Chapter 1: Reach Me
Chapter Text
-lysis
noun
ly·sis ˈlī-səs
: a process of disintegration or dissolution
Merlin grunted when Arthur threw him up against the wall, barely managing to duck before the flash of his blade cut across Merlin's cheek. He took Arthur's knee in the chest for it, but even gasping for air Merlin managed to catch his arm before he plunged the knife into Merlin's back.
To press the barrel of his gun up under Arthur's chin.
They both stopped, panting hard. Merlin could taste blood in his mouth. Arthur had a bruise already swelling across his cheek. Blood in his nose.
"You're under arrest," Merlin whispered. He couldn't manage more than that through the ache in his lungs.
Arthur stared down his nose at Merlin, his chin lifted just above the gun pressing into his jaw. His eyes were calculating and cold. He had one hand gripping Merlin's wrist, the knife gone now, lost when Merlin caught his arm. For a few silent heartbeats neither of them moved.
And then Arthur spat his blood into Merlin's face.
Merlin flinched, crying out when Arthur lifted his wrist over his head and slammed his gun arm hard into the wall behind him. He could feel his shoulder protest the higher Arthur lifted him to drive his hand again into the wall. The pins holding the joint together locked his arm in place, the force of the pain so immediate and intense that Merlin dropped his gun just so Arthur would let go of his arm.
He was sure his shoulder was breaking again, tiny spider leg fractures erupting across the bone. The gun clattered to the ground. Then Arthur hooked his heel behind Merlin's foot and brought him down after it.
Merlin hit the concrete floor of the warehouse at the same time Arthur landed on top of him. His head lolled, dazed for a few crucial seconds as Arthur straddled him, lifting his arms to pin them over his head.
Coming to his senses, Merlin fought him, the pain in his shoulder driving back the black edges of unconsciousness. If Arthur pulled his bad arm up like that again -
"Don't!" Merlin cried out. But Arthur was so much stronger than he was.
Arthur forced his hands to the floor above his head and Merlin actually heard it, the moment his shoulder gave into the pressure. Arthur heard it too, right before Merlin threw his head back and screamed.
Arthur leaned over him while Merlin cried out, gasping in pain.
"We have to stop meeting like this Detective," he said, panting in Merlin's ear. "Or the next time I put you in the hospital you won't walk back out again."
"Fuck you," Merlin snarled.
"Say that again," Arthur said, very close to his cheek. "And we'll see how many surgeries it takes to fix your shoulder this time."
He was slowly pulling Merlin's arms up higher over his head, inch by grueling inch, watching Merlin arch his neck in agony, waiting, until Merlin couldn't stop the scream it tore out of his throat again.
"Stop!"
"Stop, what?" Arthur smiled against his face.
"Stop you fucking cunt!" Merlin roared before Arthur wrenched his arms up, hard.
Merlin was gasping out tiny cries of pain with every aching breath.
"Please!" He sobbed, the pain cutting him in half. "Stop! Arthur, please!"
The pressure on his shoulder released, but only the one. Arthur kept one hand on his good wrist, allowing Merlin to pull his injured shoulder back down in painful jerking motions. That surprised Merlin actually. He didn't think Arthur Pendragon was capable of mercy.
It turned out he was right.
With his now free hand, Arthur grabbed his face roughly by the chin, forcing Merlin to look at him. Merlin winced, glowering at him until he saw the look in Arthur's eyes. They were serious and searching, and Merlin felt real fear roll through him when he realized why.
His patch, where the fuck was his patch? He couldn't feel it on his hip anymore.
And he'd begged for relief.
Arthur knew.
Merlin actually watched the change in Arthur when he clocked Merlin's terror for what it was. Confirmation. How much more confident and dangerous Arthur appeared to him then. How much heavier he seemed.
"You've been keeping secrets, Detective," Arthur whispered.
Merlin's eyes were wide.
Arthur grinned.
The room felt like it caved in on him and he gasped, his shoulders bowing back, his neck arching. Even the air felt too heavy, too hard to breathe while he collapsed back under those hazel eyes. They were mesmerizing. They shackled him to the floor while Arthur's dominance thundered across his skin, his presence filling the room, urging Merlin to relax, to listen, to be good.
"Look at you," Arthur said softly. "Playing Detective when you're nothing but an unclaimed Sub."
Merlin was shaking. He'd never felt a dominant aura like this one. He couldn't think straight. He needed to focus.
Merlin swallowed hard, his eyes fixed on Arthur's.
He couldn't move.
"Enjoy yourself," Arthur smiled down at him. "This is the last time you'll ever have the opportunity. I'm sure you know what happens to unclaimed Subs in prison. But a Submissive who is also an officer of the law?"
Arthur leaned in close to his ear again. Whispered unkindly,
"They'll eat you alive."
"My partner will be here in less than ten minutes," Merlin managed. "Go, and I'll pretend I never saw you."
Arthur laughed.
"You don't get to play those cards, Detective. You aren't the one holding them."
He was right.
So Merlin closed his eyes. There was nothing left to lose now. When he opened them there was a flash of gold across his irises.
Merlin broke Arthur's influence, turning the pressure in the room between them into ash. Arthur sucked in a breath, shock in his eyes now. In another life Merlin would have relished the satisfaction he got from that one very small sound.
Instead he pulled a white pen out of his jacket pocket and slammed it into the side of Arthur's neck, pressing his thumb against the cam at the top of the device. It clicked sharply.
Arthur gave a shout in protest, knocking Merlin's hand away, but it was too late. The now empty barrel of the device pattered to the floor, rolling away into the dark.
Merlin gave Arthur a feral grin.
"That tracking device is in your fucking blood now asshole," Merlin hissed. "I own you."
Arthur jerked him up off the ground an inch by the lapels of his suit jacket, growling.
"What did you just say to me?"
"If I so much as hear a hint of a rumor about my designation in the underground, my unit, in my fucking local pub, I will put the entire Met so far up your ass you'll never sit easy again."
Arthur bared his teeth.
"You're going to take it out," Arthur told him, and the look in his eyes promised pain. "Or I'll start with your other shoulder and I will break you until you do."
"You can keep your fucking mouth shut about me," Merlin hissed back. "And go."
Arthur's grip on Merlin's coat tightened. For a split second Merlin thought Arthur would make good on his promise, right there in the darkened warehouse.
Footsteps echoed across the concrete. A lot of them. Heading in their direction.
"This isn't over, Detective," Arthur told him.
And then he was gone.
Merlin buried his face in his elbow and screamed. His whole body was ringing with Arthur's influence, running over his skin under his clothes like a lovers hand. He rolled over onto his good side. Managed to pull his wallet free and lift one of his spare patches from the billfold. Ripped it open with his teeth.
He got it up under his shirt and against the curve of his own waist just as Gwen rounded the corner with backup.
"Merlin!"
It was hard for him to remember anything after that.
He lied to Gwen and his superiors when he was lucid enough to answer questions. Told them Arthur got away. They put him on leave. He laid in a hospital bed for three days without his patches, refusing pain medication just to hold onto enough mental clarity to suppress his own presence so that the pretty Dominant nurse in the hall wouldn't realize what he was.
On the fourth day when they released him, Arthur was waiting for him in his flat.
Merlin let the door fall closed behind him. Felt Arthur's presence before he saw him, sitting calmly at the kitchen table.
Merlin's eyes flashed gold in the evening dark creeping through the apartment.
"That won't work on me," he said quietly.
Arthur's eyes narrowed. Merlin thought he might be debating whether or not he should try it again.
He didn't need to, really. Merlin was still in a sling, he hadn't slept in three days and all of his considerable mental energy had been used to keep his Submissive designation from being discovered by the hospital staff. Merlin was paid out. He didn't even bother to hide it.
"What do you want?" Merlin asked him.
"You know what I want."
"Too bad," Merlin said, sounding much more confident than he felt.
Arthur was across the room in an instant. He slammed Merlin back against the door, making him cry out.
"Then I'll start with your good arm, as promised," Arthur whispered, drawing the bridge of his nose tenderly down the line of Merlin's clenched jaw. "And if you're good for me, I might even let you keep it."
Merlin shoved him back hard, but he only managed to gain a few inches of space between them, using only one arm.
"Don't fucking talk to me like that, I'm not your Sub."
"But you are one," Arthur said quietly. "You might be able to break my influence but you can't stop yourself from wanting to kneel for me."
The words erupted over his skin.
Anger filled in the gaps. He was exhausted and he was still hurting.
It hurt even more for the one to cause him pain, real pain, to be someone designated as Dominant.
It meant he wasn't very good at all.
Which was something he hadn't felt in a long time. And he wasn't planning on being made to feel that way by the most dangerous criminal in London.
"Go ahead," he snarled back. "See how far you get before they come for you."
"It's been a long time since someone like you spoke to me like that," Arthur told him.
"Get used to it."
"Careful Detective," Arthur said. "You're alone now and you haven't slept or eaten anything properly in days. I can tell because your entire body is begging me to take care of it for you."
"Go fuck yourself," Merlin hissed at him. "I don't need you or anyone else to take care of me."
"Is that so?"
"Just take your fucking win and go," Merlin said shoving Arthur back again. He didn't release Merlin's biceps and they were both very aware that all Arthur had to do was put any kind of pressure on Merlin's shoulder to seriously hurt him. But they just stared at each other.
"You consider this a win?" Arthur asked, looking annoyed.
"Yes!" Merlin exploded. "I won't come after you, I'll drop the case in everything but appearance, you don't ever have to see me again. You win. The rest of it is just insurance. You don't mouth off about me to anyone and I won't fuck up your life for it. That's the deal."
"No deal," Arthur said. "You'll take it out."
"Or what, you'll kill me?"
Arthur's smile was a slow, poisonous thing. It made the hair on the back of Merlin's neck stand on end.
"Why would I kill you, Detective, when I can make you do it for me?"
"We've already established that doesn't work on me," Merlin said through clenched teeth.
"We've established something close to that anyway," Arthur agreed. "You are unique, aren't you?"
Merlin didn't like at all how good those words felt. How immediately Arthur could tell.
He shifted uncomfortably under Arthur's hands, but Arthur only tightened his grip, warning Merlin not to move too suddenly. Merlin winced.
"It's been some time for you, I imagine," Arthur said with a lazy condescending smile that Merlin immediately wanted to knock off his face. "By the way you're willing to risk this case to make me disappear, I'm guessing there's no one in your circle who has any idea you're designated Submissive."
Merlin said nothing.
Arthur's smile stretched a little bit more.
"How do you do it?"
"Do what?" Merlin said, his glare incendiary now.
"Find any kind of relief for yourself?" Arthur replied stepping into him.
Merlin gave a short cry in protest when Arthur forced his knee between Merlin's thighs, pressing his body against him. Merlin had to turn his head to avoid being nose to nose with Arthur, but it exposed his neck to Arthur's mouth.
He didn't actually put his lips on Merlin's skin. But Merlin could feel them over the pulse in his throat when Arthur spoke, he was so close.
"It must be hard enough doing such a thankless job day in and day out," Arthur said. "Lying through your teeth to do it. But then to come home to nothing... Just you and this empty flat and no one to tell you how exceptional you are?"
Merlin's knees buckled.
He hated himself for it. But he was so fucking tired and hurt and even though he knew all of those pretty words were a lie to torture him with, he couldn't stop the way he wanted them to be true. That he really was unique and exceptional and that he'd done something good. And someone could see that. Someone would just tell him that.
His whole body reacted to even this hollow farce. If Arthur didn't have his knee between Merlin's thighs, Merlin would have folded instantly to the floor.
Arthur kept him upright, grinning.
"My, my, Detective, that was a strong reaction," he said. "Just how long has it been since anyone told you how brilliant you are?"
"I'm not going to take it out," Merlin said venomously. "So you can drop the act."
"Who's acting?" Arthur murmured against the side of his neck. Merlin shivered. "Before you, I was just a name in database. Now The Met knows my face and you keep managing to slip through my fingers. It's no wonder the papers call you Magic."
Merlin had his good hand pressed against Arthur's chest but he had no idea what he planned to do with it. He couldn't force Arthur off of him.
And even if he could his words were ringing in Merlin's skull, keeping him still.
"I can admit without shame that you're a difficult opponent. You're far more intelligent than the rest of your unit. And I'm even more impressed now, knowing that you've been doing it while you were fighting yourself all this time."
Merlin's fingers closed in the fabric of Arthur's shirt.
He jerked Arthur forward, baring his teeth.
"I told you not to fucking talk to me like that. I'm not your Sub."
"But you could be."
Merlin's mind came to a screeching halt at the words.
Arthur was smiling very close to his mouth.
"When are you likely to get a better offer, Detective? You can't ask anyone in your world. And I can protect you from mine."
Merlin shoved him back again, making Arthur laugh.
"Don't fuck with me!" Merlin snapped. "I'm not helpless, I don't need what you're offering. And even if I did there isn't any assurance you could possibly give me to make it viable."
But even as he said it, he realized it wasn't true.
"I could give you my bond," Arthur said in his ear.
"Get out of my house," Merlin growled at him. "I'm not giving you back your freedom at the expense of mine."
"Expense?" Arthur said softly. "You'd be taking it back. I'm sure you realize that by denying what you need you've built yourself a stronger cage than I ever could."
Merlin's expression darkened.
"I can't unmake this prison for you, I'll give you that," he continued. "But I do have a key."
Merlin was shaking.
"Get. Out."
Arthur reached into his suit coat and Merlin tensed. But all he removed was an old two-way digital pager. Merlin took it when Arthur held it out to him.
"My tracker for your freedom, Detective."
And then he was gone.
Merlin stared into his now empty kitchen, thoughtless. His mind was filled with the color of Arthur's eyes, and the tone of his voice when he called Merlin exceptional.
In a sudden rage he charged across the room to the kitchen sink and lifted his hand to smash the pager into a thousand pieces against the ceramic and steel. For ten agonizing heartbeats, Merlin was frozen, his fingers white-knuckle tight on the tiny device. And then slowly, he lowered his arm.
His shoulder throbbed.
But the ache in his chest was worse.
It had been getting worse before Arthur but now it was a void that was swallowing up all the pieces of himself that used to be kind and patient and generous with his time. The longer he went without doing anything about it, without finding any release from this endless cycle of work and drinking and work again, the more he lost in the process.
Yes, he was a Sub, but he was also a fucking damn good detective and he never would have had the chance if anyone had known. Submissives couldn't work as first responders. There was a case the media loved to cite whenever this restriction came up in Parliment about a security officer who folded to a Dominant's influence during a bank robbery back in like...nineteen seventy-nine that resulted in three civilian deaths. Merlin thought it was antiquated and frankly offensive. But it wasn't likely to change anytime soon. So he had to get creative about his status. And if anyone ever found out that he'd doctored his medical records, his official documents? He wouldn't just be terminated. He would be arrested and there wouldn't be a defense for him. He'd be buried so deep in the lowest jail cell the legal system could justifiably throw him in that he'd be lucky to ever see the sky again.
No one knew. Not even his partner, Gwen. It bothered him to lie to her in particular, because he respected her deeply. Lately it was bothering him so much he'd requested he work the majority of his cases alone. And he could get away with that for now. He'd solved so many cases for the Yard since he'd come on as a detective that the press called him 'Magic'. The name stuck around the local communities and the Met too.
Merlin hated it, like he hated so many things in his life. It implied that what he did was supernatural somehow and not intelligence or skill. Just like being a Sub somehow implied that he couldn't take care of himself. Which wasn't fucking true, he'd always gotten by. Sure it was harder sometimes. Really fucking hard. But then how was that any different from anyone wanting an intimate partner in their lives? As far as he was concerned there was no discernible difference between himself at this exact moment, and the average human being who happened to be lonely.
He ran his thumb over the face of the pager.
He'd gotten by until now, picking up men who he'd clocked for rough sex, because the simulation of control they took over him was just enough, usually. But he was so angry himself all of the time now, he couldn't make that work anymore. No one could put him down like he needed them to. No one was strong enough to get him back out of this void in his chest. Even Merlin could admit it was getting so much worse than it ever had been. He was amping up every destructive behavior in the book so that someone would come down on him for it.
That was how he'd gotten into this mess in the first place.
He could have waited for Gwen and the other officers she'd called down to the warehouse with her. But he didn't. His rage and his adrenaline had reached a breaking point. He was either going to bring Arthur in or he was going to get himself killed.
Of the two, the latter would have been the mercy. At least with Arthur on the streets he still had something to occupy his mind.
But even if he could find someone who was discrete enough to trust before now, he'd never met anyone, Dom, Switch or Other who was able to handle him. It didn't work for Merlin if he was the one holding all the cards in the end. But it was always like that. The things that made him such a good detective also made him a useless Sub. He always knew exactly what the people around him were thinking, what they were about to do, what they were planning. And even if he couldn't be sure he could guess with a staggering amount of reasonable certainty. It was just the way his mind worked. It was too fast and too accurate and too hard to control. It was why he'd needed to take the rough sex route to begin with, even though he was probably a Service Submissive. His needs tended to be easily met by performing well and getting praised for it. But being controlled by a stronger partner was fine. It used to be good enough. Now it just made him angry.
There was also the matter of his gift.
Merlin had never met another Sub like him. He thought it was possible he could be the only one in the entire world who could break a Dominant influence at will. Not only was his mind a feedback loop of information that couldn't be silenced, the second he got bored or uncomfortable he broke the influence between himself and his partner. It was practically a reflex at this point. In Merlin's opinion that influence wasn't necessary to have a successful interaction between a Dom and a Sub. But none of his Dominant partners had ever taken kindly to it in the moment. Not that Merlin blamed them, necessarily. If he were a Dom, he thought he might also prefer a Sub who was willing to give him that kind of trust and obedience.
Merlin had just never been the blindly trusting or obedient type.
Besides that, all Doms were the same. Demands for special titles and supplications that were never earned. Just take, take, take and be grateful for it.
He closed the pager hard in his fist.
It was pointless. It had been for a long time. He wasn't going to use this pager. Living with the growing void in his chest where the part of him that only wanted to serve someone and do it well existed, was far preferable than the anxiety he would suffer knowing that Arthur could choose at any moment to say something that would destroy Merlin's life in a second. Less than a second.
Unless he was serious about giving Merlin his bond.
If he did that, and he gave Merlin his word that he would never tell anyone he was designated Submissive, he would have to keep his word. But it was a promise neither of them would ever be able to break. If he accepted Arthur's bond, they would be bonded for life.
It didn't mean neither of them couldn’t go their separate ways in time. But for a while it would significantly change the dynamic of their influences on each other. It might even be easier for Merlin to actually submit. He'd been fighting and denying it for so long to protect himself, he wasn't entirely sure it was even possible for him to meet the minimum requirements of trust with anyone, least of all Arthur Pendragon, to properly submit anymore.
But with a bonded partner, maybe for a little while at least, Merlin would be able to give all of this anger, all of this tension to someone else. Someone who was strong enough to control it for him.
"You come home to nothing... Just you and this empty flat and no one to tell you how exceptional you are?"
Arthur might be strong enough to do it.
No.
Absolutely fucking not. It was different when he wasn't a homicide detective with some serious notoriety behind him, and he could experiment with Doms in clubs without being worried they would remember him in the morning. But he'd stopped that long before 'Magic' became a thing. Because it was always bullshit what was asked of him in those private rooms, and what minuscule level of satasifaction he gained from it never lasted long enough to be statistically relevant. The risks never ended up outweighing the benefits.
And they for sure fucking didn't now.
He needed a drink.
So he tossed the pager into his junk drawer, and had three.
Merlin closed his hand in a door three months later, before he considered using the pager.
He couldn't remember making the conscious decision to attempt to break his own hand. That was the part that worried him. Maybe it was the sudden unsolicited way that Arthur had spoken to him about being brilliant and unique that escalated his condition all those weeks ago. Maybe it was always going to end this way. He couldn't be sure, anymore. All he knew was that he had been sitting at his desk looking over an evidence file when he stood up and calmly walked across his office, and closed his hand in the door. Nothing was wrong. He wasn't calm exactly. Merlin had never been a particularly calm sort of person, but he hadn't been boiling over with emotion when it happened either. One minute he was sitting down, looking at evidence. The next, he was holding the door jam with his free hand and holding the door in his other.
The back of his hand was black and blue.
Thank god it was late and almost no one was in the office anymore except the overnight patrol.
Because the absolute relief, the bliss that took hold when he felt the door slam against his hand was so stunning he wanted more.
He wanted to keep doing it until the skin of his palm split in the wood and he couldn't move his fingers maybe ever again. If he did then he could hold on to that moment when everything went white and he was good and nothing mattered anymore.
The tears snapped him out of it.
When he blinked and his cheeks were wet it was such an immediate shock that he came back to himself before he slammed the door shut a second time.
Maybe a third and a fourth.
Merlin walked home in the rain after that.
The back of his hand was hot in the pocket of his leather jacket.
He'd heard rumors about this. Until now he'd thought it was bullshit. Merlin had gone so long without accepting the influence of a Dom that the threat of this condition was basically a fairy tale to him. But he had no other explanation now. The void in his chest had grown too large to contain on his own and his mind was beginning to fracture under the stress. His death-wish level of risky behavior wouldn't save him now.
It was some fancy medical term for when a Submissive went too long without a Dominant partner. Merlin remembered reading an article about it when he was in Uni, how it escalated through five stages of self-destruction and psychosis in a Sub who couldn't or wouldn't accept a Dom in their life.
He didn't remember all the stages now.
But he remembered the last one. A break from reality that was so steep a Submissive might attempt corporal discipline on themselves to bridge the gaps they needed fulfilled, and they wouldn't stop until they couldn't hurt themselves anymore.
Until they were crippled for life.
Or dead.
He didn't think he'd gotten to that point exactly. Merlin's mind felt clear now that his hand wasn't on the door jam anymore. But he'd hurt himself and he couldn't explain why.
And it felt fucking fantastic.
By the time he made it back to his flat he was soaked. He didn't bother changing or drying off. Just pulled the entire junk drawer out of the counter and hurled it down on his table.
The noise of it was satisfying somehow. And it kept his mind from going blank when he caught sight of the knife block by the stove.
He picked up the pager from the mess and flipped it open. Selected the only contact available.
He typed the first four digits of an address only he and Arthur would recognize and nothing else. If Arthur couldn't figure out where Merlin wanted to meet him from that alone then Merlin supposed he would end up walking into oncoming traffic while he still had the choice to do it himself. It would solve both of their problems in the long run.
But he hoped not.
Merlin was waiting for a long time before he heard footsteps on the loading dock where he had first come face to face with Arthur Pendragon, something like five years ago now. It was the end of his first full year as a Detective. There hadn't been a confrontation. He had been a fraction too late for that. But he remembered their eyes meeting, as he jogged to the end of the loading dock. The beginning of this long, terrible game between them.
Back then this building had belonged to Arthur. Maybe it still did. At least on the face of things, it was abandoned now. The only active thing about the property were the train tracks running through the field behind it. Merlin had been reading and re-reading the faded sign on the dock wall while he waited.
No unauthorized access.
He probably should have found a way inside. It was still raining and he was out in the open. But there were no cameras here. No lights.
If Arthur shot him again he didn't think it would be the worst way for this to end.
"I have to admit, Detective, I didn't think I'd ever hear from you again."
The sound of his voice struck a chord inside the void. Merlin actually rounded his shoulders as if Arthur had dealt him a physical blow. He realized then that he'd made a very crucial mistake, calling Arthur, like this. He was too vulnerable to control himself. If he really was losing it like he thought he was, then Arthur's presence alone might be enough to force a complete submission from him. He wouldn't even have to use his influence. All he would have to do is touch Merlin's skin.
He could ask Merlin to walk off the roof of this building and he would do it. Merlin wouldn't even give it a second thought before he did.
There was a case on his desk that had all the warning signs of a serial killer loose in the city who did just that to his victims.
He was frozen when Arthur stepped up to him, holding an umbrella. The sound of the rain hitting the material rattled around in Merlin's head like marbles bouncing on tile.
"What happened to your hand, Detective?" Arthur asked him.
His words were softer than anything Merlin had ever heard out of Arthur before. Merlin didn't look at him. But the chord in that void was ringing in his head like a bell, over and over and over the words of Arthur's question.
"I don't know," he said honestly. "I shut it in a door at work."
"Look at me."
This time, Merlin felt the difference in his words. The influence of a command he couldn't break for the first time in what felt like an eternity. Absurdly, Merlin felt himself smile.
He had been right. He was powerless to fight it.
Merlin looked up. Arthur's expression was strange to him. He'd only ever seen this man from the other end of a gun, chasing him down in the dark corridors of an abandoned warehouse.
Pinning Merlin against the wall of his flat.
But this time he had a somber look to him. Something serious and concerned and not at all like the Arthur Pendragon Merlin knew. This was the look of someone standing over an open grave.
It scared him.
"I'm right here," Arthur said. "You have nothing to be afraid of."
Merlin believed him, for some reason. This wasn't a command. But he could sense the way Arthur tied his influence to these words in the same way. He felt his pulse quiet in his throat.
"Is this why you called me?" Arthur asked.
"There was a train through here an hour ago I think," Merlin told him, by way of explanation. "I stood next to the track when it passed. I considered standing on the rail until it did."
Arthur's eyes flashed at that. If he had only just seen it, Merlin wouldn't have been able to tell if it was because he was angry or surprised.
But he was connected to this man now by his influence. And Arthur wasn't just angry.
He was enraged.
Merlin took a step back but Arthur was faster.
He caught Merlin by the back of his head, and pulled him into his chest. Held him.
Merlin's eyes were wide, staring into the black fabric of Arthur's suit coat without really seeing it. Arthur's hold on him was gentle, not restraining. If Merlin lifted his head, Arthur would let him go.
"You were right in the end," Merlin whispered.
"How so?"
Merlin closed his eyes. Arthur smelled like lightning. Clean, and metallic, and somehow sweet.
"I did build myself a cage."
Merlin felt Arthur take a deep breath under his cheek.
"Let's go inside, Detective," was all he said.
Merlin walked in the shelter of Arthur's arm to a padlocked side door where he held out the handle of his umbrella and said,
"Hold this."
Merlin did.
Arthur didn't look at him as he took a key from his suit pocket and unlocked the door.
Still owned the building, then.
Once they were inside, Merlin realized how cold he was. His whole body was shaking and it had nothing to do with the way Arthur had folded him into the aura of his influence.
Had he walked the entire way there in the rain?
He couldn't remember.
"Stand here," Arthur said, once they were across the room.
His voice echoed a little. It was very dark, but the ambient light from the windows made it possible to get an idea for the shape of the room, at least. It was mostly empty, just a few pieces of old equipment. An overturned chair.
He stopped where Arthur told him to. Watched Arthur continue past him, so that he was standing just ahead of Merlin, his back to him. Arthur put the tip of the now closed umbrella on the floor by his shoe. Slid his free hand into the pocket of his trousers. Merlin waited for something to happen, Arthur to kill him, maybe? Force him to remove the tracking device and then walk away, leaving Merlin alone to slowly lose his mind? He couldn't be sure.
He couldn't be sure of anything, anymore.
"I -"
"Stop. Talking."
The command ripped through him. Merlin closed his mouth so hard he was surprised he hadn't put a hole through his tongue with his teeth. Arthur turned to look at him over his shoulder and it wasn't a gentle expression anymore. Goosebumps rolled down Merlin's arms.
He actually felt the difference in the space between the two of them when Arthur turned fully to face him. His posture had shifted into something harder, stronger than he'd looked only a minute ago, and his eyes were cold now. Not indifferent. This look was clinical and so completely severed from the Arthur who held him on the loading dock, Merlin didn't know how to react at first. What he did know, what shocked him down to his core, was that he wanted the other Arthur back. Merlin was the reason for this look he was sure of it and he couldn't stand how easily that affected him. How implicitly he realized in that moment that the Dominant partners he'd had in his life up until right fucking now, were that in name only. This man was something else. He had to be. Merlin wasn't a coward and he was almost always the smartest man in the room but now he was afraid.
All Arthur had done was look at him.
And suddenly the only thought in his head was that he wanted to fall to his knees and sink into those eyes until they adored him.
"You may speak to answer a direct question," Arthur told him. "Otherwise you will remain silent. Do you understand me, Merlin?"
He didn't know why it made him feel like the sun was coming up, when Arthur said his name. Had he ever done that before now? Merlin didn't think so. It made his throat unexpectedly tight.
"I understand, Arthur."
"Fine," Arthur agreed dismissively, looking Merlin over. "I'm going to ask you to do something for me. Are you ready to hear it?"
Merlin wasn't. He was going to ask Merlin to release him, or stand on those train tracks, shivering in the rain until the next freight line passed through here. Merlin had no fear of doing either of those things.
He just wished that he could have had the courage to ask Arthur to do this for him sooner, before it was too late. When he was still in control of himself and he could still fight because he could feel it under his skin, the disappointment from Arthur that Merlin had reached this state. That he wasn't really Merlin, anymore.
It hurt so much more than Merlin could have imagined.
But something else was creeping up on him now in the wake of that emotion. The desire to prove Arthur wrong. He wasn't disappointing, he was exceptional, he hadn't lost himself in this void yet and before this night was over Merlin would prove it.
"Yes, Arthur," he said.
Arthur looked him over seriously once more.
"You are not going to kneel for me," he said.
Merlin's eyes widened
He barely had time to register the words before Arthur's influence crashed over him like a roiling ocean tide. It was all at once a physical explosion of force baring down on him and a bell tone in his ears repeating the same word over and over again until it felt like the letters were tattooed on the inside of his skull.
Kneel, kneel, kneel, kneel, kneel...
His knees gave instantly, but he caught himself. Forced himself to stand under the stare of those empty hazel eyes and refuse do the one thing he was sure would fix him because Arthur told him not to do it.
It was cruel, even for Arthur to ruin him like this, Merlin thought. Wasn't it obvious that he'd already won?
It would have been kinder to tell Merlin to step off the platform at the tube station on his way into work.
While he struggled to stay upright, Arthur calmly retrieved the overturned chair and sat down in it. He wasn't too far away, maybe ten steps from Merlin, just observing.
"When was the last time you ate anything, Merlin?"
"This morning, Arthur," he said, shaking now from the wet and the cold, as much as from Arthur's influence trying to get him down to his knees by force.
"Take a step forward."
It took him more than one attempt to do even that much. Moving through Arthur's dominance was like wading through half-hardened caramel. When he lifted his foot off the ground entirely, his standing leg buckled. He'd barely managed to catch himself this time. But he did manage. Arthur considered him, quietly trembling in an empty factory, unsympathetic, when he finally came to a stop.
"Why did you close your hand in a door tonight?"
"I don't know, Arthur."
Arthur's expression was dark when he said,
"Take a step back."
"But -"
Arthur narrowed his eyes. Merlin swallowed the rest of his protest when Arthur spoke over him.
"Then take another, after that."
Merlin clenched his jaw. Took two disjointed steps back.
If they were playing a game to see if Merlin could do more good than bad, he was going to disappoint Arthur. He hadn't done this in so long.
He was so tired.
"Have you been sleeping, Merlin?"
"Yes, Arthur," he said. "Just..."
He stopped himself. He'd answered the question as asked. Arthur never told him to elaborate.
"You may continue, if you have more to say."
Merlin's legs almost gave out again, this time in relief.
"Just not well, Arthur," he admitted quietly.
"Take two steps forward."
He did, only stumbling once, somehow.
His body ached with the weight of Arthur's influence baring down on him. He wanted to beg Arthur to let him breathe, give him a break, something, anything. He was already carrying so much. He couldn't carry anymore. He didn't even know what the end goal of this exercise was. All he could imagine right now was that Arthur would do this to him until it was impossible for him to succeed. And then he would leave and Merlin would have to walk off the nearest bridge he could find.
When had he started breathing so hard?
"I told you," Arthur said then. The words felt like the back of his hand running down Merlin's cheek. "I'm right here. And what does that mean for you, Merlin?"
He closed his eyes briefly before he was able to answer.
"That I don't have anything to be afraid of, Arthur."
"Take a step forward."
Merlin wasn't sure how long they were there. His mind was slowly starting to clear as Arthur asked his questions and Merlin answered. But he always came back to the same question, and Merlin was always told to step back when he gave his reply.
"Why did you close your hand in the door tonight, Merlin?"
This time he didn't even attempt an answer. He just looked at the floor. The bruise on his hand was throbbing.
"Two steps back," Arthur said.
He did.
It was getting harder. The longer he went standing upright under the pressure of Arthur's dominance, it was like he was being handed a brick for every breath he took. The strength of it would reach a breaking point, Merlin could feel it. He was too tired and too hurt to keep this up. He knew now that the point of the exercise was to answer the question about the door. But he'd answered Arthur six different times and none of them were apparently correct, and no answer or replying that he didn't know why, earned him two steps back now when they had previously only earned one. Merlin was afraid to start lying and just make up a story because he was certain Arthur would know. But it was all he could think to do. He didn't know what Arthur wanted him to say. And he couldn't stop himself from kneeling forever, under all of that constant pressure in his head, whispering that it was only right that he do so, that it would put an end to the uncertainty, the fear; the ache in his chest and his shoulders and his jaw. The murmur across his skull that Arthur actually wanted him kneeling and he was failing him by not doing so.
And wouldn't it feel good, to finally do even that much for a Dom? Wouldn't it fix this void in his chest? The bruise on his hand?
Wouldn't that mean he was good after all?
"Merlin."
He jolted back upright at the warning in Arthur's tone. He hadn't even realized how far he'd sunk, nearly halfway to the floor, completely outside of himself.
He pulled in a breath, forced himself to stand up straight again. He wasn't crying, but it sounded like a sob even to him.
Merlin felt dizzy.
He was freezing, and soaking wet, and inexplicably, hungry. He just wanted to collapse at Arthur's feet. Merlin would take the tracking device back, he would turn himself in if that was what Arthur wanted, anything to put an end to this. Anything to put him on his knees just once before his career, his sanity, the entire life he'd painstakingly built detonated like the ticking time bomb it was.
He'd forgotten how good this felt.
"I'm sorry, Arthur," he whispered.
Merlin forced himself to hold Arthur's gaze when he said it. Arthur searched his face for a moment before he said,
"Take a step forward."
Merlin swallowed hard, his throat tight again in relief as he did.
"How many drinks have you had this week?"
Merlin had to think that one through before he answered.
"I don't know the number, Arthur," he admitted quietly. "But I've been drunk more than once this week."
"Take a step forward."
He did, swaying a little.
"How much water have you had this week?"
"I can't remember having any, Arthur."
Arthur wasn't happy with that answer. But the game was about honesty, so even though Merlin could tell he didn’t like it, Arthur said,
"Take a step forward."
Merlin was standing over Arthur now, directly in front of the chair. He knew what was coming, and it only made the shaking worse to anticipate it. Arthur let him, for longer than was strictly necessary before he said,
"Why did you close your hand in the door tonight, Merlin?"
"I don't know," Merlin answered. His words felt distressed and fragile in his mouth. "Please, Arthur I don't know."
Arthur still, was unsympathetic. Merlin could see the words forming before Arthur actually said them and he panicked. If he had to step back again he would fail. He couldn't stay standing for much longer. He just couldn't. Arthur's influence wasn't an armful of bricks anymore it was a mountain of them.
Every inch of him was tense or shaking or both.
"Arthur please don't, I can't move again, I'll fall, I don't know what you want me to say!"
"I want you to answer the question, Merlin," Arthur told him calmly. "Why did you shut your hand in the door tonight?"
"I did answer you, I really don't know, Arthur, I'm not trying to be difficult, I swear, I don't know."
"Then take a step back."
"I can't, Arthur," Merlin pleaded. "Don't make me do this anymore, I'm begging you -"
"Take a step back, Merlin," Arthur said.
Merlin closed his arms around his middle as if he could protect himself from the words, trying to keep his knees locked so that he wouldn't drop to the floor.
"Please," he whimpered. "I don't know, Arthur."
"Why did you shut your hand in the door tonight, Merlin?"
"Because I needed help and I refused to ask for it!" He roared.
Arthur stood up slowly in the echoing silence that followed. Merlin was gasping, his face turned down to the floor. His cheeks were hot even though the rest of him was freezing.
Arthur took his chin in his hand very gently. Lifted Merlin's face so that he was looking Arthur in the eye. Merlin shook.
"Well done," Arthur told him softly.
The words set his blood on fire, made his skin feel like molten gold. All of the tension in him went out like Arthur had simply blown out a candle. All of the chaos inside him came to a blissful, quiet, stop.
Merlin stared at Arthur, unable to move, his eyes wide.
"Just look at you, Merlin," Arthur whispered against his mouth. "You did everything I asked. You didn't fall. You listened so well for me, even though it was hard for you."
Merlin had to close his eyes. The feeling of Arthur's influence that had just minutes ago threatened to wrestle him down to the floor by force, turned into something warm that sparkled under his skin. Pennies glittering at the bottom of a fountain in the summer sunlight.
"I'm so pleased," Arthur said. Merlin let out a breath like he'd been punched.
"If it's what you want, Merlin, you have my permission now."
Merlin opened his eyes. Arthur smiled. It was only a small turning of his mouth, he was mostly doing it with his eyes. Merlin realized with a pang in his chest he couldn't explain, that there was no sarcasm to this expression. It felt genuine. Merlin thought that Arthur really was pleased with him. He wasn't just saying it because Merlin had done well for him.
"Kneel," Arthur commanded.
Merlin fell to his knees at the words. There was no other way to describe it. He dropped back on his heels and the cry he gave in relief came from somewhere inside of himself he didn't know he was capable of reaching. It felt so good he could barely breathe.
Arthur sat down in the chair again and Merlin pressed his face into the top of Arthur's thigh before turning his cheek against Arthur's knee.
Somehow, he wasn't embarrassed at all to do it. He probably should have been.
"I'm going to ask a little more of you tonight, before you're done, Merlin," Arthur told him. He ran his hand through Merlin's wet hair, making Merlin shudder.
Oh god.
He would burn the city of London to the ground for Arthur, if only he would keep doing that for him.
"I'll take it back," Merlin whispered, gripping the fabric of Arthur's trousers in his good fist. "The tracking device."
Arthur's hand never stopped carding through his hair. Merlin whimpered.
"No, Merlin," Arthur told him gently. "We aren't discussing that tonight."
That surprised him.
Merlin lifted his head a little, not enough to dislodge Arthur's hand, but enough to see him properly. The edges of his vision looked soft and glowy to him. It made Arthur shine in the low light.
"You don't want me to take it back?"
"What I want," Arthur said, still running his hand through Merlin's hair. "Is for you to take care of yourself."
Merlin felt the influence in these words.
He was better. Merlin knew already he could break this now if he wanted to. Arthur had brought him out of the center of that void and he wasn't drowning anymore. He was back in control.
But Merlin also knew he was still standing right on the edge. This hadn't fixed him, if that were even possible, and even if Merlin were to spend every day with Arthur Pendragon, accepting his influence as a Dominant partner, it still wouldn't fix the turmoil in him for some time. All Arthur had done for him tonight was reorganize the chaos in his head back into something manageable. It hadn't addressed anything deeper than that. And despite his outright vulnerability Merlin hadn't dropped into a complete submission under Arthur's influence either.
Thinking back on it now, Merlin suspected that Arthur had given his command not to kneel for him right at the outset to stop Merlin from doing so in the first place.
It made him wonder.
"I want you to go home," Arthur said, urging Merlin to lay his head back down. "Take a shower, get warm. Drink a glass of water. I want you to eat something that didn't come out of a box."
Merlin shot Arthur a look, annoyed. Had Arthur been watching him? Or had he made an assessment based on Merlin's current physical state?
It was likely a bit of both. Merlin supposed it shouldn't have surprised him that Arthur was keeping an eye on him. He surveiled Arthur all the time.
Arthur's lip twitched at the look. He didn't laugh. But Merlin thought it was a near thing. It made him feel special, knowing he'd done that.
"Repeat it back to me, so I know you understand," Arthur said.
Merlin closed his eyes. Shivered when Arthur ran his fingers over the nape of Merlin's neck.
"Go home," Merlin said quietly. "Take a shower. Get warm. Drink a glass of water."
Here he sighed. Arthur flicked his ear for it, playfully.
"Eat something that didn't come out of a box."
"Good, Merlin. If you want to give me something, give me that. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Arthur."
For a long time they stayed that way, until Merlin's body finally relaxed, and the ache in his chest had calmed. In the end it was him that moved first, though he was sorry to do it. Arthur's influence was just a touch now, barely noticeable, but Merlin had an instinct that Arthur would not move from where he was unless Merlin did first.
When he sat up, he rubbed his eyes. Took a deep breath when Arthur finally lifted his hand from his hair.
"How are you feeling?" Arthur asked him.
"Better," Merlin admitted quietly. "Thank you."
"Look at me."
There was no command here. He didn't have to look. But Merlin raised his eyes all the same.
Arthur searched them for a moment.
Apparently satisfied with what he found, Arthur seemed to relax.
"You're welcome,” he said.
Merlin blinked.
Then Arthur stood, making his way to the door. Merlin stared after him, half kneeling, half sitting on the floor.
Merlin considered staying silent. But he couldn't help himself. He had to know.
"Why?" He called after Arthur. "You could have ended everything on the loading dock. You had to have known, I would have killed myself for you, if you had asked me."
Arthur stopped walking. In the dark Merlin could only make out a suggestion of the movement, nothing more. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
"As far as I'm concerned, Detective, what happened here tonight had nothing to do with anything between us that came before it. Or anything that may or may not come after."
He started walking again, and Merlin realized he was swinging his umbrella in a lazy circle as he did.
"I expect you not to disappoint me again," Arthur told him. The words sent fingers of ice water sliding down his spine. "But if you do..."
Arthur turned. In the yellow light coming through the door from the loading dock, Merlin could see Arthur's face. His tone was spirited, friendly even. But his eyes told a different story. Serious and unyielding.
"You know how to reach me."
And then he was gone.
Chapter 2: Dragons
Summary:
Merlin needs a Dominant perspective on his current case. Since Arthur is intent on pushing his buttons anyway, it would be a shame to waste the opportunity to ask.
For his case, of course.
Chapter Text
When Merlin got back to his flat it was nearly half two in the morning. He peeled off his coat and the wet collared shirt he was wearing underneath it; ignored the overturned junk drawer on the floor and the mess that had once been inside it scattered across his kitchen table. Dropped the shirt and his belt unceremoniously down on the small rug in his bathroom and hesitated on turning the shower taps. Looking at his hand, past the bruise, he realized his fingers were all red down to the second knuckle. He glanced at his arms, more blotchy red patches of skin. The tips of his fingers were numb.
He filled the tub instead.
Merlin hadn't realized just how long he had been outside in his wet clothes in addition to the time he'd spent in that cold, empty factory. He was probably lucky that he hadn't given himself onset hypothermia.
When he was in the bath he felt immediately better. He was right about the hypothermia though, it took a long time, and refilling the tub to keep the temperature warm enough, for him to stop feeling the cold in his hands and feet. The tops of his thighs. He was doing this because it was necessary, but Merlin had to admit it had been a long time since he'd just allowed himself to relax in a bath. Well. Relax at all, he supposed.
He curled up on his side in the water and counted the droplets of condensation sliding down the tile wall. Merlin's mind was so quiet and clear he thought he might actually be able to sleep through the night. Usually he was up by four in the morning, earlier on a particularly bad night, working from his laptop or heading into the office for a distraction. There were two nightmares that regularly traded blows for his attention when he slept although occasionally he would have a new one crop up here and there. The first was of an enormous round white table in an empty white space that couldn't be considered a room. It was just nothing.
Merlin had solved a lot of cases for the Yard but he hadn't solved every case he'd ever had his hands on. Sometimes he solved them too late. The people sitting at the round table with him, were the victims of those cases. The ones he couldn't save and the ones who were still waiting for justice. They never said anything to him. All they did was stare at him, expectantly. And all of them were in the state of trauma or decomposition that they were found in.
The ones with open wounds let their blood drain onto the table, and Merlin would sit, frozen in his own chair, watching all of those slow, sinuous rivulets of blood creep across the white wood towards him.
But the most terrifying thing about the table to him, were the empty seats. The ones that over the years had been filled with other victims. When it happened they would pull a chair out, the sound of it dragging across the floor was like nails on a chalkboard. Then they would sit. They would stare.
Then Merlin would wake up.
The other nightmare, he refused to think about just then.
He felt good. Not calm exactly, but quiet in a way he couldn't remember being in a long time.
He was still coming down, he realized. He probably should have assumed that would happen. Merlin hadn't interacted with a Dominant as a Submissive in far too long now, and he'd been experiencing an emotional and mental crisis at the time. It was going to take him longer to settle back into his own skin than it normally would. But he wasn't feeling any distress. Just a kind of misty quiet in his head that he wasn't used to. So he wasn't all that concerned.
It occurred to him that Arthur may have assumed this would be the case before he did. Merlin couldn't quite put his finger on the instinct he'd had right before he sat up, that if he'd kept resting his head on Arthur's knee he would have let him do so for as long as Merlin felt it was necessary.
The memory of Arthur running his hands through his hair, over the nape of his neck made him shudder.
He ducked his head under the water and then sat up and pulled the plug on the drain. Got himself up and into a pair of sweats and a soft jumper he didn't mind sleeping in. Made himself some tea and a glass of water.
He wasn't going to think about that absolutely amazing feeling.
He wasn't.
While he drank the water, he stared into his pantry with his forehead on the open door. Everything was in a box. He was a Specialist Crime Detective, he was lucky to stop at the vending machine for lunch on a good day. He assumed that was more along the lines of what Arthur meant, just don't eat a sleeve of biscuits and call it good, eat something with more nutritional value than that probably? But it didn't negate the fact that Arthur had specifically said nothing out of a box, and he hadn't clarified the point.
Merlin honestly didn't know why he cared so much. It wasn't like Arthur was going to have a record of literally everything he ate, even if he was keeping tabs on him. Merlin's surveillance of Arthur was top notch but he couldn't say one way or the other if Arthur preferred red or white wine. The nature of the game they were playing wasn't concerned about things like that.
He sighed. Best efforts then.
But he refused to commit to a full meal at three in the morning. So he pulled two packets of instant oatmeal off his shelf and used the rest of the hot water from his tea to mix it up.
It was nice, actually.
He'd noticed in the factory but he really was very hungry. Folding himself into the corner of his couch to watch some mindless television while he ate wasn't terrible either.
And then his phone rang.
Merlin picked it up without looking at the caller ID. He didn't need to. There was only one reason he would be getting a call this early in the morning.
As he listened to his DI speaking over the line, Merlin was already moving into his bedroom to pull one of his clean work suits out of his closet.
It was going to be a long day.
Gwen was waiting for him when he made it to the crime scene. It was raining again. He ducked under her umbrella as he approched, shaking his head a little to dislodge the water threatening to drip down his face.
"Morning," she said.
"Ta," he replied, blowing out a breath and handing her a paper cup of tea.
Gwen stared at it, then back up at his face. Merlin tilted his head. Lifted the cup again.
"Gwen?"
She took the cup with her free hand, eyeing him now.
"Thanks," she said. "Who are you and what have you done with Merlin?"
He blinked. Made a show of looking over his shoulder, as if there might be someone else who would answer the question for her.
Gwen rolled her eyes.
"I haven't been that awful have I?" He asked her when he turned back around.
Gwen took a sip of her tea, looking him over again thoughtfully. Merlin had a cup of his own, he'd picked them up on his way out of his flat. Had a croissant as well.
It was a little closer to something not out of a box than his oatmeal anyway. And he enjoyed it, which surprised him.
"You seem better," Gwen said when she lowered her cup. "I'm glad."
"Better?"
Gwen gave him a sardonic look. Merlin knew he'd been more irritable lately but he didn't think he was acting like an ogre.
Apparently he'd been wrong.
"Sorry," he said, glancing at the crime scene for anything else to look at. "Alot on my mind lately."
She sighed, following his gaze.
"Yeah," she said. "I know. Let's get this over with."
Merlin nodded, still a little concerned about Gwen's reaction to the tea. Had he really been so out of it that he hadn't realized he was being a complete asshole for the last three months? Longer? He wished it wasn't true. But it might be.
It irritated him that playing a simple task oriented punishment game with a Dominant partner made this much of a difference.
But there wasn't any time to think about that.
"All the same earmarks of CDK," she said.
The Call Down Killer. They suspected that he was a Dominant psychopath who used his influence to drive Submissive victims into killing themselves for him. He got his name from the one witness they had, who saw a man on the sidewalk below a high-rise apartment building. He called out to someone the witness couldn't see. She didn't pay it much attention when he did it. She assumed he was speaking to someone he knew, on one of the upper balconies.
She had been correct on one of those points.
It was by some small grace that she happened to look away for a second, so she didn't see the Sub step off the balcony and fall to their death at the feet of the man on the sidewalk. They new he had been standing there up until the body landed on the concrete, because there was a void in the blood spray where CDK had been standing when it happened.
Their only image of the killer, to date.
Once she had given her statement, Gwen and Merlin had gone back through all the suspicious suicide cases for the last year. They'd determined at least three of them were likely the work of CDK. There were probably more. But in London, in any case, he'd only struck three times.
Four now.
Merlin took the wallet and ID cards in his blue nitrile gloved fingers when the officer at the edge of the crime scene tape passed them over.
"Claire Walker," the officer said. He nodded to a couple clutching each other in the small crowd of people forming despite the late hour. "Those are her mums. Apparently she was on a call with them when it happened. They were the ones who phoned it in."
Merlin looked up sharply at that. Gwen was also looking at them intently. Maybe they had actually heard something.
Merlin both hoped it wasn't true, and hoped it was.
He couldn't imagine what being on the other end of that phone call must have been like. But he had another question that was bothering him.
"You called us here because whatever they said must have sounded like CDK," Merlin told the officer holding up the woman's ID card. "Because it couldn't have been this."
Gwen took the ID card from him when he said it. Glanced it over.
"She's not designated Submissive," Gwen said looking back up at Merlin and then the officer on duty guard.
He shrugged discretely.
"Could be a fake ID. But the preliminary questions to her mums would indicate she was born without a secondary designation."
Merlin blew out a breath. Opened the wallet. Nothing of interest in there. Rewards cards. A ToDo list which he unfolded and scanned over quickly before showing it to Gwen.
"Where is the dog?" Merlin asked.
The patrol officer frowned.
"Dog? She didn't have a dog with her."
Merlin glanced down at the list. All the items were crossed off, except the last one:
Bring Marley for a walk
There was a tiny smiley face with a dogs ears at the end of the reminder.
"She might have been on her way home to get the dog," Gwen said, looking at his face.
Merlin nodded. Folded the list back up with the wallet and the ID card. Closed them up in an evidence back and signed his name.
The patrol officer took it back as he and Gwen passed under the crime scene tape.
Merlin wasn't really prepared for what was waiting for them at the end of the alley. Neither of them were. Both of them had seen their fair share of brutal, violent things before. But this was something else. Now, looking at the woman kneeling in the pooled sodium yellow light on the concrete, he sincerely hoped that Claire's parents hadn't heard what happened to her. He hoped Claire had hung up the phone before any one had a chance to hear anything related to this. He would consider that a blessing and take it.
Gwen turned around and walked a few steps to the side. She was breathing hard through her nose.
Claire was posed in the glow of the only overhead light, coming down from an unmarked door in the middle of the alley. Side door to the bins he could see at the end of the long black walkway, probably. It was likely a business, but they would need to check if it were a flat or more than one flat, through that door on the off chance someone had heard or seen something. He didn't see any windows though, so still more likely a business of some kind.
She was kneeling, but her legs were sprawled out to the sides of her body. Her arms were loose, but hung back over her thighs at strange angles. What struck Merlin the most were her hands. They were relaxed. Her fingers curled only enough to balance a ball on her palms without gripping it tightly. Like his Nan had once showed him to hold his hands when he was learning how to play her piano. Merlin walked a slow circle around the body.
It was worse on the profile side. He crouched down to inspect her hands.
Her nails were perfect.
She hadn't struggled at all.
Her skirt was hiked up to her hips but her pantyhose were in tact. Merlin thought this was more to do with her kneeling than anything. CDK hadn't shown any inclination towards sexual gratification - at least not on or with his victims. Merlin didn't think they would find that here either. But he made a note to request a forensics assault exam just in case.
He followed the bent line of her spine to her head, which was face down in the pavement, in a pool of blood so thick despite the rain that her hair was floating in it.
He was vaguely aware of a camera flashing as one of the agents took pictures of something at the other end of the alley. Merlin looked up somberly. Said to the agent,
"Do you have what you need here?"
The agent didn't look back at the body. He nodded with a tight look on his face and went back to photographing the alley floor.
Merlin didn't blame him.
Claire's face was too close to the ground. Far too close if she were laying with her forehead or her cheek pressed against the blacktop. So Merlin knew what he would find before he lifted the bloody curtain of her hair to look. Gwen watched from above him, her unbrella gripped too tightly in one hand. Her eyes were cold as she looked on.
Merlin thought to himself that if he hadn't seen the woman's ID, he wouldn't be able to tell she was blonde. Blood and rain made the color impossible to see now. Claire didn't have a face, anymore. Not structurally, anyway. He could see it in his head, how she had knelt on the ground, her arms limp at her sides.
Ran her own face into the concrete over and over again until she couldn't, anymore. Until she came to rest where she was laying now.
Merlin stared, not really seeing her for a moment.
Gwen was striding across the alley to one of the forensics agents. Spoke briefly with them before returning. Merlin let Claire's bloody hair back down to the pavement, covering the damage again. He swallowed hard. For a moment he just crouched there, thinking to himself. When Gwen said,
"Phone is here."
He looked up at the phone in her hand, nodded and then carefully lifted one of the sleeves of Claire's jumper away from her wrist. Then he did the same with the other.
Merlin clicked on the penlight he kept in his breast pocket and put it in his mouth. Looked again.
Her right wrist had a faint burn against the heel of her hand. He very carefully turned her hand over while Gwen leaned in to watch, tilting at the odd angle he they both needed to see properly. The body was already stiff.
The outsides of her hand was bruised. Same faint burns here.
The kind you might get from a dog pulling too hard on a leash.
He and Gwen shared a look.
"Oy," Merlin called down the alley. The forensics team all lifted their heads. "Anyone see any evidence of a dog?"
They all shook their heads, looking at one another and then back at him.
Merlin frowned, finally standing up. "Check the bins, just in case," he said grimly.
Gwen held up the phone. "We'll need a password."
"How many digits?" Merlin asked, stripping off his bloody gloves so that they were inside out and reached into his coat for another pair.
"Six," Gwen said.
"627539," Merlin told her.
Gwen gave him a flat stare.
Merlin took the phone and punched in the numbers. The phone unlocked.
"That's bloody terrifying you know that right?" She said, eyeing him.
Merlin didn't think so.
It was the name of her dog, after all.
He opened her photos while Gwen looked on. Marley was a big animal, husky, shepherd mix most likely. He had pretty blue eyes but a shepherds tawny undercoat. The ruff around his collar looked like a lions mane.
Merlin frowned.
"What is it?" Gwen asked.
"This dog has to be ninty-pounds at least," Merlin said quietly, glancing back at the victim. "If the only thing I had to go on was that mark on her wrist I would have told you the dog had to be less then twenty."
Gwen looked at the victim too, then back to the photo Merlin was looking at, of a laughing girl with a messy bun, hugging a grinning bear of a dog.
"The bruises could be frozen," Gwen said quietly. But she didn't really think it was true. Neither did Merlin. If the bruises hadn't surfaced yet then that would mean they were inflicted after Claire's heart stopped. Like Gwen, Merlin had a hard time believing a dog of this size would have stayed calm while his owner killed herself in front of him. Presumably with CDK somewhere close by.
What the crime scene was telling Merlin made no sense to him. Both the victim and her dog showed little to no signs of a struggle. And where had Marley gone when the leash had come free?
Merlin let out a breath in frustration.
"Alright," he said, mostly to himself. "Let's go talk to the Walkers."
Gwen set her mouth into a thin line as she put the phone in an evidence bag and signed her name.
It wasn't pleasant. Jan and Terra Walker knew, Merlin thought, on some level they had to know, this kind of turnout wasn't something you got when the victim was alive. But he could see it on their faces when he told them.
They had hoped.
They clung to Gwen. Merlin had to catch Jan, when she collapsed.
In the end there was very little they could get from these women; Merlin and Gwen understood that time was a factor but emotionally damaging people to get answers wasn't an option. It could wait. They handed the women off to one of the medics. Stepped away from the screaming, back in the direction of Merlin's unmarked car.
All they had managed to get from Jan and Terra, was that Claire had called them on her walk with Marley, and she'd ended the call abruptly. They expected a call back and when they didn't get one they called 999. Used the location sharing feature on her mobile to find her.
Merlin looked back at the entrance to the alley.
Back down the lane on either side.
"Gwen?"
She looked up, following his gaze.
"What is it?"
"If you were walking alone with a dog the size of Marley," he said, scanning the sidewalk. "And you felt concerned enough about your safety to call your parents until you made it home, would you take a shortcut through a dark alley?"
She shook her head slowly, looking at the alley now too.
"No," she said. "I wouldn't have done anyway, but especially not then."
Merlin nodded, his frown deepening. He was thinking about the mark on Claire's wrist.
In his mind Merlin could see Claire walking down the sidewalk. She was tired, her long hair pouring over her coat and her scarf, not changed when she got home from work and just out the door with Marley despite the late hour. Something had made her nervous and she'd called Jan, according to the log Merlin briefly looked over when he'd taken the mobile from Gwen. When she'd not managed to reach her she phoned Terra instead. Her mum and her chatted a bit. Maybe she hadn't even mentioned that she was worried about anything. Just out for a late walk and looking for some company.
Then Marley tugged on his leash, and Claire struggled a little to get him under control between his size and her mobile in her hand. He pulled her toward the mouth of the alley.
Claire hung up, saying she would call right back once she got Marley out onto the sidewalk again.
But she didn't.
He imagined her as she tugged on Marley's leash, her skirt swinging as she disappeared into the alley.
The part that didn't make sense to him, was that she wasn't a Sub.
"Talk to me," Gwen said. "You've got that look on your face again."
Merlin blinked.
"What look?"
"The look they call you Magic for," she said with a pale attempt at a smile.
"I have a look?" He asked, a little skeptical, a little annoyed.
"Yeah," Gwen agreed, nodding to his car. "Let's get out of the rain so you can talk me through it."
He sighed.
In the car Merlin ran his hand down his face.
"She's not a Sub," he said.
Gwen lit a cigarette. He cracked the windows for her.
"That's true," Gwen said. "Not on her ID. We'll check the medical records to be sure but her mums told patrol she wasn't born with a secondary designation."
"I believe that," Merlin said as she took a drag. "It's more common for invitro babies to have no designation at birth. Assuming Claire wasn't adopted."
"Either way, if CDK is stalking his victims, he would have to know she wasn't a Sub."
"He's choosing them at random," Merlin said almost as an afterthought.
Gwen eyed him, the ember at the end of her cigarette lighting up her face as she took another drag. Blew the smoke out of the window before saying,
"It's a possibility."
Merlin didn't correct her. He was certain of it. CDK was stalking alright, that wasn't an argument in his mind. But he wasn't stalking people. He was stalking the city of London.
"So let's assume you really don't have any secondary designation," Merlin said. "You're just a young woman on a walk with her dog and you encounter a killer. You don't struggle, you don't scream. You don't try to make anymore phone calls. Your dog doesn't help you. You have no injuries at all."
Gwen looked out the window, flicking her ash over the edge of the glass.
"Not all dogs are protective," she said.
He conceded that point. He'd seen even large dogs freeze during stressful situations. Run away instead of toward the problem. Merlin gestured a vague agreement before continuing.
"Even so, you aren't a Sub. If CDK is Dominant as we suspect, then his influence means nothing to Claire. She can't tell the difference between him and the wall of those buildings as far as extrasensory perception goes. But she kneels down on the ground, and runs her head into the pavement so many times it breaks her skull."
He couldn't really know that without a medical report. But Merlin was sure that was the case.
Gwen let out her next breath of smoke harshly. Her eyes were tracking the people crowding the crime scene like he was. Looking for anyone who seemed out of place.
"Why do you do it?" Merlin finished.
Gwen flicked more ash off her cigarette.
"Threat maybe? He tells me he'll kill my parents, my family, my dog?"
"I'd walk off a roof to save someone I loved," Merlin said softly. "I don't know if I could do what she did without help."
Gwen chucked her cigarette, blowing out the last of the smoke.
"Maybe he did? Put his hands on her I mean."
Merlin tilted his head, eyes still fixed on the crowd.
"It would be the first time," he said. CDK had never physically touched any of his victims that they could tell.
"First time he picked a designation other than Sub," Gwen returned.
Which was the part that didn't make sense to him. If he was using his influence up until now to get Submissive persons to kill themselves for him, how had he done it with a women who wasn't anything other than female?
He had a thought, just an inkling really, about why Marley pulled her into the alley. Assuming he was right about that. Merlin had never had any reason to doubt his instincts before, but he tried to keep a level of healthy skepticism about his own abilities to see a crime scene differently than other investigators. He'd been wrong before. He was sure he would be again. But if it was Marley, it hinged on something he had no practical experience with. It might be a stupid question, if he were honest.
Gwen brought him back from the bottom of the well he was trawling for theories in his mind.
"Let's get back," she said, putting on her safety belt. "There's a lot we need to look into now. Do you want the phone or the medical records?"
Merlin blew out a breath and started the car.
"I want a break in this case," he said. "But I'll take the phone."
Merlin didn't even make it to his bed when he finally got home nearly eighteen hours later. He didn't use his bedroom as often as a person might expect. His couch cushions needed to be constantly rotated because he spent more time catching a few hours of sleep in his living room than he did in his bedroom. There was a permanent dip in the couch where his hip pressed into the material when he slept on his side.
And he preferred to be in the middle of the flat anyway, where he could hear both the front door and the balcony door.
In the event he needed the extra time to defend himself from something.
It was a fairly ridiculous notion given that he wasn't on the ground floor of the building and there was a security door in the lobby.
But he couldn't shake that feeling, no matter how high up he managed to secure an apartment these days.
So he pulled one of the pillows up under his head and turned over, his face pressed into the back of the couch.
He'd just managed to fall asleep when the pager in his breast pocket vibrated. Merlin fished it out of his suit coat, startled. When had he made the decision to carry Arthur's pager on him? He flipped open the screen.
999
Merlin sat up, frowning. He looked around the flat and then back to the screen.
There was no way this was Arthur messaging him.
Was there?
The pager buzzed in his hand.
999
Merlin swung his legs over the edge of the couch, his hand frozen over the keypad of the pager. He could feel his skin heating in the wake of the crawling edges of fear.
What the fuck was he even supposed to do with this message? There was nothing else to it. This shit worked on pagers when he was a kid because you knew where the other person lived but Merlin had no fucking idea where Arthur would be. If he could predict that with any kind of accuracy then Arthur would have been in jail a long time ago.
Even if he did know what was he supposed to do?
It didn't make any sense.
Dread started to worm its way in as he stared at the pages. The only way it made sense was if it wasn't Arthur messaging him.
Had someone gotten a hold of Arthur's pager?
But who -
999
Merlin jumped.
999
999
999
He dropped the pager, breathing hard, watching it hum against the wood floor.
999
999
999
Merlin woke up with a gasp. He sat up, panting, and reached into his suit coat pocket.
No pager.
Merlin let out a frustrated breath half in relief, half in annoyance at himself. He stood and had to sit back down, feeling unsteady. He rubbed his eyes.
Inwardly he cursed himself.
How could he have been so stupid? He'd spent hours in freezing wet clothing on almost no sleep and no water and a vending machine diet.
He closed his eyes, resting his head in his hands, trying to decide whether or not it was worth it to walk to the corner store for some orange juice.
He hoped he was wrong.
Slowly Merlin pushed himself upright and made his way into the kitchen. Found some painkillers in his cabinet. Checked his own temperature while he poured himself a glass of water and made a cup of tea.
37C
Merlin resisted the urge to look at the ceiling in exasperation.
Could he just have half a fucking day not to feel like complete shit? He couldn't wear his patches if he was taking anything else so it was either stay home for a couple of days and feel awful or go into the office and work from his desk and feel even worse.
Maybe it would be nothing and he'd feel fine in the morning.
But he already knew that wouldn't be the case. He peeled off the patch he was wearing and tossed it in the bin before taking a handful of pain killers, sinus and fever meds.
Merlin couldn't get tested so he didn't know for sure what kind of chemicals he was trying to suppress in his Submissive influence. All Subs were a little different that way. So the patches he used suppressed all of them. He hated the feeling of it. Taking it off was always a relief. The spot he placed the patch in rotated, because it made his muscles sore wherever he put it, and when he was wearing it he often felt like he was missing one of his senses.
In a way he was.
The patch blocked a little too much sometimes, since he couldn't properly tailor it to his own needs; the same part of the brain that released the chemicals that made up his Submissive presence also regulated his body temperature, blood pressure, and appetite, to name a few. It was why he had a hard time remembering to eat when he was wearing them.
It was also why he didn't realize until he took it off how hot he really was. How much his sinuses ached. He was going to have a migraine inside of an hour he could already tell.
He messaged Gwen and sent an email to his DI. Then he got changed and folded himself back down onto the couch with his tea and his water.
Merlin didn't think he'd fallen asleep exactly, until he realized Arthur was in the room with him.
Arthur Pendragon wasn't considered, by any stretch of the imagination, a Soft Dom.
His needs weren't typically met by caretaking, although he didn't mind doing so if it was warranted. What he needed was a Sub who could give back as good as Arthur gave them and allow Arthur to convince them he was right.
Or convince him they were.
It didn't matter which, really.
Mindless obedience irritated him. He had no time for Subs who fell to their knees at the sight of him. Yes, he believed himself to be a worthy Dominant partner for any Submissive who gave him their trust, but how could they know that just by looking at him? It felt irresponsible and base.
Especially because Arthur's methods of convincing his partners who exactly was in the wrong and who was in the right...well. He'd never been the kind of person to pull his punches to begin with.
He certainly didn't pull them as a Dom.
It had been a long time since he'd been interested in any of the partners he entertained. They were endless. Because of his name, his status in the underground, he had too many to choose from. There were none he cared for. Not that caring for your Sub intimately was a requirement. He cared for their needs, because that was his responsibility in the moment. But other than satisfying his own instincts for a time, it did nothing for him.
Which was fine. He didn't need it to do anything other than keep him sane.
And then there was Detective Merlin Balinor.
Arthur couldn't believe at first when they had fought in the warehouse all those months ago that for five years this slip of a man with a mind like a net he couldn't escape was actually designated Submissive. He didn't act or feel like any Sub Arthur had ever known in his life. He didn't know anything about the Detective personally, except the kind of information you can get second or third hand. But Arthur had to imagine that to keep a secret that big for so long must have meant that he had little to no interaction with any Dominant partners in his life. As a result, Arthur assumed, he was practically a Sub in name only. He had a mouth on him, for one, even pressed into the floor by Arthur's influence. And Arthur could tell it wasn't just because there was a certain familiarity between them given the nature of their relationship, such as it was.
It made Arthur want to break him.
There was also that fascinating ability he had, to nullify a Dominant influence at will. It made his eyes shine like a cats; gold and reflective. To Arthur it felt like someone had reached out and snapped a cord he didn't even know he was holding. It was invasive. Arthur wondered if Merlin knew it was something he could physically feel, the way Arthur's influence could be used to touch Merlin's skin rather than direct emotions.
But regardless. The Detective intrigued him.
Intrigued him more when he used Arthur's pager for the first time. Arthur was ready to write the Detective off entirely and return to his own world without any further conflict between them. It wasn't an ideal outcome - Arthur disliked that he could be tracked at all, by anyone. But he believed the Detective when he said he would drop his case against him. Stop pursuing him. The Detective had far more to lose than he did, after all. Arthur could understand terms of that nature. And for three months it had been true. The Detective left him alone. And then his pager went off.
Coming up to the loading dock in the rain, Arthur hadn't seen how truly bad of a way he was in, until Arthur felt his reaction to his words.
"I have to admit, Detective, I didn't think I'd ever hear from you again."
It wasn't just the way he rounded into his shoulders that gave Arthur pause. The Detective had never shied from him in anyway, least of all to the sound of his voice. There weren't many people in the world who could say that. No, it was the way his presence unfurled like the wings of a dragon, opening up to fill the spaces between them. Reaching for him. Showering the air with glowing embers that hovered in his vision like stars. He'd never seen a Submissive presence like the Detective's before. It certainly hadn't looked like anything close to this when he'd first encountered it in the warehouse. Only those tiny embers then. Seeing the scope of his presence now, the shape of those enormous taloned wings, took Arthur's breath away.
But something was wrong. As soon as he saw them, they crumpled the way an aluminum can folds at odd angles inside someone's fist. They erupted and turned into ash, along with all of those sparkling hot embers, one by one going dark until the space between him and the Detective was filled with nothing but cold, fragile specs of black and grey soot tied together in knots.
At the end of the night when he'd left, there was light again in those embers. It wasn't a fire. And he hadn't untangled all of the snarls in those threads, not by half. But Arthur was satisfied he'd done all that he could with the limited time and resources he had.
And the Detective had reacted beautifully.
The way he fell to his knees when Arthur gave him permission to kneel for him.... Arthur would have given the Detective anything he asked for in that moment, for the way he pressed his face into Arthur's thigh. The sounds he made, when Arthur ran his hand through his softly curling black hair.
It had been a long time since Arthur had been given the satisfaction of a truly grateful partner. The feeling of it hooked into the muscle under his ribs and held without remorse for the pain it caused.
It was so good it ached.
He would never forget the feeling of it for as long as he lived. And he'd planned to do just that, live with the memory of it, assuming the Detective wouldn't be calling him again anytime soon. He seemed unusually capable of managing without a Dom. Arthur privately predicted that Merlin would probably use the pager once in a blue moon, when he was on the verge of a collapse like he had been on the loading dock. That was fine. Arthur would look forward to it.
Keep an eye on the Detective in the meantime.
Two days passed without incident. The news was obsessing over the murder of another young woman in the city proper. But otherwise uneventful, even in the underground.
He'd been working when it happened. In truth, Arthur was never not working. But he was downtown when he felt it. A whisper of dragon wings reaching over his shoulders, folding closed around him. A trail of embers in the air.
Merlin.
Arthur couldn't remember making the conscious decision to turn and follow them.
When he entered the flat he was concerned.
It wasn't an emotion Arthur had much experience with. But he could tell by the trail of flickering lights that Merlin was here. He should have noticed by now that there was someone else in the flat, least of all, Arthur. But there was no movement from inside.
The kitchen floor was littered with detritus, random junk his eyes skipped over as they swept across the room. It looked like a drawer from the counter had been overturned on the table, spilling its contents onto the floor. Otherwise, the flat was in perfect order. Arthur stepped further inside, crossing into the living room.
Merlin was laying on his side facing the back of the couch. Even before Arthur took note of the tea and the water on the coffee table, he could tell Merlin was sick. He could hear it in every breath he took as he slept. It was subtle, it didn't seem like he was very ill, but it was taking more of an effort for him to breathe in and out again than it should have. The trail of embers ended here, where Merlin was laying. Curious, Arthur crouched down to get a better look.
To some extent, all Subs looked this way to him when they expanded their presence even a little. Like fireflies. Merlin was the exception until recently, when they'd met on the loading dock. He'd been suppressing his own nature for so long it practically clung to his skin. If Merlin hadn't ever made the effort to express it properly, Arthur might not have been able to see it at all. And usually the view only became this tangible when a Submissive was actively reaching for something. Looking for a Dominant, specifically, to redirect them, to touch them, to take care of them. It was interesting to Arthur that Merlin wasn't conscious.
And that the Dominant he was reaching for, was him. It made Arthur's smile turn up, slow and predatory. How ardently Merlin had told him he didn't need anyone to take care of him.
How fascinating the manner in which this lie had been revealed.
Looking Merlin over, Arthur was pleased with himself, perhaps more than he should have been, to note that the embers of Merlin's presence hadn't gone out since he'd managed to rekindle them. Crouched down so close to him, Arthur could actually feel the difference when the light in them encountered his influence. Growing and reaching for him, as if the tiny fires there needed to feed on him to continue burning.
A great unfurling of dragon wings.
He reached out to touch one.
Merlin must have been completely hammered out because he had no memory of hearing the door, a window, anything at all until he felt Arthur's influence on his skin.
"What are you doing here?" He said quietly without turning to look. His voice sounded awful even to him. Like gravel.
"You called."
At that, Merlin did turn over, wincing. He started badly when he realized Arthur was crouched down at eye level with him, not standing somewhere else in the room.
He covered his eyes with his hand breathing hard through his nose.
Or tried to. That hurt. He could barely pull in a breath without using his mouth.
"Jesus," he whispered. "Don't fucking do that."
Arthur put the back of his hand gently against Merlin's cheek.
"You're sick," he said unnecessarily.
Merlin groaned. Turned over again to put his face against the back of the couch, dislodging Arthur's hand.
"Yeah, spending hours in cold, wet fucking clothing will do that to you," Merlin said. "I'm fine."
He thought for a moment he could feel Arthur's irritation at the comment before his influence receded. Not at Merlin but at himself. It made Merlin soften a little.
"You're not fine."
Merlin didn't want to admit to himself how good it felt to have Arthur in the room even, just being there. He hated being sick. He hated being alone when he was.
But Arthur wasn't his Dom. He was a fugitive criminal Merlin had been entrusted to bring to justice. Merlin might not be able to fulfill his duty to save his own life, but that didn't mean Arthur could just show up in his flat whenever he wanted to. He hadn't agreed to take Arthur's bond. They hadn't agreed to anything at all beyond the other night in the abandoned factory.
Merlin made a mental note to get his locks changed.
"Why aren't you in bed?"
Merlin buried his face further into the pillows of his couch. He couldn't help but notice that other than a small touch to wake him, Arthur hadn't attempted to use his influence on him in any way.
His head throbbed.
"Why are you here?" Merlin asked him again. "You can't stay, it's too risky."
"How interesting," Arthur said, and Merlin could hear the smile in his tone. "That the argument is not that you don't want me here, but that it's too risky for me to stay."
Merlin flushed, which only made his head hurt more. His fever felt suddenly worse.
"I told you, Detective," Arthur said. "I'm here because you called me."
"No I didn't," he said, maybe a little petulantly. "I've been here since I got in from work. Where I've been since I left you, by the way. I don't even know where your pager is right now."
Arthur said nothing for a long time. So long in fact, Merlin turned over again slowly, thinking Arthur had left, or that he'd been dreaming again, maybe. But Arthur was still crouched down close to him, his eyes on Merlin's face now.
"I'm not talking about a phone call," he said.
Merlin frowned, but he couldn't hold his head up long enough to make it count. He dropped his head back to the couch, closing his eyes.
That couldn't be true. Merlin had spent a lifetime suppressing his own influence. Even if he had been reaching, there was just no way it had reached all the way to Arthur.
And yet.
Here he was.
"Well I didn't do it on purpose," he said quietly, his throat sore from even this much talking. "Sorry to waste your time."
"You're going to have to do better than that, Detective," Arthur said. "Without that patch of yours you can't lie to me so easily."
Merlin swallowed, squeezing his eyes shut tighter.
"I wasn't lying," he whispered, feeling cowed for some reason at the idea of making Arthur upset even though Arthur was the one breaking and entering. "I didn't do it on purpose."
"And about wasting my time?" Arthur prompted with a grin, Merlin was sure. He could hear it.
He said nothing.
Merlin really wasn't sorry about that. He was happy that Arthur was there, moreso than he should have been. Relieved, also. He wanted Arthur to stay.
Even if he just sat close by, Merlin thought that would be fine. He wanted that calm back, the quiet he felt when he left the factory. Arthur was the only one who had ever managed anything close to that for him. When he wasn't thinking about the CDK case, that was all he could focus on at work.
CDK.
Merlin's eyes came open.
"Tell me you want me to leave," Arthur said. "And I'll go."
Merlin felt the skin on the back of his neck prickling. He didn't want Arthur to go, it was true. In his mind Merlin wasn't quite ready to justify telling Arthur that outright. But maybe there was a better reason for Arthur to stay.
"I'm exhausted," Merlin hedged, not at all over-stating the fact. "I'm not arguing with you."
"We aren't arguing, Detective. You were just about to tell me you don't want me to stay with you, that's all."
Merlin resisted the urge to round his shoulders at the comment.
He was going to regret this.
But he also needed someone to answer the questions he had about Dominant influences.
"Why would you stay?" He asked, his tone clipped, still half-convincing himself to let this happen. "I can't do anything for you like this."
Arthur seemed taken aback by the comment. He sounded a little annoyed even, when he answered.
"You think a Dominant only interacts with a Submissive partner to exchange control and obedience? I would stay because you called me to take care of you."
Merlin was going to say something about how they weren't partners, about how they hadn't actually made that official, about the fact that the whole idea was ludicrous given who they were and why they were in this situation to begin with, when the rest of Arthur's answer caught up to him. It made his throat tight.
He turned over again, sitting up and running a hand over his face. Arthur watched him like a hawk, only standing when Merlin had successfully pushed himself upright.
He had to word this correctly if Arthur was going to buy in, so he took a moment to think about it, while he looked up into Arthur's calm eyes.
Merlin tried to smooth out his frown. It was hard. He probably only did a half-way decent job of it, the way Arthur was slowly leaning into a smirk.
"I'll tell you the truth," Merlin said. "If you tell me something I want to know."
Arthur's smile stretched.
"I already know the truth," Arthur told him quietly. "If you want me to tell you something you don't know, you'll have to offer me more than that, Detective."
Merlin's gaze on Arthur's face darkened.
"What do you want?"
"A kiss," Arthur said.
"Excuse me?" Merlin snapped.
Arthur never lost that unnerving grin of his. The one that he used when he was certain he'd already won. It made Merlin's face flush in frustration.
"Something of equal value, Detective," he said agreeably. "For an unknown quantity of information."
Merlin clenched his jaw.
"I'm not planning on asking you about your business. I'm not going to ask you about anything related to you at all," Merlin said.
"I know," Arthur said evenly. "You know I wouldn't answer you if you did..."
He tilted his head before he finished his thought.
"And I would be insulted if you tried."
The words sent goosebumps rolling down the backs of Merlin's arms, his neck. He shivered, despite himself.
Arthur gave him a lazy, self-satisfied look as he watched Merlin's reaction.
"Do you like the idea?"
"Fine," Merlin snapped, openly glaring at Arthur now even though he knew the effect was ruined.
He was blushing.
"Fine?" Arthur prompted, making Merlin's cheeks feel even hotter, somehow.
"I'll do what you ask," Merlin told him.
"Careful Detective," Arthur said, coming to stand in front of him. Merlin pulled in a breath when Arthur put his knee on the edge of the cushion between Merlin's legs. Leaned over him, with his hands on either side of Merlin's throat, holding onto the back of the couch. "That's a very broad statement to make. Someone might take advantage of it."
Merlin swallowed hard. The silence became unbearable staring into Arthur's eyes.
"I'll kiss you," Merlin said finally.
Arthur leaned in closer, nearly all the way to his mouth, still smiling. Merlin's fingers tightened against the fabric of the couch underneath him.
"Very good Merlin," Arthur said.
The shock of Arthur saying his name like that, telling him he was good, made his whole body sing. Arthur pulled back a fraction, looking at him more closely when he saw the reaction. Surprised, maybe. Merlin couldn't imagine why.
It felt so fucking good.
And then, just like that, Arthur was gone. Walking around the coffee table with his hands in the pockets of his trousers. Scanning the bookshelves and idly tipping the spines out like he was planning to read the synopsis on the back of each one.
Merlin stared at him.
"Tell me the truth, Detective," he said. "We'll start there."
Merlin narrowed his eyes at Arthur's back.
"I want you to stay," Merlin admitted.
Arthur grinned.
"I told you once already," Merlin continued, his tone hot. "I don't need you or anyone else to take care of me. I meant what I said."
At that, Arthur turned.
"But you want me to stay?" He said, his mouth still turning up at the corners. Merlin pressed his lips into a thin line.
"Yes," Merlin agreed quietly. "That's the truth."
Arthur opened his hands as if to say, and here I am.
"Now," Arthur said, sliding his hands into the pockets of his trousers again. "What do you want to ask me?"
Merlin hesitated, frowning.
"What about -"
"You're sick, Detective," Arthur told him, his eyes bright with amusement. "You can kiss me another time."
Merlin blushed furiously, biting back his first response.
You asked to kiss me, asshole, not the other way around.
Instead he forced himself to let out a breath slowly through his mouth, but it didn’t work out so well. He coughed hard when he did. He was still coughing, feeling like someone was thumping him on the chest with a bat, when Arthur handed him his glass of water.
He took it, swallowing audibly when he finally managed to take a drink. Arthur took the glass back. Merlin heard the soft tap it made when he set it down on the coffee table again.
Merlin actually yelped when Arthur slid his arm underneath his knees. Lifted him off the couch like it was nothing. Reflexively, he wrapped his arms around Arthur's shoulders, gripped Arthur's suit coat in his fists.
