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Merlin fic: Shadowplay -- Chapter Eight
Title: Shadowplay
Summary: Stood down from duty on convalescent's leave, secret agent Arthur Pendragon wonders if sheer boredom might just do him in. But when his handler saddles him with a caretaker who is by turns completely inept and strangely brilliant, and invites trouble wherever he goes, Arthur has to concede that death by boredom looks less and less likely. Death by goon squad, high-speed car chase, poison, or fiery explosion, however...
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur
Rating: NC-17
Chapter word count: ~4,500
Notes: Thank you to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
venivincere, my rock star of a beta.
Previous chapters: Prologue + One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven
The bedside clock read something ungodly like 3:22 and he was sore as hell in the nether regions, but contentment furled over Merlin anyway. At his back was the solid warmth of Arthur's chest and its gentle rise and fall, and on his face, a smile to beat back the darkness.
He still couldn't quite believe what had happened; it certainly wasn't supposed to have happened, and if he woke up next only to discover it had been a fever dream, he wouldn't be surprised. But the sweet ache in his body told him otherwise, a physical footprint to prove that they had indeed walked this road, and the mere thought of it tingled his skin. He let the feeling wash over him, smoothing out the knots of his thoughts, the tangle of surprise and elation, as it faded away to let sleep follow once more in its wake.
When Merlin opened his eyes again the room was bathed in the violet light of early dawn. Merlin rubbed his eyes, bringing the room into brighter focus, and he blinked, missing something. He turned towards the empty space next to him.
Arthur was already up, dressed in a pair of plain pyjama bottoms, his back to Merlin as he picked something up off the floor and stuffed it into a bag.
Merlin smiled at Arthur's back, still a little red in spots where Merlin had gripped him too hard, not that Arthur had seemed to mind at the time. "Morning," he said, his voice raspy with disuse.
He could've missed it, hazy as he was still with only one foot just out of sleep, could've missed the tensing of Arthur's shoulders at the sound of his voice, the straightening of the spine, the barricade building. But he saw it all, and something bitter unfolded in Merlin's chest even before he could hang words on it.
"Hey," said Arthur, turning around, a politely jovial lilt to his voice and his face half-blank, like the kind you give to someone who knows exactly who you are and it isn't mutual.
"What are you doing?" Merlin asked, propping himself up on his elbows, all too conscious of the fact that he was naked under the bedclothes. His stomach itched; there was probably still a bit of dried come on his skin. They hadn't bothered to clean up much; had only drifted off into a sated sleep side by side.
Merlin tried to look for at least a pair of pants to pull on, but the floor on his side of the bed was uncooperatively spotless, and he remembered with a grimace that he'd undressed somewhere between the kitchen and the living room last night.
Arthur glanced at the bag in his hands. He shrugged, nonchalant. "I thought since your mum's gone home I'd go back to the guest room. Don't want to impose any more than I've already done."
Prim politeness came off him in acrid waves, and Merlin could only try to match the indifference even if he was beginning to feel sick inside. "It's no bother," he said. Stay, he said in his head, willed Arthur to hear it and obey.
"Yeah, thanks," said Arthur, meaninglessly. "Best if we didn't, er-- I mean, last night was fun, but we should--"
"Be professional about it?" Merlin finished.
Relief danced over Arthur's face. "Yes."
Merlin nodded, wondering vaguely if he should be grateful he was getting this talk at all. Most other one-night stands, he reckoned, wouldn't even know Arthur had gone until they heard his car peal away into the sunrise. That was simply the way Arthur chose to operate, and Merlin felt a fool for thinking -- hoping -- this instance might be different somehow. That he would make the difference.
"Right," he said, keeping his tone even. "Well. Glad that's sorted."
"Right," said Arthur, for the briefest of moments as uncertain as Merlin had ever seen him, and moved towards the door. He stopped, his hand on the doorknob, as though he'd forgotten something and turned halfway towards Merlin, but the moment passed, and Arthur swept out, shutting the door behind him.
Merlin sagged over his drawn knees, and spent the next ten minutes listening to the faint sound of running water from the bathroom, resentful, inanely, that Arthur had got there first to scrub off all the residue and memory of the night before. The itch on his skin intensified, a helpful reminder in case he'd momentarily forgotten in the past ten seconds how utterly stupid he felt. Stupid and cheap and angry.
He'd deluded himself into thinking it had actually meant something to Arthur too, but he'd only been a willing body at an opportune time. No, that wasn't exactly fair; he wanted to be angry at Arthur for something, for taking advantage or for being so bloody casual about the whole thing, but this was his own fault. It was his own fault for making assumptions, for hanging his emotions on something that been nothing but a passing fancy, for imagining that someone like Arthur could want anything more from him.
It had been purely his imagination, it must have been, that he remembered the way Arthur had looked at him last night, like they'd been on the same page, down to the same word. It had looked like... reciprocation.
But whatever had transpired between them, whether or not Merlin had fabricated parts of it in his mind, couldn't change anything; Arthur was still in danger and Merlin still had a job to do. They would chalk this up to a mistake, and for convenience's sake, blame it on having had too much to drink even though they both knew this was a lie, and then they'd soldier on like they were supposed to. And Merlin would pretend it didn't hurt that Arthur would never again look at him the way he'd done the night before, look back like they needed nothing in the world but each other.
Drawing in a deep breath, Merlin folded the thoughts away and got out of bed. He heard Arthur clattering around in the kitchen, which meant the bathroom was free now. Merlin drew on a pair of pants and sidled out to the bathroom, where he allowed himself five minutes to wallow in the comfort of a cascade of hot water, and when he was done, Merlin stared himself down in the mirror, the fog swiped clean with a quick hand, and made his reflection smile until it didn't look so forced anymore.
