adelagia | Merlin fic: Shadowplay -- Chapter Nine

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: Everlasting gratitude to

venivincere for gracing this fic with her beta skills, and to

Arthur's eyes were beginning to swim. Words were blurring together into a giant zebrine mass and had long since ceased to make any sense. Across the conference table, obscured partially by a dozen boxes of files and two laptops, Merlin rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and Morgana emitted an irritated growl at yet another file that yielded no assistance.

They had been poring over Alvarr's files for hours now, the initial interrogation a distant speck of a memory and their lunch break about a geologic age ago. Half the trouble was that their search parameters were too wide and yet they weren't sure if they were casting their net wide enough.

By all accounts Alvarr had been an exemplary agent from day one, and his case files stated as much, but obviously something had happened at some point in his career to turn him against Uther enough to want to engage in a little murder on the side. So far, however, they weren't turning up anything suspicious and further interrogations on Morgana's part throughout the afternoon had revealed nothing more.

"I hereby declare it," said Morgana, plastering her palms to the table and levering herself up with some effort, "time for a vat of coffee. Who's with me?"

Merlin murmured something unintelligible, staring at the ceiling.

"Merlin's dead," Arthur announced.

"I don't recall approving that, Agent Emrys," said Morgana, the corners of her mouth angling upwards.

"Leave me," said Merlin to the ceiling. "Go on, save yourselves."

"Double shot for Merlin, then," Morgana said, straightening her suit jacket. She looked at Arthur. "Sugar? Cream?"

"Lots," he said. "Him, too. At least three packets."

Merlin's gaze swivelled towards him then, either only just returning to the land of the living at Arthur's mention of him or surprised that Arthur knew what he wanted in his coffee.

As Morgana disappeared through the doorway, Arthur got up to stretch, his back complaining about being hunched over the table for the last century. "There's got to be a better way to narrow this down," he said to Merlin, who had now taken to staring at the papers in front of him as though they'd wronged him horrendously. "What would make you want to kill someone? To actually, seriously go through with it?"

"I don't think he was lying about it not having anything to do with money. He already lives in bloody Belgravia as it is."

"Forget Alvarr; I'm asking you."

Merlin bit on the end of his pen. "Well, I wouldn't do it for money either. Maybe if they had hurt someone I love?"

Arthur tapped a few keys on his laptop. "Alvarr's family's all still alive and kicking, so not a relation. Romantic partner?" He did another search. "Not listed, but that doesn't mean it doesn’t exist."

"Okay," Merlin said, going along with the theory. "He fell in love. And that person was hurt. Or taken away somehow. And Uther's got something to do with that. For all intents and purposes he'd be able to get away with it. It would be pretty difficult to bring a charge against your father and make it stick even if you did have proof."

"All right, we could look at this the other way. Suppose my father's mad with power and he's gone after someone important to Alvarr. Why?"

"Your father doesn't know Alvarr from the next agent; if he did it would've come up already, what with your life being legitimately in danger and all," Merlin conjectured. "So it wouldn't be personal. It'd be about work."

Arthur nodded slowly. "Maybe he fell in love with someone on the job. A fellow agent?" he suggested, and immediately felt the need to look anywhere except at Merlin, only his eyes refused to cooperate, their attentions hovering at the contour of Merlin's throat.

"Unlikely. Unless they were burned or killed, there'd still be opportunity to see them," Merlin said, though he jotted down a note to himself to ask Morgana when she came back.

"He mentioned something about people outliving their usefulness," Arthur added, forcing himself back to the task at hand. "Referring to someone he worked with temporarily, perhaps? An informant?"

Merlin made a little moaning noise. "Christ," he said, dropping his head back to stare balefully at the ceiling again. "If that's where we're headed that means we have to investigate every single person he's come in contact with during each case. Arthur, he's worked here for almost ten years."

"Yes, I know," Arthur commiserated. "And Morgana says trying to beat it out of him won't help."

