Notes: See, I can sometimes keep my word. I haven't managed to do so with review replies, but I will. Cross my hearts...
X 10 X
"You're avoiding me," Merlin says, and for someone so utterly clumsy he's damn good at sneaking up on people. He's grinning, too, and the best case scenario Arthur can imagine is that he thinks Arthur's imminent heart attack is funny. The alternative, that Merlin isn't just suspecting Arthur is avoiding him but actually knows it, and knows why, and remembers just how badly Arthur took advantage of him...That is just bloody awful.
Of course, if Merlin remembered he'd probably hate him rather than look amused, so it probably isn't that, but...But.
"Can't you whistle, or something?" Arthur snaps, because it's by far the easiest response.
"Yes," Merlin says, dripping with sarcasm, grinning like he always does. "Because who doesn't walk around the supermarket whistling."
Arthur frowns, since he's damn well not going to say Merlin has a point. He doesn't know what to say, though, still, because Merlin is right and he really doesn't know how to explain it, how to explain why he can't stand being in Merlin's presence any longer. The initial answer is simple – we slept together when you were drunk, you married my sister, and I can't bear seeing you happy with her – but the aftermath of saying it will probably kill him.
"Look," Merlin says, and he's still beaming at Arthur like he's the first glimpse of the sun after the longest night, like Arthur is and always with be the dawn to him. "I get that it's maybe a bit odd for you, what with that whole married to Morgana thing I have going on, and I can already hear you calling me a girl for this, but you're still my best mate and I miss you."
"You're a girl," Arthur says, because that's what he's meant to do now, even if what he feels is more along the lines of I miss you, too. There's no way he's saying that, though, and certainly no way Arthur's challenging him on the best mate comment, Is that really all we are, Merlin? because however angry it would sound in his head it wouldn't come out that way, and Merlin cannot know. Merlin must never know.
He sticks a bag of muesli in his trolley, then a box of Weetabix just for good measure, heading down to the end of aisle and halfway up the next one before he realises Merlin hasn't got his own trolley, or even a basket. "Did you actually come here to buy something, or was it just that you saw me on your way past?"
"We're out of milk," Merlin replies, and Arthur decides to pretend that's an answer.
"You'll want the fridges, then," he says, and he's both proud and sickened by how bland he sounds, like he's offering directions to a stranger, and Merlin's expression finally starts to droop a little. "Straight down to the end, then left. I'm sure you'll find them."
Merlin's shoulders slump and he stops following Arthur, stops smiling; it's like the sun has gone behind a cloud, and just knowing that he's making Merlin look like that has Arthur feeling worse than he did all the time he was trying to stay away from him, almost as bad as he did that night, months ago now, when Merlin looked at him like he was the world and Arthur betrayed that, betrayed his best friend and his sister and himself.
"Never mind," Merlin tells him, growing darker by the second. "I'll let you shop in peace, Arthur. Call me when you get bored of whatever this is."
By the time Arthur works out a way to call him back that doesn't involve the awkward, uncomfortable truth of his (ugly, absolutely not platonic) feelings, Merlin is long gone.
X
Morgana, though, is not; where Arthur has managed to put a little distance between himself and Merlin since the wedding, since the week before the wedding, he has only managed to bring his sister to the foreground of his life, and, mostly, she is pissed off.
"He's moping so much," she says, hopping up onto his desk and taking a slurp of his coffee, then grimacing at the taste; Arthur doesn't even try not to be amused, because she has to know he'd never deign to drink one of her stupid, sweet, pseudo-coffees. "I just don't understand why you won't spend any time with him anymore."
"Things are different now, Morgana," he says, and if it was anyone other than Morgana confronting him he'd probably put his head in his hands, but Arthur is damned if he'll show his sister that much weakness. "You know they are."
Morgana swings her legs a little, her skirt rucking up enough that Arthur can see the lace at the top of her thigh-highs, and he's struck with the image of Merlin kneeling before her, rolling them down, kissing each inch of skin he reveals. Of Merlin, looking at him like he was the world. Of Merlin, begging him for more, please, Arthur, don't stop, please. Of Merlin, his words turning into gasps and breathy moans, desperate, wordless pleas.
