Vampires, Werewolves, Warlocks and Ghosts (1/3)
Title: Vampires, Werewolves, Warlocks and Ghosts
Author:
weepingwillow9
Fandom: Merlin
Disclaimer: I don't own them!
Characters: Arthur, Merlin, Lancelot, Gwaine, Gwen, mentions of Morgana, Kilgharrah
Pairings: Arthur/Merlin/Lance/Gwaine (yeah, not a pairing, I know...)
Spoilers: Ermm... none...
Warning: It is NC-17. There is sex. Bit of violence, not much. Nuff said.
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Avalon is a rehabilitation centre. It's also where Arthur, Merlin, Lance and Gwaine get thrown together.
There was darkness, and through it a flash of teeth and pain. There was blood, Arthur’s blood, and something else’s too. Then there was just darkness, and pain, and Arthur’s shallow breaths fading out into the black.
*
Arthur had never been one for conspiracy theories. He’d always huffed at the idea of myth or magic. They made great stories, but they just weren’t real. That was until the rude awakening.
It just wasn’t fair, he thought. It should have happened to someone who already believed, so they didn’t have the shock of sudden realisations to go alongside the agony and the hunger and the disorientating need. Someone else might have been able to get over the initial event, the conversion. They might have got by without nightmares.
They might not, right now, be untangling themselves from sheets, peeling them off sweat soaked skin, and bundling themselves into a shower to try to forget. They might have been able to cope, maybe to make something of this.
Arthur, unfortunately, could not react in anything resembling that way. Instead, he had let his father pack him off to rehab, to teach him to cope with this new addiction to something he had never even tried, but knew he needed, in a bone deep ache. He was going to cope. Going to live a normal life, apparently, ignore all of this.
All of this being the fact that, as of two days, seven hours and fifty three minutes ago, Arthur was a vampire. Well, that was when he gained consciousness. It didn’t quite count if you were out cold and writhing, he thought.
So that’s how Arthur ended up in the best room Avalon has to offer. Avalon, the best and therefore most famous Rehabilitation Clinic in the UK, a medieval castle renovated in the eighteenth century and restored in the fifties, set in sprawling grounds of deer park and sculpted landscape. There’s even a lake, dominating the grounds and visible from every west facing window.
Arthur sits in his window seat now, looking at the lake, watching the figures walk around it. He can do no such thing - confined to his rooms until his therapist decides he’s capable of dealing with the addiction well enough to be allowed around people. His therapist doesn’t count as people. Lance, as he insists on being called, though he’s really Dr DuLac, doesn’t smell like blood at all. He’s a little cold to the touch, and doesn’t seem to fear Arthur in the slightest.
That and he’s completely gorgeous. Tanned, well built, and tall like Arthur. He’s obviously a frequent user of Avalon’s famed gym (another place Arthur is not allowed to go) judging on the muscles. When he takes off his suit jacket in the heat, god, his biceps. It’s all Arthur can do to concentrate in their sessions together. There have been four so far. Twice a day. No luck so far, but Arthur gets the feeling that Lance is sizing him up, trying to work out what sort of a person Arthur is and how to deal with him.
There’s no session for a while yet. Lance is seeing other patients. There are books left for him, a shelf full of them, but what Arthur really needs is a person. Someone to distract him. He’s never been very good at dealing with his own company when waiting for something. But he can’t be trusted with a human being. So Arthur watches, and waits, and wishes he could talk to one of the figures by the lake, walk with them if only for a while.
*
Merlin never wanted this placement. But Gaius had insisted that he be the researcher to look into the trial of EuphorBlock, one of the many drugs they had been perfecting in the lab. This one is to help recovering addicts. Merlin went into pharmaceuticals to cure cancer, not to help rich kids get over their little problems. But Gaius had chosen him, and it’s true that this experience will help his paper on the psychology of the placebo effect in clinical trials, so he finds himself grinning and bearing it. Even though he wants to be back in the lab, working on the cystic fibrosis drug that’s just too late for Will, his best friend and the bravest person he knows. Knew. But he has to stop thinking about Will because they both knew it was coming sooner or later. Will wanted him to live, not mourn.
Both grinning and bearing it and ignoring Will’s memory is made a lot easier by the man that Merlin gets to work with. His name’s Lance, though in reports he has to be referred to as Dr DuLac. He’s ridiculously hot, and Merlin doesn’t think he’s projecting when he catches Lance flirting with him. Their hands brushed over a bottle of pills on day one, and their relationship has never quite made it to professional since. He blames the ridiculous workload Nimueh gives Lance for the lack of dating, and therefore the lack of sex, so he makes sure to glare at her surreptitiously at any opportunity. Still, there are five months and two weeks left of the six month trial, plenty of time for Lance to fall for him and for them to end up together in one of those wonderfully soft beds in Nimueh’s prized rooms.
He snaps out of it now, as Lance walks back into the room, clutching a sheaf of paper.
“Thanks. That’s all of it for today, isn’t it?”
“That’s all the data, yes.” Something about Lance’s voice makes Merlin pause as he takes the paper from Lance’s hands. He looks down, at the top sheet, but there’s nothing different about it. Then his fingers catch sight of the piece of A4 that’s folded around the papers. There’s something handwritten on it, and Merlin’s eyes shoot up to Lance, questioning. He can’t read what it says, since most of the message is obscured by Lance’s fingers.
“Go on, I know how long it takes you to process this crap.”
Lance grins, letting go of the paper at last, and makes a shooing motion. So Merlin isn’t allowed to read the message yet, then. He smiles back, puzzled, and walks out of the room, laptop bag swung over his shoulder. He’ll work outside today; the weather’s beautiful, uncommon for a British summer though that is. So Merlin wants to make the most of it. There are benches where he can still get great wifi signal, and look out over the lake while he types numbers and codenames into spreadsheets then plays with the figures until they show him what he wants to see. Simple tricks that make graphs look so much more optimistic.
He can twist the numbers until they support both the drug and his theories on the placebo effect in psychological cases. But that can wait; he has a message to read.
It’s Lance’s handwriting alright, and it makes Merlin smile, type one word into his phone very quickly, then stand up and grin, spinning around and throwing his arms into the air, unobserved.
*
Arthur feels his breath catch as he watches the man underneath his window. The smile on his face is breath-taking; Arthur can see it perfectly from four floors up. It makes his cheekbones even more pronounced. He’s got some sort of good news, then. Arthur wants to be down there with him, asking what’s made him so happy, why he’s grinning so unabashedly. Part of Arthur also wants to kiss him until the smile shifts into something different, and it’s that part that marvels at the sheer amount of beautiful men working in one clinic. Arthur saw this man yesterday, and the day before, even just after he’d woken up, before Lance had found him and started talking to him.
Stupid though he knows it is, Arthur felt a connection to this man, the first human being he’d seen after he’d been transformed, after his life had been turned inside out. He feels a pull towards him, which the more logical parts of his mind, the ones that aren’t freaking out quite as much as the rest of him, put down to attraction alone. He can be conventional when he wants to and go for stereotypically perfect men, like Lance, but Arthur has always been unable to resist the startlingly and unexpectedly pretty men, like the one who works under his window. And he is very, very pretty.
Arthur likes to watch this man, as he loses patience with his laptop. He puts it down on the bench next to him, and walks out over the grass towards the lake. Arthur likes to watch his arse as he moves, wishes he could go down there and talk to the man because Arthur’s always been a charmer and he really would like this man in his bed. But he doesn’t want an innocent man he doesn’t know but fancies completely dead, so that idea’s out of the question.
Lance wouldn’t fuck Arthur if he asked, either. He’s probably straight, and if he’s not, he’s too concerned about getting Arthur into a state that lets him retain his mental health as well as his clean conscience. The hormone rushes involved in sex could set him back days, or trigger something unthinkable. So all Arthur has is longing. Mainly for blood, but the longing for these two men, when one of them is in his direct line of sight is a welcome reprieve.
*
The text that Lance picks up after his next session simply says ‘Yes!’, and he grins at the screen, before texting back a quick ‘See you later’ and leaving the office for Arthur’s therapy.
He can’t treat Arthur as he would anyone else, in his office sitting in the comfortable leather chair on the other side of his desk, because Arthur’s journey to the office would be too dangerous for anyone working in Avalon who happened to be walking along the corridor at the time. He lets himself into Arthur’s rooms, because he has one of the few keycards, and he announces himself with a shouted ‘Arthur!’
