Six Months Later
"And now, Natalie has the latest news regarding the Pendragon Scandal. Natalie?"
"Thanks, Fred. The hearings continue this week regarding the infamous Pendragon drug scandal. For those of you who are living under a rock, just two months ago Scotland Yard officials were called to investigate a shooting inside a medical supplies warehouse on the outskirts of London. When officials arrived, twelve were dead and five were seriously injured.
"After immediate action by paramedics, the details revealed themselves in what would become one of the most noteworthy drug scandals to occur in this decade. Dozens of doctors were shown to be involved in a prescription drug ring that dealt false prescriptions ranging from medical marijuana to highly concentrated morphine. It appears that the ring was in going through a change in leadership, which sparked the confrontation. Our sources tell us that there were two rival factions in the ring which were competing for power. At the head of one side was Dr. Arthur Pendragon, the head of pediatrics at an esteemed hospital here in London - Dr. Pendragon is among one of the five that are currently hospitalized for injuries related to the shoot out - and backed by numerous other highly noted doctors and physicians. The late Dr. Mordred LeFay reportedly led the other faction and passed away during the evening's events. It is unclear who delivered the shot that resulted in Dr. LeFay's death.
The courts continue to sift through the hundreds of emails, text messages, phone calls, and pharmaceutical reports in attempts to piece together what exactly happened that night, and how many other violent crimes may have been results of the Pendragon drug ring.
Dr. Merlin Emrys, Pendragon's partner, continues to offer no comment on the situation other than to say that Pendragon is still in critical care and will continue to stay under hospitalization throughout the preliminary court proceedings. There's no -"
At that point, Merlin shuts off the television. He puts his head in his hands, eyes closed, and tries to control his elevated heart rate. He can't even watch the news for five minutes without having to hear something about Arthur, about the case, about the fucking mess he'd gotten himself into. You would think that after so many months he'd be used to hearing his name on television and seeing Arthur's associated with one of a criminal.
He lost his job at the hospital, the one he'd spent a decade of his life in school for. He had his medical license revoked until after the trials, which he'd only just received a few months prior. He lost his apartment after his landlord caught wind of the scandal. His new home is more correctly described as his old home, as he's now living with his mother while commuting daily to work at a small book shop and visit Arthur. It's humiliating.
Merlin went from achieving his dreams of being a doctor, living in central London on his own, and starting a family with the love of his life to working part time in retail, living with his mother, surrounded by boxes of his own things and his partner's, and with his lover stuck in a medically induced coma.
His friends want nothing to do with him. His mother pretends not to be ashamed of him. Merlin is almost entirely alone. Almost.
Freya, the kind nurse from the hospital, has been emailing him daily. It's the only thing close to friendship Merlin has in his life, and it's something he treasures more than anything right now. She doesn't judge him for what he did, just listens to him rattle on and on about the mundane details of his mundane life. He soaks in every bit of her adventures in A&E, of her struggles to housebreak her puppy, of her blissfully ordinary life. Both of them consider themselves single… It isn't cheating if your boyfriend is in a coma, right? Therefore, he finds justification in the phone sex and sexy texts that await him almost every night. As much as Merlin misses Arthur, he misses being wanted just as much.
So when Merlin fishes his house keys from the dish beside the door, he's excited. All he has to do is get through a long commute on public transport, one shift at the shop, an hour visitation with Arthur, and then he's unwinding with Freya at a local bar for drinks. It's the highlight of his week and probably the month, if he's being honest.
His shift comes and goes. The mindless work of filing books away, taking inventory, and occasionally directing a customer towards a particular section of the shop is almost therapeutic. It allows him to pretend he isn't Merlin Emrys, partner of the man at the center of the scandal. Nobody bothers him with questions or judgements. It's like he's still an unknown blimp on the radar. It's so refreshing, albeit nothing compared to working in A&E. There was never a dull moment.
At exactly half past six, Merlin walks through the hospital doors. When he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirrored lift, he's nearly unrecognizable. His face is shallow, eyes dull. His hair is shaggy and unkempt while his beard grows scraggly. His clothes hang limply off his body in ways they didn't a year ago. The life seems to have drained from his face, leaving behind a sad excuse for a man.
Arthur's room doesn't change. There's still dozens of tubes and monitors surrounding the bed, beeping incandescently. A few cards sit on the windowsill leftover from the beginning, back before the news story broke. A duffle bag with a few sets of clothes remains tucked into a corner back from when Merlin used to never leave Arthur's side, back when he still had hope.
Hope is something Merlin doesn't believe in anymore. He only feels more affirmed in that statement when he sees his lover motionless on the bed. Arthur looks frozen in time. His blonde hair is still fine and light, his skin is still powdery and golden, his body still is generally plump but with less muscle definition than it was a few months ago. The man's chest rises and falls with a constant rhythm. He doesn't move, he doesn't even twitch. Merlin can't even remember the shade of blue Arthur's eyes once were.
Merlin takes a seat beside the bed, the same one he sits in every time his visits. Initially, he would spend hours telling Arthur every detail of his day. Now he can barely find enough to talk about to fill a quarter of that. Mostly he just sits beside his partner, occasionally squeezing his lifeless hand, and tries not to count the minutes.
"Well," Merlin quietly says. "I'm not sure what to say. I went to work, I came to see you, I'm seeing a friend for drinks after I leave. I don't have much going on. That's nothing new though.
"I think the doctors said you're recovering nicely. They're just waiting to see if your body can handle the stresses of outside stimuli. I believe they're concerned about possible seizures once you wake up and aren't able to fully process information."
