Rating/warnings: M, because my ability to write anything even remotely child-friendly seems to have vanished beyond all hope of recovery. Warnings as for all other chapters, except the bad language seems even more prolific than usual.
Notes: So, here we are again. Part two of Merlin's chapter, which has now spawned a third part (for which I blame Will. How is it that characters I don't even like all that much have the ability to ruin all my stories?). Hopefully shouldn't be all that long until that one is up as well, and then the chapter that follows it is written already. And my laptop appears to be incapable of playing anything other than Death Cab for Cutie, which is just a little confusing, but has allowed me to find a title to this one that makes a little more sense (in my mind, anyway) than You Can't Always Get What You Want.
So yeah. Here's hoping you enjoy. Peach.

I don't mind restrictions
Or if you're blacking out the friction
It's just an escape
(It's overrated, anyway)

The hardest part is yet to come
When you will cross the country alone.
Blacking Out the Friction - Death Cab for Cutie

Merlin's Chapter - Part Two

Truth was, Merlin had missed Arthur. They'd been distant of late, ever since Arthur had taken it upon himself to avoid him for a few days. It was only to be expected, because while Merlin had a tendency to occasionally fudge the truth with Arthur, Arthur never lied to him in return, and he had then. He'd lied, and got other people to lie for him, and Merlin wasn't sure what to do about that. Distance was always going to follow. But still, he'd missed him.

It was all bloody Valiant's fault, the fucker. Merlin didn't know how, or why, but he was sure of that.

Still, Valiant wasn't going to be around tonight, when Merlin took himself over to Arthur's. Even if they weren't going to talk properly about things that mattered, like Arthur's distance and the argument with Lancelot and the way Morgana frowned each time Arthur was mentioned within her hearing, they'd still hang out, have fun. Just him and Arthur, like old times.

X

He didn't go as far as to let himself into Arthur's house, like he'd sometimes done in the past. That wasn't on anymore, not now that Arthur was living with someone else full time, not when Merlin was only ninety eight percent certain that Valiant wasn't going to be there. No, this time Merlin knocked first, juggling the box in his arms as he did so, and waited for Arthur to open the door before walking in.

The look on his face was pretty close to priceless, too. That oh, Merlin, what have you done now? face that had, over the years they'd known each other, become something no less entertaining for all that it was familiar to Merlin. The joy was something worth seeing as well, because however hard he tried to hide, Merlin knew it was there, knew it the way he knew all of Arthur's moods, whether or not he wanted Merlin to see them. And yeah, Gwaine would make jokes, poke fun at Merlin's "undying adoration" (his words, obviously, because Gwaine was kind of the only person who talked about it, even if Merlin thought a few of their friends weren't quite as oblivious as he wanted them to be), but that was kind of what Merlin was used to, and all the teasing in the world wasn't going to change the fact that Merlin knew Arthur.

He knew that something was wrong.

Okay, he maybe didn't know it. And maybe Gwaine was right, maybe it was just because he didn't like Valiant. Maybe it was because Merlin was just the tiniest, littlest (gaping, massive, incomparably ginormous) bit jealous. Maybe everything was fine, and Merlin just wanted there to be something wrong.

X

Things seemed to be going so well, for a while. Arthur was...okay, he was Arthur, arrogance (faked, half the time, but Merlin had never seen any real reason to let Arthur know he could tell the difference) and humour and so much himself that at any given minute it was a toss up as to whether Merlin would rather kiss him or throttle him. Business as usual, and Merlin had given up hoping for their relationship to become less thunderous years ago, had stopped wanting it to not long after that.

"Cheating little shit," Arthur hissed, planting his elbow in Merlin's ribs. Which, yeah, wasn't exactly civil, but it definitely wasn't anything out of the ordinary for the pair of them, particularly not when games were involved. Arthur had been fiercely competitive for as long as Merlin had known him, a fact that he'd always delighted in taking advantage of. "That was your fault."

Merlin pulled his best what, me? face. "Don't know what you're talking about," he lied, absolutely and blatantly, but that was half the fun of it, wasn't it?

X

"So you and Gwaine?" Arthur asked, completely out of the blue, or so it seemed to Merlin. They hadn't even been talking about anything close to that, or anything at all, really; in fact, Merlin had just been thinking about offering his excuses and making a run for it before Valiant got home.

"What about me and Gwaine?" Merlin answered reluctantly, because, much as he loved Arthur, he wasn't exactly happy talking about his love life with him. Sure, had Arthur been as integral a part of that love life as Merlin might have liked him to be, discussing it would have been a different matter; as things stood, they tended to keep their distance from each others' relationships, at least until after they ended.