Arthur’s sitting in the window seat, perfect as he turns to face Lance. Not for the first time, Lance finds himself wondering if Arthur looked like this before he was transformed. He can’t ask, it’s outside his remit as Arthur’s therapist, and it would give far too much away. Arthur is a patient, and he can’t sacrifice his wellbeing for a stupid crush.
He motions for Arthur to sit with him, turning to Arthur’s notes as he crosses the room. Arthur leans forwards when he sits, not quite at ease, but determined to appear so. Lance picks up on these things. He gets out a pen, biding his time until he has to start speaking to Arthur.
The thing is, he doesn’t really know where to start. According to Nimueh, who has apparently experienced these things before, a vampire has an addiction like any other, except that the addiction does not result from over consumption of blood and therefore a dependence on it. It’s caused by a change in the body when most of the blood is drained from it that makes it need blood like it would need a drug. It can cope without, with training, but it’s a constant battle.
Lance knows where he would start with any other vampire. He would associate the horror of killing with the taste of blood, the smell of blood. He would work at it until the vampire could see human beings as people again, rather than just walking food sources. But Arthur’s never tasted blood as a vampire, never killed. Yes, Uther thought right to send Arthur here, but in being so proactive he has given Lance nothing to work with. Just a bright eyed young man, tight-lipped with a fear of himself that he isn’t able to understand.
They talk, like they have the past few days, stupid questions like how Arthur feels about being a vampire. He doesn’t like it, unsurprisingly. Lance almost wants to cross the distance between them and kiss him, just to change something. But it’s a stupid idea.
*
There’s a little village, not far from Avalon, and that’s where Merlin’s staying. Lance promised to meet him at the castle at ten, telling him to eat first because they’re going on a midnight tour of the grounds.
The parkland is eerily quiet, the moonlight reflecting off the lake in a gentle glow. They talk of very little, filling the silence more with laughter than with words. Merlin’s surprised at how easy it is, to talk to Lance and pause as they watch the bats streaming out of the roof, their shoulders meeting as they walk. It’s a simple thing to let his shoulder stay pressed to Lance a little longer than it perhaps should, to feel Lance pull him around and kiss him, long and sweet, fingers curling into Lance’s hair.
It would be ridiculous for Lance to take him up to his room on a first date, so Merlin ignores the disappointment when no invitation is mentioned. He kisses Lance goodbye and takes the taxi back down the drive, head a little fuzzy from the wine they’ve been drinking and the breath taken from him with each kiss.
He daydreams in the back of the taxi, lingering on the press of Lance’s lips, the way the moonlight caught his eyes, the interlacing of their fingers. It was perfect, intimate and just them. He has no idea that the Avalon side of their circuit of the lake was watched, followed, by eyes just under the roof. Jealous, hungry and hopeless.
*
Arthur barely speaks to Lance in their session. He replies to every question in monosyllables. He feels betrayed by both of them, Lance and the man under the window, though neither of them owe anything to him. He wishes them every happiness with the clear thinking parts of his mind. With his heart he wants to hit something until his knuckles bleed, but even his own blood is a bad idea.
Lance stops asking, so it’s silent. Arthur stares at the wall, at the table, at anything that isn’t Lance. He can’t quite cope with it all. And then, when it’s too much to bear, he speaks.
“I had a dream last night.”
It’s true, after Arthur had fallen asleep in the window seat, staring out over the lake, letting the jealousy roam free and blossom within his chest, he had dreamt. Nightmares, that left him haunted and dragging himself into bed, shivering, in the small hours of the morning.
“It was my transformation. But it was different. It started off as my pain, but then there was someone else’s, and then someone else’s, and I realised that I was the source of the pain, and I was screaming, and there was blood. Everywhere.”
Still, he doesn’t look at Lance. The pain in the dream was Lance’s, and his boyfriend’s. His conscience playing tricks on him, surely. He can’t let Lance know about that, though. How can you tell your therapist everything when baring all reveals your stupid crush on both him and his boyfriend? There will be secrets between them, and this will not work. Arthur will never be cured. He will be forever locked in this room, just watching the world go by without him.
He rests his head on his hands, but his elbows come into contact with something soft and cold. Lance, kneeling between his legs. Tentatively, he takes hold of Arthur’s head, moves it until they’re looking into each other’s eyes.
“Arthur, I know what to do now. Thank you for trusting me with your nightmare. I will help you through this, Arthur. We’ll fix you.”
He breaks into a grin and stands up, moving towards the door.
“I’ll see you tomorrow. I need to prepare a few things.”
All Arthur can think of as the lock clicks on his door is how close Lance’s face was to his, how little effort it would have taken to move his head through the space between it and Lance, to kiss him. Stupid idea, but it’s what Arthur wants.
He’s going to have to find himself another therapist.
*
Next day, when Lance comes, he tells Arthur to lie down on the bed. He tries to get comfortable like Lance asks, but he can’t quite, because he knows this is some stupid therapist thing, and the bed is not being used for what he wants. And Lance is just there, just beyond his line of vision. The window’s just in the corner of his eye, and he knows the man is there, though he can’t see him from this angle. He’d been watching, before Lance turned up. He can’t seem to stop himself, and it’s the only thing that distracts him from the need.
He supposes that it’s a bad thing, that the only diversion is another craving, but he can’t help welcoming thoughts about something else. Something that’s not the press of his new teeth on something soft, the rush of something that tastes of iron and warmth and life.
Then Lance tells him to close his eyes, and talks him through how to calm his breath, and that’s the last thing he remembers.
Lance talks to hypnotised Arthur about the dreams. He plays on Arthur’s fear of the pain, talks about how horrible it would be if the dreams came true, if Arthur lost control and inflicted it on someone else. Arthur understands this, he knows that he has to keep himself reined in, but he doesn’t know how.
But while hypnotised Arthur understands everything that conscious Arthur does, he doesn’t have the same barriers. When Arthur says ‘you’ as they’re talking about the dreams once, Lance thinks nothing more of it. But by the fifth time, and the first mention of ‘window man’, Lance can’t just let it slip.
“What do you mean, Arthur?”
“The guy who sits under the window and works. You know him, you kissed him the other night.”
“What about him?”
“He’s in the dreams with us because I want you and I want him, but I’m not allowed to.”
Lance doesn’t know what to do with that, no response comes to mind that he can safely say. “Kiss me” is highly unprofessional, and not good for Arthur at all. “I’m sorry, but we can’t” would still reveal too much. Rejection would be lying, and he’s afraid Arthur would see through it. Any acknowledgement would ruin everything. So he snaps his fingers, and Arthur’s back, sitting up.
“I feel… calm…”
Lance smiles, leans back in his seat.
“Glad to know I’ve done my job.”
Arthur sits up, leans forward, and Lance is struck by how much he still wants to tell Arthur to kiss him. But this isn’t right, he has to stop this or else find Arthur someone else. But who? Nimueh chose him specifically.
Arthur hesitates for a moment, then smiles back to Lance.
“Thank you.”
“I’ll see you later for another session, Arthur.”
With that, Lance leaves for Nimueh’s office.
*
“I can’t do it, Nimueh! I don’t know how to help him!”
“You’re the only one who’s safe around him, Lancelot. You will continue to try at least, if you value your place here.”
Those words are all it takes to threaten him into submission, because Avalon is all he really has. That’s the problem with Nimueh, she knows everything you value, everything you need, and she can take it away as easily as breathing. But he’ll try once more, because he simply cannot do this.
“Nimueh, he fancies me, and I- well, you’ve seen him.”
She nods, a smile playing across her lips.
“I don’t have anyone else quite like you, Lance. I can’t assign him another therapist. You’ll just have to put up with it, and tone down your ogling.”
Lance knows when he’s dismissed, so he stands, and he’s gone.
Nimueh looks at the space he used to occupy, and smiles. There’s something predatory about it, some feeling of ownership and control that accompanies the expression.
*
Arthur’s getting restless. There’s nothing to do in his room. Well, there’s plenty to do; a tv, books, but he’s restless and he can’t concentrate. He stretches, does a few exercises, pushes the chairs in the living area back until there’s enough room to move a little more.
