The Get Galahad Project
Part two of my Mordred and Galahad series. Oh, they hurt me, but I love them so much.
Title: The Get Galahad Project
Author:
weepingwillow9
Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin, the show or the characters. I do own Galahad and Elaine.
Characters: Galahad (OC), Mordred
Pairings: Mordred/Galahad
Warnings: Angst, sex, orgasm denial, blood play, burning, abusive relationship
Spoilers: A few legend-y spoilers, none for the show
Rating: NC-17
Length: 2087
Summary: "No one hurts you but me."
Mordred only turns the television on for the weather. But there he is. Galahad.
He’s just as beautiful as ever. Golden brown, gleaming smile, so genuine and so perfect. He could be a model or an actor or something in his navy shirt and brown suit, but for his camera-shy awkwardness. He locks his eyes onto the interviewer, smiling at her and enthusing about whatever his work is. And then the camera changes, a short video explaining quantum physics to the masses. Mordred makes sure to pay attention. And oh. He’d called Galahad powerless. But he was far from that.
When Galahad’s face comes back on the screen, he smiles straight down the camera lens. Mordred’s lifting his hand before he really knows what he’s doing, making the pretty lips shape his name. But the voice is all wrong, the intonation fucked up, and Mordred lets it go.
---
After that, Galahad is everywhere.
---
He’s spent forever trying to get away from Galahad. Trying to find someone who makes him feel like Galahad did, searching for the ‘o’ of surprise and hurt and pleasure his mouth formed with every cut, pressing deeper in the hope that it will appear. Looking for the blown blue eyes when he leaves bruises, deeper and bluer than any he ever gave Galahad, in the hope that the colour will leach to their irises. Trying to burn Galahad’s golden brown into their skin.
Because Galahad is everything that’s good and right, and that Mordred wants but can never have. Because he was the best, the longest, the closest thing to a relationship that Mordred’s ever had, and Mordred’s a little stuck on him.
---
It all gets a little too much, walking around the corner to a newsstand covered in Galahad, Sexy Scientist Could Save Thousands. Mordred decides to take off to Morgana’s. Elaine hasn’t really welcomed him since he broke up with Galahad, but she won’t send him away. She still sees a hurt and needing little boy. And he needs to talk to Morgana.
Morgana opens the door, lets him in. He takes his things up to the guest room, as always, and goes to look for her. The television’s on, so he tries the living room.
Galahad sits on the sofa, face illuminated by Live at the Apollo. He laughs along with it, face crinkling up a little in delight. Mordred just stares.
Galahad’s head turns, and his face shuts down, to a look of such condensed indifference that Mordred nearly screams of it. He doesn’t know what he expected, but he wanted more than this. Hope would be too much to want, but maybe loathing. Not a cool lack of anything.
Doesn’t he know he’s tormenting Mordred?
---
They ignore each other after that. Go out of their way to never be in the same room at the same time if possible. Eating, Mordred stays in complete silence. Galahad talks to Elaine and Morgana, and Mordred never makes out the words, just listens to the sounds.
In the end, he doesn’t have to seek out Morgana. She works it all out for herself.
You love him, don’t you? she asks, mind to mind, the third strained dinner time.
I- No- I can’t let myself.
It hurts?
Him, too.
I see, Morgana tells him, when clearly she doesn’t. But somehow, it helps.
Back at the table, Morgana claps her hand over her mouth.
“I completely forgot the milk! Could you two boys go out and get some? We’ll need the extra for breakfast.”
Talk to him, Morgana instructs. Mordred has no intention of doing any such thing.
---
The problem is: Mordred loves Galahad.
He can’t place where it began, unlike Galahad. Perhaps it was seeing the tears on Galahad’s face when they first met, and liking it. Not because Galahad was hurting, but because they were real, they were proof that this fairytale child with a Happy Families life actually existed. Every time Mordred hurt him, it made him think of that moment, surrounded in splinters, when he had the power to break everything for one boy, and then put it back together again.
Galahad did things to Mordred. Made him think, if only briefly, that happiness could be real. Happiness made by other people rather than by power, or control.
And, later, even now, Galahad makes Mordred want.
---
They get the milk in silence. But, on the way back.
Hands grab hold of Galahad, pull him into a darkened alley.
“We want the money.”
Mordred watches, helpless, because he could never have planned for this, for Galahad held and threatened. He can’t use his magic. It’s outlawed. If he breaks the Official Secrets Act, it’s all over for his plans of infiltration and assassination and power. But if they kill Galahad, everything’s over for Mordred.
