
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/499021.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M, M/M
  Fandom:
      Merlin_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Morgana/Merlin, Freya/Elyan, Non-explicit_Leon/OC’s, hinted_Gwaine/
      Elyana, meta-fic_Peter/Neal_El_(White_Collar), Loki/Sigyn, Emperor/Pavi,
      Merlin/Arthur_Pendragon, Lancelot/Hunith, Gwaine/Merlin_(Merlin),
      Morgause/Arthur_Pendragon_(Merlin), Merlin/OC, Merlin/Arthur_Pendragon_
      (Merlin), Beauty/Beast, Psyche/Eros
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe-BDSM, Bondage, Impact_Play, Derogatory_Language,
      societal_expectations_in_terms_of_gender_and_sexuality, past_non-explicit
      bodily_trauma, past_emotional_trauma, Gender_Confusion, Caning,
      references_to_bad/traumatic_past_sexual_experiences, brief_references_to
      suicide_in_fictional_situations, teen_pregnancy_in_fictional_situations,
      fantastical_non-explicit_self-harm_(in_fairy-tale), a_form_of
      prostitution_(hired_dom), Soul_Bond, Injury_during_sex, Emotional
      Baggage, Emotionally_Abusive_Parenting
  Collections:
      Paper_Legends_2012
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-08-29 Chapters: 4/4 Words: 136474
****** Them Gods Gonna Hurt You, Son. ******
by skellerbvvt
Summary
     Otherwise known as: Arthur and Merlin are hopelessly in love and also
     just kind of generally hopeless, and they have to keep the magic a
     secret. And by magic, we mean sex. Arthur doesn't take well to it.
     (BDSM AU)
Notes
     A great deal of thanks to space_folklorist for being a Folklorist and
     thus adding in all the folklore bits, and writing me delicious fake
     academic articles like the BAMF she is. Spicy hot and glorious thanks
     to bottledminx for making the Glass graphics more badass, general
     handholding and BETAing. A whipped cream sundae of gratitude for
     linnet_melody for BETAing, handholding, cheerleading and general
     awesomeness and everyone can join me in a cuddle pile of love on top
     of accentmarkd for the photography (which was not for this story, but
     she was, as always, completely fine with me adulterating her work for
     my own ends).
     Additional thanks to Tink_Sky_Reid for popping in last minute to
     create some lovely artwork for this story! See it all here at her
     journal
     Title from “The Pantheon” by Darren Korb, because I blame Bastion for
     why this story took me so long to write, alongside my own inability
     to stop making more words happen.
***** Part One *****
July, 2001
“It happens in zoos sometimes.” Merlin had said, head tucked between his knees,
body ducked up under his arms. “It might happen in the wild too, we don’t know.
But we know about it in zoos, mostly with lions, because we can tell the
dominant and submissive lions apart from one another. There was this whole book
about it. They think it’s a stress reaction.”
“Oh.” Arthur had said, sitting across the room, attempting to absorb himself
into the wallpaper and trying to distract himself by studying the texture of
his socks. Neither had proven successful.
They hadn’t meant to do anything like this.
“What do they do with them?” Arthur asked after a long, morose pause.
“Separate them.” Merlin replied, head rising up from his armadillo curl so he
could stare at Arthur for a long, quiet moment. Arthur dropped his gaze back to
his socks.
 
 
                                      ---
 
 
January, 2010
Arthur Eigyrson was twenty-four and single. Every month since January ‘09
Arthur'd gotten an extra hundred pounds— along with his normal bi-weekly pay
cheques from the community learning centre— in exchange for writing articles
about the city’s nightlife for Loose Ends. It’s not the premier magazine for
people who are, for whatever reason, looking for a bit of extramarital, single,
or swinger fun, but it is the magazine that liked Arthur’s sample article
enough to be willing to pay him for it. And since he only teaches at the
community learning centre every Tuesday and Thursday evening he needs the
supplemental income.
It wasn’t that Arthur wanted to be a writer, he just figured that between the
two of them, Merlin and Arthur knew every single bar, club, dive, meet-up,
hook-up and cruising spot in a fifty-kilometre radius of their flat. They’d
been to the shitty ones, and the sketchy ones, they’d been to the learning
groups for younger doms and subs that just wanted to get some practice in
before marriage. They’d been to the swanky places, the elite places, the places
you only got into by being out on the market so long that someone important
picked you up and brought you home. They’d been to specialized locations, those
for dedicated donalgists looking for a high-tolerance algoamist to cane, or
with stables for pony-play, or places for feeders and eaters to party. It’d
started as a hobby and turned into a full-blown Project.
Arthur was twenty-four and single. If someone were to create a dossier about
him, for, say, a spy agency, or so he could become part of a super secret sub-
band, they would note that he was blond, blue-eyed, 6 feet, 183 pounds, a sub,
and an organ donor who’d gotten his driver’s license at the age of twenty
because he’d watched too many driving movies. He lived in a two-bedroom flat
with his best-mate-since-forever who worked as a barista for shit money (but
decent tips), and a student for great money (provided you were the university
in that equation.)
Arthur was twenty-four and single. He suffered through stilted small talk with
his aunt and uncle on the phone once a month. He delighted in the care packages
that Merlin’s mum sent them once a week. They had a modest liquor cabinet above
the stove, a jar of maraschino cherries that neither of them bought, but which
never seemed to go bad, three different kinds of half-eaten ice cream in the
freezer (chocolate mocha, raspberry white chocolate, and double chocolate
fudge. Arthur had bought all three of them, having forgotten the previous ones,
all of which had about one bowl of ice cream left, and the containers each had
sedimentary layers of frost), and a drawer full of silverware that didn’t match
at all. The room he shared with Merlin had two bookshelves since Merlin kept
books like some people kept pets, and he’d come home with new strays at the
absolute minimum of once every three days. The living room had another two
bookshelves to try and deal with the ever-growing population of Merlin’s book
serfdom, but the end table was piled with more, and the floor generally had
book-marked and notated books scattered everywhere.
“What’s that one about?” Arthur asked, window open and newspaper down on the
floor while he added a coat of varnish to the sturdy jewellery chest he’d been
working on since they’d sold the dinner table and he wasn’t able to afford
supplies to start a new one right away.
Merlin looked at the new book he had and frowned, probably unaware he’d even
had it. “The Story of The None.” then opened the inside flap. “It’s about a
nun.” Merlin didn’t buy books because he wanted to read them, or the cover
caught his eye, or someone told him to. Merlin bought books because they caught
on his fingers and stealing was bad.
“Seriously?”
“Well, she’s non-dynamic. She’s a non-dynamic nun. That’s why it’s funny,
Arthur.” Merlin tossed the hardcover between his hands.
Arthur would have rubbed his face, save his hands were somewhat stained with
varnish, and there were things he had learned long ago not to do. One of those
probably should have been “laugh at Merlin’s jokes or he will explain why they
are funny.” But apparently, something about year six Merlin when he was
enthusiastically explaining an oft-repeated dirty joke with: “it’s sex. That’s
why it’s funny. It’s funny because they’re having sex.” tripped some wires in
Arthur’s brain and now he just lets Merlin be a giant dork.
“—I outside a church every Sunday and ask the congregation who the Holy Spirit
was, and, likely, never get a very clear or helpful answer. You might, perhaps,
get the story of the tongue of flames that appeared over the heads of the
Apostles if the person in question had been paying particular attention. But
given that the Holy Spirit is an entire third of the holy Trinity and given so
little notice or attention is, and always has been, baffling to me why it is
only the dynamic-diverse that take note. The Holy Spirit is without sex. The
Holy Spirit is without gender. It is without form, and so, it best defines
those of us who do not fit the form society wants us to fit. ”
Merlin kept reading aloud as he walked past the kitchen doorway and Arthur
settled the box in a way that it could best dry without splotches. It had the
feel of a gift, the right shine, and weight to it to be a present for someone.
He’d carefully matched the leaf-detailed latch with the same brassy root-like
feet on the bottom, the carving reminding one of tendril vines. Merlin had four
such boxes, one as plain and sharp angled as you liked. Merlin collected things
in starts and stops, and Arthur made boxes for him to put his collections in.
Arthur was twenty-four and single. If asked he said that he was pretty sure his
dom was taking suppressant drugs, he’d never been able to feel zer, just a
buzzing, confused static echoing in the back of his head. The base of his right
ring finger never tingled, never ached, never did anything. And then he’d
shrug, smile, ask if maybe they wanted to get out of there, because he was
twenty-four and he was single and he didn’t have to get up early, or he’d shrug
and smile and suddenly turn to look at the sub he’d come in with, finding him,
perhaps unerringly, in the crowd and say he had to go, but it was nice talking.
Arthur was twenty-four and single, and when it was necessary, he’d pick up his
sleepy, frustrated flatmate up off the lopsided sofa they’d purchased for a
song and dance and carried all the way home. His flatmate would grumble and
complain about narrative and variants and culture while Arthur carried him to
their shared bedroom, placed him on their shared bed and, through their shared
efforts, got him in his flannel pajama bottoms, lifted the sheets, and got them
both into bed. Merlin would wrap himself up around Arthur—who couldn’t sleep in
anything more than boxers—and Arthur would stroke the base of his flatmates’
ring finger until he fell asleep.
Arthur was twenty-four, had been twenty-three, and would be twenty-five. But he
was certainly single. You could ask anyone.
 
 
                                      ---
January, 2010
After Merlin got over his (“perfectly reasonable!”) Scarlet O’Hara episode with
Freya, the three of them became decently good friends. Which, in Arthur’s
opinion, was marvelous, seeing as how they moved to the city and knew no one,
and all of Merlin’s uni friends looked down on him for not being in uni, and
all of Arthur’s friends weren’t much good for conversation outside of a few
very basic topics.
So Freya was good for them, as long as she didn’t wear green around Merlin,
because Merlin wasn’t really a reasonable human being. “I’m not trying to put
you on a pedestal or objectify you, I’m just getting you confused with an
actual object that became this huge thing in my-Arthur save me from my mouth.”
And Arthur would cover his mouth and Merlin would look at him gratefully.
Merlin frequently needed to be saved from his mouth. Especially when burning
hot molten lava cheese was involved, but mostly from fair-skinned burnettes in
green.
She'd wrangled them up for a night in with her and Gwen, because she'd realized
they were much more likely to actually come round if they then got to stay in
and eat some form of snack food. They were watching “Moon.” Merlin wasn’t
really paying attention, since (as his Netflix could tell you) he didn’t like
“Understated Visually Striking Films”
Arthur loved understated films. He could sit there for days watching people
give each other shifty glances and have mildly traumatic secret pasts that they
kept under wraps. But then someone else found it out and kept it very quiet,
and someone probably died in the beginning of the movie, but it was off-screen
and you never even saw the body.
Merlin liked movies that if there were a body you saw it, but sometimes there
wasn’t a body and that was exciting too. He liked overly dramatic shows, where
everyone was cheating on everyone, and taking bond suppression drugs, and hints
of adynamic play and whatnot and there was probably some cannibalism and incest
in season four to keep things going. And then some singing, or lip-syncing, or
something. Of course, they always brought in alternate sexualities and it
always debased them and then he always had to stop watching, but that usually
wasn’t until season five and he hated all the characters by then anyways.
“What?” Merlin asked because Arthur was enthralled with people, being people,
staring at people. In space. “What is happening? Arthur, we said no more
dialogue heavy movies. We said.”
“Why is it that you can read a book as thick as your head with no problems, but
if a film has more than three minutes of talking you lose the plot entirely?”
“Words stay still.” Merlin shoved his face into Arthur’s stomach. “Words are
beautiful and movies with too much talking are hateful. Either blow something
up or start kissing.”
Gwen poked her head up, “What? Is it over? Were there aliens?”
“Not yet,” Merlin gave the telly a weary look, because this movie wasn’t the
kind to have aliens. He liked movies with aliens. Aliens made movies better,
even if they were terrible aliens. “I doubt there will be.”
Gwen yawned and leaned back against Freya. “You’ll tell me if there are aliens,
right?”
“Of course.” Freya gave her an abbreviated neck rub and Gwen relaxed into it,
already halfway back to sleep. “Right now there’s just a clone of him for some
reason which I’m certain will turn out to be an evil government plot.”
“No, no it’s always The Company. The government doesn’t do anything. It’s just
The Company.” Merlin corrected. “Remember Alien? Remember how that is a movie
we should watch instead of this movie?”
“No.” Freya asserted. “Nothing bursting out of anything else. It’s a rule.”
Gwen stretched her legs out and plopped them on a discarded pile of blankets.
“A clone is slightly more interesting than Justin Hammer going crazy on the
moon.”
“You know, he wanted to play Tony Stark, until Robert Downey Jr. was like: no.
No. Actually, I am real life Tony Stark. Give that part to me thanks.” Merlin
made grabby hands as an example and moved to flop over Arthur more fully.
Arthur’s hand came up to scratch the back of Merlin’s head.
“After this, we should watch something with explosions and kisses.” Merlin
mumbled. “If I wanted to think about the social and personal ramifications of
solitude and corporate greed, I would do my Globalization homework.”
Arthur pulled a face and Merlin looked at him a moment before mimicking him.
Arthur examined Merlin’s face, then pulled out his lower lip with his finger
because the look of distaste wasn’t quite right without the proper pout. Merlin
reached over and poked up Arthur’s eyebrow, and Freya gave them a look and
shook her head. 
“You two are dysfunctionally twee. I hope your soulmates really like each other
because you’re going to have to end up living in a run-down mansion somewhere.”
“Does Arthur fix the run-down mansion and do children tell folktales about me?”
Merlin asked.
“Yes.” Freya kept her eyes on the screen, and she never had a problem following
cerebral movies, even without paying attention.
“I like that about them,” Gwen said. “Telly always shows sub friendships as
backstabbing and manipulative, but they’re not that. It gives me hope for the
universe.”
“He’s playing with my eyebrows,” Arthur pointed to Merlin and Merlin continued
to do so. Since he could. And all. Arthur had ceded control of his eyebrows to
Merlin. “He’s being manipulative.”
“We need two more people here to be telly friendships,” Merlin said. “They’d
have to be doms, and we could get into hi-jinks.”
“Six people is such a clumsy amount of people in real life,” Freya argued. “I
mean, sure on telly it’s fine, but in real life it just gets confusing.”
“In real life, we hang out with seven.” Gwen pointed out.
“But we don’t all hang out together as a single unit all of the time. Like, on
sit-coms, it’s like those six people are the only people who exist.” Freya
scoffed and then went back to considering how best to make them a telly show.
“We could drag Elyan in, so then we’d have the sibling relationship covered,
we’ve got the two dysfunctionally co-dependant sub friends, so we’d need to
bring in a dom that Leon is with all the time, so Percy. But I’m not sure what
sit-com stereotype Percy fulfills besides huge and precious.”
“We can make that a stereotype.” Merlin insists. On time Merlin had sprained
his ankle on one of their few mutual days off when they’d (Merlin) had wanted
to go to the zoo, and Percy had come to carry Merlin piggyback for the entire
day trip. True story.
“Wait, what stereotype is Leon?” Arthur asked.
“Earnest.” Everyone else answered.
“Gwen’s the weird flower child one who loves ponies and rainbows and then some
third one that doesn’t fit with that at all.”
Gwen held up her feet to show her calluses and blisters, her strong and bent
toes from dancing until they snapped and continuing onward. “Namely abusing
myself for the sake of expression and social commentary.”
“Okay, so we need the weird one.” Freya looked at Merlin and Merlin raised his
hand obligingly, Arthur pulling his head away so Merlin didn’t hit him in the
face.
“That’s me. I claim that one. I’m charmingly offbeat. Arthur can be the fussily
neurotic one.”
“Who's the harem master?” Merlin asked. “I vote Freya.”
“Seconded,” Gwen said. “Except her and Elyan sort of ruin that.”
“Lame,” Merlin grumbled.
“It’s telly, they’ll be a thing. But can I not be dumb? Like, I can talk about
sex all the time, but in a smart way. How I Met Your Mother rather than Friends
or Coupling but without the consent issues, because dear God, Barney, dear
God.” Freya rubbed the bridge of her nose and Gwen head butted her to keep
rubbing her head.
“Why is there another Justin Hammer getting destroyed?” Arthur asked of the
telly and Merlin looked and shouted “Finally.”
“Six is a cumbersome amount of friends.” Gwen yawned when the brief moment of
excitement ended.
“Also there would be no room on the couch,” Freya noted. “Especially as we had
romantic hi-jinks waiting for our soulmates. And Gwen just having hi-jinks
because this is something we don’t talk about.”
Gwen rolled over. “Who meets their soulmate and then goes soul-searching on
bond-blockers in Tibet?”
Merlin and Arthur did not know the story behind this. They had only been in
Freya’s orbit for about a month. it felt rude to ask, especially as no one had
filled them in, as they had for most of their inside jokes.
“Can we not discuss what show our lives most resemble? It’s creepy.” Arthur
said. “Especially given the sorts of shows Merlin watches, we’ll all die and
hate one another.”
“How about the fact that we somehow all have Arthurian related names,” Merlin
said. “Can we talk about that?”
Freya put her hand over Merlin’s mouth. “We swore never to mention that out
loud.”
“I didn’t swear that,” Merlin said because she didn’t know how to cover his
mouth properly. “I would have remembered it.”
“Well, we didn’t swear it outloud, because then we would have had to mention
it. It was an unspoken rule.” Gwen frowned at Merlin, “Like Fight Club. You
can’t talk about our names Merlin. Also, you and Arthur have to fight each
other. Also, we’re all Tyler Durdan.”
“But-“
“All of us,” Gwen insisted and flopped back to sleep so Arthur and Freya could
turn back to the movie and Merlin could continue to whine how it needed more
sandwiches because all great movies should have kissing, explosions, and
sandwiches. Maybe a dog if you could swing it. But the dog had to be alive in
the end. Otherwise, it was a terrible film and should burn.
October 2011
Merlin Emmeryson was twenty-three and single. He’d shown up atfour-fifteen,
right about half an hour after Gwaine got home from his shift. Gwaine had
changed out of his work uniform, but hadn’t managed to put anything else on,
just holding down the handle of his busted toaster so that his bagels would
cook, enjoying both Pell and Owen being out, likely for the evening. He’d
looked up at the knock on the door, didn’t put on trousers and opened up to
Merlin’s smiling face, which was a vast improvement on his night, in Gwaine’s
unimpeachable opinion. He would, of course, gleefully fuck Merlin (in his room.
With the door locked. And the stereo playing) with his flatmates present and
accounted for, but it was nice to do it without the commentary.
Merlin was the first sub he’d slept with who both didn’t have an exhibition
kink, but also didn’t comment on their complete lack of tact or boundaries.
“Can Gwaine come out to play?” Merlin had asked, like a giant dork that said
porn lines with complete sincerity. Gwaine had tugged him inside and forgotten
about his bagels—which, thanks to the toaster being broken did not burn. They
just sat there. Being bagels.
Merlin was twenty-three and single. He was a PhD track student up at the
university, still currently working on his Masters. He knew a disturbing amount
about animal mating habits. He liked when Gwaine pressed him down or against
things, when he shoved him around a little—hauling him inside, and shoving him
into the bedroom, but if Gwaine had to think of one adjective and only one
adjective to describe him it would be “adorable”. Like some kind of puppy that
was all feet and ears, and yeah, sure, he’d probably grow into them, but right
now you just wanted to smash his face against a pillow and bite him
everywhere—which was where the puppy metaphor ended. But he was still adorable
and Gwaine wanted to hold him down and do bad, bad things to him.
Merlin liked being shoved around, he liked a little light impact play—paddles
and hands, maybe a good suede flogger, but nothing with a bite or sting, and
really nothing sharp—he really liked being picked up and held down,
breathlessly whining if Gwaine gave a sufficient show of strength against him.
He was deliciously physical: Merlin liked to be marked up, he forgot how to
talk if you tied his hands up, but he liked to be bound or spread by his
ankles, and, most of all, he liked role-playing. All of which were fine with
Gwaine, even if he wasn’t especially good at acting. But he liked Merlin’s
stories. Or, well. He liked how much Merlin liked Merlin’s stories.
“Suppose if I were the manservant of a right git and you were a handsome,
rakish wandering swordsman, we could seduce each other. He could give me to
you, for a night, since you don’t have anyone to help you take off your armour
and bathe in a really historically inaccurate, sexy kind of way. And we’d get
on like crazy and you’d want me to go with you and I would want to go but
honour and jobs and stuff, so we spend a lot of time having really desperate
sex in all the corners and alleys and everywhere. And then you’d have to kidnap
me so the lord would pay my family, because I would have been captured in the
line of duty. And then you rather like how I look, seated in front of you and
bound up, so you would decide to keep me that way, and I’d be sort of entirely
fine with that, and then we’d have a lot of adventures and adventurous sex.”
Gwaine had kissed the tip of Merlin’s nose. “I like it. Do I need to get a
horse?”
“No, I’m good.” Merlin had said, like maybe there could be a circumstance where
Gwaine would, in fact, need to get a horse. Gwaine had slung him over his
shoulder and taken him to the bedroom while Merlin fake-complained bitterly
about the state of things.
 
 
                                      ~~~
Sir Gwaine of Orkney sat in the private confines of his rented room, a
thunderstorm pounding against the roof, but the room was warm and dry, decently
clean and just big enough for a bed and a chair.
They were in the chair, presently, him and the pretty little prize that he’d
won from the Prince in a test of combat. “You are, by far, the best thing I
have ever won.”
“You didn’t win me, you kidnapped me.” Merlin panted, gripping the arms of the
chair. If he let go, Gwaine would stop, immediately, whether Merlin wanted to
or not.
“I liberated you,” Gwaine corrected, smoothly. He had Merlin settled in nicely
on his lap, even though he was, perhaps, just a bit too gangly to do so
entirely comfortably. Gwaine was a man who was more than happy to make do, and
if he had to wiggle Merlin around a bit to get all of his limbs in order, then
that was by no means a hardship. He had one hand curled around the meat of
Merlin’s temptingly bare thigh, and another enjoying the heat of Merlin’s
stomach through the thin linen of his new tunic, another lovely piece Gwaine
had chosen to free from the oppression of somebody’s wardrobe. The fine weave
caught on his calluses, but he liked the way Merlin shivered as the soft, fine
cloth pressed against his skin.
Gwaine held Merlin tight to him and nuzzled into his long, bared neck, enjoying
the little hiccup of enjoyment that echoed down in Merlin’s belly, right up
against his hand.
“And can you cast even a shred of judgement on me for doing so? There you were,
under the heel of a terrible cock of a human being, and you put up with him and
did his laundry for whatever reason-”
“He was paying me,” Merlin interrupted. Gwaine opened his mouth and pressed his
teeth into a remnant of a previous bite, into the straining tendon of Merlin’s
neck until he rode up into it and relaxed his head against Gwaine’s shoulder,
his narrow torso a singularly long arch, ghostly visible through the thin, fine
fabric of his tunic. Gwaine felt Merlin’s pulse thump hard in his stomach, only
interrupted when he needed to take a breath.
“-and I thought to myself, well, Gwaine. Why don’t you look at this gorgeous,
intelligent, hardworking sub whose good nature is being taken advantage of
right in front of your eyes? Why don’t you see what you can do about that?
Especially since that disgusting little brat was so gracious as to lend you out
to me.”
“He wasn’t disgusting, he just had a lot of pressure on him and-” Merlin
briefly lost his ability to communicate as Gwaine slid his hand up the smooth
skin of Merlin’s thigh.
“And you were so exhausted that you fell asleep right after I introduced
myself-”
“Which you did, I might add, by jerking my cock and mauling my neck.” Merlin
dug his nails into the chair arms. Merlin had come to Gwaine’s borrowed-
chambers looking several kinds of beautiful, but also entirely exhausted, and
Gwaine—being the courteous sort—had made him eat the dinner he’d brought for
Gwaine and then offered to relax him.
Gwaine had positioned Merlin’s hands on the back of the chair, spread his legs
wide, and told him all he had to do to make Gwaine stop was say so. And then he
had, indeed, proceeded to introduce himself more properly by jerking Merlin’s
cock and mauling his neck. Merlin had, still holding position, fallen asleep
almost immediately, and so he’d hefted Merlin up and put him to bed, having to
pry Merlin’s fingers off the chair, and kissing his knuckle to tell him he’d
done well. Merlin had relaxed then, smiling to himself and snuggling into the
covers.
“—and you were far too lovely a human being to leave to rot there for little
pay and less recognition, ergo: liberating you.” Gwaine stroked his knuckles
along the underside of Merlin’s rigid prick and sighed, “But with me, all of
your accomplishments will be recognized. Like how you are currently being a
very good boy and sitting still for me.”
Merlin wiggled, as he always did when embarrassed and pleased to be praised,
and turned so he could fully press his face into Gwaine’s shoulder. “Stop it,
all I’m doing is sitting here.”
Gwaine nuzzled the top of Merlin’s head. Thus far his experimentation in having
a travelling partner had been a wonderful success, especially the part where
Merlin seemed happiest when he got to fuss over someone a bit. Gwaine surprised
himself with how much he genuinely enjoyed being fussed after. He liked
especially the way Merlin’s ears turned red when given even a modicum gratitude
owed to him.
“Ah, but you’ve been hard this entire time and you haven’t done a thing to try
and relieve yourself, or to convince me to do anything but continue playing how
I want to.” Gwaine wrapped his hand around Merlin’s hot little cock (not that
is, in emphasis, small, as everything about Merlin could be sufficiently
described with the word ‘long.’ It is a pleasant handful, but Merlin seems to
enjoy it when Gwaine refers to it, and Merlin in general, as smaller than he
is.) “Good boys take what they’re given.”
Merlin’s hips jerked up, but he settled himself down on his own, ears red and
lower lip tucked neatly under his teeth. Gwaine undulated his fingers and
nuzzled down to Merlin’s neck. Merlin’s hands are still curled to white-
knuckled tension around the arms of the chair and Gwaine loves it.
“Here, hold on, lift your legs.” Gwaine commanded and Merlin just did, his
stomach tense as he pulled them up as high as they would go and Gwaine moved
his hands so he could catch Merlin by the knees, scooting them both back in the
chair and resettling Merlin until he was awkwardly splayed open, his legs over
his wrists as his hands continued to grip the knobs at the end of each chair
arm. His body was curled in on itself and he needed one of Gwaine’s arms curled
around his thighs to keep him from slipping too far down and getting a crick in
his neck, or falling off the chair entirely.
“Comfortable?”
Merlin shifted, but he didn’t have much leverage at all, not unless he
untangled himself, and so he relaxed against Gwaine. “I’m going to strain
something if you keep me like this long.”
Gwaine took his free hand and went back to slowly pumping Merlin’s prick.
“Gives me a bit more room to work with, I think. Also I doubt you’ll last long,
will you? You like being where I put you far too much.”
Merlin was delightfully easy; his cock was already dribbling. It was enough
that Gwaine’s hand was slick as he moved: the skin of Merlin’s cock loose and
hot, moving easily under his hand as Merlin struggled to, and then to not
(because he wanted to be good) push up into it. And when Gwaine judged Merlin
ready, he collected as much fluid as is available and sunk two fingers right
inside him. They slipped in without stretching or effort, easily as if they
belonged there, and Merlin just whines.
“I wouldn’t even need to stretch you, would I?” Gwaine asked, because Merlin’s
body was just open. Everything about him is delightfully warm and welcoming in
every aspect and he deserves some kind of reward for it. So Gwaine twisted his
fingers and searched until he found that rough little place that made Merlin do
a full body twitch. Gwaine hummed his approval, keeping his fingers crooked and
moving in slow, teasing circles. Merlin’s cock spurted a thin line of fluid
across his stomach, twitched heartily. It really always was nice to be
appreciated. “I would just need to slick myself up a bit and you’d welcome me
like a guest.”
Merlin huffed, but his thighs were shaking so Gwaine switched hands, letting
the one supporting Merlin shift until he can still sink a few fingers inside,
but also wrap his right hand around and seize Merlin’s prick. He fisted it in
counterpoint to the thrust and twist of his fingers. He nuzzled his mouth
against the swan-perfect length of Merlin’s neck.
“Not fair-” Merlin managed, his feet kicked the air, his toes in a hard curl
and looking like he’s going to shake himself to pieces.
Gwaine caught a twitch out of the corner of his eye and ceased movement
entirely. Merlin’s fingers had twisted to dig his nails into his own thigh.
Gwaine lifted off, despite Merlin’s long, distressed whine. He sorted Merlin
out, got his limbs all in the right order and Merlin just stared at him with
wide, blown eyes, and needy little whimpers escaping on each exhale. Gwaine
hushed him, soothed his hands down Merlin’s sweaty flanks and Merlin just
panted at him, but Gwaine doesn’t even need to hold Merlin’s hands away. He
stood as Gwaine redressed him and does nothing to try and satisfy himself—
 
 
                                      ~~~
—he finished watching Merlin tug up his corduroys. Merlin was, by far, the most
eclectically styled sub Gwaine had ever slept with. One day he’d be dressed up
to the nines for a shag—corset, make-up, choker, the whole of it—and then he’d
come over in baggy corduroys, a too-billowy button-down under his thick jumper
like he didn’t want a single human being to have the slightest idea of what he
looked like under all that, and wildly flying between the two with no clear
preference.
Merlin also liked to leave before finishing, he liked to leave still worked
over, hard in his pants, no orgasm, no aftercare, just finish out the scene and
get dressed.
Gwaine had found that out by accident. He’d gotten Merlin shuddering and
shivering, as turned on as he’d ever been, and he’d gotten him all tucked away
and then set him out in the hallway. He’d expected, at minimum, for Merlin to
stand where he put him so Gwaine could fix himself up and he could spend an
evening dragging Merlin around town a bit to embarrass him public a little,
make him squirm during a film, or hide his face away on a walk around the
block, his cock hard in his trousers and a splotchy flush working its way from
his chest to the tops of his cheekbones. More likely, he’d thought, Merlin
would demand to come back in, tackle him down so Gwaine would wrestle him down.
By the time he’d been dressed, Merlin had gone on home. Gwaine had left a
message on his mobile, because. No. No that hadn’t been what he wanted at all.
And then called Arthur and left a message on his mobile, and hadn’t calmed down
until Merlin called later that night and said he was fine and not to worry and
have a good night, sounding perfectly chipper about everything. Or, well,
Gwaine hadn’t really stopped working until Merlin had come back the next day
for seconds of the same. Gwaine had cheerfully given him more, because orgasm
denial? Not a problem. He would happily tease Merlin into a perfect madness; it
was just the whole Merlin leaving afterwards. It felt. Well it felt a bit like
the first time his sub had asked him to cane him, and Gwaine had never caned a
person before. Sure a pillow covered by a wet towel, but not a person. And he’d
been nervous, so he hadn’t. It was one thing to think about the idea of someone
who liked to get hurt a little, and you being able to do that for them. Another
to actually…hit someone.
Gwaine got that a lot of people thought being a dom was a cakewalk. You got to
tell people what to do, and people did what you told them to, and you didn’t
have to throw yourself under someone else’s control. Except. Except that, to
Gwaine, it wasn’t about dominating someone so much. They weren’t land to be
conquered. Or if they were, you had to conquer it and then take care of it, not
just run it into the ground with taxes and pretending the indigenous people
were beneath you. You had to take care of it, work with it, and reach a
peaceful understanding. He believed it was more like a trade agreement than
anything, with diplomatic negotiation and the occasional embargo when things
went wrong. He had aggressive tendencies, but so did every dom. It was
hardwired in there, the need to control and fight and protect and he’d been
taught to redirect them into something constructive and not get into fights or
hurt anyone.
And then you had to let go of all that control and tell yourself they wanted to
be hurt, but that didn’t conquer a decade of holding back. He wanted to make
his subs feel good. He wanted them to leave happy and he wanted them to be
comfortable. But he also wanted to hold them down, leave visible marks and see
how much they could take for him. From him. It was a balancing act.
“I couldn’t sit still all the way home,” Merlin had confided, pushing his face
against Gwaine’s stomach, having dropped to his knees right there in the
entryway and thank fuck his flatmates were both out for a bit, because Merlin
hadn’t even checked to see if they were in. Gwaine had just opened the door and
Merlin had gone down. “I didn’t even care if anyone saw. Fuck. Arthur had to
buzz me in and I dropped my keys and-“ that’s where he stopped, breathing
heavily fingers clawed against Gwaine’s thighs. “Again, please, sir?”
“What? What did you do?” Gwaine carded his fingers through Merlin’s hair,
entranced and thinking with his whip hand more than anything else. The door was
still open. Merlin was looking at him like he was magnificent. He could see it,
Merlin’s hands shaking
“Uh. Just. Wanked.” Merlin shook his head. “Got off like a clever analogy. You
know. Um.”
Gwaine let it go, because he knew when he was missing something, but also could
generally figure out when that thing was being hidden from him on purpose. He
just couldn’t think of what it was.)
He liked the idea of Merlin going home hard, still reeking of sex and Gwaine.
He liked the idea of having to sit on public transport obviously ridden hard
and put away dripping. Which had to be balanced with his worry about Merlin
going home still wrapped up in a story he was telling himself. So they did it
again with the caveat that Gwaine got him a cab and paid for him to get home
and had him on his mobile the whole ride there, since Merlin was pretty
sneakily insistent that Gwaine not see where he lived.
Maybe he had another dom who liked that he came over ready to go and they
finished him off. Merlin never said as much, and Gwaine had never asked, but he
wasn’t an idiot.
And so for a bit they did that. Merlin showed up at his door and then they
didn’t even need small talk. Pre-care would be wrapped up in fervent kissing,
Merlin dropping the first idea of the scene as he dug his hands into Gwaine’s
hair and Gwaine pressed his wrists down against the mattress. “I’ve kept it in,
all day. Just like you said.” Merlin would say and, of course, Gwaine never
told Merlin to do anything once Merlin left his flat, except to call and say
he’d returned home safe, but he’d open up Merlin’s trousers and find he’d
plugged himself, and Gwaine was more than happy to go along with it. More than
entirely pleased to tease Merlin until he sobbed and whined and went completely
lax and then send him on the way home, listening to him breathe on the other
end of the mobile until he got back to his house and did. Did whatever it was
that he loved so much.
“You could stay if you wanted,” Gwaine sprawled out across the hungry bed and
watched him. “I know this is your thing, and that’s cool. But just so you
aren’t thinking it’s me who wants you gone.”
Gwaine had slept with a fair amount of subs. Some he’d slept with right up
until they found their dom in the queue of a coffee shop, or sitting in the
next lane from them in heavy traffic, or, in once case, as said dom opened her
apartment door and Gwaine snogged the living daylights out of said sub right up
against it. That had been more than a little awkward, but still, a funny story.
Most people were just killing time with each other until they found their other
half, and you knew it. That was the thing. Everyone Gwaine had ever shagged,
you could feel their disconnect. They were with you, maybe, but they were
focusing on that other presence in the back of their head, that strong live-
wire flickering of soon and you could tell.
Merlin paused in the middle of buckling his belt, his back a nice, neat, naked
arch peppered with bite marks. If the light weren’t so low, Gwaine imagined he
would be able to see the beard burn colouring Merlin’s neck, the light trails
of nail marks outlining his ribs and hips, but in the grey scale sort of non-
light Merlin became a sort of soft-core art noir type of model, frozen in a way
that could mean he was undressing for you, if you wanted to think of it like
that.
Gwaine kept his body as relaxed as possible. And it wasn’t that he minded
either way, honestly, he really didn’t. If Merlin was one of those subs that
needed space after scening that was fine, that was what he needed. But if he
was secretly longing to stick around, and didn’t because he didn’t want Gwaine
getting ideas, that was bullshit. It was just stress relief, just a dom and sub
having some fun before the inevitable day where Merlin fell to his knees before
a complete stranger and he was off the market forever.
And Gwaine’s sub would maybe stop taking suppressant drugs, or whatever,
because it’d been ten years already and this was getting ridiculous. He’d had
zer for such a ridiculously short period of time, considering they were
supposed to be with each other for life, and then ze had gone and blocked him.
Just. He’d woken up one day by himself, no note, nothing and he didn’t know
why. Gwaine was twenty-six and being shut out, constantly shut out, and, thus,
single.
“Do you…uh. I mean.” Merlin searched around for his shirt. “I’m not leaving you
to top drop am I?”
Everyone was just practicing, figuring out what they liked, what they didn’t
like, so when they did it for real it was perfect. So they could go up to that
one person made special-order, just for them and they could ride off into the
sunset together in blissful co-existence.
Gwaine couldn’t ever help but notice that absence, that disconnect, because he
wasn’t similarly distracted. The only thing he knew about his sub was that ze
was still alive and didn’t want him in zer head. Merlin…wasn’t like that. He
wasn’t waiting, or practicing or… killing time. It was a hard distinction to
pick apart, but Merlin never went distant or distracted. The opposite,
probably, actually, if Gwaine sat and thought about it. Merlin paid too much
attention, if there were such a thing. He followed Gwaine’s hands carefully,
like he could memorise them. He never closed his eyes and lost himself, he was
always deeply, presently in the moment and it took Gwaine far too long to
notice that that was what was making the entire situation a bit odd. That
intense, single minded need to see everything
“It’s a thing.” Merlin defended, when Gwaine dismissed the idea. “It’s a total
actual thing, and I don’t want to be an arse if you’re like, sitting here
suffering and not saying anything because you’re too dommy.”
“I know top drop’s a thing, but it’s never been a problem of mine.” Gwaine
promised and that was true enough. He’d never had anything a good sleep
couldn’t fix, generally. “This is not a passive aggressive cry for attention
and I don’t think you go home and pine on the underground.” Gwaine rolled up
and dragged his pants on, because it was his flat and he didn’t need to wear
trousers if he didn’t want to. “I just want you to know that if you want to
kick around here a bit afterwards, that’s perfectly fine by me.”
“What does pining on the underground even look like?”
“Listening to sad music as you stare out the window and pretend you’re in a
music video.” Gwaine answered handing Merlin his socks. “Or maybe writing my
name in your notebook and sighing a lot. Staring at my number on your mobile,
working up the courage to call, but oh, what would you say—”
Merlin shoved him and sat down on the edge of Gwaine’s desk to put on his
socks. “I told Arthur I’d be back soon, and he’s keeping me on track for my
essay.”
“So I was just a study break to you? The disgrace. The horror.” Gwaine put his
hand to his forehead and Merlin threw a pen at him. “And now you’re throwing my
own pens at me. For shame.”
“I have none.”
“I enjoy that aspect of your personality deeply,” Gwaine agreed.
“He said if I said another word about how irritating it is when people treat
folklore like it’s only something you can study in, like, isolated hill folk
and ‘indigenous people’ when it is not and anyone with a brain can see that
it’s happening everywhere every day in how people interact with the world
because we are the folk, and we’re constantly redefining our universe through
stories and media and retelling who we are and… and…ah, well. Um. He was going
to lock me out on the patio with a bowl of kibble and some water and not let me
back in until I’d calmed down.”
Gwaine noted that Merlin looked a bit wistful at the thought.
Gwaine offered. “Well. If you need another study break shag I promise I will
dutifully listen to the gibberish that leaves your mouth like it is actual word
making sense.”
“Cheers.” Merlin grinned and hopped and wobbled on one foot as he tied his left
shoe and Gwaine walked him to the door, rubbing the back of Merlin’s neck
during a quick goodbye snog. Merlin’s eyes were still blown, and he leaned in
heavily against Gwaine, but he was also clearly happy to get gone, so. So
Gwaine let him go because that’s what he liked.
“Hey,” Merlin said and tucked his hands into his jacket pockets. “See you soon,
yeah?”
“Sure,” Gwaine kissed his cheek and sent him out the door with a pat on the
bum. Merlin gave him a face before sauntering down the hallway. Or, not so much
sauntering. More like Merlin had seen a film with someone sauntering in it,
once, long ago.
“Walk like a normal person, you berk.”
Merlin laughed as he turned down the hall and Gwaine went back to his bagels.
 
 
                                      ---
The Story of Psyche And Eros
There was a time that there were no soulbonds, and people did not know in whom
they should trust and love, protect or obey, and it was up to the Gods to
determine who it should be that would fall in love. The domme, God of Love,
Beauty and Control, Aphrodite would send her obedient son to bind mortals in
the ties of love as it suited her desires and rivalries with the other Gods.
Aphrodite was a jealous, possessive God, and thus determined that none should
be more worshipped, loved and desired than her. Love is a possessive creature
and should not be looked down upon. When Aphrodite heard of anyone, submissive
or dominant, that the people spoke of being as beautiful as she, her punishment
was cruel and immediate. And Psyche, princess of Greece, was the most beautiful
of all her beautiful sisters, and the people spoke of her in glowing terms and
her protector had many offers placed at zer feet in offer to win the
submissive.
Aphrodite saw those offerings as belonging to her, and, in a rage, sent her son
down to punish the mortal Psyche for her crimes. Eros, ever obedient, took his
arrows and went to earth. Eros’ arrows were not physical weapons, but would
pierce through the soul of one person and bind them to another. Eros,
mischievous in mind, decided to bind Psyche to the soul of a goat, so none
could ever look upon her with love.
He settled into her sleeping chambers, and being himself submissive, saw none
of the beauty in features and none of the attractiveness in her presence, and
was committed to his plan. He pricked her with his arrow and went out to find a
goat. Had he found one of easier temperament, this story would have ended
there. But Eros stumbled upon a goat the had once outrun Artemis’ hounds, and
thus won her favour. Artemis enjoyed Aphrodite’s agony over Psyche and thus
blessed the goat with the ability to sense the Gods.
Instead of pricking the goat with his arrow, Eros found himself kicked firmly
into a mountainside and stabbing himself with his strand of Psyche’s soul, and
none are immune to the powers of love, not even a God, and when he pulled
himself up from the rubble, and despite being submissive himself, he was
committed to a new plan.
Eros stole back into the castle, and, wrapping up his love in secrecy, stole
her away to a mountaintop, where one of his many mortal homes waited (for when
he so chose to take mortal lovers, as he and the other Gods so often did), and
laid her to rest in a bed wrought of diamond in a home more beautiful than any
mortal palace, with all the finest delicacies and luxuries that his Psyche
would ever want or need for.
He thereupon returned to the castle, and in her place left many treasures and
gifts, of such finery and beauty that her Protector would know that she had
been taken by a God, though he was careful to keep his identity a secret, for
though he was a God, and the thoughts of mortals mattered little to him, he did
not wish to draw attention to himself.
Eros hid himself from sight, so that his wife might not know of their shared
nature, and when she awoke, and though she could not see him, she sensed him in
her mind, and loved him as any sub loves zer dom, and invited him into the bed,
feeling no fear or worry for her family, because she felt loved to the very
core of her being.
Eros claimed to be a hideous and deformed creature that had hidden himself from
view, and he told her to never look upon his features, for she would not love
him then, and she obeyed, as any sub would obey zer dom, even as she protested
that she did not care about how he appeared, and would love him, that she had
beauty enough for them both. He agreed and asked for her hand, and she gave it
to him.
He proved himself a gentle, firm lover, though he had to play a part that sat
wrong with him, but he did not mind, because his love was happy. They stayed in
bed for many days and nights, Eros letting the dark hide him his wife’s eyes
when night fell, and forbidding any light or lamp in their shared rooms. Food
was delivered when she needed it, and he doted on her, knowing her every want
and desire and granting it to her, and she, for many days and nights, had not a
single worry or thought other than being with her husband, as well it should be
with new soulbonds.
And, for a time, it was good.”
cont.
 
 
                                      ---
July 2001
The air in the room had been sticky-desperate-hot. They’d shut and locked all
the windows, stuffed sweaters under the crack of the closed and locked door,
and shoved Merlin’s unpacked bag up against the closed heating vent and then
sat away from any walls, in the middle of Merlin’s chaotically confused room.
Half-started projects and half-moulded models, a one eyed head here, a base-
painted train engine without details or wheels, all mingled into the crowded
press of the things he had finished. The paintings, blue prints and sketches on
every spare inch of wall, the pots and bowls from his pottery class filled with
screws and coins, the eyeless papier-mâché masks hanging from the ceiling with
diving airplanes and gently floating dirigibles.
The heat had grown the longer they sat there, their bodies filling up the
small, crowded room as the sun rose and the day outside grew warmer and baked
them from the outside in. They lay on the floor, like the opening and closing
parenthesis to a clever aside that no one ever said. Merlin’s hands were tucked
close to his body and Arthur crossed his arms over his chest and twisted to
stare at the bellies of jet planes and the blank-eyed exaggeration of the
masks.
At some point Merlin’s fist had crept away from his chest and his knuckles
ended up brushing up against Arthur’s shoulder. Arthur had known it was coming,
seen the movement as Merlin hand slid closer, and he hadn’t moved. His breath
caught as Merlin unclenched his hand and his fingers trailed up over the swell
of muscle. Merlin’s breath sounded shaky, but he inched closer and Arthur
continued to lie still. Merlin’s hand stayed still, splayed over his shoulder
and chest, both of them lying the heat and trying to breathe.
Then Merlin’s right hand began moving down the slope of Arthur’s right arm,
trailing down towards where his fingers were protectively curled up against his
own bicep.
 
 
                                      ---

                                   [LoaeX3]
[Promotional poster for independent psychological horror film Glass, written
and directed by Howard Isen. The picture features two women: a shorthaired,
angry dominant (the Stepsister, (Kelly Stan)) covering the mouth of a
frightened blonde submissive (Cinderella, (Rachel Hans)).]
---December 2003
Arthur was seventeen, single, and on a bus. Arthur tugged his thick, charity-
shop jumper tighter around himself and lifted his chin as he started out the
window. There were two doms who’d just gotten on and immediately zoned in on
him. He’d met the taller one’s eyes on accident, just sort of staring
mindlessly into the middle-distance like anyone did on a bus, saw movement,
tracked it, and ended up staring into the eyes of someone who was going to take
it wrong.
He had his bag on the seat next to him, and the bus had plenty of open seats.
It was an off-hour. Even the muggy exhaust-and-sweat smell of buses had started
to air out, a little.
He wished he had a book. People left you alone if you put up enough defences.
But some people, they would sit right next to you and make comments and ask
what you were reading, if you read a lot, if it was for class, about this and
that and whatever until you looked at them, and then the conversation would
build and then they’d be giving you compliments you didn’t want.
Or they sat behind you, like these two, and you could feel the moist drag of
their breath on your neck and the way they jostled each other and murmured
comments to one another that you would be able to hear if you put any effort
into it. There were doms who took their orientation to mean that they could do
anything if they just pushed hard enough.
The one directly behind him gripped the back of his seat; Arthur could feel the
hard points of his knuckles against his shoulders. Arthur was not scared. He
wasn’t ever scared. When there were unannounced footsteps behind him in a car
park his heart didn’t beat harder because he was about to piss himself, but
because, much like Bruce Banner, Arthur’s anger was a seething, smashing
monster that lived like a bezoar of undigested resentment lodged right under
his sternum.
He rubbed the base of his ring finger, where, if he had a fiancée (which he did
not, because he was single) there would be a protective ring (hence the name)
both to signal he was taken, and to protect the sensitive bundle of nerves
right there at the base of his dominant hand. He hated the bus. The way it
started and stopped, the constant rocking motion. He hated the smell of it, and
the knowledge that any seat you could sit on probably had had someone throw up
on it at one point or another. Mostly it was the smell. And the noise. And the
motion. And basically everything about the bus. Everything about it was
horrible, except for the part that it was faster than walking.
It was better when he could listen to music, but it had been Merlin’s turn for
the CD player (they shared, since Arthur had busted his, and Merlin had taken
his apart for Reasons, and they’d only had enough money between them for one),
so he was stuck staring out the window, which didn’t really help the headache,
since it was unseasonably sunny. Better when it was raining and he could
pretend the raindrops were protozoa eating one another.
(“I think everyone else races them,” Merlin would say, head on Arthur’s
shoulder and eyes closed, ear bud in one ear, the mate in Arthur’s. “But what
if they do morph into one giant Megazord raindrop? Who wins then?”
“They were overcome with their aggressive desire to win and decided to fuck it
out in the coat room.” Arthur would say and Merlin would snort and shift around
in the bus seat until he was more comfortable. “Everyone wins.”)
A rush of empathy exploded behind his eyes, rushing down his throat and coating
his stomach like cold milk after a too-large-bite of something entirely too
spicy. He sighed, got up and moved to the other side of the bus without
comment. Most of the self-help books Dr. Whitman had prescribed for homework
(all read aloud by Merlin as they flopped in his unmade bed and Arthur wrote
short, non-committal sentences about how his day had gone in his “daily stress
journal”) stressed the need to leave a situation when he thought he was going
to have—and here, Merlin always substituted whatever buzz word the book was
using for “a Hulk out”—and come back to it when he was calmer. He relaxed back
into the seat and let the borrowed feeling soothe out the rough edges of his
mood.
In school half his classmates looked drugged, their doms getting off on being
able to gentle them into a soft, entirely-tupped submission, the other half
going all alpha-top over everything one second, and then purring with
satisfaction over their dominance of someone they hadn’t even met yet the next.
You could walk down the halls and catch three moods off one person before you
even finished turning the corner.
And then there were the lectures about it. A few years ago it had been Teacher
Lester’s classes about learning to pick which was an emotion you were having,
and which was feedback from your fiancée, and how to set up a signal when you
needed to focus on something. About how the cluster of nerves in your ring
finger was something physical and grounding that you could use to tell your
fiancée “not right now, please” or “I could use some assistance.”
(“Or ‘fancy a wank?’” Jennifer Watz had muttered just-loudly-enough from her
little co-op of friends.)
He opened his eyes and smiled, enjoying the growing warmth in his stomach.
One of the doms, who couldn’t have been much older than Arthur, but still had
no business making a fuss, slid across the aisle to sit kitty corner to him,
leaning forward enough that he took up most Arthur’s peripheral vision, close
enough that Arthur could choke on his body spray if he wanted. The other just
laughed like a dolt and Arthur was frustrated all over again, turning to look
out the window “Hey there. Hey do you have the time?” The one right next to him
asked, basically right into his ear. That’s what they did. They asked innocuous
questions and then you were stuck with them for the rest of the bus ride,
because you’d be rude to ignore them, right? They were just asking the time.
Like Arthur hadn’t just gotten up to move away from him.
And Arthur got angry. His most immediate negative emotional response was anger.
When his favourite character in a book died, he didn’t cry, he got pissed off.
When two young, idiot doms—who were all hyped up because they’re
dominants—thought they could stare at him like he was the last zebra in the
Serengeti. Because, hey, they could do whatever they wanted and if they got in
trouble they’d just front their way out of it. Arthur was positive if he’d been
a dom, he’d never have to see Dr. Whitman for “anger management” because then
it would have been “natural for his age” and it would have just needed to “run
its course.”
Some days he had more patience than others.
“Hey, come on. Don’t be like that. I just want to know the time.” He knew
flipping them off just encouraged them, and he could never get a good insult
going. But ignoring them doesn’t help, and they’re still talking, to each
other: shooting him glances. He could beat the piss out of them, if he wanted
to—probably. People didn’t get into fights like they used to, like it is in
older books or films, back before people could actually find their fiancées as
opposed to them being— for the better part of the population— a steadying,
loving phantom in their heads.
There used to be gun duels and sword fights, still were in movies, of course.
Some people still thought was romantic, but Arthur—having actually been in a
fight and broken two knuckles, bit his tongue, and had plenty of bruises
besides and he was the one who’d objectively won—thought it unimaginably
stupid.
And he was a sub. Most doms, generally, backed off once you started bending
fingers back, or got them one in the nose. Most doms would go away if you just
said you weren’t interested, most people were decent and left you alone if you
didn’t look like you wanted to be approached. Being able to read your partner’s
non-verbal cues was a huge, giant part of being a dominant. But sometimes you
got morons. And morons were morons regardless of gender.
And so the dom touched him, put his hand on Arthur’s shoulder and shook him.
“Come on, babe. Don’t be like that, I’m just being friendly.”
Arthur’s hands were hard from carpentry, covered thick with calluses, and his
arms tight with hard-earned muscle. He had plenty of experience with rugby
scrums and after-game scuffles.
He sat up and turned, grabbed the dom by the wrist, jaw set and he didn’t have
a big, impassioned speech. He might have one later, but if he talked now it
wouldn’t come out right, so he just shoved the man’s wrist back at him.
Something about they’d always be sucky doms if they couldn’t read people, or…
or something cool and action movie hero-y. Merlin could think of something,
something awesome to say, so he could get up right at his stop and put them in
their places. But as was he couldn’t stop grinding his teeth and if he didn’t
want to punch and not stop punching the only real solution was to sit up at the
head of the bus like a scared little dork who couldn’t handle himself.
“Jesus fuck, are you mental?” He heard from behind him and he held on to his
bag and got off on the next stop so he wouldn’t become that bloke who got
kicked off the bus for biting off someone’s ear.
(“If it makes you feel better, you did the right thing.” Merlin would say
later. And then, “if it makes you feel more better I have ice cream and a
really unhelpful anger management pamphlet that we can set on fire.” Which
would, actually, make Arthur feel better.)
 