*
Arthur put on a kettle to boil and located the French press, moving about the kitchen with the ease of familiarity, and it wasn't lost on him the fact that he'd only been here in Merlin's flat three days, but already it felt like home. It was a dangerous feeling, and one that he'd taken miles too far last night. This place had felt like home, and Merlin had felt like his, and everything had felt... right.
And now he felt like an idiot.
Worse still was the regret creeping into his head, moulding itself around every memory he had of the night before. It had been a stupid thing to do by all accounts -- every shred of logic he'd possessed at the time, few and far between as they were, had told him not to, but he'd gone on ahead anyway, out of control with desire, reeking of unprofessionalism and recklessness.
But worst of all -- and it was truly difficult for Arthur to rank anything more distressing than screwing up a facet of his job -- was the fact that, given the chance to do it over, he wasn't at all sure that he'd do it differently. Even now, just the merest wandering of his thoughts towards the burn and heat of Merlin's skin beneath his hands sent a dizzy little thrill pirouetting through him, extinguishing any hopes that last night had just been something he'd needed to get out of his system and be done with it.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. He wasn't supposed to still want Merlin. Somehow, somewhere, after years of perfecting the routine, he'd gone off script and he didn't know how to get back.
He'd tried his damnedest, that was for sure, feigning a nonchalance about the whole affair -- and that he'd had to make himself fake it at all was already disturbing and anomalous enough without throwing into the mix the fact that it had actually, legitimately stung for a good minute when Merlin had seemed to have no problems brushing it away as a one-off mistake.
Not that he wanted a different reaction. Not that he wanted Merlin to talk him into anything more. Not that, for the first time in years, he'd felt something stir inside him that had nothing to do with the pure physical pleasure of sex.
Because that would be madness, and he couldn't afford madness. There was still his job to consider -- both their jobs -- as well as, unlike every other one night stand he'd ever indulged in, having to look Merlin in the eye after, for as long as this case remained open.
And after that, well. After that he'd likely never see Merlin again.
Arthur tried to make the thought cheery. After all, having Merlin out of his life would mean having one less person to worry about. He'd been doing too much of that lately; it wasn't good form, getting attached. Once this was all over, he'd never have to make sure Merlin didn't accidentally shoot himself in the face with his stupid intruder alarm, or stop him buying substandard provisions, or... well, anything, really.
Try as he might to chivvy it along, the cheer wouldn't come, one in a long line of manufactured feelings that couldn't muscle past the wall of conflicted frustration that had built up ever since he'd opened his eyes this morning to the simultaneous terrors of panic and sated bliss and then more panic.
It didn't matter. Or, more precisely, he wouldn't let it matter. It would be to everyone's benefit if they all just moved on like grown-ups who didn't get invested in other grown-ups.
Arthur poured himself a mug of strong coffee from the press, swirls of steam rising from the surface, and wondered maybe if he burned off half his esophagus with it, he would have a legitimate medical reason to not talk to Merlin for the rest of the week. It would be awkward; they would flounder about in forced jollity and pretend things were the same as they ever had been, even though they would put enough distance between them that wouldn't arouse suspicion but was distance anyway and not look each other in the eye, and Arthur wished he'd never been so rash as to have ever touched Merlin.
Except he also didn't, because he had liked it, a lot. And he couldn't figure out whether it was worse that he'd done it in the first place, or that he couldn't ever do it again.
He dragged himself over to a bar stool and laid his head down on the counter, at complete odds with himself, irritated with his own confusion, a persistent push and pull inside him that wouldn't go away even though he knew, logically, what he should think and feel about the whole thing.
"All right?" came Merlin's voice from behind him.
Arthur jerked his head up, startled and just a bit embarrassed at having been caught all out of sorts. He turned to face Merlin, who was approaching the kitchen with a somewhat ginger quality to his footsteps.
"Yeah," said Arthur. "Yep. Fine. There's coffee."
Merlin drifted past him, not noticing, or pretending not to notice, Arthur's clumsy attempt at composure, and poured himself a finger of coffee. "Had breakfast yet?" he asked, tugging the fridge door open and scrutinising its insides, one hand on a cocked hip.
"Ahh, er, no," said Arthur, feeling a bud of panic sprout up.
What did breakfast mean? They'd had dozens of breakfasts together, but that had been before the sex, and now everything had a whole new connotation. Or maybe it didn't, and he was just making things up in his own head. He wasn't equipped for normal human interaction like a normal human being. He wasn't supposed to leave a footprint; he was just supposed to leave. Severing ties was a necessary and often welcome part of the job. But now, here in this flat with Merlin, he wasn't on the job, he wasn't an agent, he was just Arthur, and right now, Arthur was a little bit of a mess.
"I could do us some eggs?" Merlin suggested, leaning out from behind the fridge door.
"Sure," Arthur said firmly, sick of his internal fluster and hoping he could trick himself with fake confidence into being less of an idiot about this, about bloody breakfast.
After all, Merlin was doing a bang-up job of taking this all in stride, and it was only fair that Arthur should do his part as well. He dug up a smirk from the remnants of the kind of person he had been pre-Merlin, that halcyon era when his greatest worries had only consisted of how to escape from torture chambers with his internal organs still internal and whittling down all his options for the perfect post-kill quip. Oh, happy days.
The smirk, one he hadn't used since the early days of Merlin masquerading as his butler, glittered. "And maybe do them right this time?"
Merlin raised an eyebrow at him, very nearly infringing on Gaius' trademark. "I will when you learn how to make a decent cup of coffee," he said, one corner of his mouth lifting.