"Easy, Detective," Arthur said. "I'm not going to drop you."
Merlin wanted to knock him upside the head.
"Put me down," he said, still catching his breath.
"No," Arthur told him pleasantly as he carried Merlin into the bedroom.
At least it was a short walk. Even so, Merlin found it particularly difficult not to put his head down on Arthur's shoulder. He was warm and he smelled like a storm. Merlin closed his eyes.
Arthur put him down gently. Merlin considered getting back up and walking to the couch to lay down just to prove a point. But his bed was cool and more comfortable than cramming his considerable height into the length of the couch. So he got under the blankets, begrudgingly.
Arthur pulled his desk chair out and placed it by the bed before unbuttoning his coat and taking a seat. Merlin eyed him from over the edge of his comforter, settling into his pillows.
"Your question, Detective," Arthur said.
"Can a Dominant person influence animals, like pets? Dogs, specifically?" Merlin said at once.
Arthur raised an eyebrow, leaned his head against his fist, elbow on the back of the chair. He seemed thoughtful. Merlin waited.
"I've never done it myself. But I could imagine how it might be possible if I put some effort into it."
"Effort?" Merlin echoed.
"All of it takes effort, Detective. It's just a question of how much."
"I don't follow," Merlin told him honestly, moving the blankets back away from his face.
Arthur considered that before he answered.
"Your presence is innate in the world around you," Arthur told him. "It takes effort to suppress it. It's nearly impossible to dull completely but you do a better job than most, when masking it. Dominant influences are the opposite. Naturally, I have no presence to speak of. It takes effort for me to use it to influence anything. Depending on what I need of it, that effort can be very great, or very small."
"Can you give me an example?" Merlin asked, genuinely interested now.
Arthur obliged.
"It takes almost no effort at all for me to direct someone's gaze away from my face. It's barely a suggestion and a Submissive will react to a touch that light without thinking about it...for the most part."
The last he added in a way that made Merlin think he was talking about him. He probably was. Merlin allowed himself to smirk at that. Arthur seemed amused.
"Adding influence to words is a little harder, but not difficult. The effort is still fairly minimal. The difficulty really occurs in the definition of the word you're using.
Merlin frowned. "Really?"
"Yes," Arthur agreed. "If I commanded you to love me, for example, it wouldn't work very well. Worship me, is another one that can't be translated properly into a Dominant influence. Unless you and I have the exact same definition of what it means to love someone, what it means to worship them, it won't work. It will turn out badly for everyone involved in the end."
Merlin slid his good arm underneath his pillows. Propped his head up higher before he asked,
"There are consequences to that kind of command?"
Arthur turned his eyes on Merlin curiously.
"There are consequences to all of them, Detective."
Perhaps seeing the confusion on his face, Arthur continued.
"If you had never met your partner, Gwen, would you be the same person you are today?"
Merlin shook his head. Arthur made a vague gesture in acknowledgment.
"It's the same. The only difference is in the speed of the effect. The consequences to small commands over time are negligible. It's reaching for the ones that are much broader in scope that can actually damage a human mind."
When Merlin said nothing, Arthur elaborated.
"Forcing a person into your idea of love or worship, or even what friendship feels like, can cause fractures in a psyche. It happens far more often than you might think."
"Can it be fixed?" Merlin asked him, absurdly, not wanting to be rude.
"As with all things," Arthur said, unaffected. "It depends on how bad the damage is."
Merlin absorbed this, searching Arthur's face.
"And for animals, not human?"
"That would take a great deal of effort. Animals have a very small vocabulary, so the level of command that could be rendered would entirely depend on the training of the animal."
"So you couldn't command a dog to attack someone," Merlin said. "Unless they had already been trained to understand the meaning of the word and act on it?"
Merlin could tell Arthur was pleased with the question. He didn't want to admit to himself how good it felt to be on the other end of that look.
"Correct," he said. "Not only that, they are loyal to their owners, in general. That isn't an easy obstacle to overcome. It would be like a Dom, any random Dom you'd never partnered with, giving you a command to harm someone you cared for deeply. It would never carry enough weight to be effective. I couldn't imagine a scenario where it would be worth the force of will it would take to tell someone else's dog to...I don't know..."
Arthur gestured vaguely again.
"Come here?" Merlin whispered.
"Yes, exactly," Arthur said.
The image of Claire in his mind came back to him. Her dog Marley pulling on his leash, tugging her into the gaping mouth of that black alley.
"But if there was a reason," Merlin asked him earnestly. "You could do it?"
Arthur looked at him more closely then. They stared at one another, for a long time it seemed.
"Yes," Arthur told him finally. "I could do it."
Merlin let out a slow breath.
"What about someone who wasn't designated as anything?"
Arthur's expression became dangerous. Merlin tensed at the sudden change in the air between them. It was suffocating.
"Why would you want to know that, Detective?" Arthur whispered.
Merlin realized he'd blindly insulted Arthur by asking this question, somehow. But he didn't know why. So he did the only thing he could do, pinned as he was underneath those too sharp eyes.
"I'm sorry, Arthur," he whispered back, feeling like he was frozen in place. "I wouldn't have asked if it wasn't important."
Arthur didn't react to the words the way Merlin hoped he would. He just continued staring at Merlin, anger making his expression harden. But eventually he did look away, his arm coming down from the back of the chair. He crossed his leg at the knee, and when he spoke he wasn't pleasant. But he wasn't growling either.
"In what way?"
Merlin's heart skipped a beat at the implication already revealed in his reply. But it was clear Arthur didn't like the question at all. Merlin didn't want him to answer it, if it was going to set him off.
"You don't have to -"
"In what way?" Arthur said again, through his teeth.
Merlin swallowed.
"To make someone do something completely against their will," he said, because he was sure that's what had happened to Claire. "Something physically harmful."
Merlin could see the tension in Arthur's jaw now.
"Impossible," he said at last.
Merlin let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Arthur turned at the sound. Merlin hated the look on his face. He was angry, yes, but Merlin realized then it wasn't directed at him. This expression was turned inward. Arthur was angry with himself, for some reason.
Tentatively, Merlin reached out his hand from under the blankets. He could have touched Arthur if he tried, but he didn't. Arthur's eyes followed his movements before sliding back up to his face.
"Lay down with me?" Merlin said quietly.
For the space of a heartbeat, Merlin thought he would refuse. And then Arthur stood up. Toed off his shoes.
Now that he was climbing into the bed with him, Merlin felt a pinprick of panic beginning at the base of his skull. He was sick, yes, and he wanted Arthur to stay with him, yes, but he'd just invited a killer to lay in his bed with him. A killer he was supposed to be arresting.
This was starting to fuck him up.
One punishment game and kneeling on a concrete floor for not even forty minutes and he wanted Arthur to make him feel better while he was sick. The man had literally broken into Merlin's apartment and still Merlin wanted him to stay. All because when Arthur told him he was good, the inside of his head stopped feeling like an overpopulated beehive.
He needed to get himself under control.
And then Arthur put his hand up under Merlin's shirt as he got into the bed and Merlin lost all sense of reality for a moment. Arthur pulled him closer, like it was the most natural thing in the world to do. Like the two of them were just getting into bed after a long day, as if it had already happened a thousand times before this. It felt so good he had to stop himself from tangling their legs together, from tucking himself up under Arthur's chin.
Merlin went completely still as Arthur made himself comfortable. Swallowed hard when Arthur's hand brushed the bare skin of his hip, before guiding Merlin to lay fully against him.
Merlin resisted a little at first. The short breath Arthur gave when he did, made Merlin want to knock him out again. Chuckling at the ridiculousness of Merlin resisting him now, when he'd been the one to ask Arthur to lay down with him. Merlin's cheeks burned and it had nothing to do with his fever.
But if he did lay down, he wouldn't have to see that smug look on Arthur's face.
So he did; slowly pressed his cheek against Arthur's shoulder. Flattened his hand over the heartbeat in Arthur's chest.
Arthur ran his hand softly up the back of Merlin's neck, drawing his fingers through his hair.
It startled a whimper out of him.
It felt amazing.
"Did you take anything?" Arthur asked him.
Merlin didn't realize he hadn't answered, entirely entranced by the feeling of Arthur's hand in his hair, until Arthur stopped.
"Sorry," he said in a rush and flushed instantly when he did. "Yes, earlier."
Arthur continued carding his hand through Merlin's hair. Merlin pressed his forehead further into Arthur's chest and lowered his chin. He didn't mean to give Arthur better access to do it again. But he did. Arthur obliged him, scratching lightly up the back of Merlin's neck, making him shiver.
Merlin could practically hear the smirk coming from Arthur when he did.
It made Merlin want to push off of him and roll over. Before he could though, Arthur's absently wandering hand stopped running through his hair with his thumb pressed just under Merlin's ear, partially against the curve of his jaw.
Arthur slowly added pressure, until he drew his fingers down the line of Merlin's jaw and back up again to the sensitive place below Merlin's ear, massaging the muscles there. Merlin didn't think anyone had ever done something like that to him. He'd never done it to himself. But he felt the release of tension in his neck all the way into the cradle of his hips. His head wasn't killing him anymore. It ached still but the biting pain behind his eyes was receding. When Arthur drew his thumb down lower, into the curve of his shoulder and dug into the knots there, Merlin moaned.
It was mortifying. He couldn't stand himself for it. But somehow it was even more satisfying to feel someone's hands on him like this, because it was a Dominant. It made him feel like he was worth something again.
And then Arthur had to open his fucking mouth.
"Careful Detective, you'll tear my shirt open at this rate."
Immediately Merlin unclenched his hand from Arthur's shirt. Rolled over to face the wall and glared at it, his knees pulled up, his face too hot again.
Arthur laughed softly. Fit his body against Merlin's from behind and closed his arms around Merlin's waist. Drew his nose up the back of Merlin's neck, sowing goosebumps under his skin.
Merlin bit his lip.
"Did I embarrass you?" He said and Merlin could still hear the laugh in his words.
Merlin didn't dignify that with a response.
He actually wasn't sure he could have, because Arthur's fingers were drawing patterns up under his shirt now, all along his side and into the dip of his waist.
Merlin didn't want him to stop doing that. Ever.
"Come now Detective," Arthur said quietly in his ear. "It was a simple question."
"I didn't tell you I wanted you to stay so you could find ways to laugh at my expense," Merlin snapped.
He let out a sharp breath when Arthur didn't stop moving his hand.
"I'll take that as a yes, then," Arthur told him.
Merlin glowered at the wall.
Arthur took his hand back briefly. Started running it again, through his hair. Merlin couldn't stop himself from turning his face into the pillows. Silently asking for more.
"Do you want me to stop?" Arthur said.
Merlin couldn't quite hide the way he pulled his shoulders up at the words. Arthur traced a finger along the exposed skin above Merlin's collar making him shudder.
"I should probably let you rest," Arthur said when Merlin didn't answer.
He pulled his hand back and Merlin hated how cold it made him feel. How desperately he wanted Arthur's hands on his skin. Because even though Arthur was a prick about it, Merlin felt a little bit better when he was touching him. His whole body didn't ache quite as badly, his head didn't hurt nearly as much.
He wasn't worrying about the doors or the windows or the balcony that opened into his bedroom. Merlin thought he could sleep easily for once, if Arthur was there. He was certain there was nothing and no one who would be able to reach him, with Arthur at his back.
Merlin pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.
He was really going to regret this.
Merlin rolled back over. Arthur was on his back now, one hand behind his head. He was looking calmly at the ceiling, but when he felt the mattress dip beside him, his eyes came back down to Merlin's. Merlin didn't immediately draw himself closer to Arthur, or touch him at all.
"You're an asshole," he said. "You know I'm not feeling well."
Arthur grinned, showing his teeth.
"And?"
He drew out the word unnecessarily. Merlin narrowed his eyes.
"And...you did, embarrass me," he said finally, giving Arthur a little bit more contrition than he would have normally so that he could lob his own grenade into the mix. "I'm sorry I ignored you, Arthur."
Arthur's eyes took on a shade that Merlin didn't like to admit excited him. The same look he gave Merlin inside the abandoned factory. It was dark and hungry and Merlin had to stop himself from smirking so Arthur wouldn't see it on his face. Because the game they were playing wasn't just in the moments they were touching each other. And sure, that was when it was most obvious Merlin wanted to play. He couldn't help that. But it was when Merlin was speaking to Arthur like a Sub, that it became obvious how much Arthur wanted to play too.
"How clever you are," Arthur told him, turning over to take his chin in his hand, lifting Merlin's face against the pillow.
Merlin felt like there was glitter in his blood. He knew it was obvious because of the way Arthur's expression sharpened.
Merlin didn't close his eyes when Arthur ran his knuckles down his cheek. But it was a near thing.
"You really don't have any idea how lucky you are," Arthur said sweetly. "That you aren't in any condition to play with, Detective."
The words made Merlin hot all over. He had to fight not to move when Arthur ran his thumb over Merlin's bottom lip as he continued.
"I like this kind of confidence. The strength of conviction before awareness sets in," Arthur said quietly. "No idea how lucky you are, just like you have no idea how sorry I would have made you for calling me an asshole before I would even consider what you're about to ask me next."
Merlin did allow himself a smirk at that. Ignored the way his heart skipped a few beats, when Arthur's eyes shone brighter for it. Thrilled.
Thrilled with him.
"I didn't want you to stop, Arthur," Merlin told him, holding Arthur's gaze. "Please don't."
"Well done, Merlin," Arthur said.
The words made every inch of his skin feel like sunlight. But it was the way Arthur was looking at him when he said it that broke his resolve in the end. He pulled himself closer, the way he'd wanted to when Arthur first laid down with him. Tucked himself into the space below Arthur's chin, his forehead on the wrinkled surface of Arthur's perfectly tailored collared shirt.
Arthur ran his hand through Merlin's hair. He continued to do that, his thumb occasionally brushing over Merlin's temple. It was exactly what he needed. For the first time in what felt like eternity, Merlin completely relaxed.
He thought Arthur noticed, because of the way he tightened the hold of his free hand around Merlin's waist.
For some reason, having won this round, Merlin wasn't embarrassed at all to turn his head down a little. Arthur traced his fingers down the back of Merlin's hot neck and back up again. Stopped to finish where he'd left off, massaging Merlin's shoulders, the base of his skull. Merlin allowed himself to become warm and pliable under Arthur's hands. Took as much of the silence as he could, the feeling of belonging to to someone, even for just a little while, and put it in a box that he could revisit when Arthur was gone. Because he wasn't going to call for Arthur again once they were done here.
Merlin was sick and exhausted and he didn't want to be alone. None of this would be happening if that weren't the case. Arthur was still a Pendragon and Merlin was still a Detective. This interaction would be their last.
Merlin would make sure it was.
Chapter 3: Bonded
Summary:
Merlin and Arthur come to an agreement about Arthur’s proffered deal.
Notes:
Hello loves (*´∀｀*)
Thank you so much for your lovely comments as I explore this genre with you. I’ve never written a mystery before! So this is a lot of fun for me. But I am also impatient and I want to get to the good parts so I’m giving you an extra chapter this week! Maybe I will have another this weekend for my next Don’t Let Me Down Update ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m just excited to get this story into actual bondage territory ♥(ˆ⌣ˆԅ)
As always stay safe and be kind 💋 I’ll be back soon!
Chapter Text
It took him another week to get back to the office and he still wasn't feeling one-hundred percent when he did.
So Merlin didn't immediately realize that anything was wrong when he went to visit the medical examiner during the autopsy for Claire Walker. Something other than the body of another victim without a face.
Gaius had already done his preliminary exam of the outside of the body, and a short lab run of blood samples and materials that had been out of the victims hair, out from under her fingernails. As Merlin had suspected there was no indication of sexual assault. But he had waited to complete the internal exam and the full lab run of tissue samples until Merlin and Gwen could be present.
This wasn't strictly necessary. But Gaius was aware, perhaps moreso than most because of Merlin's insatiable curiosity, that it helped him to solve a case by being present for every aspect of it. However difficult those aspects might be.
There was a sheet covering her head. Merlin was relieved for that. He still felt his stomach turn when the first incisions were made.
Gwen stood close by, watching with him while Gaius took notes, explaining his findings as he went.
"Toxicology report is clear, although there were some unusually high levels of oxytocin in her blood, for someone not designated Submissive."
Merlin frowned.
"Is there a higher baseline for that in Submissives?"
Gaius glanced up at him over the rim of his spectacles. The effect was ruined slightly, as his glasses were behind a plastic shield to protect his face while he worked.
"No, not a baseline. For the moment it is released into the blood, yes. Submissives tend to release much higher levels of oxytocin, norepinephrine and dopamine than any other designation in the world. The amount of oxytocin in her blood would indicate that this occurred just prior to her death, and these levels are unusual for someone with no designation at all."
Gaius began separating the incision on the woman's chest, and Merlin felt strange. Not sick, exactly. But like his stomach was being tied in knots.
He was no stranger to autopsies, and he wasn't above admitting he'd thrown up more than once during one of these procedures in Gaius's clean room. It was the smell usually, that did it. But this was barely started and he felt like his insides were twisting too tightly to breathe.
Gwen gave him a look out of the corner of her eye. Merlin tried to take a deep breath, to steady himself. It was the wrong thing to do. He had to close his eyes. He felt dizzy all of a sudden.
"Sorry," he said, when he felt Gwen's hand on his back. "I'm fine."
The rest of the autopsy went by without any exceptional findings. No mysterious injuries or injested materials. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.
"She was a perfectly healthy young woman," Gaius said somberly. "I'll have the labs run again on these samples before I issue my final report. Officially, I can't call this a murder, but I'm not comfortable with the idea that someone could manage to do this to themselves in an unaided suicide either. I'll leave the manner undetermined most likely. But I'll wait for the labs to be sure."
Merlin nodded. He'd expected as much. Gwen blew out a breath.
"Alright, thank you Gaius," she said. "Come outside with me," she said to Merlin. "I need a break."
Merlin was never so grateful to breathe in the smell of cigarette smoke in his life. He still felt strange; maybe he'd just pushed himself a little too hard. But the edges of his vision were glittering, the way it happens sometimes when you stand up too quickly and the blood rushes into your limbs too fast. He didn't feel like he was going to faint. But he did feel tense and anxious for some reason.
When Gwen lit her cigarette his mind cleared for a moment, he thought.
"So we still have no method and we can't officially call the manner murder," she said.
"It's been like that with CDK since we realized what he was doing," Merlin answered absently.
"I just thought there would have to be a better explanation this time," Gwent said.
"He's showing off."
Gwen looked at Merlin, pulling in another drag off her cigarette, frowning deeply.
"Showing off?"
"This is a crime no one could have committed successfully," Merlin said, leaning back against the wall of the Met. "But he did."
"So he's escalating?" Gwen asked, looking out into the wet city with him. It had stopped raining for now, but the city was awash in damp grey and tan hues.
Merlin shook his head slowly.
"No," he said quietly. "I don't think so. He's still in control of himself. I think this happened because we identified that there was a killer at all."
"What do you mean?" She asked seriously, flicking the ash off her cigarette.
"Before this victim, the murders all looked like they could have been suicides. Should have been suicides. I think he knows we have a witness. This victim is screaming murder but still presents like a suicide for lack of evidence. This is CDK telling us we're right. He's out there. And this is what he's capable of."
In the silence that followed Gwen finished smoking. Crushed the butt of her cigarette under her heel.
Merlin felt a twinge of discomfort when the smoke was gone.
"This is starting to get personal," she murmured. "He's turning this into a game."
Merlin wasn't so sure it hadn't always been a game to CDK. But then again, maybe the difference now was that he and Gwen were playing. He agreed with Gwen though, this did feel like the focus was on the Met, not the victims.
Come and find me, Detectives.
"Let's go talk to our witness again," Merlin said, pushing off the wall. "I want to make sure she's still safe."
Gwen nodded. Pulled out her mobile to call the handler in charge of their witness's case. They'd put her under protection, so not even Gwen and Merlin knew where she was. They set up a call with her handler instead.
It wasn't witness protection like they did in the movies, where a person assumes an entirely new life and new identity. But she had been moved to a safe location and her friends and family didn't know where either. They thought she was on holiday. There would need to be a more permanent solution if they couldn't identify CDK soon. But for now it was the least disruptive thing they could do for her. An undercover officer was with her around the clock, and that's who Gwen called.
When they were back in one of the secure conference rooms, Merlin and Gwen waited for Lancelot to call them back.
It didn't take long. Gwen started recording on the line before they began.
"How's things?" Gwen started casually. They wouldn't use any names on this call, and they would be brief.
Lancelot sounded like he was walking.
"All's good. You?"
"A mutual friend reached out last week, met a new girl but it didn't work out."
Lancelot cursed.
Gwen looked up at Merlin before back down to her phone.
"We're worried he's going to fixate on his past mistakes," Gwen said carefully. "Any advice?"
Lancelot blew out a breath. "No, none. When the past has moved on without you, sometimes it's just better to let it go, you know?"
Gwen and Merlin relaxed a fraction.
Nothing was wrong with their witness and Lancelot hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary either.
"Well if you think of anything, pass it along," she said.
"Will do," Lance told her grimly. "Hopefully he'll let the past go and you won't need my advice in the long run."
"Fingers crossed," Gwen agreed.
"Later," Lancelot said, hanging up.
Gwen stopped the recording and unplugged her phone from the computer.
Merlin leaned back in his chair.
"Well that's a relief," he said quietly. Gwen nodded.
"I'm going to take a look at Claire's phone again," Merlin said, standing. He hadn't gotten as far as he'd wanted to, before he'd come down with a sinus infection.
"I'll make some calls. Still a lot of people in the area that could have heard something if they were home," Gwen told him. "Maybe something will shake loose."
"Any luck finding Marley?" He asked Gwen as they left the conference room.
She shook her head. "The Walkers confirmed that he was with Claire when she was out the night she was killed. And he hasn't shown up at any of the local shelters, or back at Claire's apartment building."
Merlin frowned as he made his way back to his office. The most logical conclusion he could come to was that Marley had also been a victim and they just hadn't found him yet. But there was a whisper in the back of his mind suggesting that CDK had left the scene with the dog.
But why?
He sat down at his desk and pulled up the call logs from Claire's mobile. Printed the documents so he could put them up on the wall for better visibility. He needed to see it as a whole to get a bigger picture from it, assuming there was a bigger picture to see. Merlin wasn't overly hopeful. They didn't have any prior evidence to indicate that CDK had ever been in touch with any of his victims prior to their deaths. It's what made the case so difficult to begin with.
But Merlin also knew there must have been a time when he had. Somewhere, there was a victim who knew the Call Down Killer personally before they died. You didn't start off being a mastermind serial killer, you just didn't. There was a point where he would have needed to begin with something familiar. Something safe, in his fucked up mind.
Someone he knew.
It could be the cashier at the local Tescos for all Merlin cared. But it was someone CDK was familiar with. He was sure of it.
Merlin just didn't know where CDK had started his killing spree. He was almost certain it wasn't with the four murders in London. But there were so many suicides to sift through across the country, and that was assuming CDK had been in England this entire time.
He leaned back against his desk and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Merlin was getting into the weeds. He couldn't expand the scope of this case just yet, not even in his head. It would get too large to contain and he would end up getting lost in it. He needed to focus on the things he did have before he went reaching for things that may or may not exist to begin with.
His skin was warm, he realized, when he put his fingers against his face. Merlin lifted his head a little, put the back of his own hand against his cheek.
Very warm.
He didn't feel like he had a fever. Even with the patch on he could usually tell if he were getting sick even if he couldn't tell how bad it was at first. This didn't feel like that. He wasn't sure what this was.
Merlin ignored it for now. Went back to work.
But he couldn't ignore it for long.
By the time he got home Merlin was sweating. He collapsed on the floor in his kitchen on his hands and knees breathing hard. The glitter in his vision was back and it was falling like snow now, like the static on a bad television. His body felt tight. Every motion took so much more effort than it should have. Climbing the stairs to his flat nearly killed him.
It was like he was slowly being encased in cement.
And he was so fucking hot.
The first thought he had when he dragged himself up to his sink to pour himself a glass of water, was that he needed Arthur.
It was such a sudden, intense thought that it froze him in place for a second.
This was insane, even for him. Arthur had literally broken into his flat to fuck with him while he was ill and because the man had been gentle with him for all of three hours now Merlin wanted him back? They weren't bonded, they weren't even partners for fucks sake -
Merlin doubled over, his head suddenly throbbing.
This was all because he'd allowed himself to get too used to this bullshit. He didn't need a Dom, he'd never needed one. Sure it was nice to have it when he could get it, but it wasn't something his existence hinged on. He could survive without a Dom. He could get by without Arthur fucking Pendragon.
He managed to fill his glass and sit back down hard on the floor, his back to the cabinets. He was breathing way too hard for pouring himself a glass of water.
He took a drink, pulling at the buttons on his collared shirt. His bangs were damp with sweat.
Merlin struggled to set the glass down on the floor without tipping it onto its side.
Every action felt slow and disjointed to him.
He didn't need Arthur.
He didn't.
But he did need Arthur to tell him what to do.
Merlin felt it in the heaviness of his limbs. The glitter falling on the outside edges of his vision. He was fighting against something he didn't understand. But some instinct was whispering to him that he could bypass whatever this was, if he wasn't the one fighting against it. If Arthur gave him a command, he thought, maybe this would stop.
It was ludicrous. He wasn't calling Arthur again in the space of a fucking week.
He didn't know what this was but it wasn't supernatural. It wouldn't last forever. He just needed to wait it out.
The rational part of his brain reminded him quietly that he'd been waiting it out all day and it was only getting steadily worse. His chest ached.
Merlin looked at the clock.
Half five.
Merlin didn't make it to his room but his did manage to get most of his clothes off somehow. He woke up on the carpet next to his coffee table, breathing hard.
When he pushed himself upright he swayed. It took every ounce of strength he had to get into his bedroom and pull on some clothes that weren't soaked in sweat. Every movement felt like the soft edges of a dream. Wavy and listing to one side. Everything he looked at was out of focus.
He got his hands on the wall and stumbled back into his kitchen. Grabbed Arthur's pager and his keys.
Midnight now. All he could think about as practically fell down the stairs to the ground floor of his building was Arthur's name. It was a mantra in his head he couldn't let go of, like a song that never ends when you can't remember all the lyrics and you just keep repeating the same parts over and over and over again in your head.
Arthur.
He needed to get to Arthur.
Arthur.
He needed to get to...
Arthur.
He needed...
Arthur.
"For someone so adamant about not needing a Dominant partner in their life, Detective, you call for one more often than most."
Merlin actually felt a difference in the tightness under his skin when he heard Arthur's voice. He moaned softly into his knees, letting out a long breath in relief. He was sitting with his back to the wall of the loading dock where he'd first called Arthur with the pager. His legs drawn up against his chest. He'd covered his head with his arms. Somehow it felt better to be completely shrouded in the dark.
He heard Arthur stop walking by his hip.
"Tell me to do something," Merlin said to him without looking up. "Anything."
Arthur crouched down to where he was sitting.
"Look at me," Arthur said.
The command broke through the fog that kept descending on his thoughts. Everything was clear for a second. He lifted his head.
Arthur was angry. But Merlin felt relaxed for the first time all day.
He'd been right. Whatever was wrong, he could step around it. He just needed someone else to tell him to.
Merlin stared into Arthur's eyes for what seemed like too long to him, but he couldn't look away. Everything was right, now. This was exactly how it was supposed to be. All he had to do was what he was made to do. Everything would be fine if he just listened. If he just obeyed.
Arthur's expression had become incendiary, but Merlin still wasn't concerned. Or his body wasn't, in anycase. He was calm and at ease. He wasn't burning up anymore.
"Something's wrong," he said, unnecessarily. "I don't think I can move anymore unless you tell me to."
Arthur's expression became darker somehow.
"Then get up. We're going inside."
And just like that, Merlin could stand again without feeling like he was fighting against a tidal wave.
His movements were wrong though. Even when Arthur took him by the arm more roughly than Merlin expected him to, he didn't feel anything other than compliant. He had no desire to try and pull his arm back. Merlin let Arthur lead him back into the abandoned factory, his eyes down.
It felt good.
Once they were inside Arthur forced him up against the wall, his hand still tight on Merlin's upper arm. With his free hand he took ahold of Merlin's jaw, holding him in place. Merlin let out a breath when his back hit the wall but that was a reflex more than anything. Arthur could have stabbed him and Merlin was fairly sure he wouldn't have reacted very dramatically at all.
"What did you do?" Arthur growled at him.
There was a command in his words but Merlin couldn't respond.
He hadn't done anything.
Merlin could only stare back. Even that felt blank to him. He was starting to feel like a prisoner in his own body. Nothing would work right unless he was being told to do it for himself. Not even speaking, anymore.
It terrified him.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't leave you here to sort this out on your own," Arthur said unkindly against his cheek. The hand on his face was uncomfortably tight now.
"I don't know what you mean, Arthur," he said quietly.
At least he could still clarify a point.
Panic was starting to set in though. If Arthur left him he didn't think he'd be able to reach for his phone without help let alone get back to his flat.
He felt more than he saw the rise in Arthur's anger at his words.
"I'm not playing with you Detective," Arthur said menacingly in his ear. "You have one chance to stop me from walking out of this room alone. This is your chance. Take it or don't."
Merlin could feel his heart rate triple in time but he couldn't move. He couldn't even express the sheer desperation he was feeling in that moment. He wanted to grab Arthur by the collar and fucking make him stay, but he couldn't. For the first time in the presence of anyone, let alone a Dominant, Merlin felt completely and utterly helpless.
"I can't," he managed to whisper. It felt like he was chewing on glass.
"Then you can call the Dom who did this to you," Arthur said, dropping him.
Merlin fell to the ground, sitting down hard. Arthur was walking away. He didn't know what to do. He couldn't even turn his head. And what the fuck did Arthur mean, the Dom who did this to him?
"There isn't anyone else," he managed to snap. Anger so hot it cleared a momentary path in his head to speak freely.
Arthur turned, glaring down his nose at Merlin. He couldn't look up, but he could feel it.
"Don't lie to me, Detective. I'm in a bad enough mood as it is."
"I'm not lying," Merlin hissed.
"You have another Dominant influence all over you," Arthur said. "If I cut off all the parts of you it was touching, you wouldn't have any pieces of yourself left."
The words went ringing through Merlin's skull. It couldn't be true. He didn't feel any influence, if he had he could have broken it himself. And it wasn't like Merlin had a slew of Dominant partners waiting in the wings for him, there was no one else. Gwen wasn't designated as anything and she was the only person he'd spent any significant amount of time with since he'd gone back to the office, he couldn't even begin to explain how mental Arthur's statement was. But he couldn't have tried to even if he had the words.
He forced himself to look up at Arthur. Hoping it would be enough.
Please, you fucking egomaniac, please do something, I need you to do something so that I can answer you properly. Make it stop even for a minute, that would be enough. Don't leave me here. Please. Help me.
Arthur looked at him with that awful flat stare. It made Merlin's chest feel like it was caving in.
Then, like a door opening, letting out the pressure of that huge tidal wave drowning him in his own head, Merlin felt Arthur's influence growing over his skin. It moved like the slowly opening buds on spring green trees, unfurling softly and taking root in the caverns of his ribcage. Absorbing all of that endless dark water and turning it into flowers.
Merlin gasped, folding over himself and pulled in a series of heaving breaths he didn't know that he needed. He wanted to cry he was so relieved. Then he heard the sound of Arthur's footsteps against the concrete floor, walking away.
"Wait!" He rasped, lifting his head without it feeling like a ton of bricks. "Arthur, wait, please."
"What is there to wait for Detective? You got what you came for."
The words sounded strange to Merlin. Like Arthur was genuinely annoyed with him.
"You were the one who offered," Merlin gasped, still catching his breath and struggling to get up off the floor. "You gave me your pager, you don't get to be mad because I used it."
Arthur whirled on him.
"I gave you my pager, Detective, because I offered you a deal, a more than generous deal, mind you," he growled, stepping into Merlin when he finally managed to get to his feet. Grabbed him by the arms and pulled Merlin closer. "What was it, again?"
Merlin glowered at him but he didn't try to struggle out of Arthur's grip. He was still shaken and feeling weak and he had no idea what had happened or why it made Arthur so angry in the first place. All he could do was answer honestly.
"My tracker for your bond," he said quietly.
"That's right," Arthur said. "What was never said, Detective, is that you could use it on a whim everytime you need to come crawling back on your knees, begging me to fix you."
Merlin jerked Arthur closer by the lapels of his suit coat, baring his teeth. The two of them were locked in place now, holding on to each other, glaring into each others eyes.
"Don't fucking ever talk to me like I'm the problem, there isn't anything about me that needs to be fixed."
"I'm not getting into an argument over semantics with a man who can't even admit to what he wants let alone what he needs," Arthur snarled.
"Get off your high horse," Merlin snapped back. "You didn't come to my place last week because I paged you."
Arthur's eyes grew suddenly so much more enraged than Merlin had expected. But he was boiling over now too.
"If this was about your tracking device you would have let me take it back when I called you the first time. You didn't even need to fucking wait for me to offer to do it you prick, you could have just told me to take it back in the state I was in."
"You think you're really that special, Detective?" Arthur said quietly leaning in closer to his face, their cheeks nearly touching. "You think I don't have my choice of the Submissives in this city? Submissives who would be more than happy to actually fucking listen when I speak?"
The words hammered him in the chest but it wasn't enough to put a cap on his anger now. It only gave his rage volume.
"Would you just fucking tell me what you're so goddamned angry about?!" Merlin roared.
"You had your say and I didn't like what I heard, so I'll be leaving now, alone," Arthur said frankly. "Let go of me, Detective."
"No," Merlin snarled back. Arthur's gaze sharpened dangerously.
"Let go of me, before I make you."
"Fucking make me, then," Merlin hissed back.
Then he pulled Arthur in hard, closing the distance between them, and kissed him.
Arthur kissed him back like it was the only thing he'd ever wanted, the both of them desperate and hungry and still fighting each other over it. Merlin grunted when Arthur slammed him back into the wall, but he held on. And Arthur didn't stop kissing him.
Merlin wasn't sure he wanted him to.
When they finally broke apart, their foreheads pressed together, they were both breathing hard. Merlin's fingers ached from how tightly he was clutching Arthur's suit.
"I don't have anyone else," Merlin whispered. "I don't know what happened today, that's the truth. I didn't call you to fix a mistake. I called you because I needed you."
"You called me because I'm the only one you can call," Arthur whispered back.
"Then you have to believe me when I tell you there's no other Dom," Merlin panted. "You can't have it both ways."
Arthur smiled against his cheek.
"I know what I saw, Detective, but I'll give you that," he said sweetly. "I'll believe you tonight. But I won't believe you if it happens again."
"Just fucking believe me," Merlin said. "Because it isn't going to happen again."
Arthur drew his mouth down along the outside of Merlin's throat and Merlin had to close his eyes at the feeling of it. Lean his head back against the wall.
"What are you saying, Detective?"
Merlin pulled Arthur back up by his hair, said against Arthur's mouth,
"Give me permission to call you when I need you. Give me your bond."
Arthur grinned.
"If you truly want it Detective," Arthur whispered. "Then you can't break it, once I begin."
Merlin didn't know what he meant at first.
The surge of Arthur's influence over him then, drove Merlin into the ground. He didn't even have the strength to hold onto Arthur, and Arthur let him go. Watched, interested, as Merlin came down on the concrete floor hard on his knees. Merlin had to catch himself on his hands, or he might have gone all the way to the ground in an instant. Arthur had been right to warn him. In another life he would have broken this influence the second it touched his skin. But now that he was holding it up, he thought it felt strange to him, this weight. It was heavy, certainly. But he didn't feel any oppression in it. Arthur wasn't physically forcing him into the ground. Merlin just hadn't been ready for it. He was strong enough to carry this. He could stand up if he wanted to.
So he did.
Arthur watched, his smile taking on a hint of something else that Merlin didn't like to admit seeing there. Pride. And excitement.
"Do you have any tattoos, Detective?" Arthur asked him.
Nonchalantly. Like Merlin hadn't just agreed, demanded really, that Arthur make the single most important commitment Merlin had ever made in his life, with him.
"I...what?" He asked, half concentrating on remaining upright, half confused.
"Tattoos make good anchor points," Arthur said with smile. "Do you have any?"
"Anchor point for what?" Merlin said.
Arthur tilted his head, giving Merlin a profoundly long-suffering look. Merlin felt himself flush.
In all honesty, Merlin only knew how a bond worked in theory. He'd never actually seen one in person, and he certainly hadn't experienced one himself. He knew that it involved a trade of sorts, one part of the Submissive's presence for one part of the Dominant's influence. Like shifting puzzle pieces on a board. Merlin had no idea what that actually looked like in practice. So he was wary, when he answered Arthur's question finally.
"I do," he said.
Arthur's eyebrows came up at that. Surprised. It made Merlin's face warm.
Winding up his arm from his elbow was the long serpentine form of a dragon that bent its sinuous body over his shoulder, massive talons inked in place like the beast was holding on to him in that position. Like a cat perched to pounce. And across his chest its jaws were wide in an open mouthed roar, the expression on its face a study in fury, horns pointing back down his collar bone, towards the slope of his shoulder. It was done in black and white realism, as realistic as a mythical creature can be drawn, in anycase. And Merlin loved every inch of it. The only color in the entire massive piece was its eyes. Gold. Like his.
Merlin remembered being irrationally grateful at the time, that Arthur's bullet caught him on the right shoulder, not the left where the dragon was.
Now, absurdly, he was hesitant to show it to Arthur. He wasn't embarrassed by his tattoo and he didn't really think he looked poorly, obviously Arthur was at least a little bit interested in him sexually, to kiss him like that. But a twinge of self-consciousness was creeping into the back of his mind. It made him hesitate.
"Well?" Arthur prompted.
"Do you need to see it?" Merlin said.
Arthur gave him a look that expressed just how stupid Merlin felt for even asking the question.
"I'm not a mind reader, Detective."
Merlin frowned, shrugging off his brown leather coat and pulling his t-shirt over his head from the back of the collar, careful of his bad shoulder. Arthur watched, interested as Merlin lowered his shirt away from his body. Straightened his spine. There was something Merlin didn't understand in Arthur's eyes for just a moment as he took in the shape of Merlin's tattoo. Something like recognition. And then it was gone. Arthur stepped into him and Merlin felt goosebumps rising all along his chest, when Arthur traced his finger along the lower outline of the dragons mouth. It sent a shiver down the back of his neck.
"You're full of surprises, aren't you, Detective?" He said around another grin.
Merlin wasn't sure if he was supposed to be insulted by that or not.
"What are you going to do?" Merlin asked him.
"I'm going to anchor my influence to the ink in your skin," Arthur said like it was a fairly normal thing to do. "I should warn you that patch of yours will need to be on top of it, from now on, or you run the risk of another Dominant noticing it. That's the point, after all."
"And then?" Merlin said.
"Then I'll take a piece of yours to replace it. Don't worry," Arthur said, leaning in again like he might kiss Merlin. He didn't. But barely. "You'll only notice it's gone when you need me."
Merlin had no idea what to make of that statement. Arthur was searching his eyes.
"Do you still want this?"
Merlin didn't drop his gaze. Didn't hesitate.
"I do."
Arthur did kiss him then, and Merlin was grateful for the distraction, because all of the weight on his shoulders was suddenly sinking into his chest, sliding into the dragons scales, its horns, its teeth. He gasped into Arthur's mouth, sure he could feel the heat of it, worming its way through the ink. And suddenly Arthur's hands on his face felt so much better than they did just a second ago. His mouth on Merlin's pulled a startled moan out of him. He felt Arthur smiling into the kiss. Merlin didn't care. Because right then what expanded out of this feeling of Arthur's hands, his mouth, his influence now on Merlin's skin was something he didn't know how to identify at first.
Belonging.
When Arthur broke their kiss this time, Merlin had to keep his eyes closed at first. Memorize how new the feeling of Arthur running the back of his hand down his cheek felt to him. Like blooming flowers.
"How exceptional," Arthur said, very quietly. Merlin opened his eyes. The words made his knees weak.
"I don't have anything with me," Merlin said, sorry because it was true. "I can't take the tracking device back tonight."
Arthur smiled against Merlin's jaw.
"I know," he said. "We'll need to meet soon enough anyway."
Merlin didn't fully recognize his own reactions to Arthur still touching him. They were having a conversation but they were doing it on the outside of his own concsious thoughts. He was nosing Arthur's chin up while he spoke, pressing his face against Arthur's neck, while Arthur flattened his hand to the small of Merlin's back. Ran his fingers through Merlin's hair. He'd never felt like this for any Dominant partner in his life. Like he was good for someone. Like he was the best.
He was addicted immediately.
"Now comes the hard part, Merlin," Arthur said against his hair. He sounded like he was sorry to say it.
Merlin felt his body warming like he was standing in the sun, when Arthur said his name.
"I can't stay with you tonight."
Merlin didn't want to admit that Arthur was right. The hardest part of his entire evening had just come down to those six, insignificant words. He didn't say that though. He was high, he hadn't completely lost his senses. It would be easy to do though. Like this, right now, Merlin recognized that he would have given Arthur the entire city of London if he let go of himself just a little more. Let Arthur have complete control of him.
But he wasn't going to do that.
So he said,
"When?"
"Three days," Arthur told him. "You'll come back to me here. You'll hold up your end of the deal, and I'll give you what you need. Understood?"
It wasn't a command. But Arthur had used his name. So Merlin answered,
"I understand, Arthur."
Pretended not to fall in love with the look that Arthur gave him for it.
At work, Gwen startled him out of reading, when she said,
"What's all this?"
He looked up, flushed instantly when he realized she was gesturing to the mountain of books he'd acquired recently about bonding Doms and Subs. It was early morning, two days since he'd accepted Arthur's bond, and it was giving him so much anxiety he couldn't sleep very well. He'd gone to the library late last night and picked up, frankly, too many books, and he'd been in his office since.
Gwen eyed him when she saw his face.
"Have you slept?"
Merlin leaned back in his chair. Rubbed his eyes.
"No, not really," he admitted.
"And this?" She waved a hand at the books.
'Bonding, A Medical Reference', was currently open on the desk in front of him.
Stacked in a pile around him some of them bookmarked, was 'Is Bonding Right For You?' And, 'Mountmouth's Guide to Dominant and Submissive Dynamics, A Bond for Both'. There was also, 'It's Chemical! How to Tell the Difference Between Your Feelings and A Bond.'
It looked absolutely mental.
"Just trying to understand," he hedged. It wasn't a lie. It just didn't have anything to do with the case, not really.
Gwen nodded, tipping her head to the side to read some more of the titles.
"They always make this shit sound like witchcraft," she said absently.
"There's a pretty strong natural precedent for it, actually," Merlin said, turning one of the books around for her. "Doms and Subs just happen to be the first humans to operate under these conditions."
She ran her finger down the page, scanning the words.
"Pheremones?" She asked skeptically.
"Sure," Merlin shrugged. "At least, it's similar in principle. Humans don't have the same receptors for pheremones that other species do which makes them less effective for humans in general. But Doms and Subs have a unique ability to translate pheromone signals into horomone reception."
"What's the difference?" Gwen asked him, leaning her hip on the edge of his desk.
"In what?"
"Pheremones and horomones," she said, flipping the page over.
"Horomones are chemical signals that happen inside the body, pheremones happen outside of the body."
"And all people can be affected by both of those things?" She continued, glancing up at him. "Not just Doms and Subs?"
Merlin shrugged. "Sure. It's been that way forever. People just didn't have a reason to notice before secondary designations emerged."
Gwen gave a soft sound in acknowledgment. Merlin looked at her face curiously.
"What are you thinking?" He asked.
She blew out a breath and closed the book.
"Nothing. Something stupid, probably. Now get up," she said before he could ask her what she meant. "I'm hungry and you look exhausted. We're going down the road to get something to eat."
Merlin sighed.
They didn't get much accomplished that day. Just endless phone calls that never went anywhere. People who lived in the adjacent building to the crime scene but didn't see or hear anything out of the ordinary. The occasional person who saw nothing of note but couldn't stop wanting to discuss it more with a Detective just in case that empty bin tipped over on the sidewalk actually was important. It never was. But they documented everything, just in case.
Merlin thought about staying in the office again. But eventually he did walk himself home. He took the reference book he'd been reading with him. It calmed his nerves some.
After Arthur had left him, Merlin felt weightless for hours. He couldn't get comfortable on the couch, in his own bed. He wanted Arthur to be there with him. The feeling of it gnawed at his ribcage. For the first twenty-four hours he'd done his best to ignore the feeling. But all he'd ended up doing was curling up under a pile of blankets he'd unearthed from his bedroom closet at the end of the day, and hugging a pillow for a few hours before he'd dragged himself to the library. That hadn't felt terrible. But this feeling of needing Arthur close to him was starting to worry him.
Yes, he didn't like to admit it but yes he'd felt similarly whenever Arthur was nearby ever since they'd played that first punishment game. He'd been able to turn that feeling off though, once Arthur was gone. This feeling ran deeper. Felt like it might be permanent.
He didn't like that idea at all.
The books helped. It turned out this was a pretty normal reaction to bonding. Especially for the Sub. It also explained why Arthur had been immediately soft with him once it was over. Merlin hadn't been entirely aware that his own presence naturally made Dominant partners want to take care of him. He'd always thought of the whole business as more transactional than that. But in the first weeks of a new bond, both of them, not just Merlin, would be much more vulnerable to each others influences than they otherwise would be. So when Merlin had reacted the way he did, needing to be closer to Arthur physically, Arthur had reacted in kind.
It was why Arthur told him the fact that he couldn't stay with Merlin immediately afterwards would be the difficult part.
He wasn't wrong about that, unfortunately. Not by half.
But when Merlin had a chance to step back and really assess the gravity of what he'd done, it genuinely scared him. There was a creeping dread that filled his stomach when he gave it too much thought. Not one week ago he was planning to change the locks on his doors and windows so Arthur couldn't show up in his flat unannounced and now he was tossing alone in his bed hoping Arthur would.
It was madness, it really was.
Arthur was a Pendragon. In the underworld saying that name was like summoning a boogeyman. And he wasn't just a Pendragon, Arthur was the Pendragon. Merlin couldn't even begin to list the impressive resume of crimes he'd committed in his life. He couldn't even list all the ones Arthur had committed in the five years Merlin had been chasing him, by heart. There were just too many.
And here he was, closing the door on his empty flat and wishing the man would already be waiting for him when he did. But Merlin already knew he wasn't. Arthur was nothing if not precise. He'd said three days because he'd meant three days. No more. No less.
So Merlin folded himself up onto his couch with a cup of tea. Flipped the book back open to read.
It was pointless.
He wasn't even really seeing the words anymore.
He was thinking about how good he would have to be to get Arthur to kiss him again. The way he had when Merlin had kissed him first.
Merlin covered his eyes with his hands, dropping his head back over the arm of the couch.
He was so fucking screwed.
Chapter 4: The Devil You Know
Summary:
Merlin and Arthur meet for the first time as a bonded pair. It doesn’t go as smoothly as either of them had hoped.
Notes:
Hello loves! I’m still adding content to my next chapter for Don’t Let Me Down, so have another Sublysis chapter to hold you over until then! I’m so happy for all of the absolutely wonderful comments and the interest in this story! As I’ve mentioned this one is a little out of the box for me, but I’m having so much fun writing it for you. Now I just need to stop myself from rushing into the good stuff xD
As always, stay safe and be kind 💋 I’ll be back soon with more!
Chapter Text
That night Merlin made his way to the abandoned factory with his hand clenched around the automatic injection device that would nullify the tracker he'd tagged Arthur with months ago. His palm was sweaty around the barrel of it. Technically, a good amount of electricity would short the tracking device like any computer chip, but he didn't think Arthur would take kindly to Merlin suggesting he electrocute himself. And once it was in Arthur's bloodstream, Merlin didn't have any hope of physically removing it without a surgeon. So the best he could actually do was introduce a signal that would jam the original one.
It would look like the device was dead. And it would be the same thing really. Merlin just hoped Arthur would find that acceptable because Merlin wasn't actually a warlock and he wasn't a surgeon so it was going to have to be this or nothing. He couldn't just shut it down without removing it, or he would need to admit to Arthur he could just turn it back on when he wanted to.
His heart rate was too high all the way to the factory.
It didn't help that he walked it most of the time. It was so fucking far. But it was better to walk. If he disappeared there would be more CCTV footage of him that way. And once he was out of the city it would be harder for someone to follow him without being noticed. He didn't think he would disappear. Merlin was certain now that his assessment of Arthur's feelings had been correct. He wanted to be Merlin's Dom. And it had nothing to do with their deal.
At least in part. He clearly didn't want to give anyone the ability to locate him on a whim, least of all Merlin. But he wasn't being entirely driven by removing that threat, either. Merlin just didn't know why. Arthur had said it himself, he could have anyone he wanted. He had to imagine that being Arthur's Sub in the underground meant something. So it couldn't be the case that Arthur didn't have better choices than him.
The thought hurt a little, for some reason.
It was stupid to feel that way. They weren't in a partnership by any stretch of the imagination. They had effectively blackmailed each other into this mess and even if there was something to be gained from it, they weren't lovers. They weren't even friends. So there was no point to dwelling on the idea that Arthur cared, even in the slightest, about his wellbeing beyond the scope of their agreement. This was just the after affects of the bond. He needed to keep reminding himself of that fact or he would get himself hurt or turn himself into a liability.
He couldn't consider the idea that Arthur entertained other Submissive partners than him. And he wouldn't allow himself to think of Arthur as his Dom unless they were physically in the same room with each other. That was the only way this was going to work. If he was going to put his head on this chopping block anyway, he needed to protect himself from the axe for as long as he could. He had no idea how all of this would end. But as long as he could keep working and manage his cases he would be happy with that.
And he did feel better. He wasn't so angry all the time. That feeling hadn't gone away exactly but it wasn't snapping at his heels every second of every day.
Merlin considered that a win.
He could be happy with that.
He would have to be.
Merlin was going around in circles about the whole thing in his head when he was approaching the factory, so he didn't immediately notice a difference in his surroundings. But he did realize it before he stepped out of the trees. So he kept himself hidden and watched the factory instead for a time.
The first thing he he could tell, was that Arthur was already there. He was inside. Merlin wasn't sure why he knew that at first until it came to him in a rush.
"You won't notice it's gone until you need me."
He wasn't aware of Arthur so much as he was aware of the familiar sense of himself that was now anchored to Arthur through their bond. Merlin was confident that if he walked into the factory now he would be able to find Arthur without giving it a second thought.
He wondered if that could be done over distances.
If that was the case then maybe his concern about the tracking device was not that Merlin could find him, but that if anyone else got their hands on it they could locate him without Merlin's help. This sense of each other, on the other hand, couldn't be stolen from Merlin. But that was a thought to file away for later examination.
The second thing he noticed was the car. It was parked a ways back from the loading dock, hidden in part by the shadows of the brush and the trees that surrounded the empty land where the railway still ran through. From the road it would be impossible to see. But Merlin didn't at all like the fact that there was someone else in that car. He had no idea who it was, but it wasn't Arthur, that much he was certain of. Thinking back on it, Merlin wasn't sure how Arthur had arrived at their various meetings to date. He'd never seen a car before and he'd never sensed the presence of someone else nearby. Not that he was like, a psychic or anything. But in Merlin's experience you just got a feeling in your gut or across the backs of your shoulders when there was someone else entering a space you occupied, even if you couldn't see them. An empty house always felt significantly different than a house with even just one other person inside it.
Granted, he hadn't been in the most sturdy mental capacity the last two times he'd been at the factory with Arthur. But he was basically out in the open both of those times and he'd never seen anyone else, certainly not a car with a driver. It made him uneasy. Had Arthur told someone in his organization that Merlin was a Sub?
He scanned the area for a better way to approach the factory than to come up to the door by the loading dock. He could get into the front of the building without being seen by the car but it would put him in view of the road. Neither option was great. But only one of them was a death sentence. So he moved back into the trees and made his way down the road the way he'd come. When he was far enough from the factory that he couldn't be seen crossing, he did, walking along just inside the trees until he could observe the factory from the front. Nothing out of the ordinary jumped out at him. So he made his way across the road again as quickly as possible, hopping the short guard fence padlocked in place to keep cars from coming up the drive. There were fresh tire marks in the dirt but the padlock was in place. So they had taken the time to unlock the gate and relock it before parking in the back by the loading dock.
Getting in through the front wasn't difficult just time consuming. He didn't want to make any big sounds by breaking the glass in the windows, so he picked the lock. Rebolted the door once he was inside.
Then he made his way to Arthur.
He was in the main atrium, where they had been the other two times they had done this. He probably assumed Merlin would come in through the loading dock. Merlin was looking at the frosted windows facing in that direction when he walked into the room, his footsteps echoing on the concrete. It didn't look like there was anyway to see through them. They were frosted but also filthy. Still. It bothered him.
There was a small electric lantern on the floor and a stool placed nearby. Arthur was standing next to them. He looked surprised when Merlin walked in from the front, even though he was already facing Merlin when he did. Sensed him coming, the way Merlin had with Arthur.
"You've been here for some time, Detective," Arthur said. "What kept you?"
Merlin was already anxious so the shift in his expectations brought the anger back. Hadn't he just been happier to note that if nothing else this batshit agreement had at least modulated his anger lately?
Guess that was out the window.
"Who's in the car?"
Arthur gave him a slow smile.
"Careful," he said quietly. "Or tonight won't be easy for you, Detective."
Merlin had to bite back his first response to that. Tamp down the thrill those words sent racing down his spine, because this was serious.
"I'm not playing," Merlin said quietly. "Who's in the car?"
"My driver," Arthur said dismissively. "I'll only give you one more chance to fix your tone."
Merlin clenched his hand into a fist. He didn't immediately reply because he was still angry, and if he spoke now it would be obvious. Arthur walked up to him slowly, his hands in the pockets of his trousers. Stopped less than an arms length away. For a long time he just stared at Merlin. It was cold but not disinterested.
Merlin had so many things that he wanted to say, accuse Arthur of, really. But staring into Arthur's eyes, he forced himself to relax his shoulders. Unclench his fist. If there was one thing Merlin knew would send Arthur right past amused indifference with him and into revenge, it was speaking to him disrespectfully. He could ask the question. He just had to stop himself from yelling at Arthur to do it.
Merlin took a breath. Let his expression relax a fraction, but he refused to lower his gaze.
Arthur might be threatening him with some kind of punishment for talking back but as far as Merlin was concerned Arthur hadn't earned shit from him yet tonight. And he still had some explaining to do before Merlin was comfortable with letting him. So he didn't cower. But he did make the attempt at being polite.
"I didn't mean to snap at you, like that," he admitted. "Seeing that car outside made me nervous."
"I can see that," Arthur said, but Merlin knew he'd gotten it right because the answer wasn't a dismissal this time. "Why did it make you nervous?"
Merlin tried not to get angry all over again at the question because he recognized this was in part, a test. Like he had done with his first punishment game; making Merlin say what he was thinking or feeling out loud so that it could be acknowledged by both of them, without any misunderstanding.
That didn't mean it wasn't a stupid question. It was fucking obvious why it would make him nervous.
"Because," he said, trying to temper the heat in his words and failing. But he didn't raise his voice. "I don't know who your driver is or what they know. I thought -"
He stopped himself before he ended up accusing Arthur of breaking his end of the bargain. Arthur's expression was sharper than it had been a moment ago.
But he surprised Merlin, by running his thumb over Merlin's cheekbone.
The shock of his touch made Merlin's erratic thoughts quiet instantly. All of his anxiety over the last three days, the random facts from his books chattering around in his head, the CDK case, his own guilt at double-crossing the system he was supposed to uphold, all of the sudden fear of betrayal from Arthur all went blissfully silent. It made his throat tight.
"Whatever you were about to say," Arthur said quietly. "I can tell it was hard for you, to pull it back. So I won't ask you what it is you were thinking."
Merlin searched his face as he spoke. He still looked a little aloof to Merlin. Not unfocused. Just holding himself in check the way Merlin was trying to do. He had a feeling that in any other situation where Arthur was entertaining a Submissive partner, he wouldn't have bothered with a warning about tone. He would have expected it would be abided without needing to say it. And Merlin's inability to completely follow through would have otherwise resulted in some form of punishment. Merlin could see it in Arthur's eyes. He was trying to separate himself from being a Dom in this moment, because they hadn't actually started anything yet.
Merlin realized belatedly that Arthur was reacting to their bond. Just being in the same room had changed the dynamic between them. Maybe it was easier for Merlin to bypass those feelings, because he'd already spent a lifetime doing it to himself. But because of what they'd done, without consummating it and then immediately going their separate ways, now that they were together again Arthur was genuinely struggling. For Merlin it had been the other way around, the distance had been the most difficult part. For Arthur it was when Merlin was within arms reach.
It made Merlin soften a little.
So he did lower his eyes this time, leaning into Arthur's hand. When he spoke he dropped the attitude as best he could.
"I'm sorry, Arthur," he said. "I thought I was clear I didn't want anyone to know about my designation, in your world or mine."
"And you assumed I so readily ignored your terms?" Arthur clarified. It wasn't heated. So Merlin answered him honestly.
"I didn't know what to think, when I saw the car."
Arthur let out a breath. Lowered his face to Merlin's hair.
"You have my bond. Secrecy was the agreement, I couldn't have told him if I tried. My driver thinks you're on the take," Arthur told him. "It was unreasonable to attempt to make this work without some small concession in this way."
Merlin was not a fan of that either, but it was better than him knowing Merlin was a Sub. And in a fucked up way, it wasn't a lie.
"You could have given me a heads up," Merlin said softly.
Arthur smiled against his hair.
"This may come as a surprise to you, Detective, but I'm not in the habit of giving anyone a heads up about anything I do."
Merlin couldn't help the smile he gave at that.
"So your driver thinks I'm dirty, how much time do you have then?" Merlin said, pulling back. He was sorry to do it. Arthur watched him step back, his expression finally normal to Merlin. Amused and a little condescending.
"However long. It doesn't matter."
Merlin eyed him, wondering how that could be true. Instead of asking he pulled the injection pen out of his pocket. Arthur studied it when he opened his hand to show it to him.
"My end of the deal," Merlin said.
He turned the barrel of the device over, showing Arthur a series of handwritten numbers on the label. Arthur leaned in to read them.
"This is the monitoring signal for your chip," Merlin explained. "You can use it to confirm it isn't working anymore."
Arthur took the device from him. Looked it over more closely. Then he handed it back to Merlin.
Merlin frowned at him before he realized Arthur meant for him to use it. Merlin had assumed Arthur would do it himself. He watched as Arthur undid the cuff links on his sleeve, rolled his shirt and his suit coat up to his elbow. He held his arm out and Merlin took his wrist in his hand. He was surprised by how many scars Arthur had on his arm alone. Some of them very deep.
He put the pen in his mouth and straightened Arthur's elbow out with his free hand. Then he pulled the cap of the device off with his teeth and positioned it over the vein just below Arthur's elbow. Wondered absently if Arthur wasn't a fan of needles.
Then he clicked the cam down with his thumb.
Arthur took his arm back, inspecting the tiny constellation of bruises there and held out his hand for the device again while he did. Merlin dropped it in his palm.
It wasn't until that exact moment, that Merlin realized Arthur could just kill him now and be done with the whole thing. It made his heart thump hard in his chest. What if all of this had just been an elaborate lie? Merlin had seen Arthur do things like that before in the time he'd been building a case against him. He was inhumanely patient when he fixed his mind to a task. Merlin put one foot back, but he wasn't even sure what he was planning to do, run? Where the fuck would he go?
Arthur glanced at him as he tucked the pen into his coat and began rolling his sleeve down. Smirked. It made Merlin's blood run cold.
"A little late to be having second thoughts, isn't it, Detective?"
Merlin did take a step back at that, but Arthur was faster. He took hold of Merlin's jacket and pulled him back.
"Don't insult me," he said calmly. "By assuming that just because I don't keep to your laws, I wouldn't keep my word to you."
Merlin had grabbed onto Arthur's sleeve reflexively. Found himself shrinking a little under that look. His tone of voice. Arthur's influence was carefully nudging his fear and uncertainty into a higher altitude, holding it in a place so stressful for him that he was aiming for Merlin to instinctively grovel to come down from it.
But Arthur didn't scare him. Merlin could stop him if he wanted to. He didn't. But he could. And he'd never been a natural when it came to groveling.
"Don't give me a reason to, then," he said.
Arthur pulled him closer by his jacket, making Merlin stumble from the effort of not falling into his chest. Merlin pulled back reflexively when Arthur reached into the collar of his shirt, letting out a surprised shout when Arthur tore the patch on his shoulder free.
"Lesson one," Arthur said. "When you speak to me -"
"I'm not calling you Sir," Merlin snapped over him, his expression hard.
Arthur's smile was slow and dangerous.
"Interrupt me again," he said softly. "Try me."
Merlin held his gaze but he didn't speak. Arthur let the moment drag on unnecessarily before he continued.
"When you've earned the privilege to speak to me again," he ammended making Merlin look at him sharply. "You'll use my name at the end of every sentence, respectfully."
When Arthur leaned in close to his face, speaking against his cheek, Merlin felt something shift inside him. Every atom in his body was desperate for the contact. He knew that he would be. But it was so much more intense with the feeling of Arthur's influence running through the ink of his tattoo. It took everything he had not to turn his head just a fraction so that they would be touching. This was a test, to see if he could wait to be directed, so he didn't move. But without the patch Merlin couldn't hide his own reactions anymore. He was shocked by the intensity of the feeling in his chest to whine, to make some kind of sound to express his discomfort at not being touched when they were so close to each other. Every lonely aching moment he'd experienced in the last three days came rushing back all at once. It was so much harder just then, not to beg Arthur to just put his hands on him.
"Don't make a sound," Arthur said quietly. "Don't speak unless you're spoken to. Do you understand me, Merlin?"
Merlin let out a breath through his teeth, praying that didn't count, and nodded.
"If you don't have any questions, then sit down on the stool. If you do, now is your chance to ask."
Merlin felt the release of Arthur's influence with the words. It ached in his chest now that it was gone, and he realized he was shaking faintly. Arthur had let go to allow Merlin a chance to clarify anything before they got started, but it also brought Merlin's frustrations rushing back in on him, and Arthur's command brought him up short after feeling the pressure of their closeness with such force so suddenly.
"That's what you want to do?" He said, sounding annoyed even to his own ears. "Sit me down on a stool?"
"What did you have in mind?" Arthur said, making it purposefully unkind. "A bed?"
Merlin flushed, his skin immediately hot. He opened his mouth to retort but Arthur cut him off.
"You aren't here for me to make you orgasm, you're here so I can give you what you actually need. So either you can get on your knees and admit to me that you just want me to fuck you senseless, or you can shut up and sit down like I told you to in the first place."
Merlin flinched badly when Arthur leaned in, far too near for comfort. Whispered in his ear,
"Your choice. Either way you'll be stunning, I can promise you that."
Merlin sat down on the stool where Arthur had directed him, surprised by how hot his face was. He couldn't seem to lift his eyes when Arthur stepped up to where he was sitting. He was embarrassed, yes, but it was also the way Arthur implied he found Merlin capable of being stunning, which was absolutely ridiculous, Merlin didn't care whether or not this man found him stunning or anything remotely related to the word.
He didn't care, he didn't care, he didn't -
"Hands on your lap, Merlin," Arthur said, circling him.
He pressed his clenched fists against the tops of his thighs. Arthur tapped the back of his hand with two fingers. Merlin hesitated, then opened his hands so that his palms were flat this time.
"Back straight," Arthur said.
Merlin fixed his posture carefully. Pulled himself fully upright, not having realized how far he'd rounded his shoulders when he sat down. He listened to Arthur's steps on the concrete floor as he circled the stool again.
It was harder than it seemed, to sit as Arthur directed him to. It wasn't long before the space between his shoulders started to ache, and he had to concentrate to keep his chin from dropping.
"Hands, Merlin," Arthur said.
He unclenched his fists again.
For a while it seemed to Merlin, all there was between them was the sound of Arthur's footsteps. His occasional correction.
'Shoulders, Merlin.'
'Sit back, Merlin.'
'Eyes up, Merlin.'
Until he realized he hadn't heard Arthur speak for some time. He was just hearing it in his head now. Correcting himself before Arthur did.
"I told you that you would be stunning," Arthur said, finally coming to a stop where Merlin could see him.
Merlin wasn't prepared for the affect Arthur's words had on him. His fingers tightened momentarily, pulling on the fabric of his trousers, but he managed to relax them. He felt like an entire universe was being born under his skin and he had no idea what to do with it. Everything glittered like starlight.
He straightened his shoulders again reflexively. That's when he noticed the way Arthur was watching him. Oddly. His expression was complicated, like he wasn't sure what he was looking at. Like Merlin was a slide on a microscope. And then looking elsewhere, at something more interesting, over Merlin's shoulder.
If his words had been the Big Bang, this look was a black hole. And Merlin, feeling like he was waking up from a dream, wasn't even all that surprised. Just disappointed in himself for giving a man like Arthur the ability to make him feel so incredibly worthless after letting him struggle not to be.
It hurt more than he thought it would. It had been a long time since he'd misjudged a situation this badly.
He started to get up, feeling numb, when Arthur's voice cut through all the noise in his head.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Arthur was closer to him than he had been a minute ago.
Why did his throat feel so tight?
"Back up on the stool, Merlin," Arthur said.
He did what Arthur asked, but slowly. Fixed his posture. It didn't feel like it had just a minute ago. Now it just felt exhausting.
"Look at me."
Merlin did, feeling empty.
Arthur startled him by stepping up to him for the first time since they'd begun this. Put a hand on his knee, the other on the small of Merlin's back. That was fine. He couldn't feel it anyway. It was a shame, really.
He'd thought for a moment there that Arthur might actually keep his word.
"Merlin," Arthur said. "You haven't done anything wrong."
"I'm fine," he said, breaking the rules. The words felt wrong in his mouth. Too tight and entirely a lie.
He must have been more terrible at this than even he thought he was, because Arthur didn't correct him.
No need to, really. Merlin understood. Nothing worth putting the effort into.
Arthur caught him when he fell. The suddenness of it shocked Merlin into complete awareness in the moment that Arthur lowered him to the floor. He had two simultaneous thoughts then. One: that Arthur could have just let him fall. He might have struck his head on the concrete and then this whole disturbing agreement would be over for the both of them, but he didn't for some reason. Merlin filed that thought away for later examination. And two: his hands were shaking again.
Arthur was reaching around him before he could be embarrassed by it, up under his suit jacket, his palms hot through Merlin's dress shirt.
"Hey!" Merlin snapped, taking hold of Arthur's shoulders, planning to shove him back off of him.
But the motion, his next words, all of it died when Arthur lifted Merlin off the floor like it was nothing, to sit in Arthur's lap.
He leaned in, close to his cheek, and Merlin could feel the warmth of his skin. It occurred to Merlin that he was colder than he should have been.
Or Arthur was warmer.
Or both.
"You did everything exactly right for me, Merlin," Arthur said. "I was the one at fault, not you."
Then why were you looking at me like that?
"You did so well for me."
Then why?
Merlin shoved Arthur back hard. He was at a disadvantage, literally in Arthur's lap with his hands up the back of Merlin's suit coat but he did it anyway. Felt a brief flash of satisfaction when Arthur was surprised by it.
A flicker of instant regret also, for some reason.
It didn't stop him though.
"Stop saying that when it's so obvious it isn't true!"
Arthur caught his wrists and it wasn't gentle, the look in his eyes now was a warning Merlin refused to heed.
"Let go of me," Merlin snarled.
"When was the last time you did this with anyone?" Arthur said sharply, startling Merlin into silence for a split second.
Then he jerked back on his wrists, managing to break Arthur's hold with his good arm, but not both. When his hand was released he shoved Arthur back again, catching him across the face, more upset with himself than anything. Yes, he was angry with Arthur, but if he stopped to be honest with himself he was more hurt than anything else. Which was absurd, given who the two of them were and where they were doing this and why. But it was true.
With his now free hand, Arthur took hold of his upper arm from the inside, his other hand still holding Merlin's wrist. Then he forced Merlin's bad arm and shoulder up sharply. Turning it in the wrong direction.
Merlin cried out, the pain cascading down into his elbow, his back, into his collarbone. Arthur only needed to add a little more pressure to make Merlin completely fall apart.
"Stop!" He was clutching at one of Arthur's wrists but he had no strength in his fingers once he felt the pain. "Don't! Please stop, I can't, Arthur you'll break it again!"
Arthur lifted his shoulder higher and Merlin choked on a scream. He'd never felt so small in his life. He knew in part he was reacting to their bond. Begging for mercy instead of fighting for it. But this time Merlin wasn't able to close the door on his fear.
"Arthur please," he sobbed. "Don't do this."
"Ready to calm the fuck down, Merlin?" Arthur hissed at him.
"Yes!" Merlin cried. "I won't touch you again, I'll listen, whatever you want just please let go!"
"If I drop your arm like this it will be worse for you," Arthur told him angrily. "So I'm going to let it down slowly. Don't move, do you understand me?"
Merlin nodded urgently, desperate to make the pain stop. "Yes! I understand."
Arthur glowered at him. Then he turned his focus to Merlin's shoulder, slowly, agonizingly, bringing it back into line with the rest of his body. When he finally let go of him, Merlin let out a weak sob, falling out of Arthur's lap when he stood abruptly.
Merlin collapsed to his knees before tipping backwards to sit hard on the concrete floor, clutching his shoulder and wishing he'd never met Arthur Pendragon.
Arthur crouched down to his level and Merlin flinched when he reached out. But he only took Merlin by the chin, holding him still. Forcing him to look Arthur in the eye.
"Listen to me," Arthur snapped at him, making him wince. "I'm only going to say this once. Don't you ever put your hands on me like that again. The only reason I'm letting it go this time is because I made this mess, not you. Do you understand me?"
He did.
Sort of.
That last part made absolutely no sense to him.
It must have shown on his face because Arthur sneered at him before he said,
"You were dropping," Arthur told him. "You dropped because of me. So none of this is your fault. Do. You. Understand me?"
Merlin still wasn't sure that he did. But he wasn't planning to press his luck with Arthur's patience.
"I understand," he said anyway. His voice was shaking.
Arthur stared into his eyes for a long time before he let Merlin go.
"Get up," Arthur said, standing.
Merlin did, but it took him more than one try. His whole body felt like it was made of sugar and he was standing in the rain.
"Where are you taking me?" Merlin asked quietly, when Arthur gripped him by his good arm and forced him to walk.
"Somewhere else," Arthur said, still obviously irritated. "We can't do this here and now I need to look at your fucking shoulder."
That last part actually scared Merlin. As if anticipating him, Arthur was speaking softly again before the fear had a chance to sink in.
"I'm not going to hurt you."
It irritated him to no end that Arthur was not only making it sound like it was Merlin's fault Arthur had nearly twisted his shoulder from its socket, while dissipating the tension between them that Arthur would try to do it again. His logical mind told him that Arthur had only grabbed his injured shoulder because he knew it was the simplest and most effective way to make Merlin give up struggling against him. He would have done the same thing if their roles had been reversed. But he couldn't have known that Merlin was actually genuinely terrified of his own injury, that it was the first time he'd ever been hurt in a way that would fundementally change how he interacted with the world. The pins in his shoulder made it impossible for him to lift anything over his head now, and when he rotated his arm he thought he could feel them turning against his joint. The recovery from his surgery hadn't been easy or painless, and Merlin still woke in the middle of the night with his heart hammering in his throat, thinking he'd been shot again somehow and the whole process was about to start over. The fear had resurfaced when Arthur had injured it again in the warehouse, the night he'd learned Merlin was a Sub.
Arthur didn't know any of that. But he knew at least one fact now, that Merlin was desperate to protect himself from feeling anything like that ever again.
Merlin hated himself for it.
They got into Arthur's car wordlessly, Merlin falling into the seat across from him. Listened as Arthur leaned over the partition to speak with the driver.
"Just pick a direction. We're going to be a while."
Before closing the divider with a snap.
Arthur stared at him. Merlin held his gaze. For a second back there he'd managed to grab on to something other than this endless nothing expanding inside of him, anger and fear and real pain. But now he just felt pointless again. A broken toy that you keep in a box in your house for no reason at all. Not even worth the memories.
"How long has it been since you've done this with anyone?" Arthur asked him again.
Merlin didn't want to answer that question. But he found at the same time no desire left to fight it.
"I don't know," he said somberly. "Since I was in Uni, maybe."
"That's impossible," Arthur said.
He probably already knew Merlin's age. If he didn't know off the top of his head when Merlin had completed his degrees, it was still a staggering number of years no matter how you tried to do the math. If Arthur didn't have the exact numbers he probably assumed they were talking about five years.
The real answer was closer to eight.
Merlin didn't try to convince him. It didn't matter in the end whether Arthur believed him or not because it was true. He wasn't going to explain to this man that even if he hadn't been in an authority position of Public Service that he was breaking every law in the book to be in, he couldn't keep a Dominant partner for long.
They all left when they realized he couldn't be influenced by them unless he wanted to be.
Arthur was leaning over his knees now, his fingers laced, his elbows on his thighs. Merlin could see what he was doing. Couldn't bring himself to care about that even. His presence as a Submissive was so small naturally, he would be surprised if Arthur could learn anything from it. Usually Merlin was very careful about suppressing it; if he wasn't wearing his patch he could force it into a box himself if he needed to. But doing that took a tremendous amount of concentration and it was too dangerous for him to keep up in the field. If he lost his hold on it someone was bound to notice.
Like Arthur had.
But since it was the point of them meeting like this, he did nothing about it now and let Arthur look.
"You should have lead with this," Arthur told him, sitting back in his seat, annoyed again.
Annoyed with him.
Merlin hated being made to feel so foolish for no reason.
"Lead with what?" He asked quietly.
"That you have no practical experience submitting to anyone, Merlin, least of all me. That would have been important information to have at the start."
Merlin glanced at the window. Stared at the black glass for a long time.
"You may be right about that," he said. Truly he hadn't given it much thought.
Had there ever been a time that he'd actually reached a place of true submission with a Dominant partner?
He didn't think so.
But he also didn't really understand why it was important. He was just a Sub, not an alien from another planet. Surely there couldn't be a world of difference between him and every other Submissive in the world.
Could there?
"Merlin, look at me."
He did. It was exhausting.
"I'm not saying it's important because it implies you're somehow bad at this, or that you won't be able to get what you need from me," Arthur told him seriously. "I'm saying it because it's important for me to know."
"Why?" Merlin managed.
Arthur searched his face. Merlin let him.
"Because someone with experience has a better idea of what their own limits are. They know how to signal it, if something is wrong. I made the assumption you had that kind of experience. And instead of helping you I made it worse."
"What was there to signal? All you did was make me sit up straight in a chair for an hour," Merlin said.
There wasn't any heat to it. He really couldn't muster up the emotion he needed for that kind of statement to properly bite. But the intention was clear. Arthur gave him an unsympathetic smile in return.
"Was that really all it was to you, Detective?"
Merlin couldn't stand the way Arthur called him that instead of using his name in this context.
Hated even more the way Arthur's smile grew when he said nothing.
"Let's break down your expectations then, shall we?" Arthur said, crossing his leg at the knee.
Merlin tensed.
"When you found your own relief in the past, it was through sex," Arthur told him matter-of-factly. "Not a bad gamble, all things considered. Plenty of vanilla blokes out there with kinks that line up nicely with what you need. You might even be able to get away with the occasional Dom to take you to bed, since you can break a Dominant's influence entirely at will. They probably wouldn't even realize you were a Sub, although in such an intimate setting that would still be a risk for you, no matter how good you are at it."
Merlin tried not to react. But his face felt hot all of a sudden. And it was all true. And he was sure it was obvious.
"So now you're used to controlling those interactions yourself, which is what you were expecting to do to me tonight. Adapting your own reactions to force the behavior you want out of your partners. Which," Arthur tilted his head. Gave Merlin a suggestive smile that sent goosebumps running down his spine. "I have to admit, although tempting to let you try, was far too insulting to allow."
Merlin was starting to feel lightheaded. Was this how it felt when he did this to people as a Detective?
"I..."
Merlin stopped himself. He wasn't even sure what he was going to interrupt Arthur to say. He couldn't deny it. But some very irrationally insistent part of him wanted Arthur to know that he hadn't actually done it on purpose.
"You, what?" Arthur prompted.
"I can't help it," he said finally. "It's always been like that."
"I know," Arthur said.
"What do you mean, you know?" Merlin asked, feeling a spark of irritation.
Arthur didn't stop to acknowledge that.
"When you can't choose a partner to get what you need, you choose everyone. Correct?"
Merlin stared at him in shock. Arthur continued. Picking him apart little by little.
"Destructive behavior, unnecessary risk-taking, insubordination to your superiors and peers alike just so someone will bring you to task. When I gave you those scars on your shoulder," Arthur told him darkly. "I bet you were so worked up by the time you took that bullet you didn't even realize how good it felt for someone other than yourself to bring you down to your knees."
Merlin's heart was beating too fast and too hard for him to think clearly now. That wasn't true. It wasn't. It wasn't.
It...
He jumped when Arthur snapped his fingers.
"That's how you've managed this for so long," he said, waving his hand vaguely at Merlin's entire person.
"I'm not out getting myself shot to satisfy some base instinct like a psychopath," Merlin snapped. He was so uncomfortable in his own skin at that moment. Every inch of him was too hot.
"Please, Detective, really," Arthur answered with another even more patronizing smile. "Obviously you can't be. Not in the literal sense."
"Stop," Merlin rushed to cut him off.
"You punish yourself much more subtly than that when you can't get what you need."
"No, that isn't -"
"In your case," here Arthur paused as if considering him.
"Don't!"
"With food. And your own orgasm."
The words went ringing across Merlin's skull. He closed his mouth, stunned and humiliated and entirely at a loss for any kind of reply.
Arthur's smile only grew wider somehow.
"No wonder all you wanted when you came through that door was a proper shag."
"Let me out," Merlin said. His words didn't sound right to him. Like they were echoing somehow.
"No."
Merlin considered opening the door regardless and throwing himself out onto the road if he had to. But the thought of Arthur nearly dislocating his shoulder brought him up short. He didn't think he could do it fast enough, in the state he was in.
So he very calmly pulled his service weapon from his shoulder holster, and leveled it at Arthur's chest.
"Tell your driver to stop," he said quietly. "And let me out."
Arthur's eyes had taken on a hint of something Merlin hadn't expected to see there. Something dangerously close to excitement.
"I wasn't aware you carried to these meetings," Arthur said, very casually for someone who had a gun trained on them.
"You know I'm AFO," Merlin told him bluntly. "You knew I had it on me when I walked in the door. Like I know you have one on you at all times. Now stop the car and let me out."
"I'd assumed we'd both come to an unspoken agreement," Arthur said, his tone lowering, more threatening now. "That neither of us would draw them unless absolutely necessary."
"I am finding it absolutely necessary," Merlin told him.
"Afraid if you try to open the door I'll break your arm?"
Merlin tensed.
Arthur smirked.
"Put it away, Detective, before you provoke me any further by insulting me again."
"Stop calling me that!" Merlin roared.
The silence that caved in on them was deafening. Even Arthur looked over the barrel of Merlin's gun like he was only just seeing Merlin for the first time.
Merlin didn't lower it.
But he wasn't as confident about pointing it at Arthur as he had been a few seconds ago.
So when Arthur slowly reached out his hand and pushed Merlin's gun down until it was pointing at the floor, he didn't resist. Thought Arthur might even have been more gentle than necessary as he took it from him and reset the safety.
He assumed Arthur would be furious.
Instead he put Merlin's gun down carefully on the seat next to him and said, rather evenly, all things considered,
"I think I've underestimated your resilience again."
"I don't know what you mean," Merlin said, very quietly.
"You never made it out of that drop earlier, did you Merlin?"
He had to stop himself from cowing to that question. Because it was true, and he was already vulnerable enough as it was without giving Arthur any more cards to hold. But he wanted to, and badly. Arthur told him he'd done it exactly right, but he had to be lying, Merlin saw it on his face. This was a game to Arthur. He didn't need Merlin as a Sub, he could have anyone he wanted whenever he wanted them. He was toying with Merlin for his own amusement. And Merlin, who had actually, sincerely tried his best like a fucking idiot, left himself wide open to a kind of devestation that could fuck him up long after he got out of this car.
All Arthur would have to say is that he'd done everything so poorly, that Merlin didn't deserve a chance to make it right.
And then follow through with never giving him one.
Merlin had no illusions, none whatsoever, that if Arthur did that to him right now in the middle of a drop, regardless of his abilities, his resilience, his emotional fortitude and his awareness of it, that someday - maybe not tomorrow, or the day after, but a few weeks? A month? He would be on his knees, publically begging Arthur for another chance.
Why would I kill you Detective when I could just make you do it for me?
So Merlin didn't answer the question. He didn't really need to, anyway. Arthur had asked because he'd heard it in his voice when he told Arthur to use his name. He might as well have been shouting look at me.
