Just a little thing that popped into my head. Not the best of offerings but enjoy nonetheless. Clueless!Arthur is amusing.
Arthur would have liked to believe that the following events were the first time that he realised Merlin wasn't exactly straight. This, however, was not the case.
They had been standing in the middle of the Student Union staircase, forcing others to swerve right and left while they took turns insulting each other. If really pressed, Arthur might have admitted that even at the time, he was enjoying himself too much for the insults to be taken seriously.
He hadn't seen anything, but suddenly Merlin had doubled over to one side with a curse then spun around to stare behind them.
Ah, someone had jabbed him in the side, Arthur had thought. He'd then looked at Merlin's amused, resigned and softly excited expression and amended that to "A girl he likes has just jabbed him in the side", which seemed a bit odd because he didn't know girls found causing surprise pain as hilarious as boys, but never mind. Merlin would attract odd girls.
So he scanned the crowd but found no girl meeting Merlin's gaze, no reason for Merlin to have curved his lips in the most mischevious grin Arthur thought he'd ever seen - and this was Merlin, so mischevious grins were par for the course.
"Who was that?" he'd asked.
"A friend," Merlin had said with a large hint of archness. Arthur had scoffed and punched Merlin's arm in punishment such blatant lying.
"I didn't see her, anyway," he had said with a hint of accusation. Something strange crossed Merlin's face and there had been a pause before he said with a chuckle,
"No, you wouldn't."
"What, so you're seeing imaginary people now?"
And so the bickering had continued.
Now, perhaps to you, this was obvious. But not to Arthur. Similar events piled up without him noticing, but eventually he began to catch on.
He became certain at about the time that Merlin weaved up to him at two o'clock in the morning, mumbled "I'm going to regret this tomorrow" and gave him a sloppy kiss.
Again, at the time, he put his lack of adverse reaction down to surprise and being pissed.
A week later, he had put two and two together, and asked Merlin who had poked him in the Student's Union. To his surprise, Merlin remembered what he was talking about and had said with a wide grin,
"Oh, that was Will. And he didn't poke me in the side, he grabbed my bum."
Straight away, Arthur knew he was jealous.
All opinions welcome. :) Thanks for reading!
xMhax