"You impugn my coffee-making?"
"It's over-extracted," Merlin said, pityingly.
"Oh, now look who's the snob."
Grinning, Merlin cracked eggs over a frying pan. "Ah, but look who is also in charge of your food. Haven't you ever heard you shouldn't piss off the wait staff?"
Arthur slid off the stool. "You wouldn't dare," he said, and went to the pantry to retrieve a loaf of bread. He stuck two slices in the toaster and punched the lever down. "Besides, poisoning is so plebeian."
Merlin laughed.
Maybe getting back to normal, or whatever they'd been before last night had happened, wouldn't be so difficult after all. Barring the fact it made Arthur disproportionately pleased that Merlin still remembered precisely how he liked his eggs done, maybe everything would be fine and all his earlier panic had just been over a big pile of nothing. Nothing was good; nothing was... meaningless.
And if he could wrench himself into order, to make his damned feelings realise, as his head did, that meaningless was actually a good thing, then it would all be fine.
*
On the upside, they were pretending like nothing had happened. Unfortunately, that was also the downside. Merlin wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, really, nor what he actually wanted from the morning after -- certainly not a prolonged heart-to-heart or anything, but aside from Arthur looking, for a very brief moment, as though the concept of breakfast was new to him, their interactions seemed to have suffered little damage.
As Merlin rolled the car to a stop at a yellow light, he glanced surreptitiously to his left, where Arthur was fiddling with the playlists on his iPod, plugged as usual into the car stereo. Merlin's hand was on the gear shift, and Arthur's hovering close by in front of the stereo, and in an alternate universe with braver versions of themselves, maybe, Arthur would abandon the music for a while to catch hold of Merlin's hand until the light changed.
The traffic light blinked into green, and Merlin let out a quiet sigh for things that would never be. He was glad, at least, that Arthur wasn't giving him the cold shoulder or trying overly hard to make like their relationship was anything more or less than, well, whatever it was they were. Friends, maybe. They were friends and temporary flatmates and colleagues, and that was mixing too many spheres already without adding the complication of sleeping together. He supposed he ought to be grateful that they shared that much as it was, and for however long this was destined to last, he'd enjoy Arthur's company in what doses it was given him. And then after, maybe he'd go and visit his mum for a while and they could be disappointed together that Arthur wouldn't be coming round for Christmas after all.
Soon, the agency's nondescript hull came into view, and Merlin pulled into the populated lot. It was still early by normal standards, not yet seven, but the agency maintained twenty-four hour work days; he would be happy when the case was over and he could go back to being a nine to five stiff again, in the safety and comfort of Gaius' lab where weapons only ever got fired into ballistics gel and nobody died and there was no immediate danger of falling in love with anyone, because there was usually only the two of them in there, and as much as he liked Gaius, Gaius just wasn't his type.
Merlin and Arthur walked quietly together down to the interrogation cells, where Morgana was waiting for them, all the cracks in her careful veneer from yesterday's harrowing events well patched up now.
She eyed them up and down as they approached. "You both look terrible," she said in greeting. "Not get enough sleep?"
Catching Merlin's eye by accident, Arthur shoved his hands into his pockets irritably. "Can we just get started?"
Morgana shrugged off the tetchiness. "Alvarr's in Room B. Merlin, he's not familiar with you, so I want you to lead the interrogation for now," she said, handing off a file to him. "Arthur, you'll be with me in observation."
Joining the others in the observation room for the time being, Merlin skimmed the contents of the file, but it obviously contained nothing overly suspicious, or else Morgana would've had her hounds on it by now.
He peered through the two-way mirror into the cell where Alvarr sat in solitude, both arms in bandages and his ankles shackled to the table legs. But even chained to the table and with a future almost guaranteed to involve nothing but metal bars for the rest of his natural life, Alvarr managed to look calmly defiant.
Merlin entered the room, the file tucked snugly underneath one arm, and swallowed his nerves. He hadn't done this for a very long time. It wasn't just about knowing what kinds of questions to ask; he needed to think like Alvarr and figure out what made him tick, and more importantly, what would make him talk. Alvarr was the only major lead they had in this investigation, and Merlin needed to do this right.
Alvarr nodded at him in greeting, as though giving him leave to approach. "Emrys, isn't it? Pendragon's bodyguard."
"Yep. Hi," said Merlin, scraping a chair out from the opposite side of the table and easing himself into it. "How're you feeling?"
"Look, you've read my file. You know I've been an agent here for the better part of a decade, and I've been on the other side of that mirror," Alvarr said, tilting his head towards the room where Morgana and Arthur were watching, "a hundred times. So let's not pretend I don't know every interrogation technique there is, and just cut to the chase, hm?"
Merlin shrugged; there was a clear alpha maleness about Alvarr that wanted to commandeer the conversation, and fighting that at the moment would only make things harder. "All right," said Merlin, playing along. "Who are you working for?"
Alvarr's face lit into a smile. "Nobody."
"Ah, the ever popular 'Nobody'. Gets a lot of stuff done, that guy," Merlin said conversationally. He raised an inquiring eyebrow. "I thought we were cutting to the chase."
"I never said I'd make it easy for you. Nothing against you personally, you understand, Agent Emrys. It's just that I know you're on quite a tight timeline trying to find out who's behind all this before they strike again, and it's really in my best interests to waste your time. Oh," he said, his gaze going towards the mirror, and cocked a cheery finger gun at it, "and thanks, by the way, Agent Pendragon, for revealing yourself yesterday. Very helpful."
"Well," said Merlin, drawing Alvarr's attention back before he could agitate Arthur further, "at least one of us is enjoying ourselves."
