Of Esssays and Destiny Part 1
Title: Of Esssays and Destiny
Author:rotrude
Recipient: dracosoftie
Pairing(s)/Character(s) Merlin/Arthur
Warnings slight age difference 18/19 and 25. Rimming.
Spoilers: Series 1, 2 and 3
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 21,100
Summary: When Arthur’s English Literature essay tanks, thus endangering his further stay at Oriel College, Oxford, he’s given an option. D. Phil student Merlin Emrys is to tutor him. What a reluctant Arthur hasn’t reckoned with is his budding attraction to his new tutor.
Author's Note: I followed detailed prompt number 2: Modern AU, Gaius is a professor, Merlin is his teaching assistant, and Arthur is falling behind on his coursework and must take tutoring from Merlin. Thanks to the lovely archaeologist_d and bm1893 for the beta work.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction - none of this ever happened. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made from this work. Please observe your local laws with regards to the age-limit and content of this work.
It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.
How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch who with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful.
Shelley, M., Frankenstein
The scientist who analyses, manipulates, and attempts to control nature unconsciously engages in a form of oppressive sexual politics. Construing nature as the female Other, he attempts to make nature serve his own ends, to gratify his own desires for power, wealth, and reputation....
...Frankenstein has sought power over the female. He has “pursued nature to her hiding places” (49) in an attempt not only to penetrate nature and show how her womb actually works but to steal an appropriate that womb.
Mellor, A. K., Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters, Routledge, London, 1989, p 112
Arthur's five-page essay was handed back to him full of notes. There were no red - or green for that matter - marks on it, just a long series of bullet points at the bottom of the last page and a large number of asterisks leading the eye to a series of side notes penned by the careful hand of Professor Gaius Bowles, Emeritus Fellow and Arthur's college tutor. Arthur guessed that his work wasn't satisfying or so the notes said. Not well researched. Too nebulous. Where's the bibliography?
A beam of sunlight played upon the printed page, mocking Arthur. He swallowed against the dryness he felt in his throat.
“Yes, Mr Pendragon?”
“I think there may be a problem with my essay...”
Professor Bowles raised an ominous eyebrow and took off his reading glasses. “All your tutorial coursework is sub-par, Mr Pendragon,” he said, spelling Arthur's doom. “It goes without saying that that essay - the subject of which you picked yourself - shall be rewritten in an unhurried, thoughtful fashion, showing that you have a decent grasp of the critical works that concern your subject area, as well as an ability to elaborate on a point.”
“But I discussed Burke!”
“You quoted,” Professor Bowles said. “You copy-pasted a quote and left it there. Little to no expansion.” He sighed, the chiding tone evaporating into one of put-upon patience. “Mr Pendragon, you're not the first student in the history of students to think that reading English Literature would be easy. It's just like reading a novel on your day off, isn't it?” He sank back in his plushy chair, shaking his head, disappointed.
“There were only five places available at Oriel this year,” the professor pointed out, making Arthur sweat. “And given the level of your participation and commitment, I feel we have made a mistake in admitting you.”
“I scored a 57 at the Elats!” Arthur protested. He may not have written the best essay ever, but he was proud of that result.
“Yes and the tutors decided to invite you for an interview on the basis of that,” Gaius said, not reprovingly “And you did well during your December interview. Yet the Elats don't work on the basis of theoretical application. They require you to analyse a text outside of context. Now you must learn to understand literary theory. It's expected.” Gaius shifted in his chair. “This essay is important, young man,” he added. “It fell sadly flat. During the first year's Moderation Examinations, the essays for the four term papers you have studied are going to be assessed. You must pass all of them to be admitted to the second year.”
Arthur passed a trembling hand through his hair. “I know that.”
“Very well,” Gaius said, rising and walking to the window. “I have a suggestion.”
Arthur was all ears.
“As I said, you'll rewrite your essay.”
Arthur nodded. He really couldn't face the prospect of failing, of hearing his father's voice on the phone, full of reproach, flinging accusations. Not after he'd chosen English bloody Literature over Economics.
“Unfortunately, I'm leaving for a conference in Germany and I don't feel like handing you to another tutor right now.” Gaius lifted a tiny watering can and started watering one of his office plants, a little orchid that was drooping sadly. “And yet yours is an emergency.”
Arthur's heart sank. So he was all alone on this one.
“But there's a college lecturer,” Gaius began again, this time clipping a few overeager leaves off a carefully sheltered bonsai. “Who, I’m certain, will be sure to help you. Merlin is a graduate student who's finishing his D. Phil. His lectureship is a temporary position but helping you will add to his teaching curriculum. He'll be eager to assist you and talk about your theoretical approach problems. If you get along, he might even help you for the whole term.”
Suddenly Arthur didn't feel like being handed over to this guy. He had to be young. Would he be up to really helping Arthur? Showing respect to Gaius was easy. He was an old man, with a long and honoured career under his belt, but a graduate student wasn't what he'd been looking for.
“I could pull a few all-nighters and e-mail you a new version of my essay,” Arthur suggested.
Gaius put the clippers down and again favoured Arthur with an eyebrow raise. It seemed to be his dominant expression. “Your problem, Arthur,” Gaius said, using Arthur's given name for the first time, “is your lack of method. Even if you were to re-do the work, it'd show the same fundamental fallacies. You need to find a method that can always be valid, no matter the topic of choice. And Merlin is excellent at that.”
Arthur hummed under his breath, attempting to wriggle out of it. “I think...”
Professor Bowles evidently liked his plan better, for he said, “If you were in a position to do as you wish, I'd let you, Mr Pendragon. But you aren't. Think about the Moderation Examination. Think about the timed examinations, too.”
And that was that. Arthur had produced a shoddy essay, his writing portfolio wasn't faring much better, and now he'd have to face the consequences. “Alright,” he said, shoulders slumping, still believing he could make it alone without anyone's interference.
“Very well,” Professor Bowles said, returning to his desk. He searched the contents of his drawers and handed Arthur a slip of old-fashioned paper upon which an e-mail address was scrawled. “That's Merlin's address. Contact him as soon as you can and arrange a few study sessions with him.”
Arthur gulped, not looking forward to this in the least. He had his pride, had never needed any kind of help with any subject. Not even in third form. To begin now made him feel demoralised and angry at himself and at this Merlin person who evidently knew what he himself should. “I'll do as you say,” Arthur said, coming to grips with the knowledge that it was either that or sacrificing his examinations.
“Good,” Professor Bowles said. “See that you do. And now if you'll excuse me,” he added, mind already elsewhere, “I have a conference contribution to plan.”
Arthur rose, picking up his books and aborted essay with trembling hands. He swiftly crammed them into a slightly frayed rucksack and left Professor Bowles' office, wishing the old man, who was already nose-deep into his notes, a good day.
****
The provost's cultured voice echoed across the tall, imposing hammer-beam roof, signalling an end to the formal hall dinner. Edward II, his portrait hanging behind the high table, frowned down at the proceedings. The wooden panelling made the whole roomful look sombre and high-brow; it also made Arthur feel small and inconsequential.
Some of the tutors sitting at the high table were nodding; a few others were murmuring something to their neighbours. They could now relax, formal being over.
Arthur recognised the tutorial fellow, Doctor Sigan, amongst them. He was a member of OUDS and had a passion for Greek Drama. Irreverently, he was whispering something in Doctor Lake's ear even though he should have waited for the room to clear. The poor woman didn't look too thrilled.
Neither did Arthur. He had been too late for informal hall, having being kept by Professor Bowles for longer than he'd anticipated. He wasn't in the mood to linger and socialise. However, being a fee paying student who'd received in-college accommodation, he was expected to eat in Hall sometimes and since formal was all that he'd left - that or a heated micro-waved dinner from the floor kitchen -- he'd decided to throw on a jacket, wear his gown and participate. He'd played with his food for most of the meal anyway.
Now, finally, it was over.
Leon leant over and said, “Fancy a re-match?”
Arthur gulped down the last of his wine and said, “I'm really not in the mood for table tennis.” The other students and faculty members around him dispersed. Arthur pushed back his chair and rose, making for the door, Leon at his heels.
“Oh, come on, Arthur,” Leon said. “You owe me. Besides what's with the brooding?”
Arthur wasn't into the sharing and caring aspect of friendship. What was more, he was a little more than ashamed of his failure. So he equivocated, “Got an e-mail to write.” To a possibly geeky graduate, who's going to bore me to death as he establishes his own intellectual superiority, an internal voice supplied spitefully.
Leon leered. “A girl?” he asked.
Someone Arthur recognised as Owain overheard Leon's question; now that they were out of the hall and had stepped into the front quad, the idiot shouted, “Arthur's got a new bird.”
Arthur put his hands in his pockets and shouted back, “And you're so interested in my purported sex life because of the sad lack thereof in your own.”
Someone behind them cackled.
Arthur ignored them in favour of hurrying back to his room, Leon still following him.
“Sex life...” he repeated, trying to sound all knowing.
Arthur rushed up the stairs and walked briskly to his room, intending to shut the door on Leon's nose. Determined, Leon squeezed through it and perched on his bed instead.
Heaving a sigh, Arthur picked up his his laptop from the armchair he'd left it on and booted it, Determined to squeeze the truth out of him, Leon said, “You know you can tell me.”
As his laptop whirred to life, Arthur started pacing. “It's nothing like that.”
“You do look nervous,” Leon pointed out. “How did the meeting with Bowles go?”
“Not particularly well,” he was forced to admit. Either that or he outright lied. And he didn't like to lie. He’d always found the idea distasteful. “I'll have to do more work on my essay.”
“Wow,” Leon said. “I knew the old man was very punctilious but I thought...”
“It's the gender studies thing,” Arthur defended. “I'm a little crap at it.”
Leon made a little noise. “I know someone who is good at it.”
Arthur didn't want any more help. Soph’s Gender Studies idea had flopped and he already had to deal with Professor Bowles' pet. “No, thank you,” he said curtly, fake-yawning. He stripped off his gown and kicked off his shoes, thus suggesting Leon leave.
Leon was an eager man, but he wasn't dense. He recognised the hint for what it was. “I'm sorry about the Bowles thing.” Then he wished Arthur a very good night.
Gloomy, Arthur threw himself on the bed and accessed Outlook, racking his brain for what to write. In the end he settled for a simple message:
From: apendragon@oriel.ox.ac.uk
To: emrys@hotmail.co.uk
subject: Private Tutoring
Dear Mr Emrys,
Professor Bowles suggested I consult you about an essay of mine.
Here Arthur had to stop writing. It felt too much like begging and he never had before. Yet he couldn't be impolite or the man would either not reply or report his behaviour to the prof. Either way was bad.
However, to take a breather, he marched into the en suite, cleaned his teeth and washed his face to buy some time. When he felt braced for the task in hand, he padded back into his bedroom and took up the laptop - a gift from father - again and settled it on his stomach.
He completed his message:
Professor Bowles has pointed out that I need some help with my theoretical approach. He suggested your name. Could I ask for an appointment to discuss my difficulties? I have lectures on Tuesdays and Fridays, and a tutorial that is often shifted around the week, but otherwise am free. I'm sure a meeting would help set me on the right track.
Best Regards,
Arthur Pendragon.
Fingers sweaty, Arthur pressed the send button and settled down to surf the net. It being eight o'clock, he was sure he wouldn't get an answer before the following afternoon. Instead, thirty minutes later there was a loud electronic ping that told him he had received a new message. Arthur opened it apprehensively, strangely hoping this Emrys person would turn him down so he could tell Prof. Bowles that he'd honestly done his best but had had to complete the assigned task alone.
This was what he got instead:
From: emrys@hotmail.co.uk
To: apenndragon@oriel.ox.ac.uk
re: Private Tutoring
Dear Arthur,
I'd be pleased to help you in any way I can. I've already spoken to Gaius about you and I'm looking forward to meeting you in person.
I thought about giving you a library appointment, but I fear the junior library wouldn't be the best of places at all. We need to discuss, read aloud and debate and the undergrads would have our hides. I have access to the senior library but that's worse. Anyway, why don't you meet me tomorrow afternoon at the MCR at around 4ish? You can be my guest even if you're a fresher. If it doesn't clash with your schedule, naturally.
Yours truly,
Merlin Emrys
Arthur gaped. The man had no idea there was such a thing as formality, had he? And he referred to old Bowles as Gaius. Arthur had a sinking feeling this Merlin person was a madman.
Oriel people tried to play it as though they weren't the privileged intelligentsia that ruled and would rule the country, but the old rites, regulations, and accepted codes of behaviour gave out a different message. For the first time in four months, Arthur was reading an informal message relating to schoolwork. It sounded very odd.
Well, he didn't want to have to deal with the guy, but he couldn't see how he could say no now that the man had shown how keen he was to help. And debate, really?
From: apendragon@oriel.ox.ac.uk
To: emrys@hotmail.co.uk
re: re: Private Tutoring
I'll be there.
****
The Middle Common Room was on the first floor of Staircase 35, Arthur had known that since they gave him a tour of the college at the beginning of term.
