Fic: Things You Shouldn't Do With Your Best Friend's Older Sister (Pt 3 of 3 cont.)

[gnimaerd]

 

“Do you have to go?” Morgana enquires, sleepily, as he climbs back into the bed. She props herself up with one hand and pushes a curtain of thick dark hair out of her face with the other – her smile is drowsy but warm and she looks so… so…

 

Merlin shakes his head. “No, it was just Gaius being… Gaius-like. I’m fine here for a while.”

 

“Mm, good,” Morgana sighs, then leans over to kiss him, “good morning, Merlin.”

“Good morning,” he replies, softly.

 

He curls himself around her like a plant, her back pressed his chest, his legs tangling through hers, nosing his way along her shoulder to lay his cheek in the crook of her neck.

 

“God you’ve got a lot of hair.”

 

“You hadn’t noticed?”

 

“Well, I’ve never been in a position where I’m having to actually inhale it before.”

 

She laughs – finds his hand and squeezes. “This is a nice way to wake up, Merlin.”

 

“It kind of is, isn’t it?”

 

He can feel the way the muscles in her neck taughten a little when she smiles. He kisses her cheek and decides he likes the way her neck smells.

 

Sleep comes back almost immediately, and Merlin doses, quite warm and comfortable. They had sex twice more the previous night – well… he’s not sure if the last time counts. She sucked him off – does that count as sex? It’s a sexual act, is what Gaius would say. Except that he really doesn’t want to connect Gaius in any size shape or form to this particular situation. But the point is that he’s tired.

 

An undetermined amount of time later, Morgana starts to fidget and Merlin wakes up properly. He rolls onto his back, rubbing his eyes, “what time is it?”

 

“God knows,” Morgana waves a hand, “here – kiss me.”

 

Merlin does – over and over – as Morgana lies on her back against the pillows whilst Merlin covers and caresses her. He’s about to ask if she wants to have sex again when Arthur’s voice outside the door interrupts them.

 

“Morgana, have you seen my – ”

 

The door comes open before Merlin can even think about what exactly is about to happen, let alone throw himself off the bed in an attempt to make it look less like he’s lying naked on top of Arthur’s equally naked older sister.

 

There is a moment in which all three of them contemplate each other. Arthur in the doorway, in a pair of pyjama bottoms and a dressing gown, hair askew, knuckles whitening on the doorknob, eyes popping wide enough to spit in with reasonable accuracy; Morgana and Merlin in the bed, still naked, still clearly rather intimately entwined.

 

And then Arthur looks very much as if he’s going to be sick.

 

“Oh, Christ.”

 

“Um…” Merlin can’t manage anything more coherent as he sits up, abruptly trying to shield himself with the duvet.

 

“Arthur – ” there’s a note of warning in Morgana’s voice but it’s too late.

Arthur is across the room in two bounds and dragging Merlin off the bed with terrifying force: “I am going to fucking kill you - ”

 

“Arthur!” Morgana scrambles after them – snatches up a shirt from the floor and drags it on over her head as Merlin wrenches free of Arthur’s grip and dives under the bed.

 

“Come here you little – ”

 

“Arthur, leave him alone!”

 

“Get out from under there!”

 

“Arthur!”

 

“I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you!”

 

Merlin rolls out from one side of the bed as Arthur dives under the other – grabs his jeans and phone and bolts for the open door.

 

“Get back here you arsehole!” Arthur chases him into the hall – Merlin, staggering into his jeans, tears along the corridor, gets to the main staircase and takes them three a time, tripping over his own feet and sprawling on the marble floor at the bottom. He hears a clunk and a sickening crack and then tastes blood – which he has no time to contemplate because Arthur is suddenly on top of him and swinging a fist.

 

“Weasely little prick – ”

 

“Arthur James Pendragon get off my boyfriend!” Out of nowhere, and, mercifully, before Arthur can deliver the promised punch, Morgana slams into her brother from the behind, performing an impressive side-tackle to knock him off his victim and send him crashing to the floor. She proceeds to sit on his chest and deliver him an almighty slap. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

 

Arthur looks a little shocked by this particular turn of events – his cheek has a bright red hand-shaped mark appearing on it and for a moment he seems dazed.