 
                                      ---

                            The Handy Pocket Five:
            Tips And Tricks To Calming Down And Keeping Your Cool.
It’s important to your friends, family and peers that you keep yourself well.
So keep these handy, so you can keep yourself in hand.
o Breathe: it sure may sound basic, but taking a second the breathe can help
clear your thoughts, and helps your heart to slow down so your brain thinks
it’s okay to calm down now. Try it!
o Walk Away: if you feel like you can’t control yourself, then the safest and
best thing for everyone is to Get Out Of There! It’s not rude if the other
option is to lose your cool.
o Evaluate The Situation: Is it really you whose angry right now, or did it
come out of nowhere? Sometimes your bondmate can feed you feelings of anger,
and it’s important to be able to tell the difference between what ze’s feeling
and what you are. Take a moment and remember to breathe!
o Count To Ten: give yourself time to think about a situation. Don’t just
count, but clear your thoughts, don’t just wait ten seconds to think of how to
respond. Pretend it’s a little mini vacation in your head! If you’re still mad
Get Out Of There,
o Learn Your Signals: you probably know when you’re getting angry long before
it spirals out of your hands. Learn what specifically triggers your anger and
why it does, and then, when you’re calmed down, talk it over with a responsible
adult. They’ll probably have some ways to help that you never thought of!
Remember: we’re rooting for you!
 
 
                                      ---
July 2001
 
Merlin and his mum had gone for a holiday to look for his mum’s fiancé, since
ze was probably legal now. It was Merlin’s first proper trip, seeing as
Merlin’s mum was always working. Arthur had never really been on one either,
since he and his guardians had, somewhere along the line, decided that their
barely functioning relationship would terminally suffer were they to be locked
together with only each other as company for any extended period of time.
Arthur had felt oddly…nervous when Merlin had finally climbed into Arthur’s
Aunt Rebecca’s car. No, maybe not nervous. Nervous was what you felt before a
match you really wanted to win, or when a pretty dom looked at you
speculatively and you felt your knees quake a little bit, or before you went to
visit and see if your dad was having a good day or not.
He was cat sitting for them—Frizzle, since Missy had died last summer, and
neither of them had gotten over it, but Frizzle was sort of helping. Better, at
least, than coming home to a house you felt should have a cat in it that did
not.
It took all of that long, drawling afternoon in oddly clean and sparse space of
Merlin’s-house-without-Merlin for him to put two and two together. At first he
just walked from room to room, double checking that he was alone, picking up
little knick-knacks that he hadn’t had time to examine before. He’d been in
Merlin’s house about as frequently as he’d been in his own, but it felt…weird,
without anyone there. Merlin’s mum had made sure the fridge had plenty of his
favourites, and if Arthur broke into her liquor cabinet, well, it wouldn’t be
the first time. Hunith was one of those parents whom would rather you drink at
her house where she knew where you were, and what you were drinking, and who
you were with, rather than out in some field somewhere with strangers drinking
whatever terrible concoction you could get your hands on.
He sorted through Merlin’s CDs and put in one because if he heard anything from
the Moulin Rogue soundtrack one more time, he was going to throw something
expensive at something really solid. Arthur also wished they’d left the
carefully labelled five-member dom or sub bands back in the 90’s. He really
did. There were always five of them, and they were always billed as the “____
One” and then you had to deal with magazines asking which one you could have a
steamy affair with, or which one you would be if you were marketable enough.
It was weird. Everything about the house suddenly felt too big, and his skin
felt too small, like there was more of him packed inside it than there had been
previously. It felt like too much of him was feeling that strange crawling
mixture of apprehension and excitement before he noticed that the dull, fuzzy,
omnipresent weight that had sprawled in the corner of his mind was breaking
apart, was clearing out like a fresh breeze rolling across his neurons. He
stopped in the middle of the kitchen, gherkin half chewed in his mouth, filled
with a foreboding-kind-of good-sort-of-weird, which was not how anyone else
would write it. In books these had long, beautiful paragraphs about how these
things felt. Poems that people put on t-shirts or said at weddings, or quoted
at each other when they were high on love and stupidity.
Then again there were also a lot of songs with just the lyrics “you were made
for me/I was made for you” repeated over and over to a thumping techno beat. So
Arthur was, at least, better than that. Hopefully.
But he just stood with his hands on the corners of counter and tried to find
the thread of the feeling like it was a thought he’d just lost track of, trying
to focus on it, trying to lose himself in it like a daydream. Words didn’t
work, or ideas, or pictures, but he was curious. Was this? This was what this
was, wasn’t it? Because he shouldn’t be this apprehensive just standing around
and snacking. So it had to be. And he had no idea how to…you didn’t send
feelings. They weren’t packages. And you couldn’t make yourself feel really
curious, but apparently just focusing on the problem helped, because the
apprehension bled away and was replaced with a feeling like an exclamation
mark.
The flickers he got of his fiancé were…pleasant. Happy, all of a sudden, like
ze had just noticed Arthur, finally, and was entirely too happy to find him
there, in zer head. Arthur shivered at the approval and leaned against the
washing machine. Arthur was used to the feeling of being blindsided by anger.
He knew what that was like. He’d had to sit in Dr. Whitman’s office and try to
describe it, words fumbling out of his hands like he was a toddler with a
spoon. But he’d never been stuck with joy like lightning. He’d never stopped
still and felt everything in him expand as opposed to tighten, not without a
reason. But here he was, smiling at the air, laughing like he’d lost himself
somewhere.
His dom was happy with him, ze was finally there and ze was happy to find him.
Ze was happy for him, and Arthur wanted zer nearby, he wanted to be able to
greet zer, and flop all over zer, and drop right down his knees and not feel
dumb or embarrassed or stupid about it. He slid down until he was sitting on
the floor, legs spread open and he wanted zer right now, for zer to show up and
the two of them could just. Leave. Get out of this place and they would bring
Merlin and find Merlin’s dom and live together in some disgustingly domestic
house somewhere and Arthur could be someone else entirely. Hopefully. Maybe.
His brain wasn’t yet used to separating his own feelings from the ones flicking
in from the outside. He’d overheard a conversation at lunch, where someone
said: “It’s like they’ve got a different smell. Like, your happiness smells
like blueberry pie, because when someone asks you what makes you happy, that’s
the first thing you think of. But then their happiness smells like engine
grease because that’s what comes to mind for them. And you can kind of smell
it, just a little bit, but you also feel happy.”
But currently Arthur couldn’t separate the bubbling laughter coming from
outside and the sharp and painful relief coming from inside himself, or,
obviously, it could easily be the other way around. His dom probably had been
blocking Arthur out and now was sharply relieved to find him there, or was
happy and Arthur was relieved ze wasn’t blocking him and Arthur couldn’t find
the centre of it all. So he just laughed to himself, tilted his head back and
basked in the attention, eyes squeezed shut.
It’s a disgustingly blissful thing, knowing that there is someone out there in
the world for you, who’ll love you exactly for the person you are, and you
can’t pretend around them because they’ll know, and they can’t hide from you
either. Terrifying, a bit, but it’s like Merlin’s unrestrained love of Scarlet
O’Hara, she’s not exactly likable, but you know why she’s doing what she’s
doing and who she is and where she’s coming from and so you can get over her
less sterling qualities because they are a part of her. “Except for the racism,
which we would need to have a conversation with her about, but that’s true of
most people,” Merlin would tend to add.
It was a soulbond. Not that people knew if souls were real, or whatever, and
different languages had different words for it and different reasons. You had
Plato in The Symposium with humans having four legs and arms, one head with two
faces, but they were so awesome that Zeus hacked them up because Zeus is the
worst person ever. So your soulmate was like a physical hunk of yourself that
had been torn away from you, and you wouldn’t be happy until you found them
again. Or the Jewish idea of “Bashert” that God had destined someone (or made
all marriages in heaven) for everyone, and so they’re looking for their
bashert, so it’s more like God made you both and set you on earth, to find one
another.
Or a lot of other examples that Arthur hadn’t paid enough attention to, because
his head had been fuzzy and unclear and so who even cared? Who cared about the
mysticism or connectivity of souls or neurochemicals or the collective
unconscious or single-flesh-theory or social structure theory, or any of it? It
didn’t mean anything when you felt like you didn’t have one. And he didn’t care
now, either, because who cared how it worked, or why? Why not just spend the
rest of your life happily bouncing joy from one of you to the other like a
tennis ball in space?
And then the happiness went out, just snuffed out because Frizzle was standing
on Arthur’s leg and staring at him and Oh God, Merlin.
Arthur had been…disturbingly pleased to find Merlin was as cut off from his dom
as Arthur was, because then Merlin wouldn’t become another one of the drugged-
out looking classmates, only ever really half there and always looking like
they’re just waiting for their turn to talk, instead of listening.
Your fiancé was perfect for you. Like, the one other person in all of creation
who could stick by you through everything and would fill up all those dank,
horrible empty places you kept finding inside yourself. And he didn’t want
Merlin running off and loving someone else more than he loved Arthur. And his
gut twisted up because now, here he was, going to be that guy who was only ever
half there, sharing every second with someone Merlin would never really know.
There were pamphlets about it, about what happened when your best friend went
and found himself his fiancé and you were just at this giant loose end because
all those long, sleepy Saturdays and those adventure packed evenings were being
spent with someone else who made your best friend happier than you ever could.
There were coming of age books, and all these empty, stilted paragraphs about
what you were supposed to do when your best friend went and got himself engaged
and you were stuck by yourself and single, or if they connected with their
fiancée before you did and you were stuck in your own head without a
sympathetic audience. And all those paragraphs had been about frustration and
jealousy and loneliness.
They didn’t hit on the bone-chilled terror of it, or being on the other end.
What if Merlin came back and he had the same screeching microphone-feedback?
What if Merlin also had his bond and now everything was going to be stilted and
weird because they weren’t really sharing the same experience anymore? Or. Or
fuck. What if Merlin had found his fiancée? What if, even if Arthur could now
feel his other half, they were off in Finland or wherever and Merlin was
cavorting with some idiot in Brixton who was going to love all his ideas, but
not know about all the fence posts and gazebos they’d carved their initials
into (but never living trees, because what if Ents?) Or worse. Or. Or so much
worse, it would be Arthur who would turn into the distant, lovesick one and
leave Merlin off to figure out things for himself, and Merlin was pants at
that. Arthur got that friendships were supposed to grow and change and evolve,
but, seriously. That was party line bullshit that no one actually believed.
Maybe later, when everyone had their fiancé and you were looking for a couple
to double date. Maybe then. Not a whole lot of friendships survived the
Honeymoon period.
His worry was apparently enough to set his fiancé’s heart racing because now it
was a weird, echoic kind of worry, heart hammering away and his palms sweating.
Why did this have to happen now?
He should tell Merlin.
Merlin would probably be happy for him.
Maybe they could both renounce and run away to some commune somewhere and make
jam for a living. And he knew that his fiancé must be feeling all this anger
out of nowhere, but that was zer own damn fault. Arthur had been doing just
fine without zer.
There was a sharp jab of worry coming from somewhere outside of him, and Arthur
shoved it out of his mind. Why’d ze need to show up all of sudden for anyway?
If ze’d been suppressing Arthur this long, why not a bit longer? Why now?
Frizzle jumped up onto the desk and stared at moment at the blinking cursor on
the screen, before claiming the monitor as his territory. Arthur reached up and
rubbed down his back, trying to find a sense of calm in the arch of Frizzle’s
back, or the springy wiry curls of his fur, scratching underneath his chin.
He eventually tapped out: Did you get yourself in jail? Did you forget entirely
how to type? I’m very disappointed in you, Merlin. I may steal your cat. and
sent it, even though the words looked boring and bland and impotent just
sitting up there, on screen.
He didn’t. There were not a sufficient amount of books about this. There were
more books about this than a human could read in their lifetime. He should have
some character to fall back on. Instead he was over-empathizing with the house
from Wizard of Oz, because there it had been: being a house, which was suddenly
ripped out of the ground for no good reason. Then it had gone and killed
someone by mistake, far away from the place when it had any sense being and no
magical journey to show for it. Just left there with all these munchkins and
its foundation completely gone and all this colour everywhere like it had the
right.
Merlin’s trip lasted another two days, and Arthur spent those two days in a
feverish emotional hangover-y limbo. And maybe drinking more out of Hunith’s
liquor cabinet then she’d be entirely okay with, but it was better than…well.
It seemed the thing to do. That’s what people did in books when they had too
much going on. They drank a lot. It didn’t actually help, at all, seeing as it
just made his own emotions seem dull and boring, and the new ones bright as
Christmas decorations. Merlin didn’t email him back or pick up his phone and
Arthur was sort of happy about it. His ring finger throbbed and he refused to
touch it. His chest hurt in fits and bursts, aching one moment, and completely
fine the next. He didn’t. He didn’t know what to do with himself.
So he hid and stayed quiet. Those were the only things he was good at doing,
besides breaking things, and that didn’t seem appropriate.
He’d fallen asleep in Merlin’s bed, Frizzle had made himself comfortable on his
chest, and there wasn’t any safe place on earth, so he might as well sop around
like an idiot where he was. Somewhere along the line, the sense of what was
Merlin’s space and what was Arthur’s got completely lost to semantics. He was
sort of drunk, but sort of not drunk and sort of wanting to go back to last
week and live there, even if last week hadn’t been terrifically special, or
even that good.
He’d woken up to a sudden, sharp jerk of terror, which sat him straight up,
disturbing Frizzle right out of the room. The terror tempered itself into a
strange, limping sort of happiness and sadness and…and Arthur didn’t know how
he could separate one from another except that he could.
Arthur didn’t get what was going on right away. He just saw Merlin standing
there. And Merlin was just standing there, not talking or doing anything. Just
standing there like a complete idiot, with his luggage at his feet and the door
closed following Frizzle’s departure.
So Arthur sat in Merlin’s bed and looked at Merlin and had the sudden,
irrevocable urge to fall to his knees in front of him. But. It was Merlin.
Nothing about Merlin was commanding. Effusive and extravagant, sure, someone
you noticed and paid attention to, but Arthur’s knees were shaking and his
throat was dry and his ring finger ached and it was perfectly stupid how long
it took for him to understand what was going on.
Arthur had looked at Merlin’s shaking hands, he’d looked at the slumped slope
of his shoulders, and how he was leaning heavily against the door. He looked at
Merlin’s face, lit up only by the street lamps and the glow of various
electronics left about the room, and it looked just as scared as the thudding,
sick feeling in Arthur gut.
And. And then. Then. As slow dawning as Merlin’s Great Food Epiphany. And then
he understood.
 
 
                                      ---
cont
“But, of course, there came a time when Eros had to return to his duties and
was forced to leave his bride, only able to return at night. She entertained
herself in her new palace of wonders, as she had always learned to entertain
herself, but began to pine for company besides the steady, loving presence
nestled next to her heart.
“My dear husband,” she said, when they had finished for the night and were, by
then, drowsing in the sheets as couples do. “Though my heart is completed by
you, when you are away I find myself missing my siblings, who were great
friends when we were younger and before they were wed. Might they come and
visit while you are away? I do miss them so.”
“Of course, my dear wife.” Eros said, wanting only her happiness, and having
felt the pangs of mortal loneliness in such a way that disarmed him utterly.
So it was that Psyche’s siblings were sent word of her marriage, and journeyed
to visit her. While all lovely, not one was as beautiful or more desired than
Psyche, and had, many nights, raged with jealousy over how they should only be
wed by doms who’d sought Psyche’s suit and failed, for one reason or another,
but been deemed worthy of a secondary prize. Their jealousy only worsened upon
seeing her new home, with all its’ glorious wonders, its’ luxuries and
comforts. One could not more than step in the door and feel the rest of the
world pale in comparison, and had Psyche not loved her siblings so, she might
never had longed for anything. Psyche did not know of her siblings’ jealousy,
having only ever loved them and thinking her beauty no more than a passing
token of the Gods.
They spent the morning feasting and carousing, like they had when they were
children, and it was not until that it came time to leave that their jealousy
returned. “But Psyche!” they cried, “Where is your husband?”
She told them that he had gone for the day and they pressed for details, but
she could not tell them what he looked like. “He says he is a hideous monster
and to look upon him would turn my heart to stone, but I could no more hate him
than I could hate the very air.”
“Sister!” they warned, “If he is this monster, perhaps he has put a spell on
you. You should protect yourself, keep a knife in your bed and a lantern nearby
so you may know of what sort of monster he is.”
Psyche trusted her siblings, but loved her husband too much to pay them heed,
and when she left she tried to put their advice from her mind, and took to
study.
When Eros returned he stood in the shadows of her study and requested she blow
out her lantern, so he might kiss her. Psyche had taken to study of monsters
during the day, and none, she thought, could be her husband. He had no horns
upon his head, his fingers were not clawed, and his feet were soft, human feet.
When she had touched his face, his features had seemed fair, and these were the
things she told him in the dark. “What is it you ask of me?” He pressed his
face to her shoulder, because he knew that he would refuse her nothing.
“Do you love me?” She asked, and Eros stated that he loved her more than Apollo
loved his lyre, than Hephaestus loved his anvil, and any husband had loved any
wife in all the history of mankind, and with this was satisfied and asked
nothing of him except to take her to bed.
Some time later her siblings came to visit her again, and they spent the
afternoon having joyous fun, eating foods they had no names for and drinking
wine until they were giddy, and the day passed as pleasantly as ever there has
been. However, once again it came time for them to go, and once again they
cried for their sister to be careful, that the monster was no doubt fattening
her up to eat her, or would spring horrific, terrifying children upon her.
Psyche loved her husband and tried to pay them no mind, but still, when Eros
returned, she was in the study, thinking now of the fat, happy children she had
intended to bare him as wretched in some way or other.
These were the things she told him in the dark, and once again Eros pressed his
face to her shoulder and asked what she wanted of him. “Do you love me?” She
asked of him again, and he responded that he loved her more than Hestia loved
her kettle, than Artemis loved her bow, or any dom had loved any sub in all the
history of all of the worlds ever to be or imagined, and with this she was
satisfied and asked only that he take her to bed.
It was this night, after many nights of lovemaking, that Eros made a request of
her, that she treat him as he had treated her these long, lazy, perfect nights.
“It is because I am a monster,” he lamented, feeling it true, “if you wish to
refuse me, you may, and I will love you still.” And she, being a loving and
caring wife, could not refuse him, though she found the request odd and
unsettling, as submissives are not meant to act as dominants, and the play
suits them ill. Though she still loved her husband, Psyche felt herself filled
with uneasiness.
For a third time her siblings visited, and they spent the evening in revelry,
playing games, and listening to music and eating their fill of good food, and
they all wished to spend the rest of their days as such. But, time came again
for them to go and they were once again filled with jealousy that their sister
should get to live so. So once again the counselled “Monsters are full of
strange and unhealthy appetites, you must beware Psyche, you must find out what
beast he is and be prepared.”
Psyche loved her husband, but recalled the night he asked her to hold the whip
instead of him, and she was afraid. So once again she turned to study and when
Eros came for her, late at night and thick with worry he held his hand to his
breast and asked what he could do to calm her fears.
Though she worried, his presence soothed her, and she asked again, “Do you love
me?”
And he said that he loved her more than the owl loved Athena, more than the sea
loved Poseidon and more than any creature has loved any other and she was not
satisfied, feeling fear again and held her hand to his face and asked him to
show himself, so that she might better understand. And Eros, unable to refuse
her anything did so in a single, glorious moment, and when he saw the
recognition in her eyes and the worship begin to swell in her heart, he fled
away, and in his despair, told his mother the whole, woeful tale, and he wept
and her heart softened for her son’s plight. She saw the strand tying him to
Psyche, and knew she could not break it without causing her son’s downfall.
So it came to Aphrodite to form a plan.”
cont.
 
 
                                      ---
July, 2001
It wasn’t until this that Arthur properly spoke to Dr. Whitman. Before it had
been a trial, a game, a tourney, an experiment. Dr. Whitman was the enemy and
Arthur had to outwit him when they were in private session, and endure during
the family ones. That was the only thing you could do during a tribunal airing
your every fault and mistake. Endure. Pretend you were someone else.
But this. This proved he was wrong. He was made wrong. Maybe he was like his
father, maybe the car crash had ruined something in his brain and now he’d
dragged Merlin into it. And Arthur could have endured this, would have been
fine with the fuzzy nothing in his head and never finding anyone, if he hadn’t
dragged someone else in it with him.
Merlin needed someone who could focus him. Merlin wanted someone big. Merlin
was his best friend. Merlin was happy. Merlin was happy that it was Arthur. It
filled him up to the brim, and he looked at Arthur like this was the greatest
thing that could have ever happened and didn’t that just prove it? Sure Merlin
was maybe slightly demented, but he wasn’t completely crazy. He wasn’t any kind
of pervert or anything. So it had to be something of Arthur making him like
this. Making him happy.
So here they were. The two of them. In Merlin’s darkened bedroom and everything
was wrong about them. Merlin didn’t fight the urge to drop on his knees, didn’t
try to look at Arthur with anything but worship. Arthur didn’t want it. He
wanted. He wanted to be there, he was supposed to fall on his knees. He was
supposed to find that person who would let him be angry when he was angry, but
know how to calm him down. Stop him from shoving someone into the mud, or
throwing things, or doing anything. They would let him be angry, but not do
anger.
This was wrong. This was so stupidly fucked up.
So he fell too. He got on his knees because he wanted to. He wanted to be on
his knees (but more, he wanted someone to put him there). He stumbled out of
bed and onto the floor, because he knew that he was supposed to be there. But
then they were on the ground together, staring at each other like the stupidest
of morons, and actually? They probably were. They had to be. Or Arthur had to
be. But Merlin didn’t help. Merlin was an enabler.
Merlin licked his lips and Arthur tracked the motion before looking away. “How.
You’re. I’m.” And that encompassed everything. Just. The entire problem was
right there. But you. But you are. But you are you and apparently I’ve been in
love with you, but you’re you. Apparently we’re supposed to be together
forever. But you’re you. And I’m me. And we’re not. This isn’t. We can’t. But
you. How.
“Yeah.” Merlin swallowed, hands hanging loose at his sides, in simple agreement
with everything to do with that. Arthur wanted to throw things, but he wanted
to touch, he wanted to press his face into Merlin’s stomach, and he wanted to
wrestle Merlin to the ground, and he wanted to run away and so he just…knelt
there.
Merlin crawled closer, stopping just a breath away from him and then kneeling
up again, his hands hovering in front of him but not breaching the gap. It was
wrong that they were both down here, one of them should be on their feet, the
other on their knees. Arthur should have. He should. But, similarly, somewhere
in the lizard part of Arthur’s brain, he thought that if he saw anyone else put
Merlin on his knees he would hate them out of existence. He wouldn’t even kill
them. They would die from hate. Merlin was his. Merlin was made for him. He
didn’t belong to another soul.
“What.” Arthur cleared his throat. “What did we do?” It had to be their fault.
It somehow had to be their fault. Or. Or his fault. Because this wasn’t normal.
This didn’t happen to normal people. As far as Arthur knew, this didn’t happen
to anyone. You had subs and you had doms, and they were made for each other.
You. That just made sense. You couldn’t have two subs or two doms that was
just. That didn’t even work.
“My entire brain is this huge argument where one side wants you to shove me on
the ground and fuck me so badly that I’m shaking, and the rest of it is
shouting but that’s never going to happen..” Merlin lifted his hand to
demonstrate the shaking and Arthur didn’t touch, because if he touched it’d be
real.
Merlin watched him, his body trembling in uncontrollable shudders then wrapped
himself around Arthur all at once, because Merlin had never met a whim he
didn’t immediately fulfil. “What do we do?” Merlin asked into the crook of
Arthur’s neck and Arthur didn’t know. Merlin was the one with the ideas,
“We could.” Merlin’s voice caught in his throat.
Sometimes things went wrong. Arthur’s father was still alive because the car
accident had destroyed the part of his brain that would bond with someone else,
that had bonded with one of Arthur’s mums. So instead of dying alongside his
mate, he lingered on, remembering her sometimes, and sometimes not. The car
accident hadn’t been the clean, controlled surgery of a permanent bond
nullification procedure. The accident had damaged plenty of other tissue and so
Arthur’s father had no ability to control himself, no way to regulate.
According to the facility, sometimes he spent days in a mindless, hazy, stupor,
and some days he flew in a manic rage and Arthur didn’t need to know more than
that.
Someone had come to Arthur’s school to talk about it, to talk about how, in 15%
of the population, something went wrong and the bond had to be severed or, at
minimum, suppressed for the health of one or both of the participants. Mental
illness. Extreme physical illness. Lasting emotional distress.
But you didn’t get a new one. That was the key. No matter what, you didn’t get
a new one. You got one shot at the whole two-sides-of-the-same-coin deal, and
after that you just had to stumble through life on your own. Half of a broken
thing, maybe even meeting your fiancée on the street and never having any way
of knowing or ability to do anything about it.
“Don’t be dumb, Merlin.” Arthur had said.
And Arthur had felt the zing of relief spark from Merlin right into his head
and Arthur had no idea how. How this was supposed to work. You heard,
sometimes, maybe, about doms getting off with each other. Like, with the Greeks
at war, and whoever was the bravest got to put someone else on their knees in
reward. Or an older dom teaching a younger one how to hit and what the lash
felt like.
And subs, sure, subs might comfort one another. They were, generally (whether
by nature or by nurture) more openly affectionate, and you had harems with a
dom and zer partner, and then a gaggle of unmarried subs whose mates had died
at war or they’d never had them, or whatever, and the general fantasy went
along the lines of the subs kissing one another and playing around, but it was
never real. It was a game.
No one had come to school to talk about this. They talked about switches, about
what if this and what if that and what to do in this particular case, and there
were short films with bad actors and unhelpful pamphlets with bad drawings or
stock photography and young adult novels with boring one word titles, but there
wasn’t anything about this. It was a giant hole in Arthur’s education.
“Do you think this has ever happened before?”
“It has to have.” Merlin rubbed the back of his hand against his mouth,
thoughtfully. “Nothing new under the sun.”
Arthur watched the slow back and forth of Merlin’s hand. He’d never kissed
anyone before. “What do you think happened to them?”
“Shh,” Merlin had said, changing gears entirely, because he was Merlin, and he
could feel Arthur’s fear buzzing right up against his throat. “Shh, we’ll
figure it out.”
He nuzzled against Arthur’s neck. “It’ll be okay, I promise. We’ll think of
something. We’ll research. We’ll find out everything we have to. It has to have
happened before. For some kind of reason.”
Arthur rested his head against Merlin’s shoulder, arms coming up and then
clutching onto Merlin, fingers clawing into Merlin’s shirt, nails digging into
the bony landscape of Merlin’s back, a landscape Arthur already knew,
technically, in a haphazard, mindless way. He was fourteen and Merlin was
thirteen. They’d lived in each other’s pockets for a decade, they’d gone
swimming and changed in the same room and flopped around, too lazy to put on
shirts. He knew the rising bumps of Merlin’s spine and the dips of his ribs.
But he’d never cared before. He didn’t know why he should care now, except that
he did. He cared like he was just now learning to read, and suddenly the world
had untold meaning it hadn’t contained previously.
Merlin was the one who got them to their feet. He had to feel the same sickly-
sticky drip of guilt that Arthur was, but he didn’t comment on it. Didn’t try
and shove it away. He just let Arthur keep it. Merlin was thirteen and still
dealt with change better than Arthur was ever going to.
Arthur was fourteen and Merlin was thirteen, and if they’d been normal then
they wouldn’t be allowed to hang out without a chaperon of one kind or another
until they were sixteen. If they were normal they would need one. Arthur had
seen the films, the voice-over detachedly describing the instincts that took
over when you first found your fiancé. How you, a young sub, might lose
yourself in making them happy and doing whatever they said for a little while,
might lose the sights of your own limitations. How they, a young dom, would be
high on power, would be protective and possessive, and the two of you, young
and untrained, might try something “unwise”. So it was best to have adults
around until the two of you settled into your bond.
Merlin moved to the bed and Arthur stopped. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to
do, but. You weren’t supposed to. Not. Not at fourteen-almost-fifteen and
thirteen-a-good-long-ways-from-fourteen,
“We’re two subs.” Merlin said in the face of his hesitation, sitting on the
mattress. “What would we even do?”
And so Arthur had carefully slid under the blanket Merlin lifted up for him, on
the side closest to the door, leaving Merlin all smashed up against the wall.
They’d fallen asleep in the same bed before, plenty of times before, and this
is how they’d always slept, because otherwise Merlin would fall out, and Arthur
would step on him on his way to the loo. It felt different now. Like Arthur was
keeping Merlin to himself.
They didn’t do anything, that first night. Not like how it should have been,
the first night in bed with your fiancée: with fervent kissing, with the
negotiation of words and bodies, leading and following each other until it
didn’t even matter where they were going.
“It’ll be a secret,” Merlin said finally, carefully. They weren’t touching.
They were breathing carefully so there could be no mistakes, a twin bed being
what it was. “If nobody knows then nobody can do anything about it.”
“How do we keep something like this a secret?” Arthur’s fingers twitched
forward, just a breath more and he could touch. He should be able to touch.
Merlin was his, Merlin belonged to him, and he should be able to touch. He
didn’t know if he was allowed to touch, what he should do with his hands, what
to do with his anything.
“We already share a plate. And we spend all our time with each other. All we
have to do is keep being how we always have and no one will ever know.” Merlin
swallowed, shoulders hunched in on themselves, arms crossed over his chest,
holding himself back.
“Your intense and complete inability to understand personal boundaries has
saved the day.” Arthur would have normally shoved Merlin. Merlin even tensed
for it, smile halfway on, before realizing he hadn’t been touched. Merlin
looked at him, steeled himself and reached forward, pressing his finger to the
tip of Arthur’s nose, his hope twisting in Arthur’s gut like poison.
“Can I touch you?” Merlin asked, after another awkward beat that was nothing
like them at all. “I won’t do anything. I won’t. I just want.” His hand came up
and he didn’t move. “Please let me.”
Arthur reached forward too, lining up his fingers with Merlin’s, feeling like
he was breaking some kind of rule. “You can do whatever you want.”
Merlin made a noise low in his throat and then was on top of him. Not doing
anything, just lying on top of Arthur like a lizard who’d found the ideal rock
for sunbathing, shoving his face into Arthur’s neck and inhaling, mumbling into
Arthur’s shirt like a moron. Arthur hesitated before wrapping his arms over
Merlin’s back, fitting a hand to the back of Merlin’s neck with a shuddering,
gasping, almost bone-jarring contentment.
Merlin breath sighed hot and wet over Arthur’s skin and Merlin’s fingers
kneaded at his sides, a near constant hum of relief gushing out of him and into
Arthur.
“What are you so happy about?” Arthur physically turned Merlin’s head so he
wouldn’t just lose the answer in his own shoulder. Merlin shivered and Arthur’s
hand flew away, hovering awkwardly in the air and was thankful he couldn’t see
Merlin’s face.
“It’s dumb.”
“Most of what you say is dumb.” Arthur argued, but it fell flat and Merlin
didn’t comment. Arthur put his hand down on the sheets. Merlin turned and
settled down on Arthur’s side, pressed up along Arthur and the wall and Arthur
knew his arm would go to sleep, but didn’t entirely care. “You’re stuck with me
now. So tell me.”
“I’m stuck with you.” Merlin’s grin was audible. “That’s it. I’m stuck with you
and you’re stuck with me, so we’re not going to end up like all those other
people who lose contact with their childhood friends. We’re stuck together. You
can’t go and leave me for a bunch of sports-guys.” Merlin wiggled and caught
his right hand with his own. It was still a jolt—falling headfirst into
Merlin’s head, feeling Merlin tangled up in his own, both of them suspended
above the other, and Arthur had honestly thought Merlin was just going to get
sick of Arthur. He’d figured that once Merlin could leave the neighbourhood, go
to uni or something and then Arthur would never hear from him again.
He’d planned to just let him go and not say anything about it. Move away
somewhere so Merlin wouldn’t have to see him when he came to visit his mum
(also to get away from his aunt and uncle). Or maybe not. Maybe he would have
been an asshole about it. Arthur didn’t really know.
He hadn’t known Merlin had been thinking it would be Arthur who would wander
off. Would grow into himself and become fabulously popular at his school and
not have any time for Merlin. And now that couldn’t happen. They’d never just
be a story they told their soulmate one day with the ending of “I wonder what
ever happened to him.”
“You’re mine now.” Merlin let the connection go slowly, flopping his hand down
onto Arthur’s stomach. “Nobody is going to change that. We’ll figure the rest
out.”
 
 
                                      ---
“Now, while it is important to remember that your child will not develop a
fixed gender until just before (or during) puberty, it is also important to
help them develop the skills and attitudes that will best help them fit into
their eventual peer groups. A study of over nine hundred new American parents
proved that while your child may not have a fixed gender until they’re eleven,
they begin to associate with one gender more than another much earlier, which
in nine out of ten cases, proved to be the child’s final fixed gender, and that
final one out of ten included all non-conventional gender identities (e.g.
switches, nones, ect...)
“This leads us to the developmental stage of “pre-gender orientation.” As I’ve
covered in previous chapters, during the first few years of life a child will
attempt to mimic the behaviours and habits of both submissive and dominant
parents. It is vital that during this stage you do not attempt to push one
gender identity over another because of what you want. Do not ignore the
signals and behaviours of your child because you think if they “should” be one
gender or another, as this can cause psychological distress later in life.[1]
“For instance, to begin with a child may play with both dolls and trucks, but
as ze gets older, ze may prefer to make loud noises while crashing two trucks
together and cease paying attention to the doll entirely. The child may then
start to display other key features, such as heightened energy and sense of
agency (which can often be mistaken for heightened aggression), or prefers
large groups of comrades as opposed to a singular playmate. It is then you can
begin to introduce your child to pre-gender appropriate activities, letting
your un-fixed submissive-leaning child learn how to negotiate and compromise,
or teaching your un-fixed dominant-leaning child how to lead and intuit. Later
in the chapter, I’ll cover the most obvious signs and signals for finding your
child’s pre-gender identity” – Palmer A. in Teething Through Teenagerhood:
Growing Up With Your Child, 7th ed, (HarperCollins: New York) ©1980
—
[1] For more on that, I suggest reading Dr. Howard Church’s entire body of work
(labelled more specifically in my “Further Reading” appendix) which covers
various disorders and psychophillias that can develop and acts as a
comprehensive guide to mis-parenting, or, for a more personal and specific look
into the subject, Entertainer Georgia Price’s autobiography Disoriented.
 
 
                                      ---
August, 1992
When Arthur and Merlin first met, Arthur had been an (endlessly) angry five-
almost-six year old and Merlin been a dirt covered four year old and he’d been
mobile for the better part of that. He had been a kicky foetus, and had been
climbing out of his cot far before the rest of his peers. He, at four, had
already been missing a tooth, because he’d fallen down the stairs, able to
barrel around at great speeds, but not quite so good at stopping just yet.
There had been a play-gate at the mouth of the staircase, and it had done its
level best to slow him down, but the manufacturers had not taken into account
the momentum of a fat baby covered in pots and pans stampeding right at it.
It had taken until then for Merlin to realise he could leave his own house, and
oh, oh, he could go talk to a person if he wanted, without his mum helping. It
had never occurred to him previously to try this, and like a switch was thrown,
he’d gone from being a deeply shy and recluse toddler into Merlin: The Fearless
Friend-Making Toddler Who Could Make Friends Anytime He Wanted. And, at that
moment, he’d been playing in his garden, and Arthur had been sitting in his
aunt’s garden, and it had been a prime Friend Making moment.
Arthur had been there for Merlin’s Epic Food Epiphany in which Merlin’s ten
year old worldview had been entirely shaken when he’d realised that he could,
if he wanted, venture into the kitchen, take things and create food and then
eat the food without his mum being present or involved. He’d burst into
Arthur’s house with the fever-eyed-gaze of a zealot and announced: “Arthur, we
could make cookies.”
According to distant memory their first Friend-Making conversation had gone
thus:
“Hi. I’m digging a hole to not-China.” The filthy creature (and, in Arthur’s
later opinion, there really should be an adjective or adverb that encompasses
the idea of “appearing from simply nowhere” seeing as Merlin and their
furniture were both in the habit of doing so) in front of Arthur proclaimed.
“What?” Arthur had been, justifiably, confused.
“I can’t dig a hole to China, because of the map. So I want to see what is on
the other side. It’s deep. Imma catch a tiger.” Merlin had said.
“The Indian Ocean.” Arthur had said, because his aunt and uncle owned a globe.
A fancy one that had a fancy stand and it stood in the corner of the sitting
room. He spun it a lot because it felt like the opening to a good movie. He’d
found the other side of the globe from the UK (he couldn’t read the words, but
he recognized the chocolate brown blob’s shape) and it had just been an expanse
of tea-coloured ocean. When he asked his aunt which one it was, she’d told him.
So the farthest you could get away from the UK was by swimming in some ocean
somewhere that was kind of sort of near New Zealand. Which was sort of a tiny
Australia but with fruit-that-was-birds-that-was-also-maybe-people according to
the education programming on the telly.
Merlin had cocked his head and dropped the trowel he’d been waving
enthusiastically. “Huh?”
“The hole is going to the Indian Ocean. You’d drown.” Arthur corrected and
crossed his arms. “So you can’t, because that’s stupid.”
“Oh.” Merlin considered that a long moment, sticking his tongue in the gap
between his teeth. “Then it’ll be a tiger trap.” He studied Arthur like a baby
wondering if ze can fit zer fist in zer mouth. “You gonna go to a birthday?”
“No.” Arthur had said, and apparently Merlin had taken that as permission to
grab him around the wrist and show him the beginning of his tunnel-now-tiger-
trap, which hadn’t been nearly deep enough to catch a tiger, because Merlin had
been digging it wrong, and so that’s how Aunt Rebecca found Arthur, him doing
the digging and Merlin thumping out the door with capers because tigers
wouldn’t just fall in without some bait. They weren’t stupid.
Aunt Rebecca had made Arthur take a shower straight off, but she hadn’t been
mad at him, because it was, according to her, later, the happiest they’d ever
seen Arthur in the year since his two mothers died and his father might as well
have. Then Merlin had asked them over for supper.
“I’m sure you’d need to ask your parents, Merlin.”
“We’re gonna catch tigers and I have a cat.” Merlin had said, pointing to his
house, “There’s food.”
They had ended up going to Merlin’s which was much better than the awkward,
stilted meal that Arthur knew would have happened back at his aunt and uncle’s
house: eating off the thick plastic plate they’d gotten him because they didn’t
want him breaking or scraping the nice china, listening to his Uncle Tristan
telling him to sit straight, and his Aunt Rebecca piling more overcooked peas
onto his plate without even asking if he wanted any and then chiding him for
not eating them all, even though they were gross and sewage swamp green and
turned to mush the second he shoved them into his mouth.
Aunt Rebecca took Merlin’s mum aside, after they’d talked about whether it was
actually okay for them to be over for dinner, whispering in a way that Arthur
knew was about him, because you always know when adults are talking about you.
The way they shoot glances, and turn away, the hot flush that sears the back of
your neck like sunburn or a too-hot bath. Arthur had looked down at his hands
as Merlin showed him his round up of toys with a semi-coherent stream of
information about them.
Merlin’s mum had smiled and nodded, and then still handed Arthur a plate
exactly like everyone else’s, with a steaming half-breast of grilled chicken
all cut up into nice, even pieces-just like Merlin’s-a pile of slightly sweet
and still-crisp carrots, a slice of wheat toast and she even asked what he
wanted to drink. Aunt Rebecca gave Arthur apple juice for every single meal,
like kids just drank apple juice and nothing else. Instead Arthur followed
Merlin’s example with a glass of milk and liked how it didn’t leave a syrupy
sweet aftertaste after every sip. She asked if Arthur or Merlin wanted more,
and entirely unlike the dinner he’d been expecting, she served cake for afters.
Aunt Rebecca never had afters, because she said it exacerbated his “condition.”
“Um.” Aunt Rebecca had started.
Merlin’s mum had waved it off. “You said he just gets a bit energetic, they can
work it off in the backyard. Look, he’s getting along fine with Missy. She
senses a calm soul.”
Aunt Rebecca had set her mouth and continued to stare at Arthur, like she was
daring him to make one wrong move.
Merlin’s cat had taken a liking to Arthur, so he had to sit still and not talk
too loudly, because he liked the heavy weight of her sprawling over his lap and
the thick strum of her nearly constant purr. She’d been very soft, loving to be
brushed and her shed fur a thick, cloudy tuff when he rolled it between his
palms and he hadn’t thrown anything all meal, because Merlin had said that his
cat had probably the Queen of Cats in Egypt, so he should be nice to her, and
Arthur had liked the idea of a Queen using him as a throne.
After that he had spent a lot of time at Merlin’s house, and some of that
sitting still while she sat on him, since Merlin was a bit of a whirlwind and
after four or five hours Arthur usually needed to detox a little. And she would
sit, happily, for as long as he could manage to stay still. He, to this day,
misses her.
He’d told Dr. Whitman about that later (when he was older and anger still
wasn’t something he had, but something that grew inside him like a parasite)
awkwardly—as he told everything he told Dr. Whitman awkwardly: in starts and
stops and extended pauses. Dr. Whitman had made a note of it, like he made a
note of just about everything, and said something Arthur had thought only movie
psychologists said. Arthur had replied he thought the cat was a more effective
therapist than Dr. Whitman. Arthur still didn’t think it entirely fair for a
therapist to write you up as having an attitude if the same said therapist was
a giant cunt.
They’d played past dark, Merlin showing him the ant colony and the tree stump
and the weird knot on the fence that looked like a face and Merlin wasn’t the
best at walking, but when he fell over he just shoved himself up again without
a fuss and unsteadily weaved over to the next item of interest, with Arthur
trailing behind him, Missy crouching in the window and watching them lazily as
the sun went down.
 