Galahad’s struggling against them, trying to pull free.
“I don’t have any! Just getting milk! Get off me!”
“Liar.”
The first punch falls, into Galahad’s stomach, making him gasp and wheeze and cry out.
Mordred flings a hand out in front of him, knocking down Galahad’s attackers with a wall of force that melts over Galahad and flashes with light when it collides with each hooded man.
Galahad’s panting, unsure on his feet now there’s no use for the adrenaline coursing through his veins.
“Why?” he asks, just quietly. “You risked exposure for me. Why?”
“No one hurts you but me.” To Mordred, it makes perfect sense. Galahad just shakes his head.
They don’t mention the attack when they return.
---
Mordred’s magical outburst needs sleeping off, so he misses breakfast, stumbles down to the kitchen around lunchtime in rumpled hair and pyjama bottoms. Only to find Galahad pressed up against the breakfast bar, having his face kissed off by a dark haired man, slightly taller even than Mordred.
He should have known it would happen. Should have been ready. But he’s not. Far from it.
It’s like severing something, watching Galahad kiss another man. And not just half-heartedly; Galahad’s kissing like his life depends on it, like he’s starving for just one more touch. Mordred takes the breadboard, loudly and pointedly.
But that just makes things worse, because it would appear that Morgana and Elaine are out; when they pull apart, Galahad takes the man’s hand and leads him out of the kitchen.
“Where are you taking me?” he asks in a rich Irish accent. It removes Mordred’s appetite entirely.
“Bed, Sean,” Galahad says.
Mordred screws his eyes shut.
---
And later, when Galahad’s mother and Mordred’s godmother are home, and Mordred’s soaked through from the walk he went on to avoid the enthusiastic sex noises from Galahad’s room (he stormed out when it was just too much in only a thin white t-shirt and jeans) he has to watch the two of them cuddled up on the sofa under a blanket.
Mordred, strong though he is, can’t watch.
He doesn’t see that, whenever he thinks Sean isn’t watching, Galahad looks at Mordred’s soaked and perfectly visible chest as if it’s a lost Leonardo.
---
Sometimes, Mordred thinks they were made for each other.
Sometimes, Mordred thinks they’re some cruel joke.
He loves Galahad. That much he knows to be true. But he had thought, maybe, he could cope without. Because.
Because, when Galahad asks him out, really, it’s the last thing he’s expecting. And he says yes because, well, what does he have to lose.
And then Galahad kisses him, and he realises.
Mordred wants this. He wants Galahad’s lips on his, and he wants the warmth they have. Galahad kisses because he cares, not as a prelude to a something else. And the something else, when it happens, will be because they care about each other, and because it will be fun, and, for Galahad at least, because it means something. There will be no undercurrent of power and debts. No one night only of fun.
Galahad offers Mordred what he’s never had: love.
And Mordred wants it. He’s willing to try, to change everything he is, everything he thought he stood for, for more kisses from Galahad, more caring. Mordred promises himself that he’ll learn to care for Galahad.
It’s not right, and it’s not normal, and it’s not what Galahad deserves, but Mordred starts with the sex because it’s all he knows. In his own way, he cares for Galahad.
But then, he’s running back into school for tissues.
“Mordred, where do you think you’re going?”
It’s Mr Drake, and Mordred curses inwardly, knowing that he’s going to be stopped, knowing that it’s going to make Galahad, perfect attendance record Galahad, late for his lesson.
“It’s my boyfriend, sir, he’s… having a nosebleed, I needed to get some tissues.”
“And who is this boyfriend?”
“Galahad. In the year below.”
Mr Drake frowns, then takes in Mordred’s serious expression and laughs.
“Well, I never. You and Galahad Astolat. You’ve got to be joking.”
Mordred just glares at him.
“He’s far too good for you. He deserves better.”
Mr Drake looks at Mordred like he’s scum, instructs him to show up for detention that night, and Mordred sags.
He loves Galahad. But he’ll never be allowed to. The world expects certain things of Mordred. They won’t allow him to care for Galahad, won’t even give him the room to learn. This just proves it - he tries to do a good thing for Galahad, tries to make him happy, and the world just gets in the way.