Of course, he'd never been inside because he knew no grads, but he'd heard they had a fully functioning bar that was the envy of a few of the other colleges.
A drink would do right about now.
He was met outside by a lanky bloke who was sporting a frayed blue jumper, jeans that had truly seen better days (and looked as though they were about to fall off his hips if it weren't for this cheap belt) and a pair of radar ears no one would ever forget. All in all he seemed to be a kid, hardly older than Arthur. More, he was an attractive bloke, unfortunate ears notwithstanding. Nature had gifted him with compelling blue eyes and a very nice body. Those tapering hips were quite alluring.
Radar Ears approached Arthur with a smile, hand extended, saying, “I knew it was you when I saw the Frankenstein copy. I’m Merlin Emrys.”
Introductions over, he tugged Arthur into the Common Room.
“So you know the subject of my essay,” Arthur said while Emrys gestured toward a table near the window which granted them a view of Oriel Square.
Emrys chuckled gently. “Gaius forwarded it to me,” he said, leaving abruptly and dashing for the coffee machine. It took a few minutes but he came back, precariously balancing two huge Styrofoam cups which he placed on the table. He continued where he'd left off, as if no time had passed. “I was reading it when you mailed me.”
Arthur tensed, hand clutching the spine of his paperback Frankenstein copy. “What did you think of it?”
Before Merlin could answer, a dark-haired man came jogging toward them. He had a light beard, dark eyes, and an athletic physique. He clapped Merlin on the shoulder in passing and shouted, “Coming to dessert next Sunday?”
Emrys replied, “Thesis, Gwaine, thesis.”
“You can't bury yourself in your dissertation,” the Gwaine person practically yelled back as he walked backwards, directing his steps to what Arthur judged to be the TV room.
“I'll give it a try,” Emrys grinned as Gwaine winked.
Arthur wrote them down as flirt and clown and bristled as a consequence.
“If you don't come, you'll be sorely missed,” Gwaine called out before disappearing.
Emrys passed a hand through his hair and said, “That was Gwaine, the MCR bar manager. You should see him on a Friday night.”
Arthur kept his mouth shut and barely held back a retort.
Emrys had the good grace to blush and realise he was off topic. “Your essay, right,” he began again as if that wasn't the reason why Arthur had met him in the first place. “Why did you choose English? Gaius told me you had an impressive school record with A2 Maths and Business Studies as well as an eclectic AS French, History and A2 English. So why English lit?”
“I happen to like it,” Arthur said briskly.
“But what pushed you to read English instead of History or trying for the LSE?”
“I thought I had a good chance of getting into Oriel and took it.”
Emrys snorted into his coffee, something that looked like a weird macchiato concoction. He had foam on the tip of his nose when he said, “And this has nothing to do with the fact that your father is a famous MP and this is your way of defying expectations?”
Arthur went rigid Arthur went rigid at the implied criticism but if father had taught him anything, it was how to undermine the opposition. “You have coffee on your nose and are slobbering all over the place,” he pointed out, which was an exaggeration, but there you have it.
Emrys' expression changed, going from good humour to embarrassed hurt. However, he recovered quickly, nodding to himself. “I just think you should do things, make a choice like that, because of passion. You can,” he said, looking pensive and earnest, “you can analyse structure till you have the bare bones of sub-functions, you can Todorov me any text, but to be willing to do that, you need to have passion. You need to live and breathe your book.”
Emrys eyed him, trying to see if his message had sunk in. Arthur didn't know what to say to that.
“I just need to produce an okay essay.” So, yes, perhaps his school ethics weren’t the best, but he meant to live a little while he was at Uni.
Merlin shook his head. “I could write you one. But what would that do?” Merlin asked. “Either you love what you're doing or you'll be struggling till graduation. If you make it. I say you need a bit of passion.” Emrys shot him a smile. “So why did you go the gender studies way? You don't look like someone who'd be very interested in men stealing nature's womb.” A raised eyebrow that reminded Arthur of old Bowles stopped him from replying.
“I think,” Merlin said, “that we need to find your passion. Get you excited about the...”
Arthur stifled a laugh. “You make it sound sexual.” The thought wasn’t unpleasant. Emrys had some weird sex appeal and hearing him mention passion was doing something to Arthur.
Merlin looked uncertain about his choice of words for the first time. He scratched his forehead lightly, mouth open in surprise, but then his lips took an upward turn and he replied, “I make it sound as if it's about love.”
He would.
“So let's find you a topic you love.”
“Rebellion,” Arthur said, defying. It was meant to be a joke.
“These are the spells by which to reassume an empire o'er the disentangled doom; to suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; to forgive wrongs darker than death or night; to defy power, which seems omnipotent; to love, and bear; to hope till hope creates from its own wreck the thing it contemplates,” Merlin intoned with gusto.
“Prometheus Unbound,” Arthur answered quickly.
Merlin beamed. “Yes.”
“It was easy,” Arthur said, not wanting to see the strange pride in Merlin Emrys' eyes. Something that wasn't deserved.
“Perhaps.”
“Everybody has done Shelley before though,” Arthur murmured.
“The Necessity,” Merlin said.
“Of Atheism?"
Merlin nodded. “You seem to be into this defying authority thing.”
“I'll...”
Merlin shot upright and walked up to another table, once again giving no previous warning. He approached the three people seated there, smiled a vibrant smile and was greeted as if he was a lost dear friend not seen for a very long while. “Note-paper, note-paper,” he was saying. A slim and pretty dark-haired girl grinned at him out of puffed cheeks and handed him an entire pad.
“Thanks, Frey,” Emrys said, bounding back to their own table. The next instant he was back in his chair, scribbling furiously. When he was done, he passed a ripped page to Arthur, who saw he'd been given a bibliography.
“You're the one who'll have to come up with the outline,” Emrys said, “but that's a decent starting point. On the basis of that you can start looking for other texts you may want.”
Arthur could only move his head up and down. This was a good idea, more suited to him than the one Sophie had thought up for him and he'd presented to Professor Bowles. Plus he didn't want to say 'no' to Emrys. Merlin had found a topic that Arthur could delve in with pleasure and he was so easy-going and willing to lend a hand that Arthur couldn't say he wouldn't. He'd have to re-write the essay anyway and why not? Besides he could look forward to seeing Merlin again.
“Okay.”
“That's brilliant,” Emrys said, draining the last of his gone-cold macchiato. “I'll see you in a few days then.”
“All right,” Arthur said, turning the piece of paper Merlin had given him in his hands. “I'll work on it,” he promised, even though he'd entered this room unwilling to do just that. What a pair of blue eyes could do.
He folded the note in two and stuck it between two pages of his book.
“I look forward to seeing it, Arthur.”
“That's...”Arthur fished for words. “Encouraging, Mr...”
“Merlin,” Emrys said. “You can call me Merlin. Anything else would make me feel ancient and that's plainly wrong.” His cheeks dimpled and his eyes lit up.
Arthur floundered and said, “Okay... Okay then, see you in a few days... Merlin.”
****
There Is No God
This negation must be understood solely to affect a creative Deity. The hypothesis of a pervading Spirit co-eternal with the universe remains unshaken. A close examination of the validity of the proofs adduced to support any proposition is the only secure way of attaining truth, on the advantages of which it is unnecessary to descant: our knowledge of the existence, of a Deity is a subject of such importance that it cannot be too minutely investigated; in consequence of this conviction we proceed briefly and impartially to examine the proofs which have been adduced. It is necessary first to consider the nature of belief.
Shelley, P.B., The Necessity of Atheism, 1813
Leon pushed the door open and startled Arthur. As a result, the printed pages of the e-text he'd downloaded fluttered everywhere.
“Sorry,” Leon said. “I popped in to ask you if you wanted to come to the cinema with us?”
Arthur trained his eyes on his friend, then shook himself and knelt down to pick up the scattered pages. “Sorry,” he said. “I'm working on something.”
Leon squatted down and helped Arthur retrieve the last few wayward sheets. “Is this an assignment?”
“No, it's just an idea...” Arthur replied, getting back to his feet. Leon did the same, handing Arthur the missing A4 sheets. He moved to sit at Arthur's desk, turning back and forth in the swivel chair. “You sure?” he said, pushing. “We're going to The View. You can't stay holed up in here because old Bowles said he didn't much like your essay.”
“It's not as if I'm a recluse,” Arthur observed, putting the pages back in order. He'd downloaded both the 1811 and 1813 versions, as well as some critical essays he'd found on a few choice educational websites. He'd better staple the bunch.
“No,” Leon agreed, snorting when he thought about it. “You're not. But, come on, both Soph and Elena fancy you. It's clear as day and I have a good chance with Forridel from Biochem.”
Leon made puppy eyes at him. Arthur threw a look at the Shelley, a look at Leon, weighed the consequences of not working on his outline tonight, and decided. He could study tomorrow. He’d always got excellent marks back in secondary school without putting in too much effort. He was sure he could replicate his winning recipe in uni.
He got to his feet, grabbed his jacket and followed Leon out.
They met the girls and Geraint outside The View. They already had student VIP tickets bought off the net, so Arthur had no choice but to follow them inside, not able to complain about the film they'd selected in advance.
The cinema was crowded, so they had to stumble on in the dark to find their seats, balancing their pop-corn buckets, the buttery smell all-pervasive.
Leon, who was the tallest among them, chose the aisle seat, so he could stretch at least one leg out. Pop-corn bucket trapped between his knees, he put a hesitant arm round Forridel and she snuggled up to him.
Seeing this, Soph attached herself to Arthur, sticking to his side, leaving Elena stranded.
Elena, round eyes a-goggle, pulled a little disappointed face, as if recognising she wasn't competition for Sophie.
Arthur resented Soph for that. Elena was just one goofy, funny girl. She would be very pretty, if she wasn't so awkward, if she didn't trip up, or say the wrong thing at the wrong time, or startle people by way of headlong hugs.
Sophie was like a runway model, self-assured and alluring, a little mysterious, very dead set on getting what she wanted. And tonight it seemed to be him.
On any other night, Arthur would have let her play her game, snog him in the dark, but he felt bad for Elena, who'd been excluded as if she was the odd one out.
At one point Sophie turned her head as if to whisper something about the film to him, and when Arthur leant in, she kissed his lips. Arthur pressed back, but didn't deepen it and let it fall flat. He didn't like games.
Elena hunched in on herself, her chin sinking slowly till it touched the zip-up neck of her woollen jumper.
When Soph clamped her hand around his arm as the next violent scene came around, Arthur gently freed himself. He offered his popcorn to Elena, who smiled in the darkness, gorged herself, coughed, and spat pop-corn all over.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
Someone sitting behind them told them off. “Shut it!”
They sat in the cinema café after the show, drinking beer round an oval table, perched on stainless steel stools. “The film was horrible,” Soph declared.
“I didn't much care for it either,” Leon agreed, swilling beer directly from the bottle. “Sorry I prised you from your studies for this, mate,” he told Arthur.
“What studies?” asked Elena.
Arthur popped nuts into his mouth, chewing long and well, making them crunch. “My essay tanked,” Arthur said.
“The Shelley one,” Soph snorted. “I got the idea from a library book. It can't have done that.”
“Well,” Arthur answered, not as nicely as he could have. “It did.” He didn't want to think about the implications of that. That if it had, it was because he'd done very poorly.
“I'm so sorry,” Elena mewled, putting her chin on his shoulder. “I could help.”
Arthur didn't want to lead her on. She liked him and was sensitive. Study sessions would be wrong. She'd just get the wrong impression. “I've got help,” Arthur reassured her.
Soph narrowed her eyes, and asked, “Who from?”
Arthur saw he had no choice but to reply. Even Geraint and Leon seemed mildly interested. “A D.phil student is helping me out.”
“Who's she?” Sophia asked, presuming that people reading English had to be mostly girls.
“Merlin Emrys,” Arthur admitted.
Sophie didn't know him; it was clear when her brow furrowed and she pouted.
“I know him,” Elena butted in enthusiastically. Better and better. Arthur didn't want to talk about this with his friends.
Leon seemed surprised, but Elena hadn't noticed. She was barrelling on, unperturbed. “That is... He's always with the JMH rep, the one whose father taught Norse literature?”
Geraint seemed to remember her. “Sure,” he broke in. “Freya. Very pretty girl. Very shy too. Never got her to talk.”
“Isn't she a tad old for you?” Leon nudged Geraint.
“No! What? She's 25 tops,” Geraint said.
Soph said dreamily, “Isn't she a friend of that gorgeous MCR barista?”
Forridel chimed in, “The one who's slept with half of Oxford, a professor included?”
“Yeah,” Soph said lasciviously, dragging out the vowels. “Tall, dark, handsome and easy,” she commented, her defiant eyes suddenly on Arthur. “The perfect man.”
Arthur attacked the cashews. Then as if he wasn't trying to make a point, he said, “Gwaine? I don't think he'd do a fresher.” For some reason, he was feeling spiteful toward both Soph and Gwaine tonight, which was weird because he'd barely caught a glimpse of the latter.