Of Merlin, drunk.
"It's different," he says again, and doesn't know whether he's talking about the situation as a whole or if it's just the complete lack of similarities between his one and only night with Merlin and Morgana's whole life and happy future with him.
"I don't see how," she answers, taking another sip of his coffee; masochism clearly runs in their family, although Arthur thinks he's probably got it worse than she has (Merlin, his fingers twisting through Arthur's hair as Arthur goes down on him, pulling and begging, slurring, wanting more, Arthur, please more).
"So what that we're married now? Merlin and I have been dating for years," she says, and Arthur doesn't know where she usually draws the line between kind and cruel but he thinks she's crossing it today. "We were engaged, Arthur. That usually ends in marriage."
"I know," Arthur says, but he doesn't have anything more to follow it up with; when in doubt, go for repetition (God, does he wish he could repeat it, only with them both sober and probably so much better for that fact). "I know, Morgana."
"What's the problem, then?" She asks, with prickles so huge they're thorns, barbs, her every word drawing blood. "What's so wrong with Merlin being my husband, baby brother?"
"Don't call me that!" Arthur snaps, standing up too fast, so quickly that he feels a little dizzy, and Morgana leaps to her feet as well, ready to fight back.
"Why not? It's what you are, isn't it?"
"I'm not."
She circles the desk, stepping, pushing, into Arthur's space, pushing because she's never known how to do anything else, and no one ever told Arthur how to retreat either, to see it as stepping out of a fight rather than losing one. "You are, Arthur, and you always will be. My little, irritable, emotionally-stunted baby brother."
"I'm not."
"Not what?" she asks, and laughs, condescending and beautiful and Arthur hates her. He hates her. "Little, sure, maybe you're not. But this conversation makes denying the irritable kind of difficult, and after how many opportunities I gave you to object to the wedding, you can't even start to argue that you're not emotionally stunted. Fuck, Arthur, stunted is being kind."
"You can go now," Arthur says, because he can't argue this with her. "Fuck off back to your shiny new marriage, Morgana, and leave things between me and Merlin the fuck alone. It's better this way."
Morgana takes a step back, and for a second Arthur is stupid enough to think she's actually going to leave him in peace. She isn't, of course, because leaving in peace isn't in her nature, but she does seem to soften slightly. "Why, Arthur? Merlin's miserable, you're…being like this, all the time. How is it possibly better for you to ignore him?"
"I can't tell you," Arthur says, even though he knows that he's only admitting that there's something to tell, that he's essentially (in Morgana's twisted mind, anyway) giving her permission to keep asking. "It just is."
"Why?"
"Stop, Morgana. For once in your life, let something go."
"Why?" She asks a second time, something of a smirk to it, and if Arthur was an even lesser man than he is, he'd follow through on his wish to smack that stupid, smug expression from her face.
"Drop. It," he manages, forcing the words out through gritted teeth.
"Why?!"
Something snaps inside of him, a spring coiled too tightly and given no room to ease the compression, coiled until it is destroyed, worthless, irreparable.
"Because I slept with him," Arthur answers, loud, unintended, and for a second he thinks his rage possibly matches hers. Only a second, though, and then the horror of what he just said hits him fully; he collapses back into his chair, landing so hard that the lifting mechanism gives in and the chair sinks as low as it will go, leaving him staring up at his sister, at the utter confusion on her face.
Finally, Morgana retreats, steps backwards until her back hits the wall, and, "You never told me," she says, and she sounds like she did the day Uther told her he was sending her away, please, Daddy, don't make me go, young and hopeless and surprised that her family could ever betray her like that, like this. "Merlin never told me."
Arthur forces himself to make eye-contact, even though it causes him almost physical pain, but he can't retreat and he doesn't know how else to repent. "I don't think he remembers," Arthur says, like it's any kind of explanation, like any explanation at all could make this better, like there is anything at all that could make sleeping with his sister's fiancé and keeping it a secret okay.