 
                                      ---
cont.
“For three days and three nights, Psyche wept in her palace of wonders. It had
gone stale and nothing there could please her, for she knew to whom she was wed
and he was the very opposite of a monster. Her love was the most beautiful
there could ever be, but, in a horrible twist of fate, was the submissive God,
Eros. He had pretended, for her sake, to be dominant, and had hidden himself
from view so that she should never know the truth of their marriage. And though
she knew she should not, she still loved him with all of her being.
When her tears had dried, she stood up, put herself into her travelling clothes
and began to walk. Though their joining was unnatural, and though the Gods
might frown upon them, she would not give up her husband, for he was hers and
she was his, and this would be not be stopped. She found first a temple to
Demeter, where she found the offerings in much disarray and in some disrepair.
So she set herself to fixing it, sort the grains by type for many nights, and
though she grew hungry, she ate nothing belonging to the temple. She cleaned
the alter and washed the icon, and when she had finished, weary and famished,
she prayed for guidance, because, of course, Demeter, who was full of such
sorrow in the winter when her daughter was taken from her, would understand the
need to bring one’s loved ones back to them. Demeter, pleased by the offering,
told Psyche to eat her fill and take the rest, and Demeter would help her on
her journey.
Psyche did so, and the next day she journeyed farther, until she came upon a
donkey, weary and starved, beaten and lame. He shivered as she approached, and
hung his head, and she sat and shared her food, talking to the beast until it
laid down next to her, eating from her hand, and transformed into a magnificent
beast, as well kept as any. From the forest limped an old man, carrying a
hammer and tongs and she bent her head to him.
Hephaestus asked her what she wished for, and she told him her story, and
beseeched him to help her, for didn’t he know what it was like to love? And
being married to Aphrodite (though she did not return his love) he agreed and
promised to help her on her journey, and put her upon the donkey and sent them
along their way.
When she arrived at the bottom of the mountain she came upon a pack of robbers,
and when they tried to take her mount and steal her food she stepped down and
gave them her bag, but when they attempted to steal a token she had taken from
the palace to remind her of her quest, a powerful rage came upon her and she
killed the one while the donkey killed the other. Ares, pleased by this, gave
her a knife with which to protect herself and promised to help her on her
journey.
Finally she reached a temple to Aphrodite, and she fell upon her knees and
pleaded that she help and guide her, that she loved Eros and this could not be
changed. She cut off her long, beautiful hair that so many had admired, and
laid it on the alter, and Aphrodite, pleased by this, did not ignore her, and
instead sent her to do three labours for the right to see Eros again. First she
was sent to Poseidon, and for him she had to wrangle four hundred of the
sturdiest, strongest stallions back into the waves to return as dolphins. She
could not pull even one, and the moment she approached they trampled away, and
after a long while she called to Demeter for her aid.
She was surrounded with bushels of the freshest, fullest, most beautiful wheat,
and it was with this that she led the horses to the ocean and they ate and
became dolphins once more.
Second she was sent to Hades, who set her to capture a single soul that had
attempted escape, but she must not look upon the world of the dead, for it
would be too much for her and she would perish. She stumbled, blindly, seeking
with her fingers for the lost soul, and finally, broken and bruised and
bleeding, she called upon Hephaestus, and for her he created a chain and collar
that would seek and snap around the throat of a spirit. She dragged the escaped
soul back to Hades and he sent her on her way.
Finally she bent before Aphrodite, the hardest and worst task of all. Aphrodite
stood upon the shorn-off locks of Psyche’s once beautiful hair and demanded
that she say something that would cause her joy, to make up for past vanity.
Psyche thought and thought and could think of nothing that would please the
God, until, finally, she opened her mouth and called for Ares. Ares, being
Aphrodite’s lover, appeared and set to distracting her, causing her joy and
allowed Psyche to pass up another mountain. There she climbed and she climbed.
She climbed until her body grew tough and her hands were as thick with calluses
as any warrior, and then, finally, Zeus came in one of his many disguises
She bowed her head and continued to climb and he, as a gust of wind, tried to
blow her off the mountain, but she clung on, and then continued to climb. He as
a goat, stole her food and she let him, and she continued to climb. He came as
the fog, and blind, Psyche reached and reached, stumbling and tripping,
continued to climb. Finally he spoke to her and asked her what it was that she
wanted.
“I have come for my husband, Eros.” She said and continued to climb, though she
knew whom it was she spoke to. “I will not leave without him.”
“The two of you are ill suited, the union with end in tragedy,” he warned.
“I would have it be tragic and us together, than joyful and us apart. I will
not leave without him,” Psyche said and continued to climb. She was dirty and
baked from the sun, heavily muscled and scarred, no longer the beautiful maiden
of song, and she did not care. She would not leave without her husband.
“Perhaps Eros does not want you. He has done nothing to aid your quest.” Zeus
said, at last.
“I know that he loves me, I know that he loves me more than you have ever loved
and I will not leave without him,” she said, knowing she spoke to the King of
the Gods, but refusing to stand down though she was afraid.
“Very well.” Zeus said and she reached the top, where Eros lay bound and
gagged, unable to help her and she freed him. They went to Mount Olympus where
Psyche was given ambrosia, the drink of immortality, and a whip. The ambrosia
burned away her submissiveness, so she and Eros would be best suited, and she
had proved herself in this respect, showing patience, caring, protectiveness,
understanding and tenacity. They were bound in eternal marriage, Eros kneeling
to her and she standing over him, their hands joined as they should be.
It is through them that we now have the soulbond, with Psyche understanding the
two people in all the world who can love each other fully and completely, and
Eros binding them together with his arrows.”
-Dr. Henry Orthos “Complete Anthology of Grecian Myths Volume II”
***** Part Two *****
May, 1999
Dr. Whitman’s office was calculatingly soothing. Everything was cream coloured,
the pictures on the walls were pointedly inoffensive, and there were things on
the table between them to fiddle with. Arthur stared down at the dice, the
glitter-liquid filled baton, the Rubik cube and eight other assorted oddities
while his aunt explained every single iota of his existence to the Doctor:
The car accident. The period of not talking. Merlin. The Hulk-outs. Seeing his
father (once, only once, never again. Not ever). How he never brought anyone
home from school. What he would eat. What he wouldn’t eat. The time he fell
down the stairs. That time he was found on the floor amidst his uncle’s malaria
pills. Arthur sat while she detailed his life like everything was symptomatic,
arms crossed and staring stonily at the wall.
“We read the books,” his uncle says, fiddling with a stack of cards. Shuffling.
“We thought he identified pretty strongly as a pre-gender dom, so we let him
get away with his tantrums. But clearly if that isn’t the case, we needed to do
something.”
No one asks Arthur to talk.
                                      ---
October, 2011
“Hey,” Gwaine said to Merlin’s drowsing form. It was after round one, with a
distinct possibility of round two around the corner. Merlin stretched against
his side and nuzzled closer.
“Gimme a sec.” Merlin mumbled rubbing his hand over Gwaine’s stomach. “Or,
like, thirty minutes. Or you need thirty minutes. One of us needs thirty
minutes. We could order a pizza. Pizza would get here in thirty minutes. Then
we could have pizza.”
“No, I mean hey, as in a start to a conversation, not hey, can you hand me your
belt for a quick second.”
“It’s a good belt.” Merlin agreed, reaching over to where it was curled on the
bed. “Good belt, you get a biscuit.” He yawned and then looked up to Gwaine.
“What you want to talk about?”
And, considering that most of Gwaine’s conversations with Merlin, outside of
sex, had gone about as deep as “hey, you want get a takeaway or something?”
Merlin looked wonderfully unconcerned. Which sort of made Gwaine just want to
ask if he wanted to get a takeaway, because he didn’t really have an evidence
of weirdness. He just had a feeling. A weird sort of sideways feeling, and that
wasn’t really worth bringing up, was it? Wanting to go home, still in subspace,
still hard, rather than stay over to be coaxed out of it. The way his entire
being studied Gwaine like he could save him for later. Not wanting Gwaine to
know where he lived. Arthur. Gwaine didn’t need to know. He didn’t. He should
let it alone.
“So you know how you’re a fountain of useless knowledge about weird animal
mating habits?” Gwaine said instead of anything helpful at all.
Gwaine knew this because it was Merlin’s come on. He’d introduce himself,
mention that slugs had prehensile penises that were several times longer than
them, which would get stuck in the female slug so she’d have to chew it off,
and then round off with “and now that you have that in your head, any sex you
have tonight will be awesome and completely normal in comparison.” Gwaine
didn’t know how effective it was, but it’d worked on him. Or. Well. Merlin
smiling at him in an over-big hoodie, looking for all the world like some poor
country boy who’d just come to the big city and needed a big strong dom to save
him from the evil sex slugs worked on him.
And then afterwards Merlin had shown up at his flat with the reasoning of “Male
angler fish can’t hunt for themselves so they spend their entire lives trailing
after the scent of female pheromones until they find her and then they gnaw
into her flesh while liquefying until they’re just a pair of balls she can use
to impregnate herself with, and in comparison to that, me showing up again at
your flat in the hope of sex is totally normal and fine, I swear I’m not going
to stalk you.”
“Vampire bats have the highest rate of monosexuality among animals that aren’t
dynamic-normative.” Merlin agreed drowsily.
“So me and my mates always do a pub quiz on Tuesdays, and we’re pretty well-
rounded when it comes to sports, music and pop culture and the like, but we’re
rubbish when anything about animal science comes up, and one of the bartenders
is studying to be a zookeeper or something. So, like, last week, one of the
questions was what animal had the biggest cock in proportion to itself and I
said slugs, because, you know, the thing, but it turned out it was barnacles.”
“Well it’d have to be. They just sort of latch onto stuff, so in order to fuck
they’d need really long and mobile pricks.” Merlin considered him a moment. “So
you want me to come out with you so I can share my extensive, but not creepy or
indicative of a fetish, knowledge of animal sex and mating habits?”
“You could bring some of your mates too, obviously. Especially any film buffs,
because we’ve got Hector who’s into quirky indie films and Citizen Kane or
whatever, but he’s got this giant hole where shlocky-horror flicks and B
science fiction movies should be. And Kay is a good bloke for music made
between 1950 and 1976, and we’re good for anything after 1990, so there’s this
giant gap between the two that needs filling, Lan is good for high fantasy
stuff but shit for science fiction, and obviously you’ve seen what good Owen
and Pell are in anything but a cat calling contest.” Gwaine rubbed the back of
Merlin’s neck. “So you’ve got the science fiction and the biology stuff down
solid, and I swear this is a completely selfish bid to use your for your brain
and not a secretly a date or anything, because you said no dates and I respect
that.”
Merlin turned his head and considered it, or considered something. “Maybe,” he
said at last, which wasn’t really helpful at all, but he also didn’t get up and
start getting dressed, which was a win. Gwaine gave him a moment and then
soothed his hand down Merlin’s back and Merlin sighed, relaxing.
After a prolonged round two, he got Merlin dressed again, leaving his cock
trapped between his stomach and his waistband, tugging his baggy shirt over the
weeping head and zipping his jacket up to his chin. Merlin clutched onto him,
whining and hips making tiny, little aborted thrusts. Gwaine cradled his head,
stroked his neck, and calmed him down until Merlin was leaning his full weight
on Gwaine, face pressed to Gwaine’s shoulder, relaxed and completely
inattentive of his prick. Gwaine couldn’t quite resist sneaking his hand under
Merlin’s layers and resting his fingers against the head of his dick.
“Shh, hey, you want me to send you home like this, don’t you? You like riding
home reeking of sex and still hard in your pants.” Gwaine rubbed his thumb over
the leaking slit of Merlin’s prick and kissed his ear. “What do you get off on?
Is it the people staring at you? Is it being turned away, all used up an
unsatisfied?” Gwaine nuzzled down the slope of Merlin’s cheekbone and couldn’t
resist the urge to curl his hands around Merlin’s face and kiss him, drink him
down like a mug of hot soup. When he let up Merlin just smiled at him, bright-
eyed and legs barely able to support him. Gwaine gathered up more of his weight
easily, curled his left arm under Merlin’s shoulders and Merlin automatically
just giving Gwaine control of how to arrange him. Automatically trusting Gwaine
to take care of him.
Gwaine could have happily moved into that moment and lived there. His hand was
caught between the two of them, Merlin all loose and happy and laughing a
little to himself, staring at Gwaine. He’d probably do anything, just then.
“Look at you. You must be a sight when you finally stumble home.” And wouldn’t
that be a surprise, if Gwaine were the person Merlin was stumbling home
towards. Wouldn’t it just be gorgeous, having this beautiful, willing boy
collapsing at your feet and out of his head. Maybe it was a game, and it wasn’t
one Gwaine minded being apart of, if Merlin did have some dom at home who got
off on Merlin smelling like someone else. Maybe they liked Merlin to repeat
everything Gwaine did to him, maybe they liked the way Merlin talked. Of course
they did. You couldn’t like Merlin and not like the way he wanted to conquer
the world with his voice.
“What does Arthur think of it, hmm?” Gwaine asked absently, figuring Merlin
wasn’t really paying attention to words. Or. Or maybe not really paying
attention to what he was saying either, wrapped up in the idea of Merlin
getting home, only to be put through his paces that little bit more. But then,
when wasn’t Merlin paying attention to words? Merlin loved words.
Merlin whined high and helpless at that. Gwaine took his hand away, moving it
back to Merlin’s stomach and rubbing against the firm skin and muscle. “Hey,
hey. Shh. It’s okay. Everything is okay. I’ve got you.”
He was onto something. He just wasn’t wholly sure what. Embarrassment kink?
Exhibitionism? Arthur was the only person Merlin had ever mentioned; with just
enough information that Gwaine knew he was submissive too.
“Does Arthur watch?” He tried, because he was a curious bloke, really, and he
figured it was far off the mark, because, well. That didn’t happen outside of
porn. But then Merlin was nodding and Gwaine got them into a controlled fall to
the ground because. Uh. Unless. This was just Merlin feeding into some sort of
two-sub-one-dom fantasy? Gwaine should not have picked a real person to get
this going with. Merlin could make a fantasy out of anything.
Merlin licked his lips and his stomach was wet with all his pre-come and Gwaine
didn’t resist the urge to rub it into his skin. Merlin fell backwards across
the floor, and Gwaine followed him.
Merlin’s pulse thudded under Gwaine’s lips, under his palm, Merlin’s breath as
quick and laboured as a rabbit and when Gwaine pulled up the edge of Merlin’s
jacket, he’d leaked straight through the thin cotton of his shirt. “You like me
to send you home desperate for shag, so what? You’re terrible at being quiet,
so he must not mind how noisy you are, at the least. What happens next? Do you
tell him what I did to you?”
The yes that came out of Merlin was so quiet that Gwaine was certain he was
supposed to miss it, but he was listening carefully as he rubbed Merlin’s
stomach. “Shh, it’s okay. You like talking, I know you do. And he likes
listening? You always pay such good attention.”
Merlin nodded that little tiny bit and this was interesting. If this is what
makes him happy, then Gwaine can give him something to talk about, pleased,
suddenly, that he might know what’s going on. He doesn’t know the whole story,
he really doesn’t, but he knows more.
“You’re a good boy,” Gwaine kissed Merlin’s throat. “So generous. I’ll make
sure you have plenty of stories to tell him next time. Ride you hard and put
you away soaked. Would you that make you happy?” He rubbed his cheek over
Merlin’s exposed skin, and bit the back of his neck. “I’ll make it so good for
you that you’ll need to make up new words to tell him about it. Whatever story
you want, and you’ll think of something brilliant. I know you will.”
“Fuck,” Merlin’s arms flailed and he caught Gwaine by the hair. “Please kiss
me, or touch me. Touch me, just please. Please, please, please-” His eyes
squeezed shut before flaring open again, studying him and Gwaine tugged
Merlin’s head back and sucked a bruise under his jaw, bright and visible and
beautiful and Merlin keened for it. Rising up under him and panting, thanking
him because he was a good boy. He had manners. Gwaine stroked through his hair
and told him as much. He could eat the sounds Merlin made, the way he twisted
up. Gwaine held him down, shoving his wrists against the carpet. Merlin’s
fingers curled inwards, relaxed, head tilted back and neck stretched long,
belly up and hips lax. Gwaine settled himself over Merlin, sliding a knee in
close and Merlin rode up against it, tiny little choked off noises getting
bottlenecked in his throat.
“Tell me.” Gwaine ordered, nudging his nose against Merlin’s cheek. “What do
you do when I send you home?”
Merlin bit his lip, eyes wide and blue and Gwaine kissed his nose. “Shh. It’s
just a story you’re telling me. You tell me lots of stories. Once I invited you
to my secret lair on Skullcrusher Mountain. You met my assistant Scarface.”
Merlin smiled, then, fingers flexing. “I can’t.” He said, though.
Gwaine squeezed Merlin’s wrists and slowly dragged them over Merlin’s head,
pressing them down to the carpet. Merlin liked being manhandled. Merlin liked
being told what to do, but he liked—far more—to just be made to do it. For
someone’s domination over him to be silent and sure and real, because words are
something Merlin lives in. Words don’t trip him up like actions do. Merlin
should, at any opportunity, be shoved and held down and pressed against things,
in Gwaine’s not-so-humble opinion. Gwaine settled the fingers of his free hand
under Merlin’s shirt, not even trying to resist the urge to tickle him a
little. Merlin arched up and fucking giggles right on cue and Gwaine in these
moments (and, perhaps, others) wishes they were in the kind of novel that would
mean he could just...have this. Always.
Merlin’s mobile rang.
Merlin’s hands jumped under Gwaine’s grip, so he let go. Merlin fumbled over
his body for his phone, but he couldn’t seem to get the co-ordination together,
so Gwaine got it out for him and showed him the caller ID. Arthur, speak of the
devil. “Do you want to answer?”
Merlin nodded, hands fluttering in front of his chest like lost birds.
“Can you talk?”
Merlin’s throat clicked as he swallowed, and his hands shook as he tried to
take the phone.
“I can hold it up for you.”
Merlin nodded and Gwaine flicked it open and held it to his ear, stroking
Merlin’s belly, sitting up on his knees over him
A single, breathy little “Arthur,” was all Merlin could manage, and Gwaine was
glad they’d gotten to the floor from the way all of Merlin just went completely
drugged-up relaxed. Gwaine could hear Arthur speaking, a low, tinny rumbling
through the speaker of the phone. Gwaine supported himself over Merlin, held
the phone steady.
Merlin listened for while, eyes dark and lips bitten all to hell, eyes flicking
up and over Gwaine, his cock still obviously red and hard, his shirts rucked up
to under his armpits.
“I’m coming home.” Merlin said, licking his lips. “I’m. I’m coming home.
Arthur. Arthur.” His voice cracked and he looked up at Gwaine helplessly. “He’s
got me. It’s okay. I’m coming home. He’ll take care of me. It’ll be good. I’ll
be good.”
Merlin rocked his head to the floor and Gwaine picked up the phone, riding high
on instinct and low on judgement and pressed the speaker to his ear, not really
listening. “I’m sending him home to you. The cab will be here in a bit.”
Arthur’s voice stuttered to a stop on the other end, there was a beat and
Gwaine stroked an open palm down Merlin’s chest.
Gwaine heard it. He heard the way Arthur was listening, and he wasn’t going to
push. He wasn’t going to drag out something best left in the dark, but there
was something there. Gwaine pressed his thumb into Merlin’s mouth and set the
phone aside on the ground, still active. If Arthur wanted to disconnect, he
could.
“Don’t come.” Gwaine ordered, just loud enough to maybe, possibly be overheard,
if someone wanted to hear it. “You need to save that up for later, don’t you.”
He ran the heel of his hand over Merlin’s prick, enjoying the way pre-come just
dribbled out steadily, smearing over his stomach, shiny and obvious. “I’m going
to suck you down, and you need to stop me before you go off.”
Merlin let out a serious of meaningless fricatives, gutting himself like a
candle and Gwaine unwrapped him a little, got his prick free but sorted out the
rest of him, tugged his shirts down, fixed his jacket and his hair, before
crawling back and pulling Merlin into his mouth. Merlin was too wrapped up in
himself and Gwaine to move much, hands flopped against the floor and a high
noise struggling out from his chest. “Gwaine. Gwaine. I need. I have to. Home.
I have to.” Merlin mumbled and his legs kicked weakly. Gwaine squeezed the base
of Merlin’s prick, kept the blood trapped up top and sucked hard. “Arthur’s
waiting. I have to. I have to go. Arthur.” Merlin dropped his hands over his
face. “Arthur needs to.”
Gwaine kept sucking and Merlin’s hips rolled up into his mouth and so Gwaine
held them down with one hand, digging his fingers in to the bruises he’d
already collected from the previous two rounds. He let up, letting the spit
cool before sucking him down again, tongue undulating and Merlin helplessly
kicked against the carpet. “Arthur.” Merlin tried again, and then after another
few moments, “Gwaine, I have to. You need to stop. You said-“
Gwaine lifted off and rubbed Merlin’s hip. “You’re close? You have to hold onto
it, otherwise you’ll be empty by the time you get home.”
Merlin sobbed, cock standing high and purple, balls heavy against the fly of
his trousers pulsing, but he didn’t come. Gwaine rocked back, letting Merlin
calm down and he picked up the mobile. He listened to the harsh noise of
Arthur’s breathing and then settled it against Merlin’s ear. Merlin blinked
fuzzily and mumbled “Arthur” again, before the honk of the cab outside the door
gave him the impetus to tuck Merlin away again and help him up. He shut
Merlin’s mobile and slipped it in his pocket along with the address of the pub,
giving Merlin a kiss to the temple. “Let’s get you downstairs.”
Merlin kissed him hungrily before getting into the backseat of the cab, Gwaine
paid the fare and gave the cabbie some extra to make sure Merlin got home safe
and sound. Merlin stared from inside the cab, turning as it drove off slowly in
the traffic. Gwaine shoved his hands in his pockets, unsure of what to do with
himself, hyped up on power and hard in his trousers himself, head as empty as
it’s ever been. He went back up to his flat, got to his room. He received a
short phone call about two hours later saying Merlin got back and he doesn’t
know what to say then, either, and the phone call was over before he could
think of anything.
He won’t blame Merlin, later—when he’d come down and back to a saner frame of
mind— when Merlin doesn’t ever stop by again. He won’t know what it’ll mean,
won’t try and come up with any theories, and won’t tell any of the blokes. It.
It wouldn’t be his business.
It was never any of his business.
---
“How best to prepare myself? With creamy
egg wash over my still unbaked body
rising too big for these confines? My war
paint over fluttering eyelashes and dry
lips, streaked pretty pink across
my cheeks to appeal to that dewy innocence
lost across
that cramped twin bed.
It left tangles in my hair, set fire to my under
growth and I walked proudly back to my
own hairbrush, smoothing back ringlets and rises
of fingers that were not yours. I will not be your blank
canvas, but leave
the whorls and depths
of my imperfections so your brush’s
fingerprints are that much more dear
than on the newly stretched nothing
of that wobbly wide-eyed I brushed aside.”
● “Brushwork” by Cynthia Lawrence found in Faux Fire: And Other Poems.
 
                                      ---
September, 2008
Arthur had come home after his first paycheque from his new, better paying job,
with two pairs of expensive, padded, handcuffs. They had a built-in timer, a
wireless panic button along with a set of physical keys. The timer could be set
up to six hours; the panic button worked immediately, both pairs springing
open. Merlin kept the keys on a chain around his neck, more for a symbolic
gesture than anything.
Merlin wanted to be next to the phone, so Arthur took the panic button and tied
it to the headboard, easily within the grasp of his hands, even if he had to do
a bit of awkward fumbling to get it.
They were set for two hours, both of them with the handcuffs behind their
backs, leashed to tie-points on the bed frame so they had to strain forward.
Merlin liked the tug in his shoulders, the burn in his arms from the strain of
leaning forward. They just had enough give to reach forward, kiss, just enough
to rub tongues, to just barely lip at one another, a slow, steady, maddening
tease. Merlin smiled at him, nudged his nose against Arthur’s, happy with the
surprise. He loved surprises.
The toys weren’t enough. Of course they weren’t. It wasn’t what they really
wanted. Arthur had smacked Merlin’s ass until it blared red, because it wasn’t
like he couldn’t. The actual physical actions of dominating weren’t hard, he
knew how to spank and use a paddle and a crop, he could hold Merlin down, and
he could pinch and bite and scratch. That wasn’t hard; it was the whole
instinct of it, the whole mentality. Arthur was always doing it because Merlin
made up a story that gave Arthur a reason to. And he would, and Merlin would
sort of get what he wanted, and Arthur would end kissing up Merlin’s spine
afterwards, licking up the sweat and kissing his neck, wiping under his eyes,
stroking over his cheekbones and wiping away the tears. And then Merlin would
kiss him, four or five quick happy pecks, nuzzling up against Arthur. And
Arthur could hold him, but he’d feel shaky and nervous the whole time,
frantically worried that he was doing it wrong, that he was going to hurt him,
that…that… And Merlin would just let him keep going, trying to prove how brave
he was, and Arthur would keep trying to make sure he was happy and blissed out
and good and Arthur was bone-deep terrified he was going to go too far, in some
sort of horrible feedback loop.
“We have a soulbond.” Merlin would shrug, “I think you’ll notice if I don’t
want you to do something.”
“There should still be verbal limits.” Arthur would reply, because he didn’t
like leaving things nebulous.
Or Merlin would hover on all fours over Arthur’s face while Arthur sucked him
off, lying passively underneath him. Well, not all fours, on his knees at
least, the two of them holding hands until he was just about to go off and then
he’d pull past Arthur’s wet, bitten, suck-thick lips and come on his face,
crawl down and lie down on top of Arthur and whisper “Look who made a mess of
himself.”
Arthur would wipe it out of his eyes and pant, cupping his hand over Merlin’s
neck.
“Lick it up.” He’d say, and Merlin would.
So the toys weren’t what they wanted. But they helped. Made it feel a little
more normal than if they got rid of the trapping entirely. If they tried it
without anything then it felt a little too…weirdly animalistic.
Arthur pressed his forehead to Merlin’s.
“I love you too.” Merlin agreed, wrapping his legs around Arthur’s, rubbing his
calf against Arthur’s knee.
They played with vibrators set on random, intervals changing, them on the bed
curled up around each other, rubbing off against each other, Merlin holding on
so tight and burying his nails into Arthur’s shoulders, Arthur’s hands tied
behind Merlin’s back so neither of them would take off the cock rings and go
too quickly, Merlin talking, talking, talking and getting them so deep in a
story that everything was fine.
Arthur bit him, he’d scratch his nails down Merlin’s back, except they were
blunt and just slipped down his skin, and he never bit very hard. Merlin wanted
him to, but Arthur refused. “Do you know what kind of diseases are in the human
mouth?”
“I know, I know I just…” Merlin buried his face into Arthur’s shoulder.
“Please. Please.”
“I know.” Arthur said back. Arthur squeezed Merlin’s calf between his legs. “I
could try and teach you any kind of contact sport “
Merlin shuddered, hips jerking against Arthur’s thigh.
“Remember how that felt? You were bruised and sore in the morning, because I
kept slamming you into the ground. That was good, right?”
“Yes.” Merlin said pressing harder against Arthur’s hip. “Oh please, yes.”
“I want to touch you.” Arthur whispered, hands flexing behind him, “I just…”
“You can’t.” Merlin reached and Arthur pulled away and Merlin licked his lips.
“Kiss me, come on. Please.”
“No,” Arthur said, flushing, and Merlin laughed. They rubbed off on each other
like that, giving and denying kisses, Merlin reaching forward and Arthur
pulling back, then Arthur surging forward and kissing him as hard as he could,
gasping into Merlin’s mouth as they moved, Merlin fingers twitching behind him.
Once the timer hit zero, the handcuffs just sprang open. Perfect. Arthur pushed
Merlin down, because he liked to protect and Merlin liked to be covered. Except
then Merlin would wrap around him like a clinging vine and they rolled so
Arthur was on his back, supporting him, because that worked too. Merlin thighs
tight around Arthur’s hips, kissing under his chin as they thrust and Merlin
finished first—he always did, it was just one of those things—and he lay there,
tangling a hand around Arthur’s cock and his knuckles smearing the come on
Arthur’s stomach. “I’m not even going to let you wash it off.” Merlin mumbled,
nuzzling Arthur’s neck. ‘Just going to leave it there until it’s dried and
flaky and itchy and you’ll love it.”
It wasn’t the same as what they wanted. But they were trying.
---
Loki and Sigyn
Ragnarök is still far off yet, my loves. Loki is tied, deep in the dark, by the
entrails of one of his sons, his wife catching the venom of Skaði’s snake,
mourning each time the liquid falls into the eyes of her chosen beloved,
causing all that is and was and could be to shudder and shake and wonder...will
it be this time? Will it be this time that he snaps free and closes all that
has been and will be and has yet to never come?
Ah. Yes. Chosen.
Loki, father of Hel, father of Fenir, father of Jörmungandr, father of Nari (or
Narfi), sometimes-father to Váli and mother to Sleipnir, is known to many as a
creature of tricks, of insults and wit, who will bring doom to the gods as a
sleight-of-hand for offering aid. Unlike Odin and Frigg, whose love was
destined and written in their bones before they could ever be, Loki was without
bondmate or soulmate, and no one’s name was written upon his ribs, him being of
equal nature and gender, and a creature of both decisions. So it was that Loki
had many sorts of children, who carried monstrous natures, because his nature
demanded he obey some, such as the female jötunn Angrboða, to whom he gave his
service, when it suited him best.
But there he lies, tied to rocks and protected—as much as she can protect—from
the wrathful punishment that has been bestowed upon him, until such a time as
he slips his bonds. How came such a union? She was not twice souled, so she,
somewhere has a proper bondmate, a man or woman to whom she should obey with
all of her being.
And so it was that Sigyn was a proper daughter, with a name scripted upon her
ribs, and the feelings of another heart bumping against her own, and it was
thus that she waited, most faithfully, for such a time as when her beloved
would arrive and they would be married.
Loki is a creature of many natures, but still a creature of desire. Some called
him “of fire”, and it is to him that we owe the end of all things, and to no
other. And it so happened that there was a day where, perhaps, Loki desired
Sigyn. Or a day where, perhaps, he desired simply to cause deceit or harm.
Perhaps he merely wished to know what it was that he could do, and so set his
course. Do not, my loves, presume to know what a creature of many natures
thinks, for that is not known even to them all at once.
Loki was amusing himself when he saw a thick strand of destiny. Presumably he
sees many such things and does nothing to any of them. Or, perhaps, this was
his first and he felt compelled to his mischief. Perhaps he would have left it
alone on another day. Perhaps he would never have seen it at all.
But as it was, he saw what it is that joins two souls and did not leave it to
its’ rest. On one end of the rope stood a handsome, striking dom, and upon the
other stood a lovely, dutiful sub. Both were of their own merits and Loki,
being a creature of many natures, did not know which he desired, or he wished
both. He gave his submission to his monstrous dom lover, when it suited him,
but equally he took his right with others as it pleased.
For one reason, as clear as coin’s choice as it still flips in the air, or
another, Loki turned his eyes to Sigyn. He cut a hole through himself, tearing
out the muscle and bone, leaving them as they lay and laced the rope through
him, looping it around his rib and slicing through it, letting the dom’s end
shudder and die, nourishing the remainder with his blood and power—for all it
did not connect to him truly, (for the soil of his soul was not rich enough for
roots) it did knot to his bone, clinging to what nourishment that it might
have.
It was not, my loves, a true bond, for her name did not appear on his ribs, nor
did her heart begin to beat with his, but he could feel her through the cord
and could make her believe she felt him, plucking the cord as if it were an
instrument. It is by this way, though Sigyn felt a terrible pain in her heart,
it soon settled as if it had never been, soothing her with the fine trembling
of love and ownership, and if it felt different than it had, Sigyn soon put
herself at ease knowing that it remained.
Loki, sewing his skin shut around the cord so it would not close entirely and
cut the bond, journeyed to her Protector’s house in order to keep her and have
her as his own.
cont
                                      ---
May, 1999
“If what you want is more discipline I can make sure you get that,” Aunt
Rebecca had said, sitting in his room (his room), having followed him up there
after Arthur had been done with their conversation. “We can send you to school
that will monitor you more closely. If you don’t want to talk to Dr. Whitman
we’ll just let them put you to rights.”
“I’m not going to go to boarding school.” Arthur grit through his teeth. “I am
fine. Just leave me alone.”
“I’m not going to leave you alone.” Aunt Rebecca crossed her arms and stood in
front of the door. “You need to learn how to behave in society. We coddled you
long enough. You keep acting out and that tells me you need to learn your
boundaries. So, either you talk to Dr. Whitman, or you can expect us to start
making calls. No more telly, no more computer, and you can just say goodbye to
your friends here.”
Arthur went cold and his throat tensed up. He wasn’t going to go. He wasn’t.
“Your behaviour is unacceptable, and if you think that anyone in the real world
is going to care a lick why, you are sadly mistaken. No one is going to care
that your parents died, all they’re going to see is that you are out of
control. And don’t for one moment think that if you end up in prison your uncle
and I are going to do anything about it.”
“I won’t be, because the second I get out of this house and away from you, I’ll
be fine.” Arthur didn’t yell. He didn’t yell. His throat was tight and he
wasn’t going to cry. “You’ve made it very clear that you don’t want me, so once
I’m gone you won’t need to hear from me again. So how about we just don’t talk
until I do.”
“Well, I’m the one who needs to listen to your teachers, and explain your
behaviour. Your actions reflect on this family.”
“So I’ll just run away and you won’t have to deal with me.”
“And what? Become a prostitute? You’ll be dead in months. You are not running
away and you aren’t going to ignore this. You have a problem and I’m not
leaving until you admit it and talk to Dr. Whitman.”
It was one of those arguments that never was going to go anywhere, with two
people digging in their heels. Especially as Arthur couldn’t escape and
Arthur’s aunt had no intention of backing down. The sort of argument where
threats escalated and Arthur started to hear a buzzing in his ears. He couldn’t
win, because he couldn’t argue his way out of it, and if he lost his temper
then that was just more proof he was mental. He couldn’t leave, because that
was just avoiding the problem. He wasn’t going to cry. He wasn’t. When you
cried people insulted you for not being rational. He’d tried leaving. He had.
He had tried leaving and now it was just...
He didn’t want to be here anymore with his aunt listing every single one of his
faults- but then she mentioned Uther, so he threw his water glass across the
room. When his aunt jumped out of the way, he pushed out the door and down the
stairs. He didn’t grab his shoes, or his jacket; he just got out of there. And
he ran.
                                      ---
October, 2011
“So wait, is this a universe were submissives are automatically bought and
sold, or is this a debt indentured servant thing again?” Arthur asked as Merlin
drafted the plot in the air with his hands. “Or are they bred for it? Because
I’d like one where dominants are sold too, because you can’t tell me rich subs
don’t want a bit of rough.”
“Damn that gets meta.” Merlin noted. “I like it. I’m making a note for later.
We already did robots, and that was fun, and genetically designed companions,
but not where we buy the top, so maybe later.” Merlin placed his fingers in
front of his mouth and considered their options. “I suppose it could be a bit
of a classism thing, where parents of lower classes sell their children when
things get too tough. Or, or-” Merlin interrupted himself. “Because of all this
nonsense with America outlawing hormonal birth control, because sex should just
be between soulmates and what have you, there’re all these unwanted children
and instead of an adoption system, unwanted children go into The System. And
they aren’t all brought up as companions, but that adds a lot of political
weight to the whole scenario.” Merlin made a face. You could only have so much
societal commentary in a scene before it turned into a meta discussion and
nobody got off.
“It really does.” Arthur agreed. “The robots one was good because we were just
robots, but then it was weird, because we were robots. I like the robots one
better in writing when it’s not us.”
“Robots in love are the best things.” Merlin chewed on his lower lip and stared
up at the ceiling. “Aliens?”
“Yes, but then we’ll spend all day scripting the alien culture, unless we steal
wholesale from someone else, and then we spend all day nit-picking sci fi
shows.”
“Right. But once we figured it out it would be amazing, because if the aliens
are the ones who regulate their submissives, because, I don’t know, sex
hormones, then it’s less political. But then if Master is also an alien, things
get taken as read and that just gets confusing again. Like with the robots.”
“We could go for historical again. Conquering King subjugating the bratty but
handsome Prince and his noble, adorable whipping boy.”
“Why are you always handsome and I’m always adorable?” Merlin pressed his face
into Arthur’s stomach and bit at him. “I mean, that’s always fun, but then we
don’t get to use any of the toys, which seems a shame, because we spent money
on those. Oh! Oh, I know.” Merlin slid up and curled in close. “I have it
perfect. Alright, we’re us. We’re the two of us, basically, and we need money.”
“Sounds realistic thus far.” Arthur wrapped his arms around Merlin’s waist,
because Merlin was warm and no one could see them.
“And selling yourself as a submissive isn’t quite as entirely skeevy. I mean. A
little skeevy, yes, but not totally skeevy, due to reconstruction of societal
mores and whatnot and we find some rich sugar daddy who likes both of us and
offers to pay us to be his subs. And there aren’t any soulbonds or anything,
people just…fall in love, and we’re in love.”
Arthur cupped his hand around Merlin’s waist. “So we just fell in love?”
“There was a lot of distress and pining and whatnot, but we’re past that, I
think. Or, or, we’re really good friends who are in love and work together and
don’t say anything. Or that’s our shtick. We work for this super classy escort
service, or at least expensive, and that’s our thing. Our thing is we’re two
subs and we’re kind of in love and people get into that. And we are in love,
but it’s better if people think it’s just pretend. So we get to be some rich
dom’s pet boys and we get to kiss and cuddle and adore all over each other and
get paid for it.”
“We’re very clever hookers.” Arthur rubbed Merlin’s back and grabbed one of the
pillows to wedge between one of Merlin’s many bony places and one of Arthur’s
tender ones, because bruises should be on purpose and discussed beforehand.
Merlin fidgeted and played drums on his thighs like he always did when he was
on a roll.
“And so Master comes in and sees us and we play a few times, and he’s probably
played by Robert Downey Jr. in my head and yep, yep that got in there. Can’t be
changed.”
“Really, you can see him playing a top after Iron Man, really?” Even though
Marvel claimed all their heroes were doms except for the doms’ sexy sub
fiancées, who were also, occasionally, superheroes, because no. No. If Tony
wasn’t constantly begging for love and affection and control and attention then
Arthur was natural redhead.
“Can’t be changed.” Merlin intoned. “Anyways, and after he keeps coming back a
few times because we’re awesome and hot, he decides to put us on contract, and
he’s not all sunshine and rainbows, but one steady client is easier than more-
than-one and he gets us this big soft mat that we fall asleep on at the end of
the day, and sometimes he holds us both afterwards and we can’t do anything,
because we’d wake him up, but we can’t stop kissing or touching because. Well.”
Merlin shrugged and cupped one of his hands around Arthur’s neck and nuzzles in
closer. “And he doesn’t mind that.”
“So just a bit of asshole?”
Merlin grinned and nuzzled into Arthur’s neck. “You like rich, entitled
assholes who look like famous actors. Don’t pretend. And so we live in his
house and he has rules in the contract about how much we can touch. Like. Not
how much, I guess, because he likes the way we flop all over each other and
that, but what ways we can touch.”
“Chastity devices?” Arthur settled his hand under Merlin’s shirt, curling it
around to the divot of his natural waist, nosing at Merlin’s hair. “We need to
invest in some of those considering how much they turn you on.”
Merlin nodded against his chest and rubbed his palms over Arthur’s shoulders.
“But we need to save up so we can get good ones, because I don’t want to
cripple my prick with some cheap shit.” Merlin sighed. “At least the fucking
machine works.”
They’d made it. They were quite proud.
“What’s the name of this one?”
“I don’t know yet.” Merlin tapped his fingers against the back of the sofa.
“Graham, maybe? No, that was someone in my lessons. Erik? No, Erik Howler is
the hipster spider I made a tumblr for. Ronald, Fred, Peter, Robert—no, that
gets weird— Gregory, Howard, Daniel, Quince, Cecil, Joseph, Patrick, Loren,
Baxter! Baxter? Baxter. Baxter? His name is Johan Baxter and everyone calls him
Baxter except his mother and he plays tennis but hates it, but he had to take
lessons for most of his childhood, and so he might as well and he owns six nice
suits and nine very nice sports jackets, even though he doesn’t need them for
work, but he liked the way the sales associate smiled at him when he came in,
like she remembered him, even though he knew she didn’t really, and he always
let her pick out the shirts and ties even though he had plenty because she just
looked so happy, until he came in and found out she wasn’t working there
anymore, but he’s grown to love the way he looks in charcoal pinstripe.”
Like all of the back stories Merlin made up it came tumbling out of him in a
rush and then he hopped up to get a file folder so he could work on Johan
Baxter’s file, which would include things about tennis and menswear, as well as
what he liked and didn’t, how much he was paying them, and what he did for a
living.
They had a locked file cabinet for the people they made up to own them,
Anderson, Lydia (mechanical engineer who’d taken two prototypes home to monitor
their behaviour in a structured environment, wearer of jeans a bit too big and
fell down her hips and tank-tops that never quite covered her torso which
caused her some degree of frustration, but at work she wore coveralls, so who
really cared what she did at home? She, the drinker of novelty beers and maker
of a damn good artichoke dip, scientifically interested and artistically
motivated, loving in the same way anyone loves their best and most brilliant
toys.) would now be followed by Baxter, Johan, instead of Curtis (asexual but
not adynamic vampire who captured them both and decided he liked them in his
own way, refusing thus far to either kill them or let them go, used to work in
silent films and lived a scavenger lifestyle of thrift store cast-offs rather
than leather or silk, living in converted and abandoned real estates and
plucking furniture from where ever he pleased, nesting like a magpie and off-
handedly cruel as frequently as he was awkwardly kind.)
Each file folder was layered with a typed up dossier and then littered with
scribbled napkins and sketchbook pages, magazine collages and fabric or paint
samples, extra typed pages filtering in as this or that developed, each one as
lovingly maintained as any of the rest of their toys. They kept it clean and
organised and occasionally flipped through when they were both a little drunk
and in the mood for it, Arthur’s head on Merlin’s stomach as he read the
dossier out loud and they edited, or added.
Merlin’s hands trailed down to Arthur’s right arm, picking it up and Arthur
just watched as Merlin’s thumbs worked at the strained and tense tendon in his
forearm. “So, let’s say we’ve been living with Baxter awhile. We’re just pet
boys, he’s got help for cleaning and he orders in for food. So our entire job
is to just be good and pretty for him, and I study in his giant Beauty and the
Beast library, and we read aloud and do whatever during the day when he’s off
doing whatever it is rich people do.”
“Business.” Arthur relaxed as Merlin smoothed out the thick, angry pain of his
arms and moved up to the cramped muscle of his palms, the increase blood flow
making his fingers tingle.
“Rich people business things,” Merlin worked at the meat of Arthur’s thumb and
Arthur trailed his nails over the curve of Merlin’s ribs. “And sometimes he’s
gone for days, and calls us to make sure you’re getting your thorough daily
fucking with the machine.”
“Why don’t you need one?”
Merlin started at the tip of Arthur’s pointer finger and slowly massaged his
way down to the second knuckle. “I’m easy, but you. You always take so long to
go under, so he’s training you up to sufficient sluttiness. Until you get
cranky and angry without your daily hour of it.”
Arthur’s breath caught and Merlin started in on Arthur’s middle finger, working
down and careful to keep his fingers from straying.
“And in support, I go in and help you.” Merlin worked his way back up Arthur’s
hand and then caressed down the sides, over his wrist and back over the top,
stroking his fingertips up Arthur’s pinkie (bent at an odd angle from a fight,
but that didn’t need thinking on).
Arthur tucked his face against the top of Merlin’s head and pulled him close,
hand trailing upwards to under his arm, back down again, breathing in with as
much measured calmness as he can.
“But he likes how much we like each other, even when he figures out it’s not an
act. And he doesn’t mind. Doesn’t make fun of us, and doesn’t try and split us
up. When he brings us along we both go, and we always get to sleep together,
and he’s always on the right, and you’re on the left and I’m in the middle.”
He touches the top of Arthur’s ring finger and Arthur is trying very hard not
to thrust up against Merlin’s arse, trying, also, not to beg, or to whimper or
to buck up and fight it off, because Merlin’s need to do the same is curled up
tight inside Arthur’s head and it’s always. It’s always strange, when one of
them begs the other and they can feel that need bouncing back right to them.
“He ties us up so we can just reach each other to kiss and we do and I get to
watch when he canes you.” Merlin thumb presses right up against the base of his
ring finger, right into the nerve cluster and he does thrust up, and their
arousal is all tangled up together. Arthur grabs for Merlin’s hand and grips
hard, Merlin’s breath gusting out of him, right over Arthur’s neck.
Merlin feels closer to him than his own lungs, their every thought an feeling
mirroring back towards the other until they’re not even really two people, just
one big mess of neurons and skin and Arthur can feel the way Merlin thrusts up
against his stomach, the hard press of it and the soft give of his own belly,
the harsh bite of Merlin’s zip.
“He’s tired from travelling, a lot. He’ll come home jet lagged and exhausted
and he’ll just sit, sit right over there and tell us to give his eyes a rest.”
“Does he tell us what to do?”
Merlin nods, trying to catch his breath. “Sometimes. He’ll tell you to press me
down. He’ll tell me to bite your neck. He knows us. He doesn’t interrupt and we
can just. Right on the couch. We can just. And he loves it.”
“And you’re happy?” Arthur asks. “We’re happy?”
“We’re so fucking happy.” Merlin squeezes his hands and whines. He clearly he
wants Arthur to hold him down, his neck is arched and his mouth is open and so
Arthur takes him to the second bedroom—
                                      ~~~
Arthur had never gone down easily. He just didn’t. It wasn’t that he didn’t
trust people, or that he didn’t want to (and, well, if he doesn’t and he
doesn’t, then he just plain won’ttry. He just didn’t go down easily, not like
Merlin. Merlin could go down between one word and the next, a well timed shove
of his face to the pillow, the right words in his ear and he was perfectly gone
and desperate and half in love with you, and so giddily desperate to make you
proud...
And Arthur wasn’t jealous. One of them needed to keep their head, and, for the
most part, he acted well enough. Mostly they get Merlin to do the things one
really should be high on trust and adoration for. But Baxter
wasn’t....satisfied with Arthur pretending or Arthur acting as a support role.
He never had been. He had never blamed Arthur either, thankfully, because it
wasn’t Arthur’s fault he’s sub-on-hard-mode. It was not. Baxter sometimes
blamed their...lifestyle choice. Baxter sometimes sits over them and stares at
Arthur, like he could detangle all those knots Arthur’s made of, if only he
could find a single, loose end at which to start. But he had never once blamed
Arthur, or himself. He just... kept trying.
Merlin squirmed up under Arthur and ruffled his hair. “Don’t look so grumpy. Do
you want to be on your front or your back or what? He says we can switch, but
it needs to be the full hour.”
“He’s setting me up to have extremely high expectations of his stamina.” Arthur
grumbled, but rolled onto his back and lifted up as Merlin tucked a pillow
under his hips. He liked being on his hands and knees better, he didn’t like so
much of his chest on display, but it was just Merlin and Merlin had seen it
before.
“He also said I can only use two fingers today and not to go overboard on the
foreplay and take advantage,” Merlin sighed and rested his chin on Arthur’s
stomach,, one of his legs hooked under Arthur’s. “So try to focus on relaxing,
please.”
Arthur crossed his arms over his chest and fidgeted. Some days he was turned on
and some days he wasn’t, but that second one was getting less and less
frequent. He had to let the machine fuck him anyways and he was getting used to
it. It was usually around the same time, and just like he got hungry before
lunch, or sleepy before bed, his stomach would twist right around this time of
day. Merlin stared at him and rubbed his fingers against his arse, dipping them
in slowly.
Arthur was terrible at going down, and he wasn’t going to today either, and he
only got to come when he properly let go and stopped caring if he got to (which
was counter intuitive, really), so his balls felt overly full and he sort of
wanted to take his dick out back and have a talk about setting itself up for
disappointment.
“Hey, it’s just me.” Merlin rubbed at Arthur’s hip. “I’ve seen it all already.
I think they’re badass. The machine doesn’t have eyes. It does not judge. It is
a machine.”
“Baxter never asks.”
Arthur turned his head and Merlin slipped up his body and kissed his neck, his
jaw, and his ear. “About any of them. He hasn’t asked you, has he?”
Merlin shook his head and kept pushing his fingers in and out of Arthur. “You
can only really see these ones,” he traces over the worst few scars, “the other
ones you could see better when we were younger, but they’ve all faded out now.
Sunlight and time. They got all stretched out and skinny because you’ve grown.”
Arthur rolled his hips up into Merlin’s fingers, so Merlin pulled them out and
put the machine in place, slipping a condom on it and then nudging the head up
against the ring of Arthur’s hole. “Ready?”
“Let’s just get this over with. Start the timer.”
Merlin did as he slid the head in and started the machine.
It was on a slow, steady pace, deceptively quiet and it took some awkward
shifting and positioning before it slid in and out as fluidly as they would
like. Arthur let his hips fall open and Merlin curled up in next to him and
kept his hands above Arthur’s navel and off his own prick, because he was only
allowed to get off by himself if he put on nipple clips. Baxter wanted Merlin
to work on his pain tolerance and Merlin’s nipples are, and always have been, a
ripe and ready target. Arthur could take a great deal, even liked to, mostly.
He needed to be tied down for it, because otherwise “but I want this to be
happening” gets lost in translation to his body. He also just liked the smell
of rope, liked watching the knots being formed, liked...liked having skill up
next to his skin. He just hated how he couldn’t move right up until he liked it
for the same reason.
The machine was reliably relentless. They could vary the pace, to some degree.
It could go faster or slower, but this setting was the one they’d discovered
was most effective. Fast enough for Arthur to feel it— for there to be enough
friction and heat—but not so fast that it would leave him swollen and sore for
it the next day. Baxter hated, above all, for them to be hurt due to
negligence.
Merlin was warm beside him, fingers sliding over Arthur’s nipple, cheeks pink,
lips chapped, and Arthur turned until he could catch Merlin by the mouth,
pulled until Merlin was half on top of him and Merlin went easily, even when
Arthur started pushing back up against the machine. Fifteen minutes in, he was
sweating from holding still and getting frustrated.
“I…I can’t-” He growled.
“It’s not about that.” Merlin tangled their fingers together, something they
did in secret, in private, when Baxter couldn’t see. “Just let what happens
happen. He just wants you to feel it. Relax. It’s about relaxing.”
“I should be able to.” Arthur got frustrated with himself. With…everything,
really, because he wanted to. He wanted to be good, he did. He wanted someone
to see him and know he was trying and he just couldn’t, most of the time. It’s
not even subspace, that’s beyond him, if it exists, really, at all. He’d given
up on that. Just. Just to get into a decent headspace, really. To get into a
place, mentally, when he isn’t pushing back because he has to because…
“Hey, hey, it’s fine. It’s just us. No one here but us chickens.” Merlin smiled
and he’s a calming influence, he sat heavy on Arthur’s chest and Arthur rubbed
his hands over Merlin’s arms, his neck, his scalp because he isn’t going to go
down, but he feels better for having Merlin there and—
                                      ~~~
—that was Arthur’s main problem when he tried to scene, in real life, with
other people. With Merlin all-but-mentally absentee he can’t relax. Right then
he was as relaxed as he was likely to get, but Merlin can’t drag him down.
Merlin just rubbed Arthur’s chest and looked so earnest and he was trying. They
were both trying, and sometimes it worked and mostly it didn’t and maybe,
someday, they’d get it right. Maybe.
Still, he got hard, which is something, and at the end of the hour he and
Merlin are both turned on and tangled and confused, gripping on tight to one
another and quietly—quietly, quietly—rubbed up against one another, so close
together that it didn’t count, it didn’t count, it didn’t count if you didn’t
make a sound. It didn’t count if they got close enough that no one could tell
them apart. It didn’t count if they were asleep. It didn’t count if they were
in the second bedroom. It didn’t count if it was just a game. They weren’t
broken, because it didn’t count.
                                      ---
cont.
Sigyn awoke in the night with an astonishing heat, having gone to her chaste
bed alone, as was her custom. Her body felt as if an earthquake, shuddering.
Her body felt as if a fire, consuming. Her body felt as if on an anvil, beaten
and glowing. And in her head, as if next to her ear, the words come my love,
for I am here, and I am me.
Never before had she heard the words of her dearheart, but the order was
inescapable, and so it was that she left her Protector’s house and entered the
night, barren and new, as a deer taking its’ first steps upon the grass. The
air trembled and she bowed her head, waiting for her dominant to come and claim
her, feeling him come ever closer, though not knowing how she knew his sex.
Kneel before me, my love. For I am here, and I am me. The voice echoes down
from deep inside her, and though she was afraid—for she’d never heard of a bond
with words—she fell into her most worshipful prostration and felt as if the
ocean itself could not contain her joy when the fingers of her dearest landed
atop her head. “I have found you at last,” he spoke, “and we shall never again
be parted. We will be away.”
“Will you not ask your price from my Protector?” She asked and did not raise
her eyes, instead loving dearly the sight of her dearest’s feet, pressing her
fingers neatly to his toes.
“I require no possession but for you. We will be away.”
“Will you not wed me as is proper?” She asked and did not raise her eyes,
instead loving, completely, the smell of him, as fierce as smoke but pleasant
as homecoming.
“I require no one’s approval or sanction to take what is rightfully mine. And
you, no one’s but mine. We will be away.”
“Will you not allow me to say goodbye to those who have sheltered and protected
me, all in wait of you, my love?” She asked, and did not raise her eyes,
instead loving the stroke of his voice, strong as mountains and deep as rivers.
At this he was silent and he helped her to her feet, and she did not raise her
eyes. “So it shall be. We will have a single day and no more, and then we will
be away.”
She was filled with joy and thus they returned to her Protector’s house, and he
lay with her as a husband lay with his wife, though they were not married. She
gave him her submission, and he took it with ferocity, subsuming her self,
remaking her into a shrine to his power. If she felt anything was wrong, she
decided it to be the sorrow she felt over her need to leave her family.
When they awoke she looked upon the face of her love and saw him for who he
was, because he had done nothing to disguise himself.
“You have tricked me.” She said and he opened his eyes, staring into her, and
he smiled.
“You are of two natures,” she said. “Your soul cannot be tied to mine, because
your soul is complete unto itself. Free me of this farce and give me back my
other self.”
Loki disrobed and knelt in front of her, out of spite perhaps, or to let his
being melt more fully into her knowledge. Do not guess at the aims of madmen,
my loves, for you will simply turn yourselves into them. He showed her the
knotty rose of flesh where the cord that tied them together had burned into his
being. “Would you carve it out of me? The other is dead, the bond severed and
he was no more.”
“This is unnatural.” She protested, covering herself for the first time and
turning away, for though she believed her words, the love she felt would not be
quenched. “There is no room for me, in you. I will be crushed. You have killed
the one who was for me. I cannot forgive you.”
And at this she fled.
cont.
                                      ---
March, 1999
Aunt Rebecca and Uncle Tristan did not take the news of his gender orientation
well.
“What?” Aunt Rebecca had asked and Uncle Tristan had just sort of frozen and
stared at him over his bowl of heart-healthy cereal. Arthur hadn’t even
particularly felt like telling them either. But he knew and he could feel it in
his bones, and it was just a matter of time before everyone else could just
tell, and he didn’t want to walk in one day and have them demand to know why he
hadn’t even told them.
“Are you sure?” She tried after a moment, and Arthur frowned, spoon stuck in
the same heart healthy cereal as his uncle, because good sense knew that his
aunt wasn’t going to buy two kinds of cereal, that was just madness. “I mean.”
“You like sports, you have a large group of friends, and you’re very
assertive.” Uncle Tristan frowned a bit harder, like assertive was a curse
word. But it wasn’t like you could just disagree about someone’s orientation.
It was what it was. “Is this about Merlin?”
“What?”
“If you’re lying we’ll find out about it soon enough, and you and Merlin can
still be friends even if you are a dominant.” Like she hadn’t just yesterday
been giving Arthur a tacit speech about how people grow up and develop separate
interests and maybe it was time for him to expand his horizons. “It’s just.
You’re not terrifically.” She cleared her throat. “We’ve just been operating
under a few expectations and this is. Well. It’s a paradigm shift.”
“I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to be on a sports team with a group of
newly oriented dominants.” His uncle ground out, because that was the issue at
play here. That. That was the issue.
Arthur felt his face heating and he gripped his spoon. “I’m not quitting footie
just because you decided I should. I’m not a dominant, so what.”
“Well. Your behaviours and attitudes did align you more closely with a pre-
gender orientation of dominant. So we just. But this is good. We’re happy for
you.” She said, suddenly, like she was remembering that she was supposed to be.
“Yes.” His uncle said and then continued to stare at him like Arthur was just
some random stranger who decided to eat breakfast with them and they were
simply too polite to mention it.
When Merlin had told his mum she’d just ruffled his hair and told him good job
on growing up, and they’d gone out for dinner. Merlin had even identified early
and his mum hadn’t even batted an eye, and Arthur was a year later than average
so it wasn’t like he hadn’t given himself time to be sure or anything.
“You’ve always just been so. Independent. We thought.” She cleared her throat.
“Are you certain? You don’t have to rush it. Just because you missed the
average doesn’t mean you have to force anything, plenty of young adults take
until they’re thirteen or even fourteen to find themselves. I hope you don’t
think we’re pressuring you.”
Arthur clenched his teeth, pulse thundering down in his stomach and it was
either leave or throw the dishes again because they weren’t even giving him a
chance to talk, and it wasn’t his fault they’d gone and decided he was going to
be a rich, married dom in a socially acceptable and profitable field who
graduated with top honours even though he had just-passing marks. And it wasn’t
even that they were pressuring him to succeed, they just ignored him and talked
about his future like it belonged to somebody else who they liked more. Some
sort of fictional Arthur that only existed when real Arthur wasn’t around to
see him.
“Maybe you should take some time to think this through before announcing it
legally.” His uncle had cautioned and Arthur had gotten up and gone to steal
Merlin away. He’d physically recognise soon enough, and then they wouldn’t be
able to say he was a liar just because they’d decided to raise him the way they
did. Not every sub was…well. Merlin.
“Mom said she figured I was a sub since basically forever, but she also said
she hated the way people forced gender stereotypes on their kids so she’s let
my interests have free range.” Merlin had told Arthur at one point or another.
“Her parents really forced it on her, so you know, all the dolls and stuff and
she had to wear dresses all the time and if she got too loud they sent her to
her room, but that was bullshit so she wasn’t raising any kid of hers that way,
no sir. Some people would say I’m just a sub because I didn’t have a strong
dominant influence, but plenty of single parents raise oppositely gendered
kids, so, you know, stuff that where the sun don’t shine.”
So Arthur grabbed Merlin and Merlin’s coat (because Merlin was a skeleton who
had no ability to regulate his own temperature) and Merlin showed him another
one of his million-and-six-places-no-one-else-knows. They hid in a car that had
been abandoned so long a tree grew through it. Merlin had somehow moved a bench
into it and they hadn’t said anything for a while, sitting there, Arthur laying
with his head pillowed on Merlin’s lap, looking up at the leaves through the
rusted out roof of the car. Merlin tinkered with his CD player and eventually
got it playing loud enough for them to hear the music— tinny and echoing—
coming from the cheap earphones resting on Arthur’s chest, the heavy weight of
the vibrating CD player resting on his stomach like a living thing, Arthur
completely not caring that he was skipping school, and Merlin not having school
because they were supposed to be home and working on their projects. Merlin’s
was something about ground up crab shells being good for burn victims because
something, something, something, so he put it on plants to see if it held water
in and sped healing and apparently it did very well and he and Arthur had been
hacking away at the research report. Or shrimp shells. Some sort of edible
crustacean, but Arthur had mostly been working on the graphs. Merlin was
terrible with Excel.
“I think they’re just upset that I didn’t just do what they wanted because it
was convenient,” Arthur said at last after the CD player had run out of
batteries and they’d listened to all 50.03 minutes of Lynn Harrel and Vladimir
Ashkenazy playing Beethoven’s 1st and 2nd cello sonatas (sonatas 3-5 were on
the second CD which had been broken, as CDs tended to do, especially in
Merlin’s room. Merlin strongly believed in messes).
“It’s not even like your uncle is a really bottom-y sub either.” Merlin agreed,
tucking himself deeper into his coat.
Arthur sighed and pressed his face into Merlin’s stomach. “I don’t even know
why they care. It’s not like we talk or anything. It’s not like it affects
them. I’m just me either way. But they just decided it one day so it has to be
true.”
“They also decided where you’re going to university and what you’re going to
major in.” Merlin agreed and Arthur was still angry about that conversation
because he was 12, who even cared about uni right now, and he didn’t want more
years of school, school was rubbish. Everything about going to school was
horrible, because his teachers could lecture all they wanted about the
different kind of currents and electricity and whatever for two weeks and it
wouldn’t sink in, but Merlin showed him how that broke down in a single
afternoon and everything was fine, mostly because Merlin commented on how
awesome Tesla was and how much a giant flaming failure of human being Edison
was, and that helped things stick in his head better.
When he got home he was in for a lecture, but until then they were in a slight
gap in time and space, and that was the best you could ever reasonably expect.
                                      ---