At that point, Merlin's run out of things to speak about. He knows that on some level, Arthur can hear him. He just can't bring himself to pretend that Arthur is actively listening and understanding. It's becoming a chore having to visit Arthur. The doctor comes in and delivers the same news: Arthur is doing well, his levels are stable, any day now he'll be awake again. It's pointless, empty information. Merlin's certain he tells that to all his coma patients. If he wasn't a doctor himself he might actually believe him.
Merlin sits, barely even aware of his surroundings. He's so immersed in his own self pity that he doesn't even hear someone walk in and shut the door.
"Dr. Emrys, it's a pleasure to finally meet you in person!" an excitable teenager exclaims. He's dressed in a suit that barely fits with a clip on tie and trainers on his feet.
Merlin raises his eyebrows as he stands. "How did you get in here? This is a secure unit." He thinks about pressing Arthur's red call button just to get this boy out of the room, regardless of whatever his business is.
"Oh, I followed someone in," he nonchalantly says. When Merlin reaches for the call button, he nervously adds, "I'm a reporter for the London Times. I was hoping for a brief interview. Nobody has -"
At this point, Merlin is infuriated. He can't believe that he's being treated like a circus animal - something everyone wants to watch and abuse just for their own entertainment. He's a person too. He has a right to his privacy. "I stand by my statement. I won't add anything to it, nor will I answer any questions related to the case. If this is a problem, contact my lawyer."
The boy stands dumbfounded. "I only wanted to know if -"
"I don't care what you wanted to know," Merlin snaps. "I just want you to get out and take your damn questions elsewhere."
The boy quietly stands then slowly reaches into his pocket to pull out a small business card. He places it on the edge of Arthur's bed, right by his still right foot. "If you want someone on your side, don't hesitate to text me. Have a great day, Dr. Emrys." And with that, the boy slips awkwardly out of the room.
Merlin waits until he can't hear the receding footsteps anymore and then reaches for the card. Gilderoy Bastillion. Instead of tossing it, he folds the card in half and places it inside his wallet.
Later that evening, Merlin enters the dim bar. There's loud music pounding through every crevice and it's every bit like the bar Merlin used to work in while he was still in med school. There's college kids drinking to oblivion in one corner and old, fat businessmen with short glasses of scotch in another. Merlin figures he'd better find a spot at the bar top, where he's less likely to get annoyed by the chattering of the students and the loud, drunken laughter from the men.
He takes a seat and seconds later a shot of whiskey is before himself. He eyes it suspiciously, as if it's poison, as he recalls this being the same drink Arthur ordered from him that very first night. It's nostalgic in a sense. Before he can really wallow over it, Freya comes dancing into view.
Her long brown hair is loose around her shoulders and her dress barely skims the top of her knees. Merlin can even spot a glimpse of her cleavage as she bends down to hug him. He'd be lying if he said his cock didn't twitch at the sight of it.
Merlin considers himself gay, but there's something about the idea of intimacy that makes him crave exploring a woman's body for the first time.
After about twenty minutes of small talk, Merlin finds himself hailing a cab back to Freya's flat half-hard and pretty buzzed.
Merlin's mouth is on Freya's the second the door closes. His cock fills up almost instantaneously, more from the desire to get off than with actual affection for the woman he's with. Her fingers tangle in his hair, much like how Merlin used to do with Arthur while Merlin raises his palm to cup her left breast.
It's weird fondling a woman's breast. It's soft and warm, but there's something too feminine about it (duh) that just doesn't turn Merlin on like he imagined it would. He plays with it for another second or two before he flat out pulls her collar down to expose the milky whiteness of it to the air. When Merlin sees Freya's nipple, he has a better idea of how what to do. It's Like with a man, just suck on it and occasionally give it a quick nip.
But the real problems occur when Freya takes merlin's hand and starts to rub herself with it. Merlin's heard of the clit and that apparently women like it to be touched, but hell, that's something he'd never even had an ounce of experience with before. It's awkward as he slips his hand into her panties and slowly, hesitantly rubs circles into her flesh. He figures he must be doing something right if Freya's moaning into his ear while grasping onto the doorknob for support.
"Finger me," Freya says in a raspy voice.
Merlin blinks. Put his fingers inside? It almost makes him shudder with disgust. "What -?"
Before he can finish his sentence, Freya grabs his wrist, spreads her legs further apart, and pushes his middle finger inside of herself. It's warm and wet and it nearly makes Merlin want to puke.
If he needed any kind of affirmation that he's gay, this is definitely it.
It's a miracle that Merlin can make it through the encounter and end up cumming inside Freya, but somehow he does. It's pleasurable, sure, but he feels even more empty inside than before. It's done nothing but make him not only feel guilty for sleeping with someone other than Arthur, but also makes him feel outrageously isolated from the rest of the world. Any man would love to fuck a beautiful girl with no strings attached. Merlin apparently can't even suck it up and try to enjoy eating pussy for ten minutes without feeling sick to his stomach. He's a pitiful excuse for a man.
When he arrives home early in the morning, Merlin feels even more incapable to handle the day ahead.
When he flips on the television to help lull him to sleep, he's once again faced with another news story centered around the man who Merlin foolishly attached himself to. However, this time it discusses how Arthur easily could be facing up to ten years in prison, but Merlin knows that all he has to do is pick up his phone and dial the lawyer. The perks of handling a billionaire's estate is being able to throw a few hundred thousand down to ensure that his partner is cleared of all charges. It's all just a show anyways; everyone knows that people like Arthur don't play by the rules.