Alvarr leaned back in his chair. "Quite. I do still have a stake in this game even if I'm not allowed to play anymore."
"Something personal, then?"
"Isn't it always?"
"Sometimes it's money."
"Nah, not me," Alvarr said, shaking his head. "My salary's always been more than satisfactory. Though, of course, I suppose this little episode means I'm off the payroll now. Pity."
"I'd say that's a safe bet. Why Agent Pendragon?"
"Why not?"
"Well, it's not like you've been trying to blow up every other agent here. There must be a reason you were gunning for him other than pure whimsy."
"Yes, you're probably right," said Alvarr.
"Would you care to expound on that?" Merlin suggested amiably.
Alvarr appeared to consider this for a moment, and then screwed his mouth to one side. "Probably shouldn't."
"Fair enough."
"I must say, for a man who's not getting anywhere at all in this interrogation, you're handling it remarkably well."
Merlin's mouth lifted into a little smile. "I try. So, why Miss Le Fay, then?"
For a split second Alvarr tensed. He blinked it away. "Pardon?"
"Miss Le Fay," Merlin repeated helpfully, his tone still even and genial as ever. "You had the hearse. You could've just gone with it; at the time Miss Le Fay posed no immediate threat to you, but you stopped to shoot."
"Ah, well," said Alvarr, relaxing into his chair, "tactical miscalculation on my part. I rather thought you'd all be a bit more prepared than that to foil my getaway, so I thought I'd shoot first. Pre-emptive strike, as it were. Silly me."
"Mm, yeah, I'd say so," Merlin said, giving his injured arms a meaningful, sympathetic look.
Alvarr returned the look with narrowed eyes, unsure whether or not Merlin was being facetious. "Listen," he said, apparently deciding on the latter, "it's not that I'm trying to tell you how to do your job or anything, but I reckon I've been doing this a lot longer than you have, and if you have some kind of deal to cut me, now would be a good time to do it."
"You mean, like, leniency in court?" Merlin hazarded.
"That's what people generally go for, yes," Alvarr said slowly, and Merlin got the distinct feeling that his mental abilities were in question. "Have you been at this job long?"
Merlin pursed his lips in thought. "Not as such, no."
Alvarr's head tilted to one side, regarding him curiously. "You'd think they'd have assigned someone less green to protect Pendragon, considering how precious he is."
"To whom?"
"Are you joking?" Alvarr said flatly. "His father runs this place; you don't think he gets special treatment, that the old man has a massive soft spot for him?"
"Oh," said Merlin, as if the thought had dawned on him for the very first time, even though it had been circulating around the agency for as long as Arthur had been signed on; it was a shadow Arthur would never outrun. "Oh, so all this is just about jealousy, then?"
"What?"
"You worked your arse off for years to get to where you are, but Agent Pendragon, his rise is a product of nepotism, you think. His reputation, all that arrogance and entitlement, they're completely undeserved, and that's why you went after him."
Alvarr's face creased with derision. "If partiality was a proper reason to kill someone, there would be corpses lining the streets."
Merlin reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone and scrolled through a message that wasn't there. "Oh, er, they want me to tell you they're working on the terms of your deal."
"Is that so?" said Alvarr. "Well, tell them I want to hear it from the old man himself. It'll be interesting, don't you think, to see how far he'll go to protect his son? Think I should make him beg?"
"I wouldn't advise it."
Alvarr laughed, a hollow sound. "Why shouldn't I have my fun? Right now, I hold all the cards. But one day I won't, and when that day comes, it'll be like I never existed. That's what happens here when you outlive your usefulness."
There was a sharp rap on the cell door, and Merlin started. "Oh. That's-- they're calling me out."
"That's probably for the best," said Alvarr. "No offense, but they'll be wanting someone in here who's better at this than you."
"None taken," Merlin said, with a helpless shrug, and slipped out of the cell.
He sighed, running a hand over his face as if to cleanse himself of the touch of incompetence he'd taken on in the cell, and opened the door into the adjoining room where Morgana was waiting with an expectant look on her face and Arthur was still glaring through the two-way mirror.
"This isn't about Arthur, not for Alvarr," Morgana said before Merlin could.
Arthur turned to face them. "He tried to blow me up. I'd say it's a little bit about me."
Morgana gave him a pointed look. "You know what I mean."
"Yes," Arthur said grudgingly, folding his arms across his chest. "He hasn't got anything against me. Merlin gave him an opening and he did nothing with it. His problem's obviously--"
"Uther," Morgana finished.
Merlin nodded at her. "And he wasn't aiming for you yesterday, either. It was Uther he wanted."
Arthur frowned. "But why? Alvarr had enough of a level of clearance here to get an audience if he really wanted and just kill my father in his office. Why go through all that trouble of trying to get to me first? For all the funding and time it's been taking..."
"That," Morgana sighed, "is what we have to find out. He's not working alone; we know that much, but there are plenty of other factors at play that we still know nothing about."
As she got on the phone to her assistant to pull files for her, Arthur lowered his voice. "Thanks, by the way, Merlin. Arrogant and entitled?"
"Well, funnily enough, those are the first ten words that come to mind when I think of you," Merlin said, shrugging like there was no help for it.
Morgana disconnected the call and turned back to them. "All right, gentlemen, back up to my office for a productive day of weeding through Alvarr's case files." When Arthur groaned at her, she added, loftily, "This is the life you've chosen, Agent Pendragon. Sometimes there's tedious paperwork to be done; it can't all be gunfights and sexual conquests."
Though she said the last with a roll to her eyes, Merlin couldn't help but notice the look of guilt that flashed over Arthur's face, if only because he knew it was reflected in his own.