The life-giving smell of coffee preceded Morgana into the room. "It most assuredly wouldn't," she said, coming in with a carrier of large cups and an assortment of vending machine snacks.

"Burned any agents lately?" Merlin asked, spinning his chair around to face her, the desperation in his voice at full tilt.

She cocked her head towards him in a wary sort of way, as though she was concerned about the state of his mental health and was considering backing away. "No," she said, drawing the word out.

"Are you sure?"

"Look, it happens infrequently enough that I'd definitely remember."

"Kill anyone, then?" Merlin asked with a dying breath of hope.

"Merlin, I most certainly do not order any of my agents to be killed. And even if I wanted to, I don't have that kind of power."

"No," said Arthur absently, sticking his nose over the curls of steam from his coffee, "only the power to orchestrate their fake deaths."

"Well, yes. It's come up."

Arthur looked up at her. "Are you saying you've done that more than once? Is this some kind of macabre hobby of yours?"

Merlin rolled his chair towards her intently, the look on his face like he was on the verge of something big. "Who? Did they ever cross paths with Alvarr?"

"I don't-- Oh. Yes, there was one."

"Who?" Merlin said again.

"Classified," Morgana replied testily. "Why?"

"What if Alvarr formed some kind of bond with this person? Or fell in love? And then he-- or she died," Merlin said, forming quotation marks with his fingers, "and Alvarr didn't know it wasn't for real and blames Uther for it?"

"He wouldn't know," Morgana said, her face going a little paler than usual. "We needed her cover to die; nobody could know. Oh, my god."

Arthur stood. "Morgana," he said calmly. "What case was it and when?"

"Palestinian arms deal. It would've been about two years ago." As Arthur dug through the files and Merlin pulled information on his computer, Morgana added, "Enmyria, that was her alias. She was a double agent for us, and by chance, her case and Alvarr's dovetailed."

Merlin turned the laptop around, its screen showing a picture of a striking young woman with dark, intense eyes. "Is that her?" he asked.

A nod from Morgana confirmed it. "I don't know if he ever knew she was officially working for us. She was just playing an informant's role at that time."

Merlin glanced at Arthur. "Well, you were right twice. Cherish this moment, Arthur."

Arthur made a face at him.

"Eventually," Morgana went on, ignoring them both, "it just got too dangerous, so we had to pull her out of the operation and kill her cover. We staged a car accident."

"It looks like someone was trying to poke around in these files," Merlin said, his fingers tapping away at the keyboard. "Alvarr must've found something to connect that accident with the agency's involvement, and that set him off."

Morgana sighed. "We put her deep undercover elsewhere. She's been there ever since, and she's never said anything about Alvarr."

"One-sided?" Arthur suggested.

"Well," said Merlin, "even if it wasn't, what would be the point of saying so? She was getting dispatched somewhere else indefinitely."

"I'm not heartless," Morgana protested. "If they'd really wanted to be together, I'd have found another agent to take her place. Maybe you if you hadn't quit, Merlin."

"My quitting doesn't really seemed to have stopped you recruiting me for jobs still," he pointed out.

Morgana shook her head, standing up. "We're getting off track. I need to talk to Alvarr again; at this point, this is all just conjecture. Come on, lads; once more into the breach," she said, herding them out of the office and back down to the interrogation area.

Arthur waited with Merlin in the observation room while Morgana worked Alvarr over, and it didn't take long this time for the truth to come out. They had pieced most of the story together already, and Alvarr's reactions only confirmed it. Somehow under the impression that the agency had eliminated Enmyria so she couldn't feed information to the other side, Alvarr had turned against the agency, intent on revenge.

"Sad, really," Merlin murmured, watching Alvarr's broken expression through the glass.

"What is?"

Merlin gestured towards the interrogation cell. "That. To love someone and have them taken away from you, and then not to even know that you've got a second chance, that you can do something about it."