"Nothing," Arthur answered. A shrug was all that was going to get, Merlin figured, because God forbid Arthur ever actually follow through with a point he was making. Except, of course, he did, and clearly, Arthur was particularly...well, Merlin didn't want to say bothered, because he probably wasn't, but interested, maybe. "I was just wondering," Arthur said eventually, somewhat startling Merlin with his decision to continue. "Isn't it weird? You and he are friends."

Well, obviously, Merlin thought. It would seem weird to Arthur, and yeah, Merlin got that. It was weird, his thing for Arthur, given how close the two of them had been for so many years, practically raised together. For Arthur's eighth birthday, Merlin gave him a toy sword that he'd saved up his pocket money for months for, then gave him Hunith the day after, didn't comment when Arthur smiled brighter for that than he did the whole of his birthday (the next time they fought, less than two hours later, Arthur tried to give Merlin Morgana. Mostly, Merlin was just happy that they never argued badly enough that Arthur tried to give him Uther). They were too close to change who they were to each other, or so Arthur presumably thought, and since he was living with another man Merlin wasn't exactly going to point out that his feelings had been what they were for a hell of a long time, no changing necessary.

"No, not really," Merlin answered, after so long a silence that it was possibly odd to do so. And, because he knew what Arthur was thinking, he might as well explain it in a way Arthur could understand. "We've only been friends for a few years, not like us. And, anyway, it's Gwaine," because anything Arthur hadn't got could be explained in those four words. It was still too tense, though, and Merlin still didn't know why Arthur was asking, but that was enough of serious for now. "Why all the questions, anyway? You jealous?"

"Well, he is gorgeous," Arthur said, grinning, then decided to compound the squirming in Merlin's gut by mauling his hair with what was probably meant to be affection.

"You have no idea," Merlin muttered, shoving him away and forcing his attention back to the game.

Staying another half hour wouldn't hurt.

X

Staying another half hour didn't hurt.

It was the hour after that that gave Valiant time to get home.

Even then, it didn't hurt him.

Much.

X

Merlin didn't know what it was, but it was something. Sure, coming home to find your boyfriend lying on top of another man wasn't exactly something anyone wanted, but the way Arthur reacted to Valiant's displeasure was Odd.

He didn't get angry, not even in his scary-quiet I'm going to pretend I'm not angry way (it was rare, that, and half the time was followed by mildly violent explosions, but still. Arthur's anger wasn't always volatile). He didn't stick up for himself, argue that nothing wrong was happening; denied it, yes, but shakily, without conviction, without the certainty that said the mere suggestion was laughable.

Something was odd. The only person Merlin had ever known to cow Arthur like that was Uther, and even then Arthur's lack of argument was sulky, a refusal all in itself. Arthur was never like this.

And then Valiant, the bastard, tried to get Merlin out of the house, and no fucking way was that happening. Pity the prick never bothered to learn anything more about Arthur's friends than their names, because he might have known that Merlin and Gwaine didn't actually live together, and that making mention of Merlin's not-quite-boyfriend wasn't going to be enough to get rid of him.

Really, Merlin only had one option.

He looked up at them, grinned his best don't mind Merlin, he's not quite all there grin (and the next time Gwaine said that to someone, Merlin was going to follow through on his threat to stop putting out, he really was), and invited Valiant to join them. Because, sure, he'd rather push him down the stairs than let him touch his things (which didn't include Arthur, however much Merlin might have wanted to), but Merlin was smart enough to know that murdering a man in his own home wasn't a good idea, particularly in front of a witness who was (inexplicably, in Merlin's book) fond of him.

No, he was grown up enough to hide the fact that he disliked Valiant more than should be humanly possible, even if he couldn't quite pretend to like him, and he was also grown up enough not to eavesdrop when Arthur took his boyfriend out of the room to explain everything, no matter how much he might have wanted to.

Arthur coming back into the room and suggesting he stayed for a while wasn't what he was expecting, though. Defensive anger on Arthur's part, yes. A time you left, Merlin, and I'll see you sometime next week, yes. But, "Shove over, Merlin, it has to be my go by now"?

Maybe there wasn't anything funky going on with Arthur after all.

X

That said, the atmosphere Merlin was used to was gone. No snide remarks, sarcastic comments, playful violence, contact of any kind. They just sat, the three of them, Merlin and Arthur and Valiant, passing the controllers methodically between them, like it was ritual but not the good kind.

Sure, it was civil, which was better than it could be – and, for that matter, better than a fair few of Merlin's past interactions with Valiant had been – but it wasn't exactly what Merlin would call fun.

X

"Well," Valiant said, half an hour or so after he and Arthur returned to the room. "I don't know about you, but I'm ready for a break."

