Chapter Text
He was going to die here, he thought, here in this swirling world of blues and greens that tasted horribly like chlorine. He was going to drown with Arthur Pendragon’s hand in his hair and he was going to let it happen. He was thirteen, and he was ready for it.
The day was so perfectly bright. The back garden of the Pendragon’s house was filled with happy people walking around in their colourful bathing suits. The sound of silly pop music filled the air, blasting from the speakers facing outside through the second floor windows. Skin glistened everywhere: with water and sunscreen and sweat. Plastic plates and cups littered the grass and the cement around the swimming pool. Some floated on the sun-heated turquoise water, bouncing around aimlessly every time someone jumped into the deep end, sending them crashing along the steps at the other end, like dead fish pushed upon shore by the sea.
Merlin had dipped his toes in the water when he first arrived, the warmth of it sending a chill down his spine--a longing twisted by fear.
He wasn’t a very good swimmer.
He had let his toes leave wet imprints on the cement before retreating to the shade of the trees bordering the edge of the grounds.
It was Arthur Pendragon’s birthday. At least half of their year had been invited to the party, and that included Merlin only because it included Gwen, who was always invited by Morgana, Arthur’s step-sister. These were the degrees of separation between them, Merlin thought: a sister barely tolerated, that sister’s best friend and that best friend’s best friend—Merlin. He might as well have been invisible.
Which, conveniently, he sort of was. As soon as he had taken his place in the shadows of the trees he had promptly been forgotten. Even Gwen had left him to his own devices, too busy blushing and chatting with a very bare-chested Lance. Merlin forgave her though. It was, after all, a very pretty bare chest, attached to a very pretty face, behind which was a very pretty personality.
So. Good on Gwen.
Anyway, he had only come for Arthur—bright, loud, and prattish Arthur—who was too smart and too arrogant and too self-centred.
Merlin loved him.
He was thirteen and in love. In love with a boy. He knew it was wrong. Knew because his skin itched every time he thought about it. Every time he looked at Arthur’s skin, tanned and already taut with muscles from playing football all the time. At his blue eyes, not unlike the blues shimmering in the pool, or the sky, or the ocean, or… whatever. At his hair, all golden—a shade lighter under the harsh summer sun—always falling against his forehead in a way that made Merlin want to brush his fingers through it. At his mouth and how it curled in a smirk, or a grin or a smile, or opened to laugh out loud head thrown back, exposing his throat and stretching his collarbones—all curves, angles, shadows, and gleaming white teeth.
Merlin ached and wanted so much. It was like being smothered. Breathing was an issue.
He’d never wanted something or someone as much as he wanted Arthur. Arthur was real in a way that Merlin wished he could feel. Real and tangible and touchable.
Merlin sat there, concealed in the shadows, doing what he did best, which was looking and not being looked at. It’s not like he didn’t have any friends, or that people didn’t know who he was, but he was just very good at making himself scarce and forgotten if he wanted to. He could fold himself in corners and shadows, on the edges of crowds, and just let his presence slip away from people’s minds. He didn’t fancy playing football or trying to socialize with Arthur’s mates, and hanging out with only the girls always got him teased. Mostly by Arthur. And it wasn’t quite the kind of attention Merlin wanted from him. Not by a long shot.
Merlin knew that he wasn’t normal. It wasn’t normal for a boy his age to want someone else so much, was it? Surely, these things happened later—at least when you were sixteen or seventeen—like in those movies Gwen and Morgana loved to watch. It didn’t happen when you were thirteen and had just discovered the year before that you wanted to kiss boys and not girls. Surely his body—too skinny, too lanky, too fragile, too young—was not meant to hold this much wanting. And surely it wasn’t suppose to hurt so much, and make your bones and muscles strain from the restraint you put on them to not reach and hold his hand. Not reach and touch his wrist. Not reach and kiss his lips.
Or maybe it was suppose to be that way, when you were made all wrong.
Because you were a boy and you liked other boys and this was just the way things went. This was just the way you were meant to feel forever. Because you have to keep your mouth shut, and your hands to yourself and pretend that you want to touch girls’ bums. You have to laugh conspiringly with the other boys when a girl your age walks by and you can see the straps of her new bra peeking from her shirt—signalling to all that, yes, she had breasts to grab, effectively fuelling all their, and your, wank fantasies for a month. And pretend that it wasn’t just a big lie. That it didn’t eat at you. That you weren’t a fraud, a freak.
That you weren’t alone.
Merlin’s skin hadn’t stopped itching since that evening when he was waiting for his mum to pick him up from the Pendragon’s house, after having spent the afternoon with Gwen and Morgana. He was just sitting there, on the front steps, and saw Arthur walking up the long driveway, all sweaty and dirty from football practice. His hair clung to his forehead, his skin was flushed, and his eyes were impossibly bright, it seemed, in the fading light of the day.
It had been like being punched in the stomach.
Arthur walked up to him and, with a small smile and a groan, sat beside him on the steps, slowly undoing the laces on his dirty football boots.
“Hey,” he said with a grin and a quick glance in Merlin’s direction. “What are you doing?”
Merlin had to physically stop himself from moving away, or moving toward him, grabbing the edge of the step in a painful grip. Arthur smelled like salt and grass and sunshine. Merlin followed the trail of a drop of sweat from his forehead to the side of his neck with his eyes, wanting desperately to just catch it with the tip of his finger. He held on to the step tighter. His throat was dry, it was taking him too long to answer. Arthur frowned at him with concern. It surprised Merlin since he was always prepared for annoyance, or even a mocking look, but not for concern.
Arthur put his hand on Merlin’s shoulder. “You alright, mate? You don’t look so good.”
That had changed everything. It did things to Merlin’s body, tightened everything inside of him, twisting. There were knots in all of his veins, all of his muscles. His bones were knocking together as they collided in the too tight space that he had become— everything wound up in an intricate mess—just from the mere touch of Arthur’s hand on his shoulder, with his fingertips digging into his skin, burning through his t-shirt.
Merlin forced himself to swallow and smile lightly, which probably came off more as a grimace. “Yeah. I’m just… just waiting for my mum.” His voice was hoarse and low. “I don’t—I mean... I think I feel a bit sick.”
And there it had been again, concern on Arthur’s face as he squeezed his shoulder a bit tighter. Oh God.
“Well, take care, yeah?” With one small slap on Merlin’s back, Arthur walked inside the house, leaving him to painfully unfold his fingers from the edge of the step, all stiff and bruised.
He was still a mess when his mum arrived. Still a mess later that night in his bed when he stared at the ceiling, touching himself—pleasure and shame all over his body. Still a mess a year later when he sat in the shadows of the trees at Arthur’s birthday party, watching as Arthur, in his bright red swimming trunks, jumped into the pool to resurface a few seconds later, wet and laughing and utterly beautiful.
Still a mess. Always a mess.
His skin would not stop itching.
All things considered, there wasn’t actually that much he could have done when Arthur hauled himself out the deep end of the pool and ran over to him, a bright smile on his face. Everything about Arthur was blinding. His trunks clung to his legs and hips in ways Merlin really didn’t want to think about. It was unfair that Arthur’s body was already so powerful and proportioned and elegant in a way that no thirteen year-old’s body had a right to be. Merlin was just starting to grow, and his arms had taken a head start. He’d shed his baby fat overnight—he was just a long, lanky body of jutting bones and too-pale skin. When he walked, he was awkward and hunched and clumsy.
He would have hated Arthur for his ease if he hadn’t loved him—wanted him—so much.
Arthur wasn’t supposed to know he was there. Arthur wasn’t supposed to be aware. Merlin had seen Gwen look around, obviously searching for him, and her gaze had passed right over him. He had folded himself so carefully. Damn his jutting bones and growing spurt; he was losing his touch.
Arthur stopped right beside him, so close that drops of water fell on Merlin’s arm. He watched as they slowly slid toward his elbow. Merlin was fascinated with the way the light hairs on Arthur’s legs clung to his wet skin, and how the water dripping from his trunks curved around the defined muscles of his calves. Footballer’s legs, Merlin thought. He was glad he was already holding his knees against his chest, otherwise the sudden tightening of his whole body would have been visible. Arthur’s toes dug into the grass.
“Hey Merlin,” he said, voice cracking a bit.
There was a comfort; Merlin’s voice was constantly doing this too.
He looked up, only to be met by one of Arthur’s utterly disarming grins, one that reached his eyes and did things to Merlin’s stomach and lungs; the former twisting almost painfully, the latter suddenly, impossibly, unable to work properly. He cleared his throat twice before being able to answer.