"You do remember that this is the man who emptied a machine gun at three people yesterday and did, in fact, kill another agent when he detonated tonnes of explosives in my house?"

"Yes," Merlin said, giving him a sharp look. "But that doesn't mean I can't understand his motivations. If you were put in that situation, you wouldn't have even considered for a second doing the same?"

"Taking on one of the world's best intelligence agencies? No, that's a little something I like to call suicide."

Merlin turned back towards the glass. "I guess that's the difference between you and me," he said quietly.

Arthur blinked at the back of his head for a moment, his stomach sour with the feeling that he had disappointed Merlin somehow and not knowing why it should have done. He was only being realistic after all; why should anyone expect otherwise from him? Arthur crossed his arms over his chest, letting peevishness take over, annoyed with Merlin for making him feel defensive about something he'd never had to apologise for and annoyed with himself for letting Merlin's opinion mean something.

From the intercom, Morgana's voice flowed through. "You should have come to me. You're an idiot, Alvarr. And now you're an incarcerated idiot. You could've been happy."

"I was convinced..." Alvarr said, shaking his head in disbelief. "She told me the agency was responsible. That's why I started looking into it, and I thought... I thought Enmyria was dead. I thought the agency had done it. She told me."

"Who did?"

Alvarr closed his eyes, dejection painted all over his face. "Nimueh."

Morgana stared at him for a moment. "You really are an idiot," she said, and made to leave the cell.

"Wait. Miss Le Fay. Is Enmyria all right? Wherever she is?"

As she opened the cell door, Morgana sighed, a trace of regret in it. "Classified," she said, and left.

*

Another go-round of interrogations later, this time with significantly less resistance on Alvarr's part, Merlin got the rest of the story.

Arthur hadn't been the only agent set on Nimueh's tail; with more than a few run-ins with Alvarr as well, Nimueh had planted the seeds of suspicion in his mind, just a few well-placed, flippant remarks here and there about the agency's penchant for unilateral action as the occasion suited, and he'd ended up in the palm of her hand and not even knowing it.

"Why doesn't she come after you herself? Why all these pawns and games? She set all this in motion well before you even caught her," Merlin said, poking at his Chinese takeaway.

It wasn't very good, most of it having been tragically drowned in salt and oil, but it was late and they were hungry, and after Morgana had shooed them out of her office at half past nine, it was the only place open on the way home that they could agree on. Merlin wondered, as he ate what might have been a carrot in another, happier life, if maybe patronising that dodgy kebab cart round the corner wouldn't have been a better idea.

Arthur regarded a noodle closely between his chopsticks, and gave it up for dead. "I don't know. Best guess, she's after me because I put her in jail, and her toying with Alvarr panning out this way was just an extra stroke of luck." He pushed his plate away. "As for why she's making everyone else do her dirty work... Well, she's probably trying to lay low until all the fuss from her escape dies down."

"Do you want something else?" Merlin asked abruptly. "These noodles are rubbish."

"Yes, please," said Arthur, smiling tiredly. "I'm sorry I spotted that restaurant and pointed at it."

"Could've happened to anyone," Merlin said, magnanimous, gliding over to the fridge. He pulled out a wedge of cheese, waving it in front of Arthur for approval. "I've got some crackers, too, up in that cupboard. We can have 'em with the leftover w-- erm. The wine."

Merlin felt his face go hot. Stupid, he thought, bringing up the bloody wine that had led to their falling into bed together last night. Allegedly. He knew it wasn't the wine; he knew Arthur knew it, too, but they were both tacitly pointing a finger at it anyway, for ease of convenience, all the better to shirk responsibility with.

"Sure," said Arthur, who didn't seem bothered, and got up to retrieve the crackers. He grimaced as he stood, stretching his neck over to one side and rolling his shoulders. "Ugh, I'm getting too old for this."

"What, fetching things?" Merlin said with a wry smile.

"Now that you mention it, yes," he said, sitting down again.