"You don't think he remembers," she answers, her scepticism bordering on tangible (it would feel like ice, Arthur thinks, like the massive icicles that form in countries much colder than England, hanging threateningly overhead, ready to drop and impale some poor, unwary bastard).
"He was drunk," Arthur continues. "Walking-into-walls drunk, and I wasn't exactly stone-cold sober, and it was about the stupidest thing I've ever done." And I regret it, he thinks of saying, only he doesn't, not really. He regrets that it happened like that, that Merlin wouldn't have wanted it any other way, but even if it's destroying his mind and his life and his relationship with everyone he's ever known, he doesn't know how to wish it undone.
Morgana half-laughs, and it's only when she says, "I don't know, brother, it's quite a list to choose from," that he realises how much she doesn't understand yet; Morgana thinks it was a long time ago, before she came back, when he and Merlin were just dumb teenagers and Arthur's closet was so huge and dark that even he didn't realise he was in it.
He can't enlighten her, though, because if he tells the truth Morgana will hate Merlin just as much as she'll hate him, and Arthur can't do that. He can destroy his own happiness, betray himself and the two people he loves most in this world, but he can't take them with him when he falls. Merlin has a good thing going with Morgana, better than anything Arthur's ever had, and he won't take that from him.
His sister works it out, though, much too quickly, because up until a week before her wedding, the wedding, Arthur wasn't doing anything he could not to be in Merlin's presence. "When was this, Arthur?"
"I..."
"Answer me."
I can't, he thinks, but Morgana will only give him that look she's so good at, will only tell him, No, Arthur, you won't, and he knows he won't be able to argue that it's the same thing. "Don't ask, Morgana," he says instead. "Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answer to."
"When, Arthur?" she says, and she's furious, furious enough that Arthur knows she knows, knows that she's only really asking for confirmation. "I might not want to know, but I have to, so you better goddamn tell me when!"
"His stag night," Arthur says, and all the stuff he's ever heard about confession being good for the soul, making people feel better...bullshit. Absolute bullshit. "A week before your wedding," he adds, just in case the secret to the healing powers of confession is telling even more truth (it isn't).
"You had sex with my husband a week before our wedding."
"Technically," Arthur answers, despite the fact that it wasn't a question and that, even if it was, this reply is about the most stupid thing he can say right now, "Technically, he wasn't your husband then."
He half expects her to slap him for that, and knows one hundred percent that he would deserve it if she did. He's braced for it, too, ready for his sister to whale on him like she should, and when she steps forwards to stand beside him, that's what he's sure is about to happen.
Straightforward violence has never been Morgana's style, though, as well he knows. Whenever he's pissed her off in the past, she's always gone for the sneak-attack, open tins of tuna hidden at the bottom of his underwear drawer and hair-dye in his shampoo, things he never discovered until it was too late and he had green hair and was going commando because all his boxers stank of rotten fish.
Now is no different: when Morgana picks up his now-cold mug of coffee, he almost thinks she's going to drink it, or maybe tip it over his head, but she doesn't. She picks it up, swirls it around a bit like she's looking for the future in the dregs of a cup of tea, then upturns it on his pristine, immensely expensive laptop.
It sparks, sputters a little, and then dies, and Arthur can't think of a better metaphor for this moment than that.
"You were right," his sister says, his twin, one half of the other half of his soul. "It is better this way. The next time I see you near Merlin, I'll... Well, I'll never see you near Merlin again, Arthur."
She turns, leaving the wreck of his life and his laptop smoking in her wake, pausing for a moment in the doorway on her way out. "You know," she says, and the soft heartbreak in her voice is worse than all the rage in the world. "All you had to do was say something and you could have had him. I love him, but you were my brother, Arthur. You just had to ask me."
"I know," Arthur admits, because he does, he did; he knew, all along, that a word from him and everything could have been different, but it was only when it was too late that he realised he might actually have benefited from speaking that word. Even now, when all he can see when he tries to sleep at night is Merlin's expression as he stared down the aisle at his bride, Arthur isn't sure anything good could have come of him objecting. "I'm sorry."