Tell me I'm worth that much at least.
"What was it?" Arthur asked him.
Merlin blinked.
"What was...what?"
"What did I do to make you feel like this?"
Merlin was struck by the frank concern in Arthur's voice. He looked to Merlin like he really wanted to know. He wasn't asking the question just to ask it, or to make Merlin more uncomfortable than he already was.
He wasn't doing it for Merlin's sake either though, not really. Merlin thought that if he had to guess, being a good Dom was genuinely important to Arthur. He would consider it a personal failure if Merlin left him without getting what he needed from Arthur, without feeling better leaving for the night than he did coming to see him. In the state Merlin was currently in, now that Arthur had realized it, Merlin thought he might actually care.
As much as someone like Arthur Pendragon could care about anyone, in any case.
That thought alone made Merlin want to refuse to answer him. He gave some serious consideration to allowing himself to self-destruct for a little while longer just so Arthur would feel even a fraction of the hurt he'd caused Merlin tonight.
But.
If Merlin could trust in nothing, he might be able to trust that Arthur wanted the information to soothe his own ego by helping Merlin get out of this empty place in his head. Not to drive him further into the dirt.
The possibility alone that it could be true made his heart skip a beat.
He hadn't been told he was good in a long time.
He really, really wanted someone to tell him that.
"After you stopped correcting me," Merlin said before he could talk himself out of it. "You looked at me like I was..."
A novelty.
"A problem you'd already solved before you ever met me. Like you were just going through the motions for the sake of indulging this agreement."
Like I was never interesting to you at all.
Arthur looked surprised.
"Just so I'm clear," Arthur said, a little too deadpan for Merlin's taste just then. "What you're referring to happened in the moments after I told you that I knew you'd be stunning?"
This was a mistake.
Arthur obviously wasn't planning to take this as seriously as Merlin thought he was.
"Yes, I heard you," Merlin admitted through clenched teeth. "And your face told me otherwise."
"Come here," Arthur said.
He said it so tenderly, that Merlin almost did so without question. He had to grip the edge of his seat to stop himself.
"Nice try."
"It wasn't a command, Merlin, you can stay where you are," Arthur said, his tone still so much softer than Merlin was used to hearing from him. "I said it because I want you here when I explain it to you."
He put his hand down on the seat next to him. Held Merlin's gaze when he added,
"So I can touch you while I do."
Merlin hadn't even heard his explanation yet and still he had to fight with himself to reign in the urge to cry, he was so relieved. It was low, even for Arthur, to use that against him. Arthur knew now that he hadn't been touched by a Dom consistently in a very long time. He would never be able to stop himself from wanting it. And Arthur was too experienced and too calculating not to know that because he himself had been the one to cause Merlin's drop, the need to be held by Arthur specifically to make amends would be infinitely compounded.
This was exactly what he'd been afraid of.
Unless Arthur meant what he said.
They stared at each other for a few more moments before Merlin slowly got up to sit next to Arthur.
He didn't sit exceptionally close to him, but he didn't make the gap wide enough that Arthur couldn't reach him, either. Merlin was looking at his own knees when he said,
"What did you want to explain to me?"
Arthur tsk'd and the sound sent a shock down his spine. Immediately Merlin fixed his posture without thinking. Flattened his palms over the tops of his thighs.
When Arthur drew his hand down the line of Merlin's spine, silently approving, it took everything ounce of self-control he had left not to press back into the touch. Every slow, gentle stroke shimmered across his shoulders. The base of his skull.
"Did you know," Arthur began. "That when a Sub is even just in the same room as a Dom, any Dom, that their presence is like a radio broadcast we can't ignore?"
Merlin shook his head.
He wasn't aware of that.
"Except for you, Merlin. When you came through that door if I hadn't already known you were designated Submissive, I wouldn't have been able to tell by looking at you."
Arthur's hand was still tracing a comforting line up and down his back.
"Until I told you that I thought you were stunning."
The words made him shudder. He felt Arthur smiling very close to his cheek.
"You completely opened up after that," Arthur told him. "When you caught me looking, it wasn't at your person, Merlin. And if it seemed to you like I was conducting an examination, that's because I was."
"Then it must have been dissatisfying for you," Merlin said very quietly. He was staring at the opposite seat of the car, the one he'd been sitting in to begin with. He couldn't bring himself to look at Arthur just then.
"No, Merlin," Arthur said. "Given your attitude tonight, I just wasn't prepared to see it."
Merlin wasn't really sure he understood that. But Arthur's hand was still running up and down his spine, and that was good. It gave him a small amount of reassurance, anyway.
"Do you know why?"
Merlin shook his head.
"Because when you do that I can see everything you want from me."
Merlin swallowed. Hard.
"Don't worry," Arthur said, amused by his reaction. "It isn't like I'm reading your mind. I can't see your fantasies or your desires like I'm watching a movie."
"What, then?" Merlin asked him.
"They look like fireflies to me," Arthur said.
At that, Merlin finally turned to look at Arthur.
"They?" He echoed.
"All the places you want me to touch you," Arthur said. "And what each one will do to you."
Merlin was still catching up to the implication of Arthur's words, when Arthur leaned in. His mouth was very close to Merlin's when he continued.
"Would you like me to prove it to you?"
Merlin stopped breathing.
Arthur smiled, not quite against Merlin's lips, now parted a little in shock.
"I think you more than deserve it," he said. "You were very good to sit and listen to what I had to say, even though it was difficult for you."
The words erupted over his skin. It was such a sudden, blissful relief that his whole body relaxed. All of him was good.
"Now do you know how I really felt when I was looking at you?" Arthur prompted.
Merlin shook his head again. He couldn't trust himself to speak.
"I'm sorry you couldn't see it for yourself," Arthur said. He sounded to Merlin like he might actually mean it.
There were stars coming to life under his skin again.
"You really were stunning to me. If I seemed out of focus to you at the time, it was because I was distracted."
"By what?" Merlin managed. It was barely a whisper.
Arthur ran just the tips of his fingers up along the side of Merlin's neck. Delicately traced the shell of his ear.
Merlin whimpered.
"Knowing you would make that sound for me, if I touched you there."
Merlin crushed the fabric of his trousers in his fists when Arthur slipped his hand into the collar of his shirt. Drew a single finger down along the slope of his neck meeting his shoulder, lifting Merlin's chin with his free hand as he did.
Merlin's back arched when he did it. He turned his head away just slightly without meaning to, giving Arthur better access. Silently begging Arthur to do it again.
He did.
Merlin trembled under his hands.
"You're particularly sensitive here," Arthur told him. "If I bit you so that it bruised, you'd get hard."
Merlin squeezed his eyes shut, whimpering quietly again when Arthur drew his fingers back up the side of his neck, still holding his chin up with his other hand.
He carded his hand into Merlin's hair, running his fingers over Merlin's scalp.
"And if I want you to make an even sweeter sound for me," Arthur told him. "All I need to do is..."
He took a fistful of Merlin's hair as he said it. Pulled Merlin's head back, forcing him to bare his throat. Then he lowered his head and nipped the fragile skin over Merlin's pulse with his teeth.
Pressed his lips over the tiny mark.
Merlin moaned.
When he did he felt Arthur's posture shift, relaxing against him. Up until that moment both of them, Merlin realized, had been incredibly tense. Not just him. It occurred to him that he had introduced a factor into this scenario Arthur had never had to account for before. The knowledge that if at any point during this completely insane transaction Merlin wasn't one-hundred and fucking ten percent satisfied with Arthur's actions as a Dominant partner, he could break Arthur's influence over him and Arthur would have to start again from square one.
Although Merlin was entirely comfortable with the idea of earning the approval of a Dom, it was in his nature, even if he didn't always like to admit it; it was likely Arthur had no appreciable concept of the idea. For a Dominant, if a Sub had agreed to partner with them, they already had the foundation of the approval they needed. Not all of it, all at once, certainly. But everyone who existed in their world knew that the majority of the trust at the outset of a partnership was given over into the hands of the Dominant. They didn't have to earn shit. They just needed to maintain the Submissive's faith in them through the process.
Of course, what the vanilla members of society didn't see was the very complicated spectrum of consent that existed between both Doms and Subs. Although the outside world liked to believe that a Sub had every way to reverse their consent with a Dominant partner, Submissives knew it wasn't as easy or simple as calling out a safeword, or signaling to end an interaction. Dominants had that designation on their ID because they had a greater level of influence, really in all things, but especially over the senses of a Submissive. Once a Sub had given up that level of control to a Dom, depending on how strong of a Dominant presence they were facing, it could become almost impossible for a Sub to do anything except obey. Merlin had seen it more than once in his life, especially as a boy, when the stronger Dominant kids in school would force an unsuspecting Sub to their knees just by looking at them.
Make them beg in front of the entire class to let them up again.
It was no different for some adult Dominants.
It was no different for your average vanilla sociopath, all things considered.
Except that no Submissive could just shatter that control at anytime. They could make it clear they didn't want it. That something was wrong, or needed to be changed before they continued. But it was all contingent on the Dom choosing to let go of that control immediately and without question.
And then there was Merlin.
But he wasn't infallible. He was still a Sub. And everywhere Arthur touched him, how he was touching him, felt so good it was maddening. Merlin couldn't remember a Dominant's hands on his skin like this before Arthur. Or maybe it had just been too fucking long since he'd had this and his ability to gauge his own level of need wasn't entirely rational at the moment. He couldn't tell. All he knew was that he couldn't stop himself from wanting it now. He wanted so much more than this.
Arthur had both his hands on his face now. Everywhere he touched him made Merlin ache.
"You really are exhilarating," Arthur told him quietly. "And so good when you want to be. Just look at you."
Merlin lowered his head a little at the words, increasing the pressure of Arthur's hands on his face for a second to focus on something else. He bit the inside of his own lip sharply, tasting copper. If he didn't and Arthur kept saying those things, kept touching him like that...
Of course Arthur felt it under his hands when he did. Immediately realized why.
"Just my spoken adoration, Merlin, really?" Arthur said. It wasn't unkind. But Merlin was so immediately humiliated that he didn't want to answer him.
He should have known that wouldn't work with Arthur.
"I wonder how many of my praises it would take to make you come for me like this. If you hadn't stopped yourself you'd already be hard, wouldn't you?"
"Wait," Merlin pleaded, managing to find his voice before Arthur could continue. "I won't ignore you again. You don't have to -"
"This isn't a punishment, Merlin," Arthur said. "Besides..."
Merlin let out an absolutely feral whine, pressing his face into Arthur's throat when he lowered one of his hands to Merlin's hip and slowly ran his fingers down the top of Merlin's thigh.
Drew them back up the inside of his knee, and higher.
"I rather think you like the idea."
Merlin's hands had dropped to the seat of the car at some point. Now he reached for Arthur's wrist, coming up just short of grabbing him in a desperate attempt to stop the movement of his hand. He was still running his fingers along the inside of Merlin's thigh, and for some reason doing it over his trousers was making the feeling of it more intense across his skin. Down into his knee and higher, into the cradle of his hips. It felt so good he was shaking.
If Merlin didn't stop him he was going to end up begging Arthur to make him come on the floor of this fucking car.
But he'd told Arthur he wouldn't put his hands on him again.
So he didn't.
He clenched his hand into a fist and dropped it back to the seat of the car, breathing hard against Arthur's skin.
He was so fucked.
Merlin let out a sharp breath when Arthur switched his hand to Merlin's other thigh. He'd been holding himself back from reacting honestly to Arthur since he'd moved over to let Arthur touch him. And because Arthur had read him like a book, every touch was tailor-made to arouse him. Which just made it so much harder to control himself when Arthur praised him.
That had always been a hot point for Merlin, moreso than most Subs. He'd never come for anyone because of it. That seemed like a reach, even for the most experienced Submissive in the world. Except that right now, Merlin was operating on empty, less than empty. He was so wound up, repressed and wanting that if there were ever going to be a time in his life that he came just from someone telling him he was good, now would probably be it.
"That surprised me, Merlin," Arthur said in his ear. "I want you to know that when you told me you wouldn't put your hands on me again, I don't consider it a promise you're obligated to keep in this context. I expect you never to do it anger, nothing more."
Merlin's heart was beating very fast now.
"But I'm so proud of you for keeping your word," he added softly.
Jesus fucking Christ.
He couldn't lose his mind like this, not on their first mutually agreed on interaction. If he did, Arthur would have even more of an upper hand than he already did. And the worst part was there wasn't any influence to break here, not really. Arthur wasn't exerting any control on Merlin's reactions, other than the fact that he was touching Merlin's skin.
And even though objectively he knew that Arthur was finding excuses to praise him to see how far he could push Merlin's buttons, he so badly wanted it to be true that his reactions to the words were not only genuine, but so much more intense than he'd ever felt them.
He was sure the last time he had physically felt Arthur's Dominant influence was back at the abandoned factory. Even then Arthur hadn't exerted any kind of force of will on him with it. It was more of a reminder than anything else, of who was in the room with him.
Like Merlin needed a reminder.
So he couldn't use his abilities to stop this from escalating to a place Merlin wasn't entirely sure he was comfortable with. The only way to find any kind of control now was to make a concession.
One that Arthur would accept as Merlin's Dom.
He wasn't actually sure what was acceptable in this scenario. They were still in the middle of...something, he supposed. They weren't exactly continuing what they'd started even though Arthur was directing him as a Dominant and Merlin was allowing him to do it as a Sub. But this wasn't Merlin the Detective and Arthur the Crime Lord speaking to each other either. So he really wasn't sure how far to take it. They were still feeling each other out in a way, the only boundaries Arthur had set down for the evening was not to speak unless Arthur specifically told him to, or if Arthur directly asked him a question. He could work with that. He'd done plenty of ignoring direct questions tonight. It would still be a gamble though, whatever he did next, considering that he didn't fully understand Arthur's expectations as a Dominant.
But not a big gamble.
Merlin had more than one gift, after all. There was a reason the other detectives called him Magic.
He knew already that Arthur considered it a privilege to kneel rather than a typical Dominant's expectation that a Sub would do so unconditionally and without being asked. And he hadn't been directed to do so, not even unconsciously in the way Arthur was touching him all night.
So Merlin pulled himself upright and into Arthur's lap.
He straddled Arthur's thighs, keeping his eyes down as he did, using the strength in his legs to hold the majority of his weight off of Arthur's by pressing his knees and shins into the seat on either side of Arthur's legs. He drew his hands down, to rest on Arthur's hips when he did, and lowered his chin.
Kneeling for him, without actually kneeling for him.
Merlin didn't want to admit to himself how good it felt.
It was such a fucking relief. He had to fight not to completely relax into it and drop his weight entirely. He needed to show Arthur he was making some small effort in this way. That he wasn't assuming Arthur would want or enjoy Merlin doing so. And his words had to prove the same, by admitting something that would be uncomfortable for him to say out loud.
"I'm sorry I ignored you, Arthur," he said, quietly. "I have a hard time answering questions like that."
He didn't have to calculate the pause he took before he continued, to take a deep breath. It really wasn't easy for him to talk about this part of himself with anyone, even with the very few Dominant partners he'd ever had in his life, let alone attempt to do it with a Dom that he'd only known outside of a criminal case file for a matter of weeks.
"You're right," he said, fighting not to let his voice drop to a whisper. "Just your praise is enough. I've been stopping myself from getting hard since you told me I was stunning. I've never come from that alone. But I do like the idea."
His face was burning. Merlin had to close his eyes briefly to brace himself. Sucked in a breath when Arthur put a hand on the top of his thigh again, afraid he might continue what he'd been doing and ignore Merlin's words entirely. If he did that now while Merlin was sitting in his lap, with his legs open over Arthur's hips, Merlin was certain he wouldn't be able to stop himself again. He would get hard and he would have to beg Arthur to let him do something about it.
But Arthur didn't move his hand. Instead he hooked Merlin's chin with his free hand, and lifted Merlin's face. Merlin opened his eyes.
"How clever you are," Arthur said with a grin. "I'm very impressed, Merlin."
He couldn't help the way his chin dropped a little, against Arthur's fingers. The way he moaned when Arthur spoke.
Arthur ran his thumb over Merlin's bottom lip.
Merlin shuddered.
"Thank you for telling me."
Merlin started to bite his lip; it was right on the edge of too much for him again. But Arthur pressed his thumb there, not quite putting it in Merlin's mouth. His eyes were amused, probably that Merlin had just made this peace offering and then immediately tried to hide his arousal again. Arthur kept his thumb on his lip now as a test, Merlin thought. If he were truly penitent and was giving Arthur this level of control as a Dominant, he wouldn't risk biting Arthur to stop himself from getting hard. So he didn't, waiting as patiently as he could manage.
If Arthur told Merlin he was good or that he was proud of him now, Merlin was done for. He could see the debate in Arthur's eyes.
Merlin half wanted him to take it that far.
It would give Merlin an excuse to convince himself that Arthur was an asshole and not worth this effort.
Instead, Arthur kissed him.
Which was not at all helpful.
Merlin moaned, doing his best not to lean in, to stay where he was and let Arthur direct him.
It was brief. Arthur was softer with him than he expected. But somehow when he pulled back, Merlin was out of breath.
"Alright, Merlin," Arthur said with that infuriating grin. "Sit on the floor for me. I want to take a look at your shoulder before you go."
And just like that, they were finished. Merlin felt the difference in the energy between them as it shifted away from something charged and hyper-sexual to something quiet and intimate.
"Thank you, Arthur," Merlin said without thinking.
Arthur looked genuinely shocked by that for the space of a heartbeat. Merlin was too, frankly. He wasn't even sure if he was thanking Arthur for respecting his attempt to not come in Arthur's car, or if he was just thanking him in general. Because he was past his drop now and it really was impressive to Merlin that he'd not only managed it but put in the effort to do so.
Like when he could have allowed Merlin to fall off the stool and hit his head, if Arthur had chosen to do nothing about his drop Merlin would have probably been eating out of the palm of his hand in a matter of weeks just to get some kind of closure with him. He could have one of the most famous members of the Yard as his pet and it wouldn't even take that much effort on his part.
But Merlin was starting to understand the shape of Arthur as a Dominant even if he couldn't understand him as a criminal. He valued autonomy, and if he were going to entertain a relationship with a Submissive then he expected them to be respectful but not mindless. To be obedient but not without question.
It bothered Merlin how much it thrilled him to know that he already met that mark for Arthur to some extent.
"You really are exhilarating."
He lifted himself off of Arthur's lap as carefully as he could, lowering himself to the floor. He'd told Merlin to sit down, so he didn't kneel since Arthur didn't ask. He crossed his legs and sat down between Arthur's feet. He had a moment to think that putting his back to Arthur like this would make it exceptionally easy to strangle him.
The detective in him wasn't concerned because that wasn't Arthur's M.O.
Which was just...so fucked up.
But it was true.
Arthur was more likely to put a bullet in the back of his head. But he didn't spend much time worrying about that either. Arthur had at least six opportunities to kill Merlin in the last four hours.
Merlin didn't think he planned to kill him. At least not tonight.
He jumped when Arthur reached around his collar and started unbuttoning his shirt. Tried not to be irritated with himself because he was sure Arthur was smirking at him for it. He only undid the top three buttons, and then, surprising him, guided Merlin's head to rest against his knee.
Merlin closed his eyes.
For all their missteps and misunderstandings he was begrudgingly willing to admit that Arthur was an exceptional Dominant partner. He couldn't imagine anyone else he'd ever done this with being able to recover his emotional temperature spikes the way Arthur had and still make him feel like he hadn't done anything wrong. For the first time in years, Merlin felt good. He wasn't calm yet, not exactly. But he was closer than he had been yesterday.
He would take that much and be grateful for it. It was more than he'd expected to get in his lifetime ever again.
Arthur pulled his shirt back away from his shoulder, ran his hands carefully over the joint, checking Merlin's scars. Merlin felt goosebumps tumble down the back of his arm when he did it. His scaring was still new, so it was possible they could still split with enough force. He was sure it hadn't happened since there hadn't been any blood, and even though Arthur was the reason it needed to be checked in the first place, Merlin was oddly touched.
"You're bruised," Arthur told him quietly. "But that was my grip on you, not your injury."
Merlin opened his eyes.
"I'll survive," he said.
"I should hope so, Merlin. You'll need to be more resilient than that to Sub for me."
He moved Merlin's shirt back up onto his shoulder. Ran his hand through Merlin's hair. Merlin couldn't stop from turning his head into Arthur's knee at the tender way he did it. For a long time they remained that way, while Merlin relaxed, soaking up the silence and bottling it for later.
"We need to discuss some things that I would prefer we talk through when you're properly settled. If you don't want to discuss them tonight that's fine. But we won't do this again until we do."
It wasn't a threat, but Merlin's pulse spiked at the thought of anything large or small standing in the way of them doing this again. Because if Arthur could manage this much for him through all of his misplaced expectations and mental fog, he could only begin to imagine how good it would be if they could play with each other successfully.
Merlin shifted, sorry to raise his head and dislodge Arthur's hand. He would have been perfectly content to stay there until the sun came up. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he believed that Arthur would let him if he asked. Like he'd suspected in the factory, the first time he'd used the pager. Instead he pulled himself upright. Paused only when Arthur stopped him, his hand light on Merlin's bad shoulder.
"How are you feeling?" Arthur asked.
"Better," Merlin admitted quietly. "We can talk now, if you want."
Arthur ran a hand through his hair one more time before Merlin stood, sitting across from Arthur once again, buttoning his shirt as he did.
Arthur crossed his leg at the knee. His expression was thoughtful when Merlin lifted his eyes to meet his gaze.
"We need to discuss your limits," Arthur said, very matter-of-fact.
When he gave Arthur his answer, Merlin could tell right away that he was skeptical.
"Everyone has limits Merlin," he said, stopping just short of rolling his eyes.
"I'm sure they do."
Arthur frowned. Leaned his head against his outstretched fingers, his elbow on the car door.
"Except for you?" He said, now openly sarcastic. Merlin leaned back in his seat. He didn't have anything to add, so he said nothing.
"Then you don't care if I draw blood?"
Merlin gave him an equally condescending smile.
"I don't."
"You don't care if I leave scars? Leave you alone for extended periods of time?"
Merlin hesitated on a response at that.
Arthur opened his hands.
"We all have limits," he said. "Be honest with me or this won't work."
Merlin pressed his lips together. Arthur let out a breath through his nose.
"Were you being serious with me, when you said you hadn't done this since University?"
Merlin frowned.
"You picked that apart fairly accurately earlier," he said, nettled. "Did you think I threatened to shoot you just to commit to a lie?"
"No," Arthur admitted. "You're AFO but you have no record of ever firing your gun in the line of duty. You have a very clear history of only ever drawing your weapon when you have no other choice. It was obvious my words more than touched a nerve. But that doesn't mean you weren't exaggerating."
"I wasn't."
They stared at each other in silence for a moment before Arthur said,
"How long then?"
"Eight years," Merlin said.
Arthur's frown deepened. Merlin didn't like the expression at once.
"And when you have spent time with a Dominant partner, was it more than once with the same Dom?"
Merlin had to think about that. The pause he took made Arthur look even more concerned. He could see it on his face, in the folds of his now dark frown.
"Look," Merlin said, bypassing the question entirely. "I would have preferred to do it that way, obviously. But there isn't a Dominant partner in the world that wants a Sub who can break their influence over them when they interact. It took no time at all before I had a reputation. No one wanted to partner with me and I knew I wanted to work for The Yard so I didn't press the issue. I kept my distance from the community at Uni and eventually everyone assumed I had lied about being Submissive in the first place." He shrugged, even though saying the words out loud weren't casual at all. They hurt him. "They all thought I was Dom-baiting at the end, so even if I wanted to I couldn't have found anyone who would have taken me seriously if I asked."
"So there was a time that you partnered with a Dom that made you concerned enough to break their influence during the course of a consensual interaction?"
"Yes," Merlin said. "More than once."
Arthur took that in.
"Why?"
"What do you mean?" He said, tired of this line of questions. Couldn't they just move on already?
"Why did you feel like you needed to break their influence over you at the time?" Arthur clarified, patiently. "What was it that made you uncomfortable?"
Merlin sighed.
"I called Red to being restrained and choked at the same time. To closed fists and piercings and there were no indications that they planned to stop."
Arthur's eyes flashed and he closed his mouth. Merlin could feel the change in him when he took in the words. Felt it running through the ink of his tattoo. Like Arthur was considering arson. It startled Merlin. He'd been flippant in his response because they were just facts; he hadn't considered the idea that Arthur might care beyond that. But it was suddenly very clear to Merlin that if he could remember their names, Arthur would kill them if he could get his hands on them. Merlin just wasn't clear on why, exactly. And just as quickly as it had descended on them both, the rage Merlin could see in Arthur's eyes, vanished.
Merlin let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
Arthur pressed the fingers of one hand into both of his eyes, rubbing them.
"So what I'm hearing is that you not only don't have any practical experience submitting to anyone, but as a result, you've never had the opportunity to properly explore your limits, let alone know what they are."
Merlin thought he should be insulted by the statement.
But it was probably true.
"Sure," he agreed half-heartedly.
Arthur gave him a profoundly irritated look.
"If you had, Merlin, then when I asked you what your limits were, you would have told me that you won't negotiate on being restrained at the same time as being choked, or that you won't negotiate about discipline heavier than an open hand -"
"That isn't entirely true," Merlin cut in, making Arthur raise an eyebrow. "I can take more than that."
"But not from a closed fist," Arthur said.
Merlin shifted a little, uncomfortably.
"No," he agreed quietly. "I'd prefer not to."
Arthur stared at him.
"We aren't talking about preferences, Merlin. Preferences imply that you don't get anything out of a Dom using their fists but you'll accept it if it happens to you. Is that what you meant?"
"No," Merlin snapped, upset with Arthur's tone. It made him feel young and stupid.
"I'm not making a judgement," Arthur said, his tone even again. "I'm clarifying."
Merlin looked away.
"Give me a different perspective then, Merlin," Arthur prompted. "Tell me what you know you do want from a Dominant partner."
Merlin glanced at Arthur out of the corner of his eye. Arthur opened his hands with an inviting grin.
"In a perfect world," he added. "One in which you can assume there is no limit to your access to the things you want."
Merlin resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
But he had to admit, this was a far easier position for him to take than trying to describe his limits.
"I've never encountered a tool I didn't like. I don't particularly enjoy them all, I associate pain that stings more closely with a punishment than I do a reward, for example. But I have never been dissatisfied with any tool used on me. That being said," he trailed off a moment, thinking to himself before he continued. "I will admit there is likely a large number of tools I've never encountered. But generally, I'm comfortable with negotiating and checking in with the use of new tools in the moment and not beforehand if it comes up."
"That won't break the scene for you?"
Merlin shook his head. "Not unless you do it for me."
"By that you mean?"
"If you address me as anything other than my name, I'll consider the moment outside of this agreement," Merlin said, referring to Arthur's use of Merlin's title earlier. Arthur gestured vaguely in acknowledgment, nodding.
"Anything else?"
"I will also consider any questions about my work or my cases, however vague, to be outside of this arrangement unless I specifically ask you to address it before we start. If you ask me to call you Sir or use a title to address you, I won't be able to take you seriously."
Arthur listened intently as he continued, his eyes fixed on Merlin's face.
"I like applied force," he said. "I like being restrained."
"You prefer a partner who can overpower you," Arthur said. It wasn't a question. But his expression, amused again, implied he wasn't entirely convinced.
"Why does that surprise you?" Merlin asked.
Arthur's expression cleared, then.
"Because you have an incredibly difficult time, for a Submissive, giving up any kind of fight, let alone a physical one."
"I never said I wouldn't fight you for it," Merlin told him calmly. "I would just enjoy the interaction more if you won."
At that, Arthur gave him a slow, predatory smile.
"Noted," he said quietly. Ominously.
It sent a shiver down Merlin's spine.
"What about sexual contact?" Arthur asked him before he could move on. It was Merlin's turn to raise an eyebrow.
Arthur laughed.
"Yes, Merlin, I understand you enjoy it, that much is obvious."
Merlin blushed.
"Is it something you consider only acceptable as a reward?"
Merlin hadn't really given that much thought. He shook his head, but slowly.
"That seems like something you haven't explored often enough to know for sure," Arthur said, taking in his reaction. "I'll keep that in mind."
"I feel like I shouldn't have to say that I enjoy praise," Merlin added, moving past that comment before he could think about it too hard. "Shame is also fine. But it will break my perception of the interaction if you attempt to humiliate me. And I enjoy long term reminders of expectations."
Arthur's eyebrows went up a little at that.
"Such as?"
Merlin shrugged.
"Bruises, marks that are painful while they're healing, tasks that need to be performed outside of our physical interactions. Things like that."
Arthur considered him seriously when he said it.
"Do you have any hard limits for marking you?"
Merlin was shocked to find that the idea of Arthur marking him was a sudden and terrible desire he didn't know he had.
"If I bit you here so that it bruised, you'd get hard.”
He wasn't sure if Arthur meant to phrase it quite that way. He couldn't imagine that he had, they'd only just started this partnership, such as it was. But the idea that Arthur would claim him for his own with his teeth burned under his skin once he'd said it. It took Merlin longer than it should have to answer Arthur.
"No marks visible under a standard collared shirt and slacks," he said quietly. "Nothing my peers or superiors would notice."
"And when you say tasks, I'm assuming that, given your position, you mean discrete tasks?"
"I will never perform a task for you in public that would make anyone suspect my designation, regardless of how or when you ask it of me."
Arthur nodded, glancing out the window.
"Speaking of tasks," he said after a brief silence between them. "How did you feel about the direction I gave you tonight?"
"It surprised me," Merlin told him honestly.
Arthur turned back to him, his forefinger resting against his upper lip.
"I've never been told to do something like that to earn approval. I expected to find it tedious and irritating."
"Which is why you gave me attitude for it," Arthur smiled making Merlin bristle. "That breaks a scene for you, I imagine."
"Yes," Merlin agreed curtly.
"And now?"
Merlin hesitated, collecting his thoughts.
"I enjoyed it."
Arthur smiled and it was sharp. It made Merlin's skin hot.
"I will negotiate on degradation but I generally dislike using that as a tool," Arthur said. "I won't break your skin, I won't negotiate on serious injury. I won't physically isolate you but I will negotiate on sensory deprivation. I don't play with fire, electricity or firearms of any kind. I don't do body modifications and I won't ask you to get it done for me elsewhere. No fluids other than saliva or semen."
Merlin shot him a disgusted look.
"Looks like you've found another limit," Arthur said with a smirk.
Merlin turned away again, his cheeks flushed.
"Look at me," Arthur said with authority.
Merlin did.
"You won't kneel for me unless I tell you to, I won't ask you to call me by anything other than my name but I expect you'll use it at the end of every sentence, respectfully as we discussed tonight. I also enjoy physical confrontation but if you escalate to the point where I believe you are using it as an opportunity to cause either of us serious harm there will be consequences that have nothing to do with this agreement."
Merlin's shoulder ached.
"I understand."
"I don't expect you to do everything I ask without question, but if I suspect that you're purposefully adjusting your behavior to change my direction as you have done with your other partners in the past, I will break you of that, and I will do so without sympathy. I realize you are used to being the smartest person in the room," he said. "I can appreciate why. But I will not tolerate you taking matters into your own hands when it comes to my responsibility over you as a Dom."
He waited for all of that to sink in before he added,
"So I suggest you break yourself of the habit before you make it necessary for me to do it for you."
Merlin swallowed, hard.
When he said nothing, Arthur's posture changed, and Merlin could see the difference in him before he said anything, before he'd even really moved.
"I understand," Merlin said quickly, startled by his own immediate instinct to respond. When he did, Arthur relaxed, but Merlin was still frozen where he was.
"You are exceptional, aren't you?" Arthur said softly.
The words shuddered Merlin's skin awake again. He felt warm around his collar.
"You have a hair trigger when it comes to expressions and body language," Arthur continued without any hint of sarcasm. "I'm going to have to be careful with you."
"What do you mean?" Merlin forced himself to say. They weren't acting as a Dom and a Sub anymore. But his body was shimmering with a warning to be good for Arthur, or else. All from a look. A fractional change in the position of his shoulders, the angle of Arthur's chin.
Arthur was a far stronger Dom than he had given him credit for, Merlin was sure of it now. He'd known he had a heavier influence than most, because even he had struggled to control himself when Arthur first attempted to use it on him, back before Arthur gave him his pager. But this was something deeper than that. A strength of will that Merlin didn't know existed until now.
Dominants influenced Submissives using the force of their influence but a Sub had a similar recourse when they were looking for mercy, for special treatment, or adoration from their Doms. It couldn't make a Dominant stop in their tracks, or kneel for Sub. But it did subtly change a Dominant's attitude. It made them softer and a little more pliable when their Subs needed something from them.
"I will break you and I will do so without sympathy."
Merlin thought he may be underestimating those words. If Arthur ever found occasion to break him of anything, Merlin had a feeling that no amount of penance would be enough. And it would be easier for Arthur to ignore Merlin's influence in this case; they didn't have any relationship beyond these interactions. There were no intimate feelings between them to leverage for mercy.
"Submissives who are used to a Dominant influence tend to ignore those kinds of queues," Arthur said. "But your experience is not to fall past the surface of that influence, so that you can break it if need be. It's given you another gift, as a result."
"Another gift?"
Arthur smiled at him and it made Merlin feel like gold.
"You can see me, more clearly than any other Sub I've ever entertained. I imagine you've used this to your own advantage in both your career and your personal life without even thinking about it. Knowing what the people around you want from you, almost before they know it themselves."
Merlin felt a sense of dread at the words. Thought back to Arthur's warning about manipulation between the two of them. But Arthur apparently didn't consider this gift to fall into the same category as that. To Merlin though, the look in his eyes was dangerous, all the same.
"It means I will have much higher expectations for your obedience, Merlin," Arthur said. "And I will be much less tolerant than I would normally be, when punishing you for willful ignorance. Because I'm sure now that I've seen it more than once, that you don't misinterpret commands once they're given, do you?"
Merlin couldn't hide the way his entire body trembled at the question and all it implied.
Arthur grinned and the expression was dark, knowing he was right.
Merlin didn't look away again. But he was sure Arthur could see the defiance growing under all that creeping dread.
It pulled Arthur's smile a little wider. Excitement mingling with the warning there.
"You ignore them on purpose," he purred. "Don't you?"
Merlin said nothing.
He'd have been lying if he did.
"Oh Merlin," Arthur said, his smile now entirely unfriendly and somehow suggestive at the same time. He paused to look Merlin up and down, like he was trying to decide where best to begin ravaging him.
It made Merlin bite back a whimper.
"I can't wait to see you try," Arthur whispered.
Chapter 5: Nightmare in Eden
Summary:
Arthur pages Merlin for the first time.
Notes:
When I tell you I have been waiting since the first chapter to drop this sequence, please know that it was so HARD not to just jump right into this particular chapter.
Often times entire stories of mine start in a random place, with a very intense scene that informs me of everything I need to know about the story up front. For Sublysis, that scene is in this chapter. The very first thing I ever wrote for this story began with, “I knew you were going to insist we do this the hard way.”
You’ll know it when you get there.
Since I wrote that scene I have been dying to share it with you.
o(TヘTo)
DYING.
I hope you love it. As always stay safe and be kind 💋 I’ll be back with more soon!
Chapter Text
Arthur wasn't used to failure. It just wasn't a phenomenon that occurred when he put his mind to a task. It certainly wasn't one he'd experienced often as a Dominant partner. After giving it a fair amount of thought, he actually wasn't sure he ever had failed in his role as a Dom, the way he'd failed Merlin during their first interaction after bonding.
Not since he was a teenager anyway.
He was tempted to classify his emotions on the subject as irritated. And it was irritating, to say the least. Before Merlin Balinor came along, Arthur didn't have to think very hard when he was acting as a Dom, really ever. He hadn't expected the Detective would be boxed into a, call it, common Dominant and Submissive interaction to begin with. But Arthur hadn't been considering all of the pieces that made up the puzzle between them as carefully as he should have been.
Humbling. The word he was looking for to describe his feelings on the matter was...humbling.
He turned to look out the window onto his property, resting a finger against his mouth, his elbow on the arm of his chair. The sky was grey and dark for early afternoon. It was going to rain again.
Arthur had misinterpreted two key moments during the night. The first, was his own reaction to Merlin when he reached a place of actual vulnerability, when he agreed to follow Arthur's direction on the stool without resistance. It was clear to him that Merlin hadn't actually managed to submit to him at any point during the evening. They'd come close once or twice, Arthur thought. When Arthur had called him stunning while he was completing the task set for him. And then again, strangely, when Arthur had twisted his arm to get him to stop fighting when he was dropping.
That one confused Arthur. His demeanor had completely changed to something he'd never seen in the Detective before. Arthur had broken himself entirely from the interaction as a Dom, and he'd assumed that Merlin had done the same thing when he'd struck Arthur across the face.
Arthur could feel it on his jaw even now, the hard slap of the back of Merlin's hand when he'd attempted to shove Arthur off of him that second time. It had taken Arthur too long to realize that Merlin was still in the mindset of a Sub. Which was wildly intriguing to him. Arthur had never known any Sub, whether they knew who he was or not, who had the courage to physically lash out at him. True Combative Subs were rare. A Sub with enough fortitude to fight, really fight back until they were physically restrained. Although Merlin implied that this was something he enjoyed, he'd also started out the conversation about limits by saying he had none so...Arthur was at least a little bit skeptical. But if he wasn't overstating himself?
Arthur liked the idea.
Perhaps a bit too much.
I never said I wouldn't fight you for it. I would just enjoy the interaction more if you won.
Arthur was still hearing those words in his head even now. It was, he thought, his favorite thing a Sub had ever said to him. Ever.
But back to the issue at hand.
Now that he'd gone over it more than once in his head, Arthur realized the same change in attitude had happened in the warehouse, when he first realized Merlin was a Sub to begin with. It had been the way he added the please to the end of his shouting for Arthur to let go of his arm that caught Arthur's attention. It was in that moment Merlin's own influence reached for him, softening the edges of his anger, nudging him so subtly in the direction of mercy that he'd let go of Merlin without thinking.
Arthur couldn't help but feel a small thrill at the thought. Merlin's closest position to penance came from pain. Which tracked if he was telling the truth about his need to fight back. Arthur smiled to himself, and it was dark.
All of this he could work with.
But regardless, Merlin hadn't completely submitted to him at all. It was in those moments, when he was close to doing it, that Arthur experienced a physical reaction to Merlin that he had to fight to reign in; the need to push just a little harder, to test Merlin's limits just a little more, because the emotional peace Arthur would feel to see Merlin finally give himself entirely into Arthur's hands would be...perfection.
It had been a long time since he'd worked with a Sub who wasn't immediately able to come down to that place for him. So it had been far longer since he'd felt the physical reaction to his own desire to make it happen. And here was Merlin, consistently angry, who was never not lying about wanting his help, the only Sub Arthur had ever met who could punish themselves and manage to survive on that, driving Arthur's instincts to break him and piece him back together fucking crazy.
It made Arthur's blood pressure spike in the most delicious way.
But it was also a fine line to walk. He and Merlin lacked the trust they needed to make this easy. Every new meeting was starting from zero. And Merlin's ability to break his influence at any second loomed over the two of them like a threat. When Arthur had seen Merlin's presence open up to him, like it had the first night Merlin had used his pager, Arthur had assumed Merlin was in a stable emotional place for him and that was the wrong assumption to make, clearly. Merlin was the most intense, demanding, fearless Sub he'd ever met. And somehow so self-conscious and easily hurt. So quick to assign the blame to himself, not for failing to complete a task, which was fine as far as their roles were concerned. No, his shame came from a very deep self-loathing that Arthur hadn't been prepared to anticipate. Arthur had told him he was stunning, told him he'd done everything exactly right, that he hadn't done anything wrong. Arthur had even gone so far as to actually say out loud that he was the one at fault, not Merlin, and the words had no effect on him. Merlin's rage in that moment hadn't been directed at Arthur it had been directed at himself. He was convinced down to the core of his being that he was a bad Sub if everything didn't go perfectly with their interactions, right down to a subtle change in Arthur's expression while he was observing Merlin's presence.
Which was going to be a difficult knot to untie. There was no such thing as a perfect scene. Merlin couldn't possibly live up to his own expectations in that regard and as much as it pained him to admit it, Arthur couldn't possibly live up to that expectation either. He was emotionally water-boarding himself when one of the two of them inevitably came up short.
But Arthur had a feeling that this wasn't another self-punishment reflex. This was something more difficult to undo. Something Merlin had already convinced himself was true before he ever met Arthur. That if he couldn't be a perfect Sub, then he was worthless.
Or someone else had convinced him of it.
Arthur thought about the partners Merlin had mentioned to him, the ones who had treated him like a toy they could use as they pleased.
He didn't think it would be very hard to find them. He had a distinct range of years and a University campus to go on. He'd found more difficult people with less. Arthur filed that thought away for later.
For Merlin's sake, he was trying not to commit any exceptionally public crimes at the moment. It gave the two of them some distance from Arthur's case file. Gave The Met an excuse to forget about him for a little while.
Dismemberment probably didn't count as keeping a low profile, unfortunately.
But he would give himself the option of coming back to this train of thought at a later date.
In case he ever needed to let off some steam.
The second moment he'd misinterpreted, was in the car, when Merlin had drawn his gun. That one bothered Arthur more than the first. He should have seen it, it should have been clear in Merlin's presence that he was still experiencing a hard drop from their interaction in the warehouse. But Arthur had looked when they first got into the car and Merlin's presence hadn't appeared any different to him than when they had started. Still just like the embers showering off the enormous wings of a dragon. The problem was, he realized later, that Merlin was so tied up in knots from eight fucking years of punishing himself instead of getting help from a Dominant partner, that Arthur couldn't tell the difference between the old knots and the new ones. But he should have.
Arthur drummed his fingers on the edge of his desk.
He needed another chance to make it better. But how to do it?
He wasn't sure yet what kind of Sub Merlin was. Which, to be fair, was very rarely an actual explanation of needs. A Sub who identified as a Brat might also have needs that leaned into being a Model Sub even though the two directly contradicted each other. But it was a good starting point. Arthur thought he'd made a fair assessment in the beginning, that Merlin was a Service Sub. He'd responded perfectly when Arthur set the boundaries of that first punishment game. Merlin had a mind like a sky full of constellations; vast and reaching into places it was impossible for others to conceptualize let alone see with their own eyes. So he'd picked up the rules and the solution to the game without Arthur ever needing to explain it to him, just like Arthur suspected he would.
And even though their interaction with the stool had ended badly, before it had, Merlin was exceptional. Arthur had the impression that Merlin wasn't used to being stimulated in that way, but when he allowed himself to be it worked very well for him. So Arthur was certain that at least in part, Service was a good tool for Merlin.
Based on the conversation they'd had in the car though, Arthur was starting to think that Merlin was probably also a Combative Sub or a Brat. That would be easy to determine, comparatively. It would depend entirely on how well Merlin responded to extreme stress, in the end, that would give Arthur definitive proof of that.
The best way to do it, Arthur decided, was to first trigger Merlin's fight or flight response and then let him recover with a task to perform. If he was a Brat he would fold to the pressure of Arthur's influence eventually, but he would be a smart-ass the entire way down. If he were a Combative Sub on the other hand...
Well.
Arthur also had needs after all. It was exhilarating just thinking about the possibility of Merlin fighting him for control. It would be bliss to make Merlin admit defeat.
He was itching for the chance to make it happen. Because no matter what direction Merlin took it in, Arthur was sure he could make it the best goddamn scene he'd ever experienced with a Dom. Put the heat back in those cooling embers all over Merlin's presence. Untie the tangled mess of the knots Merlin was living in under his skin.
Arthur picked up his pager. Typed in a new four digit number and sent it to Merlin.
Then he turned his chair back to his desk.
He still had work to do, after all.
But when he was finished, Arthur was going to make the Detective beg him for relief.
And if Merlin was very good, Arthur might even give it to him.
Arthur had never used the pager to reach out to him first, so Merlin actually jumped when he heard it vibrating inside his junk drawer.
It was a Sunday morning. Almost two weeks since the complete train wreck of their first interaction as a bonded Dom and Sub. Merlin honestly hadn't been sure that Arthur even wanted to try again after that fiasco. Merlin had stopped himself from reaching out even though he needed to, because he was afraid of Arthur's silence.
Merlin Balinor was now thoroughly convinced that he would go down in history as the only Sub in existence that even a career criminal didn't want.
The thought was eating him alive.
He was barely sleeping, he hadn't eaten a proper meal in days. There was no movement on the CDK case to distract him and his mind was starting to resemble a child's attempt to color a picture inside the lines. Everything was blooming, sharp-edged scribbles. All he could focus on was that he'd fallen off the stool before they were finished. He knew objectively that it wasn't his fault. And Arthur had taken responsibility for it, sure. He just hadn't given Merlin the chance to make up for it. The rational part of his mind told him that Arthur hadn't done that to him on purpose, he'd just assumed Merlin was good because Arthur had navigated him out of the worst of his drop in the car.
But he wasn't good at all.
Just the night before he'd woken up painfully hard, sweating, hearing Arthur's voice in his head for the third time that week alone.
I told you that you'd be stunning.
But no matter how close he got to the relief he wanted, stroking himself desperately, his hand slick with his own precum, he would remember falling off the stool.
Hitting Arthur in the face.
Drawing his gun.
And he wouldn't be able to finish. He was up this early now because he'd needed a cold shower for it this time. Merlin couldn't get himself off yet again but he couldn't stop himself from turning over onto his stomach, whining pathetically into his sheets and mindlessly rocking his hips into his mattress, either.
It was humiliating. And there wasn't anyone to witness it but him, which made it worse somehow.
He opened the junk drawer and took out the pager. Read the numbers on the screen and frowned.
Merlin didn't immediately recognize them. Arthur had picked four digits the way Merlin had done the first time they'd met. The numbers of the warehouse's post address. So he knew it must be another location, a place either he'd investigated while he was building a case against Arthur or one that he and Arthur had both physically been inside at one time or another.
But it wasn't ringing any bells.
Merlin chewed on his lip and made himself a cup of tea. Went into his room to retrieve his notes on Arthur's case.
By the middle of the afternoon Merlin was frustrated. He couldn't locate the numbers Arthur had sent him in that exact order anywhere in his notes or his memory.
He paced around his coffee table, his hands on his head making irritated sounds at the ceiling.
If this was a tease Merlin would strangle Arthur with his bare hands and fuck their arrangement. At least when he'd picked the location he had the decency to make it something they both knew about rather than turning it into some kind of...
Game.
Merlin stopped pacing.
A game only Merlin and the resources he had as a Detective could win.
Then he stalked into the kitchen, annoyed, beyond annoyed, but also excited, and snatched his keys off the counter on his way to the door.
He didn't have much time left before it got dark, and he had some property records to track down.
When Merlin finally made it to the address on the coast in Southend, he was still excited, but it was tempered with what had begun as a mild annoyance and had grown into flat out irritation throughout the course of the afternoon. It was more than an hour by train just to get to the coast, and it had been a fair hike to walk the rest of the way to the property. And although Merlin was certain he'd gotten the address right he was still worried that it was somehow a cruel joke or that he'd misjudged what Arthur wanted him to do with the information.
And what if Gwen or his DI were trying to reach him in the event of an emergency? He'd left his mobile at home, like he always did so that it couldn't be tracked to any of the locations he met with Arthur. The whole thing set his teeth on edge. Put him in an even worse mood the longer it took to get where he was going.
Merlin was grateful at least, that the property was a private one. There weren't many people around the area to begin with, but eventually there were none at all.
Along the private lane he was walking, Merlin could hear the sea pounding against the shore below. It was colder here than it had been in the city and the air smelled like brine. When he finally saw the shape of a residence up ahead of him in the growing dark, he was half convinced he'd made a wrong turn somewhere.
He hadn't expected another shell of a commercial building, exactly but this couldn't be right, could it?
Merlin glanced at the letter box on the fence as he passed it, and the numbers were correct. But the cottage he was approaching looked like something out of a fairy tale, not one that was owned by a criminal enterprise.
The building itself was an uneven yellow brick with a slate grey roof line and a white washed wooden door with a massive iron handle. The property backed up to a shear cliff down to the rocky beaches below, where Merlin could imagine that at high tide, it might be possible for the sea spray to actually hit the side of the house. And all the fences and the long grass surrounding it were covered in English roses, gorse bushes and a massive wisteria tree that Merlin thought must be a sight to see in full bloom. Now it was black from the last recent rainfall, the ends of its whip-like branches still dripping delicately onto the walking stones below it.
Merlin climbed the stairs to the door and hesitated. He supposed he should ring the bell? It wasn't like he was hiding his arrival to the cottage, standing out in the open on the front stoop. Then again, Arthur would have to be sincerely slipping in his security not to have cameras along the -
Right on cue Merlin heard the click of the lock being turned. The wind picked up as the door opened and Merlin had to run his hand back over his hair to see properly. Arthur stayed purposefully behind the door as it swung inward, so Merlin stepped inside quickly, letting Arthur close and lock the door behind him.
When he did, he looked Merlin over and the glint in his eye made Merlin warm instantly.
"Well done," he said quietly, holding out his hand.
Merlin dropped his gaze to Arthur's hand so that he wouldn't see how dramatically those two words affected him. He took a deep breath through his nose because just then he wasn't sure he could move without his legs going out from under him.
When he was confident he wasn't going to lose it and crowd Arthur for more praise, he lifted his eyes again to Arthur's face. Raised an eyebrow at him before he looked back down at Arthur's outstretched hand. At first he thought Arthur was looking for his gun, but Merlin hadn't carried to this meeting since he'd taken the train. And then it hit him, and he reached into the collar of his shirt and pulled the patch off his shoulder. Folded it in half so that it stuck together and then dropped it in Arthur's palm.
Arthur closed it in his fist. Gave Merlin an appraising look.
And even though it was clear why Arthur had called for him, especially now that he'd taken the patch, Merlin still couldn't stop himself from shrugging, putting his hands back into the pockets of his brown leather coat.
"I'm here," he said unnecessarily. "What's this about?"
Arthur gave him a deeply patronizing smile, tilting his head, his eyes wandering. Looking at his presence, Merlin realized, blushing.
Completely ruining any credit he had towards nonchalance.
"Coy doesn't look good on you, Detective," Arthur said without actually answering the question. "This way."
He gestured to the left of the entryway, and Merlin glared at him before he went into the room Arthur was indicating. Arthur grinned.
He tried not to be obvious about the way his skin warmed when Arthur followed him close behind. But Merlin thought that his skin might be a permanent shade of pink under his collar.
It wasn't as cold as he'd expected in the cottage. Merlin had left his shoes by the door and even though the floor was stone he couldn't feel a chill through his socks. When he made it into the next room, a kitchen, Merlin realized why. Against the wall in an alcove that must have been a fireplace at some point, was an old aga stove. Merlin had never actually seen one for himself before.
The whole thing was so insanely incongruous that Merlin stopped in front of the old kitchen table and had to work to convince himself that this wasn't just another dream he was going to wake up panting from. This was a home for career fishermen and retired old folks, maybe an expat, but it wasn't the kind of place he had ever imagined Arthur Pendragon belonging. And he didn't even look like he did, although Merlin was dressed far more casually than Arthur was - it was Merlin's day off, officially - Arthur was wearing the same suit he always wore. Perfectly tailored at every seam and midnight black.
There was tea on the table.
Merlin turned, his glare at Arthur skeptical now. He was fighting with too many emotions to settle on one. Aggravated at being sent on a wild goose chase to find this cottage, concerned about being so far from London, in desperate need for Arthur to just let him kneel for him so that he could stop feeling so anxious but unable to admit it out loud, refusing to admit it. Guilt for wanting Arthur so badly he was willing to throw all of his morals to the fucking wind.
So much guilt.
"What is all this?" He asked.
"Have a seat," Arthur said quietly.
Merlin had to hold himself up by the back of the chair, when he realized he'd started to do what Arthur was asking without thinking. Arthur wasn't even using his influence against Merlin's skin, just threading it through the sound of his voice.
"My, my, what was that?" Arthur asked him, amused.
Merlin swallowed hard.
Arthur slid his hand into the collar of Merlin's coat making him shiver, pulling his shoulders back and urging him to take it off. Merlin let Arthur take his coat. Watched as Arthur set it on the back of the chair closest to the aga to dry.
"I didn't imagine I'd see you responding that easily to a command for some time yet," Arthur continued, smirking. "Just how uncomfortable has these last few weeks been for you?"
Merlin glared at him.
"You called me, not the other way around," he snapped.
Arthur's smirk turned into a grin.
"And here you are," he said.
Merlin's glare only intensified.
"So eager to prove that you didn't come here because you need it that you can't even let me offer you a cup of tea without giving me an attitude for it," Arthur continued dangerously.
The tone of his voice sent goosebumps rolling down Merlin's spine. But Merlin wasn't done being embarrassed yet and it made him angry still.
"What's the point?" Merlin shot back.
"Of having tea?" Arthur asked him indulgently. "Because it's cold and you came a long way in the rain."
He stepped closer, looking at Merlin in the eye as he did. Merlin refused to look away, but even though he was still feeling heated, Arthur was very calm and the look he was giving Merlin caught him off guard. It was soft and pleased.
"This address isn't easy to find even with the post numbers," he said, coming to a stop very close to Merlin. "I imagine it was difficult, even for you."
It was the even for you that made Merlin answer him honestly. Something sweet flowered in his chest at the thought that Arthur considered him at a higher standard of intelligence than most. Merlin wasn't calm. His emotions were still running too high. But he answered quietly, compared to how he'd been responding to Arthur so far.
"Yes," he said. "It was."
"You did so well to find me," Arthur said. It made Merlin's skin feel like it was shimmering. "Don't stop being good now. Sit. Down."
This time the command was a push he wasn't expecting. Even if he had, Merlin was so worked up now he didn't think he could have stopped himself without breaking Arthur's influence entirely. And he couldn't break it in that moment.
Arthur said he was being good.
He sat down hard, his face flushing in frustration instantly. His embarrassment only grew again, when he realized that even Arthur was surprised by how he'd responded. That look slowly morphing into a lazy self-satisfied grin that made Merlin clench his hands into fists against his thighs as he turned to face the table. If he kept looking at Arthur he would get himself into trouble.
Arthur came around the table and sat down on his right, crossing his leg at the knee and taking one of the teacups delicately by the handle. Merlin pulled the other cup closer to himself with both hands around it. The warmth was grounding.
"I admit I was goading you with my comments earlier but now I'm curious," Arthur said, lifting the cup and taking a sip. Merlin waited, his eyes narrowed, still feeling unbalanced and too hot. "How hard has it been for you since we last met?"
Merlin looked away.
Even if he was planning to answer Arthur honestly, which he was not, between the missed meals and the dropped obligations and waking up every other night with a fucking hard on, how was he even supposed to begin to answer that question? And as far as Merlin was concerned they weren't meeting to have a heart-to-heart. Arthur wasn't his therapist. So he said,
"Not particularly."
Arthur watched him over the rim of his cup before setting it down on the table again.
"One," was all he said.
Merlin frowned, confusion making him less tense for a moment.
"One what?"
"Nothing you're concerned about," Arthur said with a smile.
Merlin bristled.
"What's that supposed to -"
"Merlin," Arthur said calmly, stopping him cold. "Are you angry because you would rather skip the tea and you don't want to admit it, or are you angry because you can't imagine that I just wanted to offer you a cup of tea without alterior motives?"
Merlin shut his mouth at the question. Turned his glare to the opposite wall. It took him a long time to answer.
"I don't know," he said.
"Two," Arthur answered. When Merlin turned on him he was sipping his tea again.
"What are you counting up for?" He snapped.
"You're a smart man," Arthur said agreeably. "You tell me."
Merlin searched Arthur's face, growing angrier as he did.
"I wasn't lying," he ground out.
Arthur tilted his head with a smirk.
"You did at least once," Arthur told him, Merlin realizing his mistake too late. "Or it would have been impossible for you to come to that conclusion."
Merlin glared at the table.
"So?" Arthur prompted. "Which one was the truth?"
Merlin didn't answer him.
Arthur leaned his head against his fist, his smile growing.
"If you can't answer me because neither was true then you've lied to me three times now."
"I don't know why I'm angry," Merlin said, his shoulders dropping a fraction. And then realizing he wasn't being entirely genuine about that either, he amended himself. "I told you in the car humiliation doesn't work for me."
Arthur was quiet at that for a moment.
"You think I'm trying to humiliate you?"
"You're making fun of me!" Merlin snapped, finally looking at him again.
Arthur's gaze was calm.
"In what way?"
Merlin put his hands on the table to push himself up out of his chair. It wasn't worth it. He'd walk all the way home - the whole fucking way to London rather than navigate this particular set of landmines. He didn't want tea, he didn't want idle chat, he didn't want -
Arthur put a hand over his. It stopped him in his tracks. Surprise wasn't the right word but it was close. Merlin stared at their hands on the table. It was the first time Arthur had touched his skin in two weeks. He had to concentrate so hard to stop himself from getting into Arthur's lap at that exact moment that he almost didn't hear what Arthur said next.
"Leaving now would be another lie, wouldn't it, Merlin?"
Immediately he tensed again.
"You can leave," Arthur said, and Merlin realized he was being serious with that statement. This wasn't Arthur a Dom, just Arthur, making sure he understood there wouldn't be any consequences for leaving now if he wanted to. That more than anything made Merlin relax; his expression turn from boiling to something only simmering now.
"You can also come upstairs with me," Arthur said. Merlin had to close his eyes at the words.
After a long silence, Merlin turned his hand over underneath Arthur's. Brushed his fingers against the inside of Arthur's wrist.
"I'll stay," he said.
Merlin followed Arthur into the next room, a dimly lit living area with a large sofa and a television over the dark fireplace. Then up a flight of stairs to what looked to Merlin like an attic door. When Arthur placed his hand on the knob, he stopped, speaking with his back to Merlin.
"Do you know what to do if you need me to stop?" He said.
Merlin stared at his back, shocked, wondering if he should be angrier still that Arthur wanted him to use a safe word like he was a teenager. But then he remembered the look on Arthur's face in the car; how much concern he had for not seeing the moment that Merlin had dropped for what it was. Softly, Merlin answered,
"Yes."
"If you can't speak?" Arthur turned then, looking at him over his shoulder. Merlin expected him to make a lewd joke of that. But his eyes were so serious.
Merlin held up one finger, then two, then three.
Arthur smiled.
Then he opened the door.
Merlin wasn't sure what he was expecting from the attic room after Arthur stopped him at the top of the stairs. It wasn't special. It just looked to Merlin like a very small apartment.
And then, all at once, Merlin felt Arthur's influence open up into the spaces between them pressing against him, filling his lungs with every breath he took. It set his skin on fire. He remembered this feeling, from the night he'd closed his hand in his office door, and all sense of reason went out of his head when Arthur turned, looking at him with those cold, hard eyes. He wanted to kneel.
He wanted to run.
If he had been uncertain that Arthur was holding himself back when they had met before now, he wasn't uncertain anymore. If Arthur truly wanted to, with this level of influence, he could run Merlin into the floor. His instincts were at war with each other as Arthur's influence caressed his skin. To fall at Arthur's feet without being told or to break this influence and get out of that room. He wanted so badly to be good. He wanted so badly to not want any of this at all.
"Come here," Arthur said.
Merlin couldn't move. Not forward, in any case. He felt his back touch the door. His hand was flat on the wood behind his thigh. Arthur continued looking at him coldly. Waiting.
Then he started to move.
Merlin turned, startled. He wasn't even sure what he was planning to do, throw open the door? Run down the stairs? He let out a sharp cry when Arthur hit him from behind, slamming him bodily into the door, his cheek pressed hard against the white painted surface. One hand closed around his good wrist and wrenched it up, pinning it above his head. The other took him by the back of his neck and held him there. Merlin struggled, cried out again when Arthur forced his knee between his thighs.
Merlin hunched his shoulder when Arthur leaned in close to his face and growled,
"Stop."
He did. Closed his eyes. Every inch of him going still under Arthur's hands.
"If you willfully ignore me again, you'll regret it, do you understand me?"
Merlin wasn't sure he could trust himself to speak. He opened his eyes, wincing a little. Nodded disjointedly.
Arthur's grip on the back of his neck shifted, taking a fistful of Merlin's hair instead. He flinched before Arthur even did anything. Tried to stop himself from shouting again when Arthur yanked his head back, but he didn't quite manage it.
"Say it," Arthur snapped. "We both know you're more than capable."
Merlin shoved back into Arthur's chest with his shoulders, using the door for leverage, his shock momentarily vanishing under the insult behind those words. Turning into rage. Arthur let him push them both away from the door and Merlin realized it too late, anticipating someone incorrectly for one of the few times in his life, and in the space he'd created Arthur forced him to turn around, pinning both of his wrists by his ears. He grunted when his back hit the door, flinching when Arthur leaned in. His thigh was pressed again, between Merlin's legs.
"Say it," Arthur said. "If you can't, I won't touch you again for the rest of the night. No matter how good you think you're being for me."
Merlin let out a breath like he'd been punched. He had been. Hurt by the words but also by the implication of them. That Arthur didn't really believe he could be good even if Merlin tried his best. The feeling of it ripped through him with such intensity that he shrank a little against the door. Hated himself for it.
But he couldn't stand the idea that Arthur would continue this without touching him more.
"I understand," he managed. Barely. He didn't recognize the sound of his own voice.
"You understand?" Arthur growled against his cheek, making him shrink back further. Yelping softly when Arthur forced him back up straighter with his knee between Merlin's thighs.
"I understand, Arthur," Merlin said.
Arthur drew his nose gently along the edge of Merlin's jaw making him shudder.
"Look at me."
Merlin lifted his eyes.
"When I ask you a question, you'll answer me, just like that, unless I tell you otherwise. Do you understand?"
Merlin had to stop himself from looking away.
"Yes, Arthur."
"You see? That wasn't so hard, was it?"
Merlin had to bite his lip on his first response. Don't patronize me, asshole.
"...no, Arthur," he whispered.
When Arthur let him go then, Merlin sank to the floor. Arthur watched him do it. Then he crossed back to the center of the room, where he had been when they started and said again,
"Come here."
Merlin did. He felt a little high as he followed Arthur to the center of the room. His head was buzzing.
It felt amazing.
When he'd made it to where Arthur was waiting, he was still caught up in what he was feeling so his eyes were a little unfocused. He was aware of Arthur circling him. Stopping behind him.
He touched the curve of Merlin's spine and Merlin straightened without thinking.
"You lied to me three times tonight," Arthur said. "So you'll answer three questions honestly, or there will be consequences. Do you understand me?"
Merlin came back to himself then. Felt the hair on the back of his neck rising.
"Yes Arthur," he said.
"Why didn't you call me?" Arthur asked him.
Merlin stared at the opposite wall, his eyes wide. It took him a long time to get the words out.
"I didn't think you wanted me to, Arthur."
"Did you punish yourself in my absence?"
The question brought a spark of frustration back in his chest. He pressed his lips into a thin line before he said,
"Not on purpose, Arthur."
"Yes or no, Merlin," Arthur said in his ear.
Merlin clenched his hands into fists.
"Yes, Arthur," he said.
"How many times," Arthur said sweetly, making Merlin tense. He reached around Merlin's waist, ran his fingers up under Merlin's shirt. "Have you touched yourself this week without coming?"
Merlin tried to throw a look at him, furious, but Arthur caught him under the chin from behind, bending his neck backwards over one of Arthur's strong shoulders, baring Merlin's throat to the ceiling. His other hand wrenched Merlin's wrist up behind his back. Startled, Merlin grabbed hold of Arthur's sleeve with his free hand.
"I'm not telling you that," he hissed against the pressure of Arthur's hand on his jaw.
"You're not telling me, what?" Arthur asked dangerously against the side of his face.
Merlin clenched his jaw. Twisted his head to the side but Arthur held him fast.
"I'm not telling you that, Arthur," he spat.
"You sure?"
"Fuck you."
The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself. He felt Arthur smile against his cheek.
"I knew you were going to insist we do this the hard way," he said.
Merlin was already attempting to twist out of Arthur's hold before he'd finished the sentence. Desperate to get away. He hooked his foot behind one of Arthur's ankles and pulled it forward as hard as he could manage in that position. It wasn't hard enough to make Arthur fall but he stumbled and Merlin broke free for a moment, turning only to find Arthur already there. He took Merlin by his upper arms and threw him against the wall nearest to them.
Merlin cried out, his back striking the metal bar installed there. He collapsed hard onto his ass when Arthur kicked one of his legs out from under him. He'd barely recovered and Arthur already had one of his wrists cuffed to the bar. When he took Merlin's other wrist in his hand, Merlin struggled. He gasped when Arthur closed one hand over his eyes, forcing his head back against the wall.
"You've already made this so much harder than it had to be," Arthur hissed in his ear. "How much harder are you willing to make it, Merlin?"
He stilled, mostly. His body was still shaking faintly from the adrenaline. When Arthur lifted his free wrist and cuffed it in place he did his best not to clench his fist. Sagged with his head lowered when Arthur finally let go of him.
The bar wasn't high enough to strain his shoulder while he was seated on the floor. He still had so much anger, so much humiliation from Arthur's question, and he wasn't sorry that he said what he said.
But those emotions cooled for a brief moment when it occurred to him that Arthur had put him in a position that, while keeping his wrists slightly above his head, allowed his shoulder to stay in line with his collar. Purposefully uncomfortable, but not harmful or damaging. By now Arthur understood that Merlin had a lot of fear surrounding his injury and if he wanted to exploit that he could do so easily. It made Merlin feel suddenly guilty. Since they'd walked into the room Arthur had been so careful to only handle his good arm with force. He never leveraged any of his considerable strength against Merlin's bad side. And all Merlin had done was snap at him. Fight him at every opportunity.
When Arthur pulled his head up by his hair, Merlin said,
"Arthur?"
He paused, looking for signs of distress, Merlin thought, before his cold hazel eyes consumed Merlin's, half winced in pain. Merlin had asked for him as softly as possible, knowing that the most likely way he would pause to listen would be if Merlin showed him he wasn't planning to shout, or speak as disrespectfully as he had been. It worked.
"This had better be good," Arthur said dangerously.
Merlin swallowed.
He honestly didn't know why it seemed important to him to say this now. It could wait. It really could. But his chest felt tight and he desperately wanted to say it, so Arthur would know he wasn't a complete waste of time. It was stupid to care. They weren't actual partners. This was just a long term settlement of mutually assured destruction.
Arthur's irritation made him even less confident. It took him a short pause before he could get the words out.
"I just...wanted to thank you," he whispered. "For keeping me from straining my shoulder, even when I'm having a hard time. That's all."
The way Arthur's eyes lost a little of their sharpness looking at him just then, made his neck warm.
And then Arthur touched him, gently. Ran his knuckles over Merlin's cheek. Brushed Merlin's temple with his thumb sending goosebumps down the back of his neck.
"Look at you," Arthur said. "You're exquisite like this. So polite and grateful."
Merlin shivered, the warmth in his collar spreading, consuming all of his skin in a matter of seconds. He ducked his head but Arthur lifted it again by his chin this time.
"I could almost forget that just a minute ago, you told me to go fuck myself," Arthur added, his tone dark. Ominous.
Merlin opened his mouth, but Arthur cut him off.
"Don't even think about telling me you're sorry," Arthur said, running his hand tenderly through Merlin's hair. "You aren't even close to how sorry you'll have to be to make me forgive that."
Merlin shuddered.
"But you were very sincere just now weren't you?"
Merlin nodded, suddenly timid about this particular outburst of his. Thank yous and soft words to a Dom - he had no idea what to do with this particular emotion; anger, fear, pain and pleasure he could work with. But this wasn't something he understood yet. This strange desire in him to assuage Arthur's anxieties, with at least some of the concern Arthur seemed to have for him.
As if Arthur cared.
Arthur ran a thumb over Merlin's bottom lip, considering him.
"What I can't tell, is if you were sincerely trying to appeal to my sympathy or if you sincerely meant what you said," Arthur told him evenly.
"I'll take whatever you conclude either way," Merlin said before Arthur could stop him. "I just wanted you to know, Arthur."
Arthur kissed him and Merlin had to remind himself not to move, because Arthur was an amazing kisser and he fucking knew it. Merlin was half convinced that if Arthur started with this everytime he would be the most obedient Sub to ever live.
He managed it somehow, to only kiss Arthur back and not lean in, not attempt to press against him, not to fight for control of the kiss. The smile he got against his mouth when Arthur pulled back was worth it.
"If you put half as much effort into controlling your anger as you did to please me just now, Merlin, you wouldn't need this lesson."
Merlin had to close his eyes at Arthur's next words. The shock of them ran all the way down his spine.
"When you're this good for me it makes me want to give you everything you ask for."
He was sorry when Arthur let him go.
Until he forced Merlin's jaw open and pressed the gag between his teeth. It was a knee-jerk reaction to try and throw it off and he couldn't close the door on that instinct right away. He did throw his head but it was more out of surprise than anything. Merlin stopped himself from doing anymore than that. Lowered his head to let Arthur buckle it in place.
He was shaking again.
"That was very good, Merlin," Arthur told him. "I can see how hard that was for you."
Merlin made a soft noise against the gag. He was addicted to the sound of Arthur telling him he was good. He was simultaneously afraid of just how badly he wanted to hear it, the things he might be willing to do in order to get even the barest compliment from Arthur, and unable to stop reaching for every opportunity to prove to Arthur the words were true.
He knew in the back of his mind he should be wary. Arthur was using more opportunities than usual to tell him nice things. Especially after refusing to cooperate with anything Arthur had asked him so far. The entire hour and a half he was sitting on that goddamn stool in the warehouse Arthur had only complimented him once. So Merlin knew that on some level Arthur was working him up on purpose. He had a feeling that was the reason for the gag. No hands, no teeth, and he couldn't stop himself from getting...
Merlin felt his blood run cold.
Arthur gave him a slow, satisfied smile when he clocked the look on Merlin's face.
Realization.
"The time on the wall Merlin," Arthur told him. "I want you to look at it."
He did. Shifted a little against the wall to do it.
"Keep your eyes on the clock," Arthur said. "I want you seated. I will check your hands occasionally and I may ask you to stand if I think you're too cold. If you feel like you need to stand without me telling you to do so, you may. If you do, the clock stops until you sit back down. Do you understand me?"
Merlin nodded, dread starting to build in the pit of his stomach.
If Arthur was concerned about circulation, this wasn't going to be a quick or easy exercise.
"Good," Arthur said. Merlin felt the word sink under his skin.
"You're going to watch that clock for one hour."
Merlin didn't dare look away from the clock. But his eyes widened all the same.
"You're going to sit still and learn to listen to me. And if you've convinced me you can do this much, then I'll let you speak and we can continue. If you haven't convinced me, you'll do it again until you do."
Merlin squeezed his eyes shut.
An hour? A fucking hour?
"If it makes you feel any better," Arthur said, sliding a hand up under his shirt, scratching a delicious line of goosebumps down his ribcage into his hip. "When you showed me you could be grateful, I took the hour count down to one, from two."
Merlin flinched at that.
Arthur smiled against the side of his face.
"I told you," he said quietly, in his ear. "Not to give me a reason to break you."
The words felt like ice on his bare skin. Especially when Arthur took his hand out from under Merlin's shirt. It made him feel even colder somehow.
He did tell him that. Merlin wouldn't quickly forget the challenge in Arthur's eyes when he told Merlin he couldn't wait to see him try to willfully disobey him. Merlin thought maybe he'd let himself rise to that challenge a little too quickly. But Arthur also told him he would do so unsympathetically. It seemed to him like maybe Arthur was willing to be at least a little flexible, if Merlin was willing to be sincere with him. That surprised him, if he were honest. He didn't think he had that kind of influence on Arthur as a Sub.
He may have just gotten lucky. Arthur's bond was still new. It made both of them a little more vulnerable to each other than they normally would be. But what made Arthur more inclined to mercy also made Merlin more sensitive to everything Arthur said and did to him. He was reminded of that fact with startling clarity when Arthur said,
"The clock starts now."
Arthur's influence crawled up his skin. This wasn't like the commands that Arthur had used on him before. He wasn't lacing his words with a force to obey. This felt like hands all over him, underneath his clothes, caressing the insides of his thighs, his waist, the backs of his shoulders; in his hair, running over his scalp.
A single finger running down the side of his neck, lightly tracing into the curve over his collarbone.
"You're particularly sensitive here."
Merlin was frozen, staring past Arthur at the clock. The second hand already felt like it was moving in slow motion. But he really had no concept of how much trouble he was in, until Arthur ran his fingers down Merlin's forearm into the ditch of his elbow.
Merlin jerked, his lower back arched so deeply he felt the pull of it in his hips, baring his throat to the ceiling, breaking his eye contact with the clock. He yanked his arm down reflexively but he came up short in his cuffs, letting out an involuntary cry against the gag in his mouth.
He felt like there were ten different versions of Arthur's hands on his skin, teasing all of the places he desperately wanted someone to touch. But his actual hand? That felt like the edge of an orgasm.
Arthur grabbed his face, forcing it back to watch the clock.
"I'm guessing that was the first time you've ever experienced this side of a Dominant influence," Arthur said conversationally.
It wasn't a question. Even if it was Merlin was too busy keening into his gag to reply.
He was right though. No one had ever influenced him like this.
It felt so fucking good.
Arthur was tracing the line of his collarbone with his free hand now, while he held Merlin's chin in place with the other. Merlin was shaking.
"Did you think the only thing I could influence was your obedience?"
He had.
He had no idea why.
But he had.
Merlin was twisting under Arthur's hands now, entirely outside of himself. He gave a humiliating whine, bucking when Arthur skimmed his fingers over the curve of his waist, praying that he sounded like he was begging Arthur to stop because he was. He couldn't take this, not for an hour. He would go crazy.
"I'm going to stop touching you so you can focus on the clock," Arthur told him. Merlin gasped, panting against the gag. Shrieked when Arthur squeezed his knee sharply, making him buck again.
"The next time you take your eyes off the clock, I won't stop. Do you understand?"
Merlin nodded as best he could against the vice grip Arthur had on his jaw.
Arthur let go of him and Merlin flinched at the sensation of his fingers lifting from his skin, but he kept his eyes on the clock. Let out a breath through his nose like he had been punched.
Three minutes.
It had only been three minutes.
He was already so fucking hard it was painful. His face felt too hot.
Merlin shook, pulled his knees up against his chest like he could protect himself from his own arousal.
"Open your hands or I'll do it for you."
Merlin unclenched his fists immediately. Just the thought of Arthur putting his fingers against the palms of his hands made him whimper. The shaking redoubled when he felt what Arthur must be able to see after he relaxed his hands. He'd probably bruised his own palms with his nails.
Arthur tsk'd.
Merlin whined in protest, desperate to beg Arthur not to touch him again, unable to speak or even look in his direction.
The second hand continued to tick around the face of the clock.
He felt like his breathing was starting to back up on him.
As soon as he struggled to take another breath, Merlin felt the pressure of Arthur's influence give a little. The hands all over his skin weren't gone, exactly. But every touch stopped feeling like a shock to his very obvious arousal.
Merlin sobbed. There were no tears. But it had only been seven minutes now. He had no idea how he was going to make it for another fifty-three minutes. He couldn't believe Arthur had originally planned to make him do this for two hours.
Especially since Merlin knew this was just the opening act of Arthur's punishment game.
The point, Arthur had said, was to learn to listen.
Merlin tried not to clench his teeth too hard over the ball in his mouth. His chest was heaving.
"You're far more worked up than I gave you credit for," Arthur said thoughtfully. "I haven't seen a reaction this strong in quite some time."
Merlin was still trying to get his breathing under control. He kept his eyes on the clock. Fought the urge to cry when they reached the ten minute mark.
Fifty minutes was an eternity from now.
He couldn't even lower his head.
"Did it feel good?"
Merlin let out another short sob against his gag. But he nodded.
"That was very good, Merlin. I appreciate your honesty."
A shimmering wave of pleasure rolled through him at the words. It pooled in the cradle of his hips, his aching cock.
Merlin moaned.
"Lower your knees."
Merlin did, slowly returning his legs to crossed, where they had started, instead of pulled up against his chest. His face burned.
"I wonder if you're even capable of lasting if I touch you again. Do you think you can?"
Merlin trembled at the thought. But he didn't answer quickly enough.
"Not sure, really?" Arthur asked, sounding genuinely amused. "Should we find out?"
Merlin shook his head with a whimper.
"You should see yourself," Arthur told him reverently. The tone of his voice alone sent diamonds tumbling down Merlin's spine. "You're so good when you want to be, so I know you can do it."
Merlin's hips rocked when he said it, his erection straining against the hard denim of his Levi's making him moan again.
Fifteen minutes. The ache of his arousal was starting to run deeper, dancing on the edge of desperation. Before the night was over Merlin knew he was going to beg Arthur to let him come.
He could see Arthur's end goal taking shape now. His back arched just thinking about it.
Arthur smirked.
"I think I could probably just sit here and look you over, and you wouldn't be able to settle down enough to get yourself back under control."
When he said it the strength of his influence returned. The feeling of so many hands, so many fingers lovingly trailing glittering patterns over his skin. Everywhere but the hot straining flesh at his center.
Merlin bucked, throwing his body so far forward off the bar that the cuffs clanged when they pulled his arms taught. He twisted, every muscle in his body tightening. Somehow, he kept his eyes on the clock.
His cries faded into small helpless moans he didn't recognize as his own.
"Let me make one thing very clear to you, Merlin," Arthur said, his tone hard now. "You aren't punishing yourself anymore. You gave that responsibility to me, didn't you?"
Merlin nodded urgently, rocking his hips up and hating himself for it.
The friction was such a relief, even for just a second.
"I'm glad we agree," Arthur told him. "Since you consider denying yourself a punishment, you'll show me you can do so for the rest of your hour. If when you're done, assuming of course..."
Here he got so close to Merlin's ear that the suggestion of him touching Merlin's skin with his lips alone sent an eruption of pleasure down the tail of Merlin's spine. He watched the clock and sobbed another deep moan into his gag.
"...you don't have to start over," Arthur told him darkly. "If you don't need to beg me to let you come, I'll give you back the responsibility over your own orgasm."
Merlin was panting again, twisting his wrists in his cuffs.
"If you do want to come, and you can apologize so that I believe you, then you will agree for the rest of this engagement that your pleasure isn't a punishment, Merlin. And you will allow yourself to come because I said so. Do you understand me?"
He nodded, disjointedly.
"Brilliant," Arthur said. He sounded pleased, and it made Merlin moan.
At the half hour mark, Arthur told him to stand up.
His whole body felt like a live wire. Even standing was a trial. His clothing was starting to feel like a punishment now too. Everytime he felt like he was able to relax just a little bit into the meditative effect of watching the hands on the clock turn, Arthur would praise him. He would make Merlin agree that he was excellent, he worked very hard, he wasn't a burden -
That one very nearly made him cry.
Arthur caught that reaction a bit too fast for Merlin's liking. When he was upright, still watching the clock, he did feel a warm softness at the edges of his other emotions. He really was grateful to stand up, even though it was hard. His arms and legs weren't numb, he was convinced all of his writhing everytime Arthur said something sweet to him in order to push his arousal to the limit kept that from happening as quickly as it otherwise might have. But they were sore. It was a relief to take another position.
He wanted to thank Arthur.
It amplified the tightness in his throat that he couldn't.
"Do you consider yourself a burden, Merlin?"
He wasn't sure how to answer that exactly. Merlin knew he was a great detective, and he wasn't a burden to his peers or commanding officers. He didn't have any family left to speak of, so there was no burden there. His needs burdened himself sometimes. But he thought that was probably normal. He shifted his body a little, uncomfortable, not sure how to convey any of that with a nod or shake of his head.
Arthur surprised him by taking his hesitation in stride. Re-worded the question without punishing him for not answering right away.
"Do you consider yourself a burden to me, Merlin?"
He did.
He really did.
This relationship between them was so fucked up Merlin couldn't begin to untangle it in his head. He tried not to think about it too hard. But when he did, the amount of time Arthur put into him, the amount of energy seemed so unbalanced to Merlin. When he called Arthur came for him. He didn't complain or question why. He didn't degrade Merlin for it although it would have been easy to do so. Sure his questions were embarrassing but Merlin was starting to see a purpose in them, even if they were uncomfortable to hear and to answer. Merlin never felt like Arthur was trying to break him down as a person, or turn him into his pet detective to get information from him.
He could have done any and all of those things and Merlin wouldn't have blamed him for it. It was the only way Merlin could imagine this being worth Arthur's efforts in the long run.
It must have been such an inconvenience to be saddled with a completely useless Submissive like him. He couldn't even answer a direct question without spitting it in Arthur's face. Merlin had to be getting so much more out of this than Arthur was.
It had to be draining.
Completely pointless, for someone like Arthur Pendragon.
So it took him longer than Arthur should have allowed, but he did nod, after a time. Two whole minutes according to the clock.
"You aren't a burden to me, Merlin."