And that’s how Lance finds him, rolling across the floor into one of the armchairs. He can’t help laughing, though it’s not really funny. A grown man, confined to his rooms through no fault of his own. And Arthur’s taking it remarkably well, he’s not complaining or trying to break out, because he understands and he doesn’t want to hurt anyone.
Lance looks at him, assessing, and decides he’s ready for a little experiment.
Come evening, Lance goes to Arthur’s rooms. The corridors are just about empty, so there’ll be no one to tempt Arthur on the way.
“Arthur?” he calls into the room, “Arthur, it’s only me. I’ve got something for you, could you come with me?”
The suite’s in darkness, Arthur just staring out of the window over the grounds.
“I’m so sick of this,” he mutters. Lance risks resting a hand on his shoulder.
“I know. Come with me.”
Arthur nods, and follows him out into the corridor. And if he thinks it’s a little strange, being allowed out of his room for the first time in days, he doesn’t say anything.
Lance takes him straight to the lift, appearing completely at ease in such a tight space with Arthur. Arthur’s dangerous, and it worries him that Lance trusts him not to bite him. Not that he would, because he doesn’t feel that pull towards Lance. There’s no way that Lance could know that, though. It’s like he’s suddenly expected to be safe, and he doesn’t know if he can live up to that.
They go all the way down, to the ground floor, then Lance leads him through a few corridors. Arthur’s confused, because he doesn’t know the layout of Avalon. He’s never had a chance to explore; he came in drugged into sleep and woke up in his room. He hasn’t left the confines of those walls since. He’s slowing, so Lance takes his hand and pulls, and Arthur’s struck by how cold it is, and how good it feels to be touched, not to be tiptoed around like he’s a bomb waiting to go off.
Lance opens a heavy door, and pulls Arthur through into a room filled with treadmills and rowing machines and exercise bikes. One side of the room is made entirely of French doors, and the view is out towards the lake. It’s not quite a full moon, but the light reflects on the surface of the water and into the room anyway. Then the lights flicker on, and it’s like a blind’s been pulled across the windows, like there are walls of jet. They reflect the rows of machines and one man leaning lazily on the arm of a running machine.
Arthur feels like this place is cursed, because he can’t escape the plague of beautiful men. The one in front of him is wearing a navy polo shirt with ‘Avalon’ embroidered on the left side of the chest and mid grey tracksuit bottoms. He’s tanned, long haired and a little bit bearded, and he stands with his hands in his pockets, looking completely at ease and heartbreakingly strong. Arthur swallows.
“You’re Arthur, right?”
“Yeah.” He takes a few breaths as he walks over, holding out his hand, and there’s something that passes between them in that handshake. This man doesn’t feel cold like Lance; his hand is hot, and so much more dangerous. But Arthur can restrain himself, shooting a glance over his shoulder to Lance to see if he’s passed some sort of test. Lance just smiles.
“I’m Gwaine, Head Personal Trainer, and the one with the keys to the gym.”
He leans in a little bit to whisper, a playful grin on his face.
“I’m not getting paid for this. Just wanted to meet the resident vampire.”
The look Arthur gives Lance this time is panicked and betrayed.
“It’s alright! He worked it out, I didn’t tell. And he’s the only one who knows.”
Arthur still feels worried, still on edge, and he scowls at Gwaine, then reaches forward and pushes.
Gwaine stumbles back, so Arthur pushes some more until he’s up against the French doors. He opens his mouth and Gwaine gets a proper look at those teeth, flashing under Arthur’s lips. For a moment he’s scared - the most terrified he’s ever been in his life, and there have been some pretty petrifying moments. But Arthur makes no move to rip his throat out, and Lance is just next to them, one hand on Arthur’s arm, cooling and calming.
“Arthur.”
“I swear, if you tell a soul, if you even breathe the word vampire.”
“You’ll drain me dry, I get it.” Gwaine grins, trailing a finger down Arthur’s chest. “Lance, you never told me he was pretty!”
Arthur pushes back against the glass wall, launching himself back into the room. As he turns away, Gwaine could swear his eyes flash red.
Lance holds up his hands in despair at Gwaine, moving to sit on an exercise bike. He starts to pedal a little, idly, looking over at Arthur.
“What do you want to do?”
Arthur doesn’t answer, just sits at the nearest rowing machine and begins his strokes. Gwaine grins at him again.
“Good choice. Those muscles don’t maintain themselves.”
He goes to the weights himself, first taking a remote control from his pocket and flicking a music channel onto the screens that hang from the ceiling. Arthur watches it resolutely, refusing to give Gwaine the satisfaction of seeing Arthur ogling him while his muscles strain and bulge. He doesn’t look at Lance on the bike either, because that too would be ammunition for Gwaine.
Lance stares at the screen in front of him, because it would be inappropriate to look at Arthur, and he doesn’t want Gwaine’s teasing, not when he’s got a boyfriend.
Gwaine has no such qualms, and would drink in the sight, but for the fact that his head is pointed towards the ceiling and he can’t see a thing. But to move to the treadmill now would seem like admitting defeat with the weights, and he wants to impress Arthur. Because Arthur is, as he said, hot. And for some reason he feels like he’s got something to prove.
The next video that comes up is some hip hop shit, lots of girls trailed over cars, and Arthur turns away from the screen for the first time.
“This is crap.”
Gwaine catches his eye, and they’re both laughing. Lance just looks between them, a little lost as to when exactly they became best friends and what exactly the huge joke is. Still, he’s pleased his grand plan’s working well after such a shaky (and he was beginning to think disastrous) start.
A little while later, it’s clear that both Arthur and Gwaine are getting tired. And while Arthur doesn’t have to get up for anything in the morning, Gwaine does. So Lance makes a tactical retreat, taking Arthur back to his room and locking him in.
Arthur just stands on the other side of the door, staring at it, not entirely sure that any part of what just happened was real, and if it was wanting so much more.
*
The next night, Gwaine brings a film. It’s some over the top action film with far too many explosions and car chases to be considered in any way realistic. Arthur races Gwaine on the treadmills, and they take the piss out of the film, doing voiceovers between panted out breaths. Lance feels a bit like a third wheel, but he doesn’t mind. He’s spent the whole day finding excuses to see Merlin, and it’s been great. Avalon is a rabbit warren of corridors, so there are plenty of spots for hiding and snogging, pressed together in a little alcove where no one will find them, or even stealing kisses in Lance’s office when Merlin comes for the data. Lance is sure everyone knows, but if they do they’re keeping quiet about it, and for that he’s thankful. He won’t lose his job for it, but he doesn’t want the teasing. Especially not from Nimueh.
Arthur finds himself waiting for every evening. It’s the only thing keeping him sane, his workout sessions with Lance and Gwaine. Otherwise he’d probably be hallucinating Lance’s still unnamed boyfriend in his room. Lance too, for that matter, even Gwaine, in very compromising positions. And this train of thought needs to stop, because two out of three are his friends, and two out of three are in a relationship.
Then one night, Lance doesn’t come to his door. Arthur’s locked in, and he can’t get out to find out if everything’s alright. But neither Lance nor Gwaine warned him about commitments tonight, so he can’t help but think the worst.
*
“We could have lunch together. You know, it seems silly that we’re seeing each other and we don’t have lunch together.”
Lance goes very quiet, and Merlin looks at him, worried.
“Lance, is that alright?”
“I- I can’t. I’m… busy.”
Merlin’s eyes narrow, and Lance’s heart catches. Merlin thinks he doesn’t want this, he can tell. He does, though. He just can’t let Merlin see.
“Are you seeing someone else? Is that why everything’s been so secretive?”
“No! Of course I’m not, I just don’t want either of us to get into trouble!”
It sounds like a pitiful excuse to Merlin. All he wants to do is eat in with his boyfriend and it’s causing a complete fuss.
“Lance, if you don’t want this, just fucking tell me.”
“I want this, Merlin.” His eyes shut, trying to gather the courage to say. But he can’t, and Merlin will run as fast as he can in the opposite direction.
“I’m a nervous eater, alright? I can’t eat in front of other people.”
“Lance, you’re a therapist. In the company of therapists. Don’t lie to me.”
Merlin’s voice is near enough to break Lance’s heart. So he screws his eyes shut, takes a deep breath.
“I can’t eat.”
Merlin stills, just looks at him.
“What do you mean?”
