After ten minutes Merlin finally came out of the bathroom, after he had told everyone he would be right back, he guessed he lied, they did it, so why couldn't he? No one was in the kitchen anymore when he came out, it was entirely empty and Merlin could hear some far off chatter, meaning people had probably already sat in the dining room and as this house was laid out stupidly Merlin had quite a long trip to go to get there. He was rushing now, he pushed open the kitchen door and ran into someone as he did so. It was a hard hit, too. He quite literally crashed into this person and nearly fell. He caught himself in some weird, long legged way, and looked up to only wish he really had flushed himself down the toilet a moment ago. He looked up to be met by a person with a black, leather jacket on and dark hair, which were unfamiliar, but the blue eyes that made every muscle in Merlin's body tense, they were very familiar, maybe a little too. Merlin took several steps back, to the point where he ran into the door and Arthur just stood there, staring at him. Could this get any worse? Merlin thought. Suddenly there was a blonde woman coming toward them and she wore too short of a pink dress, Merlin didn't need to see that much of her thigh. It was gross.
"Arthur," said the woman and Arthur openly rolled his eyes. "I came to help," she said then, to help with what Merlin didn't know, but then her dark eyes where on him now. "Who is this?"
"Um...-" Arthur said, but then Merlin cut over him.
"I'm Hunith's son," he said, very pointedly. She didn't seem to notice.
"Oh, the gay one..." she nodded. "Yes, right."
"We went to school together," he tried to remind her, but she didn't seem to care very much or just didn't listen to him at all.
"You and Hunith?"
Merlin was dumbfounded. "Yeah..," he said and then walked off, Arthur's eyes followed him and he knew it. He could feel it, but he didn't look back and instead quickly walked the rest of the way to the dining room. He went and sat down between Hunith and Leon, Morgana was on the other side of Leon and Uther sat at the head of the table. Arthur came in a few minutes later along with Vivian and they placed food down on the table, before sitting down, too. Arthur sat down exactly across from Merlin at the table and Merlin felt like it was on purpose. Merlin didn't deserve to be tested by this bastard, it was enough he had to even be in the same room. He resolved that he would just ignore him the entire meal. That ended up not working at all though, as the entire time, whenever he looked up it was as if there was a shining beacon and his eyes couldn't see anything else. Of course Arthur on the other hand, just acted like everything was perfectly fine, the mother fuck-CLANK
As dinner was ending and Hunith had just returned from the kitchen with clean dessert plates and a giant cake, Morgana stood up, hitting her water glass with a knife. "Leon and I want to thank you all for coming tonight and some of you on very short notice, we love spending time with our whole family, but that is not the only reason we asked you to come here tonight," she gestured for Leon to stand up now, too, which he did and everyone at the table who didn't know what Morgana was about to say leaned forward, as if waiting for it to be confirmed. Uther's vein in his forehead was already beginning to pop. "Leon and I, we're having a baby...we're due three weeks after our set wedding date."
That last part sounded a little bitter , but no one seemed to notice this as collectively everyone began to freak out.
"I knew it!" screamed Gwen and began to clap like a hungry seal.
Uther stood up then, the chair crashing to the ground behind him. "You're having a child and you're not even married?!" he enquired and the tone of voice said their plan of telling him in front of people didn't work. "Have I taught you nothing? Has what happened to your bother taught you nothing?"
"It's not that stone age, Uther, the kids are in love, they're already planned to get married," said Leon's father, an obviously much more sane man. "Who cares, really?"
"I care, I don't want my daughter being a whore."
"A whore?" retorted Morgana. "I've been with the same man since I was a teenager!"
"Then you should have learned some self control," retorted Uther before he stormed out of the room. Morgana watched him go angrily and Leon looked a little sweaty.
"I suppose this is a bad time for cake," said Hunith then. "But it does look delicious and I think we'll all need a good, large piece after that."
Arthur got up then and let out a sigh, "I'll go talk to him, here...eat my cake," he shoved the piece of cake Hunith had just cut and placed in front of him in front of his son instead and the boy looked very pleased as Arthur rushed out.
"No," said Gwen and she took the cake away. Kids aren't allowed to swear but that boy was definitely cursing his mum in his head. Merlin however, ate his cake whole, while he listened to Morgana talk shit about her father the entire time. She was mad and understandably so, he would never learn not to be an asshole.
"I just don't understand...why can't he just be normal?" she was saying and Hunith was both relating to her problems and also trying to make excuses for her husband, both really didn't seem to be working. Morgana turned to Leon then. "You better go check that Arthur and him haven't killed each other."
"Me?" said Leon with alarm. "Listen, I just don't think I should be around your father right now..."
"You're trained, you have a gun, what do you think he's going to do to you?" retorted Morgana, she growled then and pushed him away from her. He looked a little scared but he just went back and sat down, taking another piece of cake.
"Merlin, you go," said Hunith and Merlin glared at her.
"I hate both of them," he said as if it were normal to say that. Hunith looked angrily at him then, and he felt that was a bit out of line, it wasn't his fault they both were horrible people, maybe his mother should go instead, she seemed to like both so much. He sighed. "Fine...I'll go. But I'm not helping if they're fighting, I've already been there once."
It was funny, he thought, the last time he watched the two get into a physical fight it was also over a baby. Just a made up one that time. Merlin also had no intentions of going to find them and or checking on them, he just left so his mother wouldn't get on his case. He didn't care about what they were doing, and he definitely wasn't at the place where he wanted to be in the middle of their bullshit. Instead, Merlin walked into the dark sitting room, he turned on the lights and to his surprise Arthur was siting there on the sofa, Merlin stared and Arthur looked over at him, he thought of fleeing in that moment, but didn't.
"I didn't know anyone was in here," he said and it felt strange...to actually be speaking to him. His stomach was turning at the idea and he might throw up the cake he had just eaten. Arthur huffed then and crossed his arms over his chest.
"I bet you didn't..." Merlin didn't know what to say then, and to be truthful he didn't want to say anything. So, instead he just sort of turned around and started heading for the door. "You don't have to leave," said Arthur and Merlin thought that yes, he really did. He continued walking. "Oh yeah...but I forget, you're good at that."
Merlin froze then, his stomach was doing that dropping feeling again and he felt his blood swell in his neck. He wondered if his forehead vein was popping like Uther's was a bit ago. He turned around then, almost in the door frame, and apparently he decided to choose violence in that moment. "What the fuck does that mean?!" he demanded.
Arthur didn't move, he just looked rather smug on the sofa. "You know exactly what the fuck that means."
Merlin's heart began to pump viscously, so hard he thought it might burst and he swore he had never felt so much anger in all of his life. He wanted to scream, yell, throw things...punch him so hard in the face that Arthur would swallow his own tongue and never talk again. He wanted that so much, so many things, Merlin wanted to say so many nasty things, but he didn't. He just walked out then. Walked right out of the sitting room and then right out of that house.
(A/N: Hi, so I am back again posting. I am really trying to finish this story on my end, it might seem like it's nowhere near the end and it's not...but I am really far ahead of you guys writing wise, and at this point I think I am at like 10/12 chapters before I can be at a place where I think it could end. I just like to give little updates on my progress just in case anyone is interested or cares, in the meantime I hope you enjoyed this update, I know they didn't have any like war, go down or like a massive fight, but trust me it is coming. Spoilers, but there are MANY arguments coming, lol. Enjoy and see you soon again, I hope!)