He didn't react to the words. He wasn't sure what his reaction was in the moment. Arthur was unphazed.
"You don't believe me, do you?"
He shook his head, slowly.
"I'm surprised by your concern, if I'm honest. Nothing about our arrangement would require you to care."
Merlin swallowed hard against the gag between his teeth. Arthur was right. It was stupid of him to worry in that way. He was only Merlin's Dom in these moments they shared once in a while. Outside of them they were enemies, even if they were, by the terms of their agreement, no longer actively pursing each other. Arthur had killed people. Merlin could prove he had.
And here he was, submitting to Arthur's influence, aroused by it, and worried that Arthur found him boring and inconvenient.
What the fuck was wrong with him?
"It seems you need a small redirection in this case," he said.
Ran his finger down the side of Merlin's throat, feather-light into the curve where his neck and shoulder met.
Merlin choked on his gag. He pulled hard on the cuffs, twisting his shoulder down, away from Arthur's hand. In the wake of their momentary conversation, Merlin hadn't been entirely focused on his arousal. Now it came rushing back so intensely his knees buckled.
How he kept his eyes on the clock was a fucking mystery.
"If you were a burden to me," Arthur said, like he wasn't driving the most intense pleasure Merlin had ever felt directly through his skin. "If I was in anyway unconcerned about your needs, you wouldn't be feeling the way you feel now when I touch you."
As he drew his fingers up the back of Merlin's neck, Arthur watched him seriously.
"You're feeling this way because I want you to feel it, as much as you want it for yourself."
Merlin cried out into the gag, bending a little at the waist because he was sure when Arthur continued to stroke him along the curve of his throat he would come if he didn't stop.
But Arthur took his hand back. Let Merlin moan incoherently, half in fucking ecstasy, half pleading for Arthur to give him a break. Because the soft touch of his influence was holding Merlin right on this edge, brushing tiny ripples of pleasure across the insides of his thighs, his hips, the hardened peaks of his nipples.
"You're a marvel, Merlin, did you know that?" Arthur asked him, casually, sliding his hands into the pockets of his trousers like they were discussing trivialities at a pub.
Merlin's moaning filled the space between their bodies. He shook his head but it was a broken act. Every movement felt like the breath between pleasure and climax.
"Open your hands, Merlin."
He did with a guttural sob that turned into cry of pleasure he had no idea he was capable of, when Arthur ran his fingers over the bruises Merlin's nails had dug into the palms of his own hands.
"Don't worry," Arthur said, drawing his hand back. "I'll convince you. How could you be a burden, Merlin, when all it takes for you to fall apart for me so beautifully is one simple phrase?"
Don't, please, don't say it, I can't take it, please, if you say it now I might actually come, I can't stop it and you didn't say I could and I can't ask so please, please don't say it, I'm begging you, I'll do this for another hour another fucking two if that's what you want just don't make me fail like this, not when I can prove to you I can be better -
He didn't even realize how hard he was pulling on his restraints until Arthur said,
"You're almost done."
He sobbed in relief. Relaxing his arms. He was shaking again.
Fifteen minutes left.
"Sit down," Arthur said.
He did, breathing hard.
"You're not a bad Sub, Merlin," Arthur told him.
Merlin's eyes widened at the clock. The second hand seemed slower now all of a sudden.
"Any Dom would be lucky to have you."
Merlin felt his pulse in his jaw. Bit down harder on his gag.
"Do you know why?" Arthur asked him agreeably.
Merlin shook his head, but he was already keening against the ball in his mouth again, this was almost as bad as Arthur touching him directly. He was so fucking hard he couldn't stand it anymore. Merlin wasn't a stranger to this, but he'd never been denied for this long by someone else, never with this echoing stimulation in his head. Arthur's influence amplified everything to eleven and he was already so weak to it because he hadn't allowed himself to get off in so long, he wasn't even sure he remembered what it felt like, but this wasn't him jerking himself off in the shower, someone else was actually touching him for the first time in fucking years and it was like fireworks under his ribcage.
He shook his wrists in his restraints.
He wanted to beg.
He wanted to come.
He wanted Arthur to tell him it was okay.
"You're exceptional when you use your perception to please," Arthur said quietly. "It's thrilling for me."
Merlin's body arched at the words, he moaned, counting the seconds now for anything else to focus on.
"You're a challenge, I'll give you that. And you have no concept of decorum."
Merlin panted, falling back a little against the wall. His hips were moving involuntarily. He wanted to come. He'd never been so frustrated in his life. But for some reason, even more than that, he wanted to speak. It was driving him crazy.
Eight minutes now.
"But when you put your mind to something you're second to none."
He whimpered, desperately shaking his head.
"You don't believe that either?" Arthur said.
Merlin jerked on his restraints, making the links clang against the bar. Gave a shout in frustration against the ball in his mouth.
"You want me to stop?" Arthur guessed.
Merlin was still looking at the clock, trembling, and even though he couldn't see Arthur he could hear the amused grin in his tone.
Merlin nodded. Every breath he let out against the gag was a moan. His face was hot.
His cock throbbed.
"Then you believe me now? That you aren't a burden to me?"
Merlin nodded disjointedly. His throat was tight again.
Six and a half minutes.
"Alright, Merlin," Arthur said quietly. "Take the last five minutes to think about what I've said."
He gasped, heaving for breath again. Arthur stopped speaking but the hands of his influence continued stroking Merlin mercilessly under his clothes, avoiding his straining erection.
For five excruciating minutes, Merlin writhed while he watched the clock, moaning shamelessly into the silence, his focus nothing but the feeling of his entire body thrumming with the fear that he wouldn't be able to last, and the ticking of the clock on the wall.
Ten seconds left.
"Knees down, Merlin, I won't tell you again."
He did, bucking against the sensation of his jeans sliding over his cock.
Five seconds.
Arthur was watching him like a hawk.
Three.
His throat was tight again. Merlin swallowed hard.
Two.
Merlin's lower back arched with a short staccato moan in desperation.
One.
He flinched when Arthur leaned closer, whimpering pathetically as he felt Arthur's influence slowly sliding off his skin. Lowered his head when Arthur reached for him. Trembled while Arthur carefully undid the buckle on his gag.
It came free and Merlin burst into tears.
"I'm sorry," he wept, half hysterical. "I'm sorry for the way I spoke to you, I'm sorry I didn't listen, I'll do better I swear, just please! Don't make me stay like this, Arthur I'm begging you!"
"Like what, Merlin?"
"I wanted to answer you," Merlin said, crying harder. "I wanted to thank you when you told me to stand up - I know I was meant to listen and I swear I did, I just wanted to properly tell you I understood, Arthur. If I have to start over then please, just not with the gag, I promise I'll be good, so -"
Arthur kissed him, startling him into complete silence. It wasn't heated or hungry, and it didn't last very long. Merlin was still crying and he couldn't reciprocate well, but he was grateful for every second he got.
"You're a wonder," Arthur said against his mouth, kissing him briefly again. "Every Sub in the world would have followed that question up by asking me to let them come. You're aching for it and the first thing out of your mouth was to beg me to let you thank me if you had to do it over again."
Merlin cried, pressing his face against Arthur's, drinking in the softness of this contact, not the heated over-stimulation of his arousal. His arms were limp above him in his restraints.
"I'm sorry," he said again, the tears slowing now. "I can do better just please, don't put it back on, please, Arthur."
"I believe you," Arthur said. "You don't have to wear it again."
Merlin's tears surged again in relief. Another ache surging with it at Arthur's words.
"I want to come," he said. "I don't want the responsibility anymore, I understand it isn't a punishment, Arthur, please, let me come, you were right, I do want it -"
Arthur cradled his head, tipping it back with a fist full of Merlin's hair, pulling sharply so that his cheek was pressed against Merlin's wet one. He drew his finger down the line of Merlin's exposed neck, into his collar making Merlin buck.
"You're perfect like this," Arthur said in his ear. "Look at you, so desperate and still how good you are to wait for my approval."
Arthur was crouched between his thighs, and Merlin's knees fell open beside Arthur's legs at his praise. His hips rocked.
"You want to come, Merlin?"
"Yes!" He sobbed. "Please let me come, Arthur, I'm begging you!"
Arthur dragged his nails down the inside of Merlin's thigh, forcing his legs open wider, his erection pressing hard into the fabric of his jeans.
"I'm so proud of you, Merlin," he said making Merlin moan around another wave of tears. "You have my permission to come."
He did.
Arthur held his knee down and his head back so he couldn't hide how fucking sinful his reaction to those words were; he came hard, untouched, all because Arthur said it was okay. Grateful whimpering escalating into moaning again when Arthur pressed his palm to the front of Merlin's Levi's, letting him rut against his hand through the aftershocks of his climax. It was humiliating.
He'd never felt so good in his life.
Arthur let his head down. Kissed him while he allowed Merlin to grind his hips into Arthur's steady hand. He could feel the muscles in his thighs jumping. The ache in his cock still, when he stopped mindlessly rolling his hips into Arthur's open palm.
This time when Arthur continued kissing him, Merlin gave back in kind. If he wasn't still cuffed to the bar on the wall he would have been desperate now to pin Arthur, because Arthur was hard and Merlin wouldn't be satisfied knowing that, if he couldn't be the one to please him. He was so fucking high, every nerve-ending in his body glittered like starlight.
"Let me down," he begged, whimpering when Arthur bit his swollen bottom lip for it. "Please Arthur."
Arthur tsk'd, holding Merlin's jaw still when Merlin chased him for another bruising kiss. "So penitent until you have what you want and immediately dissatisfied with what you've been given."
"No, please," Merlin groaned, relaxing instantly when Arthur kissed him again. "Let me down, I'm not disatisfied, I swear, Arthur."
"Greedy then."
Merlin kissed Arthur back roughly, lost his control only because Arthur forced him up against the wall, his cuffs rattling, and rubbed his nipples through his shirt.
Merlin arched his back, moaning.
"This isn't a negotiation, Merlin," Arthur murmured sweetly against his throat. Pressed a kiss there. His fingers still rubbing, flicking Merlin through his shirt, driving him crazy.
"Then make it one, Arthur please, let me down."
"I told you to come and you did, that was our agreement."
"You said I could come," Merlin whined, wrapping his legs around Arthur's waist, forcing him to stop his teasing when he pulled him forward. Arthur had to put one of his hands on the floor to steady himself. "You never said I had to stop at one. Let me down. Please let me down."
Arthur hummed like he was giving it some thought, forcing his hands up under Merlin's shirt this time, flicking Merlin's nipples like he was plucking the strings of an instrument. Merlin threw his head back with a guttural moan.
"I'll have to give you that," Arthur agreed. I didn't tell you that you had to stop at one."
Merlin couldn't stop his cries anymore, every pass Arthur took at his nipples was an inescapable jolt of pleasure ringing from his hips to his knees.
He could feel Arthur's influence again, making the sensation almost more than he could take, the trailing fingers of Arthur's amplified desire pressing his thighs open further, urging him to release Arthur's waist. To give in.
He locked his ankles and held on with a shaky groan.
"Let me down," he pleaded. "Whatever you want me to do for you I swear I'll do it, just let me down so I can feel you, please Arthur."
"And what if I like you right where you are, begging like the needy Sub you are?"
Merlin tried to twist his face away, but he couldn't hide the heat blooming under his skin.
"Oh?" Arthur whispered dangerously against his cheek, running both his hands down Merlin's chest, to his tight abdomen, taking hold of the hem of Merlin's jeans. "Do you like it that much when I call you names?"
"Yes," Merlin whimpered.
"So what if I want you here like this, begging me to let you come again because you were too greedy to take what you were given with any grace?"
Merlin whined, gasping when Arthur tugged on the button on his Levi's.
"Use me then, Arthur, please," Merlin said desperately.
"Then I'll use you, Merlin," Arthur said, making his blood sing. "But you'll take it here in my restraints and you'll thank me for it."
"Let me down," Merlin said, panting against Arthur's grin. "And the next time we do this I'll be perfect for you."
Arthur's smile sharpened, the light in his eyes took on the excitement Merlin craved. This was a look only he could give Arthur. Merlin moaned, his hips rocking up from that look alone, catching Arthur's mouth for another kiss because he couldn't help himself.
Arthur took Merlin's jaw in his hand, forcing him back.
"And if you can't be perfect," Arthur said ominously, making him shiver. "Then you'll agree to let me use my influence on you at a distance, and I'll keep you this riled for an entire week and the next time you call for me it will be to beg me to let you come. And if you're good for me, maybe I'll let you."
Merlin stared at Arthur.
"You can do that?"
Arthur massaged the inside of Merlin's knee with his thumb, making Merlin twist against him, whimpering.
"Is that a deal?" Arthur whispered.
"Deal," Merlin said with confidence.
Once his arms were free Merlin pulled Arthur to him, one hand in Arthur's hair, the other fisted in Arthur's perfectly pressed shirt. He still had his legs wrapped around Arthur's waist so he ended up in Arthur's lap. They kissed and it was a fight Merlin knew he wasn't going to win.
But he gave it his fucking best all the same.
Arthur dislodged him momentarily when he pulled Merlin's shirt off, tossing it to the side before throwing Merlin off of him, down to the floor. Merlin hooked Arthur's thigh with his heel as he went down.
He flipped them hard, satisfied with the grunt Arthur gave when his back hit the floor. Merlin straddled him, kissed Arthur again, deeply, because he couldn't get enough. Arthur let him unbutton his shirt. It was the first time Merlin had seen any more of Arthur's body than he had of Merlin's. And touching his bare skin like this Merlin felt something he didn't understand in the moment. An instinct that told him where to put his hands, his mouth. Something driving him directly into Arthur's personal needs.
So Merlin kissed him roughly, forcing Arthur's head back with the pressure of it, and dragged his nails down Arthur's chest, pulling up welts as he went. Arthur moaned into his mouth and the sound vibrated over Merlin's skin.
Arthur reached up and took Merlin by the back of his neck, rolling them again. Merlin would have fought him still, but Arthur pinned one of his wrists and pressed his knee between Merlin's legs, so close it was impossible for Merlin not to feel his thigh against Merlin's slowly, impossibly stiffening cock. And then he took the knuckles of his free hand and ground them into Merlin's sternum.
Merlin arched, trying to twist away, his free hand clutching at Arthur's wrist like he had any hope of stopping him. It was so painful, but it spiked an undercurrent of pleasure into his chest and shoulders at the same time. It was the feeling you got when you hit your funny bone. So fucking painful it made you want to laugh.
"I'll stop!" He cried out when Arthur applied just a little more pressure.
"You like this," Arthur told him. "Just look at you, you're about ready to get yourself off again with just my thigh."
Merlin moaned, his back arching. Arthur was right. He couldn't stop himself from rocking his hips up against Arthur's leg. His thighs ached. Arthur rubbing his sternum made it so much better somehow.
Merlin could get out of this, he knew six different ways to do it but all of them could potentially cause injury. He didn't want to hurt Arthur. It was hard, he couldn't stop himself from twisting under Arthur's hand but he had more time than he usually did in a situation like this to calculate the possibilities. His eyes moved over the way Arthur had positioned himself. Imagined two scenarios where he came out on top.
One of them was more likely than the other.
So he let go of Arthur's wrist, reached across his face to the opposite side of Arthur's neck, and grabbed his shirt for leverage. Then he turned his whole body, using the bar of his forearm against Arthur's jaw to drive his head down in the opposite direction, rolling them one more time.
Merlin sat on Arthur's hips, panting a little. Put a hand over the place where Arthur dug in his knuckles and lowered his head.
"Fucking ow," he muttered. Arthur laughed.
Merlin lifted his head at the sound. Arthur took the hand he had pressed against his chest, grinning from underneath Merlin, and drew it down, kissing the back of Merlin's hand.
"Well done," he said.
Merlin's entire body sparkled at the words.
"Oh come on," Merlin said as he let Arthur sit up and pull him in for another kiss. "That's not fair."
Arthur cupped his cheeks, brushing his thumbs over the places that were still a little damp.
"You don't think I should praise my Sub," he said. "For doing well? For being good for me?"
Merlin flushed instantly, his mind coming to a complete stop when Arthur said, my Sub.
When Arthur kissed him this time the only word to describe it was claiming. He was firm, but the subtle directions he gave with the tilt of his head, his hands on Merlin's face were gentle and Merlin became soft and pliable in a way he had no idea he was capable of. He kissed Arthur back, but this time he let Arthur take what he wanted, content for the first time in his life to let a Dominant partner do as they pleased without question.
For a moment Merlin wondered if this was what happiness felt like.
When Arthur broke the kiss, Merlin looked at him, feeling like the whole world had gone soft around the edges.
Arthur stood, and he brought Merlin to his feet with him by his hair. It was a firm grip but it didn't pull, and Merlin felt the edges of that glowing place in his head where there was only silence, and the color of Arthur's eyes.
He dropped his hands to Arthur's belt. Pressed his face against Arthur's neck. The hand in his hair became gentle. Running over his scalp with care.
"I'll give you a choice," Arthur said in his ear, making him press his body closer to Arthur's chest. "Consider it an advance on your promise to be perfect for me."
Merlin moaned, dropping his head to Arthur's shoulder, turning his cheek against the warm exposed skin from Arthur's unbuttoned shirt.
"You can strip and get on the bed now, or," he murmured. "You can kneel."
The word rang like a bell in his head. There wasn't a second thought as he dropped to the floor on his knees, pressing the palms of his hands into the backs of Arthur's thighs and turned his cheek against Arthur's hip. In that space Merlin found a kind of release he'd never experienced before. It expanded in his blood like vertigo until the whole world was nothing but this; the effortless radiance of euphoria, and the silent brightness of a supernova filling in the vastness of space. Merlin sat back on his heels and turned his face up, waiting easily, his mind finally calm. His whole body relaxed.
Arthur undid his belt, watching him with an expression that sent Merlin's high into a completely new altitude. Hungry, and satisfied. Like Merlin had just solved every problem Arthur had, kneeling obediently for him like this.
It might have been enough of the push he needed to fall entirely into the bliss of a complete submission. But Merlin couldn't quite let go of the edge of that cliff. Below him was the endless darkness between stars. He was still afraid of what would happen if he let himself drop into that place.
Despite this, Merlin was so, incandescently at ease, his mind and his emotions still and content. It was such a relief.
He was so good.
So it was nothing for Merlin to let Arthur take him by the back of the head, carding his hands through Merlin's hair. When he took Arthur into his mouth for the first time, he wasn't shy about how much he wanted it. He thought he might have surprised Arthur, because he'd been guiding Merlin's movement slowly, giving him a chance to stop if he needed to. But Merlin wasn't having any of that. He took Arthur all the way into the back of his throat, moaned from somewhere down in the marrow of his bones when Arthur's grip on his hair tightened. When he said, his voice uncharacteristically unsteady,
"How good you are, Merlin."
Merlin's hands were in his lap, it didn't occur to him to put them anywhere else. He closed his eyes, let himself sink into this perfect feeling of being exactly right for Arthur, letting Arthur use his mouth, his tongue, how he wanted to use them. He wasn't as rough with him as Merlin expected him to be. He wasn't sure why he thought Arthur would be hard on him in this way. But whatever expectations Merlin had of a moment like this one between them, he was acutely aware of just how precise and careful Arthur was with him. It made him moan again when he realized that Arthur was taking his time on purpose, building his own climax between Merlin's lips like the crescendo in a song. Layer by rapturous layer.
Arthur said his name and Merlin was so pleased with how out of breath Arthur sounded, that he almost didn't hear what Arthur said next.
"You learned an important lesson tonight," he said, allowing Merlin to take some control. Merlin urged Arthur with his enthusiastic response to pick up the pace, to take him deeper.
Let out a gutteral moan around Arthur's heavy weight in his mouth when Arthur gave it to him.
"Show me how well you learned your lesson tonight," Arthur said.
The shock of the words sent diamonds tumbling down his spine. He was hard again, but he'd been prepared to suffer that. He'd never met a Dom in his life that found it acceptable for a Sub to concentrate on their own pleasure, when they were meant to be focused on their Dom. Not that he had a stellar track list. But when Arthur gave this command, folded Merlin back into the heady rush of his influence where it felt like Arthur's hands were running over every inch of his skin, Merlin not only felt like he was truly being good for someone, but that he was worthy of it, too.
He had to concentrate to unbutton his jeans while Arthur held his head in place. The touch of his influence wasn't nearly as intense as it had been when he was cuffed to the wall, but Arthur's hands still sent a higher sensation of ecstasy through him that shook Merlin down to his core. When he took himself in his own hand, his knees sliding open further as he rocked himself into his fist, he was shocked that wasn't all it took for him. The feeling of Arthur inside of his mouth while he jerked himself off made him moan again, shamelessly. He had no idea that this was something he could enjoy, let alone want as much as he did, right then. Arthur's pace was becoming more urgent, and Merlin tilted his head back a fraction, flattened his tongue against the underside of Arthur's cock. Hollowed his cheeks.
Arthur groaned. The sound shimmered over Merlin's skin. Made him desperate for more. The tension in his abdomen locked his spine in place. As he tightened his own grip on himself, he felt the both of them beginning to falter, until all Merlin could hear was the sound of Arthur's breathing hitch, and the way he said Merlin's name as he did.
Merlin's lower back bowed when he came, surprising a cry out of him, and Arthur took him roughly for the first time, thrusting into Merlin's mouth as far as he could go. Merlin grabbed a fistful of Arthur's trousers when he did to steady himself, kept his eyes on Arthur when he came, glimpsing a moment of complete abandon in Arthur when he threw his head back, his grip on Merlin's hair sharp now.
Merlin moaned softly, swallowing around Arthur as he finished, his hand going limp around his own cock, his whole body ringing like a chiming bell in time with his own pounding heartbeat.
As Arthur began to relax, Merlin closed his eyes, let Arthur take him gently under his jaw, guiding Merlin's mouth free of him with care. Listened to the sound of Arthur's zipper, his belt buckle, feeling perfect.
Arthur kissed him then, crouching down to his level, and Merlin couldn't stop himself from wrapping his arms around Arthur's neck to kiss him back, because no one had ever made him feel so good in his life. Arthur smiled when he did. It lit up the stars in Merlin's blood. Inside him he felt like that ring of flowers growing from Arthur's influence, closed a little more of that void he carried in his chest.
"You were perfect Merlin," he said quietly against Merlin's mouth.
Merlin grinned.
"I told you I could be," he whispered back.
"You'll forgive my skepticism, I hope," Arthur said, still kissing him, his smile infectious. "Can you stand for me? Or do you want to stay where you are?"
"Here," Merlin said quietly. Arthur cupped his cheeks in his hands. Pulled Merlin forward so he could press a kiss to Merlin's brow.
"Keep your eyes on me," Arthur said. The command sliding through the ink of his tattoo. Merlin shuddered pleasantly.
"Yes, Arthur," he said.
He watched Arthur get up and cross the room to the small kitchen in the corner, picking up various items efficiently as he went. When he came back he set a chair down in front of Merlin and sat. It made Merlin warm all over when he directed him to come closer, to kneel between Arthur's legs. He let Arthur tilt his chin up. Tip a bottle of water to his lips. Merlin drank and it felt so much better than he could remember it feeling, being the one someone else was looking after.
Arthur made him get up off his heels and hold onto Arthur's knees so that he could clean him up with a warm, wet towel. And even though this moment wasn't sexually charged in anyway, Merlin still had to close his eyes when Arthur handled him, his fingers gripping the fabric of Arthur's trousers. Because this was the first time Arthur had ever touched him there, and it was a small blessing he'd already come twice because just the thought of Arthur's hands on him would have made him hard again in ten seconds flat, otherwise.
Arthur smiled against his cheek when he felt Merlin's hold on him change. And he was suddenly very concerned with how thoroughly he was cleaning Merlin off as he spoke in Merlin's ear.
"I'm so proud of you, Merlin. You were so good to show me how well you learned your lesson."
Merlin whimpered, lowering his face to Arthur's chest. His shirt was still open and his skin was cool against Merlin's hot cheeks. Arthur stroked him fully with the washcloth, making his hips tremble, before removing his hands to help Merlin pull his jeans back up. When he was finished he guided Merlin back down to his knees, which was the absolute only place Merlin wanted to be right then, and allowed Merlin to rest his cheek on Arthur's thigh.
Arthur ran his hand through Merlin's hair, let the quiet settle in around them. Merlin didn't even realize he was shaking until Arthur drew a hand up his throat, urging him to look up into Arthur's eyes.
He felt more than saw the way Arthur's posture changed and took hold of Arthur's trousers, saying without thinking, without knowing where it came from exactly,
"I'm fine, it's nothing, really, please don't get up."
Arthur's eyebrows came up a little at that. He ran a hand down Merlin's cheek, his thumb brushing Merlin's temple softly.
"I'm not going to leave you, Merlin."
The words were threaded with his influence, and Merlin felt his heartbeat calm again.
"I'm right here Merlin, and what does that mean for you?"
Merlin lowered his head back to Arthur's thigh, feeling a little embarrassed by his outburst. His body didn't feel cold. But he couldn't stop shaking for some reason. It made him uncomfortable. And then Arthur took his hand briefly from Merlin's hair, and Merlin lifted his head, upset that he'd stopped running his fingers through Merlin's hair, and blinked in surprise when Arthur lifted his suit coat over Merlin's head, and draped it over his shoulders.
Merlin opened his mouth, to say what exactly, he wasn't sure, when Arthur brushed his fingers across the nape of his neck, urging him to put his head back down again. He did. Arthur was broader than he was, so it was possible to close the jacket around him in his fists. Merlin closed his eyes as Arthur's influence added just enough pressure for him to feel held.
The silence he needed filled him up, like it was drawn out of Arthur's skin directly into his bloodstream. Every inch of his body unlocked, the tension going out of him just like that. His mind was clear and empty again.
Arthur ran a hand up the back of his neck into his hair.
The white room filled with the sound of nails on a chalkboard as one of the chairs was pulled back from the table.
Merlin stared at the woman as she sat down, her hands leaving bloody prints on the white wood. It dripped off the curtain of her long, long hair, pooled alarmingly quickly in the space where her hands came to rest on the edge of the table. She was directly across from him.
The blood slowly drained down the center of the table, from her and all the others seated there with open wounds. Getting closer to him with every pounding heartbeat.
Her hair covered her face. Merlin wasn't sure why he was grateful for that. He'd seen terrible things done to people before. Worse maybe, even than this. But for some reason this victim bothered him more than the others had when they sat down at his table.
She didn't make any sense to him.
And then without warning, she slammed her head into the table. Blood sprayed across empty space and over his skin, warm still and heavier than it should have been. Like syrup. She did it again and Merlin tried to shout, to scream at her to stop, but he couldn't speak, his mouth wouldn't open, his voice caught somewhere between the back of his throat and the roof of his mouth.
All of the heads at the table turned in his direction.
She slammed her face into the table again and the wood cracked.
Merlin found enough strength left in his fingers to grip his edge of the table, his nails digging in, when he felt a hand on the back of his head.
He watched her lift her empty bloody face one more time. The hand drew his head back by his hair.
When she brought her head down this time, Merlin's head went with it.
Merlin exploded up off the bed, screaming, struggling wildly when he felt arms close around his chest, pinning his elbows to his sides. He could still feel the blood on his face. The impact on the table under his hands when her head came down against the wood. The crack it made.
The hand on the back of his head.
Merlin wasn't built but he was strong and he had the stamina to make it a problem for anyone trying to overpower him when he needed to. When he felt a Dominant influence sliding over his skin, he broke it with a hysterical shout, trying desperately to find any sort of leverage to get his arms free when Arthur said, with authority,
"Merlin! Calm down."
He froze, only momentarily, the influence in Arthur’s words stilling him, running briefly through the ink of his tattoo. Then immediately tried to turn around. Arthur held him, but Merlin wasn't fighting him anymore. He just wanted to see. He had to be sure he wasn't in that white room anymore.
"Arthur please, let go."
He did.
Merlin gasped in relief, turned and put his hands on Arthur's face without thinking. Looked him over. Took in the color of his eyes and the way his hair had fallen across his forehead. Arthur let him look, never breaking Merlin's gaze, patiently waiting him out. It was the smell of him that stopped Merlin's heart from racing out of his chest. The smell of a lightning storm on a hot summer night.
Merlin dropped his head to Arthur's shoulder, panting in tight, pained breaths. Clutching Arthur's shirt in his shaking hands.
"I'm sorry," he rasped. "Did I hit you?"
Arthur closed a strong hand over the back of Merlin's neck. Drew Merlin up onto his lap. Merlin folded himself into the spaces Arthur made for him, still breathing hard.
"No," Arthur said quietly. "You're alright, Merlin."
They stayed like that in the quiet, both of their breathing the only sound in the room for a long time.
Arthur ran his fingers along the collar of Merlin's shirt, pulling up goosebumps as he went, and murmured things that Merlin desperately needed to hear into his hair.
"You're in my house in Southend," he said calmly. "There's no one else here. It's still Sunday. You were sleeping. You haven't done anything, Merlin. Nothing was done to you. You were only sleeping."
Merlin listened. Let Arthur's influence fall across his shoulders without breaking it this time. Let it coax him down from the fear and hysteria when he didn't think he could do it himself. It felt like the dragon in his tattoo was roaring across his skin. A warning to anyone foolish enough to attempt to lay a hand on him. Eventually he learned how to breathe again.
When he finally lifted his head, he pressed his face into his own hands, wiped at his cheeks and his forehead, turning his palms over to look for himself.
No blood.
Arthur gently guided his face back up so he could see it for himself. Looked Merlin over with a serious, deep frown.
He brushed his thumb over the place where Merlin was sure he could still feel Claire's blood.
"What happened?" Arthur asked him quietly.
Merlin swallowed. Closed his eyes.
He couldn't discuss his cases with Arthur. Even if Arthur wasn't a Pendragon. But then, Arthur was maybe the only person he knew who wouldn't flinch if he said what he needed to say out loud. It was a nightmare in anycase, not the actual homicide. And he wanted to reassure Arthur for some reason, that this wasn't because of him. Merlin hadn't woken up screaming because of what they had done tonight.
So he said, struggling with the words,
"I had a dream about a woman, who sat across from me at a table. She ran her face into it so many times, it caved in her skull. There was blood everywhere. It was on my face. And then someone tried to make me do the same thing, before I woke up."
Arthur's eyes were sharp and evaluating. But Merlin had been right. He didn't find it disturbing. Not enough to be horrified by it. They were both well beyond that now, given their positions in life. And his eyes cleared some, knowing it wasn't the scene between them that had brought this on.
Arthur brushed his hair off his forehead.
"Do you dream like that, often?" He asked.
"No," Merlin said honestly. "Usually the people at the table don't move."
"Do you know them?"
"No," Merlin said again, and it wasn't exactly a lie. "I don't know any of them."
Arthur's frown deepened, but he ran his knuckles down Merlin's cheek, and it felt good. For whatever reason he didn't find it at all odd to let Arthur continue to hold him in his lap. He could feel that warning still in the ink of his tattoo and he recognized that Arthur was bothered by what had just happened. Perhaps almost as much as Merlin was. So he didn't move, because he didn't want to.
And because Arthur didn't want him to either.
He looked at the room while he waited to stop feeling his pulse in his jaw. Realized that at some point Arthur must have carried him over to the bed when he'd fallen asleep at Arthur's feet.
Arthur's hands in his hair made it worth the embarrassment.
They stayed like that for a while, until Merlin caught sight of the clock on the wall.
"Fuck, is that the time?" He said, sitting up.
"It is a clock, Merlin," Arthur said, amused. "One you used to exceptional effect earlier."
Merlin's whole body tingled at those words. But he didn't have time to flirt with them. He slid himself off of Arthur's lap, pulled himself to the edge of the bed.
"I have to go," he said. "I need to be at work in six hours."
Arthur caught him by the arm and Merlin turned, half falling back onto the bed when Arthur took him by the jaw and kissed him. Merlin was anxious and in a rush but the second their lips met none of that seemed to matter. The white room, the blood, his nerves about leaving his phone somewhere he couldn't reach it all disappeared. The quiet came back. Arthur's influence ran through him, urging him to settle down. He let it happen. His shoulders lost some of their tension. His heartbeat was slowly falling back into step.
Merlin moaned.
When they parted he felt dazed. Arthur looked him over, brushing his hand again through Merlin's hair.
"I have two expectations of you, when you leave this house, Merlin," he said quietly. "Are you ready to hear them?"
"Yes, Arthur," he breathed.
"You'll call me, if you need to, even if it happens a few hours from now."
He said it so seriously, it surprised Merlin.
"I will, Arthur," he promised.
Merlin wasn't sure if he would. But he would try.
"We agreed, Merlin," Arthur continued. "That your pleasure isn't a punishment, yes?"
Merlin blushed immediately. But he did manage to answer.
"Yes, Arthur."
"Then you'll come for me, if you touch yourself," Arthur commanded. Merlin whimpered involuntarily, making Arthur smile against his cheek. "Say it."
"I'll come for you if I touch myself," Merlin said, barely getting the words out. "Arthur."
"Why?" Arthur prompted.
"Because I'm not punishing myself anymore," Merlin said. "I gave that responsibility to you."
"Well done," Arthur said reverently, still holding Merlin's jaw in place. He didn't need to, really. Merlin was frozen by the look in his eyes.
"You won't disappoint me, after you promised you would be perfect for me, will you Merlin?"
Merlin swallowed hard.
"No, Arthur," he whispered.
Arthur grinned.
Chapter 6: A Table Set For Two
Summary:
A new player enters the game when Arthur gets some unwelcome news from within the crime families of the Underground; Merlin comes face to face with a side of Arthur he’s never seen before.
Notes:
Hello loves!
Sorry for the long wait for this chapter, it ended up being such an enormous sequence that I had to split it into two parts @__@ So check back soon for the second part update!
As always, stay safe and be kind! And I’ll be back soon 💋
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Merlin stared at the suit coat laid out on his bed, irritated with himself. He'd been in such a rush to get home he hadn't even realized he was wearing it. Arthur must have put it fully on him when he put him up on the bed.
Merlin scrubbed his face with his hands, stalking out of his bedroom and back into flat, grabbing his keys as he went. It was ludicrous. He was going to get himself arrested. What if anyone found him with it? And yes, he was fully aware that the likelihood of someone not only needing to search his house in the near future, finding the suitcoat and then somehow attributing it to Arthur was so incredibly unlikely that it was basically a non-threat but the fact that he'd walked out of Arthur's house with something that belonged to Arthur bothered him. That was really stupid behavior to get comfortable with.
Arthur Pendragon wasn't his fucking boyfriend.
But walking to work, Merlin couldn't help but notice how...good...everything felt. Not just his mood, or the absolutely blissful silence in his head, it finally felt like he could have a single thought without fifteen others clamoring for attention at the same time; but his whole body had lost tension in a way he couldn't remember managing on his own in a very long time. Maybe ever. His patch wasn't bothering him as much as it usually did, even. He was fucking exhausted, but he didn't feel tired.
And he was relieved also because when he'd come home there weren't any urgent messages on his phone from work. It still unnerved him, leaving his phone behind for such long periods of time. It wasn't sustainable. He needed a way to be present if he got called in unexpectedly. It didn't happen all the time. But it did happen. And Merlin only considered himself borrowing luck at this point, that it hadn't happened while he'd been meeting with Arthur.
He chewed on that all the way into his office, where Gwen found him a little while later.
"Good day off?" She asked, looking him over.
"It was a day off," he shrugged.
She gave him a skeptical look.
"What?" He asked, standing and pretending to look for a file so he could attempt to control the blush creeping up the back of his neck.
"I don't know," she shrugged, still eyeing him. "You seem really...relaxed today. That's all."
"It's been thirty minutes," Merlin smiled at her. "Take another look at lunch and we'll see where we stand."
She snorted. "Fair enough. Where do you want to start today?"
Merlin pressed his lips together, gave it some thought. But he knew Gwen was asking because she didn't want to admit that they'd lost the momentum on Claire's case without any new evidence. There was only one place to start, again. Back at the beginning.
"Let's go talk to the parents," he said quietly.
Gwen nodded, unhappy, like he was, at the necessity of it. There was something they were missing here, other than the dog, that needed further digging into. The dog also, was still bothering Merlin. He wanted to find Marley, but he didn't have a microchip and as far as they could tell he hadn't turned up anywhere locally. Gwen was convinced that Marley had been killed, if not right away then surely by now. But Merlin wasn't so sure. He just couldn't imagine why CDK had taken Marley with him.
...or had he?
Merlin had paused in what he was doing, his eyes focused on the wall. In his head Merlin saw the alley. Claire, face down in the pavement, her body still but newly so. A man crouched nearby, watching the tiny expansion of her ribs as she struggled to breathe, and finally stop. The man stood.
So did Marley.
Was it possible that whatever influenced the dog to come into the alley in the first place, influenced him to follow the killer out when the deed was done? Maybe CDK hadn't meant to take Marley with him? Maybe Marley had been the one to go.
"What is it?" Gwen asked.
Merlin shook his head, as if dislodging his own thoughts.
"Nothing. Just got caught up thinking about the crime scene. We should stop by again, on our way back."
She nodded.
The Walkers lived in Midhurst, which was a fair distance from The Met. Driving there it took him and Gwen nearly two hours. The village of Cocking was small and felt like it was made entirely of stone; all the houses and cottages were pebbled. And for some inexplicable reason, every window in the village was painted a very sharp, expressive yellow.
Despite all this, the lane they walked down to reach the Walker's home was damp and muddy from the rain. It felt grey and too quiet under the trees. Like even the woods knew the business they had come to conduct was a somber kind. A dark kind.
They hadn't told the Walkers they were coming. It was a gamble, especially driving out this far, not to make an appointment with them. But neither Gwen or Merlin entertained the thought of asking Jan and Terra to take the long drive to The Met. They'd been through so much, and Claire's funeral was coming up now that Gaius had released her body.
And Merlin preferred to question people in places they were comfortable. For the innocent, it made them more at ease, more likely to relax enough to provide keener insights and greater details.
For the guilty, it made them more at ease, and more likely to make a mistake.
As they made their way to the door, Terra was already coming out of the house. She didn't look happy. Merlin felt Gwen straighten her shoulders as they walked up.
"Mrs. Walker," Merlin said by way of greeting. She was glaring at them, but she didn't look very angry to Merlin. She just looked sad.
"You picked a fine time to come for a ring, didn't you," she said quietly, spitting the words out. "What do you want?"
"We apologize," Gwen said, meaning it. "We had no intention of causing any difficulties. We thought it would be less troublesome if we came to you instead."
"We can come back," Merlin added gently. "If now is a bad time."
Terra shifted, losing some of the heat in her eyes. Then she glanced back at her home, up, at one of the yellow windows above them. Merlin followed her gaze.
"That's Claire's room," she said, crossing her arms. "Jan's been in there since she got up this morning. I can't stop her crying."
Merlin looked at the ground.
"I'm sorry if we caused anymore hurt by being here," Gwen told her. "We can come back another time."
"There's no better time," Terra said, resigned. "Only I won't involve her today. You can come around back where she won't be disturbed."
They thanked Terra, followed her to a side gate which she opened into a yard with a small table and four chairs. There was a massive dog bowl by the house that had overflowed with rainwater.
Terra wiped down the seats and offered them tea which they declined. Seeing the ashtray on the table Gwen offered Terra a cigarette which she accepted. Gwen lit one with her.
Merlin usually let Gwen do the majority of the talking, so he did just that, letting his eyes skip around the yard. He tended to have a cold indifference to the way he approached the subject of a crime that didn't always go over well, especially with the families of the victims.
"Merlin and I were going over the details of your phone call with Claire this week," Gwen was saying to Terra. She didn't hesitate on Claire's name or rush by it, making sure that Terra was comfortable hearing the words before she actually asked any questions.
Merlin watched Terra's eyes. She wasn't calm, exactly. But she didn't flinch either. She took a drag off her cigarette and nodded.
Merlin went back to looking at the house, the yard, the fence. He gauged they had approximately the length of time it took Terra to finish smoking, before she asked them to leave.
"Can you walk us through it one more time?"
"Well she called Jan first," Terra said, tapping the ash off her cigarette. "It was late, so the first call she made, neither of us heard."
The Walker's yard was small, with a garden that looked like it was well maintained. The fence was recently painted. Merlin deduced off hand that this was due to the imminent arrival of family for Claire's funeral. Then he thought that was an odd thing to be concerned about.
"Do you remember what time that was, about?" Gwen asked.
"Sometime around midnight, or one, I think."
Merlin's eyes came back to the dog bowl up against the house. It was clearly there for Marley's use but it hadn't been needed in a long time. Longer than Marley had been missing. There was rust underneath the lip of the bowl.
"And where were you and Jan, respective of each other, when that first call came through?"
Terra took another long drag on her cigarette, drawing Merlin's attention back to her momentarily.
"I couldn't sleep," Terra said matter-of-factly. "I was on the couch on the first floor. Jan was in bed upstairs."
"Claire called me next. I was scrolling through some online bullshit," she continued, leaning over to flick the ash off her cigarette. "So I saw the call right away and picked it up on the second ring."
"How did Claire sound on the phone?" Merlin asked. Gwen glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, taking a drag on her own cigarette.
It had always been Merlin's theory, that Claire had called her mums one after the other, because she was nervous about something while she was out in the city, alone in the dark. In Merlin's mind, if you wanted to speak to just anyone to pass the time on a walk, you'd call a friend or a sibling. You wouldn't call your parents repeatedly at midnight to say hello. After all, these were your parents, so if you called one of them late at night assuming they were likely asleep in bed, you wouldn't call the other one and risk waking them both up when they didn't answer the first time. Not unless it was important. Not unless you were afraid.
Terra shrugged.
"It was a little strange to hear from her like that," she said. "But she sounded fine to me."
"Like what?" Merlin prompted.
Terra blew out a stream of smoke before she answered. Merlin watched her through the cloud of it. She was chewing on the corner of her lower lip.
She was trying not to cry.
"I don't know, in the middle of the night like that, I guess," she said, her voice soft and tremulous. "It's not that it's never happened before, it just seemed odd to me at the time."
"Why?" Merlin pressed her, ignoring Gwen's look to take it easy.
Terra closed her lips together like she might snap at him, her eyes welling a little now. But she didn't try to push him off, which surprised Merlin. Instead she said,
"Claire was always a very independent person, even as a child. When she went away for any reason, summer sports or vacations with friends, and eventually when she left to get her degrees in London, she never called or wrote to us regularly. Text messages were scarce unless she initiated them. She just wasn't a very chatty girl. Usually Claire called or wrote or messaged us, when she had something important to say."
Here Terra paused again to smoke. Tapped the ash off her cigarette before continuing.
"When I say important, mind, I don't mean life-changing. Just things she found important. She called me once from New York to tell me that there really were people who talked like Joe Pesci in that movie, Goodfellas."
Merlin smiled with her, when Terra lifted the corner of her mouth at the memory.
"So," Merlin said, as gently as he could. "Did she say anything on the phone with you, that you would have considered 'important' to Claire?"
Terra sniffed. Wiped her nose delicately with her thumb before taking another drag on her cigarette.
"No," she said quietly. "I was waiting for it. When I picked up, because of the hour, I asked her straight away if anything was wrong, but she said she was fine. Just that she'd been working late all week so she hadn't had a chance to walk Marley, and she was feeling guilty about it."
"Was working late unusual for Claire?" Gwen asked when she saw Merlin frowning to himself.
"No," Terra said. "No. But typically she was able to go home on her lunch breaks to walk Marley. It seems like that just wasn't possible for her that week."
"Was it normal for her to take Marley out on a walk so late at night?" Gwen asked.
Terra shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I did tell her I thought she should go home, because it was so late, but she had Marley with her and he's always been very protective..."
Terra trailed off and this time when she blinked there were tears on her cheeks. She covered her eyes with her hand, the burning end of her cigarette trembling between her fingers.
"So I wasn't worried," she admitted, crying softly.
Merlin sat up a little at that. He opened his mouth to get her to expand on that for him but Gwen kicked his foot under the table.
He closed his mouth reluctantly, watching Gwen lean over, put her hand on Terra's.
"It wasn't your fault," Gwen said quietly. "That she didn't go home, Terra. You couldn't have known what would happen."
Terra cried harder.
"I'm her mother," she hissed.
I should have been able to protect her from this.
When Terra had calmed, her cigarette had burned down too far to keep smoking, so she crushed the butt in the ashtray, sniffing a little. Gwen offered her another. She took it.
As she lit her second cigarette, Merlin said,
"Marley was usually protective of Claire?"
Terra nodded as she breathed out a stream of smoke, setting down the lighter on the table.
"Claire volunteered with the Search Dog Association. Marley was trained in search and rescue, and he was trained to protect Claire when they were working. I insisted, when she told me she wanted to become a member of the NSADRA."
Merlin was frustrated hearing this. It didn't fit with anything they'd seen at the crime scene. And it didn't fit with anything Arthur had explained to him either. He didn't bother asking Terra how long Claire had been working with the Search and Rescue Association. He was familiar with their standards. In order to be a dog handler for them she would have needed several years of training and experience.
So why hadn't she been able to give Marley a successful command to keep him from going down the alley? The way Arthur had explained it, that wasn't something a Dominant influence could just overwrite. It would have been an easier puzzle piece if Marley was just a pet. Now Merlin had even less of a theory to build on. His frown deepened.
"What happened next?" Gwen prompted Terra, seeing the look Merlin had in his eyes. "What did you talk about with her?"
Terra sniffed again, leaning back in her chair.
"Nothing in particular," she said quietly. "I told her I couldn't sleep, she asked me what I was watching, recommended a new show she liked."
"And then what happened?" Gwen asked softly.
Terra looked out into the yard. Had another drag on her cigarette before she answered.
"I'm not sure," she said quietly. "Claire was laughing at something I'd said, when Marley started pulling on his leash I guess. She was amused at first, but he didn't stop. I could tell she was starting to get frustrated because she didn't often take a tone with Marley, but she was calling for him and it didn't sound like he was listening."
"Did she seem concerned to you? Other than being frustrated with Marley?" Merlin asked her.
She glanced at him while she tapped out the ash on her cigarette.
"No, she didn't sound like she was afraid of anything. Just annoyed."
"And afterwards?" Gwen said gently.
"She said she needed her hands free to get Marley," Terra told her. "She had her mobile against her shoulder, she didn't bring her headphones with her I guess. She said she would call me right back. Then she hung up."
Terra stared at Gwen for a long time, tears building up in her eyes again.
"She said," Terra continued, her voice breaking. "Love you mum, be right back, just a sec! And I said...okay."
She pressed both of the heels of her hands into her eyes and sobbed. Gwen stood and took the cigarette from Terra's hand.
"I said okay," she cried. "The last thing I said to my daughter was okay."
Gwen put her hand on Terra's shoulder, looking down at her sadly. Merlin looked at his lap.
"Mrs. Walker," Gwen said softly. "My partner and I have only had the privelage to speak to a few people in Claire's life so far. But from what I've heard, I'm certain she knew that you loved her more than anything. She didn't need to hear you say it to know that."
They left Terra after she'd calmed. When she opened the gate for them, Merlin paused on the other side.
"Just one more thing Mrs. Walker," Merlin said, turning to look back at her. Gwen stopped at his side.
"Yes?"
"Have you heard anything about Marley?"
Terra shook her head sadly. "We have posters up. Claire's friends at the NSARDA are keeping an eye out for him. But we haven't found anything yet."
Merlin nodded at the ground.
"Thank you for your time," he said. And then, impulsively, he gave her his business card. She took it slowly.
"I know you know how to get in touch with us," he said. "That card has my mobile on it also. If you need anything, at anytime, please let me know."
She sniffed again, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her jumper.
"Thank you Detective," she said.
Back in the car Gwen sank into the seat, closing her eyes.
"I have a headache," she said.
"Yeah," Merlin said absently, starting the engine.
"What is it?" Gwen asked, rubbing her eyes.
Merlin blew out a breath as he pulled away from the curb.
"None of what she said makes any sense to me," he admitted. "I had this theory, that if a Dominant like CDK was trying to lure Claire into the alley, then maybe he used Marley to do it, with his influence."
Gwen frowned.
"So I asked around," Merlin told her, feeling a pang of guilt for this small lie. "And I guess it's actually not outside the realm of possibility, for a Dominant person to influence things other than Submissives."
"You mean like animals in general?"
"Yeah," Merlin said, watching the lines in the road as he drove. "But it isn't easy. The way I understood it, let's say Marley was just a pet, he didn't have training, you could reasonably assume he knew basic commands like sit or stay but nothing complicated. Then a Dominant might be able to get him to do those things, but it would take a lot of effort and energy. But the effort becomes exponentially greater the more loyal the animal is, the more training they have, the less you know about them. I was starting to think that maybe Marley got caught up in the influence of our guy, and he pulled Claire into the alley, and then followed CDK back out."
Gwen had been watching him as he spoke. Now she turned her head to look out the window.
"You don't think that's possible anymore?" She asked.
Merlin made a frustrated noise.
"I don't," he said. Then immediately amended, "I don't think I do."
"Why not?"
"It would be like trying to push a boulder uphill for no reason," Merlin said. "It's too much effort for too high a risk. If Marley reacted to Claire's commands at any point then CDK would have come face to face with a very large, very skilled service animal. If he's not carrying any weapons, why not choose an easier target? Claire couldn't possibly have been the only one out in the city that night."
"You're really fixated on this dog," Gwen said, leaning her head on her hand, her elbow on the door of the car.
The comment irritated Merlin a little.
"Because the dog, Gwen, is the outlier in this scenario. And he's still missing. If he's out there somewhere then he might have evidence on him we can use, hair, fibers, something."
"It was just an observation," she said dismissively. "I don't know anymore about how this whole Dominant thing works than you do. So I don't have an opinion on whether or not what you're saying makes sense. I just think we shouldn't let our focus get too narrow. There are other things we can look into."
"Like what?" Merlin said, trying not to snap and half-failing.
"The NSARDA for one you ass," she said, sitting up. "Maybe someone there has more information than her parents about what Claire was doing in the city that night."
That brought him up short.
"What do you mean? She was walking Marley."
"Yeah," she said, exasperated. "In the direction of her home not away from it. And one of the items on her To Do List just said 'wine', but the techs didn't find any wine on the scene or in her flat."
Merlin took a moment to process this.
"You think she was going home from meeting someone out?"
"It's a possibility," she said.
"Sorry," Merlin told her after a silence had fallen in the car. "I just thought I had a workable theory and it keeps falling apart in my hands. I didn't mean to get frustrated with you."
"I know," she said gently.
They ended up going directly back to the office from Midhurst. Both of them wanted to run down any information they could about their respective leads or lack thereof, and they'd already walked through the crime scene more than once. Merlin made a mental note to go back on his own later, if he had nothing left to look into at the end of the day.
Which was ultimately what happened.
He was walking down the dark length of the alley, his hands in the pockets of his brown leather coat, listening to the echo of his footsteps on the uneven pavement. There was nothing remarkable about the space now that it had been cleared of any traces of the crime. Just a wall with some bins at the end. As he walked the sodium yellow light from the doorway flickered to life, casting a glow over the space where Claire's body had been found.
Merlin paused, glancing at the light, then back down the way he'd come. It was dark now. He'd assumed the light was automatic, based on the time of day. But if that were true, the light would have already been on, when he entered the alley.
He waited, unmoving, for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually the light snapped off.
Merlin took a step forward.
The light came back on.
The door opened, and an irate middle-aged man leaned out into the alley, glaring at him.
"What do you think you're on about, then? Get out of here, you're disturbing my workers."
Merlin lifted his eyebrows, taking a few more steps closer, reaching for his ID.
"I'm a Detective with the Metropolitan Police," he said calmly, holding it up. The man practically jumped. "You own this building?"
"Yeah," the man said, stepping further out of the door. He looked sheepish.
Probably because Merlin and Gwen had been attempting to get ahold of him with no luck for some time now.
"Well," he amended as Merlin walked up to him. "I own the business inside the building anyway. Name's Darcy."
"Mr -"
"Just Darcy," he said.
Merlin gave him a tight smile in response.
"Darcy, then. The light over your door, it's motion sensing?"
"Aye," he said. Behind him through the door, Merlin could hear the sound of chatter, plates clinking. "We had some trouble a bit ago with a few rough sleepers taking up here. They still come around from time-to-time, to go through the bins. I put the light up so the staff would feel more comfortable taking the rubbish out at the end of the night."
"You came out here pretty quick when I set it off just now," Merlin prompted. "Can you see it from inside?"
The man looked up at the light and back down to Merlin, uncomfortably.
"You're here about that lady they found aren't you?" He said quietly. "The one missing her face?"
Merlin had to stop himself from reacting. In his head he could see the white table. Claire's bloody hair swinging as she slammed her head into the wood. The crack that reached for him like a bolt of lightning down the length of it, filling in red with her blood.
"I don't recall that being printed," Merlin said calmly.
"Disfigured then," the man said. Which was the terminology that had been released in the end. Merlin took a closer look at him all the same. But it wasn't any good, he realized almost immediately.
This man was Submissive.
He couldn't be CDK.
"The light, Darcy," he prompted the man, moving past the question entirely. It was pointless to answer. Of course that's why he was here.
"Yeah, yeah," the man said quickly, as if he were afraid he'd offended Merlin. "Sorry, it's on a camera feed, and a tone goes off in the back when it comes on. I check the cameras when I hear the bell if I'm not busy."
Merlin felt his heart stop in his chest.
"Is it a live feed, or are you recording?" Merlin asked him, trying not to sound too eager.
"I have recordings for about a...well I'm not good at keeping to a schedule with it. I don't keep them forever. But I am recording, in case I need to press for damages or some such."
"Do you still have the recording for the night of March seventh?" Merlin said.
The man scratched the back of his head, glancing back into the restaurant when someone shouted his name.
"I'm not sure, if I'm being honest Detective. I'd need to look through the files. I delete the oldest ones when I need the memory space."
"I need you to check," Merlin said, reminding himself not to be too firm. He wasn't great at talking to people like this. He wished Gwen were here. She would be able to speak to this man in a way that would make him more comfortable.
"We're in the middle of a dinner rush, Detective," the man said, a little pleadingly. "Can you come back? Here."
He handed Merlin a business card, which Merlin turned over to read.
The Pemberley
"Hours on the card," he said, already backing his way into the restaurant. "Come before open and ring the bell out front, I'll get you sorted. My apologies!"
And then he was gone.
Merlin gave an uncharacteristic growl in frustration. But he took a photo with his phone and sent the information to Gwen.
They made plans to visit the restaurant the next day.
He went home in a fugue after that. He'd gone up and down the alley again with his pen light, setting the motion light off at least two more times just to remind Darcy he wasn't going to forget to come by in the morning.
But it didn't help. He was thinking about the nightmare he'd had at Arthur's; the hand on the back of his head. How he'd broken Arthur's influence when he'd woken up screaming.
At two o'clock in the morning Merlin had to admit to himself that there was a problem. He just didn't know what it was. His heart rate was much too fast. It felt like a panic attack but not quite. Like he was right on the edge of one and he couldn't manage to make it past that into full blown hysteria. It was almost worse than actual alarm. It made him still and too hot; but somehow freezing him in place. He was more aware of every sound in his flat than he ever had been, hyper focused on listening for anything that sounded out of the ordinary. Anything that sounded wrong.
And he was sad a little, too, for some reason. Just last night he'd been so fucking satisfied that he'd begged Arthur for his cock and...
Jesus Christ just the thought of it made him pull his knees closer, squeeze his eyes shut.
It felt so good.
Merlin felt that way all day even, relaxed and at ease, until he'd gone back to the last CDK crime scene.
You'll call me, if you need to, even if it happens a few hours from now.
He closed his hand over the place where his tattoo was. Made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat and pulled Arthur's coat closer to him. Crushed it in his fist against his face and tried to teach himself how to breathe easy again.
Across the city, Arthur Pendragon lifted his head from his books, the light from the lamp on his desk reflecting in the gold of his hair. Leon stopped speaking. Clasped his hands behind his back, waiting for a response, but Arthur hadn't heard him properly. There were embers in the air. A whisper of wings folding over his shoulders.
"Say that again," Arthur said, very quietly.
"Agravaine came back to London," Leon said calmly. "He brought The Doctor with him."
Arthur stood from his desk slowly, buttoned his coat. Very carefully, he closed the heavy tomes on his desk one by one. The slam of each one echoed in the wide office. Leon lifted a hand to the door. Waved two fingers at the man waiting there.
The doors opened. Two men dragged a limp body between them to Arthur's desk, where he waited with his hands in the pockets of his trousers. The body was dumped into the empty chair on the other side of his desk. Arthur watched his uncle slowly coming to, through the blood running down his face into his eyes.
Agravaine's head lolled.
"Stupid boy," he gurgled.
"For my sister's sake," Arthur said, listening to the doors of his office closing. "I let you walk out of this office once."
Agravaine laughed. It was a painful, heavy sound. Like he was drowning.
"You were always at war between your mother's good grace and your father's perversity," Agravaine rasped. "That night, you should have let your father win."
"Where is The Doctor?" Arthur said calmly.
Agravaine grinned, his teeth yellowed red with blood.
"He's in your city, boy. Been here for a while now. A parting gift, from me and your father," Agravaine choked out. "To you."
Arthur looked his Uncle in the eye for a long time. The one on the left was made of glass. When Agravaine had been banished from London, Arthur had taken it from him.
Now, Arthur reached into his suit coat as he came around the desk to stand in front of his uncle. Looked down his nose at the sagging, bruised mass of him. Leveled his gun at Agravaine's good eye.
As he pulled the trigger, his uncle managed to say,
"He knows."
Before his head snapped back, his blood splattering across Arthur's face.
Arthur stood in silence, his eyes wide in their rage. Leon watched as Arthur finally lowered his gun, looking like he might be considering emptying the entire magazine into his uncle's lifeless body. There was blood dripping from the back of Agravaine's head, fallen over the chair. Leon wasn't looking at Arthur's face. He was looking at the gun in his hand, trembling faintly now with the force Arthur was gripping it. And then, slowly, Arthur's hand relaxed.
"Bring Gwaine home," Arthur said. "And get this garbage out of my office before I get back."
Leon frowned.
"Get back?"
But Arthur was already striding to the door.
"And get me Percival!" He roared over his shoulder.
Leon blinked. Turning now to watch Arthur throw the doors of his office open and stalk from the room. He stared after him for a while, before his eyes slid back to Agravaine.
Then he got on his phone, and called George.
Arthur stared at Merlin from the foot of his bed, looking him over silently. Thinking about his Uncle's last words.
"We should work on your ability to detect intruders in your home," he said.
Merlin pulled back the covers without opening his eyes.
"I wasn't sleeping," he said quietly. "I knew it was you."
Arthur got into the bed.
"Is that my coat?"
Merlin turned over with the black garment in his arms, putting his back to Arthur. Arthur looked on, amused.
"Yes," was all Merlin said.
Arthur folded himself around Merlin. Closed his arms over the curve of Merlin's slender waist.
"Did something happen?" Merlin asked, when Arthur put his head on the pillow behind him.
"No," Arthur said.
They were silent for a time.
"How are you feeling?" Arthur murmured, when the room seemed to expand with the quiet.
"Fine," Merlin said.
"You're lying," Arthur told him, drawing his nose gently up the back of Merlin's neck.
"So are you," Merlin said.
Another silence fell. Then Merlin surprised him, by turning over. Pressing his face up into the space between Arthur's tense jaw and his throat. Flattening his hand over Arthur's heart.
"It bothered me," Merlin said into his skin. "What happened when I woke up from that nightmare."
Arthur lowered his face a little, letting Merlin feel his cheek against his when he spoke.
"I was proud of you for defending yourself," Arthur told him. "Even if it was against my influence."
Merlin's hand tightened in his shirt.
"That doesn't make it better," Merlin said.
Arthur smiled, let Merlin crowd him a little, sliding one of his long legs between Arthur's, pulling himself closer under Arthur's chin.
"Not even a little?"
"No," Merlin breathed.
Arthur caressed the back of Merlin's neck, gently tipping his face up. He kissed Merlin, and it wasn't the kind of kiss he'd intended, the ones he shared with other Subs before Merlin. He kissed Merlin and he meant it, felt his skin warming at the soft sounds Merlin made for him when he did, and when Merlin opened his mouth for him, letting Arthur inside, Arthur covered Merlin slowly in his influence, taking care to allow Merlin the chance to get used to the feeling without the knee-jerk reaction to break it. Filling in all the dark spaces between the tangled knots of Merlin's presence with himself.
Merlin moaned.
Arthur expected Merlin to pull back, as he had done so many times before now, embarrassed by his own reactions to being touched by Arthur. So Arthur had already started to let him go, when Merlin put his hand on Arthur's face, and held him there. Kissed him back. Arthur drew his hand up under Merlin's shirt, just to feel how warm he was, relishing the way Merlin's lower back dipped closer to him in response.
He felt Merlin's body shift, using the leverage of his leg tangled between Arthur's, and without breaking their kiss Arthur smiled against Merlin's mouth, allowing Merlin to roll them, putting Arthur on top of him.
Arthur settled between Merlin's legs, forcing his shirt up higher, taking his time to just touch Merlin. To kiss him. And within the comforting expanse of Arthur's influence, Merlin let him take what he wanted. Because he needed it, but because Arthur needed it more. Again he felt that uncanny whisper in the back of his mind, telling him where to put his hands, his teeth, his tongue, when he kissed Arthur back, when he pulled him closer. So he threaded his fingers through Arthur's hair and pulled his head back, biting Arthur's bottom lip as they parted. Knowing Arthur would fight him on this. Knowing somehow that it was the moment Arthur was waiting for.
Arthur took Merlin by the jaw when he bit him, forcing his head to the side, smiling against the pulse in Merlin's throat. Merlin's hands were both fisted in the shoulders of Arthur's dress shirt now. Using his free hand to pull Merlin's collar over the curve of his shoulder, listening to the seam of it stretch and pop in his hand, Arthur lowered his head to that sensitive dip in Merlin's throat and bit down. Hard.
The sound Merlin made for him when he did sent liquid gold running through Arthur's veins. He closed his eyes, pressed his body fully down ontop of Merlin's when Merlin's back arched, his nails dragging at Arthur's skin through the fabric of his shirt. He kept sinking his teeth in, until he was sure it would bruise, knew he'd found the right amount of pressure, when he felt the length of Merlin harden against him.
Felt the release of Merlin's presence over them both; the enormous wings of a dragon stretching open, setting the threads of Arthur's influence on fire with a shower of glowing embers.
Both of their reactions when Arthur lifted his head were feral, there was no other word to describe it. Merlin hooked his knee over Arthur's hip, closed his arm around the back of Arthur's neck and crushed Arthur's mouth into a bruising kiss, whining obscenely when Arthur bit him again for it, forcing Merlin's head back by his hair. Merlin's hands slid over his shirt and taking hold of the seams of his button-down tore it open, threads and buttons breaking free; clicking across the wood floor on either side of them. Merlin's hands were hot against the bare skin of his chest, and he let Merlin touch him while he sucked on the bruise he'd made in the soft dip between Merlin's throat and his shoulder. Forcing his hands up under Merlin's shirt and pulling up welts with his nails when he dragged them down Merlin's sides. Groaning at the short sharp moans it pulled out of Merlin. He sat up slowly, straddling Merlin's hips and held Merlin's gaze while he removed his shirt entirely, relishing the hungry way that Merlin's eyes took him in.
He'd never been particularly flattered by this look on a Sub before. Arthur knew he looked good. And to some extent all Subs looked at their Doms in this way. But it felt different to Arthur with Merlin's eyes on him. He was showing off, because Merlin appreciated it, and because his look was so wanting, like Arthur had just presented Merlin with the only gift he'd ever asked for in his entire life, taking off his shirt while he sat on Merlin's hips, his heels digging into the backs of Merlin's thighs.
He let Merlin pull him back down by his belt, kissed Merlin while his quick hands pulled it free and opened his trousers, before he took Merlin's wrists and pinned them up by his ears. Merlin arched in protest, twisting his wrists a little in Arthur's hold but he wouldn't fight Arthur in this position. Partially because it would be easy for one or both of them to accidentally strain Merlin's bad shoulder.
And partially, Arthur knew, because Merlin wanted to be held down when he was fucked. The moan he gave into Arthur's mouth when he leaned over Merlin again to claim another kiss from him, gave him away.
He allowed Merlin to sit up to pull his shirt over his head, before turning Merlin over onto his stomach, his knees pushing against the insides of Merlin's thighs, forcing his legs open wider, forcing him to lift his hips. He leaned over Merlin's back and lifted his head by his hair, making Merlin whimper softly.
"Hands where I can see them," Arthur said, roughly, in Merlin's ear. "If you touch yourself that's how you'll come, and I'll keep my hands to myself for the rest of the night. Do you understand me?"
Merlin flattened his palms against the sheets, bit his lip and said,
"Yes, Arthur."
It made Arthur immediately high, how easily Merlin occupied this space for him. He closed his eyes briefly when he let Merlin's hair go, and turned his attention to all those pretty sparks in the air, settling on Merlin's skin. He traced them with his fingers, his mouth, across the backs of Merlin's shoulders, down the exquisite line of Merlin's spine, making Merlin arch, lift his hips higher, giving Arthur access to slide his hands underneath Merlin, his fingertips finding the hardened peaks of Merlin's nipples, pinching them, making Merlin clutch at the sheets and bite down on the pillow under his chin. Arthur grinned against Merlin's shoulder, before sitting back up he pulled Merlin's sweatpants down off his hips, removing them entirely to toss unceremoniously off the side of the bed.
Merlin had turned his forehead down against the pillow now, his hips trembling faintly when Arthur ran his hands up the back of Merlin's hard muscled-thighs. Let out a perfect shout when Arthur slapped him hard across his ass leaving his handprint behind. He slapped him again, massaging Merlin's aching balls in his free hand, until every bruising blow made Merlin's rock his hips harder into Arthur's palm. Until he was shaking in Arthur's steady hands.
"Look at you," Arthur said, smiling darkly as he pressed his fingers into the bruises he'd made all over Merlin's thighs and buttocks, running his hands along Merlin's sides, approvingly. Took a moment to listen to Merlin's moaning, the sound of his fingers pulling at the bedsheets.
"Covered in my handprints."
He slid one of his hands between Merlin's legs, stroking Merlin hard from base to tip, until Merlin was crying out shamelessly, his hips moving with Arthur's hand now.
"Everytime you sit down at your desk, you'll be able to feel my hands on you."
Merlin clutched at the sheets, biting his lip over a gasp when Arthur drew his fingers, slick with Merlin's precum, to press inside Merlin for the first time. As he moved, letting Merlin take it in slowly, Arthur said,
"How does it feel knowing that when you go back to work in the morning, after tonight, you'll be sitting on all the evidence you need against me? My fingerprints. My DNA."
Merlin's whole body jerked at the words, tightening around Arthur's fingers, ripping a cry from him that made Arthur stop what he was doing to stare at Merlin's shaking hips, his eyes wide. Tracked the hot flush rising over the back of Merlin's neck, the pressure of his thighs against Arthur's legs, still holding them open. Watched, his cock absolutely straining against his own stomach as Merlin's body softened involuntarily.
Arthur's smile became predatory as he slid his fingers deeper inside of Merlin, making him cry out. Making him moan.
He could barely hold his hips up under Arthur's hand all of a sudden.
"Did you just come, Merlin?" Arthur whispered.
Merlin turned his head, hiking his shoulders up higher like he wanted to hide.
Arthur slid another finger inside of him, and Merlin couldn't stop the way he rocked back into Arthur's hand at the feeling of it. Said, barely able to get the words out,
"Y-yes, Arthur."
Arthur grinned, tipping his head back, his chest swelling.
"What a needy Sub you are," he purred, making Merlin whine. "I'm not even inside you yet."
He took his time now, and Merlin was entirely outside of himself, panting with his cheek pressed against the sheets in his fists. His whole body flushed as Arthur moved his fingers slowly, only a little too slowly, in and out, looking for the right spot.
Arthur watched, satisfied down to his core at the way Merlin's pupils were dilating, turning his beautiful blue eyes dark against all that expanding black.
"You really are stunning, aren't you?" Arthur said, amused when Merlin turned his face back into the pillows.
And he was. Merlin hadn't moved at all from the place where Arthur had directed him, even though his abdomen was tight with the effort of it. Even though he'd come once already at the thought of Arthur filling him. But he turned his head to hide his face when Arthur complimented him. Like that was the difficult part.
He was perfect like this.
Arthur leaned over his back again, pressing the bruise he'd left with his teeth under his thumb as he thrust his fingers inside of Merlin. Merlin cried out, jolting under Arthur's hand, but the way his body tightened told Arthur he'd found the right angle finally. Merlin's knees slid open further, his hips rocking down at every pass Arthur took at that perfect place inside him, layering the sensation over and over and over again until Merlin's eyes came open with another cry, and it looked like he might tear the sheets in his fists if Arthur didn't stop touching him there. So he didn't. He picked up the pace.
"Oh please," Merlin whimpered, unable to keep himself from moaning now. "Please, Arthur..."
He considered making Merlin say exactly what he wanted out loud. Merlin was so sensitive to that kind of embarrassment. He disliked being humiliated but Arthur was starting to see a different facet to that part of Merlin. He didn't mind being forced to face his own shame if it was done with a purpose. And Arthur could tell right away Merlin hadn't meant to say anything, when he'd begged for Arthur just now. And he'd said it so sweetly. But Arthur didn't push Merlin this time. He knew what Merlin was asking for. And he was being so good, after all.
When he slowed his hand he had to press a kiss to Merlin's hip because he'd let out a cry in protest when Arthur finally slid his fingers out of him. Arthur was smiling again.
He pulled Merlin upright, careful of his shoulder, until Merlin's back was pressed against his chest.
"On your knees for me, Merlin," Arthur said in his ear. "Where you belong."
Merlin threw his head back with a moan when Arthur finally entered him. Arthur held him there for a moment, unsure of his own need to press his face against the bruise he'd left on Merlin's shoulder, to close his arms entirely around Merlin and sink his influence deeper into the the tattoo on Merlin's chest as Merlin fully seated himself, flush to Arthur's hips.
His blood lit up when Merlin moaned again at the feeling of it. And Arthur drew his cheek down the back of Merlin's shoulder, silently praising him for not moving, for waiting patiently, for letting Arthur do as he pleased.
"When you're so good for me like this, Merlin," he whispered against Merlin's pale skin, making him shiver. "I can show you how good I can be for you too."
The words were a little more intimate than Arthur had meant them to be. But they were true, and he wasn't a man who let himself regret the things he said out loud. Merlin, despite all his bravado and rage was an exceptionally sensitive Sub. Words and expressions like these meant more to him than all the rest. They lit the flames in all those embers simmering in his presence. And he didn't disappoint. Merlin was hard again, when Arthur started to move.
He was digging his nails into Arthur's hips, because Arthur had closed his arms tightly around Merlin's body, pinning his elbows to his sides. And the harder he pushed the more Merlin gave back, until Merlin had fallen forward a little, crying out incoherently at the bed, the only thing keeping him upright was Arthur's hold on him now. His thighs were trembling on either side of Arthur's knees. Arthur felt himself losing control as he fucked him the way Merlin had wanted him to when they started this, the way Arthur wanted to when Merlin kissed him and asked him for his bond. He drove in deeper, and Merlin choked on a shout boarding on a scream, and with every thrust Arthur's gaze on Merlin's shoulders, his neck, his hair, the way his mouth fell open when Arthur found the right spot inside him, grew more intense, more dangerous. Merlin was safe like this and no one would take him from Arthur.
The Doctor couldn't have him.
He'd killed his Uncle and he'd kill his fathers dog too once he found him; he'd burn the city of London to the ground to drive The Doctor out of hiding once and for all. Because Merlin was his. Because Arthur was the only one strong enough to protect him.
And he would.
Arthur came hard, burying himself inside Merlin as far as he could go and listened to Merlin scream out his name as he followed Arthur into that abyss. Arthur stroked him through his climax, making Merlin twist his shoulders up and back against Arthur's chest, mindlessly rocking himself into Arthur's steady fist. Arthur adored the way Merlin shook when he gripped him harder, swiping his thumb over the head of Merlin's cock before stroking him again.
He made a mental note to see just how many times he could make Merlin come for him, before he begged Arthur to stop. He had a pair of red leather cuffs that would look beautiful against Merlin's pale skin while he did it.
When he finally allowed Merlin to relax, the both of them panting against each other until Merlin's body sank back into Arthur's, his head dropping back to Arthur's shoulder.
Arthur kissed his throat, his jaw. Loosened his hold only a little, because he knew Merlin didn't want to move yet.
Not while he was still on his knees, with Arthur inside him.
Just knowing that made Arthur want to fuck him again.
"Say it," Merlin whispered, still catching his breath. Arthur smiled against the back of Merlin's neck.
"Well done, Merlin," Arthur said, trailing a hand over the curve of Merlin's shoulder, down the inside of his arm.
Merlin shuddered, the feeling of it shimmering across Arthur's hips.
"You were so good for me."
They stayed like that for another minute, before Arthur helped Merlin up off of him. Merlin looked dazed still, lingering on the edge of submitting entirely, the way he'd done the night before. Being still and doing what he was told, but at a distance from it, with a far off look in his eye. He would need some care to come down, or he would go back to hating himself when he was through it. So Arthur brushed a hand through Merlin's hair before standing from the bed, pulling his pants back up. Merlin watched him quietly. Let Arthur help him up to his feet.
He was going to take Merlin into the bathroom to shower; based on their interaction the night before he thought Merlin would be quite content just to fall asleep as he was, but Arthur was in the mood to indulge the part of him that wanted to take care of Merlin, not just his needs.
They were nearly out into the hall when someone knocked on Merlin's door. The sound of it thundered through the flat, startling Merlin.
He gasped when Arthur took him by the arms and pressed him up against the wall beside his bedroom door, covering him with his body. Arthur's eyes were dark and fierce, staring over Merlin, out into the dim apartment. His influence now was a dangerous, fanged thing, filling up the spaces of the flat and coiling around Merlin's body.
A warning.
And a threat.
The knock on his front door came again and it was harder now. This time the fog lifted from Merlin's thoughts.
"Security! Mr. Balinor?"
Merlin pressed his hands against Arthur's chest, lifting his face to the underside of Arthur's tense jaw.
"It's okay," he whispered. "Let me go to the door, Arthur. It's alright."
Arthur's hold on him tightened possessively. His influence closed around him in the same way. Merlin felt his knees buckle but he held on. Fought the urge to let the feeling of belonging to someone consume him. Kept whispering urgently against Arthur's skin.
"I'm okay," Merlin told him. "Let me go to the door, Arthur, if I don't he'll call my partner. It was probably just a complaint, that's all. Let me go tell him there's nothing wrong."
The hand pounding on the door came down louder this time.
"Mr. Balinor? Everything alright in there?"
Arthur let out a low hiss like he was breathing through his teeth. But he let Merlin's arms go.
Merlin threw on his sweats and struggled to the door, still unsteady on his feet, Arthur's influence trailing him like a watchful hunting cat. But when he opened the locks and pulled open the door he gave the security officer a sheepish grin.
"Hi Mac," he said, a little out of breath. "Sorry, I was sleeping, what's the problem?"
The broad shouldered security man glanced into the apartment and then back at Merlin frowning.
"Apologies Mr. Balinor," he said. "Neighbors called to say they heard screaming. Sounded like someone in trouble."
Merlin blew out a breath.
"I'm sorry," he said again, and he didn't have to feign embarrassment, realizing how loud he must have been if the neighbors had called Mac. "It was me, yeah, I had a nightmare, woke up like I was gunning for a fight."
Mac's eyebrows came up at that. He glanced again around Merlin's shoulder, and Merlin did his best not to lean into his line of sight, hiding the bruise on his shoulder with the half open door.
"Didn't realize it was that loud," Merlin added, drawing Mac's whiskey brown eyes back to him. "But I'm alright, no trouble here. Just a bad case I'm working, that's all."
At that Mac's shoulders came down. He was a retired patrolman himself. They'd spoken often about their closed cases. The cold ones they couldn't seem to break.
"Aye, alright Detective," Mac nodded, looking relieved. "I can understand that. If you need a chat I'm always in the office. All hours, it's no trouble."
"Thank you, Mac," Merlin said sincerely.
He nodded. Turned to go back the way he came.
Merlin slumped a little against the door as he shut it. The fear and adrenaline and the emotional landslide was catching up to him. Merlin made a grateful sound when Arthur put his hands up under his arms and moved him away from the door.
Arthur turned him, running his hands over Merlin's skin, pressing his face into Merlin's throat. His influence wandered over every inch of him, making sure, Merlin realized with a sudden clarity, that he was safe and unharmed.
Merlin had never seen Arthur like this before. He'd never seen any Dom, like this before, in fact. He closed his arms around Arthur's neck, running a hand through Arthur's hair.
"Who was that?" Arthur said, and the tone of his voice made him want to curl up further into the shelter of Arthur's body.
"You know who that was," Merlin said quietly, though he kept his tone light. Let Arthur continue breathing evenly against the side of his neck. Holding on to Merlin's waist above the hem of his sweats. He gave a low growl at Merlin's response that shot right down the line of his spine. Merlin swallowed hard.
"Mac Finn," he said, even though he knew he was right. There was no way Arthur didn't know who he was if he was comfortable getting in and out of Merlin's flat without being seen. "Building security."
Merlin had the sudden urge to get as close to Arthur as he could, the steady presence of his influence grounding him. The heat under Arthur's skin a comfort to Merlin.
I'm right here, Merlin. And what does that mean for you?
But although these were things he craved himself, he realized he was feeling them more deeply because Arthur needed him to be closer, to stay nearby and touching him. It was the first time that Merlin realized Arthur actually needed this from him. He needed Merlin to do more than listen, follow direction appropriately, he needed more than Merlin allowing Arthur's influence to remain settled under his skin without breaking it.
He needed to take care of Merlin. He needed Merlin to let him.
Of all the things he'd expected from Arthur as a Dominant partner, this wasn't at the top of the list for Merlin. He honestly wasn't sure if before now, it had even made the list. Arthur had always been indulgent and conscious of Merlin's needs when they were finished with their interactions as a Dom and a Sub. He'd always given back that control to Merlin, to tell him when he was ready to separate himself from the encounter; he never pushed Merlin to come down too quickly, and he payed attention to what Merlin wanted when he was settling himself after they were finished.
It was the reason, Merlin had concluded, that he didn't fight with himself to break Arthur's influence when he felt it. He knew when Arthur did that to him he would let it go so that Merlin could focus on the things he needed from Arthur, unafraid of being controlled outright.
But this felt different. Arthur's influence was urging him, quietly, to be soft for Arthur now. That this was something Arthur needed. That before he left he'd actually given a measure of care to Merlin he'd previously been, Merlin thought, uninterested in.
Not that Merlin had ever felt like Arthur didn't care to some extent. But it had always seemed to Merlin that Arthur cared about being a good Dom. Merlin just happened to be the Sub. This didn't feel like that. This was a deeper instinct that Merlin had never seen Arthur indulge before. And it was intoxicating. Like all of the many hands of Arthur's influence were, in that moment, focused entirely on holding him.
"Where were you taking me?" Merlin asked him softly.
"Shower," Arthur said, and he still sounded rough around the edges to Merlin.
"Let's go then," Merlin murmured, tracing the scars on Arthur's chest, his arms, with his fingers.
He was not expecting Arthur to reach down and lift him off the ground by his bruised thighs. He would have protested, but Arthur was digging his fingers into the handprints he'd left behind, and all Merlin could do was drop his head to Arthur's shoulder, and moan.
When Merlin woke in the morning, there was a phone on the bed beside him, laying on top of Arthur's folded suit coat. Merlin flushed when he realized it was the one he'd been holding like a teenager with a crush when Arthur came into his room.
He picked up the phone and swiped the screen. There was a request for a six-digit code to unlock it. Merlin didn't have to think about this puzzle for very long.
The number of Arthur's casefile was exactly six digits, if you removed the leading four digits denoting the year it was filed.
The phone unlocked.
There was a single text message from a blocked number on the screen.
Well done.
Merlin smiled a little to himself before he got out of bed. His whole body ached, but it wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. The worst of it was the bite Arthur had given him on his shoulder. It was a little too close to his collar for comfort if he were being honest, but his dress shirt covered it well enough. That was all that mattered really. And he was alarmingly pleased with the bite mark. With all the marks Arthur had given him, in fact.
He was out of his goddamned mind.
At the door to his flat he hesitated with the new phone in his hand. It had been in his apartment, so if it were ever traced that would be incriminating enough. So there was no reason to leave it behind. Besides that, if they ever reached the point where Merlin was the one being investigated for his involvement with Arthur, and this mobile was discovered, it would already be too late.
Merlin put it in the inside pocket of his suit coat. Then he picked up his keys and made his way out into the rain.
As he walked he thought about the way Arthur had stayed in bed with him until he fell asleep, rubbing Merlin's bad shoulder, running his hands through Merlin's hair.
He tried to reconcile this Arthur with the man he knew had dismembered his own father's body and dumped it in the Thames.
The two pieces were impossible to fit together.