“I… died. Here. I’m a ghost.”
To prove it, Lance disappears, reappearing next to Merlin.
“See?”
“Oh. Oh.”
“I didn’t want you to know, because you’re just going to run away now.”
Merlin takes the couple of steps over to him, takes his hand.
“No, I’m not. I like you a lot, Lance, that’s not something that can be erased because you’re a ghost.”
Then he leans in and kisses Lance.
“You believe me, then?”
“Well, it makes a lot of sense. You’re cold, and you call a rain check on all dates outside Avalon.”
“I can go outside Avalon, I just need another tie. Someone or something. I don’t know you well enough yet.”
Merlin smiles a little at that.
“But you will. Watch me eat at lunchtimes?”
“I’d like that.”
*
Arthur’s still worried. He’s meant to be having two afternoon sessions with Lance, but not seeing him for hours has him worried more than he cares to admit. At least his boyfriend is in his usual place. If something happened to Lance, he’d be looking worried, right? Nothing can happen to Lance. Apart from anything, Lance is the one controlling Arthur’s entry and exit to the room, and he brings the food that Arthur cooks for himself to pass the time. But mostly, Arthur couldn’t bear it if something happened to him.
And then, just as Arthur’s driving himself to distraction an hour before their session, Lance appears under his window, on the bench with his boyfriend. They look happy. Lance doesn’t eat, but he does feed the other man every now and then, and Arthur can tell that they’re laughing and enjoying themselves. When they kiss goodbye, Arthur feels a wave of jealousy and want that near knocks him back. But he has to pull himself together, because Lance is on his way up to his rooms for their session.
He manages to compose himself fully before Lance opens the door, and he makes it through remarkably well to the point where Lance puts him in the trance.
*
“Is there anything you want to ask me?”
“Just one thing. What’s your boyfriend’s name?”
Lance feels himself colour, and he looks over at Arthur, who’s still staring at the ceiling. He doesn’t realise that he’s asked something he shouldn’t; these inhibitions are removed at the lower levels of his mind.
“Merlin.”
Then Lance snaps his fingers, and Arthur wakes up.
“How are we doing?”
Lance coughs, clearing his throat.
“Well. Really well. I’ll try you with more people soon.”
Arthur smiles, wide and bright and Lance is struck by just how beautiful and blue eyed his patient is.
“Oh, and Lance, I thought our gym thing was every night? Can you warn me when you’re not going to turn up? I was worried sick.”
Something inside Lance thaws at the thought of Arthur worrying about him, but he builds his walls back up again. He can’t fall for Arthur. Can’t let himself.
“Sorry, Gwaine had something that came up, I completely forgot I hadn’t told you…”
“You’ll be here tonight, right?”
“Yeah.”
*
Lance decides to take Merlin that night. He’s not spending enough time with him, dates restricted to weekends, when he has fewer patients, because of Arthur. Arthur’s ready for another person to be brought into the mix, and Lance would be lying if he denied the curiosity of wanting to know how Arthur will react to finally meeting him. It’s only fair on Merlin as well, no more secrets.
When Lance leads Arthur into the gym, Arthur can feel the apprehension, like it’s oozing out of Lance, and he’s not sure what to expect when he walks through the door.
He takes in the sight of Gwaine and the other man, and just gasps.
“Merlin.”
He can’t understand how he knows that name, since Lance has never mentioned it, but window man turns, looks at him with a complete lack of recognition. Arthur knew not to expect anything, but it’s a blow to the stomach regardless. Merlin smiles a little, walks towards him.
“Do I know you? You look like someone I’d recognise.”
“No, you don’t.” Arthur doesn’t know how to phrase his little (alright, huge) obsession without seeming like some crazy stalker, so he hunts wildly for an excuse for knowing his name.
“Lance… mentioned you.” He’s waited too long to say that, he knows, and there’s doubt in Merlin’s eyes. He risks a quick glance at Lance, though, because he can’t make this any worse.
Thankfully Lance knows when to step in. Arthur’s face is so worried that Lance almost thinks he’ll cover Arthur in kisses there and then, but he manages to hold back. There’s also an edge to Arthur’s look, and Lance knows that there will be questions later. Arthur looks just a little threatening, but so beautifully vulnerable, and next to Merlin Lance isn’t sure where to look. If they don’t move he’ll end up cross eyed.
“Merlin, this is Arthur. He’s a vampire; I’ve been helping him. He has to stay locked in his room for everyone’s safety, but I trust him enough to bring him down here in the evenings.”
Arthur smiles at that admission of trust, then turns back to Merlin for explanations.
“I get restless, this is quite hard to deal with.”
Merlin nods, slowly.
“Newly made?”
“Yeah.”
He reaches forward, taps Arthur’s arm. It’s companionable, and nice, and Arthur wants it to last forever, but he can’t encourage Merlin for fear Arthur lets go of everything and drinks him. Ripping throats out is not usually the best way to win a man.
Arthur realises as the night goes on, watching Lance and Merlin, that he doesn’t want to win Merlin from Lance. He doesn’t want to separate them, because they’re so good for each other. And while he’s desperately jealous of Lance, and kind of Merlin too, he just wants them both happy. A vampire will never give them that.
Come to think of it, he should probably back off from Gwaine, too. This new vampirism thing should not be inflicted on others. It’s his to deal with, and it’s not fair to drag other people, other people he cares about, down with him. He’ll talk to Lance about it tomorrow. He’ll understand.
It’s some sort of chick flick tonight, but they can’t quite follow the storyline. Instead they make fun of the painting on that one guy’s wall that looks stupidly like a penis, and Merlin turns out not only to be up for the commentary game, but very good at it. He’s not too great at using the gym equipment, gets himself into far too many tangles that Gwaine and Arthur take turns unpicking. Arthur takes the piss (“you idiot,” “how did you manage that, the button is clearly labelled with up”) and Gwaine’s a little more sympathetic, but not much (“next time, just don’t try to push yourself so hard, someone as scrawny as you shouldn’t be lifting that much”). It’s nice, just being the four of them, and Arthur tries to forget that it needs to end. But it does. They’ll understand.
*
It’s quite late, and Lance is surprised to find Merlin still in the foyer when he returns after taking Arthur upstairs.
“Hi,” he calls out from the lift.
Merlin turns to him, smile wide and breathtaking, and rubs his hand around the back of his neck, nervously.
“So, I- I wanted to say goodbye properly I guess…”
Lance is most of the way over to Merlin now, and between them they close the rest of the distance, Merlin looping his arms around Lance’s neck and pressing close for a kiss, Lance pressing back and holding onto Merlin’s hips. Then Merlin’s tongue licks out, Lance’s mouth opens, and without either of them knowing how, Merlin’s pressed against the reception desk, leaning back over it, moaning into Lance’s mouth.
“Bed?” Merlin asks, and there’s something in the hoarseness of his voice that makes Lance forget his guilt about the whole Arthur hypnotism thing and just nod frantically.
Wordlessly, he takes Merlin’s hand, walks him through a Staff Only door, and shoves him in a lift, significantly smaller and plainer than the one to Arthur’s rooms. They kiss in the lift, Merlin pressed against the wall, then Lance, Lance kissing over Merlin’s neck, Merlin’s hands lifting his shirt and drawing teasing lines over Lance’s muscles.
He turns his mouth to Lance’s, tongue eagerly exploring his mouth as the doors open, and then they’re stumbling to Lance’s rooms and inside, and Lance strips Merlin, quickly. He darts in for another kiss, but it’s only quick. Merlin pulls his shirt off, and Lance uses the distance between them as an opportunity to kneel at Merlin’s feet, take his cock in his mouth and suck, slow. He pulls back, looks up to Merlin’s dark eyes, Merlin’s hands coming to clasp in his hair. Lance licks around the head, hikes one of Merlin’s legs up onto his shoulder, and takes the length into his mouth. Merlin’s groans are all the encouragement he needs to keep going.
The hands clench in his hair, and it’s not long before the
“Fuck, Lance-”
Is aborted by hot, wet, down Lance’s throat, and he swallows.
They do make it to the bed, eventually, Merlin’s hand wrapping around Lance’s cock, and after the sounds Merlin’s been making it doesn’t take long for Lance to come.
He wakes up in the morning, sticky and vaguely uncomfortable, and realises that up until then he hadn’t known if he could have sex as a ghost.
