srin
in
mad_poetics
Mere Mortals, Part I
Title: Mere Mortals
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur, background Gwen/Morgana, some discussion of past relationships.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Adult having sex with a teenager. (For the record, said teenager is past the age of consent in the UK, where this is set.)
Length: ~11,300 words.
Summary: Timing verse. In which the past is considered and the future is approached. Meanwhile, Morgana continues to be inappropriate and Uther continues to be shady. (Modern reincarnation.)
Notes: Follows All In the Timing, Sure Thing, and Ancient History. Oh goodness, this thing kicked me in the posterior like woah. My apologies to the Welsh and anyone who doesn't care for jokes about having kids; it's all meant in jest, I promise. My apologies for any failure at Britishness, and many thanks to magog_83 for telling me about school formals in the UK. (If any of that aspect came out horridly off anyway, it's entirely my own fault.)
The rugby match with the punching incident was on a Saturday; Sunday morning, Merlin wakes up to find himself curled around Arthur’s side and drooling slightly on his chest. Arthur’s already awake, that’s apparent from his breathing, but he’s got one hand threaded into Merlin’s hair, the other cupping Merlin’s hip, and Merlin finds himself really not inclined to move at all. They’ve settled into a routine by now, normally falling asleep in contact but not quite this close, and not always touching at all by morning because that’s just how it goes. It’s not a problem, but this, being tangled together like the first few times they shared the bed, feels fitting. They were both a little desperate last night, a little needier than usual, and Merlin’s glad that the first thing he’s aware of upon waking is Arthur’s (living, breathing) presence.
Arthur must notice Merlin’s stirring - he doesn’t shift, but he murmurs a quiet,
“Good morning,” sounding more thoughtful than sleepy.
“’Morning,” Merlin mumbles. “Time is it?”
“Dunno,” Arthur says, “Can’t see your clock from here.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Merlin carries on not moving, pleased that Arthur’s staying still instead of angling for sex or extricating himself from the bed to let Merlin keep sleeping undisturbed, as he usually does when he’s the first one up. Not that Merlin objects to the sex or the consideration, but neither is what he really wants at the moment. They remain that way, peaceful, for some undetermined stretch of warm hazy time until Merlin finally has to do something about the way Arthur’s chest hair is tickling his nose.
“Merlin?” Arthur asks, when Merlin shuffles up so his head is on Arthur’s shoulder.
“Hmm?”
“We remember different things from our past lives, yes? Not just individual memories, but different pieces of the times we were together?”
“Yeah…”
“So Morgana and Gwen remember different things, too.”
“Yeah.”
“Have you ever…”
“Compared notes?” Merlin asks. “Yes. Morgana and I always did, and after she met Gwen the three of us sat down to piece together what we could.”
“Could we do that now? All of us?”
“Sure. I’ll ring them, see if they’re free today. Need some tea first, though.”
Arthur maintains his quiet, thoughtful air when they go downstairs. It’s little wonder given their conversation last night; over the years Merlin himself has grown accustomed to dealing with recollections of their past tragedies, but any serious contemplation shakes him up a bit even now, and it’s all still rather new to Arthur. Merlin’s not sure deeper exploration is going to do anything to make him feel better, but perhaps it’s for the best to get it all out.
“Gwen’s having a lie-in,” Morgana says when Merlin phones, “And I’m bogged down with heaps of neglected laundry, but you’re welcome to come round for lunch. Arthur’s not allergic to cats, is he?”
“No, he’s fine,” Merlin assures her.
Gwen and Morgana and their cats live in a flat on the top floor of a building near the centre of town. One with hardly any garage space for residents and none for guests, naturally, so it takes nearly as long to find a place to leave the car as it does to drive over, a fact which Merlin bemoans every single time he visits.
“I swear, I never wish I still had magical powers as much as I do trying to find parking around here,” he complains. Arthur chuckles, and points to yet another space that turns out to be reserved for something else. By the time they make it up to the flat, Merlin’s rather cranky while Arthur’s cheered up in the face of his grumpiness. Because he is still and all a bastard like that.
“Perhaps you should take the bus,” Morgana says unsympathetically.
“You have to change routes - twice, if you don’t want to walk ten blocks,” Merlin grumbles.
“How far away did you have to park?”
“Eight blocks,” Arthur supplies brightly. Merlin glares at him, while Morgana just laughs and ushers them into the kitchen where Gwen is preparing the meal. Arthur immediately joins her, to gallantly lend a hand and not-so-gallantly slander Merlin’s cooking abilities. Merlin leaves them to it and follows Morgana to the laundry room.
“What’s troubling you, Merlin?” Morgana asks, handing him a stack of towels to fold.
“How do you mean?”
“I know you, brother dear, and I know it isn’t only the parking or the memories making you frown like that.”
“Um,” says Merlin, because she’s probably right, but he isn’t immediately sure himself.
“Something to do with Arthur, perhaps?”
“Well. He hit a team-mate who said rude things about me yesterday.”
Morgana raises her eyebrows. “How very medieval. Will there be a duel?”
“I hope not.”
“Rude things about your being male, or rude things about your being older?”
“I didn’t ask, but probably the latter.” Merlin sighs. “People at work have been a bit funny about it too, and I really don’t care for myself but I know it bothers him. I think… he doesn’t really understand why people think it’s weird, us being together.”
“He’s proud of you and therefore everyone else ought to be as well. It’s sweet, if not especially helpful.”
“I keep thinking,” Merlin says, and then realizes that isn’t true, because this is the first time he’s really articulated it so explicitly even in his own mind, “that he should be used to it by now. We’ve never had it easy and-”
“And he has never thought it acceptable when he can’t show you off and make the world appreciate you as much as he does.”
Merlin opens his mouth, blinks a few times, and then closes it again, caught off guard. “How do you…”
“There was some life sometime when he got dreadfully drunk in your absence and told me and Gwen just about every sentimental thing he has ever thought about you. Fortunately I have forgotten or repressed the lion’s share of it, but that titbit remains. And speaking of past lives, isn’t that why you’re here?”
After they’ve eaten and the cats have finished sniffing around Arthur, Morgana brings out a well-worn, black and white composition book. A thick clump of pages at the front is bound together with several paperclips, as is a smaller section near the back. (The latter, Merlin knows, is filled with some quite personal memories of Gwen’s, things Morgana doesn’t remember herself but would like to. He’s never asked about the details, never felt either the right or the need to, but he wonders now what intimacies Arthur might recall that he himself cannot.)
“When I first remembered, I wrote down everything I could,” Morgana explains. “That’s the first section, which you will not look at because it’s private and practically illegible thanks to my handwriting at the time. The rest has my notes from Merlin and Gwen, and what we’ve been able to work out with regard to timelines and events.”
“Why didn’t you just type it up?” Arthur asks, eyeing the book dubiously.
“Because it was, what, 1990? Ninety-one? It was spring, so it would’ve been ninety-one,” Morgana says, laughing, and then asks Merlin, “Did we even have a computer back then?”
“I think we had that ancient DOS one Mum used for work?”
“Oh you’re right, where you had to type in all the commands and if you got it wrong-”
“Abort, retry, fail!” they chime in unison. Gwen snickers; Arthur looks vaguely appalled.
“What the fuck is DOS?” he asks.