It would be better for them both if he just finds a way not to love Galahad. If he lets Galahad go, because yes, he deserves someone with the ability to love properly. Galahad has a hopeless crush on him. It’ll fade after a while, surely. All Mordred has to do is detach himself from the situation. He can explore, and he can have fun, because he may as well, but he can’t care. He can’t ever care.
Only that’s not something that Mordred could ever stop doing.
---
It’s a week until Sean leaves. Mordred isn’t sure how he bears it, but somehow he gets through those long evenings with the two of them cocooned in their happiness, when all Mordred can think is it should have been me. But he waits it out, because he has to get Galahad alone. Has to talk to him.
He follows Galahad up to bed, lying on the guest bed, head to the wall that they share. Mordred whispers a spell, until he can hear Galahad flop down onto the bed as clearly as if he were in the room with him. Galahad can hear every sound he makes, too. Mordred pictures him, lying there on top of the sheets, shirtless perhaps. He’s modest, so he’ll be wearing pyjama bottoms at least. And then Mordred swallows, banishes the image, and speaks.
“Galahad, we need to talk.”
There’s a pause, and then a sigh.
“Mordred.”
He shudders. It wasn’t meant to happen like this. Galahad wasn’t meant to say his name like it was so repellent, he was meant to have something to work on.
But Galahad’s stronger now. He knows how not to give in to Mordred. Even if just the thought of him makes his heart stutter, he can steel himself.
“I think we should try again,” Mordred says.
“I’m with Sean now. No.”
“But do you love him?”
Galahad hesitates for just long enough that Mordred knows he doesn’t.
“He makes me happy, like you never did.”
“I love you,” Mordred confesses, chest constricted, breathing hard.
Galahad laughs. Mordred thinks he can just say I love you and undo everything else he said? Everything he did? The way he never really paid attention, the way he would never hold Galahad like he needed to be held. Galahad knows how a relationship is supposed to work, now. He won’t go back to what he had with Mordred.
“You told me you didn’t. One of them is a lie.”
“I told you I couldn’t. Because I don’t know how to love, Gala. But I want to try.”
Galahad has to screw his eyes up to force himself to ignore Mordred’s voice when he uses his pet name. He almost says yes. But he can’t, because he knows he’ll never get what he wants with Mordred. His heart’s been broken by this man enough.
“It’s not good enough,” he tells Mordred, and pulls the covers up around him, and tries and fails to sleep.
Together
Title: The Get Galahad Project
Author:
weepingwillow9
Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin, the show or the characters. I do own Galahad and Elaine.
Characters: Galahad (OC), Mordred
Pairings: Mordred/Galahad
Warnings: Angst, sex, orgasm denial, blood play, burning, abusive relationship
Spoilers: A few legend-y spoilers, none for the show
Rating: NC-17
Length: 2087
Summary: "No one hurts you but me."
Mordred only turns the television on for the weather. But there he is. Galahad.
He’s just as beautiful as ever. Golden brown, gleaming smile, so genuine and so perfect. He could be a model or an actor or something in his navy shirt and brown suit, but for his camera-shy awkwardness. He locks his eyes onto the interviewer, smiling at her and enthusing about whatever his work is. And then the camera changes, a short video explaining quantum physics to the masses. Mordred makes sure to pay attention. And oh. He’d called Galahad powerless. But he was far from that.
When Galahad’s face comes back on the screen, he smiles straight down the camera lens. Mordred’s lifting his hand before he really knows what he’s doing, making the pretty lips shape his name. But the voice is all wrong, the intonation fucked up, and Mordred lets it go.
---
After that, Galahad is everywhere.
---
He’s spent forever trying to get away from Galahad. Trying to find someone who makes him feel like Galahad did, searching for the ‘o’ of surprise and hurt and pleasure his mouth formed with every cut, pressing deeper in the hope that it will appear. Looking for the blown blue eyes when he leaves bruises, deeper and bluer than any he ever gave Galahad, in the hope that the colour will leach to their irises. Trying to burn Galahad’s golden brown into their skin.
Because Galahad is everything that’s good and right, and that Mordred wants but can never have. Because he was the best, the longest, the closest thing to a relationship that Mordred’s ever had, and Mordred’s a little stuck on him.
---
It all gets a little too much, walking around the corner to a newsstand covered in Galahad, Sexy Scientist Could Save Thousands. Mordred decides to take off to Morgana’s. Elaine hasn’t really welcomed him since he broke up with Galahad, but she won’t send him away. She still sees a hurt and needing little boy. And he needs to talk to Morgana.