He stood, dropping the controller to the floor with far less care than he should have for it (perhaps it wasn't fair of Merlin to expect him to know how much this ancient bit of plastic meant to him, but he did, and something that old deserved to be treated with respect, regardless of its sentimental value) then made for the kitchen, returning seconds later with the menu from a pizza place in his hand. "What do you want?"

"Um," Merlin cut in before Arthur could answer, and perhaps the whole reason Valiant had been able to manage civility had been by pretending Merlin wasn't there, pretending so thoroughly that he actually started to believe it. "Yeah, I should probably be heading off now, anyway. It's late, and even if Gwaine isn't about I still have a home to go to."

Merlin watched as Arthur glanced at Valiant, who stared right back at him, a smile that Merlin couldn't interpret but didn't like on his face. "Idiot," Arthur said calmly. "He'll have pepperoni, Val. Always does."

Val (yeah, because Valiant wasn't a bad enough name already. He had to go shorten it down to something stupid and girly and no, Merlin was not letting his jealousy run away with him) smiled wider, then took the menu away. Merlin heard the phone beep as he dialled, then footsteps and his voice retreating down the hall.

Arthur elbowed Merlin, then knelt up and shuffled towards the TV, unplugging and packing up Merlin's SNES before turning the TV to actual channels. "Stick around," he said, settling on the sofa. "I've told you before, Merlin, Val doesn't hate you."

Merlin huffed, disagreeing entirely, but slumped on the armchair in Arthur's living room anyway.

Looked like he was staying for dinner, then.

X

Still, Merlin wasn't quite sure how he managed to go from agreeing to eat pizza to lying in Arthur's spare bed. The leap of logic that led from one to the other quite escaped him, but there he was anyway, burying himself under his borrowed quilt in his borrowed pyjamas on his borrowed bed, trying not to hear the sounds of Arthur getting ready to crawl into his own bed with his boyfriend just the other side of a thin wall.

A very thin wall, actually.

He tried not to listen to the words just audible over the creaking of mattress springs and the rustle of bedding as Arthur settled himself, as he and Valiant curled around each other to sleep, but that didn't mean that Merlin didn't know they were there, didn't know the sort of conversations that took place at times like that, quiet and honest in the night.

There was nothing quite like darkness for telling truths, something about the absence of sight making it easier for the words to break free, things that seemed so secret in daylight let loose by the shadows.

"Not tonight," Merlin heard Arthur say quietly, and couldn't call forth an emotion beyond relief, so strong that he missed the next few sentences exchanged between them, and thank God for that. He knew logically that Arthur was sleeping with Valiant, in more ways than just the most literal. They were adults, living in the same house, sharing the same bed, and Merlin wasn't stupid enough to believe there was anything chaste about it. He didn't want to hear the evidence, though; it was hard enough to know that it happened without knowing the details of how.

In the haze of his relief at not having to hear his best-friend-slash-wish-he-was-more in any kind of sexual situation, Merlin missed the discussion that turned no into yes. He heard his name, certainly, the way that anyone could hear their name, regardless of whether or not they'd been listening to the conversation that preceded it, and that was enough to snap his attention back to what was going on next door, even if he really didn't want to know.

He heard his name, then more muttering, heard Arthur utter a sharp, loud, "What?" and forced his ears into ignorance again.

Merlin didn't know how no became yes, because he didn't want to.

Things fell silent again, and Merlin breathed a second sigh of relief, rolling onto his stomach and pressing the side of his face into the pillow. The creaking of his mattress quieted slowly, and Merlin winced, embarrassed, sure that Arthur would have heard it, Arthur and Valiant, and they would know he was still awake, could hear every word that passed between them if he so chose.

His worries turned out to be unnecessary. Over the creaking of their own mattress, Merlin highly doubted they could hear anything.

X

He never imagined Arthur to be particularly vocal in bed. Not that he thought about it often, not that often, but he was human, and he might have been able to keep his conscious thoughts from revolving entirely around Arthur but he wasn't a saint, and there were some thoughts he just wasn't in control of.

Merlin never imagined Arthur to be loud. He never thought Arthur would moan like that, filthy and desperate. He never thought Arthur would beg as he did, chant like that, declare his love so frequently and so freaking loudly. He never thought Arthur's breaths would turn into gasps, sharp and not-quite-pained, the gasps of someone being fucked so hard that the bed thudded against the wall with every thrust. He never thought Arthur would submit so thoroughly to someone, consent so readily and with so much volume.

And, even when he let his imagination run away with him, let himself pretend that he might possibly one day get to hear Arthur trying desperately to catch his breath after sex only a few inches from his ear, he never thought for a second that those inches would be filled by an entirely unsoundproof wall.

He never thought he'd feel quite so sick afterwards, either.