 

Morgana takes a hold of the front of his dressing gown and glares at him. “Stay down, or I swear to God I’ll show Uther every one of your kinky porn mags.”

 

“I don’t have any kinky porn mags!” Arthur splutters.

 

“Yeah, but I do,” Morgana delivers a sharp poke to his shoulder, “and who’s he going to believe they belong to, mm?”

 

Arthur grimaces but doesn’t protest further as Morgana climbs off him and goes to where Merlin is clutching the lip he split open on the floor. Her hands are cool as she cups his chin to inspect the damage with a critical eye. “Did he do this to you?”

 

“Mm-mm,” Merlin shakes his head.

 

“Clumsy lout tripped over his own feet,” Arthur informs her, coldly, from his back on the floor.

 

“Shut up,” Morgana doesn’t look at him. “Come on, Merlin. I’ll get you some ice.”

 

Merlin nods, feeling like a little kid as she stands up and he takes her hand, allowing himself to be led towards the kitchen, which still looks like a bomb (or a few hundred drunk party-goers) hit it the night before.

 

“Hey!” Arthur yells, from the hall, “what about me?”

 

“Stay there!” Morgana orders.

 

Ice located in the freezer, wrapped in a clean dish cloth, and tenderly applied to Merlin’s lip, Morgana leads him back into the hall. And then they both sit down on the bottom step of the mansion’s main staircase, and contemplate Arthur, who glares back at them from the floor.

 

“You have kinky porn mags?” Merlin asks, abruptly.

 

Morgana giggles, “oh, there’s so much more I’ve got to teach you, sweetheart.”

 

Merlin has time to grin before Arthur groans.

 

“For God’s sake! I’m right here!”

 

“You dragged him out of bed naked and then caused him to split his lip open!” Morgana snaps, “you don’t get to talk for a while!”

 

Arthur sits up, eyes narrowing as he scrutinises the pair of them. “This has happened before.”

 

“I have never slept with any of your other friends,” Morgana rolls her eyes.

 

“No! I mean – ” Arthur gesticulates at them wildly for a moment, “you’ve… last night wasn’t a one off, was it?”

 

Morgana folds her arms but stays stubbornly silent. Merlin decides that he’d really rather not draw any more attention to himself than absolutely necessary.

 

“How many times – ”

 

“I am absolutely not giving you a number.” Morgana informs him, tartly.

 

“How long, then?” Arthur demands, “how long have you two been at it?”

Merlin catches Morgana’s eye – and he realises she’s waiting for his permission to say something. He shrugs.

 

“It’s been maybe three months,” Morgana tells her brother, after a little consideration.

 

“Oh my God,” Arthur rolls his eyes, “three months? Seriously? And you couldn’t be bothered to tell me?!”

 

“It was none of your business!” Morgana snaps, “you’re such a caveman, Arthur! I’m older than you! And even if I wasn’t, I’m still over sixteen! At that juncture I can choose to have sex with whoever I want!”

 

“And you wanted Merlin?”

 

“Hey!” Merlin is a little peeved at his friend’s incredulous tone.

 

“He’s interesting,” Morgana tells Arthur, firmly. She gives Merlin’s wrist a gentle squeeze, and he suddenly wants very much to be back in bed with her, with Arthur nowhere in sight.

 

Perhaps the touch lingers a little longer than is strictly necessary, but suddenly Arthur has a very strange expression on his face.

 

“You’re not even… it’s not just sex, is it?” His brows knit – he looks very much as if he’s struggling to process something infinitely complicated, like astrophysics – or how to make the library photocopier print on both sides of a sheet of paper, “You’re not just sleeping together – have you been… I mean, are you, like, going out, or something? Is… Merlin your boyfriend?”

 

Morgana suddenly looks uncomfortable. “We haven’t… really talked about it.”

 

“You called him your boyfriend,” Arthur points out, “when you assaulted me.”

