Hello! Shit, sorry, it's been a long time *headdesk*, but I've had exams and auditions and sister problems and general social brainfart, so it's been a bit hard for me to sit down and edit/rewrite. *Deep breath*
I now present the first half of the end. I could post both at once, but I'm evil. Eeeeevil. Enjoy the copiously sweet ending I've written for you-I thought Merlin and Arthur deserved a break ;)
(Take THAT, Love is a strange thing! I can write fluff!)
Please do note that time moves a bit differently (faster, less specifically) in this section, with a broader narration. Also there are two f-bombs. I've had a trying week -_-
November 2010 – May 2011
Hunith moves into Gaius' cubbyhole guest room and Arthur's cello lessons melt from once a week to three times a week so that Merlin can accompany him and catch up with his mother afterwards. Arthur watches as he gradually comes out of his shell, and one day Hunith pulls him aside and hugs him, for Christ's sake. He hasn't been hugged by a mother since he was six, and he manfully holds back the tears that threaten to blur out his vision.
"Thank you," Merlin's mother says against his shoulder as he pats her back awkwardly. "They told me he was so depressed he—oh! I—what was I—don't even know…."
Arthur can't say that he likes Hunith, doesn't forgive her for what she did to Merlin, but knowing that she understands her mistake stirs a little warmth in him that he can't contain. He starts joining Merlin and his mother for tea, and the more he gets to know her the more parts of Merlin he understands.
After several months too many of your-house-or-mine business they decide to cut to the chase and shack up. They sell Merlin's flat and fill Arthur's with all his junk, and slowly the sterile cell Arthur's been living in actually becomes a home, complete with a ridiculous singing fish mounted above the wide bed which they spread with Merlin's cream duvet (which doesn't match Arthur's white sheets no matter what Gwen insists when she tries to break up their bedclothes argument).
"It's just blankets," Morgana says dismissively as she begins stuffing Merlin's disturbingly large scarf collection into Arthur's underwear drawer.
But it isn't just blankets. In truth, none of their things match, and Arthur often finds himself cringing at what was once a pristine white apartment that now teems with rugs and scratched furniture and so many other useless things that he can hardly see the lovely clean walls.
"You told me all the white made you feel uneasy," Merlin comments, sweeping through the cluttered kitchen with an excessive number of homemade pot holders—apparently the reason Merlin had so many yarn crafts was due to his eccentric preoccupation with knitting, of all things—and chocolate bars.
Arthur squirms and mutters and whines until even Gwen loses sympathy for him, but really he's uneasy about sharing his space with another person. As much as he wants to live with Merlin, to take their relationship to another, more solid level, he's childishly afraid of getting too attached. Arthur is more afraid than he'll admit of Merlin leaving him now that he's discovered not everyone he loves will disappear.
He confesses his fears to Morgana, which should be an obvious thing to avoid doing, and she boxes his ears and pinches his cheeks and kisses him in what can only be described as enthusiastic disparagement.
"You absolute idiot! Oh, you two are so stupid together you belong in an institution for overanxious gays…. Merlin's not going to fucking walk away from you just because he has a fractional amount of newfound confidence. He loves you, and you damn well better love him back or I'll rape you with a wooden spoon."
With that bit of graphic incentive, he tries to dispel the irrational fear of abandonment by buying Merlin lots of pretty things that will make him stay. Merlin looks at Arthur like he's crazy and dumps the items (silk shirts and leather shoes and a silver watch with matching cufflinks) back in their respective packages and tells him that he doesn't want bribes. Arthur protests that they're gifts when Merlin shoves his wringing hands out of his lap and places himself there instead, effectively shutting Arthur up by mumbling in his lips that they don't need gifts to stay together, and Merlin certainly doesn't need any reason to stay with Arthur other than the fact that they love each other.
11 October, 2011
On Arthur's thirtieth birthday, he receives a letter made with heavy cardstock and ostentatiously curling script. It "Cordially wishes Mr. Arthur Pendragon a happy birthday by way of Mr. Mordred Pendragon, Pendragon Incorporated Headquarters, London, England," and Arthur feels like ripping it in half. Gwen's gentle touch restrains him long enough for Merlin to quietly remove the card, which contains Mordred's pretentious signature and personal contact details that he knows Arthur will want when he's calmed down.
