate you!”
He kissed Merlin again, biting viciously down on his lower lip. Merlin swore and yanked painfully on Arthur’s hair before moving downward, scratching the nape of Arthur’s neck then dropping his hands down to Arthur’s hips, clutching, scraping. Arthur yanked at him and they half-fell into the stall, barely coherent enough to slam the door behind them. Neither tried to regain their feet when they slumped to the floor. Merlin squirmed between Arthur’s legs, fumbling at him and Arthur thrust his hand into the waist band of those tight jeans, groping and seeking with rough fingers that made Merlin curse. He buried his face in Arthur’s neck, kissing and biting as Arthur palmed and rubbed at his cock, his head suddenly spinning with the fact that he was touching another man’s cock, he had his hands on Merlin and Merlin was whining and squirming and pressing against him, wanting it, wanting more of it and Arthur wanted too, he wanted so much …
Merlin bucked his hips suddenly and Arthur felt come splatter on his hand and wrist. Merlin was fumbling with Arthur’s jeans, babbling something incoherent about tasting and Arthur lifted himself slightly to help him yank at the jeans and boxers, pulling his hand out of Merlin’s jeans to help Merlin manoeuvre. Merlin half-fell between his legs and then his mouth, his mouth was on Arthur, sucking and licking and Arthur threw back his head and slammed it on the door without thinking because fuck, fuck, this was, this, oh fucking, fucking hell, this! He clutched at Merlin’s hair and Merlin made a faint little crooning noise, his body squirming, head bobbing slightly and Arthur closed his eyes and whimpered “Please, please … ”
He came into Merlin’s mouth and Merlin gagged and withdrew, leaving Arthur suddenly very cold. He stared blankly into Merlin’s face, taking in the dishevelled hair. Merlin’s lip was still bleeding slightly from where Arthur had bitten it earlier and there was come already drying on his chin from where Merlin had choked. Arthur looked at his own hand, looked at the sticky substance that remained. A lot of it had half-wiped off on the floor as he’d supported himself. He was sitting bared arsed on a filthy bathroom floor with another man between his legs and his ejaculate all over his hand.
“Oh God,” Merlin whispered, pulling himself backwards until he bumped into the toilet behind him. “Oh God, this … I … ”
“Leave me alone,” Arthur ordered him only it came out more like begging. “Leave me alone!”
He staggered to his feet, yanking at his clothes. Merlin didn’t move from his kneeling position, his head now slumped, shoulders shaking slightly. Arthur fled the bathroom, pushing past the crowds of people, desperate to get out. He had to get back to the university, he had to lock his door and hide and pretend that this had never happened.
“Arthur? Arthur!”
Someone grabbed his arm and Arthur twisted and saw Leon staring at him. Arthur shook his head and tried to pull away but Leon held tightly on.
“Let me get you home,” he said. “Let me see you home, Arthur. What’s wrong with you?”
Arthur didn’t answer. He let Leon pull him outside, let Leon flag them a taxi, didn’t pull away when Leon put an arm around him as they sat in the back.
“What’s wrong?” Leon asked him. “You can tell me, Arthur. I’m your friend. You can tell me anything. Please Arthur. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Arthur didn’t answer. He huddled inside himself and kept his fist tightly clenched to hide the stains and concentrated on the slow, steady throbbing from his wrist to try and make sure that he didn’t have to think.
“I want to help you,” Leon said, sounding sad as he helped Arthur find his key. “I … Arthur, you can tell me anything, okay?”
Arthur tried not to laugh. He couldn’t tell anyone anything. He went to bed and tried to pretend tomorrow would be better.
It wasn’t.
*
The third time they screwed around with each other, it was outside in the evening, shoved up against the wall, Merlin’s takeaway abandoned on the ground as he whimpered and pulled Arthur closer to him, biting his neck as Arthur ground his palm against Merlin’s crotch and bit his lip to stop himself moaning as Merlin’s fingers groped back at him. They both came in their trousers that night, staring at each other bewilderedly as they did, taking in everything. This time, Merlin was the one to run away and Arthur followed more slowly, trying to ignore the confused crunching in his stomach.
The fourth time it was in the kitchen. Arthur walked in as Merlin was cooking. He watched for a while as Merlin pretended to ignore him, then walked up behind him and stuck his hand down Merlin’s trousers, rubbing himself against Merlin’s back and feeling every shake that ran through his body as Merlin struggled to focus on the food he was cooking and not Arthur’s wandering hands. Arthur licked the side of his neck and Merlin’s hand jerked, spilling spaghetti sauce all over the stove but he didn’t seem to care.