                                   [Glass2]
[A promotional from the independent psychological horror filmGlass written and
directed by Howard Isen featuring two woman. One a shorthaired frightened and
confused sub (Cinderella, (Kelly Stan)) being physically restrained by a
blonde, shadowed dominate (The Stepsister, (Rachel Hans)).
November, 2011
Merlin’s birthday was a thing that happened. It used to be that they’d skip
school, provided Merlin’s birthday didn’t land on a weekend already, and they
would ramble about, spending all their pocket money on food and then clambering
over to one of Merlin’s spots to hide out for the day, reading and adventuring.
These days Arthur made him a present, they stayed in all day, they watched
movies, they bought a cake from somewhere and ate it all themselves, along with
Merlin’s Very Special Mum Care package, and maybe they might have sex and maybe
they wouldn’t. But it would be a day to flop all over each other, lock the
door, disconnect the phone (after calling Merlin’s mum) and not have any kind
of celebration until after a full 24 hours of being attached at the hip and
drunk off it were over.
But Arthur’s birthday was an event, produced, directed by, and starring Merlin.
Merlin took Arthur’s birthday extremely seriously.
“Come on, come on come on come on-” Merlin tugged on Arthur’s arm. “It’ll be
fun. I absolutely guarantee you will have fun. If I sense you are not having
fun I will be there and make fun happen.” Merlin futzed with Arthur’s hair a
bit more and then leaned in for a quick kiss. “It’s just a house party. Not a
club, the music won’t be ridiculously loud, they’ll be nice people, decent
food, and we can go the second you want to.”
Arthur had woken up to Merlin sitting on his hips and holding a mug of the best
coffee in walking distance and the best breakfast available for carryout (which
were not, unfortunately, available from the same location). Arthur had yawned
and pulled Merlin down, putting the container of somehow-still-warm Eggs
Benedict on his stomach, letting Merlin stuff pillows behind his back, the two
of them sharing bites of flaky-warm roll topped with thick, juicy pieces of
fried ham and tangy-perfect hollandaise covered-poached eggs between sips of
coffee and crispy-flaky nibbles of warm bacon.
And now they were going to a house party, because Arthur’s aunt and uncle had
somehow gotten it into his head that it wasn’t really a birthday if you didn’t
go out and do something, even if you didn’t really want to. Especially as
Merlin had actually cleaned the living room so they could make a fort in the
center, curled up and marathoning disturbingly graphic crime procedural shows
for seven hours while switching between eating brownie batter and cookie dough.
Cooking things were for tossers who didn’t suspect the oven smelled like gas
every time they turned it on.
They were highly suspicious of that oven.
“Come on. We’ll dance, we’ll eat too much guacamole, we’ll drink too much and
sit on the couch and talk about embarrassing things too loudly, and no one will
mind if we cuddle too much because we always cuddle too much and we’ll be
drunk.”
Merlin figured that most people would put any of their slip-ups down to subs
being affectionate and he was purposefully friendly with everyone in their
circle of friends so that no one could call him on it when he nuzzled Arthur
for a space too long.
He’d once spent an entire evening with his face in Freya’s cleavage, with the
explanation of: “My laurels, I shall rest them here. I shall make a mighty
laurel kingdom, here.” And she just drank around him, so Arthur figured that
any slip-ups could be attributed to Merlin being a baby koala of cuddling.
“Woe upon ye,” Merlin had declared once, latching onto Leon’s back, “for you
have awakened my marsupial rage, and for this you must carry me the next
block.”
“I honestly hadn’t noticed you were there until you announced yourself.” Leon
had replied. Which may have actually been the same night as the cleavage
incident. The thing with Merlin putting upon ridiculously affectionate
behaviour on top of his natural ridiculousness is that he had a tendency to go
to certain extremes. So it was Arthur’s job to rein him back, reel him in, and
settle him down, hopefully before someone decided that Merlin’s overt and
militarized friendliness was an indication of interest.
This duty of stealing Merlin away from doms coincided nicely with the limping
and confused possessiveness crawling in the back of his skull like Gollum. It
knew it wanted the Precious. It didn’t know what it wanted to do with the
Precious, but by God, it wanted. Arthur knew Merlin was his, he was entirely
and fully secure that Merlin belonged to him, that Merlin would always come
back to him, and part of him relished this fact like it was the last food in a
shipwreck. And the rest of him felt like he couldn’t really claim Merlin
because he couldn’t be what Merlin needed in terms of...bedroom things.
And then he had to take a drink because, thus far, Gollum/Ring was probably the
closest literary equivalent to their current relationship.
“Which one of us is the deformed hobbit and which one of us is the mega weapon
designed for the complete destruction of all that is good and happy in the
world?” Merlin had asked when Arthur had mentioned it, the two of them home for
the evening and spending time together by doing entirely separate activities in
the same space. “And who’s Sauron? Because that’s information I need to know,
since he gets you all tortured, and if he wears me the world ends.”
“No, the possessive voice in the back of my head is the deformed hobbit, and
you’re the symbol of all that is evil and foul in the world, and it just wants
to touch you all over.”
“So what are you, then?”
“A cave system, apparently.”
“Does Smaug-voiced-by-Benedict-Cumberbatch live in you too? Cause I could get
on that. Except then Martin Freeman steals me away, and while I like him, he’s
married.” Merlin had handed over the tub of ice cream so Arthur could eat while
Merlin read his research aloud, Arthur eating ice cream and going over his
carefully maintained inventory to see if he could make something out of the
odds and ends of bigger projects.
Merlin tugged on Arthur’s arm again and Arthur shoved his hand in Merlin’s face
as Merlin leaned back to avoid it. “Stop tugging me. I’ll move as fast as I
want.”
Arthur had allowed Merlin to dress him up a bit. Not whole-hog traditional,
Merlin only went for complete sub-dress when it was time to write up a new
article for Loose Ends and they needed to get into somewhere Old Guard, but it
was certainly dressier than Arthur would ever put himself in.
“It’s nice jewellery,” Merlin had defended, “It’s classic. You made it. It’s
all wood and hemp. You cannot get more toned down than this. It’s not actually
possible. You can be a walking advertisement for yourself. ”
And Arthur had sighed and gone along with him, because Merlin had cheated and
wrapped up Arthur in his own excitement. Merlin was never above cheating.
Merlin had practically been dripping with exuberant affection, kissing the long
stretch of Arthur’s bared collarbone, hands cupped around Arthur’s neck and
fiddling with the hemp and wooden bead necklace he’d looped around it from his
own collection. Merlin had had to pop open a few buttons from Arthur’s
(purchased from the dom’s side of the shopping centre, ergo, tapered but not
form-fitting) button-down collared shirt, which Arthur would wear sans tie
(ties were... evocative) and with the top button undone for the sake of
comfort. All the shirts on the sub side were too tight in the shoulders (and,
well, everything else) and didn’t even have the top three buttons, which was
sort of insulting actually.
He could still probably get away with going to church in a get-up like this, it
was beyond modest for the current clothing industry (Merlin owned one pair of
pants that he could not physically get on without assistance. Merlin’s wardrobe
was an eclectic mix of whatever he felt like wearing: baggy corduroys and
peasant skirts mixed in with nonsensically slim trousers and a black cocktail
dress that showed off a...daring...amount of back, if Arthur wanted to talk
like a 70 year old) and Merlin had only been able to talk him into some mascara
and lip-gloss, and the lip-gloss only because Merlin had kissed him enough
beforehand.
“It’s at Leon’s. You like Leon. You wrestle him to the ground sometimes, which
isn’t even slightly erotic to watch at all.” Merlin hustled Arthur out the
door, laying himself over Arthur like he was the buttercream icing over
Arthur’s sufficiently chocolate-y chocolate cake. “It’ll be fun. There’ll be
good music, and good liquor and you won’t have to punch anyone, I promise.”
Merlin nuzzled his neck as they made their way down the first flight of stairs.
“And when we come home we’ll both be turned on and I’ll have a present for you
and it’ll be the best birthday ever.”
“Do you remember when you thought birthday was a word that encompassed all
fancy things? You called going to church ‘birthday.’” Arthur reached to scritch
the back of Merlin’s neck and quietly allowed himself, since it was his
birthday, to just...sort of lose himself in Merlin’s head for awhile.
“I also called all animals Missy.” Merlin kept tugging and pushing Arthur down
the stairs. “We’ll only get a little drunk, just enough so it isn’t weird.” The
stairwell was empty and Merlin stroked his knuckles down Arthur’s side. Arthur
grabbed him by the wrists and continued to drag him down the staircase. “I have
the perfect thing for tonight. The perfect thing. You will lose your ability to
even. Even-ing will be completely beyond you.”
There is a tease of arousal right up against Arthur’s mind, as quick as a slip
of tongue right before heading out the door, and Arthur tightened his grip on
Merlin’s wrists, Merlin’s arms still thrown over Arthur’s shoulders as they
waddled down the stairs. Once they got outside, though, Merlin was already a
few steps to the side of Arthur, their hands kept to themselves, Merlin already
rolling out a story about work yesterday, about his sleepy co-workers and his
regulars and the evolution of a ridiculous coffee drink. (“It starts normal:
they want soy milk, sure, cool, they want whipped cream, that’s fine, and then
they think ‘oh hey, what if I try a flavour shot?’ and it just spins out of a
control from there.”)
Arthur tried to tuck his hands in the pockets of his trousers, but they don’t
have pockets, because that would ruin the line of them, apparently. His jacket
had both of their purses in the pockets, so he couldn’t really get his hands in
there. Merlin only had his one jacket on, so he’d need Arthur’s by the time
they were ready to walk home.
It was about a thirty-minute walk to Leon’s house, which would translate to a
forty-five minute bus ride, not including wait times and the inevitable walking
they’d have to do anyways. It was brisk out. Windy. The sort of thing that
stains your face red but didn’t get down deep in your bones. It was too rainy
to have a proper autumn—the sort that happened in the panoramic opening of a
young someone-or-other coming of age as they stared thoughtfully out the window
while the opening score went with either piano or violins to get you in the
introspective mood.
Here was the funny thing about walking:
When Merlin walked down the street and someone else was walking the opposite
direction, he would give zer the right of way, no matter who it was. He’d do it
for mothers with strollers, he’d do it for five-year-olds stampeding down the
street, and he’d do it for doms walking along like they own the world. Merlin
will flatten himself up against a wall to get out of people’s way. He’d open
doors for people (provided they are close enough for it), and has been late to
things because he just got stuck holding a door open for a crowd. (On the other
hand, he’d collected about thirty quid in tips because people thought he was a
doorman, so there was that.). That was just who Merlin was. He gave up his seat
on the bus, he let other people have his cab, and if he remembered his umbrella
it was soon in the hands of someone else who didn’t have one. He had come home
in January without his winter coat because someone looked cold. (They’d
returned it. That and Merlin’s purse that he’d left in the pocket like an
idiot).
Arthur would only alter his path if the person coming towards him had a good
reason for not altering theirs (stroller, a lot of shopping, children,
wheelchair). People could open their own doors, and if someone needed a seat
when there wasn’t one, then someone else could give theirs up (unless Merlin
had already defaulted his). He does not alter his path just because a dom is
walking towards him, because they never need to. When Freya walked down the
street, she walked with the full expectation that people will move out of her
way. She could stroll along with her arms over her head, basking in the
sunshine, without anyone focusing on the long line of her back and how they
could leave their mark there.
The doms are two steps away and Arthur doesn’t change course, and the dom on
the left turns his attention to Arthur a sight too late, frowning and then
their shoulders connect, neither of them slowing down, Arthur spinning the dom
around, because he’s big and focused and doesn’t change course. The dom turned
to stare at him. “What’s your problem?”
“You could have gotten out of the way too,” Arthur said, stopping. Merlin
balanced on one foot, preparing for his signature dismount onto a park bench.
The dom frowned, wrong-footed. “I wasn’t paying attention, you clearly were. So
why didn’t you move?”
“I didn’t feel like walking in the gutter.” Arthur squared his shoulders and
this is one of those things Dr. Whitman would have told him to let go. He would
have made a rational argument for Arthur moving. The dom hadn’t been paying
attention, he–as the attentive party—should have moved to accommodate him, or,
at minimum, said “excuse me” to signal his presence. Or, if they hit by
accident, he shouldn’t have made a production of it. Apologize and move on.
“Pay attention to where you’re going, yeah?”
Arthur turned and went back to walking as the dom dug into his pocket to see if
Arthur had been pick-pocketing him, before giving one last shout of “Dyke!”
Arthur had been, and would continue to be, called worse. A kid in primary had
lead the assault, for about a week, of shunning Arthur. There’d just been a
random week where Arthur could not find a partner to work with, or a table to
sit at, or anything. He hadn’t figured out what he’d done wrong, exactly. He
hadn’t thrown up, he hadn’t had a tantrum at school, he hadn’t called any of
the teachers mommy or anything. All he’d done, at all, was miss one sleepover
that he hadn’t even been invited to and then suddenly his name had become an
odd sort of punchline. “If you lose the ball then you have to go sit next to
Eigyrson.” or by calling him the very clever: “Lick zer bum” even though that
didn’t even rhyme, really.
One day he’d been being safely ignored, and then he’d come to school and
everyone in his class had scooted away from him and giggled to themselves.
They’d put pebbles in his shoes and stole his bag away from him the moment he
put it down. They passed handouts around him, and the day he’d forgotten his
book, no one had been willing to share. The only thing that had happened had
been Willard Fowler’s birthday sleepover that he hadn’t gotten a card for.
So Arthur had broken all of Will’s coloured pencils. Fowler’d had more coloured
pencils than possibly any other child Arthur had ever met. He’d bragged about
how they were real, professional pencils, not the ones you got from the crate
in art class (where there was never any red or black) and he’d kept them in
this special box so they wouldn’t lose their tips, and even then, he’d had the
best sharpener in the class. So Arthur had hung back from recess, sat down and
broken all of them, systematically, into the smallest of pieces he could,
before putting them away in Will’s special box. When Will had opened it and
found them all shattered he’d cried in front of everyone. Full on sobbed, snot
trailing down his face, eyes puffy, screaming crying and he had become the new
class punchline by the next day, Arthur safely forgotten once more.
Arthur had been called names. He clenched his jaw and kept walking, because it
was his birthday, and he wasn’t going to let anyone ruin that for Merlin.
Arthur’s birthday was Merlin’s favourite holiday. He put a sparkly heart
sticker on the calendar for it.
Merlin looked up from his triumphant landing on the pavement and looked around.
“What?”
“What?”
“I thought I heard something.” Merlin frowned and looked back at the dom and
his friend who were just turning a corner. He turned back and looked at Arthur
and Arthur shrugged, pulling Merlin along by the elbow and Merlin happily
followed, looking into shop windows and throwing his arm over Arthur’s
shoulders.
                                      ---
“The Church as a whole generally focuses on Zerself and zer son, the first of
whom is considered the sexless Dominant-as-rule-giver Ze-who-rewards-and-
punishes, and the second considered a male submissive sacrifice, he-who-serves-
and-is-punished, with the Holy Spirit mentioned, merely as a tertiary force,
barely defined and oft-ignored. Far easier, all said, to worship the Holy Ruler
and zer Holy Son, to make up songs about obeying and psalms about punishment
and reward. The Church as a whole would prefer to avoid the grey, fuzzy
outlines because that, one priest had mention to me once, was where most sin
occurred.
“However, the Catholic Church— while hardly a champion of those with non-
traditional sexuality and their rights—has always stood as a symbol of
sanctuary for the outcasts of society, for a given definition of sanctuary.
That is provided, of course, those self-same outcasts were willing to make
sacrifices for their safety. The message is far and above one of mercy and
compassion, and to this day, the church remains the number one shelter and safe
house for the dynamically-diverse, including: broken pairs, the non-dynamic
affiliated, persons outside the gender binary or persons without mates,
offering a place outside of society and with people in similar situations, in
exchange for devoting their lives to the church in the form of monasteries or
convents.
“Hardly, one can imagine, the ideal situation for everyone, but much better
than viewing a bondless person as having no soul and thus subject to
enslavement, exile, ritualistic brutality, or death as in many religions,
cultures and governments predating the Catholic Church’s rise to power. Still,
the Catholic Church has been very vocal on it condemnation of same-dynamic
partners who do not choose to remain chaste and instead attempt to ‘mimic’ the
behaviour of Church approved dynamic partners, calling the behaviour a ‘gross
parody’ or ‘subversion” of God’s will.” –Forven M. (2000) The Story of The None
Oxford: Hart
 
May, 1999
Arthur had a lot of practice with not talking.
They sat in silence. The clock was digital, but Arthur could still hear it
ticking away in his head. It was the sort of situation that should have the
slow click-...-click of some sort of stately grandfather clock (and, according
to Merlin, there had been such things as grandmother clocks, which had only an
hour hand because “ladies need not concern themselves with minutes” which is
one of those things Arthur knows and has no use for.) He didn’t fidget. If he
were Merlin he would have probably come up with a story about how he was a
captured prisoner, or being interrogated about a crime or...something.
“If you want, you could think of it this way. You can an hour each week staying
silent and perhaps forcing your uncle and aunt to do something more drastic, or
you can at least try talking to me. I think you don’t really like losing
control of yourself. You’re angry right now because you didn’t choose to come
here. But that’s part of life, Arthur. There are going to be a lot of things
you can’t control. What you can control is how you respond to it.” Dr. Whitman
put down his pen and paper and clasped his hands together. He had a ring on his
finger. Married. “But all not-talking does is allow other people to put words
in your mouth. Your aunt had a lot to say about your behaviour over the years.
If you don’t talk then you don’t have an opportunity to defend yourself. Maybe
I’ll find you don’t have the kind of anger problem she thinks you have.”
He’d been offered a fizzy drink. He’d been offered tea. He’d been offered an
ice-lolly. He wasn’t five. He wasn’t going to be bribed into co-operation. Or
threatened, either, not by his uncle muttering about approved schools, or any
of the like. This was bullshit. This was clearly bullshit and he wasn’t. He
wasn’t going to do any of it.
“For instance. In this report I have from your school, it has plenty about the
other boy’s side of the story, but it says you refused to comment. So now all I
have is a boy saying you shoved him into a pile of slush and sat on him so he
couldn’t get up again for no reason. And I don’t think you did that for no
reason.”
Gregory Cooper had stuffed someone younger kid’s comic in the loo, and Arthur
hadn’t been able to do anything about that, having walked in while the strange
boy had been crying after it was already said and done with. But Arthur had
been able to take Cooper aside and shove his face into the thawing slush and
mud until he begged to be let up, twisting his arm behind him and not much
caring if his uniform got dirty. Not all of Arthur’s fights were for other
people, and he didn’t just get in fights. He took people’s things, too: broke
them sometimes, just kept them others. But at school he was mostly fine, people
chose him to play sports with, and he had his footie team.
But when he got back to his aunt and uncle’s house the atmosphere was
oppressive. They treated him, constantly, like he was a monster in their home,
like at any second he was going to lose his head and break all the fine china,
and he wasn’t. He did that when he was younger, a bit, sure. But now. He goes
to his room. He pushes the bed in front of the door. He breaks, maybe, his own
things. One time his aunt grabbed him by the wrist and he might have pushed her
too hard to get her off of him. It wasn’t his fault that they were just bad at
parenting.
He’d had screaming tantrums, sure, when he was younger. Not recently. Not since
he was nine, and that was ages ago. They didn’t have to treat him like another
one was right around the corner.
“I want to give you a chance to tell your side of the story, Arthur. I would
like to hear your impressions. I’m not going to take anyone’s side in this.”
Dr. Whitman continued.
And the last time had been because they’d gone to a funfair and it had been too
loud and too crowded and Arthur had been hungry and tired. They hadn’t gone on
a single ride, they just kept looking at stalls and not getting any snacks
because his uncle thought they were too full of fat and sugar and he’d just
wanted to go home, but they didn’t listen to him, and didn’t let him touch
anything and his aunt had kept a firm grip on his wrist like she thought he’d
run off. So he’d just had enough. And he’d just wanted to go home. He’d just
sat down and refused to move, and when she yanked his arm he’d just ... he’d
just wanted to go home.
And they had, and she’d snapped at him that she had never been so embarrassed,
and his uncle had said they couldn’t take him anywhere, that they had thought
he could be a little more adult by now. But he’d said he was hungry, and he’d
said he was tired, and he’d just wanted to go on one ride or try one game and
they’d just kept walking past everything interesting. And he’d told Merlin
that. Merlin was always on Arthur’s side.
He didn’t need a psychiatrist to listen to his side of the story, because he
had Merlin for that.
                                      ---
November, 2011
It was less a birthday party and more an Arthur Party Of The Most Arthurness.
Merlin made the playlist, so every single song is one Arthur liked, which was a
pleasant change from the normal party line-up of “I don’t know this song, I
don’t know this song, I don’t know this song, and I want to shoot this song in
the face.” And Merlin even left off the songs Arthur was embarrassed to like,
unless they’re particularly fun to dance to.
The snack table was piled high with Arthur’s favourite crisps, his favourite
brand of pickles, his preferred dips, and cake and cookies. They’ve got his
favourite lager, his favourite wine, Merlin’s favourite blue lemonade mixer and
citrus vodka because liked to make “Sonic Screwdrivers” and he couldn’t be
stopped, and best of all, everyone just let him poke around as he wanted and
didn’t make a big production of him.
Freya gave him a Happy Birthday fist bump, Leon clapped him on the shoulder and
talked about sports---the basis of their entire relationship--Elyan stole his
cupcake and noisily stuffed it in his mouth to balance out Gwen giving him a
hat that she knit— all by herself and it had some dropped stitches, not too
many, and she went back and got most of them, and it’s really warm, but here
she ran out of red yarn, but he liked blue too, so she added blue, and that
isn’t too Captain America? “My name is Jack,” Merlin said tugging it over
Arthur’s ears “Union Jack.”
“I’m sorry, was that a ‘Please, Arthur, please shove my face into cake?’”
Arthur grabbed Merlin by the neck and tried to drag him towards the cake and
Merlin was laughing and wiggling away. Percy moved between them, and the cake
because no one wanted to eat a Merlin’s faced cake. Percy had made it himself,
because Percy had dated a pastry chef, and thus had felt it his duty to make
every single birthday cake ever for all of them. There was ganache and sour
cream chocolate icing and whatnot. (The pastry chef had gotten a better job in
Wales, and Percy—being Percy—had helped her move, and visited once a week,
until she’d fallen for her restaurant’s Head of House—who he then had became
good friends with. True story.)
By ten the party had a slightly higher percentage of People He Did Not Know
than he would have liked- people bringing their roommates, and those roommates
bringing a friend to talk to, and that friend maybe bringing their partner or
whatever- but even they dropped money in the hat for alcohol and brought
snacks, and no one rushed him, so it was fine. The living room was free of
furniture, the windows cracked open so the dance floor didn’t get oppressively
hot. Merlin was flailing somewhere in the middle, three drinks in, and a cheap
date to start with. Arthur himself had tipped over to friendly and people were
more than entirely used to seeing Merlin flop on him while dancing.
“Arthur!” Merlin flung his arms up in the air. “You’ve returned to me. Were you
seduced by my awesome moves. I know you were. Join me in the dance of my
people.” Merlin ended with his arms haphazardly over his shoulders as the
singer promised “show me what a real whip hand can do/I’ll make you forget
everything else when I’m through” and the bass thumped up hard from Leon’s
speaker system, which was better than the oft-repeated “beat me black and blue
for you” that Arthur had sort of expected from the song the first time he’d
heard it.
“The dance of your people is to awkwardly stand next to the wall and scuff
their feet against the floor.” Arthur punched his stomach lightly. “How drunk
are you?”
“The importance of written erotica on the Internet is that it allows people of
all walks of life to take active control of the kind of porn that they want to
read, putting forward their fantasies and desires so they can be mirrored back
by like minds.” Merlin lectured him in that careful way people trying to not to
sound drunken sounded. “By allowing it to be published online for free means
that people, especially people still discovering themselves, can explore their
sexuality and interests in a safe, controlled way, understanding how something
feels and sounds, and being allowed to imagine it how they want without an
image being forced upon them.”
Merlin always talked about porn when drunk. It was just a thing that happened.
Arthur shuffled along with his swaying sort of dance, people jumping and
swinging their arms up around them and shimmying at each other while laughing
at their own ridiculousness.
Merlin was flushed and bright eyed, and Arthur gave it another hour before he
sobered up enough for them to walk home and they did whatever it was that
Merlin had planned for tonight in the second bedroom. He was warm, and happy,
and he sort of distantly wished he could kiss Merlin right now, in public, but
mostly he was happy. He was his own happy and Merlin’s happy all jumbled
together in his stomach like a pit of puppies with a squeaky football.
He felt the burst of shock hit him a split second before it appeared on
Merlin’s face, eyes wide and body still. Arthur frowned and turned to look even
as Merlin was scrambling at him in a flurry of rapid-heart-beat excitement.
And so, like there was a cinematographer for their lives, the crowd parted and
standing in the doorway (not surrounded like a halo of light, but there might
as well have been) was Scarlet O’Hara.
Merlin was attracted to doms fairly indiscriminately. He preferred they be
bigger than he was, he liked them taller and didn’t mind the nature of their
bigness, having sat cradled in the lap of a rotund dom who had about five stone
(or more, given that Merlin did not eat enough) on him as gleefully as he’d
been hoisted up against a wall by a thick and interested body builder, but he’d
gone home with the short and the svelte provided they engaged his interest
enough. Merlin just liked people, provided they were worth liking, and he would
come home, bitten to all hell, and still sort of out of it, climbing into
Arthur’s lap and describing everything, hands clasped together as Arthur
explored the marks and bruises on Merlin skin, shotgunning Merlin’s high,
greedily soaking up Merlin’s experience, half feeling it and half hearing it
and happy, again, that Merlin had come home to him to come down.
However.
However, while Merlin’s indiscriminate attraction to just about any
sufficiently nice person who proved willing to rough him up was like a well
oiled machine of data gathering, the one thing, the one thing that would throw
a wrench in that was, of course, Scarlet O’Hara. It wasn’t even a conscious
choice, it went past gender or personality or sexuality. If a pale, dark haired
woman in green walked in, Merlin was thrown up against decades of his brain
filling her in for every mystical faerie queen, every venom-toothed sorceress,
every helpless princess in a dungeon, every quick-eyed spy, nimble-ankled
ballroom dancer, sharp-tongued owner or lost chance from across a room.
Merlin was going to get himself murdered someday by a brunette in emerald.
Arthur was already adjusting his balance so Merlin could use him to support
himself. Merlin gawked openly for a few seconds then shoved his face into
Arthur’s shoulder. “Arthur, Arthur, I am too drunk for this. Stop me from
looking like a moron.”
“That I can’t help you with, but I can stop you from going over to some
poor...” Arthur looked back and squinted, but he’d lost sight of her, so he
shrugged. “Well, some poor someone and being disturbing.”
“She was so pretty.” Merlin punched him in the shoulder and Arthur moved him
over to the couch, the people already on it smunching closer to each other
without comment. Merlin flopped on top of him and shoved his face into his
neck. “I need to not go over there and stare like I’m disturbed. I need to not
do that. Was she as pretty as I think she was?”
“Yeah, probably. You’re also demented, so she might have taken on qualities no
human has. Did she glow?”
“Lil’ bit.” Merlin flailed at the air. “I could say hi. I could say ‘hi, you’re
the most beautiful person I have ever seen and I just wanted you to know that,
and now I’m going to go back over there. Now.’”
“Did you even catch her orientation this time?” Arthur had not, but the room
was crowded and he hadn’t looked at her very long.
“Wait, is he O’Haraing again?” Freya looked up from her conversation and waved
her hand in front of Merlin’s face. He frowned at her and Arthur nodded.
Granted, Merlin’s sort of serial killer specific crush was the only reason they
even knew Freya, and thus their current group of friends, because, of course,
she’d come in with an forest green waistcoat and that was enough for Merlin,
really. “Who is it?” She scanned the room.
“Our babies would have such small toes.” Merlin informed them, “they would be
the smallest toes and they would kick them. They would kick them toes.”
“He’s going to be gone for a while,” Arthur said.
“Does he do the entire bond pairing from meeting until death, or...” Elyan
asked.
“From what I can tell it starts off contemporary and then slowly becomes Gone
With The Wind but both of them playing Scarlet.” Arthur moved to sit Merlin on
the couch. “I don’t know, if he doesn’t tell me it’s because the world is
better off not knowing. I’m going to go get some water, make sure he doesn’t do
anything psychotic.”
Freya nodded, toasting her drink to him as he shoved through the crowd of
people to try and get some air.
                                      ---
Current Standing Of Same-Dynamic Bonds
According to the American-based “Center For Human Sexuality Research And
Awareness” (CHSRA, pronounced, normally, “Chess-Ra” [1]) one out of every
thousand bonds ended up being between same-dynamic partners [2]. It is “very
likely” [3] that the phenomenon is more common than that statistic suggests,
since the statistics rely on such couples announcing themselves (see: William/
Abdul (1972)[3]), or for their legal guardians doing it for them, often[4] in
the form of getting them therapy and medication (see: “John”/”Stacy” (1950 [5])
case study) or, in more extreme examples, forcibly severing the bond (see:
Jackson vs. The State of Oklahoma [6]) which has since become illegal in the
United States in all cases without the express consent of both parties, or in
the case of minors or persons unable to consent, only as a last resort in the
case of marked emotional and mental duress that, at minimum, three independent
specialists agree is either caused by the bond, or offers a clear and present
danger to the second half of the bond, regardless of the dynamic leanings of
both parties. (Jackson vs. The Supreme Court)[7].
There are fifteen countries worldwide that allow any form of legal recognition
and protection of same-dynamic marriage, which ranges from the freedom of
Canada’s Complete Acceptance Policy [8] (full legal rights, provided the
advocating couple undergoes standardized independent review) to the weighted-
compromise Norway’s Non-Dynamic Partnership Laws [9] (which will not legally
recognize the couple as soul-bonded, but will allow them the same benefits and
legal rights as any romantic partnership) and finally to the limitations of the
United States own policies, which range wildly from state to state, but
federally will allow registered same-dynamic partners to file taxes together
[10], become each other’s medical and legal proxy [11], not testify in court
against one another [12], and both be listed as legal guardians of any child
that comes out of the union [13] (whether the couple would be allowed to adopt
a child, varies from state to state [14], however, even in states that allow
non-dynamic, or same-dynamic partners to adopt, these couples are subject to
review far more (in some cases nearly four times as many visits [15]) than
their dynamic-normative counterparts [16]).
There are many countries, communities, cultures and religions that do not allow
same-dynamic couples to legally register as soulbonded [17], but same-dynamic
couples can still find protection within the legal system, with the governments
allowing for de facto partnerships of romantic, non-dynamic, asexual, same-
dynamic partnerships, or even dynamic couples who, for whatever reason, do not
wish to declare [18], of any couple that lists themselves as such on their tax
forms, or are rearing a child together. These de facto partnerships do not have
the same legal or fiscal responsibility should separation occur, no required
child support or division of assets, no alimony, but while the couple is in
said partnership, they can apply for medical proxy, retain joint finances, and
may both be considered the legal guardian of any child or dependant gained from
the union or that either partner brings into the union. [19] Such countries
include Spain, Australia, Argentina and France.
And finally, there are governments who will forcibly separate, institutionalize
or medicate [20] any couple suspected of same-dynamic partnering [21], often to
a greater degree than even their non-dynamic counterparts [22]. There are, in
all countries, extremist groups, religions, sub-cultures, and political parties
that oppose same-dynamic couples, even with evidence of a viable and otherwise
healthy soulbond, calling for blocking, termination, or separation of the
couple in question. [23]
                                      ---
May, 1999
Merlin found him. As he always did. It was a little cave they’d dug out and
stamped down and dragged a binned rug to. It was just about too small for him,
and certainly too small for the both of them, save curled up together and
ignoring how dirty they got, the roots dangling from the ceiling, the strong
smell of earth and clay mingling with the moulding and musky stench of the
rotting rug.
“They figured out that octopi have something like soulbonds, except they aren’t
pack animals, so they hate other octopi, and if one wanders into their
territory they kill it or run away, so they troll the sea for the one octopus
that doesn’t make them want to kill it, and then they mate and then the male
dies after he ejaculates and the female gives birth to eggs and blows water
over them or something, and stops eating and dies of basically post-partum
depression shortly after the eggs hatch. And octopi are smart, which makes it
that much more tragic, you know? The blanket octopus has an immunity to the
Man-of-War jellyfish poison, so he takes them and uses them to whip other
animals to get them to go away. And they have this huge billow cape to scare
the fuck out of everything else in the sea.”
“Why do you know these things?” Arthur had asked, Merlin elbow digging into his
side, his head no doubt digging into Merlin’s collarbone. He’d only had to wait
an hour before Merlin had ducked his head under the lip and looked at him,
holding out a thermos of drinking chocolate. Arthur had taken it from him
silently and Merlin had crawled in.
“I’m pretty sure if your daemon is a blanket octopus it means you’re one badass
motherfucker.” Merlin had replied, because they could swear as much as they
wanted when no one was around, and Merlin took a singular minded delight in it,
because at his school they still washed your mouth out with soap. Unless you
could give a good linguistic reasoning behind it, but Merlin’s school was
weird. “When is the next one of those due?”
“Next year, they said.” Arthur sipped out the dregs from the thermos lid and
Merlin screwed it back over the top. “Will’s world without daemons and Lyra’s
world without soulbonds.”
“Give me a daemon any day.” Merlin tossed the thermos out of the tiny cave,
where their feet crawled out and they lay on Merlin’s jacket, since the rug
seemed...unhygienic. “A voice that can actually talk to you and reason and
supports you is better than some...phantom person who you aren’t even sure of
meeting. It’s daft, isn’t it? This one person who is supposed to be everything
you want out of a partner and society just...hangs their hat on how much better
you’ll be if you find them. But they’re just a person. They’re someone who
doesn’t even know you, not really.”
“So, what? You wish you’d identified as switch and you could make your own
destiny?” Arthur did, sometimes. Switches weren’t exactly the most acceptable
in society, but they always seemed...self-confident, on the telly and in
novels. Their own closed circuit, not waiting, not looking towards some partner
on their arm, not looking inward for the thread of someone else.
“Many cultures view switches as complete persons, who should be looked to for
guidance because they are self-contained.” Merlin mused, feet kicking at the
loamy dirt outside the cave that they were getting too big for, and just
getting bigger.
“And many other cultures kill them because they think they’re either empty and
thus can become whatever they want, or an evil spirit is filling in the rest of
them. So, you know. There’s that,” Arthur argued.
“Someday we’re going to go to London and find at least one secret or magical
world hiding in it.” Merlin said voice echoing oddly up from his chest and into
Arthur’s sinuses.
“At least?”
“Well. I figure that most of the magical and secret worlds are real and just
all hiding from one another, and also we probably have Borrowers in one of our
houses, but they’re really very good at hiding.”
“Well, that’s rather the point of them, isn’t it?” Arthur had replied. “You’re
not going to find some just because you want to. They’re trained in these sorts
of things.”
“Mmm.” Merlin agreed lazily and then inhaled.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Arthur cut him off and Merlin let out his next
sentence as a sigh and Arthur stared at striations of dirt on the wall. “I just
-- If everyone just left me alone, I’d be fine. I get angry. Someone tells me
that when I get angry I should just leave the situation to cool down. I
actually try and do that and they stop me. I can’t leave from class, I can’t
leave at the house. So what?”
Merlin didn’t say anything and Arthur poked him in the side. “What? I thought
we weren’t talking about it. I’m not saying anything. Ergo, we’re not talking
about it.”
Arthur pushed himself out of the space and sat down on the heavy rock they’d
moved to mark their space, the long grass and tree roots obscuring the actual
entrance. Merlin continued to lie in the glorified overhang and Arthur picked
at his nails.
“I’m not mental, though. I’m not.” He chewed off a bit of cuticle and it tore
away with a tiny bead of blood. “She compared me to my dad.”
“Your dad has massive brain damage and tried to kill you,” Merlin replied,
bluntly. “You throw things and punch tossers in the face. You also come up with
really elaborate schemes of how you’re going to get one over on jerks, but
everyone does that. And you’re more likely to shut down and fester than act
out.”
Arthur chewed at his thumbnail and Merlin slowly backed out of the cave,
brushing himself and his jacket off. “Okay, so. You’re not mental. I know
you’re not. You know you’re not.”
“My aunt’s going to think I’m dodgy no matter what I do, and my uncle just
wants an excuse to get me out of his house.” Arthur spat out a jagged
fingernail, “And I don’t really feel up to acting like a good boy now and
forever, do I? I tried. I did.” Arthur had tried being good. But he’d always-
- There’d always been something. They’d demanded he talk, and then he’d talked
too much, or about the wrongs things, or he was too sad, or he was too
boisterous or... it was always something. He was always wrong, somehow, and he
wasn’t going to kill himself trying to fix it. He wasn’t. “I could just move in
with you, yeah?”
Merlin dropped his head onto Arthur’s shoulder and Arthur continued to pick at
his nails. “Just poke around the Doctor. Don’t tell him anything important.
Just. See what he’s like. Test the waters.”
“That’s how they get you. You start talking about something you think is safe
and then all of a sudden you’re just going and they’re grabbing stuff you
didn’t even say and you’re gone forever.”
“Then count the words to your response first.” Merlin took Arthur by the wrist
and took his abused hand away. “If he gets too personal too quickly you can
always stop talking again. But at least you’ll have talked, and she can’t get
angry at you if you’re talking.”
“She would.” Arthur dropped his head back and stared up at the sky-speckled
foliage. “And then what?”
“You tell me how it went and we form a tactical plan to convince him you’re
just high spirited. We’ll con him. We’ll be con men. Maybe he’ll help you learn
how to best utilize your high energy. Oh! Maybe we can convince him that what
you really and truly need is a dog. It’s brilliant.” Merlin poked his cheek.
“Trust me. Do it. Trust me. I’m brilliant. I am the most brilliant con man.”
Arthur looked over and him and he was grinning. “You’re the nutter.”
“Misunderstood genius.” Merlin intoned solemnly and hoisted Arthur up. “Come
on, let’s take a walk and then stay at my house for supper.”
                                      ---
cont.
She fled, for the first time, from her Protector’s house, and though she did
not know how her life had come to be, she was determined to not let it remain
so. Surely now that the madman’s pleasure had been gained he would cut their
bond and allow her to join her love where their souls could be together.
She ran through the forest, not caring if it was dark, or if the thorns
scratched her. She did not care if beasts hungered for her blood, or if she
tripped and fell into murky water. She kept on, fleeing, hoping for the false
bond to snap and leave her dead.
But a wolf pursued her, charging furiously ever at her heels, but she did not
cease. She did not stop even as she tired. Not even as the voice of her fake-
love rang in her hollowed-out insides. She clambered up hills, leapt off rocks,
dodged past trees, until her body gave out from under her at the edge of the
forest and she collapsed. The wolf came to a halt and bent to lick her wounds,
tending to her injuries and catching animals for her to eat until she regained
her strength. Come back to me my love, for you are you and you are mine.
At that she fled once more, into the frozen wasteland. She did not care that
she was cold, that the wind cut through her. She did not care that her feet
turned frozen at the ends of her legs that her stomach hollowed out once more
for lack of food. She continued to flee, trudging through the deep snow, head
bent as she refused to bow to the wind.
And all the while she was pursued by a bear, keeping pace with her, and when
she could go no further, at the edge of the snow banks, he wrapped himself
around her and warmed her body, licking life slowly back into her feet and
finding her fish and plants to eat until she was strong once more. Come back to
me my love, for you are you, and you are mine.
At this she dove into the freezing oceans, not caring that the salt stung her
eyes, not caring that the water tried to drag her down to join sunken ships and
lost cities. She swam on, pushed back by waves, pulled down by undertows, but
still she swam on. The water was murky and black, freezing and deadly, singing
her sweet lullabies about falling into it and rejoining her lost and only. But
a seal pursued her, slipping through the waves, keeping pace as she flailed and
shivered and struggled forward.
And at long while she could go no further and she sank down, letting the cold
water pull her into zer embrace and she did not struggle, even as her lungs
burned and her heart sank and panic, panic, panic beat alongside her ribs.
The seal dove down and saved her, swimming until zer found land, laying her
freezing body upon the shore and when she refused to eat and refused to be
gentled, he turned back into Loki, staring down upon her. “What form would you
have me in?” He asked, “You are mine, and you belong to me. I will care for
you, if you will give me your submission.”
“But you are not mine, and if you have no need for me, then I have no purpose.”
She loved him still, though and so cupped his face, her soul tied to his rib
and she unable to free herself. “If you wish to do me any kindness, you will
unbind me and allow my death.”
“I have much need of you.” Loki replied and showed her how his wound wept. “I
would not take another’s submission, I will feel this agony, and you will love
and tend for me. I have great need of you, for it is my lot in life to cause
suffering and to suffer, and there is none who would stay my hand or comfort
me. My need is great, and you love me still. You love me as a wife loves her
husband, you wish to obey me. If you deny me that, then cut yourself free.” He
gave her a knife and held himself as if a sacrifice.
She held the knife and pressed it to his breast, where the wound wept more, an
unnatural, ugly knot of flesh around some unseen thing that felt precious and
fragile. If she were to do this, she would die and go to the dom whose name was
written on her ribs. But if she were to not she would stay with the switch who
had chosen her to put into himself. And she thought about this for a very long
time, she had not met her beloved, and she had met this man, and he had
followed her and tended for her and she felt his love like a scream in a cave,
and she could not cut herself free from this.
And it was thus that they were bound, and it was thus that she chose. And while
he is bound, deep, deep and a snake put above him, she continues to choose, for
she has a bowl, yes, to catch the poison. But she also has a knife, my loves,
and she does not use it to kill the snake, no, but she does not use it to cut
herself free.
And this is the story of Sigyn, whose son’s entrails tie her false-bondmate
down to be tortured, until he slips free and closes this world, but that has
not happened yet, my loves. It has not happened yet.
-Christine Boroson, “These Are Our Wrong Turns.”
November, 2011
 