Merlin got the crackers and lobbed the box over to Arthur. "There you are, Gramps."

Flicking the box open, Arthur shook some crackers out and bit into one. "Aren't you stiff from stooping over all that damn research from today?"

"Yes," said Merlin, plating the cheese and digging around in the cutlery drawer for a knife. "I'm just not whinging about it. Could be I'm just a lot manlier than you are."

"Come over here and say that," Arthur laughed.

"Is that a challenge?" Merlin asked, smirking, as he brought the plate round and set it on the counter. He took the stool next to Arthur.

Arthur carved out a sliver of cheese and popped it in his mouth. "Pistols," he said, "at dawn."

"Are you kidding?" Merlin gave him an incredulous look. "I'm not getting up at dawn for you."

"Ooh, that's a forfeit, then," Arthur warned, elbowing Merlin in the side.

"Oi," said Merlin, "that's cheating. I get a penalty shot."

"Penalty shot? What the hell kind of duel is this?" Arthur asked, trying to ward off Merlin's retaliating elbow with his own.

After a short jabbing contest, Merlin switched tactics and rammed his shoulder into Arthur's, only vaguely cognisant of how ridiculous it was for them to be sitting here eating cheese while at the same time trying to push each other off their seats, like the laziest gladiators ever. "It's a little something I like to call Merlin Wins Again."

"Like hell he does," Arthur declared, blocking Merlin's arm.

Seeing an opening, Merlin's fingers went in for the kill with a cheerful poke to Arthur's unprotected side. Arthur let out a little utterance of surprise and slid backwards involuntarily. By instinct, Merlin shot out a hand to grab Arthur around the wrist to keep him from toppling over, but pulled too hard, and Arthur overbalanced, colliding into him.

Locked in each other's breathing spaces all of a sudden, neither of them moved a muscle for a long moment. Merlin barely dared to breathe, all too aware of how close they were, aware of every single skin cell that was touching Arthur's. Merlin's fingers, gripped around Arthur's hips, twitched with the muscle memory of having dug into that same spot less than twenty-four hours before.

Outstretched to break his fall, Arthur's hands had landed, splayed, on Merlin's chest, and there was no doubt Arthur would be able to feel the quickening of his heartbeat as each second passed with them still fixed in place like this.

He wanted to sway under this spell, to simply push forward and meet Arthur in the middle and tangle in the lush, close heat between them. But want and should were vastly different things, and Merlin knew, on some level not entirely guided by hormones, that acting on those first instincts would be terrible in so many ways. And still he couldn't bring himself to pull away.

Left the task, Arthur was the first to break it, stepping widely away and pushing his stool across the floor in his haste; it made an ugly scraping sound on the linoleum, and something in his face flickered. "Sorry," he mumbled.

Merlin shook his head, simultaneously disappointed and relieved that he hadn't done anything rash, and willed his heart to slow as he breathed in deeply, a fading scent of Arthur on the air. "My fault," he said, and wrenched a teasing smile out. "On the upside, you're ticklish."

Arthur barked out a laugh, shaky and a little too loud, but they both had to do their parts to smooth the tension over. Again. "Shut up, I am not," he said, and sobered almost immediately. He rubbed the back of his head, and added, rather stupidly, "It's getting late."

"Yes," Merlin said helpfully. "It's been a long day."

"I'll just... be off to bed, then."

Merlin nodded, and pretended not to watch Arthur make his awkward exit, picking his way across the flat towards the guest bedroom and shutting the door without looking back. Merlin stared forlornly at the food left out, and, with no real sense of purpose, moved the plates off the bar counter and next to the sink. He gripped the edge of the sink, feeling weary and pent up and discontent with the whole of his life, in love again like a complete fool and too stupid, too far gone to get himself out this time.

Behind him, he heard the guest door open again, and then Arthur's sure footsteps approaching the kitchen at a clip.

Putting the knife in the sink, Merlin turned to greet him, layering on a tone much cheerier than he felt, and asked, "Forget something?"