“I suppose he's a bit mysterious and not...“ Elena blubbered, “you know, approachable by mere mortals.”
“Merlin's his friend,” Arthur told her with an eye to consoling her. Merlin Emrys answered to the definition of gauche. And the MCR bar manager seemed to be a friend of his. She probably stood a chance.
“Then he's doing him,” Geraint said crassly.
When Forridel glared at him, he professed his innocence, saying, “I've heard of the bloke, sorry. And apparently he just shags everything that moves. He doesn't do friends. He does friends with benefits.”
For some reason the inane babble irritated Arthur. He drank the last of his beer, taking a long pull, and hopped off the stool. “Why don't we call it a night, uh?”
Soph objected, Forridel agreed and Elena said she wanted a lift to St Mary's hall.
It was one o' clock when Arthur made it back to his room and propelled himself onto the bed, belly down, face buried in the pillow. He might have fallen asleep then and there; instead, he picked up his printed version of the Necessity and started underlining the important passages.
****
From the brief sketch in the previous section it should be clear that Shelley's claim to be considered a pioneer atheist is unassailable. But, in fact, the claim has been assailed by nearly all Shelley scholars. For various reasons they resist the conclusion that Shelley was an atheist, a denier or disbeliever in God's existence.
Berman, D., A History of Atheism in Britain: from Hobbes to Russell, Routledge, London, 1990, p 136
Arthur underlined the last few lines in blue highlighter and put the book down. He'd ended up by buying the text since studying at the library actually entailed spending hours cooped up in there.
He had the money for anything he wanted, and having to stay pinned, silent and dutiful, for hours on end was not in his nature. He forgave himself because he'd behaved rather well over the past three days; he'd attended all his lectures, jotted down his first researched outline, and was actually reading the critical works that Merlin had suggested, making notes of his own and veering from Merlin's original idea when he felt it was right, more him. It was more than he’d done in quite a while, A levels cramming sessions included.
He liked the idea of the challenge, of showing the man he had an opinion of his own and wasn't just stupid because he wasn't good at making esoteric critical connections yet. He'd get there.
Twenty minutes to his second meeting with Merlin.
Yawning, he rose and stretched out, arms lifted above his head.
Given the position he was in, he smelled his armpits and frowned. This wouldn't do. He chucked his T-shirt, stripped and made a beeline for the en-suite. He showered quickly, was generous with his deodorant and marched back into the bedroom.
He riffled through the chest of drawers and came up with a nice shirt that didn't make him look like he'd just come back from football practice as well as a new pair of jeans and fresh socks.
Freshly dressed, he looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, tried to comb his hair into something he liked, giving it a stylishly tousled vibe, and declared himself fit to go out.
Merlin was waiting for him at the same table they'd occupied before; the only difference was that he'd brought a stash of books he'd piled one on top of the other.
Arthur smiled at him and scowled at the tottering column. The first thing he did even before sitting down was shoving his outline under Merlin's nose.
“I guess this needs to be read pronto,” Merlin quipped, gesticulating in a way that probably indicated Arthur should sit down.
Arthur did, sprawling in the chair as though he owned the place, one leg drawn up, foot resting on the lowest rung, the other stretched out lazily.
Merlin eyed him for a moment or two then dipped his eyes and started reading the product of Arthur's two day labour.
His tongue stuck out in concentration, his eyes roving over the printed page. “This is good,” he said. He sounded convinced too. No trace of mockery in his voice. “So what have you gathered during your three day foray into all things relating to Shelley as a pamphleteer?”
Arthur barked a laugh. “That Baker believes Shelley was agnostic; Berman thinks him mistaken, but MacDonald sort of agrees with him.”
“Befuddled by the critics, I see,” Merlin said.
Arthur passed a hand through his hair, looked out the window, then met Merlin's eyes. “A little.”
“A little tip for you,” Merlin said conspiratorially. “They never agree unless it's about the huge things. Just choose the line you want to follow, juggle a bit, and back it up with some serious work
Arthur nodded. “So I can start jotting things down?”
“First I'd like to know what you really think about this.” He waved his hands about.
Arthur didn't know if Merlin was referring to the tutoring or Arthur's research stint. He answered as though he'd meant the latter because he couldn't pin down his thoughts on the former. “Shelley was a ballsy bloke,” he dead-panned.
Merlin burst out laughing till he had tears in his eyes. “I have no idea why you'd say that,” Merlin said with the air of an innocent cherub who'd just darkened hell's threshold.
“He sent The Necessity out to all the heads of college.” Arthur made a funny face. “To a bunch of stuck-up, stiff upper lips.”
“Naughty,” Merlin agreed, smiling at Arthur with pleased good humour and a trace of irony.
Arthur decided he wanted to risk it too. All this talk of forbidden relationships was inspiring him. “Did you know Hogg was in his room when Shelley got kicked out of uni?” He said it as allusively as he could.
“You will see Hogg -and I cannot express His virtues- though I know that they are great, Because he locks, then barricades the gate within which they inhabit;-of his wit and wisdom, you'll cry out when you are bit. He is a pearl within an oyster shell,” Merlin quoted by heart. “That's what he thought of him.”
“A pearl,” Arthur repeated. “A dear friend.”
Merlin looked at him differently, from under his lashes, a concentrated form of staring. It made Arthur's feel energised and about to burst with the need to do something, dare something.
“You know,” Merlin said suddenly. “My first paper was on Frankenstein, too.”
“Was it?” Arthur was confused. Why was Merlin changing the subject? He was interested, wasn't he?
“Uh, uh,” he bit his lip and handed Arthur's printed outline back.
Arthur took it, causing their fingers to brush. Merlin had slender hands though by no means small ones. Poet hands, writer hands. Beautiful. “Can I find it anywhere? What was it about?”
Merlin put both elbows on the table. “I quoted Mcgavran,” he said mischievously.
Arthur smiled predatorily. “It's a challenge, isn't it?”
Merlin smiled back and shrugged. “It's for you to find out.”
“I'm a competitive man,” Arthur said, leaning in.
“You're a proud boy,” Merlin retorted, but his tone was still light-hearted. He closed his eyes for a moment and his lips wouldn't stop twitching.
“I'm not,” Arthur said sullenly.
“You're a fresher.”
“And you're twenty-five, hardly Methuselah.”
Merlin studied him once more, eyes crinkling. “Well, guessed.”
“That's your friend Freya's age, isn't it?”
Merlin opened his mouth to speak; the question that came out was, “How do you even know that?”
“A friend of mine tried to chat her up.”
“Another horny boy,” Merlin decided.
“Unlike me,” Arthur said, “Geraint has no tact.”
Merlin passed a hand over his mouth, probably to cover a grin. “We'd better drown this in tea.”
That night Arthur googled the name McGavran. It took no time to find their relative bibliography. Feeling proud of himself and his detective skills, Arthur launched Outlook and like three days before wrote to Merlin.
From: apendragon@oriel.ox.ac.uk
To: emrys@hotmail.co.uk
Subject: Merlin's paper.
Found it:
McGavRan - J.H, Insurmountable Barriers to Our Union: Homosocial Male Bonding, Homosexual Panic, and Death on the Ice in Frankenstein, European Romantic Review 11.
Arthur
From: emrys@hotmail.co.uk
To: apendragon@oriel.ox.ac.uk
re: Merlin's paper.
Well done, Inspector Morse.
I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine.
Merlin
Arthur gasped when he read the text of the mail, heart beating fast. Then doubt hit him; he shot up from his perch on his desk, almost dropping his lap-top in his hurry, and ransacked his room for his by now battered Frankenstein copy.
He flipped the pages with trembling fingers, seeking the relevant passage and hoping against hope he'd not recognised it, that his mind was playing tricks on him. Yet he found the same words Merlin had quoted. He dropped the book, letting it fall open, and glumly retired to his desk once more. He blinked at the screen, eyes watering because he'd had them on the screen too long, then thought screw it and hit send.
From: apendragon@oriel.ox.ac.uk
To: emrys@hotmail.co.uk
re: re: Merlin's paper.
I am shame
That walks with Love, I am most wise to turn
Cold lips and limbs to fire; therefore discern
And see my loveliness, and praise my name.
He didn't wait for a reply; he switched off the laptop and went to bed, after all he had a lecture tomorrow... At eleven.
****
His classic studies made a little puzzle,
Because of filthy loves of gods and goddesses,
Who in the earlier ages raised a bustle,
But never put on pantaloons or bodices;
His reverend tutors had at times a tussle,
And for their Æneids, Iliads, and Odysseys,
Were forced to make an odd sort of apology,
For Donna Inez dreaded the Mythology.
Ovid's a rake, as half his verses show him,
Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample,
Catullus scarcely has a decent poem,
I don't think Sappho's Ode a good example,
Byron, G.G., Don Juan, I canto
Arthur worked hard all week; he wrote six pages of his essay and was attending all his college classes and tutorials as well as faculty lectures.
His in-class presentation had been defined as persuasive by one of the teaching fellows and the other two students doing the Middle English lit tutorial with him were quite surprised at the fact that he'd defended his work quite eloquently.
Leon had a perpetually quirked eyebrow directed at him, Soph looked at him as if he'd grown two heads and even his lecturers were confused by his apparently renewed interest in attending.
He'd even gone to one of those Faculty induction sessions covering study skills. That one had been a lot of blah, blah, blah.
Arthur paced himself, kept all his tutor appointments and managed to go jogging and to the JMH gym regularly. There, weights session over, he ran into Freya, who recognised him. “The pretty blond boy Merlin's helping.”
Arthur reddened for the first time since he was fourteen and watched as Freya did the same. She even lowered her eyes and her voice was scarcely audible when she said, “He's not hearing from you. He thinks he might have put you off by saying something that was...” She looked hard for words, weighing them as if she knew they were important. “Inappropriate.”
Arthur was sweaty, tired and embarrassed. He wanted to flee, but she seemed so kind and vulnerable that she was the last person he wanted to offend, especially since she had nothing to do with his reluctance to discuss what was going on with him and Merlin. “He did nothing inappropriate. I'm sorry; I was a bit of a moron, that's all.”
She refused to accept that. “You seem to be quite smart.”
It was his turn to look at anything but her, then curiosity won over. “Are you his friend?”
“Yes,” she answered quite simply. “He saved me from a rather aggressive guy once and we've been close ever since.”
“Merlin saved you?” Arthur couldn't quite believe Merlin could get out of any fight alive.
Freya saw what he was thinking. “He's brave like that.”
“I didn't mean to disparage him,” Arthur hurried to say. “It's just that he's not...”
“I know; all the braver for that.”
“You admire him a lot,” Arthur observed.
She took that in stride. “I do.”
“Well, that's...” And what could Arthur say? He didn't know her or him. Merlin was supposed to help him with the essay. Nothing more. Though Arthur wanted him, wanted to peel the clothes off him. Given this context what else could he add that would make a scrap of sense?
“Contact him,” Freya said. “I'm sure he'd like to know you're doing fine.”
“I have written something,” Arthur offered. “I think it's better than what I came up with before.”
Freya brightened. “Merlin would make an excellent teacher. He's just got the enthusiasm.”
“I'll see what I can do,” he promised. “I must hurry,” he added, pointing at the way his t-shirt was sticking to his sweat-drenched back and front. They parted ways, Freya waving, Arthur raising a single hand.
He bounded on the bus and was back in his room in less than half an hour.
So he was doing everything by the book; he was being the perfect student. The only thing he'd left out was contacting Merlin again.
He went out with Geraint, allowed himself to be dragged to a pantomime by Cedric - hating every minute of it - and went to watch Trouble in Paradise at the local auditorium just because he could and Elena had given him the ticket.
Apparently though, or so a Chinese cookie bought at The Dragon stated, destiny was inescapable.
Now Arthur had never been one for believing in such claptrap, but when he met the person whose mail he'd been selectively not answering inside the Cowley Road Tesco, he decided that maybe fate was toying with him.
Merlin was trying to juggle three items at once: a jar of some tomato-based kind of sauce, a tin of baked beans, the kind you put on toast, and a packet of pre-sliced bread. He was apparently seeking to drop these objects into his basket.
He didn't quite manage it though. Two of them dropped out of the basket, and the one that fell on his foot, making him yowl, was, quite naturally, the tin of beans.
Arthur couldn't help but smile at Merlin's curses and if he'd thought he would duck down another aisle until then, that minor accident changed his mind.
He jogged toward Merlin, his bottle of beer in hand, and startled him by half-booming an out-of-the-blue, “Merlin, broken a toe?”
Merlin turned, his eyes widened in surprise at seeing Arthur in such a place, and the corners of his mouth rose. He seemed happy to see Arthur.
“I hope not,” he said. “I'd have to come up with an inventive account of how it came to pass, and I'd have to make it look like one of those Bourne novels, to save my reputation as a non-kinetically challenged person.”
Arthur laughed, boisterous and loud in the middle of Tesco's. “So you do read low-brow literature.”
Merlin bent to pick up the products he'd dropped and said, “I read everything, even instruction manuals. You know, the joys of applied linguistics.”