*
Part Two
Author:
weepingwillow9
Fandom: Merlin
Disclaimer: I don't own them!
Characters: Arthur, Merlin, Lancelot, Gwaine, Gwen, mentions of Morgana, Kilgharrah
Pairings: Arthur/Merlin/Lance/Gwaine (yeah, not a pairing, I know...)
Spoilers: Ermm... none...
Warning: It is NC-17. There is sex. Bit of violence, not much. Nuff said.
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Avalon is a rehabilitation centre. It's also where Arthur, Merlin, Lance and Gwaine get thrown together.
There was darkness, and through it a flash of teeth and pain. There was blood, Arthur’s blood, and something else’s too. Then there was just darkness, and pain, and Arthur’s shallow breaths fading out into the black.
*
Arthur had never been one for conspiracy theories. He’d always huffed at the idea of myth or magic. They made great stories, but they just weren’t real. That was until the rude awakening.
It just wasn’t fair, he thought. It should have happened to someone who already believed, so they didn’t have the shock of sudden realisations to go alongside the agony and the hunger and the disorientating need. Someone else might have been able to get over the initial event, the conversion. They might have got by without nightmares.
They might not, right now, be untangling themselves from sheets, peeling them off sweat soaked skin, and bundling themselves into a shower to try to forget. They might have been able to cope, maybe to make something of this.
Arthur, unfortunately, could not react in anything resembling that way. Instead, he had let his father pack him off to rehab, to teach him to cope with this new addiction to something he had never even tried, but knew he needed, in a bone deep ache. He was going to cope. Going to live a normal life, apparently, ignore all of this.
All of this being the fact that, as of two days, seven hours and fifty three minutes ago, Arthur was a vampire. Well, that was when he gained consciousness. It didn’t quite count if you were out cold and writhing, he thought.
So that’s how Arthur ended up in the best room Avalon has to offer. Avalon, the best and therefore most famous Rehabilitation Clinic in the UK, a medieval castle renovated in the eighteenth century and restored in the fifties, set in sprawling grounds of deer park and sculpted landscape. There’s even a lake, dominating the grounds and visible from every west facing window.
Arthur sits in his window seat now, looking at the lake, watching the figures walk around it. He can do no such thing - confined to his rooms until his therapist decides he’s capable of dealing with the addiction well enough to be allowed around people. His therapist doesn’t count as people. Lance, as he insists on being called, though he’s really Dr DuLac, doesn’t smell like blood at all. He’s a little cold to the touch, and doesn’t seem to fear Arthur in the slightest.
That and he’s completely gorgeous. Tanned, well built, and tall like Arthur. He’s obviously a frequent user of Avalon’s famed gym (another place Arthur is not allowed to go) judging on the muscles. When he takes off his suit jacket in the heat, god, his biceps. It’s all Arthur can do to concentrate in their sessions together. There have been four so far. Twice a day. No luck so far, but Arthur gets the feeling that Lance is sizing him up, trying to work out what sort of a person Arthur is and how to deal with him.
There’s no session for a while yet. Lance is seeing other patients. There are books left for him, a shelf full of them, but what Arthur really needs is a person. Someone to distract him. He’s never been very good at dealing with his own company when waiting for something. But he can’t be trusted with a human being. So Arthur watches, and waits, and wishes he could talk to one of the figures by the lake, walk with them if only for a while.
*
Merlin never wanted this placement. But Gaius had insisted that he be the researcher to look into the trial of EuphorBlock, one of the many drugs they had been perfecting in the lab. This one is to help recovering addicts. Merlin went into pharmaceuticals to cure cancer, not to help rich kids get over their little problems. But Gaius had chosen him, and it’s true that this experience will help his paper on the psychology of the placebo effect in clinical trials, so he finds himself grinning and bearing it. Even though he wants to be back in the lab, working on the cystic fibrosis drug that’s just too late for Will, his best friend and the bravest person he knows. Knew. But he has to stop thinking about Will because they both knew it was coming sooner or later. Will wanted him to live, not mourn.
Both grinning and bearing it and ignoring Will’s memory is made a lot easier by the man that Merlin gets to work with. His name’s Lance, though in reports he has to be referred to as Dr DuLac. He’s ridiculously hot, and Merlin doesn’t think he’s projecting when he catches Lance flirting with him. Their hands brushed over a bottle of pills on day one, and their relationship has never quite made it to professional since. He blames the ridiculous workload Nimueh gives Lance for the lack of dating, and therefore the lack of sex, so he makes sure to glare at her surreptitiously at any opportunity. Still, there are five months and two weeks left of the six month trial, plenty of time for Lance to fall for him and for them to end up together in one of those wonderfully soft beds in Nimueh’s prized rooms.
He snaps out of it now, as Lance walks back into the room, clutching a sheaf of paper.
“Thanks. That’s all of it for today, isn’t it?”
“That’s all the data, yes.” Something about Lance’s voice makes Merlin pause as he takes the paper from Lance’s hands. He looks down, at the top sheet, but there’s nothing different about it. Then his fingers catch sight of the piece of A4 that’s folded around the papers. There’s something handwritten on it, and Merlin’s eyes shoot up to Lance, questioning. He can’t read what it says, since most of the message is obscured by Lance’s fingers.
“Go on, I know how long it takes you to process this crap.”
Lance grins, letting go of the paper at last, and makes a shooing motion. So Merlin isn’t allowed to read the message yet, then. He smiles back, puzzled, and walks out of the room, laptop bag swung over his shoulder. He’ll work outside today; the weather’s beautiful, uncommon for a British summer though that is. So Merlin wants to make the most of it. There are benches where he can still get great wifi signal, and look out over the lake while he types numbers and codenames into spreadsheets then plays with the figures until they show him what he wants to see. Simple tricks that make graphs look so much more optimistic.
He can twist the numbers until they support both the drug and his theories on the placebo effect in psychological cases. But that can wait; he has a message to read.
It’s Lance’s handwriting alright, and it makes Merlin smile, type one word into his phone very quickly, then stand up and grin, spinning around and throwing his arms into the air, unobserved.
*
Arthur feels his breath catch as he watches the man underneath his window. The smile on his face is breath-taking; Arthur can see it perfectly from four floors up. It makes his cheekbones even more pronounced. He’s got some sort of good news, then. Arthur wants to be down there with him, asking what’s made him so happy, why he’s grinning so unabashedly. Part of Arthur also wants to kiss him until the smile shifts into something different, and it’s that part that marvels at the sheer amount of beautiful men working in one clinic. Arthur saw this man yesterday, and the day before, even just after he’d woken up, before Lance had found him and started talking to him.
Stupid though he knows it is, Arthur felt a connection to this man, the first human being he’d seen after he’d been transformed, after his life had been turned inside out. He feels a pull towards him, which the more logical parts of his mind, the ones that aren’t freaking out quite as much as the rest of him, put down to attraction alone. He can be conventional when he wants to and go for stereotypically perfect men, like Lance, but Arthur has always been unable to resist the startlingly and unexpectedly pretty men, like the one who works under his window. And he is very, very pretty.
Arthur likes to watch this man, as he loses patience with his laptop. He puts it down on the bench next to him, and walks out over the grass towards the lake. Arthur likes to watch his arse as he moves, wishes he could go down there and talk to the man because Arthur’s always been a charmer and he really would like this man in his bed. But he doesn’t want an innocent man he doesn’t know but fancies completely dead, so that idea’s out of the question.
Lance wouldn’t fuck Arthur if he asked, either. He’s probably straight, and if he’s not, he’s too concerned about getting Arthur into a state that lets him retain his mental health as well as his clean conscience. The hormone rushes involved in sex could set him back days, or trigger something unthinkable. So all Arthur has is longing. Mainly for blood, but the longing for these two men, when one of them is in his direct line of sight is a welcome reprieve.
*
The text that Lance picks up after his next session simply says ‘Yes!’, and he grins at the screen, before texting back a quick ‘See you later’ and leaving the office for Arthur’s therapy.
He can’t treat Arthur as he would anyone else, in his office sitting in the comfortable leather chair on the other side of his desk, because Arthur’s journey to the office would be too dangerous for anyone working in Avalon who happened to be walking along the corridor at the time. He lets himself into Arthur’s rooms, because he has one of the few keycards, and he announces himself with a shouted ‘Arthur!’
