"We're A Storm In Somebody Else's Teacup" {5a/7}, Merlin, Merlin/Arthur
Title: We’re A Storm In Somebody Else’s Teacup {5/7}
Fandom: Merlin {Modern!AU}
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin {Merlin/Will, Arthur/Lancelot}
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 11,000 {WTF?!}
Genre: Slash
Summary: In which there are a lot of post-it notes, a funeral, an inadvisable seduction and a revelation.
Author’s Notes: Once again, thank you so much for the reviews everyone; you guys are unbelievably lovely. This is the part where I finally explain what’s going on - kind of, anyway; I didn’t realise quite how stupid and convoluted this plot has become! - and also take the ‘eventual’ out of the ‘eventual Arthur/Merlin’; it took me two whole afternoons at work to figure out what I wanted to happen and how I wanted to play it. And yes, I’m fully aware that there is no porn, because it didn’t fit with the tone I was trying to evoke.
{Part One} | {Part Two} | {Part Three} | {Part Four}
Why do I want more than what I have?
Brace myself to hear the lies
I wonder if they know that I
Don’t get the jokes but I just need to laugh
So don’t take my photograph
‘Cause I don’t want to know how it looks to feel like this.
- Newton Faulkner
It’s still raining as they drive home. Arthur hasn’t said a word since talking to the police, and is sitting with his forehead resting against the window. Morgana catches Lance’s eyes in the rearview mirror from time to time, but neither of them know what to say, to him or to each other.
Morgana wasn’t there, but she watched Will stop breathing in her dreams and it feels as though it happened right in front of her. Her hands won’t stop shaking, and she clenches them in her lap. As the adrenalin wears off, weak exhaustion begins to slip in. She closes her eyes, kneading them with her fingertips, and swallows around an increasing tightness in her throat.
They left Merlin, Gwen and Hunith behind; once Will’s body had been taken away and the police had finished their questions, Hunith said she was taking Merlin home, and Gwen said she’d stay too. There was nothing more that Arthur, Morgana or Lance could offer, however, so they’re going home. Morgana remembers the panic of two hours ago, and reflects that this is much worse.
“Stop the car,” Arthur says suddenly; the first words he’s spoken in over an hour.
Lance and Morgana frown at him.
“Stop the fucking car,” he repeats, and Lance pulls over. Arthur opens the door and stumbles out, taking a few steps before throwing up into the gutter. Morgana hasn’t seen Arthur be sick since his twenty-first birthday, when they started doing tequila shots before they even left the house, but this is different. Lance exhales slowly, thumbs tapping an anxious tattoo against the steering wheel.
“What exactly happened tonight?” he asks quietly.
Morgana shakes her head, not sure she can reply. She’s got too much information now, and later there’ll be time for assembling it and she has a horrible feeling she’s going to feel even worse when she finds out what’s actually going on, but at this moment there’s nothing but despair and the sour taste of failure.
Arthur looks pale and exhausted when he returns to the car, and Morgana invites him to join her in the back seat. He’s soaking wet but she wraps her arms around him anyway as Lance drives off again.
“I’m fine, Morgana,” Arthur insists, though the crack in his voice shows he’s lying.
“Well, maybe I’m not,” she replies. Giving him the loophole he needs because Uther has emotionally damaged Arthur to a degree that makes Morgana genuinely angry at times. Arthur can’t be weak for anyone, won’t be weak for anyone; but if Morgana asks him not to move then he won’t. She holds him tighter, and Arthur buries his face in her shoulder, his cheek cold against her neck. She clenches his fingers in his hair, and shuts her eyes, and breathes.
“We should get some rest,” Arthur says when they get back to the flat. “Lance… you could sleep in Merlin’s room.”
It’s the first time anyone’s said Merlin’s name since they left, and Morgana remembers her friend as she last saw him; face pale and drawn, body held rigid as though he was afraid of falling apart if he so much as exhaled, eyes entirely dead. She thinks of Arthur and Merlin alone in the kitchen with Will’s body for the endless minutes until the emergency services came, and her stomach twists.
“Thanks,” Lance says distantly. He looks worn and tired and Morgana almost wishes they hadn’t dragged him into this; too many people’s lives have been ruined and she still doesn’t know why.
She lies in bed and stares at the ceiling and although she feels more tired than she’s ever felt Morgana can’t bring herself to sleep. She remembers this feeling from being a teenager; knowing her mother was going to die, and she didn’t want to dream it night after night. She’d lie in bed for hours, chest tightening like a panic attack, too afraid to drift off because of what she’d see. Now, she doesn’t want to know what’s coming; she just wants to fall into a dreamless sleep and get the rest she needs. Sometimes, she really fucking hates having an Abnormal Ability.
After an hour or so, she realises there’s no point in lying in bed, because she’s never going to sleep, and goes to make herself some tea.
Arthur and Lance are already sitting in the kitchen, heads bowed over steaming mugs and not saying anything.
“So much for getting some rest,” Morgana says.
She gets herself some tea and joins them at the round wooden table, watching Arthur’s short nails trace patterns in the grain.
“Something doesn’t add up,” he murmurs at last.
“Most of this doesn’t add up,” Morgana replies.
Arthur sighs, and Morgana wants to tell him that he doesn’t have to do this, that he doesn’t have to dredge up tonight already. But leaving it for a few more hours won’t make it any less painful and the more information they have the better chance they have of not getting anyone else killed.
“Nimueh isn’t trying to kill you or Merlin,” he says dully. “Only Edwin was trying to kill you, apparently, and he’s not going to try again.” The corner of his mouth twitches in a crap approximation of a smile. “So that’s something to be thankful for, anyway.”
“But,” Lance begins, “Why would Nimueh want Will dead? She’s never even met him!”
Morgana frowns, but it’s Arthur who says, slowly, clearly testing the words out: “She didn’t want Will dead, specifically… she wanted Merlin to see him die.”
None of them are going to sleep tonight, and the sooner they work out what’s going on the better. Morgana leaves the kitchen and brings back a pad of yellow post-it notes and a black felt-tip pen. On the top post-it she writes: Edwin tries to kill Morgana, detaches it, and sticks it to the table. On the next post-it she writes: Edwin tries to kill Merlin, and sticks it beside the first one. The she writes: Nimueh kills Will, and sticks it beneath the other two.
Arthur frowns, and then takes the pen from her. He writes: Sophia tries to kill Arthur.
“You think it’s connected?” Morgana asks, and the idea sticks out in her mind, like finding the corner of a jigsaw puzzle.
“Nimueh said it was,” Arthur shrugs, and adds, in brackets: (test?)
“What does that mean?” Lance asks, as Arthur presses it to the table.
Arthur shrugs. “It was just something she said.”
“Ok.” Morgana looks down at the four post-its, and thinks that they’re still missing something.
“When did all this start?” she asks, thinking out loud.
“About two months ago,” Arthur replies promptly. He frowns, biting his lip in thought, and then writes, in big letters: MORGANA MEETS MERLIN, and sticks it above everything else.
The three of them look at the post-it; Morgana re-reads the words so many times that they lose all meaning.
Lance takes the pen and post-its from Arthur, and writes: Merlin and Morgana meet at Magical Support Group.
Morgana nods, before writing: Nimueh attends Support Group and Edwin attends Support Group on two more post-its and sticking them to the left of all the others. There’s got to be something here, and she’s so close now.
“Did Sophia go to your group?” Arthur asks, fingers tapping an impatient tattoo on the side of his teacup.
“No,” Morgana replies, “I never would’ve let you date her.”
Lance is still staring at the post-its. “I’m guessing you don’t attend any more,” he says to Morgana.
“I don’t make a habit of socialising with people who’ve tried to murder me,” Morgana tells him.
Lance writes: Morgana stops attending Support Group.
There’s a sharp intake of breath from Arthur, before he stands up to lean over the table and rearrange the post-its into chronological order.
“Ok,” Morgana says, reading over them. “So I leave the group, and Edwin tries to kill me.” She grimaces.
“But that fails,” Arthur continues, pacing the kitchen. “And then Sophia tries to kill me.”
“I don’t see how that can be connected,” Lance interjects. “Morgana said Sophia wasn’t part of this group.”
“But Nimueh knew her,” Arthur says slowly. “Nimueh said that Sophia trying to kill me was a test.”
Morgana considers this, and then it clicks. “You didn’t start dating Sophia until after I’d left the group,” she says. “And the day Edwin failed to kill me was the day Sophia tried to kill you.”
