FIC: From Pratface (Arthur/Merlin, pg-13)
Title: From Pratface
Author: ayane_tsurugi
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin (with Gwen/Morgana)
Word Count: ~2600
Disclaimer: The characters contained herein are the property of the Beeb, etc. I make no money from my efforts here; I’m just playing around.
Warnings: Language
Summary: Morgana's noticed something different about her stepbrother lately. When she meets a sad, skinny boy on the Tube deleting texts from a number labeled 'Pratface,' it starts making a lot more sense.
Author’s Notes: Written for a kinkme_merlin prompt here. My first complete Merlin fic and my first meme fill all in one. Feedback is love!
From: Pratface
You know what, Merlin? Fuck you too.
-
As the train lurched to a sudden stop, Morgana was violently reminded why she usually gave herself enough time to walk to campus in the mornings. Every time she let Gwen pull her back into bed for a lie-in or let herself get drunk on a school night, she’d inevitably regret it sometime between when she stepped onto the Tube and when she stepped back off, in turns irreparably late or covered in someone else’s coffee.
Several annoyed huffs from her fellow passengers accompanied her own internal groan. A look at her cell phone told her she had twenty minutes to get to her advisor’s office, and the rest of the ride, once the train was moving again, would take at least seven.
Fuck.
-
From: Pratface
Merlin, this is stupid. Call me back, okay? Please. Even if you're still angry, I just want to hear your voice.
-
The one good thing about taking the Tube first thing in the morning was that not a lot of people were in a conversing mood. Even trapped underground for an indeterminable amount of time with only the other prisoners for company, most would stick to their newspapers or stare forlornly into their still-steaming caffeine fixes and mind their own business.
Normally, Morgana would do the same. She knew there was a textbook and at least two battered paperbacks stashed in the depths of her bag, any of which would distract her from the stern expression her advisor would no doubt give her if she was late for another conference, but this morning something else caught her eye.
-
From: Pratface
What the fuck, Merlin? We can't just leave it like that! Try to understand my fucking point of view for once, will you?
-
The boy next to her on the seat, and he was a boy - he couldn’t have been older than 18 -, had his knees pulled up on the seat and his hands rested atop them, scrolling through his text messages with a deep frown etched onto his face. Every couple of seconds he would stab the delete button with a thumb and another, earlier message would pop up, each one from a number he’d labeled ‘Pratface.’
-
From: Pratface
I should be free by 9:30, finally. Meet at mine this time?
-
Delete.
-
From: Pratface
Looks like footy's running late tonight. I'll make it up to you. ;)
-
Delete.
She probably should have looked away. It wasn’t like she didn’t know what it was like to want her private life to stay private. Being raised by Uther Pendragon had taught her the art of deleting texts before she got home, changing her passwords every couple of months and, in extreme cases, typing e-mails to her girlfriends in code.
Of course, telling Uther to stuff it (in the nicest way possible, really - he was like a father to her) and moving in with Gwen had solved most of her problems.
But there was just something about this boy next to her - Merlin, she guessed, which she really hoped was his given name for reasons she couldn’t identify. He had a mop of black hair and cheekbones she would kill for, though they were currently marred with dark purple. The boy looked like he hadn’t slept in days. It was probably for this reason that he hadn’t yet noticed her wholly stealthless efforts at spying on him.
-
From: Pratface
I aced my maths exam. I think that calls for a reward. Any ideas how you could reward me, Merlin?
-
She thought there was a slight tug at the corners of his mouth before he hit the delete button that time, but it disappeared so fast she suspected she’d imagined it.
-
From: Pratface
I've missed you this weekend. Love you.
-
That one got a particularly vicious stab and confirmed Morgana’s growing theory: a break-up. A really bad break-up, from the looks of it. Inwardly, she winced in sympathy. She’d had her share of those, and she knew if she ever lost Gwen, she’d look even worse than Merlin did right now.
The text messages went on for a while, detailing for Morgana a romance that she would have called adorable if she wasn’t all too aware how it stood now, and if she didn’t glance up to see Merlin blinking back tears more than once. Whatever there was about this Merlin kid made her want to pull him into a hug. Or smack some sense into whatever bloke it was that had broken his heart.
Clearly, Gwen was turning her into a sap.