Morgana was used to standing out in a crowd.
She’d been modelling for as long as she’d been taking self-defence classes,
stretching on back from before she knew that most little kids didn’t spend long
hours sitting demurely in make-up chairs, trying on an endless rotation of
outfits and listening to photographers, smiling for a paycheque that was bigger
than most people could earn at three times her age. That was simply what little
kids did, she thought, seeing the other child models, posing with older doms
and subs like she was their child, laughing as a trained dog rolled onto set,
eating from buffet tables.
When she went to school she was the most put-together, even with the required
skirt-and-jumper uniform, everything primly ironed and set just so, hair in
springy sausage curls, or pinned up high on her head, or braided in complicated
plaits and dangling down her back, nails manicured and polished, shoes always
shined. She’d never gotten a haircut in memory, her dad helping her wash her
hair, condition and dry it, brushing it out and dry as they sat in front of the
telly for the evening, from the bottom up in slow, careful, gentle tugs and
strokes.
By the time she was eight she knew how to disable someone twice her size, was
the fastest runner in her class, and got a beautiful, one-of-a-kind frock
ruined by shoving a sixth former into the mud and holding her there until she
apologized for making fun of Morgana’s friend. She did all the make-up for the
school nativity, outlining eyes and lips, patting blush on chubby cheeks and
frowning over the costuming and tut-tut-tuting the sad excuse of direction on
set.
By the time she was eight she’d been in over sixty-five separate magazines, and
had done a total of four hundred shoots, smiling over big bowls of oatmeal and
holding her hands out for a ball in the latest trends of kid’s sportswear,
bravely jumping off diving boards in swimsuit after swimsuit after swimsuit,
holding trucks and dolls, waking up fake-Christmas morning after fake-Christmas
morning grinning down at a latest this or a cutting-edge that for just $49.99
this holiday season. By the time she was eight she could do fifty push-ups
without a pause, she’d been to France sixteen times and spoke enough French to
order for herself when she, her father and their agent went for lunch. She’d
been to America four times, and each one had been for a job that she hadn’t
gotten, but they’d still seen New York, Chicago, Miami and San Francisco, and
she was very good at popping her ears back from the pressure of taking off or
landing.
She’d been dozens of flower girls, she’d been the daughter of any number of
fake couples, she’d licked hundreds of mashed potato ice cream cones, thrown
softballs and baseballs, kicked footballs and been placed by cherry-picker on
every single tree in the area, her own pouting or beaming face looked up from
the glossy pages of magazines as a make-up tutorial, advertisement for sandals
or what deodorant to buy.
When she identified as a switch, her father was just happy that it meant she
could take more roles. Even if no one could tell what you were from off a
screen or a page, photographers swore they couldn’t shoot a dom as a sub, which
it interfered with the something or other. When she identified as a switch and
all her classmates started talking about their soulmates, she lifted her head,
became a picture of dismissal, and she was just happy that there wasn’t a
single soul on all this planet who could sway her away from what she wanted.
When Morgana looked in the mirror, she didn’t see herself. She saw a tool. If
she put this shade of lipstick on, with this mascara, and this outfit with
those shoes, she was confident, in control. If she applied lip gloss just so
and plucked her eyebrows like this, then she became somehow softer, quieter,
eyes down and demure. If she tugged on those jeans and that top, lined her eyes
just wrong, chipped her nail polish and slumped her shoulders she vanished
entirely. Her body was a tool, a presentation, and a show. Designers used her
as a walking clothes hanger, she was a production. She could walk in six-inch
platform heels, she could move under sixty pounds of draping fabric.
The modelling work had just continued as she grew up. Some kids who had been
cute when they were five, turned horrifically gawky or disorganized when they
were fifteen. Some gorgeous fifteen years olds had been bland or not right when
they were five, but Morgana handled aging just as well she handled learning
throws, holds, and couture fashions. She’d had her first kiss for a shoot,
leaning forward at the waist, hands primly behind her back as the boy across
from her did the same, in an advertisement for shoes. Other models talked about
their soulmates, about how this felt, and that, and a few even stumbled across
their fiancée, everything coming to a standstill while people celebrated.
Morgana relished the privacy of her own head, the stability of her own
solitary, complete existence. She read about the switch-high-priestesses of the
Triple Goddess, who were considered more holy because they were a single body
with a complete soul. She read about the culling of switch-adolescents,
thinking that missing half had been packed in by an evil spirit. She read:
“I spit on the term switch. I am not light bulb to be turned on or off. I am
not one thing or another based off what others determine me to be. I am in
constant flux. I am not one moment and then another, I am not confused, I am
not indecisive, I am not broken. I am complete unto myself. I am not oil and
water. I am emulsified. I am singular. I am heels and neckties. I am complex. I
am inscrutable. I am me. And no part of me is yours.” She read whenever she had
a moment, because millions of books had switch main characters, but as someone
who woke up, went to their closet and decided they’d be submissive that day, or
as someone who could never choose, or as someone who needed to be shown the way
by their main romantic interest, always safely in one role or another by the
end of the book.
Morgana knew her mind. She wasn’t an actor. She could present herself in
whatever way someone wanted, but it was an illusion that didn’t hold past the
picture of it. She could make herself look bigger, smaller, prettier, sexier,
she could be imposing, she could be approachable, she could flutter her fake
eyelashes and pout her lined lips, stand firm in heels and dare the camera to
try something. She didn’t remember lines, she didn’t become anyone, and inside
she was only ever herself. She was a presentation. She was a show. She knew how
to stand out in a crowd, how to walk down a runaway and be remembered for it.
She got her own paycheques, she changed representation two, three, four times.
She took down a mugger with a belt across the face and then wrapped firmly
around her neck.
She was, it seemed, constantly just a breath away from really, properly, making
it big. She’d been to Italy, she’d walked in Spain, she’d gotten three
callbacks in New York, her portfolio was heavy, neatly organized, and
impressive. “You’re striking. You stand out. You’ve got an old-fashioned sort
of quality to you, like a silent movie star.” Her agent had said. “You’re
growing up right. You’re going to make it big. You’re going to make it huge.
Sexy. Classic. They won’t be able to stop you.”
She’d been on book covers for YA coming-of-age novels. She’d frolicked in
lingerie with doms and subs. She’d been in up-and-coming magazines, won a few
industry awards that didn’t mean anything except that a sufficient number of
people were noticing she existed. Her hair hung long and coiled down her back,
stuffed under wigs and pinned, pressed, pulled this way and that for just the
right look. At seventeen a photographer tried something and she pinned him to
the ground in just her bra, underwear and stilettos. At seventeen she was bare
feet and t-shirts doing homework in the wings. At seventeen she had more kisses
under her belt than anyone could count, but only one she’d wanted, with a
pretty sub that’d melted under her touch like everything beautiful in the
world.
At seventeen, just as at seven, she was the main breadwinner. Her father’s
career was to further hers. She worked far too much to make any really proper,
lasting friendships. Someone wanted to have sex with her and she said no.
Someone politely requested to scene with her, she’d turned them down. Someone
gripped her by the wrists and commanded her attention and she hadn’t given it.
Someone had tried to force the issue and she’d dropped them. Someone had acted
the brat to try and get her to put them down, and she’d ignored them. Someone
had laughed with her, joked with her, gone to calorie-counting dinners (not so
little that you look like you couldn’t take/give a hit, not so much that the
clothing didn’t fit) worked out when she did, and she had asked him, and he’d
said yes, two weeks of bedsheets and inside jokes before he’d gone to the
Canary Islands and she’d gone to be in a music video in Iceland.
At seventeen she wasn’t famous. She was visible, certainly, she got work when
she wanted it, she had enough offers to turn things down. She was her agent’s
darling. She did a shoot where she was a selkie and liked the thought of it:
being two simultaneous things, and never happy forced into a single role.
Sometimes she got recognized. Sometimes she gave autographs. At seventeen she
was alone. She’d met movie stars and posed half-naked next to them in their own
shoots. At seventeen she’d posed as a living mannequin at one of the top
boutiques in London. At seventeen she’d been to the kind of parties where
people snorted the finest coke in the marble bathrooms and got properly drunk
off vintages she had carefully studied. At seventeen she sometimes picked
pockets because her father had taught her how to do that while she was still
all wide-eyes and perfect baby teeth and they didn’t know how long it’d last.
She knew how to stand and not pay attention while looking attentive. She knew
how to make herself heard. She knew how to dress for her mother’s funeral, how
to put on the right amount of make-up, how to stand and present solemnity.
At seventeen she found out she had a half-sister, sitting across from her at
the dinner gathering later, holding a mug of coffee while Morgana sipped water
(Morgana was fairly constantly aware of how white her teeth were and should be,
and even with photo manipulation, you wanted to be as close to the unattainable
perfection they demanded as possible.). Her sister’s arms were corded with
muscles, her eyes were heavy with smudged eyeliner, her lips bare, her dress
just a bit too fancy for the occasion, her shoes just a little too plain, her
hair a simple coiffed affair that was slowly unravelling about her face: the
picture of a dishevelled, grieving daughter. Morgana picked her apart by rote
and, if she were any less skilled, would believe the artifice. But Morgana knew
a presentation when she saw one. Morgause was an art house exhibit, an
installation of grief, evocative and abstract. Morgause studied Morgana
carefully.
She was a dom, but Morgana couldn’t blame her for that. She was an artist: a
musician. She was a highly ranked professional fencing duellist. She had scars.
She was five years older. She was blonde and tanned where Morgana was dark-
haired and pale. Her muscles had bulk, had mass, where Morgana kept herself as
sleek and sharp as a knife. Morgause rode horses, she had calluses on her
fingers, her nails had chips, her left hand was bare of a ring and she never
mentioned her fiancée. She didn’t look on Morgana with pity, or reverence, for
being a switch. Morgause invited her over and her flat was the template of
domestic cosiness, and Morgana could see the precise placement of vases and
curtains to achieve the effect. It was the precise, cheerful lay out of a home-
store shopping guide.
It was breathtakingly contrived.
At eighteen Morgana was living with Morgause. At eighteen Morgana watched
Morgause as she took down a stalker with a baton, crushing his face into the
pavement and making him repeat, over, and over that he was to forgot Morgana
existed, that he was dirt, until she removed her foot and he was still
repeating like it’d become a personal mantra. At eighteen Morgana was so close
to making it big that they practically lived off the flavour of it. At eighteen
Morgana watched Morgause sing in bars and the run down sort of places that
she’d never had a chance to climb out of. At eighteen Morgana could be anyone’s
terrifying bar trollop, if she wanted. She couldn’t change that she was a
switch, but in a tight crowd it was always hard to tell who anyone was unless
you looked closely. Morgause could fit in anywhere, could go anywhere and be
one of them, or go anywhere and be an unapproachable and cold as the vacuum of
space. Morgause could steal a car, or get someone to give her one. Morgause
stood at shoots and watched over everything, calm and knowledgeable, perfectly
capable of staring down a charging-diva and putting her prim and proper back in
line.
Morgana wanted to be her so badly it ached like growing pains.
“How do I make someone like me?” Morgana would ask and Morgause would study the
person, watch them for a day, or two, and then tell her. Morgana wasn’t an
actor, but people would fill in the blank places with what they wanted, if you
gave them the right framework. Morgause would tell her what that framework was
and left Morgana to decide if it was worth it. Sometimes it was. At eighteen
Morgana had had fifteen separate partners, playing with them until they didn’t
have anything more to offer each other. She switched up, she switched down. At
eighteen she and her father exchanged emails, and her father joined her agent’s
agency, signing on some other young hopeful and her agent kept in contact with
her, and wherever there was work to be had, that’s where she and her half-
sister went.
At parties, if someone got too fresh with Morgana, Morgause became the image of
control and fury, slapping their hands with her baton, standing firm against
their bodyguards, against anything. But then, equally, she knew when to step
back and let Morgana wrap someone around her fingers. You didn’t get famous in
the looks industry if you couldn’t keep the right people looking at you.
At nineteen, Morgana was technically an orphan. Morgause dressed her for the
funeral. It was a slow news week so it even got in a few gossip rags. She let
him be buried in the suit with two thousand notes sewn into the lining and said
nothing.
By the time she was twenty-four Morgana was making enough money that she
preferred to go places that didn’t cost anything, just for a change of pace.
She’d dated B-listers and had hung on the right arms, smiled at the cameras and
made enough of an impression for gossip rags to have something to remember her
by. You didn’t get anywhere by being good. She left her fingerprints in all the
right, incriminating, ways. By the time she was twenty-four she’d stopped
having to be on the arm of someone to get an invitation and started getting her
own. By the time she was twenty four, she had been to every major continent
other than Antarctica, she’d been on five reality telly shows, she’d been the
murder victim in two detective shows, had been the guest host of a game show,
had walked more catwalks than she could even begin to count, and the most
expensive thing she’d ever worn had sold for several million dollars, one of
those unique pieces with precious gems sewn into the gold-woven fabric. It had
been about as uncomfortable as one would imagine.
At twenty-four Morgana had been in four runs of cosmetic advertisements, had a
Facebook page with 133,000 likes, a Twitter with 45,000 followers and was fully
aware that she needed to expand her business, because the shelf life for a
pretty face was short, especially with new ones popping up every year. She and
Morgause were working on it, considering Morgana had another decade—at
maximum—before she was well and truly outdated. She could release a perfume, or
a clothing line, or become the pretty little thing of a rich couple, or
unbonded someone or other. She’d gotten plenty of offers, considered a few,
played with two. Plenty of the girls she’d seen at other shows had already
dropped off the map—finding their soulmate, finding someone else to play with,
finding a longer lasting career, getting tired of the lines, of the looks, of
the work it took to keep afloat.
At twenty-four Morgana had found herself, quite by accident, at a house party.
She didn’t know anyone there, but that hardly mattered. There would be enough
people, say she was a co-worker of a friend of a friend. Morgana, at twenty-
four, is fearless about parties, when she sees all make and model of bicycles
chained together, and she can hear the sounds of indie rock swishing down from
the windows. She puts her fifteen hundred quid coat in the pile with the
others, drops a tenner in the jar by the door and in ten minutes has someone
convinced they’re in the same bio chem. lab. There’s charity shop and put-
together furniture, department store shoes along the walls and pre-made cookie
dough cookies piled high on a table in the corner. It’s someone’s birthday,
judging from the cake, and lager is flowing slightly more than freely with the
way people are smiling and stumbling into each other, comfortable in their
drunkenness.
She texts Morgause to tell her where she is, which is a good several blocks
away from where she should be, but if you don’t engage into the occasional bout
of spoiled diva behaviour than people won’t ever treat you like you deserve.
She picks out a bottle of cider, opens the cap with her ring and delights that
it is not champagne or wine. And the wine here comes from a box, or bottles
with strange names and colourful labels. She smiles down at one that simply
says “Red” on it and pours a someone a glass when their cup comes close enough.
Morgana is used to standing out in a crowd. She’s in an emerald wrap dress,
wearing both heels and a necklace (because she can), and she is far outnumbered
by flannel shirts and jeans, though there’s a few subs in dresses, necklaces
and ballet flats taking pictures of one another. There’s a few doms in suits,
heeled boots and fedoras talking about ethnomusicology next to the cookie-
table.
“Hey can you get a picture of us?” A dom asks and she takes the digital camera,
fiddles with the settings a moment and then directs them towards the best light
she can find. They pretend to eat one another and she snaps the photograph,
handing the camera back so they can upload it somewhere and forget about it.
She doesn’t know any of the five songs that have played since she walked in
(“we’re going to shake this town of playing cards, playing card, playing card
houses.”) but they have their own spark of familiarity, something she can twirl
a stranger to, just with more accordion and glockenspiel accompaniment than
she’s used to.
At twenty-four Morgana likes parties. Not the kind of debauched parties that
famous play-doms and partysubs throw, or the stiff, awkward charity balls where
you smile and smile and smile. But these kinds of parties she likes, where you
can just about hear yourself think and you can overhear conversations about
modern connotations of fairy tales (“No, but Disney’s Little Mermaid, is
equadynamic, Ariel has a previously stated desire to go on land, she does not
like what duties she had to perform in the ocean. Eric is just the symbol of
that. She trades a skill she does not want (i.e. singing) for one she does
(i.e. legs) out of her own agency. She’s not soulbonded, she doesn’t have a
soul ergo she’s not under Eric’s spell, he’s under hers and she’s taking power
over her own life. I mean, yes, Hans Christian Anderson’s story was bullshit,
but she’s not just going along with the status quo and doing as she’s expected.
She’s doing what she wants.”) and someone at the sink is displaying how to
break a bottle with your palm and inertia. It shatters to the sound of people
making impressed noises.
The dancing is silly and frenetic, uncoordinated people jumping and dance
students showing off. People spinning one another and laughing, drinking to the
beat and sashaying back and forth. There’s a couple playing a complicated
looking hand-game to the music on one of the recliners. She thinks about
getting involved, it’s easy to clap and jump, you laugh, you make yourself look
silly and you’re part of the group, but thus far, it’s the sort of party that
respects someone’s choice to stand by the liquor table and watch. She catches
people staring at her, but then, she’s a switch. They represent about five
percent of the total population at birth. They get stared at. Morgana is used
to standing out in a crowd. Often she’s the sole representation of her gender.
She’s in Hugo Boss evening dress, Joan Lyrica heels and a necklace with actual
jewels on it, designed by an independent jeweller in Prague and that tended to
get stared at too. Stares were good. Stares were how she measured her success.
If she did an advertisement that someone stared at just a bit longer, than
Lancôme got better business and she got better jobs.
“Um.”
She steps away from the liquor and looks at the sub behind her. He’s dressed
for a shag, or, at the least, dressed to call attention to himself. Different
context than a club, more like a Halloween costume than anything. Maybe it’s
his birthday party. He stares at her another moment, her hair, her eyes, her
dress, and then all back up. “Um. Hi. I just wanted to tell you that you are
the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and I mean that in a way that you’ve
kind of, maybe, ruined my life a little bit, but that’s fine, I wasn’t really
using it, so now I’m going over there and crying into a pillow. So. Yes. Good
job on your everything. Your bone structure makes me want to burn down London.
Sorry. Yes. Thank you.”
And then he dives across the dance floor and leaps behind the couch.
Morgana, at twenty-four, is not, exactly, used to that.
***** Part Three *****
July, 2001
Aunt Rebecca and Uncle Tristan were the kinds of people who tried one way of
fixing a problem, and if that didn’t work, then they simply thought they hadn’t
tried hard enough. So, two years later, Arthur was still seeing Dr. Whitman on
a weekly basis and, two years later, they’d gotten nowhere because Arthur and
Merlin had been too busy trying to come up with every conversation but one that
actually meant anything.
He hadn’t stopped being angry and he hadn’t stopped running away from home here
and there. He wasn’t sure what their end goal was here, what they expected out
of all these meetings. They had weekly goal lists, sure, and Dr. Whitman always
tried to make sure the goals were specific and manageable, but they were always
still open ended. “More communication,” Aunt Rebecca would say. Uncle Tristan
never really had goals, he made stuff up, but he was quiet for most of the
meetings and never looked directly at Arthur.
The meeting after Merlin had come back from his trip, Arthur sat on the too-
squishy couch in Dr. Whitman’s office and looked at his fingers, knotted
together on his lap.
“Uncle Tristan thinks I should have been a dom.”
It was probably the first thing he’d ever said on that couch that Merlin hadn’t
approved of first. Merlin was good with words, when he wanted to be.
“Your Aunt stated that both she and your Uncle pinned your pre-gender-“
“No.” Arthur interrupted and cleared his throat. “No, I mean. Uncle Tristan
still thinks I should be a dom. Or—or it bothers him that I’m a sub and don’t
act more like it. ...He takes me to task about my manners a lot.” Arthur
cleared his throat and looked out the window to the one lonely little tree in
the car park. It wasn’t big enough to climb.
Dr. Whitman paused, interested. Dr. Whitman isn’t stupid, he must have known
Arthur had been playing with him. Lying. Dr. Whitman had tried to play games
with him, but Arthur had just rolled the dice and moved his piece and not cared
a bit, not engaging in conversation. Merlin read the child and adolescent
psychology books. He’d read them to Arthur. Arthur knew what was going on. And
Dr. Whitman had to have known Arthur didn’t trust him. Why should he? He’s
someone his Aunt and Uncle are using against Arthur, and Arthur isn’t going to
pretend otherwise.
“That has to be frustrating.” Dr. Whitman said.
“No.” Arthur was used to it, sort of. The lessons had been... frustrating. The
sudden change of expectations, how they never went to any of his matches and
how suddenly his curfew was enforced. How his Aunt and Uncle watched Arthur’s
teammates like they were going to... Arthur didn’t know—shove Arthur’s face
into their living room carpet and ride him in front of them. But still, Uncle
Tristan never liked Arthur. Uncle Tristan was the kind of disgustingly old
guard sub who asked his dom what to wear in the morning, who kept the house
clean and orderly as a badge of honour. Uncle Tristan, Arthur supposed, had
lived his whole life wanting to be a good sub, had been doing his best to
follow all the complicated, unspoken rules of the world, followed all of all
the books of protocol and manners he still kept with him. And then he’d
suddenly found himself with this messed up kid, born of his now dead sister. A
kid that wasn’t an inch like her and refused to be tidied up, refused to fall
into line, who still played.
“It’s not frustrating?” Dr. Whitman cocked his head.
“It’s just. That’s his problem, I can’t… I could turn into one of those subs
off the telly, with the hair and the shoes and everything and he’d still be
angry about it. But. Merlin is my only sub friend, really, all the other people
on my team are doms. We used to have a few subs, but they all left this year,
and they have to let me play on the dom team, because we don’t have enough subs
for a separate one, and so yeah. All my mates at school are doms, and I get
that there’s all kinds of ways to show your gender, but.” Arthur clenched his
jaw and fisted his hands and remembered to breathe, okay? He knew how to
breathe. You inhaled, you counted to four, and you exhaled. Enough people had
told him that it’d been drummed into his stupid, thick skull. He didn’t need
anymore breathing exercises, thanks.
Dr. Whitman let him just sit there silently for a bit without comment. He’d
picked up on the fact that trying to get Arthur to talk when he didn’t want to
was a good way to get Arthur to leave the room.
“I sometimes think I just. Came out wrong.” Arthur said, quiet, looking at his
hands. If. If Dr. Whitman said something stupid here, Arthur was going to
leave. He really was.
It sat there in the air and Dr. Whitman studied him. Arthur looked at the
floor.
“Do you think you should have been a dom?” Dr. Whitman asked, quietly.
“Maybe. Maybe I was supposed to be and then it just.” Arthur sighed. “But they
gave me all those books about the differences between subs and doms and I knew.
I knew I was a sub. I could feel it. You look at me and see it, it’s just true.
And then people think of those lists like their rules, and get angry with me
more for not being more submissive and that has to be earned, you know? My
Uncle has all these rules and they’re all bullshit, and he acts like it’s the
end of goddamn civilization when I don’t duck my head and stay pretty and
quiet. But people don’t get that, and that just makes me angry. And it happens
all the time, so I’m angry all the time and it’s just like. If I had been a
dom, then everything would be fine.”
Arthur kept looking at the floor, tense and waiting for what Dr. Whitman was
going to do next. Say something stupid. Call Arthur crazy. Something.
“Arthur, I’m going to propose a theory. You can disagree with it, and it may be
entirely wrong, but given what I know of you, and what you’ve just said, I
think it’s something to think about, but first I’d like to give you my
reasoning. You are submissive, you identify with that strongly, that is
correct.”
Arthur nodded.
“I think this is a situation where verbal feedback would be beneficial. Can we
do that, Arthur?”
“Yeah.” He’d gotten himself into this. He was going to see it through. He
wasn’t a coward. The only reason he ever ran away was because that’s what
everyone told him to do, when he gets green-monster furious. They shouldn’t get
angry with him for doing what they’d told him to do. They shouldn’t follow him
out especially. Not unless they were Merlin.
“So. You identify as a submissive, is that correct?”
“Yes.” Arthur did. He knew that was what he was, down deep under all of
everything. But. Finding that down deep core part of himself was always hard,
hard to rip through everything else. He just wondered if maybe he’d just gotten
turned inside out, or something, along the way.
“And you participate in many dominant-centric activities, such as violent
contact sports and woodworking and you avoid most common submissive ones,
correct?”
“Yes.” Arthur had heard enough jokes coming from other teams about how all he
was wanted was to be wrestled down and hurt. About how he was just looking for
someone to take him home after the game and get some of the tension out...
The jokes didn’t stop just because he was good-- and he was good. He was one of
the best players, but the coach never did anything about it. Coach was just
waiting for Arthur to break a nail and leave, for him to start getting off with
a dom and quit because playing wasn’t worth it anymore. For him to want a
collar more than he wanted a win. He wasn’t a glutton for punishment; he got
into scrums because he wanted the ball. He was the fastest runner, he was as
aggressive as any of the doms on the team, if not the biggest and, in his
opinion, he never got packed full of the muscle-brained moronicness that his
teammates did. He could think when he was on the field instead of, as Merlin
said, “going all Labrador Retriever on the thing. Bark! Barkbarkbark! I’m big!
I’m big! I want the ball! I’m big!”
He was pretty sure that once he was older, the jokes were just going to get
worse. Louder. Ruder. Right now they were only not-quite-quiet enough, barely
heard, but every snickered comment was said like it was the funniest thing in
the goddamn world. Being better than everyone isn’t good enough. He could
probably be a superhuman and it still wouldn’t be enough. People would see a
sub on the field and there’d be no impressing them. They’d never stop waiting
for him to fall on his knees, for him to cry and crawl away. Even his own
teammates.
“You also avoid most contact with other submissives, with the exception of
Merlin, who you met before either of you identified, and your Aunt says you
tend to take control of that relationship. Is that true?”
“He just needs to be guided a little.” Arthur didn’t know where this was going,
but he had a feeling he wouldn’t like it. That this was a bad idea. Of course
it was. Those are the only kind of ideas he has. Merlin was the one who thought
of things. Arthur just chose the one he liked best. This was a bad idea. But he
has to know if other people could see. If they. If they could just look at him
and know that something was wrong. If he’s going to drag Merlin down with him.
They cut the bonds of people who will never be sane again, figuring they could,
at least, save one half a soul. He didn’t care if the entire world took to
catcalling and insulting him, he could handle that. He could become a hermit or
something. They needed to leave Merlin alone though, or he’d pound all of them
into the ground.
“But would you say you take the lead in that relationship?” Dr Whitman was
staring at him too intently. It was claustrophobic, being stared at like that.
“From what your Aunt and Uncle can testify-“
“I don’t take the lead, it isn’t like that. We’re just friends. Uncle Tristan
has never liked him, but I don’t take charge. We’re… friends.”
Dr. Whitman stared into that pause and Arthur looked at one of the meaningless
nothing-paintings on the walls. He hated that paintings like that existed. At
least the paintings in the museum, full of blocks of colour and splotches of
paint—the ones everyone looked at and said “Well I could have done that—were
made by someone trying to do something. Not... painting flowers in pastels and
creams so as to be as inoffensive as possible. It’s a platitude in a picture
frame. ‘Have a nice day’ with fucking... lilies or whatever those are.
“Look. Just leave Merlin out of this.” Arthur said, flatly.
“Alright, Arthur. We can do that if it makes you more comfortable, but, as we
have established, you struggle with near constant feelings of aggression,
frustration and anger, do you agree with that?”
“I. I’m angry and frustrated a lot, but I don’t do anything about it most of
the time. I mean, I’m not throwing tantrums in the grocery store. Uncle Tristan
thinks I have a bad attitude, but I’m not doing anything. I do the breathing
exercises. I leave when I think I’ll do something stupid—”
“Your Aunt stated that you physically threatened her and threw something at
her.”
“I was just. I left an argument, like I’m supposed to, and she followed me to
my room. I didn’t.” Arthur shoves a breath through his nostrils. “If I leave
somewhere because I realize I need to leave and calm down, and then they follow
me until i feel trapped, I don’t.” Arthur inhales, counts to four, and exhales.
“Did you talk to her about that? Ask her what she was doing? Or was it all I
only walked into the room and he threw something at me?”
Dr. Whitman stares at him and Arthur tries not to grind his teeth.
“Maybe next time you should try telling her about how you’re feeling.”
“And maybe next time she should notice that I’m clearly angry and leave me
alone.”
“Arthur don’t you think it’s problematic for you to blame the people you hurt?”
“It’s. She. She knows that. I was going to my room and she. I don’t. If I’m
that angry I’m not. Thinking.”
“And what we’re working on is trying to find a way to let you know you’re going
to have a melt-down” Hulk-out, the Merlin in his head corrected. “So that you
can communicate it effectively. If something is upsetting you, you need to say
something like ‘Aunt Rebecca, I understand that it’s important we talk about
this, but I need to go cool-off.’ and she’ll respect that.”
“Who says that? Who talks like that? Have you ever been angry?” Arthur rolled
up onto his feet and Dr. Whitman steeled himself. Arthur felt he should have
been offended, but couldn’t be anything except angry. He walked to the window,
kept moving. He. He couldn’t sit still when he was like this. That was one of
the reasons why school was miserable and he did rugby.
“Arthur. I want you to understand something. There are millions of people with
problems controlling their anger. Some people work on it and become functional
members of society, and some people decide to blame the people that make them
angry because they’ve decided they can’t be fixed. And they do hurt people,
Arthur. They hurt people they love, because they decide that it’s the victims-”
“I didn’t hurt her.” Arthur interrupted. Because he hadn’t. He didn’t... he.
Merlin.
“But you have done things, Arthur. You could do them again. This is a pre-
emptive strike against that eventuality. You don’t want to harm anyone, do
you?”
“No.” Arthur stared glumly out the window. “What were you getting at?”
“It is my current theory that the combination of internalizing your guardian’s
wish for you to be a dominant, a long-held fear of what your father became
after the death of your mothers and your distrust of your Uncle, means that
you’ve lacked any positive submissive role-models, which means that you became
attracted to dominant behaviour because you saw it as a safer option than the
various ways submissive behaviour had been presented to you. However, you’ve
resented your learned behaviours because you suspected, and now know, that you
are, in fact, submissive. So you are fighting both with society and your
natural urges, which causes you no end of frustration, and so you feed that
frustration into your activities and feel better for a while. However these
activities neglect the urges of your gender and so leave you frustrated once
again.”
“So?”
“What I am saying is that you are denying a large part of who you are, Arthur.
You’re hiding from yourself, and that is always going to cause feelings of
frustration and anger. You cannot be happy and contented with yourself until
you accept all of who you are.”
“I’m frustrated and angry because I like what I do but no one will let me do
it.” Arthur spat through gritted teeth. He’d daydreamed about throwing a chair
through the window and making a break for it, but the problematic “where do I
go then?” always cut that particular fantasy short.
“There are plenty of active and competitive activities you could engage in that
wouldn’t cause such… discord.” The chair squeaked as Dr. Whitman shifted.
Arthur refused to look at him. “It would also give you a chance to talk with
other submissives your age, find some common ground and achieve a larger
support system.”
“So, what? Give up? Quit doing the things I actually enjoy and am good at like
everyone expects me to and talk about doms and paint my nails all day?
“No. You’re an active person, Arthur. There’s nothing wrong with that. But what
I might suggest—just for a trial period—is that you engage in more submissive-
centric hobbies, just to get a feel for them and see if you find them
relaxing.”
Arthur pressed his forehead against the window. “So I would… what? Act the good
submissive and feel better about everything? That’s bullshit.”
“That isn’t what I said.” Dr. Whitman corrected, calmly. “I am simply
suggesting that you might try connecting with your submissive qualities in
order to feel more comfortable with them. I’m not suggesting you give up
everything you love, but rather figure out what it is you love about them and
attempt to find a more suitable activity that gives you the same things without
you having to fight yourself. As you stated, you are submissive, and I can see
that simply by looking at you, but you have to give yourself outlets for that
instinct.”
Arthur fiddled with his hands, squeezing the base of his ring finger as subtly
as possible and wished the tree outside was big enough to climb.
                                      ---

                                 [Creepycover]
[Promotional shot from the independent psychological horror film Glass,
featuring starring actor Kelly Stan as, potentially, both of her
roles—Cinderella and the Stepsister—highlighting director and writer Howard
Isen’s purposeful takedown of understood gender conventions in film.]
Interviewer: So what drew you to film?
Howard Isen: From the point when the first film was shown to people as a
carnival trick, it has occupied a... a strange place in the public mind. On one
hand, everything depicted is real, the train is rushing towards the screen and
people duck, but the people... the people always feel fake because you can’t
tell. You don’t know what they are. Like with the painting, you can look upon
the human body and have it divorced entirely from sex, because you don’t know
what it is. That woman on screen could be a dominant or a switch or non-
orientated and you, as an audience member have no idea. And I find that an
amazing opportunity. In a live theatre you can’t help but... uh. You have to
notice that in this production Faust is a sub. Or that he’s a dom, and what
does that mean this time? You go and read reviews and the entire review is
talking about Hamlet being a sub in this version and what does that mean.
INT: But films usually let the audience know what each character is.
H.I.: Yes. There’s been this long evolution of visual shorthand for how to
depict a submissive versus a dominant and how to make them feel that way to the
audience. The lighting, the costuming, the cinematography all works together to
manipulate you, the audience, into knowing a character is a sub or a dom. In
film school we had entire classes about it. About who owns each scene. Who’s
got the power.
INT: And in Glass you use that against the audience.
H.I.: Yeah. I mean, I try.
INT: Glass is a two woman film, where both Rachel Hans and Kelly Stan take
their turns portraying Cinderella and her Evil Step-Sister respectively. What
made you decide to keep the cast of characters so small?
H.I.: I like how constricted it made everything. They’re both marvellously
talented actors, and the important part of the film is that you get to see
their relationship. Kelly is a wickedly cruel stepsister, she just eats up the
screen, and she’s very tall in real life, much taller than Rachel. Rachel is
sort of a more manipulative, ah, sort. You’re always aware of where she is, and
there’s this sort of... I guess ‘threat of violence’ that’s always just right
out of the shot. She and Rachel play off each other so well, and that was the
main thing. During casting we desperately needed two actors who had that real
sense of chemistry.
INT: The film has gotten a lot of favourable reviews for how well they play off
one another.
H.I: They’re both amazingly talented actors and I cannot stress how much I want
them to do well after this. I couldn’t have done it without them. Sometimes it
got so intense during shoots that everything would go quiet, and we’d all be
staring at them. Like everyone would just be standing there and watching, and
I’d be frantically trying to capture it all. Both Kelly and Rachel are subs,
but when it was either of their turn to play the stepsister, they gathered this
massive, intense aura around themselves. Your brain would normally be saying
“she’s a sub, look, she’s a sub”, but you wouldn’t believe it. It was really
incredible.
INT: You’ve essentially made a Cinderella story that isn’t a Cinderella story.
Not to spoil the end of the movie for any of our readers, but you’ve cut out
all the other figures. There’s no Prince, there’s no fairy Godmother, there’s
not even an evil stepmother.
H.I.: The term Cinderella story has come to mean a rags-to-riches story
characterized by the Cinderella character suffering years of abuse quietly and
with good temper. She a sub who's essentially abused mercilessly until she gets
to go to the ball and finds her soulmate, who protects her for happily ever
after. People gloss over that first part to get to the second, because we care
about the reward. We told young subs that it didn’t matter how much they had to
work and struggle and fight, one day they’d find their dom and everything would
be perfect. But that struggle does matter. It isn’t made better by her soulmate
finding her. A happy ending doesn’t justify the tragic back-story.
INT: Some reviews have called Glass overly dark because of that.
H.I.: Perhaps, but the fact of the matter is that there are still submissive
adolescents who are raised to suffer quietly, to put up with what amounts up to
abuse in order to learn how to be good, or behave in society, and then they’re
told stories like this in order to assure them that it’ll all turn out, because
somewhere your dom is looking for you, but what we have, even now, is a forty-
six percent chance of dying before meeting your soulmate, and, according to
most world census data, over sixty percent of soulbonded couples don’t meet
until one or both partners are over the age of thirty.
INT: Is that why you made this film?
H.I. In part.
INT: And the rest?
H.I.: I wanted that turning point. I wanted the scene that would shake everyone
up. You’ve gotten comfortable with who these women are, you think you’ve got a
tap on it, and then there’s the switch, something that can’t happen in real
life. Suddenly the poor, abused sub is standing tall and pressing the
previously strutting dom against the wall. With these two actors, and the world
we put them in, it shakes your foundations. They’ve been calling it a
psychological horror film, which it is, but not because a powerless sub is
trapped in this dank, dungeon-like featureless room with a mentally unhinged
dom. It’s because you, you the audience member, are cut off from this sense
you’ve always had, and you’re now realizing that the film can manipulate you,
it can change the game, it can lie, and you no longer know who has the power.
INT: I understand that you and Rachel Hans had a working relationship previous
to Glass, which was why you chose her for one of the leading parts. However,
previous to this film Kelly Stan had never acted in any professional
production. What lead you to her?
H.I. Well she came to a casting call, and while she didn’t have anything in the
way of a professional career in acting, her entire modelling career is based
off of gender ambiguity. It isn’t just that she can switch between presenting
as submissive and presenting as dominant, but she can present as something
entirely other and you aren’t sure what you’re looking at. At one moment
there’s something vulnerable about her positioning, and then you look again and
it turns predatory. And that’s naturally unsettling, looking at a person and
not knowing what they want from you. During her first reading with Rachel, the
two of them just clicked. It was claustrophobic and erotic, dangerous, and we
knew right away that we didn’t have any choice. At that time I’d been playing
with the idea of possibly having another stepsister to add an unknown element,
but once I had those two, I knew they could carry the movie by themselves.
                                      ---
January, 2002
The first kiss just sort of happened. Or, well, rather. It was inevitable,
obviously. There had been pecks on cheeks and foreheads, holding hands when
they were alone, but they hadn’t been brave enough to try anything more than
that.
They’d just flopped on Arthur’s couch (his Aunt and Uncle were gone, and his
entertainment system was far better than Merlin’s tiny little telly) curled up,
Merlin under an afghan. Arthur was generally too warm, and Merlin was generally
too cold, so Arthur kept the window open and Merlin stole all the blankets and
became one with his burrito heritage. They had a plate of nachos on Arthur’s
lap, organic blue corn chips, compromised by roughly enough cheese to kill
eight moose, shredded beef, jalapeños, salsa, homemade guacamole, sour cream
and tomatoes. They were picking them off, slowly, the chips long since soggy,
and neither of them caring.
They’d been being normal for six months. Or as normal as possible. They’d been
scared about touching too much. Or not touching enough. Or. Touching just...
wrong somehow, giving it all away. Merlin had made an anthropological study of
how frequently people at Arthur’s school made contact with one another, and
they’d discovered the music teacher was dating one of his cellists and that was
problematic information to have.
Arthur’s Aunt and Uncle took everything he did as wrong, and while his Aunt
liked Merlin, she also frequently stated that Arthur should branch out and make
some contacts. Merlin’s mum just let them be themselves, provided nothing
valuable was broken in the process and they cleaned up afterwards, and didn’t
care one lick if she came down and found Merlin sinking into Arthur’s side like
a “heat seeking koala missile” as Lance had once said.
(“Is it seeking koala heat, or is the missile a koala?” “You’re a weaponized
koala.” “I’m really okay with this.”)
Merlin had reached for a nacho and turned to say something snarky about the
film they were watching (Arthur’s choice, which meant that it had depth and
narrative and characterization, and thus Merlin was bored because there weren’t
any characters to be mindlessly killed by some kind of overly intelligent but
somehow disenfranchised serial killer, and so he had to make fun of everyone
for the rest of the movie.)
Arthur turned to tell him to shut up and then they were there. Facing one
another. Then they just… didn’t turn away for a long time, far too long to call
it a stare. And since Arthur didn’t make a face and turn it into a contest, and
Merlin didn’t do anything at all other than stare it just… went. And went.
Arthur thought one of them should say something. One of them always managed to
say something. Except when they were stretched out in some grassy field and
staring up at the stars, Arthur handing over a blanket when it started getting
chilly. It wasn’t that they went to the field to stare at stars, it was just
something that happened. Much like how the staring was just happening now.
Arthur’s head was tipped slightly to his left, eyes dragging over Merlin’s
face. Merlin swallowed, his head tilted to the left and it looked like all he
could do was swallow again and stare. They hadn’t exactly discussed this, but
at night Arthur would go home and lie in his bed and he’d feel Merlin and
Merlin would feel him and they’d both. Um. But. That. That wasn’t. Together.
That could be. Um. Arthur watched as Merlin licked his lips.
Then Arthur moved, didn’t give the telly time to blare loudly and break them
apart, for someone to knock on the door, or for the phone to ring. Arthur just
attacked, pressed Merlin into the couch and kissed him, settled between his
legs and cupped his face, needing the round bite of Merlin's cheekbones under
his palms, to press his fingers into until Merlin’s ears were pressed to his
skull.
“Your ears are ridiculous,” Arthur whispered, as he had before, being the only
person with the right to. He’d ground plenty a face into the dirt for having
said a single bad word about Merlin. Merlin was his to insult, and love, and
kiss, apparently. Arthur didn’t know what they were doing. The slide of tongue
felt weird and tasted like jalapeños, and maybe there was too much spit, but it
still felt thrilling and, Arthur decided, they could get better. They had time.
They could be the best kissers ever.
“Arthur,” Merlin began, lips shiny with spit and Arthur wanted to kiss him
again.
Merlin looked at Arthur’s mouth and then did it for him, curling his arms over
Arthur’s neck and slowly sucking on Arthur’s lip, like it was something he
heard of, a hypothesis to test. A new project that wasn’t going to be abandoned
halfway through, except Arthur pulled away. Frightened, suddenly, that he was
making it real. Of course it was real, but It. He was fifteen. He wasn’t the
smartest.
“We can make it work Arthur, I promise, come on. We’ll think of something. Come
on. Please.” He smoothed his hands up Arthur’s sides.
Arthur cupped Merlin’s face, and he was witness to what made dominants do what
they did, for a moment. Merlin was looking at him with a world of just let me
make you happy. I will do anything to make you happy, when Arthur had always
expected to see… see control and someone that had clear expectations of what
Arthur could do for them. He had thought about seeing assessment, or, as time
went on, fondness, but not… not this. Arthur felt his lungs go tight in his
chest, the press of expectations and he suddenly didn’t know where to put his
hands or where to look, so he pressed Merlin down into the couch, holding him
down because that. That made more sense.
Merlin breathed under him, and Arthur kissed his neck. “Shh, we’ll figure out
something. Just like you said. We’ll be perfect.”
Arthur kissed him and Merlin kissed back, pressed under Arthur and relaxed
under his weight and Merlin grinned up at him and Arthur was helpless to do
anything but grin back.
                                      ---

                             Beauty and The Beast
There was once a merchant with three beautiful daughters, and when they were
still young, he doted on them extensively, bringing back lovely, expensive
gifts from the lands he visited and making them the toast of their entire
seaside village. And so it was that as his daughters grew up, the eldest two
were submissives who combed their hair and talked of their soulmates, and asked
their father to tell them of all his travels, and perhaps take them, so they
might meet their future fiancés.
The youngest was the prettiest of the three, her skin soft and free of blemish,
and her hair long and thick without snarl or tangle. Body strong with muscle
from climbing and playing, running through the streets and exploring all the
tiny nooks and crannies of their village. She came of age as a dominant, and
the village was not surprised, but she was by far the most handsome, and the
submissives in the town spent much time sighing to themselves over her.
Time passed and she did not have a soulbond, the place within herself remained
vacant and empty, and soon it was that none of her father’s gifts, none of his
presents or stories could cheer her. She took over running the house, quiet and
empty as a broken church bell, and the village wondered at her, and so it was
that it was eventually decided that she had no soul, and was a blemish upon her
father’s house.
It was that same year that almost all of her father’s ships sank into the ocean
in a terrible storm. He returned to land in his one battered little ship, with
just enough cargo to purchase a horse on which to ride home. As he rode he
thought of the great deal of red in his ledger, and how he had managed none of
the gifts his daughters asked for, which he could have used to gentle the news
of their tragedy.
His eldest had asked for a mirror. His middle has asked for hair combs. His
youngest… ah his youngest, sad and still handsome, had smiled, taken his hand
and said that she simply wanted some trinket, some tiny, fragile, beautiful
thing to remind her that he, at least, loved her still. He had none of these,
having sold the mirror and the hair combs along with his cargo, and having not
found any trinket that would have, perhaps, brought a smile to his daughter’s
face.
He rode through the unfamiliar woods, the trails switching back and forth as if
they meant to lose him in their grips forever. Night fell with no place to set
up camp, no inn to rest his weary head. Wolves howled, and in their song he
found a deep and great fear for his life. Only when he thought he would be torn
to bits by their slavering jaws did he find the castle.
With great relief he drew his horse inside the gate. He howled on the steps for
sanctuary, and as if in response to his plea, the too-heavy door swung open
without a sound. He turned his horse to pasture in the garden and entered the
citadel. The hall stood: huge, opulent and empty of a single sound or soul.
He walked, wincing at the heavy beat of his own footsteps, and happened upon a
lavish banquet hall, long enough to seat a hundred men at least, and with only
a simple meal set before him. When he called out, there was no response. So he
said his thank yous and his apologies, sat and ate. When he rose again he
followed the hallway and climbed the wide, spiralling staircase up until a door
opened before him. Inside he found a wardrobe with fresh, clean clothing. He
called again and, once again, was greeted only by silence. So he said his thank
yous and his apologies, and changed.
When he turned, as if by magic, he found a freshly turned down bed that smelled
of sweet flowers and was piled thick with blankets. He called out once more,
with no reply, and—tired beyond all reckoning—removed his new boots to climb
onto the warm, soft mattress and he fell promptly asleep.
Upon waking he made the bed as best he was able, put on his boots and found
another simple repast waiting for him. He ate with gratitude and did not wander
the castle further, stating aloud that he had nothing to give, but if he had,
he would do so with joy and thanks for this great kindness. The castle said
nothing and the merchant, bolstered somewhat (although still fearing how his
daughters would respond) went on his way. His two eldest preened over being so
pretty and at having such nice things, and now he had nothing to give them.
They would despair to hear of their family’s terrible fortune and his heart
would break trying to rebuild it for them, but his youngest…
His poor, tragic youngest, with no hope, with no love at all. He had just
wanted some little bit of something to make her smile like she used to: bold
and fearless, happy as the sun was bright. He thought that if he could just
find her something, then everything would be fine.
And there, like magic, at the end of the path were two beautiful rose bushes,
thicker and fuller than any he’d ever seen, with roses so fat and plump with
petals that looked as though angels used them for their beds. He bent carefully
and inhaled their scent, and he knew that if he gave this rose to his youngest,
she would be overcome with happiness, if, only for a moment.
Without thinking, he snipped the rose from the bush.
Only to have his very soul jostled by the aggrieved roar that followed his
transgression.
“Who are you, that you think may steal my belongings?” A terrible voice
thundered. “I have given you shelter, I have fed you, I have clothed you, and
this is the thanks I am given?!”
“I am sorry!” The merchant cried, falling to his knees. “I did not mean to
cause offence, I was only thinking of my daughters. I am a merchant and almost
all I have in the world has been lost, and I do not know how to tell them of
our sorrow. I had only hoped to give them a single moment of joy before they
must live in poverty.”
“You say daughters, but you plucked one flower.” The voice seemed to echo up
from the very ground, poured like rain did from the sky, like judgement. It was
a terrible, seething, wretched wreck of a voice, hoarse and unnatural, as if
stones had learned to talk. “Which daughter did you steal my rose for?”
“My youngest. She is my most beautiful child, and when she was young she could
have ruled the world with her smile. But she is of age now, and has no soulbond
to make her smile. The people in the village say she has no soul, but she is
kind, and she is good and I only wished for her happiness. My eldest two have
good marriage prospects and will survive, but no one will have her, for all her
beauty.”
The voice was silent for many moments and then pelted from the highest tower
and sank down into his bones. “You will go home, you will hug your daughters,
and you will return here to me as my prisoner. In exchange I will make sure
your family is cared for. If you do not return with my rose in a fortnight,
wolves will come and rip your daughters apart, I will tear them limb from limb
and roast their hearts upon my fire.”
“I will do as you say,” The merchant promised, and now the rose hung from his
hand like a chain, for all that it was still lovely. He climbed onto horse and
rode home.
When he arrived his eldest two daughters asked for their presents, and he bowed
his head and said he had nothing to give them. They sulked and pouted and went
to their rooms. His youngest held his wrist, asking what troubled him so. He
gave her the rose, and, for a moment, she smiled. She inhaled the scent and
brushed her thumb along the damp, plump petals that had not wilted at all
during his frantic ride home.
She thanked him, and he brushed her hair from her eyes so he could kiss her
forehead as he had done when she was younger. She gripped his wrist and asked
again why he was so distraught.
He told her the entire sorry tale, of their financial ruin, the terrifying
voice and the mysterious castle. He wept into her shoulder as she soothed him.
Her sisters ran down upon hearing the news and wept and mourned for themselves
and what would become of their beautiful house and their beautiful things.
His youngest and best child, being clever, asked him to say all he could as to
where the castle was. When he and her sisters fell into slumber, she ventured
out into the woods on her horse. She knew she would sacrifice herself instead
of her father or sisters, because she had no soul. The other people in the
village had whispered that she would, one day, bring doom to her father. Now
that she had, it was her duty to atone.
                                      ---
March, 1999
Uncle Tristan was in his bedroom. Arthur paused at the doorway with his book
bag and then slowly lowered it to the floor, because neither his Aunt nor his
Uncle were comfortable with him holding things.
“It’s time for us to have a talk.” His Uncle stated, awkwardly. Arthur
continued to stare at him because… they… didn’t talk. Aunt Rebecca was the one
who talked to Arthur. They probably discussed him behind his back, sure, but he
and his Uncle didn’t… talk.
“If you are going to be a sub, then it falls to me to... guide you.” His Uncle
cleared his throat. “It is what your mother would have wanted.” He added.
Low blow.
When Arthur was younger he’d used to ask about his mum. She was in photo
albums, the pictures had never told him anything of us. His Uncle never shared
anything, never had quips or “your mother used to...” or... or anything. He’d
told Arthur to leave him be, or to ask when he was older. So Arthur had learned
to stop asking. He’d learned to keep his questions to himself.
He knew his mum had been a dom, that there had been a switch that had acted as
surrogate mother and his father had tried to kill him, once. He knew that the
switch had been mama and mum had been mum. He... he could almost remember them
sometimes, if he smelled the right thing and stopped long enough to remember.
He remembered them grabbing him by the wrists to swing him from giant step to
giant step. He... he thinks he remembers other things, but Merlin had made up
plenty of stories about his parents when they were kids, with the kind of
details that Merlin thought up, so he didn’t... know.
He knew he took after his mother in colouring. He knew she was dead and that
her gravestone had a Bible passage on it. He didn’t know if they’d been
religious. where they had been driving. Or what his mum smelled like. Or who
his dad was at all, really other than the psychological case study he was
today. So he put the pieces he’d had together and tried to make something out
of them.
Let Merlin make up stories.
“It is important for you to learn manners and decorum,” his Uncle continued.
“As well as safety and health information.” He cleared his throat and gestured
to books he’d left on Arthur’s desk. “That is the reading I would like for you
to do. We can discuss each book as you’ve finished. These are the books my
mother handed to me when I first identified and it is my hope you’ll find them
as comforting as I eventually did.”
He stood and, after a pause, he clapped Arthur on the shoulder. “It is your
responsibility now to begin to leave aside childish pursuits and conduct
yourself in a more seemly manner.”
“What?”
“You’re growing up.” His Uncle cleared his throat again, like talking to Arthur
made his throat swell up. “People. Society, that is…well, people are going to
start to… expect… certain things from you. When you’re pre-gender, most adults
allow children to explore themselves. But you’ve identified now, that is a sign
of adulthood. As such you will have more freedoms, but also more expectations.”
“What freedoms?” Arthur sat in his desk chair and looked at the pile of old-
looking tomes. A dog-eared and yellowed Lady Protocol’s Guide To Proper Social
Interaction was on top, followed by the much thicker Learning To Give by F.G.
Stipleton, the cover a stock photograph of a teenager, clearly submissive by
the dress, staring down at her feet as someone stood over her.
“That is something that your Aunt and I will discuss.” His Uncle qualified and
then looked over Arthur. “We can go… shopping, later for better clothing.” He
offered a smile. “It will be nice to look presentable, won’t it?”
“Uh.” Arthur offered and looked down at himself.
His Uncle nodded, smoothing down his shirt. He always dressed like a Stepford
house-partner, like there could be an emergency tea at any moment and he’d need
to look perfect for it. It’s… Arthur still didn’t know what to do with himself
(not that it mattered, as the shopping trip never actually happens).
“You’re growing up.” His Uncle patted his shoulder. “No dating until you’re
sixteen.” He shook his finger. “Read those and then talk to me. Both your Aunt
and I want you to grow up into a functional young sub to make us proud. Your
body and attitude is going to go through a lot of… changes, right now. Most of
them will be confusing or-“
“I got a sex talk at school. Please. Please stop.”
His Uncle sniffed. “They don’t cover protocol at school. It that damned Labour
party that-- Well. I won’t stand for it in this house. If you’re a submissive,
then you’re going to learn how to act like one. But I want you to do the
reading first.” He gestured again. “After that we can cover proper manners.”
“Proper… manners?”
His Uncle straightened himself. “It’ll be a long process, growing up is
confusing, but with guidance you’ll make your soulmate as proud as I strive to
make your Aunt Rebecca.” need to make a few calls. Do your homework.”
Arthur stared at him and then down at the books, unsure of what, exactly, had
just happened. Four paragraphs into the first one, he threw it across the room.
                                      ---