"Yeah," said Arthur, his voice a little gruff, and kissed him.

There was nothing remotely apologetic about it, a hard, sweeping kiss that made Merlin's stomach leap and swallow-dive to the soles of his feet. Distantly, something in his brain protested, but Merlin shut it up right quick, devoting his whole focus to Arthur, the heat of Arthur's palms on either side of his face, those fingers twisting into his hair, the delicious friction of their bodies sliding together.

Arthur held him tight and close, barely breaking for air, sucking Merlin's lower lip into his mouth, the edges of his teeth catching and grazing, and damn the consequences, but it felt fucking good.

Heat coiled inside him, and then unfurled in waves of effervescence out underneath his skin, cresting on his nerve endings.

Frantic, needy, it was all Merlin could do to even keep up with himself, wanting to touch every inch of Arthur all at once, and maybe he ought to be embarrassed at how desperate he was for this, but Arthur was matching him at every step along the way, begging for each other without the words.

Without warning Arthur snaked his hand between them, palming Merlin's groin, and if Merlin hadn't already been hard by that point it was a foregone conclusion now. He groaned into Arthur's mouth and rocked his hips, the layers of clothing between them about a billion too many.

"What are we doing?" Merlin asked, his breath shallow and hitching on a low moan as Arthur stroked his cock.

Arthur shook his head. "Hell if I know. I just--" He didn't finish the thought, plastering his open mouth to the curve of Merlin's neck, laying down a line of wet kisses up to his jaw. "I know," Arthur said, his words coming in rasps, "this isn't what we agreed on, but I can't-- I can't--"

Whatever he had left to say was overridden by a moan as Merlin slid his hands up underneath the back of Arthur's shirt, the cords of his muscles tensing and tautening under Merlin's fingers, and then Merlin scraped his hands downwards, drawing Arthur ever closer. Following suit, Arthur pressed Merlin into him, their cocks rubbing together through their trousers, a blistering thrill that set them both panting and still needing more.

Arthur pushed and Merlin followed until there was a wall at his back, their hips still seeking the other. With unsteady hands, Arthur undid the button and fly on his own trousers, reaching his fingers in through the loosened fabric, drawing his cock out.

With hooded eyes, Merlin watched, licking his lips. The sight of Arthur's fingers wrapped around his own cock, the thought of watching Arthur bring himself off deepened his arousal exponentially, a rush of heat overspreading his skin. It wound out of his throat in a needy groan as Arthur reached for him, prying his belt open, tugging at the uselessly hindering fabric until he could close his fingers around Merlin's cock.

He pinned the flat of his free hand against the wall just to the side of Merlin's head, and leaned in, rolling his hips so that their cocks grazed together, sweet and smooth. Arthur took both of them in his hand, slicking pre-come over the heads, his wrist flexing in a slow, steady rhythm.

Gripping Arthur by the hips, Merlin shored his back up close against the wall for balance, its solidness unusually surreal as his senses wheeled across distant skies, every stroke from Arthur's hand pushing him higher and higher.

Arthur worked up to a searing speed, the slip and slide of their cocks together so intensely exquisite it made Merlin feel as though it might tear him apart at the seams.

Merlin bit down hard on his lower lip, trying to force himself into equanimity, wanting to make this last, wanting to hold forever onto this limbo of perfect torture, just one step away from the edge, with Arthur's hands on him and Arthur's hips rocking into his.

His head fell forward onto Arthur's shoulder, moaning, muffled, into the lapels of his collar. Nudging the collar aside, Merlin mouthed up Arthur's throat, tasting the sweat there, playing his tongue over the cords of Arthur's neck.

Arthur's breath was hot and harsh on his ear, gasping in time to each thrust of his hand. Arthur turned his head to catch Merlin in a kiss, wet and messy, their groans of equal satisfaction and frustration meeting in the blazing air between them.