Arthur’s sitting in the window seat, perfect as he turns to face Lance. Not for the first time, Lance finds himself wondering if Arthur looked like this before he was transformed. He can’t ask, it’s outside his remit as Arthur’s therapist, and it would give far too much away. Arthur is a patient, and he can’t sacrifice his wellbeing for a stupid crush.
He motions for Arthur to sit with him, turning to Arthur’s notes as he crosses the room. Arthur leans forwards when he sits, not quite at ease, but determined to appear so. Lance picks up on these things. He gets out a pen, biding his time until he has to start speaking to Arthur.
The thing is, he doesn’t really know where to start. According to Nimueh, who has apparently experienced these things before, a vampire has an addiction like any other, except that the addiction does not result from over consumption of blood and therefore a dependence on it. It’s caused by a change in the body when most of the blood is drained from it that makes it need blood like it would need a drug. It can cope without, with training, but it’s a constant battle.
Lance knows where he would start with any other vampire. He would associate the horror of killing with the taste of blood, the smell of blood. He would work at it until the vampire could see human beings as people again, rather than just walking food sources. But Arthur’s never tasted blood as a vampire, never killed. Yes, Uther thought right to send Arthur here, but in being so proactive he has given Lance nothing to work with. Just a bright eyed young man, tight-lipped with a fear of himself that he isn’t able to understand.
They talk, like they have the past few days, stupid questions like how Arthur feels about being a vampire. He doesn’t like it, unsurprisingly. Lance almost wants to cross the distance between them and kiss him, just to change something. But it’s a stupid idea.
*
There’s a little village, not far from Avalon, and that’s where Merlin’s staying. Lance promised to meet him at the castle at ten, telling him to eat first because they’re going on a midnight tour of the grounds.
The parkland is eerily quiet, the moonlight reflecting off the lake in a gentle glow. They talk of very little, filling the silence more with laughter than with words. Merlin’s surprised at how easy it is, to talk to Lance and pause as they watch the bats streaming out of the roof, their shoulders meeting as they walk. It’s a simple thing to let his shoulder stay pressed to Lance a little longer than it perhaps should, to feel Lance pull him around and kiss him, long and sweet, fingers curling into Lance’s hair.
It would be ridiculous for Lance to take him up to his room on a first date, so Merlin ignores the disappointment when no invitation is mentioned. He kisses Lance goodbye and takes the taxi back down the drive, head a little fuzzy from the wine they’ve been drinking and the breath taken from him with each kiss.
He daydreams in the back of the taxi, lingering on the press of Lance’s lips, the way the moonlight caught his eyes, the interlacing of their fingers. It was perfect, intimate and just them. He has no idea that the Avalon side of their circuit of the lake was watched, followed, by eyes just under the roof. Jealous, hungry and hopeless.
*
Arthur barely speaks to Lance in their session. He replies to every question in monosyllables. He feels betrayed by both of them, Lance and the man under the window, though neither of them owe anything to him. He wishes them every happiness with the clear thinking parts of his mind. With his heart he wants to hit something until his knuckles bleed, but even his own blood is a bad idea.
Lance stops asking, so it’s silent. Arthur stares at the wall, at the table, at anything that isn’t Lance. He can’t quite cope with it all. And then, when it’s too much to bear, he speaks.
“I had a dream last night.”
It’s true, after Arthur had fallen asleep in the window seat, staring out over the lake, letting the jealousy roam free and blossom within his chest, he had dreamt. Nightmares, that left him haunted and dragging himself into bed, shivering, in the small hours of the morning.
“It was my transformation. But it was different. It started off as my pain, but then there was someone else’s, and then someone else’s, and I realised that I was the source of the pain, and I was screaming, and there was blood. Everywhere.”
Still, he doesn’t look at Lance. The pain in the dream was Lance’s, and his boyfriend’s. His conscience playing tricks on him, surely. He can’t let Lance know about that, though. How can you tell your therapist everything when baring all reveals your stupid crush on both him and his boyfriend? There will be secrets between them, and this will not work. Arthur will never be cured. He will be forever locked in this room, just watching the world go by without him.
He rests his head on his hands, but his elbows come into contact with something soft and cold. Lance, kneeling between his legs. Tentatively, he takes hold of Arthur’s head, moves it until they’re looking into each other’s eyes.
“Arthur, I know what to do now. Thank you for trusting me with your nightmare. I will help you through this, Arthur. We’ll fix you.”
He breaks into a grin and stands up, moving towards the door.
“I’ll see you tomorrow. I need to prepare a few things.”
All Arthur can think of as the lock clicks on his door is how close Lance’s face was to his, how little effort it would have taken to move his head through the space between it and Lance, to kiss him. Stupid idea, but it’s what Arthur wants.
He’s going to have to find himself another therapist.
*
Next day, when Lance comes, he tells Arthur to lie down on the bed. He tries to get comfortable like Lance asks, but he can’t quite, because he knows this is some stupid therapist thing, and the bed is not being used for what he wants. And Lance is just there, just beyond his line of vision. The window’s just in the corner of his eye, and he knows the man is there, though he can’t see him from this angle. He’d been watching, before Lance turned up. He can’t seem to stop himself, and it’s the only thing that distracts him from the need.
He supposes that it’s a bad thing, that the only diversion is another craving, but he can’t help welcoming thoughts about something else. Something that’s not the press of his new teeth on something soft, the rush of something that tastes of iron and warmth and life.
Then Lance tells him to close his eyes, and talks him through how to calm his breath, and that’s the last thing he remembers.
Lance talks to hypnotised Arthur about the dreams. He plays on Arthur’s fear of the pain, talks about how horrible it would be if the dreams came true, if Arthur lost control and inflicted it on someone else. Arthur understands this, he knows that he has to keep himself reined in, but he doesn’t know how.
But while hypnotised Arthur understands everything that conscious Arthur does, he doesn’t have the same barriers. When Arthur says ‘you’ as they’re talking about the dreams once, Lance thinks nothing more of it. But by the fifth time, and the first mention of ‘window man’, Lance can’t just let it slip.
“What do you mean, Arthur?”
“The guy who sits under the window and works. You know him, you kissed him the other night.”
“What about him?”
“He’s in the dreams with us because I want you and I want him, but I’m not allowed to.”
Lance doesn’t know what to do with that, no response comes to mind that he can safely say. “Kiss me” is highly unprofessional, and not good for Arthur at all. “I’m sorry, but we can’t” would still reveal too much. Rejection would be lying, and he’s afraid Arthur would see through it. Any acknowledgement would ruin everything. So he snaps his fingers, and Arthur’s back, sitting up.
“I feel… calm…”
Lance smiles, leans back in his seat.
“Glad to know I’ve done my job.”
Arthur sits up, leans forward, and Lance is struck by how much he still wants to tell Arthur to kiss him. But this isn’t right, he has to stop this or else find Arthur someone else. But who? Nimueh chose him specifically.
Arthur hesitates for a moment, then smiles back to Lance.
“Thank you.”
“I’ll see you later for another session, Arthur.”
With that, Lance leaves for Nimueh’s office.
*
“I can’t do it, Nimueh! I don’t know how to help him!”
“You’re the only one who’s safe around him, Lancelot. You will continue to try at least, if you value your place here.”
Those words are all it takes to threaten him into submission, because Avalon is all he really has. That’s the problem with Nimueh, she knows everything you value, everything you need, and she can take it away as easily as breathing. But he’ll try once more, because he simply cannot do this.
“Nimueh, he fancies me, and I- well, you’ve seen him.”
She nods, a smile playing across her lips.
“I don’t have anyone else quite like you, Lance. I can’t assign him another therapist. You’ll just have to put up with it, and tone down your ogling.”
Lance knows when he’s dismissed, so he stands, and he’s gone.
Nimueh looks at the space he used to occupy, and smiles. There’s something predatory about it, some feeling of ownership and control that accompanies the expression.
*
Arthur’s getting restless. There’s nothing to do in his room. Well, there’s plenty to do; a tv, books, but he’s restless and he can’t concentrate. He stretches, does a few exercises, pushes the chairs in the living area back until there’s enough room to move a little more.