“Hey Arthur. Happy… um… Happy birthday.”
“Thanks mate! Wanna come swimming with us for a bit? You’ve been here for a while.”
Merlin’s internal flailing had nothing to do with the fact that Arthur had known all along that he was there, and everything to do with the fact that he really wasn’t a good swimmer and that swimming made him nervous. Or, you know, all of the above.
He wanted to say, No thank you, I’ve eaten too much and I wouldn’t want to get a cramp or Thanks, mate, but I think Gwen was looking for me earlier and I was about to go and see what she wanted, or I can’t swim well, please don’t make me, please. But all the wanting inside of him seeped through all of his pores, and wrapped itself around Arthur—his impossibly perfect thirteen year-old body, his cracking voice, his disarming grin—holding on for dear life.
So, instead he said, “Yeah, okay.”
He should have known. Should have known that it wasn’t a good idea. Should have known that the second his wanting had clung to Arthur, it would just drag Merlin along and possibly, probably, just kill him.
Merlin followed Arthur out of the shade. He couldn’t help seeing how different they were in that moment. Merlin was pale and dark-haired, with skin that hated sunshine. He spent most of his summers inside, or safe in the shade of trees and parasols. Arthur was golden and blond and sun-kissed, spending most of his time outside, running on football fields and swimming in the pool. It was unfair, but quite inevitable, that it would be Merlin who would cross into Arthur’s world and not the opposite. After all, he was the one wanting something he couldn’t have. Something he shouldn’t even want in the first place.
He hated how his body was betraying him at every turn.
Merlin was already wearing his swim trunks. He had had no intention of going in the pool, but they looked like normal shorts and Gwen had insisted that he wore them, just in case. He had argued that there wasn’t much chance of that happening, and she had retorted that the Pendragons also had a hot tub and that he might want to try that. Merlin knew when to give in to Gwen, if only because it made her happy, and there was a part of Merlin that always wanted to make her happy.
He hesitated taking his shirt off. The wave of self-consciousness that hit him almost made him double-over and run back to the safety of the shadows where nobody would look at him and where his skin would not burn red, both from the shame choking him and the merciless sun. It figured that the day would be so perfectly clear and bright on Arthur’s birthday.
It almost always rained on Merlin’s. He tried not to read too much into that.
He took a deep breath and pulled his shirt over his head. Arthur was already back in the water, and Merlin made an effort not to look at him as he stepped onto the diving board. His ears were burning and he was sure everybody was looking at him; all the girls, and all the sports-playing boys that didn’t seem to have awkward bodies that betrayed them—bodies that desired things that were wrong, but oh so beautiful. His shame forced him to disregard how fucking nervous he was about going in the water, and to just jump, if only to hide himself and his body. So, he did.
He knew the water was warm, but it still felt cool against his overheated skin. He didn’t trust himself to swim properly without looking like a flailing octopus, so he let himself sink to the bottom of the pool and pushed himself back up with a sharp kick. He grabbed the edge of the diving board and just hung there, catching his breath, looking at the moving, shimmering blues and greens the water cast on his chest and legs.
“Hey Merlin!”
Merlin looked past his arm, and saw Arthur and some of his friends standing in the shallow end, looking at him.
“Wanna play water polo?” Arthur asked with a wide smile. Damn, Merlin couldn’t look at that smile right now, it made him do things he didn’t want to do, like swimming and playing sports he was rubbish at, sports he didn’t even know how to play. He closed his eyes against it.
“No. I’m okay, thanks, I’ll just… I’ll just stay here.”
He heard the sound of someone swimming toward him, strong long strokes in the water, as if the pool itself was something to conquer. He didn’t need to open his eyes to know it was Arthur. Breathing was once again an issue.
“Are you going to hang there all day, Merlin?” The mocking tone in Arthur’s voice made Merlin smile. There. That was familiar.
But then Arthur was there, grasping the other side of the board and Merlin opened his eyes to see him, mere centimetres away, flashing that stupid smile at him. His eyes reflected the water and the water his eyes and Merlin hung somewhere between the two, not sure if he had to swim or sink or drown, and too close too close too close.
“So. Merlin. Don’t tell me you would rather stay by yourself or hang out with girls more than play sport with me and my mates.”
And yes, yes Merlin would rather. “I… I mean—It’s not that. I don’t know how to play, that’s all,” he said.
Arthur rolled his eyes and Merlin bit his lip.
“Fine, fine, Merlin, be like that. Say no to the birthday boy and eat all his food and—”
“No! That’s not it!” Merlin panicked a little, his chest seizing in fright. “I just—you would lose with me, yeah? I’m bloody rubbish at sports, you know that! You tell me all the time!”
Arthur looked at him seriously for a second before smirking, and Merlin looked back incredulously for a moment. Oh. Arthur was just messing with him.
“Prat.”
Arthur burst out laughing, throwing his head back. The sound was sharp and clear, bouncing on the water. Arthur’s arms were still clutching the board over his head, forcing muscles to move under his skin. His hair caught the sunshine and shone brightly, almost white. There were drops of water clinging to his collarbone, rolling down his chest. Merlin realised with a sharp, painful clarity that this was the most beautiful Arthur had ever been. Even better, he was laughing with Merlin, not at him.
This was something new.
Merlin’s chest suddenly constricted, almost violently, and a wave of nausea rolled through him.
He needed to leave. Now. But he didn’t want to swim to the ladder, and he didn’t want Arthur to see him shimmy himself along the board and then the side of the pool. He didn’t want to stay here and look at Arthur, or for Arthur to leave, or for his wanting to swallow him, devour him, gnaw at his bones, or…
He was tired, so tired, and he wasn’t supposed to be, he just wasn’t! Arthur’s skin was covered in goosebumps, his lips impossibly red, and Merlin lost his mind right then. Everything was so tight in him and he just wanted some release. He just wanted to breathe.
So he leaned forward and kissed Arthur.
His chest was hollow and possibly filling with water, he wasn’t sure. The shifting blues around him were strangely comforting. All he could see, though, like a short movie on repeat, were Arthur’s eyes as he had pulled brusquely away from Merlin’s kiss, full of shock and anger, before promptly grabbing him and pushing him underwater. In his surprise, Merlin had swallowed quite of bit of water. It filled his nose and burned his lungs.
Merlin decided, in one moment of clarity—suspended in the water with Arthur’s hand gripping his hair—that Arthur’s eyes were really the blue of the pool, because he thought that he would drown in them, and he was drowning in this pool and it was all the same in the end and it didn’t matter.
Except he was struck with one thought, one bright realisation: there hadn’t been disgust in Arthur’s eyes. There had been no disgust and it did matter. It mattered. It mattered. Merlin mattered, right?
He knew he deserved what was happening, because he hadn’t been able to keep the wanting to himself. To keep it from wrapping itself around Arthur, dragging Merlin along. Merlin hadn’t been able to resist the pull, hadn’t fought hard enough—had given in too easily. And he knew he deserved what was coming, but surely it mattered that he didn’t just stay here, with burning lungs and water in his stomach, the hand of the boy he loved pushing on him. It mattered.
He lifted his arm and took hold of Arthur’s wrist, probably not as forcefully as he intended to—his fingers brushing more than grabbing, really. The touch seemed to startle something in Arthur because Merlin was suddenly yanked up, first by his hair, then by his shoulders. There was air in his lungs and everything hurt. He could vaguely hear Gwen yell something. The cement was hard and scraping under his knees and hands. Someone slapped his back hard.
He threw up all his lunch and a lot of chlorinated water.
Gwen’s hands were on his face pushing his hair away. He could hear Morgana yell at Arthur, but couldn’t really make out the words. There were other people talking and yelling, but he didn’t want to look, didn’t want to know. There hadn’t been disgust in his eyes.
Merlin’s body was still too tight, even under the weight of his ever-expanding lungs.
He was in a daze, too busy trying to get his breathing back under control to pay much attention to what surrounded him. He was aware enough to keep his eyes off Arthur though. Everybody must be looking at him.
Gwen took his arm gently and dragged him to the front of the house where it was quieter. The sounds of the party were muffled and distant. Merlin took a deep breath. He hadn’t realised how noisy it had all been until now. He was glad for the sudden quietness. His thoughts were banging loud enough against his skull, as it were. They were like a whole orchestra playing different melodies, out of synch, on non-tuned instruments. His stomach hurt and he could taste bile and chlorine in his throat.