Morgana opens the door, lets him in. He takes his things up to the guest room, as always, and goes to look for her. The television’s on, so he tries the living room.
Galahad sits on the sofa, face illuminated by Live at the Apollo. He laughs along with it, face crinkling up a little in delight. Mordred just stares.
Galahad’s head turns, and his face shuts down, to a look of such condensed indifference that Mordred nearly screams of it. He doesn’t know what he expected, but he wanted more than this. Hope would be too much to want, but maybe loathing. Not a cool lack of anything.
Doesn’t he know he’s tormenting Mordred?
---
They ignore each other after that. Go out of their way to never be in the same room at the same time if possible. Eating, Mordred stays in complete silence. Galahad talks to Elaine and Morgana, and Mordred never makes out the words, just listens to the sounds.
In the end, he doesn’t have to seek out Morgana. She works it all out for herself.
You love him, don’t you? she asks, mind to mind, the third strained dinner time.
I- No- I can’t let myself.
It hurts?
Him, too.
I see, Morgana tells him, when clearly she doesn’t. But somehow, it helps.
Back at the table, Morgana claps her hand over her mouth.
“I completely forgot the milk! Could you two boys go out and get some? We’ll need the extra for breakfast.”
Talk to him, Morgana instructs. Mordred has no intention of doing any such thing.
---
The problem is: Mordred loves Galahad.
He can’t place where it began, unlike Galahad. Perhaps it was seeing the tears on Galahad’s face when they first met, and liking it. Not because Galahad was hurting, but because they were real, they were proof that this fairytale child with a Happy Families life actually existed. Every time Mordred hurt him, it made him think of that moment, surrounded in splinters, when he had the power to break everything for one boy, and then put it back together again.
Galahad did things to Mordred. Made him think, if only briefly, that happiness could be real. Happiness made by other people rather than by power, or control.
And, later, even now, Galahad makes Mordred want.
---
They get the milk in silence. But, on the way back.
Hands grab hold of Galahad, pull him into a darkened alley.
“We want the money.”
Mordred watches, helpless, because he could never have planned for this, for Galahad held and threatened. He can’t use his magic. It’s outlawed. If he breaks the Official Secrets Act, it’s all over for his plans of infiltration and assassination and power. But if they kill Galahad, everything’s over for Mordred.
Galahad’s struggling against them, trying to pull free.
“I don’t have any! Just getting milk! Get off me!”
“Liar.”
The first punch falls, into Galahad’s stomach, making him gasp and wheeze and cry out.
Mordred flings a hand out in front of him, knocking down Galahad’s attackers with a wall of force that melts over Galahad and flashes with light when it collides with each hooded man.
Galahad’s panting, unsure on his feet now there’s no use for the adrenaline coursing through his veins.
“Why?” he asks, just quietly. “You risked exposure for me. Why?”
“No one hurts you but me.” To Mordred, it makes perfect sense. Galahad just shakes his head.
They don’t mention the attack when they return.
---
Mordred’s magical outburst needs sleeping off, so he misses breakfast, stumbles down to the kitchen around lunchtime in rumpled hair and pyjama bottoms. Only to find Galahad pressed up against the breakfast bar, having his face kissed off by a dark haired man, slightly taller even than Mordred.
He should have known it would happen. Should have been ready. But he’s not. Far from it.
It’s like severing something, watching Galahad kiss another man. And not just half-heartedly; Galahad’s kissing like his life depends on it, like he’s starving for just one more touch. Mordred takes the breadboard, loudly and pointedly.
But that just makes things worse, because it would appear that Morgana and Elaine are out; when they pull apart, Galahad takes the man’s hand and leads him out of the kitchen.
“Where are you taking me?” he asks in a rich Irish accent. It removes Mordred’s appetite entirely.
“Bed, Sean,” Galahad says.
Mordred screws his eyes shut.
---
And later, when Galahad’s mother and Mordred’s godmother are home, and Mordred’s soaked through from the walk he went on to avoid the enthusiastic sex noises from Galahad’s room (he stormed out when it was just too much in only a thin white t-shirt and jeans) he has to watch the two of them cuddled up on the sofa under a blanket.
Mordred, strong though he is, can’t watch.
He doesn’t see that, whenever he thinks Sean isn’t watching, Galahad looks at Mordred’s soaked and perfectly visible chest as if it’s a lost Leonardo.
---
Sometimes, Mordred thinks they were made for each other.
