Disclaimer: Don't own Merlin.
Warnings: Angst, angst, angst
~III~
"Half a scrape-of-marmite sandwich,
last night's pushed-aside
potatoes, greying like a tramp's teeth,
crusts, crumbs are a danger to him,
so much orbiting space junk
that's weightless for only so long.
Burn it up on re-entry, burn it,
burn it. So he trains
with weights, he jogs, he runs
as if the sky were falling."
He has a moment of panic when he wakes the next morning and the events of the previous night come flooding back to him. But before he has time to overthink it, Arthur stirs beside him.
"You need a bigger bed," he says lazily, not bothering to open his eyes, and Merlin relaxes slightly.
"Oh sorry Richie Rich, I'll sleep on the floor next time."
"Mmm, see that you do."
Arthur yawns and stretches; muscles taut beneath the t-shirt he had worn to bed. Merlin averts his eyes quickly, now is definitely not the time to be noticing Arthur's body with literally only inches of space between them. Arthur may be generally oblivious but even he might notice if Merlin gets… excited.
Merlin rolls onto his back and thinks hard about the time Gwaine wasn't paying attention on the sewing machine in Textiles and the needle went right through his finger. Merlin doesn't consider himself overly squeamish, but the memory of that is sufficiently disgusting to chase any arousal away.
He lets out a slight sigh.
"What you huffing about?" Arthur says, voice still thick with sleep.
"I dunno," Merlin says. And then: "I hate Sundays. It's just like a blergh of waiting around and homework and shit TV and then you know you have to go back to school tomorrow."
"Well aren't you a ray of sunshine in the mornings?"
"I do apologise, I didn't sleep that well because someone stole all the blankets for himself in the night."
Arthur sits up at that.
"You're criticising me? The human earthworm is criticising me? All you did all night was wriggle around like you were being used for bait."
"Lies, lies," Merlin says happily, snuggling further into the bed. He suddenly feels all warm and cosy and-
"Get up," Arthur says, pulling the duvet off the bed without ceremony.
"Arthur!" Merlin whines, curling in on himself. "It's cold!"
"Then you best get dressed. We're going out."
"What? It's like six am!"
"It's half-ten Merlin, you lazy sod. And we're going to the pastry shop to get your mum breakfast."
"Oh I see," Merlin grumbles, getting slowly to his feet. "Should have known you were trying to suck up to mum."
"I am a gentleman," Arthur announces imperiously. "Which is what Hunith deserves, rather than an idle ingrate like you as a son."
"I'm a brilliant son!" Merlin says indignantly. "You're just trying to supplant me. How would you like it if I came round to your house and brought your dad breakfast in bed?"
There's a brief pause in which Merlin actually imagines bringing Uther breakfast in bed and he nearly chokes. Arthur is grinning widely.
"If you don't mind picking cornflakes out of your hair, go right ahead."
Merlin continues to moan but he's somewhat mollified by the time they reach the shop and Arthur pays for a whole selection of treats.
Hunith, predictably, is thrilled to see him.
"Arthur! Come here, sweetheart."
She envelopes him in a big hug.
"You get more and more handsome every time I see you."
"Mum," Merlin complains and Hunith rolls her eyes at him.
"Don't be jealous Merlin, you're still my gorgeous baby."
"Mum!" Merlin protests again and Arthur sniggers.
"We brought you some pastries," he says and lays them out on the table.
Hunith looks like she's about to explode with happiness and Merlin hurries off to the kitchen to make the tea before she cries or something.
While he's finding a tray for the mugs and pot he has a sudden flicker of fear that Arthur might be using this time to say… something… about Merlin to his mum, but when he returns, Hunith is simply shoving old photographs at Arthur.
"I found these the other day when I was clearing up," she says. "They're from your fifteenth birthday, love."
"Oh God," Merlin says but he knows very little stops Hunith when she's on a roll so he simply sits down next to Arthur and takes a look.
It hadn't been a big party, just the six of them round at Merlin's house for tea, as well as his old friend Will from Ealdor.
"Ah-ha, look at Gwen!" Merlin says. He had no memory of the pair of yellow dungarees she was wearing, but he'd definitely be bringing that into school the next day to remind her.
"Look at Lance's hair, more like," Arthur says. "He's got curtains!"