Continue to Chapter Nine
Summary: Stood down from duty on convalescent's leave, secret agent Arthur Pendragon wonders if sheer boredom might just do him in. But when his handler saddles him with a caretaker who is by turns completely inept and strangely brilliant, and invites trouble wherever he goes, Arthur has to concede that death by boredom looks less and less likely. Death by goon squad, high-speed car chase, poison, or fiery explosion, however...
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur
Rating: NC-17
Chapter word count: ~4,500
Notes: Thank you to
venivincere, my rock star of a beta. Previous chapters: Prologue + One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven
The bedside clock read something ungodly like 3:22 and he was sore as hell in the nether regions, but contentment furled over Merlin anyway. At his back was the solid warmth of Arthur's chest and its gentle rise and fall, and on his face, a smile to beat back the darkness.
He still couldn't quite believe what had happened; it certainly wasn't supposed to have happened, and if he woke up next only to discover it had been a fever dream, he wouldn't be surprised. But the sweet ache in his body told him otherwise, a physical footprint to prove that they had indeed walked this road, and the mere thought of it tingled his skin. He let the feeling wash over him, smoothing out the knots of his thoughts, the tangle of surprise and elation, as it faded away to let sleep follow once more in its wake.
When Merlin opened his eyes again the room was bathed in the violet light of early dawn. Merlin rubbed his eyes, bringing the room into brighter focus, and he blinked, missing something. He turned towards the empty space next to him.
Arthur was already up, dressed in a pair of plain pyjama bottoms, his back to Merlin as he picked something up off the floor and stuffed it into a bag.
Merlin smiled at Arthur's back, still a little red in spots where Merlin had gripped him too hard, not that Arthur had seemed to mind at the time. "Morning," he said, his voice raspy with disuse.
He could've missed it, hazy as he was still with only one foot just out of sleep, could've missed the tensing of Arthur's shoulders at the sound of his voice, the straightening of the spine, the barricade building. But he saw it all, and something bitter unfolded in Merlin's chest even before he could hang words on it.
"Hey," said Arthur, turning around, a politely jovial lilt to his voice and his face half-blank, like the kind you give to someone who knows exactly who you are and it isn't mutual.
"What are you doing?" Merlin asked, propping himself up on his elbows, all too conscious of the fact that he was naked under the bedclothes. His stomach itched; there was probably still a bit of dried come on his skin. They hadn't bothered to clean up much; had only drifted off into a sated sleep side by side.
Merlin tried to look for at least a pair of pants to pull on, but the floor on his side of the bed was uncooperatively spotless, and he remembered with a grimace that he'd undressed somewhere between the kitchen and the living room last night.
Arthur glanced at the bag in his hands. He shrugged, nonchalant. "I thought since your mum's gone home I'd go back to the guest room. Don't want to impose any more than I've already done."
Prim politeness came off him in acrid waves, and Merlin could only try to match the indifference even if he was beginning to feel sick inside. "It's no bother," he said. Stay, he said in his head, willed Arthur to hear it and obey.
"Yeah, thanks," said Arthur, meaninglessly. "Best if we didn't, er-- I mean, last night was fun, but we should--"
"Be professional about it?" Merlin finished.
Relief danced over Arthur's face. "Yes."
Merlin nodded, wondering vaguely if he should be grateful he was getting this talk at all. Most other one-night stands, he reckoned, wouldn't even know Arthur had gone until they heard his car peal away into the sunrise. That was simply the way Arthur chose to operate, and Merlin felt a fool for thinking -- hoping -- this instance might be different somehow. That he would make the difference.
"Right," he said, keeping his tone even. "Well. Glad that's sorted."
"Right," said Arthur, for the briefest of moments as uncertain as Merlin had ever seen him, and moved towards the door. He stopped, his hand on the doorknob, as though he'd forgotten something and turned halfway towards Merlin, but the moment passed, and Arthur swept out, shutting the door behind him.
Merlin sagged over his drawn knees, and spent the next ten minutes listening to the faint sound of running water from the bathroom, resentful, inanely, that Arthur had got there first to scrub off all the residue and memory of the night before. The itch on his skin intensified, a helpful reminder in case he'd momentarily forgotten in the past ten seconds how utterly stupid he felt. Stupid and cheap and angry.
He'd deluded himself into thinking it had actually meant something to Arthur too, but he'd only been a willing body at an opportune time. No, that wasn't exactly fair; he wanted to be angry at Arthur for something, for taking advantage or for being so bloody casual about the whole thing, but this was his own fault. It was his own fault for making assumptions, for hanging his emotions on something that been nothing but a passing fancy, for imagining that someone like Arthur could want anything more from him.
It had been purely his imagination, it must have been, that he remembered the way Arthur had looked at him last night, like they'd been on the same page, down to the same word. It had looked like... reciprocation.
But whatever had transpired between them, whether or not Merlin had fabricated parts of it in his mind, couldn't change anything; Arthur was still in danger and Merlin still had a job to do. They would chalk this up to a mistake, and for convenience's sake, blame it on having had too much to drink even though they both knew this was a lie, and then they'd soldier on like they were supposed to. And Merlin would pretend it didn't hurt that Arthur would never again look at him the way he'd done the night before, look back like they needed nothing in the world but each other.
Drawing in a deep breath, Merlin folded the thoughts away and got out of bed. He heard Arthur clattering around in the kitchen, which meant the bathroom was free now. Merlin drew on a pair of pants and sidled out to the bathroom, where he allowed himself five minutes to wallow in the comfort of a cascade of hot water, and when he was done, Merlin stared himself down in the mirror, the fog swiped clean with a quick hand, and made his reflection smile until it didn't look so forced anymore.