“So you’re saying I had some kind of…sleeper agent girlfriend?” Arthur asks, looking a mixture of anxious and annoyed.
“Would you rather she was just a random psycho?” Morgana raises an eyebrow. “Look, Edwin had no way of knowing that the flowers he sent hadn’t killed me until it was too late. So when I’m still wandering around alive, they go to Plan B.”
“Arthur,” Lance says.
“Exactly.” Morgana nods, feeling that finally they’re sorting something out.
“But why kill me?” Arthur demands.
“A warning to me?” Morgana suggests.
“Test,” Arthur reminds her.
Lance taps the pen against his lower lip. “Maybe it was to see what Morgana and Merlin would do,” he murmurs, clearly thinking out loud. “If you managed to stop Sophia then the others could see what you can do together. If you didn’t manage to stop it, then you’d still get the warning.”
“But-” Arthur begins, but Morgana cuts him off.
“That it!” she gasps. “Lance, that’s it.” When the two men frown at her, she explains: “Before I met Merlin, I used to dream about being friends with Nimueh. About working with her. After I met him, I’ve only ever dreamed about fighting her.”
“So that’s why Edwin tried to kill Merlin,” Arthur says, nodding. “The two of you are… dangerous?” A trace of a smile steals across his mouth. “I can’t believe I’m even saying that.”
“Merlin and I aren’t in the group,” Morgana murmurs, ignoring him. “So they think we’re against them, and we’ve got to be stopped. So Edwin decides to kill us.”
“Nimueh said that Edwin was wrong,” Arthur reminds her. “She doesn’t want you two dead.”
“She wants you to come back,” Lance suggests. “That would have been the warning, if Arthur had been murdered.”
“It’s a Support Group,” Arthur points out. “Where you sit around and eat biscuits and bitch about accidentally setting the curtains on fire when you sneeze, that sort of thing. Why does it matter if you go or not?”
Morgana swallows. “I thought that was what it was,” she says, “But… everyone there has a power that’s harmful, and the people themselves are less than stable.” She looks at Arthur and Lance, fear growing in her stomach. “What if they’re planning…”
“What, world domination?” Arthur interrupts dryly. “That’s a little melodramatic, don’t you think, Morgana?”
“Whatever it is they’re willing to kill for it,” Morgana points out. “And they have killed for it.”
“And they want you and Merlin to help,” Lance adds, looking anxious.
“I was supposed to help,” Morgana tells him. “If I hadn’t met Merlin, maybe I’d be going along with this.” Arthur looks sharply at her, but Morgana decides they’ll deal with that later.
“But why kill Will?” Lance asks. “I mean, it will hardly serve as a warning, will it? Merlin won’t want to work with the people who killed his best friend.”
“Maybe it’s not a warning,” Morgana suggests darkly. “Nimueh wanted Merlin to see either his friend or his mother die in front of him.” She sits down, legs feeling weak. “What if she just wants to make him lose control, go as fucking insane as everyone else?”
“This is Merlin we’re talking about,” Arthur cuts in, sitting down again too. “Most days he seems incapable of tying his own shoelaces. Do we really think he’s capable of killing people?”
Morgana grimaces; she was going to try and get away without mentioning it, but she can’t outright lie. Not now. “He killed Sophia,” she admits.
The look of shock and horror on Arthur’s face is almost comical. “He fucking what?”
In the silence, Lance observes wryly: “Well, at least I’m not the only one having things kept from him.”
Morgana glares at him, but he only shrugs and goes to make more tea. Lance has had years of experience of Being Friends With Arthur And Morgana and can therefore sense the fight brewing in the air; there’s no point trying to diffuse it.
“Merlin murdered my girlfriend and you didn’t tell me?” Arthur demands loudly.
“I don’t think he meant to,” Morgana tells him, keeping her voice calm and steady.
“That doesn’t help,” Arthur replies tightly.
Morgana considers this, and realises that no, it really doesn’t. Merlin panicked, wasn’t sure what he was doing, and ended up killing Sophia with her own weapon without a second thought. Her stomach churns.
“Oh God,” she breathes.
“Merlin is not about to go evil and start slaughtering people,” Lance interrupts from over by the kettle. “He’s scared and he’s unhappy and he feels guilty but he won’t join Nimueh and the others and you both know he won’t.”
All the fight seems to seep out of Arthur; he slumps in his chair, leaning forward to rest his forehead against the table. Exhaustion and anxiety are battling inside Morgana, making her feel nauseous, and knowing what’s really going on right now doesn’t make her feel any better. The whole future seems to be teetering on a knife edge, and she doesn’t ever want to sleep again for fear of what she’ll see.
“So what do we do now?” Lance asks, coming to join them with more tea. Morgana reaches gratefully for her cup.
“Their move,” Morgana replies. “We’ve got to wait and see. Hope they tip their hand and we find out what they’re planning; until then, there’s nothing we can do.”
“Nothing?” Lance echoes.
Morgana shakes her head. “Not without Merlin. And he’s got enough to be dealing with.”
Arthur sits upright, looking tired and miserable, but at least resigned. “You should have told me,” he sighs.
“I know,” Morgana replies quietly.
Lance lets out a long, slow breath. “This is mad,” he says. “I mean, really, really mad.”
The three of them sit up the rest of the night, saying nothing at all.
^
Merlin doesn’t know what Gwen and Morgana told his mother and doesn’t really care. She’s always known about his abilities, of course - most parents don’t have to deal with their toddlers levitating themselves and objects around them when they have a tantrum - but he doesn’t know if she ever put in the research the way Gwen did; if his mum knows there are lots of others out there with powers. He doesn’t know if his mother knows all about Nimueh and Edwin and their constant attempts to kill Merlin, if she knows what really happened to Will.
And he doesn’t want to know if his mum really understands how close she came to dying herself.
That’s the reality of the situation of course; they walked into a trap designed to abuse Morgana’s ability. She said Will’s name in her sleep, so it was Will Merlin went to help and Will who died. If Morgana had said Hunith… but he can’t think about that, won’t think about that. It’s bad enough that he got his friend murdered just so Nimueh could prove a point.
Merlin leaves his mum and Gwen sipping tea in an all-consuming silence and wanders upstairs, feeling listless and dizzy and kind of unreal.
It’s strange, being back in his old room. His mum hasn’t re-decorated it since he left home at seventeen, and it’s the same as it’s always been. There are inadvisable clothes left in the back of the wardrobe - the jeans all too small because Merlin was an unbearably skinny bastard as a teenager - and porn underneath the loose floorboard and photographs of himself, Gwen and Will pinned to the board above his desk. He stares at them for a lingering, stinging moment, and then takes the pins out and puts all the photographs away in a drawer. He sighs, takes his still-damp shoes off and gets into bed, dragging the duvet over his head until he can hardly hear the raindrops hitting the window.
He stays in bed for nearly a week, curled up in a ball beneath the covers. He spends the days slipping in and out of uneasy consciousness, catching thin skeins of dreams between his hands, and most of the nights staring at the dark ceiling, replaying the same scene over and over in his head. Merlin tried to catch the wineglass with his mind as it fell, tried to stop it from smashing, but it slid away from his powers, like trying to grab wet soap with your hands. It slipped straight through and broke and Will…
It gets worse every time he relives it. Arthur’s fingers around his wrist get tighter, the rattling sound of Will’s last breath gets louder, Nimueh’s eyes get crueller, the sound of breaking glass gets physically painful.
Merlin’s mother brings tea and sandwiches three times a day. He drinks the tea, and she takes the food away uneaten a while later. She doesn’t seem to know what to say either; it’s almost a relief. Merlin doesn’t want to talk to anyone, doesn’t want to look at anything, doesn’t want to think. He just wants to hide away and ignore everything, because the world is just too much right now.
On the morning of the fifth day, someone comes barging into Merlin’s room, waking him from a shallow sleep as they start opening curtains and moving things and generally making noise.
“Mum-” he croaks.
“Wrong,” Gwen chirps. “Though I won’t say I don’t occasionally feel that way.” She comes over and sits on the end of his bed, scrutinising him, concern writ large on her face. “Merlin,” she sighs, as he squints at her. It’s too bright in here, daylight streaming through the windows. “When Hunith called me-”
“My mum called you?” Merlin repeats blankly.
“You haven’t eaten in four days,” Gwen reminds him. “You’ve only left your room to go to the loo twice a day. She was worried.” She offers Merlin a smile that utterly fails to hide her anxiety. “Morgana was all for storming down here and having some kind of intervention, and then Arthur started talking about dragging you off to Claridge’s as some kind of insane rehabilitation thing, and you have no idea how terrifying it is when they both agree on something, so I thought I’d better come and do the job myself.”