"Merlin, Merlin," Arthur breathed, barely audible over the scattered friction between their bodies, but it left Arthur's mouth desperately and shot straight through to Merlin's core.

Feeling Merlin's body tauten suddenly, Arthur began pumping his hand faster, harder, demanding Merlin's release. Merlin gasped soundlessly on a firm upstroke, the tight heat of Arthur's fist pushing their cockheads together finally too much to bear. Merlin buried his face into the curve of Arthur's neck, his body shuddering, overwhelmed, as he came over Arthur's hand.

Arthur was still hard and straining, and Merlin, somehow finding a reserve of focus while the rest of him was still riding high in distant space, pushed and turned Arthur's back against the wall. He dropped in front of Arthur, the pile on the ancient kitchen rug beneath him pebbling patterns into his knees, and sucked Arthur's cock into his mouth.

It didn't take much, with Arthur already so close, and Merlin gripped him tightly, holding him against the wall, as Arthur's cock stuttered and spilled come into his mouth. Merlin let it slide down his throat, and gently sucked at Arthur's cock still until the tremors were through.

Releasing him, Merlin gazed upwards, a smile forming on his face, but Arthur wasn't looking back at him, and wasn't going to. The smile faded.

Merlin got up on shaky knees, turning away as he tucked his softening cock back into his pants, giving Arthur time to do the same. He heard Arthur zip up and go to the sink to wash the stickiness off his hand.

"Look," came Arthur's wary voice from behind him, when the tap had turned off, "I realise that wasn't what we'd planned to happen."

"No," said Merlin in an even tone, hating himself. He turned to face Arthur.

"But we could... we could still be professional and colleagues and everything," suggested Arthur, "and just... Maybe once in a while, indulge?"

Merlin blinked at him, not quite understanding for a moment. "Like a... colleagues with benefits sort of thing?" he guessed hazily.

Arthur's face brightened. "Yeah. Yeah, like that, exactly," he said. "I mean, the fact is, we both quite obviously enjoy... er, doing that. With each other. But it won't have any impact on our real lives, so to speak."

"Right," Merlin said, in a voice that didn't really sound like his. It sounded sure, maybe even a little manic in its eagerness to agree.

"Right, yeah. Great," said Arthur, backing out of the kitchen. "Well, er. Agreed, then. I guess I will see you in the morning."

"See you in the morning," Merlin repeated distantly, and slumped against the counter once Arthur's bedroom door had clicked closed.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Merlin rubbed his hands over his face, sick of himself. Once again he'd hung his hopes on something there wasn't any hope for. Arthur was no more interested in pursuing a relationship with him than he'd ever been, not six weeks ago, not last night, and not today.

Perhaps he ought to be flattered that Arthur even wanted to continue this... this thing they were doing, having sex and forcing it not to matter.

But it did matter. To him, it mattered. Arthur made him feel... everything. Arthur made him feel things he shouldn't and didn't want to feel, and it hurt, knowing he was the only one between them having those feelings at all.

It made his stomach sick and his heart hollow, and here he was still, agreeing to a stupid arrangement that would make it even worse. He would have Arthur only physically and in other ways not at all, and he had to convince himself that it was enough, that he could be happy with that, as long as he had Arthur in some capacity.

But it wasn't enough, not by a long shot, and letting himself go on, clinging to the paltry, useless hope that someday, someday, Arthur might learn to love him, too, was nigh on the worst thing he could do to himself.

He was in love with Arthur. Arthur wasn't in love with him. That was it in black and white.

Merlin shoved away from the counter, stalking to his room. He opened his laptop and a blank document, and started typing.

Dear Miss Le Fay,

I hereby tender my resignation from the agency, effective today.

Black and white.

Continue to Chapter Ten

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Posted by

tama_abi

Oh fucking heck you stupid stupid stupid boys. I hope the resignation letter will fix this mess a way or another.

Loved this chapter! Thank you!

Posted by

Merlin fic: Shadowplay -- Chapter Nine

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