Coming of Age.txt

Coming of Age 1/4
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Oct. 23rd, 2010 | 01:13 pm
Title: Coming of Age
Rating: Light R (language, sex)
Pairings: Arthur/Merlin, Gwaine/Merlin
Disclaimer: no copyright infringement intended
Warnings: none
Summary: Arthur decides he wants to be better. Modern AU. ~19,500 words.


~

He doesn't remember that many words, conversations, moments -- whatever -- from before. Mainly:


1.

It's two weeks into his first term at uni when Lauren first approaches him, stopping him on the stairs outside after their Intro to Magical Concerns lecture and remarking in a causal manner, "I can't get over what a badass Albus Dawes was. It's almost kind of hot, you know?"

She's the American one, with the red hair and the heels. She's quite fit, actually, though a bit odd. Uses different coloured pens to take notes, for one thing.

She smiles at him, touches him on the forearm with a lingering hand. The Albus Dawes thing is probably a conversational pretext, but they go with it in any case, discussing some of the more notorious Dawes episodes mentioned in the lecture. The way she's hugging her arms around her body, the way the brisk October wind is tossing her long locks into her face, into his face -- he's waiting for the inevitable invitation to relocate when Lauren brings up the Drury-Pitman Act of 1919, just in passing. The casual reference immediately sparks Arthur's attention, drawing him more attentively into their conversation for which he had only had a superficial interest before.

He lets out a sharp laugh, disbelief and mocking lacing his voice. "You can't possibly believe that. You can't--my god. That bloody Act is responsible for the majority of your country's problems with its magical minority today. And not only that, but you've also managed to export those problems to the rest of the world with all that nonsense about the necessity of such a 'truly innovative' Act."

Arthur then proceeds to outline in detail why the Drury-Pitman Act is complete shite, caring little for the fact that he is altogether blocking the entrance to the building. Lauren looks a touch put out, but he ignores this because, honestly, that kind of ignorance is just dangerous.

He's in the middle of tying the Drury-Pitman Act to the Chicago Crisis in 1977 -- not nearly enough scholarship devoted to this connection -- when a voice interrupts him.

"Mate, fucksake, are you that thick or are you really that much of a twat?

Arthur jerks his head to the right, annoyed. It's some kid sitting on the stairs several steps below them, leaning back on his elbows and looking up at them, his neck twisted. Longish hair, bizarrely coloured a shocking blue on one half of his head, black (natural probably) on the other. Pale face, sharp cheekbones, a stud in his chin. Worn leather jacket over a faded red hoodie. Sagging jeans on a thin frame.

The guy's obviously a complete tit, and thus, his words are wholly inconsequential. Still, where does he come off talking to Arthur like that? If anyone's a giant twat, he is, not Arthur. Arthur opens his mouth to say something to this effect, then closes it, staring at the kid. It's the oddest sensation. He can feel the annoyance and disdain which the guy's words had initially elicited steadily dissipate for some reason, leaving him with a strange, nameless feeling. He should be irritated, wants to be irritated, but he's not, not really; he's something else right now, something new.

He takes a few steps down, Lauren forgotten on the top step. "And who are you?" he asks carefully, his gaze locked on the kid.

At first, the guy seems surprised, startled. Then, he gives him a wide smile, looking amused. "Merlin."

Name like that, probably magic. Also, a pierced tongue.

Arthur feels his lips twitch. "I'm Arthur," he offers unexpectedly. Having said this, he quickly looks away, uncomfortable and mentally berating himself. The guy hadn't asked for his name, so he doesn't know why he had volunteered it.

"Arthur," Merlin repeats.

He glances back and gives a sharp nod. Then, he clears his throat and starts looking around, feeling at a loss. Lauren is still on the top step, looking at him, her lips parted a bit.

Eventually, Merlin says, "So, you thinking about answering my question?"

Arthur scowls, making a dismissive noise. Done with this little… altercation, he shakes his head and starts walking down the rest of the stairs at a quick pace, side-stepping around the guy -- Merlin, Merlin -- in a wide semi-circle. After reaching the bottom of the stairs and making it several feet down the stone path, heading somewhere -- he'll figure it out in a minute or so -- he looks back for the first time.

Merlin has his hands in his rucksack, but he's looking up. Looking at Arthur. Their eyes meet and he smiles, just a small one.