Merlin scratched lightly at his upper arms, trying to get the itching to go away already, trying not to think how soft Arthur’s lips had been under his, in that second before half the pool water went down his throat. Trying not to think about all the people that had probably seen him kiss Arthur. Trying not to think that this was the end, that Arthur would hate him. That everybody would hate him.
Gwen didn’t say a word. She just handed him his t-shirt and waited patiently for him to put it on. His movements were sluggish, like he was still suspended in the water. He almost wished it, because he couldn’t bear to face the sharpness of everything now that he was out. He pretended that the coolness behind his eyelids was just the water holding him while the world kept on turning too fast for him to catch up.
Gwen led him to the front steps and sat beside him, rubbing his back soothingly. Merlin couldn’t look at her.
“Are you alright?” she whispered.
Merlin only nodded and buried his face into his knees. He didn’t want Gwen to see his face, to have to look at him. He didn’t want Gwen to hate him. But the next thing he knew her arms were around him, her head was on his shoulder, and she was hugging him.
“Arthur is a pillock. He shouldn’t have done that.”
Merlin didn’t say anything. He had deserved what happened. Wasn’t it what was suppose to happen when you couldn’t keep these kinds of things to yourself? When you went ahead and kissed people you shouldn’t? When it was all wrong—your wanting and your body and your heart and your mind and everything about you?
“Gwen?” he mumbled. “Gwen, please don’t hate me, please.”
His voice cracked. He might have let the sob that was climbing up his throat out if Gwen hadn’t just hugged him tighter and tighter until he could feel her arms shake with the strain. He had a hard time breathing, his lungs crushed between his legs and Gwen’s arms, but he didn’t say anything. Gwen was holding him and she didn’t hate him and, really, that was a bit more than he deserved. He had never felt so grateful to anyone in his life.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Merlin. Just… just don’t. I could never hate you. And certainly not for something like that,” she whispered against his shoulder.
It was all very ridiculous: the way he wanted Arthur so much, the way he loved him, what it did to him, the way Merlin was so ashamed all the time of these things he couldn’t help feeling. Except he couldn’t let himself think it was alright. Because if it was alright, why did it feel that way? Gwen didn’t let him go, just kept on hugging him.
And Merlin kept on thinking, the one little clear sound distinguishing itself from the discordant orchestra in his mind: There hadn’t been disgust in his eyes.
Gwen only let him go when Morgana arrived and sat on the other side of him, flush against his side. He knew that was her way of showing support, and he was grateful for every inch of her body that was touching his. She pressed a little closer.
“Arthur is a giant arse,” she said after a while, looking straight in front of her.
“I think… I think I surprised him that’s all.”
Morgana scuffed. “Don’t defend him, Merlin. He’s a giant arsehole and doesn’t deserve your pity. I mean, even if he was surprised he really didn’t have to hold you underwater like that, even if it was for only, like, ten seconds or so. He’s a good for nothing pillock.”
Ten seconds. It had felt longer than that.
“I called your mum,” Morgana said.
Merlin whimpered. He didn’t really want to have to explain anything to his mum right now. She would be all loving and caring and soft, like Gwen. But he didn’t think he could take the disappointment that was sure to be there as well at knowing that your only son is not what you wished he’d be. Maybe he wouldn’t have to tell her though. Maybe she would never hear about this and he could just continue pretending that he wasn’t… this.
“Don’t worry. I just told her you felt ill and had been sick. I didn’t tell her anything else, so you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”
“Thanks, Morg. That’s… that’s really… thanks.” Merlin gave her the best smile he could manage at the moment. It wasn’t much, but she seemed to understand, and smiled back. She squeezed his hand before going back to the party, leaving Gwen to wait with Merlin.
They stayed silent until Merlin’s mum arrived in their beat-up blue car. Merlin was once again grateful for Gwen who waved, and hugged his mum—chatting happily with her as if nothing was terribly, terribly wrong. It gave Merlin enough time to calm down and make the noise in his brain quiet a little. He didn’t want to alarm his mother too much. Of course as soon as she took a closer look at him, she frowned and knew instantly that this was more than just a little illness you get by eating too much food and standing in the sun too long.
Sometimes he hated how well his mother knew him.
But she didn’t say anything. She just let Gwen hug him once more, and sat with him in silence while they drove back home. She walked him to his bedroom, closed the blinds, and let him curl up in his bed. She tucked the covers around him and left, closing the door gently behind her. When it was time for dinner, she knocked on the door and opened it slowly to check if he was sleeping. When she saw that he was awake, she came in and put a tray filled with food on the corner of his desk. She put one of his favourite movies in the DVD player, kissed him on the forehead, and left once more, not once asking any questions.
Hunith Emrys was the best mother in the world.
He wasn’t that hungry, but he ate a little if only to keep his hands from shaking. He forced himself to watch the movie and not to think of anything—not of what had happened, or how his skin still itched, or how his body was still tight, or how the kissing should have fixed that. Apparently that’s not how things worked. He forced himself not to think of Arthur, and his lips, and the blues of his eyes—which was the blue of the pool that Merlin had swallowed or that had swallowed him, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t think that there hadn’t been disgust in his eyes. He did a lot of non-thinking.
When the movie ended he put another in. And another. Until he fell asleep.
The kitchen was bathed in golden morning light, bright and sunny with its yellow walls and red cupboard handles. Gauzy white drapes were floating in the opened window over the sink and in the backdoor. Hunith had put the red tablecloth on the table. Merlin’s white plate was already filled with sausages, eggs, and bacon, a tall glass of orange juice beside it. It all looked so cheery and it smelled delicious.
Merlin wanted to climb back into bed.
He normally loved this kitchen, especially in the mornings. It was the perfect place to wake up to. It was bright and airy and it always smelled good. His mum hummed while cooking—happy silly songs that made Merlin smile even if he was thirteen and had heard them a thousand times before. Sometimes, she put on the radio instead and chose obnoxious popular stations that made her frown at the state of music nowadays. It Merlin laugh, because she still tapped her feet to the beat and unconsciously danced to it while cooking.
That morning though, the cheeriness hit him like a punch in the face. He thought, for one moment, that he’d prefer being back in the pool where things had not been yellow and sunny and bright and so harsh.
His mum saw him and kissed him on the head, humming and dancing while she flipped pancakes over the stove. Merlin sat down in his chair and picked up his fork.
He stared at his food a long time.
It was a lie. All of this.
He could not sit in this world of yellows and reds and gauzy white that smelled of happiness and home and comfort. Not while he was still living in a world of shifting blues and greens, shadows on his skin, a hand in his hair. He could not pretend. Because, if anything, his skin itched more than before. He craved more than before. He couldn’t understand why it was so. Why? He didn’t want to feel this way. He didn’t choose to feel this way. It was just there, and he couldn’t get rid of it no matter how hard he tried.
And this bloody kitchen, with its bloody yellow walls and bloody red handles and bloody happiness, with his mum just cooking there, kissing him on the head and smiling and not. asking. any. questions. It was all just scraping at him, taking away all the layers of paint and camouflage and wallpaper he had put on himself in an effort to hide, leaving him utterly naked.
“Mum,” he said, his voice cracking. It came from the bottom of his stomach—where there was still water waiting to drown him—and the sound was broken and foreign. He would have thought it belonged to someone else if it hadn’t collided against his lips, sharp and metallic and painful.
Hunith must have heard it too, because she dropped her spatula, shoved the pan away from the flames, and was kneeling in front of him and gathering him into her arms before the sound even had time to finish filling the room.
Merlin burrowed his face in his mother’s neck and cried with painful sobs that rocked his body and impacted against his ribs as they made their way up, scratching his throat. It was actually the first time he had cried about this. If he didn’t cry, then it meant that nothing was wrong, that it was just something to deal with until it went away. Except now it was real and it was there, and it wasn’t going away. He was floating in water and he wasn’t getting out.
He whispered his secret in his mother’s ear, so low he was scared she wouldn’t hear him even though his lips brushed her skin, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it louder. He had never said it before. He cried more and his mother only held him tighter—like Gwen had done the day before—murmuring soothing sounds of it’s okay and I love you and You’re alright and My Merlin, my beautiful Merlin.
I love you I love you I love you, the most perfect words he had ever heard.
When he didn’t have anything left in him to cry, Hunith wiped away his tears with soft hands and a gentle smile, turned him back toward his plate and put the fork he had dropped back in his hand.
“Eat,” she said in a tone of voice that meant you better not argue with her.