“Oh, you infant,” Morgana clucks, grinning at him. “An old operating system, which was probably obsolete before you were born. Times have changed, my lad - we didn’t have tiny little computers in our mobiles when I was growing up. For that matter, we didn’t have mobiles, either, unless you counted those enormous things they had on the X-Files. No ipods, no GPS in your car, no wireless everywhere you like…”
“We didn’t get the internet in my flat until I was sixteen,” Gwen adds, mirroring Morgana’s smirk, and Arthur’s appalled look stops being at all vague.
“You’re kidding.”
“I am not. We had it at school and in the library before that, but…”
“And when you did get it at home, it was dial-up, yeah?” Merlin says. “So you couldn’t use it if anyone needed the phone-line, and-”
“It took ages to get signed on, and you’d lose the connection at random, god, yes. Oh! D’you remember floppy discs?”
“Yes! The big ones, with the-”
“Look,” Arthur interrupts, “are we going to talk about how you all are from the bloody stone age, or are we going to talk past lives?”
“Someday,” Morgana tells him while Gwen and Merlin giggle, “When you two have adopted some poor orphan child, she’s going to grow up and act exactly the same when you talk about using a mobile that’s not surgically embedded in your skull.”
Arthur looks deeply disturbed (whether due to the talk of technology or the talk of children is unclear) and Merlin tries desperately to stifle his laughter, but after a moment Gwen takes pity and says,
“Right, where shall we start?”
“What about our last lives?” Arthur asks, shooting her a grateful look.
“We haven’t got that much, honestly,” Morgana says. She opens the book, flips through it, and glances over a few pages. “We were all near enough to the same age, we think, born sometime around 1930, give or take a few years. You and I grew up together in England, we don’t know if we were related or not, but I remember hiding in the shelters during the Blitz, it must have been before they evacuated the children-”
“Yeah,” says Arthur, “I remember the shelters, and then you and me on a train out to the country…”
“Do you remember where we went? I’ve nothing until we were back in the city, I’m afraid.”
Arthur shakes his head, and Morgana scribbles a note in her book.
“And you two?” Arthur asks.
“I was raised in India, but I came here for uni after Independence,” Gwen says.
“Awesome,” Arthur enthuses, and they grin at each other for a moment before he turns expectantly to Merlin.
“I’ve got practically nothing, I just know we were all together in Britain when we heard Stalin’d died, which was, what, fifty-two?” Merlin asks.
“Fifty-three. God, I hated the fifties,” Morgana says. “I think I went about in drag a lot, until it became socially acceptable for women to wear trousers, and even then...”
“What about you, Arthur?” Gwen asks.
“There’s the Blitz, and the train, and I remember meeting you, Gwen, and saying goodbye before you and Morgana ran off somewhere, I think that was the last time I saw you, and…” Arthur trails off, his face setting into a scowl, and then he smacks Merlin sharply on the arm.
“What the hell!” Merlin protests.
“You died! You were sick, I don’t know what it was, but you were bloody well dying in my bloody lap and I was crying like a child and you just kept making stupid remarks about how-”
“-For once it wasn’t you dying in my arms?” Merlin asks.
“Yes,” Arthur says, glaring at the table sullenly.
“I remember that. Not any of the context, I could never place that one, but… Is there anything else? I’ve got hardly any of that life, just meeting you for the first time and a lot of smoking pot in the sixties.”
“Yeah,” says Arthur. “We were… we were really happy for a long time, I think, wandering around Britain and the States, following the music and the drugs, and, like, giving people flowers and shit. I think we spent a while helping Americans who’d been conscripted get to Canada… but then… Something happened, I can’t remember what, but I thought you’d died. I think I had a bit of a meltdown, I’ve some really fuzzy memories - not fuzzy like most of them, fuzzy like I was doing a lot of drugs. And drink, and sex with anyone who’d have me, and then… You weren’t dead, and you found me, and we were great for a couple more years but then… you got sick. It was like… mid seventies I guess? Whenever the Americans pulled out of Vietnam, because we were in the States, we were watching this broadcast about it when you collapsed and then it was the hospital and then…” He cringes, staring at his hands.
Merlin wraps an arm around his shoulders and tugs him in close, murmuring soothing nonsense into his hair, while Gwen and Morgana look at each other.
“No wonder our ages are so off this time,” Morgana says after a moment.
“What?” Arthur asks. He takes Merlin’s hand and squeezes it, a little too hard. Merlin doesn’t mind.
“The Americans left Vietnam in 1975. I was born - in this life - in 1978, and Gwen in 1982. We travelled a lot in the sixties, India and Africa and all over Europe, but the last thing either of us remembers is Mauritius in 1968. Since Merlin couldn’t remember anything we could pin down as any later, we’d been assuming the two of you died around the same time if not earlier. But if you were still around in seventy-five, and who knows how long thereafter-”
“Damn,” Merlin says, peering at Arthur wonderingly. “With that kind of turnover… We might all have been born this go-‘round before you died the last time.”
“Shit,” Arthur says, bewildered.
“Yeah.”
“Has that ever happened before?”
“There’s no way of being sure, but I don’t think so,” Morgana says, jotting down some more notes.
“Weird.”
“Yeah.”
“What does it mean?” Arthur asks.
“I’m not sure that it means anything, but assuming there’s a minimum amount of time that needs to pass between our deaths and births, it explains why you’re so much younger than the rest of us,” Morgana says.
“Huh.”
“Do you remember Gaius at all?” Merlin asks Arthur. “Because he’s my age this time, and I don’t…”
“I don’t, sorry,” Arthur says. “It’s just you three, I don’t know about Lancelot either.”
“Lancelot was our age,” Gwen says. “We met him in the Congo in the early sixties, he was with the UN peacekeeping force. I don’t know what happened to him after that, though.”
“Perhaps he survived us all,” Morgana muses.
“Do you remember his last name? Couldn’t we check records?”
“Do you remember your last name?”
“Um,” Arthur says, frowning. “No. Nor yours.”
“I think it’s for the best, really,” Gwen says. “It’s strange enough remembering other lives; I wouldn’t want to see my own obituary.”
“And can you imagine Merlin, Arthur, and Guinevere going in to request available records on Merlin, Arthur, and Guinevere?” Morgana asks. “Either they’d think we were all mad or else Dan Brown would write a novel about it.”
“I don’t remember dying, either,” Arthur says. “Not even once.”
“None of us does. Not our own deaths. Even that last time… I remember the conversation, bits of it, but that’s all. Not actually dying.”
“When’s the last time you saw a doctor?” Arthur demands suddenly, tightening his grip on Merlin’s hand even more.
“Er, sometime last year? I thought I had food poisoning, but it turned out to be this awful stomach thing that went around the office. Arthur, I’m fine, you don’t have to worry. The fact that it was some kind of disease last time doesn’t mean anything.”
“He’s right,” Gwen says. “Even if it were hereditary, we aren’t related to our past selves. Not closely enough for it to matter, at least. I know my family now, there’s no one who was called Gwen or lived in India or anything like that.”
Arthur relaxes slightly, though he doesn’t let go of Merlin’s hand. They move on to other lives then, glossing over World War I because it’s been covered and none of them especially wants to dwell on it. Merlin remembers the most from their Victorian country house, though Arthur contributes a few new fragments, and they keep working backwards from there. Things get patchier the earlier they get, until there are no more coherent lifetimes, only a jumble of fragments that all feel very old.