2.

He's on his way back from London after a thoroughly uplifting meeting with his father, and he finds himself merging off the motorway and pulling into the car park of the closest Tesco's. The demoralising experience of wondering aimlessly through the superstore is the perfect addition to his day thus far.

He's just finished using the loo when Merlin startles the shit out of him, bursting into the room with an almost distracted air. He stares at Arthur for a second, expression blank, and then he starts whooping, glee making his eyes crinkle and his smile broad.

Arthur gives him a strange look as he washes his hands at the sink. Looking in the mirror, he watches Merlin dance about in the small space, bouncing on the balls of his feet from the stalls to the sink to the small window at the back. When Merlin unintentionally collides with a stall door -- it had to happen eventually -- he gradually begins to calm down, though the smile never leaves his face.

"Idiot," Arthur mutters with a snort. He shakes his head in amusement, noticing that, only now, after his little display, Merlin has started to look around the room, bending down to check the stalls for other people.

"So?" he questions with a raised eyebrow, drying his hands with a sheet of coarse paper toweling. "How did you end up here? Don't you have a tutoring session right now?"

Merlin bounces over to Arthur and crashes into his side, grinning and still moving about like he's in a mosh pit.

"I skipped it to test this thing out, right, and it fucking worked. Fuck me, but it actually worked. I found you."

Arthur gives mirror-Merlin a questioning look.

Merlin runs a hand through his hair on the blue side. It's always the blue side. "It's fucking bizarre and I know you're gonna give me shit about it, but these last couple of months, I've been noticing this thing, yeah? I don't even know how to describe. It's like--fuck, I don't know, an awareness, I guess."

"An awareness."

"Right." A beat. "Of you."

Arthur turns to look at Merlin, the paper toweling crumpling in his hand. He asks carefully, "What do you mean, 'of me?'"

Merlin shakes his head, both frustrated and excited. "I don't know, right. Fuck, Arthur, I don't even know." Some of his amusement from before starts to fade, lost in his earnestness. He steps closer to Arthur and drops a hand on his shoulder, unconsciously it seems. "It sounds fucking crazy, I know and if someone asked me, 'where is Arthur, right now,' I couldn't say, 'oh, he's taking a crap at the Tesco on High Street.' But I can find you, somehow, like. I can close my eyes and just--shit, find you. I can feel out where you are. I mean, I suppose there's some sort of limit, right? It's still fucked, though, ain't it?"

Arthur looks down, thinking. "I've never of any magic trait like that before."

He hears Merlin snort. "Of course, if Arthur hasn't heard of it…"

The thing is, Arthur does in fact have impressively extensive knowledge of magic traits, but this is Merlin, after all. What he can do, just on a purely natural level… it's quite hard to grasp.

He glances up. Merlin jerks his shoulder back and forth a few times before Arthur shrugs him off in mild irritation.

With a small smile, Merlin says, "It's kind of cool, though, right?" He laughs a little. "Like, if I said, 'Mate, I'll always be there for you,' I can literally always fucking be there for you."

An irrepressible smile tugs on the corners of Arthur's mouth. He looks at Merlin and inexplicably, he feels the urge to kiss him. Actually, if he so chooses, he can go right ahead and commence with the kissing, seeing as they do that now. Kissing, that is. Three years of being best friends, and now they kiss on occasion. They don't talk about it, of course. It happens, and then… nothing. Like the other day, when Merlin had been taking them in his little shitbucket -- why do we always have to go in your tossing car? -- to Rocko's annual Fuck You, Lottie O'Grady party. For no particular reason, he had just pulled off to the side, put the car in park and squeezed himself onto Arthur's lap, long legs knocking everywhere. Twenty minutes later, breathless and hard, they were back on the street again, talking about Soren's new girlfriend (much hotter than expected).

He doesn't kiss him in the end. No one's there, but still.


3.

It starts Arthur's second year in grad school, this new thing that they have. They still hook up with each other, now with some hand jobs and rutting thrown into the routine. Still don't talk about it, which is ace, as far as Arthur's concerned. There's not much more to it beyond that, though. Of course, they had had that awkward, drunken conversation about blow jobs the weekend after Will had finally fucked off out of Merlin's flat, shoving and pushing at each other on Merlin's bed, saying how good it would be, why don't you just pop down there and give it a try? come on, ...