And even more impossible was this feeling in his chest that he didn't know how to classify, that he'd had no experience with in his life, that Arthur was a safe place for him. Something actually good for him. Despite all of the danger lurking under Arthur's calm demeanor, Merlin's instincts told him that he would know the difference if he ever truly ended up in the path of that danger, instead of standing alongside it. For the time being, Merlin was certain that Arthur no longer considered him an enemy or a threat.
Merlin was surprised to find that he felt the same.
It scared him.
That fear was creeping up on him in little ways ever since that first night with Arthur. Wanting to be good, wanting someone to tell him he'd done it right. Coming to the cottage on the coast when he felt like he was out of control again had been so easy. And despite all of his anger, all of his continued defiance, Arthur hadn't given up on him. It felt so fucking good. Everytime he spent the night with Arthur he wanted more. He wanted Arthur's hands on him. He wanted more of his mouth. And he wanted to earn it. But more importantly he wanted to do something for Arthur. All the times they had been together it had been so distinctly about him, and Merlin was feeling guilty and selfish, and surely if Arthur really believed he was a good Sub, he'd let Merlin take care of him in return. And he did. Last night something had rattled Arthur, he could feel it, long before Arthur reacted to Mac knocking on his door like he might put a bullet through the wood and ask questions later. But before that Arthur had let Merlin be what he needed him to be. And Merlin relished using his skills at reading people to give him exactly what he was looking for without being told. It made Merlin high in a way he didn't think was possible without chemical help.
And all that was fine, it was the best thing he'd ever had in his life, but because Merlin had never submitted to anyone, not really, if he managed to do it now, he felt like it might change something inside him. He might not be able to get by on his own anymore. And if that were the case, what would happen if Arthur ever grew tired of him and finally left him alone? How could he possibly find anyone else who competed with Merlin's mind the way Arthur did?
No Dominant he'd ever spent time with had put this much effort, this much care into how he worked for Merlin. And not once had any of Arthur's commands involved any kind of direct service to Arthur. Other than the expectation that any obedience from Merlin, however small, was an act of service itself. And he was so keen to every reaction Merlin had to the things he did and said. He was a master at adjusting himself to the situation at hand without breaking the tension for Merlin. Getting him to say things he would otherwise never admit. Giving him exactly what he asked for even when Arthur determined that he needed to realign what Merlin needed with what Merlin wanted.
It was infuriating how good he was at it.
It made Merlin want to know how good he might be at other things too.
Which is why Merlin was so afraid.
If he started wanting things like that he might not be Merlin anymore when Arthur was done with him. And no matter how much he desperately wanted to know what that might be like, he was too scared at how close he'd come to finally submitting to someone completely, to entertain the thoughts for very long.
He'd never needed anyone in his life before now, the way he felt like he needed Arthur when the various parts of him began, inevitably, to unravel again. He could let that go, he thought, he really might have been able to if he was any other guy doing any other job in the world. But he was a Detective for The Met. A good one at that. And every night he let Arthur break into his flat, every time he answered that pager or made a call of his own, he was spitting on all the work he'd done in the years since he'd come to London.
And it was so fucking easy to keep doing it too, like it wasn't bound to end with one or both of them dead or in jail.
He brushed the rain off his face as he entered The Met and made his way to his office. Shook out his leather coat and hung it on his door when he got inside. He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't even realize his D.I. was already standing by Merlin's desk with Gwen, waiting for him.
D.I. Geraint was a tall, slender man with a shock of deeply red hair and solemn, calm green eyes. He was quiet and observant, and Merlin had never seen him lose his temper before in his tenure with The Met. Then again, Merlin also avoided him as much as possible, because he was Dominant.
He felt it now as Geraint led him and Gwen back to his own office. His presence was heavy and although Merlin didn't feel swayed by it in anyway between the patch on his shoulder and Arthur's influence gently running through the ink of his tattoo, he could tell it was roiling. Something was wrong.
"Sir," Gwen said as she closed the door. "You wanted to see us?"
His eyes were dark as he gestured to the chairs in front of his desk. For a moment his gaze slid to Merlin in particular and Merlin was surprised to see frustration in that look. Directed at him. For a split second Merlin felt panic, felt the weight of Arthur's phone in his pocket so much more keenly just then.
"Have a seat," Geraint said quietly, his voice deep. "We need to discuss the Libby Moran case."
Merlin and Gwen glanced at each other as they sat. They had closed that case together some time ago now. Libby was a fourteen year old girl from Houslow who had been enrolled in the ballet academy in London. She'd gone missing and was found assaulted and murdered. Merlin and Gwen had apprehended her killer only a few months later; a forty-three year old man named Gerason. He'd been tried and sentenced. There was nothing left to discuss.
Geraint's expression was hard on them as they sat.
"Gerason was released today," he said.
All around him, Merlin felt the world come to a slow, agonizing stop when Geraint turned his green eyes back to his.
"There was a problem with the evidence collection," he said.
It was inevitable, Arthur knew, that Merlin would become occasionally too busy to meet with him. And Merlin wasn't the only one. There was something going on in the Underground, rumors about a new designer drug circulating in the city. Except that no one seemed to know where it was coming from. And Arthur couldn't seem to get his hands on anyone who had access to it. He knew it was The Doctor, making a statement. Come and find me, if you can. Arthur didn't appreciate wild goose chases. And he didn't tolerate dealers in his city. Arthur refused to take part in that kind of business.
He'd tried to explain that to Uther before he'd been forced to kill him. He thought he'd explained it thoroughly enough, when he took his Uncle's left eye.
Some people just refuse to learn.
So he himself had been so busy in the weeks following their last encounter that he didn't immediately notice that he hadn't heard from the Detective in some time. Until he did.
Arthur looked at his calendar, leaning his head on his fist. Glanced at his watch. It should have been easier now, for Merlin to get in touch with him, since he'd left him a...call it, a business phone. But Merlin had only used it once, to send him an emoji of a green light, after he'd presumably been successful in opening the mobile for the first time. That had made Arthur genuinely laugh.
Since then, he'd heard nothing. Felt nothing.
He knows.
Arthur quelled that voice in his head immediately. Even if The Doctor was aware of Merlin and his relationship with Arthur, it didn't matter. He would never get close enough to Merlin without Arthur knowing. And if something had happened to the famous Magic Merlin Balinor, the press would have erupted.
The Underground would have too.
All the same.
Arthur was oddly concerned.
It was late now, nearly midnight and he needed some fresh air anyway. So he put on his coat, speaking briefly to Leon, and went out into the dark.
Arthur wasn't sure what he expected to find when he entered Merlin's flat, but he wasn't expecting nothing. It seemed to him as if no one had been there for a long time.
He frowned, walking softly from room to room, his hands in the pockets of his great coat.
All of Merlin's things were still there. But it was all very orderly, the way people's living spaces tended to look in magazines. Like Merlin had done some cleaning and then left for a long holiday. Every room felt cold and unlived in.
Arthur continued to the bedroom, stared at the bed. It was made. His suit coat was lying on the comforter. Arthur reached out to touch it. How long had this been laying out? Surely not since their last night together?
The beats of his heart were starting to come down inside his chest harder, and harder. For a moment he wasn't sure what to do with the feeling of it. Didn't recognize it immediately as worry. It made him angry
Arthur straightened and looked around, his frown turning into a scowl. Then he pulled out the chair at Merlin's desk, and sat down to wait.
Merlin hadn't been planning to go back to his flat. In fact, he couldn't remember making the conscious decision to do it. He'd been planning to just go straight to the office, but now that he was fitting the key into his door he thought he should have a shower at least while he was home. So he went inside even though it felt wrong to him. Even though every step he was taking now, every step he'd taken since Geraint had spoken to Merlin in his office felt like a declaration of war.
His shoulder ached from the long hours of propping it against the door of his car while he watched through the tinted windows.
It took him too long to realize he wasn't alone.
When he saw Arthur, Merlin actually flinched in surprise, his pulse skyrocketing into his teeth. Arthur stood from his desk chair slowly, and his eyes were hard as he looked Merlin over.
"What are you doing here?" Merlin snapped. It was past five in the morning. The sun would be up soon.
Arthur stepped closer and Merlin backed up. It made Arthur raise his eyebrow but he didn't stop his approach until Merlin's back was pressed against the wall.
"Where have you been?" Arthur asked him quietly.
"I do have a job you know," Merlin said quickly, angrily. "One that I need to get back to. Leave.”
The look in Arthur's eyes darkened and Merlin felt himself shrinking involuntarily against the wall.
"Not this time, Merlin," he said. "Where have you been?"
"None of your business," Merlin snapped again. Arthur's expression didn't change, but he did lean in and Merlin couldn't hide the way his foot slipped when he stopped himself from making an abortive move towards the door.
"Afraid if I touch you," Arthur said very quietly, close to his face. "That I'll be able to tell you've been breaking your promises to me?"
Merlin froze, his heart hammering against the fine skin of his throat.
"You don't need to be afraid of that," Arthur continued. "I could tell before you walked in the door."
Merlin shoved him back hard, enraged, but Arthur had already hooked the last three fingers of his hand in the lapel of Merlin's suit coat and closed it in his fist. He jerked Merlin forward off the wall, and Merlin slammed his forearm down into the ditch of Arthur's elbow, breaking his hold, but he wasn't fast enough. Arthur turned him, slamming his chest into the wall, one hand fisted in the collar of Merlin's shirt, the other wrenched Merlin's good arm up behind his back by his wrist.
Merlin gave a shout, furious, when Arthur pulled him back and slammed him into the wall again. His knees buckled. Arthur's thigh between his legs caught him before he could sink to the floor. Merlin glowered at Arthur over his shoulder, breathing hard, the hand of his bad arm flat against the wall like he might try to use it to push Arthur back.
"Get your fucking hands off of me," Merlin snarled.
"You're the one who lashed out at me Detective, not the other way around."
Merlin winced, closing his eyes at the words, his expression falling from fury to pain in less than a heartbeat. He couldn't hide it. So he didn't try.
"Oh?" Arthur said, forcing Merlin up straighter with his leg between Merlin's thighs. He gave another shout, his eyes coming open again when Arthur flattened him further against the wall. "What was that reaction? You can't possibly care what I call you, after telling me to get my fucking hands off of you."
The paint on the wall crackled under Merlin's nails.
"Let go of me," Merlin ground out. But he couldn't make it convincing. His voice broke at the end.
"I'll let go of you," Arthur agreed, surprising Merlin, until he continued. "And when I do, you're going to call your boss, and take the day off."
Merlin sneered at Arthur over his shoulder, incredulously.
"The fuck I am," he said.
Arthur smiled beatifically.
"It wasn't a suggestion," he said. "You can make the call yourself, or I'll tie you down and make it for you. Your choice."
"I'm not calling off of work, I need to be there, I have a case -"
"You always have a case," Arthur said. "And you always will. Make the call."
"No," Merlin growled. "You don't know what I'm dealing with right now I can't just take the fucking day off!"
"Call, or I will. I won't ask again. Either way you're taking the day off," Arthur told him ominously.
"You can't call my office, are you fucking crazy?" Merlin said, struggling again now, maybe a little desperately.
He didn't even notice that Arthur had lifted his handcuffs from his belt until he let go of Merlin's collar to force Merlin's free hand up behind his back as well. Merlin felt the metal snapping into place and roared, his shout muffled suddenly by Arthur's hand covering his mouth, pulling his head back against Arthur's shoulder.
"I can call whoever I like. I own this city," Arthur told him, before throwing Merlin down on the bed.
He gasped when his back hit the mattress, giving a cry in protest when Arthur straddled his hips, sitting down on him firmly. With his arms cuffed behind his back, there was no way to dislodge him. Merlin twisted, letting out another frustrated cry.
It died in his throat when he felt Arthur opening his suit coat.
"Arthur stop," Merlin said, still twisting under Arthur like he had any chance of getting away.
Arthur ignored him. Took his phone out of the inside pocket.
"This isn't funny," he said, feeling the panic building in his chest. "Arthur don't, you can't -"
"I can," Arthur said, swiping the screen on Merlin's phone and turning it to face him. "And I will."
Merlin made the mistake of looking directly at it. The facial id trigger unlocked his mobile immediately.
"Don't Arthur," Merlin begged, his whole body suddenly feeling like it was on pins and needles. "I'm serious, you can't call my office, you can't, you told me you couldn't speak to anyone about -"
"About your designation as a Sub," Arthur finished for him, making his blood run cold. "Yes that's true. But I'm not calling your D.I. about your status, am I?"
Merlin bucked, jerking against the cuffs, the weight of Arthur on his hips.
"Stop! Please, Arthur you'll get me arrested, is that what you want?"
Arthur was scrolling through the names on his phone, casually.
"I told you what I wanted," Arthur said without heat. Then he turned the phone to face Merlin again so that he could see the contact Arthur had chosen.
Geraint.
"It's this one, isn't it?"
"Arthur! This isn't funny!"
"It wasn't meant to be," Arthur said seriously.
Then he placed the call, and put it on speaker.
Merlin was already screaming over the sound of the first ring.
"Alright! I'll talk to him! I will, please! I'll tell him I'm not coming in, just -"
He stopped himself suddenly when the call connected. He stared at Arthur, his eyes wide. Arthur watched him solemnly.
"This is Geraint," the calm voice of his D.I. said over the line.
Please, Merlin mouthed.
Arthur put the phone closer to Merlin's mouth than his own and raised his eyebrow.
Merlin had to stop himself from sobbing in relief.
"Sir?" Merlin said, his voice trembling faintly. "This is Detective Balinor, I'm sorry to bother you so early."
"It's no bother," Geraint said. "What can I do for you?"
"I'd like to request the day off," he said, staring into Arthur's eyes.
"I think that's a good idea, Balinor," Geraint said around a sigh. "You've been running yourself into the ground since we spoke about the Moran case. I was going to give you a few more days to cool it before I sent you home myself. I'm glad you're able to recognize when you need to step back."
Merlin swallowed hard, hurt and embarrassed that Geraint was agreeing with Arthur inadvertently. Arthur's expression still hadn't changed. It was cold and hard, yes, but it wasn't judgemental. Still somehow, Merlin felt ashamed.
"Thank you, sir," he said. "I appreciate it."
"Get some rest," Geraint said.
Then he hung up.
Merlin's head fell to the side, his breath coming in short pants. He flinched when Arthur tossed the phone on the bed by his face. Felt the weight of Arthur's body lift off of his hips.
"Sit up," Arthur said.
Slowly, still shaking faintly, Merlin did. Let Arthur uncuff him. Merlin stared at his own knees, said nothing.
Then Arthur turned and started out into the hall.
Startled, Merlin looked up after him.
"Wait, where are you going?"
"Home," Arthur said.
Merlin stood, staring after him in the doorway to his bedroom, dumbstruck.
"After all that?" Merlin shouted after him. "You're just going to leave?"
Arthur stopped walking.
"You made it abundantly clear you had no desire for me to be here," Arthur said. "Why on earth would I stay?"
Merlin's eyes widened. Arthur hadn't sounded hurt, or cross in anyway when he said it. But the words hammered Merlin in the chest.
"So you can just waltz into my flat at all hours and think it's okay to extort me into taking a day off? Then just waltz back out like it never happened?"
Arthur turned then, and the look in his eyes startled Merlin into complete silence. He was furious.
"You aren't the only one with needs in this arrangement, Detective," he said venomously. "I'm leaving because you don't want anything from me right now and staying will be difficult because of it."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Arthur glared at him. Then he turned again to go.
Merlin was moving before he realized it. Stopped Arthur from reaching the door, by taking hold of the back of his coat in both of his hands. Pressed his forehead to the space between Arthur's shoulders. They stood like that for some time, until the silence of the apartment closed in around them.
"Don't call me that," Merlin whispered.
"Why would it matter what I call you?" Arthur said. His disinterest cut Merlin in half.
"I..."
"You...?" Arthur parroted him, and it was unkind.
"Stop that," Merlin said, pulling back, glaring. "I don't like it when you call me Detective when you're acting like my Dom. I told you that in the car."
"Acting?" Arthur hissed, turning around and dislodging Merlin's hands. Merlin stumbled back a step, his whole body going cold at the look on Arthur's face.
"Arthur," he started, feeling his heartbeat in his ears. "I didn't mean -"
"I know what you meant," Arthur said.
"I didn't mean to say it like that," Merlin tried again.
"Do you think I have the time or the energy to put on a show for you everytime we meet?" Arthur snapped back at him. "Is that the kind of Dominant partner you think I am?"
"No, I wasn't trying to - if you would just listen I'll explain -"
"Explain what?" Arthur asked him, and Merlin was acutely aware that he couldn't feel Arthur's influence. It was growing cold under his skin.
"Stop," Merlin said again, quietly. Urgently.
"Whatever it is that you need -"
"No -" Merlin cut in, but Arthur spoke over him.
"- you've already decided I won't be able to give it to you."
"That's not true!" Merlin yelled at him.
"You don't have to make a show of it, Merlin," Arthur said, his tone cold. "We both know you don't need me. You need what I can give you."
Merlin's eyes were wide now when he said again,
"That's not true."
"Isn't it?" Arthur prompted.
"Please," Merlin heard himself saying. "Stop, I -"
His chest felt tight.
He hated this.
He hated it.
Merlin opened his mouth. But he couldn't think of anything to say that would change the look in Arthur's eyes.
When had what he wanted from this man changed to a look?
His pulse was too loud in his head.
Arthur had been watching him, waiting for him to speak, but now he was turning away again. Merlin's heart leapt out of his chest with the thought that Arthur might be giving up on him.
"Wait!"
He threw himself out in front of Arthur, pressing his back to the door, blocking his exit.
"Wait, please," he said pitifully. "I'll explain it to you, I will, just ask me."
Merlin couldn't look up at him. He couldn't look at that expression anymore.
"Ask you what, Detective? A tool doesn't have questions for the hand that holds it."
"I don't think of you as a tool!" Merlin yelled at the floor.
Arthur slammed both of his hands into the door by Merlin's ears making him yell, flinching in shock.
"I came here tonight because I was worried about you!" Arthur shouted at him. "That patch of yours can't hide you from my influence under your skin, do you have any idea what it does to me when the whole of you is begging for my care and all I'm met with is kicking and screaming the entire way down? First you don't want anything to do with me, now you're begging me to stay? Which one is it, Detective? Which fucking one?!"
Arthur had never yelled at him before. Inside of him that void Arthur's influence had been turning into a garden, yawned wide, and he felt like it was swallowing him whole. Arthur's anger was a pair of rough hands pulling all of the beautiful flowers of his influence out of Merlin's chest by the roots. His whole body shook. He felt himself actually cowering, needed to press his heel into the door behind him so that he wouldn't sink to the floor.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
"Don't tell me you're sorry!" Arthur continued to shout. "Tell me the truth!"
"I was angry when I saw you because I didn't want you to see me like this!" He yelled back at Arthur, half-hysterical. "You're right, I did break my promises to you - I've broken all of them because I can't stop to think about it! I made a mistake at work that ruined a case I solved. You asked me where I've been? I've been living out of my car for weeks because he's going to kill someone again, I know he is, and if I'm not there to stop it when he does, it will be my fault!"
Arthur stared at him, stunned.
Merlin continued, all of his yelling breaking to the pain in the back of his throat that signaled tears. "I told you to leave because I'm terrified of looking away from this guy for even a minute! I can't! How could I possibly deserve any amount of the peace you give me, Arthur? There's a rapist and a murderer back on the streets because of me!"
The silence that followed was deafening. At some point Merlin had squeezed his eyes shut, terrified of the look Arthur might be giving him. Like he was just any other person in the room. Like he wasn't important at all.
Merlin opened his eyes, letting out a small sob when Arthur lifted his face by his chin.
"Our time together, brings you peace?"
"Yes," Merlin cried. "When you're touching me everything is quiet, and still, and calm. It makes me so fucking greedy I can't stand it. And every night that I couldn't call you, everytime I broke my promises to you because that fucking monster is loose in the city was another failure I couldn't face showing to you! I don't deserve what you give me Arthur, so I couldn't ask you to stay. I couldn't. I -"
He stopped, his breath hitching on the words when Arthur ran his hand down his cheek, softly, the the warmth of Arthur's influence finally, finally sinking back in under his skin. He pulled in a breath painfully, gratefully, only just now aware that he was shaking and humiliated by the whole situation.
"I'll take the day off like you asked," Merlin said, mostly to the buttons on Arthur's coat. "Just don't leave angry at me, please, I won't survive it."
Arthur's influence completely enveloped him, and Merlin felt like his legs weren't quite as weak as they had been a moment ago. His heartbeat stuttered reflexively, and then started to slow. Arthur cupped the back of his head in his palm and pulled Merlin against him, closed his free hand around Merlin's shoulders, when Merlin fisted his hands in the back of Arthur's coat and clung to him.
"I'm sorry, Merlin," Arthur said into his hair, and he couldn't stop the sob in relief he gave when Arthur said his name. The way his whole body relaxed into Arthur's arms. "Being worried about you doesn't excuse my anger. I shouldn't have yelled at you like that. Or...how did you put it? Extorted you into taking a day off."
Merlin snorted into Arthur's shoulder, the release of the tension in his chest making him laugh a little. He could feel Arthur smiling against his temple.
"I'm sorry I wasn't honest with you," he said quietly into the fabric of Arthur's coat. "I don't know how to be, sometimes."
"I understand," Arthur said. "You didn't do anything wrong."
Merlin closed his eyes at the words. Held Arthur tighter.
"I want you to stay," he said. "I need you to stay."
Carefully, so that he wouldn't be hurt by the gesture, Merlin thought, Arthur pulled back. But he didn't move away from Merlin. Only took Merlin's face in his hands. The strength of his influence filled the room, pressing against every inch of Merlin, caressing him, like something precious. It made him shudder.
"You need more than that, don't you Merlin?" He said softly.
Merlin turned his face into the shelter of Arthur's jaw.
"Yes, Arthur," he breathed.
Notes:
Small non-Arthurian Easter Egg here, Pemberley is the Estate that Mr. Darcy owns and lives in with his younger sister in Pride and Prejudice.
…I couldn’t help myself xD
Chapter 7: Privileges
Summary:
After being coerced into taking a day off, Merlin goes to Southend to see Arthur.
Notes:
Hello loves :)
Here is the second part of Merlin and Arthur’s latest secret meeting…it uh, it’s actually going to be three parts now xD
I may have gotten carried away >__>;
As always stay safe and be kind! I’ll be back soon with the final part 💋
Chapter Text
They couldn't stay at Merlin's flat. It wasn't the kind of place that lended itself to privacy with neighbors above, below and nextdoor to him. Honestly, he was shocked no one had called building security again with he and Arthur shouting at each other the way they had been.
So Merlin came to the house in Southend as he had done weeks ago, by train, for the first time oddly, while the sun was coming up.
When he made it to the front door, it seemed Arthur hadn't arrived much sooner than he did. He was still wearing his gloves when he let Merlin inside. Merlin glanced at them as he allowed Arthur to take his coat for him once he'd removed his patch and toed off his shoes. Followed Arthur through the kitchen to the stairs that would take them up to the attic room.
Merlin had a lot of time to think while he was on the train. He was still angry, and more than a little anxious, and he didn't want to be here, he wanted to be keeping an eye on Gerason. Deep down though, he just wanted all of those things to disappear. He wanted to be good again. He wanted to make it up to Arthur somehow, for all of his clumsy words and his empty snarling. Because while he was reflecting on his own behavior, something Arthur had said hooked in his brain and wouldn't let go.
You aren't the only one with needs in this arrangement, Detective.
Merlin wasn't sure he knew what Arthur meant by that. Objectively he understood that Dominants needed a shared interaction with their Subs as much as Submissives needed them. But he really had no idea what those needs were, for Arthur. He wasn't a Caretaker, that was for fucking sure, although Merlin had seen him lean in that direction when Merlin needed it, in particular. There was definitely an aspect of Sadism to his personality, but Merlin hadn't actually experienced that in any traditional sense of the title. He'd been with too many true Sadists not to know the difference. So far Arthur had avoided pain, in general. There was more than a little bit of a Master in him, and he had the influence to back it up. But if their last interaction in Southend was any indication, Merlin would have to say he thought that Arthur was probably a Service Sadist. The kind of Dom who would give you exactly what you wanted, and then torture you with it.
But like Submissives, there were two sides to a Dominant, one that they enjoyed when fulfilling the needs of their partners, and one they enjoyed when their partners did the same for them. The two weren't always perfectly aligned. The same way Merlin felt a glorious level of satisfaction from serving Arthur, and doing it well, he also reached the same place when Arthur allowed him to, sometimes dramatically, vent his emotions and then discipline him for it. Both of these actions touched the cornerstone of Merlin's core desire to be good in a profound way. But they weren't exactly comparable.
Merlin was certain he understood Arthur's Dominant needs when he was the one controlling the scene. What satisfied him then, was Merlin's admission of defeat, physically or emotionally; when Merlin begged him for forgiveness or for permission for something Merlin desperately wanted from him. And his release came from giving Merlin those things. But there was a side Merlin still didn't have much experience with. The side of Arthur's needs that only happened when it was Merlin in control of the scene. Like it had been when Mac interrupted them in his flat all those weeks ago. Merlin had acted instinctively, and from an outside perspective it probably wouldn't have looked like their dynamic had changed much at all. But Merlin had known instantly that Arthur wasn't the one in control anymore when that knock on the door echoed down his hall.
So Merlin had softened himself. Allowed Arthur to direct him in every action that followed Arthur carrying him into his bathroom to shower. He was obedient in a way that night he'd never managed he could be, even as a Sub. It was the first time in his life that he understood why Submissives were able to reach that complete submission subspace, just by doing what they were told.
It wasn't about heeding a command. It was about doing something good and right for a partner who needed you to listen for a little while. Who needed you to let them take care of you. Not because you needed it. Because they needed you to let them.
Standing in his shower that night with Arthur had been an experience Merlin didn't know could be just as fulfilling as the moments when Arthur forgave him for his mistakes, or when Arthur praised him for doing something well. He'd barely uttered a word the entire rest of the night, did nothing but allow Arthur to take care of him, and laying half across Arthur's chest, his skin still warm from the hot water, while Arthur rubbed his bad shoulder, might have been the closest he'd ever come to a complete submission in his life.
But Merlin hadn't seen that side of Arthur quite as starkly as he'd seen it that night. At least not until Arthur had looked at him over his shoulder when Merlin carelessly asked what he meant when he said he also had needs in their arrangement. Not until the answer to that question was nothing but a look of profound disappointment.
It was beyond frustrating. It seemed to Merlin that when he was the one serving Arthur in this way, Arthur found release through Merlin's complete obedience. When he'd come to Merlin's flat after their first night in Southend, he'd done so because something was bothering him. It didn't escape Merlin that the moment Arthur finally relaxed that night was when he told Merlin to keep his hands where he could see them, and Merlin hadn't argued with him, he'd just done what he was told and answered Arthur politely when he was asked. Merlin hadn't given it much thought at the time, because he was also in the middle of a soft drop, and being what Arthur needed him to be in the moment served himself as much as it had served Arthur.
But this morning when Arthur came to his flat they hadn't been doing anything, hadn't done anything in a long time. So Merlin had been surprised and a little confused when Arthur implied that he would leave because he needed something from Merlin as a Dom, and staying would be more difficult if Merlin wasn’t in the right mindset to Sub for him. And although Merlin refused to let himself think about it for very long, he had always assumed Arthur had other Submissives, ones from his world, whom he could interact with much more consistency than he did with Merlin. So the idea that Arthur would actually need anything from Merlin as a Dom didn't make sense to him.
What did strike him, despite his frustrating ignorance on the subject, was that Arthur had been genuine about his feelings, maybe for the first time since they'd started this whole insane thing. Like the night Merlin had been ill, and Arthur had come to him outside of their agreed upon interactions.
Actually, he'd said something similar when he'd first confronted Merlin about the tracking device after their fight in the warehouse, hadn't he?
You haven't slept or eaten anything properly in days. I can tell because your entire body is begging me to take care of it for you.
He wanted to ask Arthur more about it, but he didn't want to start an argument again, not now, not when he was already so drained. After they'd separated and Merlin had caught the train, he'd become acutely aware of just how empty he felt. He was emotionally hollow, and his heart rate was far too high. There was a faint tremor in his hands that lingered even after all the shouting was over, and for some reason he was cold to the bone.
Because he hadn't been sleeping well or eating regularly, he knew. And if it was that obvious even to his own stubborn self, he should have known Arthur had noticed it too.
Should have seen what was coming, when he entered the attic room.
As the door clicked shut and he looked up, Merlin turned, faster than he'd moved in weeks, but Arthur caught him from behind.
"No," he said, dropping his weight a little, twisting in Arthur's grip. "I'm not a fucking child, Arthur!"
"I never said you were," Arthur said calmly, tightening his grip and jerking Merlin back when he tried to break free again. "Needing direction doesn't make you a juvenile, Merlin."
"Don't patronize me about doing the bare minimum to keep myself alive," Merlin snapped, putting his foot against the door and shoving back with all the strength he could manage. "I'm not sitting down at that table!"
Arthur stumbled back a few steps when he did it, but it didn't break his hold on Merlin. Instead Arthur twisted his body with the momentum Merlin had created and threw Merlin hard to the floor. Merlin grunted but he didn't stop moving either, rolling back up onto the balls of his feet when Arthur stepped forward, and hooked the back of Arthur's knee with his heel.
Arthur's leg buckled, and Merlin had the momentary satisfaction of seeing him look genuinely surprised as he came down on one knee, having to catch himself on his hands. Merlin twisted back up to his feet, grabbing hold of the bed frame when Arthur caught his ankle to stop himself from falling. He was still wearing his gloves, Merlin realized, the leather cold on his bare skin under the cuff of his Levis. He yanked his foot back, using the bed for leverage and there was no good place for him to go, other than up and over the bed and into the bathroom.
He jumped up onto the mattress, breathing hard, and only made it half way across it before Arthur caught the hem of his pants and yanked him back down again. His body hit the mattress and Merlin thrashed, but Arthur was heavier, and looping his belt around Merlin's elbows, he cinched it tight with finality. Merlin gave a shout in protest when his arms were pulled together behind his back. The skin stretching over the curves of his shoulders felt too tight. Like it might split if he breathed too deeply.
Merlin froze, his whole body tense, hyper-focused on the pins he could feel against his bones.
"Yellow!" He shouted without thinking.
The belt came free instantly. Merlin gasped in relief when his arms came apart. He felt Arthur's influence retreating and grabbed for Arthur, catching his shirt as he started to get up off of Merlin's hips.
"No! No, don't stop, don't get up, my shoulder, that's all, it was too tight, it's nothing -"
Arthur stayed where he was like Merlin asked, but he did come up off his heels to lean over Merlin, running his gloved fingers through Merlin's hair. Merlin closed his eyes, still holding on desperately to Arthur's shirt.
"It's not nothing," Arthur said quietly. "You did well to tell me. I'm proud of you for saying something."
The words shimmered over his skin, followed closely by the soft touch of Arthur's influence, covering him from the inside out. Merlin squeezed his eyes shut tighter.
"But we both agree," Arthur said, his tone darker now. "That you're caught, don't we Merlin?"
Merlin let out a breath, unclenched his fist from Arthur's shirt, reluctantly.
"Yes, Arthur," he whispered.
"Good," Arthur said, drawing his fingers down the back of Merlin's neck. It felt different, because of his gloves; the sensation had an edge to it that made him hike his shoulder up. It wasn't unpleasant, but he was acutely aware of the fact that it wasn't Arthur's skin touching him, so the feeling bothered him.
"Then you'll wait here," Arthur said ominously. "Quietly. Until I come back."
Merlin nodded brokenly. After a moment longer Arthur got down from the bed, only to return with a pair of leather cuffs, which he buckled onto Merlin's wrists without comment or drama.
"Now then," Arthur said. He was sitting on Merlin's hips again. "Why don't we start with the obvious."
Merlin pressed his lips together, glaring at the wall. He knew what Arthur wanted was an answer from him; why he'd taken one look at the food on the table and immediately started a fight over it. But Merlin wasn't in the mood for this soft Dom horseshit. He needed Arthur to punish him not fucking feed him.
"You could have made this so easy on yourself," Arthur whispered so suddenly in his ear it made him jump.
He gasped when Arthur hauled him up by the collar of his shirt, barely getting his feet back under him when Arthur yanked him to the edge of the bed by his arm and dropped him off the side of it, pulling him roughly across the floor whether he managed to walk at all on his own or not. He stumbled, pulling back on Arthur's hand when he realized he was being dragged back to the table.
"I said I'm not sitting down at that table!" He shouted.
Arthur jerked him very close, making Merlin still at the look in his eyes.
"You'll sit where I tell you to," Arthur said. "Do you understand me?"
Merlin's glare was hot, but his knees felt weak looking into the fury behind those storm cloud eyes. Arthur wasn't in the mood to indulge him tonight. Merlin hadn't shown any inclination towards politeness or obedience in anyway since they'd entered the room. If he pushed Arthur any further, there would be hell to pay.
Merlin didn't care.
He was filled to the brim with emotions he couldn't process on his own and he didn't want to sit quietly or have a meal or fucking talk about it.
He wanted a fight.
And Arthur was going to fucking give it to him.
So he said, trying not to sound too shitty,
"I understand, Arthur."
And let Arthur drop him into one of the chairs.
Then Merlin calmly slammed his foot into the underside of the table, sending it crashing onto its other end; plates, silverware, and a full glass of water all exploding across the floor. Broken glass rained over the hardwood. The sound of it all was very impressive. For the first time in weeks Merlin felt himself smiling.
Arthur stared at the mess on the floor, sliding his hands into the pockets of his trousers.
"Alright Merlin," he said gently. Merlin looked at him when he said it, because something in his tone worried Merlin. Filled him immediately, with dread.
Arthur sounded genuinely sorry.
Then he turned his gaze on Merlin's, and it was like looking at an inferno even though Arthur's expression was so calm. Merlin swallowed, hard.
"We'll do it your way."
Merlin opened his mouth but Arthur was on him in a flash, slamming his hand over Merlin's lips and taking hold of his face, forcing his head back over the chair.
"No," was all he said.
Merlin stared at him, his eyes a little wide, breathing hard against Arthur's hand.
Arthur put his knee up onto the chair, between Merlin's legs, his other hand he dropped to the back of the chair, over Merlin's shoulder.
"Let's talk about privelages, Merlin," Arthur said sweetly. "When you walked in here tonight you had all of them. Now you have none. From this moment on, your privelages belong to me. You don't speak if I don't ask you to, you don't look at anything I don't ask you to, you don't move unless I tell you to. If you do I'll make it so that you can't. Do you understand me?"
But Merlin was already shaking his head. He couldn't do that, he wouldn't be able to. It was too loud in his head, he was too wired to sit still, he'd go crazy -
"You should know by now," Arthur said, forcing him to turn his head, to look at the overturned table, the shattered glass, the food all over the floor. "My patience has limits."
Merlin winced, glancing at Arthur out of the corner of his eye. Arthur turned his face back up again roughly.
"I don't care if you don't think you can manage to do what I'm asking you anymore, Merlin. You'll either do it, or you won't. Those are your choices."
Merlin made a noise against Arthur's hand.
Arthur slapped him.
Merlin was so stunned at first he couldn't move. His cheek was burning. The feeling of Arthur's leather glove snap across his face ripped right down to the base of his spine. Merlin's whole body was humming. He had to close his eyes.
It felt fucking phenomenal.
"Oh," Arthur hissed, making Merlin flinch, his eyes flying open. "Did you enjoy that?"
Merlin opened his mouth, then closed it. Nodded his head.
Normally when he did something right, when he remembered to behave after Arthur was hard on him, Arthur would acknowledge the effort in some way. But this time, all Arthur said was,
"That was my mistake. It won't happen again. Now get up."
Merlin felt lightheaded, getting to his feet. Arthur undid the clasp between the cuffs, told him to take off his shirt. It occurred to him suddenly, as he pulled his Henley over his head from the back of his collar, that Arthur could have taken his shirt off him at any point when he was on the bed. In fact, he couldn't remember a single time Arthur had attempted to take his shirt off for him, when he wasn't wearing a button down that could be easily pulled off his arms. He always asked Merlin to do it.
Because of his shoulder, Merlin realized. It made him pause in what he was doing. He wasn't ready to stop being angry. But he was ashamed.
"Something you'd like to say?" Arthur prompted when he hadn't moved, startling him.
His tone was unkind, and with a quick glance Merlin could tell Arthur wasn't the kind of angry he had been when Merlin pushed the envelope before now. This was a harder Arthur than Merlin had ever seen before. So instead of thanking Arthur, as he had done the last time they were in Southend together, Merlin just shook his head, pulling his arms out of the sleeves of his shirt the rest of the way. Arthur watched him closely.
"Fold it," he said.
Merlin did, awkwardly. He wasn't very good at that if he didn't have something to rest the shirt on while he did, like a table or the cushions of his couch. But he managed eventually. Arthur took the shirt from him and said,
"Take the chair to the foot of the bed."
Merlin did, stopping only when Arthur put out his arm, barring him from going any further. Merlin set the chair down carefully. Sucked in a sharp breath when Arthur grabbed him by the arm and turned him roughly to face the bed. It had an iron footrest, and his hip struck it hard when Arthur forced him up against it.
He was still wearing the cuffs Arthur had put him in earlier they were just no longer connected to each other. Now he let Arthur clip them one after the other to the iron footrest. It was an elegant downward curve with a series of bars running vertically along the length of it. Arthur clipped the rings of his cuffs along the top rail, inbetween the bars, making it impossible for him to slide them closer to himself or father away.
Then Arthur left him.
Merlin listened as he moved carefully through the wreckage in the small kitchen, before taking something from one of the cabinets. When he returned to where Merlin was standing, he reached around Merlin, and dumped what he was holding onto the floor.
Merlin watched the dried rice falling against the hardwood at his feet. It sounded like rain and hail to him. Then Arthur said,
"Kneel."
His influence crashed into Merlin like a hammer striking an anvil. It rang against his bones, and Merlin wouldn't have been ready for the force of it even if he'd felt it coming. It became clear to him at that exact moment, that Arthur had never used the full weight of his influence against him. But he did now.
Merlin dropped like he'd been kicked and it hurt; all of those tiny grains of hard, dry rice digging into his knees even through his Levis, felt like kneeling on gravel. He let out a shout and Arthur struck him across his shoulders with something hard and unyielding that snapped when it met his skin.
He didn't yell when it hit him, but once the feeling of it set in he knew if Arthur hit him with it again he would. It seared over his skin, like a blade slowly opening a burning line from shoulder to shoulder. Already his skin was hot. He knew it was welting.
A cane.
He closed his eyes, tried not to flinch when he heard Arthur move behind him.
"I'll give you that," Arthur said calmly. "Because I haven't told you the rules yet. From this point on you will maintain the direction I gave you at the table. You don't make any noise, you don't look at anything, you don't move unless I tell you to. You'll start with five. If I have to correct you, I will add five to the count. We will continue until I'm satisfied that you've learned your lesson."
Merlin's mind was already too peaked to deal with any of this. He could barely think straight. Five of what? And what was the lesson? How was he meant to prove he was sorry for kicking over the table by doing nothing?
He wasn't sorry.
But he would apologize if he thought that would make this any better.
He heard the chair behind him creak as Arthur sat down. Already his knees were hurting him. The longer they were pressed against the rice on the floor, the sharper the pain grew. And it wasn't slowly.
"Eyes on the floor," Arthur said.
He sounded like he was reading off a mobile number.
Merlin clenched his jaw, but he did what Arthur asked. He could feel the urge building in him to shift his posture, to stand up, to scream, anything. It hadn't even been thirty seconds. At least he didn't think so? He couldn't see the clock from where he was.
But he didn't know what exactly the rules of the game meant and he didn't know what to do about that. He couldn't speak.
Merlin was aware then, that he couldn't feel Arthur's influence anymore. The ink of his tattoo was cold. And Arthur hadn't touched him once since he'd come into the house. He'd been wearing those gloves the entire time. The closest Merlin had felt to any kind of gratification from Arthur touching him was when he'd been slapped and Arthur had said it was a mistake.
A mistake.
Merlin closed his eyes briefly, afraid suddenly that Arthur would know he wasn't looking at the floor, even though there was no way he could see that from where he was sitting.
He couldn't do this. It was starting to make him dizzy, knowing Arthur was inches behind him and refusing to touch him, to speak to him. To even let Merlin look at him. He was going to lose this game, whatever it was. His thoughts were so fractured he couldn't even form a likely theory for how it might end.
And then he felt something cool on his skin and he barely managed not to flinch. Arthur was drawing on his skin with his finger. And he was still wearing those fucking gloves. Merlin had to swallow down the noise he wanted to make in frustration.
The quiet was making him anxious.
And then he realized Arthur wasn't drawing on his back. He was writing. He did it gently and the feeling of it erupted over Merlin's skin, sending goosebumps down his arms, his spine, making him shudder.
Arthur was slow and methodical, so that eventually, when Merlin caught up with him, he could see the words building letter by letter in his head as Arthur drew them down his back.
I
PROMISED
I
WOULD
BE
GOOD
Merlin slammed himself back against Arthur's hand as hard as he could, trying to dislodge him without thinking. The cane whipped across the backs of his thighs and he made a strangled noise at the pain of it. Flinched when Arthur hit him again for the sound.
He said, calmly,
"Five."
Merlin struggled to unclench his fists. To breathe without gasping. To look back at the floor.
Arthur said nothing about his efforts. He just started to write it again from the top.
Merlin twisted his shoulders, jerked hard to get out from under Arthur's steady hand. But he still made out every single letter of every single word.
I
PROMISED
I
WOULD
BE
GOOD
This time when he fought Arthur to stop him from writing it again, Arthur hit him with the cane twice, and the blows were harder now. They exploded across his back, the pain so intense that he couldn't have made a sound if he tried. His knees were bruising. He could feel it. Everything hurt for long agonizing seconds.
But for just a moment there was nothing. Just the pain and the quiet, and even though there was a tremor starting inside his thighs, Merlin was still for the first time in weeks. It pulled a sob out of him and he tensed, squeezing his eyes shut for another punishing crack of the cane.
Instead Arthur told him,
"Fifteen."
The memory of the words Arthur had written on his skin glittered under all of that pain. He tried to straighten himself out but fixing his posture only dug the grains of rice he was kneeling on harder into his knees. If he hadn't been wearing his jeans still he was sure they'd have broken through his skin in some places. His arms were limp in the cuffs. He didn't want to do this anymore. He wanted to say something. He wanted Arthur to say something.
He wanted Arthur to touch him.
And then the noise rushed back into his head like a landslide, when Arthur started writing again on his back.
I
SAID
I
COULD
DO
BETTER
He managed not to thrash immediately. But it didn't last long. He pulled on the restraints, crying out at the sharp pain in his knees and had to take hold of the cross bar under his hands to stop himself from falling into the iron footrest when Arthur hit him with the cane for it. He tore an impressive set of blows to Merlin's thighs and buttocks until Merlin couldn't stop himself from screaming, from trying to get away.
And every blow, every needle fine pressure along the bones of his knees, turned the inside of his head white with pain. There was nothing else. No Gerason, no murders, no white table with a little girl sitting at the other end with a torn ballet leotard hanging off of one skinny shoulder. No broken plates on the floor. Just this.
And then it stopped. All the terrible things he couldn't let go of crawled back inside his thoughts like a thousand spiders running up the walls of his mind.
"That's another ten," Arthur said. "I should clarify something for you Merlin. That's another ten minutes."
Merlin's eyes widened.
"That puts you up to twenty-three minutes left. So far."
Shaking, Merlin did the only thing he could think of to do within the confines of the game. He wasn't even sure it would work. But he held up one finger anyway.
One was the symbol for green, and without speaking Merlin couldn't really clarify what he meant by that. In any other situation doing that might have been seen as an act of defiance, telling Arthur he didn't care that he would need to be punished for so long in this position. But that isn't what he meant at all, and he hoped Arthur would understand. He was confused. He needed to speak.
He closed his eyes in relief when Arthur didn't disappoint him.
"If you have something to say," Arthur told him sharply. "Speak."
"How do I make it to the end, Arthur?" He asked, his voice breaking.
"By doing what you were told without correction," Arthur said without sympathy.
"For twenty-three minutes?"
"Yes," Arthur said.
Merlin caved into his shoulders, his head lowered between his outstretched arms.
"I can't," he said immediately. Because he couldn't. It was impossible. And he didn't mean that it was impossible because he wasn't up to it just then, if he kept kneeling on the rice alone, denim or no denim it would start to cut him. And he'd never taken a beating from a cane that lasted longer than a few minutes. He desperately, desperately wanted to make it up to Arthur, what he'd done. But it couldn't be like this.
"Then you should do what you're told," Arthur said, offering no mercy. "If you don't want to make it any worse."
"Please, Arthur," he whispered.
He wasn't even sure what he was asking for.
"Sit up," Arthur said.
Merlin did, but he shifted his knees on the rice and the pain of it shocked him. He buckled, coming down on his heels with shout.
Arthur did nothing. Said nothing.
Merlin couldn't take this. He wanted to apologize but he had no idea what to say. He wanted to fold himself up under Arthur's chin and beg his forgiveness because the rice was painful and the cane genuinely scared him when it landed against his skin but what was hurting him was Arthur's distance from him, in the way he was speaking, in the lack of his touch, in his position outside of Merlin's line of sight. He wanted anything from Arthur other than this cold indifference.
Merlin knew he'd been horrible, and Arthur was right, he promised him he would be perfect the next time they met. He'd made Arthur a lot of promises that he couldn't keep. So he didn't expect Arthur to praise him, he knew he didn't deserve it, but if only Arthur would acknowledge that he was trying, then he wouldn't feel like his heart was being broken in two.
Merlin managed to sit up, slowly. He did his best not to waste time doing it; he knew without Arthur saying so that whatever time he spent out of the position Arthur had put him in, wouldn't count in his favor. The clock was only moving when he was where he was supposed to be, doing what he was told.
This time when he managed to put himself right again, Arthur didn't write on his back. He said,
"Do you know why I set that table for you, Merlin?"
He hesitated until Arthur tapped him gently on the side with the cane.
"If I ask you a direct question, you can assume I expect you to answer me."
Merlin swallowed hard.
"I don't, Arthur," he said.
"Interesting," Arthur mused. "Considering your reaction to it was to upend it all onto the floor."
Merlin closed his eyes.
"Tell me why you kicked over the table, Merlin," Arthur said.
"I..."
His thoughts were all jumbled again. He shifted a little on his knees and yelped at the pain.
Arthur hit him with the cane.
Merlin sobbed, suddenly terrified of the words he knew would follow the blow.
Another five. He couldn't do this for another half hour, he couldn't.
"Wait, please," he cried at the floor, twisting his wrists in the cuffs. "Please don't, Arthur, I'm sorry -"
"You're not sorry," Arthur said evenly. "You're in pain."
Merlin slumped a little at the words, trying not to make any noise that would make it worse.
"I'll forgive your outburst, however, if you can answer my question."
The word, forgive, finally spread some warmth through him, and he had to stop himself from folding over in relief.
"I was..." he struggled to find the right words to explain himself. Took a deep breath and started over. Merlin was angry, and he was ashamed of himself, but he also wanted to do something right. He wanted to do one good thing today, at least.
"The first time you helped me," he said quietly, his face already burning. "You told me when it was done that you expected me to drink a glass of water, to eat something that didn't come out of a box."
He shifted uncomfortably, more from embarrassment than anything else. Winced when the rice rolled underneath his knees.
Merlin felt Arthur move before he saw him, had to fight to keep his eyes on the floor where Arthur had told him to keep them. Because he wanted to look at Arthur. He wanted to be seen by him.
Arthur crouched down by his hip, watching him.
"What about that has anything to do with the table you turned over today?"
Merlin winced, feeling his neck flush hot when he continued.
"I try to do that, at least once a day. And I was doing really well," he admitted, his voice breaking. "But when Gerason was released, I let it all go to shit. When I saw the table, I don't know what happened. I couldn't stand to look at it."
Arthur said nothing at first. Merlin stared at the floor, hurting, until Arthur took his chin in his hand, turning his face up. Merlin tried to be still. But Arthur wasn't wearing his gloves anymore, and when he touched Merlin's hot skin everything else fell away into nothing. Merlin couldn't help the way he leaned into that touch, his chest heaving in relief.
"That day at the loading dock," Arthur said. He wasn't being gentle with his words, but they weren't as cold as they had been. "The instructions I gave you weren't specified in perpetuity."
"The words you used were," Merlin replied, more embarrassed now than he'd ever been in his entire life. "Go home. Take a shower, get warm. Drink a glass of water. Eat something that didn't come out of a box.' You never told me when I should stop."
"And you've been doing that, as much as possible, since that day?"
Merlin nodded, humiliated by how foolish admitting that made him feel.
Arthur's expression had lost some of its darkness now, his eyebrows lifting a little. Merlin let out a breath through his nose, wanting to look away, but afraid if he did, Arthur would stop touching him.
Arthur searched his face for a long time, making Merlin flush all the hotter for it. Then he glanced back at the table, the broken plates and all of the awful mess Merlin had made. Merlin looked at the floor, wincing from the rice again. He expected Arthur would continue now. Was genuinely sorry, when Arthur took his hand back.
His eyes came open when he felt Arthur put a hand between his shoulders. Unclip first his left and then his right wrist from the iron footrest. Merlin felt his pulse in his throat. He didn't want to hope. He hadn't done anything to warrant the end of his punishment, at least not by the rules Arthur had laid down for him to follow. But he wanted to come down so badly. His shoulders ached a little, and he had to hold on to the footrest to steady himself when his arms both came free. Arthur took his good arm gently, and said,
"Put your arm around my shoulders."
Merlin did, burying his face in Arthur's throat as he let Arthur pick him up off the floor. He shook badly, the pain in his knees was worse now without his weight on them, and he held onto Arthur maybe a little more tightly than necessary, but only because he was so relieved.
"I'm sorry," he said, his voice rough.
"It's alright, Merlin," Arthur said softly. "I forgive you."
Merlin didn't cry, but the release of all the tension in his body at once made him feel like he might. When Arthur started to lower him down to the bed, he panicked, and tried to hike himself back up, closer to Arthur, his fingers digging into Arthur's shoulder through his shirt.
Arthur laughed softly, before he turned and sat down instead, letting Merlin stay where he was, sitting in Arthur's lap.
Merlin couldn't stop reaching for more of Arthur's skin. Turning his nose up to press against the underside of Arthur's jaw. Sliding his hand inside the collar of Arthur's shirt.
"I couldn't finish what you asked me to," he said, feeling small. Arthur ran a hand through his hair, warming him from the inside out.
"The point wasn't to finish it, Merlin," Arthur said into his hair. "You're a stronger man than I am, if you'd managed to make it to the end of that game and win. The point was to recognize that if you had just done what was asked of you to begin with, you could have won in just five minutes."
Merlin closed his eyes.
"You'll start with five."
"How close was I?" He asked. Arthur shifted a little, the hand in Merlin's hair trailing over his shoulder and down his arm. Merlin shivered.
"Three minutes and forty-five seconds," Arthur said. "Before you moved the first time."
Merlin whined, felt Arthur smirking against his hair.
"You did very well, Merlin," he said. "You stayed where you were for much longer than I expected you to."
New roots were growing again, around the void in his chest. Arthur's influence opened up inside of him, like the petals of an Irish rose unfurling. This side of Arthur's influence felt more like it was a part of him now, the part that Arthur tethered to the ink in his skin. Maybe it was. All he knew was that even after experiencing so many facets of Arthur's influence, he recognized this one as the most dangerous. It felt like curling up in a sunlit field where no shadows could touch him, surrounded on all sides with blooming flowers. The first time Arthur gave that space to him, Merlin would have done anything to stay there. Now, he was a servant to it. He would do anything to come back to this place, everytime he was forced to leave it.
"Merlin," Arthur said softly, his hand still trailing soothing lines over the backs of his shoulders, his neck and into his hair. "When I gave you those commands, you had no obligation to fulfill any of them, even the first time."
Merlin listened, quietly, his cheek resting on Arthur's shoulder.
"But you did, that night, when you went home?"
"Yes, Arthur," Merlin admitted, his skin feeling too hot again.
"Why did you continue to do those things, once the task was completed?"
Merlin was silent for a while. He didn't need to think it over, he knew why. But admitting it in the first place had been hard enough. Expanding on it was even harder. But if it was Arthur who asked it of him, he would try.
"You confused me, that night," Merlin said. "When you didn't ask me to take back your tracking device. I went to that factory knowing that, the way my mind was coming apart, if you had told me to step out into oncoming traffic, I would have. That's why I stood on the train tracks. I thought it would be better if I did it myself, while I still had the choice."
Arthur's influence seemed to close around him when he said it, and it felt like he was building Merlin a set of armor. Linking all of the fractured pieces of him together again like chainmail. Merlin shuddered.
"My first partner, Will," Merlin said. "Killed himself. I couldn't do that to Gwen. I decided if there was any chance you could actually help me, I'd take it, and figure the rest out later."
He felt Arthur grinning against his hair, and Merlin couldn't help the way he was starting to smile too, knocking Arthur in the shoulder in retaliation.
"I'm being serious," he said, but he was laughing softly. Arthur laughed with him.
"I know you are," he said. "I'm just fascinated that you think it would have been such a simple thing to figure the rest out later, after calling the man who you'd been desperately attempting to arrest for the better part of a decade, to help you under the table."
"I wasn't desperately doing anything to arrest you," Merlin grinned, tipping his head back to give Arthur a sharp look of his own. “I was always in control, whenever I came for you.
"Oh?" Arthur said, tracing the scars on Merlin's shoulder, very gently. Merlin shivered. "I knew you better than that even before I learned you were a Sub. You didn't have to move when I drew my weapon. I like to think you knew me just as well then too. You must have known, if you had just stayed where you were told, I wouldn't have shot you."
"It was a calculated risk," Merlin told him, his expression a challenge behind his smile. Arthur looked back at him, excited and a little proud, Merlin thought.
"Or a desperate one," Arthur mused.
"Whatever you think it was," Merlin said, going back to resting his cheek on Arthur's shoulder. "I made the same assessment then that I did when I called you. And I was right, in the end."
"What assessment was that?" Arthur asked him.
"That you don't take advantage of your position in power to hurt people, unless you think it's necessary," Merlin replied, soberly.
Arthur's hand stopped moving on his skin. Merlin closed his eyes and continued.
"But I didn't expect you to ask me for nothing, after you helped me," Merlin said. "I felt better when I got home that night, better than I had in a long time, but I wasn't great. So I did the things you asked. Doing them made me feel like myself again. The next morning even my partner made a comment about it. It made me think I was in bad shape a lot longer than I realized."
Arthur lowered his head to Merlin's hair, his hand a hot weight on Merlin's collarbone.
"I kept doing those things you asked me to, because they made me feel like I was accomplishing something. Like...even if I had to postpone my promises to the families of the victims I was working with, even if the cases I had were taking longer to resolve than I expected them to...I could at least keep my word to someone. I could do that much. And I...."
Merlin wasn't sure he could get the words out. It sounded silly in his head now.
"You...?" Arthur prompted him gently. Merlin let out a breath through his nose in calm frustration.
"I thought you'd want me to. That's all."
Arthur was silent again. It made Merlin blush, waiting in that uncertain quiet for some kind of response.
He thought Arthur would address any of the incredibly intimate things he'd just admitted to the man who used to be his mortal enemy, out loud. But instead he surprised Merlin by saying,
"If all of that is true, then, do you know why I set the table for you tonight, Merlin?"
It was Merlin's turn to be still and quiet for a time. Then he said,
"Because I told you back at my flat, that I'd let everything fall apart again, when Gerason was released. Like you did at the factory, you were trying to give me the tools to put it back together again."
Arthur smiled against his temple. Ran a hand through Merlin's hair.
"You don't give yourself nearly as much credit as you deserve, Merlin," he said. "For any of the things you do."
Merlin made a soft noise in response. It wasn't acknowledgment, not really. He didn't think any of the things he'd just admitted to, mattered much in the grand scheme of things. But the noise in his head had gone. All that was left was the sound of the ocean outside, and the warmth of Arthur's body against his own. And he thought that even if it was a small thing, like remembering to eat something that didn't come out of a box, he might learn to believe how that made him exceptional, if it was Arthur who was willing to teach him.
"There's one last thing you need to do for me," Arthur said then, tipping Merlin's head back by his chin. "If you can do it without arguing, without getting distracted, if you can finish without needing to be corrected, then I'll give you a reward."
Merlin swallowed, looking up into those sea cloud eyes.
"A reward?" He echoed, a little unsure. Had they ever talked about rewards before? Merlin didn't think so. He'd always considered Arthur's affection, his praise, reward enough.
But the look Arthur was giving him now made him hot in ten seconds flat.
Arthur ran his fingers along the side of Merlin's neck, his collarbone, down his chest, pulling up goosebumps as he went. Merlin had to concentrate very hard not to move, not to press up into that touch.
"Yes," Arthur said agreeably. "You were exquisite when I slapped you. I want to see that look on your face again. So you'll be good for me, won't you Merlin? So I can see it?"
Merlin was honestly shocked he didn't get hard right then and there. He barely managed to answer.
"Yes, Arthur," he whispered. "What do you want me to do?"
Arthur smiled, and it was predatory.
"How good you are," Arthur said, lighting up Merlin's ribcage with stars. "Tell me why I waited to touch you today."
It only took him a fraction of a second to realize what the answer was, and when he did he felt a little foolish for not understanding sooner.
"Because I admitted while we were in my flat that I wanted you to touch me," he said quietly. "But I hadn't done anything to deserve it, Arthur."
"Perfect," Arthur said. It made him shudder. Arthur was running his hand down Merlin's side now, and everywhere he touched him Merlin felt like his skin was glittering. "Why did I tell you to kneel on the rice, Merlin?"
"Because kneeling for you is my privelage," he said, turning his cheek against Arthur's shoulder, embarrassed again. "And I gave up my privelages, when I turned over the table."
"Brilliant," Arthur said, running the backs of his fingers down Merlin's hot face. "You promised to be perfect for me, and in the end you are. Like this, showing me how well you learned your lesson, even though it was hard for you."
Merlin whimpered, the words making everything feel soft around the edges. The room, the pain in his knees and his back and his thighs; in his mind. He felt miles high.
"Now," Arthur said, his fingers drawing soft circles along Merlin's neck and shoulders. "You've learned your lesson?"
"Yes, Arthur," he said.
"You've apologized and I've forgiven you?"
"Yes, Arthur," he said.
"Then show me just how clever you are, Merlin. What is the last thing that I will ask you to do for me?" Arthur murmured in his ear.
Merlin's body tightened pleasurably at the words. He gave a small moan in appreciation, because Arthur had called him brilliant but it was Arthur who was, truly. Giving Merlin a series of clues to decipher, the way his mind was meant to work, proving to him that it wasn't broken, that he was allowed to get it wrong sometimes, and there would always be an opportunity to make it right.
It didn't take Merlin very long to win this game.
"To clean up the mess I made, Arthur," he said.
"Well done," Arthur purred.
It took him a long time to pick up the remains of the table he'd overturned. Merlin was surprised to find he didn't feel the time passing very acutely at all. There was something soft and medatative, about picking everything up and putting it back in its proper place. Especially after Arthur had been so patient to make sure he understood everything that had come before this, before asking him to do anymore. It gave him the time he needed also, to think about his own answers, to come to terms with them. To settle down once all of his emotions had reached their peaks.
Arthur didn't give him any direction in his task, but he did place his chair nearby and watched patiently while Merlin worked, his leg crossed at the knee. The hardest part was cleaning up all the glass. After tossing out all of the largest and most obvious pieces, he picked up the table and carefully moved it out of the way of the mess. Merlin took in the damage, his eyes sweeping over the entire floor before he went to the sink, and soaked two of the dish towels hanging there. A thought occurred to him, that the kitchen might actually be stocked, since Arthur hadn't gone downstairs to get the rice he'd been kneeling on. So he opened the pantry to look.
Merlin pulled out a bag of potatoes and set them on the counter, reaching for the knife block.
"Merlin," Arthur said.
He stopped, turning to look over his shoulder.
"What are you doing?" He asked.
Merlin blushed, because Arthur was smiling, amused and maybe a little concerned as he gestured towards the bag of potatoes.
Merlin took the knife out of of the block and cut open the bag efficiently.
"Is it alright if I show you, Arthur?" He asked.
Arthur leaned his head on his fist, his elbow resting on the back of the chair while Merlin cut one of the larger potatoes in half. He turned to wait for permission to continue and Arthur was still smiling. Said,
"Go on then."
Merlin's face was hot as he got back down on the floor and using one of the wet towels folded into a square as a cushion for his hand, protecting his palm from any remaining glass, he carefully pressed the soft side of the potato into the wood with his free hand. Arthur's eyes glittered when Merlin lifted it up for Arthur's approval. All the tiny pieces of glass that were so hard to see let alone attempt to pick up with his bare hands, were stuck in place there.
"How clever you are," Arthur told him.
Merlin felt the edges of his vision go bright at the words. Even though the position was uncomfortable, on his hands and knees for so long, alternating between picking up the remaining glass with the potato halves and wiping up the floor section by section with the other wet towel, Merlin felt himself relax. Everything was comfortable under his skin. Slowly the world was coming back into focus, and all the clammoring in his head was gone. Merlin hadn't even realized how much tension he was holding in his jaw, in his neck and shoulders, until there was none. It made him suddenly emotional.
He hadn't really cried at all that day, even though he'd been close. He'd been on the verge more than once, when Arthur shouted at him in his flat, when he was hitting him with the cane, when Merlin started to feel like he losing the game that would end in Arthur's forgiveness. But he wasn't the kind of person who cried easily to begin with, and whatever the push was that he needed to break the dam around those emotions, hadn't come until now.
He wasn't sure why, as he sat back on his heels, blinking slowly. The tears were silent, just heavy drops collecting on his lashes and falling rapidly over his cheeks. He stared at the floor, watching the sight of it grow foggy and wavering until the tears fell again. It wasn't like there was anything particularly groundbreaking occurring at the moment. He was just cleaning up after himself. But everything was so quiet and easy and still. His head, his body, his heart, were never like this. Merlin wasn't sure he could begin to express even, what a profound gift it was. How grateful to Arthur it made him.
How good it made him feel.
"Merlin?"
He turned, aware there were still tears running down his face. He didn't mind if Arthur saw them. For some reason, he was glad they were there.
"Come here for minute," Arthur said gently. "And kneel for me."
The words made all of the flowers Arthur had planted in his chest bloom at once. He stood and made his way over to Arthur's chair. Sank to the floor between Arthur's knees.
Christ, if the world were a different place, he would have sold his soul to stay, right here, for the rest of his life.
Hovering on the edge of submitting entirely, his fingertips brushing the euphoric emptiness on the other side of it, Merlin could see how easy it would be. Could feel a shadow of the pleasure it would bring him, if he let everything else go for just this, right here.
But there was a white table on the outside of his awareness still. And all of the faces of the dead and missing were still turned in his direction.
Arthur lifted Merlin's chin, looking him over. Brushed a thumb over his wet cheek. He didn't appear to Arthur to be in any kind of distress. Merlin's presence was unusually soft and malleable at the moment, more of the knots he was tied into loosening and falling away under the fluid coaxing of Arthur's influence. He wasn't even sure if Merlin recognized that was what was happening, that he was allowing Arthur to do this for him.
He was still holding himself back from giving Arthur complete control. It should have been infuriating to him, but Arthur found an odd sense of pride in seeing Merlin continue to hold on to his autonomy even now. He was so much stronger than any Sub Arthur had ever seen. It gave Arthur a level of comfort he didn't know that he needed; knowing Merlin would be safe even when Arthur wasn't there to wrap him up in his influence. He was strong enough to survive on his own.
The fact that he allowed Arthur to give him these moments of relief was a choice, a deeply personal one, and to Arthur, it was a singular privilege to be the Dominant partner Merlin had chosen. He had felt it on the first night they'd interacted entirely as a Dom and a Sub, when Merlin was breaking down mentally and after Arthur had put him back together, the sheer gratitude he felt in the moment Merlin fell to his knees was...
Rapturous.
He had that look to him now, his chin resting in the palm of Arthur's hand, the emotions in his eyes were calm and his entire body was relaxed. The only odd thing to Arthur, were the tears.
Unsurprisingly, Merlin read the questions he had in his face before he spoke them out loud. It made him smile, because it was clear to him that Merlin wasn't even aware that Arthur hadn't actually asked him anything yet.
"I'm not upset, Arthur," he said, speaking without heat.
"Why then?" Arthur prompted him gently. With his free hand he ran his knuckles over Merlin's opposite cheek, brushing away the moisture there too.
Merlin closed his eyes. His lashes were wet but there were no more tears falling.
"I don't know," he said quietly. Arthur believed him. For all of his exceptionally astute insights into the minds of others, Merlin had the hardest time understanding himself.
Arthur looked more closely at Merlin's presence, at the knots and the black threads that kept him from fully opening those enormous dragon wings of his. There weren't as many as there had been. But there was one that Arthur didn't recognize. Somehow a new one had managed to get tangled up in the mess of them, despite his efforts.
He touched it now with his influence.
Guilt.
Arthur tilted his head as he threaded his influence around this darkness in Merlin's self. He should have expected to see this, perhaps, moreso than he did. It wasn't just about the case Merlin had shouted about in his flat, it was deeper than just one moment, one perceived failure. This was tied up in the knots of his duty to the law, to the pressure he put on himself as a Detective. What was fascinating to Arthur was that he could see it.
It meant that somewhere inside of himself, Merlin wanted him to touch this part of him.
Wanted Arthur to unravel it.
It excited Arthur in a way he hadn't been expecting.
"That's alright, Merlin," Arthur assured him. "You're doing so well."
His words didn't touch that particular knot. But there were others that collapsed when he spoke. And he realized when Merlin blinked and there were more tears, that he was crying because he wasn't hurting as much as he had been before.
It made Arthur ravenous. He wanted to bring Merlin to such a state of ecstasy that he would never remember what it was like to feel that locked up, that broken, ever again in his life. It took every ounce of his self control not to break each of those knots open with the force of his influence, right then and there.
Not to pin Merlin to the floor now because Merlin's presence was starting to burn again, begging for Arthur to touch him, to make him feel better than he already did. The lights in the centers of all those embers filled Arthur's head with the sounds Merlin would make for him when Arthur fit himself inside of Merlin again.
It pleased him to no end that this was at the core of Merlin's desire. That when he opened his presence to Arthur the thing he wanted more than all the rest was Arthur's hands, his mouth, his body, covering all of the empty spaces inside of him.
"You have no idea, do you," Arthur murmured, running his hand through Merlin's hair. "What you're capable of when you open your presence to me like that, do you Merlin?"
He could tell as the words left his mouth that Merlin wasn't even entirely aware of what room they were in anymore, let alone that he had opened up to Arthur in this way. His pupils were expanding like they had when Arthur was inside him, his only focus was this feeling and the sound of Arthur's voice.
"No, Arthur," he said.
Arthur grinned.
"You don't have to let go for me, Merlin," he told him, brushing his fingers over the yellowed shadow of the bruise he'd made with his teeth the last time they'd been together. Felt his skin warming at the subtle way Merlin tipped his chin up, giving him better access. "I'll do it for you. Because you're being so good for me, I'm going to tie you to that bed when you're finished and show you."
Arthur's instincts erupted at the way Merlin's entire body stiffened at the words. The look in his eyes begging Arthur to please, just do it now, don't make me wait.
I need you.
"You'll do what I'm asking, won't you Merlin?" He said running just the tips of his fingers up the side of Merlin's flushed neck, under the line of his jaw. Making him arch pleasantly, goosebumps visible across the smooth skin of his shoulder. "Show me how good you can be, for me."
Merlin bit his lip and Arthur pressed his thumb there, making him pull his teeth teeth back and relax his jaw under Arthur's hand. He looked up at Arthur through the sable fan of his lashes, his cheeks flushing, the color blooming across the bridge of his nose.
Merlin moaned.
"Don't quiet yourself," Arthur told him. "Or I won't be satisfied until that's the only sound you're capable of making for me, for the rest of the day."
The words actually made Merlin rock himself up off his heels a fraction, like he might drag Arthur down to his mouth by the collar of Arthur's shirt, and damn the consequences. But he managed to settle himself. Lower his head a little, his chin heavier now in Arthur's steady hand.
"I'm sorry," Merlin whispered. "I won't do it again, Arthur."
Arthur was hard. It made him harder still when Merlin realized it, and his first reaction was to drop his head to the inside of Arthur's thigh, pressing his hot hands against Arthur's knees like he might force them open wider.
Arthur pulled Merlin's head up by his hair, making him moan, bearing his throat.
"Look at you," Arthur said reverently. "I haven't even touched you yet and you're already desperate for it."
Merlin whimpered and the sound shot straight down the line of Arthur's spine, pooling in the cradle of his hips.
"If you want it so badly then prove it to me, Merlin," Arthur said. "Clean up your mess so I can reward you."
It took him more than one try to remove himself from the space between Arthur's thighs. Merlin could barely think straight, when Arthur spoke to him like that. But it was even more difficult for him to control himself because Arthur was hard, he was hard for him and Merlin wanted Arthur's climax more than he wanted his own.
He was almost finished with wiping the floor down when Arthur had stopped him. Somehow he managed not to rush through the rest of it when he returned to what he was doing. Arthur wasn't even using his influence to escalate Merlin's arousal, there was no reason to. He was so hot all over that he had to take a deep breath through his nose before he could move again, to wipe down the table, and each of the chairs. When they were all back in their correct places, or at least the places they had been when Merlin kicked them over, he looked around the kitchenette to be sure he hadn't missed anything. The potatoes were still on the counter. He stood and resealed the bag and put it away. Washed the knife he'd used, carefully.
When that was done, he hesitated, his eyes moving over the walls and the floor. But there was nothing left to clean up that he could see.
Arthur stood from his chair, slid his hands into the pockets of his trousers.
Merlin's gaze swept up to his instantly.
Arthur looked hungry. It made Merlin want to invade his personal space. Put his hands all over Arthur's skin and give him everything he asked for.
"I'm finished, Arthur," he said instead.
Arthur walked around the room. Merlin straightened his shoulders while he did. Waited as patiently as he was able to until Arthur hummed his approval. Said,
"Very good, Merlin. You did everything I asked. And you did it so well."
Merlin wasn't ready for the way his knees buckled when Arthur spoke. He gave a small whine when Arthur stopped him from melting all the way to the floor with only his hand catching Merlin under the chin.
His storm cloud eyes washed over Merlin, his smile dark and pleased. It made Merlin's skin feel like it was shimmering.
"Do you want to kneel for me that badly, Merlin?"
"Yes, Arthur," he whispered, his cheeks burning.
He wasn't sure why. He'd only just been doing it.
"You have my permission to kneel for me," Arthur said, making his whole body glow. "On the bed."
Merlin stared at him, his mind going blank momentarily.
Arthur leaned in and whispered in his ear.
"Now."
How he made it to the bed was a mystery to him. When he'd only just pulled himself up onto the mattress, Arthur said,
"That's far enough."
Merlin hesitated briefly. He was still on the edge of the bed. Kneeling where he was would be precarious. It would leave his ankles still hanging over the mattress and he would have to keep his weight off his heels to stop himself from falling backwards.
He did his best. But it was actually much harder to balance himself there than he'd given it credit for.
Especially when Arthur came up behind him, and Merlin heard the heavy dull clatter of rope unspooling against the floor.
Merlin swallowed hard.
"Tell me, Merlin," Arthur said conversationally. "How much experience you have with rope?"
"None, Arthur," he said.
He didn't want to say it. He was afraid that Arthur would renegotiate his plans if Merlin admitted that this was completely new to him.
Well. It wasn't exactly new. He'd had Doms who wanted to tie him up before Arthur. But he'd never allowed it. Rope could be so much more restricting than other forms of bondage and Merlin had a lot of unique gifts but he couldn't sever a full rope tie with his mind. The idea of being bound at more places than his wrists usually made him wary for this reason. His only real experiences with it were breaking his Dominant partners influence before they could tie him up.
"Really?" Arthur mused. "That surprises me. I've never met a Sub as desperate as you are to be restrained."
"I've never met a Dom I trusted to do it," Merlin shot back, embarrassed by Arthur's words.
Even moreso because they were true.
The silence that followed was sudden. So sudden that Merlin jumped when Arthur put his arms around his waist, forcing Merlin to lift his hands off his lap, and trailed the fingers of one hand up Merlin's stomach to his chest, the other holding his hip to keep him in place. Merlin moaned when Arthur took hold of his throat, forcing his head back. Then he said, his voice rough in Merlin's ear,
"Are you trying to provoke me, Merlin?"
"I don't understand, Arthur," he said, because he didn't. Closed his eyes, his lower back dipping when Arthur traced his fingers lightly along the hem of his jeans.
"You trust me to tie you up, Merlin?" He asked.
"Yes, Arthur," Merlin said.
"When you say things like that to me," Arthur replied darkly. "It makes me want to put a collar on you and leash you to the end of my bed where I can have you whenever I want you."
The words startled Merlin into complete awareness. The parts of his world that had gradually grown soft with their interaction became so sharp for a second Merlin was afraid his own consciousness might cut him.
His pulse hammered against the fine skin of his throat.
The way Arthur worded it, he wasn't talking about sometimes, or about the bed in this room. He was talking about his everyday bed, in his everyday home. Merlin couldn't picture himself waiting for anyone patiently at the foot of their bed, not even Arthur, but he could imagine what it would be like to wear Arthur's collar, in the halls of the places where Arthur was King.
The hand Arthur had on his hip suddenly took hold of him through his jeans, and Merlin cried out, clutched at both of Arthur's wrists, the one stroking him, and the one of the hand he had still around Merlin's throat.
"I don't think I've ever seen anyone get so hard so fast in my life, Merlin," Arthur said conversationally in his ear. "Do you like the idea that much?"
Merlin gave a humiliating moan in response when Arthur undid the button on his jeans. Stroked Merlin over the soft fabric of his pants with just his fingers, refusing to take Merlin entirely into his fist.
"I want to hear you say it," Arthur continued. "Answer me, Merlin, or I'll be disappointed."
Merlin whined, bucking against Arthur's fingers when Arthur tightened his hand around Merlin's throat.
"You know what I'll say," Merlin moaned, desperately. "Please, Arthur, I..."
"You what?"
Merlin shook his head, his thighs were shaking. Anymore of this and might come right there in his pants. But he couldn't say it. Just the thought of saying it out loud made his entire body hot.
"You know you can't hold out like this forever on your own," Arthur murmured sweetly in his ear. "Not when you're on your knees, whimpering like the needy Sub you are everytime I touch you. Will you be satisfied if you come now?"
"No!" Merlin cried, the words sending a shock of pleasure right down the center of his body, making him rock up into Arthur's hand, whining when Arthur moved so that he couldn't create anymore friction than Arthur was already giving him. "No, I won't, please Arthur, not like this!"
"Then answer me, Merlin," he said agreeably.
"I don't know!" He shouted at the ceiling, his back bowing to Arthur's fingers. Gasped in relief when Arthur slowed, and stopped his stroking.
"But I like the idea..." he choked out. "Of wearing your collar."
Merlin was panting as Arthur released his throat, turned his face up so that Arthur could kiss him.
Merlin moaned into Arthur's mouth, pressing his back into Arthur's chest so that he could feel as much of Arthur as possible. Molded his body to Arthur's and let him devour Merlin in a single bruising kiss. When he was finished with Merlin, Arthur ran his nose tenderly up Merlin's hot cheek to his temple, pressing his lips there too.
"I'm going to tie you up now, Merlin," he said quietly.
Merlin groaned, closing his eyes when Arthur kissed the space between his shoulder and his throat.
The tie Arthur put him in was simple and efficient. Merlin found it absorbing even, to focus on the way Arthur moved around him, gently directing Merlin's arms forward or back, touching his spine so that he would straighten his shoulders. Layering the comforting weight of his influence with the rope as it passed over his skin. He laced a diamond pattern across Merlin's chest and over his shoulders, eventually tying Merlin's biceps to the down with it as he went. When he was finished with this largest, most complicated part of the tie, Merlin was completely zoned out, letting Arthur tie his wrists up behind his back, to the line of rope Arthur had twisted down his spine. When it was done Merlin felt calm, closed his eyes at the sensation of Arthur sliding his fingers under the hardest points of the harness, where his weight was most concentrated: where his wrists were bound and the bands that came over the tops of his shoulders. Merlin was restricted but nothing felt tight. And his shoulder didn't protest the position, for which he would never not be grateful. Now though, without his arms to catch him if he were to fall, Merlin felt a little more anxious about kneeling on the edge of the bed where Arthur had placed him. It wasn't easy to balance where the mattress sank so deeply under the weight on his knees, and he had to use every ounce of strength he had in his core not to pitch forward or back onto the floor. He wobbled precariously even so, when Arthur stepped back away from him.
He was so focused on not falling backwards off the bed that Merlin barely registered that Arthur had come up onto the mattress with him until he took hold of the ropes crisscrossed over Merlin's chest and pulled.
Merlin only just managed to catch himself from sprawling face forward onto the bed, moving as best he could to the place where Arthur was directing him while still keeping his balance. It was frustrating, and he was breathing hard when Arthur finally let him go to fall back against the headrest. He jerked forward when his back touched it, the iron cold against his hot skin.
Arthur slapped him.
It was so much better that he'd done it with his bare hand. Merlin couldn't help the way he'd pulled his knees closer to his chest when his head whipped to the side. The way he moaned when the sting of Arthur's palm sank into his cheek. It felt so fucking good. If he wasn't afraid he would bruise eventually, Merlin would have begged Arthur to do it again.
Arthur yanked him down the rest of the way to mattress by pulling him forward with his hands under Merlin's knees. His head lolled to the side, and while Arthur pulled Merlin's jeans and pants free of his legs, he was still, focused on the feeling of the ropes constricting his chest with each deep expansion of his ribs.
Turned his head, slowly, when Arthur pressed his thumbs against his knees and Merlin winced, could feel the deep, bruising impressions of the rice still under Arthur's fingers.
It wasn't until Arthur was leaning over him, his knees forcing open Merlin's thighs, that Merlin thought of the rope as more of a punishment than a reward. He wanted to touch Arthur, badly.
Arthur let out a breathless laugh at the look on his face, making Merlin flush, said, as he lowered his head to kiss Merlin's throat,
"Don't act so scandalized. It could only be convincing if both of us didn't know you like to beg for what you want so fucking much."
Merlin's lower back arched at the words. He could only blush harder because it was true.
Yelped in surprise when Arthur poured something cold over his aching cock. Merlin watched, uncomprehending at first, as Arthur tossed the bottle of lube onto the bed somewhere. Merlin barely had his mouth open to ask the obvious question when Arthur covered his eyes with one of his hands, forcing Merlin's head back over the pillows behind him.
With his other he took Merlin into his fist.
He went from half-hard to absolutely straining when Arthur started stroking him, hard and fast. Merlin twisted in vain, pulling on the ropes, turning his head under Arthur's hand. His pace was relentless, the slide of his hand so much softer and somehow so much more stark over the lube. He tried to turn his hips away, bring his knees up, something, because it was so good, too fast and the cord in his belly was tightening mercilessly all through his center and down the tops of his bruised thighs. He was going to come. But this wasn't even close to enough. He'd lose his mind.
Arthur pinned one of his legs open by digging his knee into the soft inside of Merlin's thigh and Merlin cried out, moaning between every desperate, panted plea.
"Arthur! Wait, don't I'll come - fuck! I...please, Arthur! Oh...please..."
His back arched, pulling another deep moan out of the back of his throat.
"Now you don't want to come?" Arthur asked him like he wasn't jerking Merlin off like he was going for some kind of record. "I can think of at least three times today you were ready to beg me to get you off."
"No!" Merlin gasped, bucking hard into Arthur's fist. "Not...! Arthur! I'm too close!"
"No? I think you aren't being honest with me, Merlin," Arthur said very close to his face. "Your hips are shaking."
"You said I was good!" Merlin whined, still trying to escape Arthur's steady hand. "If that's true then I want all of you!"
Arthur let go of Merlin, making him collapse back onto the mattress with a pathetic whine, panting as Arthur took his hand off his eyes.
Merlin blinked, dazed, as Arthur turned his face up by his chin.
"All of me?" He asked, against Merlin's mouth. "Any other Sub would be thanking me for this much."
"I'm not any other Sub," Merlin said, still catching his breath. "I'm your Sub. And I want you to prove it. Show me how much of you I deserve."
Arthur's answering smile was sharp, and he gave Merlin the look he saw in his dreams, hungry, his eyes filled with a dark excitement that boarded on dangerous. It made Merlin moan as Arthur tilted his chin up and back, exposing the line of Merlin's pale throat.
"Oh Merlin," Arthur said running his nose softly down the side of Merlin's neck, into the valley of his shoulder. "I'm going to make you scream for me."
Merlin grinned at the ceiling.
"You can try."