Merlin was famished anyway. he dug into his sausages and eggs, not caring that they were cold, while his mum went back to making pancakes. She started humming her silly songs, and this time, it made Merlin smile.
She was interrupted when the backdoor opened violently. An out-of-breath, slightly red-faced, Will ran into the kitchen and stopped in front of Merlin, crossing his arms over his chest. Merlin froze, his fork midway between his mouth and his plate.
“So,” Will said, expressionless, “I hear you’re a bloody poof now.”
“Will!” Hunith slammed the counter with her hand.
Oh God, everybody knows, Merlin thought, and then: of course everybody knows, of course of course of course. He just stared at his friend—his oldest friend—and Will stared back not letting on what he thought. Merlin nodded slowly before he could really think it through.
Will visibly exhaled and then, to Merlin’s surprised, got this annoyed look on his face—the one he got when he thought Merlin was being particularly stupid. He let himself fall into one of the kitchen chairs and grabbed a piece of bacon off Merlin’s plate.
“You know,” he said, mouth full. “You could have just told me.”
Merlin lowered his fork back onto his plate, still not quite believing what was happening.
“Sorry?” he said, eyeing Will doubtfully. He was expecting him to start laughing and pointing at any moment, but Will just shrugged and gave him a grin.
“Whatever mate.” He leaned forward once more to grab some food, but his hand was promptly slapped away by Hunith, who put a full plate in front of him. Then she whacked him behind the head.
“I never want to hear that kind of language in my kitchen again, do you hear?”
Will rubbed his head and mumbled an apology before digging into his food. Merlin hid his smile in his glass of orange juice.
If there was a slight blessing in having kissed Arthur Pendragon on his birthday, it was that Arthur Pendragon’s birthday was at the beginning of July, meaning that Merlin didn’t have to go back to school for another two months or so.
He didn’t think he could have survived the whole thing if he had had to go to school the following Monday. As it were, it was the summer holidays and on the following Monday he was just playing video games with Will.
“Seriously, mate,” Will said never taking his eyes off Merlin’s small telly. “You could do so much better than Arthur ‘I’m a giant pillock’ Pendragon.”
Merlin rolled his eyes. He was happy that Will was so accepting and all, but he really wished he would give it a rest. Since he had heard about the ‘pool-outing’ (and wasn’t that an hilarious play on words, thanks a lot Will... not), Will would not shut up about it. The thing was that Merlin couldn’t explain it. He just... couldn’t. He didn’t even understand it himself.
Merlin couldn’t just start talking about the way his skin itched all the time, or his too-tight lungs, or the way his body felt small and constricted and always straining to expand, to reach out, ultimately unable to do so. How, when he was awake in the middle of the night—when it was dark and quiet, except for the vague tick-tock of the clock in the living room—he could hear his bones groan against the force that held them in. He couldn’t talk about the more embarrassing things either: the wanting curling around him, burning his skin constantly, coiling in the pit of his stomach, the unsteady beats of his heart every time he thought of Arthur, or how hot his whole body felt when he slid his hand under the covers and touched himself—biting his fist and trying not to think about Arthur’s blue eyes, the muscles in his arms, the the shade of his hair, and the way his lips had felt against Merlin’s.
He couldn’t talked about how he wanted to feel them again, just to see—just to see how far the coil of his wanting could unfold. He couldn’t say how much he just loved Arthur Pendragon.
And wasn’t that the most pathetic thing of all?
Who falls in love at twelve?
And how do you make it stop?
It took him three weeks to find the courage to go back to the Pendragon house. Three weeks of not really going any further than his own back garden or the park around the corner—with Will or Gwen, even Morgana sometimes—in case he met someone he knew. In case he saw Arthur.
The truth was that he did want to see Arthur. Not only because he thought about him all the time, but because he sort of wanted to apologize as well. The thought of it though, made him want to locked himself in his room and crawl under his bed.
But three weeks after Morgana invited him to her house for a movie day with Gwen. Just like they used to do before Merlin went ahead and kissed her brother on his birthday.
“Arthur will be there,” Morgana had said in a rush. “But he won’t be hanging out with us or anything. I warned him to stay away. Besides, he’ll probably leave some time in the afternoon to go play football or something.”
Merlin’s heart had skipped a beat at the mention of Arthur and he scratched absently at the back of his neck, and upper arms.
“That’s okay Morgana. I’m okay. I’m not… angry with him or anything. It’s fine. I’ll be there.”
It was true that he wasn’t angry at Arthur. He was scared shitless, that’s what he was. Scared that Arthur hated him. The only thing that kept Merlin from falling into that thought and drowning in it was the same old litany: there hadn’t been any disgust in his eyes.
The movie was dragging a little bit and Merlin used the downtime to go to the washroom. He went out in the hall and stopped on the landing for a moment, appreciating the quietness and stillness of the house. The Pendragon house, which was more like a mansion really, was modern—sleek lines and angles, white walls, chrome fixtures, glass panes and black granite. There were huge windows everywhere, but even on sunny days the house was cold and still. It wasn’t lived in. Not the way his house was anyway.
Uther Pendragon liked order and cleanliness. Everything had to be in order. There was never an object in the wrong place, never a book opened across the arm of a sofa, never a pair of shoes out in the hall, never a speck of dust on the grand piano in the living room.
On days like today, when it was raining and the clouds were low and heavy across the landscape, the house was downright spooky. Merlin shivered.
Sounds were coming from the kitchen downstairs. Merlin froze in panic. Arthur. It had to be Arthur, he was the only other person in the house beside them. Merlin was tempted to run to the bathroom and wait there until he was sure that Arthur was back in his room. This was his chance to see him though. Maybe he could find the right words to tell Arthur how sorry he was, and look in his eyes and make sure, really, really sure that Arthur didn’t hate him. Or found him irrevocably repulsive. Or something.
Anything.
Merlin took a deep breath and went downstairs. He wasn’t sure why he thought it was a good idea to have this discussion in the Pendragons’ kitchen, but here he was and Arthur was there, fixing himself a sandwich on the large black counter, his skin a nice contrast against it.
“Morgana,” he said without looking up. “I know you threatened to chop my balls off if I left my room, but I was hungry and really you can’t expect me to—”
He stopped when he saw Merlin. His hands froze on the chopping board, the blade of the knife he was holding reflecting the rain-splattered glass of the windows all around them. Merlin stared at him.
Arthur’s eyes were big in surprised, and Merlin thought he saw fear there too. Maybe. Merlin’s heart gave a painful twitch, the knots in his veins pulled taut, his stomach dropped, his bones shrunk. He had given up on his lungs functioning properly a long time ago. Was it possible to have a very silent, very still panic attack? Arthur’s body was as stiff as his, his knuckled-white grip on the knife a bit frightening.
Arthur noticed Merlin looking at it. He looked down at his hand and released his grip, putting the knife down with exaggerated care. He didn’t look back up at Merlin.
All was silent, except for the rain hitting the tall windows, the faint howling of the wind outside, and the soft sound of their breathing. Everything was grey and black and white. The only colours—the blond of Arthur’s hair, the dark red of his shirt, the green of the pepper he was still holding in his left hand—were dulled out by the air around them, sucked of their brilliance by the shadows playing on the walls, the hazy reflections on the faucets and on the shiny surfaces of the stainless steel appliances.
The air was unmoving and wet. Merlin, for a brief moment, smelled chlorine. This world wanted to drown him as well, but this was more like floating on a cold Northern lake with rain falling on your face, filling your nose.
“Hi,” he said, not really able to think of anything else to say.
Arthur looked back at him, his gaze both insecure and strong. But not disgusted, not repulsed. Not disgusted. Oh God.
“I… look Arthur, I wanted to—what I mean is…”
He let out a sigh and grabbed at his hair, trying to gather his thoughts into something. He wanted to say I’m sorry for embarrassing you or Sorry for making you uncomfortable or Sorry for being in love with you, but really he wasn’t going to say that last one. Maybe he should say sorry for kissing Arthur, but he didn’t really want to apologize for that.
Instead he blurted out: “You could have killed me.”
He cringed. That wasn’t… right. There hadn’t been any accusation in his voice. It was just a statement of fact. It definitely was melodramatic, though. Merlin had been under only for about ten seconds, and there hadn’t really been any chance for him to drown. He couldn’t really tell Arthur how he was still suspended there with his hand in his hair, and that for a vague, very brief moment, he really would have let Arthur kill him.