Sometimes, Mordred thinks they’re some cruel joke.
He loves Galahad. That much he knows to be true. But he had thought, maybe, he could cope without. Because.
Because, when Galahad asks him out, really, it’s the last thing he’s expecting. And he says yes because, well, what does he have to lose.
And then Galahad kisses him, and he realises.
Mordred wants this. He wants Galahad’s lips on his, and he wants the warmth they have. Galahad kisses because he cares, not as a prelude to a something else. And the something else, when it happens, will be because they care about each other, and because it will be fun, and, for Galahad at least, because it means something. There will be no undercurrent of power and debts. No one night only of fun.
Galahad offers Mordred what he’s never had: love.
And Mordred wants it. He’s willing to try, to change everything he is, everything he thought he stood for, for more kisses from Galahad, more caring. Mordred promises himself that he’ll learn to care for Galahad.
It’s not right, and it’s not normal, and it’s not what Galahad deserves, but Mordred starts with the sex because it’s all he knows. In his own way, he cares for Galahad.
But then, he’s running back into school for tissues.
“Mordred, where do you think you’re going?”
It’s Mr Drake, and Mordred curses inwardly, knowing that he’s going to be stopped, knowing that it’s going to make Galahad, perfect attendance record Galahad, late for his lesson.
“It’s my boyfriend, sir, he’s… having a nosebleed, I needed to get some tissues.”
“And who is this boyfriend?”
“Galahad. In the year below.”
Mr Drake frowns, then takes in Mordred’s serious expression and laughs.
“Well, I never. You and Galahad Astolat. You’ve got to be joking.”
Mordred just glares at him.
“He’s far too good for you. He deserves better.”
Mr Drake looks at Mordred like he’s scum, instructs him to show up for detention that night, and Mordred sags.
He loves Galahad. But he’ll never be allowed to. The world expects certain things of Mordred. They won’t allow him to care for Galahad, won’t even give him the room to learn. This just proves it - he tries to do a good thing for Galahad, tries to make him happy, and the world just gets in the way.
It would be better for them both if he just finds a way not to love Galahad. If he lets Galahad go, because yes, he deserves someone with the ability to love properly. Galahad has a hopeless crush on him. It’ll fade after a while, surely. All Mordred has to do is detach himself from the situation. He can explore, and he can have fun, because he may as well, but he can’t care. He can’t ever care.
Only that’s not something that Mordred could ever stop doing.
---
It’s a week until Sean leaves. Mordred isn’t sure how he bears it, but somehow he gets through those long evenings with the two of them cocooned in their happiness, when all Mordred can think is it should have been me. But he waits it out, because he has to get Galahad alone. Has to talk to him.
He follows Galahad up to bed, lying on the guest bed, head to the wall that they share. Mordred whispers a spell, until he can hear Galahad flop down onto the bed as clearly as if he were in the room with him. Galahad can hear every sound he makes, too. Mordred pictures him, lying there on top of the sheets, shirtless perhaps. He’s modest, so he’ll be wearing pyjama bottoms at least. And then Mordred swallows, banishes the image, and speaks.
“Galahad, we need to talk.”
There’s a pause, and then a sigh.
“Mordred.”
He shudders. It wasn’t meant to happen like this. Galahad wasn’t meant to say his name like it was so repellent, he was meant to have something to work on.
But Galahad’s stronger now. He knows how not to give in to Mordred. Even if just the thought of him makes his heart stutter, he can steel himself.
“I think we should try again,” Mordred says.
“I’m with Sean now. No.”
“But do you love him?”
Galahad hesitates for just long enough that Mordred knows he doesn’t.
“He makes me happy, like you never did.”
“I love you,” Mordred confesses, chest constricted, breathing hard.
Galahad laughs. Mordred thinks he can just say I love you and undo everything else he said? Everything he did? The way he never really paid attention, the way he would never hold Galahad like he needed to be held. Galahad knows how a relationship is supposed to work, now. He won’t go back to what he had with Mordred.
“You told me you didn’t. One of them is a lie.”
“I told you I couldn’t. Because I don’t know how to love, Gala. But I want to try.”
Galahad has to screw his eyes up to force himself to ignore Mordred’s voice when he uses his pet name. He almost says yes. But he can’t, because he knows he’ll never get what he wants with Mordred. His heart’s been broken by this man enough.
“It’s not good enough,” he tells Mordred, and pulls the covers up around him, and tries and fails to sleep.
Together