                                 Introduction
It has, by now, become apparent to any newly identified sub, that there are
quite a few new expectations of their behaviour that were not true when they
were children. Hopefully your parents correctly raised you according to an
accurate pre-gender identity, thus giving you a stable foundation to build off
of. But even so, these expectations and manners may seem scary, or frustrating,
at first, it is certainly a lot to learn, almost too quickly, and as you get
older, the expectations will simply become stricter. However, this is simply a
natural fear of change, and once you obtain a better understanding of your
place in society and the household, you will feel a greater sense of security
and wholeness. There have been generations of submissives before you that have
managed to navigate the choppy water of social protocol, and with far less
assistance than this little guide hopes to offer.
In this guide you can expect both a thorough overview of behaviours, manners,
dress and postures that will be expected of you as you mature, as well as some
helpful exercises and liturgies to help you learn and check your progress. This
guide also strives to be a helpful pocket resource, available for you to fall
back on when in a complicated social situation. It is this guide’s hope, of
course it will make itself obsolete, as you mature and develop into a
beautiful, well-mannered submissive, comfortable in all sort of occasions,
genteel and securely, happily demure in all aspects of your lifestyle.
It may seem to you, right now, that your family and teachers, peers and elders
are attempting to control you. And this is, at first, a frightening thing. But
you must allow yourself to trust in their wisdom. submissives are, universally,
happier in more controlled situations, ones where the social protocol is
understood. You must understand that once you understand this social protocol
it gives you the power. You will be able to ask and request with far more tact
and success than you had when you were younger. It is when both dominants and
submissives act in the proper way that society runs best and awkward,
embarrassing situations and misunderstandings are avoided. So it falls to you,
gentle reader, to trust in this framework until you to feel the comfort and
safety society allows your gender. Do not allow yourself the selfish pleasure
of frustration, or imbibe in the toxic languor of laziness. Work hard and
respect your elders by doing as you have been taught, and the rewards will
unfold before you.
The first chapter of this guide will be for physical shows of submission. It is
easier to guide the mind where the body is already walking, giving you
something physical upon which to focus. Do not worry, at this point, about
proper modes of address, or the correct manner in which to broach your opinion.
It is at this point of your development you should focus on how best to look.
We will cover the proper forms of kneeling, how one should approach a bow, how
to stand when at rest, how best to walk in public and the five most important
things to remember about how you present your body to others in polite society.
Following that we will cover proper modes of dress—with respect to changing
fashion—and how a proper young sub goes about the delightful (but dangerous, as
all things are, in excess) process of shopping for zerself. How you look is far
more important at this stage than what your thoughts are, as you are still
young, and a proper, good young sub is spending this vital time in zer life
listening, and learning to read people rather than barging into conversations
like a bull—
Lady Protocol’s Guide For Proper Social Interaction pg i-iii by Helena, Barbara
                                      ---
November, 2011
It was an unyielding truth that, by the end of any given social event, he would
end up with Merlin in his lap as he explained— in the very careful enunciation
of the quite pissed—everything he had learned his final year of undergraduate
degree. Merlin had spent the majority of that year one degree or another of
drunk. Being drunk meant that Merlin could settle down and focus on one thing
at a time until it was done. When sober he didn’t much recall anything that
happened that year with clarity, but the second he was the right level of drunk
he could speak French about as well as the average Parisian six year old and
talk about media globalization and folkloric constructs of so-called deviant
sexuality like it was his job. And, of course, when drunk, Merlin talked about
porn. It was just something that happened.
Sometimes he combined all of the aforementioned topics into one long monologue
that no one really followed, besides Arthur.
“Look, as long as literature has existed there’s been these two-dom buddy-buddy
shows and movies because people always write subs as these whiny, useless
idiots who only ever do anything because they’re told and they scream a lot and
mostly just get kidnapped and act as the romantic interest. Then we had
Sherlock and Watson and they were different because Sherlock was a switch,
because he can’t have a soulmate, because then there’d be a sub who could bring
down the great Sherlock Holmes, but he’s sort of non-dynamic, really, when you
think about it, and he’s certainly asexual, but the point!” Merlin pointed at
the person who wasn’t paying any kind of attention anymore. “The point is that
because this is a thing that happens one place, and it gets really successful,
it’s going to happen in all the places because the media just likes re-doing
good things. So. So.” He leans against Arthur’s chest. “What were we talking
about?”
“They asked if you’d ever seen White Collar and then you went mental for about
fifteen minutes.” Arthur answered, because he knew better than to rope Merlin
into a conversation when he was this drunk. Unless it would end in Merlin doing
something hilarious, in which case Arthur roped him into all the conversations.
Because sometimes there was singing.
“Yes! The point is that we finally have this two-dom buddy-buddy show, except
one of the doms is a switch who is shown as being submissive sometimes, but
never in a bad way, and the other found his soulmate, but they’ve still got
this chemistry and the switch isn’t either this unemotional, Zen brick of a
person, or, like, ridiculously promiscuous and flighty. Like... he wants love.
He doesn’t have a soulmate, and he wants to be loved for himself, and yeah,
he’s a con man so he’s a little flighty, because, you know. Criminals. They
flee. But he’s steady when it comes to any actual relationship he’s in, and
they’ve had him in both roles and it’s the greatest thing. And there’s a non-
dynamic monosexual as a main character who isn’t written like a stereotype and
it’s so beautiful I want to die.”
The person Merlin was talking at sensed a chance to escape and did so. Wise
soul. Merlin looked up at Arthur. “I just want them to make-out a little bit.
There’s historical foundation for a soulmated pair taking on a switch. Your
parents did and I’m not talking about that what. What. Look at that your glass
is empty and no one is dead and it’s your birthday so continue being happy.”
He took Arthur’s cup and stumbled away with a song in his heart and one of his
shoes gone. It had been used to illustrate a point. Arthur would find it later.
He sprawled out over the couch. He wasn’t half as drunk as Merlin, but he felt
lazy and generally content with the world, comfortable and looking forward to
whatever it was that Merlin had planned for this evening.
One of the many nice things about having a soulbond, was that you always sort
of knew when your fiancée was doing something dumb. Arthur opened his eyes and
scanned the room, finding Merlin next to the drink table, clutching their cups
and, oh right. Scarlet O’Hara was still here and Merlin is still a nutter.
Arthur slowly made his way to his feet and crossed the room to save Merlin from
himself.
“-want me to quote the whole thing to prove it? I can quote the entire thing to
prove it. Or. Well. The really bad bits. Which is all of it. So I can quote all
of it because all of it was awful. Arthur. Arthur. Arthur, tell her about that
thing that I have totally done.”
“Was that thing ‘get our drinks’? Because you have not done that.” Arthur took
the cups from Merlin’s hands and began to mix what remained on the table.
Merlin beamed at him as Arthur played bartender.
“Hi, I’m Arthur.” He held out his arm and the…far too fashionable woman
carefully wrapped her fingers around his wrist, and he returned the favour. Her
wrist was slight under his hand, but he could feel the flex of muscles in her
forearm.
“Morgana.” She replied. Her lipstick didn’t smear at all when she took another
pull of cider. It just stayed there, perfectly shiny and perfectly dark. Arthur
sort of hated her a little bit, because he couldn’t even put on lipstick
without it getting everywhere, and no matter what the Internet said, it always
felt like the wrong colour.
Merlin had found him once, holding another failed attempt to make
himself...pretty...and mentioned something about liners and foundation and
whatnot. He’d sat Arthur on the toilet and applied it all himself, cupping his
hand under Arthur’s chin and moving his face from side to side. Arthur had
looked in the mirror and he... he’d scrubbed his towel over his face and all it
had done was move the colour around, so Merlin had sat him down again and
cleaned it off until Arthur knew who he was, again.
Merlin’s eyeliner was smeared all to hell, and Arthur’s lip-gloss had long
since given up the ghost, but Morgana’s make-up was still as carefully and
delicately put-together as if she had always existed so. But it was his
birthday, and he refused to care if some ridiculously glamorous switch decided
to hit on Merlin, Arthur was going to be the one bringing him home, and no one
could stop him.
“No one has read that book.” Morgana continued, without missing a beat. “I
highly suspect the author didn’t read that book.”
“I did!”
“He probably did.” Arthur said, drinking his black-and-tan as he leaned against
the wall. “He viciously abused the inter-library loaning system. What book?”
“Empty by Roger Hammond and it’s sequel Flipped.” Morgana informed him.
“Apparently he set out to write a coming-of-age novel about a switch, but was
not one himself, nor, do I think, he had ever met one or seen one except on
telly.”
“Oh, oh.” Merlin snapped his fingers. “Here we go. I’ve got it.”
Merlin cleared his throat and steadied himself, as if about to make a speech,
pressing a hand to his chest and tossing his head in the perfect parody of the
drama student stereotype.
“And like my dynamic’s namesake, I suddenly felt myself shifting, my shoulders
drooping and my insides curling up. I wanted, suddenly, more than anything to
be on my knees in front of this jade-green eyed, midnight-haired dom, whose
hair was shorn and short, like the bristles of a brush that I could not help
but want to be spanked by, whose very presence sent a thrill through my body
like I had been pierced, or electrified: his muscles rippled under his shirt
and he stood a full head taller than I: I was like a dog who had found zer
better, and I wished to roll over and show my belly, even though moments
before, I had felt like I could have owned the room.”
There was a moment of contemplative silence before: “Where is this author and
how many times can I punch them before I am stopped?”
“It gets worse. it gets worse so many times. She’s in a threesome at one point,
and describes it like she’s a metal shaving trapped between two magnetic poles.
Unable to decide who she should go to. It’s like he thinks switches are
werewolves.” Merlin laughed, pleased and drunken and, of course, basking in
being the centre of attention like a particularly starved houseplant.
“Why can you quote that off the top of your head?” Morgana asked, because she
had never sat down and listened to Merlin reciting all of Stardust like he was
an audio book, when they’d forgotten the mp3 player and neither of them had a
book to read. Merlin would rest his head on Arthur shoulder and begin: “There
was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart’s Desire.” He’d keep
reciting, voice rising and falling, acting out the exciting parts, even once
they got off the bus, jumping over benches and swinging his arms around as he
announced his favourite parts to the world like Gospel.
“I am very good at remembering things that I think should be remembered.”
Merlin shrugged and grinned like nothing in the world could be wrong. “Do you
want all of Gone With The Wind? I have both the movie and the book down solid.
I can do impressions, everything. I will swoon into my own arms.”
Merlin demonstrated. Arthur picked him up off the floor.
Morgana looked at him like she wanted to ask him to prove it, but then thought
better of it and cocked her head, studying him. Arthur wasn’t sure, exactly, if
Merlin’s desire for Arthur’s birthday to be the greatest time ever would trump
his O’Hara-induced-psychotic-break. Maybe Merlin would go home with her, if she
wanted him to. Maybe he’d take her number. Or give her his.
Morgana looked ready to add to the conversation before something behind them
caught her eye. She smiled and Merlin turned, because he always wanted to know
what was going on.
Arthur did not have a “type” the same way that Merlin did. When he did think
about a dom he’d actually let take him home, ze was generally smaller than him,
and smart, and funny and—well, basically Merlin, but with the right
inclination.
Not that he’d ever wished Merlin were different, but. Someone like Merlin.
Someone who would use him like a tool in their arsenal. Someone who’d keep
Merlin too and understand the two of them. Someone who would use Arthur to make
Merlin go a little crazy and not focus on Arthur all too much and…
Basically every dom Merlin had ever designed for them.
The dom that joined them was immediately arresting, certainly. She was muscled,
handsome, and Merlin looked a little overwhelmed by the both of them standing
there. She didn’t look nearly as fussily glamorous as Morgana did, which Arthur
liked. Her eyes fell on Arthur before Merlin, studying a moment and he studied
her right back. Or at least stared, he wasn’t sure he was getting as much out
of it as she was. At minimum he refused to blush and look at the floor.
“We match.” Merlin said, because he was Merlin and he tended to notice that
sort of thing. Morgana looked between the four of them and laughed.
“Morgause, this is Merlin and Arthur,” Morgana paused with a smile and she
gestured back to Morgause, “And this is Morgause, my sister.”
Merlin somehow refrained from comment, but Arthur could almost hear him saying
something about their parents apparently liking them quite a bit if they wanted
more of both of them. “Morgana. Get it? Leatherback turtles have spines lining
their throat so they can keep their main prey, sea jellies, from escaping back
up when they swallow.” Because Merlin usually followed up bad jokes with animal
facts in order to distract predators.
“We match!” Merlin repeated instead, pointing it out. “Is yours a terrifying
force of death? Mine is a terrifying force of death.”
“And you are pissed.” Arthur got him around the shoulders. “I would apologize
for him, but he’s like this when sober.”
“I’m wonderful and you’d be lost without me.” Merlin assured Arthur and then
nuzzled into the hold with a sigh. “I am pretty, oh so pretty, I am so pretty
and witty and bri~ght.”
“You wouldn’t think that earlier we were having an engaging discussion of non-
dynamic-normative sexualities with cited sources and academic quotes.” Morgana
noted, offering Morgause her cider, which Morgause finished off and put to the
side. “Merlin here is a folklorist.”
“Do you want me to quote my entire paper on mythical, legendary and
contemporary switch/trickster characters and figures? Because I can do that.”
Merlin acquiesced when Arthur covered his mouth with a hand and just smiled at
them with his eyes. “It includes the Doctor. It is very exciting.”
It was a meandering sort of conversation that traded control between Merlin and
Morgana, with Arthur occasionally helping Merlin remember something, or
Morgause pointing out something, in a quiet, careful way of a large cat testing
if a branch was sturdy enough for her weight. Merlin kept shooting glances
between the two of them, and Arthur could feel a tenuous sort of interest
blooming in the Merlin section of his mental topography, and, maybe, a little
bit of his own. Maybe. He wasn’t going to admit to anything, but-
“-sometimes writes articles for Loose Ends which is pretty neat, but mostly he
makes stuff. Like he made this.” Merlin lifted his necklace with his thumbs.
“And he made the cuffs, and a lot of our furniture, and he sells it, so that
helps, but mostly he teaches at a learning centre in uptown which pays pretty
good. I make froofy coffee drinks for people who are mean to me.” Merlin
fiddled with his necklace a little more, rubbing his fingers of the beads. “And
sometimes people who are nice to me, and then sometimes people who are a little
too nice to me.”
“You review clubs?” Morgause asked.
Arthur shrugged. “When they have someplace for me to go. We’re not exactly Las
Vegas or New York over here, but we do alright. I also do websites, chatrooms,
movies other newsletters.” Arthur shrugged and rubbed the lip of his cup with a
thumb. “Whatever the editors think will attract readers.”
“Loose Ends has a not insignificant following,” Morgause added, looking at
Arthur thoughtfully.
“It’s a subscription for singles. More people turning 18 every day, more people
dropping off the market too.” Arthur rubbed his lower lip with his teeth. Bit
it a little. Her eyes followed the movement and then tracked back up to his
eyes.
“Have you reviewed Vulgate yet, by chance?” Morgause asked, head tilted, like
she knew the answer.
Which was, of course, that Arthur had never heard of it. “Is it new?”
“Extremely. And extremely exclusive, of course.” She smiled briefly, “They all
are, at first, if you have the connections.”
“Do they?”
“They do,” she agreed. She took out her wallet and slid a business card free.
“This is their number. And my number. Might make for a good article,” she
offered, and he took it, mostly because she handed it to him instead of sliding
it into one of his pockets. “Morgana and I must be going. Have a good night,”
she offered and Morgana looked more than slightly amused and they left.
Merlin watched them and then took the business card from Arthur and looked at
it. “She was so into you.”
“Is it an actual business card?”
“I’ll Google it later,” Merlin noted. “But for now, we’re going to get home and
talk about the fact that she fancied you. She wanted to put you on a shelf
because of how fancy you were and then take you down and get you all dirty.
With fanciness.”
Merlin snuggled closer and then dragged Arthur out of the room to bid their
goodbyes, Arthur getting handshakes and hugs as Merlin hauled him away to the
coatroom, strung through with excitement and Arthur couldn’t help but smile at
him like an idiot. He let Merlin stuff him into his jacket and tug him out the
door, high off the twitch in Merlin’s hips, the skip in his step and the
twirling, rushing madness of a night as one of Merlin’s projects.
                                      ---
March 2002
Merlin appointed himself head of the Research Department for the Organization
of Arthur and Merlin Are So Fucked. Mainly, Merlin was just better at
researching than Arthur was, because Merlin’s mum wasn’t the sort of person who
wanted to read every single book he read in order to make sure it was a good
influence. If not for Merlin, Arthur would have had to beg for the Harry Potter
books, because his Uncle thought them too fanciful and full of rubbish
thinking. His Aunt would ask him what any old paperback was about, and several
she took back to the library because she thought them too trashy.
So. Merlin was head of the Research Department. Not that there was much to read
just at the library about…them.
“If we could get into an academic database or a university library we’d be
better off,” Merlin said, collating their pitiful research into a file folder.
“I mean, there is stuff. I found three books about Group Connectivity Stress
Syndrome and some more about Extreme Duress Defensive Bonding, especially the
whole Annie Carter and Fisher Mulder thing, but most of those aren’t exactly
research.” He held up a paperback pulp fiction thriller and then tossed it on
the bed, leaning back in his chair and spinning while staring at the ceiling.
“There’s a lot about non-dynamics, and switches and defective soulbonds, but
nothing about…like us. Not. I mean. Not in any science books.”
Arthur fell back on the bed and covered his eyes with an arm. “So what, we’re
freaks?”
“The Greeks used to have a thing where an older dom would teach a younger dom
zer skills by sceneing together.” Merlin offered. “And inter-harem
relationships were apparently a thing. And they don’t really understand
soulbonds, at all, and, like, there are still loads of people who never meet
their soulmate, so, you know, they could be same-dynamic and you’d never know.”
“What did the Internet turn up?”
Merlin rubbed the back of his neck and hunched in on himself. “Mostly the kinds
of websites you need to have a credit card for. Um.” Merlin rubbed his face. “I
had to clear my browser history like, four times before I felt better. And then
I uninstalled it and reinstalled it.”
“You’ve never looked at Internet porn?” Arthur frowns.
“They need money!” Merlin defended, “I don’t have money. And don’t tell me you
have because they need money and you don’t even get an allowance, much less
have a credit card.”
“You can find it for free. You just have to be careful because if you click on
the wrong thing you’re fucked.”
Merlin began going red and Arthur checked the lock on the door. “I could. Show
you?” He offered carefully, feeling hot himself and Merlin just turned redder.
“Aren’t those mostly geared towards doms?” Merlin’s eyes flicked toward the
computer screen and then back to Arthur. “I mean. You know. Tiny little subs
getting abused by the beefiest doms they can find?” He cleared his throat and
watched Arthur. Arthur reached forward and moved to connect to the Internet; no
one was on the phone to cause problems
“Most of the stuff for money is. The videos and the pictures are. But I found
something.” He typed in the URL that he’d quietly memorized from off the
library computer.
“What is it?” Merlin asked as Arthur scrolled.
“So you know Phantom of the Opera?”
“The book, the musical, the-“
“All of them from what I can tell. People decided to write stories about it.
Like... what happened next, or what if something had gone differently stories,
or porn. Most of them include porn.”
“So like romance novels, but for free.” Merlin turned to the screen. “And about
Eric and Christine.”
“And less ‘he thrust his manhood into her quivering opening, spreading a hand
across the livid, crimson marks he’d left upon her back’ and more complete,
straight-faced filth.”
“How much straight-up filth?” Merlin let Arthur dominate his computer and put
his feet up on his desk.
“They actually use the word ‘cock’ for a prick. I mean, there’s the occasional
‘member’ and sometimes they work around it, but it’s far less purple prose.”
Merlin was bright red from the top of his head down to the neckline of his
shirt, in huge, splotchy patches. Arthur hooked a finger in his shirt collar to
see if it kept going, and there it was. Like a blushing giraffe. Arthur snorted
and Merlin licked his lips, looking up at him.
“You maybe want to start practicing a little?” Merlin asked, glancing at the
bed. That’s what they called it. Practicing. It felt less telling than…than
whatever else they could call it. They weren’t getting off with one another,
because they were both subs. They were practicing.
“You haven’t even read one yet.”
“Yeah, but…” Merlin gaze felt heavy on Arthur’s face, dripping down past his
lips to his neck, Merlin pulling in a heavy breath and biting his lower lip in
a long, teasing drag. “I mean. We could. After.” Merlin glanced at the bed
again and then reached for Arthur’s hand. Arthur let him take it, and if one of
them had been a dom their hands would join up perfectly, a dom’s left arm, to
the sub’s right arm, loose and easy, swinging between them. But it was the
right hand for both of them, a tiny swollen knot right at the base of the ring
finger, their arms crossed awkwardly in front of them. But it still felt good.
Merlin smiled hopefully, rubbing their fingers together and Arthur pulled him
up, relishing that he was tugging Merlin up by his hand instead of his wrist.
Merlin went and licked his lips again, leading Arthur back to the bed, both of
them navigating Merlin’s messy, project-laden floor. Arthur followed and then
Merlin sat down on the edge of the bed, crab-walking backwards until he was at
the headboard, Arthur crawling in after him.
Merlin hooked their ankles together and fiddled with the hem of Arthur’s shirt
for a moment. “Mum and Lance went out for groceries, but it’ll probably take
them awhile since. You know.” He snuck a few fingers under the fabric and
rested them lightly against Arthur’s skin. “So we could. For a bit, I mean.” He
crooked his fingers slightly and Arthur rested his head on his left arm,
staring at Merlin.
Merlin watched him right back and then smoothed his fingers out until his
entire hand was flush with Arthur’s stomach. “It’s just practicing.” He said
again, scratching his fingers slightly and tilting his face up.
“Right,” Arthur agreed, squeezing Merlin’s hand, trapped under Merlin’s body
and then between the two of them. “How long do we have?”
“Half an hour, maybe?” Merlin swallowed and Arthur nudged their noses together,
loving the way arousal curled in his stomach, not knowing who was feeling what.
Like they could blend together if they wanted to. Merlin slid slightly and his
lips were pressed against Arthur’s, just a little bit. Nothing like on telly,
or anything, where the dom pressed the sub to a wall and the music swelled in
the background. Merlin’s lip was still wet from spit and Merlin retreated
before pressing another kiss to the corner of Arthur’s mouth.
It tingled, a little, sent a trickle of happiness down the back of his neck.
Merlin wiggled in place and Arthur pecked him on the nose, turned his head a
little, shoved Merlin down onto the bed slightly. “Is this good?” He paused,
pushing himself up on his elbow.
“Yeah.” Merlin pushed up and caught his mouth. “We’re going to be the best
kissers in the world.” He wrapped his hand around the back of Arthur’s neck,
squeezing tight. Arthur’s breath caught and he pressed Merlin more fully
against the mattress, until his pupils were blown and he was sucking Arthur’s
lip into his mouth, knowing immediately when something worked and when to try
something else. Sucking on each other’s tongues felt weird, lightly scraping
their teeth against each other’s lips was a good idea, bumping teeth made
Merlin make a face.
“That is the same face you make when someone scratches their nails against
rough fabric.” Arthur noted.
“It makes me feel weird.” Merlin continued to make his face and Arthur poked
him in the cheek until he stopped and grinned up at him.
The door opened downstairs and Arthur almost injured himself getting out of the
bed and Merlin snatched up a book from the covers and opened it up to a random
page, quickly turning it right side up, because that was a rookie mistake.
Arthur sat at the computer and shut off the Internet, opening up one of the
Word documents Merlin had left on the desktop and scrolling down. They needn’t
have hurried, it was a full five minutes before Hunith knocked on the door (and
then actually waited until Merlin said she could come in) and poked her head
in. “I bought crisps, don’t each them all in one sitting. How are you boys
doing?”
Merlin shrugged. “Homework. Can I eat half of them in one sitting, get up and
then eat the rest?”
“No.” Hunith pointed at him. “I bought vegetables. Eat some that aren’t deep-
fried. It’ll be exciting.”
Lance poked in his head too and waved after she left. “I bought a second,
secret package of crisps that you can totally eat in one sitting.” He tossed
them inside and Merlin caught them. “This is not a bribe to get you to like me.
Unless it works. Then it is.” Lance was, thank god, not, exactly, trying to be
Merlin’s father. Nor was he trying to be Merlin’s friend. He offered support,
drove them places, and let Hunith make all the major parenting decisions,
because Hunith had raised Merlin without help for fourteen years and that
wasn’t about to change now. But he was there, and he listened, and he was
genuinely just nice. And, of course, Merlin could get along with a rotting log
if he wanted to, so the house stayed as pleasant as it ever had been.
“I can be bribed.” Merlin opened the crisps.
“He really can.” Arthur spun in the computer chair and didn’t look at anyone.
                                      ---
Group Connectivity Stress Syndrome
“…times of war there are recorded cases of entire troops putting on the
appearance of soulbonding with one another, reporting to be able to feel where
the other members are, and what they are feeling, even if members were already
soulbonded [39], non-dynamic, or even related to one another [40]. This is
popularly referred to as “Soldier Ant Syndrome” by the popular culture. Diaries
and letters from the time period mockingly pointed to GSCS as “The Lieutenant’s
Harem” when it was first recorded in Napoleonic Wars [41] and it became a
staple of printed pornography until the Great War where, as most historical
account will attest, entire battles would cease due to instances of GSCS that
stretched through foxholes and even across enemy lines, without which—many
historians theorise—the Great War would have proven to be even more protracted
than it was. However, it wasn’t until 1971 when Dr. Bernd H. Maier—later of the
Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research [42]—and his groundbreaking
research gave GSCS its current clinical name.
A study done by Dr. Rogers, Lee et al at Columbia University shows that given
enough time in a safe and welcoming environment [43], these “intense and
uncontrollable feelings of unfettered kinship” can diminish [44] and even
disappear [45]. Separation, however, according to the study of Casey, Holmes &
et al, is not a feasible method of therapy given that is causes the
participants “to retreat, mentally, into the comfort of their network rather
than accept and deal with the rigors of everyday life on their own” [46]. While
these group-connections do not cancel out already-present soulbonds, 80% of
non-solider partners reported feeling “blocked out” [47] or “distanced” [48]
from their partner while 20% reported they felt no such interference [49].
There are, as of this writing, no reported cases where the non-soldier soul-
bonded partner was pulled into the group hive mind as well.
Contrary to the belief most popularized in the televised serial War Bonds
(1977) there is not a single “lynchpin” mind that gathers the others to it
[49]. Casey Holmes et al. reports that the bond is shared equally, and
different from the traditional soulbond in that it does not respond to bond
suppression drugs, nor does it come attached with any feelings of a need to
dominate or a need to submit. In most reported cases these bonds are non-
dynamic, even in the case of both submissive and dominants being in the bond.
In all reported cases, the members have a good sense “for the presence and
location of the other members of their unit, often to the point where they
don’t need any sort of communication device to perform complicated
assignments.”[50]
The bond, much like a more conventional soul bond, helps reduce the effects of
depression, post-traumatic stress, and shock, along with improving physical
[51] and emotional [52] well being of the entire unit. It is Unclear why one
platoon would bond over another, as the phenomenon is equal through all
branches of the military, across all sexes and genders, but current research
shows that the length a unit has been together with no outside interference has
some correlation with likelihood to bond.[50]
– Introduction to Psychology 7th Edition. Edited by Dr. Sandra Moreno, Dr.
Joseph Fredrickson, Paul Quincy.
                                      ---
March-May, 1999
Arthur doesn’t want to talk about it.
He doesn’t. It’s over now. It’s been over for years. But he’s not going to talk
about it. He won’t. He won’t talk about it. Doesn’t talk about it to Merlin.
Merlin knows, of course. Arthur knows he knows. But they don’t talk about those
months at all. Not once. Arthur barely gets to see Merlin for any of it.
It’s all about posture. Posture perfected to the marks of a ruler. This is the
first formal kneel: Presenting. This is the second: Attentive. This is the
third: At Rest. This is the fourth: Prostration. This is the fifth: Apologetic.
Sixth: Worship, Seventh: The Martyr. Seventh: Forgiven.
Arthur learns all of them, because his Uncle won’t stand for anything else. His
dom won’t want him, if he doesn’t and Arthur ... Arthur doesn’t argue. He
learns how to kneel properly, when to press his head to the ground, when to
present his hands, how to spread his knees for this one.
“Many young submissives think they can get away without learning manners.” His
Uncle says, correcting the tilt of Arthur’s head. “It’s shameful, your
generation. Even your Aunt learned to be lax, but it isn’t acceptable. It’s
rude. You must honour your soulmate by knowing these things. Anything else is
just wilful ignorance. I won’t have you wandering out there, loose and ignorant
of the proper way to behave.”
This is how you stand at attention. This is how you stand at rest. This is how
you follow in public. This is how you catch your dom’s attention and no one
else’s. All the things he’d seen his Uncle do but had thought himself exempt
from because Aunt Rebecca didn’t seem to care. But she didn’t care and Uncle
Tristan did and Aunt Rebecca had, apparently, decided that since they were both
subs, they were each other’s territory.
He didn’t learn how to dress (“You’re not dating until you’re older and are
better mannered. Then we can worry more about clothing and make-up.”), and if
he spoke at dinner his Uncle snapped out, his voice slapping down Arthur’s and
Arthur would fist his hands and stare down at his plate and…
And feel that static around his head and. And swallowed it down. He wasn’t
pretty, he knew that. He wasn’t smart, either, not really. He got through
school with just-passing-enough marks. He didn’t have Merlin’s creativity. He
was strong, though, he was strong, and he could learn how to behave, at least.
Hopefully they wouldn’t care. Merlin’s mum let Merlin run amok, and Uncle
Tristan had a fair bit to say about that. But if he didn’t do a position right,
then his Uncle would point out exactly how many failings Arthur had. About how
he needed to get practice in, or he’d disappoint his dom. And who knew when
he’d meet them, really. It could be decades, and they would have waited all
that time for a idiotic fuck-up? How would he feel if his dom was spending all
zer time playing video games and didn’t know how to control him.
Arthur didn’t want to talk about it. Doesn’t ever want to talk about it. The
few doms he’s scened with have assumed… assumed he’s been… trained. By someone.
Someone strict and.
But he can do the proper kneels. He knows how. He knows each implement and what
they do. He knows how to formally request a favour, how to stay and wait for
permission to…do…anything.
“Look at him.” His Uncle scoffed as Arthur practiced formal kneel Attentive,
because his Uncle thinks it will help his marks, maybe. Wasting his life
running in fields like an animal certainly hasn’t. What would his mum think,
seeing Arthur grown half wild? He’s looking out at Merlin. “He’s an
embarrassment. You really should choose better companionship, Arthur.”
Arthur tries not to clench his fists. It’s only been a few months. He’ll have
to get used to this for the rest of his life. doms are going to want him to
know how to this. He needs to be good at something.
“And you won’t meet them at your rugby team. It’s uncouth. I told your coach
you’d dropped out.”
“What?”
“Quiet. A good sub listens. He absorbs, he learns. You are learning. You need
better influences. So I took you off the rugby team. A dom wants to know all of
the marks on zer sub belong to zer.” He looks out the window, planning.
But Arthur is still stuck on his Uncle taking him off the team. He. He can’t
just.
“You can’t just do that.”
“A good sub is quiet. He obeys. He listens. Rugby is a terrible thing for you
to be playing. But I talked to some of your teachers and-“
Arthur is on his feet.
“Arthur, don’t start this again. You need to grow up, these shows of temper
are-“
“You can’t just... decide what I do with my life.” Arthur isn’t articulate. He
isn’t. He never has been. When he gets angry he doesn’t have any cutting words
to say. He wants to throw things at them. To punch them. To make them just…stop
and he can’t.
“Yes I can. You are a young sub. You need direction.”
“I need direction, not someone driving for me.” Arthur works his teeth. “I. You
aren’t my dom. You aren’t my father.”
“I am going to be your Protector-”
No.
Oh fuck no.
Arthur is not going to live here until his Uncle finds either a suitable
replacement Protector or Arthur’s goddamn fiancée. He isn’t. He can’t. He’ll
learn the stupid poses and the stupid rules because he can decide if he. If
they help or not. But he isn’t. He isn’t staying here and learning needlepoint.
His Uncle sighs. “We let you have too much freedom and now you’re bucking
against it. It’s for the best, and if I need to enforce-“
Arthur punches through the plaster right next to Uncle Tristan’s head.
                                      ---
cont.
She found the castle and climbed off her horse, sending it back home with a
slap and standing at the gate, holding the rose and announcing herself for who
she was. The gate swung open and a voice more terrible than even nightmares
could mention echoes from all directions. “How is it that your father convinced
you to come instead of him?”
“My father did nothing. I am here to save him and my family. You will honour
your side of the bargain, and I will be your prisoner.”
And as she stood a carriage, pulled by four huge dogs, rolled passed her. As
she glanced inside she gasped, staring at wonderful riches and exotic goods
that would surely take care of her family for many years. She placed the rose
in the cart and the dogs hauled their load out of the gate, which swung closed
behind them. She stood and watched until they were out of sight and turned to
the castle. “If I am to be kept here, I demand to see my jailer.”
“No. Not yet.” The voice scraped and grated, “Enter your new home and make what
you will of it. I will come to you when you are more comfortable.”
“I demand to see you now. I would know my jailer. I would know the saviour of
my family. I will not run. I am not afraid.”
“I am cursed. I will not have you see me while the sun is high. Go, you may
have any of the rooms you can enter, and may do anything with them that you
wish. I will come see you when the sun has sunk.”
“I am to live with you the rest of my days,” she argued. “We are to get to know
each other well. If you are cursed, I will know about it now.”
“No.” The voice said and did not argue, and she entered the castle and explored
all of the rooms that opened for her, and there were many wonders in the
castle, far more luxuries than she had ever heard of or dreamt of before. She
bathed and changed, picked a bedroom she liked best which looked out onto the
rose garden, and for a moment she felt as light as child, exploring places she
had never been or seen before, with no one’s eyes upon her, relishing in the
beauty of the place and how it seemed to need her touch to come alive.
So it was that she passed her first day, but as night fell she wrapped herself
up in a robe and stared at the fire, lonely as lonely could be, but used to the
feeling, having grown up empty as an unused jar, her sisters talking to each
other about their futures and frivolous things, and her father away much of the
time.
“What troubles you?” The voice asked and she did not jump in fear, refusing to
live the rest of her life terrified of her jailer.
“I am empty and broken. There is no one in the world for me at all, and I do
not think I have a soul. So if you are cursed, then I am as well.”
“Your father spoke of this.” And the voice had a source, she turned to look and
there, crouching the flickering shadows was a beast. Not any proper beast, not
something natural, but a deformed chimera of demonic proportions, huge and
hulking, moving as if doing so pained zer. She quelled her fear and gestured to
the carpet next to her, as she did not believe such a huge and malformed beast
could ever manage anything so simple as sitting in a chair.
“You are not frightened?” The beast asked, its voice a limping and ruined
thing.
“I am not frightened.” She said and the Beast sat next to her, and they spoke
the rest of the evening, though not about how the Beast came to be in such a
way, nor about her lack of soul, and it was, in the end, one of the most
pleasant evenings either of them had shared.
When morning came, after they had both retired, the beast continued to hide
zerself. For all that ze had shown last night, ze had to still be drenched in
shadow. She did not press, instead eating the food that was provided and
spending her days fixing up the castle, which had fallen into a state of
mournful disrepair in spirit, if not physical disorder. At night the Beast
would come to her in the study, the two of them speaking of whatever they
wished, and, eventually sitting in companionable silence, or perhaps her
reading of his large library and giving them something greater to discuss.
“Do you have a family?” She asked on one such night and the beast did not
answer for a long moment—as was his custom—before finally saying no. In turn ze
asked if she missed hers.
“Yes.” She looked down at her hands. “They are all I have in the world. I have
no fiancée, I have no hope of a future, and so they are whom I dedicated my
life to. I worry about them so very much.”
The Beast did not reply that night, and they spoke of nothing else until they
retired.
Though she had made herself a happy routine, the conversation reminded her of
her family and how she hadn’t heard or seen them in months, when she had spent
every day with, at least, her sisters. She knew the riches would provide for
them, but they hadn’t ever done their own accounts, nor cared for the
household. Maybe her sisters had been married and she would never see their
children. She would never live off their happiness and she mourned for this,
sitting out in the garden of roses and wanting to see them so badly all of her
emptiness rang with it.
The beast watched this and stared helpless from zer tower where ze stared down
and saw all that happened in zer castle. She was sad and ze ached to fix it,
but ze was a beast and did not know how to approach her or fix it. Ze simply
wished to keep her nearby because she filled some of the clanging emptiness of
zer exile. Ze was a beast because ze had done beastly things, and ze’d been
punished for it, but ze wished for hands to offer comfort and a soul which to
give her so she would not mourn the lack of her own.
That night she was not in the study, nor the next or the next, and when she
returned ze bent zer head and asked if there was not anything ze could do to
lift her spirits.
“If I could just see my family once more, if I could see their happiness, I
know I could find contentment.”
The Beast, not wishing to lose zer only friend, bowed zer head and told her
that ze wished to show her something. When they reached zer tower ze showed her
zer mirror. “It will look upon anything you wish most dearly to see.”
She sat and placed her hands to the frame and there was her father, curled up
and ill in his bed, looking next to death and her sisters crying at his
bedside. She gasped in horror and fell to put her arms around the beast’s neck.
“Oh, my father is dying and I cannot venture to see him.” She cried and then
gripped the beast by the ears, staring into zer eyes. “I must go see my father.
I will not let him die without me.”
“But you will never return.” The beast mourned and she pulled and stood firm,
repeating herself and the beast growled to try and cow her. But she was herself
and would not back down, and repeated herself once more. The beast, at this,
bent zer head. “If you will promise to come back in a fortnight.”
“I will.” She promised and the beast stood aside and did nothing to stop her
from leaving, staring into zer mirror as she prepared and left for her journey,
watching her travel and reach her father’s house, zer heart chipping away for
every moment that she was away and ze could not feel her presence or know her
mind.
November, 2011
They were beautiful boys.
She didn’t know their names. They were paying in cash and the tiny, brunette
one with big blue eyes organized it all. Said to call him “Merlin” and to call
his friend “Arthur,” had asked if she’d ever scened with two subs before.
Asked. Asked with those big, sad, blue eyes for her to not ask any questions
about it.
She doesn’t tend to. She doesn’t need to, not when two subs come in, looking at
each other like that. When “Arthur”, in all his buff, blonde, blue-eyed (and
oh, if she didn’t already have a soft spot for good, blue-eyed boys, she would
have by the end of that), arms curled around “Merlin” like he could protect him
from everything, looking at her like he doesn’t know…
She hadn’t needed to ask questions about that. That was clear as anything. She
wondered how people didn’t just know, just sense it by looking at them. But
then, that’s what she was here for, she was here to know things that, to her,
were obvious and a cipher to everyone else.
“Merlin-“ The blonde said: swallowing, looking at her. “What-“
“Shh, it’s your birthday present.” ‘Merlin’ promised, leading ‘Arthur’ over to
a easy chair. “It’ll be okay. She’s a professional. She won’t. Shhh.” ‘Merlin’
sat in ‘Arthur’s’ lap, stroked through his hair and soothed him. “
We can have this. I promise. Trust me?” ‘Merlin’ cupped his hands around
his…friend, she’d say, his friend’s neck and hushed him again before he could
open his mouth to say anything. “Both of us.” He promised, quietly, and she
continued to wait, pretended not to listen to them and waited, sitting in her
chair and drinking her ice water, waiting.
‘Merlin’ had given them all their likes, don’t likes, and don’t evers, had
given her most of the scene, even told her that his friend might need a little
settling, that he was hard up for it, that it’d take him a while to go down,
but once he did he’d go down like he was free-falling. “If you can, I mean.”
He’d said, apologetically. “Not that I doubt your skill. He’s just. He’s got a
lot of.”
“I understand.” She’d said.
“I mean it,” ‘Merlin’ had said when they were talking it over, “He is like sub
on expert mode. He doesn’t. It’ll help that I’m there, but he doesn’t.” He
rubbed his mouth and looked away, frightened and unsettled and she couldn’t
help but want to protect him from whatever monster was in his closet. “He
doesn’t like letting go. But he needs to, and it hurts because he fights it and
then hates that he’s fighting it, so fights harder and he’s. He’s.”
She’d taken note of all the things he hadn’t been saying. She hadn’t gone for
full traditional dom gear, choosing instead to be a little more relaxed, a
little less threatening and overwhelming. She was just here to facilitate them,
and of that she was very aware. She won’t even be a centrepiece, just…a tool.
And she was fine with that, that was her job. She was here to get the sub off,
to let them have what it was that they really, actually, properly wanted and
didn’t want to have to negotiate for or explain. If these two boys wanted her
to put them down together, she would. Happily.
The fantasy itself was…simple, in a way. It was detailed, with more back story
and universe details than she was used to outside of the sort of clients who
wanted a very specific fantasy.
‘Merlin’s’ background information had the taste of a well-loved scenario, with
the kind of world-building and character creation one would expect out of a
pet-project mystery novel some house partner had been stewing over for the last
few decades, every aspect planned and plotted and shaped. But the idea behind
it was simple. They wanted to be cosseted, loved, controlled and cared for. And
that she knew how to do. The rest was decoration that she was happy enough to
apply until they were comfortable enough with the situation to let go a little.
‘Merlin’ gave her a back-story, character information, details upon details and
she had read them. She wasn’t an actor, but it helped understand them. She was
not an actor but she knew her job. This was a fantasy they’ve worn in; this was
their old, comfortable robe. She doubted she really even needed to be there,
but she would be. She would do the best that she could, because, of, well. One.
Professional pride, she did her job and she did it well. Another was that they
were…beautiful, beautiful boys and they looked. The way ‘Merlin’ held
‘Arthur’s’ face, the way ‘Arthur’ looked back was. Was not her business, and
she wasn’t going to ask. She was expensive and they were not rich. Sometimes
subs shared the fee.
Even if the way ‘Arthur’ looked at ‘Merlin’ was like a tortured man looking at
his only possible saviour.
She’d read a lot of trashy, trashy books. She regretted nothing.
‘Arthur’ swallowed and looked at her and then away. “What. What are we doing
here?”
“Shhh. Sophia. She’s going to be our Sophia for the night. Doesn’t she just
look it?” ‘Merlin’ said rubbing his thumbs around the shell of ‘Arthur’s ears.
“You remember Sophia. You don’t have to think, okay. So shut off your brain.”
They bared themselves for each other. They were beautiful, beautiful boys.
Matched in that perfect level of opposites attract, that telly shows and trashy
novels loved some much. One blonde haired Adonis for every dark haired willowy
beauty.
She’d read a book once. A trashy terrible book, of course, of a dom and her two
vicious, terrifying subs: one as bright as a gold coin, the second as smoothly
shadowed as a pond at midnight. They had been her boys, her hounds, trained and
vicious and broken in that way that was always so fascinatingly arousing in
literature and so horrifically tragic in life. If life were different, she
wouldn’t mind that.
‘Arthur’ looks body-shy, crossing his arms over his chest, but ‘Merlin’ stroked
his friend’s collarbone, unashamed and kissing his throat. “Come on now, it’ll
be okay.” ‘Merlin’ stood, nude but not naked. He dug into his handbag and
retrieved two matching collars, both muscle car red and ‘Arthur’s’ breath
hitched, his Adam’s apple bobbing forcefully as ‘Merlin’ buckled it around his
neck. As he kissed the buckle.
“Put mine on?” He asked and his friend’s hands shook as he closed it around
‘Merlin’s’ slim throat, eyes fixated on those points of contact and it felt
like she was there for something more than what she signed up for. They stood
there a moment, breathing and then ‘Merlin’ looked at her, considering. “If you
could go out and come back in for us to start the scene, that might delineate
the scene better?”
She nodded and left. Some people liked a clear divide between collar on and
collar off, and she could provide that. And a few moments to themselves.
She did like beautiful things.
                                      ~~~
Sophia did a stretch before opening the door to her house. It’d been one of
those indefinably long days. One that stretched and stretched and stretched
like it was a goddamn yogi—so unlike those beautiful once-in-a-while, solid-
through-and-through days off that slipped by like they’d been greased, looking
at the clock right after she woke up only to realize ten hours had passed in a
breath.
And that, at least, was due in part to the only truly, brilliant, shining, good
part of her day. The unrepentantly enjoyable bit was waiting inside the door
and she just needed a moment to shed the day and go in with none of that bad
energy.
The room was quiet as she walked in, but once her heels clicked on the tiles of
the entry way and she’d puts her keys in the bowl, she could hear the
scampering of feet and then there they were, Merlin sliding into the room, and
stopping and grinning like it was the greatest thing ever, a magnificent magic
trick, because she’d managed to come home again. Arthur followed more slowly,
carefully, peering around, unsure and hesitant as he had been the day she’d
folded him into her home like egg whites into waffle batter.
“You’re back!” Merlin exclaimed, jumping over the couch and sliding to his
knees, pressing his face to her stomach. “I thought you were going to be gone
forever.”
Arthur moved around the couch, and got to his knees more gingerly, kissing her
knuckles formally, before looking down at his knees and Merlin looked up at
her, packed full of excitement.
“What did you do with your day?” she asked, cupping Merlin’s face and rubbing
along one cheekbone, grabbing Arthur by the hair until he was leaning more
fully against her legs. He needed to be coaxed into affection, and he was tense
for a long moment, before forcibly relaxing himself against her hip and she
lets him keep the artifice, as if it were a real thing.
“We went back to bed and then we had breakfast and then we cleaned and then we
played video games and then.” Merlin bounced and nuzzled her stomach. “We
kissed a lot. And then it was lunch-“
Arthur’s ears turned red and Sophia pulled his head back by his hair and looked
down at him. “Kissing, huh?”
Arthur looked everywhere but her eyes, settling on the floor.
Merlin grinned, unabashed and licked his lips and knelt up for a kiss, which
she pressed onto his forehead, and then Arthur was carefully helping her get
her shoes off, moving so she can put a hand on his shoulder and step out of the
heels.
“Just kissing?”
Merlin turned red and then played with his fingers. “Ye~es.”
She grabbed him by the hair and lifted his head up to look him in the eye.
“Merlin.”
“We may have done a little more.” Merlin hedged, looking up at her and then
down. “But only a little bit, I promise. You were gone such a long time.”
Merlin cupped a hand over her foot and pressed his forehead to her hipbones and
nuzzled.
“Arthur?” She turned and Arthur was flushed, poking his fingers in the carpet
then looked up at her and took Merlin’s arm, holding up his wrist where Arthur
had left a rather impressive love bite. Merlin looked pleased as punch by it
and smiled up at her, showing it off like a child with a drawing he’d done in
class. She pressed her thumb into it and Merlin’s eyes went heavy and lidded,
perfectly content.
“Arthur, you know you aren’t allowed to leave marks.” She scolded and Merlin’s
face fell, trying to pull away, but she kept her grip firm. “I got you so
Merlin would have someone to play with, but I made rules for you to follow.”
Arthur scuffed at the floor and hung his head. “But he wanted it.”
“Of course he did. Merlin is greedy.” She stroked through Merlin’s hair.
“That’s why I made rules. Because he wants everything and you can’t give it to
him, or you might hurt him.”
Arthur tucked in on himself more and made a low whining noise. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not a matter of sorry, Arthur. It’s a matter of rules. You follow them
and when I come home, we have an enjoyable evening, we have fun. But if you
don’t follow them, then I have to remind you of those rules. And I was very
much looking forward to a nice, relaxing evening, Arthur.”
Arthur pressed his head to the floor and dug his fingers into the carpet. “I’m
sorry, I’m sorry.”
“And Merlin. You shouldn’t have let this happen.”
Merlin looked wide-eyed and panic-y and then crawled over to Arthur and flopped
over him like that would do something. “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. I
begged and begged because I wanted it and I missed you and we were kissing and
I’m sorry.”
She sighed, they were good boys, mostly. Clean and well-kept and beautiful, but
they couldn’t keep it in their heads for more than a week about the limitations
she’d put down about how much they could touch while she was gone. Kissing was
fine, of course. She liked coming home to two flushed, dark eyed boys with
plump wet lips and a near desperation for somewhere to put their energy. They
could cuddle and snuggle to their heart’s content. They could touch above the
waist and below the knees as much as they desired. But no marks, and no
orgasms, no matter how they tried to work around the particulars.
“No matter how long I’m gone, you have to follow the rules, boys. I have to be
able to trust you to be good when I’m gone.” She cupped their faces. “You two
want to be good for me, don’t you?”
Arthur nodded sedately, carefully, backing up into himself, shoulders hunched
over, head dropping. Merlin nodded frantically, stepping forward. “Sorry.
Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.” Merlin shoved his face against her
foot. Merlin had been with her longer, had come straight from the academy,
bright as a new coin, shiny with happiness and eager to please. She’d gotten
Arthur because she’d been promoted and had to leave Merlin alone for longer in
the day. He could take care of himself, of course, but he needed companionship.
Arthur… was refurbished. Or rescued, maybe. Second hand, and he was…shy.
Damaged? Reserved, in any case, beautiful. Strikingly beautiful, strong and
deeply lovely and he’d been quiet, stared up at her in a way that couldn’t be
ignored or forgotten. He’d seemed steady, calm, someone to balance out Merlin’s
rambunctiousness, someone to reel him back when he got too excited and, say,
tried to catch the pigeons off the balcony so he’d have friends. Except, of
course, she’d introduced them, Arthur sitting down on the floor and warily
looking around, careful and quiet. But Merlin had taken only a moment to circle
the room, before tackling Arthur and nuzzling him until Arthur had responded in
kind. He’d latched onto Merlin with a protective streak, guarding him when they
went to the park from everyone else, but, equally, going along more often than
not with Merlin’s schemes, provided it didn’t get him hurt.
“Arthur, you know I have the rules for a reason, don’t you?”
He nodded. “Don’t get angry at Merlin. I should have said no. I’m sorry. I’m
sorry.” Arthur looked at Merlin and then back at the floor. “But he was so
happy,” Arthur added and looked up at her and then down again, inhaling deeply.
“I accept whatever punishment you determine for me.” He changed his bow into
something more formal, a full prostration. Merlin stared up at her, eyes wide
and bright and desperate.
“I have to, baby.” She cupped the side of his face and stroked his cheekbone.
“Then we can get over this and have a good night. You want to be forgiven,
don’t you?”
Merlin nodded and reached up to paw at her hip slightly. “But. But Arthur just
did it because I wanted him to. You should teach me to know better. I want to
kn0own better.”
She sat down and kissed his forehead. “Remember the time you two decided to eat
all the cookies and Arthur got sick? You didn’t do that again, did you?” Merlin
shook his head. “You didn’t want to see him get hurt, so you knew not to break
that rule. Now you know. Now we just need to do that again. Shhh.” She stroked
his hair. “Come on.”
Merlin’s lip quivered and he looked at his hands. “I don’t want him to get
hurt. I don’t. I don’t want it. I want us to go to bed and have fun. Can we.”
She put a finger over his mouth and he quieted.
It was always Arthur who took physical punishment. She had tried to cane Merlin
and Arthur had nearly lost his mind over it, struggling so hard at his bonds
(and she had needed to tie him back) that he’d made himself bleed, and once he
was free, he’d covered Merlin with himself and refused to be moved. Arthur took
punishment quietly, and while Merlin was overtly distressed by Arthur’s pain,
he didn’t injure himself to stop it, instead comforting him once it was over,
bringing them closer together and stopping Merlin from leading Arthur into that
particular set of bad habits again.
And, of course, there was no such thing as an incident just involving one of
them. If one of them was in trouble, the other had something to do with it.
Arthur followed her into the bedroom and then silently went to the end of the
bed, putting his wrists down on the bedspread, kneeling on the carpet, staring
down at the pattern. Merlin scampered behind him and shoved his face against
Arthur’s hip. “Please don’t. Please?”
Arthur hushed him and Sophia pulled him away, gently put him in the manacles,
and he whined, staring up at her. “Please don’t.”
“You need to learn.” She insisted, stroking through his hair. “You like being
bitten, but Arthur won’t know when to stop. He could hurt you very badly. And
how do you think Arthur would feel then?”
Merlin shook his head and stared at the manacles.
“And then all will be forgiven, okay?” She kissed his forehead. “Arthur will be
forgiven and you can take care of him. You like taking care of him, don’t you?”
Merlin bowed his head and nodded.
She kissed him again and then got up. Arthur hadn’t moved an inch, back
straight and body tense, wrists on the bedspread, hands clenched, head bowed.
She stood behind him and cradled his head. He didn’t like to be coddled before
a punishment, and she didn’t intend to prolong it. Whoever had first owned
Arthur, they’d trained him to take a punishment without a sound, without
compliant or movement. He just knelt at the end of the bed and waited, trying
to look accepting of what was the come, and mostly failing, too tense and too
nervous. But he had the position down and she rubbed the cords of his neck
briefly. “Shh, darling. Now, we’re going to go with the switch. Nothing too
drastic, but you’ll feel it for a few days. Stop you from trying anything
else.”
Merlin’s eyes were on the switch, watching it as she gave it a few flicks in
the air, testing the weight. Arthur shivered at the noise, but remained still,
staring down at the bed, offering his entire back for her to work on, kneeling
up and legs wide so she had access to his thighs, arse out and feet upwards.
Only his chest was protected, shoulders curved in and pressed up against the
footboard.
Sophia didn’t know what had happened, but Arthur’s chest was scattered in
scars, all silvered and thin with age. They were old, but they’d been deep when
he’d contracted them, left some of his skin puckered, trailed down to his
belly. He must have had more, back when they’d been red and vivid and new, but
it’d been years. His body had grown around them, stretched them out, and faded
them down into his flesh.
He was shy about them, didn’t like them touched. He went quiet and nervous and
looked away if she got close, if she paid them too much attention. But then,
Arthur didn’t like attention. He liked for Merlin to get it, he liked helping
Merlin get it, but he preferred to be a tool she utilized.
But his back was free and clear and when she laid a line down he only twitched,
a small not-noise ribboning out of him. Merlin made a pained noise and she
stroked down the thin, red mark.
She put down another stroke, measuring it carefully and Arthur stayed silent,
body stiff and tense against strike three and four, the thin, sharp sound of
the switch whistling through the air, the –thwack- of it hitting flesh and the
way it took him a second to react to it. But Merlin. Merlin made noise right
away, a pained little sound that made Arthur flinch, but he didn’t turn, just
let the marks fall, mouth open, now, breathing heavily.
She knelt down and pressed her thumb against the thin red welt, following the
sweet-sweat-slick skin and Arthur let out a breath that might, could be, may be
a sob and Merlin is whining in tiny little bursts, as close to Arthur as
possible, eyes wide and beautiful with need, Arthur’s body tight was as a coil
and she knew she could figure out how to make him spring open, to fall like St.
Sebastian into his martyrdom, every statue carved with ecstasy.
She’d learned long ago not to count. If she said fifteen lashes, if she said
six, if she said eight hundred, he would hold onto the number. If it just went,
with no definitive end that he could tell, he’d sink into it eventually. His
pose would loosen at the joints, his back would curve up and he’d breathe into
the strikes, eyelashes fluttering. Arthur was, at his heart, an algomist, yes,
obviously. But he didn’t want to be, he didn’t think he should be, and he
avoided pain more than any algomist she’d ever heard of. He didn’t seek out
punishment, he didn’t ask to be spanked, and he didn’t wrestle for the bruises.
So she punished him and he hated it and loved it and hated loving it and it was
far more effective than just hating pain would have been.
Arthur began to break with small, low, whimpering noises, his back a flurry of
red strikes and she could have eaten the noises right out of him, watching his
body flush and it had to be complicated in his head. Merlin was simple, he was
straining to save Arthur, wanting to comfort and hold and nuzzle, and Arthur
had to hear the noises, but he didn’t respond. Just knelt and let her mark up
his legs, the sharp nips of pain causing him to jerk forward into the bed.
He was always beautiful, but never quite so much as when his pose fell away and
he just slumped forward, panting for air and flushed, hard, of course, dripping
with it, but crying and clawing at the bed, Merlin straining to get closer.
Once Arthur was sobbing into the bedspread she let Merlin go, opening the
manacles and letting him scramble over to Arthur, pressing close to him—which
just had to make the marks hurt worse, but Arthur made a noise of utter relief,
twisting around and tucking Merlin against him, wrapping him up as Merlin
kissed his face all over.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I won’t. I won’t make you. I won’t make you again. I’m
sorry.” Merlin shuddered and kissed Arthur’s neck.
“Do you understand what you did wrong?” She asked, sitting down next to them,
carding her fingers through Arthur’s hair.
“I should follow the rules.” Arthur curled around Merlin. ‘The rules are there
to protect Merlin. I need to protect Merlin.” Arthur’s body began shaking and
Merlin looked up at her.
“On the bed, come on. You’re forgiven, you won’t do it again. Let’s get you on
the bed.” She and Merlin helped him up and he flopped down, Merlin snuggling up
next to him and kissing his cheek repeatedly. “You suffered very well. It’s
over now. Shhh.” She put his head in her lap and looked at Merlin, who had his
hands on Arthur’s stomach, rubbing and making shushing noises. Arthur’s eyes
were blown and his hands clumsy when he reached to touch Merlin.
“Merlin, I’m going to let you take care of him.” Sophia said. “I’ve had a long
day, and I’d rather been hoping for something nice to look at.”
Merlin pressed his face to her knee. “I’m sorry we were trouble. I’m sorry.”
“Shh, you’re forgiven, it’s over now.”
Arthur stared at her like he didn’t believe her, and, of course, he never did.
Even if she had never once held something over their heads once the punishment
was over, he still didn’t trust her. Didn’t believe her, and that was fine. She
would teach him. She would keep him and he would learn to relax. She put her
hand over his eyes and snapped her fingers to get Merlin’s attention.
“Kiss him.” She ordered and Merlin did so immediately, ducking down and
pressing their lips together with the ache of long practice, and this is what
they did all day. They did their chores and then kissed, lying on top of one
another, aching for more and knowing better than to try for anything. And she
likes the thought, of them wanting and needing and knowing they need her to
have it.
“Roll on top of him, make sure he knows you’re there.”
Merlin whines, but does as he’s told, his knees on the mattress, his hands on
Arthur’s chest, kissing still, Arthur’s mouth sloppy and wet, wanting more and
uncoordinated.
“He feels good.” Merlin looked up at her. “He’s gone all…fuzzy.” Merlin smiled
down at Arthur, stroking his face. “He’s unhappy, sometimes.”
Sophia pulled Merlin closer by the collar and gave him a kiss, rubbing her
thumb over the leather, and then bent to give Arthur the same treatment. His
mouth was soft and hot, accepting of her casual invasion, and she removed her
hand to look at him. He was still tracking, watching her, wary, but more
relaxed for having Merlin wrapped up in his limbs and settled on top of him.
She wondered if he was ever fully relaxed.
 