Sure enough, after the party winds down and Gwen helps a tipsy Morgana hail a cab, Arthur finds himself with the cordless phone cradled against his ear and Merlin's fingers soothing up and down the line of his spine.
His brother answers the phone with a tired "Hello?", and Arthur's breath leaves him in a shaky sigh.
"Mordred," he says softly, and there is silence on the end of the line for a few moments before he hears an answering crackle with Mordred's own deep exhalation. And then he finds himself half-laughing, half-crying into Merlin's lap while his boyfriend quickly consents to joining the Pendragon brothers for supper the next evening at the undeniably posh Le Gavroche.
A weight is lifted from Arthur's stomach, a weight he never thought he carried, and finally released from it, he remembers something his mind has been choosing to ignore for years.
Mordred's first word, said with complete and total brotherly adoration, was Arthur.
Time passes.
November 2011-May 2012
After a few awkward months of catching up, Arthur and Mordred establish a careful but definite bond. Arthur begins working for Pendragon Incorporated again, eventually rising to co-manage with his brother. Clients and employees alike are witness to intense fights between the two, but no one can deny the incredible turn the company takes for the better with the Pendragons working together.
Mordred and Morgana, who have extremely similar personalities and seem to grate on each other, get spectacularly drunk, hook up, and decide they're in love. Morgana dates exclusively for the first time in her life, and claims that Mordred has the same blue eyes that initially attracted her to Arthur (who never knew Morgana even liked him), but none of his irritating feminine tendencies.
Mordred is gleefully pleased by this jab at his brother, and Arthur, rightfully affronted, asks Merlin for backup on his manliness. Merlin, deeply engrossed in Gwen's copy of Hello!, flatly says "Who rides the chair, Arthur?" and the room dissolves into howls.
June
Hunith eats well in Gaius' house, and reclaims most of the weight and shape she'd been losing since Merlin was a toddler and his father left. She's in her late forties and still quiet lovely, and when she gets a bit of her old spunk back she has a prolonged fling with Gaius' Clooney-esque nurse, Jasper. It's too horrible for Merlin even to think about, and he and Arthur conduct a haphazard plan to get Gaius drunker than ever in a form of childish revenge against the alcohol-fearing nurse. The plan backfires when they wake up on the kitchen floor the next day to see Hunith and Jasper spooning on the sofa in the same miserable state as everyone else.
Jasper turns out to be a really fantastic cook. Merlin agrees on a don't-ask-don't-tell policy with his mother and her boyfriend provided he and Arthur get weekly Sunday brunch in the form of omelets and Belgian waffles.
October 2012-April 2013
Gwen meets a truly gorgeous man by spilling his tactless Americano all down his suit front. He declines the dry-cleaning money she hysterically offers him but accepts her mobile number and a kiss, and less than four months later she marries Lance in a fairytale wedding with white doves and all the clichéd fixings. Merlin is the photographer, and Arthur has a particularly vocal row with him for making gooey eyes at the groom while shooting the official pictures. Morgana and Mordred smoke in the cemetery of the church and gripe about the impracticality of matrimony.
Their wedding two months later is small but equally as pompous. Merlin is the maid of honor, which he finds rather condescending but is grateful at least that he gets to wear trousers. Arthur, as best man, holds his hand through the whole ceremony.
Arthur asks Merlin to dance with a bow, and while they waltz around the room to a weird crooning dirge chosen by Morgana he flattens his hands possessively along Merlin's back. His lips touch Merlin's endearingly large ear as he whispers, "Who's the man, fair maiden?"
Merlin's response is to grab his bum and haul him forward, for one agonizing second pressing flush against him. "I still say it's me, but if you like you can prove me wrong later tonight."
Arthur is speechless, and Merlin takes the opportunity to hand him off to Morgana. Arthur flinches as her hands grip his shoulders smugly, and nearly cries in horror when she kisses him squarely on the lips. It doesn't help that over the poof of her hair Merlin is spinning dizzily with fucking Lance.
Arthur drags Merlin out of the church at his first opportunity, and they skip the reception in favor of less wholesome activities.
New message!
Message Morgana!:
hello brther ;)))
.
New message!
Message Arthur:
thats so disturbing.
Next time is last.
xxox, Ally