There was a lot of things he still couldn’t say. Would probably never say. He wondered if you just accumulated those in your lifetime, and if you could collapse under their collective weight. Because he was thirteen and he had a lot, and it was already getting heavy. He was already tired.
Arthur just stared at him, confused, and maybe there was a glint of guilt in his eyes, Merlin wasn’t sure. He let the silence stretched and oh god he hated this. Then Arthur rolled his eyes and scoffed, and his body moved again.
“Really Merlin, don’t be such a drama queen, it doesn’t suit you.” he said, picking up the knife again and starting to chop the pepper.
Merlin let out a surprised laugh, torn between insulted, hurt and incredibly, completely, fantastically relieved.
“Arsehole,” he said, pushing his hands in his pockets. Arthur’s lips quirked a little, though he didn’t look up.
“Just, you know... sorry. Yeah. Sorry.”
There. That should cover it.
Arthur just hummed in agreement. Merlin looked at him for a few more seconds, trying to memorize every line, every hue, every shadow. Both of us are floating on this lake and one of us has to get out. He took it all in, and turned to leave.
“Merlin!"
Merlin turned around, and Arthur came toward him purposefully. He stopped an arm length away and just grabbed Merlin's shoulder with his right hand. His mouth kept opening and closing like a fish. Merlin could see emotions and thoughts flicker in his eyes, too fast for him to understand. Arthur frowned more and more as the silence stretched.
Merlin saw that he had slight freckles on his nose—probably due to all the time he spent in the sun—and that he wasn’t disgusted. Arthur was touching him again. Without disgust.
Arthur's fingers dug a bit more into his shoulder, their heat spreading all over Merlin’s body.
Finally, Arthur just let him go. "See you around, Merlin,” he mumbled, not quite looking at him. He left the kitchen, his lunch forgotten on the counter.
Merlin clung to the back of a chair and waited for his lungs to remember how to breathe. The world was blue and green once again.
Merlin only saw Arthur a few times during the rest of the summer, most often when he was hanging out with Morgana and Gwen at the Pendragons’. They didn’t really talk much. Their conversations were short and slightly awkward—separated by the gulf of all the things they left unsaid.
Their paths only crossed in town once. Merlin was having ice cream with Will and Freya—who was back from a summer trip with her parents. They were sitting at one of the wooden tables in front of the ice cream parlour, and Will was jabbering about god knows what. Freya was giggling at his antics, making him more exuberant and loud, which in turn made Merlin shake his head and roll his eyes. It was all wonderfully familiar. Merlin had missed this—this normalcy. He had thought that maybe he would lose it once… once they knew. People knew and it made him feel a bit sick to think about returning to school. He was glad that at least there would be Will, and Gwen, and Freya, and even Morgana to talk to and hang out with. Now if he could just convince Will to stop making bad puns and jokes about gay sex—just thinking about it made his skin burn.
He heard his laugh first. Then came the prickles on the back of his neck, and the shortness of breath as Arthur walked by with a group of his friends. Merlin looked steadily at the table. He hoped Will was too busy trying to make Freya laugh, to see Arthur. There was a good chance of Will punching him in the face if he did, and then promptly get his arse handed to him by Arthur and his five football-playing mates. Merlin didn’t want to have to deal with that.
Merlin only looked up once they were well passed their table, only to see Arthur looking at him over his shoulder. He offered Merlin a smile and a small wave of his hand. Merlin barely had time to return the smile before Arthur turned back.
Merlin’s throat was dry, while melted ice cream ran down his hand and wrist
The morning of the first day of school, Merlin was (very probably) having an epic panic attack in the middle of his kitchen. He was running late. His shirt was still untucked and his tie was askew. He had a piece of toast in his mouth, and he was frantically looking around for something. If he didn’t get out of the house in the next five minutes, he would have to run to school to make sure he wasn’t late. Merlin didn’t do running very well. Somehow his legs had gotten longer, but they never really seemed to agree on working together as a cohesive unit.
His mum came into the kitchen, took one look at him and left. She came back a few moments later with his school bag, took his lunch from the table and shoved it in before closing it properly.
She grabbed the toast from Merlin’s mouth. “Swallow,” she said, while simultaneously arranging his shirt and trousers and tie like he was five years old again. Merlin almost choked on it, but managed to swallow. He just stood still, panting in a beam of sunlight, as if he had run a marathon. And maybe he had, because his heart was hammering in his chest, he was sweating under his arms, and he could feel his face burning red. His whole body ached. Hunith gave him a once over, making sure all of his clothes were in order.
Merlin just stared at her, trying to catch his breath. God. Hunith grabbed his chin tightly in her hand and forced him to look into her eyes.
“You listen to me, young man. There is nothing wrong with you, do you hear? Nothing. And if you have any problem at school, you tell me. Do you understand?” There was such certainty in her gaze—such worry also—that Merlin could only nod. She hugged him tight against her chest, then shoved his bag into his arms and pushed his arse outside the front door before he could even blink. His mother was nothing if not efficient.
Will was waiting for him in the driveway, casually leaning on their car. They walked to school together where Gwen and Freya were waiting for them.
“You alright, Merlin?” Gwen asked quietly
Merlin just nodded. He was trying very hard not to look around him, to only pay attention to his friends. He felt there was a giant neon sign over his head, an invitation to be mocked and ridiculed.
The day was bright. Almost as bright as it was the day he kissed Arthur, but the air was cooler and the smell of new leather and freshly turned dirt filled the space of the schoolyard. It smelled of beginnings.
If he was completely honest with himself, he was probably worrying too much. Firstly, he really wasn’t that memorable of a person to begin with. And secondly, nobody at school, beyond maybe the students in his year, knew who he was, or probably even cared.
So he took a deep breath and smiled at his friends.
“Yeah… look, it’s fine, okay? Let’s just not make a big deal out of it, yeah?
“Yeah, okay, mate,” Will said with a sharp slap to his shoulder.
“So Freya,” Gwen started, taking Freya’s arm in hers and walking into the school, “did you ever received another email from that cute boy you met in Spain?”
Merlin laughed at the way Will spluttered. Gwen looked over her shoulder and winked at Merlin.
The hand in his hair loosened a little.
Nothing bad happened, actually. Merlin suspected that it was mostly due to his friends, who were always with him outside of class. Gwen was loved by almost everyone, and she had struck a friendship with Lancelot on the day of Arthur’s party. He came to talk to her, and Merlin often. Lancelot was an athlete and absolutely everybody loved him. He was handsome, charming, and polite and kind to an almost annoying degree, one that makes you feel bad about yourself, but you can’t really begrudge him for it either. Merlin found they got along splendidly as long as they were not talking about sports.
Will was not liked by most people, but he was so loud and annoying in general, nobody really wanted to deal with him.
Even better, on the first day, Morgana—who usually did not really hang out with them at school except to talk to Gwen once in a while—made a point of talking to Merlin in the middle of the cafeteria where everybody could see them. She even hugged him briefly. Morgana was, for lack of a better word, popular. Not only for being Uther Pendragon’s daughter, therefore exceedingly rich, but she was also involved in school activities, and had won the national championship in archery last year. She had no qualms about using her father’s name and money to get what she wanted, or to dangle over people’s head. It was mostly for show, Merlin knew, but she kept saying that if she had to live with the man and suffer through his military-like attitude and demands, she might as well get something out of it. Nobody ever really wanted to test her.
Morgana had made it clear that Merlin was her friend and that she would stand by him. School politics were strange and completely ridiculous, and while Merlin was absolutely grateful, he was even happier about the fact that Morgana actually considered him a friend and not just ‘Gwen’s friend’.
“Elyan came out to us, last night,” Gwen said.
They were sitting together outside the school, one afternoon in early October, waiting for Will to get out of detention. The sky was so incredibly blue, the clouds looked like they had been painted on. It was humid, the air heavy with water. It would rain later tonight, even though it didn’t look like it now. Merlin tasted chlorine in his mouth. It was always there somehow, on the edge of his tongue. He could never get rid of the taste.
It took him a few moments to process what Gwen had said.
“How did your father take it?”
Gwen laughed. “He just nodded and grumbled he had known all along and walked out of the room.”
“That’s… good.” He frowned. “I think.”
“I think so too. I think he was a bit upset, but mostly because he actually had no idea, you know? And I think… I don’t know. I think maybe he felt bad about that. About not knowing. Like he didn’t know Ely at all.”
They fell silent. The sun was harsh and the leaves in the tree nearby were turning gold. It reminded him of Arthur’s hair, the way it had looked, shining when he threw his head back to laugh, there, holding on to the diving board, just before Merlin kissed him. He scratched his arms.