“I bet you would,” Arthur said as if he knew Merlin and could make claims like that.
“I've been known to,” Merlin said, securing his shopping into the basket.
For a moment neither of them knew what to say. They hummed for a while, eyes meeting and then glancing away.
“Still a lot left to get?” Arthur asked, despairing of finding a topic that would sound even half intelligent, but knowing that now that he was here, he wanted to get Merlin to talk.
“Yeah, my flatmate and me are starving,” he blurted out. “That is; we would be starving if I went back home empty-handed.” He pulled a folded list from one of his hoodie pockets and showed it to Arthur.
It read:
And the list continued on on the other page, Arthur noted.
Merlin's face held a sheepish expression. “My flatmate,” he tried to explain. “I'm afraid she's been doing everything domestic while I've been working hard on my thesis... The final stages, almost. And it was my turn.”
“All this stuff is bound to weigh tons.” Arthur observed. “How did you get here?”
“I walked,” Merlin said, kicking the basket he'd put down to move it without lifting it.
Arthur had walked too. He even owned a car, but he'd left it at home, since Oxford could be easily navigated without one. He'd never regretted that decision until now. “Can I give you a hand?” he offered nonetheless. “I mean with the carrying all that stuff, when you're finished... I realise you're halfway through that list.”
Merlin eye-balled the list, then chuckled. “I'm sure that you've got better things to do than help me with the heavy-lifting.”
“No,” Arthur said quickly. “Actually no.”
“Not even essay-writing?”
“I'm editing the first pages,” Arthur answered. “You'll see I'm doing well. I'll mail everything to you.”
Merlin studied him then nodded. “Oookay,” he said. “So you'll have to shop with me.”
They did shop. Arthur read the list out loud, and played sat-nav to Merlin's attempts to get what he needed. Despite having lived in Oxford for a number of years now, Merlin still didn't know which aisle offered what product and had to be manhandled in the right direction.
Soon his basket was full, and when it was, he started passing things to Arthur. So by queue time Arthur had his arms full of a) herbal shampoo, b) Nan bread c) three packets of crisps, d) a new toothbrush, and e) a box of fish fingers. His own bottle of beer had ended up in Merlin's basket.
Arthur prayed their turn would come soon or he'd be sure to drop something.
However when the cashier saw them, Arthur wasn't so enthused. Not when she cooed, “Oh what a nice couple you boys make. Shopping together.”
Arthur didn't know what to say.
Merlin went for a stuttered, “No, it's not.... ” It didn't convince the cashier.
“No, need to justify yourself, dear,” she said. “Those times are long over.”
Merlin mouthed, “Sorry,”
Arthur smiled at him as if to say, “I get it... She ran away with it.”
And for a moment, a short moment, he tried to envision what it would have been like had they really been an... item. If they had, they would have probably bickered over what to buy and they would have known each other's favourites. And then they'd have shopped for other things as well; Arthur eyed the condom shelf and then quickly looked the other way, not wanting Merlin to think he was mentally undressing him, though he might have been. Just a little. Those layers begged to be peeled off.
“It's £45.60,” the cashier announced. She had to repeat her statement. Merlin's head seemed to be somewhere up in the clouds, eyes on Arthur, who was probably reacting to that by reddening a bit.
“Hey, love!”
“Yes, yes, sure,” Merlin returned, riffling his pockets and extracting a few crumpled banknotes from them. “Here it is,” he said.
“Couples in love,” the cashier commented bluntly.
They bagged everything. When they were done, Arthur found himself declaring, “I'll walk you home.”
Merlin lifted two heavy carrier bags, leaving Arthur to deal with the third, flashing him a look that said, you offered, and exited. “That sounds...” Whatever Merlin had been wanting to say, he didn't say it.
“Okay, thank you.”
Merlin lived in a flat in New Inn Hall Street, just opposite a solicitors' office. His flat was a little two bedroom studio situated on the floor above a chiropody clinic. “Chiropody, really?”
“Rent was cheap,” Merlin muttered, as he opened the door to the building and herded Arthur along and up a rickety flight of stairs.
“Couldn't you have got some kind of accommodation from the College Housing Management?” Arthur asked as he was being ushered inside Merlin's tiny living room.
The flat was obviously small. Two doors opened onto what had to be the bedrooms, another one probably led into the bathroom. As for the rest, the hallway merged into a sitting room furnished with a chequered white and blue Ikea sofa, a potted plant that was doing its best to survive and had been placed by the window to make it possible, and some shelving, which was bending under the pressure of what had to be Merlin's books.
As Arthur examined his surroundings, Merlin dropped everything onto the kitchen counter and started putting things away. “Unlike some,” he began gently, “I can't afford uni rooms, not even the ones in the D-category.”
“Don't you have a studentship?”
Merlin sighed into the fridge. “I have an ARC grant, but I need to help my mum home.”
“And where's home?” Arthur asked, carrying the remaining shopping bag over. He realised he was being nosy, but he wanted to find out all he could about Merlin.
“Council Estate in Hackney.”
“Oh,” Arthur said, handing Merlin the cheese.
“I didn't mean to embarrass you,” Merlin said. “I know I'm not the kind of person someone like you would normally mingle with.” This, too, had been said to the fridge rather than to Arthur.
Arthur put a hand on the fridge’s door to get Merlin's attention. “I don't want to be that kind of person,” he said. “I don't.”
Merlin straightened and smiled with determination, as though he wished to smooth things over. “That wasn't the first impression I had of you.”
Arthur didn’t know how to defend himself. “Why... I...”
“You've had it easy, Arthur,” Merlin breathed. “You've had it easier than most: me, Gwen, Gwaine.”
Arthur squared his jaw, raising his chin. “You don't know me,” he said, thinking about father and the unremitting pressure he'd always put him under or the feeling of never being good enough, never passing muster that choked him all the time at home.
“You're right,” Merlin admitted. “I don't, but we do come from two different worlds and I saw an 18 year old who's had the good fortune of being accepted at Oriel ...” Arthur frowned and Merlin amended, “because he had the chops to back it up, but who's not trying hard enough to be... what he could be.”
“I don't want to disappoint you,” Arthur rushed to say and was appalled at having let that out and also scared at finding that it was true.
“Once again, it has a lot more to do with finding your own passion,” Merlin said slowly. “Go on a quest to discover your...”
Arthur cornered Merlin. He was using his physical advantage, his muscle mass and shoulder width, to do so - even though Merlin was taller than him.
“I think my quest is succeeding.” He rephrased it. “I think I might have found my drive to...”
“Why don't I show you the flat?” Merlin chirped brightly, trying to disengage himself. “I can lend you some of my books and... Oh, I could lend you the Bride of Frankenstein as well; Shelley was a character.”
“The old film?” Arthur asked. Of his friends none were into drama, or film history, so Arthur's knowledge of the classics was pretty limited to what he'd caught on TV through the years.
“It's by James Whale,” Merlin said. “One of my favourite directors. I’ll tell Dr Sigan he should tackle something in the Whale style when the time comes for the next OUDS play. I might even act in it. I do sometimes. Last year I stood in for my friend Gilli. Loved the play; the role was not that interesting.”
Merlin was babbling.
Arthur hummed, letting Merlin go. “Show me the flat,” he said, as warmly as possible. “Then let's watch the film.” He wanted to spend time with Merlin.
There was little of the flat that needed to be shown, it was so small.
Merlin's bedroom was a mess, flying papers, books, notes, shoes, socks were strewn everywhere. Arthur had never been exceedingly tidy, especially as a kid, but this surpassed anything he'd ever done himself.
Merlin grinned. “There's a method to the madness, I swear.”
“It's just socks, Merlin,” Arthur joked and Merlin laughed out loud. “Next you're going to tell me you're only tidy North-by-North-West.”
Merlin bit his bottom lip. “No, that's uniformly that way, no matter where the wind blows.”
Arthur got a brief glimpse of Gwen's room. It was prettier by far, and much better organised. No dust was visible and nothing was out of place. The rest of the small flat he'd seen, so they ambled back into the sitting room and while Arthur plonked down before the TV-set, Merlin knelt before the plexiglas armoire and retrieved a plastic DVD-case.
"That's a bootleg copy!” Arthur hooted.
Merlin hid a grin by feigning a cough and said, “Impoverished grad here.”
He pushed the DVD onto the player's tray, pressed the green button and sat next to Arthur on the floor. “I should have drawn the blinds and made it darker,” he mused. Then he went red all over and hastened to add, “Proper horror film effect.”
“Mmmm,” Arthur agreed, scooting closer to Merlin. “It's a horror film,” he stage-whispered.
Merlin didn't push him away but he mumbled, “Somehow I don't think you'll be easily scared.”
The film, meticulously black and white, opened by way of the camera panning toward a light shining in the window of a great mansion while thunder crackled mightily.
“Is that supposed to be Villa Diodati?” Arthur murmured in Merlin's ear.
“Yes,” Merlin shushed him. “I can see you've done your homework, no need to impress me.”
Arthur moved closer still but kept silent. It was clear this really was a favourite of Merlin's, that Merlin had a passion for film and theatre.
Arthur couldn't be sucked into the story, used as he was to modern filming techniques that made every set look so real, but he did listen to the lines, (though his eyes might have been glued to Merlin's enraptured face.)
Lord Byron: The crudest, savage exhibition of Nature at her worst without, and we three, we elegant three within. I should like to think that an irate Jehovah was pointing those arrows of lightning directly at my head, the unbowed head of George Gordon Lord Byron, England's greatest sinner. But I cannot flatter myself to that extent. Possibly those thunders are for dear Shelley - heaven's applause for England's greatest poet.
Shelley: What of my Mary?
Lord Byron: She is an angel.
Here Arthur had to laugh. “You think those people had a threesome going?”
“Pervert,” Merlin quipped. “Now concentrate.”
Arthur tried.
Mary: You think so?
Lord Byron: Do you hear? Come, Mary. Come and watch the storm.
Mary: You know how lightning alarms me. Shelley darling, will you please light these candles for me?
Shelley: Mary, darling.
Lord Byron: Astonishing creature.
Mary: I, Lord Byron?
Lord Byron: Frightened of thunder, fearful of the dark. And yet you have written a tale that sent my blood into icy creeps.
They did manage to watch the entire film in near silence, not that Arthur didn't try to make fun of the lines, the special effects and all the bits he found not scary at all.
“It's a 1935 film,” Merlin defended. “They had no CGI back then!”
Arthur leaned his head against the sofa's cushion as the credits started rolling. “So,” he said, his hand stealing in the space between himself and Merlin, “Pretorious and Doctor Frankenstein..”
“Mmmm,” Merlin answered absently. He was holding Arthur's gaze, but now that the sun was going down and the flat was no longer illuminated by natural light, Arthur could no longer make out the colour of his eyes.
“Two men building a new race together?” Arthur insinuated.
Merlin moved a little distance away. “I didn't want to force your reading of it,” Merlin said defensively. “I didn't want to do anything by showing this to you. It's one of my old faves...”
Arthur's breath rushed out. “Hey,” he said. “I had fun in a weird way.”
“You wouldn't have chosen this,” Merlin replied, pointing at the now blank TV screen.
Arthur rubbed his hand along the seams of his jeans. “Probably not, but I'm not really that into... I'm not like... But I like sharing these things my mates wouldn't even dream about with you.”
“You make me sound as old as...”
Arthur felt laughter rising in his throat, “I make you sound interesting.” He waited while Merlin got his DVD back from the player and put it away where it belonged. “Can I see you again?” he blurted out. And before Merlin could say that certainly they would discuss Arthur's essay and the books he might need for his future studies, Arthur said, “Just because. To hang out.”
Merlin tensed. His words came quickly. “I shouldn't.”
“You're not my official tutor. I'm not a child,” Arthur said. “It's okay. I'm learning from you. I'm having fun with you. There's nothing wrong.”
“Arthur there's nothing between…” Words threatened to come out of Merlin's mouth, words Arthur didn't particularly want to hear.
“Friends?” he lied outright. “Be my friend?”
Merlin, seated crossed legged on the carpet, half turned. “I think I can be that.”
“Then let's do something together,” Arthur encouraged. “Something that has nothing to do with essay writing or composition or critical analysis of textual patterns.”
Merlin grinned. “I think I can remember how to do that,” he said.
Arthur got onto his knees and placed a hand on Merlin's thigh. It was maybe too much too soon, but Arthur was heady with it, and couldn't stop, wouldn't stop, wanted to see where today might go, fearing he was nothing when compared to people Merlin might feel justified in claiming.
His face was inching incrementally closer to Merlin’s, he was tilting it sideways, when a key turned in the lock, and Merlin got up like a bullet.
“Hi, Merlin,” a female voice sounded behind them. “I'm back.”
“Hi, Gwen.”
Arthur beat a hasty retreat before Merlin could introduced him as 'the student I'm helping'.
****
Author:rotrude
Recipient: dracosoftie
Pairing(s)/Character(s) Merlin/Arthur
Warnings slight age difference 18/19 and 25. Rimming.