-
From: Pratface
I'm taking you for coffee tomorrow after class. Don't even pretend you don’t want to. I've seen how you stare at me when you think I'm not looking. I stare at you too.
-
Judging by the numbers on the top of the screen, this was the last of them, and she watched him bite his lip, hesitating just a bit longer than usual before pressing the delete button.
Letting out a shallow breath, he flipped to his contact list next. He scrolled down until he reached the right label and a number flashed under it. A surprisingly familiar number.
“Shit,” she gasped, and way before her brain had given her hand permission, it had snatched the mobile from between the boy’s fingers and was holding it in her own lap. A couple people around her looked up in vague interest.
“Um?” he said, but she could only stare at the screen to make sure she wasn’t mistaken.
She wasn’t. She turned her gaze to him instead. “It’s you!”
“What?” He gave her an incredulous stare and started to reach for his phone, but she waved his hand away and he blinked his confusion at her. “What’s me?”
She brandished the phone at him, waving it around in a blur. “You’re what’s different!”
His expression then told her he was considering abandoning the phone to find someone less insane to sit by. He glanced at it in dismay. “Listen, can I just have-?”
She smiled at him. Honestly, this was perfect. To be safe, she pushed the button to exit his contacts list and put the phone on the seat between them. “Sorry.” Before he could pick it up and move away, she asked, “Will you at least tell me what he did?”
“What who did?” Thankfully, he looked slightly less panicked with his mobile back on safe ground, but the confused wariness was back full force.
“Pratface. Yeah, sorry, I’m too nosey for my own good,” she added when his mouth opened in surprise.
Merlin frowned at her. “I don’t really see how that’s any of your business.”
She let out a short laugh. “Normally, it wouldn’t be, of course. But here’s where the world gets smaller.” She offered her hand to him. “I’m Morgana.”
After a short, confused moment, blue eyes widened in recognition and a blush colored Merlin’s cheeks. “Oh. Oh God. You’re-”
“Pratface’s step-sister, yeah. Nice to meet you. Really, really nice.” She kept her hand extended, and he finally shook it.
“It’s, um, nice to meet you too, I suppose. Merlin. Er, I mean, that’s me. I’m Merlin.”
“Merlin.” She smiled around the name. “How long have you been dating my brother, Merlin?”
Just at that moment, the train jerked back to life and a too-cheerful disembodied voice told them that the problem was fixed. When Morgana looked back at Merlin, his eyes were wide in what looked like renewed panic.
“Oh God,” he said again, burying his face in his knees. “Please, please don’t tell him you know. Or be mad at him for it. Shit, shit, shit, I can’t believe this-”
Morgana blinked at the unexpected reaction. “Merlin?”
“-spent all this time keeping it a bloody secret and now it’s over and I out him to his sister on the fucking train-”
“Merlin!” she said, loud enough that it got her a couple irritated looks, but at least it also got him to look back up at her. He looked like he was blinking back more tears. “What’s wrong?”
“You, you weren’t supposed to find out. Especially, God, especially not like this. I mean, he’s been a right prick about everything but if you disown him he’ll be devastated, and I really don’t want him to be hurt because of me.”
“Disown him? Why on earth would I do that?” Merlin’s eyes pleaded with her, and wow, he was really worried about this. No matter what had happened, this boy cared for Arthur, and it warmed her. “What has my brother told you about me, Merlin?”
He seemed taken aback by the question, but answered dutifully anyway. “Um, I know you were both raised by his dad after your mum died, and that most of the time neither of you bother pointing out that you’re not actually related. You’re a grad student in Law at the University. Um, and I know you see him a couple times a month when Uther asks for a family dinner.”
“Nothing else?”
“Other than the fact that you’re kind-of scary, which I’m figuring out on my own, not really.”
“Nothing about how I’ve been with my girlfriend for almost three years now, and living with her for two?” Merlin’s mouth dropped open again. “Of course not. God Arthur, you’re such an idiot.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “You…girlfriend?”
“Gwen,” she confirmed, smiling brightly at him again. “So I think disowning him would be a bit hypocritical of me, don’t you?” He returned her smile at long last, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Now tell me what happened.”
“You really want to know?”
She nodded.