Arthur’s serious and intent the entire time, and he doesn’t stop touching Merlin - his hand, or his side, or bumping their feet together, upsetting the cat curled up there - until they rise to go home a couple of hours later. He’s mostly quiet in the car, but at one point he abruptly sits up straighter in his seat and says,
“Merlin… Morgana doesn’t still see the future, does she?”
“Not as far as I’m aware, no. Why?”
“What she said about us adopting a child-”
Merlin produces a snort that turns into a laugh halfway through. “Relax. That was just Morgana being Morgana. God, can you imagine us as parents? The poor kid would probably wander off and stick a finger in an electrical outlet because we were too busy having sex or arguing to notice.” And then he keeps laughing, until Arthur interrupts him.
“Yes, neglecting children is deeply humorous.”
“No, no, I just thought of - Once, when the three of us were very drunk and inappropriate, Gwen and I decided that if they ever wanted kids, I’d have to knock Gwen up, and then Morgana got very indignant - not at the prospect of me shagging her wife, no, she was terribly upset that we thought procreation was the solution, rather than adopting one of the countless orphans in the world, and then I think we compromised and said we’d have one and adopt one, and name them Jose and Cuervo. And then someone probably passed out.”
“Sometimes I wonder why it is that I continue to associate with you people,” Arthur says after a bewildered pause.
“All the sex, I expect.”
“I expect so.”
A few minutes pass in silence, and then Arthur speaks up again.
“It’s stupid that we can’t remember so much,” he says.
“Sorry?”
“I understand why we can’t, but it’s stupid. We’ve got all this history between us that we’ve just forgotten. I remember some life - no idea which one, even - when I’d decided that I had to get you a belt, a nice one with a proper buckle. I’ve no idea why this was so important but it was, I was dead set on it. I remember laying in bed and thinking about this belt I was going to get you, but I can’t remember why. And I can’t remember if I did actually get you the belt, or if you liked it, or how I felt when I saw you wear it, it’s just - this stupid bloody idea of a belt, that’s all I’ve got. For all I know it might be an entire life we had, an entire age of the world, and all I can remember is that stupid belt.”
And Merlin has no idea what to say to that, because Arthur’s right. Merlin doesn’t remember the belt, but there are dozens of other small pointless memories scattered through his brain that don’t fit together into anything meaningful. Mostly he tries not to think about them any more. Mostly he stopped trying to make sense of their history sometime during university, when Gwen and alcohol and homework and his dwindling supply of cheap noodles took precedence, and never really started again. But Arthur’s still young, still looking, and Merlin doesn’t know what to say to him.
“It’s stupid,” he agrees quietly. And then, almost without meaning to bring it up, “Do you ever feel-”
“What?”
“Like you’re meant for something. Like you have a purpose here, this time?”
“I don’t know. I feel like I ought to, but I don’t know. Do you?”
“Not really, but I always thought…”
“What?”
“Well, it’s always been down to you, hasn’t it? Morgana and Gwen, they’ve their own goals and things, but me - I helped where I could, yeah, whatever I stumbled into, but when it came to having a real purpose - that was always wrapped up in you. So I just … wondered.”
“Why didn’t you ask me that before now?”
“I don’t know. Didn’t think about it, didn’t want to make you feel like you were supposed to have something-”
“Am I? Supposed to?”
“Of course not. We just come back, yeah? Sometimes there’s something, but I think sometimes we’re not meant to do anything but have normal lives. Do the things we don’t have time for when we’ve got a destiny.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Arthur seems unconvinced, but lapses back into silence. When they get home, Arthur stops in at his house and returns with a stack of homework, so they don’t discuss it any further. Later, while Merlin’s finding dinner and Arthur’s working on some problem set, he says,
“Whatever happened to magic? Not just yours, I mean, all of it - I remember griffins and questing beasts and that ridiculous thing in that lake, with the tentacles - and now there’s no evidence of any of that.”
“I don’t know,” Merlin admits. “You saw how much of a mess our early memories are, we don’t even know when our first lives actually were. Sometimes I feel like-” He cuts himself off, because it’s rather a silly notion, but Arthur just frowns at him, tilting his chin down, urging him to go on. “Alright, when I was little - really little, before I’d remembered anything - I had this idea that there were two histories. There was the history in the museums, the dinosaur bones and the Greek sculpture, all the dead things we found in the ground and wrote textbooks about. But there was also this other history, the one we only know about because of legends, and that one was filled with gods and magic and all sorts of wonderful things we lost when we decided that only the history in the museums was real. Sometimes I feel like there’s no trace of our lives in the museums because we came from that other history somehow. The magic’s gone, or hiding, and there’s just us.”
“Huh,” says Arthur, non-committal.
“Sorry, it’s dumb, I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer for you-”
“No, it’s - I like that. I had this English teacher in year ten who used to talk about stuff like that. Cultural memories that had to come from somewhere - ‘Do you honestly believe that we have centuries’ worth of stories about dragons only because a cave man found a fossil of a dinosaur?’” he puts on a rasping approximation of an old woman’s voice for the quote, “And we all thought she was barmy, but I suppose it makes as much sense as anything else. The science doesn’t explain how we keep coming back, so…”
“No, I suppose it doesn’t.”
“Do you miss it? The magic?”
“I remember what it was like when I couldn’t imagine life without it, when I thought I’d be nothing if I didn’t have it, but… Now it’s like flying in a dream - it seems cool, but it’s not part of my actual life, you know? When I first remembered things about Morgana, how hot I thought she was, or times we were married, I got really wigged out, but after a while it sort of … settles? All that’s part of our history, but if I’m not focused on it she’s just Morgana, my big sister who used to beat up anyone who hassled me at school. Same thing with the magic.”
“Morgana beat people up for you?”
“I didn’t ask her to. But she was very protective. It was fine for her to give me a hard time, but god forbid anyone else should look at me funny - she was rather like you, that way.”
That doesn’t elicit the grin or the sardonic brush-off Merlin’s hoping for; instead, Arthur just frowns at his homework. He’s still unsettled, clearly. That isn’t surprising - Merlin remembers his own confusion very well, when Morgana came home for Christmas and they could finally talk in person and the reality of their situation began to truly sink in. He came to grips with it soon enough, but Arthur’s taken a while to even start asking the questions so it’s little wonder that he isn’t there yet.
“Arthur, are you ok with all this? I know it’s a lot to deal with…”
“No, I’m fine, I’m just … trying to understand it. You and Morgana were always good at the weird shit, yeah? I’m just trying to keep up.”
Merlin doesn’t push the subject and it seems that Arthur does make some sort of peace with the matter on his own, because his mood is rather lighter the following week, leaving him more inclined to focus on the present than to dwell on the past.
Except when dwelling on the past means mocking the “primitive” technology of Merlin’s youth. On Monday Arthur turns up with his ipod and insists on explaining the thing to Merlin - “I know it must be dreadfully new-fangled and confusing for you” - until Merlin hits him with a couch cushion. On Tuesday, he gets it into his head to rummage through Merlin’s basement, where he finds an old portable cassette player. Merlin hasn’t used the thing in years, he only keeps it because it was a gift from Morgana when they were little, but that doesn’t stop Arthur being thoroughly obnoxious and crowing about how Merlin has never actually left the dark ages.