Merlin came across one of Gwaine wearing a party hat and pulling a face.
"Mum, did you know Gwaine tried to sneak in beer to that party but he lost it on the way?"
"Darling, your friend Gwaine is many things but subtle is not one of them. I heard them clanking around in his bag when he arrived so I hid them in the pantry." Hunith's eyes filled with amusement. "He looked so confused when he found them gone, the poor lamb."
As they chat and swap memories over the photos, Merlin is surprised to find himself absent-mindedly tucking into the pastries. He isn't really thinking about it until he catches Arthur looking at him with what can only be described as hope in his eyes. The thought both warms and scares Merlin a little. He breaks one of the pain aux raisins in two and pushes a half over to Arthur, shoving the other half in his mouth. Arthur smiles and Merlin smiles back.
~III~
But the next few days are not so easy. That Sunday, with Arthur there, it had been no challenge. Arthur stayed the whole day and eating with him seemed, if not quite natural, somehow okay.
But Monday he wakes up late and genuinely doesn't have time to get breakfast. He grabs a banana on the way out, mindful of his promise to Arthur, but by the time he gets to school it's all battered and brown in his bag and he throws it away.
But he's on for lunch, and Arthur joins him in the queue. They don't say anything about their arrangement but when Arthur picks the baked potato, orange juice, and an apple Merlin knows he's remembered – because Arthur normally devours about two burgers, three sides of chips, and whatever sticky pudding the canteen's doling out that day.
He's trying to make it easy for Merlin and Merlin feels touched. He orders the same and they take their seats alongside their friends; where talk is firmly fixated on the party.
"I'll never live it down," Gwaine is saying, head buried in his hands.
"Probably not," Lance agrees.
"What can't you live down?" Arthur says.
"Vivian made a pass at him on Saturday," Gwen says gleefully.
"The Black Widow went for you?" Arthur says, already laughing.
"Cornered me in Mith's bedroom and started with all this shit about how 'she'd had all the guys worth having and it was about time she made her way round to me,'" Gwaine explains.
"Mental," Merlin says.
"Mental is right. And talk about Black Widow, Jesus. It really was like she had eight arms the way she was groping me."
"I hope you escaped with your honour intact," Arthur drawls, draining half his orange juice in one gulp.
"Mate, I was out of there before she could coordinate those fake talon nails into undoing my zip." Gwaine shudders dramatically. "I might be up for it but I'm not that up for it."
"Well don't worry, Gwaine," Freya says sweetly. "She was wrapped around Gavin not half an hour later telling him she thought you were gay."
The table explodes with laughter as Gwaine groans.
"Oh yeah, laugh it up. At least I rated enough to be on her list of guys worth having."
"Yeah, I'm pretty heartbroken about that," Arthur says straight faced. "Aren't you, Lance?"
"Devastated," Lance says, sighing. "I'll never know whether she really is hiding a forked tail under those ridiculously tight jeans."
"Merlin, help me out here, as the one man at this table not in danger from Vivian's wicked wiles," Gwaine pleads.
"Um, actually…" Merlin says, blushing.
"What?!" Gwen instantly screeches.
Merlin can't believe he's about to tell this story.
"Well a couple of months after she outed me, she sort of dragged me into the bathroom at Cedric's party to apologise. And then she started rambling about how I could be sure if I was gay, and maybe I hadn't met the right girl, and then she kind of… threw herself at me."
Merlin winces to remember her sickly sweet alcohol breath as she inched in closer to his lips. He'd vowed never to tell his friends because he knew how they'd react, with the same hysterical laughter he's getting now.
"What did you do?" Freya chokes out between fits of giggles.
"I was bloody horrified! I kept trying to run away but she was going on and on, then eventually she was sick in the bath and I got the hell out of there."
His friends showed no sign of letting up on their obvious mirth, the bastards.
"I feel your pain, mate." Gwaine says, clapping him on the back. "It's the heavy burden us good looking blokes have to endure. Arthur and Lance will just never understand what it's like to have such sexual magnetism."
Last week Merlin might have tensed at such a joke, certain that Gwaine was making fun of the way he looked, but he catches sight of Arthur's open mouthed smile and relaxes.
"It's a gift and a curse," he shrugs and Arthur flicks water at him.