And that’s how Lance finds him, rolling across the floor into one of the armchairs. He can’t help laughing, though it’s not really funny. A grown man, confined to his rooms through no fault of his own. And Arthur’s taking it remarkably well, he’s not complaining or trying to break out, because he understands and he doesn’t want to hurt anyone.
Lance looks at him, assessing, and decides he’s ready for a little experiment.
Come evening, Lance goes to Arthur’s rooms. The corridors are just about empty, so there’ll be no one to tempt Arthur on the way.
“Arthur?” he calls into the room, “Arthur, it’s only me. I’ve got something for you, could you come with me?”
The suite’s in darkness, Arthur just staring out of the window over the grounds.
“I’m so sick of this,” he mutters. Lance risks resting a hand on his shoulder.
“I know. Come with me.”
Arthur nods, and follows him out into the corridor. And if he thinks it’s a little strange, being allowed out of his room for the first time in days, he doesn’t say anything.
Lance takes him straight to the lift, appearing completely at ease in such a tight space with Arthur. Arthur’s dangerous, and it worries him that Lance trusts him not to bite him. Not that he would, because he doesn’t feel that pull towards Lance. There’s no way that Lance could know that, though. It’s like he’s suddenly expected to be safe, and he doesn’t know if he can live up to that.
They go all the way down, to the ground floor, then Lance leads him through a few corridors. Arthur’s confused, because he doesn’t know the layout of Avalon. He’s never had a chance to explore; he came in drugged into sleep and woke up in his room. He hasn’t left the confines of those walls since. He’s slowing, so Lance takes his hand and pulls, and Arthur’s struck by how cold it is, and how good it feels to be touched, not to be tiptoed around like he’s a bomb waiting to go off.
Lance opens a heavy door, and pulls Arthur through into a room filled with treadmills and rowing machines and exercise bikes. One side of the room is made entirely of French doors, and the view is out towards the lake. It’s not quite a full moon, but the light reflects on the surface of the water and into the room anyway. Then the lights flicker on, and it’s like a blind’s been pulled across the windows, like there are walls of jet. They reflect the rows of machines and one man leaning lazily on the arm of a running machine.
Arthur feels like this place is cursed, because he can’t escape the plague of beautiful men. The one in front of him is wearing a navy polo shirt with ‘Avalon’ embroidered on the left side of the chest and mid grey tracksuit bottoms. He’s tanned, long haired and a little bit bearded, and he stands with his hands in his pockets, looking completely at ease and heartbreakingly strong. Arthur swallows.
“You’re Arthur, right?”
“Yeah.” He takes a few breaths as he walks over, holding out his hand, and there’s something that passes between them in that handshake. This man doesn’t feel cold like Lance; his hand is hot, and so much more dangerous. But Arthur can restrain himself, shooting a glance over his shoulder to Lance to see if he’s passed some sort of test. Lance just smiles.
“I’m Gwaine, Head Personal Trainer, and the one with the keys to the gym.”
He leans in a little bit to whisper, a playful grin on his face.
“I’m not getting paid for this. Just wanted to meet the resident vampire.”
The look Arthur gives Lance this time is panicked and betrayed.
“It’s alright! He worked it out, I didn’t tell. And he’s the only one who knows.”
Arthur still feels worried, still on edge, and he scowls at Gwaine, then reaches forward and pushes.
Gwaine stumbles back, so Arthur pushes some more until he’s up against the French doors. He opens his mouth and Gwaine gets a proper look at those teeth, flashing under Arthur’s lips. For a moment he’s scared - the most terrified he’s ever been in his life, and there have been some pretty petrifying moments. But Arthur makes no move to rip his throat out, and Lance is just next to them, one hand on Arthur’s arm, cooling and calming.
“Arthur.”
“I swear, if you tell a soul, if you even breathe the word vampire.”
“You’ll drain me dry, I get it.” Gwaine grins, trailing a finger down Arthur’s chest. “Lance, you never told me he was pretty!”
Arthur pushes back against the glass wall, launching himself back into the room. As he turns away, Gwaine could swear his eyes flash red.
Lance holds up his hands in despair at Gwaine, moving to sit on an exercise bike. He starts to pedal a little, idly, looking over at Arthur.
“What do you want to do?”
Arthur doesn’t answer, just sits at the nearest rowing machine and begins his strokes. Gwaine grins at him again.
“Good choice. Those muscles don’t maintain themselves.”
He goes to the weights himself, first taking a remote control from his pocket and flicking a music channel onto the screens that hang from the ceiling. Arthur watches it resolutely, refusing to give Gwaine the satisfaction of seeing Arthur ogling him while his muscles strain and bulge. He doesn’t look at Lance on the bike either, because that too would be ammunition for Gwaine.
Lance stares at the screen in front of him, because it would be inappropriate to look at Arthur, and he doesn’t want Gwaine’s teasing, not when he’s got a boyfriend.
Gwaine has no such qualms, and would drink in the sight, but for the fact that his head is pointed towards the ceiling and he can’t see a thing. But to move to the treadmill now would seem like admitting defeat with the weights, and he wants to impress Arthur. Because Arthur is, as he said, hot. And for some reason he feels like he’s got something to prove.
The next video that comes up is some hip hop shit, lots of girls trailed over cars, and Arthur turns away from the screen for the first time.
“This is crap.”
Gwaine catches his eye, and they’re both laughing. Lance just looks between them, a little lost as to when exactly they became best friends and what exactly the huge joke is. Still, he’s pleased his grand plan’s working well after such a shaky (and he was beginning to think disastrous) start.
A little while later, it’s clear that both Arthur and Gwaine are getting tired. And while Arthur doesn’t have to get up for anything in the morning, Gwaine does. So Lance makes a tactical retreat, taking Arthur back to his room and locking him in.
Arthur just stands on the other side of the door, staring at it, not entirely sure that any part of what just happened was real, and if it was wanting so much more.
*
The next night, Gwaine brings a film. It’s some over the top action film with far too many explosions and car chases to be considered in any way realistic. Arthur races Gwaine on the treadmills, and they take the piss out of the film, doing voiceovers between panted out breaths. Lance feels a bit like a third wheel, but he doesn’t mind. He’s spent the whole day finding excuses to see Merlin, and it’s been great. Avalon is a rabbit warren of corridors, so there are plenty of spots for hiding and snogging, pressed together in a little alcove where no one will find them, or even stealing kisses in Lance’s office when Merlin comes for the data. Lance is sure everyone knows, but if they do they’re keeping quiet about it, and for that he’s thankful. He won’t lose his job for it, but he doesn’t want the teasing. Especially not from Nimueh.
Arthur finds himself waiting for every evening. It’s the only thing keeping him sane, his workout sessions with Lance and Gwaine. Otherwise he’d probably be hallucinating Lance’s still unnamed boyfriend in his room. Lance too, for that matter, even Gwaine, in very compromising positions. And this train of thought needs to stop, because two out of three are his friends, and two out of three are in a relationship.
Then one night, Lance doesn’t come to his door. Arthur’s locked in, and he can’t get out to find out if everything’s alright. But neither Lance nor Gwaine warned him about commitments tonight, so he can’t help but think the worst.
*
“We could have lunch together. You know, it seems silly that we’re seeing each other and we don’t have lunch together.”
Lance goes very quiet, and Merlin looks at him, worried.
“Lance, is that alright?”
“I- I can’t. I’m… busy.”
Merlin’s eyes narrow, and Lance’s heart catches. Merlin thinks he doesn’t want this, he can tell. He does, though. He just can’t let Merlin see.
“Are you seeing someone else? Is that why everything’s been so secretive?”
“No! Of course I’m not, I just don’t want either of us to get into trouble!”
It sounds like a pitiful excuse to Merlin. All he wants to do is eat in with his boyfriend and it’s causing a complete fuss.
“Lance, if you don’t want this, just fucking tell me.”
“I want this, Merlin.” His eyes shut, trying to gather the courage to say. But he can’t, and Merlin will run as fast as he can in the opposite direction.
“I’m a nervous eater, alright? I can’t eat in front of other people.”
“Lance, you’re a therapist. In the company of therapists. Don’t lie to me.”
Merlin’s voice is near enough to break Lance’s heart. So he screws his eyes shut, takes a deep breath.
“I can’t eat.”
Merlin stills, just looks at him.
“What do you mean?”
“I… died. Here. I’m a ghost.”
