H is for: Happy Days (part 28)
Title: H is for Happy Days
Author: ShutupEccles
pairing: Arthur/Merlin
word count = 1731
Rating: 15+
Disclaimer: Characters are reproductions of BBC reproductions of Arthurian legend.
Warning: angst, slash sex references, fluff, distinct lack of jukebox-thumping Fonz
Beta: BigOlArthurFan (Legend!)
Summary: ...Do you have a bar-fridge with your larder under the bed? Honestly you’re like a male Morgana...Ow!”
The bag of peanuts hit the back of his head and he turned to see Merlin’s eyes flash in his stony face as he practically launched himself off the bed and out the door.
“I didn’t mean...Merlin!”
Arthur sat on the edge of the bed, shirt bunched in his hands-Merlin’s as it happened.
“Shit.”...
28. Happy Days
“Dance for me.”
Something small and hard bounced off Arthur’s rib as he emerged clean and brief-clad from their ensuite.
“Ow! What? No.”
Merlin flicked another projectile at him from the centre of their bed. This time Arthur caught it off the bounce.
“Is this a peanut?”
“Perhaps, and I have a whole stockpile of ammunition here. Now,” flick “Dance!”
Arthur scrounged through the drawers trying to find clothes that were his. Morgana could have at least labelled everything. Then again, if he’d bothered with clothes for the last three days he might actually know where they were by now. Aloud he was saying “You’re eating nuts in bed? Do you have a bar-fridge with your larder under the bed? Honestly you’re like a male Morgana...Ow!”
The bag of peanuts hit the back of his head and he turned to see Merlin’s eyes flash in his stony face as he practically launched himself off the bed and out the door.
“I didn’t mean...Merlin!”
Arthur sat on the edge of the bed, shirt bunched in his hands-Merlin’s as it happened.
“Shit.”
~ ~ ~
“I didn’t mean that Merlin, not like that. I shouldn’t have said it. You know I don’t think before I open my mouth.”
Fully dressed Arthur sat on the arm of the comfortable blue chair nearly naked Merlin was grumpily sprawled in. Merlin curled up into the furthest corner and turned away. Arthur forcibly suppressed the sudden urge to shake him and call him an idiot.
“I’m sorry...don’t you pull away from me. If I felt anything for Morgana I wouldn’t have nicked off overseas years ago would I? Plus I would have been trying to steal her from you, not you from her.”
“What happened when you were overseas?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Merlin attempted to get out of the chair, but Arthur put one sexy leg across the arms to block him in. “I haven’t told anybody about it, except the police.”
Merlin shrank back into the corner. “Did you...?”
“No. I didn’t do anything. That’s part of why I try not to think about it.”
“Tell me.”
“Can I sit next to you?”
Merlin nodded. Arthur was physically trembling and Merlin forgot he was angry, only wanting to protect the man he loved and placed a supportive hand on his husband’s forearm. Arthur took his hand and looked at Merlin’s fingers linked with his, stroked them as he talked.
“I fell in with a group of backpackers and we’d been scrounging work together and partying occasionally. This particular night we went to a rave, nothing unusual in that, we got completely plastered, nothing unusual in that, and a few of us hooked up with various strangers, you get the pattern? There was a young Samoan girl with us, Nalani, and she suggested the two of us...but I had enough relationship issues. So she brought two guys and a girl back from the rave to her room.”
Merlin waited silently for Arthur to be able to continue, turning to lay his legs across Arthur’s, just watching him look at their joined hands. He’d been cold before but seeing Arthur lost for words made him feel colder. He wanted to snuggle up to exchange body heat as much as to provide emotional support.
“You know those emails everyone was sending back and forth and adding ‘as if’, the ones about how some friend of a friend woke up in a bathtub of ice with a phone nearby and a note saying ‘call an ambulance’? Well there was no phone and no note, but there was a girl screaming and bleeding in a bath of melting ice in the morning.”
Arthur let go of Merlin’s hand, allowing circulation to return, and rubbed his hands along Merlin’s cold legs and arms instead.
“I thought the sounds coming from the bathroom were just kinky sex stuff, take us for example: we’re not exactly quiet or subtle everywhere we go, and we’re not the only ones. But I was so off my face...when I found her...I couldn’t tell the paramedics or police anything useful. If I’d been sober I might have known something bad was happening and could have stopped it...”
“You can’t save everyone Arthur.”
“I haven’t saved anyone.”
“You saved me.”
They still hadn’t talked about that. Together for so long, married now and there were still things they hedged around. Maybe dealing with those things will stop misunderstandings like this morning happening again. Arthur decided to talk.