“What about you?” he asked after a while. “Did you know?”
“Hmmm, I’m not sure,” Gwen said. “I thought that maybe, yes. He didn’t say anything, but after? Now that he’s out? Certain things make more sense.”
“Like what?”
“I think, maybe, I think he’s been going out with Percy for a while. But I didn’t ask him. He seemed pretty nervous and all, and I didn’t want to push if it was a secret. Or maybe, maybe, he’s just in love with him and it’s all unrequited or something.” She briefly glanced at him. “Like, that would suck for him, you know? So I didn’t really want to pry. Not right away, anyway.”
Merlin hummed noncommittally.
“Don’t tell anyone, right? He only came out to us. I don’t know when he’s going to come out to others at school. If ever.”
“Don’t worry,” Merlin said in a dry humourless laugh. “I won’t tell anyone.”
Gwen just took his hand and squeezed. He squeezed back.
Gwen wasn’t one for spilling secrets. In fact she was the best secret-keeper he had ever known, and she would never, ever betray someone if they had entrusted her with one. For her to tell Merlin about Elyan, was something she didn’t choose to do lightly. But he knew why she did it.
She did it so Merlin wouldn’t feel so alone.
Morgana and Arthur’s Halloween party was in full swing. Almost all the students in their year were present, as well as Morgana’s archery team and most members of Arthur’s football team.
Costumes were mandatory, but Merlin had been at a complete loss as to what to wear. He did not want to face Morgana’s wrath if he showed up without a costume, so he took a sticker that said “Hello, my name is…” and wrote GOD on it in black marker. There. It was from Morgana’s favourite show, so he was banking on her getting, and loving, the reference.
And she did. She laughed out loud, called him a genius and pushed him in the living room to somehow mingle with people. How he was supposed to do that, he had no idea. Mingling was not his thing. He really just wanted to find Gwen and Freya. They had come early to help Morgana so they had to be here somewhere. Merlin had come on his own own since Will was at at with a bad flu. He looked around for Gwen. She was supposed to be wearing a medieval dress—after thirteen years she had finally given in and dressed up as her namesake, Queen Guinevere. Will said it was just a ploy to try and snog Lancelot, Gwen slapped him behind the head. Again.
Merlin wandered from room to room. There were a lot of people he didn’t know, and hadn’t even talked to here. Everybody was so busy having fun and dancing and chatting away, nobody paid attention to him. The air was warm and stuffy though, heavy with the smell of food, sugar, and the sweat of too many people wearing heavy costumes. Strangely, he could breathe more freely than he had in weeks. His veins expanded and his blood flowed, making him almost dizzy with the looseness of it. Like he could touch the bottom of the pool with his big toe, slightly grounded. He didn’t really get it.
“I think someone spiked the punch,” he heard a policeman whisper to a mouse-girl.
Merlin looked down at his half-empty cup. Ah. That would explain it.
He rounded the corner to see if Gwen was in the kitchen, but the only people there beside a few older ladies working at the stove (to help with the food, he guessed) were Valiant, Oswald and Ethan. They looked at Merlin and smirked, their heads together, whispering, as they pilfered the plates of food on the counter. Merlin shivered under their gazes and retreated quickly. He crossed the living room, leaving his cup on top of the piano, vaguely thinking he should tell Morgana about the punch, but he couldn’t see her anywhere and he didn’t want to look for her either. He slipped through the large doors leading to the back garden without anyone seeing him.
It was cold outside, and Merlin shivered. He could see his breath come out in clouds from his mouth. The sky was clear. Merlin shoved his hands into his pockets. He liked the cold. He had never particularly liked it before, but since… since Arthur, his body always felt like it was one thought away from boiling.
Nobody was out and it occurred to Merlin that maybe he wasn’t supposed to be, that the garden was off limits. Uther probably didn’t want teenagers snogging in the bushes or something. Or falling in the pool.
The pool.
Merlin could see it vaguely in the distance. It was dark out, but he walked up to it. He stood on the edge and looked down. It was empty now, just a pit. No shimmering blues and greens, no floating, no body suspended in-between. It didn’t matter though. Merlin was still there whether there was water in it or not. Like it had imprinted itself in his chest, left its unmistakable taste in his mouth, making his lungs overflow.
It wasn’t covered. Merlin walked along it, until he reached the steps of the shallow end. He went down and walked until he stood under the diving board. He looked up and, for one moment, he saw himself there. Saw the soles of his feet, his long limbs stretching themselves in the water. He saw Arthur’s legs and his red swimming trunks. He saw his hand in Merlin’s hair. He saw the way the shadows must have played against his skinny chest, his ribs. He even saw the moment he gave up, and then the moment he didn’t.
It was beautiful in a disarming and slightly hurtful kind of way. Also, he was probably a bit drunk.
God, he was cold.
He lay down on the floor of the pool and looked up at the sky. The stars seemed to shift under his gaze, pulsing, pushing against the darkness—like his bones against his skin, like his heart against his ribs—trying reach for something, to expand themselves into the space that should be theirs, to fill the empty cavities in between.
“You’ll catch a cold if you stay there.”
Merlin startled and sat up straight. Arthur was looking down at him from the edge of the pool with a frown on his face. Merlin’s body tightened once more and he missed the looseness that had been there, even though the familiarity of his lungs malfunctioning was almost comforting. Fuck, this should not be so complicated, he thought.
“It’s fine,” he mumbled and stretched on his back once more.
He heard Arthur walked around the pool, down the steps to come and stand next to him. Merlin closed his eyes. He didn’t want to look at him. Arthur sat down and poked his thigh.
“Seriously, what are you doing?” he asked.
“Avoiding.”
“Avoiding who?” Merlin could have sworn, if he hadn’t known any better, that there was an edge of insecurity in his voice.
“People, Arthur. Just people.”
Please leave please leave please leave. Please stay. Touch my thigh again. Please.
The sound of their breathing was amplified by the tiled walls around them. Merlin cracked his eyes opened a bit. Arthur’s breath was coming out of his mouth in quick small clouds against the dark sky. He was hugging his knees to his chest and he was staring at Merlin’s legs. Merlin lifted his head slightly and looked down at his jeans. Arthur was staring at the hole on his right knee, his skin white beside the blue fabric. Arthur slowly reached out and stroked the skin of his knee with the tip of one finger. It was gentle, barely the ghost of a touch.
It burned through Merlin like a wildfire, igniting everything in its wake.
Merlin brusquely sat up, too scared Arthur would see the changes in his body. Arthur retracted his hand and wrapped his arms around his knees once more. Merlin did the same. They sat like that for a while, their shoulders not quite touching.
Merlin’s breathing was a bit erratic and he had a hard time focusing on anything else. His wanting had once again wrapped itself tightly around Arthur. Tighter than ever before, it was pulling and pulling and pulling. Merlin hid his face in his arms and bit one of his wrists hard. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move, every muscle taut with the effort of not giving in.
The pool might as well have been full of water, because he was definitely drowning. Or something like that. Something that involved a lot of non-breathing and choking.
“You staying the night?” Arthur asked suddenly.
Merlin tried to clear his throat as silently as possible before answering. “Yeah. Um… Morgana is letting me sleep in the guest bedroom. Gwen and Freya are sleeping in her room so… I hope that’s alright?”
“Yeah, sure,” Arthur said softly.
“Are some of your friends staying too? Would they need the room?”
“Just Leon and Gwaine, and they’ll be sleeping in my room, so you’re good.” Arthur leaned his head on his arms and turned it a bit to look at Merlin, offering him a small smile.
Oh. Merlin needed to leave. Now. Absolutely now.
He got up and scratched at his arms and neck under the guise of rubbing warmth into them. “It’s cold. I’m going back inside.”
He walked back to the house without looking if Arthur was following or not.
Merlin was on the verge of falling asleep when he heard the door to the bedroom creak open. He sat up quickly, but did not at all relax when he saw that it was Arthur.
“Arthur? What… What are you doing here?”
Arthur closed the door behind him and came closer to the foot of the bed. “Gwaine snores,” he said, not quite looking at Merlin. “Is it alright if I sleep here?”
Merlin wanted to say it’s your room, just kick Gwaine out or no please no you can’t do this to me or yes yes yes yes yes. Instead he said:
“Euh, sure, I guess. The bed is big enough for like five people so, I mean, it’s okay, I… it doesn’t bother me. Um.”