Chapter 8: Softly
Summary:
Arthur’s perspective on Merlin changes when he finally understands Merlin’s difficulty with their latest scene.
Notes:
Hello loves! I’m still in the process of moving so I apologize for the long wait here! But I hope you enjoy this long chapter to finish of the latest scene between Arthur and Merlin :3 You all have mentioned several times how much you enjoy Arthur’s perspective in this story, so here is an almost entirely Arthur chapter for you!
As always stay safe and be kind, and I’ll be back soon! 💋
Chapter Text
"Do you know why I set that table for you, Merlin?"
Arthur watched Merlin tense at the question, the minute shift he made against the leather cuffs on his wrists, and tapped him gently on the side with the cane. Merlin sucked in a breath, shrinking into his shoulders a fraction, expecting a heavier blow.
Arthur smiled.
"If I ask you a direct question, you can assume I expect you to answer me."
"I don't, Arthur," he said, after a moment.
"Interesting," Arthur mused. "Considering your reaction to it was to upend it all onto the floor."
Merlin's back was tight again when he spoke the words. Arthur leaned his head against his gloved hand as he watched Merlin struggle to remain still under his gaze. Crossed his leg at the knee.
"Tell me why you kicked over the table, Merlin," Arthur said.
"I..." he trailed off, clenching his hands into fists like he could find the answer in the heat of his palms. Arthur tilted his head, waiting.
Merlin was nothing if not articulate. When he was truly embarrassed by an answer or entirely uncertain of how to respond, he remained silent and waited for Arthur to prompt him again. This was a genuine struggle to give words to his feelings, so Arthur didn't rush him.
Then Merlin made the mistake of shifting on his knees. Yelped at the pain of the rice digging in harder.
Arthur hit him with the cane.
His back welted beautifully. When the swelling came down the marks would last for days. They looked so pretty, and so uncomfortable, Arthur had to resist the urge to pull his glove off with his teeth and run his fingers over them, just to feel the heat for himself. Merlin sobbed, already begging before Arthur could get the words out of his mouth.
"Wait, please," he cried at the floor, twisting his wrists in the cuffs. "Please don't, Arthur, I'm sorry -"
"You're not sorry," Arthur cut him off. "You're in pain."
Merlin slumped a little at the words, trying not to make any noise that would make it worse. But it was a start. He was finally losing the sharpness from all that rage. Finally accepting defeat. Arthur's whole body hummed in appreciation.
Merlin was stunning, like this.
"I'll forgive your outburst, however," he said. "If you can answer my question."
Merlin's head bowed a little further. His arms relaxing.
"I was..."
Merlin was still struggling to find the right words to explain himself. So Arthur waited.
If Merlin wanted to spend all day kneeling on hard dry rice that was fine with him. After that stunt with the table, Arthur was perfectly content to sit where he was and just watch the slow collapse of Merlin's ego until he finally broke. He was half convinced he wouldn't even need to move again. Merlin was making it far worse for himself than Arthur could have by the simple virtue of not being able to keep himself still. Arthur was aware he wasn't being entirely fair with this part of the game. Merlin's mind was always moving too quickly to be contained. It was no surprise really, that being still and quiet was something he couldn't manage entirely on his own.
But Arthur didn't care about fairness at the moment.
He cared about the earthquake in Merlin's head that had started this landslide in the first place. The point wasn't for Merlin to be silent or physically still for him. The point was to bring all of that thunderous, destructive noise inside of him to a stop.
And to make sure Merlin would think twice the next time he got the foolish notion in his head to kick a fucking table over so that he could avoid doing something Arthur asked him to do.
The nerve.
"The first time you helped me," Merlin said quietly. "You told me when it was done that you expected me to drink a glass of water, to eat something that didn't come out of a box."
Arthur lifted his head at that. Watched Merlin shift uncomfortably, further into his shoulders.
It was such an unexpected thing for Merlin to say, that Arthur didn't immediately react. Wasn't sure how to. So he stood from his chair. Came to crouch down at Merlin's hip, where he could better see Merlin's face. Watched as Merlin concentrated on keeping his chin turned down, his eyes on the floor, even though it was clear all he wanted was permission to look at Arthur. His whole body was tight with it.
"What about that has anything to do with the table you turned over today?"
Arthur had to fight to keep his tone hard, because Merlin's presence was urging him to be gentle. For Arthur, with any other Sub, this push for sympathy would have been met with further punishment. But Merlin wasn't experienced enough to be doing it on purpose. Arthur thought it had happened because Merlin was admitting something that was not only honest but deeply personal. He was unconsciously looking for Arthur to soften, so that he could speak without fear. When Merlin answered him and his neck flushed, Arthur knew he was right.
"I try to do that, at least once a day. And I was doing really well," he admitted, his voice breaking. "But when Gerason was released, I let it all go to shit. When I saw the table, I don't know what happened. I couldn't stand to look at it."
Arthur said nothing at first. For the first time in a very long time, he wasn't sure what to say. He believed Merlin. And it ached in his chest. He did soften a little then, watching Merlin stare at the floor, his lips pressed hard together, his expression half winced in pain.
Half truly upset with himself.
Not for kicking over the table. For failing to do something that he'd thought he'd been doing well. Setting the cane down on the floor, Arthur quietly pulled off his gloves. Took Merlin's chin in his hand, silently giving Merlin permission to look at him.
Merlin's shoulders heaved in relief. Arthur supported his cheek when Merlin leaned into his touch, unable to stop himself from moving deeper into the sensation of Arthur's skin finally meeting his own. Arthur could actually feel the weight of Merlin's body relaxing into the space of his palm.
When you're touching me everything is quiet, and still, and calm. It makes me so fucking greedy I can't stand it.
"That day at the loading dock," Arthur said, allowing his tone to come back to a more normal register for him. Letting Merlin's presence temper his own emotions to the situation at hand, bringing him down to a place that would make Merlin more comfortable. It wasn't kind. But it wasn't stone either. "The instructions I gave you weren't specified in perpetuity."
"The words you used were," Merlin replied. "Go home. Take a shower, get warm. Drink a glass of water. Eat something that didn't come out of a box.' You never told me when I should stop."
Arthur stared at him. Merlin wasn't paraphrasing Arthur's commands that night. He repeated them back exactly as they were spoken, with confidence.
That night had been so many months ago now.
"And you've been doing that, as much as possible, since that day?" He clarified.
Merlin nodded. His skin in Arthur's hand was hot to the touch.
Arthur was stunned. Merlin had told him that he enjoyed long-term reminders of expectations, but that had come later, after Arthur had given Merlin his bond. When Merlin had come to him at the loading dock, he'd had no reason and certainly no obligation to follow any of Arthur's commands once they'd gone their separate ways. He'd only given Merlin those directions because he was so unhinged from his own perspective at the time, Arthur had been concerned that Merlin wasn't entirely aware of how badly in need of real rest, and care he was. Because Arthur couldn't provide him those things in a cold, abandoned warehouse, he'd done what he could without using his influence, to give Merlin the push he would need to do those things for himself.
But truthfully, he'd had no expectation that Merlin would actually listen to him.
Why would he?
Until that night the two of them had been at each others throats, literally and figuratively, for five years.
Arthur stared into Merlin's eyes and saw no hint of deception, no play for leniency there. Just the calm exhaustion that comes from speaking a hard truth out loud for the first time. His understanding of their interaction so far today, was beginning to reorganize itself in his head. Merlin's immediate rage when he saw the table, because his quick mind had already deduced at a glance what Arthur would ask of him. Because Merlin hadn't been prepared to face this failure and Arthur had forced him to without knowing Merlin had ever considered it a failure in the first place. He'd only wanted to start with a meal, because Merlin was obviously paid out. He was running low on everything, especially physical energy. What he needed was food and rest and reassurance. But instead of giving Merlin the opportunity to relax his emotions, Arthur had triggered them. Explosively.
He glanced back at the table, the broken plates and all of the awful mess Merlin had made. Thought about Merlin's answers to his questions and found himself feeling...off-balance. How odd. And how fucking gratifying it was to know how seriously Merlin took his words, from even such an unstable, unhappy beginning. He'd known when Merlin fell to his knees for him, how truly grateful Merlin was for his care and attention that night. But this was something else, something Arthur hadn't been expecting to find in the strange space of their agreement, from the first time they had ever unilaterally agreed to take on the title of Dominant and Submissive for each other. Merlin's personality, his gifts, his experiences made it next to impossible for him to completely submit to any Dom, let alone Arthur Pendragon. And whether he'd done it consciously or unconsciously, Merlin had offered something else into Arthur's unknowing hands in return.
Devotion.
He couldn't punish Merlin for this.
Arthur turned back to Merlin when he felt him tip his face down against Arthur's hand. He was looking at the floor, wincing from the rice again. When Arthur took his hand back, Merlin's expression was so resigned, so hurt, it made Arthur's heart ache. The feeling surprised him. At first he thought this was another push from Merlin's presence to meet him with mercy, but Merlin's entire being was still and waiting for Arthur's next action without contention. Whatever it might be. He'd already accepted the outcome.
He was so perfect, and he had no idea.
Arthur lowered his head. Let out a slow breath. Then gently, so that he wouldn't startle Merlin, he put his hand between Merlin's shoulders and unclipped the leather cuffs from the iron footrest. Merlin stared at the floor, holding his breath. When his wrists were free he swayed and he had to hold onto the bars to stop himself from sinking down to the floor. Arthur shifted to a better position on the balls of his feet. Took Merlin's good arm in his hand and said, softly,
"Put your arm around my shoulders."
Merlin did, burying his face in Arthur's neck and shook, badly, as Arthur put a hand beneath Merlin's knees and picked him up off the floor.
"I'm sorry," he said, fisting his hands in Arthur's shirt, his voice rough.
"It's alright, Merlin," Arthur heard himself saying. "I forgive you."
He said it because Merlin needed to hear it, to be sure this punishment game had come to an end. But he wasn't really forgiving Merlin for anything. As far as Arthur was concerned, Merlin hadn't done anything wrong. Once again, Arthur found himself humbled by his own shortcomings. Moreso when Merlin's body completely relaxed against him at the words. Before they continued, if they continued, Merlin needed a chance to be calm and to accept that he had nothing to be sorry for, going forward.
Frankly, given the severity of this latest misstep on his part, Arthur wasn't sure he should let them continue. He had half a mind to lay Merlin down on the bed and see if he could get Merlin to fall asleep, when Merlin protested dramatically by hiking himself up further into Arthur's arms, his fingers digging into Arthur's shoulders.
It surprised a laugh out of Arthur, a little too pleased maybe, to realize that Merlin wasn't upset with him for making his own mess of this day. That Merlin vehemently did not want Arthur to let him go. Relieved, Arthur turned instead and sat on the edge of the bed, letting Merlin sit in his lap.
Merlin instantly folded himself up underneath Arthur's chin, recognizing without being told that he was free to take what he needed from Arthur now, and he did. He somehow managed to tuck his long legs up mostly against Arthur's chest, his ankles resting against the inside of Arthur's knee. He pressed his hand inside the collar of Arthur's dress shirt, tugging the top two buttons free so that he could flatten his hand against the warm skin of Arthur's chest.
Arthur held Merlin a little bit tighter, lowered his head against Merlin's hair.
"I couldn't finish what you asked me to," he said.
Arthur ran a hand through his hair, relishing the way that Merlin turned his cheek down against his shoulder, silently asking for more.
"The point wasn't to finish it, Merlin," Arthur said. "You're a stronger man than I am, if you'd managed to make it to the end of that game and win. The point was to recognize that if you had just done what was asked of you to begin with, you could have won in just five minutes."
"How close was I?" Merlin asked.
Arthur had to stop himself from laughing out loud. Merlin was so earnest when he asked the question, he'd be hurt if he thought Arthur was making fun of him. But he wasn't. He was so pleased that Merlin wanted to better understand. So he trailed his fingers over Merlin's pale shoulder and down his arm. Merlin shivered. It made Arthur smirk.
"Three minutes and forty-five seconds," he said. "Before you moved the first time."
Merlin whined, and the sound made Arthur ravenous.
"You did very well, Merlin," he said. "You stayed where you were for much longer than I expected you to."
And he had. Watching him kneeling on that rice, taking every blow from the cane and still managing to keep himself positioned correctly, made Arthur feel miles high. He was certain there were men in his vast criminal organization, men who had actual experience with torture, who wouldn't have been able to keep their composure let alone the correct position on all that rice, for as long as Merlin had.
It made Arthur so proud.
But he still wanted to clarify some things. Important things.
"Merlin," Arthur said softly, his hand still trailing soothing lines over the backs of his shoulders, his neck and into Merlin's hair. "When I gave you those commands, you had no obligation to fulfill any of them, even the first time."
Arthur was certain Merlin didn't know, with his lack of experience how could he possibly know, that what he had given to Arthur that night was something far more difficult to give a Dominant partner, than a complete submission. That part of a Dom/Sub relationship was possible without any commitment or fidelity whatsoever. All it really required was a certain level of trust. Experienced Subs could come down to that place for any Dom. But Merlin had never managed that for anyone, and Arthur was not exactly the first partner Merlin ever had who could foster that kind of trust in him.
So Arthur needed to hear Merlin say it again, so he could be sure that he was right, before he let himself hope.
"But you did, that night, when you went home?"
"Yes, Arthur," Merlin admitted, quietly.
Christ.
"Why did you continue to do those things, once the task was completed?"
Merlin was silent for a while. It made Arthur's heartbeat double inside of his chest.
"You confused me, that night," Merlin said, finally. "When you didn't ask me to take back your tracking device. I went to that factory knowing that, the way my mind was coming apart, if you had told me to step out into oncoming traffic, I would have. That's why I stood on the train tracks. I thought it would be better if I did it myself, while I still had the choice."
The words had a set of claws Arthur wasn't expecting. They sank into his skin and dragged him open in agonizing red and pink stripes. When Merlin called him to the loading dock, when he finally understood how bad the situation was; ash and shadow and crumpled dragon wings, it never occurred to him to take advantage of the state Merlin was in. It probably seemed like the most logical choice to Merlin. And given his history Arthur could understand why. But it went against every instinct in his body, to do so. Merlin's presence had been begging him to help, to put him back together again.
It had been so long since Arthur had felt anything like it.
Someone who truly, desperately, needed him. Arthur had no idea how to articulate any of these things. So he closed his influence around Merlin, hoping that it would be enough to know that Arthur was his shield now.
One that could not be broken.
Merlin shuddered.
"My first partner, Will," Merlin continued. "Killed himself. I couldn't do that to Gwen. I decided if there was any chance you could actually help me, I'd take it, and figure the rest out later."
Given the intensity of his own feelings, the words made Arthur fight not to laugh outright into Merlin's hair. But Merlin felt Arthur grinning, and with his own struggle not to laugh, he knocked Arthur's shoulder in retaliation. Gently, Arthur noted, making his smile stretch wider.
"I'm being serious," he said, but he was laughing now. Arthur laughed with him, because he couldn't help it.
When was the last time he'd ever felt this playful with anyone? Let alone with a Sub who had started out an interaction by destroying his property?
"I know you are," he said. "I'm just fascinated that you think it would have been such a simple thing to figure the rest out later, after calling the man who you'd been desperately attempting to arrest for the better part of a decade, to help you under the table."
"I wasn't desperately doing anything to arrest you," Merlin grinned, tipping his head back over Arthur's arm to give him a sharp look of his own. “I was always in control, whenever I came for you."
"Oh?" Arthur said, tracing the scars on Merlin's shoulder, very gently. Merlin shivered. "I knew you better than that even before I learned you were a Sub. You didn't have to move when I drew my weapon. I like to think you knew me just as well then too. You must have known, if you had just stayed where you were told, I wouldn't have shot you."
"It was a calculated risk," Merlin told him, his expression a challenge behind his smile. Arthur looked back at him, excited and proud.
"Or a desperate one," Arthur mused.
"Whatever you think it was," Merlin said, going back to resting his cheek on Arthur's shoulder. "I made the same assessment then that I did when I called you. And I was right, in the end."
"What assessment was that?" Arthur asked him.
"That you don't take advantage of your position in power to hurt people, unless you think it's necessary," Merlin replied, soberly.
Arthur's hand stopped moving on his skin. His expression fell in surprise as Merlin continued.
"But I didn't expect you to ask me for nothing, after you helped me," Merlin said. "I felt better when I got home that night, better than I had in a long time, but I wasn't great. So I did the things you asked. Doing them made me feel like myself again. The next morning even my partner made a comment about it. It made me think I was in bad shape a lot longer than I realized."
Arthur lowered his head to Merlin's hair. Felt his skin growing hot as he listened.
"I kept doing those things you asked me to, because they made me feel like I was accomplishing something. Like...even if I had to postpone my promises to the families of the victims I was working with, even if the cases I had were taking longer to resolve than I expected them to...I could at least keep my word to someone. I could do that much. And I...."
Arthur lifted his head a little when Merlin hesitated. Brushed his thumb gently over Merlin's temple.
"You...?" Arthur prompted him. Merlin let out a breath through his nose in calm frustration.
"I thought you'd want me to. That's all."
Arthur felt like a bomb detonated in his chest, at the base of his spine, when Merlin finished. How could he sit so quietly, so calm, and speak the only words Arthur ever wanted to hear from a Submissive partner like they weren't a gift. Like they didn't mean the world. He'd told Merlin before, any Dom would be lucky to have him. He'd meant those words then, because even after only a few interactions Arthur could tell, knew down to the core of his being that Merlin was an exceptional Sub. He could look past the rage and the difficulty into a place where Merlin's intuition and natural problem solving capabilities would lend themselves to a higher experience for both him and his partner someday.
Just then, Arthur was considering atrocities that bordered on war crimes, at the thought that anyone other than him would ever partner with Merlin. He bared his teeth against Merlin's temple, in a dark grin.
"If all of that is true, then, do you know why I set the table for you tonight, Merlin?"
"Because I told you back at my flat, that I'd let everything fall apart again, when Gerason was released. Like you did at the factory, you were trying to give me the tools to put it back together again."
Arthur smiled wider. Ran a hand through Merlin's hair.
"You don't give yourself nearly as much credit as you deserve, Merlin," he said. "For any of the things you do."
Merlin made a soft noise in response and Arthur recognized immediately the subtle discomfort in the sound. That was fine. Arthur could prove it to Merlin.
And he would.
"There's one last thing you need to do for me," Arthur said, tipping Merlin's head back by his chin. "If you can do it without arguing, without getting distracted, if you can finish without needing to be corrected, then I'll give you a reward."
Merlin swallowed, looking up into Arthur's eyes. It made Arthur's skin hot. When he was like this, soft and obedient and entirely focused on Arthur and nothing else...it took every ounce of Arthur's considerable self-control not to drown Merlin in the kind of pleasure people only dream about.
"A reward?" He echoed.
Arthur ran his fingers along the side of Merlin's neck, his collarbone, down his chest, pulling up goosebumps as he went. Felt that feral pride creeping back up on him, when Merlin didn't move, or demand more, even though it was obviously difficult for him. It was good that he didn't.
Arthur would have set a bad precedent as Merlin's Dom if he had. Because right then, for all the many gifts Merlin had given him with his words, Arthur would have given Merlin anything and everything he asked for.
He'd never felt so indulgent with a Sub in his life.
But Merlin still needed closure and Arthur wanted something from him too. He wanted Merlin comfortable enough to open that door for him again, the one Arthur had accidentally knocked on, when he struck Merlin across the face for the first time.
"Yes," Arthur said agreeably. "You were exquisite when I slapped you. I want to see that look on your face again. So you'll be good for me, won't you Merlin? So I can see it?"
Arthur ran his thumb across Merlin's bottom lip. His mouth had fallen open a little, his body growing tight in Arthur's arms at the words.
How could someone this clueless to his own marvelous nature, be so fucking stunning? The way Merlin looked at him when Arthur told him he was good and he believed it, gave him a level of ecstasy Arthur had no idea he was capable of reaching.
All from a look.
When had what he wanted from this man, changed to a look?
"Yes, Arthur," he whispered. "What do you want me to do?"
Arthur smiled, and it was predatory.
"How good you are," Arthur said, because it was true, and because he wanted to see the way Merlin's body reacted when he said it. "Tell me why I waited to touch you today."
It only took him a fraction of a second to realize what the answer was, even distracted by the heat building in him, from Arthur's compliments.
"Because I admitted while we were in my flat that I wanted you to touch me," he said quietly. "But I hadn't done anything to deserve it, Arthur."
"Perfect," Arthur said. Merlin shuddered when he said it. He ran his palm over Merlin's side now, and everywhere he put his hands Merlin arched softly into his touch. "Why did I tell you to kneel on the rice, Merlin?"
"Because kneeling for you is my privelage," he said. "And I gave up my privelages, when I turned over the table."
Arthur allowed him to look away, but he ran the backs of his fingers down Merlin's hot cheek, relished the way Merlin dropped his hand to Arthur's thigh. Clenched his fist tight in the fabric of Arthur's trousers.
"Brilliant," Arthur said, meaning it. "You promised to be perfect for me, and in the end you are. Like this, showing me how well you learned your lesson, even though it was hard for you."
Merlin whimpered, the sound nearly breaking Arthur's resolve not to take Merlin into his mouth then and there, until Merlin begged him to make him come.
"Now," Arthur said, drawing soft circles along Merlin's neck and shoulders with only the tips of his fingers. "You've learned your lesson?"
"Yes, Arthur," he said.
"You've apologized and I've forgiven you?"
"Yes, Arthur."
"Then show me just how clever you are, Merlin. What is the last thing that I will ask you to do for me?" Arthur murmured in his ear.
Merlin gave a soft moan in response, before he said, gratefully,
"To clean up the mess I made, Arthur."
"Well done," Arthur purred.
It took him a long time to pick up the remains of the table he'd overturned. But Arthur had expected that. He was giving Merlin the space to occupy the part of him that desired above all to serve and do it well, to come back into equilibrium with his emotions. They had broken open so many of them for each other today. Before Arthur could take what he needed from Merlin, he had to be sure of Merlin's complete satisfaction. He was certain this was the best way to give Merlin that peace he spoke of when they were arguing in his flat earlier that morning. Because Merlin's most dynamic drops into his Submissive instincts occurred when he was performing a task obediently.
So the tears surprised Arthur, when he finally noticed them.
"Merlin?"
He took in Merlin's expression when he turned at the sound of his name. There were still tears running down his face, but he seemed so serene. It was a difficult expression for Arthur to interpret at first. Then he said, gently,
"Come here for minute, and kneel for me."
Merlin smiled at him, and the look in his eyes was the sun coming up after a long, dark night. He stood and made his way over to Arthur's chair without hesitation. Sank to the floor between Arthur's knees.
Christ if it wasn't the most beautiful thing Arthur had ever seen.
Merlin let Arthur lift his chin, closing his eyes briefly when Arthur brushed a thumb over his still wet cheek. He probably should have been embarrassed. Humiliated, even. He was a grown man on his knees and so thankful to be there that he was crying out of relief. But as he watched Arthur from under the wet fan of his lashes, he didn't feel even a hint of judgement from Arthur in this. Just a calm assessment; covering Merlin in his influence, making sure nothing was wrong.
He was still holding himself back from giving Arthur complete control. But it didn't feel wrong in this context. Some instinct told Merlin that he could submit to Arthur completely, or never reach that place for as long as they were together, and the look in Arthur's eyes wouldn't change. Like Merlin was good enough, regardless. Like he always had been.
"I'm not upset, Arthur," he said, speaking without heat, his chin resting comfortably in the palm of Arthur's warm hand.
"Why then?" Arthur prompted him softly. With his free hand he ran his knuckles over Merlin's opposite cheek, brushing away the moisture there too.
Merlin closed his eyes again. Felt the hair on the back of his neck rise pleasantly.
"I don't know," he said quietly.
He didn't know, not really. Merlin had his own guesses. But they weren't worth the speculation. It didn't matter to him why he was crying. Only that it felt so good to do it.
When Merlin opened his eyes again he was aware of Arthur looking past him slightly. Not exactly at him, but a little in front, or a little behind him.
He wondered if Arthur knew Merlin could physically feel this look, like Arthur was touching his skin somehow with his gaze. It was this feeling that usually triggered his reaction to break a Dominant influence against him. It always started with a look like this. But when he had time to really analyze it, he was surprised to realize that the first few times Arthur had examined his presence, he hadn't touched it with his own influence. He'd remained always at a respectful distance. Looking, but never reaching out.
Merlin took a deep breath, preparing himself mentally for the moment he would need to reel himself back from snapping their connection like a dry twig in his fists. But it never came. Arthur threaded his influence gently over Merlin's presence, and it felt like it belonged there.
"That's alright, Merlin," Arthur assured him. "You're doing so well."
Merlin blinked in surprise when more tears fell, breaking over his cheeks. It felt for some reason, like a small weight had been lifted inside of him. It wasn't a profound weight. But it was as if all of a sudden, he were carrying just a little less than he had been moments ago.
"You have no idea, do you," Arthur murmured, running his hand through Merlin's hair. "What you're capable of when you open your presence to me like that, do you Merlin?"
The room was soft and bright around the edges of his vision. Merlin shifted closer to Arthur on his knees because he had been covetous of the silence, the calm Arthur gave him, but this feeling made him instantly an addict. His body didn't belong to him anymore.
It belonged to Arthur now.
"No, Arthur," he said.
Merlin loved the way Arthur grinned, when he responded well.
"You don't have to let go for me, Merlin," Arthur was telling him, as he brushed his fingers over the yellowed shadow of the bruise he'd made with his teeth the last time they'd been together. Merlin couldn't help the way he tipped his chin up, giving Arthur better access. Wishing Arthur would bruise him again. "I'll do it for you. Because you're being so good for me, I'm going to tie you to that bed when you're finished and show you."
Merlin's back arched, his head lowering into his shoulders like he could suppress the way he was already half-hard just from Arthur speaking to him like that. Like he was special.
Like he'd already done everything exactly right.
"You'll do what I'm asking, won't you Merlin?" Arthur said, running just the tips of his fingers up the side of his flushed neck, under the line of his jaw. Making his lower back arch more deeply, goosebumps visible across the smooth skin of his shoulders and his chest. "Show me how good you can be, for me."
Merlin bit his lip.
Arthur pressed his thumb there, making him pull his teeth back and relax his jaw under Arthur's hand. He looked up at Arthur through the sable fan of his lashes, his cheeks flushing, the color blooming across the bridge of his nose. Arthur stared at him like he was deciding on where best to begin devouring him.
Merlin moaned.
"Don't quiet yourself," Arthur told him. "Or I won't be satisfied until that's the only sound you're capable of making for me, for the rest of the day."
The words actually made Merlin rock himself up off his heels a fraction, and he had to hold himself still, gripping Arthur's knees in his hands because if he didn't stop now, he wouldn't be able to. He would pull himself up into Arthur's lap and beg him to make Merlin forget that there was ever an existence outside of this, right here. For just a second, under the strength of Arthur's gaze, Merlin wasn't sure if he would be able to settle down on his own. It was a fucking mystery how he managed it, because those hazel eyes promised him things he only dreamed of and he wanted them. He wanted them right now, with Arthur.
But he did manage it. Lowered his head a little, his chin pressing harder now into Arthur's steady hand.
"I'm sorry," Merlin whispered. "I won't do it again, Arthur."
Arthur was hard. It was too much for Merlin to watch it happen, to watch Arthur get hard for him - his mind went blank. Before he could stop himself he fell back on his heels and dropped his head to the inside of Arthur's hard muscled thigh. His palms were hot against Arthur's knees, but before he could force them open wider, Arthur pulled Merlin's head up by his hair, making him moan, bearing his throat.
"Look at you," Arthur said reverently. "I haven't even touched you yet and you're already desperate for it."
Merlin whimpered pathetically. It was true. He had no idea where this feeling started; the absolute insanity that overcame him when Arthur was hard and he wasn't allowed to do anything about it. How it made him want to beg Arthur to let him have it, the way he had the last time they were together in Southend.
"If you want it so badly then prove it to me, Merlin," Arthur said. "Clean up your mess so I can reward you."
Somehow he managed not to rush through the rest of it when he returned to what he was doing. Arthur wasn't even using his influence to escalate Merlin's arousal, there was no reason to. He was so hot all over that he had to take a deep breath through his nose before he could move again, to wipe down the table, and each of the chairs. When they were all back in their correct places, or at least the places they had been when Merlin kicked them over, he looked around the kitchenette to be sure he hadn't missed anything. The potatoes were still on the counter. He stood and resealed the bag and put it away. Washed the knife he'd used, carefully.
When that was done, he hesitated, his eyes moving over the walls and the floor. But there was nothing left to clean up that he could see.
Arthur stood from his chair, slid his hands into the pockets of his trousers.
Merlin's gaze swept up to his instantly.
Arthur looked hungry. It made Merlin want to invade his personal space. Put his hands all over Arthur's skin and give him everything he asked for.
"I'm finished, Arthur," he said instead.
Arthur walked around the room. Merlin straightened his shoulders while he did. Waited as patiently as he was able to until Arthur hummed his approval. Said,
"Very good, Merlin. You did everything I asked. And you did it so well."
Merlin wasn't ready for the way his knees buckled when Arthur spoke. He gave a small whine when Arthur stopped him from melting all the way to the floor with only his hand catching Merlin under the chin.
His storm cloud eyes washed over Merlin, his smile dark and pleased. It made Merlin's skin feel like it was shimmering.
"Do you want to kneel for me that badly, Merlin?"
"Yes, Arthur," he whispered, his cheeks burning.
He wasn't sure why. He'd only just been doing it.
"You have my permission to kneel for me," Arthur said, making his whole body glow. "On the bed."
Merlin stared at him, his mind going blank momentarily.
Arthur leaned in and whispered in his ear.
"Now."
How he made it to the bed was a mystery to him. When he'd only just pulled himself up onto the mattress, Arthur said,
"That's far enough."
Merlin hesitated briefly. He was still on the edge of the bed. Kneeling where he was would be precarious. It would leave his ankles still hanging over the mattress and he would have to keep his weight off his heels to stop himself from falling backwards.
He did his best. But it was actually much harder to balance himself there than he'd given it credit for.
Especially when Arthur came up behind him, and Merlin heard the heavy dull clatter of rope unspooling against the floor.
Merlin swallowed hard.
"Tell me, Merlin," Arthur said conversationally. "How much experience you have with rope?"
"None, Arthur," he said.
He didn't want to say it. He was afraid that Arthur would renegotiate his plans if Merlin admitted that this was completely new to him.
Well. It wasn't exactly new. He'd had Doms who wanted to tie him up before Arthur. But he'd never allowed it. Rope could be so much more restricting than other forms of bondage and Merlin had a lot of unique gifts but he couldn't sever a full rope tie with his mind. The idea of being bound at more places than his wrists usually made him wary for this reason. His only real experiences with it were breaking his Dominant partners influence before they could tie him up.
"Really?" Arthur mused. "That surprises me. I've never met a Sub as desperate as you are to be restrained."
"I've never met a Dom I trusted to do it," Merlin shot back, embarrassed by Arthur's words.
Even moreso because they were true.
The silence that followed was sudden. So sudden that Merlin jumped when Arthur put his arms around his waist, forcing Merlin to lift his hands off his lap, and trailed the fingers of one hand up Merlin's stomach to his chest, the other holding his hip to keep him in place. Merlin moaned when Arthur took hold of his throat, forcing his head back. Then he said, his voice rough in Merlin's ear,
"Are you trying to provoke me, Merlin?"
"I don't understand, Arthur," he said, because he didn't. Closed his eyes, his lower back dipping when Arthur traced his fingers lightly along the hem of his jeans.
"You trust me to tie you up, Merlin?" He asked.
"Yes, Arthur," Merlin said.
"When you say things like that to me," Arthur replied darkly. "It makes me want to put a collar on you and leash you to the end of my bed where I can have you whenever I want you."
The words startled Merlin into complete awareness. The parts of his world that had gradually grown soft with their interaction became so sharp for a second Merlin was afraid his own consciousness might cut him.
His pulse hammered against the fine skin of his throat.
The way Arthur worded it, he wasn't talking about sometimes, or about the bed in this room. He was talking about his everyday bed, in his everyday home. Merlin couldn't picture himself waiting for anyone patiently at the foot of their bed, not even Arthur, but he could imagine what it would be like to wear Arthur's collar, in the halls of the places where Arthur was King.
The hand Arthur had on his hip suddenly took hold of him through his jeans, and Merlin cried out, clutched at both of Arthur's wrists, the one stroking him, and the one of the hand he had still around Merlin's throat.
"I don't think I've ever seen anyone get so hard so fast in my life, Merlin," Arthur said conversationally in his ear. "Do you like the idea that much?"
Merlin gave a humiliating moan in response when Arthur undid the button on his jeans. Stroked Merlin over the soft fabric of his pants with just his fingers, refusing to take Merlin entirely into his fist.
"I want to hear you say it," Arthur continued. "Answer me, Merlin, or I'll be disappointed."
Merlin whined, bucking against Arthur's fingers when Arthur tightened his hand around Merlin's throat.
"You know what I'll say," Merlin moaned, desperately. "Please, Arthur, I..."
"You what?"
Merlin shook his head, his thighs were shaking. Anymore of this and might come right there in his pants. But he couldn't say it. Just the thought of saying it out loud made his entire body hot.
"You know you can't hold out like this forever on your own," Arthur murmured sweetly in his ear. "Not when you're on your knees, whimpering like the needy Sub you are everytime I touch you. Will you be satisfied if you come now?"
"No!" Merlin cried, the words sending a shock of pleasure right down the center of his body, making him rock up into Arthur's hand, whining when Arthur moved so that he couldn't create anymore friction than Arthur was already giving him. "No, I won't, please Arthur, not like this!"
"Then answer me, Merlin," he said agreeably.
"I don't know!" He shouted at the ceiling, his back bowing to Arthur's fingers. Gasped in relief when Arthur slowed, and stopped his stroking.
"But I like the idea..." he choked out. "Of wearing your collar."
Merlin was panting as Arthur released his throat, turned his face up so that Arthur could kiss him.
Merlin moaned into Arthur's mouth, pressing his back into Arthur's chest so that he could feel as much of Arthur as possible. Molded his body to Arthur's and let him devour Merlin in a single bruising kiss. When he was finished with Merlin, Arthur ran his nose tenderly up Merlin's hot cheek to his temple, pressing his lips there too.
"I'm going to tie you up now, Merlin," he said quietly.
Merlin groaned, closing his eyes when Arthur kissed the space between his shoulder and his throat.
The tie Arthur put him in was simple and efficient. Merlin found it absorbing even, to focus on the way Arthur moved around him, gently directing Merlin's arms forward or back, touching his spine so that he would straighten his shoulders. Layering the comforting weight of his influence with the rope as it passed over his skin. He laced a diamond pattern across Merlin's chest and over his shoulders, eventually tying Merlin's biceps to the down with it as he went. When he was finished with this largest, most complicated part of the tie, Merlin was completely zoned out, letting Arthur tie his wrists up behind his back, to the line of rope Arthur had twisted down his spine. When it was done Merlin felt calm, closed his eyes at the sensation of Arthur sliding his fingers under the hardest points of the harness, where his weight was most concentrated: where his wrists were bound and the bands that came over the tops of his shoulders. Merlin was restricted but nothing felt tight. And his shoulder didn't protest the position, for which he would never not be grateful. Now though, without his arms to catch him if he were to fall, Merlin felt a little more anxious about kneeling on the edge of the bed where Arthur had placed him. It wasn't easy to balance where the mattress sank so deeply under the weight on his knees, and he had to use every ounce of strength he had in his core not to pitch forward, or back onto the floor. He wobbled precariously even so, when Arthur stepped back away from him.
He was so focused on not falling off the bed that Merlin barely registered that Arthur had come up onto the mattress with him until he took hold of the ropes crisscrossed over Merlin's chest and pulled.
Merlin only just managed to catch himself from sprawling face forward onto the bed, moving as best he could to the place where Arthur was directing him while still keeping his balance. It was frustrating, and he was breathing hard when Arthur finally let him go to fall back against the headrest. He jerked forward when his back touched it, the iron cold against his hot skin.
Arthur slapped him.
It was so much better that he'd done it with his bare hand. Merlin couldn't help the way he'd pulled his knees closer to his chest when his head whipped to the side. The way he moaned when the sting of Arthur's palm sank into his cheek. It felt so fucking good. If he wasn't afraid he would bruise, Merlin would have begged Arthur to do it again.
Arthur yanked him down the rest of the way to mattress by pulling him forward with his hands under Merlin's knees. His head lolled to the side, and while Arthur pulled Merlin's jeans and pants free of his legs, he was still, focused on the feeling of the ropes constricting his chest with each deep expansion of his ribs.
Turned his head, slowly, when Arthur pressed his thumbs against his knees and Merlin winced, could feel the deep, bruising impressions of the rice still under Arthur's fingers.
It wasn't until Arthur was leaning over him, his knees forcing open Merlin's thighs, that Merlin thought of the rope as more of a punishment than a reward. He wanted to touch Arthur, badly.
Arthur let out a breathless laugh at the look on his face, making Merlin flush, said, as he lowered his head to kiss Merlin's throat,
"Don't act so scandalized. It could only be convincing if both of us didn't know you like to beg for what you want so fucking much."
Merlin's lower back arched at the words. He could only blush harder because it was true.
Yelped in surprise when Arthur poured something cold over his aching cock. Merlin watched, uncomprehending at first, as Arthur tossed the bottle of lube onto the bed somewhere. Merlin barely had his mouth open to ask the obvious question when Arthur covered his eyes with one of his hands, forcing Merlin's head back over the pillows behind him.
With his other he took Merlin into his fist.
He went from half-hard to absolutely straining when Arthur started stroking him, hard and fast. Merlin twisted in vain, pulling on the ropes, turning his head under Arthur's hand. His pace was relentless, the slide of his hand so much softer and somehow so much more stark over the lube. He tried to turn his hips away, bring his knees up, something, because it was so good, too fast and the cord in his belly was tightening mercilessly all through his center and down the tops of his bruised thighs. He was going to come. But this wasn't even close to enough. He'd lose his mind.
Arthur pinned one of his legs open by digging his knee into the soft inside of Merlin's thigh and Merlin cried out, moaning between every desperate, panted plea.
"Arthur! Wait, don't I'll come - fuck! I...please, Arthur! Oh...please..."
His back arched, pulling another deep moan out of the back of his throat.
"Now you don't want to come?" Arthur asked him like he wasn't jerking Merlin off as if he were going for some kind of record. "I can think of at least three times today you were ready to beg me to get you off."
"No!" Merlin gasped, bucking hard into Arthur's fist. "Not...! Arthur! I'm too close!"
"No? I think you aren't being honest with me, Merlin," Arthur said very close to his face. "Your hips are shaking."
"You said I was good!" Merlin whined, still trying to escape Arthur's steady hand. "If that's true then I want all of you!"
Arthur let go of Merlin, making him collapse back onto the mattress with a pathetic whine, panting as Arthur took his hand off his eyes.
Merlin blinked, dazed, as Arthur turned his face up by his chin.
"All of me?" He asked, against Merlin's mouth. "Any other Sub would be thanking me for this much."
"I'm not any other Sub," Merlin said, still catching his breath. "I'm your Sub. And I want you to prove it. Show me how much of you I deserve."
Arthur's answering smile was sharp, and he gave Merlin the look he saw in his dreams, hungry, his eyes filled with a dark excitement that boarded on dangerous. It made Merlin moan as Arthur tilted his chin up and back, exposing the line of Merlin's pale throat.
"Oh Merlin," Arthur said running his nose softly down the side of Merlin's neck, into the valley of his shoulder. "I'm going to make you scream for me."
Merlin grinned at the ceiling.
"You can try."
"I want you to listen to me, Merlin," Arthur said quietly. He turned his cheek up to press against Arthur's, closing his eyes.
"Yes, Arthur?" He said.
Felt Arthur smile against the shell of his ear.
"You will not come, until I give you permission, Merlin."
His eyes came open when Arthur said it, something changing in the depths of Arthur's influence sliding over his skin. Something that sank in deeper, took hold of his desire and held it firmly in place.
"Do you understand me?"
"I understand, Arthur," he breathed.
He didn't know how he was going to accomplish that. Merlin wasn't exactly a practiced Sub after all, he couldn't just turn that part of his body off. But if this was a game Arthur wanted to play he would play to win. Even if he didn't think he could.
Arthur kissed him, and Merlin moaned when he did, opening his mouth for Arthur, letting him take everything Merlin had to give. Arthur trailed his fingers down Merlin's chest, passing over the ropes, stopping to roll Merlin's hardened nipples between his fingers. Grinning when Merlin broke the kiss with a cry, throwing his head back as Arthur sat on his heels to watch.
His influence enveloped Merlin in hands all over his skin, underneath the ropes, leaving Merlin twisting mindlessly under Arthur's fingers. His knees fell open and he arched his hips, looking for anything to relieve him from the feeling of Arthur's influence teasing every place he wanted to be touched. There were fingers running through his hair, over his ear, down the side of his neck, hands under his knees, urging him to open his legs wider, around the length of his straining erection, stroking, massaging, caressing every inch of him. The last time Arthur had done this to him, touching Merlin with his hands had sent Merlin into hysterics. He was marginally better prepared for it this time. But Arthur's fingers rubbing Merlin's nipples still felt like being pushed off the edge of an orgasm.
So when Arthur lowered his head and ran his tongue over Merlin's swollen nipple, Merlin lost his mind. It was impossible for him not to buck, to throw his body back, to do anything to create some space between Arthur's tongue and his chest. He cried out shamelessly twisting against his rope tie, rocking his body closer to Arthur and then away, completely unsure of which one he wanted anymore.
The inside of his head was empty.
Arthur bit his chest, running his tongue over the marks he left with his teeth and Merlin's spine locked up on him, his cock throbbed. But he didn't come. He was left suspended there, his body aching for release and...nothing.
Arthur lifted his head, leaving Merlin to collapse back underneath him, panting. Heard the cap of the lube pop and he turned, but Arthur's finger was already pressed against his opening. When Arthur slid his finger inside of Merlin, he bowed so far back he nearly got his shoulder caught underneath him.
He needed to come. He should have come from that alone, the way he was feeling now. The sensation was driving him insane. It was like he could only move in one direction, despite how good he felt, how close he was; it only got more intense somehow. He was only ever on the incline. Never the breaking euphoria of sudden release.
"Oh...God, Arthur please," Merlin whimpered, straining against the ropes now like he might be able to break them.
"You're not asking me to come already are you Merlin?" Arthur purred, sliding a second finger inside of him. Merlin rocked himself down onto Arthur's hand without thinking, crying out at the ceiling.
He didn't know what he was asking. All he knew was that everything felt like the last stroke on his dick before he was finished, except that he wasn't coming and he needed to. Arthur barely brushing over his skin was maddening enough, his tongue made Merlin see stars. He couldn't fucking imagine what he would do when Arthur -
"Fuck! Arthur!" Merlin yelled, bowing back when Arthur found that place inside of him, that any other time he would have begged him to touch, and now with the added pressure of Arthur's influence it felt like a rolling wave of hands and lips all over him. It was too much, anymore and he would lose his mind.
Merlin was so focused on Arthur's hands, his whole body straining against the ropes across his chest and his arms that he wasn't aware that Arthur had moved until it was too late. His eyes flew open, and for a second he felt like his heart had come to a complete stop in his chest.
Arthur took Merlin into his mouth, and couldn't help the smirk he gave around Merlin's over-heated flesh, at Merlin's reaction. He supposed it wasn't something Merlin expected of him. And maybe Merlin was right to think that way. He had an uncanny intuition about everything, and Arthur had to admit that he'd never done this for a Sub in his care outside of a negotiated reward for practically perfect behavior. And Merlin hardly qualified, if you were considering Merlin's actions from an outside perspective.
But Merlin had been giving Arthur something he craved from that very first night on without even realizing it. Something Arthur couldn't pay for even if he wanted to.
Gratitude. True, gratitude.
He could already feel the pressure building in Merlin's hips, his abdomen, as he desperately tried not to move, when Arthur swallowed around him. Took him further into his mouth.
Slid his fingers a little more firmly inside of Merlin as he sucked.
Merlin screamed. His thighs jumped, like he wasn't sure what to do with his knees; fighting the instinct to close his legs as Arthur took his time, his fingers stroking that place inside of Merlin his presence was always unconsciously begging Arthur to touch.
He drew his mouth slowly back up the length of Merlin, sucking hard at his head, before taking him fully again, this time into the back of his throat.
"Jesus, Arthur, please, let me come, I...!"
Merlin couldn't control the volume of his voice anymore and it made Arthur hot all over to hear it. He was only starting to understand what Arthur had done, and frankly, Arthur could have come right then with the knowldege that it had actually worked.
When he'd told Merlin not to come and Merlin agreed, it was a level of command the two of them had never reached before. Arthur hadn't actually planned on ever trying. This was the kind of command that required real devotion, and Arthur just never expected that would be possible. Not just for Merlin, for most Subs, in general.
But when Merlin had admitted he'd taken care with all of Arthur's commands, from the very start of this odd agreement of theirs, not just the ones Arthur had given to him during their most recent interactions, the idea took hold in him and wouldn't let go. So he had to try.
And Merlin didn't disappoint.
Merlin would do this for him and he wouldn't break Arthur's influence to get what he wanted once he realized that was the only reason he couldn't find any release from the sensations Arthur was opening up all across his skin.
For such a needy Sub, like Merlin, it would be maddening.
"Arthur, god - please! Let me come!"
And as close to absolute ecstasy as Arthur could bring him without managing a complete submission.
He had no idea why he wanted so badly to give this experience to Merlin. There was nothing about their agreement that made any of this necessary.
But the way Merlin was saying his name made Arthur harder somehow.
"Arthur," Merlin sobbed, his abdomen caving as his back arched against the ropes. "Please, please, I'm begging you, I can't, I need it, I want to come, say I can, please...please!"
Arthur surprised himself, needing to stroke his own straining erection through the fabric of his trousers, while he flattened his tongue along the underside of Merlin's cock. Drew his mouth again up the length of him.
Looked up to pin Merlin's clouded, dilated eyes with his own as he let his bottom lip drag over Merlin's crown when he finally lifted his head. His fingers still working Merlin open. Up to three now.
Merlin had been begging him to let him come since he'd let out that first, exquisite scream. But he'd fallen silent, now. And with a shock that nearly finished him right then and there, Arthur realized why.
Merlin had seen him touching himself.
It made Arthur's mouth turn up in a very sharp, hungry grin.
"How could anyone ignore such pretty sounds from such a needy Sub?" Arthur murmured, running his tongue from the base of Merlin's cock to the tip of him.
Merlin's head fell back, his neck flushing, and he let out a deep moan from the back of his throat, his hips flexing involuntarily up, towards Arthur's generous mouth.
"You can - "
"Wait!" Merlin cried, twisting his shoulders up and back like he could break the rope tie he was in. "No, please, Arthur wait, don't -"
"Don't?" Arthur mused, thrusting his fingers inside of Merlin hard, making him cry out, rocking himself down onto Arthur's hand. "I thought you wanted to -"
"Don't say it," Merlin moaned desperately. And Arthur knew he'd been right.
"Oh?" Arthur murmured. "And why not?"
Merlin let out a whine, rolling his hips down again onto Arthur's fingers, but he only tossed his head, and gave no further explanation than that.
In his head Merlin was losing control of himself. How could he put into words, how could he begin to explain the desire expanding inside of him, half impossible, perfect pleasure, half in panic at the idea that Arthur would come by touching himself, not by coming inside of Merlin? He couldn't. He didn't know how. And even if he could have, his vocabulary had been suddenly, and drastically reduced beyond his control. The only thing he seemed capable of saying out loud was, please, and don't, and...
God, fucking more.
Arthur took him back into his mouth, and hummed against Merlin's overstimulated cock. Merlin's moaning turned high and desperate, his wrists burning where he'd chaffed them trying in vain to get free.
And then Arthur was sitting up, taking his mouth off of Merlin slowly, letting his fingers slide out of him to leave Merlin panting, to collapse back against the bed, boneless, and dazed.
Then he took Merlin's cock in his fist again, his palm slick with lube, and stroked.
Merlin let out a pleading whine,his moaning only becoming more desperate when he looked down at Arthur to see him unbuttoning his trousers.
Reach his free hand inside.
"Arthur!" Merlin sobbed, unable to stop himself from rocking his hips up into Arthur's hot fist. "Please!"
"Please what, Merlin?" He asked indulgently as he stroked himself hard, lifting himself up off his heels so Merlin could see him better.
Merlin moaned, his lower back arching. Every touch was a threat of orgasm now, not just of Arthur's hands, his mouth, but the sheets under Merlin's back, the cold sea air from the cracked window, hardening his nipples and whispering over his skin. But he couldn't stand the thought that Arthur would come without taking his climax from Merlin's willing body.
"Tell me exactly what you want, Merlin," Arthur said, a little out of breath now, himself. "Or this is how the game ends. You'll have my permission whether you want it or not."
Merlin whimpered around another moan.
"Give me permission when you think I deserve it, Arthur, please just please, don't make me watch, please, let me feel it," he said in a rush, embarrassed and completely out of his mind.
He had no idea where any of these feelings were coming from.
But he couldn't stop himself now if he tried.
"Oh this is the problem then?" Arthur said with a grin, emphasizing his point by stroking himself a little faster, tipping his head back. He moaned, and Merlin whined.
"Yes, Arthur, please! Please...oh...!" Merlin cried, breaking off into a series of sharp moans when Arthur stroked Merlin's cock in time with his own.
"Careful, love," Arthur said. "You get anymore desperate than this and you won't need my permission, will you?"
The words were out of his mouth before Arthur realized what he'd said. And Merlin's body locked in an arch that told him if his influence hadn't been holding Merlin back he would have come right then, hard.
Arthur considered Merlin's trembling body for a moment longer as he slowed his stroking.
Wondered what had possessed him to call the Detective, love of all things.
Fascinated that Merlin had reacted so beautifully to the word.
Merlin was panting, his whole body flushed as Arthur crawled over him fully, and settled between Merlin's shaking thighs.
"Well...I did promise you a reward," he whispered against Merlin's parted lips. "Didn't I?"
Merlin kissed him.
Arthur might have considered that an act of defiance, in any other Submissive partner he'd ever entertained.
But not Merlin, for some reason.
When Merlin kissed him, Arthur couldn't pretend he wasn't aching for Merlin just as badly, anymore.
He rocked himself inside of Merlin as they opened their mouths to each other, and Arthur could feel the tender collapse of burning dragon's wings over his shoulders as he seated himself fully, flush to Merlin's straining hips. Merlin kissed him like he needed it to breathe, like the only thing keeping him from flying apart was the touch of Arthur's lips against his own.
Maybe it was true.
It felt like that to Arthur, as well.
He fucked Merlin hard, until neither of them could kiss each other any longer, mouths occupied now with long, blissful moans they pressed against each other's hot skin, until, breathing hard, Arthur growled,
"Come for me," in Merlin's ear.
Merlin screamed his name when he came, and the sudden tremendous heat of him tightening around Arthur's swollen length was too much. Arthur thrust deeply into Merlin one last time, and came hard, harder than he'd ever come in his life for a Sub. It whited out everything else in Arthur's head for one long, achingly beautiful moment.
Was this what Merlin had meant when he said that everything became quiet inside of him, when Arthur touched his skin?
He could understand being greedy, for something like this.
When it was over, and the two of them were left panting still, Arthur's strong arms bracing his weight over Merlin's body, there was only quiet. He pulled Merlin upright, gently, letting Merlin kneel across his lap and drop his forehead to Arthur's shoulder. Arthur untied him. Let Merlin press his face into Arthur's throat and the underside of his jaw. When his arms came free he waited patiently until Arthur had completely dropped the tie from Merlin's chest and shoulders, before he wrapped his arms around Arthur's neck and kissed him.
Arthur wasn't expecting a kiss like the one Merlin gave him now. He wasn't sure Merlin was even entirely aware of what he was doing. This kiss was softer than anything they had ever shared before now. A kiss for no other reason than the act itself. No heat or lust or desperation behind it.
Just a kiss, shared between two people, meeting in the middle of a solitary universe they both happened to occupy.
Arthur didn't like to admit how good it felt, to kiss Merlin with no motives.
To lay him back against the bed, covered in spiraling, indented marks from Arthur's ropes.
Merlin fell asleep almost instantly, once he'd settled himself against Arthur's bare chest, his hand splayed possessively over Arthur's waist. Arthur found himself entirely at ease, as he rubbed Merlin's bad shoulder, and told Merlin things he couldn't hear.
How good he was.
How brilliant.
And even though Merlin was sleeping, Arthur couldn't help himself. He tipped Merlin's chin up and kissed him again.
Like Merlin had kissed him.
Softly.
And with care.
Chapter 9: Yourself
Summary:
Merlin gets home from Southend and walks right into a massacre.
Notes:
Here is number two in my Christmas gift! I hope you enjoy this chapter! As always stay safe and be kind. I’ll be back soon 💋
Chapter Text
Merlin returned to his flat early the next morning, feeling...rejuvenated. It was the only word that did the emotions running inside of him any justice. It felt strange to him. He wasn't aware this was a stasis in life he could occupy for more than a few seconds at a time. He kept waiting for it to fall apart, as it always did.
But it hadn't yet.
He thought he would at least have felt some anxiety about leaving his flat and his work phone behind for such a long time. But he'd also requested the day off, and Geraint had been the one to directly give him the time. So he didn't expect a catastrophe.
He probably should have, given the nature of the game he was playing.
But until he stepped off the train and started the walk back to his flat, Merlin felt good. Better than good. After they'd finished with each other, and they'd fallen asleep in the attic room, Merlin hadn't woken for hours. It surprised him when he finally blinked himself awake, sleep dazed and a little confused, not remembering right away where he was, his cheek pressed against Arthur's chest to find that it was nearly half two in the morning. He'd slept almost ten hours straight. And he was starving.
Arthur was awake. Merlin wasn't sure if he'd fallen asleep and had woken sometime before he had, or if he hadn't slept at all. It occurred to Merlin somewhere in the back of his mind that he couldn't recall Arthur ever sleeping, when they were together. He wondered if that was on purpose, or if Arthur was a night owl, as he typically was. Merlin thought he must be, given the hours they usually called on one another.
Despite his hunger, something else had shifted inside of him, waking up to see Arthur quietly reading a paperback, a detective novel, of all things. It made him wait a few moments longer, just to observe him, in the dim light of the lamp. He seemed softer somehow to Merlin. The blue cover of the book didn't look so strange, in the hands of this version of Arthur Pendragon. The title was ridiculous though.
Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone, by Benjamin Stevenson. Merlin let Arthur explain it to him briefly, when he glanced over to see Merlin staring. And although Merlin didn't say it, he thought he'd worked out the plot twist already, from what little Arthur had divulged. The look Arthur gave him told him he knew what Merlin was thinking, and he'd be unhappy with Merlin if he spoiled the story, even if it was just a guess. It made Merlin smile innocently up at Arthur, who gave him a long suffering look before setting the book on the side table with a sigh.
Merlin had no idea Arthur was the type to read fiction. He thought Arthur was far too intelligent not to read voraciously, but he had always figured him for a biographies kind of reader. True Crime, maybe.
If it was about him, anyway. Merlin imagined Arthur must find those books either absolutely entertaining in their inaccuracies or horribly offensive. And there were plenty of them. After Merlin had brought Arthur's crime syndicate into the light of common day, writers had crawled out of the woodwork to be the first to sell the story. Legally, Merlin had been barred from making any comments to those authors. But some of them had used his soundbytes from former interviews on the topics to make it seem like he had weighed in on their theories. And some of the theories were absolutely ridiculous.
The thought made Merlin snort into Arthur's bare chest. Arthur dropped a hand to his hair, blowing out a breath that somehow implied he expected this. But Merlin saw the way he smiled as he pulled himself out of bed. As Merlin lifted himself out from under the sheets to follow, he paused.
Arthur turned, raised an eyebrow.
"Merlin?"
Merlin blinked, coming back to himself.
"Sorry," he said quietly. "My shoulder isn't..."
He trailed off, embarrassed suddenly by his own outburst. But Arthur looked genuinely concerned when Merlin spoke, turning fully to face him, his brows creasing. It made Merlin flush.
"It's not as stiff as it usually is, that's all," he finished, mumbling a little. His cheeks were hot.
Arthur seemed to relax, his smile somehow self-satisfied. Merlin didn't understand why it made him blush harder.
Arthur made breakfast. They'd eaten. Merlin made a joke about kicking over the table and Arthur laughed. As further penance, Merlin allowed Arthur to make him a second cup of tea before he left. He'd gotten on the train alone. It was all very mundane. And just...
Really, really good.
Merlin felt sated in a way he'd never imagined possible. Rested. Full.
Until he turned the corner to his apartment complex, and saw the wash of blue lights. Merlin fumbled in his leather coat for his ID and flashed it as he passed the first patrol car, hitting the doors at a full run and taking the stairs two at a time. Nearly barreled over the officer standing outside of his flat, as he turned the corner, rushing for his own door. Because it had to be his flat.
He knew it would be.
The patrol officer caught his arms out of reflex, and Merlin didn't immediately drop him to the ground for it, but it was a near thing. Only Gwen's voice from inside his flat, stopped him from reacting as poorly as he might have otherwise.
He could barely hear anything over the rush of blood in his ears.
"Merlin!" She said, jogging to the door. She looked relieved.
Geraint, looking on from inside of his kitchen, pinned Merlin in place with a cold, hard glare.
"What happened?" Merlin breathed.
He was thinking that there'd been an accident, another CDK case; he was also thinking of Arthur's suit coat in his closet. Arthur's phone, in his pocket, the pager in his junk drawer, and he felt real fear for the first time in a very long time. Because the look on Geraint's face was telling him something was wrong, alright. But not in a way that reassured Merlin in the least.
Gwen put her hand on the patrol officer's shoulder and it was only then that Merlin realized he hadn't immediately let go of Merlin when he recognized who he was. That more than anything, made Merlin's heart leap into his throat.
Gwen had said his name reactively, genuinely glad to see he was back and presumably, unharmed. But now she stared at him with a resigned, apologetic look on her face that made his heartbeat thunder in his chest. Behind her, behind Geraint, Merlin could see other officers. Techs. Moving through his flat, looking through his things.
And she still hadn't answered him.
"Gwen?" He asked again. Whispered it, really.
It was Geraint who answered him, coming to stand behind Gwen's shoulder.
"Gerason was killed last night," Geraint said stoically. "You'll need to give a statement."
Merlin hadn't entirely registered the words before the patrol officer took him by the arm again. When they finally caught up to him, he jerked his arm free viciously, startling them all. His heart was beating very fast now.
"A statement for what?" He hissed, directing the question to Geraint.
His D.I. showed no empathy whatsoever when he answered.
"For your whereabouts last night," he said coldly. "And why you left your phone behind, when you went to wherever it was you were going."
As he said it, he lifted Merlin's cellphone up in his hand. He hadn't unlocked it. But on the screen Merlin could see fourteen missed calls from Gwen, several more from Geraint. A stack of unread SMS notifications.
Merlin's heart had been pounding out of his chest since the moment he'd seen the blue lights across the flat face of his apartment building. Now it stopped completely. His skin felt cold, despite the sweat running down the back of his neck into the collar of his shirt.
It didn't sound like they were talking about a statement.
It sounded like an accusation.
This time, when the patrol officer took his arm, Merlin didn't protest.
...
He'd been inside interview rooms before. But never like this. Usually he was the one coming through the door with his partner, not the one waiting for the door to open. But here he was. Alone at a table in an empty grey room, waiting for Geraint and Gwen to come back to him.
At least they hadn't gone so far as to outright cuff him, but he knew better than to believe he wasn't in custody. It was obvious he was. And despite the early hour, because of all the panic and commotion, the office had been far more lively than it ever was at five in the morning. So now all of his colleagues knew it too.
Merlin closed his eyes.
At least they didn't need to search him for a phone, since his was already taken into evidence by the techs. Arthur's phone burned inside his coat pocket against his ribs. He needed to get this over quickly so that he could let Arthur know he needed to kill that mobile and fast.
Then his D.I. came into the room with him, alone. Closed the door with a soft click.
"I'll get right to the point," Geraint said, but Merlin cut him off as he was sitting down.
"Why don't we start with why you're treating me like I'm the one who killed him?"
Geraint didn't miss a beat.
"Did you?"
Merlin was hurt by the words. He thought he'd be angerier somehow. But instead, hearing Geraint just say it like that, drilled a hole in his chest.
And kept drilling.
"No," Merlin said, his tone hot.
"Glad to hear it," Geraint said, and it didn't sound at all like he was. He sounded like he wasn't sure if he believed it or not.
"This should be easy, then. Where were you last night?" He flipped open a file onto the desk, and pulled the cap off his pen.
"Southend," Merlin said, honestly. That wasn't something he could hide anyway. So he didn't.
Geraint raised an eyebrow, writing down something in the file.
"Why?" He asked, all business.
Merlin pressed his lips together in a hard line. Tried to rein himself in and only half-failed.
"I told you I needed some time off," Merlin answered him, again, honestly. "I went down to the coast."
"Can anyone corroborate this?"
Merlin tried not to think less of Geraint for asking him that, he really did. But he was crumbling inside.
"No," Merlin said through clenched teeth.
"So you went to the coast, left your phone behind in your flat, and no one can vouche for your whereabouts all night. Not even your mobile records?" Geraint looked up as if he were waiting for Merlin to agree with him.
Merlin fisted his hands into the fabric of his trousers and held on for dear life.
"I forgot my phone," Merlin said, unkindly. "I'd have made sure I had it on me if I thought I'd be accused of murder in the morning."
Geraint let out a frustrated breath through his nose.
"I realize this is uncomfortable, but I am actually trying to help you," he said, shooting Merlin a glare. "You've put me in a shit position, Balinor. A real shit position."
"I've put you in a shit position?" Merlin exploded. "You just walked me through a crowded office into this room with a guardsman before you even started asking any questions!"
Geraint narrowed his eyes.
"Gerason was murdered, Balinor. He wasn't just killed. Someone took him apart, literally piece by piece. When I called you, when Gwen called you, no one could find you. He was murdered sometime around midnight, I waited five hours for you to respond, to show up, before I did anything. You think I wanted any of this?"
"And I was your only suspect?" Merlin said, disgusted. "Gerason gets what he deserved and your first thought was that I was involved somehow?"
Geraint threw himself back in his chair and ran his hands over his face.
"What he deserved? Jesus Christ, Balinor."
Merlin clenched his jaw.
"I'm not taking it back, and I'm not sorry he's dead," he hissed. "But I didn't kill him. I was more than an hour from London all night. I needed time to clear my head not to execute someone."
"Fine," Gerason said, leaning back over the notepad on top of the open file on the desk. "When did you leave for Southend?"
"Maybe an hour after we spoke on the phone," Merlin said, rubbing his eyes with one hand. "Six? Or half six in the morning."
"And you were there this whole time?"
"Yes," Merlin said simply.
Geraint made a note and then looked up.
"Where did you stay?"
Merlin had to fight not to tense up, aware what he was about to say didn't help him in the slightest. Trying to think fast before the next obvious question was asked.
"I didn't stay anywhere in particular."
"Are you trying to screw yourself?" Geraint snapped, surprising him. "Or screw with me?"
"I can't tell you something that didn't happen," Merlin shot back.
"You want me to believe that you went down to the coast for twenty-four hours, actual hours, not the vague constitution of a day," Geraint said, jabbing his pen in Merlin's direction. "Overnight, even, and didn't have anywhere to go? It was freezing last night, you had to have been somewhere."
Merlin had been taken by surprise when he showed up to his apartment flooded with blue lights but when he'd started this thing with Arthur he'd gone over possible alibis in his head for hours, in case something like this ever happened.
He was playing with fire, but he wasn't a moron.
That being said, it was still a gamble. A really fucking high one. But of the three defenses he'd concocted, the only one he thought his D.I. might accept was the riskiest one of them all. So he was going to have to sell it.
"Look," Merlin said, taking his tone down a fraction, and he didn't have to fake how he struggled to do it. "The Gerason case was eating me alive. You knew it, Gwen knew it, this whole goddamn office knew it. I couldn't sleep. Every night I went home and I got in my car and I followed him, because it felt like my responsibility. That way if he tried to take someone else's daughter I could stop him."
Geraint's eyebrows shot up at that. Merlin barreled on before he could interrupt because even though he knew that confession wasn't illegal per se, it skated right on the edge of it. And it looked damn incriminating. He was admitting to basically stalking a man who had been found murdered hours later. So he didn't want to linger there with all the questions that were likely to follow.
The fact of the matter was, they would have known he'd been doing it eventually if they dug any deeper into their investigation. And they would. Geraint was known inside and outside the force as a man who didn't let dirty cops get away with anything in his jurisdiction. Friend or colleague or no, he didn't pull his punches if he thought you were fucking the system. Merlin actually liked him a lot, for that.
So if he was going to sell a lie to this man with any hope of success, he needed to give Geraint something to explain his actions that made sense but also something he could prove. Like...Merlin following a released killer around at night, for example. So Merlin gave him that. Then he said,
"And you know what? It didn't help. It was destroying me. I couldn't focus on my cases anymore, I was useless to Gwen, I was falling asleep at my desk -"
That last part was a lie, but it hammered the point home well enough. And he had been very tired.
"I called you yesterday morning so I could walk away for a while. Get my head back on straight. But that didn't work either, so I picked up a lead on one of my old cases and I ran it down instead."
At that Geraint's shoulders dropped, a little anyway. He was still hard in his expression, but his body language was starting to feel a fraction more open to Merlin. So he seized on it.
"I went to talk to an informant. About the Pendragon case."
Geraint looked up at him sharply. Merlin didn't relax his own posture in response but it was the reaction he was looking for. At least he'd caught Geraint off guard enough to redirect his interest for the time being.
"The Pendragon case?" Geraint said quietly.
"Yes," Merlin replied.
They stared at each other for a long time.
"And who is this informant?" Geraint asked, finally.
"Not a chance," Merlin said without heat. "He hasn't agreed to be a C.I. for me. He definitely won't if you show up asking him to vouche for me on a murder I didn't commit. And if you do and he's smart he'll use it against me. You can't have his name."
"Even if it clears you?" Geraint said.
"Even then," Merlin told him.
Geraint considered this.
"What kind of informant are we talking about here?"
"As close to the top as it gets," Merlin said.
It was true, in a way. Which was why it had to be this lie, in particular. If they requested a polygraph, Merlin knew he could pass it.
Geraint searched his eyes. Merlin let him.
"You know it's not enough," he said quietly. And for the first time he actually sounded apologetic. It made Merlin soften. Just a little.
He didn't give Geraint the standard, I couldn't have killed him because if I had I wouldn't have been this obvious about it argument, because it wouldn't help him, but honestly, how could Geraint believe that if he had killed Gerason, he'd have done it in a way that so obviously implicated him?
It was insulting.
"I need something, Balinor," Geraint said. "Something better than, I went away and no one was with me."
Merlin pressed his lips together, frustrated again.
"I have my tickets for the train, well..." he paused, thinking about it momentarily. "I have the return ticket at least. But you'll see me on CCTV, I was at the station yesterday morning and I didn't come back until you saw me at my flat."
"Not by train," Geraint said pointedly.
Merlin tried not to glare at him.
"Not by train," he agreed quietly.
Geraint sighed and opened his hand.
"Let me have the ticket then. You'll write up a statement and then you're on leave until I verify your boarding time."
Merlin knew it was coming, but it still stung. He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Fished in his pockets for his return ticket. Passed it to Geraint without looking at it.
Geraint passed him the paperwork to write out his statement, and a pen. Merlin took them without comment.
As he wrote down what he'd just told Geraint, he said, without looking up from the paper,
"How was he killed?"
Geraint was also watching Merlin's pen moving across the page when he answered, solemnly.
"I told you. He was dismembered."
Merlin frowned, tilting the paper a little as he continued writing.
"Where?"
For a moment he thought Geraint might refuse to answer him. But it was pointless not to answer the question; they both knew Merlin could just search the news for it when he got home. So after a long pause, Geraint said,
"In an alley, just outside of city jurisdiction, in Islington."
Merlin looked up at that.
"Islington?"
Geraint rapt his knuckles on the paper and Merlin went back to writing. Then he stopped again to look up at Geraint.
"Secondary crime scene?"
"First off," Geraint said firmly. "You're not touching this case. "Even if you weren't in this room because I had to take you off a list of potential suspects, you just admitted to me that you were following the victim before he was killed. So you're not touching this with a ten-foot pole, I mean that."
Merlin stared at Geraint but he wasn't really listening. He'd heard him, yes. But he couldn't stop his curiosity. Geraint just barely managed not to roll his eyes before he said, quietly,
"No secondary crime scene."
"How does someone dismember a living man in a public alley and no one sees or hears a thing?" Merlin asked, incredulously. Geraint raised an eyebrow. It was pointed, but he added, nonetheless,
"Who said there weren't any witnesses?"
Merlin gave Geraint a long suffering look.
"Because you're interviewing me, and I didn't bloody do it, so you can't have a witness to it."
Geraint eyed him, and Merlin knew he was right.
"You got me," Geraint said at last, looking away. "No witnesses yet, at least. If Gerason wasn't such a high profile kill I'd have considered looking for the earmarks of CDK on this one."
"Why?" Merlin asked, leaning a little over the table, his brows furrowed. "I think you can rule him out just by virtue of the method; CDK doesn't kill people, he makes them kill themselves. It doesn't seem possible to make someone cut their own limbs off to accomplish that. For one, it would take too long. The victim would end up bleeding out before they were finished."
"Noted," Geraint said dismissively. "Finish your statement. Then I'll need your ID, and your service weapon."
Merlin hated the way that sounded, immediately. Like he was never coming back.
He didn't ask Geraint anything else after that.
They gave him his phone back when he handed over his ID and his gun. His actual phone, not the one still inside the deep pocket in the inner lining of his leather coat. They didn't need to keep it; they could get the phone records without it and Merlin had given them the password. They'd probably downloaded it. But he wasn't worried. Even if he hadn't left it behind it wasn't like he'd ever used it to speak to Arthur.
Walking back out was the second worst feeling he'd ever experienced in his life. The first was walking in. It felt like the entire building had gone silent when he reached for the exit, a patrol officer by his side.
Gwen put her hand on the door.
"I'll take it from here," she told the uniformed officer. He nodded and left.
Merlin was glad to see Gwen, he really was. But he couldn't muster up any way to show it. He just let her open the door for him. Stepped outside without saying anything.
"You picked a really fucked up time to disappear Balinor," she said quietly, lighting a cigarette.
"Can we not do this?" Merlin said just as quietly. "Shit alibi or no I didn't kill him. Whether I believed he deserved to be killed or not I didn't do it myself. Next time I plan to be accused of homicide I'll just leave a trail of breadcrumbs to pacify you shall I?"
"Don't be an asshole," she snapped, blowing smoke out of the side of her mouth before shoving him against the railing of the stair.
Merlin stumbled, surprised.
"You know how worried we all were? No one wanted this outcome Merlin but here we are. The least you could do is help us clear your bloody name!"
"Clear my name?" Merlin hissed, turning on her. "Clear my fucking name, Guinevere, really?"
"I'm just giving you the reality of it," she said, leaning in close to his face. He glowered at her. "And the reality is, you have motive and opportunity, you just admitted to following him once he was released! Tell me, Merlin, since you're so bloody smart, if you were on a jury, would you believe the accused if they told you that the victim just happened to be murdered by a random stranger on the only day they weren't stalking the victim? Would you?"
"I wasn't stalking him!" Merlin shouted, too loudly. People passing by The Met turned to look.
Gwen narrowed her eyes at him.
"What would you call it then?" She said unkindly.
He didn't respond. Her cigarette was burning down between her fingers, forgotten.
"You have my phone, photos of my face, my arms, my hands. You have my statement. I'll see you when this blows over, Gwen. Until then I'm done talking about it."
He turned to go but she caught his arm.
"This one is bad Merlin, I know you know that," she said, pitching her voice low. "You have no real alibi, none that you're willing to properly give. If they can't find anyone else to investigate this is going to come down on you."
He jerked his arm out of her grip, glowering at her. The words made his skin hot.
"Investigate it then, there won't be anything to find, no forensics, nothing. Because I didn't kill anyone Gwen," he hissed.
"You're not hearing me," she snapped, quietly. "No one needs forensics to convict you of shit, Balinor. If there's no DNA at scene, there's nothing to fucking compare it to. And if they can't find anyone else with a motive to kill Gerason, they'll come back to you," she whispered feircly, jabbing him in the chest again. "And there's not a jury in the goddamn world that would believe the story that the man released on one of your rape- homicide cases, just happened to be killed by someone else on the only day no one can get ahold of you!"
Merlin opened his mouth, about to raise his voice, about to vent his frustration with her, his partner, the one person he thought would be on his side by virtue of familiarity alone, he wanted to grab her and shake her by the shoulders -
How could you think that I'd do this?
But he couldn't move, or say anything. His exceptional mind was catching up to everything Gwen had told him, putting the pieces together without his consent. Giving him the answer.
Merlin put his hands up, the universal symbol for "we're done here" because he couldn't speak to her anymore. If he did she might notice that he wasn't engaged with the argument anymore. She might realize he knew something he wasn't telling her.
Something important.
He turned and left, and he didn't have to fake the hurt, the anger he felt in that moment when he did. Gwen let him go.
It was hard not to bolt to his flat. To go running down the sidewalk. But he couldn't let Gwen or CCTV see him looking like he was going to skip out on leave and disappear. Or like he was planning to destroy evidence.
What were the odds of Gerason being murdered on the only day Merlin wasn't tailing him?
Pretty fucking low.
And Islington? That was just outside of Met jurisdiction. As far as Merlin knew, Gerason had no ties to Islington. So if the odds that he would be murdered on the only night Merlin didn't have eyes on him were low, the odds of him being murdered in a different jurisdiction than the one Merlin worked?
Astronomical.
By the time he made it back to his flat he was livid. And sick. He didn't want to be right. But even if it was just his overactive mind playing tricks on him -
It wasn't.
He still sent the message when he got back inside his home and locked the door behind him. Because it needed to be sent. To keep them both safe. He moved to a corner of the kitchen he knew couldn't be seen by surveillance. He didn't think anyone was watching him; but he was also on edge. So he typed the message quickly then picked up a water glass.
kill this mobile don't contact me again
It was surprisingly easy to hit send.
Then he pulled out the SIM card and dropped it down the garbage disposal. Turned on the sink and filled his glass.
The sound of the blades grinding up the small electronics rattled in his chest.
He needed a moment to drink the water, before he reached into his junk drawer to discretely remove the pager.
How could he have been so stupid?
Merlin closed it in his fist and didn't look at the message. Popped the battery in his pocket as he went into the living room. Pulled back the grate on the fireplace and opened the flu. It wouldn't be odd for him to light a fire. It was cold out. But it was barely noon.
He should wait.
So he did.
...
Merlin's tailbone ached from sitting on the floor for so long. He still hadn't lit a fire though he'd stacked the logs. He didn't know what time it was but the room was darker now.
Arthur was standing in the doorway.
"Get out of my house," Merlin said without looking up.
"One day I'll lose patience with those words," Arthur said quietly.
Merlin stared into the dark fireplace.
"Did you have Gerason killed?" Merlin said.
"No. I killed him myself."
Merlin came to his feet faster than he'd moved all day. Took Arthur by the lapels of his coat and jerked him closer.
"If you wanted to end the game all you had to do was call it," Merlin spat at him.
Arthur looked at him the way he had on the loading dock. Cold. And Dangerous.
"It wasn't enough for you to get me suspended under investigation, was it? You had to come here to watch my career, my life end, in real time?"
Arthur grabbed his face in a gloved hand so quickly it startled Merlin into letting go of his coat. Instead Merlin clutched at Arthur's wrist, dropping back a step in surprise.
Arthur's expression, his posture, his tone hadn't changed. It made the hair on the back of Merlin's neck stand on end.
"You think I murdered that walking, wet pile of human rubbish to ruin you?"
Merlin bared his teeth, in spite of Arthur's fingers, digging into his jaw.
"So I guess you thought you could take him over jurisdiction lines and I wouldn't be involved then?" Merlin snapped sarcastically.
The hesitation was barely a microsecond. If Merlin hadn't been so angry, so focused on Arthur, he wouldn't have seen it. Felt it in the small change in pressure by the hand on his face.
Merlin's glower was starting to morph into something like shock.
"...you did?" He said.
"The Met was here?" Arthur asked him instead, letting him go. Merlin's hands fell to his sides.
"Yes. This morning. I don't take my phone with me to see you; obviously it looks incriminating as hell to disappear entirely on the night one of your perps is murdered," Merlin said quietly. "I was in interrogation all morning. I've been suspended. Why? Why would you do this? Did you know him?"
Arthur was still staring at Merlin with a dangerous look in his eye. But it wasn't cold or distant anymore. It occurred to Merlin that he might have been genuinely upset about Merlin's message. The unanswered page.
"I didn't need to know him," Arthur said calmly. His words sent ice down Merlin's spine. "You were sure he would take another child. So sure you were sacrificing your own health to be sure that he wouldn't. It was the easiest decision I've made all week, killing him."
Merlin couldn't respond at first. Finally he managed,
"What gives you the right?"
But it was weak even to his own ears. He meant what he said to Geraint. He wasn't sorry Gerason was dead.
He was relieved.
"I told you once, I won't tell you again," Arthur said, his gaze hard. "I own this city. That gives me the right."
"But-"
He didn't actually know why he was arguing with Arthur. It felt more like words he was obligated to say than words he actually believed. Arthur cut him off, turning away.
"Please, Merlin, I'm tired. I don't have to explain to you that your justice system, such as it is, barely manages to uphold a fair and balanced judgement for the truly innocent, let alone the truly guilty. I did you and everyone else in this city a favor killing that man."
"I didn't ask for that kind of a favor!" Merlin exploded. "I wouldn't!"
Arthur turned to look at him over his shoulder, pinning Merlin in place with his eyes.
"Come now Merlin," Arthur said. "What were you really doing, following Gerason every night?"
Merlin swallowed hard, and said nothing. Arthur gave him a slow shadow of a smile. He leaned in. Pressed his cold cheek to Merlin's hot one.
"You were praying he'd fuck up," Arthur whispered in his ear. "So you could kill him yourself."
Chapter 10: His Protection
Notes:
Hello! I hope everyone is doing well! Please enjoy this chapter as you go into the weekend. All of the players have arrived to the stage now. (ˆ⌣ˆԅ)
As always, stay safe and be kind 💋 and I’ll be back with more soon!
Chapter Text
Merlin said nothing.
He couldn't. He wasn't entirely convinced yet that what Arthur said wasn't true. But he wasn't about to admit that outright.
He could feel Arthur smiling against his cheek. Felt the anger rage against his ribcage again. He pulled back sharply and Arthur straightened, unperturbed.
Still smiling.
Merlin clenched his fists.
"You used me as judge and jury on a decision I didn't even know was being made," he snapped.
At that, Arthur's gaze darkened, his smile falling away just as suddenly.
"I didn't use you for anything," he hissed. "We are all judge and jury in our own lives, Merlin. If the court reconvened and released Gerason on a technicality, would that make him any less of a rapist? A child killer?"
"No," Merlin growled, watching Arthur as he slowly started to circle him, appraising him from head to foot.
"And why not?" Arthur asked, with mock ignorance.
"Your Crown rules he is no longer guilty by word of law so he must be released. Surely all of those terrible things Gerason was accused of, all the lives he tainted with his filth will just..." Arthur waved his fingers at the ceiling, theatrically. "...evaporate?" He finished quizzically.
In that moment, Merlin was giving serious thought to punching Arthur. Hard.
When he said nothing, merely seethed, Arthur grew suddenly serious, turning fully back to face him.
"No," he said. "What your Crown has actually decided is not that he isn't guilty of the crimes he has been accused of, let's be realistic, in Gerason's case he practically left you a cartoon billboard with an arrow pointing at his forehead reading, I'm the one who did it, it's that a clerical error is enough to get him out of his sentence because it wouldn't be fair to try him with compromised evidence."
"That's because it isn't fair," Merlin shot back.
Arthur laughed. Merlin stared at him in disbelief.
"Fair? The law places fairness above truth because it's what makes everything look good on paper. It's no different than the whimpering excuses of men who claim that perception is reality when something doesn't go their way. Well I have a radical idea for you to ponder Merlin, what if...reality...could just be fucking reality? It could be, if all we did was a little more work to recognize that presenting the knowledge of something to another and teaching them to know something are two very different things."
Here Arthur opened his hands, tilting his head to one side, his eyes always on Merlin.
"Wouldn't you agree? Then you wouldn’t tie yourself up in knots lamenting the death of a monster because it wasn’t done by the proper procedure. The only difference between my fairness, my reality, and yours, Merlin? Is that I have the freedom to act on it. And you don't."
"It doesn't matter how many riddles you tie it up in Arthur, you killed a man last night while I was asleep in your bed! And the only reason you did it was because I told you he was a rapist and murderer! What if I had been wrong? What if I had been lying?"
