fic: all things rise (to fall)
words: 3414
pairing: arthur/morgana
rating: nc-17
warnings: half-sibling incest, physically violent child abuse
summary: [modern AU] At the end of each fight they’re shaking and furious, hate under their tongue and something else, something more dangerous. Neither ever say they’re sorry.
He’s never known what to say to her. When they first met, when she was a skinny little body with too much rage to fit inside her, she stomped her feet and roared at him and shouted “Do as I say or I’ll eat you up”. Uther and her mother laughed, and Arthur did too, and it wasn’t until years later that he knew she meant it.
At school she attaches her hand to his, a quiet dark-eyed presence at the back of his games. She kicks him in the shins when he tries to drag her in and leaves him howling on the asphalt. He pulls her hair, she bites his hand, their fights are brutal, bloody, the terror of their teachers. He tears apart her favorite shirt, ribbons of pink fabric strewn around their room, and she pushes him out the window and breaks his arm. She cries in the hospital with him, her small fingers intertwined with his, shiny tear tracks winding down her face, i’m sorry i’m sorry i didn’t mean to i’m so sorry as she wipes snot and tears and kisses all over his cheeks.
Then come the years where she starts to smell like cherries and her mother’s perfume. She gets her own room that’s white and blue and has Annie DiFranco playing all the time. She taunts at him at school, and he is spiteful, cruel. Their fights become week long, month long. He calls her a bitch to her face, ‘what a whore’ behind her back, rips apart her magazines. She sets fire to every single one of his CDs, slashes his car’s tires. Her mother cries, Uther threatens military school, slaps them both hard enough that they’re spitting blood. He locks them in their rooms. Arthur is quiet and Morgana screams until she is hoarse.
At the end of each fight they’re shaking and furious, hate under their tongue and something else, something more dangerous. Neither ever say they’re sorry.
She shifts slowly, dangerously, cloaking the vicious little girl Arthur once knew as well as his reflection. She wears too little clothing, pierces her face until it’s more metal than expression, her lips are dark red. She doesn’t fight with him any more, doesn’t even talk to him. School is calm, he is golden, varsity football, straight As, honor roll. The dinner table becomes a war zone and he sits in Morgana’s room when she’s gone for nights on end, when Uther’s mouth gets tighter and tighter and Arthur is tired of smiling and there’s something dark is in his veins. The walls of her room are powder blue and he stares up at the ceiling and thinks about the Jayhawks, and then about the muscles and tendons and bones of a body and the way things come apart, and he bites his tongue until it is bloody and he doesn’t make a sound.
He turns himself into an explosion, into a rocket, up and up and out. Every moment, every day he is so acutely aware of his heart in his chest, of the blood in his veins, of the rhythm of his breath. His grades are perfect, he’s the star of the team, he’s the center of parties, there are too many girls for him to remember their names. He becomes bright and sneering and hates seeing his face in the mirror. He’s the valedictorian, the prom king, and every night he flexes his knuckles and watches the tendons move under his skin and wonders if everyone else knows they’re dead.
He spends as little time at home as possible, out with older girls in his fast car, girls with warm skin and peach shampoo that are soft and yielding and never quite enough. He tries to will it all away, parties and crowds and he’s drunk, so drunk and he’s holding a cheerleader by the waist and suddenly it hits him, everyone is empty bodies but he’s full to the bursting. He stumbles home, wonders when their yellow house, their tiny yellow house with a white picket fence, got so hollow and echoing.
-
She comes back one night, smelling like sweat and musk and man, and he grabs her wrist and holds on tight. She clings to him, wraps her arms around her neck, buries her face in his shoulder and breathes deep, and then Uther is yelling. Whore, he shouts, he won’t have his daughter acting this way, step-daughter Morgana shrieks, she isn’t his. She is, Uther roars, fury like a force of nature in the lines of his neck, she is his blood, his daughter, she is his and she will do as he says.
Morgana’s face goes grey.
“Fuck you.” She says. “Fuck you.”