Arthur put on a kettle to boil and located the French press, moving about the kitchen with the ease of familiarity, and it wasn't lost on him the fact that he'd only been here in Merlin's flat three days, but already it felt like home. It was a dangerous feeling, and one that he'd taken miles too far last night. This place had felt like home, and Merlin had felt like his, and everything had felt... right.
And now he felt like an idiot.
Worse still was the regret creeping into his head, moulding itself around every memory he had of the night before. It had been a stupid thing to do by all accounts -- every shred of logic he'd possessed at the time, few and far between as they were, had told him not to, but he'd gone on ahead anyway, out of control with desire, reeking of unprofessionalism and recklessness.
But worst of all -- and it was truly difficult for Arthur to rank anything more distressing than screwing up a facet of his job -- was the fact that, given the chance to do it over, he wasn't at all sure that he'd do it differently. Even now, just the merest wandering of his thoughts towards the burn and heat of Merlin's skin beneath his hands sent a dizzy little thrill pirouetting through him, extinguishing any hopes that last night had just been something he'd needed to get out of his system and be done with it.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. He wasn't supposed to still want Merlin. Somehow, somewhere, after years of perfecting the routine, he'd gone off script and he didn't know how to get back.
He'd tried his damnedest, that was for sure, feigning a nonchalance about the whole affair -- and that he'd had to make himself fake it at all was already disturbing and anomalous enough without throwing into the mix the fact that it had actually, legitimately stung for a good minute when Merlin had seemed to have no problems brushing it away as a one-off mistake.
Not that he wanted a different reaction. Not that he wanted Merlin to talk him into anything more. Not that, for the first time in years, he'd felt something stir inside him that had nothing to do with the pure physical pleasure of sex.
Because that would be madness, and he couldn't afford madness. There was still his job to consider -- both their jobs -- as well as, unlike every other one night stand he'd ever indulged in, having to look Merlin in the eye after, for as long as this case remained open.
And after that, well. After that he'd likely never see Merlin again.
Arthur tried to make the thought cheery. After all, having Merlin out of his life would mean having one less person to worry about. He'd been doing too much of that lately; it wasn't good form, getting attached. Once this was all over, he'd never have to make sure Merlin didn't accidentally shoot himself in the face with his stupid intruder alarm, or stop him buying substandard provisions, or... well, anything, really.
Try as he might to chivvy it along, the cheer wouldn't come, one in a long line of manufactured feelings that couldn't muscle past the wall of conflicted frustration that had built up ever since he'd opened his eyes this morning to the simultaneous terrors of panic and sated bliss and then more panic.
It didn't matter. Or, more precisely, he wouldn't let it matter. It would be to everyone's benefit if they all just moved on like grown-ups who didn't get invested in other grown-ups.
Arthur poured himself a mug of strong coffee from the press, swirls of steam rising from the surface, and wondered maybe if he burned off half his esophagus with it, he would have a legitimate medical reason to not talk to Merlin for the rest of the week. It would be awkward; they would flounder about in forced jollity and pretend things were the same as they ever had been, even though they would put enough distance between them that wouldn't arouse suspicion but was distance anyway and not look each other in the eye, and Arthur wished he'd never been so rash as to have ever touched Merlin.
Except he also didn't, because he had liked it, a lot. And he couldn't figure out whether it was worse that he'd done it in the first place, or that he couldn't ever do it again.
He dragged himself over to a bar stool and laid his head down on the counter, at complete odds with himself, irritated with his own confusion, a persistent push and pull inside him that wouldn't go away even though he knew, logically, what he should think and feel about the whole thing.
"All right?" came Merlin's voice from behind him.
Arthur jerked his head up, startled and just a bit embarrassed at having been caught all out of sorts. He turned to face Merlin, who was approaching the kitchen with a somewhat ginger quality to his footsteps.
"Yeah," said Arthur. "Yep. Fine. There's coffee."
Merlin drifted past him, not noticing, or pretending not to notice, Arthur's clumsy attempt at composure, and poured himself a finger of coffee. "Had breakfast yet?" he asked, tugging the fridge door open and scrutinising its insides, one hand on a cocked hip.
"Ahh, er, no," said Arthur, feeling a bud of panic sprout up.
What did breakfast mean? They'd had dozens of breakfasts together, but that had been before the sex, and now everything had a whole new connotation. Or maybe it didn't, and he was just making things up in his own head. He wasn't equipped for normal human interaction like a normal human being. He wasn't supposed to leave a footprint; he was just supposed to leave. Severing ties was a necessary and often welcome part of the job. But now, here in this flat with Merlin, he wasn't on the job, he wasn't an agent, he was just Arthur, and right now, Arthur was a little bit of a mess.
"I could do us some eggs?" Merlin suggested, leaning out from behind the fridge door.
"Sure," Arthur said firmly, sick of his internal fluster and hoping he could trick himself with fake confidence into being less of an idiot about this, about bloody breakfast.
After all, Merlin was doing a bang-up job of taking this all in stride, and it was only fair that Arthur should do his part as well. He dug up a smirk from the remnants of the kind of person he had been pre-Merlin, that halcyon era when his greatest worries had only consisted of how to escape from torture chambers with his internal organs still internal and whittling down all his options for the perfect post-kill quip. Oh, happy days.
The smirk, one he hadn't used since the early days of Merlin masquerading as his butler, glittered. "And maybe do them right this time?"
Merlin raised an eyebrow at him, very nearly infringing on Gaius' trademark. "I will when you learn how to make a decent cup of coffee," he said, one corner of his mouth lifting.
"You impugn my coffee-making?"