Merlin looked back down at his knees. “Well, I told my best mate about him. I mean, it’s Will, and I’ve known him since I was five and if there’s anyone in the world I can trust, it’s him, but…Arthur got upset. Asked me who else I’d outed him to, like I’d been advertising it on the Beeb or something. There was yelling. Lots of yelling. From me too, not just him. And then he said the whole thing had obviously been a stupid mistake, and I left.” His eyes met hers, then fell again. “I just wanted him to be able to tell someone. Some of his footy mates or…anyone, so that our relationship didn’t just exist inside our flats anymore.”
She reached out and put a hand on his knee. Yeah, she was definitely turning into a sap.
“So no one knew?”
Merlin shook his head. “His flatmate Lance, probably, because he’s not an idiot. Or deaf. But we met through him, so I mean, I don’t think he really cared. Arthur said he’d…eventually, but I guess I’m not so good with being kept a secret.”
“How long-” she started to ask, but cut herself off. “Wait…” She thought over the times she’d seen Arthur lately, and how she’d been convinced that there was something different. She expected he thought it wasn’t obvious, or at least that she wouldn’t notice, but she had. Even Uther had asked her what changed. “You’ve known him a little more than three months, am I right?”
Surprised eyes met hers. “I- yeah, actually. How did you know that?”
She squeezed his knee. “Because it’s you! It has to be. You’re what’s different.”
“Yeah, you said that before. Doesn’t make any more sense now than it did then.”
She grinned at him. “He’s been different the last few months. Every time I saw him, it was more and more tangible, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. And then the last time I saw him, this past weekend, I figured it out: he’s happy. Happier than I think I’ve ever seen him.” He was just staring at her again, but she thought she saw hope in his eyes now. “And I think that’s down to you.”
“Me? I don’t think…”
“Well I do. And when you get to know me better, you’ll learn I’m right about these things most of the time. My brother is stupidly in love with you, Merlin.”
He huffed a disbelieving laugh. “You don’t even know me!”
Morgana shrugged. “Maybe not. But I know Arthur, probably better than anyone else, and he’s never been like this over anyone before.” He started to shake his head again, but she forged on. “I know Arthur’s a prick sometimes. A lot of the time even. I’m pretty sure it’s his default setting. But…” She picked up the mobile and held it out to him. “If you love him even half as much as I think you do, will you at least not delete his number?”
Merlin stared blankly at it for a moment then up at her, like he was grasping for what was left of his argument, so she pulled the phone back to her and started tapping in her number.
“Here. If you can’t talk some sense into him, ring me. If you tell him I said this I’ll deny it to my dying breath, but I really just want to see his idiotic arse happy. For all his harping about responsibility and grandchildren, Uther’s the same way. So if you can give that to him, no one who really gives a damn about Arthur is going to care if you have a penis.” She pressed the mobile into his hands. “Do you understand?”
As the train slowly rolled to a stop, she watched him nod, shock and some lingering disbelief mixed in his features, and stood to pull her bag over her shoulder. Before she could walk away, she felt him grab her sleeve and turned around. The smile on Merlin’s face was almost blinding, and in that moment she had no doubt what Arthur saw in him.
“Thank you,” he said.
Morgana returned his smile. “I hope I’ll see you again, Merlin,” she said, and stepped away onto the platform. A glance at the clock made her walk a bit faster. If she was only five minutes late, maybe Dr. Alvarr would forgive her.
Epilogue
It was another of Uther’s bi-monthly family dinners, and Morgana was early for once. Grabbing the bottle of wine from the passenger seat of Gwen’s car, she made her way up the drive and through the foyer into the sitting room, where she knew Uther would be waiting.
As she passed the dining room, she noted with interest that there was a fourth place set at the table, right next to Arthur’s usual seat.
“Arthur said he wanted to introduce us to someone,” Uther explained when she walked in. “I just hope this one’s better than that Sophia person he brought a couple years ago.”
“It would be difficult to get worse,” she agreed. And if it was the certain big-eared, skinny boy she hoped it would be, Uther had nothing to worry about.
She hurried back through, Uther rising to follow more slowly, when she heard the large front door open again. She resisted the irrational urge to clap when she saw Merlin there, his long fingers intertwined with Arthur’s, and settled for kissing the grinning boy on the cheek instead. At Arthur’s raised eyebrow, she simply smirked.
When Uther walked in, she turned to watch as he took in Merlin, his son, and their clasped hands before sighing and rolling his eyes.
He glared at Arthur and Morgana in turn.