He backhands her across the face with a crack and Morgana laughs, licking blood from her lip. Arthur pushes between them, shoving Morgana back but she darts in front of him again to spit in Uther’s face. Uther hits her again, and then again, and Arthur tries to pull her away and she moves like a cobra striking, thin hands, a sharp smile, and everything goes still.
Uther’s face drains of fury and he looks down in surprise at the switchblade in his gut.
Morgana is smiling a terrible, twisted smile, tears are running down her face and she’s sobbing and still smiling, and Arthur stumbles back and away.
“Arthur.” She says, and “Arthur.”
Their eyes lock for a moment and Arthur sees the girl who would eat him, the crying child who kissed him, and something animal and hungry and less than human. He wants- he wants to hold her, he wants to beat her senseless, he wants to tear the knife from his father’s stomach and jam it into Uther’s heart, her heart, his own heart. He can’t open his mouth and there are words building on his tongue but they can’t get out and it hurts. Uther makes a noise like a sigh in your sleep and slumps down the wall and Morgana’s boots thump against the linoleum and the screen door rattles behind her and she’s gone.
It’s only then that Arthur’s voice returns and he shouts for his step-mother, for the neighbors, for the police, for anyone, anyone, her.
-
The hospital is just as faded and pale as he remember it, no loud noises, no bright colors, like being in a memory.
His father is limp and grey too, an old piece of cloth, but he’s breathing and Arthur’s stepmother is crying.
Uther looks at him, watery eyes twenty years older in the space of a day, and for the first time Arthur sees pride.
She should have killed him, he thinks.
It takes him two weeks to realize she isn’t coming back.
-
He dreams about Morgana. Her eyes, her bitten nails, her pale hands, that grostesque smile on her face. The door to her room stays closed. Nobody talks about her. The pictures of her disappear from their house, her childhood artwork, her report cards on the fridge. He wonders what happened to her knife.
He learns to become marble, diamond, steel, a statue of a god. He forges himself into things he never wanted to be but he finds that he doesn’t mind now that he’s here. His smiles are wide and glossy and have too many edges and nobody notices.
And, like that, years go by.
-
There’s a girl. She has a warm laugh and freckles on her nose and maybe he’ll marry her. She loves him, and he knows that’s supposed to count for something.
There’s his father, who is an dry shell in a wheelchair, forever sitting by the window. He sends Arthur an email once a month. Arthur never responds.
There’s a leaky sink that keeps him up at night, drip drip drip drip drip drip.
There’s a flat by the campus where he’s majoring in Business, its walls are white and stained and every morning he stares at the ceiling and listens to his alarm and his mind is a perfect blank.
There are a lot of things. None of them count for much.
-
His father is dead. He feels an opaque sort of grief, quiet and dull like a toothache. He wishes he was more sorry, or less.
His step-mother flies to Spain for the next three months, and he doubts he’ll see her again. Arthur is left with the house, the great big small yellow house with a picket fence that is breaking down and a garden full of weeds.
His girlfriend calls. He gives monosyllable answers. He’s good. The house is good. Everything is good, good, good. He’ll be home soon.
“I love y-“ She says, and he hangs up before she can finish.
He spends the day drinking diet soda and lemonade and brandy and watching reality TV and Morgana’s old white door, a string of bells around the handle.
He takes a shower, rests his head against the glass door, remembers being in this shower as a kid spluttering in the stream, as a teenager jacking off and stumbling through puberty. He thinks about all the people that have been in this house, in this place he stands, all these ghosts. He goes to linger in his old room, looks down out the window he once fell (was pushed) from. It doesn’t look like such a long fall now.
It’s the time of night when only infomercials are on. Morgana’s door stares at him, a crack ajar. The doorknob is warm beneath his hand and the sound of bells ripple through the silence as he pushes it open.
The room smells like she used to, hand lotion and lilac and cigarettes. It’s dark, only the moonlight illuminating a sliver by the window where he can see the maple tree outside, the maple tree with their clubhouse rotting in it. He kicks the door shut behind him, and the bells clash, and he sits on the bed and leans his head back to look at the watermarked ceiling, the tattered Greenday posters.