When he looks down at his plate, he realises that most of his baked potato is gone. And it feels okay.
~III~
But Tuesday is slightly more difficult. Arthur swings by his house with coffee and bagels, almost as though he knew Merlin would be too late to co-ordinate breakfast again. Merlin's glad, because it means he gets a lift in Arthur's car, and even if he doesn't feel that hungry, he gets the bagel down okay.
But he feels uncomfortably full all the way through the morning, and when he realises Arthur won't be around for lunch because he has football practice, he makes his excuses and slips away to the library to catch up on his coursework.
It's not cheating, not really, because he does still feel full and surely Arthur doesn't expect him to eat when he feels full? Also, Arthur's not technically eating right now either (although he knows Arthur will grab a sandwich after practice) so he's sticking to his side of the bargain.
Arthur doesn't come by the next morning but Merlin is actually up in time to eat this morning. He butters some toast rather unenthusiastically and only manages one slice in the end. But he tells himself it's because his stomach has become used to less food recently and if he eats too much too soon he'll get sick. And Arthur doesn't want that either, so this is justified.
He has lunch with Arthur and the others anyway, and it's mostly fine, but when he gets home that night to the empty flat, he can't quite bring himself to cook dinner. He munches on a couple of carrots as he watches telly, and has a vague idea about making some noodles or something, but he ends up falling asleep on the coach. When he wakes, its past midnight, and he stumbles to bed in a daze.
Merlin does feel slightly guilty about all of this, but he reasons that he's just fine tuning Arthur's system. They need an arrangement to suit both of them and he's just making sure it does. Arthur certainly seems pleased with him anyway, he makes sure he's always around for lunch whenever Arthur's there and Arthur reciprocates the gesture by choosing light meals for the two of them. So he doesn't feel too guilty, because he's eating much more than he was, and Arthur's happy, so where's the harm?
The first real crisis comes two weeks after Mithian's party. Arthur suggests they all go out for dinner at Pizza Express on Friday night. Merlin accepts along with everyone else but he's already tense about it because Arthur came by with breakfast again this morning and sat with him at lunch, so Merlin already feels overstuffed with those two meals. But he can hardly refuse, can he?
"Obviously you don't have to get the same toppings at me, or whatever," Arthur mutters to him as they stand in the queue. "But you'll get a pizza, right?"
He looks slightly anxious, though he's trying to hide it. Merlin nods reassuringly but inside he feels panicked. He's eaten too much today to handle a whole pizza, he's sure his stomach won't take it. And there's literally no way to hide from anyone here.
He achieves a bit of trickery anyway, scraping off bits of cheese and hiding them in his napkin when no-ones looking. He even manages to drop a whole slice discreetly on the floor under his chair when Arthur's in the bathroom. But he still ends up having to eat a good two thirds of his Margherita and he feels ill as he wipes the grease off his fingers. He's zoned out of the conversation a bit but everyone's having a good enough time not to notice; even Arthur's distracted.
It's just too much, he can feel it expanding inside his stomach, filling him horribly. He feels bloated and sick, and afraid for some reason he can't pinpoint. It feels like there's a stone at the bottom of his stomach, all that oil and fat just sitting there, poisoning his insides. He can't bear it.
He gets up and goes to the bathroom, careful not to hurry and attract attention. He doesn't want to do this but he doesn't see any other way; he honestly feels like he's going to be sick any minute anyway so it's not such a bad idea to help things along a little…
He has a moment of doubt, kneeling on the cold bathroom floor, aware that this is a violation of the agreement that even he can't reason his way out of. But if Arthur cares about him, then Arthur won't want him to suffer, will he? Because this is suffering, this terrible weight inside him, the shaky fear that's working through his body. Just this once he needs to go back on his word, just this once…
It doesn't take more than a couple of tries with his fingers down his throat before he's heaving and then it all comes up and Merlin lets it, tears forming in his eyes from the strain of retching. He spits and then wipes his mouth with a piece of tissue before flushing it all away, leaning back against the wall for a second, his hands shaking.
It's horrible and he hates it but he can't regret it because it's like pushing the reset button and now he doesn't have to feel so full and panicky.
He breathes in and out a few times before getting to his feet and unlocking the door.
Only to find Arthur outside it, fists hanging loosely at his sides, glittering blue eyes locked on Merlin's own.