Spoilers: Series 1, 2 and 3
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 21,100
Summary: When Arthur’s English Literature essay tanks, thus endangering his further stay at Oriel College, Oxford, he’s given an option. D. Phil student Merlin Emrys is to tutor him. What a reluctant Arthur hasn’t reckoned with is his budding attraction to his new tutor.
Author's Note: I followed detailed prompt number 2: Modern AU, Gaius is a professor, Merlin is his teaching assistant, and Arthur is falling behind on his coursework and must take tutoring from Merlin. Thanks to the lovely archaeologist_d and bm1893 for the beta work.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction - none of this ever happened. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made from this work. Please observe your local laws with regards to the age-limit and content of this work.
It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.
How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch who with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful.
Shelley, M., Frankenstein
The scientist who analyses, manipulates, and attempts to control nature unconsciously engages in a form of oppressive sexual politics. Construing nature as the female Other, he attempts to make nature serve his own ends, to gratify his own desires for power, wealth, and reputation....
...Frankenstein has sought power over the female. He has “pursued nature to her hiding places” (49) in an attempt not only to penetrate nature and show how her womb actually works but to steal an appropriate that womb.
Mellor, A. K., Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters, Routledge, London, 1989, p 112
Arthur's five-page essay was handed back to him full of notes. There were no red - or green for that matter - marks on it, just a long series of bullet points at the bottom of the last page and a large number of asterisks leading the eye to a series of side notes penned by the careful hand of Professor Gaius Bowles, Emeritus Fellow and Arthur's college tutor. Arthur guessed that his work wasn't satisfying or so the notes said. Not well researched. Too nebulous. Where's the bibliography?
A beam of sunlight played upon the printed page, mocking Arthur. He swallowed against the dryness he felt in his throat.
“Yes, Mr Pendragon?”
“I think there may be a problem with my essay...”
Professor Bowles raised an ominous eyebrow and took off his reading glasses. “All your tutorial coursework is sub-par, Mr Pendragon,” he said, spelling Arthur's doom. “It goes without saying that that essay - the subject of which you picked yourself - shall be rewritten in an unhurried, thoughtful fashion, showing that you have a decent grasp of the critical works that concern your subject area, as well as an ability to elaborate on a point.”
“But I discussed Burke!”
“You quoted,” Professor Bowles said. “You copy-pasted a quote and left it there. Little to no expansion.” He sighed, the chiding tone evaporating into one of put-upon patience. “Mr Pendragon, you're not the first student in the history of students to think that reading English Literature would be easy. It's just like reading a novel on your day off, isn't it?” He sank back in his plushy chair, shaking his head, disappointed.
“There were only five places available at Oriel this year,” the professor pointed out, making Arthur sweat. “And given the level of your participation and commitment, I feel we have made a mistake in admitting you.”
“I scored a 57 at the Elats!” Arthur protested. He may not have written the best essay ever, but he was proud of that result.
“Yes and the tutors decided to invite you for an interview on the basis of that,” Gaius said, not reprovingly “And you did well during your December interview. Yet the Elats don't work on the basis of theoretical application. They require you to analyse a text outside of context. Now you must learn to understand literary theory. It's expected.” Gaius shifted in his chair. “This essay is important, young man,” he added. “It fell sadly flat. During the first year's Moderation Examinations, the essays for the four term papers you have studied are going to be assessed. You must pass all of them to be admitted to the second year.”
Arthur passed a trembling hand through his hair. “I know that.”
“Very well,” Gaius said, rising and walking to the window. “I have a suggestion.”
Arthur was all ears.
“As I said, you'll rewrite your essay.”
Arthur nodded. He really couldn't face the prospect of failing, of hearing his father's voice on the phone, full of reproach, flinging accusations. Not after he'd chosen English bloody Literature over Economics.
“Unfortunately, I'm leaving for a conference in Germany and I don't feel like handing you to another tutor right now.” Gaius lifted a tiny watering can and started watering one of his office plants, a little orchid that was drooping sadly. “And yet yours is an emergency.”
Arthur's heart sank. So he was all alone on this one.
“But there's a college lecturer,” Gaius began again, this time clipping a few overeager leaves off a carefully sheltered bonsai. “Who, I’m certain, will be sure to help you. Merlin is a graduate student who's finishing his D. Phil. His lectureship is a temporary position but helping you will add to his teaching curriculum. He'll be eager to assist you and talk about your theoretical approach problems. If you get along, he might even help you for the whole term.”
Suddenly Arthur didn't feel like being handed over to this guy. He had to be young. Would he be up to really helping Arthur? Showing respect to Gaius was easy. He was an old man, with a long and honoured career under his belt, but a graduate student wasn't what he'd been looking for.
“I could pull a few all-nighters and e-mail you a new version of my essay,” Arthur suggested.
Gaius put the clippers down and again favoured Arthur with an eyebrow raise. It seemed to be his dominant expression. “Your problem, Arthur,” Gaius said, using Arthur's given name for the first time, “is your lack of method. Even if you were to re-do the work, it'd show the same fundamental fallacies. You need to find a method that can always be valid, no matter the topic of choice. And Merlin is excellent at that.”
Arthur hummed under his breath, attempting to wriggle out of it. “I think...”
Professor Bowles evidently liked his plan better, for he said, “If you were in a position to do as you wish, I'd let you, Mr Pendragon. But you aren't. Think about the Moderation Examination. Think about the timed examinations, too.”
And that was that. Arthur had produced a shoddy essay, his writing portfolio wasn't faring much better, and now he'd have to face the consequences. “Alright,” he said, shoulders slumping, still believing he could make it alone without anyone's interference.
“Very well,” Professor Bowles said, returning to his desk. He searched the contents of his drawers and handed Arthur a slip of old-fashioned paper upon which an e-mail address was scrawled. “That's Merlin's address. Contact him as soon as you can and arrange a few study sessions with him.”
Arthur gulped, not looking forward to this in the least. He had his pride, had never needed any kind of help with any subject. Not even in third form. To begin now made him feel demoralised and angry at himself and at this Merlin person who evidently knew what he himself should. “I'll do as you say,” Arthur said, coming to grips with the knowledge that it was either that or sacrificing his examinations.
“Good,” Professor Bowles said. “See that you do. And now if you'll excuse me,” he added, mind already elsewhere, “I have a conference contribution to plan.”
Arthur rose, picking up his books and aborted essay with trembling hands. He swiftly crammed them into a slightly frayed rucksack and left Professor Bowles' office, wishing the old man, who was already nose-deep into his notes, a good day.
****
The provost's cultured voice echoed across the tall, imposing hammer-beam roof, signalling an end to the formal hall dinner. Edward II, his portrait hanging behind the high table, frowned down at the proceedings. The wooden panelling made the whole roomful look sombre and high-brow; it also made Arthur feel small and inconsequential.
Some of the tutors sitting at the high table were nodding; a few others were murmuring something to their neighbours. They could now relax, formal being over.
Arthur recognised the tutorial fellow, Doctor Sigan, amongst them. He was a member of OUDS and had a passion for Greek Drama. Irreverently, he was whispering something in Doctor Lake's ear even though he should have waited for the room to clear. The poor woman didn't look too thrilled.
Neither did Arthur. He had been too late for informal hall, having being kept by Professor Bowles for longer than he'd anticipated. He wasn't in the mood to linger and socialise. However, being a fee paying student who'd received in-college accommodation, he was expected to eat in Hall sometimes and since formal was all that he'd left - that or a heated micro-waved dinner from the floor kitchen -- he'd decided to throw on a jacket, wear his gown and participate. He'd played with his food for most of the meal anyway.
Now, finally, it was over.
Leon leant over and said, “Fancy a re-match?”
Arthur gulped down the last of his wine and said, “I'm really not in the mood for table tennis.” The other students and faculty members around him dispersed. Arthur pushed back his chair and rose, making for the door, Leon at his heels.
“Oh, come on, Arthur,” Leon said. “You owe me. Besides what's with the brooding?”
Arthur wasn't into the sharing and caring aspect of friendship. What was more, he was a little more than ashamed of his failure. So he equivocated, “Got an e-mail to write.” To a possibly geeky graduate, who's going to bore me to death as he establishes his own intellectual superiority, an internal voice supplied spitefully.
Leon leered. “A girl?” he asked.
Someone Arthur recognised as Owain overheard Leon's question; now that they were out of the hall and had stepped into the front quad, the idiot shouted, “Arthur's got a new bird.”
Arthur put his hands in his pockets and shouted back, “And you're so interested in my purported sex life because of the sad lack thereof in your own.”
Someone behind them cackled.
Arthur ignored them in favour of hurrying back to his room, Leon still following him.
“Sex life...” he repeated, trying to sound all knowing.
Arthur rushed up the stairs and walked briskly to his room, intending to shut the door on Leon's nose. Determined, Leon squeezed through it and perched on his bed instead.
Heaving a sigh, Arthur picked up his his laptop from the armchair he'd left it on and booted it, Determined to squeeze the truth out of him, Leon said, “You know you can tell me.”
As his laptop whirred to life, Arthur started pacing. “It's nothing like that.”
“You do look nervous,” Leon pointed out. “How did the meeting with Bowles go?”
“Not particularly well,” he was forced to admit. Either that or he outright lied. And he didn't like to lie. He’d always found the idea distasteful. “I'll have to do more work on my essay.”
“Wow,” Leon said. “I knew the old man was very punctilious but I thought...”
“It's the gender studies thing,” Arthur defended. “I'm a little crap at it.”
Leon made a little noise. “I know someone who is good at it.”
Arthur didn't want any more help. Soph’s Gender Studies idea had flopped and he already had to deal with Professor Bowles' pet. “No, thank you,” he said curtly, fake-yawning. He stripped off his gown and kicked off his shoes, thus suggesting Leon leave.
Leon was an eager man, but he wasn't dense. He recognised the hint for what it was. “I'm sorry about the Bowles thing.” Then he wished Arthur a very good night.
Gloomy, Arthur threw himself on the bed and accessed Outlook, racking his brain for what to write. In the end he settled for a simple message:
From: apendragon@oriel.ox.ac.uk
To: emrys@hotmail.co.uk
subject: Private Tutoring
Dear Mr Emrys,
Professor Bowles suggested I consult you about an essay of mine.
Here Arthur had to stop writing. It felt too much like begging and he never had before. Yet he couldn't be impolite or the man would either not reply or report his behaviour to the prof. Either way was bad.
However, to take a breather, he marched into the en suite, cleaned his teeth and washed his face to buy some time. When he felt braced for the task in hand, he padded back into his bedroom and took up the laptop - a gift from father - again and settled it on his stomach.
He completed his message:
Professor Bowles has pointed out that I need some help with my theoretical approach. He suggested your name. Could I ask for an appointment to discuss my difficulties? I have lectures on Tuesdays and Fridays, and a tutorial that is often shifted around the week, but otherwise am free. I'm sure a meeting would help set me on the right track.
Best Regards,
Arthur Pendragon.
Fingers sweaty, Arthur pressed the send button and settled down to surf the net. It being eight o'clock, he was sure he wouldn't get an answer before the following afternoon. Instead, thirty minutes later there was a loud electronic ping that told him he had received a new message. Arthur opened it apprehensively, strangely hoping this Emrys person would turn him down so he could tell Prof. Bowles that he'd honestly done his best but had had to complete the assigned task alone.
This was what he got instead:
From: emrys@hotmail.co.uk
To: apenndragon@oriel.ox.ac.uk
re: Private Tutoring
Dear Arthur,
I'd be pleased to help you in any way I can. I've already spoken to Gaius about you and I'm looking forward to meeting you in person.
I thought about giving you a library appointment, but I fear the junior library wouldn't be the best of places at all. We need to discuss, read aloud and debate and the undergrads would have our hides. I have access to the senior library but that's worse. Anyway, why don't you meet me tomorrow afternoon at the MCR at around 4ish? You can be my guest even if you're a fresher. If it doesn't clash with your schedule, naturally.
Yours truly,
Merlin Emrys
Arthur gaped. The man had no idea there was such a thing as formality, had he? And he referred to old Bowles as Gaius. Arthur had a sinking feeling this Merlin person was a madman.
Oriel people tried to play it as though they weren't the privileged intelligentsia that ruled and would rule the country, but the old rites, regulations, and accepted codes of behaviour gave out a different message. For the first time in four months, Arthur was reading an informal message relating to schoolwork. It sounded very odd.
Well, he didn't want to have to deal with the guy, but he couldn't see how he could say no now that the man had shown how keen he was to help. And debate, really?
From: apendragon@oriel.ox.ac.uk
To: emrys@hotmail.co.uk
re: re: Private Tutoring
I'll be there.
****
The Middle Common Room was on the first floor of Staircase 35, Arthur had known that since they gave him a tour of the college at the beginning of term.
Of course, he'd never been inside because he knew no grads, but he'd heard they had a fully functioning bar that was the envy of a few of the other colleges.
A drink would do right about now.