“You weren’t this annoying when we were with the girls,” Merlin says wearily.
“Gwen makes disapproving faces when I mock you.”
“Shouldn’t that tell you something?”
“Yes. To save the mockery for times when Gwen isn’t present.”
As usual, the bickering eventually devolves into innuendo, which devolves into Arthur attempting to win the argument by shoving his hand into Merlin’s jeans, which would probably devolve into sloppy mutual handjobs on the basement floor if not for the fact that it’s already well after nine-thirty. It’s a school night, and Merlin means to keep his promise to Barbara, so he ends up batting Arthur’s hands away and sending him home without sex. Arthur pouts, and Merlin has to have a wank after he’s gone, but when Arthur comes over on Wednesday he’s altogether more agreeable company so Merlin considers it a win.
(Just to be safe, though, he hides his vintage record player. And the mp3 player that somehow still works despite being from 2007.)
Merlin is fairly well convinced that, despite the senior Rileys’ limited blessing, the moment Arthur and Merlin have a real fight Maurice will beat Merlin to death with a jemmy bar and Barbara will help if she hasn’t already done the deed herself. Which is why it’s rather ironic that their first real fight ends up being a fight Arthur’s having with his parents as well.
Merlin comes home on a Tuesday to find Arthur already in his house, watching television. Arthur lets himself in some mornings, and occasionally in the evenings if he’s making dinner or wanting to use Merlin’s library, but otherwise he usually waits for Merlin to get in and then knocks. (One of those talent search programmes is on, which should be the first tip-off that something’s wrong - Arthur never watches any of them. “Maybe if they do one about jousting,” he said once, rolling his eyes.) Merlin doesn’t mind, though he does wonder what prompted it. Arthur’s quiet and touchy and entirely unwilling to explain his mood, though, so Merlin eventually gives up asking and tries a different topic.
“Alright, so I realize this is probably the only question anyone older than twenty is asking you these days, but have you thought at all about where you want to go for university?”
Arthur abruptly slams his fork down - they’re eating dinner, delivery curry because Merlin needs to go grocery shopping again - and groans.
“God, not you too,” he complains.
“Sorry?”
“Nothing.”
“Arthur-”
“Mum and Dad, alright? We had a row this morning. They asked and I said somewhere close by and they went off about it.”
“Close by?” Merlin asks, frowning.
“Well I hardly expect you to pack up and move, you’ve a job and a life and everything.”
“What does that have to do with - Oh. Arthur, you can’t base your choice of university just on what’s nearest to me.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s much too important a decision-”
“Don’t start, that’s exactly what Dad said.”
“Well he’s right-”
“He’s not the one being expected to leave the person he- Look, driving downtown’s a pain enough, I’m not about to go someplace hours away and only see you at the holidays.”
“I don’t want that either, but this is your education we’re talking about, it’s more important than the convenience of shagging-”
“Is that what l am to you then? A convenient shag?” Arthur asks coldly.
“Of course not, that’s not what I meant, it’s just - we’ve got phones, yeah, and the internet and everything, we can be in contact wherever you are-”
“Right, because that’s exactly the same. If you want to be rid of me you can just say so-”
“I do not want to be rid of you! I just don’t want you to do something you’ll end up regretting!”
“What makes you think I’ll regret it?”
“You’re going to feel differently about a lot of things when you’re older,” Merlin says, and immediately regrets it. He’s always made a point of avoiding any mention of Arthur’s youth when they disagree about something, which was obviously a good choice if the way Arthur’s eyes blaze now is any indication.
“Right, I’m just a kid, I couldn’t possibly know what I want,” he snaps.
“Arthur-”
“For god’s sake, Merlin, you’re not my bloody father so stop acting like you are!”
And then Merlin loses his temper and they shout at each other a lot and it ends with Arthur grabbing his backpack and storming out of the house, while Merlin goes back to the kitchen to stab furiously at his curry. The anger drains out of him quickly, though, leaving an empty, queasy feeling in his gut. He considers calling Arthur, but decides against it because odds are good Arthur’s still pissed off, and the last thing they need is another shouting match.
Half an hour later, Merlin’s mobile goes off.
“Any thoughts on why Arthur’s just rung Morgana to ask if he can spend the night with us?” Gwen asks when he picks up.
“Oh for - we had a fight. And apparently he had the same fight with his parents this morning. I’m sorry, he shouldn’t be imposing on you-”
“No, it’s fine, we don’t mind. I’d pick him up only I’ve actually got a good parking place and you know it won’t be there five minutes later so we’d have to walk even further back to the flat anyway-”
“Where is he?”
“At a bus stop, waiting for a transfer. What did you fight about?”
“University. He wants to stay somewhere nearby because of me, and while I certainly don’t want to lose him I think it’s a rubbish criteria. Look, much as I’d love it if Morgana could beat some sense into him, I think he really-”
“-Just needs to cool off, yes. Don’t worry, Merlin, we’ll look after him.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah, fine, just frustrated.”
After they hang up, Merlin goes across the street to knock on the Rileys’ door. Barbara answers it, looking concerned at the sight of him.
“Merlin? Is Arthur-”
“He’s fine,” Merlin says quickly, and her expression softens into one of relief.
“He is with you, then? He was gone when I came home, and he normally leaves a note…”
“Well, no, I mean - he was. He was at mine, but we had a row - the same row you had? I just wanted to let you know, apparently he’s going to spend the night with Gwen and my sister. You met Gwen, she had dinner with us once, I can give you their number if you like-”
Barbara sighs. “They don’t mind?”
“No, I’m assured it’s no trouble. I didn’t want you to worry, is all.”
“I appreciate that. So Arthur told you his university plans?”
“I made the mistake of asking, and he apparently expected that I’d think proximity to me is a brilliant criteria for choosing a school.”
“And you disagree?”
“Of course I’d love it if he were near by, but he should be going to the best school, not the closest one.”
Barbara nods, studying Merlin for a moment, and then says, “You really are a good man.” Merlin blushes, chats with her for a few more minutes, and goes home.
The thing is, Merlin doesn’t want Arthur to go away for university. After seventeen years of waiting Merlin hates the thought of yet more enforced separation, and the prospect of not seeing Arthur for weeks, even months at a time, is heart-wrenching and terrifying. But that’s for him. Arthur’s known him less than a year, and Arthur’s young yet, and for once he has the chance to grow up normally. Now, sitting in Merlin’s kitchen, he may think he’d be content to go to university locally and spend his free time with Merlin, but that’s only because he hasn’t actually experienced university life yet.
Once he’s there, once he’s caught up in it, he’ll have better things to do than hang out with his lame old boyfriend, and that’s as it should be. So it doesn’t much matter where he goes as far as time with Merlin is concerned, and even if it did, he’s a young man with a great deal of promise who should get the best education and the richest experiences he can. It will hardly be the first time Merlin’s put aside his own desires in the name of what’s best for Arthur.
Of course, that doesn’t make it any easier. Letting Arthur go has never been easy, especially not when he doesn’t want to go himself. But it’s only October; they have nearly a year before Arthur will actually leave. Merlin just hopes they aren’t going to spend that year arguing.