“No one ‘assaulted’ you!”

 

“Hah!” Arthur spits, then frowns again, “and stop trying to change the subject. You called him your boyfriend.”

 

“Did I?” Morgana looks momentarily confused.

 

Merlin pretends that he doesn’t remember – that he wasn’t, in the middle of feeling great pain and great fear and great astonishment, suddenly unreasonably happy at the idea as Morgana had been wrestling her brother off him. He shrugs, noncommittally.

 

“Well, we haven’t really talked about it, anyway,” Morgana looks back at Arthur.

 

“You haven’t – three months and you haven’t had ‘the talk’?” Arthur looks disbelieving, “god, you two are worse than I am.”

 

“Oh, I am really not discussing this with you,” Morgana informs him.

 

“And what were you getting up to with Gwen last night, anyway?” Merlin asks, suddenly remembering, “weren’t you two trying to suck each other’s faces off in the kitchen?”

For a moment, he gets the distinct impression that Arthur is blushing.

 

Although that may just be a trick of the light.

 

“We were drunk,” is all he says, a little stiffly. And then he gets up, yawning and running a hand through his hair, “dunno about you guys, but I’m starving. Going to fry some bacon. Want some?”

 

Merlin blinks. “…that’s it?”

 

“What?” Arthur asks, distractedly.

 

“You were trying to kill me ten minutes ago!”

 

Arthur shrugs. “And now I’m hungry.” He turns and pads away towards the kitchen, calling back over his shoulder, “you could have told me earlier, you know. I would have been cool with it.”

 

“Before or after you tried to kill me?!”

 

“After, obviously.”

Morgana, perhaps for the first time since Merlin has met her, looks confused.

 

Merlin squeezes her hand. “There is actually a reason I like the guy.”

 

“Clearly,” Morgana shakes her head.

 

They go back to her room. Morgana stretches out on her bed and Merlin kicks off his jeans before climbing back in beside her – she gently kisses his split lip.

 

“My poor baby.”

 

He shakes his head, “I tripped and collided with a marble floor… can we just tell everyone that Arthur hit me? I think I’d come off more manly that way.”

 

“Secret’s safe with me,” she promises, and her lips twitch, although she manages not to laugh.

 

They are quiet for a moment. Merlin sighs against the shirt Morgana is wearing and buries his face in the material over her ribs – it smells of her sweat and her perfume and faintly of beer. She is warm and real beneath it and he thinks that really, truly, this is what love must feel like. Like the dull throbbing of a split lip and the ache of a hangover close against the back of his skull and the taste of her still on the back of his tongue, and not caring at all because she called him her boyfriend.

 

Arthur knows and now there are few people of consequence left to tell, and if everyone knows, and if Morgana called him her boyfriend, is she his girlfriend?

 

He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t dare.

 

She is tracing circles on the back of his neck with a finger tip.

 

“Merlin?”

 

“Mm?”

 

“You don’t want to sleep with anyone else, do you?”

 

“What?” Merlin lifts his head up, “no – who else would I – why?”

 

“I like to know these things,” she tells him, matter-of-factly. “You don’t, then?”

 

“Want to sleep with anybody else? No,” Merlin assures her.

 

“Good, me either.” She pats her shoulder, which Merlin takes as an invitation to lay his head there.

 

He thinks she’s saying we’re exclusive now. Does that make her my girlfriend?

 

“Morgana! Merlin! Do you guys actually want some of this bacon?” Arthur’s voice comes up from the floor below – he’s probably standing on the stairs.

 

“We’re okay!” Morgana calls back.

 

“What?”

 

“I said – we’re okay!” Morgana repeats, obligingly covering Merlin’s ears before she shouts.

 

“Oh – okay,” Arthur shouts, then, after a moment adds, “remember to use protection, alright?”

 

“Oh god,” Merlin groans, and Morgana giggles into his hair.

 

“We’re okay,” she repeats to him, softly, and he nods, even as his ears get hot.

 

But she grins at him, and Merlin reckons everything’s going to be brilliant for a while.