“The job?” Merlin knows he’s sounding weak and pathetic but the world is spinning and Gwen is too bright and too loud and all Merlin wants to do is roll over and go back to sleep.
“It’s Will’s funeral in two days,” Gwen tells him, and her voice is impressively steady. “I said…” She swallows hard, but continues: “I said you’d want to say something. So it would be best if you can actually stand and don’t look unwashed, unshaven and mad.”
Merlin is perfectly aware that Gwen will not cave; she never does. She will stay here until he gets up and faces the world again, no matter how long it takes. Not having a choice in the matter is almost a relief.
“I am going to go and get you some tea,” Gwen informs him, “And some toast. And when I get back you will be sitting upright and ready to ingest something, all right?”
Gwen’s voice is gentle and concerned but there’s a firm edge of steel running through it and Merlin, once again, marvels at her ability to be so sweet and yet so stern. Once she’s gone downstairs, he carefully pushes himself up, vision wavering, and is almost ashamed at just how pathetic he’s being. Nimueh killed his friend and she’ll probably kill other people who matter to him and instead of trying to protect them he’s just been cowering in his room.
By the time Gwen gets back bearing a tray, Merlin is feeling nauseous with self-loathing and picking at his split cuticles.
“This? This is going to stop,” Gwen informs him, coming to sit down again and balancing the tray between them. There are two cups of tea and a plate of toast on it; nice toast, entirely unburned, the kind Merlin can never manage to make for himself. “I’ll admit that you do have the cheekbones for a lovely anguished expression, but you are going to pick yourself up and pull yourself together because everyone is scared and everyone is blaming themselves and they’re not trying to kill themselves through inactivity.”
There’s really nothing he can say to that, so Merlin reaches for one of the cups of tea and sips at it. While he does this, Gwen keeps up a steady stream of chatter, vague anecdotes about how Arthur and Morgana are driving each other mad and keep trying to get her to take sides, which she won’t, and about how Lance - who is apparently sleeping on their sofa at the moment, though Gwen is careful not to mention why - is being no help whatsoever, and in listening and trying to follow what she’s saying Merlin discovers he’s actually eaten quite a bit of toast.
“Better?” Gwen asks, with a soft, knowing smile.
“A little,” Merlin admits.
“Good,” Gwen replies. “Because I think it’s about time we get you out of bed and into a bath of some kind.”
Merlin says nothing, and watches her carry the tray outside. She walks down the hall, and then he can hear running water. He clenches his fingers in the duvet cover, feeling completely useless and horribly embarrassed. He’s aware it’s a ridiculous cliché to even be thinking it, but he knows that Will wouldn’t have wanted him to do this.
Gwen pads back eventually, and drags the duvet off without preamble. “Up,” she orders briskly, and Merlin obediently uncurls his heavy limbs to follow her down the hallway. Gwen has filled the bath tub with warm water and has added some girly-smelling bubble bath stuff to it, and she shuts and locks the bathroom door behind them.
“You’re staying?” Merlin asks, flushing.
“You are barely capable of standing upright on your own,” Gwen points out patiently. “I’ll be somewhat upset if I leave you unattended and you drown.”
Merlin nods reluctantly, undresses, and gets into the tub. It feels good to sink into the water, though the feeling of being wet reminds him of the night Will died, and bile rises in his throat. Gwen sighs, closing the lid of the toilet and sitting down on it, leaning forward to put her hand between his shoulderblades. Merlin takes a breath, closing his eyes, and remembers that shutting down isn’t an option.
“Soap,” Gwen suggests after a moment, and Merlin obediently reaches for the cake lying in the dish, and Gwen gets up to rummage through the bathroom cabinet while he washes himself.
“Morgana says she misses you,” Gwen provides after a moment. “And Lance says he does too.” She pauses, closing the cabinet. “Arthur got extremely worried when I said you hadn’t left your room in days.” Her voice is curious, thoughtful. “He fired off a whole list of things we ought to do about you, it was very strange.”
Merlin sighs. “I don’t particularly want to talk about Arthur when I’m naked in a bathtub, Gwen,” he says.
She offers him a sunny smile. “I’m just thinking out loud,” she offers.
In the end, Gwen winds up washing his hair for him; her fingers are gentle but firm and she somehow manages not to get shampoo in his eyes, which is something Merlin has barely got the hang of when washing his own hair, and she hums as she does it which distracts him from the way the water trickling down his face is a little too much like rain for any kind of comfort.
He’s going to have to work on this, because he is not going to let Nimueh make him afraid of the weather, especially since he lives in England where it rains all the sodding time.
“We are going to have to get you a haircut,” Gwen murmurs, fingers trailing idly through his wet hair.
Merlin offers her a wan smile. “Don’t you start.”
She smirks in reply.
Once he’s got out, Gwen provides him with clean pyjama bottoms and tells him she expects him to shave. Maybe she had a point about feeling like his mother.
“I might grow a beard,” Merlin suggests, looking at his haggard reflection in the mirror morosely.
“No,” Gwen says gently. “No, you will not. Because you will look stupid with a beard.” She tips her head to one side, reviewing him and his dark, five-day stubble thoughtfully. “Though I will admit I didn’t think you could get this far; I thought you might be one of those guys who couldn’t grow a beard.”
“I am not a girl,” Merlin protests. “And there was that time in uni-”
“…When you grew that ugly little moustache,” Gwen finishes for him, nodding. “I was very glad when whichever guy you were shagging persuaded you to shave it off.”
Merlin looks at the shaving foam and razor sitting waiting by the sink and flexes his trembling fingers.
“Can you do this?” Gwen asks lightly. “Because I don’t want to watch you slice half your face off.” She smiles, but it looks crooked. “You won’t be half as pretty if you do, and Will always said your prettiness was your best feature.”
“He didn’t!” Merlin protests, though at the mention of Will’s name his heart is beating too fast and there’s a horrible sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“Well, not to you,” Gwen replies, but she sounds half breathless.
Merlin leans back against the sink. “Oh God, Gwen,” he murmurs.
She’s beside him in a moment, wrapping her arms around him, burying her face in the damp bare crook of his shoulder. Merlin shuts his eyes and presses his cheek against her hair and though his chest feels so tight it’s a wonder his ribs aren’t bursting he just can’t cry.
He feels paralysed.
“It’s ok,” Gwen murmurs, not moving away, “It’s ok.”
It isn’t, and they both know it, but Merlin is grateful for the words anyway.
^
Arthur runs a red light when Morgana informs him that Merlin has emailed in his resignation.
“Please try not to kill us on the way to the funeral, Arthur,” she tells him sharply, “I’m sure that’s ironic, somewhere along the line, but really, there are other ways I’d like to go.”
Arthur sighs and doesn’t reply; Morgana watches his profile for a moment while trying to work out exactly what’s going on. Arthur has got weirdly protective of Merlin recently; she supposes it has something to do with being there with Merlin when Will was killed, and the fact they’re both starting to realise that something incredibly serious is happening and Merlin needs to be kept out of it as much as possible. Still, it’s interesting, and Morgana is carefully filing away all her stepbrother’s unusual behaviour for future scrutinising.
After about a mile in silence, Arthur glances at her. “Do you know?” he asks.
“Arthur,” she says patiently, “I see the future. I don’t read minds. Remember?”
Arthur doesn’t bother calling her something insulting; his jaw is tight. “Do you know how you’re going to die?” he asks bluntly.
It’s a question Morgana has never been asked, though she’s always thought it would be the first thing people came out with. She realises now that it’s a relief no one has ever brought the subject up; just thinking about it makes her feel dizzy and sick and like she’s going to explode into a hundred pieces.
“You’re a morbid bastard,” she tells Arthur. She hesitates longer over her answer. “I might do,” she mumbles at last.
“What exactly does that mean?”
She shrugs. “I had the dream a long time ago, and I’m still not entirely sure I know what it meant.” She reaches over to turn up the radio. “Can we stop having this conversation and never have it again?”
Arthur smiles slightly. “All right.”
The streets are bathed in cool winter sunlight, and it’s the strangest contrast to the wet night of a week ago. It has been a very strange week; Morgana feels like she’s been sleeping with one eye open, walking around glancing over her shoulder. Her dreams are becoming increasingly cryptic, full of shadows and muffled speech, and the future is frustratingly obscure. Morgana knows that everyone else manages to live their lives without knowing what’s going to happen, but she’s been precognitive for as long as she can remember and now it feels as though someone’s cut off a limb.