Arthur nodded and kept staring at her, his hands cupped around Merlin’s
shoulders, thumbs stroking over the drop of his arm, inhaling his scent and
practically purring with it.
“Merlin get up. Sit over there.” She directed and he moved slowly, peeling
himself away from Arthur and kneeling next to him. “Don’t touch him. Put your
hands behind your head.” Merlin whined but did as he was told, looking at her
for further direction.
She slid of the bed and went to her tool chest, plucking out a short length of
hemp rope—she tried to stick to natural things for Arthur, it felt like they
matched— and tied one of Arthur’s hands to the headboard, stretching his body
out, showing off the tight cords of muscle under his skin, shifting
uncomfortably as the sheets rubbed against his marks, but he always liked to
feel this sort of thing, liked to lie on his back, for Merlin to lie on top of
him and press him down.
She cupped Merlin’s face and forced his attention to her. “You aren’t to touch.
The longer you can resist, the more I’ll let you do. If you can wait until I
say, I’ll let you have a treat.”
“How long?” His eyes wandered over Arthur’s body, his breath hitching, fingers
digging into the back of his head.
“Fifteen minutes.” She held up her mobile and set up a timer. “Arthur, in that
time, you’re to make yourself as pretty as possible.” She took his free hand
and used it to stroke his chest, to grab his cock and he bit his lips and
looked away. “Get yourself good and ready, touch yourself the way you want him
to touch you. Do not take your hand off your body.”
“Yes ma’am.” Arthur stroked his prick in a slow, careful stutter, looking at
Merlin.
Sophia nodded and then settled in behind Merlin, putting her hands on his hips,
her legs bent alongside his. “That’s good, Arthur. Keep his attention.”
Merlin’s breath was laboured, his eyes trained on Arthur and Sophia rubbed her
thumbs along Merlin’s undefended ribs. “Look at how red and wet his lips are.”
She noted, “He keeps biting them. Do you bite them?”
Merlin whined and nodded, fingers spasming. “He. He liked it. But only a little
bit of teeth, because of the rules. Never.” He swallows as Arthur squeezes his
prick and rides up into it. Never as hard as they want to, she knows, or as the
other wants them to.
She huffs a laugh and rubs a hand down between Merlin’s legs, petting the
inside of his thighs, gathering up a good finger full of flesh and pinching.”
Merlin’s hands fluttered and then re-gripped his hair, a gust of air punching
out of him. She reached up and flicked his ear. “Keep them there. Good boy.
Arthur get your cock wet. You’re hardly making a good showing.”
“Sorry, ma’am.” Arthur stroked his hands back up his torso and got his palm wet
with spit, still staring at Merlin. Merlin whined.
“I want. I could.” Merlin cock was fully erect, pressed hard against his
abdomen and she moved up his thigh and got enough good grip of skin to pinch
and twist, a thin jet of pre-come dribbling down Merlin’s cock. Arthur’s dick
spasmed in sympathy, both of them breathing in great, exhausted pants, and
Arthur pinched a nipple, staring at where Sophia was making a pretty pebbled
path of bruises along Merlin’s pale inner thigh.
“How many times have I come home and I couldn’t even breathe on his nipples
without them hurting him?” She stroked the span of her nails over Merlin’s legs
as Arthur cupped his sack, bound hand pulling at the rope. “You must spend
hours on his lap, scraping your teeth over them, sucking and sucking and
sucking, trying not to bite down.” She pinched hard there and Arthur cried out,
Merlin struggling up and arching, noises trapped behind his clenched teeth.
Arthur looked so hungry, starving for… something.
“I go out and the two of you just kiss each other until it hurts, and you keep
doing it anyway. Staying hard, even though you know that if you do anything
then I’ll keep your pretty little pricks locked up. Let you come once a week,
maybe. Maybe stretch it out longer. Get you all full and desperate, but you’d
still kiss each other.”
Merlin nodded and Arthur squeezed his prick a bit too hard, fisting it purple
and rubbing his back against the sheets, eyes lidded but trained on Merlin.
“Ten more minutes, little darling. Your arms have to be getting sore. Fingers
itching. If you just keep waiting I’ll let you do more than just kiss. Look at
how hard he is for us.” She tickled up his abdomen and nuzzled his neck. “It
would be cruel of you to make him have to sit there, aching and wrecked for it,
with no chance at all to get off.”
Merlin nodded, his arms shivering and she cupped his elbows, squeezing briefly.
“If I didn’t set limits, you wouldn’t do anything else. I’d come home and you’d
be rubbing against one another constantly, until getting off hurt. But you need
direction, little darling. Need to be hurt and know it’s for a reason. And
that’s why I make the rules. But you two are so very lovely together.
Especially when I let you suck one another off.”
“Yeah,” Merlin agreed, voice hoarse and his scalp had to hurt from how hard he
was yanking his own hair. “We. When you go we try and wait.” He admits,
scraping his teeth over his lip. “We do all the chores and eat lunch and we try
to wait. We try, and. It’s hard,” he whispers, head bowing slightly. “I want to
touch him. Please let me. Please just a little.”
Arthur rolled his hips up and kicked his feet against the sheets. “Merlin.” He
gasped and Merlin’s hands jerked, shoving his head down.
“Seven more. What if I put one of you in mitts and a spreader, so the other
would have to do everything for him?” She mused, settling her nails into
Merlin’s skin enough to leave marks. “When I’m home for a day, I can just watch
you go about your chores, helping one another, getting more excuses to touch
and help and comfort. Do you like it when I’m mean, darling?” She reached
forward and wrenched a hard twist at Arthur’s navel, Arthur cried out and
Merlin nearly toppled himself over. “You like getting to comfort him after I’m
so very cruel. But you like seeing me hurt him.”
Merlin sobbed and shifted from one knee to the other. “I want to make him
better.”
“You want to save him with your bandages, after I make him bleed?”
“No. I.” Merlin scrambled a little, words lost to him and he ended up staring
helplessly.
“Merlin. I like it. You.” Arthur swallowed. “It feels warm.” Arthur didn’t tend
to talk much and he practically arched up for a kiss before remembering
himself. “It makes everything good.”
“You’re so warm.” Merlin suddenly sounds drugged, shifting from side to side
and his hands trailed down to his neck. “Please let me. I need to. He’s so warm
and I’m. Please.”
“Shh. You can do it. It’ll be so good when you do. It’ll feel amazing. Like
coming in from the cold and sinking into a pile of blankets. Let yourself
shiver a little first. Feel the bite of it.”
Merlin did shiver and Arthur teased him, touched over his body as Merlin’s eyes
followed, breath catching. His cock had to feel odd to him, given how little
she allowed them to touch. She’d know if they came, she’d know, because they
could never hide anything from her. They’re obvious, and beautiful and when the
rest of the timer goes down, Merlin falls onto Arthur like he’ll just…vanish,
otherwise, stroking and nuzzling and kissing because he needs to, Arthur
continuing to rub his palm against his prick because she hasn’t told him to
stop.
Merlin stops and looks up at her. “What do I do? Tell me what to do. I need to.
I want.”
“Shhh. Shift up on your knees. There’s a good boy. Now just stay still, kiss
him properly and let me work.”
Merlin nodded frantically and bent down, sucking Arthur’s tongue into his
mouth, making desperately pleased and needy noises like they could just vibrate
right out of him and fix the world.
She tugged on a glove and coated her fingers in lube, sliding two in with no
warning, letting Merlin buck and whine, Arthur struggling to see what was
happening. Merlin rolled his hips and Arthur was still stroking himself,
leaking steadily and she removed his hand, put it in Merlin’s hair and neither
of them cared what kinds of fluids they were getting all over one another.
“I think what I want most tonight is to direct how the two of you are going to
fuck. How fast, how slow… it’ll be the loveliest thing in all the world. And of
course you’d like to keep each other close, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, yes, please.” Merlin’s hole clenched around her fingers and he looked at
Arthur’s thick cock and whined. “Please. I don’t. I could go now. I could.
Please, it looks good.”
“When I say.” She commands—
                                      ~~~
She might as well not be there once ‘Merlin’ climbs on top of his bound and
desperate, ah, friend. She guides them, yes, keeps giving commands, keeps them
under a sort of fuzzy-minded thrall, but she might as well not be there, the
way they’re looking at each other.
She’s played with couples before, of course. Two-dom fantasies are fairly
common among subs, wanting to be completely taken over and owned and loved, to
crawl between two sets of boots, to kiss and lick and worship and be taken as
far down as possible. She’s even worked with soul-bonded couples, and she’s not
asking any questions here, she isn’t, but once ‘Merlin’ settles down, working
his hips and she guides ‘Arthur’s’ cock in, she’s completely lost to them. She
binds his hands back, tells ‘Arthur’ to keep it on the headboard, but they’re
staring at one another like this is some kind of miracle.
She guides ‘Merlin’s’ hips, and he makes lovely, beautiful noises, staring down
at ‘Arthur’, body shivering from the neck down, and ‘Arthur’ looks. Well, he’s
a man in love. She gets off the bed and they don’t notice, caught up in their
own story and she sits down, watches them move, comments, keeps them all low
and loved and moving, a cycle of motion that she wants to continue as long as
possible. ‘Merlin’, at least, is deep enough to not even think of coming, and
someone has trained ‘Arthur’ to hold back pretty damn well, even if she
wouldn’t trust his mindset, fully.
She lets them get good and drenched with sweat. Let’s ‘Merlin’s’ thighs give
out, waits for him to flop on top of ‘Arthur’ gasping, ‘Arthur’ is pressing his
cock closer with these tiny, precious little thrusts, comforting with his mouth
and then, then they remember her.
“Please.” ‘Merlin’ begs again, “Please let him, please, please.”
They’re a lovely little tragedy, she thinks; watching them, listening to them
beg for the other, work for each other. ‘Arthur’s’ abdomen has to hurt, but he
keeps thrusting, keeps making delightful little consoling noises. On one hand
their fantasy is a good one, for her, the idea of owning two delightful little
pets. But it falls hard in one aspect. A dom wants two pets who are all about
her, two lovely boys who just want to see her happy. Two boys who are beautiful
together, yes, but not in love. Not this much in love. Not this self-consumed
and she is re-arranging them, getting a little more out of them both. She
doesn’t ask questions.
She ties the scene up in a tidy little bow, unties them both and lets them
snuggle up on the bed, cleans them up because they’re exhausted, poor little
darlings, and ‘Merlin’ is still shivering, curled up in ‘Arthur’ and refusing
to budge, practically sobbing into his neck. They’re all up in knots and she
puts bottles of water down, sits on the edge of the bed and isn’t sure she’s at
all needed. ‘Merlin’, she suspects, drops hard, is already dropping hard.
“I’ve got him.” ‘Arthur’ says, not looking at her, massages ‘Merlin’s’ scalp
and hums quietly. “Thank you.”
“Of course.” She kisses both of their temples, packs up, and leaves her
business card, even if she knows she’ll never see hide or tail of them again.
It’s fine if she suspects something. But they don’t want to be known, and she
can see that as clearly as the marks still left on their skin.
                                      ---
Extreme Duress Defensive Bonding
In the second instance, known as Extreme Duress Defensive Bonding [EDDB] [51],
hostages and their captors can feel a sudden, strong bond with one another (not
to be confused with Stockholm syndrome when the hostage identifies with zer
captor without any sort of mental or emotional bond [52]). As the name
suggests, this bond is formed to protect the captive and force empathy from the
captor. Though it is Unclear on how these bonds are formed, the conditions in
which they normally occur include: the captor and captive being of opposite
dynamic, the captive being young and unbonded, the threat of physical violence
being fully and clearly present. [53] However, there are currently six reported
and documented cases of same-dynamic EDDB, but all of them involve two-
submissive bonding, and in all six cases, the captive bonded with a captor who
was not immediately in charge of zer being taken hostage. [54]
 