"Were you?"
"That's not the point, Arthur," Merlin shot back. "I don't believe for a second this has anything to do with your obvious disagreements with the letter of the law, or how little confidence you have in the justice system I work for!"
"Of course you don't, Merlin," Arthur said dismissively. "If I killed everyone I thought deserved to die just because I could find an excuse to do it, London would be an empty city, and God help the world outside of it."
"So you didn't do it because you could and you didn't do it to get rid of me," Merlin said in a way that clearly indicated that he didn't believe that for a second. "Why then?"
Arthur looked at Merlin sharply when he said it, and it brought Merlin up short. For one excruciatingly long moment, Arthur said nothing. Only he looked offended, somehow, to Merlin. Frustrated, for some reason. And then,
"Because," Arthur said slowly. "He was hurting you."
If he had been speaking to anyone other than Arthur Pendragon, Merlin would have laughed out loud, because a sentence like that would have to be a lie. But Arthur never said anything that he didn't mean. It stunned Merlin into complete silence. Not entirely because Merlin knew the words to be true. He couldn't react at first, because he knew he should be disgusted. He should be alarmed.
But he wasn't.
When he said nothing, Arthur sat down on his sofa, annoyed. He unbuttoned his coat as he did but he didn't take it off.
"Can we move past this please?" Arthur asked him unexpectedly. "I'd prefer this evening wasn't encumbered by beating dead horses. Or dismembered ones, I suppose."
Merlin actually felt the flush rising up the back of his neck.
"Did you just make a joke about killing that man?"
"Oh please, Merlin. You didn't see him as a man. He wasn't one. He was nothing."
"It doesn't matter what either of us saw him as, Arthur!"
"Why are you trying to convince me that you're upset I killed him for you?" Arthur said darkly, crossing his leg at the knee and propping his elbow on the arm of the couch, leaning his head on his fist. "When we both know what you really want is to kneel, and thank me for it."
Merlin closed his hands at his sides. Opened them again. They were sweaty. Because it was true.
He did want to kneel. But he didn't just want to thank Arthur.
He wanted to worship him for it.
"I'm not sorry Gerason was killed, Arthur, you left me without saying a word and you took my career as a blood sacrifice to do it!"
Arthur lifted his head off his fist, his expression becoming inquisitive. Uncertain.
"Is that what's bothering you?" Arthur asked him very quietly. "Not that I killed him for you? But that I left you to do it?"
"I am bothered that you killed him Arthur," Merlin said roughly. "Whether I thought he deserved it or not."
"Why?"
Merlin had to bite back his first response, because Arthur was genuinely asking him the question. The look in his eyes told Merlin he truly didn't understand.
"Because it was wrong, Arthur," Merlin tried again, pleading now.
Pleading with himself.
To actually believe the words he was saying.
It didn't work.
"Merlin, I'm not going to have this conversation all night," Arthur said dismissively. "You were hurting yourself over the man's freedom. I killed him. It was enjoyable. End of discussion."
"Yes, lovely," Merlin said throwing out his hands, sarcasm falling off of every word as he continued. "I'm suspended and under investigation for murder - that really does dramatically lower the level of stress in my daily life. I apologize if I was being rude."
Arthur sighed.
"Merlin, you're not under investigation for murder," then he paused, looking at the ceiling as if rethinking the situation momentarily. "Well. Not for much longer, anyway."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Merlin snapped.
Arthur lowered his gaze slowly, and it was darker. Calmer, somehow. It sent goosebumps rolling down the back of Merlin's neck.
"I may not be a brilliant detective, Merlin," he said softly. "But I've been getting away with murder for a long time. Did you think the only thing I would do to protect you, was take him to a different jurisdiction?"
"Whatever you've done, you can't be sure it was enough," Merlin whispered. "I've been taking your cases apart for years -"
Arthur grinned, and it was unkind.
"That's right, Merlin. You have. There was no one else at The Met who could build a case against me before you came along. But..." here he tilted his head away thoughtfully, with a disingenuous frown. "You're a suspect in this particular murder, aren't you? They wouldn't let you near this case to spit on it..."
His eyes drifted back to Merlin's, calculating, cold, and completely confident.
"Would they?"
Merlin swallowed, hard.
"You did this on purpose," he said, his voice whisper soft. Hoarse. "You engineered all of this so I couldn't put my hands on this case."
Arthur was up and moving so fast, Merlin wasn't able to react until Arthur slammed him back into his bookshelf, knocking his carefully organized novels and biographies to the floor with a crash. He let out a short, sharp cry as his shoulders connected with the wood, Arthur's hands a vice grip on his biceps.
"I'm only going to say this one more time," Arthur growled in his ear. "I did it to protect you."
"You took my career from me!" Merlin shouted back. "It doesn't matter what the outcome of this is now, my department, my partner, my boss, all of them will always have this in the back of their minds! This will effect everything I do as a Detective, as a person, for the rest of my life!"
"Merlin," Arthur snapped. "If they were sure enough of your guilt to take it this far, they've always looked at you differently. The only thing that's changed, is that you are aware now, that they do."
"Fuck you," Merlin spat, his face hot.
"Stop being naive!" Arthur growled. "They don't care about what they know! They care about what they can prove! They could be certain down to the core, that you weren't guilty of anything and they would still crucify you for it as long as they had enough evidence. That's how your justice works."
"This one is bad Merlin, I know you know that. You have no real alibi, none that you're willing to give. If they can't find anyone else to investigate this is going to come down on you."
"Get off your fucking high horse," Merlin snarled back to drown out Gwen's words in his head. "I'm not the one who killed a man!"
"No," Arthur said quietly, drawing his nose down the line of Merlin's tense jaw. It made Merlin shudder. "But you wanted to."
Merlin struggled, twisting against Arthur's hands, but there was nothing to use as leverage between the shelves of his bookcase.
"Get off me!"
"You must not have been hiding it very well," Arthur said poisonously in his ear, pressing harder against him to still his struggling. "It took them no time at all to accuse you of it."
"Stop," Merlin ground out, still trying and failing to shove Arthur back. "What they did isn't personal! It's just how the job is done!"
"Isn't personal?" Arthur said against his cheek. "You're one of their own, and they couldn't give you any grace, could they? If there was a miscalculation in any of this Merlin, it was that I assumed you'd have at least been able to make it into the office unmolested before they shoved a fist down your throat."
"Geraint isn't like that!" Merlin snapped back, desperately.
"You think so?" Arthur said gently, in his ear.
"Let go!"
He did. The loss of contact startled Merlin, and he fell back against the bookcase, shaken.
Arthur stood over him, looking down his nose at him the way he had when he'd first broken into Merlin's apartment, all those months ago. Merlin glowered at him, hot and too angry to speak. Humiliated by the way his hands were shaking.
And then Arthur lowered his eyes, his posture rounding, so that his body was no longer crowding Merlin, but shielding him.
"I did it," Arthur whispered. "So that you wouldn't have to. Because you would have."
Merlin closed his eyes. Pressed as far back into the shelves as he could manage.
"Tell me the truth, Merlin," Arthur said.
Merlin shoved him back hard. It surprised Arthur, Merlin could see it in his eyes when he stumbled back. For some reason it wasn't satisfying. All Merlin felt at the moment was rage.
And fear.
"I wouldn't!" He roared, his expression crumpling, ruining the validity of his words. "I couldn't do that!"
Arthur reached out. Merlin shook, but he didn't throw him off when Arthur lifted his chin in his cold hand. Brushed a thumb over his hot skin.
"I said, the truth, Merlin," Arthur repeated, very gently.
Merlin fisted his hands in Arthur's coat, but he wasn't sure yet if he wanted to pull Arthur closer or push him away again. He stood there, trembling for a long time before he could speak.
"I wasn't sleeping," he said, his throat too tight. "Not because I was following him at night. I was afraid I would see him sitting at the white table," Merlin gasped, forcing himself to say it out loud. "Because I knew I could get away with it."
Arthur folded him into his arms, and Merlin went willingly, breathing too hard against Arthur's shoulder as he held on.
"You're alright, Merlin," he said quietly, his influence warming the ink in Merlin's tattoo. Flooding his skin with starlight.
Merlin let out a helpless moan, all of his anger bleeding out of him in a rush, like Arthur had opened one of his veins.
"You didn't do this," Arthur told him, his fingers running up the back of Merlin's neck, carding through his hair. "I did. You didn't do anything wrong."
"I put myself and everyone in my unit in danger," Merlin heaved into the fabric of Arthur's coat. "Because I couldn't let him go. You did this because I couldn't let him go."
"Oh Merlin," Arthur said dangerously in his ear, making him pull in a sharp breath. "That sounds an awful lot like you're punishing yourself..."
Merlin couldn't help the way he whimpered, when Arthur drew his head back by his hair. Said,
"Doesn't it?"
Arthur smiled against the pulse in his throat.
"You can't help yourself, can you?" Arthur said with a mock sympathy that made Merlin's knees weak. "Taking responsibility for my actions as well as your own? I thought we agreed, Merlin, that was my job?"
Merlin swallowed hard, jolted with shock of pleasure when Arthur pulled his shirt up so that he could run his fingers over Merlin's bare ribs; his flat stomach.
"You killed a man," Merlin whispered one last time.
Arthur drew his mouth up to Merlin's, brushing Merlin's parted lips as he spoke.
"Yes," he whispered back. "And I'd do it again, for you."
Merlin kissed him. It was a feral, explosive need that drove him to it; the feeling of Arthur's hands prying open his chest and pulling out all of the ugly things inside of it. Wanting, in his own way, to protect Merlin from facing those parts of himself on his own.
Arthur kissed him back hungrily, lifting Merlin into his arms like it was nothing, his palms supporting Merlin's hips as he wrapped his long legs around Arthur's waist. Let Arthur carry him back to his bedroom.
Merlin fell back to the mattress when Arthur let him go, lifted himself up onto his elbows to watch Arthur shrug his coat and his suit jacket off. Toss them unceremoniously to the floor at his heels.
He felt his whole body humming, as Arthur crawled over him. Settled between his aching thighs.
"Forgive me?" Arthur said sweetly against his mouth.
Merlin reached up, threading one hand into the soft gold of Arthur's hair.
"Shut up and fuck me," he said.
Arthur slid a hand up under his shirt, pinched his nipple hard. Merlin dropped his head back with a startled moan, the hand in Arthur's hair suddenly holding on for dear life.
Arthur kissed his throat, rolling the abused bud in his fingers tightly, making Merlin pant and cry out.
"No one speaks to me like that," Arthur told him affectionately, pressing Merlin back, down against the mattress.
"Get used to it," Merlin gasped with a grin. "Arthur."
Arthur broke open Merlin's shirt at that, buttons popping out of their seams as he pressed his hands across Merlin's chest, drawing the fabric back down his shoulders to his elbows, but not all the way off.
Merlin arched into his touch, felt the shimmering heat of Arthur's influence coiling in the cradle of his hips.
"Hands flat on the mattress, Merlin," Arthur said. Merlin moaned quietly, spreading his fingers out over the blankets beneath him, his sweaty palms open against the bed.
"Now," Arthur said, lowering his head to kiss the dragon tattoo on Merlin's shoulder. "Show me how good you can be at keeping them where you were told."
Merlin's hips rocked at the words, his head falling back with a gasping series of moans when Arthur's lips trailed the outline of the dragon's teeth to his chest; took his swollen nipple into his mouth and sucked. His fingers found the other, pinching and flicking it mercilessly, until Merlin was clutching the blankets beneath him in his fists, his chin tilted up and back as if he could escape the sensation.
As if he wanted to.
"I said flat, Merlin," Arthur told him with a smile against his shoulder, before nipping Merlin gently with his teeth.
Merlin bit his lip. Flattened his palms against the mattress once more.
He managed to keep them there for a few long, exquisite moments, until Arthur took his pants off him. Merlin crushed the blankets in his fists again when Arthur pressed a finger inside, draping one of Merlin's long legs over his shoulder.
Arthur tsk'd and Merlin threw his head back with a groan when he stroked Merlin in his fist in time with the press of his finger, in and out.
"Do it again," he purred. "And I'll have to teach you another lesson about patience, Merlin."
Merlin pressed his palms into the mattress again, rolling his hips up to meet Arthur's hot fist.
"I-I'm sorry, Arthur," he moaned, his back arching when he felt the slide of Arthur's influence over his skin, hands and fingers gently caressing, tracing the insides of his thighs, running through his hair, flicking his hardened nipples until every exhale he gave was a cry of desperate pleasure.
"Don't be sorry, Merlin," he murmured, taking his hands back only briefly, to undo his belt and his zipper. "Do as I ask."
Merlin didn't understand why; they'd only just done this the night before, but when Arthur was finally inside him, it felt like it had the first time they'd done this. Like the entire world was gone in an instant, and the noise in Merlin's head was suddenly silent. The only thing that mattered was the feeling of every muscle in his abdomen tightening in a wave of pleasure that threatened to crash over him at any second, the distant desperation in the back of his mind as he tried to outlast it.
Tried not to be obvious about how much he needed to be drowned by it.
Arthur took his knee in his hand, pressing Merlin's thigh open, away from his shoulder as he fucked him. Merlin's body was a live wire under Arthur's hands, his influence; the hard, heavy weight of Arthur inside him pressing against every place Merlin so desperately wanted to be touched. He was gasping out short, sharp moans he couldn't control any longer, his shoulders nearly coming off the mattress as Arthur found that one position he was helpless against, and let out a frustrated whine when Arthur suddenly backed off the pace, leaving him to collapse back to the bed, his hips shaking.
Merlin blinked, dazed, as Arthur leaned over him, his hands flat on the mattress on either side of his face. He stared into Arthur's storm cloud eyes before it dawned on him. His fingers relaxed instantly, uncurling from the blankets, but it was too late.
Arthur gave him a sympathetic smile.
"Strike three," Arthur said.
Merlin opened his mouth, to do what he wasn't sure, beg Arthur not to stop, anything but that, when Arthur surged forward, kissing him fiercely, tugging on Merlin's bottom lip with his teeth. Merlin moaned into his mouth, clutching at Arthur's shoulders and the back of his neck when Arthur drove into him. He'd already fucked up this particular command to no one's surprise, so he didn't bother trying to comply a fourth time. He let himself hold onto Arthur, to give Arthur back as good as he gave, until with a sudden shock he couldn't keep the pace anymore.
"Fuck," Merlin cried out, his nails digging into Arthur's shoulders, his face pressed now into the shelter of Arthur's strong jaw. "Please, Arthur I -"
He came hard when Arthur stroked him again, his nails pulling up welts across the wings of Arthur's shoulder blades. His back bowed as Arthur continued to fuck him, his whole body tightening so deliciously that when Arthur found that place inside him again as he chased his own orgasm, Merlin had to bite down on Arthur's shoulder, sinking his teeth in hard to stifle his screaming.
Arthur moaned into his skin and Merlin bit down harder, until he could taste copper on his tongue, his cries fading into the background of his own consciousness as Arthur thrust inside of him one last time, coming with the sound of Merlin's name on his lips.
When it was over, Merlin wrapped all of his long limbs around Arthur's sturdy frame, locking his legs around Arthur's hips, closing his arms across Arthur's shoulders. He turned his cheek against the bloody mark he'd left with his teeth, his eyes drifting open and closed as his breathing slowly, slowly returned to normal.
Arthur settled eventually, apparently too tired to argue, and let Merlin hold him, his cheek resting against Merlin's chest.
When his grip on Arthur started to slacken, Arthur dislodged him gently, and pulled him up to lay against him. Merlin made a small, pleased sound from the back of his throat when Arthur started to carefully massage his bad shoulder for him.
"I apologize for leaving you alone," Arthur told him quietly.
Merlin opened his eyes.
"Don't do it again," he said seriously.
Arthur smiled against his hair. Lifted Merlin's chin, and kissed him.
Merlin was aware on some level that he was becoming addicted to this feeling. Not that Arthur was kissing him, although that felt amazing. It was the warmth under his skin when Arthur folded him into his influence, that circle of flowers growing like a brace around the void in his chest. He had never understood, never had the opportunity to, really, why Submissives could be so comfortable playing a lesser role to their Dominant partners.
He was only just starting to understand that it wasn't less than, or more than anything else. It was a part of him that fit like a puzzle piece into the uneven edges of a man like Arthur Pendragon.
It was dangerous, and foolish to continue to indulge this relationship. It had to be some kind of insanity. He recognized this acutely, because they both had the perfect reason to let it go with the murder of Gerason. Both of them could have mutually agreed with no recourse, to release each other from this strange deal they'd struck.
But, absurdly, that had never come up. Arthur had in fact, been offended that Merlin suggested that's why he'd killed the man. And it wouldn't come up again, now, Merlin was certain of it, although he wasn't sure why.
Arthur Pendragon wanted him.
It made him feel right, and real, in a way he couldn't express properly in words. It made him hungry.
Above all else it made him greedy.
And there was no turning back now.
Arthur broke the kiss softly, his thumb on Merlin's chin. Merlin let him hold him there, looking into his eyes for a short time.
"You've had a long day because of me," Arthur said quietly. He sounded genuinely sorry for it. Merlin drew his fingers down the strong plane of Arthur's arm, to rest his palm against the outside of Arthur's wrist. He had so many scars, Merlin thought. Especially on his arms. The backs of his hands.
"Shockingly, I believe you when you say you didn't mean for it to turn out this way," Merlin told him with a pale smile.
"That doesn't change what happened to you," Arthur said frankly. "It's no easy thing, to be interrogated. Least of all for a Detective. I imagine they were hard on you."
"No harder on me than I would have been on any of them," Merlin said honestly.
"All the same," Arthur said. "For such a difficult task, you must have done very well to be able to come home with only a suspension, and not an idictment."
Merlin had to close his eyes at the words. They shimmered over his skin, opening up all of those flowers Arthur had sown inside of him.
"What did you tell them?"
It never even occurred to him to lie. He wasn't afraid of Arthur's anger. He knew now, down to the marrow of his bones, he might be the only person in the entire world who didn't have to be. And Arthur had used the same excuse with his people, when he told them Merlin was a dirty cop. Merlin just hadn't been as direct as that, when he'd given his explanation for why he was in Southend the night before.
"I told them I couldn't give them the name of who I was with, or where in Southend I was staying," he said, looking Arthur in the eye. "Because I was meeting with an informant who worked for you."
Arthur's smile turned sharp. Excited. It gave Merlin a thrill.
"How clever you are," he said softly. Then his face took on a more thoughtful look as he ran his hand through Merlin's hair. Drew his fingers down over the shell of Merlin's ear.
"Up with you," he said. "For a moment, if you would."
Merlin sat up, reluctantly enough that Arthur laughed quietly to himself as he stood from the bed and sank to a crouch in front of his discarded coat on the floor. Merlin drew his knees up underneath himself, kneeling at the foot of the bed in the tangle of discarded blankets and sheets, watching Arthur calmly. Curiously.
Arthur pulled something from his breast pocket, then stood to face him again.
"Your hand," he said.
Merlin offered Arthur his hand and he took it, pressing his mouth to the heel of Merlin's palm before placing a heavy round object into his grip.
Merlin dropped his gaze and opened his fingers, looking at the disc. Merlin recognized it immediately; thought he'd never see one in person. It was bigger than he expected it to be, nearly the size of his palm, and it had weight to it, likely cast in iron. It looked like the many deep impressions of it were once filled with silver, but now it was tarnished and rubbed smooth. There was an ornate cross bisecting the circle, cutting the design into four even sections, and raised across the center was a beautifully carved bird at rest.
The only people who carried these sigils, were the closest members of Arthur's inner circle. It was Merlin's belief that there may be as few as five of them in the entire organization. But he'd never considered that Arthur might carry one himself.
"I can't take this," he whispered.
"You aren't taking it," Arthur said. "I'm giving it to you."
"They'll take it into evidence," Merlin said, finally lifting his eyes.
Arthur smiled.
"No they won't. Not if they want you to keep seeing your informant. Let them photograph it, if they ask you for proof."
"And if they don't ask?" Merlin said.
"Then you'll keep it safe," Arthur said. "Because it belongs to me."
Merlin stared at him for a long time. Then he said, closing his fingers possessively around the medallion,
"Yes, Arthur."
For a moment Arthur looked him over thoughtfully, tilting his head. Merlin let him, feeling only a little self-conscious until Arthur said,
"You're very good when you let go of all that rage."
The words hurt him for some reason. Merlin closed the medallion in his fist, his knuckles turning white. But before he could say anything, Arthur ran a hand through his hair. Said,
"It's just an observation, Merlin. Not an accusation."
Merlin looked away, letting a breath out of his nose in annoyance. But he didn't try to dislodge Arthur's hand from his hair. He didn't want to talk about this.
"I'm sorry," Merlin said quietly, when the silence had stretched on for too long. "For not doing what you asked, Arthur."
Arthur sighed dramatically, pushing Merlin back so that he could climb back into bed with him. When he grinned down at him, Merlin smiled, despite himself.
"I'll consider you forgiven," Arthur said gently, his hands once again reaching up to massage the locked muscles in Merlin's scarred shoulder, his neck. "If the next time you feel my influence, you agree to keep your hands flat on the bed."
Merlin frowned, amused, the wording seeming a little odd to him. But all the same, he said around a yawn,
"The next time I feel your influence, Arthur, I'll keep my hands flat on the bed."
Arthur smiled against his temple, ran his nails lightly down the back of Merlin's neck, making him shiver.
"You see? How good you are, Merlin."
Merlin moaned.
When Merlin woke, he stretched out across his bed, disappointed but not surprised to find himself alone. His hand brushed something in the space Arthur had occupied the night before, and he closed his fingers around it without opening his eyes, smiling to himself.
He pulled Arthur's suit coat to his chest and held it. Breathed in the smell of lightning and calmly fell back to sleep. It had been a long time since he'd slept so well, or so much. When he woke for the second time, it was noon.
Merlin wandered out into his kitchen, feeling sluggish but not unpleasant. There was a small slip of paper next to his kettle that he only noticed after filling it.
Nothing out of a box.
Merlin flushed suddenly, his skin growing warm. He ran a hand over his tattoo as he read the note over again and then leaned back to rub his eyes, annoyed again but pleased somehow, all the same.
"Guess I'll be going to the store then," he muttered to himself, listening to the kettle click as it came to a boil.
But he was still smiling, when he stepped into the shower.
Across the city, Geraint knocked on Gwen's office door, a serious look on his face. She stood when he entered.
"Sir?"
"Good morning Gwen," he said.
Before she could do more than nod in agreement, he stepped aside, and gestured to a young man standing out in the hall. That caught her off-guard, certain that he'd been coming by to speak to her about Merlin's case. Instead, the young man stepped into her office with Geraint, holding a file folio under his arm and regarding her with serious green eyes.
Despite his solemn demeanor, it was clear to Gwen he was out of his depth. He looked to her like he was wearing the first suit he'd ever purchased; it was too large on him in some places, and his tie was too long.
She smiled quizzically at her boss.
"This is Mordred," Geraint said. "He's our newest recruit."
She blinked, holding her hand out, the moment still catching up to her. Mordred took her hand firmly, unsmiling.
"I look forward to working with you," he said.
Chapter 11: Crash
Summary:
In the middle of an unexpected Sub-drop, Merlin learns something that could turn London into a battlefield.
Notes:
Hello Loves!
I promise I am not abandoning any of my stories - I apologize for making you wait so long for this update. I lost several of my chapters for this and other stories when my computer crashed, and it took me so long to rebuild the parts of all my stories that I lost. We will be back to our regularly scheduled programming now! ᕙ( •̀ ᗜ •́ )ᕗ
As always, stay safe and be kind! I will be back (very soon) with more~
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It took him twenty-four hours to realize what kind of mistake he'd made, agreeing to Arthur's command about keeping his hands flat on the bed, without clarifying it first.
Merlin was sitting against the arm of his couch, his knees up, one of his old case files opened across them. It was the case of the man with the slashed throat, who sat to the right of him at the white table. William Menley. A man from the Isle of Sky who'd wound up dead in Brixton. This one had sat on his desk for the longest out of all the others, before he'd admitted defeat.
Maybe it was because he felt sorry for William.
He had no friends, no family; no one who could tell Merlin just what he'd been doing in England, let alone getting nearly decapitated in Brixton on a random Tuesday in August not two years past now. Somebody must have known him. The person he'd gone to meet that night, at least. But Merlin hadn't been able to find anyone who knew him well enough to know why he'd ended up alone in Brixton with a throat cut open so deeply his head was only attached from the back of his neck where his spine had stopped the blade from reaching the other side.
It was an empty case. No leads. No clues. No witnesses.
Maybe he'd hung on to this case the longest because he'd been afraid that it could have been him. If he went missing, there wasn't anyone who could have pointed the police in a good direction to find him.
It kept him up still, some nights. The thought of being taken, and knowing there wouldn't be anyone looking for him until it was too late.
Much, much too late.
Merlin sighed, looking the file over for the hundredth time that day.
It wasn't likely to help. He'd had this case file memorized just days after it had hit his desk. But he was bored and frustrated and his empty flat was going to drive him crazy if he didn't do something. He would have much preferred to look over the CDK case file but that one was sitting on his desk.
In his office.
He ran a hand over his eyes, just about to get up, maybe make a cup of tea or watch a cooking video to make something for dinner because he couldn't take this sitting around one second longer when he felt the pressure of Arthur's influence sliding out of the ink in his tattoo.
Merlin froze, his fingers lifting from his face. He looked around the flat but he knew before his eyes moved across the room that Arthur wasn't there. He couldn't actually feel Arthur nearby. It was just his influence.
Merlin put a hand on his chest where his tattoo was beneath his shirt. Felt his skin starting to prickle with goosebumps.
It unnerved him, this feeling, but it wasn't entirely unpleasant. He just didn't understand it. Merlin shifted, slowly picking up the file he'd been reading and setting it down on the coffee table, frowning to himself.
He started to push himself up off the couch, to do what, he wasn't sure, when the warm, slow slide of Arthur's influence over his skin suddenly surged into something that demanded his complete attention, immediately.
Something hotter.
Merlin dropped his head back over the arm of the couch in surprise, his lower back arching as the feeling of Arthur's influence became the sensation of so many hands running over his skin, under his clothes, touching him in all his best places. In all the right ways.
Merlin moaned, his throat bared to the ceiling. Felt himself beginning to pant now, unable to stop the sounds he was making. He twisted his shoulders against the arm of the couch, tried to close his legs but those hands, the shadow of Arthur's hands, trailed fingers up the insides of his thighs, coaxing his legs open wider to run that glittering sensation all over his aching cock.
He was so fucking hard so fast, and he couldn't stop moaning, his face was too hot, it was humiliating even though he was alone in an empty flat and what the actual fuck was happening -
"And if you can't be perfect, then you'll agree to let me use my influence on you at a distance, and I'll keep you this riled for an entire week and the next time you call for me it will be to beg me to let you come. And if you're good for me, maybe I'll let you."
Merlin's eyes came open in a flash.
"Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me," he whispered, desperately trying to catch his breath when the feeling of all those hands redoubled over his skin.
He clutched at his shirt, his Levi's, the back of the couch but it was becoming very clear to him that he couldn't actually touch himself. Every time he tried to unbutton his jeans, to reach a hand down his pants or up under his own shirt, he couldn't do it.
Merlin gave frustrated groan into the cushions of the back of his couch, cried out in absolute ecstasy when all those hands focused their entire efforts on everything below his waist.
But it wasn't enough. He needed to come but he couldn't do it himself and this feeling, while fucking phenomenal, wasn't even close to hard or fast enough for him.
Just enough to drive him absolutely mental.
How long was this going to last?
Merlin's shoulders actually came off the couch where he'd slid down to lay flat on his back, when the pressure of all those fingers suddenly felt more like lips.
More like tongues.
They teased the entire length of him, pressed inside of him, over, and over, and over -
He ground the heels of his palms against his eyes and cried out in short staccato moans that filled his entire flat. He couldn't think straight anymore. He needed to come. If he didn't he'd lose his mind.
He bent his elbows over his face and let out a guttural moan when those lips and tongues turned their attention on his neck. His nipples. Writhed mindlessly on the couch until suddenly, it came to him.
Merlin rolled off the couch clumsily, knocking the files off his coffee table and scattering them across the floor.
He couldn't touch himself because he wasn't meant to.
That wasn't the command he'd agreed to.
He stumbled to his bedroom and fell to his knees at the foot of the bed, his thighs shaking, and flattened his hands over the comforter across his mattress.
As soon as he did, the feelings ringing across his skin escalated, until Merlin had to bury his face in the blankets to stifle his cries, desperately trying not to clench his hands into fists, to keep them flat.
To keep them where he'd promised Arthur he would.
And for one incredible, blissful moment, it felt to Merlin like Arthur was there, fucking him like he'd done the night he'd rewarded Merlin for the first time.
The night he'd promised to make Merlin scream.
He came hard, untouched, his blanket clenched between his teeth and sagged, bonelessly against the side of his bed, heaving for breath and still letting out pathetic whimpered moans as he sank back to the floor.
He swore he could hear Arthur laughing at him as he worked his jaw free of the comforter. Groaned softly to himself when he felt how absolutely ruined his pants were.
For a moment he closed his eyes and, surprising himself, he laughed a little as he caught his breath.
"You fucking prick," he whispered to no one.
Then he stood and made his way to the shower.
The next time it happened, he was on the train.
He tried not to react to the feeling of Arthur's influence flooding his tattoo, spilling out onto his bare skin. He was wearing his patch but it only managed to dampen the sensation, not entirely negate it, which wasn't a comfort, really.
He was just lucky he'd been shopping for groceries and had enough bags of them to cover his obviously straining erection while he leaned back against the wall of the train car and held on to the support post like his life depended on it.
Tried not to fall to his knees and start moaning desperately.
Merlin had to bite his lip to stop the noises climbing up the back of his throat as he felt those fingers brush over the hardened length of him.
Press inside of him.
The pole in his hand creaked in grip. He had to fumble with his phone to turn off the music he'd been listening to so that he could be sure he wasn't vocalizing any of the embarrassing sounds he might have otherwise been making. He bent his head against the pole and shifted his weight when the train rocked underneath him. It was a fucking miracle he didn't give a sudden cry in sheer pleasure when Arthur's influence reached that place inside of him that he was helpless against. It made his knees weak.
His face was burning.
Just one more stop and he would be home. It was still a bit of a walk to his building but at least he wouldn't be trapped on full train car with a bunch strangers.
He was going to kill Arthur when he saw him next.
When the doors opened Merlin very nearly ran for them. He'd given some thought to hiding in the restroom until the station was a little clearer, but he knew that would only make the situation worse. He was hard and he was feeling so fucking good, yes, but he wasn't desperate.
Yet.
He would get there, he knew he would. Merlin wasn't good at waiting for the things he wanted at the best of times. Being made to wait drove him absolutely crazy. If he didn't resolve this now, someone was going to find him mindlessly drowning pleasure in an empty stall in the men's toilet.
Walking was difficult. He felt the slide of his jeans drag across his aching cock with every step he took. By the time he'd made it to his building, he needed to keep one hand on the wall as he climbed the stairs to his flat to steady himself.
It was so much hotter somehow, that he couldn't speak or move or cry out.
He dropped his keys when he tried to force them into the lock. Almost gave himself a concussion when he bent down to snatch them back up, sweat sliding down the back of his neck, and felt a firm grip on his balls, massaging them. Fingers inside of him, lighting up his whole body from end to end and sending him head first into his own door.
It turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
For one crucial moment, between his patch and the blow to his forehead, Merlin could think clearly without being consumed by the pleasure crowding his entire body. He got the keys into his lock and slammed the door shut behind him.
He dropped his bags and sank to his knees, pressing his chest into the floor and leaving his hips in the air. Gasped out a shaky, heavy moan into the cold linoleum under his cheek.
His whole body was flushed in humiliation, but he couldn't stop himself. Merlin moaned, begged, cried out into the floor underneath him. Fingers were tracing patterns up the backs of his thighs, stroking him from base to tip, making him whimper pitifully as he picked himself up. Made his way stumbling into his bedroom.
He slammed his hands down on the mattress open and flat and came so suddenly it ripped a cry out of him so impressive even to his own ears, that he was afraid someone would call Mac again to check on him as he sank, trembling back down to the floor.
Merlin curled up there on the carpet, his knees pulled up to his chest and panted, still moaning as Arthur's influence slowly released him, sliding back into the ink of his tattoo.
It was dangerous, beyond mortifying, an absolute nightmare to think he could have been caught painfully aroused in public, and yet Merlin found himself disappointed that it was over. That he'd ended the game so quickly after entering his home.
It felt so fucking good.
He wanted more.
The next time it happened, Merlin was better prepared to make it last. Arthur had said that using his influence took effort, no matter how small the desired outcome was. So it had to be a lot of effort, to do what Arthur was doing to him from any distance, let alone a very great one.
If Arthur insisted on fucking with him, then Merlin was going to make him work for it. Besides, how hard could it be to not put his hands flat on the mattress as soon as he felt the rise of his orgasm against the tight walls of his abdomen? Shimmering down the insides of his thighs?
Pretty fucking hard, it turns out.
He had been face down on his mattress, clutching a pillow against his face and biting it to keep himself from screaming because there were tongues pressing against him, flattening over the tight ring of muscle and slipping inside of him, going further and deeper than any tongue could possibly reach until it found the spot inside of him that Arthur touched to make him beg for mercy.
Merlin was screaming into his pillow. Fingers lovingly stroked his nipples, caressed his aching balls.
Gently sucked on the head of him, until he thought he might come whether he flattened his hands across the mattress or not.
He started to unclench his fists from the pillow, his hips shaking as he thrust them mindlessly towards the mattress, never quite reaching it, searching for the friction he so desperately craved and being stopped short by the invisible hands of his consent to Arthur's command. His whole body felt hot and every inch of him was being touched so gently - too gently - to give him what he needed.
His knees slid open wider and he moaned high and loud when felt his entire length being sucked harder, and just when he was going to open his hands against the comforter beneath him, suddenly, like a candle going out, everything stopped.
Merlin gasped, collapsing back to the bed in surprise, feeling like someone had flipped a switch and turned off all the nerve endings in his body. He couldn't even remember feeling Arthur's influence retreat from his skin in the moment; it was just very obviously no longer there.
Shaking, Merlin growled in frustration, and reached between his own legs to see if he could touch himself.
He didn't. But it was obvious to him by how close he could get that if he wanted to, he could take off his pants and take himself into his own hand.
The game was over.
He lay with his cheek against the pillow, panting softly and glaring at the wall, trying to understand what had happened.
Had he pushed Arthur too far? Merlin didn't think so. He had a feeling that Arthur had been prepared to let this go for as long as it took Merlin to do what he'd been told. The same way all of his punishment games worked.
Then...had he done something wrong?
That white hot ecstasy under his skin was fading fast, but he was still so goddamn hard it was starting to hurt.
With a frustrated snarl Merlin pulled his jeans down over his hips. Reached into the side table for the bottle of lube he kept there now, just in case Arthur showed up unexpectedly.
He glared at it as he popped it open himself. Poured some out over his fingers.
Laying back down with his chest pressed against his pillows, Merlin slid a finger inside of himself. Bit back a whine when he realized immediately it wouldn't be enough for him.
Slowly, he worked up the courage to try two fingers.
He wasn't afraid he would hurt himself, he knew he could do it. He could take Arthur inside himself and compared to that two fingers really wasn't that much more impressive than one finger.
But he'd never done it to himself before.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Thought of the way Arthur guided him to hook his knee over his shoulder whenever he entered Merlin for the first time. Tried to remember how it felt. Tried to relax when he pushed his own two fingers slowly, slowly inside.
Merlin moaned.
The motion got easier when he moved his hips. He picked up the pace without meaning to. Startled himself by moaning again, louder this time, and struggled to free his other hand so that he could reach his heavy cock without breaking the pace.
Merlin lifted his hips a little bit higher to give himself more room as he took himself into his fist; knowing he couldn't hold that position for long, praying he could get himself there before the ache in his abdomen stopped him cold.
He thought of the hungry look in Arthur's eyes when Merlin lost his resolve and couldn't stop himself from begging Arthur desperately for more. Felt his cheeks warming, burning up when he opened his mouth.
"Please," he whispered to himself, the slide of his hand over his dick faster now, tighter.
"God," he moaned, feeling silly and stupid and so fucking good it didn't matter because he was right there.
He moaned, thrusting his fingers as deep as he could manage on his own. Rocked his hips into his hot fist. He just needed a little bit more.
The tops of his thighs were blooming with a pleasant, shimmering warmth that was reaching for the tight cradle of his hips.
Merlin cried out in earnest now, stroking himself faster, choking on his words as they spilled out of him against his own will.
"Please let me come," he sobbed, thrusting his hips down as his hand came up. "Please, please -"
"Your pleasure isn't a punishment, Merlin. So you'll come for me if you touch yourself. Won't you?"
Merlin gave a wild shout as he came, spilling himself over his hand and the sheets underneath him. He sucked in a breath against the pillows, his fingers still inside of himself, and he didn't feel satisfied at all. It felt like cheating. Like he'd lost the game and taken the prize anyway.
His chest felt so tight.
Slowly Merlin let himself go. Lifted himself up off the mattress to sit back on his heels. His Levi's were still bunched up around his ankles and the material was digging into his thighs. He let it, for a time.
What had he done wrong?
His eyes wandered around the room. He knew he should get up. Clean himself off.
Instead he took his jeans off, and stumbling to his feet, ripped the sheets off his bed in a sudden rage, pulling them up at the corners and throwing them down to the floor. He stood for a long time, breathing hard, in nothing but an old t-shirt staring at the crumpled bedclothes at his feet. When his pulse had slowed, Merlin pulled himself back onto the mattress. Curled up under his comforter, not bothering to pick up any of his pillows up off the floor.
The feeling of his own skin bothered him. The worst of it was the shame.
He was so ashamed.
At the thought, he felt that void in his chest getting bigger again; breaking the soil around all the flowers Arthur had cultivated inside of him. He didn't think he'd done anything wrong. There weren't exactly a ton of directions that needed to be followed. Just the one.
Maybe it was something Arthur had said to him on a different night? That could be. The foundation for this game had been laid down long before Arthur had given Merlin the command to keep his hands flat on the bed. So maybe this game had more layers to it than Merlin had initially recognized.
It was highly plausible, in any case. Arthur was like that.
But that didn't help him now.
He just hoped that Arthur would come over soon, so he could ask him. And then punch him.
He went over every command Arthur had ever given him in his head, until his eyes started to drift closed and his body felt heavy against his bare mattress. But none of them made sense in the context of this game. It hurt him, that he couldn't find the answer himself. If he could do that much at least, then maybe he wouldn't feel so awful.
Darkness crowded in on him.
Swallowed up all of those beautiful flowers in his chest, bleaching them the color of bone.
The white table was empty, when Merlin looked up.
He stared, not understanding what he was seeing for a long time. Too long.
At the end of the table where Claire had been sitting, was a pool of blood, still red and wet, somehow. Fine impressions of her hair like brush strokes, fanned out along the edge of the table and disappeared over the side. The river of blood that reached for him had been drawn back to the crack in the table where her head had split the wood.
He could hear the blood dripping on the floor below.
Tap.
His hands were clenched around the edges of the seat he was in. But he couldn't move or turn his head. There was nothing. No chairs. No one at the table with him.
Tap.
A hand slid into his hair.
Tap.
Merlin would have screamed if he could. Claire's bloody, empty face stared down at him as she pulled back his head. The others were there also, standing behind her. Watching.
Tap.
He wanted to say something. But his mouth wouldn't move.
Tap.
He thought she would try and slam his head into the table so he braced himself for it, but she only turned his face back down, to look at the table in front of him. Merlin stared at the wood, felt his lips finally part, though he still couldn't make a sound.
Tap.
There were grooves in the wood, where he'd dug in his nails.
Tap.
Her hand tightened in his hair and he made a feeble noise in the back of his throat, barely managing to get it out before the silence rushed back into his mouth.
Tap.
Then he noticed the break in the white paint. The blood.
Tap.
There was a dent in the table, and circle of missing paint a little lower from that point. It was the shape you might get if you pressed your face against a glass window, leaving an impression where your forehead, your nose had been.
Tap.
Except these impressions were ruptured with blood.
Tap.
His blood.
Tap.
There was a tooth buried in the wood below all that white and red.
Tap.
Merlin tried again to scream. He tried so hard it hurt. He could feel Claire's nails digging into his scalp and finally he managed a heavy, high rasp from somewhere deep in his chest. It grew, gaining in volume, until she drew his head back again and he had to close his eyes because he was afraid, really, truly afraid -
She slammed his head into the table.
But he didn't hit the wood.
Tap.
He fell, face first onto a soft mattress, his body bouncing a little from the force of it, and lifted his head, gasping.
This room was red.
Tap.
Blood splashed his face where it fell into a puddle on the sheets. He looked up.
Tap.
Flinched when another drop fell, hitting him in the face.
There wasn't anything above him. Just black and red nothing.
Merlin recognized this room. So he scrambled to get up on his hands and knees, but his palm slipped in the blood soaked mattress, slowing him down, and he cried out when someone grabbed him by his legs and yanked him roughly down to the edge of the bed.
Tap.
His face came down in the blood and smeared a fat, red line down the length of the sheets as he was dragged over the edge of the mattress. Forced down to his knees.
Hands flat on the bed.
Tap.
His fingers ached but he couldn't lift them. Dominant influence weighed him down. He was being flattened by it; crushed into the floor.
Tap.
"Stop," Merlin whispered.
He wanted to be screaming but it was the only sound he could make.
He didn't know why he bothered.
Nothing he said ever worked in this room.
Tap.
There were hands pulling at the collar of his shirt.
"Don't," Merlin hissed, desperately.
The sound of metal sliding over metal filled his ears.
Tap.
The links of a choke collar.
He felt the cold weight of it settle around his neck.
"Please," Merlin whispered hysterically. "I said, no."
Tap.
The links chittered as they tightened, pinching the fine skin around his throat.
Merlin gasped, his head pulled back suddenly, and he could feel the edges of the collar starting to dig in. Starting to tear his skin.
He couldn't scream now if he wanted to, but his mouth was open and he couldn't close it either. The collar pulled tighter, and tighter, and -
Tap.
The blood was falling into his mouth. Every drop slapped against his tongue, his teeth, like coins filling a jar.
Merlin choked, his hands flat on the bed until his mouth was filled with Claire's blood, heavy and metallic, running out over the corners of his lips, frozen in a silent scream as the collar pulled tighter still, breaking everything beneath it until,
Tap.
Merlin lurched out of bed, catching his foot in the comforter and falling, struck his chin on the floor before he was able to scramble back to his hands and knees. Pull himself into the hall. Fall into his bathroom.
Merlin threw up on the tile, before he could make it to the toilet.
He was so violently ill that it felt like someone was kicking his stomach into the roof of his mouth. He could barely pull in a breath between his gagging. There were tears running down the sides of his nose.
Merlin coughed, sobbing now that it was over and he thought he could swallow without retching again.
He sat up and reached his shaking hands up to feel his throat. Pulled himself to his unsteady feet and stepped over his own sick to clutch at the mirror over the sink.
Stare at the pale skin of his own neck.
Nothing.
No bruises.
No marks.
No blood.
This time, Merlin cried in relief, sinking to the floor on his knees, gripping the basin of the sink for support.
"Fuck!" He shouted at the porcelain.
The sound of his own voice startled him. Made him cry harder for long, endless moments.
He'd been in both of those rooms before in his dreams. He feared them each in their own way, but while he could allow himself to think about the white room from time to time, his nightmare in the red room was a different story. And although Merlin had come to terms on some level with the reality that he was doomed to suffer the consequences of the events in those rooms while he slept; it always took him far longer to forget the feeling of that collar around his neck than it took for him to forget the sound of nails on a chalkboard, whenever a new chair was pulled up to the white table.
Not good enough to solve the cases that mattered; a great detective but a phony. Empty promises and empty results seated at the table with him.
Not good enough to accept the influence of a Dominant partner in his life. So stubborn, so weak and unwilling to obey that he'd let that collar break his neck before he would ever allow himself to submit.
He hated them both. But if he had to choose, he would face the dead a thousand times before he would willingly submit to the faceless Dom who stood behind him in the red room. Even if it was just a dream.
Merlin turned on the taps, pulled himself up and rinsed out his mouth. Spat into the sink. Stared in shock at the blood he saw there.
His phone was ringing.
Merlin looked up, still catching his breath, derailed by the sound. Carefully made his way out of the bathroom, stepping back over the mess, leaving the taps running behind him as he fumbled around his room to find his mobile.
His hands were still shaking when he swiped the receive-call button. He didn't even look to see who it was.
"This is Merlin," he said, his voice torn and whisper soft.
"Detective Balinor?" Geraint said.
Merlin cleared his throat, the shock of hearing his D.I.'s voice startling him back into complete awareness.
"Yes sir," he said with a little more color to his tone, but it still sounded rough even to his own ears. His throat was burning.
Had he been screaming in his sleep?
"Sorry, I was sleeping," he added when Geraint said nothing. Hoped it would be a good enough explanation.
It wasn't.
"Sleeping?" Geraint said incredulously. "It's half three in the afternoon."
Merlin jerked around to look at the clock on his bedside table.
15:36
Merlin swallowed hard. Tried to shake off the dread of seeing those numbers. When had he gone to bed? Midnight?
He couldn't have slept for nearly sixteen hours.
He couldn't have.
"What's this about, sir?" He asked instead of addressing Geraint's comment. The concern in his voice.
"There's been a break in your case. New evidence - DNA that gave us a confession. You're cleared to return to work tomorrow. You'll need your security badge reinstated. I'll leave it for you at the front desk. If you'd prefer to come to my office now, you can have your ID and your service weapon back. And I'd like to see you, so we can talk. Or we can do that in the morning. Whatever works best for you."
Merlin was still catching up to moment. Felt himself gripping his phone too tightly. He didn't respond at first.
"Merlin?" Geraint prompted.
"I'll come in now," he managed, barely, coming back to his senses.
"Right, see you then."
Geraint hung up.
For a long time Merlin stared at the wall with his phone still pressed against his ear. Listened to nothing before lowering his hand.
He was thinking about Arthur, about how he'd said he'd done something to protect him from being implicated in this case. Merlin thought about the DNA that Geraint said they had. Felt a searing, crawling ice climb up his back, clinging to each of the knobs of his spine.
Had he framed someone else for this crime?
Someone innocent?
But Geraint said they had a confession. No, that wasn't exactly correct. What had he said? DNA that gave us a confession.
Merlin swallowed hard again and winced.
Then he made his way back to the bathroom to clean up. He was nearly sick two more times just cleaning the floor. The only reason it amounted to nothing was because he'd already expelled everything in his body and there was nothing left for him to throw up.
It took him an hour to even get into his suit and out the door. He didn't bother with a tie. The suit was basically just for show. By the time he made it to the Yard, it would be the end of the day for the majority of the people there.
He walked in the rain without his coat.
Felt the jerking, painful suddenness of a gag in his stomach, whenever he saw something red against the grey city. A scarf. A jumper. A child's toy.
The rain was starting to sound like the links of that choke collar; a metallic whisper in his ears. Cold against his skin.
Merlin recognized, at least in part, that he'd dropped hard before he'd fallen asleep. It was even more apparent to him in the absolute absence of emotion he was feeling in the wake of both his nightmares colliding in his head. His mind couldn't get through to him, so his body did it's best with every sharp compression of his stomach, threatening to make him sick again.
He knew he shouldn't speak to Geraint like this. He shouldn't be out and alone, on his way to a meeting at The Metropolitan fucking Police Station. He should be resting.
He should be calling Arthur.
But even if their shared mobile still worked, Merlin wouldn't have called him. He was furious with Arthur. It may have been the only real emotion he could reach at the moment.
Another good reason to turn around and tell Geraint he'd just come in tomorrow.
But he kept walking, all the same.
Merlin slept for the entire day because Arthur had pulled his punishment game out from under him without any warning, and he hadn't been there to clarify what the point was. He'd left Merlin in limbo to fend for himself and he hadn't even bothered to at least leave him some kind of message.
Lord knew the man had no god damn problem showing up unannounced like Merlin's flat belonged to him. If he couldn't show his face to explain what had happened, the very fucking least he could have done was left a message on the pager.
Something.
Because Merlin felt now like he had when he'd fallen off the stool in the warehouse; trying his best like a fucking idiot only to allow himself to be let down. Feeling foolish and small because of a Dom.
It enraged him.
Not because he believed he'd been lulled into a false sense of security, as he'd thought was the case that night. This rage came from a place of profound disappointment, in both himself and in Arthur. Because Arthur knew, of course he fucking knew, that Merlin dropped into a crater of self-loathing when he couldn't finish a task, or at least have the opportunity to make up for his shortcomings when attempting to.
And Merlin knew that he should have considered the consequences of agreeing to any kind of long distance command like this, but honestly he really hadn't believed Arthur when he'd said he could do it.
That would have put Arthur in a category of Dominants so small the community at large generally believed them to be a myth.
Merlin had toyed with the idea that Arthur might fall into this category when they'd first started this insanity, based on the sheer weight of his aura. But now Merlin was sure it was true. Arthur was a Master.
It scared him, underneath all of his anger.
Before he'd dropped, Merlin had been so comfortable with Arthur's influence that he hadn't stopped to really consider the implications of what was happening when he'd felt Arthur expressing his commands on him from wherever-the-fuck in the city he was. This was a man with an influence so profound, he could stretch it in any direction he desired, over a fairly significant distance.
What the actual fuck had he been thinking, agreeing to let Arthur influence him from across the fucking city?
And now that he had, he was going to have to fix this drop himself. It wasn't exactly new to him. It had happened plenty of times before this. Before Arthur, Merlin never had a Dominant partner that was interested in aftercare without being asked.
So he could take care of a bad drop himself, sure.
But it was weighing on him ten times worse now that he'd experienced what it felt like to have it done the proper way.
This was the exact fucking reason he'd told Arthur that he didn't need a Dominant partner in his life.
Because when Arthur decided to leave him, he was going to be completed destroyed by it. This was why Merlin couldn't allow himself to completely submit to anyone, not even Arthur. He knew that if he did, it would change something inside of himself forever. He would be a different Merlin in the wake of it. One who might not be able to function without a Dom.
One who was opening the doors to the Yard, feeling like he was walking through an empty forest covered in a dense blue fog, secretly, desperately, hoping that Arthur would be waiting for him when he got home.
It was making him angrier, just thinking about it.
So when he walked up to the security desk to retrieve his badge it took him a minute to understand why the woman behind the counter hesitated to give it to him. And then he remembered to smooth out his expression. He must have looked like he was planning to actually commit a murder this time.
Luckily, Geraint was at the door.
"Balinor, you're with me," he said, nodding to the woman who finally slid the badge across the desk. Merlin took it as gently as he could manage, doing his best not to let his expression sink back into a deep frown.
He followed Geraint in silence to his office, relieved when they made it there without being stopped. He didn't want to speak to anyone else if he could help it.
"Have a seat," Geraint said as he closed the door behind them.
Merlin did, catching a glimpse of Gwen down the hall. She didn't notice him, but the young man beside her did. They stared at one another until the door was completely shut and Geraint had his eyebrow raised in a question when he noticed.
"Who's with Gwen?" Merlin said without ceremony.
Geraint's expression cleared as he sat down at his desk.
"New recruit, Mordred. You'll have a chance to meet him tomorrow."
"Planning to replace me that quick, were you?"
There was an awful silence that followed. Merlin hadn't meant to actually say it out loud but he didn't regret it either which, if he hadn't been sure he stuck in a bad drop, would have been all the proof that he needed.
To his credit, Geraint didn't ignore the comment. He said, very evenly, all things considered,
"There wasn't, and never has been any discussion to replace you, Balinor. What happened with Gerason wasn't personal. It would have been the same if it were any of my Detectives."
Merlin looked away.
"Isn't personal? You're one of their own and they couldn't give you any grace, could they? If there was a miscalculation in any of this Merlin, it was that I assumed you'd have at least been able to make it into the office unmolested before they shoved a fist down your throat."
Under the desk, Merlin clenched his hands in the fabric of his trousers, pulling it taut against the tops of his thighs. Geraint blew out a breath and opened a drawer, lifted out Merlin's ID and his service weapon. It made a heavy sound as Geraint set it down in front of him.
He glanced at them, but said nothing. Merlin wasn't sure he could reach for them yet without his hands shaking so he didn't. He knew he should be relieved, happy even, maybe grateful to have them back, but he was none of those things.
He wasn't sure what he was anymore, other than angry.
"I'm sorry," Geraint said softly. "For being so hard on you. I was angry too that day and I should have schooled myself better. I shouldn't have taken it out on you."
Merlin frowned at that, lifting his gaze to meet Geraint's fully before he answered him.
"Angry?"
"Of course I was angry, Merlin," Geraint said, running a hand through his hair, frustrated. "No one wants to investigate their own for the crimes we're meant to protect the people from. Let alone their best people."
Merlin looked at his hands. Allowed himself to relax his grip on his trousers. It wasn't really news to him that Geraint considered him one of his 'best people'. But it warmed his skin unexpectedly to hear it. Released some of the tension in his shoulders, just a little.
They didn't say anymore about it. Merlin wanted to ask what the evidence was that had cleared him, but he wasn't allowed anywhere near the Gerason homicide, with good reason. It would be pointless to bring it up. He would have to find out on his own.
Merlin still hadn't taken back his ID and his gun. Geraint looked pointedly at them before pulling a file off the edge of his desk. He flipped it open and then laid it out in front of Merlin to read.
"We had a fatal traffic accident yesterday, I want you to look into it while Gwen gets Mordred up to speed. There will be things we need to discuss with legal on the Gerason case when you come back in the morning. Take this home in the meantime and tell me what you think when you've had time to look it over."
Merlin was obliquely aware that he hadn't blinked in what seemed like a very long time. He needed to settle himself before he got to work tomorrow, or people would start asking questions. Mentally, he was only half-paying attention to Geraint, half-determining what would be the best measures to take in order to accomplish this on his own, so he didn't put any real effort into looking at the file. It made no sense to him anyway.
Instead he asked the obvious question. Reminded himself to blink.
"Why would you need anyone of us to look into a traffic accident?" It seemed like busy work and that aggravated him, but he thought he did a decent job at keeping his face neutral.
Geraint tapped the file with his finger, drawing Merlin's gaze down to the contents.
"Because I want you to rule out CDK on this one."
Merlin did frown at that, finally leaning over the file to look closer. Started to read the report.
"Why would you think CDK had anything to do with this?" He asked, glancing up briefly to look into Geraint's eyes.
"Because," Geraint said. "One of the three victims is still alive, recovering at hospital. We haven't had a chance to speak to him personally yet since he's been in surgery, but the first responders did. They told us he said the passenger grabbed the wheel for no apparent reason and swerved into oncoming traffic on purpose. The preliminary forensics agree with that scenario."
Merlin focused on the words in the report more closely now. Two vehicles, three total people involved, two drivers and one passenger. The car that allegedly swerved into oncoming traffic was a ride-share, so the passenger was in the backseat initially. According to the statement given by the first responders, the driver of the ride-share alleged that his passenger suddenly climbed into the front seat and grabbed the wheel, causing the accident. The passenger had died instantly, going through the windshield when the two cars collided, and the driver of the car that was struck also died at the scene.
If this was CDK it was a dramatic escalation. And Merlin had barely wrapped his head around the idea that whoever CDK was, they were capable of manipulating Submissives to act against themselves with violence, but he'd never given a thought to the idea that CDK could be doing so with a moving target. Although Merlin had always been certain that CDK didn't have to be making eye contact to influence anyone, that was clear with the first murder they had identified as CDK, Merlin hadn't ever considered that CDK didn't need to be moving at the same speed as his victims to accomplish the level of influence he was managing on them.
"The passenger?" Merlin asked, flipping the page to read the information collected from the victims.
"Designated Submissive," Geraint confirmed.
Merlin barely heard him.
He was staring at the accident photos of the driver from the second car. The man had features barely recognizable as human, due to the accident, but there was a clear picture of him on the photocopy taken of his drivers license. Merlin's entire body went numb before in a rush, suddenly he could think clearly again; fear and concern and dread rushing in to fill the spaces where all of his emptiness, all of his anger had just been.
"You confirmed the identities of these victims?" He said very quietly.
His skin was so cold.
Geraint frowned deeply, noting his body language, and leaned over the desk when he answered.
"We did, yes. What's wrong?"
Merlin swallowed hard.
"If this is CDK," Merlin said, still unable to raise his voice. "We're about to have a war on our hands."
Geraint leaned back, startled. Merlin turned the file around slowly, put his finger on the photo of the driver who had been killed. He was a sturdy, dark skinned man with liquid brown eyes and a carefully calm expression in every photo Merlin had ever seen of him. And he'd seen many of them.
"This man's real name is Elyias Ogyruan - the name here on his license is an alias. He's one of Arthur Pendragon's inner circle," Merlin said.
Geraint's eyes widened.
Merlin hoped he looked solemn or at least somewhat calm, because inside his body was vibrating with tension. He was surprised to find that he didn't care about the case, about CDK, about Geraint or the can of worms this was going to open up when it came out. He was thinking about Arthur, sitting alone at his desk. A knock at his door. Someone telling him that Elyan was dead.
He was thinking about how Arthur's influence had gone out so suddenly against his skin, how cold his tattoo was. How to Arthur this probably didn't look like anything other than a tragic accident.
How Elyan's body was in their morgue.
Before Geraint said anything, Merlin stood, taking the file with him.
"I won't be in the office tomorrow," he said. "I need to reach out to my informant before this hits the press."
Geraint stood with him.
"What are you talking about?"
Merlin looked at Geraint seriously, picking up his service weapon, his ID.
"We need to know what Arthur is planning to do, if anything. I don't know about you sir," Merlin said, fastening his side arm to his belt once more. "But I don't want him showing up here, looking for that body, do you?"
Geraint pressed his lips together, frustrated. But after a pause he nodded.
Merlin nodded back and turned to go. Geraint said,
"Be careful, Balinor."
"I will," Merlin told him, opening the door and stepping out into the hall. He paused there, tossing his phone to Geraint as he did. The big man caught it, his eyes solemn.
"Hold that for me. And try not to accuse me of murder while I'm gone."
He smiled a little as he said it and was relieved to see Geraint's shoulders come down a fraction, his eyes growing a little softer than they had been a moment ago. He set the phone down on the desk. Said,
"I'll expect you back to pick it up in twenty-four hours, Balinor. Or we're coming to get you, wherever you are."
As he left the office, Merlin only had eyes for the exit. He needed to get to Arthur, but that was easier said than done. If he'd ever been able to find Arthur Pendragon in London on his own, they wouldn't be in this situation to begin with. But he had to now, and fast.
Not because he was afraid that Arthur would come to The Met for Elyan's body, although that was a distinct possibility.
Because Arthur was alone, and grieving.
Every inch of him needed to find Arthur. To be close to him.
As he stepped onto the sidewalk, the thought made him pause.
"I'll take a piece of yours to replace it. Don't worry, you'll only notice it's gone when you need me."
It was probably a long shot. Technically they had accomplished it even before they had bonded, although Merlin hadn't done it on purpose. But it was possible.
He knew it was because Arthur had done it on purpose.
He was out of his fucking mind.
There was a greater than average possibility that this would end up getting him killed.
All the same, Merlin continued home to get ready.
There were only a few hours left until nightfall.
It was pitch dark by the time Merlin made it to Primrose, climbing his way up to the top of the hill where the skyline of London could be seen over the trees, black on black against the sky. There were lights along the paths that wound through the park, but Merlin was looking for the highest point. The blackest one.
It was a nice evening although it was still cold, so there were a few people still sitting on blankets across the grounds. He took his time as he crested the hill, his chin buried in the heavy oversized jacket he'd purchased in Battersea. He thought that Geraint really did believe him, that he didn't have anything to do with the Gerason murder, but he was still a cop, and although Merlin didn't think he would be looking for him on CCTV tonight, he would be later. He would have been more surprised if Geraint never did. So if he was going to do this, he needed to make sure in every way possible, it wasn't going to be easy to track him through the city.
Merlin was surprised by how comfortable he was with the whole thing as he sat down on the cool grass facing the city lights. In a pair of tight jeans that were torn at the knees and an oversized track jacket with the hood pulled up over the baseball cap he'd also purchased that day, he expected to be anxious and hyper aware of everything going on around him. He was aware of the space he occupied, but not because he was paranoid. He was confident that no one who had looked at him recognized him - he'd walked through the city deliberately to see if anyone turned their heads as he passed by. No one did. The calm that washed over him when he was sure of this, gave him chills.
Was this how Arthur felt, when he walked through the city?
Merlin had, through the course of his investigation, always assumed that Arthur moved through the city with an entourage of body guards and trusted companions. Now that he knew the man better, Merlin knew better that Arthur spent the majority of his time outside in London alone, preferring to meet people at predetermined destinations rather than to travel with them.
But there had to be a place he came back to. Somewhere other than the Southend cottage on the sea.
Merlin wasn't really looking for that place, exactly. He was looking for Arthur. But he had a feeling that Arthur wasn't out roaming the city conducting business, tonight. As far as Arthur knew, what happened to Elyan was a horrible accident. There would be no rage, no declarations of war, no volume he could raise to vent his emotions. Arthur would be in seclusion. The only logical inference to make then, was that he was removed to the place that Merlin had never been able to find through the long five years of his investigation into Arthur's extensive criminal empire.
The Pendragon Underground.
And here he was, sitting alone, high on one of the many slopes of Primrose Hill, hoping he could find it this time in a matter of hours.
It was ludicrous, the whole thing.
Except.
"I'm here because you called me."
"No I didn't. I've been here since I got in from work...I don't even know where your pager is right now."
"I'm not talking about a phone call."
Merlin was a terrible Sub. He knew what his instincts wanted when he was in the presence of a Dominant. He couldn't not know these things. But he'd never belonged to someone like he did when Arthur gave him his bond. He'd never exercised any of the small things that Subs and Doms were capable of outside of their physical interactions. Not knowingly, in any case. There had never been any reason to. If he were being honest he wasn't even entirely sure how. He understood the concept of reaching out with his presence, in theory, and he'd felt it very dramatically the night that Mac had interrupted them at his apartment, when Arthur actively stretched his influence across the apartment. Had felt it again at a distance when Arthur had done it to him with his latest punishment game.
But, although he was a unique Sub, Merlin had never learned how to do those things himself. Why learn? He'd never had a Dom he'd intentionally reached for in his entire life.
Until Arthur, anyway.
He'd done it unconsciously when he was sick. So it couldn't be that complicated.
Right?
Merlin glanced at the darkened park around him, relieved to note that the remaining people had mostly gotten up and wandered off since his arrival. Then he slid his hand out of his pocket and into the collar of his shirt. Pulled the patch he was wearing off of his tattoo. He crushed it in his palm, momentarily overcome with a surge of fear that rose up in his throat. This was the first time that he had ever been outside of his flat, his home as a child, without some kind of suppressant. He was frozen like that for long moments, until he felt the soft undercurrent of Arthur's influence resting, dormant, under the ink of his tattoo. He could practically hear Arthur chuckling at him, at his anxiety, his smile catching in his eyes.
Come now, Detective, afraid of your own existence? What have I told you?
Merlin blew out a breath, annoyed.
"But you aren't here, asshole," he muttered to himself. "That's why."
Merlin closed his eyes. Stuffed his clenched fist back in his pocket and did his best to relax. He focused on that warm feeling running under his skin, tried to imagine putting his hands on it. He had no idea what he was doing. It felt crazy. It probably was crazy. But he thought if he could just reach out and touch it, he could -
Merlin opened his eyes.
The pressure of the air around him felt differently then it had a moment ago, like a storm coming on. He felt something brush by him, but he wasn't afraid. He reached out his hand.
Merlin felt the rumble in the lion's chest under his palm as it passed, it's fur coarse but glittering like gold. He swore for a moment he could see embers in the air, falling like snow in the space between him and the golden hunting cat. Felt a heavy weight in the air, like enormous wings beating against the sky.
The lion stalked confidently into the dark, chuffing deeply as it went. It turned only once to look at Merlin over its shoulder. Then it shook out its mane and continued on, disappearing down the hill.
Slowly, Merlin got to his feet.
And followed the beast into the dark.
Notes:
One small Arthurian Easter Egg here! In Don't Let Me Down, I gave Gwen the surname, DeGrance, which was an Anglicized version of Leondegrance or Leodegrance, who is named in some variations of the Arthurian legends as Guinevere's father. He is, most notably, the man who gifts Arthur The Round Table when he becomes King of Camelot after Uther's death.
Since I already included this in one of my other stories, here I gave Elyan the surname Ogyruan (uh-GER-oo-ahn or OG-roo-an, depending on who you ask). This is actually a proper name from the Old Welsh version of the Arthurian Legend, which interestingly, names an entirely different father for Guinevere: Ogyruan. Even more interesting than that, he was a giant. There is also some indication that he may be a Post-Roman, Celtic God of Bards, however it is also very possible that he was just given the same name as one and over time the two have become conflated with one another. Either way, it's intriguing to note that in at least one version of the Arthurian legends, Guinevere was at least half-giant. In Old Welsh, Guinevere's name, Gwenhwyfar, means "white fairy". All of which indicates that at one point in time, Guinevere may have been a much more powerful character in the Arthurian legends, giving her magical and potentially divine lineage and deep roots in Old Welsh folklore.
If anyone has ever wondered why, regardless of the story, I tend to bounce these characters between England, Ireland, and Wales, this is the reason. It is also the reason why in Don't Let Me Down, Merlin speaks French. Because in the 12th century, the French adopted a form of lyrical poetry and chivalric romance storytelling which became incredibly prolific in their culture. I'm sure you will be shocked to learn that one of the most popular stories developed by multiple writers and lyricists during this time and well into the next century, was the Legend of King Arthur. It is these versions of the legend that we know best, today.
ヾ( ˃ᴗ˂ )◞ • *✰
Chapter 12: Red
Summary:
Merlin sees The Underground for the first time.
Notes:
Hey guys! I'm sorry for the long wait for all of my stories, not just this one - we will be back to our regularly scheduled, once a week posts starting next week!
Keep an eye out for updates to Don't Let Me Down and Christmas at Poundgate! Those will be updated in the next day or so.
Now, Don't Let Me Down will be winding down soon, so I have a question for you all. Would you be interested in another contemporary story? Or would you like to see something from a more traditional fantasy setting? I have ideas for both!
Also, are you interested in another Reader Request Month for September?
Please let me know your thoughts in the comments and as always stay safe and be kind, and I'll be back soon ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡
Chapter Text
There weren't many things that surprised Arthur Pendragon.
Before his face was public knowledge, he'd been ambushed by a rival family in the middle of a very expensive restaurant and literally stabbed in the back.
He'd been stuck on a commercial flight for hours because, as the pilot informed them mid-air, the breaks had failed sometime between their departure and their destination and they needed to clear the airport.
Just in case the landing caused a crash.
In Spain, he'd run into a old elementary school friend whom he'd forgotten even existed after he'd been removed from the public school system. After eating dinner with the man and his wife, he was forced to monitor them for weeks to ensure that they had no idea he was actually a wanted criminal. They didn't.
In China, a guide, who did recognize him, abandoned him and his men in the forests of Zhangjiajie - which was particularly annoying because he was actually on vacation.
There had been a hundred assassination attempts. Two that had nearly managed it.
A coup that destroyed his sister's family overnight. One he was forced to deal with swiftly and without remorse.
It cost Morganna her sister.
She doesn't speak to him, anymore.
There was also the matter of murdering his father with his bare hands. But he prefers not to dwell on that affair.
It wasn't personal.
It was a necessity.
So at this point in his life, Arthur wasn't easily moved by emotion. As long as he was still breathing, there would always be someone hunting him; to kill him or put him in a cage. It was just the nature of the life he lead. The enemies he'd made.
He expected nothing, and anticipated everything.
Even a tragic accident that had stolen from him one of his most trusted men-at-arms.
But there was no preparing him for the moment he felt Merlin in his home for the first time.
He broke the glass he was holding in his fist as a heat washed over his skin he could never mistake. The ignition of a thousand sparkling embers that burst into flames when they met the soft touch of his influence.
Embers falling from the wings of a dragon.
A gunshot, sharp and sudden, somewhere in the distance.
For a moment Arthur could do nothing but let the broken shards of glass fall from his hand. And then, letting out a long, slow breath, he put on his suit coat, put his mobile to his ear and threw open the door.
Merlin was thinking that when he entered the abandoned tube line, he probably should have considered a better plan.
There wasn't one, really.
But it occurred to him, belatedly, that there was an exceptionally high probability that he would get killed before he ever got to Arthur's actual door. He was banking all of his luck on Arthur's comment that he'd told his driver Merlin was a dirty cop. That the driver, whoever he was, had spread that rumor to the rest of the organization, even if Arthur himself had not. Of course, there was the outside chance that word hadn't gotten around - and if that was the case then to the entire organization he was walking up on, he was the most famous Detective to ever hunt Arthur down and he was coming to knock on the front door.
So once he crossed the barricade into the London Underground, taking the old train tunnels into the lost parts of the city, there was nothing he could do but hope he was right.
There was never a thought to turning around, or finding a different way. Merlin walked deliberately, silently, following in the steady footsteps of a lion into the dark.
It seemed like he would be walking forever. He had to press his body against the walls in some places to skirt the debris; rubble and mangled train lines. A football, somehow, abandoned in the dust. When the lion disappeared over a high, half-crumbled wall, Merlin blew out a breath in exasperation before finding a strong foothold and began to climb.
He was going to be so pissed off if he found Arthur after literally rock climbing and ended up getting killed by some goon on patrol.
So he was careful when he came over the top of the wall. He pulled himself up slowly, looking around him. Crouched on the broken stone for a moment just to observe. It was still very dark. But this area was filling with some sort of natural ambient light. It wasn't clear to him what, if anything was down there. But he could feel the difference in the air. There was space here. It was wide open.
Below him the lion was waiting.
Merlin picked up a loose stone from the wall and tossed it over the edge.
It didn't take as long to hit the ground as he expected it to. But when it did it echoed dramatically.
Not just space then. This was an atrium of some kind. Or a tunnel.
Slowly Merlin eased himself over the top of the wall and made his careful way down. Somewhere along the way his fingers slipped and he fell, but he was more surprised by the fact that the ground was right below him than the falling. He stumbled but kept his feet when he hit the ground.
The lion was walking away now. Merlin didn't want to chase it, he had no way of knowing what he might be running into - broken glass, sharp rocks, a metal beam? But he was starting to lose sight of it the longer he walked. Was he slowing down?
Or was he losing his hold on Arthur's influence?
He blinked at the thought and the lion was gone.
His heart leapt into his throat. For a second Merlin wasn't sure what to do. He'd had a decent enough plan to find Arthur but he never gave any thought to what might happen if he needed to get back out of the situation on his own. For years he'd listened to the criminal elite discuss the London Underground on recorded phone lines and he'd assumed it was just an accurate phrase to describe the world they inhabited. An enterprise that operated below the polite levels of society.
The Underground.
He would never have guessed in a million goddamn years that the London Underground was an actual place. A place he knew nothing about. One that could easily be rigged with traps to keep intruders out.
One he was walking blindly into.
And now, he'd had a lapse of confidence and lost his only lifeline in this insane - but somehow less insane than all the rest of his actions in the last six months - quest he was on. Merlin closed his eyes. Tried not to imagine figures lurking in the shadows, waiting to ambush him. Reached instead for that fragile thread that connected him to Arthur, praying somehow he would collar a lion with it.
He felt the bullet before he heard it.
The force of it pulled his arm back away from his body, but he didn't feel any pain. It caught the sleeve of his oversized coat and tore a hole in the elbow. He let out a breath. Thought for some reason he could see the lion again, teeth bared, before he opened his eyes.
Did his best to stay still, praying it was a warning shot and not a miss. He didn't hear the action of a rifle. So it must be a smaller gun. Something much closer.
Or it was a sniper and too far away to predict.
For a long time nothing happened. So long that Merlin got the feeling like whoever was out there was waiting for him to move just to have an excuse to fire on him again. He was feeling a little off balance, remaining so still, unable to see anything ahead of him. Based on where the bullet passed through his coat, and the direction it pulled his arm when it did, he could make a reasonable assumption that whoever it was, likely taken up a position ahead of him, not behind him. That was marginally better than being caught with his back turned to an armed assailant. But only marginally.
For all he knew there were more of them.
He took a breath, about to speak just to break the silence, break the eternity of standing in the same spot, afraid to die if he moved a step in any direction.
And then,
"Good evening, Detective."
Merlin forced himself to remain rigid where he stood, even though his whole body wanted to relax, hearing Arthur's voice in the dark. He could feel it now, under the several patches he was wearing over his tattoo. The warmth of Arthur's influence filling the gaps in his chest. He hardened his stance, did his best to look annoyed for appearance sake.
"You missed our last meeting," Merlin said.
"I'm a busy man," Arthur answered, and Merlin didn't have to fake the irritation he felt at hearing the smile in Arthur's tone.
Irritated with himself because he couldn't tell if Arthur was putting on a show like he was, or if he truly didn't care that Merlin had come to find him.
"So am I," Merlin countered.
"And yet here you are," Arthur said. Merlin could hear his footsteps now as he approached, flanked by others. The sound ricocheted off the high empty walls around them.
"I recall making prior arrangements," Arthur continued. Merlin could see the outline of him now, walking casually with his hands in the pockets of his trousers, two others just behind either shoulder, following him close behind. Both of them had guns. One of them was pointed at Merlin's chest. One of them was pointed at his head.
"What I don't recall, was ever giving you permission to call on me at home."
Merlin didn't flinch at the comment, but the word permission rippled under his skin. Gave him the sudden urge to kneel. Instead he met Arthur's gaze when he came to a stop near enough now for Merlin to make out his expression.
"It's urgent," Merlin told him, softening his tone a fraction.
That made Arthur pause. Look him over a little more closely.
"In regards to?" He asked.
"A case," Merlin said carefully. He didn't recognize either of the men with Arthur, which was a little surprising given his familiarity with Arthur's organization as a whole; but even if he had, he didn't plan on having this conversation with an audience. "It just hit my desk this afternoon."
"Please, Detective," Arthur said, already half-turning away. "I'm not at your beck-and-call everytime you need information you can't acquire on your own. Reach me in the usual way, or not at all."
Merlin was surprised, somehow, by how much the words hurt him. How hard they hammered him in the chest. He couldn't speak right away. But he managed it, when Arthur turned back to look at him, when he didn't immediately respond.
"I don't need your information," Merlin said, working to steady his voice. "You need mine."
At that, Arthur did turn back to face him, his storm cloud eyes searching his face. Merlin let him.
"This had better be good, Detective," Arthur whispered.
Merlin said nothing. Partially because he had nothing else to say. Obviously it was important, he wouldn't be here if it wasn't. But part of him couldn't answer. He was trying to disentangle his personal feelings from the situation, because it couldn't be personal, not if the two of them planned to keep up their charade for much longer.
But how could it not be?
And why was it so easy for Arthur to look at him like he amounted to nothing but an insignificant, ordinary irritation; bothered by Merlin's emotions and his needs?
It was easier in that moment, Merlin realized with a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, to believe that this glimpse of Arthur was the reality of it, while the one who came to him late at night because he was ill at home without anyone to care for him, was just a dream.
He followed Arthur silently, careful not to let his eyes wander as they walked. Let his arms hang loose at his sides, kept his posture as unthreatening as possible without supplicating. Because the two men who had been walking behind Arthur had separated now, one behind him, and one directly in front of him, blocking Arthur entirely from his view. And he had no doubt in his mind that if one of them thought he was a threat at all, they would put him down and never think twice about it. And Arthur would let them.
He felt the ache in his chest that proceeded the yawning jaws of emptiness closing on his throat, and did his best to shake it off. He could drop like the pathetic Sub he was when he got back to his flat. He couldn't drop any more than he already had not here, not now.
Not just because Arthur called him Detective; or practically dismissed his arrival outright as a nuisance.
He wasn't ordinary.
He wasn't weak.
He wasn't a bother.
They entered Arthur's home through an enormous iron gate. And although he had been careful not to let himself look around too closely in case one of the men escorting them got the wrong idea, Merlin could only stare as they continued on.
To say Arthur's estate was part of The Underground wasn't accurate at all. It was The Underground. It was built directly into the stone foundation of London herself. This wasn't a home.
It was a castle.
Merlin had to resist the urge to reach out and run his hand along the atrium wall as they walked further into what could only be described as a courtyard. Somehow, impossibly, dotted with night blooming flowers and sturdy climbing vines. He wanted to examine them, to put his hands on them, his mind momentarily derailed from anything other than this impossible structure in the dark. It was so quiet. It felt like it did when Arthur brought him to his knees.
Merlin swallowed hard at the thought to dislodge the tightness he felt there unexpectedly. Turned his attention back to following Arthur and his men deeper into this place he might never come out of. He couldn't fall apart yet. He could do that on his own, once this was over.
But not yet.
The two men left them, when they reached a door at the end of a long hall. Arthur held it open for him. He stepped inside.
When the door closed behind them Merlin thought something would happen. What, he wasn't sure. Other than the first time Arthur had realized he was designated Submissive, he'd never felt Arthur's influence weighed against him by force. But he half expected it now. It might have been a relief even, to feel Arthur under his skin again, whether it was in anger or not. But Arthur didn't even turn to look at him before he started speaking.
Just casually made his way to his desk. Stood in front of it, his hands still in the pockets of his trousers.
"What are you doing here?" He said, very quietly.
"I told you why," Merlin said, nearly losing his resolve to speak at all.
"I won't ask again," Arthur said.
Merlin had thought of a hundred different ways to start this conversation on his way to find Arthur. But now he couldn't manage to remember a single one of them. He was feeling unsteady and off balance, and he should have waited until he was past his drop before trying to confidently stand in Arthur's presence.
All he wanted to do was kneel.
"I need to tell you something," Merlin said, because he'd been silent for too long and he could see Arthur's posture beginning to harden in frustration. Possibly outright anger. "Because you deserve to know. And I want you to hear it from me. I didn't want you to see it in the press."
Arthur turned at that, and Merlin could see that he was furious. But now he was also concerned.
"What didn't you want me to see?" He asked, and it was clear to Merlin that he was holding himself back from reacting on that fury.
"I've been working a high priority investigation for the last year," Merlin said. "Other than yours."
Arthur's stormy gaze wasn't giving him any confidence. It was cold.
"There's a serial killer here in London," he forced himself to say. "The Met hasn't confirmed that to the public."
"What does any of this have to do with me?" Arthur interjected.
"This serial killer has been impossible to pin down," Merlin told him, speaking now only because if he stopped he wasn't sure he could start again.
Arthur was looking at him like he was a lovesick teenager who just couldn't accept rejection.
"He makes his kills look like suicides. We suspect he's a Dominant preying on Submissive victims."
Arthur's eyes flashed at that, but Merlin knew he would have to spell it out in more detail. Because Elyan was designated Dominant, Arthur wouldn't be quick to connect the dots. So he took in a breath and said,
"The driver of the car that killed Elyan reported to the first responders that his passenger climbed over the seat and fought him for the wheel with no apparent provocation. I've been asked to rule out our serial killer in this case."
Arthur was very still for a moment, staring into Merlin's eyes. And then, like a hammer meeting an anvil, his influence roared down into the room, rushing in on Merlin and detonating against his shoulders, sending him crashing to the ground on his knees.
Merlin was too stunned to react at first.
Arthur was crossing the room to him slowly, his influence crawling up Merlin's arms and legs, keeping him still. Merlin could only look up at him, his eyes wide, the insides of his thighs shaking.
"You're going to tell me -"
"Stop," Merlin whispered.
The red room closed in around him.
"...everything you've learned so far about this killer," Arthur continued like he hadn't even heard him.
"Arthur," Merlin said, barely managing to get the words out. "Don't -"
"Don't speak unless I ask you a question," Arthur said, unkindly. He stopped walking to stand over Merlin, looking down his nose at him.
There was a collar tightening around Merlin’s throat.
He didn't know why he thought it would be different with Arthur. Why he thought somehow Arthur wouldn't turn on him. Wouldn't use his Dominance like all the others did before him.
Why he thought that Arthur cared.
Merlin lowered his head. His throat tight for a different reason.
Then he tossed his hair out of his eyes; felt the flooding warmth of release as they filled with gold.
And broke Arthur's influence like a dry twig in his hands.
Arthur flinched.
Merlin pulled himself up off his knees. Glared at Arthur, hurt and angry and above all else disappointed. Not in Arthur. You couldn't be disappointed in a lion using its claws against you.
He was disappointed in himself for believing the lion wouldn't use them in the first place.
"I said," Merlin hissed at him. "No."
Arthur stared at him, stunned.
Merlin's hands were balled into fists. He could feel his palms beginning to sweat.
There were tears in his eyes. But he was so angry he couldn't be bothered to care.
