Notes: Story is unbetad so just bear with me here, and of course feel free to correct me... I love hearing from you guys to know whether or not your liking my story or not, so reviews are welcome! Thanks for reading!


By the next day the whole school had heard about the incident; Arthur being portrayed as the poor sod who had to kiss a bloke, and Merlin as a homo who totally went for it.

For most of Merlin's school career he had just been over looked or ignored, or at least until his recent run-ins with Arthur's friends. But now Merlin was known to everybody, and seemingly hated by most. It seemed everyone he saw, save for his small group of friends, had to tell Merlin just how disgusting they thought he was; some younger kids had even thrown fruit at him! But Merlin did his best to hold his head up high, responding that even if he did go for blokes Arthur would be at the bottom of his list. This was fairly true, because although Arthur was hotter than any teenager had a right to be he was an arrogant prat, and Merlin didn't think any amount of good-looks was worth having to listen to that pompous ass. Okay, so maybe Merlin was gay, but he didn't think it was relevant at the moment because he knew the other kids would treat him like shit no matter what. It woulsn't have mattered if he was straight, after what Arthur had done.

So Merlin just did his best to get through, ignoring the prats when he could, and focusing on the fact that his friends and family, whom he was out to were sticking by him no matter what.

Arthur felt rattled, and that wasn't something he was used to. He always felt confident and sure of himself no matter what, but now it was all he could do to put on a brave face and act as though nothing had changed. Arthur wasn't gay, he knew that much, he had always been attracted to girls and had fallen for enough of them, and even got his heart broken a couple of times, to know for sure. It was Merlin, there was just something about him, one little kiss and suddenly it was all Arthur could think about; and it wasn't even a real kiss, or at least not on Merlin's end.

Arthur just couldn't understand it, he didn't even like Merlin! They had nothing in common, Merlin was an annoying fumbling little nerd; and okay, he was extremely brave, always standing up to Arthur's group even though it was incredibly stupid, and he was kind of adorable in his own way. And Arthur's sure, Merlin is one of a kind.

Even if Arthur did like him, as a friend obviously, Merlin was sure to hate him. Hell, he hated Arthur before all of this, always calling him a prat, and now Merlin's life is a loving hell because of him. Arthur flinches a bit every time he hears someone call Merlin a name in the halls or class. Even Arthur's friends aren't thrilled about it, sure they like giving Merlin crap, but that doesn't mean they want every single kid in the school to do it, no one deserves that. It was just a stupid bet; they didn't want to ruin the kid's life.

As if on cue Arthur saw a bunch of people standing in the middle of the parking lot shouting and jeering at something going on in the middle. Arthur pushed through easily, as people parted for him, grins on their faces, until he got to the middle, only to see Merlin backed against a car doing his best against five guys bigger than himself. Arthur looked on with disgust as they held Merlin down, punching and kicking him, in time with the shouts of "Faggot," "Pansy," and "Fairy-boy" coming from the crowd. To the right the school's bad-boy and Merlin's friend, Gwaine, was fighting off a crowd trying to get to Merlin, but there were just too many.

"Hey!" Arthur shouted as he grabbed the shoulder of one of the guys hitting Merlin, and whirled him around, punching him hard in the face. Arthur then ducked out of the way of the man's fist as he turned his attention to one of the other men, knocking him to the ground. Soon Merlin fell to the ground and the guys turned their attention to Arthur, the crowd of spectators backed up, not sure what was going on.

Arthur, blinded by rage, saw nothing but the men in front of him and jumped in surprise, whirling around, when he felt someone bump his back, only to see Gwaine standing behind him, fighting off the men trying to attack Arthur from behind. It didn't take long before the guys who could still stand were running off, even the crowd was scattering, and Gwaine quickly rushed forward to Merlin's side.

After taking a moment to get a hold of himself Arthur walked over to where Gwaine was gently lifting a semi-conscious Merlin up. "Is he alright?" Arthur asked.

"What do you think?" Gwaine answered harshly, "And anyways, what do you care? You're the one who started all of this."

"I never hurt…" Arthur started to shout, and then stopped, he couldn't believe he was defending himself to the class drunk, the kid who almost never showed up to school and when he did was either drunk or high. "It doesn't matter now, where are we taking him?" Arthur asked, and before Gwaine could say anything he walked over to Merlin's other side and helped lift him.