“I thought you’d never come back.” Morgana says, and he starts, falls off the bed and hits his head. He’s on the floor staring up at her in a daze and she’s standing there in the moonlight and she’s really there, torn-up jeans and a Ramones T-shirt and green glittering eyes.
He opens his mouth and he can’t find a single thing to say.
“Good to see you too.” She says, half-grinning and suddenly he knows what to say, he knows everything to say, he knows too much to say.
“Are you back here because he’s dead?” He spits, and her eyes tighten.
“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” She says, and this whole thing is just a dream, he’s 16 again, he wants to hurt her.
“You...” He says, and that’s it, it’s been four years and there’s nothing but her. Morgana is looking out the window.
“Remember when we built that treehouse?” She says.
“You dropped the hammer on my toe.” Arthur says.
“I pushed you out of it, and you broke your arm, remember?”
“No.” He says, resentful. “That was the window in my room.”
“I know.” She says, turning away so that her face is shrouded in shadow. “I just wanted to see if you remembered.”
“Well I do.” He says.
She moves to sit down next to him on the floor, and he can’t tell if she smells the same or if it’s just the room.
“Me, too.” She says, and he can only see her profile illuminated by moonlight. “All of it.”
“He couldn’t walk.” Arthur says after a moment. “After what you did, he couldn’t walk. He never walked again.”
“Yeah.” Morgana says. “I know.”
She looks at him sideways in the gloom.
“I missed you.” He says finally.
She doesn’t say anything and abruptly fury fills him. He wants to break her open, crack her ribs and watch her bleed, and he watches himself lunge forward with a sick kind of fascination and thinks this is it, he’s really going to do it, he’s really going to hurt her. He kisses her.
She’s makes a funny startled noise, a little oomf of breath, and there’s a moment of hesitation. Chapped lips against chapped lips, pressed hard enough to bruise, like hitting with your mouth. Then her mouth opens under his and she licks and sucks and his lips part and their tongues meet, soft wet slick slide.
He sucks at her tongue, her lower lip, her jaw, biting at her jugular and her nails dig into the back of his neck and hurt as she lets out a breathy gasp. He tries not to think, refuses to think, reduces his world down to the sensation of his saliva on her neck, slippery and smooth, blood rushing hot to her skin as he scrapes her neck with his teeth, and again, and again. She’s breathing short, shallow pants and one hand snakes up into his hair to tug his head lower to the base of her neck, her collarbones. His tongue darts into the hollow in between her clavicles where her skin tastes sweet and powdery and she shudders. He does it again just to feel her shake. He’ll take her apart, he thinks, he’ll disassemble her the way she’s disassembled him and put them both back together better so that they fit right this time. His hands, gripping her waist, slip under the fabric and he spreads his fingers across the smooth skin of her sides, feeling goosebumps rise. She pulls back and strips off her shirt and bra in one movement, then leans forward and tugs his polo over his head, tracing the muscles of his abdomen with her fingertips. He shivers and she drags his mouth back to hers, pressing her tongue against the roof of his mouth, biting at his lips until he is the one gasping.
His hands cup her breasts gently, then harder as she pushes forward, digging his fingers in until he knows he’s hurting her. He lowers his head to lick at one of them, flicking his tongue across her nipple, drawing his teeth across it. He hopes she bruises, that she’ll look at her body for days to come and know he’s been there. Her back arches and her hand darts down between them to the bulge in his jeans, her fingers mapping out the shape of his erection, cupping and squeezing it through the denim. Her hand is light and teasing and he wants everything he shouldn’t, he wants all of her all at once as a flood, no more air, he wants to drown in her. She flicks open the top button of his jeans and slides her hand down his stomach, past the thick wiry hair to thumb at the tip of his cock. His hips jump forward into her hand and he bites back a curse, like their parents are still a bedroom away, like anybody cares any more. He licks at her neck, sucks her earlobe into his mouth as she slides the zip down with her other hand and tugs his pants and boxers down until his cock hangs free, pressing swollen and pink up against his belly. She takes it in her hand and strokes it once, twice, eliciting a low guttural sound from Arthur before he pushes her off and down onto her back on the carpet.