The last time Morgana saw the future with any sort of clarity, she saw Will dying. A quiet anticlimax of a death, but up close and personal against her eyelids nonetheless. She can’t help but blame herself, though she’s pragmatic enough to know that the trap had been designed with her in mind, and although she did walk right into it there was nothing she could’ve done.
She’s not even sure she should be at Will’s funeral, given the role she played in his murder, but she liked him and Gwen asked her to be there and Morgana was not going to be a coward and refuse to attend. Besides, she needs to see Merlin; she needs to know how he’s feeling. Gwen called her yesterday and told her Merlin was in a considerably stronger frame of mind, but Morgana knows they can’t be too careful.
“I hate funerals,” Arthur mutters, tapping his thumbs against the steering wheel.
Morgana refrains from making a sarcastic reply. Arthur is too pale, eyes surrounded by dark bruised rings; he looks as though he hasn’t slept in days, though he won’t talk to Morgana about it when she tries to lead him into conversation. He’s still frustratingly good-looking, because Arthur is never anything less than underwear-model-gorgeous, but by his own standards he’s looking downright awful.
It’s not as freezing today as it has been for most of the last fortnight, but there’s still a bitter chill in the air when Morgana gets out of the car. She hugs her coat tight around her, and she and Arthur walk in silence around to the entrance of the crematorium, where people are milling about talking awkwardly. Morgana spots Merlin and Gwen almost immediately; Gwen is straightening Merlin’s tie and keeping up a steady stream of chatter, while Merlin looks like he’d like to be sick at any moment. Gwen catches Morgana’s eye and offers her a feeble smile, brushing imaginary dust from Merlin’s shoulders and turning.
Morgana pulls her into a hug, and Gwen whispers urgently in her ear:
“He looks about fifty times better than he did when I got here two days ago.”
Morgana realises what she means when Gwen lets go, and she gets a proper look at Merlin. He looks haggard and pale and skinnier than ever, worn-out and nauseous. When Morgana hugs him too, he feels completely insubstantial.
“Thanks for being here,” Merlin says quietly, when Morgana pulls away and brushes a lock of his hair behind his ear. “It’s… good to see you.”
Morgana offers him a pale smile, because there’s nothing to say in situations like this. There never is. Funerals are horrible and unnecessary and yet, at the same time, horribly necessary, and Morgana wishes she was anywhere else but knows that she needs to be here.
“Um,” Arthur begins quietly, “There’s a woman over there staring at me.”
Morgana glances over, and sure enough, there’s a red-headed young woman in a black dress that’s a little too tight gazing unblinkingly at Arthur.
“Oh,” Merlin says, and a trace of a smile flickers across his mouth. “That’s Lucy. She worked with Will. And she loves you, Arthur.”
“Ah.” Arthur grimaces.
“She has your OK! interview on her locker,” Merlin adds, almost cheerfully.
“Oh good grief,” Arthur sighs.
“Well,” Morgana informs him sternly, “That’s what happens when you’re a gorgeous billionaire bachelor and you get yourself on lists and give interviews to magazines and then have photo shoots where you’re draped in an aesthetically pleasing fashion across fireplaces.”
Arthur pouts, and for one single moment everything’s almost alright. And then Hunith comes hurrying over and catches Merlin’s arm.
“Everything’s ready,” she murmurs.
Merlin nods, looking distinctly ill, and they all go inside. Arthur and Morgana sit towards the back, and Morgana still feels a kick in her stomach when she sees the coffin, looking far too small for there to be a person inside; the last funeral she went to was her mother’s. It was nine years ago, and yet, sitting here, it feels like no time at all. Beside her, Arthur reaches for her hand, and squeezes it. He can be a bastard at times, he can be unfeeling and selfish and breathtakingly unperceptive, but Morgana really genuinely loves her stepbrother.
There’s a minister, and hymns, and Morgana learns all kinds of things about Will that of course she never knew - his father was killed in the first Gulf War, his mother died of cancer four years ago, he and Merlin have apparently known each other since they were six months old - and Arthur doesn’t let go of her hand. His face is impassive, sombre, but Morgana knows that he’s thinking of the same thing she is; Will’s body limp on the kitchen floor breathing his last breath.
When it comes time for Merlin to speak, he looks barely capable of standing, but he unfolds his paper with trembling hands and spreads it over the podium before him. Morgana squeezes Arthur’s hand so tightly she’s sure she’s going to leave nail marks, but when Merlin finally starts talking his voice is steady and clear. He talks fondly about Will, bringing up anecdotes from their childhoods, a trembling smile fixed to his mouth.
“Will… Will was special,” Merlin says, “He…”
But he can’t continue. His mouth moves, but he doesn’t say anything, and he stares helplessly at his paper and then at the assembled people, mouth quivering. It’s a frozen moment; Morgana can see Gwen’s shoulders shaking with tears in the front row, can hear everyone around her holding their breaths, because no one knows how to fix this. Morgana has never felt so helpless, watching Merlin drown silently in overwhelming emotion.
The moment breaks when Arthur disentangles his fingers from Morgana’s, standing up. She opens her mouth to ask him what he’s doing but he doesn’t look at her; instead he walks down the aisle between the chairs. Merlin looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights but he doesn’t move, and Arthur joins him at the podium.
“May I?” he asks quietly, and Merlin stares blankly at him for a moment before moving slightly to the side. Arthur picks up the paper, skims his eyes over the speech and then raises his gaze to the room.
“Will was special,” he reads, “He was a good friend…”
Morgana watches Arthur read as Merlin stands beside him, swallowing hard. Arthur is excellent at public speaking, of course, and his tone is appropriately sombre without descending into morose. Morgana feels a lump in her throat and tries to swallow it down because she doesn’t know how much grief she’s entitled to, but the guilt is almost overpowering. Eventually, Merlin takes the speech from Arthur, their hands brushing together clumsily over the papers, and keeps reading. Arthur shifts, as though he’s about to move away, and Morgana thinks she’s the only one who sees Merlin’s fingers catch Arthur’s sleeve. Arthur obediently stands beside Merlin as he finishes his speech, head bowed, and then returns to his seat beside Morgana as the minister asks them all to rise for a hymn. Arthur offers Morgana a quick, brief smile, and then doesn’t look at her again for the rest of the service.
“That was… sweet,” Morgana tells him when they’re standing outside, blinking in the anaemic sunlight.
Arthur shrugs awkwardly, hands stuffed in his coat pockets. “The last thing Will said to me…” he begins, trailing off. When Morgana gives him a look she’s borrowed from Uther, Arthur continues: “That last thing he said to me was to look after Merlin.” He gives Morgana a sheepish smile. “Well, all right, the last thing he actually said was that I was kind of a twat, but it was the penultimate thing anyway.”
Morgana nods, smiling at him, feeling a little choked up and not entirely sure how to explain it.
Gwen comes outside and throws her arms around Arthur. He looks a little stunned, but hugs her back. Gwen makes a little sniffling sound.
“You’re not going to cry, are you?” Arthur asks, looking a little anxious.
“No,” Gwen says, stepping back, wiping at her eyes. “No, I’m not.”
Hunith walks over to them. “There’s no wake,” she says, “Will always said he didn’t want one - I think his parents’ ones were too awkward for him.” She smiles at Arthur and Morgana. “But if you’d like to come and have dinner with us, we’d be happy to have you.”
Morgana smiles back; she finds it hard to look at Hunith without remembering seeing her lying unconscious on the floor, and the horrible moment she, Gwen and Lance had when they honestly thought Hunith was dead.
“Thank you,” she replies. “We’d like that.”
Merlin walks out of the crematorium, clutching paperwork and looking wretched. He does manage to give Arthur a real smile though.
“Thank you,” he says. “I mean… really, thanks.”
Arthur nods, an uncomfortable expression on his face that Morgana’s not sure she’s ever seen before.
“It was…” Arthur swallows, and Morgana’s never seen him nervous like this before either, “It was nothing.”
Hunith gives Morgana directions to her house before curling her hand around her son’s arm and leading him towards their car, Gwen following.
“I don’t know what to say to him,” Arthur confesses. “I mean, am I supposed to tell him that he’s not alone? That I have nightmares, that I can’t sleep properly, that I shut my eyes and try to work out what I could have done? Do I tell him any of that?”
