i need somewhere to post fic that's not a commentspamming ground

[anamuan]

(table # err, 5, i think, blatantly stolen from here.) I'm doing Merlin fandom, with a focus on Gwen and Morgana.

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034. Lake (1/2)

[anamuan]

There's a lake out back behind the school where Morgana goes to smoke. It's far enough away from school property that the county can't be held liable for any kids who fall in and drown (morbid, but true), which means it's also far enough from school property for Morgana to keep from getting caught. The school administration frowns very heavily upon students smoking, even on their own time; Morgana feels the state and health of her lungs is her own business, and if she wants to make foolish, self-destructive decisions that may lead to icky black lungs and cancer, that's really her own issue.

Still, it's nice not to have to worry about someone finding her and (eventually) having to explain herself to her stepfather. Uther would be disapproving and distant, as usual, and tell her not to do it anymore, and Morgana would be back to smoking by the lake by the end of the week. Later Arthur would come find her, stupid golden boy that he was (that wasn't true. It wasn't that he could do no wrong in their father's eyes; Uther was openly disappointed in Arthur all the time. It was that Arthur tried a lot harder to please Uther, whether or not he succeeded. Morgana had stopped trying. Even though Uther was obviously pleased with her more often, some subverbal part of her was was starting to think that Uther wasn't the kind of man she really cared to impress). Arthur'd stand looking down at her for a moment before kicking off his shoes and tumbling gracelessly down to sit in the grass next to her.

If it were Merlin, he'd bump shoulders with her briefly, all camaraderie, and steal the cigarette from her and take a drag through a cocky, conspiratorial smile; but Merlin's off with Gwen, patching people up on the front lines, and she and Arthur had always been a little bit colder. There's only so much open warmth you can milk out of the big, cold house they'd grown up in, so they didn't know how.

It's Arthur, though, not Merlin, so he frowns a little and says, "Those are awful for you." Morgana shrugs. He doesn't say, 'You don't want Gwen to finally make it back and have to fix you up too,' but just sits there with Morgana, watching the sun sink down behind the trees, so she pulls the pack out and offers Arthur one as a reward. He never smokes, but he takes one out and Morgana hands over her lighter, and he lights up so they can both smoke into the dark.

Re: 034. Lake (2/2)

[anamuan]

When Gwen gets called up, Morgana tried to volunteer, to follow her out, wherever, because she couldn't stand the thought of sweet, gentle, kind-hearted Gwen going out into the mouth of disaster alone. Gwen had been a science track, all bio, pre-med courses in high school, and the army was desperately short of medics, so at least Morgana didn't have to worry about them trying to get Gwen to shoot people--she'd never have lasted--but Morgana still hated the idea of all the pain Gwen would see, all the suffering and the misery and all the ones she wouldn't be able to save, so when Gwen gets called up, Morgana went down with her and tried to volunteer. Eight months short of her eighteenth birthday, they wouldn't let her. Two weeks later, Gwen goes out alone.

Merlin had volunteered four months before that. The day he told them, he and Arthur had gotten in a huge row. The shouting match had nearly devolved into a fist fight. It would have, if Gwen and Morgana and Lancelot hadn't physically jumped between them to keep them apart. Arthur shook them all off and shot Merlin a look that was white with anger and hurt and fear, and turned on his heel and walked off.

He'd been in his second year, medical rotation, and a med unit near the front had been hit accidentally, with friendly fire. It was a disaster.

Merlin had heard it on the news and then walked into their uni's recruiting office. He explained he'd just started his second year, and would he be any use to them as a field medic? The recruiter didn't give him a chance to change his mind (not that he would have), and he'd be shipped out the end of the month. Doctors were hard to come by, and they needed them more than ever. A year of formal training would be plenty. The other things you could learn in the field or you wouldn't have the resources to do anyway, so they didn't matter.

Arthur didn't speak to Merlin for three miserable days (miserable for all of them) and if anyone brought Merlin up, he'd shoot them a blank stare and ask, "Merlin who?" like there were any other Merlins running around and like he and Merlin hadn't been best friends for years.

Morgana hadn't been there when they'd finally made it up, but suddenly they were talking again, and trying to knock each other out of chairs again, and if Arthur looked a little harder at Merlin when Merlin was facing 'round the other way, neither Morgana nor Gwen were going to say anything about it.

["You bloody idiot," Merlin hissed at him, "I have to go."

"No you don’t," Arthur told him. "No, you don't. I'll get father to do something if i have to. Just. Unvolunteer. Don't go. You don't have to."

"No, Arthur. I do. I just--they're dying. All those people, they're dying because they don't have enough doctors, and they'd live if they just had someone to sew them back up/together. You know I've got to go. You know I can't stay here knowing I could save some.

"You could die," Arthur whispers, and then looks stricken, like it had been dragged out of him and hadn't been what he'd meant to say at all."]