He was met outside by a lanky bloke who was sporting a frayed blue jumper, jeans that had truly seen better days (and looked as though they were about to fall off his hips if it weren't for this cheap belt) and a pair of radar ears no one would ever forget. All in all he seemed to be a kid, hardly older than Arthur. More, he was an attractive bloke, unfortunate ears notwithstanding. Nature had gifted him with compelling blue eyes and a very nice body. Those tapering hips were quite alluring.
Radar Ears approached Arthur with a smile, hand extended, saying, “I knew it was you when I saw the Frankenstein copy. I’m Merlin Emrys.”
Introductions over, he tugged Arthur into the Common Room.
“So you know the subject of my essay,” Arthur said while Emrys gestured toward a table near the window which granted them a view of Oriel Square.
Emrys chuckled gently. “Gaius forwarded it to me,” he said, leaving abruptly and dashing for the coffee machine. It took a few minutes but he came back, precariously balancing two huge Styrofoam cups which he placed on the table. He continued where he'd left off, as if no time had passed. “I was reading it when you mailed me.”
Arthur tensed, hand clutching the spine of his paperback Frankenstein copy. “What did you think of it?”
Before Merlin could answer, a dark-haired man came jogging toward them. He had a light beard, dark eyes, and an athletic physique. He clapped Merlin on the shoulder in passing and shouted, “Coming to dessert next Sunday?”
Emrys replied, “Thesis, Gwaine, thesis.”
“You can't bury yourself in your dissertation,” the Gwaine person practically yelled back as he walked backwards, directing his steps to what Arthur judged to be the TV room.
“I'll give it a try,” Emrys grinned as Gwaine winked.
Arthur wrote them down as flirt and clown and bristled as a consequence.
“If you don't come, you'll be sorely missed,” Gwaine called out before disappearing.
Emrys passed a hand through his hair and said, “That was Gwaine, the MCR bar manager. You should see him on a Friday night.”
Arthur kept his mouth shut and barely held back a retort.
Emrys had the good grace to blush and realise he was off topic. “Your essay, right,” he began again as if that wasn't the reason why Arthur had met him in the first place. “Why did you choose English? Gaius told me you had an impressive school record with A2 Maths and Business Studies as well as an eclectic AS French, History and A2 English. So why English lit?”
“I happen to like it,” Arthur said briskly.
“But what pushed you to read English instead of History or trying for the LSE?”
“I thought I had a good chance of getting into Oriel and took it.”
Emrys snorted into his coffee, something that looked like a weird macchiato concoction. He had foam on the tip of his nose when he said, “And this has nothing to do with the fact that your father is a famous MP and this is your way of defying expectations?”
Arthur went rigid Arthur went rigid at the implied criticism but if father had taught him anything, it was how to undermine the opposition. “You have coffee on your nose and are slobbering all over the place,” he pointed out, which was an exaggeration, but there you have it.
Emrys' expression changed, going from good humour to embarrassed hurt. However, he recovered quickly, nodding to himself. “I just think you should do things, make a choice like that, because of passion. You can,” he said, looking pensive and earnest, “you can analyse structure till you have the bare bones of sub-functions, you can Todorov me any text, but to be willing to do that, you need to have passion. You need to live and breathe your book.”
Emrys eyed him, trying to see if his message had sunk in. Arthur didn't know what to say to that.
“I just need to produce an okay essay.” So, yes, perhaps his school ethics weren’t the best, but he meant to live a little while he was at Uni.
Merlin shook his head. “I could write you one. But what would that do?” Merlin asked. “Either you love what you're doing or you'll be struggling till graduation. If you make it. I say you need a bit of passion.” Emrys shot him a smile. “So why did you go the gender studies way? You don't look like someone who'd be very interested in men stealing nature's womb.” A raised eyebrow that reminded Arthur of old Bowles stopped him from replying.
“I think,” Merlin said, “that we need to find your passion. Get you excited about the...”
Arthur stifled a laugh. “You make it sound sexual.” The thought wasn’t unpleasant. Emrys had some weird sex appeal and hearing him mention passion was doing something to Arthur.
Merlin looked uncertain about his choice of words for the first time. He scratched his forehead lightly, mouth open in surprise, but then his lips took an upward turn and he replied, “I make it sound as if it's about love.”
He would.
“So let's find you a topic you love.”
“Rebellion,” Arthur said, defying. It was meant to be a joke.
“These are the spells by which to reassume an empire o'er the disentangled doom; to suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; to forgive wrongs darker than death or night; to defy power, which seems omnipotent; to love, and bear; to hope till hope creates from its own wreck the thing it contemplates,” Merlin intoned with gusto.
“Prometheus Unbound,” Arthur answered quickly.
Merlin beamed. “Yes.”
“It was easy,” Arthur said, not wanting to see the strange pride in Merlin Emrys' eyes. Something that wasn't deserved.
“Perhaps.”
“Everybody has done Shelley before though,” Arthur murmured.
“The Necessity,” Merlin said.
“Of Atheism?"
Merlin nodded. “You seem to be into this defying authority thing.”
“I'll...”
Merlin shot upright and walked up to another table, once again giving no previous warning. He approached the three people seated there, smiled a vibrant smile and was greeted as if he was a lost dear friend not seen for a very long while. “Note-paper, note-paper,” he was saying. A slim and pretty dark-haired girl grinned at him out of puffed cheeks and handed him an entire pad.
“Thanks, Frey,” Emrys said, bounding back to their own table. The next instant he was back in his chair, scribbling furiously. When he was done, he passed a ripped page to Arthur, who saw he'd been given a bibliography.
“You're the one who'll have to come up with the outline,” Emrys said, “but that's a decent starting point. On the basis of that you can start looking for other texts you may want.”
Arthur could only move his head up and down. This was a good idea, more suited to him than the one Sophie had thought up for him and he'd presented to Professor Bowles. Plus he didn't want to say 'no' to Emrys. Merlin had found a topic that Arthur could delve in with pleasure and he was so easy-going and willing to lend a hand that Arthur couldn't say he wouldn't. He'd have to re-write the essay anyway and why not? Besides he could look forward to seeing Merlin again.
“Okay.”
“That's brilliant,” Emrys said, draining the last of his gone-cold macchiato. “I'll see you in a few days then.”
“All right,” Arthur said, turning the piece of paper Merlin had given him in his hands. “I'll work on it,” he promised, even though he'd entered this room unwilling to do just that. What a pair of blue eyes could do.
He folded the note in two and stuck it between two pages of his book.
“I look forward to seeing it, Arthur.”
“That's...”Arthur fished for words. “Encouraging, Mr...”
“Merlin,” Emrys said. “You can call me Merlin. Anything else would make me feel ancient and that's plainly wrong.” His cheeks dimpled and his eyes lit up.
Arthur floundered and said, “Okay... Okay then, see you in a few days... Merlin.”
****
There Is No God
This negation must be understood solely to affect a creative Deity. The hypothesis of a pervading Spirit co-eternal with the universe remains unshaken. A close examination of the validity of the proofs adduced to support any proposition is the only secure way of attaining truth, on the advantages of which it is unnecessary to descant: our knowledge of the existence, of a Deity is a subject of such importance that it cannot be too minutely investigated; in consequence of this conviction we proceed briefly and impartially to examine the proofs which have been adduced. It is necessary first to consider the nature of belief.
Shelley, P.B., The Necessity of Atheism, 1813
Leon pushed the door open and startled Arthur. As a result, the printed pages of the e-text he'd downloaded fluttered everywhere.
“Sorry,” Leon said. “I popped in to ask you if you wanted to come to the cinema with us?”
Arthur trained his eyes on his friend, then shook himself and knelt down to pick up the scattered pages. “Sorry,” he said. “I'm working on something.”
Leon squatted down and helped Arthur retrieve the last few wayward sheets. “Is this an assignment?”
“No, it's just an idea...” Arthur replied, getting back to his feet. Leon did the same, handing Arthur the missing A4 sheets. He moved to sit at Arthur's desk, turning back and forth in the swivel chair. “You sure?” he said, pushing. “We're going to The View. You can't stay holed up in here because old Bowles said he didn't much like your essay.”
“It's not as if I'm a recluse,” Arthur observed, putting the pages back in order. He'd downloaded both the 1811 and 1813 versions, as well as some critical essays he'd found on a few choice educational websites. He'd better staple the bunch.
“No,” Leon agreed, snorting when he thought about it. “You're not. But, come on, both Soph and Elena fancy you. It's clear as day and I have a good chance with Forridel from Biochem.”
Leon made puppy eyes at him. Arthur threw a look at the Shelley, a look at Leon, weighed the consequences of not working on his outline tonight, and decided. He could study tomorrow. He’d always got excellent marks back in secondary school without putting in too much effort. He was sure he could replicate his winning recipe in uni.
He got to his feet, grabbed his jacket and followed Leon out.
They met the girls and Geraint outside The View. They already had student VIP tickets bought off the net, so Arthur had no choice but to follow them inside, not able to complain about the film they'd selected in advance.
The cinema was crowded, so they had to stumble on in the dark to find their seats, balancing their pop-corn buckets, the buttery smell all-pervasive.
Leon, who was the tallest among them, chose the aisle seat, so he could stretch at least one leg out. Pop-corn bucket trapped between his knees, he put a hesitant arm round Forridel and she snuggled up to him.
Seeing this, Soph attached herself to Arthur, sticking to his side, leaving Elena stranded.
Elena, round eyes a-goggle, pulled a little disappointed face, as if recognising she wasn't competition for Sophie.
Arthur resented Soph for that. Elena was just one goofy, funny girl. She would be very pretty, if she wasn't so awkward, if she didn't trip up, or say the wrong thing at the wrong time, or startle people by way of headlong hugs.
Sophie was like a runway model, self-assured and alluring, a little mysterious, very dead set on getting what she wanted. And tonight it seemed to be him.
On any other night, Arthur would have let her play her game, snog him in the dark, but he felt bad for Elena, who'd been excluded as if she was the odd one out.
At one point Sophie turned her head as if to whisper something about the film to him, and when Arthur leant in, she kissed his lips. Arthur pressed back, but didn't deepen it and let it fall flat. He didn't like games.
Elena hunched in on herself, her chin sinking slowly till it touched the zip-up neck of her woollen jumper.
When Soph clamped her hand around his arm as the next violent scene came around, Arthur gently freed himself. He offered his popcorn to Elena, who smiled in the darkness, gorged herself, coughed, and spat pop-corn all over.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
Someone sitting behind them told them off. “Shut it!”
They sat in the cinema café after the show, drinking beer round an oval table, perched on stainless steel stools. “The film was horrible,” Soph declared.
“I didn't much care for it either,” Leon agreed, swilling beer directly from the bottle. “Sorry I prised you from your studies for this, mate,” he told Arthur.
“What studies?” asked Elena.
Arthur popped nuts into his mouth, chewing long and well, making them crunch. “My essay tanked,” Arthur said.
“The Shelley one,” Soph snorted. “I got the idea from a library book. It can't have done that.”
“Well,” Arthur answered, not as nicely as he could have. “It did.” He didn't want to think about the implications of that. That if it had, it was because he'd done very poorly.
“I'm so sorry,” Elena mewled, putting her chin on his shoulder. “I could help.”
Arthur didn't want to lead her on. She liked him and was sensitive. Study sessions would be wrong. She'd just get the wrong impression. “I've got help,” Arthur reassured her.
Soph narrowed her eyes, and asked, “Who from?”
Arthur saw he had no choice but to reply. Even Geraint and Leon seemed mildly interested. “A D.phil student is helping me out.”
“Who's she?” Sophia asked, presuming that people reading English had to be mostly girls.
“Merlin Emrys,” Arthur admitted.
Sophie didn't know him; it was clear when her brow furrowed and she pouted.
“I know him,” Elena butted in enthusiastically. Better and better. Arthur didn't want to talk about this with his friends.
Leon seemed surprised, but Elena hadn't noticed. She was barrelling on, unperturbed. “That is... He's always with the JMH rep, the one whose father taught Norse literature?”
Geraint seemed to remember her. “Sure,” he broke in. “Freya. Very pretty girl. Very shy too. Never got her to talk.”
“Isn't she a tad old for you?” Leon nudged Geraint.
“No! What? She's 25 tops,” Geraint said.
Soph said dreamily, “Isn't she a friend of that gorgeous MCR barista?”
Forridel chimed in, “The one who's slept with half of Oxford, a professor included?”
“Yeah,” Soph said lasciviously, dragging out the vowels. “Tall, dark, handsome and easy,” she commented, her defiant eyes suddenly on Arthur. “The perfect man.”
Arthur attacked the cashews. Then as if he wasn't trying to make a point, he said, “Gwaine? I don't think he'd do a fresher.” For some reason, he was feeling spiteful toward both Soph and Gwaine tonight, which was weird because he'd barely caught a glimpse of the latter.
“I suppose he's a bit mysterious and not...“ Elena blubbered, “you know, approachable by mere mortals.”
“Merlin's his friend,” Arthur told her with an eye to consoling her. Merlin Emrys answered to the definition of gauche. And the MCR bar manager seemed to be a friend of his. She probably stood a chance.