Morgana offers him a bleak smile and brushes her hand against his shoulder. “I think he already knows.”
Continued here
Fandom: Merlin {Modern!AU}
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin {Merlin/Will, Arthur/Lancelot}
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 11,000 {WTF?!}
Genre: Slash
Summary: In which there are a lot of post-it notes, a funeral, an inadvisable seduction and a revelation.
Author’s Notes: Once again, thank you so much for the reviews everyone; you guys are unbelievably lovely. This is the part where I finally explain what’s going on - kind of, anyway; I didn’t realise quite how stupid and convoluted this plot has become! - and also take the ‘eventual’ out of the ‘eventual Arthur/Merlin’; it took me two whole afternoons at work to figure out what I wanted to happen and how I wanted to play it. And yes, I’m fully aware that there is no porn, because it didn’t fit with the tone I was trying to evoke.
{Part One} | {Part Two} | {Part Three} | {Part Four}
Why do I want more than what I have?
Brace myself to hear the lies
I wonder if they know that I
Don’t get the jokes but I just need to laugh
So don’t take my photograph
‘Cause I don’t want to know how it looks to feel like this.
- Newton Faulkner
It’s still raining as they drive home. Arthur hasn’t said a word since talking to the police, and is sitting with his forehead resting against the window. Morgana catches Lance’s eyes in the rearview mirror from time to time, but neither of them know what to say, to him or to each other.
Morgana wasn’t there, but she watched Will stop breathing in her dreams and it feels as though it happened right in front of her. Her hands won’t stop shaking, and she clenches them in her lap. As the adrenalin wears off, weak exhaustion begins to slip in. She closes her eyes, kneading them with her fingertips, and swallows around an increasing tightness in her throat.
They left Merlin, Gwen and Hunith behind; once Will’s body had been taken away and the police had finished their questions, Hunith said she was taking Merlin home, and Gwen said she’d stay too. There was nothing more that Arthur, Morgana or Lance could offer, however, so they’re going home. Morgana remembers the panic of two hours ago, and reflects that this is much worse.
“Stop the car,” Arthur says suddenly; the first words he’s spoken in over an hour.
Lance and Morgana frown at him.
“Stop the fucking car,” he repeats, and Lance pulls over. Arthur opens the door and stumbles out, taking a few steps before throwing up into the gutter. Morgana hasn’t seen Arthur be sick since his twenty-first birthday, when they started doing tequila shots before they even left the house, but this is different. Lance exhales slowly, thumbs tapping an anxious tattoo against the steering wheel.
“What exactly happened tonight?” he asks quietly.
Morgana shakes her head, not sure she can reply. She’s got too much information now, and later there’ll be time for assembling it and she has a horrible feeling she’s going to feel even worse when she finds out what’s actually going on, but at this moment there’s nothing but despair and the sour taste of failure.
Arthur looks pale and exhausted when he returns to the car, and Morgana invites him to join her in the back seat. He’s soaking wet but she wraps her arms around him anyway as Lance drives off again.
“I’m fine, Morgana,” Arthur insists, though the crack in his voice shows he’s lying.
“Well, maybe I’m not,” she replies. Giving him the loophole he needs because Uther has emotionally damaged Arthur to a degree that makes Morgana genuinely angry at times. Arthur can’t be weak for anyone, won’t be weak for anyone; but if Morgana asks him not to move then he won’t. She holds him tighter, and Arthur buries his face in her shoulder, his cheek cold against her neck. She clenches his fingers in his hair, and shuts her eyes, and breathes.
“We should get some rest,” Arthur says when they get back to the flat. “Lance… you could sleep in Merlin’s room.”
It’s the first time anyone’s said Merlin’s name since they left, and Morgana remembers her friend as she last saw him; face pale and drawn, body held rigid as though he was afraid of falling apart if he so much as exhaled, eyes entirely dead. She thinks of Arthur and Merlin alone in the kitchen with Will’s body for the endless minutes until the emergency services came, and her stomach twists.
“Thanks,” Lance says distantly. He looks worn and tired and Morgana almost wishes they hadn’t dragged him into this; too many people’s lives have been ruined and she still doesn’t know why.
She lies in bed and stares at the ceiling and although she feels more tired than she’s ever felt Morgana can’t bring herself to sleep. She remembers this feeling from being a teenager; knowing her mother was going to die, and she didn’t want to dream it night after night. She’d lie in bed for hours, chest tightening like a panic attack, too afraid to drift off because of what she’d see. Now, she doesn’t want to know what’s coming; she just wants to fall into a dreamless sleep and get the rest she needs. Sometimes, she really fucking hates having an Abnormal Ability.
After an hour or so, she realises there’s no point in lying in bed, because she’s never going to sleep, and goes to make herself some tea.
Arthur and Lance are already sitting in the kitchen, heads bowed over steaming mugs and not saying anything.
“So much for getting some rest,” Morgana says.
She gets herself some tea and joins them at the round wooden table, watching Arthur’s short nails trace patterns in the grain.
“Something doesn’t add up,” he murmurs at last.
“Most of this doesn’t add up,” Morgana replies.
Arthur sighs, and Morgana wants to tell him that he doesn’t have to do this, that he doesn’t have to dredge up tonight already. But leaving it for a few more hours won’t make it any less painful and the more information they have the better chance they have of not getting anyone else killed.
“Nimueh isn’t trying to kill you or Merlin,” he says dully. “Only Edwin was trying to kill you, apparently, and he’s not going to try again.” The corner of his mouth twitches in a crap approximation of a smile. “So that’s something to be thankful for, anyway.”
“But,” Lance begins, “Why would Nimueh want Will dead? She’s never even met him!”
Morgana frowns, but it’s Arthur who says, slowly, clearly testing the words out: “She didn’t want Will dead, specifically… she wanted Merlin to see him die.”
None of them are going to sleep tonight, and the sooner they work out what’s going on the better. Morgana leaves the kitchen and brings back a pad of yellow post-it notes and a black felt-tip pen. On the top post-it she writes: Edwin tries to kill Morgana, detaches it, and sticks it to the table. On the next post-it she writes: Edwin tries to kill Merlin, and sticks it beside the first one. The she writes: Nimueh kills Will, and sticks it beneath the other two.
Arthur frowns, and then takes the pen from her. He writes: Sophia tries to kill Arthur.
“You think it’s connected?” Morgana asks, and the idea sticks out in her mind, like finding the corner of a jigsaw puzzle.
“Nimueh said it was,” Arthur shrugs, and adds, in brackets: (test?)
“What does that mean?” Lance asks, as Arthur presses it to the table.
Arthur shrugs. “It was just something she said.”
“Ok.” Morgana looks down at the four post-its, and thinks that they’re still missing something.
“When did all this start?” she asks, thinking out loud.
“About two months ago,” Arthur replies promptly. He frowns, biting his lip in thought, and then writes, in big letters: MORGANA MEETS MERLIN, and sticks it above everything else.
The three of them look at the post-it; Morgana re-reads the words so many times that they lose all meaning.
Lance takes the pen and post-its from Arthur, and writes: Merlin and Morgana meet at Magical Support Group.
Morgana nods, before writing: Nimueh attends Support Group and Edwin attends Support Group on two more post-its and sticking them to the left of all the others. There’s got to be something here, and she’s so close now.
“Did Sophia go to your group?” Arthur asks, fingers tapping an impatient tattoo on the side of his teacup.
“No,” Morgana replies, “I never would’ve let you date her.”
Lance is still staring at the post-its. “I’m guessing you don’t attend any more,” he says to Morgana.
“I don’t make a habit of socialising with people who’ve tried to murder me,” Morgana tells him.
Lance writes: Morgana stops attending Support Group.
There’s a sharp intake of breath from Arthur, before he stands up to lean over the table and rearrange the post-its into chronological order.
“Ok,” Morgana says, reading over them. “So I leave the group, and Edwin tries to kill me.” She grimaces.
“But that fails,” Arthur continues, pacing the kitchen. “And then Sophia tries to kill me.”
“I don’t see how that can be connected,” Lance interjects. “Morgana said Sophia wasn’t part of this group.”
“But Nimueh knew her,” Arthur says slowly. “Nimueh said that Sophia trying to kill me was a test.”
Morgana considers this, and then it clicks. “You didn’t start dating Sophia until after I’d left the group,” she says. “And the day Edwin failed to kill me was the day Sophia tried to kill you.”
“So you’re saying I had some kind of…sleeper agent girlfriend?” Arthur asks, looking a mixture of anxious and annoyed.