Merlin faltered, but Arthur just rolled his eyes and smirked at him, before climbing on the other side of the bed. There must have been a mile of empty space between them, and it was too much and it wasn’t enough.
Merlin settled back down on his pillow and closed his eyes, trying to focus on relaxing, on controlling his breathing. After several long minutes he heard Arthur whisper:
“Merlin, are you sleeping?”
Merlin did not answer. He couldn’t answer. He was not having a conversation with Arthur Pendragon, in the dark, in a bed. He just couldn’t. Arthur moved slightly, and Merlin only just managed not to move—probably because his body was so stiff already—when he felt Arthur’s fingertip across his cheekbone. Just one finger—like the one he had put on his knee—as if Arthur was scared of touching him.
Arthur traced the edge of his cheek slowly, barely brushing his skin, before the touch disappeared. Merlin had never felt so bereft. His heart was hammering so hard in his chest it hurt. He had cramps in his toes from curling them too hard.
He waited until he was absolutely certain that Arthur was asleep before getting out of bed, and almost running to the bathroom. He splashed cold water on his face, and tried to get his breathing under control, palming himself through his pajamas and fuck fuck fuck fuck.
What was that about? What was happening?
It took a long time for him to calm himself, but he waited with his forehead against the cool ceramic counter. When the fire under his skin subsided a little, he went back into the bedroom and climbed into bed. He stood there a long time, staring at Arthur’s dark silhouette, at the way it slightly moved as he breathed calm and steady in his sleep.
He slowly moved his left foot toward Arthur and rested his big toe lightly against one of his legs. He let Arthur’s warmth travel up his foot, his leg, his chest, until it filled him completely.Then he fell asleep.
It took them until mid-November to corner him after school. Maybe it took them this long because it was the first time Merlin was leaving school on his own since it had started in September. Or maybe they were just particularly bored that day and wanted to pass their frustrations on him. Who knew, really.
Merlin and Will were waiting outside of school for Will’s father to come and pick him up. Will was a mess. His eyes were red and there was a tremor in his hands that he wasn’t quite able to hide, even by crossing his arms and squeezing his fingers in his armpits. Will had been crying in the loos, but he knew that he would never admit to it, and it was all better if they pretended that he wasn’t a bit broken inside today. The sky was appropriately grey and heavy with clouds, the trees were bare, the cement dirty and cracked and littered with cigarettes butts. Will’s sadness seemed to merged with the landscape, filling it, and all Merlin could do was to hold Will’s forearm tightly, while Will leaned his head against his knees.
Will’s father arrived in his truck and Will left without looking at Merlin. It was okay though. Will would come to Merlin’s house later that evening. They wouldn’t talk about it, but they would play video games and maybe watch stupid shows. Hunith would bring them hot chocolate and cookies, even though she normally didn’t like them eating sugar after dinner. She wouldn’t kiss Will on his head, like she normally did, and chide him for eating too fast, or for swearing at the telly. Will didn’t want to be mothered today. Not today.
Merlin sat a little longer on the steps in front of the school. He was the only one around, though he could hear the whistles and yelling coming from the practice fields on the other side of the school. He should be going. He should get home and try to do his homework before Will came over. He would never say he needed it, but he’d stay for the night. He’d curl up on Merlin’s bedroom floor beside his bed, and they’d talk a bit. But really, what Will needed the most was to not be alone in his house with his father today. The sadness was too heavy. Merlin thought that maybe he wasn’t the only one who felt like they were drowning sometimes. Will’s pool was probably made of grey cold water, muddy, and bitter with minerals, not like the blues and greens of Merlin’s—deceptively dangerous, but beautiful all the same. He needed to go home and hug his mum and tell her he loved her, because Merlin still had his mum and Will didn’t, and he couldn’t even start imagining what that felt like.
He didn’t hear them coming until there was a heavy hand on his shoulder hauling him to his feet. Next thing he knew his back was to the school’s brick wall, and Valiant, Oswald, and Ethan were crowding his space, twisted smirks on their faces.
“What Emrys, no watchdog today? Where’s your little boyfriend when you need him, uh?” Valiant sneered at him.
“I think I saw him crying in the loos today,” Oswald said. “Did you two have a fight?”
Panic rose in Merlin’s chest. He tried to see how he could get out of this without being hurt. The sad part was that he wasn’t even surprised. He almost asked them what had taken them so long to begin with. He didn’t even want to try and explain that Will wasn’t his boyfriend. That nobody was his boyfriend. He wished he could come up with something witty and scalding to throw back in their faces, but really he was just hoping that his head wouldn’t get bashed against the wall.
They were calling him names, probably in an effort to goad him, but Merlin didn’t care. He’d heard them all before. Oswald, Valiant, and Ethan were not the most original or imaginative blokes in the world. It didn’t mean he wasn’t hurt by them, but he wasn’t surprised. It’s not like he didn’t know, not like he was stupid. Not like he had hoped against all hope that he wouldn’t have to be in this situation after all. Well, okay, maybe he had a little. Reality settled in his stomach like a rock, and he was almost floored by it.
In the end though, the words did not worry him that much. What worried him and made him plaster himself against the bricks, were how they seemed to tower over him, even though they were barely taller than him, invading his space. They were, all three, much larger than him. Not that it was difficult to be.
He wasn’t really scared of what they were saying, or implying, or anything like that. He was scared of the punches that might come his way, He desperately tried to anticipate the moment and braced himself. His skin was clammy and he was sweating, but he was cold, colder than when he was lying at the bottom of the empty pool, before Arthur had touched his knee and made it feel like the Sahara.
They pushed at his shoulders, leaving bruises there, he was sure. There was anger in their eyes, but Merlin had no idea what had set them off. He didn’t know if answering with his own words would subdue them or make them angrier. He definitely wasn’t about to try and physically push them off. No way. So he stayed there, trying not to look them in the eyes, trying to let their insults fly over him, trying not to beg to let him go, even though he really wanted to. He hoped that if they were about to punch him, they wouldn’t punch him in the face, because he really didn’t want to explain it to his mum, and he didn’t want to make Will angrier and he just didn’t want to have to deal with it at all.
He was vaguely aware that their pushing and shoving kept slamming him against the uneven surfaces of the wall—creating bruises there as well as on his stomach—as if they weren’t sure whether to punch him or not. To cross that line.
Merlin’s breath was short and pain filled his chest. There was a ringing in his ears and he couldn’t hear what they were saying anymore—maybe they were laughing, it didn’t really matter. He just wanted them to stop, or even to just punch him already so they could get over it. He tried very hard not to crumple at their feet in a pile of long limbs and easily kickable body parts.
“Merlin?” he heard vaguely.
Valiant, Oswald, and Ethan became silent, and Merlin turned his head to see Arthur standing a few feet away, confused. When Ethan moved out of the way, and Arthur had an unrestrained view of him, Merlin saw his eyes grow wide with understanding, and then fill with anger, his fists clutching at his sides, knuckles white.
“What, Pendragon, angry we beat up little Emrys here a bit? You hoping he’s gonna kiss you again, is that it?” Ethan laughed.
Arthur went white, but he stood his ground and said nothing. All his muscles were taut. He seemed to be stuck between moving and trying not to, his eyes scanning the faces of the other three boys, before settling on Merlin again.
He had a hard time deciphering the expression on Arthur’s face. Relief and adrenaline at not having Valiant, Oswald, and Ethan’s undivided attention crashing through his body.
They heard voices coming from the other side of the school, and soon the football coach and the rest of the team were walking toward them from the fields. Merlin took this opportunity to grab his bag and run around the other corner. He was sure Valiant wouldn’t come after him, not when the coach was so near.
He leaned forward, hands on his thighs and forced himself to take deep breaths. Once he felt better and more clear-headed he lifted his shirt a bit to have a look. He hissed. There were already bruises forming there and the skin of his sides was really tender.
He jumped when a finger touched it softly, sending him reeling backwards and falling on his arse.
“Shit Merlin, I’m sorry! Didn’t mean to startle you,” Arthur said.
Merlin was breathing fast. “S’fine,” he mumbled as Arthur helped him up, clasping his hand and holding him steady at the elbow.
“Did they really hurt you?” he asked, his voice low and angry.
Merlin didn’t say anything, just brushed off his trousers with one hand, trying to ignore how Arthur was still gripping his elbow and how he could feel his breath across his forehead. The new pain in his chest had nothing to do with the small beating he just got. Merlin could see the steady rise and fall of Arthur’s chest, and tried to match it—to calm down, to think.