“Then he's doing him,” Geraint said crassly.
When Forridel glared at him, he professed his innocence, saying, “I've heard of the bloke, sorry. And apparently he just shags everything that moves. He doesn't do friends. He does friends with benefits.”
For some reason the inane babble irritated Arthur. He drank the last of his beer, taking a long pull, and hopped off the stool. “Why don't we call it a night, uh?”
Soph objected, Forridel agreed and Elena said she wanted a lift to St Mary's hall.
It was one o' clock when Arthur made it back to his room and propelled himself onto the bed, belly down, face buried in the pillow. He might have fallen asleep then and there; instead, he picked up his printed version of the Necessity and started underlining the important passages.
****
From the brief sketch in the previous section it should be clear that Shelley's claim to be considered a pioneer atheist is unassailable. But, in fact, the claim has been assailed by nearly all Shelley scholars. For various reasons they resist the conclusion that Shelley was an atheist, a denier or disbeliever in God's existence.
Berman, D., A History of Atheism in Britain: from Hobbes to Russell, Routledge, London, 1990, p 136
Arthur underlined the last few lines in blue highlighter and put the book down. He'd ended up by buying the text since studying at the library actually entailed spending hours cooped up in there.
He had the money for anything he wanted, and having to stay pinned, silent and dutiful, for hours on end was not in his nature. He forgave himself because he'd behaved rather well over the past three days; he'd attended all his lectures, jotted down his first researched outline, and was actually reading the critical works that Merlin had suggested, making notes of his own and veering from Merlin's original idea when he felt it was right, more him. It was more than he’d done in quite a while, A levels cramming sessions included.
He liked the idea of the challenge, of showing the man he had an opinion of his own and wasn't just stupid because he wasn't good at making esoteric critical connections yet. He'd get there.
Twenty minutes to his second meeting with Merlin.
Yawning, he rose and stretched out, arms lifted above his head.
Given the position he was in, he smelled his armpits and frowned. This wouldn't do. He chucked his T-shirt, stripped and made a beeline for the en-suite. He showered quickly, was generous with his deodorant and marched back into the bedroom.
He riffled through the chest of drawers and came up with a nice shirt that didn't make him look like he'd just come back from football practice as well as a new pair of jeans and fresh socks.
Freshly dressed, he looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, tried to comb his hair into something he liked, giving it a stylishly tousled vibe, and declared himself fit to go out.
Merlin was waiting for him at the same table they'd occupied before; the only difference was that he'd brought a stash of books he'd piled one on top of the other.
Arthur smiled at him and scowled at the tottering column. The first thing he did even before sitting down was shoving his outline under Merlin's nose.
“I guess this needs to be read pronto,” Merlin quipped, gesticulating in a way that probably indicated Arthur should sit down.
Arthur did, sprawling in the chair as though he owned the place, one leg drawn up, foot resting on the lowest rung, the other stretched out lazily.
Merlin eyed him for a moment or two then dipped his eyes and started reading the product of Arthur's two day labour.
His tongue stuck out in concentration, his eyes roving over the printed page. “This is good,” he said. He sounded convinced too. No trace of mockery in his voice. “So what have you gathered during your three day foray into all things relating to Shelley as a pamphleteer?”
Arthur barked a laugh. “That Baker believes Shelley was agnostic; Berman thinks him mistaken, but MacDonald sort of agrees with him.”
“Befuddled by the critics, I see,” Merlin said.
Arthur passed a hand through his hair, looked out the window, then met Merlin's eyes. “A little.”
“A little tip for you,” Merlin said conspiratorially. “They never agree unless it's about the huge things. Just choose the line you want to follow, juggle a bit, and back it up with some serious work
Arthur nodded. “So I can start jotting things down?”
“First I'd like to know what you really think about this.” He waved his hands about.
Arthur didn't know if Merlin was referring to the tutoring or Arthur's research stint. He answered as though he'd meant the latter because he couldn't pin down his thoughts on the former. “Shelley was a ballsy bloke,” he dead-panned.
Merlin burst out laughing till he had tears in his eyes. “I have no idea why you'd say that,” Merlin said with the air of an innocent cherub who'd just darkened hell's threshold.
“He sent The Necessity out to all the heads of college.” Arthur made a funny face. “To a bunch of stuck-up, stiff upper lips.”
“Naughty,” Merlin agreed, smiling at Arthur with pleased good humour and a trace of irony.
Arthur decided he wanted to risk it too. All this talk of forbidden relationships was inspiring him. “Did you know Hogg was in his room when Shelley got kicked out of uni?” He said it as allusively as he could.
“You will see Hogg -and I cannot express His virtues- though I know that they are great, Because he locks, then barricades the gate within which they inhabit;-of his wit and wisdom, you'll cry out when you are bit. He is a pearl within an oyster shell,” Merlin quoted by heart. “That's what he thought of him.”
“A pearl,” Arthur repeated. “A dear friend.”
Merlin looked at him differently, from under his lashes, a concentrated form of staring. It made Arthur's feel energised and about to burst with the need to do something, dare something.
“You know,” Merlin said suddenly. “My first paper was on Frankenstein, too.”
“Was it?” Arthur was confused. Why was Merlin changing the subject? He was interested, wasn't he?
“Uh, uh,” he bit his lip and handed Arthur's printed outline back.
Arthur took it, causing their fingers to brush. Merlin had slender hands though by no means small ones. Poet hands, writer hands. Beautiful. “Can I find it anywhere? What was it about?”
Merlin put both elbows on the table. “I quoted Mcgavran,” he said mischievously.
Arthur smiled predatorily. “It's a challenge, isn't it?”
Merlin smiled back and shrugged. “It's for you to find out.”
“I'm a competitive man,” Arthur said, leaning in.
“You're a proud boy,” Merlin retorted, but his tone was still light-hearted. He closed his eyes for a moment and his lips wouldn't stop twitching.
“I'm not,” Arthur said sullenly.
“You're a fresher.”
“And you're twenty-five, hardly Methuselah.”
Merlin studied him once more, eyes crinkling. “Well, guessed.”
“That's your friend Freya's age, isn't it?”
Merlin opened his mouth to speak; the question that came out was, “How do you even know that?”
“A friend of mine tried to chat her up.”
“Another horny boy,” Merlin decided.
“Unlike me,” Arthur said, “Geraint has no tact.”
Merlin passed a hand over his mouth, probably to cover a grin. “We'd better drown this in tea.”
That night Arthur googled the name McGavran. It took no time to find their relative bibliography. Feeling proud of himself and his detective skills, Arthur launched Outlook and like three days before wrote to Merlin.
From: apendragon@oriel.ox.ac.uk
To: emrys@hotmail.co.uk
Subject: Merlin's paper.
Found it:
McGavRan - J.H, Insurmountable Barriers to Our Union: Homosocial Male Bonding, Homosexual Panic, and Death on the Ice in Frankenstein, European Romantic Review 11.
Arthur
From: emrys@hotmail.co.uk
To: apendragon@oriel.ox.ac.uk
re: Merlin's paper.
Well done, Inspector Morse.
I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine.
Merlin
Arthur gasped when he read the text of the mail, heart beating fast. Then doubt hit him; he shot up from his perch on his desk, almost dropping his lap-top in his hurry, and ransacked his room for his by now battered Frankenstein copy.
He flipped the pages with trembling fingers, seeking the relevant passage and hoping against hope he'd not recognised it, that his mind was playing tricks on him. Yet he found the same words Merlin had quoted. He dropped the book, letting it fall open, and glumly retired to his desk once more. He blinked at the screen, eyes watering because he'd had them on the screen too long, then thought screw it and hit send.
From: apendragon@oriel.ox.ac.uk
To: emrys@hotmail.co.uk
re: re: Merlin's paper.
I am shame
That walks with Love, I am most wise to turn
Cold lips and limbs to fire; therefore discern
And see my loveliness, and praise my name.
He didn't wait for a reply; he switched off the laptop and went to bed, after all he had a lecture tomorrow... At eleven.
****
His classic studies made a little puzzle,
Because of filthy loves of gods and goddesses,
Who in the earlier ages raised a bustle,
But never put on pantaloons or bodices;
His reverend tutors had at times a tussle,
And for their Æneids, Iliads, and Odysseys,
Were forced to make an odd sort of apology,
For Donna Inez dreaded the Mythology.
Ovid's a rake, as half his verses show him,
Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample,
Catullus scarcely has a decent poem,
I don't think Sappho's Ode a good example,
Byron, G.G., Don Juan, I canto
Arthur worked hard all week; he wrote six pages of his essay and was attending all his college classes and tutorials as well as faculty lectures.
His in-class presentation had been defined as persuasive by one of the teaching fellows and the other two students doing the Middle English lit tutorial with him were quite surprised at the fact that he'd defended his work quite eloquently.
Leon had a perpetually quirked eyebrow directed at him, Soph looked at him as if he'd grown two heads and even his lecturers were confused by his apparently renewed interest in attending.
He'd even gone to one of those Faculty induction sessions covering study skills. That one had been a lot of blah, blah, blah.
Arthur paced himself, kept all his tutor appointments and managed to go jogging and to the JMH gym regularly. There, weights session over, he ran into Freya, who recognised him. “The pretty blond boy Merlin's helping.”
Arthur reddened for the first time since he was fourteen and watched as Freya did the same. She even lowered her eyes and her voice was scarcely audible when she said, “He's not hearing from you. He thinks he might have put you off by saying something that was...” She looked hard for words, weighing them as if she knew they were important. “Inappropriate.”
Arthur was sweaty, tired and embarrassed. He wanted to flee, but she seemed so kind and vulnerable that she was the last person he wanted to offend, especially since she had nothing to do with his reluctance to discuss what was going on with him and Merlin. “He did nothing inappropriate. I'm sorry; I was a bit of a moron, that's all.”
She refused to accept that. “You seem to be quite smart.”
It was his turn to look at anything but her, then curiosity won over. “Are you his friend?”
“Yes,” she answered quite simply. “He saved me from a rather aggressive guy once and we've been close ever since.”
“Merlin saved you?” Arthur couldn't quite believe Merlin could get out of any fight alive.
Freya saw what he was thinking. “He's brave like that.”
“I didn't mean to disparage him,” Arthur hurried to say. “It's just that he's not...”
“I know; all the braver for that.”
“You admire him a lot,” Arthur observed.
She took that in stride. “I do.”
“Well, that's...” And what could Arthur say? He didn't know her or him. Merlin was supposed to help him with the essay. Nothing more. Though Arthur wanted him, wanted to peel the clothes off him. Given this context what else could he add that would make a scrap of sense?
“Contact him,” Freya said. “I'm sure he'd like to know you're doing fine.”
“I have written something,” Arthur offered. “I think it's better than what I came up with before.”
Freya brightened. “Merlin would make an excellent teacher. He's just got the enthusiasm.”
“I'll see what I can do,” he promised. “I must hurry,” he added, pointing at the way his t-shirt was sticking to his sweat-drenched back and front. They parted ways, Freya waving, Arthur raising a single hand.
He bounded on the bus and was back in his room in less than half an hour.
So he was doing everything by the book; he was being the perfect student. The only thing he'd left out was contacting Merlin again.
He went out with Geraint, allowed himself to be dragged to a pantomime by Cedric - hating every minute of it - and went to watch Trouble in Paradise at the local auditorium just because he could and Elena had given him the ticket.
Apparently though, or so a Chinese cookie bought at The Dragon stated, destiny was inescapable.
Now Arthur had never been one for believing in such claptrap, but when he met the person whose mail he'd been selectively not answering inside the Cowley Road Tesco, he decided that maybe fate was toying with him.
Merlin was trying to juggle three items at once: a jar of some tomato-based kind of sauce, a tin of baked beans, the kind you put on toast, and a packet of pre-sliced bread. He was apparently seeking to drop these objects into his basket.
He didn't quite manage it though. Two of them dropped out of the basket, and the one that fell on his foot, making him yowl, was, quite naturally, the tin of beans.
Arthur couldn't help but smile at Merlin's curses and if he'd thought he would duck down another aisle until then, that minor accident changed his mind.
He jogged toward Merlin, his bottle of beer in hand, and startled him by half-booming an out-of-the-blue, “Merlin, broken a toe?”
Merlin turned, his eyes widened in surprise at seeing Arthur in such a place, and the corners of his mouth rose. He seemed happy to see Arthur.
“I hope not,” he said. “I'd have to come up with an inventive account of how it came to pass, and I'd have to make it look like one of those Bourne novels, to save my reputation as a non-kinetically challenged person.”
Arthur laughed, boisterous and loud in the middle of Tesco's. “So you do read low-brow literature.”
Merlin bent to pick up the products he'd dropped and said, “I read everything, even instruction manuals. You know, the joys of applied linguistics.”
“I bet you would,” Arthur said as if he knew Merlin and could make claims like that.
“I've been known to,” Merlin said, securing his shopping into the basket.
For a moment neither of them knew what to say. They hummed for a while, eyes meeting and then glancing away.