“Would you rather she was just a random psycho?” Morgana raises an eyebrow. “Look, Edwin had no way of knowing that the flowers he sent hadn’t killed me until it was too late. So when I’m still wandering around alive, they go to Plan B.”
“Arthur,” Lance says.
“Exactly.” Morgana nods, feeling that finally they’re sorting something out.
“But why kill me?” Arthur demands.
“A warning to me?” Morgana suggests.
“Test,” Arthur reminds her.
Lance taps the pen against his lower lip. “Maybe it was to see what Morgana and Merlin would do,” he murmurs, clearly thinking out loud. “If you managed to stop Sophia then the others could see what you can do together. If you didn’t manage to stop it, then you’d still get the warning.”
“But-” Arthur begins, but Morgana cuts him off.
“That it!” she gasps. “Lance, that’s it.” When the two men frown at her, she explains: “Before I met Merlin, I used to dream about being friends with Nimueh. About working with her. After I met him, I’ve only ever dreamed about fighting her.”
“So that’s why Edwin tried to kill Merlin,” Arthur says, nodding. “The two of you are… dangerous?” A trace of a smile steals across his mouth. “I can’t believe I’m even saying that.”
“Merlin and I aren’t in the group,” Morgana murmurs, ignoring him. “So they think we’re against them, and we’ve got to be stopped. So Edwin decides to kill us.”
“Nimueh said that Edwin was wrong,” Arthur reminds her. “She doesn’t want you two dead.”
“She wants you to come back,” Lance suggests. “That would have been the warning, if Arthur had been murdered.”
“It’s a Support Group,” Arthur points out. “Where you sit around and eat biscuits and bitch about accidentally setting the curtains on fire when you sneeze, that sort of thing. Why does it matter if you go or not?”
Morgana swallows. “I thought that was what it was,” she says, “But… everyone there has a power that’s harmful, and the people themselves are less than stable.” She looks at Arthur and Lance, fear growing in her stomach. “What if they’re planning…”
“What, world domination?” Arthur interrupts dryly. “That’s a little melodramatic, don’t you think, Morgana?”
“Whatever it is they’re willing to kill for it,” Morgana points out. “And they have killed for it.”
“And they want you and Merlin to help,” Lance adds, looking anxious.
“I was supposed to help,” Morgana tells him. “If I hadn’t met Merlin, maybe I’d be going along with this.” Arthur looks sharply at her, but Morgana decides they’ll deal with that later.
“But why kill Will?” Lance asks. “I mean, it will hardly serve as a warning, will it? Merlin won’t want to work with the people who killed his best friend.”
“Maybe it’s not a warning,” Morgana suggests darkly. “Nimueh wanted Merlin to see either his friend or his mother die in front of him.” She sits down, legs feeling weak. “What if she just wants to make him lose control, go as fucking insane as everyone else?”
“This is Merlin we’re talking about,” Arthur cuts in, sitting down again too. “Most days he seems incapable of tying his own shoelaces. Do we really think he’s capable of killing people?”
Morgana grimaces; she was going to try and get away without mentioning it, but she can’t outright lie. Not now. “He killed Sophia,” she admits.
The look of shock and horror on Arthur’s face is almost comical. “He fucking what?”
In the silence, Lance observes wryly: “Well, at least I’m not the only one having things kept from him.”
Morgana glares at him, but he only shrugs and goes to make more tea. Lance has had years of experience of Being Friends With Arthur And Morgana and can therefore sense the fight brewing in the air; there’s no point trying to diffuse it.
“Merlin murdered my girlfriend and you didn’t tell me?” Arthur demands loudly.
“I don’t think he meant to,” Morgana tells him, keeping her voice calm and steady.
“That doesn’t help,” Arthur replies tightly.
Morgana considers this, and realises that no, it really doesn’t. Merlin panicked, wasn’t sure what he was doing, and ended up killing Sophia with her own weapon without a second thought. Her stomach churns.
“Oh God,” she breathes.
“Merlin is not about to go evil and start slaughtering people,” Lance interrupts from over by the kettle. “He’s scared and he’s unhappy and he feels guilty but he won’t join Nimueh and the others and you both know he won’t.”
All the fight seems to seep out of Arthur; he slumps in his chair, leaning forward to rest his forehead against the table. Exhaustion and anxiety are battling inside Morgana, making her feel nauseous, and knowing what’s really going on right now doesn’t make her feel any better. The whole future seems to be teetering on a knife edge, and she doesn’t ever want to sleep again for fear of what she’ll see.
“So what do we do now?” Lance asks, coming to join them with more tea. Morgana reaches gratefully for her cup.
“Their move,” Morgana replies. “We’ve got to wait and see. Hope they tip their hand and we find out what they’re planning; until then, there’s nothing we can do.”
“Nothing?” Lance echoes.
Morgana shakes her head. “Not without Merlin. And he’s got enough to be dealing with.”
Arthur sits upright, looking tired and miserable, but at least resigned. “You should have told me,” he sighs.
“I know,” Morgana replies quietly.
Lance lets out a long, slow breath. “This is mad,” he says. “I mean, really, really mad.”
The three of them sit up the rest of the night, saying nothing at all.
^
Merlin doesn’t know what Gwen and Morgana told his mother and doesn’t really care. She’s always known about his abilities, of course - most parents don’t have to deal with their toddlers levitating themselves and objects around them when they have a tantrum - but he doesn’t know if she ever put in the research the way Gwen did; if his mum knows there are lots of others out there with powers. He doesn’t know if his mother knows all about Nimueh and Edwin and their constant attempts to kill Merlin, if she knows what really happened to Will.
And he doesn’t want to know if his mum really understands how close she came to dying herself.
That’s the reality of the situation of course; they walked into a trap designed to abuse Morgana’s ability. She said Will’s name in her sleep, so it was Will Merlin went to help and Will who died. If Morgana had said Hunith… but he can’t think about that, won’t think about that. It’s bad enough that he got his friend murdered just so Nimueh could prove a point.
Merlin leaves his mum and Gwen sipping tea in an all-consuming silence and wanders upstairs, feeling listless and dizzy and kind of unreal.
It’s strange, being back in his old room. His mum hasn’t re-decorated it since he left home at seventeen, and it’s the same as it’s always been. There are inadvisable clothes left in the back of the wardrobe - the jeans all too small because Merlin was an unbearably skinny bastard as a teenager - and porn underneath the loose floorboard and photographs of himself, Gwen and Will pinned to the board above his desk. He stares at them for a lingering, stinging moment, and then takes the pins out and puts all the photographs away in a drawer. He sighs, takes his still-damp shoes off and gets into bed, dragging the duvet over his head until he can hardly hear the raindrops hitting the window.
He stays in bed for nearly a week, curled up in a ball beneath the covers. He spends the days slipping in and out of uneasy consciousness, catching thin skeins of dreams between his hands, and most of the nights staring at the dark ceiling, replaying the same scene over and over in his head. Merlin tried to catch the wineglass with his mind as it fell, tried to stop it from smashing, but it slid away from his powers, like trying to grab wet soap with your hands. It slipped straight through and broke and Will…
It gets worse every time he relives it. Arthur’s fingers around his wrist get tighter, the rattling sound of Will’s last breath gets louder, Nimueh’s eyes get crueller, the sound of breaking glass gets physically painful.
Merlin’s mother brings tea and sandwiches three times a day. He drinks the tea, and she takes the food away uneaten a while later. She doesn’t seem to know what to say either; it’s almost a relief. Merlin doesn’t want to talk to anyone, doesn’t want to look at anything, doesn’t want to think. He just wants to hide away and ignore everything, because the world is just too much right now.
On the morning of the fifth day, someone comes barging into Merlin’s room, waking him from a shallow sleep as they start opening curtains and moving things and generally making noise.
“Mum-” he croaks.
“Wrong,” Gwen chirps. “Though I won’t say I don’t occasionally feel that way.” She comes over and sits on the end of his bed, scrutinising him, concern writ large on her face. “Merlin,” she sighs, as he squints at her. It’s too bright in here, daylight streaming through the windows. “When Hunith called me-”
“My mum called you?” Merlin repeats blankly.
“You haven’t eaten in four days,” Gwen reminds him. “You’ve only left your room to go to the loo twice a day. She was worried.” She offers Merlin a smile that utterly fails to hide her anxiety. “Morgana was all for storming down here and having some kind of intervention, and then Arthur started talking about dragging you off to Claridge’s as some kind of insane rehabilitation thing, and you have no idea how terrifying it is when they both agree on something, so I thought I’d better come and do the job myself.”