To prove it, Lance disappears, reappearing next to Merlin.
“See?”
“Oh. Oh.”
“I didn’t want you to know, because you’re just going to run away now.”
Merlin takes the couple of steps over to him, takes his hand.
“No, I’m not. I like you a lot, Lance, that’s not something that can be erased because you’re a ghost.”
Then he leans in and kisses Lance.
“You believe me, then?”
“Well, it makes a lot of sense. You’re cold, and you call a rain check on all dates outside Avalon.”
“I can go outside Avalon, I just need another tie. Someone or something. I don’t know you well enough yet.”
Merlin smiles a little at that.
“But you will. Watch me eat at lunchtimes?”
“I’d like that.”
*
Arthur’s still worried. He’s meant to be having two afternoon sessions with Lance, but not seeing him for hours has him worried more than he cares to admit. At least his boyfriend is in his usual place. If something happened to Lance, he’d be looking worried, right? Nothing can happen to Lance. Apart from anything, Lance is the one controlling Arthur’s entry and exit to the room, and he brings the food that Arthur cooks for himself to pass the time. But mostly, Arthur couldn’t bear it if something happened to him.
And then, just as Arthur’s driving himself to distraction an hour before their session, Lance appears under his window, on the bench with his boyfriend. They look happy. Lance doesn’t eat, but he does feed the other man every now and then, and Arthur can tell that they’re laughing and enjoying themselves. When they kiss goodbye, Arthur feels a wave of jealousy and want that near knocks him back. But he has to pull himself together, because Lance is on his way up to his rooms for their session.
He manages to compose himself fully before Lance opens the door, and he makes it through remarkably well to the point where Lance puts him in the trance.
*
“Is there anything you want to ask me?”
“Just one thing. What’s your boyfriend’s name?”
Lance feels himself colour, and he looks over at Arthur, who’s still staring at the ceiling. He doesn’t realise that he’s asked something he shouldn’t; these inhibitions are removed at the lower levels of his mind.
“Merlin.”
Then Lance snaps his fingers, and Arthur wakes up.
“How are we doing?”
Lance coughs, clearing his throat.
“Well. Really well. I’ll try you with more people soon.”
Arthur smiles, wide and bright and Lance is struck by just how beautiful and blue eyed his patient is.
“Oh, and Lance, I thought our gym thing was every night? Can you warn me when you’re not going to turn up? I was worried sick.”
Something inside Lance thaws at the thought of Arthur worrying about him, but he builds his walls back up again. He can’t fall for Arthur. Can’t let himself.
“Sorry, Gwaine had something that came up, I completely forgot I hadn’t told you…”
“You’ll be here tonight, right?”
“Yeah.”
*
Lance decides to take Merlin that night. He’s not spending enough time with him, dates restricted to weekends, when he has fewer patients, because of Arthur. Arthur’s ready for another person to be brought into the mix, and Lance would be lying if he denied the curiosity of wanting to know how Arthur will react to finally meeting him. It’s only fair on Merlin as well, no more secrets.
When Lance leads Arthur into the gym, Arthur can feel the apprehension, like it’s oozing out of Lance, and he’s not sure what to expect when he walks through the door.
He takes in the sight of Gwaine and the other man, and just gasps.
“Merlin.”
He can’t understand how he knows that name, since Lance has never mentioned it, but window man turns, looks at him with a complete lack of recognition. Arthur knew not to expect anything, but it’s a blow to the stomach regardless. Merlin smiles a little, walks towards him.
“Do I know you? You look like someone I’d recognise.”
“No, you don’t.” Arthur doesn’t know how to phrase his little (alright, huge) obsession without seeming like some crazy stalker, so he hunts wildly for an excuse for knowing his name.
“Lance… mentioned you.” He’s waited too long to say that, he knows, and there’s doubt in Merlin’s eyes. He risks a quick glance at Lance, though, because he can’t make this any worse.
Thankfully Lance knows when to step in. Arthur’s face is so worried that Lance almost thinks he’ll cover Arthur in kisses there and then, but he manages to hold back. There’s also an edge to Arthur’s look, and Lance knows that there will be questions later. Arthur looks just a little threatening, but so beautifully vulnerable, and next to Merlin Lance isn’t sure where to look. If they don’t move he’ll end up cross eyed.
“Merlin, this is Arthur. He’s a vampire; I’ve been helping him. He has to stay locked in his room for everyone’s safety, but I trust him enough to bring him down here in the evenings.”
Arthur smiles at that admission of trust, then turns back to Merlin for explanations.
“I get restless, this is quite hard to deal with.”
Merlin nods, slowly.
“Newly made?”
“Yeah.”
He reaches forward, taps Arthur’s arm. It’s companionable, and nice, and Arthur wants it to last forever, but he can’t encourage Merlin for fear Arthur lets go of everything and drinks him. Ripping throats out is not usually the best way to win a man.
Arthur realises as the night goes on, watching Lance and Merlin, that he doesn’t want to win Merlin from Lance. He doesn’t want to separate them, because they’re so good for each other. And while he’s desperately jealous of Lance, and kind of Merlin too, he just wants them both happy. A vampire will never give them that.
Come to think of it, he should probably back off from Gwaine, too. This new vampirism thing should not be inflicted on others. It’s his to deal with, and it’s not fair to drag other people, other people he cares about, down with him. He’ll talk to Lance about it tomorrow. He’ll understand.
It’s some sort of chick flick tonight, but they can’t quite follow the storyline. Instead they make fun of the painting on that one guy’s wall that looks stupidly like a penis, and Merlin turns out not only to be up for the commentary game, but very good at it. He’s not too great at using the gym equipment, gets himself into far too many tangles that Gwaine and Arthur take turns unpicking. Arthur takes the piss (“you idiot,” “how did you manage that, the button is clearly labelled with up”) and Gwaine’s a little more sympathetic, but not much (“next time, just don’t try to push yourself so hard, someone as scrawny as you shouldn’t be lifting that much”). It’s nice, just being the four of them, and Arthur tries to forget that it needs to end. But it does. They’ll understand.
*
It’s quite late, and Lance is surprised to find Merlin still in the foyer when he returns after taking Arthur upstairs.
“Hi,” he calls out from the lift.
Merlin turns to him, smile wide and breathtaking, and rubs his hand around the back of his neck, nervously.
“So, I- I wanted to say goodbye properly I guess…”
Lance is most of the way over to Merlin now, and between them they close the rest of the distance, Merlin looping his arms around Lance’s neck and pressing close for a kiss, Lance pressing back and holding onto Merlin’s hips. Then Merlin’s tongue licks out, Lance’s mouth opens, and without either of them knowing how, Merlin’s pressed against the reception desk, leaning back over it, moaning into Lance’s mouth.
“Bed?” Merlin asks, and there’s something in the hoarseness of his voice that makes Lance forget his guilt about the whole Arthur hypnotism thing and just nod frantically.
Wordlessly, he takes Merlin’s hand, walks him through a Staff Only door, and shoves him in a lift, significantly smaller and plainer than the one to Arthur’s rooms. They kiss in the lift, Merlin pressed against the wall, then Lance, Lance kissing over Merlin’s neck, Merlin’s hands lifting his shirt and drawing teasing lines over Lance’s muscles.
He turns his mouth to Lance’s, tongue eagerly exploring his mouth as the doors open, and then they’re stumbling to Lance’s rooms and inside, and Lance strips Merlin, quickly. He darts in for another kiss, but it’s only quick. Merlin pulls his shirt off, and Lance uses the distance between them as an opportunity to kneel at Merlin’s feet, take his cock in his mouth and suck, slow. He pulls back, looks up to Merlin’s dark eyes, Merlin’s hands coming to clasp in his hair. Lance licks around the head, hikes one of Merlin’s legs up onto his shoulder, and takes the length into his mouth. Merlin’s groans are all the encouragement he needs to keep going.
The hands clench in his hair, and it’s not long before the
“Fuck, Lance-”
Is aborted by hot, wet, down Lance’s throat, and he swallows.
They do make it to the bed, eventually, Merlin’s hand wrapping around Lance’s cock, and after the sounds Merlin’s been making it doesn’t take long for Lance to come.
He wakes up in the morning, sticky and vaguely uncomfortable, and realises that up until then he hadn’t known if he could have sex as a ghost.
*
Part Two