Part II
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur, background Gwen/Morgana, some discussion of past relationships.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Adult having sex with a teenager. (For the record, said teenager is past the age of consent in the UK, where this is set.)
Length: ~11,300 words.
Summary: Timing verse. In which the past is considered and the future is approached. Meanwhile, Morgana continues to be inappropriate and Uther continues to be shady. (Modern reincarnation.)
Notes: Follows All In the Timing, Sure Thing, and Ancient History. Oh goodness, this thing kicked me in the posterior like woah. My apologies to the Welsh and anyone who doesn't care for jokes about having kids; it's all meant in jest, I promise. My apologies for any failure at Britishness, and many thanks to magog_83 for telling me about school formals in the UK. (If any of that aspect came out horridly off anyway, it's entirely my own fault.)
The rugby match with the punching incident was on a Saturday; Sunday morning, Merlin wakes up to find himself curled around Arthur’s side and drooling slightly on his chest. Arthur’s already awake, that’s apparent from his breathing, but he’s got one hand threaded into Merlin’s hair, the other cupping Merlin’s hip, and Merlin finds himself really not inclined to move at all. They’ve settled into a routine by now, normally falling asleep in contact but not quite this close, and not always touching at all by morning because that’s just how it goes. It’s not a problem, but this, being tangled together like the first few times they shared the bed, feels fitting. They were both a little desperate last night, a little needier than usual, and Merlin’s glad that the first thing he’s aware of upon waking is Arthur’s (living, breathing) presence.
Arthur must notice Merlin’s stirring - he doesn’t shift, but he murmurs a quiet,
“Good morning,” sounding more thoughtful than sleepy.
“’Morning,” Merlin mumbles. “Time is it?”
“Dunno,” Arthur says, “Can’t see your clock from here.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Merlin carries on not moving, pleased that Arthur’s staying still instead of angling for sex or extricating himself from the bed to let Merlin keep sleeping undisturbed, as he usually does when he’s the first one up. Not that Merlin objects to the sex or the consideration, but neither is what he really wants at the moment. They remain that way, peaceful, for some undetermined stretch of warm hazy time until Merlin finally has to do something about the way Arthur’s chest hair is tickling his nose.
“Merlin?” Arthur asks, when Merlin shuffles up so his head is on Arthur’s shoulder.
“Hmm?”
“We remember different things from our past lives, yes? Not just individual memories, but different pieces of the times we were together?”
“Yeah…”
“So Morgana and Gwen remember different things, too.”
“Yeah.”
“Have you ever…”
“Compared notes?” Merlin asks. “Yes. Morgana and I always did, and after she met Gwen the three of us sat down to piece together what we could.”
“Could we do that now? All of us?”
“Sure. I’ll ring them, see if they’re free today. Need some tea first, though.”
Arthur maintains his quiet, thoughtful air when they go downstairs. It’s little wonder given their conversation last night; over the years Merlin himself has grown accustomed to dealing with recollections of their past tragedies, but any serious contemplation shakes him up a bit even now, and it’s all still rather new to Arthur. Merlin’s not sure deeper exploration is going to do anything to make him feel better, but perhaps it’s for the best to get it all out.
“Gwen’s having a lie-in,” Morgana says when Merlin phones, “And I’m bogged down with heaps of neglected laundry, but you’re welcome to come round for lunch. Arthur’s not allergic to cats, is he?”
“No, he’s fine,” Merlin assures her.
Gwen and Morgana and their cats live in a flat on the top floor of a building near the centre of town. One with hardly any garage space for residents and none for guests, naturally, so it takes nearly as long to find a place to leave the car as it does to drive over, a fact which Merlin bemoans every single time he visits.
“I swear, I never wish I still had magical powers as much as I do trying to find parking around here,” he complains. Arthur chuckles, and points to yet another space that turns out to be reserved for something else. By the time they make it up to the flat, Merlin’s rather cranky while Arthur’s cheered up in the face of his grumpiness. Because he is still and all a bastard like that.
“Perhaps you should take the bus,” Morgana says unsympathetically.
“You have to change routes - twice, if you don’t want to walk ten blocks,” Merlin grumbles.
“How far away did you have to park?”
“Eight blocks,” Arthur supplies brightly. Merlin glares at him, while Morgana just laughs and ushers them into the kitchen where Gwen is preparing the meal. Arthur immediately joins her, to gallantly lend a hand and not-so-gallantly slander Merlin’s cooking abilities. Merlin leaves them to it and follows Morgana to the laundry room.
“What’s troubling you, Merlin?” Morgana asks, handing him a stack of towels to fold.
“How do you mean?”
“I know you, brother dear, and I know it isn’t only the parking or the memories making you frown like that.”
“Um,” says Merlin, because she’s probably right, but he isn’t immediately sure himself.
“Something to do with Arthur, perhaps?”
“Well. He hit a team-mate who said rude things about me yesterday.”
Morgana raises her eyebrows. “How very medieval. Will there be a duel?”
“I hope not.”
“Rude things about your being male, or rude things about your being older?”
“I didn’t ask, but probably the latter.” Merlin sighs. “People at work have been a bit funny about it too, and I really don’t care for myself but I know it bothers him. I think… he doesn’t really understand why people think it’s weird, us being together.”
“He’s proud of you and therefore everyone else ought to be as well. It’s sweet, if not especially helpful.”
“I keep thinking,” Merlin says, and then realizes that isn’t true, because this is the first time he’s really articulated it so explicitly even in his own mind, “that he should be used to it by now. We’ve never had it easy and-”
“And he has never thought it acceptable when he can’t show you off and make the world appreciate you as much as he does.”
Merlin opens his mouth, blinks a few times, and then closes it again, caught off guard. “How do you…”
“There was some life sometime when he got dreadfully drunk in your absence and told me and Gwen just about every sentimental thing he has ever thought about you. Fortunately I have forgotten or repressed the lion’s share of it, but that titbit remains. And speaking of past lives, isn’t that why you’re here?”
After they’ve eaten and the cats have finished sniffing around Arthur, Morgana brings out a well-worn, black and white composition book. A thick clump of pages at the front is bound together with several paperclips, as is a smaller section near the back. (The latter, Merlin knows, is filled with some quite personal memories of Gwen’s, things Morgana doesn’t remember herself but would like to. He’s never asked about the details, never felt either the right or the need to, but he wonders now what intimacies Arthur might recall that he himself cannot.)
“When I first remembered, I wrote down everything I could,” Morgana explains. “That’s the first section, which you will not look at because it’s private and practically illegible thanks to my handwriting at the time. The rest has my notes from Merlin and Gwen, and what we’ve been able to work out with regard to timelines and events.”
“Why didn’t you just type it up?” Arthur asks, eyeing the book dubiously.
“Because it was, what, 1990? Ninety-one? It was spring, so it would’ve been ninety-one,” Morgana says, laughing, and then asks Merlin, “Did we even have a computer back then?”
“I think we had that ancient DOS one Mum used for work?”
“Oh you’re right, where you had to type in all the commands and if you got it wrong-”
“Abort, retry, fail!” they chime in unison. Gwen snickers; Arthur looks vaguely appalled.
“What the fuck is DOS?” he asks.