“I never completely forgot you Merlin. When they let me come back to redo my final year I kept an eye out for you to make sure you and Will were doing okay, even though I certainly wasn’t attracted to you then. That night when Morgana brought you over I saw no resemblance at all between you and that small boy from school, whose first words to me I still remember clearly you should know. All I saw was this most remarkable man, a spark that lit up my soul, and we just seemed to connect at various times as though we’d always been part of each other. I wanted to be around you, listen to you, talk with you, watch you, just feel your presence in the same room and when you kissed Morgana in front of me...I wanted to be her: feel your arms around me, lips on mine, reassuring me. I would have cried like an adolescent girl if Gwen hadn’t followed me. I nearly did again in the morning when you’d obviously spent the night.”
“If you hadn’t been distracted by those girlie knickers.”
“Those are seriously hotter on you than on any woman. And The Hat! You make everything hot.” He kissed his half-naked treasure. “Especially me.”
“So what were the first words I ever said to you?”
“Piss off Pendragon you poncing Prefect poofter!”
“You do remember! Not sure that’s a good thing now...”
“Ah my love, abusive alliteration wins over romantic mush every time. I seem a little overdressed for the current tone of this conversation. Any ideas on how to fix that?”
“A few...”
~~~~~ ~~~~~
“The cemetery? You made me get dressed when there are still rooms we have yet to shag in to bring me here?”
“You haven’t visited Hunith since we got back together. I want to show her I made an honest man out of you.”
“Arthur...”
“Hmm?”
“I never told my mother the truth, about us.”
“I know. Although how she missed my nationwide I really enjoy fucking this Merlin guy in public places media campaign astounds me.”
"Mum never saw it. Pendragon has the media monopoly in all the small towns in her area. How do you know?”
“It was a bit hard to miss the fact you’d: move away from me when she came to visit, drop my hand as soon as we saw the hospital, sit on the opposite side of her bed from me; not even look at me while we were there. I still don’t know why you bothered to let me come along.”
“That obvious?”
“Really Merlin, you couldn’t stay sitting next to me when she was on the phone. Even now you won’t hold my hand here! I’m not completely stupid.”
“Why didn’t you say something before?”
“You’re all she had. You didn’t want to upset her when she was so ill. We'd been living together almost a year. What if things went wrong between us and the two of you weren’t speaking because I gave you the ‘her or me’ ultimatum? Or worse, you chose her...”
“Stop it.”
“What?”
“How can you possibly have loved me enough to understand and not resent the choices I made?”
“How can I not? It hurt though, still hurts like hell. I need you to tell her Merlin. Not for you, for me. See, I’m the same selfish prat Gwen used to hate the sight of. I’m not as wonderful as you think I am.”
“Yes you are, and then some.” Merlin kissed him earnestly. “I’ve never been ashamed of loving you Arthur.”
Such a simple statement to bring the universe to its knees, making Arthur feel as amazing as Merlin kept insisting he was. He could only stand in his love’s embrace, feeling the tide of those words wash over him, dragging the lingering dregs of doubt and self-loathing out to sea.
“Come on,” Merlin whispered, leading him by the hand to Hunith’s grave. Instead of letting go as he had always done in the past he linked his fingers closely with those of the man he loved.
“Hi Mum. Sorry it’s been a while. I got married five days ago, to Arthur.” He held up their joined hands as if to show her. “I...I know you liked him.” The pent up emotion flooded out of Merlin and Arthur was relieved to hear the familiar rabbiting pace replace stilted, nervous words. “When you hinted you thought he fancied me I should have said you were right and told you I more than fancied him back. He didn’t just pay to bring you to the hospital closest to me because he was my friend but because he loved me,” Arthur pressed his hand, ‘loves me. I wanted to tell you so many times-how much I love him, how happy he makes me. All I need is you and my life would be perfect. I miss you Mum. I really miss you.”
Merlin gently sat cross-legged on what would have been his mother’s lap as he had as a child, only this time Arthur’s loving arms provided comfort as he sat behind him. They both wiped tears away with a wrist and Arthur kissed the neck in front of him.
“Thank you Merlin. I’m sorry I made you do this.”
“I’m not. It’s like I can breathe deeper now.”
“I love you.”
“I know.” Arthur never said it to hear it back which made Merlin feel it so much more. “Take me home, make me happy.”
“I’ve made you miserable three times in as many days and we haven’t been married a week yet. We should safely assume any attempt on my behalf to make you happy will be an epic fail.”
Merlin smiled and Arthur’s heart tried out a new rhythm. He could still bring him to his knees without effort.
“You can dance for me.”
“...”
“!”
“Do I have to wear The Hat?”
“Neither The Hat nor music will be necessary. Just you.” Merlin almost trumped him with a quality snog.
“Dance with me.” Arthur played his double snog card and won the trick.
“A happy thought indeed.”
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