He mouths at her breasts again, his hands stroking at her sides and then lower, under the waistband of her pants. His hands snake down to undo her jeans and tug them down and off, followed by her underwear, and then it’s just her, warm and wet in his hand. Her hips push down as he draws his fingers along her, sticky and wet. She’s tugging at his hair again, trying to push his head downward and he goes but slowly, licking and biting his way down, talking his time to make a mark where her leg meets her hip. He’s been here, she won’t forgot this. She keens and tugs and whines until finally, finally he puts his mouth on her, his tongue pressed flat against her. She moans then, a wispy sound in the silent night air, and a spike of arousal shoots down to Arthur’s already straining cock. He reaches down and tugs at himself as he darts his tongue up to her clit, then down to her opening, probing gently. She sobs, and he pushes his tongue into her, feels her tighten and tremble around him.
“Oh,” she says, and “oh.”
He’s close, far too close, and he takes his hand off himself reluctantly to mouth his way back up her body. Her cheeks are flushed with two bright spots of red and her pupils are blown wide and she looks dangerous, like she could shatter and cut him with the pieces. She grabs his jaw and kisses him hard enough to split his lip, licking smears of her own liquid from his chin. His hips are jerking forward helplessly, and his fingers slide into her as she shudders and twists on his hand. She rolls them over so that Arthur is pressed up against the side of the bed, awkwardly curved in on himself. She straddles him and grinds down, cunt to cock, sticky moisture along both their thighs, and his hands dig into her ass and his back arches. She bites at his neck and grips his cock a little too tightly as she guides him into her agonizingly slowly, until he’s bucking his hips and cursing as she sinks down onto him with little rolls of her hips.
And then he’s in her, and her hips settle onto his, her mouth stretched open and her eyes shut, her brow furrowed. She’s finally got all of him, she’s eaten him up until there’s nothing left, nothing but their bodies and the chilly night air and her blue wallpaper. She grinds down slowly but he picks up the pace almost instantly and he thrusts up into her fast, as hard as he can, drawing stuttery hiccups from her that quickly dissolve into whimpers.
“I-“ She gasps. “I’m-“
“Yeah?” He says, and he moves one hand to rub his thumb across her clit, gently, steadily, and she shudders and shakes and keens, clenching tightly around him as her hips jerk down staccato and she brokenly moans. She’s breathless and shaking but he keeps moving, pushing deeper into her as her head rolls back and she says “Fuck, fuck”, collapsing forward onto him bonelessly even as her moans turn into sobs. He’s gasping for air, and his whole body is hot, too hot and the heat pools within him and spirals down to his cock as his thighs tighten and tremble, there are stars at the corners of his vision and the world spins around him.
They lie there for a moment, collapsed onto each other, Arthur’s back cramping with the weird angle he’s lying at. Morgana’s breasts are pressed up against his chest and her curls, damp with sweat, tickle at his neck. Slowly she slides back off of him, exhaling shakily.
“I missed you too.” She says. She kisses him slowly, her mouth and eyes closed, her warm breath against his lips.
He’s bone-tired and still a little drunk, and he barely has the energy to drag her up onto the bed with him. Her head rests on his chest, her dark hair pooling around them. He wants to laugh and he wants to be sick so he does neither. There are so many thoughts in his head that there’s nothing at all, just a quiet roar of white noise.
“I’m not sorry.” She says, her voice humming against his sternum. “What I did to him, I’m not sorry.”
“I know.” Arthur says, and tangles his fingers through her curls, his nails digging into her scalp and then smoothing her hair down.
He doesn’t remember falling asleep but he does remember waking up in the early morning, watching the pink dawn light cast pastel shadows over her sleeping body. She shifts and mumbles in her sleep, curling into him and he closes his eyes again.
When he wakes up the second time, the house is empty. She is gone, she could have never even been there.
Somehow, he had been expecting that.