“The job?” Merlin knows he’s sounding weak and pathetic but the world is spinning and Gwen is too bright and too loud and all Merlin wants to do is roll over and go back to sleep.
“It’s Will’s funeral in two days,” Gwen tells him, and her voice is impressively steady. “I said…” She swallows hard, but continues: “I said you’d want to say something. So it would be best if you can actually stand and don’t look unwashed, unshaven and mad.”
Merlin is perfectly aware that Gwen will not cave; she never does. She will stay here until he gets up and faces the world again, no matter how long it takes. Not having a choice in the matter is almost a relief.
“I am going to go and get you some tea,” Gwen informs him, “And some toast. And when I get back you will be sitting upright and ready to ingest something, all right?”
Gwen’s voice is gentle and concerned but there’s a firm edge of steel running through it and Merlin, once again, marvels at her ability to be so sweet and yet so stern. Once she’s gone downstairs, he carefully pushes himself up, vision wavering, and is almost ashamed at just how pathetic he’s being. Nimueh killed his friend and she’ll probably kill other people who matter to him and instead of trying to protect them he’s just been cowering in his room.
By the time Gwen gets back bearing a tray, Merlin is feeling nauseous with self-loathing and picking at his split cuticles.
“This? This is going to stop,” Gwen informs him, coming to sit down again and balancing the tray between them. There are two cups of tea and a plate of toast on it; nice toast, entirely unburned, the kind Merlin can never manage to make for himself. “I’ll admit that you do have the cheekbones for a lovely anguished expression, but you are going to pick yourself up and pull yourself together because everyone is scared and everyone is blaming themselves and they’re not trying to kill themselves through inactivity.”
There’s really nothing he can say to that, so Merlin reaches for one of the cups of tea and sips at it. While he does this, Gwen keeps up a steady stream of chatter, vague anecdotes about how Arthur and Morgana are driving each other mad and keep trying to get her to take sides, which she won’t, and about how Lance - who is apparently sleeping on their sofa at the moment, though Gwen is careful not to mention why - is being no help whatsoever, and in listening and trying to follow what she’s saying Merlin discovers he’s actually eaten quite a bit of toast.
“Better?” Gwen asks, with a soft, knowing smile.
“A little,” Merlin admits.
“Good,” Gwen replies. “Because I think it’s about time we get you out of bed and into a bath of some kind.”
Merlin says nothing, and watches her carry the tray outside. She walks down the hall, and then he can hear running water. He clenches his fingers in the duvet cover, feeling completely useless and horribly embarrassed. He’s aware it’s a ridiculous cliché to even be thinking it, but he knows that Will wouldn’t have wanted him to do this.
Gwen pads back eventually, and drags the duvet off without preamble. “Up,” she orders briskly, and Merlin obediently uncurls his heavy limbs to follow her down the hallway. Gwen has filled the bath tub with warm water and has added some girly-smelling bubble bath stuff to it, and she shuts and locks the bathroom door behind them.
“You’re staying?” Merlin asks, flushing.
“You are barely capable of standing upright on your own,” Gwen points out patiently. “I’ll be somewhat upset if I leave you unattended and you drown.”
Merlin nods reluctantly, undresses, and gets into the tub. It feels good to sink into the water, though the feeling of being wet reminds him of the night Will died, and bile rises in his throat. Gwen sighs, closing the lid of the toilet and sitting down on it, leaning forward to put her hand between his shoulderblades. Merlin takes a breath, closing his eyes, and remembers that shutting down isn’t an option.
“Soap,” Gwen suggests after a moment, and Merlin obediently reaches for the cake lying in the dish, and Gwen gets up to rummage through the bathroom cabinet while he washes himself.
“Morgana says she misses you,” Gwen provides after a moment. “And Lance says he does too.” She pauses, closing the cabinet. “Arthur got extremely worried when I said you hadn’t left your room in days.” Her voice is curious, thoughtful. “He fired off a whole list of things we ought to do about you, it was very strange.”
Merlin sighs. “I don’t particularly want to talk about Arthur when I’m naked in a bathtub, Gwen,” he says.
She offers him a sunny smile. “I’m just thinking out loud,” she offers.
In the end, Gwen winds up washing his hair for him; her fingers are gentle but firm and she somehow manages not to get shampoo in his eyes, which is something Merlin has barely got the hang of when washing his own hair, and she hums as she does it which distracts him from the way the water trickling down his face is a little too much like rain for any kind of comfort.
He’s going to have to work on this, because he is not going to let Nimueh make him afraid of the weather, especially since he lives in England where it rains all the sodding time.
“We are going to have to get you a haircut,” Gwen murmurs, fingers trailing idly through his wet hair.
Merlin offers her a wan smile. “Don’t you start.”
She smirks in reply.
Once he’s got out, Gwen provides him with clean pyjama bottoms and tells him she expects him to shave. Maybe she had a point about feeling like his mother.
“I might grow a beard,” Merlin suggests, looking at his haggard reflection in the mirror morosely.
“No,” Gwen says gently. “No, you will not. Because you will look stupid with a beard.” She tips her head to one side, reviewing him and his dark, five-day stubble thoughtfully. “Though I will admit I didn’t think you could get this far; I thought you might be one of those guys who couldn’t grow a beard.”
“I am not a girl,” Merlin protests. “And there was that time in uni-”
“…When you grew that ugly little moustache,” Gwen finishes for him, nodding. “I was very glad when whichever guy you were shagging persuaded you to shave it off.”
Merlin looks at the shaving foam and razor sitting waiting by the sink and flexes his trembling fingers.
“Can you do this?” Gwen asks lightly. “Because I don’t want to watch you slice half your face off.” She smiles, but it looks crooked. “You won’t be half as pretty if you do, and Will always said your prettiness was your best feature.”
“He didn’t!” Merlin protests, though at the mention of Will’s name his heart is beating too fast and there’s a horrible sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“Well, not to you,” Gwen replies, but she sounds half breathless.
Merlin leans back against the sink. “Oh God, Gwen,” he murmurs.
She’s beside him in a moment, wrapping her arms around him, burying her face in the damp bare crook of his shoulder. Merlin shuts his eyes and presses his cheek against her hair and though his chest feels so tight it’s a wonder his ribs aren’t bursting he just can’t cry.
He feels paralysed.
“It’s ok,” Gwen murmurs, not moving away, “It’s ok.”
It isn’t, and they both know it, but Merlin is grateful for the words anyway.
^
Arthur runs a red light when Morgana informs him that Merlin has emailed in his resignation.
“Please try not to kill us on the way to the funeral, Arthur,” she tells him sharply, “I’m sure that’s ironic, somewhere along the line, but really, there are other ways I’d like to go.”
Arthur sighs and doesn’t reply; Morgana watches his profile for a moment while trying to work out exactly what’s going on. Arthur has got weirdly protective of Merlin recently; she supposes it has something to do with being there with Merlin when Will was killed, and the fact they’re both starting to realise that something incredibly serious is happening and Merlin needs to be kept out of it as much as possible. Still, it’s interesting, and Morgana is carefully filing away all her stepbrother’s unusual behaviour for future scrutinising.
After about a mile in silence, Arthur glances at her. “Do you know?” he asks.
“Arthur,” she says patiently, “I see the future. I don’t read minds. Remember?”
Arthur doesn’t bother calling her something insulting; his jaw is tight. “Do you know how you’re going to die?” he asks bluntly.
It’s a question Morgana has never been asked, though she’s always thought it would be the first thing people came out with. She realises now that it’s a relief no one has ever brought the subject up; just thinking about it makes her feel dizzy and sick and like she’s going to explode into a hundred pieces.
“You’re a morbid bastard,” she tells Arthur. She hesitates longer over her answer. “I might do,” she mumbles at last.
“What exactly does that mean?”
She shrugs. “I had the dream a long time ago, and I’m still not entirely sure I know what it meant.” She reaches over to turn up the radio. “Can we stop having this conversation and never have it again?”
Arthur smiles slightly. “All right.”
The streets are bathed in cool winter sunlight, and it’s the strangest contrast to the wet night of a week ago. It has been a very strange week; Morgana feels like she’s been sleeping with one eye open, walking around glancing over her shoulder. Her dreams are becoming increasingly cryptic, full of shadows and muffled speech, and the future is frustratingly obscure. Morgana knows that everyone else manages to live their lives without knowing what’s going to happen, but she’s been precognitive for as long as she can remember and now it feels as though someone’s cut off a limb.