“Oh, you infant,” Morgana clucks, grinning at him. “An old operating system, which was probably obsolete before you were born. Times have changed, my lad - we didn’t have tiny little computers in our mobiles when I was growing up. For that matter, we didn’t have mobiles, either, unless you counted those enormous things they had on the X-Files. No ipods, no GPS in your car, no wireless everywhere you like…”
“We didn’t get the internet in my flat until I was sixteen,” Gwen adds, mirroring Morgana’s smirk, and Arthur’s appalled look stops being at all vague.
“You’re kidding.”
“I am not. We had it at school and in the library before that, but…”
“And when you did get it at home, it was dial-up, yeah?” Merlin says. “So you couldn’t use it if anyone needed the phone-line, and-”
“It took ages to get signed on, and you’d lose the connection at random, god, yes. Oh! D’you remember floppy discs?”
“Yes! The big ones, with the-”
“Look,” Arthur interrupts, “are we going to talk about how you all are from the bloody stone age, or are we going to talk past lives?”
“Someday,” Morgana tells him while Gwen and Merlin giggle, “When you two have adopted some poor orphan child, she’s going to grow up and act exactly the same when you talk about using a mobile that’s not surgically embedded in your skull.”
Arthur looks deeply disturbed (whether due to the talk of technology or the talk of children is unclear) and Merlin tries desperately to stifle his laughter, but after a moment Gwen takes pity and says,
“Right, where shall we start?”
“What about our last lives?” Arthur asks, shooting her a grateful look.
“We haven’t got that much, honestly,” Morgana says. She opens the book, flips through it, and glances over a few pages. “We were all near enough to the same age, we think, born sometime around 1930, give or take a few years. You and I grew up together in England, we don’t know if we were related or not, but I remember hiding in the shelters during the Blitz, it must have been before they evacuated the children-”
“Yeah,” says Arthur, “I remember the shelters, and then you and me on a train out to the country…”
“Do you remember where we went? I’ve nothing until we were back in the city, I’m afraid.”
Arthur shakes his head, and Morgana scribbles a note in her book.
“And you two?” Arthur asks.
“I was raised in India, but I came here for uni after Independence,” Gwen says.
“Awesome,” Arthur enthuses, and they grin at each other for a moment before he turns expectantly to Merlin.
“I’ve got practically nothing, I just know we were all together in Britain when we heard Stalin’d died, which was, what, fifty-two?” Merlin asks.
“Fifty-three. God, I hated the fifties,” Morgana says. “I think I went about in drag a lot, until it became socially acceptable for women to wear trousers, and even then...”
“What about you, Arthur?” Gwen asks.
“There’s the Blitz, and the train, and I remember meeting you, Gwen, and saying goodbye before you and Morgana ran off somewhere, I think that was the last time I saw you, and…” Arthur trails off, his face setting into a scowl, and then he smacks Merlin sharply on the arm.
“What the hell!” Merlin protests.
“You died! You were sick, I don’t know what it was, but you were bloody well dying in my bloody lap and I was crying like a child and you just kept making stupid remarks about how-”
“-For once it wasn’t you dying in my arms?” Merlin asks.
“Yes,” Arthur says, glaring at the table sullenly.
“I remember that. Not any of the context, I could never place that one, but… Is there anything else? I’ve got hardly any of that life, just meeting you for the first time and a lot of smoking pot in the sixties.”
“Yeah,” says Arthur. “We were… we were really happy for a long time, I think, wandering around Britain and the States, following the music and the drugs, and, like, giving people flowers and shit. I think we spent a while helping Americans who’d been conscripted get to Canada… but then… Something happened, I can’t remember what, but I thought you’d died. I think I had a bit of a meltdown, I’ve some really fuzzy memories - not fuzzy like most of them, fuzzy like I was doing a lot of drugs. And drink, and sex with anyone who’d have me, and then… You weren’t dead, and you found me, and we were great for a couple more years but then… you got sick. It was like… mid seventies I guess? Whenever the Americans pulled out of Vietnam, because we were in the States, we were watching this broadcast about it when you collapsed and then it was the hospital and then…” He cringes, staring at his hands.
Merlin wraps an arm around his shoulders and tugs him in close, murmuring soothing nonsense into his hair, while Gwen and Morgana look at each other.
“No wonder our ages are so off this time,” Morgana says after a moment.
“What?” Arthur asks. He takes Merlin’s hand and squeezes it, a little too hard. Merlin doesn’t mind.
“The Americans left Vietnam in 1975. I was born - in this life - in 1978, and Gwen in 1982. We travelled a lot in the sixties, India and Africa and all over Europe, but the last thing either of us remembers is Mauritius in 1968. Since Merlin couldn’t remember anything we could pin down as any later, we’d been assuming the two of you died around the same time if not earlier. But if you were still around in seventy-five, and who knows how long thereafter-”
“Damn,” Merlin says, peering at Arthur wonderingly. “With that kind of turnover… We might all have been born this go-‘round before you died the last time.”
“Shit,” Arthur says, bewildered.
“Yeah.”
“Has that ever happened before?”
“There’s no way of being sure, but I don’t think so,” Morgana says, jotting down some more notes.
“Weird.”
“Yeah.”
“What does it mean?” Arthur asks.
“I’m not sure that it means anything, but assuming there’s a minimum amount of time that needs to pass between our deaths and births, it explains why you’re so much younger than the rest of us,” Morgana says.
“Huh.”
“Do you remember Gaius at all?” Merlin asks Arthur. “Because he’s my age this time, and I don’t…”
“I don’t, sorry,” Arthur says. “It’s just you three, I don’t know about Lancelot either.”
“Lancelot was our age,” Gwen says. “We met him in the Congo in the early sixties, he was with the UN peacekeeping force. I don’t know what happened to him after that, though.”
“Perhaps he survived us all,” Morgana muses.
“Do you remember his last name? Couldn’t we check records?”
“Do you remember your last name?”
“Um,” Arthur says, frowning. “No. Nor yours.”
“I think it’s for the best, really,” Gwen says. “It’s strange enough remembering other lives; I wouldn’t want to see my own obituary.”
“And can you imagine Merlin, Arthur, and Guinevere going in to request available records on Merlin, Arthur, and Guinevere?” Morgana asks. “Either they’d think we were all mad or else Dan Brown would write a novel about it.”
“I don’t remember dying, either,” Arthur says. “Not even once.”
“None of us does. Not our own deaths. Even that last time… I remember the conversation, bits of it, but that’s all. Not actually dying.”
“When’s the last time you saw a doctor?” Arthur demands suddenly, tightening his grip on Merlin’s hand even more.
“Er, sometime last year? I thought I had food poisoning, but it turned out to be this awful stomach thing that went around the office. Arthur, I’m fine, you don’t have to worry. The fact that it was some kind of disease last time doesn’t mean anything.”
“He’s right,” Gwen says. “Even if it were hereditary, we aren’t related to our past selves. Not closely enough for it to matter, at least. I know my family now, there’s no one who was called Gwen or lived in India or anything like that.”
Arthur relaxes slightly, though he doesn’t let go of Merlin’s hand. They move on to other lives then, glossing over World War I because it’s been covered and none of them especially wants to dwell on it. Merlin remembers the most from their Victorian country house, though Arthur contributes a few new fragments, and they keep working backwards from there. Things get patchier the earlier they get, until there are no more coherent lifetimes, only a jumble of fragments that all feel very old.