“I don’t care which of you it is, but one of you had better be adopting.”
Author: ayane_tsurugi
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin (with Gwen/Morgana)
Word Count: ~2600
Disclaimer: The characters contained herein are the property of the Beeb, etc. I make no money from my efforts here; I’m just playing around.
Warnings: Language
Summary: Morgana's noticed something different about her stepbrother lately. When she meets a sad, skinny boy on the Tube deleting texts from a number labeled 'Pratface,' it starts making a lot more sense.
Author’s Notes: Written for a kinkme_merlin prompt here. My first complete Merlin fic and my first meme fill all in one. Feedback is love!
From: Pratface
You know what, Merlin? Fuck you too.
-
As the train lurched to a sudden stop, Morgana was violently reminded why she usually gave herself enough time to walk to campus in the mornings. Every time she let Gwen pull her back into bed for a lie-in or let herself get drunk on a school night, she’d inevitably regret it sometime between when she stepped onto the Tube and when she stepped back off, in turns irreparably late or covered in someone else’s coffee.
Several annoyed huffs from her fellow passengers accompanied her own internal groan. A look at her cell phone told her she had twenty minutes to get to her advisor’s office, and the rest of the ride, once the train was moving again, would take at least seven.
Fuck.
-
From: Pratface
Merlin, this is stupid. Call me back, okay? Please. Even if you're still angry, I just want to hear your voice.
-
The one good thing about taking the Tube first thing in the morning was that not a lot of people were in a conversing mood. Even trapped underground for an indeterminable amount of time with only the other prisoners for company, most would stick to their newspapers or stare forlornly into their still-steaming caffeine fixes and mind their own business.
Normally, Morgana would do the same. She knew there was a textbook and at least two battered paperbacks stashed in the depths of her bag, any of which would distract her from the stern expression her advisor would no doubt give her if she was late for another conference, but this morning something else caught her eye.
-
From: Pratface
What the fuck, Merlin? We can't just leave it like that! Try to understand my fucking point of view for once, will you?
-
The boy next to her on the seat, and he was a boy - he couldn’t have been older than 18 -, had his knees pulled up on the seat and his hands rested atop them, scrolling through his text messages with a deep frown etched onto his face. Every couple of seconds he would stab the delete button with a thumb and another, earlier message would pop up, each one from a number he’d labeled ‘Pratface.’
-
From: Pratface
I should be free by 9:30, finally. Meet at mine this time?
-
Delete.
-
From: Pratface
Looks like footy's running late tonight. I'll make it up to you. ;)
-
Delete.
She probably should have looked away. It wasn’t like she didn’t know what it was like to want her private life to stay private. Being raised by Uther Pendragon had taught her the art of deleting texts before she got home, changing her passwords every couple of months and, in extreme cases, typing e-mails to her girlfriends in code.
Of course, telling Uther to stuff it (in the nicest way possible, really - he was like a father to her) and moving in with Gwen had solved most of her problems.
But there was just something about this boy next to her - Merlin, she guessed, which she really hoped was his given name for reasons she couldn’t identify. He had a mop of black hair and cheekbones she would kill for, though they were currently marred with dark purple. The boy looked like he hadn’t slept in days. It was probably for this reason that he hadn’t yet noticed her wholly stealthless efforts at spying on him.
-
From: Pratface
I aced my maths exam. I think that calls for a reward. Any ideas how you could reward me, Merlin?
-
She thought there was a slight tug at the corners of his mouth before he hit the delete button that time, but it disappeared so fast she suspected she’d imagined it.
-
From: Pratface
I've missed you this weekend. Love you.
-
That one got a particularly vicious stab and confirmed Morgana’s growing theory: a break-up. A really bad break-up, from the looks of it. Inwardly, she winced in sympathy. She’d had her share of those, and she knew if she ever lost Gwen, she’d look even worse than Merlin did right now.
The text messages went on for a while, detailing for Morgana a romance that she would have called adorable if she wasn’t all too aware how it stood now, and if she didn’t glance up to see Merlin blinking back tears more than once. Whatever there was about this Merlin kid made her want to pull him into a hug. Or smack some sense into whatever bloke it was that had broken his heart.
Clearly, Gwen was turning her into a sap.
-
From: Pratface
I'm taking you for coffee tomorrow after class. Don't even pretend you don’t want to. I've seen how you stare at me when you think I'm not looking. I stare at you too.