"It's over-extracted," Merlin said, pityingly.
"Oh, now look who's the snob."
Grinning, Merlin cracked eggs over a frying pan. "Ah, but look who is also in charge of your food. Haven't you ever heard you shouldn't piss off the wait staff?"
Arthur slid off the stool. "You wouldn't dare," he said, and went to the pantry to retrieve a loaf of bread. He stuck two slices in the toaster and punched the lever down. "Besides, poisoning is so plebeian."
Merlin laughed.
Maybe getting back to normal, or whatever they'd been before last night had happened, wouldn't be so difficult after all. Barring the fact it made Arthur disproportionately pleased that Merlin still remembered precisely how he liked his eggs done, maybe everything would be fine and all his earlier panic had just been over a big pile of nothing. Nothing was good; nothing was... meaningless.
And if he could wrench himself into order, to make his damned feelings realise, as his head did, that meaningless was actually a good thing, then it would all be fine.
On the upside, they were pretending like nothing had happened. Unfortunately, that was also the downside. Merlin wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, really, nor what he actually wanted from the morning after -- certainly not a prolonged heart-to-heart or anything, but aside from Arthur looking, for a very brief moment, as though the concept of breakfast was new to him, their interactions seemed to have suffered little damage.
As Merlin rolled the car to a stop at a yellow light, he glanced surreptitiously to his left, where Arthur was fiddling with the playlists on his iPod, plugged as usual into the car stereo. Merlin's hand was on the gear shift, and Arthur's hovering close by in front of the stereo, and in an alternate universe with braver versions of themselves, maybe, Arthur would abandon the music for a while to catch hold of Merlin's hand until the light changed.
The traffic light blinked into green, and Merlin let out a quiet sigh for things that would never be. He was glad, at least, that Arthur wasn't giving him the cold shoulder or trying overly hard to make like their relationship was anything more or less than, well, whatever it was they were. Friends, maybe. They were friends and temporary flatmates and colleagues, and that was mixing too many spheres already without adding the complication of sleeping together. He supposed he ought to be grateful that they shared that much as it was, and for however long this was destined to last, he'd enjoy Arthur's company in what doses it was given him. And then after, maybe he'd go and visit his mum for a while and they could be disappointed together that Arthur wouldn't be coming round for Christmas after all.
Soon, the agency's nondescript hull came into view, and Merlin pulled into the populated lot. It was still early by normal standards, not yet seven, but the agency maintained twenty-four hour work days; he would be happy when the case was over and he could go back to being a nine to five stiff again, in the safety and comfort of Gaius' lab where weapons only ever got fired into ballistics gel and nobody died and there was no immediate danger of falling in love with anyone, because there was usually only the two of them in there, and as much as he liked Gaius, Gaius just wasn't his type.
Merlin and Arthur walked quietly together down to the interrogation cells, where Morgana was waiting for them, all the cracks in her careful veneer from yesterday's harrowing events well patched up now.
She eyed them up and down as they approached. "You both look terrible," she said in greeting. "Not get enough sleep?"
Catching Merlin's eye by accident, Arthur shoved his hands into his pockets irritably. "Can we just get started?"
Morgana shrugged off the tetchiness. "Alvarr's in Room B. Merlin, he's not familiar with you, so I want you to lead the interrogation for now," she said, handing off a file to him. "Arthur, you'll be with me in observation."
Joining the others in the observation room for the time being, Merlin skimmed the contents of the file, but it obviously contained nothing overly suspicious, or else Morgana would've had her hounds on it by now.
He peered through the two-way mirror into the cell where Alvarr sat in solitude, both arms in bandages and his ankles shackled to the table legs. But even chained to the table and with a future almost guaranteed to involve nothing but metal bars for the rest of his natural life, Alvarr managed to look calmly defiant.
Merlin entered the room, the file tucked snugly underneath one arm, and swallowed his nerves. He hadn't done this for a very long time. It wasn't just about knowing what kinds of questions to ask; he needed to think like Alvarr and figure out what made him tick, and more importantly, what would make him talk. Alvarr was the only major lead they had in this investigation, and Merlin needed to do this right.
Alvarr nodded at him in greeting, as though giving him leave to approach. "Emrys, isn't it? Pendragon's bodyguard."
"Yep. Hi," said Merlin, scraping a chair out from the opposite side of the table and easing himself into it. "How're you feeling?"
"Look, you've read my file. You know I've been an agent here for the better part of a decade, and I've been on the other side of that mirror," Alvarr said, tilting his head towards the room where Morgana and Arthur were watching, "a hundred times. So let's not pretend I don't know every interrogation technique there is, and just cut to the chase, hm?"
Merlin shrugged; there was a clear alpha maleness about Alvarr that wanted to commandeer the conversation, and fighting that at the moment would only make things harder. "All right," said Merlin, playing along. "Who are you working for?"
Alvarr's face lit into a smile. "Nobody."
"Ah, the ever popular 'Nobody'. Gets a lot of stuff done, that guy," Merlin said conversationally. He raised an inquiring eyebrow. "I thought we were cutting to the chase."
"I never said I'd make it easy for you. Nothing against you personally, you understand, Agent Emrys. It's just that I know you're on quite a tight timeline trying to find out who's behind all this before they strike again, and it's really in my best interests to waste your time. Oh," he said, his gaze going towards the mirror, and cocked a cheery finger gun at it, "and thanks, by the way, Agent Pendragon, for revealing yourself yesterday. Very helpful."
"Well," said Merlin, drawing Alvarr's attention back before he could agitate Arthur further, "at least one of us is enjoying ourselves."