They stayed silent for a while. Merlin kept his eyes down. Arthur—completely, unnecessarily close to him—smelled like grass and sweat and a bit like soap. The image of him sitting on the steps of his house beside him smelling almost exactly as he did now, more than a year ago flashed through Merlin’s mind. He clenched his hands in his trousers to refrain from reaching out and catching the drops of sweat already drying on Arthur’s arms. Arthur’s grip on his elbow was gentle but firm, like he was being, careful. Like he cared. Merlin swallowed hard.
“I’ll tell Coach Grant about it,” Arthur whispered.
Merlin looked up and Oh. Oh, they were really really too close right now and step back step back step back step back, kiss me.
Arthur’s eyes were wide and so so blue. He was frowning a little, a long line between his eyebrows, and Merlin clenched his hands harder to stop himself from smoothing it out with his thumb. He just really wanted to touch Arthur right now.
“They shouldn’t have done that,” Arthur said. “They were kicked out of practice and they were angry and—”
Merlin felt like he’d been punched. He stepped back, wrenching his arm from Arthur’s grip, angry, needing to lash out, to say something. “Are you defending them?”
“What! No! I was just saying why… why they—”
“Whatever Arthur,” Merlin said, walking past him. He was too tired for this. And he hurt.
“Merlin, wait!”
Merlin sighed; he just really wanted to go home now. “Look, Arthur, I get it okay?” he said, turning around. “They’re your footie mates and they’re part of your team and all, and I get that.”
“They’re not my fr—”
“It just doesn’t matter okay? I just want to go home.”
Arthur just looked at him, fists clenched, a hurt look on his face. Merlin’s insides twisted at the sight, and it wasn’t fair, it just wasn’t. “I’ll be fine, okay? Thank… thank you for the help.”
Arthur snorted at that, his fists loosening, and Merlin grinned a little.
“Well, for having good timing, I guess. I’ll see you around yeah?” Merlin made sure to smile a little, though it probably looked forced.
Arthur looked at him for a moment, then sighed. “Yeah… see you around, Merlin.”
“Bye Arthur.”
He didn’t say anything to his mum when he got home. He didn’t say anything to Will. He pretended not to hear his best friend cry in the middle of the night for a mother he didn’t have anymore. He knew Will wouldn’t want him to say anything. Merlin just tried to focus on the way Arthur’s fingers had felt around his elbows—not thinking about all the things that, once again, were left unsaid—ignoring the blue shadows dancing behind his eyelids.
They didn’t talk much at school. In fact, they didn’t talk much at all beyond greetings and simple how’s it goings. It never got much more personal than Arthur’s are you alright? the day after, and Merlin’s quiet I’m fine. Thanks. They didn’t really have the same friends and they only had one class together (English), where Merlin sat in the back left corner and Arthur was somewhere in the middle between Vivian and Leon.
That’s not to say that Merlin never looked at him, though. Because he did. A lot. He tried not too. He tried to pay attention in class, not to look for a blond head in the hallway, not to sneak glances at Arthur’s table at lunch. Really, he tried.
The thing was, he didn’t understand any of it, and it drove him up the wall. He didn’t know what it meant, all of Arthur’s touches. He couldn’t reconcile the way his hands were so gentle and the way they had grabbed at him that time in the pool. That time that changed everything. Merlin wanted to understand so badly. He stayed awake at night and thought of things he could tell Arthur the next time he went to watch movies at Morgana’s, but never found a way to say them. He really didn’t know what to do.
He didn’t know.
So he went on with his days—hung out with Gwen, Freya, and Will, played too many video games and tried to avoid his mom’s curious glances every time she caught him looking blankly into space, thinking.
He only got shoved into the lockers twice. Will got a week worth of detention for punching Oswald the second time it happened. Merlin always waited for him before going home with him.
Valiant, Ethan, and Oswald left him alone after that. Merlin would have been surprised to learn it was because of Will. Maybe Arthur really did talk to the coach, or maybe it just wasn’t as easy as they had hoped anymore and they had just given up. Either way, Merlin was glad for their lack of perseverance.
The Christmas holidays finally arrived. Merlin loved Christmas. Every December he helped his mum put the lights on their house, and they went out and bought a tree. They decorated it together while listening to Frank Sinatra’s, and Bing Crosby’s Christmas albums. Will sometimes came over and pretended to roll his eyes at the music, while still silently mouthing the words to the songs when he thought Merlin and Hunith weren’t looking. Hunith would pat him on the cheek, and give him cookies, and let him fake-grumble in the living room chair while he stuffed his face with her baking.
They put up white fairy lights all over their yellow kitchen, which was filled with the constant smells of cookies, cakes, cinnamon, and things roasting and boiling, and Merlin didn’t know what else. They were the best smells in the world. It might have been winter, it might have been grey and cold outside—sometimes white, if they were lucky—but inside their house it was always warm, always colourful. This year, Merlin was even more grateful. The lights and sounds and smells of his house, Will’s yelling at the TV and at stupid Christmas movies they watched every year, made the blue and green shadows retreat. He was dry. He was safe. He was content—not weighted down by wanting and desiring and not-understanding. He was just Merlin. Just Merlin. The one he knew, understood, and liked being.
On Christmas morning he walked in the living room, bleary-eyed and still half asleep. His mum greeted him with a kiss on the head and they sat side by side on the sofa to drink their customary hot chocolates and watch A Charlie Brown Christmas. Then they had buttered home-made bread with jam.
As they were finishing their breakfast—after a truly awful but quite heartfelt rendition of Let it Snow—Hunith pushed a small box toward him across the table, all wrapped in bright red paper and gold ribbons. Merlin took it gingerly in his hands. Every gift his mother gave him was precious because they didn’t have that much money, and he knew that sometimes she put money aside for most of the year just to buy him something for his birthday or Christmas. Things that were not necessary, that were just for fun.
Merlin tore away the paper. He held in his hand a box containing a small, red netbook.
“Mom… this is—wow.”
Merlin didn’t have his own computer. He shared their clearly outdated but still vaguely decent dinosaur of a PC with his mom, or used Will’s computer instead.
“I know you can’t do much with this,” Hunith said. “I mean, you can’t really play games or anything, but I thought you could use it as a diary of some sort.”
Merlin looked at her. “A diary?”
Hunith sighed, and grabbed Merlin’s hands in her own over the cheery Christmas tablecloth.
“Merlin, I know things haven’t been… easy, since last summer. And I don’t expect you to tell me everything,though I wish you would. I can see you, sometimes, just thinking. You were never really good at hiding your emotions that much, and well… you think so much for a boy your age, probably more than you should. I thought that maybe... maybe writing your thoughts down would help you. You feel so much, Merlin, you always have. You have to put it down somewhere, find an outlet, and I thought maybe you could use this. It’s small enough to carry in your bag, like a paper journal, except I thought it would be better. Not many of you young people write with pen and paper anymore anyway.”
Merlin was speechless, just looking at their joined hands on the table, a lump in his throat.
“It doesn’t have to be a diary either,” Hunith added. “It could be stories too, if you prefer. You’ve always been good at making stories up.”
Merlin looked up at her. The world was blurry shapes of red and gold and green and blue, and he brushed absentmindedly at the water in his eyes. He got up and hugged his mum. “I love it mum. Thank you.”
Hunith just hugged him back.
Later on, as his mum was making their dinner, Merlin sat at the table and stared at a blank page opened on his netbook. He didn’t know where to start or what to say, his head a jumble of ideas and words, his fingers weighted down by all the things left unsaid that lived in a tightly knotted community in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t know how to coax them out. So instead he just wrote about the kitchen where he was sitting, and his mom, and the colours and shadows the lights casted on the walls. It was better than nothing and unexpectedly comforting.
Some time in the evening, Will and Freya came over to wish him Merry Christmas. They ate more pastries and called Gwen’s mobile. They sang truly awful carols to cheer her up from a boring family dinner at her grandma’s house. Freya actually had a nice voice, but both her and Merlin were completely drowned by Will’s bellowing, which had Gwen clearly trying not to laugh too much or too loud over the line. After that, the three of them sprawled themselves on the floor partly under the Christmas tree—smelling the sharp and comforting smell of it, blinking slightly at the soft brightness of the lights, mesmerized by the shiftings reflections in the ornaments, their distorted images. Merlin pretended not to see how Will’s pinkie finger was brushing lightly against the back of Freya’s hand, and how she didn’t move her hand away. He thought he could maybe write about it later, and smiled. There was something, finally, that he wouldn’t have to leave unsaid.