The fifth time, it was in Merlin’s bedroom. Arthur was heading down the hallway one night, drunk and dizzy, when Merlin opened the door and stared at him before stepping aside and gesturing mutely with his hand. Arthur stumbled in and leaned against the door as Merlin sank to his knees and sucked him off, making soft whimpering noises and touching himself as he did it. Arthur watched dizzily and found himself mumbling encouraging things; yeah, like that, please, God, that’s right, please … and moaning when he saw Merlin come into his own hand.
“We have to stop doing this,” Merlin mumbled afterwards, wiping Arthur’s come off his lips. “We … this is insane, this whole thing …”
Arthur didn’t answer. He didn’t feel like he had anything left to say.
The sixth time, they did it in Arthur’s bed, Arthur pressing his face into the pillows, arching and crushing the sheets between his hands as Merlin straddled him, murmured comforting words in his ear as he slowly pushed inside him, showing him what it was like with preparation and lubricant, with the time to be more careful about what they did. Arthur yanked so hard that he tore a hole in the sheets when he came and he let Merlin bury his face into his shoulder and pretended that he didn’t notice that Merlin seemed to be crying.
Arthur stopped counting after the sixth time.
*
Will was gabbling away gleefully about his new boyfriend. Merlin was pretending to listen, doing his best to concentrate on the words. It was nice that Will had a boyfriend after all this time, especially one that clearly made him so ridiculously happy. Merlin had met Leon a few times and he seemed a nice guy and it was already clear that he was as besotted with Will as Will as with him. Merlin really ought to be happy. He was happy. Of course he was.
“We’ll have to find you somebody,” Will told him, finally reaching the end of all of Leon’s many virtues. “Somebody nice.”
“You mean somebody that you approve of,” Merlin said, again trying to smile and trying not to think of how much Will would not approve of what he currently had.
“Exactly,” Will said. “Only the best for my Merlin.”
“I’m not your Merlin. You have a boyfriend. Won’t Leon get jealous?”
“He already did a bit,” Will confessed. “It’s why I think we should make a project out of getting you a girlfriend. Just so he knows that there’s absolutely nothing to worry about. I mean, he knows already but it might just be safer, you know?”
“Sure,” Merlin said. “A girlfriend. Sure.”
He wanted a girlfriend. Of course he did. A proper, nice relationship, someone he could introduce to his Mum and take on a double-date with Will and Leon. That was all he’d ever wanted, wasn’t it? Someone nice, someone good, someone …
Someone who was not Arthur Pendragon. Someone who didn’t jam him against walls and kiss him until Merlin’s teeth cut the inside of his mouth. Someone who didn’t grind against him and claw and bite him until Merlin’s body was a mass of marks the next day. Someone who Merlin didn’t crave like some sort of drug, someone who Merlin didn’t fuck on an almost nightly basis without really knowing why.
“Merlin? Heeeeello?”
He’d zoned out. Merlin quickly blinked and looked at Will, who was frowning.
“You all right?” he asked.
Merlin knew that he ought to tell. That Will would want to know and could probably make sense of this madness. Will might know how Merlin could stop. How Merlin could sort this and do things properly and not get himself any further into this stupid bloody mess.
“Merlin?” Will sat down next to him. “Hey, you’re not feeling pissed at me, are you? You know I don’t mean it - I’m not going to force you out on dates or anything. I just … you know what I’m like.”
“Yeah, I do,” Merlin said, nudging Will gently. “And I’m not mad, stupid! I was just thinking.”
The moment where he could have opened up was gone. He chatted with Will for a bit longer, avoiding the topic of relationships completely until Will left. Merlin sat in his room for a while, then drifted into the kitchen, pretending to be making himself something to eat. After a while, he heard footsteps and then Arthur came in. They stared at each other for a moment and Merlin desperately hunted for things to say, something that would sound normal, something half decent, something not crazy.
“Coming to my room then?” Arthur muttered and Merlin felt his stomach squirm and he nodded his head and followed. Arthur’s room was a tip and he didn’t seem to have quite mastered changing the sheets but right now, Merlin really didn’t care. The moment the door closed behind them, they were kissing each other and as Arthur ground against him and choked out “Fuck me, please, I want this!” Merlin wondered dizzily how he was supposed to get himself out of this mess.
It was only quite a bit later that it occurred to him to wonder whether it was a mess he really wanted to extract himself from.
Part 2 here