Alvarr leaned back in his chair. "Quite. I do still have a stake in this game even if I'm not allowed to play anymore."
"Something personal, then?"
"Isn't it always?"
"Sometimes it's money."
"Nah, not me," Alvarr said, shaking his head. "My salary's always been more than satisfactory. Though, of course, I suppose this little episode means I'm off the payroll now. Pity."
"I'd say that's a safe bet. Why Agent Pendragon?"
"Why not?"
"Well, it's not like you've been trying to blow up every other agent here. There must be a reason you were gunning for him other than pure whimsy."
"Yes, you're probably right," said Alvarr.
"Would you care to expound on that?" Merlin suggested amiably.
Alvarr appeared to consider this for a moment, and then screwed his mouth to one side. "Probably shouldn't."
"Fair enough."
"I must say, for a man who's not getting anywhere at all in this interrogation, you're handling it remarkably well."
Merlin's mouth lifted into a little smile. "I try. So, why Miss Le Fay, then?"
For a split second Alvarr tensed. He blinked it away. "Pardon?"
"Miss Le Fay," Merlin repeated helpfully, his tone still even and genial as ever. "You had the hearse. You could've just gone with it; at the time Miss Le Fay posed no immediate threat to you, but you stopped to shoot."
"Ah, well," said Alvarr, relaxing into his chair, "tactical miscalculation on my part. I rather thought you'd all be a bit more prepared than that to foil my getaway, so I thought I'd shoot first. Pre-emptive strike, as it were. Silly me."
"Mm, yeah, I'd say so," Merlin said, giving his injured arms a meaningful, sympathetic look.
Alvarr returned the look with narrowed eyes, unsure whether or not Merlin was being facetious. "Listen," he said, apparently deciding on the latter, "it's not that I'm trying to tell you how to do your job or anything, but I reckon I've been doing this a lot longer than you have, and if you have some kind of deal to cut me, now would be a good time to do it."
"You mean, like, leniency in court?" Merlin hazarded.
"That's what people generally go for, yes," Alvarr said slowly, and Merlin got the distinct feeling that his mental abilities were in question. "Have you been at this job long?"
Merlin pursed his lips in thought. "Not as such, no."
Alvarr's head tilted to one side, regarding him curiously. "You'd think they'd have assigned someone less green to protect Pendragon, considering how precious he is."
"To whom?"
"Are you joking?" Alvarr said flatly. "His father runs this place; you don't think he gets special treatment, that the old man has a massive soft spot for him?"
"Oh," said Merlin, as if the thought had dawned on him for the very first time, even though it had been circulating around the agency for as long as Arthur had been signed on; it was a shadow Arthur would never outrun. "Oh, so all this is just about jealousy, then?"
"What?"
"You worked your arse off for years to get to where you are, but Agent Pendragon, his rise is a product of nepotism, you think. His reputation, all that arrogance and entitlement, they're completely undeserved, and that's why you went after him."
Alvarr's face creased with derision. "If partiality was a proper reason to kill someone, there would be corpses lining the streets."
Merlin reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone and scrolled through a message that wasn't there. "Oh, er, they want me to tell you they're working on the terms of your deal."
"Is that so?" said Alvarr. "Well, tell them I want to hear it from the old man himself. It'll be interesting, don't you think, to see how far he'll go to protect his son? Think I should make him beg?"
"I wouldn't advise it."
Alvarr laughed, a hollow sound. "Why shouldn't I have my fun? Right now, I hold all the cards. But one day I won't, and when that day comes, it'll be like I never existed. That's what happens here when you outlive your usefulness."
There was a sharp rap on the cell door, and Merlin started. "Oh. That's-- they're calling me out."
"That's probably for the best," said Alvarr. "No offense, but they'll be wanting someone in here who's better at this than you."
"None taken," Merlin said, with a helpless shrug, and slipped out of the cell.
He sighed, running a hand over his face as if to cleanse himself of the touch of incompetence he'd taken on in the cell, and opened the door into the adjoining room where Morgana was waiting with an expectant look on her face and Arthur was still glaring through the two-way mirror.
"This isn't about Arthur, not for Alvarr," Morgana said before Merlin could.
Arthur turned to face them. "He tried to blow me up. I'd say it's a little bit about me."
Morgana gave him a pointed look. "You know what I mean."
"Yes," Arthur said grudgingly, folding his arms across his chest. "He hasn't got anything against me. Merlin gave him an opening and he did nothing with it. His problem's obviously--"
"Uther," Morgana finished.
Merlin nodded at her. "And he wasn't aiming for you yesterday, either. It was Uther he wanted."
Arthur frowned. "But why? Alvarr had enough of a level of clearance here to get an audience if he really wanted and just kill my father in his office. Why go through all that trouble of trying to get to me first? For all the funding and time it's been taking..."
"That," Morgana sighed, "is what we have to find out. He's not working alone; we know that much, but there are plenty of other factors at play that we still know nothing about."
As she got on the phone to her assistant to pull files for her, Arthur lowered his voice. "Thanks, by the way, Merlin. Arrogant and entitled?"
"Well, funnily enough, those are the first ten words that come to mind when I think of you," Merlin said, shrugging like there was no help for it.
Morgana disconnected the call and turned back to them. "All right, gentlemen, back up to my office for a productive day of weeding through Alvarr's case files." When Arthur groaned at her, she added, loftily, "This is the life you've chosen, Agent Pendragon. Sometimes there's tedious paperwork to be done; it can't all be gunfights and sexual conquests."
Though she said the last with a roll to her eyes, Merlin couldn't help but notice the look of guilt that flashed over Arthur's face, if only because he knew it was reflected in his own.
Continue to Chapter Nine