"I don't care," she says, neither soft nor raging now. Just herself, Morgana, beyond a doubt the fiercest, strongest person he's ever known. "I don't forgive you," she finishes, her hand on the door handle, and Arthur suddenly realises he still has something else to say, something else he has to say, the only thing he can possibly justify saying to her right now.
"Please," he gasps, and it feels ridiculous and horrible and far too heartfelt, but his stupidity has already pretty much ruined his own life and he needs to get this out because he'd rather it didn't fuck up Merlin's, too. "Don't blame Merlin, please, Morgana."
"I don't," she answers, and there's thunder in her eyes. "I blame you."
X
Merlin gets home late on Thursday, opens the door preparing apologies and explanations, only to find the house aggressively clean, bags of rubbish stacked on top of and around the wheelie bin outside, even more bags of old clothes and books and knick-knacks in the hall by the front door, waiting for the next charity collection sack that gets put through the letterbox. It's terrifying, and it only gets more so when he walks into the kitchen and finds Morgana kneeling on the floor, scrubbing it to within an inch of its life, either oblivious to or ignoring the tears pouring down her face.
A little part of him wants to leave again, sneaking out before she even realises he's there, because Morgana can be a little intimidating at the best of times; the only other occasion Merlin's seen her cry was the day Uther packed her off to school, and he's fairly sure the shrieking during the argument that followed reached a pitch not actually audible to human beings. He can't, though, because part of for better or for worse probably involves dealing with Morgana in her slightly less friendly moments, and it certainly means holding her when she cries.
"'Gana?" he asks, and sees her jump only too literally. "What's up, love?"
X
Morgana looks up at him, part of her wishing she didn't have to, but he is her husband and she has to know if Arthur was right when he said Merlin didn't remember; everything she does now depends on that, because she's known all along that there is something there, something between Merlin and Arthur, and she loves him regardless. She loves him, she married him, and neither of those two facts is at all altered by what she learnt this afternoon. She loves him, and she has to know.
"What's up, love?" he asks, and somehow, after what Arthur told her, she didn't think he'd call her that anymore.
Words stick in her throat, so many of them, all of them, and she swipes at the tears on her face; she was supposed to be done with this by the time Merlin got home, was supposed to be herself again, if not happy then at least not like this. "It's nothing," she says, holding his gaze, because everything she needs to know will be there. "I went to see Arthur at work today. He said something I didn't really want to hear."
Merlin doesn't flinch at that, doesn't grimace, doesn't give any sign at all that he knows what Arthur might have told her, and Morgana believes it. His eyes tell her everything, as they always have, and in this, Arthur is right. Whatever happened, after the drinks and the clubs and the observatory and the taxi ride back to Arthur's, Merlin doesn't remember. Merlin isn't keeping this horrible, awful, unforgivable secret from her; she is the one who will keep it from him. She and Arthur, united in this one final thing.
"What did he say?" he asks, kneeling before her, and if Morgana had been cleaning like a crazy person because she actually wanted things to be clean, she'd be mad at him, ruining her freshly scrubbed floor. "Do you want me to go yell at him for it, because you know I will. Best friend, schmest friend, I'll yell at him anyway."
Morgana laughs, and it's probably not healthy, this, that she's so willing to be with a man who doesn't love her entirely, a man to whom her brother is probably almost as important as she is, if he's not more important all together, but... She loves him, and if Merlin doesn't remember then it's almost like it never happened. Or it's not, not really, but she can live with it, and that's really what matters.
"No," she says, determined, filling her tone with a finality that is as much to convince herself as it is Merlin. "It's okay," she says, then corrects herself, allowing just a little leeway, a little space to breathe, to re-correct. "It'll be okay."
Merlin wipes away the tears she missed, the tears that have almost stopped by now, and when he goes to hug her, she doesn't push him away.
He's hers, not Arthur's, and that's what matters.