-
Judging by the numbers on the top of the screen, this was the last of them, and she watched him bite his lip, hesitating just a bit longer than usual before pressing the delete button.
Letting out a shallow breath, he flipped to his contact list next. He scrolled down until he reached the right label and a number flashed under it. A surprisingly familiar number.
“Shit,” she gasped, and way before her brain had given her hand permission, it had snatched the mobile from between the boy’s fingers and was holding it in her own lap. A couple people around her looked up in vague interest.
“Um?” he said, but she could only stare at the screen to make sure she wasn’t mistaken.
She wasn’t. She turned her gaze to him instead. “It’s you!”
“What?” He gave her an incredulous stare and started to reach for his phone, but she waved his hand away and he blinked his confusion at her. “What’s me?”
She brandished the phone at him, waving it around in a blur. “You’re what’s different!”
His expression then told her he was considering abandoning the phone to find someone less insane to sit by. He glanced at it in dismay. “Listen, can I just have-?”
She smiled at him. Honestly, this was perfect. To be safe, she pushed the button to exit his contacts list and put the phone on the seat between them. “Sorry.” Before he could pick it up and move away, she asked, “Will you at least tell me what he did?”
“What who did?” Thankfully, he looked slightly less panicked with his mobile back on safe ground, but the confused wariness was back full force.
“Pratface. Yeah, sorry, I’m too nosey for my own good,” she added when his mouth opened in surprise.
Merlin frowned at her. “I don’t really see how that’s any of your business.”
She let out a short laugh. “Normally, it wouldn’t be, of course. But here’s where the world gets smaller.” She offered her hand to him. “I’m Morgana.”
After a short, confused moment, blue eyes widened in recognition and a blush colored Merlin’s cheeks. “Oh. Oh God. You’re-”
“Pratface’s step-sister, yeah. Nice to meet you. Really, really nice.” She kept her hand extended, and he finally shook it.
“It’s, um, nice to meet you too, I suppose. Merlin. Er, I mean, that’s me. I’m Merlin.”
“Merlin.” She smiled around the name. “How long have you been dating my brother, Merlin?”
Just at that moment, the train jerked back to life and a too-cheerful disembodied voice told them that the problem was fixed. When Morgana looked back at Merlin, his eyes were wide in what looked like renewed panic.
“Oh God,” he said again, burying his face in his knees. “Please, please don’t tell him you know. Or be mad at him for it. Shit, shit, shit, I can’t believe this-”
Morgana blinked at the unexpected reaction. “Merlin?”
“-spent all this time keeping it a bloody secret and now it’s over and I out him to his sister on the fucking train-”
“Merlin!” she said, loud enough that it got her a couple irritated looks, but at least it also got him to look back up at her. He looked like he was blinking back more tears. “What’s wrong?”
“You, you weren’t supposed to find out. Especially, God, especially not like this. I mean, he’s been a right prick about everything but if you disown him he’ll be devastated, and I really don’t want him to be hurt because of me.”
“Disown him? Why on earth would I do that?” Merlin’s eyes pleaded with her, and wow, he was really worried about this. No matter what had happened, this boy cared for Arthur, and it warmed her. “What has my brother told you about me, Merlin?”
He seemed taken aback by the question, but answered dutifully anyway. “Um, I know you were both raised by his dad after your mum died, and that most of the time neither of you bother pointing out that you’re not actually related. You’re a grad student in Law at the University. Um, and I know you see him a couple times a month when Uther asks for a family dinner.”
“Nothing else?”
“Other than the fact that you’re kind-of scary, which I’m figuring out on my own, not really.”
“Nothing about how I’ve been with my girlfriend for almost three years now, and living with her for two?” Merlin’s mouth dropped open again. “Of course not. God Arthur, you’re such an idiot.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “You…girlfriend?”
“Gwen,” she confirmed, smiling brightly at him again. “So I think disowning him would be a bit hypocritical of me, don’t you?” He returned her smile at long last, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Now tell me what happened.”
“You really want to know?”
She nodded.