Arthur’s serious and intent the entire time, and he doesn’t stop touching Merlin - his hand, or his side, or bumping their feet together, upsetting the cat curled up there - until they rise to go home a couple of hours later. He’s mostly quiet in the car, but at one point he abruptly sits up straighter in his seat and says,
“Merlin… Morgana doesn’t still see the future, does she?”
“Not as far as I’m aware, no. Why?”
“What she said about us adopting a child-”
Merlin produces a snort that turns into a laugh halfway through. “Relax. That was just Morgana being Morgana. God, can you imagine us as parents? The poor kid would probably wander off and stick a finger in an electrical outlet because we were too busy having sex or arguing to notice.” And then he keeps laughing, until Arthur interrupts him.
“Yes, neglecting children is deeply humorous.”
“No, no, I just thought of - Once, when the three of us were very drunk and inappropriate, Gwen and I decided that if they ever wanted kids, I’d have to knock Gwen up, and then Morgana got very indignant - not at the prospect of me shagging her wife, no, she was terribly upset that we thought procreation was the solution, rather than adopting one of the countless orphans in the world, and then I think we compromised and said we’d have one and adopt one, and name them Jose and Cuervo. And then someone probably passed out.”
“Sometimes I wonder why it is that I continue to associate with you people,” Arthur says after a bewildered pause.
“All the sex, I expect.”
“I expect so.”
A few minutes pass in silence, and then Arthur speaks up again.
“It’s stupid that we can’t remember so much,” he says.
“Sorry?”
“I understand why we can’t, but it’s stupid. We’ve got all this history between us that we’ve just forgotten. I remember some life - no idea which one, even - when I’d decided that I had to get you a belt, a nice one with a proper buckle. I’ve no idea why this was so important but it was, I was dead set on it. I remember laying in bed and thinking about this belt I was going to get you, but I can’t remember why. And I can’t remember if I did actually get you the belt, or if you liked it, or how I felt when I saw you wear it, it’s just - this stupid bloody idea of a belt, that’s all I’ve got. For all I know it might be an entire life we had, an entire age of the world, and all I can remember is that stupid belt.”
And Merlin has no idea what to say to that, because Arthur’s right. Merlin doesn’t remember the belt, but there are dozens of other small pointless memories scattered through his brain that don’t fit together into anything meaningful. Mostly he tries not to think about them any more. Mostly he stopped trying to make sense of their history sometime during university, when Gwen and alcohol and homework and his dwindling supply of cheap noodles took precedence, and never really started again. But Arthur’s still young, still looking, and Merlin doesn’t know what to say to him.
“It’s stupid,” he agrees quietly. And then, almost without meaning to bring it up, “Do you ever feel-”
“What?”
“Like you’re meant for something. Like you have a purpose here, this time?”
“I don’t know. I feel like I ought to, but I don’t know. Do you?”
“Not really, but I always thought…”
“What?”
“Well, it’s always been down to you, hasn’t it? Morgana and Gwen, they’ve their own goals and things, but me - I helped where I could, yeah, whatever I stumbled into, but when it came to having a real purpose - that was always wrapped up in you. So I just … wondered.”
“Why didn’t you ask me that before now?”
“I don’t know. Didn’t think about it, didn’t want to make you feel like you were supposed to have something-”
“Am I? Supposed to?”
“Of course not. We just come back, yeah? Sometimes there’s something, but I think sometimes we’re not meant to do anything but have normal lives. Do the things we don’t have time for when we’ve got a destiny.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Arthur seems unconvinced, but lapses back into silence. When they get home, Arthur stops in at his house and returns with a stack of homework, so they don’t discuss it any further. Later, while Merlin’s finding dinner and Arthur’s working on some problem set, he says,
“Whatever happened to magic? Not just yours, I mean, all of it - I remember griffins and questing beasts and that ridiculous thing in that lake, with the tentacles - and now there’s no evidence of any of that.”
“I don’t know,” Merlin admits. “You saw how much of a mess our early memories are, we don’t even know when our first lives actually were. Sometimes I feel like-” He cuts himself off, because it’s rather a silly notion, but Arthur just frowns at him, tilting his chin down, urging him to go on. “Alright, when I was little - really little, before I’d remembered anything - I had this idea that there were two histories. There was the history in the museums, the dinosaur bones and the Greek sculpture, all the dead things we found in the ground and wrote textbooks about. But there was also this other history, the one we only know about because of legends, and that one was filled with gods and magic and all sorts of wonderful things we lost when we decided that only the history in the museums was real. Sometimes I feel like there’s no trace of our lives in the museums because we came from that other history somehow. The magic’s gone, or hiding, and there’s just us.”
“Huh,” says Arthur, non-committal.
“Sorry, it’s dumb, I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer for you-”
“No, it’s - I like that. I had this English teacher in year ten who used to talk about stuff like that. Cultural memories that had to come from somewhere - ‘Do you honestly believe that we have centuries’ worth of stories about dragons only because a cave man found a fossil of a dinosaur?’” he puts on a rasping approximation of an old woman’s voice for the quote, “And we all thought she was barmy, but I suppose it makes as much sense as anything else. The science doesn’t explain how we keep coming back, so…”
“No, I suppose it doesn’t.”
“Do you miss it? The magic?”
“I remember what it was like when I couldn’t imagine life without it, when I thought I’d be nothing if I didn’t have it, but… Now it’s like flying in a dream - it seems cool, but it’s not part of my actual life, you know? When I first remembered things about Morgana, how hot I thought she was, or times we were married, I got really wigged out, but after a while it sort of … settles? All that’s part of our history, but if I’m not focused on it she’s just Morgana, my big sister who used to beat up anyone who hassled me at school. Same thing with the magic.”
“Morgana beat people up for you?”
“I didn’t ask her to. But she was very protective. It was fine for her to give me a hard time, but god forbid anyone else should look at me funny - she was rather like you, that way.”
That doesn’t elicit the grin or the sardonic brush-off Merlin’s hoping for; instead, Arthur just frowns at his homework. He’s still unsettled, clearly. That isn’t surprising - Merlin remembers his own confusion very well, when Morgana came home for Christmas and they could finally talk in person and the reality of their situation began to truly sink in. He came to grips with it soon enough, but Arthur’s taken a while to even start asking the questions so it’s little wonder that he isn’t there yet.
“Arthur, are you ok with all this? I know it’s a lot to deal with…”
“No, I’m fine, I’m just … trying to understand it. You and Morgana were always good at the weird shit, yeah? I’m just trying to keep up.”
Merlin doesn’t push the subject and it seems that Arthur does make some sort of peace with the matter on his own, because his mood is rather lighter the following week, leaving him more inclined to focus on the present than to dwell on the past.
Except when dwelling on the past means mocking the “primitive” technology of Merlin’s youth. On Monday Arthur turns up with his ipod and insists on explaining the thing to Merlin - “I know it must be dreadfully new-fangled and confusing for you” - until Merlin hits him with a couch cushion. On Tuesday, he gets it into his head to rummage through Merlin’s basement, where he finds an old portable cassette player. Merlin hasn’t used the thing in years, he only keeps it because it was a gift from Morgana when they were little, but that doesn’t stop Arthur being thoroughly obnoxious and crowing about how Merlin has never actually left the dark ages.