The last time Morgana saw the future with any sort of clarity, she saw Will dying. A quiet anticlimax of a death, but up close and personal against her eyelids nonetheless. She can’t help but blame herself, though she’s pragmatic enough to know that the trap had been designed with her in mind, and although she did walk right into it there was nothing she could’ve done.
She’s not even sure she should be at Will’s funeral, given the role she played in his murder, but she liked him and Gwen asked her to be there and Morgana was not going to be a coward and refuse to attend. Besides, she needs to see Merlin; she needs to know how he’s feeling. Gwen called her yesterday and told her Merlin was in a considerably stronger frame of mind, but Morgana knows they can’t be too careful.
“I hate funerals,” Arthur mutters, tapping his thumbs against the steering wheel.
Morgana refrains from making a sarcastic reply. Arthur is too pale, eyes surrounded by dark bruised rings; he looks as though he hasn’t slept in days, though he won’t talk to Morgana about it when she tries to lead him into conversation. He’s still frustratingly good-looking, because Arthur is never anything less than underwear-model-gorgeous, but by his own standards he’s looking downright awful.
It’s not as freezing today as it has been for most of the last fortnight, but there’s still a bitter chill in the air when Morgana gets out of the car. She hugs her coat tight around her, and she and Arthur walk in silence around to the entrance of the crematorium, where people are milling about talking awkwardly. Morgana spots Merlin and Gwen almost immediately; Gwen is straightening Merlin’s tie and keeping up a steady stream of chatter, while Merlin looks like he’d like to be sick at any moment. Gwen catches Morgana’s eye and offers her a feeble smile, brushing imaginary dust from Merlin’s shoulders and turning.
Morgana pulls her into a hug, and Gwen whispers urgently in her ear:
“He looks about fifty times better than he did when I got here two days ago.”
Morgana realises what she means when Gwen lets go, and she gets a proper look at Merlin. He looks haggard and pale and skinnier than ever, worn-out and nauseous. When Morgana hugs him too, he feels completely insubstantial.
“Thanks for being here,” Merlin says quietly, when Morgana pulls away and brushes a lock of his hair behind his ear. “It’s… good to see you.”
Morgana offers him a pale smile, because there’s nothing to say in situations like this. There never is. Funerals are horrible and unnecessary and yet, at the same time, horribly necessary, and Morgana wishes she was anywhere else but knows that she needs to be here.
“Um,” Arthur begins quietly, “There’s a woman over there staring at me.”
Morgana glances over, and sure enough, there’s a red-headed young woman in a black dress that’s a little too tight gazing unblinkingly at Arthur.
“Oh,” Merlin says, and a trace of a smile flickers across his mouth. “That’s Lucy. She worked with Will. And she loves you, Arthur.”
“Ah.” Arthur grimaces.
“She has your OK! interview on her locker,” Merlin adds, almost cheerfully.
“Oh good grief,” Arthur sighs.
“Well,” Morgana informs him sternly, “That’s what happens when you’re a gorgeous billionaire bachelor and you get yourself on lists and give interviews to magazines and then have photo shoots where you’re draped in an aesthetically pleasing fashion across fireplaces.”
Arthur pouts, and for one single moment everything’s almost alright. And then Hunith comes hurrying over and catches Merlin’s arm.
“Everything’s ready,” she murmurs.
Merlin nods, looking distinctly ill, and they all go inside. Arthur and Morgana sit towards the back, and Morgana still feels a kick in her stomach when she sees the coffin, looking far too small for there to be a person inside; the last funeral she went to was her mother’s. It was nine years ago, and yet, sitting here, it feels like no time at all. Beside her, Arthur reaches for her hand, and squeezes it. He can be a bastard at times, he can be unfeeling and selfish and breathtakingly unperceptive, but Morgana really genuinely loves her stepbrother.
There’s a minister, and hymns, and Morgana learns all kinds of things about Will that of course she never knew - his father was killed in the first Gulf War, his mother died of cancer four years ago, he and Merlin have apparently known each other since they were six months old - and Arthur doesn’t let go of her hand. His face is impassive, sombre, but Morgana knows that he’s thinking of the same thing she is; Will’s body limp on the kitchen floor breathing his last breath.
When it comes time for Merlin to speak, he looks barely capable of standing, but he unfolds his paper with trembling hands and spreads it over the podium before him. Morgana squeezes Arthur’s hand so tightly she’s sure she’s going to leave nail marks, but when Merlin finally starts talking his voice is steady and clear. He talks fondly about Will, bringing up anecdotes from their childhoods, a trembling smile fixed to his mouth.
“Will… Will was special,” Merlin says, “He…”
But he can’t continue. His mouth moves, but he doesn’t say anything, and he stares helplessly at his paper and then at the assembled people, mouth quivering. It’s a frozen moment; Morgana can see Gwen’s shoulders shaking with tears in the front row, can hear everyone around her holding their breaths, because no one knows how to fix this. Morgana has never felt so helpless, watching Merlin drown silently in overwhelming emotion.
The moment breaks when Arthur disentangles his fingers from Morgana’s, standing up. She opens her mouth to ask him what he’s doing but he doesn’t look at her; instead he walks down the aisle between the chairs. Merlin looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights but he doesn’t move, and Arthur joins him at the podium.
“May I?” he asks quietly, and Merlin stares blankly at him for a moment before moving slightly to the side. Arthur picks up the paper, skims his eyes over the speech and then raises his gaze to the room.
“Will was special,” he reads, “He was a good friend…”
Morgana watches Arthur read as Merlin stands beside him, swallowing hard. Arthur is excellent at public speaking, of course, and his tone is appropriately sombre without descending into morose. Morgana feels a lump in her throat and tries to swallow it down because she doesn’t know how much grief she’s entitled to, but the guilt is almost overpowering. Eventually, Merlin takes the speech from Arthur, their hands brushing together clumsily over the papers, and keeps reading. Arthur shifts, as though he’s about to move away, and Morgana thinks she’s the only one who sees Merlin’s fingers catch Arthur’s sleeve. Arthur obediently stands beside Merlin as he finishes his speech, head bowed, and then returns to his seat beside Morgana as the minister asks them all to rise for a hymn. Arthur offers Morgana a quick, brief smile, and then doesn’t look at her again for the rest of the service.
“That was… sweet,” Morgana tells him when they’re standing outside, blinking in the anaemic sunlight.
Arthur shrugs awkwardly, hands stuffed in his coat pockets. “The last thing Will said to me…” he begins, trailing off. When Morgana gives him a look she’s borrowed from Uther, Arthur continues: “That last thing he said to me was to look after Merlin.” He gives Morgana a sheepish smile. “Well, all right, the last thing he actually said was that I was kind of a twat, but it was the penultimate thing anyway.”
Morgana nods, smiling at him, feeling a little choked up and not entirely sure how to explain it.
Gwen comes outside and throws her arms around Arthur. He looks a little stunned, but hugs her back. Gwen makes a little sniffling sound.
“You’re not going to cry, are you?” Arthur asks, looking a little anxious.
“No,” Gwen says, stepping back, wiping at her eyes. “No, I’m not.”
Hunith walks over to them. “There’s no wake,” she says, “Will always said he didn’t want one - I think his parents’ ones were too awkward for him.” She smiles at Arthur and Morgana. “But if you’d like to come and have dinner with us, we’d be happy to have you.”
Morgana smiles back; she finds it hard to look at Hunith without remembering seeing her lying unconscious on the floor, and the horrible moment she, Gwen and Lance had when they honestly thought Hunith was dead.
“Thank you,” she replies. “We’d like that.”
Merlin walks out of the crematorium, clutching paperwork and looking wretched. He does manage to give Arthur a real smile though.
“Thank you,” he says. “I mean… really, thanks.”
Arthur nods, an uncomfortable expression on his face that Morgana’s not sure she’s ever seen before.
“It was…” Arthur swallows, and Morgana’s never seen him nervous like this before either, “It was nothing.”
Hunith gives Morgana directions to her house before curling her hand around her son’s arm and leading him towards their car, Gwen following.
“I don’t know what to say to him,” Arthur confesses. “I mean, am I supposed to tell him that he’s not alone? That I have nightmares, that I can’t sleep properly, that I shut my eyes and try to work out what I could have done? Do I tell him any of that?”
Morgana offers him a bleak smile and brushes her hand against his shoulder. “I think he already knows.”
Continued here