"I came here," Merlin told him quietly. "To make sure you heard this from me and no one else. I came here, to tell you how sorry I was, when I saw Elyan's photo in a file on my desk. I came here because I was worried about you, and I wanted to offer you my help, in whatever way, to make this right."
Arthur opened his mouth but Merlin was faster.
"I'm not finished!" He snapped, hysterical now.
Arthur's eyes widened, and perhaps for the first time, Merlin witnessed him completely caught off-guard, uncertain of what to do next.
"You disappeared on me! You were there one second and the next I couldn't feel you anymore and you didn't leave any kind of message, any word for me as to why! When I saw the case file, the accident photos, I came to help you! How fucking dare you," Merlin snarled. "Try to run me into the ground like you own me. I'm not here because I need to be, I'm here because I want to be. So thank you for curing me of any delusions I might have had that you were different from anyone else I've ever partnered with in my life."
Arthur reached out for him, but Merlin jerked his arm back.
"Don't fucking touch me!" Merlin shouted, aware he was being too loud. He turned and reached instead for the door. "If you want what I have on the Call Down Killer than you can come and fucking get it yourself. I'm going home. I'm done."
"Merlin!"
The way Arthur said his name instead of calling him Detective made the tears finally fall. It was the only reason he hesitated to throw open the door. He couldn't leave like this. Remerge to be escorted by Arthur's men, like this.
"I don't want to talk to you," Merlin said, throwing another glare over his shoulder. It was ruined by his wet cheeks.
Arthur was closer than he had been.
Merlin's glare sharpened at the look of concern he saw in Arthur's eyes as he looked him over.
"Take off your patches," Arthur said to him.
It wasn't a command, but it was certainly phrased like one.
"Fuck you," Merlin said through clenched teeth. "I'm not taking anything off in this place -"
But Arthur was closer now, so close Merlin had to lean his shoulder against the door to keep from touching him.
"Please," Arthur said, quietly, in his ear.
Merlin's eyes widened.
"Or," Arthur added. "If you'd rather, I can take them off for you."
"I told you not to touch me," Merlin hissed, coming back to himself. "I'm not playing anymore fucking games with you."
"I'm not playing any games, Merlin," he said gently. "Take them off."
Merlin glowered at him.
And then, despite all of his rage and all of his fear, Merlin slowly reached into the collar of his shirt and started pulling the patches off his shoulder; peeling them one by one off the ink of his tattoo. It was pointless to argue. And it was better than Arthur doing it himself.
Merlin wasn't sure how he would react if Arthur touched him now.
He wanted to remember the way he felt when Arthur touched him the first time. Not this empty, torn up flower garden in his chest.
When the last of them was free of his skin, he watched Arthur's gaze shift from his face to somewhere in the empty space between them. Merlin seethed.
But he let him look.
Finally, Arthur's eyes refocused on his. Something in them was clearing, but Merlin could see even now he was fighting to control himself. It made Merlin angry all over again.
"You're dropping," Arthur said quietly.
Merlin very nearly punched him.
"Really? Imagine that," Merlin spat back instead. "Seems like a normal reaction to being abandoned in the middle of a punishment game with no fucking explanation."
Arthur narrowed his eyes.
"I didn't mean to let go of you like that," he said finally. "As you are aware, something pressing came up."
"I know," Merlin snapped. "That's why I came. I don't care about the drop, Arthur -"
"I didn't ask you to come here," he said, low, in the back of his throat.
"And I didn't ask you to kill a man for me but here we are," Merlin shot back.
They stared at each other, fuming, for a long time. Until Merlin was sure his cheeks were dry and he could leave without being humiliated by the entire London Mafia. Then he turned back to the door. He forced his presence down violently, somewhere deep in his chest with all of those ruined flowers. Twisted the knob in his fist.
Arthur put his hand flat on the door, closing it with a snap.
Merlin glared over his shoulder when Arthur said, leaning down,
"Wait."
Merlin set his jaw, his grip white knuckle tight on the door knob.
"For what?" He said, quietly now. "You've done enough already."
Merlin could actually feel Arthur's body tense at the words.
"You can't leave like this," Arthur said, managing to keep his tone even. Merlin opened his mouth to explain to Arthur just how fucking wrong he was about that when Arthur cut him off. "You came here in the middle of a drop that's only going to get worse if we don't do something about it."
"You tried to control me," Merlin hissed at him. "You made it worse."
"And I make no excuses for that," Arthur murmured. "I won't touch you. But you need time to come back up from this. Once all that anger goes out inside you Merlin, you'll only be numb."
"I can handle it myself," Merlin told him with confidence. Because he could.
It was only that, he didn't really want to, if he didn't have to.
Merlin turned so that his back was to the door.
"How could you?" He whispered. Because he needed to know. "You told me this wasn't an act."
Arthur's expression became so suddenly vengeful that if Merlin hadn't been connected to him through their bond he would have been concerned that Arthur was planning to hit him. But he could feel how intensely this emotion was directed inwards. So he waited, calmly, for Arthur's answer.
It would never be a good enough answer.
Merlin could already feel himself picking at the threads of their bond.
Making it fray so that it would be easier to snap.
But he wanted to hear it, all the same.
"Before I answer your question," he said quietly. "May I ask one of you?"
Merlin pressed his lips together. Said,
"Fine."
Arthur looked him in the eye. Searched them for a moment before he continued.
"When I came to you, when you were ill, you asked me a question."
"I remember," Merlin said. Even now the hair on the back of his neck began to rise at the memory of Arthur's expression when he asked him if a Dominant could influence anyone, not just a Sub.
"Why would you want to know that, Detective?"
"Were you were asking in reference to a case you were working?" Arthur said.
"Yes," Merlin admitted quietly.
"This case?"
It was Merlin's turn to search Arthur's eyes.
"Yes."
Arthur looked at the floor. Nodded, as if to himself. Then he stood back and took his hand off the door.
"Will you sit?" He asked, putting his hands in the pockets of his trousers. He looked very tired all of a sudden. Merlin wasn't sure he'd ever seen Arthur look anything other than composed. Even when he was angry.
There was a small sofa and a coffee table in the space between the door to Arthur's office and his enormous oak desk. Merlin glanced at it.
"Yeah," he said finally. "I'll sit."
They did, and it felt awkward and too formal. Like it did the first time Merlin came to him as a Sub, after they were bonded. It made his skin itch.
Arthur crossed his leg at the knee and very pointedly kept his arms closer to himself than to Merlin. Merlin leaned back against the arm of the sofa, away from him even though it killed him to do it. And this was why he hated being what he was - still desperately wanting Arthur even after what he'd done. There were cracks opening up around the edges of that void in his chest; all the flowers gone now, it only grew wider, pieces of himself breaking and crumbling down into that dark empty space one by one.
He clenched his hands into fists. Pressed them hard against the tops of his thighs.
"Do you know the meaning behind the medallion I gave you?" Arthur asked without looking at him.
Merlin blinked.
"I..." it took him a moment to rearrange his thoughts. It was just unexpected enough to momentarily dislodge his anger in favor of a quick perusal of facts in his head; about Arthur, and his Family.
Finally, he said,
"No. I don't."
He knew they were given to Arthur's inner circle. But that wasn't the question he'd been asked.
"There was only one, in the beginning," Arthur continued. "The other's are molds of the original. It's my mothers family crest."
Merlin took that in, thinking of the small bird at the center of a bisected cross, encased in a circle. Then it came to him.
"It's a dove, then?" Merlin asked quietly.
Arthur glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.
"What makes you say that?"
His tone was faded to Merlin, when he asked the question. Like ink running out of a pen. There was none of Arthur's usual bravado or challenge in these words. None of the playfulness Merlin had come to crave from their conversations.
That whisper was starting, unbidden in Merlin's mind again. Arthur was tired and looking for something to hold on to. Merlin wanted to move closer, to press himself against Arthur's shoulder, his chest, because Arthur's influence was telling him what Arthur needed, and his own instincts needed the same things too.
But he tamped it down. Answered the question instead.
"The dove is well known for being a symbol of peace. But it has another name, also."
Arthur watched him expectantly.
"Trust," Merlin finished softly.
Arthur looked away.
"Yes," he said. "It's a dove."
For a long time neither of them said anything more. Merlin wasn't sure what to say.
Then,
"If you had to guess," Arthur asked him, again with that hollow version of his usual charm. "How many people do you think I've ever handed my trust to?"
Merlin had to think about that for much longer than he cared to admit. Finally he said,
"Five?"
He hated that it was a question. But he couldn't be sure. Arthur hadn't said, how many of my people, he'd said, how many people.
Arthur glanced at him again. Gave him a shadow of a smile.
"You're more cynical than I am, it would seem."
Merlin said nothing.
"Six," Arthur told him. "You'll find his medallion on his body I suspect. Or..."
He trailed off, suddenly at a loss for words.
Or in the wreckage, Merlin thought.
"Are you trying to tell me that you reacted the way you did, because Elyan was important to you?" Merlin ventured.
"No," Arthur said so fiercely that Merlin found himself leaning back at the force of the word. His face had twisted and he looked...
Lost.
"No," Arthur said again, lowering his voice. Quietly regaining his composure. "I reacted the way I did, because Gwaine was nearly killed in prison earlier this year, by a man no one could seem to reason with. Before he broke his plastic tray in the commissary and tried to ram the pieces into Gwaine's throat, he'd never even spoken to Gwaine."
Merlin felt his stomach tighten in shock.
"You...think the Call Down Killer did that to Gwaine?"
"I didn't," Arthur corrected quietly, glancing down at the arm of the sofa. Running his hand over the fabric there. "The inmate was a drugs addict. It wasn't a red flag that he wouldn't respond to anyone."
But Merlin could see the shape Arthur's mind had taken, when he'd told him how Elyan's death might be related to CDK.
"You're worried this isn't the first time this has happened," Merlin murmured. "Only that...this is the first time it was a success."
"Yes," Arthur hissed softly through his teeth.
"I was here to tell you about the Call Down Killer," Merlin whispered, still hurt, and raw from the sensation of Arthur's influence coming down on him, unbidden.
Arthur closed his eyes.
"I'm sorry, Merlin," he said.
"You weren't making excuses, I thought?" Merlin retorted, though not as heatedly as he might have, otherwise. Because the sound of his name in Arthur's mouth was a gift, and he couldn't suppress how much he wanted to unwrap it.
He was still angry, though.
"Who were the five?" Arthur asked him, then.
Merlin frowned.
"That I guessed you'd given your medallion to?" He clarified, uncertain.
Arthur nodded, looking at the cabinet across the room.
Merlin blew out a breath.
"I don't know...it was just a guess. Why does it matter?"
"That is a very specific number to pick, for a guess," Arthur prompted.
Merlin pressed his lips together, irritated.
"Indulge me, please," Arthur said without heat.
It was Merlin's turn to look away. He shrugged in frustration, said,
"Elyan, Gwaine, Percival...and I added two more, because I've seen at least one other left behind at a crime scene, though I don't know who it belonged to. That was how I learned they existed."
"And the other?"
"The other what?"
Arthur turned to look at him again. This time his eyes were not as hollow as they had been. Merlin swallowed.
"You said you added two, but you only gave an explanation for one," Arthur clarified.
Merlin felt his cheeks warming.
"Statistical variance," Merlin answered him.
Arthur snorted, and the sound surprised Merlin.
"You're correct," Arthur told him, when he'd smoothed out his expression. "On the three you named. But I told you there were six."
Merlin's frown deepened when Arthur gave him an expectant look.
"I'm not a mind-reader," Merlin said, irritated and not at all sure why any of this mattered. "If I couldn't name five, what makes you think I can name a sixth person I didn't count in my original assessment?"
Arthur tipped his head to the side, leaning it against his fist.
"The question was," he said, making Merlin glare at him. "How many people do you think I've ever handed my trust to?"
Merlin was at the end of his patience. This was irrelevant and completely absurd. He didn't want to speak in riddles, he wanted to go home and be done with this absolutely foolish exercise of his own making. He was humiliated and above all else disappointed with himself. And whatever else he'd ever felt when Arthur touched him had all shattered when he'd been driven down to his knees against his will.
And the worst part was he'd done it to himself.
Coming here like he had any business caring for Arthur Pendragon.
Or thinking that Arthur could possibly want him to.
He turned on the sofa and started to push himself up, feeling his throat tightening again and hating himself all the more deeply for it, when something heavy in the pocket of his coat rapt against his hip as he did.
Merlin stopped, his fingers digging into the cushions underneath him. He stared at the door, not really seeing it. Arthur had lifted his head off his fist when he started to move, and Merlin could feel his eyes on him. He didn't want to turn and look, because he knew Arthur would be frowning.
Merlin didn't want to think Arthur could be concerned about him.
It would give him too much hope.
That one of the people Arthur had given his trust to was -
"Me," Merlin said roughly. "You gave it to me."
Arthur stood, came to stand in front of him, and Merlin was helpless to do anything but look up into his storm cloud eyes.
"I won't ask your forgiveness for what happened today," Arthur told him quietly. "I react poorly to fear. It wasn't my intention to hurt you."
The words surprised Merlin. He admitted to being afraid so casually that Merlin almost didn't register it.
"Afraid?" Merlin pressed him, not believing it. "Afraid of what?"
Arthur's expression was unreadable. And then,
"If there is any possibility that your killer did cause the death of Elyan, tried to have Gwaine murdered in custody, hurt any of the others I trust while he was still honing his craft, the only common thread between them is -"
"Your medallion," Merlin finished for him weakly.
"You said you suspected your killer was a Dominant who influences Submissives into killing themselves?"
"Something like that," Merlin agreed, feeling cold.
Arthur looked down at him, his expression conflicted. Merlin had the distinct feeling that Arthur was holding himself back from touching him.
"And you," Arthur said gently. "Are the only designated Submissive who holds my medallion, Merlin."
Merlin lowered his head, swallowing hard to stave off the emotions rising in his chest.
It was a good story.
But CDK wasn't out on the streets only hunting down Arthur's men; he was just a hunter, and there were all sorts of people in the crossfire. Arthur had no right to take this responsibility and then use it against him.
"Don't," he ground out through clenched teeth.
"Merlin -"
"I said don't!" He snapped, coming to his feet now, glowering at Arthur.
"You knew, I told you when we started this I'd had a lifetime of breaking the influence of Dominats who didn't listen to me when I told them to stop! You made me believe you were different!"
Arthur's expression was cold as he listened. But Merlin saw the way he winced, when Merlin grabbed him by the lapels of his suit coat and jerked him closer.
"Don't you dare," Merlin growled at him. "Stand there and try to tell me you did it to protect me! You took the only thing I ever truly wanted, dug it a grave and forced me to bury it!"
Arthur's eyebrows came up at that, and Merlin sucked in a breath, not having meant to go quite that far.
For a long time they stared at each other, Merlin's eyes a little wide. His fingers ached where he was gripping Arthur by his coat.
"What was it you wanted?" Arthur asked him quietly, uncertain in the silence.
Merlin closed his eyes, pulling in a shuddering breath.
"It doesn't matter now," he said, more or less to the floor.
He flinched unexpectedly when Arthur covered his hands with his own, leaned his face softly against Merlin's temple, and Merlin had to stifle the sound of relief he wanted to make. Because it didn't matter how good Arthur could be with him now. All he could think of was the way he'd told Arthur to stop, and he hadn't.
He'd forced Merlin to do the one thing he'd feared he'd have to do since they'd started this insane experiment, and he'd done it on purpose.
"I told you," Arthur whispered, making Merlin shudder. "I killed a man to protect you. What makes you think I will stop protecting you, if you leave now and never come back?"
It took Merlin longer than he thought it would, to control his reaction to those words. To stop himself from pressing his face into the warm skin of Arthur's throat; to go back to two...three hours ago when he thought he would come to this place and meet Arthur on equal ground.
What a fool he was.
He forced himself to take in a long breath through his nose and slowly pushed himself back, letting go of Arthur and stepping out of his reach. He didn't look up into Arthur's face; but he saw the way his hands dropped to his sides as if in slow motion, like he didn't know what to do with them, without Merlin there for him to hold.
"My D.I. thinks I came here to tell my informant a story that would keep you from coming for Elyan's body," Merlin said, clearing his throat. He reached into his back pocket and removed his billfold. Pulled a new set of patches from the inside slip. "Maybe if I hadn't identified Elyan you would have been able to get away with that and no one would be the wiser for a while. I'm sorry it didn't work out that way."
Arthur slid his hands into the pockets of his trousers.
Merlin ripped open the first patch with his teeth.
"Leave Elyan to me, for now," he said, pressing the sticky silicon to his shoulder under his t-shirt. "I'll take care of him. And when I can, I'll get him back to you with his medallion, if it's been recovered."
He paused to rip open two more patches before continuing.
"I've been working on this case for a long time now," Merlin told him. "There's a lot of information I have, but I wasn't aware of Gwaine's experience. I hadn't thought to include incidents between inmates when I first started looking for CDK. Give me until the end of the week to rule it out, or not."
He'd used seven patches when he'd first come down into The Underground. He only had five left. So when the last of them were secure, covering his tattoo, Merlin looked at Arthur.
They watched each other soberly for a long time.
"I know you won't stay out of it," Merlin told him. "I came here to give you the information I have and that hasn't changed. If you still want it, then come by next week and I'll give it to you, once I've had the chance to look into the others that you've mentioned."
Arthur gave him a crooked smirk. It was a shadowed, bitter mask of a smile.
"Next week," Arthur said quietly. It wasn't a question, exactly. Not entirely an agreement.
Merlin pulled his hood back up, adjusted the bill of the cap on his head. There was a challenge in the words, so Merlin made himself perfectly clear.
"Not before."
Arthur didn't see him out.
It wasn't until he'd made it home, that he realized he still had Arthur's medallion in his pocket.
Before he could decide what to do with it, inside his junk drawer, he heard the pager vibrate. He dug through the graveyard of pens, batteries and old memos to find it, and when he did, read the message on the screen without emotion. It was a date.
He committed it to memory.
Then he pulled the battery on the pager, and tossed the peices back into the drawer.
Slammed it shut.
The clock on the wall read just after half-three in the morning. It was too early to get in the shower, to put on his suit. But he did it anyway.
As he stepped under the water, Merlin told himself not to disect why he'd gotten to thinking of that void in his chest as a hole he'd been digging with his own hands. A pit he'd created by trying to empty himself of his loneliness, his fear that he wasn't worthy of great care. Because now, pulling off his patches one by one, letting them fall to the tiles at his feet with muted slaps, he realized with a sudden clarity that it had always been there. It wasn't a place inside him that had grown out of nothing. It was a space that was meant to be filled, by hands other than his own.
He told himself he could fall apart later.
Punish himself for thinking a man like Arthur Pendragon could ever be those hands.
Merlin tipped his head back to wet his hair. Closed his eyes.
His own inner turmoil would have to wait.
He still had work to do.
Arthur hadn't left his office since the Detective had come to see him.
He was standing alone by his desk, staring at a painting hung to the right of it. It was dark in the office, only the soft green glow from the lamp by his computer gave any indication that the room was in use, at all. The painting was of the cliff outside his cottage in Southend. The view from the window over the kitchen sink, for anyone who was familiar enough to know. Even in the quiet, empty space with no windows or natural light, it made Arthur feel like he could step outside and meet the sea.
There was a knock at the door.
"Come in," he said, without turning around.
Someone entered the office. Arthur continued to look over the image of the waves and the tall sea grass. The wisteria branches drifting in an unseen wind that drew her petals out against the sky.
"You wanted to see me, sir?"
The voice was quiet but confident.
He had no reason not to be, Arthur supposed.
"Did you miss your shot on purpose?" Arthur asked him.
There was a pause before he answered.
"No sir," he said. "I wasn't aware that I missed."
At that, Arthur tilted his head. He couldn't see the painting of the coastline anymore no matter how hard he looked. Could only feel the bullet hole under his palm when he'd taken Merlin by the arm -
Don't touch me!
"You did," Arthur said softly.
Which was the only reason he didn't feel the need to draw this out.
Arthur turned back to his desk.
"I'm sorry sir," his man was saying as Arthur picked up his gun. "Next time, I wo -"
Put a bullet in his man's head.
Arthur continued to approach the body as it folded down to the carpet. The impact to his forehead slammed him back into the door briefly, leaving a wet, red line down the face of it.
A clean shot.
It hadn't even occurred to him, to flinch.
"No," Arthur said, looking down into the empty black eyes. "You won't."
Chapter 13: Breathing Underwater
Summary:
Merlin looks into CDK's association with Arthur's criminal organization. Unable to come to terms with Arthur's unexpected betrayal, he does the only thing he can think of to blunt the pain while still holding on to enough of his sanity to continue his work.
He drinks.
Notes:
Hello loves, the update has arrived! (੭˃ᴗ˂)੭
We're back in the heart of the investigation while Merlin falls back on questionable coping habits to make it through one day at a time. But don't worry! I'm sure Arthur won't have anything to say or do about that. ≽^•⩊•^≼
As always, stay safe and be kind, and I'll be back soon!
Chapter Text
Merlin didn't understand Gwen's surprise when she came into his office the next morning, until it occurred to him that he'd come in early enough that it was likely Geraint hadn't yet told her he'd been reinstated.
He forced a smile, but it was all he could manage.
There was a young man with her, and Merlin couldn't help the instant ripple of hatred that ran through him at the sight of him. It wasn't fair. He could acknowledge that.
Geraint had said they hadn't hired anyone to replace him.
But it didn't feel that way to Merlin.
"You're back then," Gwen said as he stood up to come out from behind his desk.
They didn't hug. Under different circumstances they might have, but not with a trainee in the room with them. That was fine with Merlin. He didn't want to be touched.
He wasn't sure he could stand it, just then.
So he didn't take the hand that was offered to him when the young man held it out and said,
"I'm Mordred, I look forward to working with you."
"Likewise," Merlin said before turning his attention back to Gwen. "Do you have a minute?"
She was frowning at his dismissal of her charge, but searching his face she nodded. Glanced at Mordred, who was lowering his hand now, slightly embarrassed.
"I'll meet you back at your desk. Why don't you take a look at those files I gave you? We can discuss your thoughts on them when I get back."
He nodded, hesitated as if thinking he should say something more and then, deciding better of it, left without a word.
"You couldn't wait two minutes to be an asshole could you?" she said. But there wasn't any heat to it. She was lifting her cigarettes out of her suit coat pocket. Tapped one out into her palm.
They left his office together and started for one of the side doors that led to a designated smoking area.
"Geraint told me they found someone else's DNA," she said, lighting her cigarette once they were outside. "I didn't realize he'd called you back in."
"He called me yesterday," Merlin said. "But I had something to do first."
She raised her eyebrow, taking a drag on her cigarette.
"Like what?"
"What are the cases you're working with Mordred?" Merlin asked her.
"He hasn't seen the CDK case," she told him, her eyes narrowed in annoyance. "Just cold cases for now. Odd one-offs that still need solving."
Merlin looked away across the courtyard, relaxed if only a fraction.
"You know he was hired before you -"
"It's not about that," Merlin said, cutting her off. He didn't want to acknowledge that particular hurt just yet. "What if CDK escalated to making his kills look like suicides?"
She leaned her shoulder on the wall. Blew smoke out of the corner of her mouth before she responded.
"Escalated from what?"
"What if they were just regular attacks in the beginning?"
She took another drag on her cigarette.
"Walk me through it," she said.
"If I understand the way a Dominant influence works," he said with more confidence than he should have for someone pretending not to know how it worked.
From experience.
"It's easier to make a Submissive partner act against an unknown rather than themselves or someone they know or care about. Hard emotion gets in the way of that current; things like love and loyalty can disrupt a Dominant influence. If you were designated Submissive," he continued, not looking at her. "Under normal circumstances, no anonymous Dom could compel you to hurt yourself, or your father, for example. It wouldn't hold enough weight to be effective."
He had to pause, realizing he'd used Arthur's words to explain it to her. It brought him up short unexpectedly.
Gwen was flicking the ash off her cigarette, searching his face.
"What does that have to do with CDK?" She prompted.
"That's where we feel like we're at, doesn't it?" Merlin asked her, after clearing his throat. "He's using his influence to direct Submissives to hurt themselves."
"Yes," she agreed, frowning now. She turned her head away slightly as she took another drag.
"It's such an impossible place to land," Merlin said, quietly. "He couldn't have ended up there by chance. He had to build to this somehow."
Smoke bloomed in the spaces between them.
"Assuming we're correct," she added.
Merlin finally met her steady gaze.
"And assuming that isn't a skill that comes naturally, even to a Dominant," he told her. "Then the only logical conclusion is that he's been escalating to this."
"How?" She asked.
"By compelling Submissives to attack strangers for him."
Gwen took that in, her next pull on her cigarette longer than the others. She exhaled slowly. Merlin watched her, feeling exhausted. He didn't want to sleep.
But he wanted to fall to his knees and beg someone to make him.
"Because strangers don't mean as much to the average person? So it's easier?" She asked after he shook himself to dislodge the thought.
Physically, like it was even possible.
"That's what I'm thinking," he agreed.
"What gave you this idea?"
Somewhere inside himself he started picking at the threads of his bond with Arthur again. Fraying the edges so that it flowered open like the reaching arms of an anemone.
It hurt him.
"Geraint thinks the fatal crash the other day might be CDK. I looked through the file, and one of the victims is a man from Arthur Pendragon's inner circle."
At that, Gwen's eyebrows came up.
"Shit," she hissed, dropping her butt to the ground and stomping on it. "That's just great."
Merlin couldn't help the smile the gave at that. Gwen had been working the Pendragon case almost as long as he had. She knew what an attack on one of Arthur's people would mean for the city of London, if it came to that.
"I have a lead on another incident, involving one of Arthur's men. But I need you to run it down with me."
Her eyes became darker at his words.
"Do you think this is a coincidence?" She asked him. "Or do you think CDK is targeting Arthur's organization?"
Merlin didn't know how to answer that at first. She watched him as he looked out over the city, what they could see from the small smoking deck.
"It doesn't feel like that, exactly," he said. Gwen didn't immediately relax.
"I'm sensing a big but coming, Balinor."
He pressed his lips together, frowning.
"It's just a feeling," he admitted.
Almost not worth saying at all.
"We know not everyone CDK has killed is related to the Royal Mafia. I don't believe in the majority of coincidences, but that much is a fact."
"Still waiting for the but," Gwen prompted, crossing her arms.
"If he did escalate to directing Submissives to kill themselves...what if he started in a place he was comfortable with?" Merlin said, finally.
It was a fear he had growing inside of him, since Arthur had told him there was another attack on one of his men that could be potentially linked back to CDK. What if CDK was a member of Arthur's Family?
Would Arthur tell him, if he was?
Gwen frowned after the silence between them had gone on too long.
"We'll have to cross that bridge if we come to it," she said gently. "We can't risk stirring the pot with Arthur Pendragon anymore than we have to."
Merlin nodded, mostly at the ground. He couldn't look at her, just then.
"So what do you need me for?" She asked, pushing the door open to step back inside. "You know Arthur's organization better than any of us. You can't need me to question one of his men."
"He's not going to agree to talk to me alone," Merlin sighed, stepping in after her. "Because he's in prison. And I'm the one who put him there."
Merlin was irritated at having to bring Mordred with them. Objectively he understood why, it wasn't like Gwen could just leave him in the break room and tell him she'd be back in a few hours. Mordred was a trainee not a puppy. That was why he'd asked Gwen which cases she'd already shared with him.
But it rankled Merlin to no end that they had to debrief Mordred, however little, on the CDK case. He didn't want a rookie anywhere near this case. It was his case.
That and Mordred was always annoyingly underfoot, walking too closely to Merlin and Gwen, constantly bumping one of them because he was looking at his notepad-for what reason, Merlin couldn't possibly fathom, it wasn't like he had been on any actual cases since he started-or craning his neck at everything they passed as they walked through the sprawling property of Belmarsh prison.
Merlin took a deep breath through his nose as they approached the next gate and Mordred jostled him from behind.
Again.
He opened his mouth, on edge, when Gwen pushed him, none-to-discreetly to continue after the Security Guard leading them into the building. Merlin shot a look at her, but she was already speaking quietly to Mordred, her hand on his shoulder.
And something about that made him even more agitated, so Merlin didn't even attempt to listen into the conversation they were having. Instead, he touched the multiple patches he was wearing over his tattoo under his shirt. His arm and shoulder ached from it. Before Arthur, he would have rotated where the patches went on his body, so that this excess muscle pain wasn't concentrated in one spot. But Arthur had been clear when they were bonded that if they weren't over his tattoo he ran the risk of a Dominant noticing Arthur's influence.
That's the point, after all.
Merlin clenched his jaw at the sound of Arthur's voice in his head.
And Belmarsh had a higher Dominant population than any other prison in the UK.
He'd worn a total of thirteen patches just the night before, going in and out of The Underground to speak with Arthur. He was wearing another seven today.
It made his whole body feel high-strung. Edgy. Like all the molecules that made up the matter of his being were slowly unlinking from each other. Dissipating into vibrating waves of energy. Probably he should have remembered to eat something.
Now that he gave it some thought, he didn't think he'd had anything other than tea since he'd been sick in his bathroom. How long ago had that been?
It felt like a lifetime, now.
At the door the Security Officer turned and waited for all of them to completely approach before she pressed the intercom to announce their arrival, and held her duty badge up for the camera to see. There was the heavy metal sound of bolts being turned back, and the door opened by central control before she led them all through.
This building inside the Belmarsh was a prison inside of a prison, wrapped in a twenty foot high concrete wall.
Every cell inside was designed to house the most dangerous inmates incarcerated there. Or protect the most notorious ones.
Many of whom, Merlin had personally put away.
So as they approached the next entry point leading into the building that actually housed the inmates, Merlin slid his hands into the pockets of his trousers to hide the way they shook, and said,
"Don't engage them, when they start up. Keep your eyes on me and just keep walking."
He was speaking to Mordred, but he didn't turn to look.
"What do you mean, when they start up?" Mordred asked him, coming to stand once again, too close.
Merlin didn't answer. Gwen's expression was hard as the door swung open.
Inside the atrium it was eerily quiet, surrounded on all sides by concrete and steel and bullet proof glass. Merlin clenched his hands into fists in his pockets as the next set of doors were unlocked.
Mordred had wondered out loud when they first approached Belmarsh, why they weren't speaking to their potential witness in a secure room, or at the very least, in Visitor Reception. It was Gwen who explained to him that this was the price they had to pay in order to speak to certain prisoners.
And by they, she meant anyone who partnered with Merlin.
There were those who would only see him if he was willing to walk through the gauntlet of their peers and stand to look into the cell himself. Merlin had expected this, especially from one of Arthur's men.
Which is why he'd asked Gwen to come with him.
He wasn't afraid of these men; any of them. Not the ones he'd put away himself, or the ones put away by others like him.
He was afraid that seven patches wouldn't be enough.
He was afraid one of them would notice.
You've been keeping secrets, Detective.
So he needed Gwen to do some of the talking, so he could focus on his own presence. Keep it at bay, just in case.
They started through the doors into the halls lined with cells with Merlin in the lead behind the Security Officer, Gwen and Mordred just behind either of his shoulders. It didn't take long.
The first slam of something hard into the bars made Mordred jump.
The laughing started after that.
A cacophony of voices shouting at them cascaded down from every cell, cat-calls and insults and playing cards tossed like confetti at Merlin's face.
"Give us a trick Magic man!"
Merlin kept walking.
He focused on his presence, on the sound of all of their footsteps echoing down the perforated metal walkway, willing it to be louder than the voices filling the massive building around them.
It took a subjective mortal age to reach the next wing, where the cells had fully enclosed doors and only a small window to allow someone to view them from the outside. Further in, and the cells would get fewer and farther between, until there was only one left, known inside as the hole.
Merlin had a moment to be grateful that wasn't where they were going today.
Sometimes, Submissives were put in cells like that to isolate them from the rest of the inmate population, for their own safety.
...but a Submissive who is also an officer of the law? They'll eat you alive.
Merlin came to a stop at the cell the Security Officer had indicated, but for some reason he still felt like he was moving. His head felt dangerously weightless as he watched the Officer open the cell door.
"Stay here," he said without heat, to Mordred.
Stepped inside with Gwen and et the Officer shut the door behind them, Mordred on the other side.
Gwaine gave them a cheerful grin that didn't match the darkness in his eyes as he waved at them, best he could. The handcuffs rattled against the frame of his bed.
Merlin could make requests too, for a meeting like this, after all.
"Detective," he said, making the word sound like a threat. "How good of you to visit. And Gwen too!"
Merlin pressed his lips together when Gwaine turned his attention to his partner. As though he hadn't been told it would be the two of them.
His eyes drifted to the door where Mordred was watching through the window.
"Long time no see," Gwaine continued, his grin a complete facade now.
Merlin kept up the pleasantries regardless. It was easier than trying to play hard with someone like Gwaine. He was Arthur's right hand, and as far as Merlin could tell, he'd never been intimidated by anyone other than Arthur in his entire life. There was no point in trying to pretend you were the strongest person in the room, with Gwaine.
He already knew it wasn't true.
"Thank you for seeing us," Merlin said, the words sounding hollow even to him. Gwen cut a look at him out of the corner of her eye.
Gwaine refocused on Merlin, his smile quickly becoming condescending.
"Boss said you'd be around," Gwaine told him darkly.
Merlin tensed instantly at the words, completely derailed for some crucial seconds. He felt Gwen shift at his side, surprised.
Gwaine's smile sharpened a little to make sure Merlin knew he knew, that Gwen wasn't aware that he was in direct contact with Arthur. The fact that Gwaine knew sent a shock of adrenaline through him that he had to brace himself against. Merlin felt like he was falling suddenly, and for the first time in his life his brain wasn't catching up quickly enough to the moment. He should say something, dismiss the comment, anything, but he couldn't move, for some reason.
It surprised him to realize this new feeling was fear.
"So, what's this about then?" Gwaine said, cracking his neck.
Like they were school mates back in touch after a long time. Not a prisoner chained to a bed and the Detective who had put him there in a locked cell.
Merlin shook himself.
Recalled the date on Arthur's pager before he'd ripped the battery out of it.
"April seventh of last year," Merlin said without preamble. "You were attacked here."
"Aye," Gwaine said.
He offered nothing more than that. Merlin frowned.
"I'd like you to tell me what happened," he said.
"Would you now?" Gwaine smiled, leaning back against the wall. He crossed his legs at the ankle where they were stretched out across the bare mattress he was seated on.
"Can we cut the horseshit," Gwen said, annoyed. "We have work to do."
Gwaine's smile stretched as he watched her dip her hand into her jacket pocket. Produce her cigarettes.
Merlin would never not be amazed how that tiny box managed to relax so many people whenever she held them out. Merlin watched Gwaine take one from her. Lean down awkwardly to put it in his mouth.
She lit it for him.
Lit one for herself.
Merlin took the time to focus on his presence. Wondered absently if he should take up smoking since it seemed so calming for everyone else.
Arthur probably wouldn't like that.
The thought made him flinch.
"So tell us what happened," Gwen said in her no-nonsense way.
"Why should I?" Gwaine answered, still smiling. He blew the smoke from his cigarette at her, his dark eyes bright. "Boss said neither of you should walk out of here worse than you came in but...he never said I had to answer your questions."
"Because Elyan is dead," Merlin said, desperate for Gwaine to shut up about Arthur.
He didn't just say it to distract Gwen but for his own sake. There was a fine tremor starting in his shoulders now, crawling up his arms from his hands. It was the effort of controlling his own presence even though he was wearing too many patches to be medically advisable. From the stupid, misplaced emotions that filled him up to his eyes whenever he stopped to think about Arthur.
It was the wrong thing to do.
The silence in the room went beyond noise. It was like the brightness of Gwaine's personality had been blown out at the same time. His eyes drifted slowly, dangerously, to Merlin's.
"What did you say?"
Gwaine was whispering, but there was a threat in his tone. And Merlin suddenly, too late, realized that Gwaine hadn't been told.
He didn't know.
"Gwen," Merlin said quietly.
She looked at him, her concern evident on her face. He knew in the back of his mind this look wasn't because he'd forgone his usual strategy when he was interrogating suspects; observing them sometimes for hours before laying out truths that were impossible to deny. Using his exceptional memory to draw out the false narratives and the inaccuracies as easily as if he were recounting a fairy story. She wasn't concerned that he'd just blurted Elyan's death into the room like a first timer across an interrogation desk with a hard suspect.
She was concerned because she wasn't stupid.
She knew what Gwaine was implying, when he spoke about Arthur, directly to Merlin.
But he didn't have time to think about that now.
"Give us a minute," Merlin told her.
She hesitated like she might argue. Then she turned and tossed her cigarette in the toilet. Knocked on the door.
It opened and Gwen stepped out.
Gwaine was staring at Merlin like he was considering which of his vertebrae to break first. He probably was. But Merlin wasn't worried that he would act on it.
If Arthur had forbidden Gwaine to hurt him, then Gwaine wouldn't hurt him. It was one of the reasons why he was considered to be the most dangerous man in Arthur's entire organization.
His faith wasn't blind.
But it was absolute.
"Elyan was killed in a car accident Sunday night," Merlin told him. There wasn't ever a thought to keeping this information from Gwaine, or using it to gain his cooperation. He'd made a mistake, bringing it up at all, so he would give Gwaine the opportunity to take the information, with no strings attached.
Gwaine crushed the still burning cigarette in his fist.
"How?" he snarled.
"It was a head-on," Merlin obliged him. "The other car pulled into his lane without warning."
When Gwaine said nothing, Merlin continued.
"Even if he had the time to react, he was against the wall of the tunnel. There was no where for him to go."
Gwaine looked away when he finished, his face twisted into a scowl. But Merlin could hear the pain of his grief when he finally addressed Merlin again.
"How did he go?"
Did he suffer?
"I wasn't at the scene," Merlin told him honestly. "But I've read the coroners report. He died on impact...he didn't feel a thing."
Standing there, watching him glower at the wall, Merlin felt his hands relax in the pockets of his trousers. He was assessing Gwaine's body language, which was far more intense than it had been only minutes ago, and came to the conclusion that likely he really had botched this interview. Gwaine was going to tell him to leave.
Merlin was about to suggest it, just to break the silence in the exceptionally small room. And then,
"I'd appreciate it, if you would ask your partner for another smoke."
Merlin stared at him for a moment, surprised, before he turned and knocked on the door.
When the door came open again to allow Gwen back inside, Merlin leaned out at the Security Officer and quietly asked if she would release Gwaine's hands.
After a brief conversation with her Supervisor over her radio, Merlin sat at Gwaine's desk chair, and Gwen leaned back on the closed door. Gwaine was watching Merlin now like he wasn't sure what to make of him, sitting on the edge of the bed, one of his hands free to accept the cigarette Gwen offered him. The other one, per Merlin's discussion with the Supervisor for the ward, was still cuffed to the bed frame.
Merlin gave him a chance to smoke for a moment before glancing at Gwen, he started to ask a question. But Gwaine cut him off.
"I was nicked in the throat by a junkie coming off a bender," he said, pulling down the collar of his prison issued shirt. There was a scar there that told Merlin he'd been more than just nicked, but he didn't interject.
"Couldn't tell you why," Gwaine continued. "Never spoke to him a day in my life."
"You said he was a junkie," Gwen said. "Maybe he was just high."
Gwaine glanced at her to acknowledge the words but paused to take a drag on his cigarette instead of commenting further. Merlin leaned over in his chair, resting his arms on his knees.
"What makes you say he was a junkie?"
Gwaine's sharp eyes met his.
"You ever seen someone strung out Detective?"
Merlin had. Before he could say that though Gwaine spoke as he exhaled a cloud of thin smoke at the sliver of a window behind him.
"You were narcotics before you were homicide. You know what I'm talking about."
Merlin shook his head. "No, I don't."
It was true, he'd worked narcotics before he'd made Detective. And he'd seen the way people could get when they were high or coming down and desperately trying to stop that freefall with more of the same. But everyone's experiences were different. It was impossible for him to know what Gwaine considered strung out, without hearing it for himself.
Gwaine took another drag, his gaze steady on Merlin.
"It was in his eyes," he said. "That look you get when you're so fucked up you don't know what's real anymore. The one you get when everyone and everything is a monster to you, and there's no end in sight."
Merlin frowned.
"And," Gwaine continued, flicking ash onto the floor. "He didn't respond to anyone once he was in it. Just kept stabbing like I was his own personal devil, and if I was gone everything would be right in the world."
"Then what happened?" Gwen asked him.
Gwaine held Merlin's gaze, not Gwen's, when he answered her.
"You know what happened," he said.
Merlin did because he'd read the file, but he wasn't sure Gwen knew. Gwaine had killed the man. Broken his neck in three places with his bare hands.
What interested Merlin now was that Gwaine seemed to be troubled by it.
"They came down on you hard for that," Merlin said.
"Yeah they do that around here when you kill someone," Gwaine told him nonchalantly, but it was clear in the set of his shoulders that the topic bothered him. Likely because they'd put him in solitary for it. As far as Merlin could tell, they'd only just recently relented and let him out of the hole. That's why the cell they were in was so bare.
"Even if it was in self-defense," Gwaine added quietly, almost as an after-thought, as he finished his cigarette.
"So you were minding your own business," Gwen said, more than a little skeptically. "And some guy just started stabbing you, entirely unprovoked?"
Gwaine turned to look at her.
"This may come as a surprise to you miss," he said. "But I'm not wandering the halls instigating my way into the infirmary on the daily."
Merlin ran a hand over his face.
Mostly to hide his smile at the way Gwen's lip twitched when Gwaine called her miss.
"Right," he said, looking back up. "Do you remember anything else? Was there anyone with you? With them?"
Gwaine shrugged.
"It's a fucking prison, mate. There's always somebody around."
"Anything unusual?" Gwen tried again.
"Define unusual," Gwaine grinned.
Merlin considered him, and his silence seemed to take the air out of Gwaine's bantering. He could actually see the moment Gwaine became quiet and focused, the intensity returning to his posture even though the smile never left his face.
"That," Merlin said softly, making Gwaine raise an eyebrow. "Was there anything in the room that made you take notice, like that? You didn't protect Arthur Pendragon successfully for the better part of a decade because you were lucky. I want to know if there was anything in your field of vision that was out of place to you."
Gwaine didn't answer for a long time. He was looking at Merlin in a way that made him want to touch the patches on his shoulder just to be sure they were all still in place.
His arm ached into the ditch of his elbow.
"No," Gwaine said finally, disappointing Merlin. "Right amount of guards, average number of bodies in the room. Cleaner in the hall. Only thing that made me take notice was that I didn't notice the guy before he stabbed me. At all."
That made sense to Merlin.
Prison could be unpredictable, sure, especially one like Belmarsh. But Gwaine had a reputation in The Underground of being able to anticipate a threat almost before it became conscious thought in the offender's head. Merlin suspected this talent was the only reason no one had succeeded in killing Arthur during his chaotic rise to power in the Royal Mafia. These days, Arthur had more than Gwaine on his side, but Merlin knew it had been an incredible blow when he'd managed to arrest him.
So if even Gwaine hadn't noticed anything wrong until it was too late, that was saying something.
Merlin just wasn't sure what it was, yet.
"And he didn't speak at all?" Gwen prompted, making Merlin blink.
He'd nearly forgotten she was there.
"I told you," Gwaine said. "He didn't respond once it started, to anyone."
"No," she cut back. "I don't mean did he react to anyone around him. Did he say anything. For any reason?"
Gwaine tipped his head at the question, his eyes drifting to the window and back to her face. Merlin straightened in his chair with a frown.
"Helmy," Gwaine said finally.
Merlin's frown deepened.
"Helmy?" he echoed, more to himself than to Gwaine.
"Yeah," Gwaine said dismissively. "Didn't mean shit to me. He said it twice, maybe more. Only caught it completely the last time."
Merlin briefly flipped over every fact he knew about the CDK case, about Arthur's case, but he couldn't recall ever coming across that name before. He glanced at Gwen who was already writing it down.
When he turned back, Gwaine opened his hands. The gesture was inviting, friendly even. But his eyes were dark when he spoke.
"You said I should answer your questions, Detective, because Elyan is dead."
Merlin didn't affirm the statement. He didn't need to.
"So what exactly, does any of this have to do with a car accident?" Gwaine continued quietly.
Gwen didn't immediately dismiss the question. She was going to let Merlin make the call on this one.
He considered not saying anything. It wouldn't help the situation. And it came dangerously close to breaking confidentiality on the case. One he'd more or less self-imposed to keep the press out of it for as long as possible.
His only saving grace was that these murders didn't look like murders at all, otherwise he'd never have been able to keep it at bay as long as he had. And he didn't think Gwaine was planning to spread any details to anyone, let alone the press; not because he had any desire to make Merlin's job easier, but because he wouldn't be inclined to share anything that involved Arthur's Family, however obliquely, with anyone. Still, it was a gamble.
But something told Merlin it would be better not to dismiss the question outright.
He'd missed the danger the first time, assuming that this attack was actually CDK. But for someone like Gwaine, if you clarified the target, they'd never miss it again once it came back into their sights.
On the off-chance that it happened again, however small, he settled for a half-truth.
"I'm ruling out the possibility that there's someone targeting certain members of Arthur's Family," he said.
Gwaine narrowed his eyes.
"Which members?"
Merlin had to stop himself from looking at Gwen.
"The ones he's given his trust to hold," Merlin told him carefully.
For the first time since he'd encountered Gwaine when he started this case, Merlin saw a flash of real surprise in those hawk-like eyes. It was Gwaine who glanced at Gwen then, for just a second, before he said,
"You got your answers, Detective."
"If you think of anything else," Merlin said as he stood.
"Yeah, yeah," Gwaine cut him off, swinging his legs back up onto the bed as Merlin turned the chair around to face the desk. "I'll send you a postcard, shall I?"
Gwen knocked on the door.
For once, Merlin wasn't upset to have Mordred with them as the exited the prison. He felt drained and somehow too awake at the same time. The tremor in his hands was getting worse. So if Gwen had rounded on him about anything Gwaine had implied in that cell, he wouldn't have had the patience to deal with it. He probably would have said something stupid.
But Mordred was bombarding her with questions about how they'd gotten Gwaine to talk to them given his relationship with Merlin was antagonistic at best. He wanted to know about strategy and what if anything about the conversation had been calculated. He was scribbling in his notebook and the sound of it grated on Merlin's nerves.
It also gave him an excuse to remove himself from the situation.
When they came back to The Met, Merlin didn't head in the direction of his and Gwen's offices, like she and Mordred did.
Gwen didn't stop him, or ask him where he was going.
But the look in her eyes told him she would, eventually.
Leon entered Arthur's formal office with a glass of water and three tablets, which he set down on the desk without comment. Arthur wasn't facing him. He was half turned in his desk chair so that he could see the painting on the wall. The one of the Southend cottage.
Leon's eyes drifted to the painting, then back to Arthur.
The room smelled like bleach.
"Why did you kill him?" Leon asked, impulsively.
"I thought I made myself clear about The Detective," Arthur said without looking at him. "He was not to be harmed."
"It was dark -"
"It's always dark down here," Arthur cut him off dismissively.
"And he was wearing a disguise. It was an honest mistake," Leon said quietly.
"I don't care," Arthur replied.
The soft words surprised Leon. They lived in a violent, brutal world that often came with no second chances. But Arthur had always given his people one. It was the reason they loved him. He understood that none of them, except maybe Gwaine, until recently, were perfect soldiers. Mistakes were bound to be made. Arthur never took that out on any of them.
If Leon had met this Arthur when he'd first agreed to join The Family, he would have been dead inside of a week.
This Arthur was an entirely different person than the one he knew.
But only when it came to The Detective.
"You never ask me for anything," Leon said. "You refuse medication even on your worst days."
Arthur said nothing. He was looking at the painting, but Leon could tell he wasn't really seeing it anymore.
"Why can't you sleep, Arthur?"
"You're a physician, Leon," he said, very quietly. "Not a psychiatrist."
"I don't need to be a psychiatrist," Leon countered calmly. "I'm your friend."
At that, Arthur did turn to look at him. He didn't answer the question, but something in his eyes did.
"These pills are commonly used to treat insomnia," Leon continued, unafraid. "But they have another use, most people don't realize."
"Enlighten me," Arthur said.
There was a challenge there in Arthur's eyes. Leon faced it, taking in the way Arthur's pupils had narrowed so dramatically that the grey in those blue-green eyes had overtaken them, made them darker and emptier somehow. He took note of how calm Arthur seemed, even though his posture, his expression, gave a convincing impression of his usual fierce intensity. But not quite.
"You're dropping," Leon said without emotion.
The words didn't cause an immediate eruption.
So Leon knew he was right.
But for the first time in days, Leon finally saw something other than cold apathy in Arthur's eyes. Anger. That was usually the first emotion to break through the fog, so Leon continued calmly into the silence that followed.
"Sub drops are so common it's practically slang vernacular for anyone having a poor emotional reaction to anything in their lives, even the vanilla crowd," Leon said. "After all, Submissives lead with vulnerability; it opens them up to all kinds of emotional turmoil. It's a lot less common for a Dominant to believe they behaved badly enough to seek forgiveness for it."
Leon lowered himself into one of the chairs on the other side of Arthur's desk, setting their positions in the room on equal ground before he finished. Arthur's eyes followed him, sharp and dangerous, as he did.
"It's even more rare I should think, for a Sub to deny their Dom the opportunity to be forgiven."
For a very long, tense moment, Leon watched Arthur fight with himself not to come over the desk at him. Leon wasn't concerned. That was a reflex reaction dictated by instincts Arthur was having trouble regulating on his own, right now. But he had faith in Arthur. So he waited, and did nothing.
"I don't think," Arthur said finally. He was still angry, but it was restrained now. "I will be forgiven this time."
Leon gave a soft frown at that.
"Should you be?"
Arthur's whole body tensed at the question. It was perhaps the first time Leon had ever witnessed such a blatantly visceral reaction to anything, from Arthur. It took him longer to speak, after that.
"It doesn't matter, for my sake," he said, even though he and Leon both knew that was a lie. "But I want to be, for his."
Leon didn't blink when Arthur said his in reference to this unnamed Sub. He was sure now, even though it was impossible, that they were speaking about The Detective.
Arthur hadn't requested a Submissive partner in months. Not since the last time Merlin Balinor had attempted to arrest him.
For both of their sakes, Leon didn't press for confirmation. And he didn't ask what Arthur had done. There were a hundred-thousand ways for this to have ended poorly if Arthur had entertained a relationship with Merlin Balinor, of all people. Detective Merlin Balinor. And although Arthur hadn't corrected him when he said Submissive, there was an outside chance that wasn't exactly what they were talking about. He wasn't designated as anything himself, but he maintained his relationship with Morganna, who was designated as Dominant, just fine. Officially The Detective wasn't designated as anything. If they did have a relationship, he and Arthur, whatever it was, it didn't necessarily mean it was a traditional one between a Dom and a Sub, as long as The Detective had been willing to enter a Submissive role for Arthur.
A poor ending to something like that was the best they could hope for, really. They were all just lucky it hadn't ended in bloodshed. If anyone found out about this, on either side, it would destroy one or both of them. Possibly both of their organizations, as well.
What surprised Leon was how earnestly Arthur had said he wanted to be forgiven, for whatever it was. In any other situation, Leon would have expected Arthur to cut his losses neatly, and move on.
"Should you be, and do you want to be, are two very different questions," Leon told him gently. "Both of them are important, but not for the same reasons."
Arthur let out a breath. Ran a hand over his mouth and looked away. It was a clear dismissal.
"Thank you, Leon," he said.
Leon stood. But before he turned to go, he offered Arthur one more thing, because he thought it was important.
"If you took away your designations, and there were no influences, no instincts to direct either of you," he said. "What would you do?"
Arthur turned in his chair again to look at the painting of the sea at Southend.
"I don't know," Arthur whispered
Gwen dropped a disc on his desk the next day and Merlin's emotions were so high that he actually jumped when she did it. Gwen wasn't impressed. She was looking at him with a narrowed gaze, more suspicious than she had been when Gerason was killed.
"What happened yesterday?" she demanded.
Merlin didn't have the energy to deal with any of this. So instead he picked up the disc and asked,
"What's this?"
"The tapes from The Pemberley. I saw it in your notes after you were suspended, thought I'd run them down for you."
Thought I'd pick them up, in case I had to finish the investigation while you went in front of The Crown for murder, is what Merlin heard.
Merlin picked up the disc, aware that his hands were more noticeably shaking today. The adrenaline shock that went through him at her words didn't help.
"But this -"
"It's a laser disc," she cut him off without sympathy. "The guys in forensics are looking for a proper reader to pull the images."
He looked up at her. She gave him an expectant look.
"Don't feed me a line about not knowing what I mean," she said when he opened his mouth. "I'm not a genius like you, but I know you don't think I'm that stupid."
Merlin leaned back at the words.
"I don't think you're stupid," he said quietly.
"Gwaine implied that Arthur told him we were coming. How would Arthur know that?"
Merlin pressed his lips together in a hard line.
Then he lied, without remorse.
It was getting surprisingly easier, he thought.
"I had an informant in Arthur's organization," Merlin said, looking her in the eyes when he did. He watched her expression fall from angry suspicion to shock.
"Had?" She prompted, taking his implication and running with it. Like he knew that she would.
"I'm assuming I'll never see him again," Merlin replied. He had to look away, because that part might be true. "Gwaine saying that...it was a warning."
Gwen searched his face. He let her.
"That Arthur found out you had an informant?"
Merlin nodded.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she said.
"I didn't tell anyone," Merlin said. "The only reason I told Geraint was because it was my alibi for the Gerason murder."
Her eyebrows went up at that. And then she relaxed. It hurt him a little at the hesitation he saw in her posture before the tension went out of her shoulders.
It was par for the course, really. And he didn't think anything else could hurt him anymore, regardless.
"I couldn't tell you Gwen," he added. A small truth. "I'm sorry, for that."
She gave him an annoyed frown.
"Yeah well, that's done with now. Don't make it a habit. I've been worried about you."
Merlin blinked. Gwen rolled her eyes.
"You don't look well, Balinor," she said more softly than he was used to hearing her talk. "Ever since the Gerason case went tits up and you started pulling those long nights...I know being suspended wasn't exactly a vacation but I thought at least you'd have gotten some rest. You look like you haven't slept in a year."
"Gee thanks," Merlin deadpanned.
"I'm serious," she snapped, surprising him. "We all go a little too hard at this job once in a while. But I don't see any end in sight to this. That worries me."
Merlin tried to hide the flash of emotion that sent through him. Sadness, at the idea she might be right. That he'd been broken somehow and he wasn't fixable, anymore.
She saw it. But she didn't say anything.
Merlin cleared his throat. He might have continued, but his mobile pinged. After a quick glance at the message he said,
"I'll be fine, Gwen."
Stood from his desk and put on his coat.
"That's bullshit and you know it," she said without heat.
He gave her a pale smile as he left the office.
"You've got Mordred to worry about," he said. "Don't waste the effort on me."
She opened her mouth to refute that, he thought. Or maybe she was just angry he'd said something so crass in the first place. But he was already half-way down the hall and she didn't make a scene by shouting after him. He was grateful for that.
He didn't think he could stomach having a conversation with her about his feelings on the matter.
How in the space of one week he'd been reduced to a singular. Alone more completely than any other time in his life despite the fact that there were people he knew everywhere. Gwen being reassigned to train Mordred, although she wasn't fully distanced from him, it wasn't the same as having a full-time partner. And since Gerason was killed, none of his colleagues, not even Gwen looked at him like they used to, anymore. Merlin didn't think Geraint had even attempted to assign anyone else to be his partner. Which was how he would have preferred it, a year ago.
If they were sure enough of your guilt to take it this far, they've always looked at you differently. The only thing that's changed, is that you are aware now, that they do.
All that was left were the last threads of his bond with Arthur, mostly picked away now.
Once it was gone, he would have nothing.
How had Arthur put it?
Just him, and his empty flat.
Merlin signed into the evidence room. There were a set of boxes the Fire Brigade had sent him after completing their own investigation on the crash. Merlin thought they might have been surprised even, that he'd asked for them. The LFB had already determined that there was no criminal evidence in the debris itself. No cut break lines, no accelerant, no indication that there had been anything other than a tragic accident. They didn't know that The Met was looking at the accident from a different perspective and had made their ruling objectively.
But Merlin wasn't concerned about any of that when he opened the first box and began lifting out the contents one by one.
There were a lot of bags to look through. He made it through three boxes before he found it. Merlin had been beginning to wonder if it had been recovered at all. But there, in a full bag of larger pieces of debris labeled only as miscellaneous metal-body car parts, Merlin found Elyan's medallion.
He let out a breath.
And then using the box as a shield from the cameras, Merlin began the tedious process of removing the medallion from the evidence bag and returning the rest of the contents to a new one.
He forged the handwriting and the initials on the new bag. Sealed it with tamper-proof tape.
Then he pocketed Elyan's medallion and the ruined evidence bag discretely.
Remained in the room for another thirty minutes, going through the boxes, as if he were looking the evidence over.
And when he left that day, having lied so easily to his partner, stolen evidence from his own department; Merlin thought he should be feeling something other than sorry for himself.
Anxious maybe.
Guilt?
But he didn't.
He didn't want to go home and think too hard about that.
So he went to the pub.
By the end of the week Merlin was frayed.
Even he could feel it more acutely than any other time in his life. It was like his edges were blurring. He couldn't feel the ends of his fingers anymore. The outline of his own skin.
Which was a ridiculous thing to think.
Just the same, he couldn't locate the feeling in his own body anymore. The only thing he could seem to feel was his own heart racing harder every day until he was sure the sound of his own blood would deafen him. All of him was cold and tense and too alert.
He couldn't actually remember sleeping, in the last three days.
Or eating, for that matter.
The patches on his shoulder were leaving angry red welts on his skin now from over-use. His other shoulder was stiff and too tight.
And there was nothing to show for it.
He couldn't find any connection between Elyan's accident or Gwaine's attack and CDK. It had all been a wild goose-chase as far as he could tell. Sure it looked good on paper. There were so many red flags. But nothing he could tie back to CDK with absolute certainty.
Until he and Gwen got the call sometime after midnight on Saturday.
Another body in South London.
Merlin was hungover when he arrived and Gwen could tell. Neither of them commented on it. Gwen handed him a paper cup of coffee, not tea. So she had anticipated it. He must have been doing worse again than he thought.
He tipped the cup back in one swallow and all of them made their way to the edge of the crime scene tape. Gwen reached out and held the tape up for them to pass under, but when Mordred hesitated she followed his gaze back to Merlin.
It was dark except for the police lights and the street lamps overhead. Stray windows in the flats above them glowing faintly through the shutters. Merlin was still holding the paper cup loosely in his hand at his side, but his eyes were sharp and calculating in a way she hadn't seen in a long time. It relieved her.
"Come on," she said to Mordred, nodding to the tape. "He'll be along in a minute."
"What's he doing?" Mordred asked her.
Gwen looked back at Merlin, who was turning in a slow circle.
"Committing the street to memory - it's one of his magic tricks. You? Write down everything you see. Unless you have a memory like his?"
She said it with a smile to ease the tension, but Mordred was still watching Merlin and his eyes looked so similar to her partner's in that moment, for a split second she wondered if it really was a joke. But then he reached into his coat and produced his notebook with a smile and dipped under the tape. She raised an eyebrow as she followed him but said nothing. Watched as he began writing; what, she couldn't tell in the dark.
Behind them the tape rustled and Merlin followed them in. He was rubbing his eyes with one hand.
Mordred stumbled to an abrupt stop beside her when they'd made it into the center of the road, but she kept walking. Merlin passed Mordred as well, not sparing him a glance as he ran a hand through his hair.
Came down to a crouch beside the body.
Merlin blew out a breath and it bloomed in the cold air. There was a gently rolling thunder that was beginning overhead.
"Quickly, then," Merlin said, more to himself than to anyone else.
Gwen set her jaw and turned on her torch for him.
Mordred turned away. She could hear him gagging.
"If you're going to be sick," Merlin said quietly. "Do it on the other side of the tape if you can help it."
Gwen glanced at Mordred out of the corner of her eye as he ran for the end of the street where the patrol officer were standing guard across the crime scene tape barricade.
Then she turned grimly, back to her partner.
"Victim is Sebastian Carol," she told him, holding up the ID that she'd been handed when she and Mordred arrived on the scene ahead of Merlin. "Family reported him missing three days ago."
Merlin frowned, pulling on a set of gloves.
"Designation?" he asked.
"Submissive."
Merlin glanced at her, but she shook her head.
"Looks like a garden variety murder," she said. "Not a CDK suicide."
Merlin tilted his head as he looked over the body. He was a younger man, Merlin thought. Late-twenties or thirty; disheveled clothing and a dirty face. His coat was large on him and equally filthy, and not just because of the massive blood stain that had soaked into the fabric from the single, brutal slash across his throat.
"Why?" he asked her.
She frowned at the question, her eyes drifting from Merlin's bowed head to the man laying at his feet.
"No hesitation on the cut," she said. "No weapon here."
Merlin frowned, wincing a little when he looked into the torch by accident and turned to look further out into the street. He caught the eye of one of the patrolmen and waved him over.
"Detective?" the officer asked politely after nodding briefly at Gwen.
Mordred had made his way back tentatively to where they were standing, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. The patrolman gave him a sympathetic smile.
"First time?"
Before Mordred could answer, Merlin said,
"Did you find a weapon yet?"
"No weapon," the officer told him, turning his attention back to Merlin. "Killer probably took it with him when he fled the scene."
Merlin looked supremely unimpressed with this statement.
"Keep looking," Merlin said.
He'd started to turn back to the body, when the patrol officer spoke again.
"We'll look of course," he acknowledged. "But that cut is from the center of the throat to the outside, so the killer had the knowledge of anatomy to know what direction to cut to cause lethal damage to the carotid artery and jugular vein. Maybe someone with medical knowledge or a man with military experience. Someone like that isn't going to leave a weapon behind if he can help it."
"There's no indication that this wound was caused by a man," Merlin said dismissively, tilting his head to get a better look at the body. "And an elementary school child has the knowledge to inflict lethal damage to the throat."
"I don't know what school you went to Detective," the officer said with an indulgent smile. "But I certainly didn't know anything like that when I was in grade school."
Mordred watched with interest as Gwen shifted subtly at his shoulder, her hard gaze fixed on Merlin, who was taking a deep breath. It looked like she was about to interject, but despite the slow exasperation of his audible exhale, Merlin was faster.
"When did you first go to PE?" Merlin asked the patrol officer, looking up at him from where he was still crouched beside the body.
Mordred looked at the officer who was frowning now. Gwen briefly lifted her eyes to the sky.
"Primary I suppose," he said, shrugging. "Like everyone else."
"So, sometime in the years before you turned eleven, you went to PE?" Merlin asked.
Mordred was impressed to hear how subtly Merlin pressed the patrol officer without sounding condescending, even though his expression appeared annoyed. It was the reason the patrol officer answered him without concern, as, Mordred imagined, so many suspects in interview rooms had before him.
"Yeah, that sounds about right," he said with another amused smile.
"And did you learn how to take your own pulse then?" Merlin asked him.
There was silence between the two men now. Despite the fact that Merlin was the one still crouched on the pavement, and the sturdier patrol officer was standing over him, there was no question in Mordred's mind which one of them was in control of this interaction.
Merlin allowed the man to remain silent, choosing to continue speaking, even after he'd returned to examining the body, putting his back to the other man.
"Until we have the murder weapon, officer, there's no way to know how much force was applied to inflict this wound. A sharp knife would make this cut with no force applied other than the swing of an arm. Any arm."
"Alright," Gwen said, stepping between them. "Thank you for your help officer, we'll be in touch for an official statement."
The man looked like he might object, and then, blowing out a breath he nodded. Turned to go.
Gwen lit a cigarette.
"There's a trainee with us," she said, dropping her lighter into her coat pocket.
Merlin didn't even glance at Mordred when he answered her.
"And?"
"You could be less of a dick for once," she said without heat, blowing a soft cloud of smoke into the air between them.
"I wasn't being a dick," Merlin said pulling back the victim's collar delicately with a gloved hand. "If I wanted to be a dick I would have pointed out that regardless of the fact that cutting someone's throat is indeed more effective when moving from the center to the outside of the neck under the jaw, the jugular is on the left side. This wound is cut to the right. So if this killer is meant to be a doctor I'd like to know how they finished their medical degrees."
Mordred snorted.
Merlin glanced at him before standing finally. Mordred cleared his throat.
"There's no reason to let them turn whoever this murderer is into a cartoon character in their minds. The fact that someone is dead is bad enough. It's comments like his that end up in the press," Merlin said, turning his attention back to Mordred fully for the first time. Mordred was almost too surprised to react. But he did nod at the words eventually, his fringe bobbing gently against his brow.
Gwen gave a long suffering sigh, blowing the smoke out of her nose. Merlin studied her face for a moment and then, apparently satisfied with the two of them, he walked away with his head down, looking at the ground surrounding the body.
"Is he always like this?" Mordred asked her quietly.
Gwen pressed her lips together and took another drag on her cigarette.
"Yes," she said.
They didn't find a murder weapon, but Merlin wouldn't let it go. He was circling the body now, frowning. They'd been up and down the street with forensics for the last two hours and all they'd found was black tire marks on the sidewalk, like a car had come up onto the walkway to avoid the man in the road.
"Come on Merlin," Gwen urged him, a shivering Mordred at her shoulder. "It's freezing and the Coroner needs to take the body."
Merlin looked like he was about to object, but when he turned to her, the words made him pause.
Then to her surprise, he knelt down beside the body and started to turn it over.
"Merlin!" Gwen snapped, but he was already reaching under the man, his face twisted in concentration. And then suddenly, it cleared.
He let the body go, gently back to the wet pavement.
"Oy!" he shouted at the techs on the other end of the street, startling Gwen and Mordred.
A few people hurried over, one of them with a camera.
"Help me turn him over," Merlin said. "There's something underneath him."
Everyone changed their gloves. The tech with the camera started taking photos as Merlin and two of the forensics officers slowly, carefully, tipped the body onto it's side. There was a small ringing tone that echoed down the street when something metallic hit the road.
The back of the coat had a small dry patch. The knife had stuck there from the force of the body falling on-top of it, and the excess blood on the blade. It lay now, surprisingly clean, shining against the black tar underneath the body.
Mordred let out a low whistle.
Merlin ignored him. He held the body in place with the other techs while photos were taken as quickly as possible. The knife lifted carefully and placed in an evidence bag. But Merlin barely noticed any of that.
He was staring at the arm of the victim. It had slid, stiff, off the side of the body to fall across it's back, fingers hardening with rigor thumping unceremoniously against the street beside Merlin's knee.
There was a bullet hole, in the elbow of the coat.
Slowly, so as not to attract any attention, Merlin reached into the collar of the coat and lifted the tag out of it.
He had to fight not to flinch when he saw it.
It was a coincidence, it had to be. That was the first thing his mind told him, before the rational part of him took over again. A true coincidence was exceptionally rare. This didn't feel like that to him. This felt purposeful.
"What is it?" Mordred asked him, and Merlin was sure that his heart had completely ruptured into his ribcage at the shock of it.
He dropped the tag and shook his head at the other agents when they gave him quizzical looks.
"Nothing," he said, more to Mordred than to them.
When he turned to look at the trainee, he jerked back in surprise. Mordred had leaned over him, was bent nearly in half to see whatever it was Merlin was looking at. It put their faces uncomfortably close.
Mordred raised an eyebrow at his reaction. Before he could say anything though, Gwen jerked him back by the collar of his ill-fitting suit.
Merlin let out a breath in relief and stood.
He heard Gwen remark briefly about personal space as she directed him to take statements from everyone, including the first responders who had made it onto the scene, and the officer who had discovered the body. Normally, Merlin would have wanted nothing more than to hear these statements for himself. But he couldn't bring himself to. His fingers strayed to the patches on his shoulder but he didn't touch them.
He dropped his hand lower, to the outside of his arm, where, not too long ago, someone had put a bullet through the elbow of a coat he'd been wearing.
The same coat their victim was wearing now.
He let Gwen take Mordred back to The Met without him. Let them believe he agreed with them, that this murder was likely a random homicide. But he knew in his gut that wasn't true. It was CDK.
Merlin resolved to confirm his suspicions about the coat in the morning, after Dr. Gaius had a chance to autopsy the body. He could have gone back to the office, maybe collect his thoughts. Look into other, similar cases to Gwaine's, or Elyan's one more time.
He went back to the pub instead.
Merlin was sitting on the floor of his shower in his suit and his socks, letting the water pour over his head, soaking his clothes. His eyes were closed, but Arthur could see the moment his expression became darker all the same, when he realized he wasn't alone.
It was still concerning to Arthur, that Merlin was unaffected by this.
He really should find some additional security for The Detective.
"I said," Merlin murmured. "Next week."
Arthur frowned at that. He was surprised by just how intensely he needed to see Merlin's face, to confirm what he could hear in his voice. So, at the risk of angering Merlin, he slid the glass shower door back. It creaked in the frame. Merlin leaned his head against the tile wall but he otherwise didn't react.
That more than anything told Arthur everything he needed to know.
"It is next week," Arthur said. He tried keeping his tone as even as possible, but he must not have managed it very well because Merlin glared at him and put his head back under the water. Said, petulantly,
"I'm not talking to you.".
"You're drunk."
"You're a prat."
Arthur narrowed his eyes, incredulous.
"Sorry," Merlin said when Arthur hadn't responded, his head starting to drop, as if he couldn't hold it up any longer. "I thought we were just pointing out obviously true things."
Arthur had to pinch the bridge of his nose and close his eyes.
"No one -"
"Speaks to you like that," Merlin slurred. "Yeah, I know. Never stopped me before."
"Will you get out of the shower?" Arthur asked him, annoyed now but concerned also. The further forward Merlin slumped the more likely it was that he might inhale any of that water pouring over his head.
"You going to make me, if I say no?"
The words hammered Arthur in the chest. For a long time he wasn't sure if he could respond, let alone what he might say. In truth, this was not a feeling that Arthur was familiar with and certainly not one he was comfortable expressing. Anger was easier, than helplessness.
But he wrestled down his rage.
He had no right to it.
"Sit up."
"Stop talking to me like that," Merlin snapped at him, his head so low now his chin was nearly touching his chest.
"You're going to suffocate yourself," Arthur tried again. Reasonably, he thought.
Merlin stared at the tiles, water running over his hair and the soaked fabric of his suit jacket.
"So what if I am?" he said, quietly. "That's not your responsibility anymore."
Arthur took an abortive step forward and then abruptly stopped himself. It was not often he found himself in a situation that was completely out of his hands to control. And in this very particular case it was a fight to arrest not just his urge to deal with this as a person, but to deal with it as a Dominant at the same time. It took him too long, he thought, to respond. His silence made Merlin appear to shrink, somehow, under the weight of it. It surprised Arthur in that moment to find that it hurt him to hear Merlin speak like that.
He crouched down. Merlin watched him out of the corner of his eye.
"You have my bond," Arthur said quietly. "It will never not be my responsibility."
Merlin made a noise against his teeth at the words, in disbelief maybe, his head lolling a little to his shoulder.
"You'll live," he said unkindly. "I'm sure you have plenty of options waiting for you."
Arthur tilted his head at the words. They were objectively true. But not in the context Merlin was speaking of. He could certainly find someone always willing to Sub for him, he'd never had any issue with that. Not just because he was a Pendragon, but because his influence in particular was compatible with most, if not all, Subs. It was a kind of curse, in his opinion. It was so much easier for other Dominants to find a true partner, not just someone to satisfy their instincts for a time. But this drunk, and still so inexperienced about these small nuances in Dom and Sub relationships, it occurred to Arthur belatedly that Merlin wasn't directing that comment at him despite it being about him. He was mourning.
Because Merlin didn't have any other options, and he likely never would.
You took the only thing I ever truly wanted, dug it a grave and forced me to bury it!
"I told you I wouldn't ask your forgiveness for that," he said finally. "Not because it isn't something I am sorry for, Merlin. I didn't think it was an apology you would accept."
Merlin glowered at him, his shoulders sliding down further against the tile wall.
"I will, if that's what you want from me," Arthur said.
"What I wanted from you was to never be put in that situation in the first place!" Merlin exploded. "You took advantage of me and you didn't have to! I was already there to tell you what you wanted to know!"
"I know," he said solemnly.
"You know that now!" he spat, still shouting. "I trusted you! You said you gave me your trust but you couldn't have! If you did then you wouldn't have needed to do that to me!"
"That isn't entirely correct," Arthur countered him gently. "I do trust you, more than I should."
The words stopped Merlin's shouting but he was listing dangerously to one side now. Arthur had to struggle very hard not to reach out and physically pull Merlin out of the shower just to get him out from under the water. It alarmed him that if he wasn't here Merlin likely would have fallen asleep where he was sitting.
He might already be drowning, if Arthur wasn't on the floor beside him, giving him a target for his rage. Arthur pressed his lips together. Flexed his hand against his thigh.
"If you won't sit up at least let me turn off the water," he'd started to say, but Merlin cut him off, startling him, with a short, sharp,
"No."
"Why not?" Arthur asked him, when it was clear Merlin wasn't going to continue. He was glaring at the wall of the shower again barely sitting anymore, half laying on the floor of the shower. For a long time, he thought Merlin wasn't going to answer him. And then,
"Drinking makes me tired," he said, so quietly that Arthur almost missed it under the sound of falling water. "This will keep me awake."
Arthur frowned. Then, slowly, so Merlin wouldn't be startled by it, he reached out his hand under the water. Let it fall into his palm.
Cold.
"You'll make yourself sick."
"Better ill than asleep," Merlin said dismissively.
Arthur considered him for a long time. Thought about the night Merlin and he had finished a successful scene as Dominant and Submissive partners. How Merlin had fallen asleep on the floor, resting against Arthur's knee. Arthur had noticed right away how difficult it was for Merlin to fall asleep, even completely relaxed as he was. Like he was bracing for something. When he finally had, it had been fitful, at best. At first Arthur had assumed it was because he was more or less still seated on the floor. But nothing changed when he moved Merlin onto the bed. He couldn't be still, even in sleep. He'd tossed and shrank himself against Arthur, as if he were trying to create a smaller target of himself. Arthur had bruises on his arm for days afterwards, where Merlin's fingers had held onto him.
And then Merlin had woken up screaming.
The sound of it, even in memory only, ricocheted off of his bones.
I had a dream about a woman, who sat across from me at a table.
I wasn't sleeping...Not because I was following him at night. I was afraid I would see him sitting at the white table, because I knew I could get away with it.
"Do you always dream in nightmares?" Arthur ventured gently.
Merlin flinched in surprise. Turned his head when he answered, so that Arthur couldn't see his expression.
"No," he said, his voice rough. "The night you killed Gearson, I didn't dream at all."
Arthur looked at the floor. Ran a hand over his mouth.
"I won't let you fall asleep," he said after another silence had fallen between them. "But you need -"
"I don't need to do anything," Merlin snapped, his tone hot. "If it bothers you that much you can get in here with me or you can get out of my house."
"Those are your terms?" Arthur said, deadpan, his gaze flat on the side of Merlin's pale face.
"Those are my terms," Merlin slurred flippantly.
Arthur stood.
"You're impossible," he hissed, shrugging out of his coat and his suit jacket.
Merlin wasn't looking at him so he jumped in surprise when Arthur stepped under the water, fully clothed, and lifted Merlin slightly off the tile from under his arms. Merlin made a sound that could have conceivably been a yelp as Arthur sat, unceremoniously down with his back to the tile and Merlin in his lap.
Silence fell again between them. Merlin was rigid against Arthur, his body unnaturally still. Arthur leaned his head back against the wall to avoid the falling water on his face. Said,
"If you'd prefer I didn't touch you, I'll move."
Merlin let out a breath like he'd been punched.
"What are you doing?"
"Agreeing to your terms," Arthur said.
He kept his hands on the floor of the shower by his sides, not holding Merlin or keeping him in place. But Arthur felt better with his body bracing Merlin's so that he didn't slide down the wall any further and drop his chin completely to his chest. Marginally better.
It was really fucking cold.
And with Merlin this close to him, his instincts were at war again with his rational mind. Half of him sure down to the marrow of his bones that if he touched Merlin now in any way other than to sit with him like this, Merlin would throw him out, never to speak to him again. The other half of him was whispering quietly that Merlin wanted him to touch him, and wouldn't the two of them feel so much better if he did? Couldn't all of this hurt be mended if he just took control of the situation?
"All of the information I have on the Call Down Killer is copied for you on the table in the kitchen," Merlin told him then.
Arthur ran a hand over his face to wipe off the water dripping off his hair, soaked now, like the rest of him. Truly, it was a fight sometimes to follow the logic in The Detective's train of thought. And perhaps because he was unused to allowing himself to be in such emotionally draining situations, Arthur didn't have the energy to work this one out for himself. So he just told Merlin the truth.
"I didn't come here for files, Merlin."
"What did you come here for?"
Arthur stared at the overhead light above the shower. Felt the cold starting to creep in under his skin.
"Do you know what the first thought I had was," Arthur asked the ceiling, very gently. "When I put my hand under the water just now?"
Merlin said nothing, but his shoulders had come down a fraction. Not expecting a question like that, Arthur thought. That was alright. Arthur wasn't really looking for an answer.
"You hate to be cold," he said. "It makes your shoulder tight."
Merlin gave him an uncertain look over his shoulder. His eyes were glassy still, but not quite as far away as they had been. Arthur met his gaze calmly. Let Merlin look for himself.
"I'm sorry," Arthur told him. "I told you, I react poorly to fear. And when we started this, you made it explicitly clear, as I did, that any discussion about my Family, your cases, were off the table. We both agreed to that."
Merlin opened his mouth, enraged all over again, but this time Arthur held up his hand. There was no command here. Arthur wasn't using his influence. But Merlin shut his mouth all the same. It was a small relief to Arthur.
"It isn't my intention for you to interpret my explanation as an excuse," he said, the words tight and controlled. "But there was no reason for me to believe you would willingly give me that information."
"So you decided instead of asking me," Merlin cut in, his voice shaking. "You would just take it."
"Right or wrong, Merlin," Arthur said softly. "You were the most direct line to the information I needed. And I am not in the habit of asking anyone, for anything."
"I was worried about you," Merlin whispered angrily.
Of all the things Arthur had expected him to say, that was not one of them.
"Worried about me?" he asked, genuinely confused.
"Because of what happened to Elyan," Merlin told him quietly. "I just wanted you to know I was there for you if you needed me, and you hurt me for it."
They stared at each other for a long time. Arthur was thinking of the bullet that might have connected with Merlin had his former guardsman had better aim. All for such a small concern...over his grief. Merlin turned back around when he said nothing. Bowed his head again under the water.
"I didn't want this either, you know," Merlin said then, his voice breaking unexpectedly.
"What didn't you want?"
"To give a shit!" Merlin snapped, rounding on him suddenly.
Arthur couldn't lean back with his body braced against the shower wall, and Merlin, unsteady even seated as he was, more or less fell into him. He had his hand pressed flat to Arthur's soaked shirt to keep himself from pitching to the side but only just. Somehow he managed to remain angry, glaring at Arthur as he continued. Arthur could only stare at him down his nose, his eyes wide.
"You made everything so much fucking better," Merlin said, far too close to his face for comfort. "I thought you might actually need me, as much as I needed you."
At that, he dropped his head, his forehead thumping hard against Arthur's collarbone, startling him into lifting his arms, afraid Merlin might fall over.
"But you don't need me," Merlin said, his voice muffled by the water and Arthur's dress shirt. "You're just like all the rest of them. You need someone to kneel for you, whether they want to or not."
Merlin was trailing off now. His hand slid down the front of Arthur's shirt to rest, limp, against Arthur's thigh but Arthur didn't feel it. The adrenaline shock of the words was a tuning fork being struck against his teeth. Every inch of him was frozen, and it had nothing to do with the cold shower. It wasn't true, not a single word of it. But Arthur had no way to tell Merlin that. He didn't know how. What words could he possibly use to explain it to him, that he would believe?
That Arthur had killed for Merlin, twice now.
There wasn't a single Submissive in the whole of London who could say the same. That against all odds, The Detective had been the one to draw out the only Dominant instinct in him that wasn't a reflex. Arthur knew the difference now, between the defense of something that belonged to him, and the desire to protect something. He knew the difference because of Merlin. What it felt like for his influence to be pulled out of him beyond his control, pouring into the room until it touched everything ahead and behind him just so he could be sure that Merlin was safe.
The feeling of absolute terror that erupted inside of him, when he realized that Merlin had nearly been shot by one of his men.
How much of a relief it had been to pull the trigger, and remove that danger immediately and without remorse.
How could he say any of that now?
And then he felt Merlin beginning to relax against him.
"Merlin?"
No response.
Carefully, touching Merlin's skin for the first time in a week, Arthur tipped his head back a little. His eyes were closed.
"Merlin?"
Nothing.
Shifting so that Merlin's cheek was resting against his arm, Arthur took Merlin by the shoulder and shook him. But his head only dropped back over Arthur's elbow, his throat bared to the ceiling, unresponsive.
"Merlin!"