“You weren’t this annoying when we were with the girls,” Merlin says wearily.
“Gwen makes disapproving faces when I mock you.”
“Shouldn’t that tell you something?”
“Yes. To save the mockery for times when Gwen isn’t present.”
As usual, the bickering eventually devolves into innuendo, which devolves into Arthur attempting to win the argument by shoving his hand into Merlin’s jeans, which would probably devolve into sloppy mutual handjobs on the basement floor if not for the fact that it’s already well after nine-thirty. It’s a school night, and Merlin means to keep his promise to Barbara, so he ends up batting Arthur’s hands away and sending him home without sex. Arthur pouts, and Merlin has to have a wank after he’s gone, but when Arthur comes over on Wednesday he’s altogether more agreeable company so Merlin considers it a win.
(Just to be safe, though, he hides his vintage record player. And the mp3 player that somehow still works despite being from 2007.)
Merlin is fairly well convinced that, despite the senior Rileys’ limited blessing, the moment Arthur and Merlin have a real fight Maurice will beat Merlin to death with a jemmy bar and Barbara will help if she hasn’t already done the deed herself. Which is why it’s rather ironic that their first real fight ends up being a fight Arthur’s having with his parents as well.
Merlin comes home on a Tuesday to find Arthur already in his house, watching television. Arthur lets himself in some mornings, and occasionally in the evenings if he’s making dinner or wanting to use Merlin’s library, but otherwise he usually waits for Merlin to get in and then knocks. (One of those talent search programmes is on, which should be the first tip-off that something’s wrong - Arthur never watches any of them. “Maybe if they do one about jousting,” he said once, rolling his eyes.) Merlin doesn’t mind, though he does wonder what prompted it. Arthur’s quiet and touchy and entirely unwilling to explain his mood, though, so Merlin eventually gives up asking and tries a different topic.
“Alright, so I realize this is probably the only question anyone older than twenty is asking you these days, but have you thought at all about where you want to go for university?”
Arthur abruptly slams his fork down - they’re eating dinner, delivery curry because Merlin needs to go grocery shopping again - and groans.
“God, not you too,” he complains.
“Sorry?”
“Nothing.”
“Arthur-”
“Mum and Dad, alright? We had a row this morning. They asked and I said somewhere close by and they went off about it.”
“Close by?” Merlin asks, frowning.
“Well I hardly expect you to pack up and move, you’ve a job and a life and everything.”
“What does that have to do with - Oh. Arthur, you can’t base your choice of university just on what’s nearest to me.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s much too important a decision-”
“Don’t start, that’s exactly what Dad said.”
“Well he’s right-”
“He’s not the one being expected to leave the person he- Look, driving downtown’s a pain enough, I’m not about to go someplace hours away and only see you at the holidays.”
“I don’t want that either, but this is your education we’re talking about, it’s more important than the convenience of shagging-”
“Is that what l am to you then? A convenient shag?” Arthur asks coldly.
“Of course not, that’s not what I meant, it’s just - we’ve got phones, yeah, and the internet and everything, we can be in contact wherever you are-”
“Right, because that’s exactly the same. If you want to be rid of me you can just say so-”
“I do not want to be rid of you! I just don’t want you to do something you’ll end up regretting!”
“What makes you think I’ll regret it?”
“You’re going to feel differently about a lot of things when you’re older,” Merlin says, and immediately regrets it. He’s always made a point of avoiding any mention of Arthur’s youth when they disagree about something, which was obviously a good choice if the way Arthur’s eyes blaze now is any indication.
“Right, I’m just a kid, I couldn’t possibly know what I want,” he snaps.
“Arthur-”
“For god’s sake, Merlin, you’re not my bloody father so stop acting like you are!”
And then Merlin loses his temper and they shout at each other a lot and it ends with Arthur grabbing his backpack and storming out of the house, while Merlin goes back to the kitchen to stab furiously at his curry. The anger drains out of him quickly, though, leaving an empty, queasy feeling in his gut. He considers calling Arthur, but decides against it because odds are good Arthur’s still pissed off, and the last thing they need is another shouting match.
Half an hour later, Merlin’s mobile goes off.
“Any thoughts on why Arthur’s just rung Morgana to ask if he can spend the night with us?” Gwen asks when he picks up.
“Oh for - we had a fight. And apparently he had the same fight with his parents this morning. I’m sorry, he shouldn’t be imposing on you-”
“No, it’s fine, we don’t mind. I’d pick him up only I’ve actually got a good parking place and you know it won’t be there five minutes later so we’d have to walk even further back to the flat anyway-”
“Where is he?”
“At a bus stop, waiting for a transfer. What did you fight about?”
“University. He wants to stay somewhere nearby because of me, and while I certainly don’t want to lose him I think it’s a rubbish criteria. Look, much as I’d love it if Morgana could beat some sense into him, I think he really-”
“-Just needs to cool off, yes. Don’t worry, Merlin, we’ll look after him.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah, fine, just frustrated.”
After they hang up, Merlin goes across the street to knock on the Rileys’ door. Barbara answers it, looking concerned at the sight of him.
“Merlin? Is Arthur-”
“He’s fine,” Merlin says quickly, and her expression softens into one of relief.
“He is with you, then? He was gone when I came home, and he normally leaves a note…”
“Well, no, I mean - he was. He was at mine, but we had a row - the same row you had? I just wanted to let you know, apparently he’s going to spend the night with Gwen and my sister. You met Gwen, she had dinner with us once, I can give you their number if you like-”
Barbara sighs. “They don’t mind?”
“No, I’m assured it’s no trouble. I didn’t want you to worry, is all.”
“I appreciate that. So Arthur told you his university plans?”
“I made the mistake of asking, and he apparently expected that I’d think proximity to me is a brilliant criteria for choosing a school.”
“And you disagree?”
“Of course I’d love it if he were near by, but he should be going to the best school, not the closest one.”
Barbara nods, studying Merlin for a moment, and then says, “You really are a good man.” Merlin blushes, chats with her for a few more minutes, and goes home.
The thing is, Merlin doesn’t want Arthur to go away for university. After seventeen years of waiting Merlin hates the thought of yet more enforced separation, and the prospect of not seeing Arthur for weeks, even months at a time, is heart-wrenching and terrifying. But that’s for him. Arthur’s known him less than a year, and Arthur’s young yet, and for once he has the chance to grow up normally. Now, sitting in Merlin’s kitchen, he may think he’d be content to go to university locally and spend his free time with Merlin, but that’s only because he hasn’t actually experienced university life yet.
Once he’s there, once he’s caught up in it, he’ll have better things to do than hang out with his lame old boyfriend, and that’s as it should be. So it doesn’t much matter where he goes as far as time with Merlin is concerned, and even if it did, he’s a young man with a great deal of promise who should get the best education and the richest experiences he can. It will hardly be the first time Merlin’s put aside his own desires in the name of what’s best for Arthur.
Of course, that doesn’t make it any easier. Letting Arthur go has never been easy, especially not when he doesn’t want to go himself. But it’s only October; they have nearly a year before Arthur will actually leave. Merlin just hopes they aren’t going to spend that year arguing.
Part II