Merlin looked back down at his knees. “Well, I told my best mate about him. I mean, it’s Will, and I’ve known him since I was five and if there’s anyone in the world I can trust, it’s him, but…Arthur got upset. Asked me who else I’d outed him to, like I’d been advertising it on the Beeb or something. There was yelling. Lots of yelling. From me too, not just him. And then he said the whole thing had obviously been a stupid mistake, and I left.” His eyes met hers, then fell again. “I just wanted him to be able to tell someone. Some of his footy mates or…anyone, so that our relationship didn’t just exist inside our flats anymore.”
She reached out and put a hand on his knee. Yeah, she was definitely turning into a sap.
“So no one knew?”
Merlin shook his head. “His flatmate Lance, probably, because he’s not an idiot. Or deaf. But we met through him, so I mean, I don’t think he really cared. Arthur said he’d…eventually, but I guess I’m not so good with being kept a secret.”
“How long-” she started to ask, but cut herself off. “Wait…” She thought over the times she’d seen Arthur lately, and how she’d been convinced that there was something different. She expected he thought it wasn’t obvious, or at least that she wouldn’t notice, but she had. Even Uther had asked her what changed. “You’ve known him a little more than three months, am I right?”
Surprised eyes met hers. “I- yeah, actually. How did you know that?”
She squeezed his knee. “Because it’s you! It has to be. You’re what’s different.”
“Yeah, you said that before. Doesn’t make any more sense now than it did then.”
She grinned at him. “He’s been different the last few months. Every time I saw him, it was more and more tangible, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. And then the last time I saw him, this past weekend, I figured it out: he’s happy. Happier than I think I’ve ever seen him.” He was just staring at her again, but she thought she saw hope in his eyes now. “And I think that’s down to you.”
“Me? I don’t think…”
“Well I do. And when you get to know me better, you’ll learn I’m right about these things most of the time. My brother is stupidly in love with you, Merlin.”
He huffed a disbelieving laugh. “You don’t even know me!”
Morgana shrugged. “Maybe not. But I know Arthur, probably better than anyone else, and he’s never been like this over anyone before.” He started to shake his head again, but she forged on. “I know Arthur’s a prick sometimes. A lot of the time even. I’m pretty sure it’s his default setting. But…” She picked up the mobile and held it out to him. “If you love him even half as much as I think you do, will you at least not delete his number?”
Merlin stared blankly at it for a moment then up at her, like he was grasping for what was left of his argument, so she pulled the phone back to her and started tapping in her number.
“Here. If you can’t talk some sense into him, ring me. If you tell him I said this I’ll deny it to my dying breath, but I really just want to see his idiotic arse happy. For all his harping about responsibility and grandchildren, Uther’s the same way. So if you can give that to him, no one who really gives a damn about Arthur is going to care if you have a penis.” She pressed the mobile into his hands. “Do you understand?”
As the train slowly rolled to a stop, she watched him nod, shock and some lingering disbelief mixed in his features, and stood to pull her bag over her shoulder. Before she could walk away, she felt him grab her sleeve and turned around. The smile on Merlin’s face was almost blinding, and in that moment she had no doubt what Arthur saw in him.
“Thank you,” he said.
Morgana returned his smile. “I hope I’ll see you again, Merlin,” she said, and stepped away onto the platform. A glance at the clock made her walk a bit faster. If she was only five minutes late, maybe Dr. Alvarr would forgive her.
Epilogue
It was another of Uther’s bi-monthly family dinners, and Morgana was early for once. Grabbing the bottle of wine from the passenger seat of Gwen’s car, she made her way up the drive and through the foyer into the sitting room, where she knew Uther would be waiting.
As she passed the dining room, she noted with interest that there was a fourth place set at the table, right next to Arthur’s usual seat.
“Arthur said he wanted to introduce us to someone,” Uther explained when she walked in. “I just hope this one’s better than that Sophia person he brought a couple years ago.”
“It would be difficult to get worse,” she agreed. And if it was the certain big-eared, skinny boy she hoped it would be, Uther had nothing to worry about.
She hurried back through, Uther rising to follow more slowly, when she heard the large front door open again. She resisted the irrational urge to clap when she saw Merlin there, his long fingers intertwined with Arthur’s, and settled for kissing the grinning boy on the cheek instead. At Arthur’s raised eyebrow, she simply smirked.
When Uther walked in, she turned to watch as he took in Merlin, his son, and their clasped hands before sighing and rolling his eyes.
He glared at Arthur and Morgana in turn.
“I don’t care which of you it is, but one of you had better be adopting.”