“Still a lot left to get?” Arthur asked, despairing of finding a topic that would sound even half intelligent, but knowing that now that he was here, he wanted to get Merlin to talk.
“Yeah, my flatmate and me are starving,” he blurted out. “That is; we would be starving if I went back home empty-handed.” He pulled a folded list from one of his hoodie pockets and showed it to Arthur.
It read:
- Milk
- Cereal- the crunchy type, not the chocolatey one.
- Apples - we need vitamins, Merlin!
- Baked beans
- Soda
- Sliced bread - white or wholemeal/Your choice this week
- Toilet rolls.
- Eggs
- Marinara Sauce
- Soup
- Juice
- Basmati Rice
- Frozen peas
- Veggies of your choice - Again we don't want to die of scurvy.
And the list continued on on the other page, Arthur noted.
Merlin's face held a sheepish expression. “My flatmate,” he tried to explain. “I'm afraid she's been doing everything domestic while I've been working hard on my thesis... The final stages, almost. And it was my turn.”
“All this stuff is bound to weigh tons.” Arthur observed. “How did you get here?”
“I walked,” Merlin said, kicking the basket he'd put down to move it without lifting it.
Arthur had walked too. He even owned a car, but he'd left it at home, since Oxford could be easily navigated without one. He'd never regretted that decision until now. “Can I give you a hand?” he offered nonetheless. “I mean with the carrying all that stuff, when you're finished... I realise you're halfway through that list.”
Merlin eye-balled the list, then chuckled. “I'm sure that you've got better things to do than help me with the heavy-lifting.”
“No,” Arthur said quickly. “Actually no.”
“Not even essay-writing?”
“I'm editing the first pages,” Arthur answered. “You'll see I'm doing well. I'll mail everything to you.”
Merlin studied him then nodded. “Oookay,” he said. “So you'll have to shop with me.”
They did shop. Arthur read the list out loud, and played sat-nav to Merlin's attempts to get what he needed. Despite having lived in Oxford for a number of years now, Merlin still didn't know which aisle offered what product and had to be manhandled in the right direction.
Soon his basket was full, and when it was, he started passing things to Arthur. So by queue time Arthur had his arms full of a) herbal shampoo, b) Nan bread c) three packets of crisps, d) a new toothbrush, and e) a box of fish fingers. His own bottle of beer had ended up in Merlin's basket.
Arthur prayed their turn would come soon or he'd be sure to drop something.
However when the cashier saw them, Arthur wasn't so enthused. Not when she cooed, “Oh what a nice couple you boys make. Shopping together.”
Arthur didn't know what to say.
Merlin went for a stuttered, “No, it's not.... ” It didn't convince the cashier.
“No, need to justify yourself, dear,” she said. “Those times are long over.”
Merlin mouthed, “Sorry,”
Arthur smiled at him as if to say, “I get it... She ran away with it.”
And for a moment, a short moment, he tried to envision what it would have been like had they really been an... item. If they had, they would have probably bickered over what to buy and they would have known each other's favourites. And then they'd have shopped for other things as well; Arthur eyed the condom shelf and then quickly looked the other way, not wanting Merlin to think he was mentally undressing him, though he might have been. Just a little. Those layers begged to be peeled off.
“It's £45.60,” the cashier announced. She had to repeat her statement. Merlin's head seemed to be somewhere up in the clouds, eyes on Arthur, who was probably reacting to that by reddening a bit.
“Hey, love!”
“Yes, yes, sure,” Merlin returned, riffling his pockets and extracting a few crumpled banknotes from them. “Here it is,” he said.
“Couples in love,” the cashier commented bluntly.
They bagged everything. When they were done, Arthur found himself declaring, “I'll walk you home.”
Merlin lifted two heavy carrier bags, leaving Arthur to deal with the third, flashing him a look that said, you offered, and exited. “That sounds...” Whatever Merlin had been wanting to say, he didn't say it.
“Okay, thank you.”
Merlin lived in a flat in New Inn Hall Street, just opposite a solicitors' office. His flat was a little two bedroom studio situated on the floor above a chiropody clinic. “Chiropody, really?”
“Rent was cheap,” Merlin muttered, as he opened the door to the building and herded Arthur along and up a rickety flight of stairs.
“Couldn't you have got some kind of accommodation from the College Housing Management?” Arthur asked as he was being ushered inside Merlin's tiny living room.
The flat was obviously small. Two doors opened onto what had to be the bedrooms, another one probably led into the bathroom. As for the rest, the hallway merged into a sitting room furnished with a chequered white and blue Ikea sofa, a potted plant that was doing its best to survive and had been placed by the window to make it possible, and some shelving, which was bending under the pressure of what had to be Merlin's books.
As Arthur examined his surroundings, Merlin dropped everything onto the kitchen counter and started putting things away. “Unlike some,” he began gently, “I can't afford uni rooms, not even the ones in the D-category.”
“Don't you have a studentship?”
Merlin sighed into the fridge. “I have an ARC grant, but I need to help my mum home.”
“And where's home?” Arthur asked, carrying the remaining shopping bag over. He realised he was being nosy, but he wanted to find out all he could about Merlin.
“Council Estate in Hackney.”
“Oh,” Arthur said, handing Merlin the cheese.
“I didn't mean to embarrass you,” Merlin said. “I know I'm not the kind of person someone like you would normally mingle with.” This, too, had been said to the fridge rather than to Arthur.
Arthur put a hand on the fridge’s door to get Merlin's attention. “I don't want to be that kind of person,” he said. “I don't.”
Merlin straightened and smiled with determination, as though he wished to smooth things over. “That wasn't the first impression I had of you.”
Arthur didn’t know how to defend himself. “Why... I...”
“You've had it easy, Arthur,” Merlin breathed. “You've had it easier than most: me, Gwen, Gwaine.”
Arthur squared his jaw, raising his chin. “You don't know me,” he said, thinking about father and the unremitting pressure he'd always put him under or the feeling of never being good enough, never passing muster that choked him all the time at home.
“You're right,” Merlin admitted. “I don't, but we do come from two different worlds and I saw an 18 year old who's had the good fortune of being accepted at Oriel ...” Arthur frowned and Merlin amended, “because he had the chops to back it up, but who's not trying hard enough to be... what he could be.”
“I don't want to disappoint you,” Arthur rushed to say and was appalled at having let that out and also scared at finding that it was true.
“Once again, it has a lot more to do with finding your own passion,” Merlin said slowly. “Go on a quest to discover your...”
Arthur cornered Merlin. He was using his physical advantage, his muscle mass and shoulder width, to do so - even though Merlin was taller than him.
“I think my quest is succeeding.” He rephrased it. “I think I might have found my drive to...”
“Why don't I show you the flat?” Merlin chirped brightly, trying to disengage himself. “I can lend you some of my books and... Oh, I could lend you the Bride of Frankenstein as well; Shelley was a character.”
“The old film?” Arthur asked. Of his friends none were into drama, or film history, so Arthur's knowledge of the classics was pretty limited to what he'd caught on TV through the years.
“It's by James Whale,” Merlin said. “One of my favourite directors. I’ll tell Dr Sigan he should tackle something in the Whale style when the time comes for the next OUDS play. I might even act in it. I do sometimes. Last year I stood in for my friend Gilli. Loved the play; the role was not that interesting.”
Merlin was babbling.
Arthur hummed, letting Merlin go. “Show me the flat,” he said, as warmly as possible. “Then let's watch the film.” He wanted to spend time with Merlin.
There was little of the flat that needed to be shown, it was so small.
Merlin's bedroom was a mess, flying papers, books, notes, shoes, socks were strewn everywhere. Arthur had never been exceedingly tidy, especially as a kid, but this surpassed anything he'd ever done himself.
Merlin grinned. “There's a method to the madness, I swear.”
“It's just socks, Merlin,” Arthur joked and Merlin laughed out loud. “Next you're going to tell me you're only tidy North-by-North-West.”
Merlin bit his bottom lip. “No, that's uniformly that way, no matter where the wind blows.”
Arthur got a brief glimpse of Gwen's room. It was prettier by far, and much better organised. No dust was visible and nothing was out of place. The rest of the small flat he'd seen, so they ambled back into the sitting room and while Arthur plonked down before the TV-set, Merlin knelt before the plexiglas armoire and retrieved a plastic DVD-case.
"That's a bootleg copy!” Arthur hooted.
Merlin hid a grin by feigning a cough and said, “Impoverished grad here.”
He pushed the DVD onto the player's tray, pressed the green button and sat next to Arthur on the floor. “I should have drawn the blinds and made it darker,” he mused. Then he went red all over and hastened to add, “Proper horror film effect.”
“Mmmm,” Arthur agreed, scooting closer to Merlin. “It's a horror film,” he stage-whispered.
Merlin didn't push him away but he mumbled, “Somehow I don't think you'll be easily scared.”
The film, meticulously black and white, opened by way of the camera panning toward a light shining in the window of a great mansion while thunder crackled mightily.
“Is that supposed to be Villa Diodati?” Arthur murmured in Merlin's ear.
“Yes,” Merlin shushed him. “I can see you've done your homework, no need to impress me.”
Arthur moved closer still but kept silent. It was clear this really was a favourite of Merlin's, that Merlin had a passion for film and theatre.
Arthur couldn't be sucked into the story, used as he was to modern filming techniques that made every set look so real, but he did listen to the lines, (though his eyes might have been glued to Merlin's enraptured face.)
Lord Byron: The crudest, savage exhibition of Nature at her worst without, and we three, we elegant three within. I should like to think that an irate Jehovah was pointing those arrows of lightning directly at my head, the unbowed head of George Gordon Lord Byron, England's greatest sinner. But I cannot flatter myself to that extent. Possibly those thunders are for dear Shelley - heaven's applause for England's greatest poet.
Shelley: What of my Mary?
Lord Byron: She is an angel.
Here Arthur had to laugh. “You think those people had a threesome going?”
“Pervert,” Merlin quipped. “Now concentrate.”
Arthur tried.
Mary: You think so?
Lord Byron: Do you hear? Come, Mary. Come and watch the storm.
Mary: You know how lightning alarms me. Shelley darling, will you please light these candles for me?
Shelley: Mary, darling.
Lord Byron: Astonishing creature.
Mary: I, Lord Byron?
Lord Byron: Frightened of thunder, fearful of the dark. And yet you have written a tale that sent my blood into icy creeps.
They did manage to watch the entire film in near silence, not that Arthur didn't try to make fun of the lines, the special effects and all the bits he found not scary at all.
“It's a 1935 film,” Merlin defended. “They had no CGI back then!”
Arthur leaned his head against the sofa's cushion as the credits started rolling. “So,” he said, his hand stealing in the space between himself and Merlin, “Pretorious and Doctor Frankenstein..”
“Mmmm,” Merlin answered absently. He was holding Arthur's gaze, but now that the sun was going down and the flat was no longer illuminated by natural light, Arthur could no longer make out the colour of his eyes.
“Two men building a new race together?” Arthur insinuated.
Merlin moved a little distance away. “I didn't want to force your reading of it,” Merlin said defensively. “I didn't want to do anything by showing this to you. It's one of my old faves...”
Arthur's breath rushed out. “Hey,” he said. “I had fun in a weird way.”
“You wouldn't have chosen this,” Merlin replied, pointing at the now blank TV screen.
Arthur rubbed his hand along the seams of his jeans. “Probably not, but I'm not really that into... I'm not like... But I like sharing these things my mates wouldn't even dream about with you.”
“You make me sound as old as...”
Arthur felt laughter rising in his throat, “I make you sound interesting.” He waited while Merlin got his DVD back from the player and put it away where it belonged. “Can I see you again?” he blurted out. And before Merlin could say that certainly they would discuss Arthur's essay and the books he might need for his future studies, Arthur said, “Just because. To hang out.”
Merlin tensed. His words came quickly. “I shouldn't.”
“You're not my official tutor. I'm not a child,” Arthur said. “It's okay. I'm learning from you. I'm having fun with you. There's nothing wrong.”
“Arthur there's nothing between…” Words threatened to come out of Merlin's mouth, words Arthur didn't particularly want to hear.
“Friends?” he lied outright. “Be my friend?”
Merlin, seated crossed legged on the carpet, half turned. “I think I can be that.”
“Then let's do something together,” Arthur encouraged. “Something that has nothing to do with essay writing or composition or critical analysis of textual patterns.”
Merlin grinned. “I think I can remember how to do that,” he said.
Arthur got onto his knees and placed a hand on Merlin's thigh. It was maybe too much too soon, but Arthur was heady with it, and couldn't stop, wouldn't stop, wanted to see where today might go, fearing he was nothing when compared to people Merlin might feel justified in claiming.
His face was inching incrementally closer to Merlin’s, he was tilting it sideways, when a key turned in the lock, and Merlin got up like a bullet.
“Hi, Merlin,” a female voice sounded behind them. “I'm back.”
“Hi, Gwen.”
Arthur beat a hasty retreat before Merlin could introduced him as 'the student I'm helping'.
****