Annie Carter and Fisher Mulder
While popular culture finds the topic fascinating [55], the condition is rare.
It is difficult to study, as once the captive returns to a position of safety
the bond diminishes, the bond only understood through the self-report of the
two participants [56]. In the infamous case of Annie Carter and Fisher Mulder,
the bond lasted past the point of separation, due to what is hypothesized the
length and extent of their interaction. Mulder (32) kidnapped Carter (15) from
her family home, in the fourth of similar, previously unsolved, kidnappings he
had performed on submissives in the same age range [57], whose bodies Carter
later helped locate [58]). Believing the EDDB to be a soulbond Mulder kept
Carter captive for six years (1993-1999) and Carter reports to have believed
Mulder “I knew that he’d kidnapped me, and I was scared of him, but I could
feel him in my head and he was lonely and I thought he loved me, so I stayed.”
[58] Carter has since published a book on Mulder, himself a submissive,
entitled The Fisher, in 2000 which has been the source of several blockbuster
Hollywood thrillers (Killer Eyes (2001), Looking For Annie (2002), Six Years
(2002)) as well as the 2001 Oscar-winning, dramatic, eponymous biopic Mulder.
[59]. It has also been a popular topic of countless spin-off novels, televised
dramas, and horror movies since the book was released [60], and the source of -
- according to soul bond specialist Dr. Spencer Overby --“endless
misconceptions, fears and stereotypes about same-dynamic relationships. That it
comes from fear, or mental illness. What happened to [Carter] was tragic, but
entirely a product of Extreme Duress Defensive Bonding, which is a syndrome
that is far more common among opposite-dynamic partners.” [70]
Carter lived with Mulder with no other kidnappings [71], until she went to the
hospital, pregnant with their child in May 1999. “Suddenly I thought. ‘I have
to get out of here. I have to protect my baby’ The thought consumed me. If it
hadn’t been for that, I don’t think I would have ever managed to escape.” [72].
She went to the police, who contacted her family, and she returned home.
Scientists had the opportunity to study her, up until Mulder killed himself in
August of the same year, when Annie was prescribed bond suppression drugs, as
the bond proved “uncharacteristically secure.” [73]
“And then he was gone. Just like that. It was like I could breathe again.”
[74]. Annie Carter was monitored by leading deviant bond specialist Dr. Finnick
Rosenberg and several independent physiologists: Dr. Abdi of the University of
Michigan, Dr. Henry Smith of St. Catherine’s Mental Hospital and Laura Whiss,
now of the Carter Project, then of the Foundation of submissive Health. And
while she never reformed her natural soulbond (something she had reported to
feeling previous to her capture), she also showed no signs of similar mental
unwellness as Mulder. [75]
-Wikipedia “Same Dynamic Bonds”
                                      ---
November, 2011
Merlin waggled Morgause’s business card between his fingers and stared at the
ceiling. “It’s a real place.”
Arthur looked up from inlaying wire into a wooden curving maple leaf that he
intended to be a centrepiece of a new necklace and earring set. Merlin turned
in his chair and stared at Arthur.
“Vulgate. The grand opening to the public is in December. Right in time for
Christmas, right?” Merlin looked at the business card, ran his finger along the
edge. “I bet Loose Ends would pay pretty well for a review of a place on its
public opening.”
Arthur carefully bent the wire he was working with and slotted it into the
indentation. “So you want to see them again?”
Merlin fiddled with the card. “Maybe.”
“Is it because of Gwaine?” Arthur asked, carefully, securing the wire and
working the next tendril of wire into the leaf. Merlin kept spinning in his
chair, not looking at Arthur. This isn’t something they talked about. Arthur
had. He’d heard everything, held the phone tight to his ear and listened,
barely daring to breathe because he didn’t want to miss anything. Up until last
night he’d…he’d never gotten to be there for when. He’d get the start of it and
the end of it but he’d never gotten to. See. Merlin would tell it to him when
he got back, as he collapsed into Arthur’s lap, mouthing his neck and telling
him everything, every single solitary detail.
But to actually hear it was an entirely different thing. He knew all of the
sounds Merlin made when he was getting sucked down, the way he whined and
gasped, and begged. But there had been someone there to hold down his hips and
make him beg. Someone who would tease him, know how to make him work for it.
Who made him hold it and…and to tie it all together, who said that he was
sending Merlin home to Arthur. But…
But.
“He got.” Merlin rubbed the back of his neck. “He knew something was. Between
us. And he hadn’t met you, and maybe he forgot you were submissive or. I don’t
know.” Merlin dragged his hands through his hair and spun around a few times.
Arthur looked back down at his work. “Do you think he would have?”
“It one thing to have a two-sub fantasy but. He would have. I mean uh… Sophia
was just there to direct us. We.” Merlin rubbed his mouth and looked at his
computer. “We’re too focused on each other, and not in a playful, sexy kind of
way. I mean. We’re.” Merlin made his hands into blinders and focused on Arthur.
“They’d know. Sophia probably knew, but it isn’t her business to care, you
know? ”
“Yeah,” Arthur said, licking his lips. “So, you’re looking for new sport?”
Merlin got up and sat next to Arthur, putting his head on Arthur’s shoulder and
sighing. “Do you want me not to? We can try something else if this isn’t
working for you.” He nuzzled at Arthur’s jaw and then dropped his head. “Did.
We could keep hiring people?”
“We can’t afford that.” Arthur cupped the back of Merlin’s head. “I don’t mind.
You know I don’t mind.” Arthur didn’t. Except sometimes he did mind, he minded
that they needed someone else to do what they should be able to…no. No. That
wasn’t it. He wasn’t jealous. It was impossible to be jealous when he was
saturated with Merlin’s love, and pleasure, his submission and arousal. It was
impossible. Merlin called them Research Missions, sometimes, so he could
cannibalize each experience and make them again, make them better, for Arthur.
Take the way this dom looked, and how this one sounded, and the nails off that
one and the boots from the other and make Arthur a story. Or. Make both of them
a story.
And it had to be Merlin. Not because Merlin was… not because he was the more
obvious one, not because he could flirt better. But because he was better at
getting Arthur all wrapped up in him than the other way around, Merlin could
tell stories better, Merlin could get Arthur in the moment. Arthur had scened
with doms. He'd had gone with Merlin’s love and pleasure ringing in his chest
and he couldn’t. He hadn’t... They had all been fairly awful. He’d come home
and felt oddly distant from his own body and he’d curled up around Merlin and
hadn’t been able to make anything out of any of it. It had to be Merlin,
because Arthur didn’t so much not go down without a fight, as the idea of going
down, really and properly, the way Merlin described it, made him fight to stay
in control like he was going to die.
But if he was in control, then Merlin could go down and share it a little,
could open up every single iota of himself and just let Arthur… just give
himself over to Arthur like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Stop it.” Merlin squeezed his knee.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“I don’t know why, but I think you keep forgetting that I live right here.”
Merlin knuckled him at the temple. “I don’t block you out.”
Arthur glanced at him from the corner of his eye and then down at his work. “I
have a hard time believing that.”
“Because you’re dumb. I know you shove me away sometimes, because you need to
just…be whatever you are for awhile.” Merlin sighed. “I get that. You know I
do. But you’re always there for me.” Merlin crawled into Arthur’s lap and held
on. “I never. I’m always listening, and not because I think you’re going to do
something stupid but just... I like you there.”
Arthur wrapped his arms around Merlin, and shifted until he was leaning against
the bed, trying to get Merlin’s ridiculously long limbs under some kind of
control, tugging down a pillow so none of Merlin’s many, many bones dug into
him.
“You never try and keep me out, either.” Merlin threw an arm over Arthur’s
shoulders, rubbing his pectoral. “You didn’t notice?”
“No one does that.” Arthur looked at the floor. “Every single couple in the
world blocks the other out sometimes. It’s…healthy…apparently.”
Merlin shrugged. “I like you there, even if you aren’t looking at me. I like
knowing how you are. I always have. Arthur we’re... I didn’t have friends. In
school, you know that. Like, you had your teammates, and yeah that was awkward
sometimes, but you still went out for hamburgers after games and took the piss
out of each other. I didn’t.” Merlin wrapped a hand around Arthur’s throat.
“You know this.”
“Yeah.” Arthur said, because he’d known Merlin since he was five. He knew
everything. Except apparently, that Merlin never blocked him out, but even that
wasn’t really surprising. But he would have thought... During class, or
homework, or…Arthur wanted to block himself out most of the time, frankly.
“But we were friends. And not just geographical convenience friends. And so
I... I liked knowing how you were basically all the time because the idea of
not being friends just sort of made me want to burn down your house like a
crazy person.”
“You are a crazy person. You’re one tragic back story away from being Fisher
Mulder.”
“I resent that.” Merlin rubbed his thumb along Arthur’s jugular. “I love you. I
get that we don’t say it out loud very often because it’s right there, all the
time. But.” Merlin squeezed lightly and Arthur arched his neck back, resting
against the mattress and Merlin stroked down his throat with the backs of his
knuckles. “This isn’t a thing. I promise this isn’t a thing. But I just. I like
knowing how you are even if I can’t do anything about it. Even if you aren’t
fine, even if you’re in. In one of those moods where you just fucking hate
yourself, and you don’t let me do anything about it, I still want to be there.
And sometimes I think that just. Years of obsessing about it, about being in
your head and always being near you was why. I was a kid, it was innocent, but
I just wanted to keep you so badly.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” Arthur started and Merlin put pressure on his throat
and Arthur went quiet.
“It isn’t a fault. This isn’t. Arthur, don’t you get that I’m happy? You are in
my head, at least most of the time. I am happy, and I’m not making the best of
it. You are mine and if anyone tried to take you from me I would make your
Hulk-Outs look like Bruce Banner kicking a chair, I swear to God.”
“I know.” Arthur said and Merlin straddled his lap, cupping his hands around
Arthur’s face and staring at him.
“Then why do we keep having to have discussions like these?” Merlin rubbed his
thumbs under Arthur’s jaw, tilting his face up. “Do I need to drown you in how
much I love you every single morning? Like just…shove you in there until you
stink of it? Because I can do that. I can’t. I can’t hold you down and bite you
the right way and I can’t. Make you think this is okay.” Merlin rolled their
foreheads together and Arthur laid his hands on Merlin’s hips, rubbing the side
of his pointer fingers against Merlin’s stomach. “You know I love you. You have
to. I basically shove your face in it constantly. I know you love me because
you just.” Merlin ran his palms over Arthur’s shoulders. “But you would still
love me even if I found someone else.”
Arthur stared up at him and didn’t say anything, because there wasn’t anything
he really could say. It was the same as when they were kids, desperate and hard
and confused as shit.
Merlin licks his lips and tugs Arthur’s head back by the hair and then bent and
placed a single, careful bite on Arthur’s neck, digging his teeth in until
Arthur jerked up against him. Merlin let go and he isn’t aroused, but he is
pleased by the mark, hard and deep enough to bruise. “I. I can’t do the things
you deserve in bed. I try. I do. But I just. You’d let me do anything to you
and that doesn’t turn me on. That terrifies me. I want to see someone else tie
you up and hit you because that’s what you want. But I’d. I can’t. I want
someone to do the same thing to me. To hold me down and pinch and press and
correct me when I do it wrong.”
“I want you to have that.”
And Merlin just tugs his hair, sharp, again, so Arthur closes his mouth, tucks
his lips over his teeth and looks away. “But I want you here, more. I want to
grow old and wrinkly and infirm with you. And you know that. You know that, so
stop being dumb about it, and having these…sulks where you think I want anyone
else like that. I want them so I can make you happy, so I can make something
for you that gets us both off.”
He kissed Arthur, prying his mouth open with his tongue, wet and forceful,
Arthur dragging him closer. Arthur nipped at Merlin’s lips, sliding his teeth
over the plump, wet slip of his tongue, kneading at Merlin’s hips. If nothing
else, they’d gotten very good at kissing. Long afternoons with no one home, the
two of them practicing and keeping a pillow between their groins so
nothing…nothing more permanent could happen, curling up on beds or couches, on
floors or in trees, finding all those secret, quiet, nowhere places and
pressing each other against walls, kissing until every part of them ached, then
breathing, lips wet and bruised, finger shaped bruises on their hips and
wrists, fingers aching from how hard they held each other’s hands.
Merlin snapped away with a gasp, a string of saliva connecting them until he
wiped it away. “I would leave everyone in the world and become a crazy hermit
in the woods with you without a problem, except then we’d need to figure out
how to make food from animals and plants and shelter and whatever. I know you
know that, but do you get that? I’d follow you into every single battle and I’d
make sure you got out even if I had to do something terrible and…” Merlin
finished with a sigh stroking his fingers everywhere they wanted. “I just want
you to be happy.”
“I am happy.”
“With yourself.” Merlin corrected and Arthur dropped his head, resting it
against Merlin’s sternum. “Every time I feel how much you love me I can’t help
but see all those good things in myself. But when I do it for you, you just.”
Merlin sighed and kissed the top of his head. “Do you want me to see Morgana?”
Arthur nodded, stroking with his fingers. “I like when you come back to me.”
And he doesn’t just mean hard. He doesn’t just mean under. He means at all. But
that doesn’t change the fact that he likes it, no matter how good the dom is,
no matter how many of Merlin’s buttons they press, Merlin always wants to come
home to Arthur, and no one can take that from him.
“What should I do? What do you want to hear about?” Just like he always asks.
Arthur licks his lips and tells him.
                                      ---
December, 2011
Arthur had written, to date, forty-six articles for Loose Ends. Not all of them
were printed, but the paper did pay a holding fee for keeping an article for
later. If they did use it, they’d pay the rest of the fee, or, if six months
had passed without publishing, they’d return the rights back to you and you
could try to publish it elsewhere. He’d had twenty-nine articles published,
most of them well received and it’s better than what, he imagines, a lot of
people manage. He hasn’t ever talked to any other freelancers, nor as he tried
to get anything else published elsewhere, because it feels…dishonest? And he’s
not a writer. He just has opinions about things and Merlin helps make those
opinions sound authoritative.
Vulgate was a far fancier looking establishment than ever they’ve been to. It
was in a much nicer part of town, the sort of street that had restaurants that
didn’t even bother to list their prices, and the waitstaff was dressed better
than he would ever be. The line outside sprawled, even this early in the night,
and Merlin worked his lip between his teeth, staring at it.
“Should we try and get past the bouncer?” Merlin asked, looking at the long
weave of people, standing and waiting to get inside, while others just walked
up to the door and were allowed in.
Arthur had no idea. “Do they know our names? I don’t think we can be on the
list if they don’t have our names. And no one ever believes us when we say our
names are Arthur and Merlin, even though we are.” Merlin pulled out his ID. “It
says it. It says it in words.”
“Stop being nervous.”
“It is six billion times fancier than we are.” Merlin pointed. “That is more
fanciness than we are ever going to accomplish. That dress? That sequined
monstrosity right there? Cost more than our rent.” Merlin pointed to a sub
longing near the door with her friends, laughing and rubbing the toe of her
sandal against the back of her calf. Arthur looked down at his pair of good
jeans, looked at Merlin who’d gotten himself done and proper tarted up and
sighed.
Merlin rubbed his shoulder. “Your arse looks better in those jeans than all of
the yoga-trained arses in all the designer tight pants in all the world.”
“We can see if we’re on the list. And if not, we can just go to the Hangman
again. They like us there.” Arthur sighed. “I need to write a review of
something. Sophia sort of…wiped us out.”
“I told you, I’d take care of it.” Merlin fussed at Arthur with the appearance
of fixing his hair. “I picked up some more shifts since people are out sick,
we’ll cover rent. No problem.” Merlin paused. “I mean. You thought it was worth
it, right? I.” Merlin fixed his necklace and smoothed his shirt collar. “I
didn’t want to get someone super cheap, and I pulled a whole bunch of shifts,
but it wasn’t enough before…but we’ll be fine. I promise we’ll be fine.”
Arthur flapped his hands away and caught him around the wrists. “Yes, and then
you work too much and you’re exhausted and miserable. An extra article in the
magazine wouldn’t hurt. It won’t make or break us, but I don’t like when we’re
down to shuffling through the laundry to see if we’ve got a few quid hiding
somewhere to at least split a bagel, somewhere.” And that’s happened before,
desperately scavenging for loose coin since they finished all the pasta, rice
and beans in a big starch-y pot. But that hadn’t happened so recently, Arthur
tried to make sure they always had, at least, a hundred pound padding between
them and scrambling under the couch for some pence.
So they tried the door, Arthur talking because he was the official part-of-the-
press-sort-of-fellow, and the bouncer looked at his ID and then called it in
while checking the list, which, really, was better than he’d thought he’d get
to begin with.
“The owner wants to see the both of you.” The bouncer said, letting them in and
Merlin smiles and bounces in, Arthur following not…sure how that worked.
“Are we trapped in your brain?”
“Maybe?” Merlin offered, giving their coats over to the nice looking coat-check
man and going over to the bracelet counter which had the usual assortment of
coded-coded and labelled charms for a bracelet, which Arthur took three and
Merlin took five, because Merlin might actually do something with himself
tonight. They were well organized, which was nice, and didn’t try and instil a
fancier, confusing system. There was a bracelet for whether you wanted to play
or not, there were charms to say what you were into, so people could know at a
glance what you wanted out of a back-room encounter. "This seems like something
my brain would do.”
Arthur nodded.
“And here you go.” The attended held out another cuff for each of them. “Return
those at the end of the night to get your deposit back, put them on whatever
wrist you like, with the buckle side facing downward. And sign these.” She
pushed two clipboards over. “Safety waiver and club rules. There’s a room to
read those over there, but they’re pretty standardized except for the damper.”
Arthur had already signed his, Merlin followed and then they looked at the new
bracelets and Merlin shrugged and put it on. It felt…weird. Oddly heavy and
Arthur looked back at Merlin, who shrugged and felt unconcerned, so Arthur went
along and they went upstairs.
There was a raised bar area, of course, with close, secreted little booths, the
dance floor in a spiral pit in the middle, like a gladiator arena with pressing
bodies so tight that gender was completely lost, much less distinguishing
features. The music was aimed at the dance floor, so outside of it wasn’t ear-
splittingly loud. At the bar it was reasonable, something heard, but not the
dominating force.
“Good acoustics.” Arthur noted. “Wonder what they specialize in.”
Every single nightclub opened in the last five years had to have some kind of
specific focus. You couldn’t just have a place for young, attractive, generally
rich people to dance and fuck one another, you had to have a place where young,
attractive, generally rich, harem-fetish role players to dance and fuck one
another, or for young, attractive, not at all rich people to dance and fuck. Or
just for people who were not young, attractive or rich to dance and fuck. This
one wasn’t readily apparent by the décor, like country western, faux-Asian or
Daddy/baby-kink places were.
Spiral staircases ran up over the dance floor like DNA helixes, the walls
pelting down with waterfall fountains, heavy bolts of cloth sweeping from the
ceiling. Merlin tugged him up one, the stairs steep and sharp, but as they got
up to the next floor he saw less dangerous and exposed flights hidden in the
shadows.
There was only about a quarter of the downstairs floor space present in the
current area, all in couches and pillows, chairs and blankets, heavy bolts of
cloth draping from the ceiling people lounging about in various states of
dress, kissing lazily mindless and indolent.
“Can I help the both of you?” A uniformed woman asked. Arthur blinked and
frowned. She was a woman. She…was wearing flats, yes, but also a belt, a
necklace and wide cut trousers. He looked to Merlin who cocked his head and
rubbed his head.
“Um.” Merlin began and then looked at his bracelet. “Dampening, she said.”
“You hadn’t heard.” She cocked out one hip, studying them, before leading them
“Vulgate is a gender neutral establishment.”
“How?” Merlin asked and she pulled a pamphlet out of her belt and handed it to
him with a smile. “Your ability to tell gender will only be impaired
temporarily after you leave. It’s disorientating but a lot of people find
it…freeing.”
Arthur looked around the room. He couldn’t tell who anyone was, he could guess
from outfits, but.... but if he took off his necklace and his…people might
think. And then he and Merlin could.
“Thanks.” Merlin smiled and she nodded, checking to make sure that was all, and
moving through the room, checking up on people and fading into the crowd.
Arthur looked at Merlin and his breath caught.
“You can’t. I mean. I can’t.” Merlin took him by the wrists and led him down
into an overstuffed chair, somehow twisting so he ended up sprawled all over
Arthur. Arthur looked Merlin all over, and, well. He looked like a sub, of
course. He was like a picture of one, with his earrings and lipstick, but he
didn’t know. He was like a kid playing dress up or…or something. He didn’t
know.
“This is so weird.” Merlin wrinkled his nose, but kept petting Arthur’s hair.
“I know who you are, I know, but you don’t…you don’t feel like a dom either,
but…” Merlin rubbed Arthur’s chest. “Fuck, I forget how hard you dress dom when
I am taking all of you in as a whole.” Merlin unhooked Arthur’s necklace and
slug it around his own throat. It didn’t match, but he didn’t stop Merlin from
taking the cuffs too. Merlin laughed, rubbing his hands over Arthur’s arms.
“Look at you. It hasn’t been like this since we were kids.”
“Interesting isn’t it?” Morgana asked from over Arthur’s shoulder and Merlin
looked up and lost the plot a little bit. Arthur turned and sighed, shoving
Merlin’s face into the back of the chair.
“He’s going to be like this every time he sees you in green. You could wear an
exact replica of any other Scarlet O’Hara dress and he’d be fine. It’s just the
green.”
“Here’s to the shiniest girl I ever knew:
who abandoned me like a favourite
toy in some suddenly rain-stormed pit
stop. Forgotten until too-many-napped-away miles
leaving me to sink deep
into the topography of a lost bit of nothing
on Highway 64.” Merlin quoted, like it helped at all.
“Does having a lot of Cynthia Lawrence memorized help much in life?” Morgana
asked, the long spill of her hair trailing down her shoulder like an oil slick.
Arthur put his hand over Merlin’s eyes so he could focus like a normal human
being. “Win you a lot of arguments?”
Morgana smiled and moved to sit across from them, the picture of straddling
gender barriers, long, black, buckled boots encasing her thighs with pin-point
vicious heels, augmented by liquid purple eyeliner nails long and painted, hair
curled—
She smiled, adjusting her waistcoat with a smug little tug a and gestured to
their bracelets. “They’ve been working on it for a few years. It’s not perfect,
obviously. Not transportable, for one. But it’s been approved of as safe in
temporary doses.” She pointed to the smoky air, the subtle scent of vanilla and
burning books. “Artificial chemical trails confuse the subconscious ability to
detect pheromones, combined with mechanics in those little darlings,” She
tapped the bracelets and the sheer amount of people means…” She gestured to the
room with an expression of victory. “Anyone could be anything.”
“But you still have the bracelets.” Arthur pointed out and she look at the
bands of coloured rubber dangling off her wrist. She smiled and fiddled with a
donalgist charm. “Won’t that give it away?”
“Some doms are algomists. Some subs are donalgists. Some doms want to be tied
up for awhile, some subs want to put them there. Sexuality is complicated, and
by forcing people to enact one certain aspect of who they are because of their
gender, you limit the beauty of it all. This.” She spread her hands to
encompass the room, “this frees people from those expectations.”
“But what happens when people leave the club and realize they’ve…” Arthur
swallowed. “I mean, they didn’t know they slept…same-dynamic, or…something.”
She looked into the mass of people. “People like the thrill. The taboo nature
of it all. You could be lying with someone completely non-dynamic and you
wouldn’t know. You find someone who wants to do what you want done to you, you
find someone you find attractive, interesting or mysterious and you talk.
Whatever happens, happens. You don’t know who they were, just that you had a
good night.” Morgana fiddled with her necklace. “The chemicals make it all feel
unreal doesn’t it? Like a dream,” she mused, watching a man and woman who could
have been anything, dancing to the music, half-naked and gleeful.
Merlin looks ready to hurt himself he’s so excited. “How long do the effects
last?”
“Anywhere from fifteen minutes to three hours leaving but no longer than a day
except in isolated cases.” She picked up Merlin’s wrist and fiddled with the
charms on his bracelet. “You got the pamphlet, it explains the science, and
we’re not the first club to do this. But we are the first one which is semi
open to the public.” She smiled and looked between the two of them. “It was
Morgause’s idea, and I’m just the face for it.”
“So it’s entirely focused on mutual interests.” Merlin’s eyes were trained on
how her fingers cradled his palm. “But mostly it’s for rich kids who want to
shock their parents, but not enough to lose their trust funds, or people whose
whole shtick is the transgressive.” Merlin looked back up at her. “Gotten a lot
of bad press for it?”
“We will.” She stroked her thumb along the edge of one of his nails. “I don’t
pretend it will help people understand what it’s like for me, or for same-
dynamic, or non-dynamic partners, but it gets the conversation going, which is
better than it’s been in the past.”
“So you’re an activist?” Arthur wanted to slide his hand around the back of
Merlin’s neck. Make a claim, in some small way, but that would be more than
entirely foolish, what with the current line of conversation, and the way
Morgana was looking at them both, like they could be conquered, if she wanted.
Arthur wasn’t the sort to be conquered.
“No.” Morgana allowed her eyes to slide away, look off elsewhere. “I am in the
business of making money, not ideological changes. But I’m also fond of multi-
tasking.” She could have made it an innuendo with a glance, but didn’t. “I open
a club where no one can immediately assume anything about you because of your
gender, because people don’t know. They’ll still guess. You’re looking around
right now, trying to pick people apart by the way they stand and what they’re
wearing. But without knowing it becomes like a film. Anyone could be anything.
It’s not perfect, of course. Gender is hardwired into our social contracts, and
it’s a hard habit to break. But for an evening. For a night.” She gestured.
“Well, you can tell me that you’ve never wanted to see what it’s like on the
other side of the whip—literal or metaphorical—but I don’t think I’d believe
you.”
Morgause came up behind her half sister and spoke something into her ear.
Morgana listened and nodded. “Business to attend to.” She plucked two charms
from her pocket and handed them in turn. “VIP passes, it’ll let you in wherever
you want. Give you a proper idea of the place.” She stood and then took Merlin
hand again, pressing her lips to his knuckles. “Enjoy yourselves.”
Merlin grinned and flicked her nose and she smiled before the two sisters
walked off, leaving them alone on the couch, Merlin watching them go and Arthur
watching him.
                                      ---
Title I Was In The Coal Mine Picking Up Diamonds
Summary “When dealing with switches, it’s important to remember that while it’s
modern convention’s preference to refer to them as ‘complete unto themselves’,
just so was it previous modern convention to refer to them as empty.” –Marcus
Halvsie.
Rating PG
Author Kettle_Panda
Relationship Peter/Neal/El
Warnings None.
BETA Wrappedscallion
Notes Title from Diane Cluck’s Easy To Be Around, written for ’s prompt
challenge of the same song.
                                      ***
“Neal,” Peter said when he found Neal sitting at the edge of his bed (you
needed to be direct with Peter, sometimes. El had, apparently, just grabbed his
hand in public, kissed him on the mouth and said “Don’t keep me waiting so long
next time, okay sweetie?”) “What are you doing?”
Neal had made a study of switches for most of his life. He loved art because it
could be many things. It could mean many things. He’d pressed his hands to
priceless marble figures because they too could be any gender at all, and he’d
fallen in love with figure painting after figure painting, because whoever they
were, he would be able to love them somehow.
Neal didn’t strike a provocative pose. Peter had, mostly, proved to be mostly
immune to most of Neal’s best and greatest submissive wiles, only ever showing
his attraction (albeit subconsciously) when Neal proved… objectively
intelligent, morally good, consciously brave. Not when he shown bright and cold
as a diamond, studied and manipulative. Instead he smiled, hands between his
knees and looked up at Peter, throat bare and wrists showing. “Hi, Peter.”
Peter put his briefcase down and moved to take off his coat, but Neal was
already there, easily sliding it down his arms, swinging it around and slipping
it onto a waiting hanger.
“Neal, what is this?”
Neal hung the jacket up in its usual space and then looked at Peter. “What do
you think it is?”
“I think it’s you about to make a very poor choice, Neal.” Peter eyes Neal’s
tie, his closed-cuff shirt, the cut of his trousers. Peter doesn’t know suits,
but he knows Neal, and that’s close enough for kissing. “This can’t happen.”
“Of course it can.” Neal sinks to his knees and begins to unlace Peter’s
barely-heeled shoes. Just enough there to give a full break to his pants,
enough to follow social convention. Peter doesn’t like heels, they make his
feet hurt and he can’t run in them. But he also doesn’t like his suit, really,
so. “I’d say it was inevitable.”
Peter grips him by the shoulder and carefully pushed him away, sitting down to
remove his own shoes. “I don’t need a butler.”
“But I make such a good one.” Neal stayed on his knees, watching Peter. “I make
a good anything.”
“I don’t know what your goal is, here, but this—” Peter gestured between the
two of them, “This cannot happen.”
“No, of course not.” Neal agreed, still on his knees, not in any particular
formal kneel, but closet to Presentation and Peter can’t help but notice.
Sometimes Neal subscribes to formal submissive protocol, especially when he’s
trying to convince someone else at the Bureau that Peter has him under control.
The worst is when people fall for it. Anyone who knew Neal, even a little knew
better than to pay particular attention when he landed on either side of the
dynamic fence, but strangers…strangers found it comforting and thus fell for
the lie.
(“If I act more submissive around a dom who wants to control me, ze think ze’s
already succeeded.” Neal had said once, after a particular case. “People don’t
like switches, really. People like to think they fixed me. Put me in my
place.”)
“The two of us. Never going to happen.”
Neal nodded, and he had nothing. Like he’d come up out of mineshaft, holding
nothing, dirty and no diamonds worth having, and he was smiling like he’d won
something.
“The three of us, however.” El comes in from the bathroom, hair up in a knot
and the nice, silk bathrobe tied around her waist. “That is going to happen.”
“No, no-” Peter looks between the two of them and Neal smiles wider. He sighs.
“What is this about?”
El doesn’t kneel, but she does sit next to Neal and rests her head on his
shoulder. “It’s about me knowing you, Peter.”
And she does. She does, of course she does.
About how sometimes Peter thinks that maybe, maybe if he let this happen then
he could well and truly…ah, not fix Neal. Not reform him. Neal is never going
to see the law as anything but something to be slipped around and under. He’s
not a bad person, he just…falls in love. No soulbond, nothing to guide him
except his own variable nature and that. That is where he’s dangerous. When he
falls in love with some piece, when he falls in love with a con, when he falls
in love with submissives who want to be the Clyde to his Bonnie, when he… and
sometimes, Peter thinks if he just let Neal be in love with them, he could curb
most of the worst of his problems.
(“He wants a soulbond.” Peter had confided in El one night. “It’s. He isn’t
happy by himself. Maybe he should be, but he isn’t. He needs people. He needs
someone to love.”)
“El.” he tries and she clicks her tongue, rubbing Neal’s hair and Neal nuzzles
down next to her. “If the Bureau found out, my objectivity would be
questioned.”
“It already is.” Neal replies, staring at him. “They trust you to keep me under
control—to an extent—they trust that you won’t let me step out of line of the
law. But if push came to shove, you’d back me. And they know that.”
Peter pinches the bridge of his nose. “And so the two of you thought to gang up
on me.”
“Well it wouldn’t have worked otherwise.” El sighs. “I love you, Peter. But
sometimes you want to control a little too much.”
“If you for one second think I’m going to let you use sex to…distract me when
you need me distracted-“ Peter points at Neal and Neal looks cowed, head down
and smile gone. “Just. If you ever do that to me. To us. If you use sex to help
you in a lie, or because you think it’ll help you do something you know I won’t
like. Then that’s it.”
Neal looks up. “I’ll try.”
“Neal-“
“I don’t always.” Neal considers himself a moment. “I mean, I wouldn’t do it on
purpose, but I know that I wouldn’t want you…angry with me. And it’d make
perfect sense. At the time.” Neal looks conflicted a moment, before it smoothes
out and goes away.
Neal can convince himself of a lot of things, Peter thinks. Neal…it is so
tempting. Between the two of them, between Peter and El, they could get Neal
well and truly trapped. They could make him lock himself up, to bow for Peter,
to push for El, to get all the parts of him that are real. All those truths he
makes for himself. About how he’s never really submissive and he’s never really
dominant, he’s just both, at once, all the time.
El gets up and presses herself against Peter. “You need this.”
“I-”
“You need this.” She repeats, knitting their fingers together. “You’ve needed
it for a long time, and you’ve just begun to want it too. I am here to make
sure you get what you need.”
“I thought it was my job.”
She pouts a little and kisses his cheek. “Oh, honey.”
Neal is still on his knees, head down and looking at his hands.
“And imagine how hard it was for him to come to me instead of just trying to
seduce you.” El rubs their ring fingers together and Peter feels his inside
just…give.
Neal…needs. Neal needs more than anyone Peter had ever met, and Peter…loves him
for it. Loves how he thinks he can fill him up, and what spaces don’t fit him,
El can take care of. They can overwhelm him. They can sew him into their
marriage and keep him there until he’s well and truly grafted.
“And you want this.” Peter looks to El and she quirks an eyebrow at him until
he pays attention and can feel her wanting it. Not necessarily wanting a triad,
but wanting to uncover all those bright and sparkling parts of Neal that he
never seems to know how to best utilize.
“Of course I do.” She curls her arms around his waist. “And not just for the
shallow, sexy reasons of being able to have two doms completely doting over me,
or getting to double team you sometime, though I will admit it helps.” She
shoots Neal a teasing look and he just smiles at her like she’s the best thing
that could never be forged. “I want it because you two need each other, and I’m
not the kind of person who steps between that. The truth of the matter is,
Peter, that choosing someone to love is terrifying, but that you chose to love
Neal a long time ago, and that isn’t going to change now.”
“How did I get someone so smart for my wife?”
“You were very, very good.” She kissed his cheek again and pressed her hand
there to follow. She moved over and went on her knees in front of Neal, cupping
his face and kissing him like the best sort of bond-com ending and Peter wants
to watch them forever.
“Neal?”
“Yeah?” He says, hand on El’s hip and head on her shoulder, staring up at
Peter.
“You are 100% sure about this?”
“You already have me.” Neal nuzzles El’s neck. “You caught me. All I want is
for you to keep me.”
Peter looks at Neal. At all the things he’s not ever going to say or confess
to. At how he’s the shiniest boy Peter ever knew, and he wraps himself up in
lies so no one can ever see it. About how he’ll forge them priceless artwork to
not hang on their walls, drink wine with El and lie with his head in Peter’s
lap during baseball.
About how Neal just wants to love until he falls apart from it, and if Peter
gives him the chance to, he’ll be all theirs, without flinching.
“We can do that.” Peter agrees.
A/N
Apparently I’m trying to single handedly fill out every song prompt ever for
the meme. Not that I really do them well. But. Eh.
                                      ---
April, 2010
Apples-To-Apples (“And dust-to-dust” Gwen tended to intone solemnly) was one of
three games in all of existence that Freya was not read as the automatic
winner. The other two were Yahtzee (she tended to win, yes, but sometimes you
just got shit dice rolls and no matter how terrifying you looked, you couldn’t
change that.) and Monopoly, because they’d yet to finish a game, ever.
“I have accepted he gets Arthur’s cards. I have accepted this. But I am ashamed
of the rest of you.” Freya grumped over her five cards (Cheap, Luxurious,
Goopy, Friendly, Charming) as Merlin got “Filthy” because he’d put down “Your
Mom.” And it was true. Merlin systemically always made Arthur laugh, ergo, he
always got Arthur’s green card. Which meant that he automatically got one sixth
of the green cards and from that basis, could build his adjective empire.
Freya looked at Elyan accusingly and Elyan held up his hands defensively. “He
played meat-and-potatoes, you know how I feel about meat-and-potatoes.” Elyan
had one green card (Strong) from Freya, because he’d played coffee and she’d
said “It’d better be, damn it.”
“Leon?”
“He played the A-bomb for Effulgent. What was I supposed to do? That’s
terrible.” Leon had three green cards (fast, hot, needy, all of them from
Merlin because Leon had Merlin’s number, apparently.)
“Gwen is the only person I like right now.” Freya patted Gwen’s arm. Gwen had
no cards. Freya was a gracious winner, once her win was secured over you.
Merlin shrugged. Merlin had sixteen cards. Joyous, Effulgent, Deadly,
Delicious, Shaky, Filthy, Rude, Hospitable, Soft, Quiet, Glossy, and Petulant.
“I can’t help that I’m hilarious. When the hilarious card comes up, I’m going
to put myself down. I can do that. There is card with my name on it. And
Arthur’s.”
Arthur’s card was much coveted, and was played with any number of charming
adjectives and then he could expect a good thirty minutes of teasing to follow.
(“It’s only because it’s precious when you go all stuffy and posh about it.”
Freya had consoled him once. “Merlin rolls in compliments like a pig in mud, so
he’s no fun.”)
“I demand satisfaction. I will duel you.” She pointed.
“Fine, the field of battle is Apples-To-Apples and oh look, I am the most
winner.” Merlin fanned out his cards. “Gwen, it’s your turn.”
She sighed and picked up Boring. “Don’t anyone put down Gone With The Wind
again. I can’t.”
“Gone With The Wind is perfection except for all the parts that glorify racism
and the White Man’s Burden and the confederacy, which shouldn’t be
romanticized, but if everyone just outright stopped liking problematic things,
than there would be nothing else to like, so as long as you acknowledge it as
problematic it’s fine. Also it is perfection.” Merlin grumbled.
“Oh, Merlin, think of it this way. The more green cards I have, the more like
Scarlet O’Hara I am.” Freya tried and Merlin considered this a moment.
“Scarlet would get her own cards.” Merlin stroked his cards.
“Also he wants to be Scarlet, so that doesn’t really work.” Arthur took a drink
of his lager and defended it from Merlin, who didn’t even like lager and thus
shouldn’t steal Arthur’s.
“Elyan, why do they know each other better than us?” Freya asked, and Elyan
kissed her cheek. “Are they just actually the same person with a time turner
and an incredible ability to disguise themselves? Are you? No! You’re actually
telepathic. Like, full on.”
Merlin looked smug as he stole Gwen’s flavoured malt drink and Gwen, in turn,
stole a few bites of Merlin’s Pad Si Ew because Merlin was always the last to
finish food because he spent more time talking than putting it in his face.
Arthur looked down at his cards and slid Calculus over because he couldn’t
think of anything cleverer. Arthur was not terrifically good at board or card
games. Or drinking games. But they weren’t allowed to do drinking games,
because Merlin could, and had, gotten drunk off a single wine cooler, and that
was just silly. You couldn’t play a drinking game with that, if for no other
reason than Merlin would start trying to have an anthropological conversation
about fan-culture and reclaiming sub sexuality as a force, rather than a
response, and how they’re very liberal with dynamic-changes, but would have
wank over who was changed into what, and they didn’t get along at all with the
people who just left two doms as two doms, and then murmuring to himself about
how hard he’d shag Captain America all over the place. (“I’m fairly sure that’s
treason.” “I will be his Peggy. Oh God, my favourite is that he’s this tiny
little dom. He’s like a pocket dom. He is the wee-est of all the doms, oh, oh,
oh, I cannot. I cannot. I want to keep tiny Steve Rogers in my pocket and he
can bumble his way through trying to dom me and then getting nervous and
needing a lie down until I broke him in. And also big Steve Rogers. I would
break them both in and it would be the most beautiful.” “Breathe.”)
“If we’d been friends since we were five, we would be as disgustingly precious
as they are.” Elyan promised, patting her arm. “But not, as we would have
soulbonded when we were kids and no one would have let us hang out.”
“Unless you hid it.” Merlin replied as Gwen looked over the choices, biting her
thumbnail and considering.
“How do you hide that?” Freya asked. “Like. You go crazy for at least…two
months?”
“Minimum.” Elyan agreed and Gwen was debating between Calculus and Granola.
“But once you identified it’d been hell to try and get any time alone anyways.”
Leon pointed out, “Before dating was allowed, I remember, not a single dom or
sub talked to each other, because every adult near us would shove us away
again, so it just became a thing. And then you just came up with excuses why
you didn’t even want to talk with them anyways, until it became okay to start
dating. Soulbonding that young would have been terrible. Great, in a way, but
frustrating.”
“Not knowing what to do.” Freya agreed.
“Not knowing what you liked, and not being able to do anything about it. Always
having a chaperone around in case you just went batshit right there. And kids
would treat you differently, you know? Or it’d just…be different. Knowing who
your soulmate was while everyone else was making shit up. Saying it’s any old
single celebrity they can come up with.” Elyan put his head in his hand. “Gwen,
sometime today, maybe?”
“I’m thinking.” She tapped her lip. “Granola can have fruit in it, which is
exciting. But some people really like Calculus, so my own opinion shouldn’t be
the only thing taken into account. And I guess long car rides are also sort of
boring.” She hesitated over that card and hummed to herself. Gwen routinely
took forever to make a choice and nothing would rush her.
“And I guess finding your fiancée early would be better than late, or, you
know, never.” Leon shuffled his hand absently. “I mean, it’d be nice to really
know you were loved.”
“Unless it was one of your teachers.” Freya tapped her fingers against the
table. “That’s happened. Some poor little thirteen year old, newly identified
dom finds his thirty-year-old soulmate in his art classroom? People panic about
that sort of thing. On one hand they’re soulmates, on the other hand thirteen.
What the fuck do you have in common at that point?”
“That’s the thing isn’t it?” Gwen asked, holding the two green cards to the
light. “People are different at different points in their lives. When is your
soulmate supposed to be all you need or want in a person?”
The table goes quiet and she looks up. “Oh stop it. I’m just saying. It’s.
People are complicated. You don’t just meet your soulmate and feel complete.
It’s. You’ve got to be all you are before you can deal with adding them on. I
guess.”
“But if you’re young enough you build around each other.” Leon adds, thinks,
considers. “You guys have gone disturbingly quiet.”
“I want granola now.” Merlin said, staring at the cards. “She said fruit and
granola and now that is the only food that I want to eat in all the universe.”
They did build around each other though. Or grow around each other. Into each
other, maybe. Arthur isn’t a poet. He’s a man who can chop a banana, put it on
a bowl of granola and cover it in the last of Freya and Elyan’s two percent
milk and carefully rinses the bottle out before putting it into the bin.
And yet they are still waiting. Not…for a soulmate. They have each other, and
it’s. He can’t imagine having not had Merlin there, sitting tandem to his life.
He can’t imagine how that would have even been feasible with some stranger.
Some somebody that he didn’t know who just got all his anger and his need and
his greed and resented him for it. Blocked him out.
The cereal would get soggy. Spoon. He needed a spoon.
Someone who thought shoving him out of his head was the only solution to his
problems. Arthur can’t… the thing with soulmates, he thinks, is that yes: it
takes work. It isn’t a perfect little ending to some trite little story. It’s.
Hard. And weird. And a series of compromises, like when Merlin gets sick and
they have actual fights about how much of that misery Arthur is allowed to
carry for him. Or about how Arthur will shut himself down whenever he gets a
bad cut, or bruise or bump or whatever because Merlin shouldn’t have any of
that. But. The trick is that you know how they feel about you that entire time.
No guesswork. No feeling unloved or under-appreciated because they are right
there, and that is what makes it work. Maybe.
Napkin. Merlin is terrible with spoons.
But mostly he can’t imagine needing anyone but Merlin.
“Pick an obvious landmark and if they are past that landmark, you hold the door
open, if they are not, you just go in. Like if they’re on a certain step, or
have cleared the stairs, you hold the door open, if they’re at the bottom of
the stairs, just go in.” Leon was explaining.
“Unless they’re carrying an armload of things.” Elyan interjected.
“Or if you can see that there’s someone in that awkward do-I-don’t-I distance
in the reflection of the door, you can slow down.” Merlin was shuffling his
green cards. He’d won the last round, apparently, with “Taxes”, though Gwen had
dismissed it originally because she said it was more frustrating than boring.
“But what I hate is the people who hold it open from a ridiculously far point
away and then are like ‘Oh don’t hurry’ and you’re like ‘It will take me over a
minute to get there otherwise”
“Or if you hold the door open for someone and they aren’t even going in that
door, but they don’t say anything.” Gwen added.
Freya was glaring at Gwen, because she had committed the unforgivable sin of
giving Merlin another card.
“I don’t hold open the door unless they are right behind me and holding a live
jaguar.” Arthur sat down and looked at the new green card on the table. “Even
then I mostly bump it open after me.”
“That’s because manners scare you, since your Uncle was the absolute worst.”
Merlin rubbed his arm, because Freya had punched him for committing the
unforgivable sin of getting another card.
“People have the ability to open doors. Or if they don’t, they have the ability
to ask me to hold the door open, which I will do. I hate when someone opens the
door and insists you go first, even if you don’t want to. Be polite, yes, don’t
be an asshole about it, though.”
Freya snorted as Merlin crunched his cereal and then looked down at it
mournfully. “I don’t like granola, do I?”
“You don’t.”
“But I really wanted it.”
“Yes, you did.”
Merlin makes an unhappy noise and stares into his bowl helplessly before Arthur
takes it from him and starts eating. It’s too sweet, some sort of banana-nut
granola, but Arthur kept going, while Merlin stole nut clusters from the bowl
and then making faces once they were in his mouth.
Stop eating things you don’t like.” Arthur tugged the bowl away and swallowed
as much down as possible. “This is like the goat cheese again.”
“That was unbearable.” Leon rubs his face and plays a red card down for Freya’s
“Fragrant” card. “That was completely unbearable.”
“It was the worst thing I ever put in my mouth.” Merlin looked at his hand
mournfully.
“But you kept putting it in your mouth.” Leon continued, “And making really
distressed noises.”
“They were kind of hot.” Freya put her head in her hand and Elyan patted her
shoulder. “What? In an abstract way. Not in a ‘I want to tie Merlin down and
feed him goat cheese until he cries for mercy’ kind of way.”
““Not the oddest thing I’ve ever done.” Merlin rounded out the routine with a
gesture and there was laughter and then back to the game until Merlin
eventually won his most glorious victory, “I am Loki of Asgard, and I am
burdened with a glorious purpose to win all the apples. How do you like them,
Freya? How do you like them apples? Are they sour and delicious in pie? I
suspect so.”
“If I tackle him and hold him down for a while will you get angry at me?” Freya
turned to Elyan. Elyan made a permissive gesture and Merlin scrambled behind
Arthur.
“My champion, defend me!” Merlin scrambled onto his back like a spider monkey
and clung. “Oh, Oh, Arthur is totally Thor. He’s so Thor it hurts me. Like.
When he’s being an arsehole, you just have to tell him and he immediately stops
and makes you a hot English breakfast.”
“But I’m adopted.” Arthur wrapped his arms under Merlin’s thighs so he could
perch more comfortably. “Also I’m not an arrogant sod.”
“You are a little.” Merlin nuzzled his shoulder in apology. “But in an
endearing, Warrior Of Asgard kind of way. Oh. Oh. Lady Sif and Freya are the
same person. They are one.”
“She was a brunette in green.” Freya lead them all to the living room so they
could flop on the couch and Elyan could turn the game console on. “You did go a
little batshit over her.”
“Her wave to Thor in the window was so dorky I wanted to worship her knees
forever.” Merlin smashed his face to Arthur shoulder and Arthur dumped him in a
chair and then sat on the floor, given that there was limited seating, and
rested his head against Merlin’s knee.
“Remember when we talked about things besides Marvel characters?” Arthur asked.
“Yes. We talked about Harry Potter. It was beautiful.” Merlin moved to start
giving him a neck rub, his affection felt warm in Arthur’s gut, suffusing him
and he relaxed against the chair, ducking his head forward so Merlin’s hand
could work on the knots. Work them exactly right because Merlin could tell how
his touches felt, could fell the knots in his own back and what his own
ministrations were doing to release them. It was…weird to get touched by anyone
else, when they didn’t just know how to do it.
“And part of me wants to write six billion papers about Voldemort soul’s bit
making a Harry a switch until he killed it good and killed, because that’s a
little too close to the whole ‘switches are good souls who had a demon possess
them, we must save them. We must burn them to save them’ thing. That happens.”
“Also, are you seriously telling me that no other parent, in all the parents
that Voldemort killed, didn’t try and die for their kid? Not one?” Leon asked.
“I’m going with they were out fighting him and not hiding in their homes so the
baby wasn’t…present? Or Voldemort’s Death Eaters killed them and they aren’t
all Horocrux-y?”
Merlin moved rolled his forearms over Arthur’s shoulders in a near-continuous
slide of pressure and friction to try and get his neck to calm down.
“Is there a queue we can get in for that, or…?” Freya asks, head in her hands.
“I have this crick right under my skull that won’t quit.”
“I got this cramp from reading over Merlin’s Ode To Comma Abuse.”
“My paper on the complexities of human sexuality in storytelling as perceived
as deviant by popular culture as presented by the White Collar fan community is
brilliant and you can suck on your semi-colons. You can suck on them until they
rot right off.” Merlin dug his thumb in hard and didn’t let up the pressure for
anything. “Ask Elyan to do it.”
“Nooooo.” Both Freya and Gwen reply and Elyan makes faces at them both, before
running Luigi right off a rainbow bridge and thus making a face at the telly.
“Why not?” Merlin rolled his thumb up the tight cords along Arthur’s spine and
Arthur keeps his groan of pleasure trapped in his stomach where it belongs.
“He’s your soulmate. He should know how to do that shit.”
“Yeah, we’re not so great at physical sensation.” Freya rubbed her upper lip.
“We think it’s because we’re both such physical people that we have a hard
time…detaching enough to share the information, but.” She picked up Elyan’s
dropped controller, and then leaned back so her head was in his lap. “It sort
of freaks us out when we feel things we don’t remember doing?”
Merlin hummed and leaned Arthur’s head back so he could work under and around
his jaw, letting Arthur rest his skull full weight in his hands so his neck
could have a break. “Focus on one part at a time. The whole body is complicated
and too much information, but if you just think this is how my little finger
feels right now, then it gets communicated better.”
Elyan and Freya looked at him.
“I don’t know why I have to keep saying this, but I do a lot of reading.”
Merlin cradled Arthur’s head with one hand and kneaded at the base of his neck
with the other. “Do I need to quote things again? I can quote things again. Do
you want me to quote things?” Merlin’s fingers trailed subtly against Arthur’s
back before he settled into giving his head scratches. Arthur hummed in
satisfaction and settled in with Merlin’s fingers worked quietly and carefully
over his scalp, scratching where it itched and lingering where it felt
especially good.
“You’re going to blow your dom’s head off.” Freya stretched her fingers and
settled in for a good race.
Merlin hummed and continued working on Arthur’s head until he was warm and
collected, too tupped to bother taking up his turn, and Merlin felt all warm
and pleased next to him, so he wasn’t about to stop either, the two of them
drowsing in each other’s presence under the pretence of a long day and good
food, and all four of the others used to them flopping over each other utterly,
as comfortable with each other as themselves, and since they’d always been this
way, there was nothing odd about it.
People were very willing to put a lot down to one’s idiosyncrasies and long
acquaintance. Merlin would give just about anyone a hand massage if they sat
next to him long enough, and he’d crawl into any of his friends’ laps without a
second thought. Clearly Arthur was just used to him.
Arthur closed his eyes and if they were home Merlin would kiss him about now,
when they were both as soft and soaked with contentment as if it were something
you could bathe in. He’d just lean down and press his soft lips against
Arthur’s—upside down, of course—moving slow and easy, fingers brushing down
Arthur’s throat neither of them moving for more…
They used to kiss a lot. Every spare moment, once they start practicing… well.
Merlin had always had an endless list of isolated places that no one but them
would care to explore, places perfect for spreading out an old, stained blanket
and…practicing, laying side by side and trying not to touch too much because it
didn’t count if they didn’t actually touch except for kissing.
He opens his eyes and Merlin is staring down at him, smiling, and Arthur smiles
back. Freya throws a pillow at them.
                                      ---
cont.
When she returned to her family they rejoiced to see her, and told her of the
good fortune they’d had while she was away. Her sisters had helped their father
rebuild his empire, for two of his ships thought lost at sea had returned, and
with them both of her sister’s soulmates, and they were now happily married.
But seeing his two daughters share such joy, while his final beloved daughter
was denied it had sent her dear father into a decline and he’d gone to bed and
not gotten up for many weeks.
She took his wrists in her hands and kissed his forehead. “Dear father, I am
well, and it hurts me so to see you like this. I am allowed a fortnight, and we
should spend it in joy.”
And so it was that she nursed him back to health, and she visited her sister’s
households, and there was a very merry time had. But as the deadline approached
her family mourned and pleaded, asking her to stay just a bit longer, and while
her heart was softened to their cries, she said she had made a promise and
promises must be kept.
“But we miss you so, and ze is a terrible beast. Surely you miss us, dear
sister!” Her sisters cried. “Stay with us for just a few days more, to see our
households and partners. They would like so to see you.”
“I have made a promise, and I intend to keep it. If I keep this one, then the
beast will trust me to visit again.” She kissed their foreheads and bid them
farewell.
“My darling daughter, it breaks me so to have you away. I am well now, but how
I will suffer for you leaving.”
“Trust that I am well, and I am watching you. I am happy and I have
responsibilities to attend to. It would bring my happiness to see your
happiness. I have made a promise and I intend to keep it. I will not break that
trust.”
And so she left, hardened herself to her family’s tears, because she was not
the kind to break her word, no matter what the cost. She returned to the
beast’s castle and when ze did not greet her, she searched the castle and could
not find zer. Finally she went out into the rose garden and found the beast, in
full daylight, that much more hideous and monstrous than she could have even
imagined. Zer body looked tortured out of shape, the joints mismatched, skin
and fur and scales and feather fighting for space, too many legs and not enough
fingers and worst…worst of all, was that mixed in with any number of strange
creatures, she could see human eyes staring up at her, desperate and deranged.
And still she sat beside the beast and put zer head in her lap and stroked zer
head. “I came as I promised, why do you mourn?”
“I could not bear for you to leave.” The beast’s voice thrummed out in a
piteous whine, zer claws and talons scraping at the ground, zer breathing
laboured and harsh. “But I wanted your happiness, and decided my suffering was
worth it. If you had not come back when you promised, I would have died here.”
She soothed zer as best she could. “I will always keep my promises, but you
must tell me when you will suffer so.” She pressed her lips to his flaking and
ruined forehead. “If you will not take care of yourself, it falls to me to do
it for you.”
The beast then looked up at her and then bowed zer head. “I accept.”
It was by this token that the beast’s body began to roll like the ocean, and
thus freed the animals that had been sewn to the beast’s soul were freed,
snakes and rabbits fleeing, a bear loping back into the woods, fish flopping on
the ground, birds flocking to the air, dogs romping through the rose garden,
and leaving only the submissive princess of the castle to lie, panting and
desperate.
The merchant’s daughter gasped, at once feeling all the empty, aching spaces
inside her filling with love and fear, so thick and fierce it caught her breath
and she pressed her hands to her soulmate’s face and kissed her. “My darling,
how I have waited for you. What happened that we should have been parted?”
“You have broken the curse, my dearest.” The princess said. “For I behaved as a
beast, and a witch said I should be one with them if I was to act so, until
someone came to teach me how to love properly, and you have. You have saved me,
and to you I give my submission.”
And so it was that they lived in joy together, surrounded by family and
friends, and neither of them were lonely for the rest of their days.
***** Part Four *****
January 2012
The padded, automatic handcuffs broke suddenly on one of those almost-too-
perfect days that just begged for something terrible to happen.
They were careful. They were careful with everything in Master’s room. Arthur
could dare someone to find a set of sex toys that was as well maintained and
tended as what they had in the lockbox, except then people would know they had
their own dungeon—albeit an unconventional one—just to themselves, and... They
always made sure the timer and the remote had batteries, they checked that both
were working before using them. Both timers worked. The button, when pressed,
caused all four bracelets to click open. They’d stripped naked, Merlin just
leaving his clothing on the floor where they fell, Arthur folding his and
putting them on the chair, and then picking up Merlin’s too. Tripping hazard.
There hadn’t been a hitch, not like the toy they’d gotten when they were
teenagers, and found a decent looking sex shop. They’d been too poor to afford
anything, really, and they’d wanted something small, something easily hidden,
and something quiet. So they’d gotten this tiny little two-speed battery
powered, bullet vibrator with a waterproof battery casing attached by a cord to
the thing itself. It had tickled against Merlin’s nose when he’d tried it, but
it looked like something you might get a hardware store, black and grey and
shiny steel, not the brightly coloured dildos or the rabbit and giraffe shaped
vibrators, or the other, limited selection of fuzzy handcuffs and tiny rubber
whips, dice sex games, and row after row of pornographic videos and DVDs.
They’d bought it and played with it, figuring out where to put the rounded tip
to the greatest effect (right up against the slit of Merlin’s prick, up against
his arse, all around the base of his dick. Arthur liked it under his scrotum,
and maybe pressed to the head of his prick, but never for long), which of the
two speeds they liked (Arthur liked the faster one, Merlin liked the slow thrum
of the slower one when it was running out of battery) for how long (Arthur in
short, tactical strikes, Merlin for a long teasing glide, until Arthur’s
fingers were numb from holding it and Merlin had leaked everywhere). It had
spent a good two months dying, starting up and winding down all at once,
speeding up when twisted this way and falling silent when twisted another.
They’d made do, Merlin had even enjoyed the spontaneity, because it would stop
just as he was right there and he’d cool off while Arthur fiddled with it to
get it to work again, until, one day, it just wouldn’t turn on at all.
Which was a shame, given they’d sort of imprinted on it—it being their only
toy—and just seeing the shiny metal of the bullet would get one or both of them
hard. Arthur had gotten used to the quiet whirling buzz of it, and holding it
just so to get Merlin to arch right off the bed. It didn’t count if it was a
toy. It didn’t count if it was something you could do to yourself.
The handcuffs just stopped working. They’d set them for thirty minutes, Arthur
had the panic button and Merlin was next to the phone. Merlin had looked at
him, sleepy and dark and Arthur had wanted to just…keep all of him. Merlin had
been working on his thesis and so Arthur had offered to think of a story for
the night, so Merlin could relax. Merlin was terrible at relaxing.
A simple little night, nothing fancy, nothing special, just the two of them and
being just far apart enough to make it difficult.
“So?” Merlin asked, sliding his leg along Arthur’s, nuzzling his head into the
pillow. Arthur stretched to kiss him and Merlin tilted his head and let him,
mouth sloppy-soft and hot, not really participating, but still making hushed
noises of enjoyment, humming against Arthur’s lips.
“Right.” Arthur looked at him, but Arthur never had to think of stories except
when Merlin was exhausted and just needed a little bit to relax, so fell back
on one of the old favourites. “I could be a Prince, and you could be…be my
whipping boy.” Arthur caught Merlin’s ankle between his legs, dragging him
closer.
“Do we get on, or do you like seeing your tutors hurt me?” Merlin asked and
Arthur thought about it a moment. “I wouldn’t have liked you at first.”
Merlin pouted and Arthur kicked him, lightly. “My story, my rules. It isn’t
suitable to whip a Prince, but I was a terrible brat, so they gave you to me.
And I didn’t like you at all, until I did something horrible and they actually
whipped you.”
Merlin bit his lip and his toes trailed up Arthur’s calf. “Did it leave welts?”
“Of course it did. Bright red welts and your trousers around your ankles, and
you’d have cried, I think, getting that beating for something you didn’t even
do. And eventually we’d be friends, and I’d want to see them. I’d put cool
cloths on your poor, abused backside.”
Merlin hummed, eyelashes fluttering and stretching himself out so his arms
pulled behind him, long and narrow. “And eventually you stopped being such a
terrible brat?”
“Eventually.” Arthur agreed and shifted so Merlin could tug them closer, with a
long, pale leg wrapped over Arthur’s hip.
“So I would have done something terrible, but I didn’t mean to. I’d know if I
did something, anything, wrong then my tutor would hurt you, and even if I sort
of liked the noises you made when the cane fell, or the way you just let me
take care of you when you were in pain...well. Even if I kind of wanted to know
how it felt like. I’d press the welts, when she was done.” Arthur slid his cock
along Merlin’s thigh.
Merlin shuddered and licked his lips. “You liked them? All those long, red
lines over me? Wanted some for yourself. Did you scratch yourself, trying to
figure out what it’d be like?”
“Yeah.” Arthur agreed, their pricks nudging one another as they set a slow,
easy pace. “But that was my business. I’d grown to like you. Your attitude,
your ears, the way you’d warm my up on a cold night. Castles didn’t have
heating, you know. Bed warming was a very necessary job.”
“Mmm,” Merlin agreed. “Especially during those long winter nights. Me in your
bed, your hand down my trousers, everyone just bunked down, sleeping through
half the day.”
“Note that down for later.” Arthur said, wanted to put his hands all over
Merlin’s sweaty-chilled body, hiding under the covers like the rest of the
world was toxic.
“So I would have done something wretched, and it would be you who’d have to get
punished. And you, who would be sitting right next to me, head in my lap as I
did my lessons, because you’d keep me calm. You, poor little wretch, would be
dragged to your feet. And she would tell you to drop your trousers and I’d
plead for you not to have to. I would, I’d demand and ask and beg.” He lipped
Merlin’s ear, “But she’d do it anyways. She toss you down on the table, and
spank you, strap you maybe. Cane you?”
“Strap.” Merlin said, pressing down against the thigh Arthur had worked between
his legs, “She’d use a…a strap she’d keep on her belt just for…just for me.”
Merlin gasped, his chest thrown forward, and Arthur stretched until he could
sink his teeth against Merlin’s neck. Merlin, thrust up against his thigh, neck
arched for him. Arthur rotated his wrists in the cuffs, liking how they bit
through the padding, held strong and held him back, let him relax into their
grip.
“And she would hit you, and I wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop her. Your
arse would be full of these red stripes and I would notice you were hard. You
would be hard, wouldn’t you? You’d love it. Too many years being my whipping
boy, and me trying to make it all better afterwards. Got into your head as we
grew up, if you suffer just right, I’d take good care of you.”
Merlin just panted and Arthur wanted to touch him. He wanted so badly to scoop
him up, but he didn’t have permission. He wasn’t allowed; for all that Merlin’s
body was begging to be touched. “And I would make it better. She’d put all
those marks on you, marks you’d suffer for me, so the second she was gone I’d
lick each and every one of those stripes, rub them with salve until it cooled
them down, and half wanting them for myself, a little. Partly so you wouldn’t
suffer, partly because you moan just right when the strap falls, I’d put you on
your side and suck you off.”
“Would you touch them?” Merlin asked, cock smearing pre-come all over Arthur’s
leg and Arthur. “Press down on them? Ask how it felt?”
“I don’t want to hurt you.” Arthur rested his head against the pillow, bucking
against the restraints. “But I would. I’d want to feel how hot they are, how
sensitive. Would you complain?”
Merlin shook his head. “I’d like them. I would. I’d be suffering for you. And
you’d be so good to me afterwards.” Merlin gasped into the pillow, nipples high
and tight on his chest, skin coming up goose-pimples in the cool air, stripped
of all his jumpers and blankets that he’d bundle himself into at the first sign
of cold weather. Arthur could probably spin this out. He could get Merlin
caught up in that little world, but they were both tired, and it was late, and
he wanted to tuck Merlin into his arms and keep him there for a good eight
hours. Merlin had an early shift the next day.
“I’d trail my fingers over them, let you fuck my mouth all loose and sloppy.
Choke me a little bit to try and make up for it.” Arthur promised, nudging at
Merlin’s cock with his knee. “Come on, fuck up against my leg.”
“Oh, you’d feel so guilty.” Merlin grinned, thrusting in earnest, eyes trailing
over Arthur. “You’d know it was your fault and you’d want me to hurt you a
little, to feel better about yourself.”
Arthur’s cock jerked a little, where it stayed: hot and hard. Merlin adjusted
them, so he could jerk up against Arthur’s thigh, while Arthur rode his calf.
“You’d want me to shove in, but I wouldn’t. I’d just let you go.” Merlin panted
a moment and wiggled his thin hips forward. ‘I’d just let you go at your own
pace. Suck on it as slow and careful. Never shove your head down. Never make
you choke on it a little. Never tell you what to do.” Merlin gave it up easily-
- splattering over Arthur’s leg and stomach with a groan.
Arthur pressed the button. He didn’t particularly want to get off on Merlin’s
leg while Merlin was half-asleep. The main point had been for Merlin to relax,
and humping his leg wouldn’t, exactly, assist in that endeavour.
The handcuffs didn’t budge.
“Merlin, can you get out?” Arthur asked and Merlin tugged on his arms and shook
his head, nuzzling down into the bed, in the full assurance, for whatever
reason, that Arthur would take complete care of it. Arthur pressed the button
harder and neither set moved. He banged the thing a few times before he lost
his grip and it was on the carpet. He looked at the timer. Another five
minutes, they could wait. He rolled his hips and Merlin blinked his eyes open
and watched him, muggily confused.
“The button isn’t working, so we’ll just run down the timer.”
“It was working before.” Merlin grumbled. “We got a lifetime warranty on those
suckers, didn’t we? We’ll take it in. If nothing else we’ve got my keys.”
Merlin looks down and then frowns. “Where are they?”
Arthur really should have noticed the lack of keys earlier, but Merlin was
tired and needed relaxing, and Arthur was thus tired and in need of relaxing.
“I left them in my pocket.” Merlin turned to try and get off the bed and
retrieve his trousers, but, of course, Arthur had put them on the chair, clear
across the room, thinking about getting Merlin back to their room in one piece.
Arthur sighed. “The timer should open it.”
It was a tense next couple of minutes. Merlin rolled his wrists and rubbed his
nose against the pillow. The come on Arthur went cold against his belly, ran
down in large, gooey drops onto the sheets and he sighed. The handcuffs beeped
that they were done, but the rings didn’t open. He pulled. Still locked tight.
Merlin tugged. “How. How did they both break?” He tugged harder and then
relaxed, took a deep breath and sort of...shoved his calm onto Arthur. “Okay.
We’ll just get the lead off the tie points and then go get the keys. We have
safety scissors around here.”
The tie points were under the bed and Merlin can quite get to his except to
fumble at it ineffectually. The scissors were supposed to be in reach, but far
enough away to avoid one of them getting stabbed, except Arthur could quite get
them, even stretching forward with his leg. They must have knocked them off the
table or. Or something else equally stupid. He tried his tie point, and he
could get to the knot, but he couldn’t move it anywhere or get it free.
Certainly couldn’t untie it, seeing as they’d been knotted under there so long.
Stupid. Stupid.
“Is this something we’re going to laugh about later?” Merlin asked from his
side of the bed. Arthur looked at the screw end of the tie-hook and tries to
get his thumb in it enough to crank it free.
It was another indefinite length of eternity before Merlin was frustratedly
trying to hook his arms under his legs while Arthur was shoving the mattress
and boxspring up with his shoulder to get to the tie point from there.
He couldn’t quite get enough leverage, can’t get them to move high enough
before he gets his hands under. “Merlin, get on the other side and lift. If we
can get this off I’ll get the leads off, we’ll get the keys and I will yell at
somebody about this.”
“Sure, just give me a--fuck.”
There was a sharp wrench of pain in Arthur’s shoulder, followed by a fresh stab
of panic. No, no, no not.
“Merlin?” Arthur called out. “Merlin are you okay?”
Distress rang in his gut. Arthur scrambled over the bed to look down, stuck
from going any farther and Merlin, breathless, tried to get out a: “I’m fine.”
Except he wasn’t, and Arthur knew he wants.
And it was like any other time that Merlin had been hurt, or worried, or
scared. Arthur stopped being sensible and just... not lost it. He lost it when
he’d bashed a dom’s head into the bar, and he’d lost it when he’d chased down a
thief, and he’d lost it...
But he did panic.
In another situation, they would have reached the scissors by using something
else, cut themselves free and gotten very angry at the shop they’d gotten the
handcuffs from. Or they would have both managed the mattress and the boxspring,
unhooking the knot and then getting very angry at the shop they’d gotten
handcuffs from. But Merlin was in pain and Arthur scrambled for the mobile with
his foot, got it up and before he knew it, he had it ringing.
Oh God.
                                      ---
From: AEigyrson@loose.threads.com
To: WTunnsdottier@loose.threads.com
Subject: Glass Review
Wanda,
I’m almost finished with my review of the Vulgate grand opening and should be
sending it Tuesday, but I know you’re still looking to replace Film Freddie, so
I thought I’d try my hand at more film reviews, since Yesteryear was received
favourably. Given our large non-dynamic or dynamic-queer readership, and given
the nature of Vulgate’s niche, I thought this film might tie in well. Let me
know.
Arthur Eigyrson
Attached File (glassreview.doc)
Glass comes from Norwegian-born director and writer Howard Isen, and it’s his
first film to grab anything resembling mainstream acclaim and critical mention.
While he has over thirty films in his filmography, none of them are over thirty
minutes long, and while many of them have a weird, aching kind of memorability
to them, Glass is his only film so far to gain attention outside of film
festivals.
Glass is a short film coming in at a little over an hour. However, Howard Isen
is a strong believer that films shouldn’t be any longer than they need to be.
There are no extraneous scenes, every single shot set up to convey as much mood
and information as possible without completely overloading the audience member.
It’s labelled as a psychological horror movie, and it focuses on that first
part far more than any others in its genre have in a long time. It’s not just
trying to scare you, it isn’t relying on blood and jump cuts and monsters. The
tension of not knowing what is safe and who to trust carries a lot of the
feeling of being unsettled.
The moment the film opens it begins setting up expectations. It’s a horror
movie that has seen other horror movies, and not in a snarky sideways Scream
kind of way. Isen is a man who knows his genre conventions, knows what you’re
expecting and he plays very carefully about when to give you what you think
should be there, and when to take it away. It’s a horror movie fan’s horror
movie. Rachel Hans opens as Cinderella, a perfect horror movie, fairy-tale
heroine. She’s almost painfully sweet, an open book of the good virtuous
daughter without a lick of sarcasm. She’s the picture of every Cinderella we’ve
ever grown up to hate. Innocent and sweet, hard-working to the point of
psychotic, with that oh-so-charming bone deep need to just be loved, and Kelly
Stan takes her turn as the evil step-sister, cruel and capricious for no real
reason, and…
If this sounds like the same old story, you’re right. For the first fifteen
minutes of the movie it’s so predictable it hurts. It’s beautifully shot, the
dialogue is carefully scripted and never sounds clunky or forced, and both
actresses are brilliant in their parts, but you sit there, smug in the theatre
thinking I know these people. I know how this goes., and even after that, when
Cinderella and her stepsister get some depth, you’re still not sure what the
movie is about.
And then the turn happens. And it doesn’t just happen. It isn’t as if one half
of the movie is one way and the other half is another. They bounce off each
other, and the chaos and confusion in the middle is what makes this movie worth
the ticket price. It is unsettling, because for a good twenty minutes, you
don’t know who is what. You don’t know who has the power and who is the victim,
and, after a bit, you start to feel like you are the one locked in that
basement. And you get why this tiny little independent film is getting so much
traction. There are no monsters, there are no murders, but it is terrifying.
It’s terrifying, in part, because you realize you are being lied to. That films
have always lied to you, they’ve manipulated you into believing the world is
one way, when it could not be. It could be anything. And this is the first time
someone wants to say something about it.
The entire movie is claustrophobic, it feels trapped and frenetic and
monstrous. The entire movie was shot on a single set in a basement that looks
like the entire building could collapse at any moment. There are two actors,
and if either of them were even slightly less talented the entire film would
fall apart (and they are both marvellous, at points they’re both playing each
role and in those moments the entire theatre goes quiet and you cannot even
fathom who will break first.) By the end of the movie you just want them to get
out of that basement, to feel any breeze of fresh air, to get out of that room
and run away. And by the end they do. And in that scene, which I will not ruin
for you (and you should watch this movie before someone else does) you aren’t
sure you wanted them out after all.
You aren’t really sure of anything.
                                      ---
July, 2001
Arthur’s uncle signed him up for a scrapbooking class. He had silently surveyed
Dr. Whitman’s list of suggested activities, crossing several off with long,
grim lines for being too expensive (musical instruments, gardening, painting),
or too dangerous (cooking, knitting (?), clothing design), not practical
(singing, drama, dancing). He’d almost crossed off scrapbooking, except then he
got to thinking about all those boxes of photographs, letters and bits and bobs
that they had stored away in the loft, and how it might be nice to have someone
be the family archivist. He’d also kept “typist.”
Merlin signed up for it shortly thereafter, thus Tuesday finding the both of
them surrounded by cardstock and vellum, looking through magazines for
“inspiration” and mostly just making fun of the ads (“Mulberry paper in a
cardstock weight? Watch the kids honey, I’m going to go crop!”) and aimlessly
cut out paper in long spirals and glued them to the scrapbooking page.
“Let it be a book, not only to remember events, but how you felt about them.
Capture the entire moment.” The teacher said. “Find things besides photographs
and movie stubs to keep with you. It’s scraps of your life, the bits that
you’re free to cut away and make a quilt out of.” She didn’t really look at any
of their pages and Arthur imagined you’d have to be pretty bored, or pretty
boring, to teach scrapbooking. There were stamps and stickers, glitter and
sequins, thread and fabric samples, strange-edged scissors, four different
sorts of tape, glues, markers, crayons, pencils and rulers. Merlin started them
on making a scrapbook for the survivors of some terrible, unnamed world-ending
event, carefully cropping magazine ads and putting various headlines together
like a jigsaw ransom note for the world.
Arthur was helping.
“Does this look balanced to you?” Merlin asked, holding up the two pages. “It’s
a nice showcase of death, I think.”
Someone to the left was doing a page to their dog, someone else held up a page
to a birthday party. Arthur hunched closer to Merlin and away from the pre-
teens and the house-partners, not a single soul his age, and no one who looked
even slightly interesting, at all. Merlin had worn a sundress to better fit in
with the crowd, and also because it was hot and he’d just gotten a proper
sunhat from the charity shop. One with a, as Merlin put it, “proper amount of
ribbons. Which is all of them.” Arthur stayed firmly in his shapeless trousers
and baggy t-shirt, because he didn’t want to be here. Some of the activities
had sounded…fine… but none of the ones his uncle had approved of, and this.
This was agonizing.
Scrapbooking wasn’t even a real art. It was just... it was like being a magpie
of memories.
(“Memories are our most cherished possession,” the teacher had said, “they make
us who we are. They create us. And scrapbooking is one of the best ways to hold
on to and share those memories. We can’t ever let someone live our lives
through us, but through this we can hopefully make it a little more clear what
these things meant to us. It is representative and interpretative art combined
together. It is the life lived and the life we wished we’d lived.”
“Or,” Merlin had said on the end of a breath, “we could put that effort into
making a time machine.”
Someone had shushed them.)
“Can you cut me some black ribbon to border our cheerful memorial to untold
amount of death?” Merlin asked, hunched over the paper with some glue and a
snippet of something. Merlin would be deeply invested in this for one or two
days, but then lose interest and the two of them would spend the rest of the
three-week course poking each other and shuffling through class until this
experiment was over with.
Arthur measured the length of ribbon and handed to Merlin, before putting his
head in his hand and watching Merlin carefully smear a line of glue along the
length of the ribbon before placing it down gently next to a carefully cropped
and coloured picture of what had been a fashion model, probably, sure, maybe.
He pressed his once-perfectly glossed lips together and considered the layout.
“This side looks unbalanced, compared to the bloodstain over here. What do you
think?”
Arthur stared at him and Merlin tugged at his ear. The teacher finally found
her way to their corner, smiling at Merlin’s hat and he beamed up at her, all
sunshine and…like…fucking poppies, or something. Good poppies, not Wizard of Oz
poppies. She barely glanced at Arthur. “Now what do you have here, pumpkin?”
“Oh just a little speculative memory. Since I didn’t have any of my own photos
or scraps I decided to make up something, so I—“
The teacher was scowling at them and put their layout down. “What is this?”
“Scrapbooking the apocalypse. I’m thinking a world plague, maybe. Or—“
“This isn’t a joke. Scrapbooking is something personal. It’s a way to collect
what makes you the person you are.” She took their pages away and handed them
new ones. “Don’t be afraid of yourselves. Don’t hide behind jokes. This is a
chance to really get to know yourselves.”
She looked over Arthur again. “I want you to make separate pages, now. Show me
something real, here. It doesn’t have to be personal, but something real. Okay?
Can you do that for me?”
“I don’t have any scraps.” Merlin gestured.
“Then make the page and put the memorabilia on when you get home.” She said,
raising an eyebrow. “You get out what you put in, if you put in nonsense,
that’ll all you’ll go home with, okay?”
Arthur stared at her, and when she turned, he pasted some perfectly cut squares
of cardstock over other coloured squares of cardstock, like he was making a
poster for school. Merlin was scowling over his blank pages, because Merlin was
really, actually, rubbish at being half-hearted. He was either all chips in, or
folded out entirely. Arthur made the background a terrible looking rugby field,
cut out some awful-lopsided rugby balls, and put the title “My First Game” on
the top in ugly block letters. Merlin continued to scowl at his blank pages.
“Just make up something.”
Merlin looked at him from the corner of his eye and continued tapping the
pattern-scissors. “It isn’t memory, it’s sterilization.” Merlin had his legs
crossed at the ankle, he was sitting straight. Merlin slumped sometimes, when
he wanted to appear smaller, or weaker, for whatever reason. Merlin had an
appropriate amount of make-up on, and his hair might have been short, yes, but
the one time he’d tried to grow it out, the being known as 2 AM Merlin (who was
responsible for many terrible, terrible life choices) had shaved it all off and
then Merlin had climbed in Arthur’s window to cry about it.
2 AM Merlin tended to make rash decisions, but equally had no ability to deal
with them.
Merlin looked like a proper sub, he looked like he could fit in here, and most
of the time that made Arthur feel. Well. The point was Merlin looked like he
could fit in, but he did that because he liked to. He liked wearing sundresses,
and he liked eyeliner, and he liked sun hats with ribbons. The problem was when
people took in Merlin’s appearance and assumed his insides matched. And the
inner workings of Merlin were not sunhats and rainbow stickers.
“Memory is hazy and messy and brutalized and we change it to adapt our
environment. We make up stories to make memory make sense, and the stories are
lies, but they’re real.” Merlin gestured disgustedly at someone painstakingly
cutting out little flowers for the border of her page. “I can get how this
could be a good thing. Like. Reminders to yourself to tell a good narrative,
but it’s just…piecemeal. The good bits and none of the weird, strange parts
that give it context.”
Merlin looked at his blank pages and when the time came—after Arthur had just
gotten an absent nod and empty praise for his work— Merlin lifted his chin and
showed them to the teacher, who stared him down.
“It’s okay if you need time to access yourself. Look through your memorabilia
box, see what inspires you. I look forward to your contribution next time.
Access yourself. Tap into what you really want.”
Merlin’s anger had a very different flavour to it than Arthur’s own did. There
was a control to it, a sense of purpose, like a fire in a forge, rather than
just…gone mad. Taking the whole house down. Merlin didn’t get angry often
(or…at least Arthur didn’t think so, but he couldn’t really properly gauge that
sort of thing.) but it was never…impotent. It wasn’t for long, ever. It was
quickly submitted into what Arthur…it was…well. Plotting. Hard to explain how
it felt on the inside, but it looked like a particular kind of calculation
follow by Merlin going to his desk, fiddling with something or other and
thinking.
Thinking of whether the anger was worth his time or not.
Thinking of what to do if it was.
Arthur’s anger flared up made him… shove over shelves and punch walls and
scream and go quiet and…nothing ever was solved by it. Merlin’s anger was
quickly taken up as a new Project. Arthur broke coloured pencils and shoved
people’s faces into mud. Merlin would lay in wait, passing a ball from hand to
hand, clicking through Internet pages, until had a typed out plan with an
itemized list of supplies, diagrams, reconnaissance photographs and fuck knew
what else. And then he’d think if it was worth putting into action. Thus far he
had six folders in his file cabinet and none of them had been put into action.
He smiled at the teacher, sweet as pudding, and nodded, he and Arthur left,
grabbing their bikes and Merlin fiddled with the lock for a bit too long,
considering, before he took a deep breath and the anger just…slid out of him.
Gone.
“How do you do that?” Arthur asked, holding onto his own bike. Merlin looked up
and then back at his lock.
“I had it right there.” Merlin put the lock in his bag, sitting in that
particular way he’d mastered just for biking in a dress. “One sentence. Just.
One little sentence. She’s older, she is unbonded, she’s still teaching at a
place like that, she’s up for several other classes. The page she showed us for
an example was from six years ago.” Merlin tapped the bicycle handlebars and
stared at nothing. “She’s passionate about this. It isn’t rote. When she talks
about it, she cares. She has a memorabilia box. She thinks other people should
care like she does.”
“And?”
Merlin kicked the pedal so it spun. “I can stop being angry when I know how I
can hurt them. I don’t. I don’t need to do it. She isn’t a bad person. She
just…cares, and we don’t. Nothing wrong with that. So I let it go.”
“And?”
Merlin looked at him and sighed. “I would have just said something. It’s
nothing. Come on, we have time until we need to get back and I need something I
can condense into a scrapbook page.”
“Said?”
Merlin made a face, looking up at Arthur, then down at his own feet. “You
wouldn’t have such a fetish for making your life look interesting if you’d done
anything worth actually remembering.”
Arthur sucked a breath through his teeth and Merlin shrugged and pushed off.
“It’s easy, for me, to stop being angry once you know you could hurt them. The
important part is to not do it.”
Arthur caught up with him with a few hard pushes and then glided forward.
“Trying to tell me something?”
“Your anger is different. It isn’t.” Merlin thought for a bit as they turned a
hard corner and veered around a man tying his shoe. “When I get angry it makes
me think about how to get even, you know? I want to hurt them, and once I know
I can, I’m fine. Your anger just kind…turns you into a grunting caveman?”
Merlin smiled and shoved a bubble of affection at him so Arthur wouldn’t take
it personally. “They’re Hulk-outs, like we’ve always said. You go from mild
mannered Arthur Eigyrson to a great big giant red rage monster.”
“Red?”
“If you can name a single day in the last, like, five years when you haven’t
worn something red, I will buy you an ice cream with flake.”
Arthur looked down at himself. He did own a lot of red.
“Anyways, Hulk doesn’t stop being angry. He smashes stuff until he tires
himself out, or, like, Betty shows up and Bruce Banner comes back. It’s this
big, huge, gamma-irradiated monster that just wants to destroy all the things,
and it doesn’t stop until all the things are gone and he gets tired and goes
down for a nap.”
They waited at the crossroad.
Merlin punched Arthur’s shoulder. “Betty could calm down Bruce, but she wasn’t
his soulmate.” He said and Arthur looked over. Merlin smiled, crooked, lovely
and perfectly familiar. Arthur punched his arm back and they raced home.
                                      ---
“The thematic similarities between The Girl Who Could Not Laugh and La Belle et
La Bete is of course the fact that their modus operandi, their central
conflict, centers around humankind’s essential nature—zer being which elevates
zer above the Beasts is broken. This theme—corresponding with Arne-Thompson
motif 46B—Transformation (physical or metaphysical) into the beastial.
With the Bete in La Belle et La Bete this transformation is both physical and
metaphysical, the Bete is made to take on the beastial outer form to match zer
inner nature. The fairy—here clearly an allegory for society—condemns the
submissive the Beast once was for her transgressive sexuality. In many such
stories, the beastial is a stand in for non-dynamic-normative relations. The
rose motif in many adaptations of this story is in fact a representation of
Belle herself—a stand in for zer soul mate. The Bete guards zer roses jealousy,
but has no use for them zerself, an example of what the Bete needs, but is too
animalistic to properly receive. Belle is similarly unbalanced—since the Beast
is effectively ‘blocking’ their bond by being inhuman, a symbol, of course, of
his non-dynamic tendencies, and thus it is up to her to act as a guiding force
for what is right and correct in terms of their, eventually shared, sexuality.
La Belle et La Bete is thus about Belle’s struggle to conquer her own
transgressive nature (that is of a person with no soulmate, and thus being an
abject persona from society) and the Bete’s inhuman wildness and implicit
degradation of proper and safe sexuality and—in demanding the Bete’s
submission, and proving the worth of her own dominance, she brings about the
Bete’s return to humanity and order.
Similarly in The Girl Who Could Not Laugh the Princess’s ability to laugh
stands in for her dynamism. She cannot laugh—a basic human impulse—she cannot
access her own sexuality, and thus, needs to be guided into adulthood. Here,
rather than a beastial wildness, non-dynamism is represented as a form of death
or dearth; this association is more common in primitive cultures, who give far
more credence to animalistic qualities than Western culture, which favors the
bestial identity as a demonstration of the monstrous. The boy who made the girl
laugh by parading in front of her tower with a goose on his head and a parade
of beings attached to him was in fact her soulmate, bringing with him the part
of herself she was missing, performing for her so she would correct her
transgressive behaviour—”
William Wattson “Non-Dynamism And Transgressive Sexuality As Exemplified In
Western And Non-Western Fairy Tales” in The New Princeton Folklore Review.
                                      ---
September, 2011
Merlin threw the book he was reading across the room. Percy’s dog leapt from
Percy’s lap and scurried across the floor to bark at it, hopping on her little,
stumpy legs around the spread book. Percy was the biggest human being Arthur
had ever met, and he owned the absolutely tiniest dog, because his second
cousin’s new flat didn’t allow dogs, and Percy was the kind of man who would
take his second cousin’s corgidoodle…thing… without a second thought, and carry
her in the same bedazzled carrier she’d always rode around in, because he
“doesn’t want to upset her.”
Percy was the kind of human being who would help you move into your new flat
even if you’d moved six times that year, the new place didn’t have a lift, and
it’s on the top floor, without even asking for pizza or anything. Percy had
once been in a bank robbery and talked the robbers out of a hostage situation
by just being himself, and then hugged them until the police arrived. True
story.
Percy was a disturbingly nice fellow, but he was still the biggest bloke since
the beginning of time and Merlin sort of…found reasons to sit in his lap and
squeeze his muscles a little sometimes.
Arthur had told Merlin to date Percy, because Percy was exactly Merlin’s
preference of Big, and—possibly—the nicest person on earth (Percy had, in real
life, nursed a bag of near-drowned, unweaned kittens back to health. He’d
stayed up all night, feeding them milk in tiny little drips from his finger,
kept them warm and told them bedtime stories until they could eat kitten food,
then he’d worn out his shoe leather for six weeks. Which had been decently easy
for Percy because he had a lot of friends. True, goddamn, fucking story.)
Merlin had kind of scrambled at the sheets a lot and come everywhere. They
might have been having sex at the time.
But Merlin didn’t, because Arthur might actually get jealous of Percy (even if
his name was actually Percival Jerome Damian William Evan Kinsley Witticker The
III, of those Wittickers and his family was so posh it hurt to look at them.)
“Terrible?” Arthur asked from where he and Freya were once again trying to
destroy each other in Mario Kart.
“So terrible.” Merlin buried his face in his hands. “I couldn’t even get
through the first three paragraphs and I read academic articles for fun. He
switches languages for no reason, and he calls non-Western cultures ‘primitive’
and, like, non-objective judgement is just dripping from every word.” Merlin
scrubbed his face. “A folklorist’s place isn’t to judge, it is to collect,
correlate, study, synthesize and present. No folklore is objectively better or
worse than anyone else’s and…” Merlin made several pained noises, so Percy’s
dog scampered across the room at full tilt and ran right into Merlin’s leg,
because Percy’s dog doesn’t know how stopping works. She then barked until
Merlin picked her up and buried his face in her tiny, tiny, tiny body.
“It is the absolute worst.”
“Don’t read it, then.” Arthur dropped a bomb and it caught one of the A.I.’s as
he sped around one of Freya’s banana peels. Freya hums Queen in response.
“Homework.” Merlin grumbled and then flopped in Percy’s lap; because Arthur was
busy playing Mario Kart. You didn’t interrupt Mario Kart. “I have to type up a
one page write up on it and everything and I can’t just yell about how stupidly
dense and pretentious it is.”
Percy hugged Merlin, because Percy had, by now, picked up on the fact that
Merlin was most comfortable when he was being sort of maybe crushed a little
bit. Merlin made more disgusted noises into Percy’s chest. “Like, when I say
transgressive sexuality, I also make sure to point out that it is perceived
transgressive sexuality as according to either contextual or contemporary
societal norms, don’t I?”
“You do.” Elyan agreed, because he was used to agreeing with crazy monologues
made by brunets.
“And if something is judgemental, it should be the folk narrative itself.
Like…any variant of the Maiden With No Hands fairy tale tends to be about some
form of perceived transgressive sexuality. Like incest, or same-dynamic
relationships.”
“Or the devil.” Arthur said.
“He tends to stand in for incest, kind of, it’s a thing. Also same-dynamic, as
the devil is often characterized as submissive, because of course ze is. That’s
a different thing. Anyways. The point is, if the folk narrative is judgemental,
that’s fine. But you, as folklorist, analyze that judgement and contextualize
it and whatever you don’t cast your own…” Merlin banged his head against
Percy’s shoulder. “I want wine. I want a whole bottle of wine and then fire.
But not in the wine.”
“Gwen is hoarding the first in the kitchen, the second is always a thing that
can happen.” Freya offered, eyes trained on the screen as she busted through
the finish line on the final lap. She threw her controller in the air and
caught it in victory. “I am the Mushroom Kingdom version of Drive. All shall
look upon my mighty works and despair.”
“Look upon my works ye mighty and--” Merlin started to correct.
“No. No.” She pointed at him. “No. Go get your wine.”
“Percy, carry me into the kitchen.”
Percy did, because he was Percy, and Merlin weighed, roughly, a stone. Percy
once dove into traffic to save a kid and their dog (who had, zeself, dove into
traffic to chase a plastic bag) and hadn’t even given his name, so the kid
(who’d been wearing a Superman shirt) would think superheroes were real. True
story.
Arthur fell backwards onto the carpet. “Elyan, entertain your fiancée, I’m
tired of losing.”
“Do you want her to plan this wedding?” Elyan looked back down at his folders.
“Because, I’ll give you a hint: it will be the worst wedding.”
Freya smiled upside down at him. “I love you.”
Elyan smiled and bent over until he could kiss her raised wrist, then went back
to looking at his giant wedding binder. Gwen was helping, some, and Freya had
promised to show up, look nice and only kiss him when she was allowed and not
to yell at anyone over anything, especially Gwen and Elyan’s father.
Arthur and Merlin had a joint save-the-date, since Merlin wasn’t exactly going
to bring any of his hook-ups to a wedding and Arthur…didn’t…have…hook-ups.
Merlin had tried to help with the wedding, but he’d helped in the same way a
toddler tried to help clean, and eventually they’d just put him in charge of
organizing the RSVPs and keeping a spreadsheet of everyone’s dinner choices and
if they were bringing a guest, denoting family groups, and who was from what
side of the wedding party. Merlin had a folder for it.
Arthur had been put in charge of showing up, combing his hair, dancing at least
once, and making sure Merlin didn’t drink anything and start making kinship
charts. (“Weddings are anthropological!” Merlin had defended. “The world
increasingly needs anthropology: now we are exploring who why and how we be
people. The difference between us is not so much. Tell me your story: your
piece of what is humanity.” Merlin had started singing. Merlin sang the
Anthropology Song by Daionisio when threatened. He was like an angry songbird
in this way.)
“I’m making brownies!” Merlin shouted from the kitchen. “Do we have opinions on
these brownies?”
“Bourbon!” Freya and Elyan yelled.
“No nuts.” Arthur added.
Percy’s dog barked so she could feel included and then flopped her tongue out
and smiled at the room. Arthur patted her awkwardly, so clearly they were best
friends and it was her duty to drool on his knee.
“Why are we making brownies?”
“Gwen’s got cramps.” Merlin called back. Percy returned, holding a Gwen, who
was--in turn-- holding onto a glass of wine for dear life. Freya immediately
got up and flopped all over her, because apparently she had decided she’d
married both siblings when she got the one.
“Poor dove.” Freya crooned and Percy shifted so both of them could sit on him
like he was just particularly warm armchair. “You’ll have brownies soon.
Merlin, make them disgustingly fudgy.”
“There’s twelve ounces of chocolate in one batch.” Merlin called back. “And a
pound of butter.”
“Good.” Freya slid to the ground and took one of Gwen’s feet in her hand,
moving to a spot over her ankle and rubbing up until Gwen made a tiny pained
noise. “There we go.”
Freya gave terrible backrubs, as such things went, because she was morally
against making people relax. She just dug into a pressure point and attacked
until her mission was accomplished. It got the job done most of the time, she
could get a muscle cramp tamed properly, but it wasn’t ever pleasant. Every
time Gwen was brought low by an unruly internal organ, Freya worked on that
spot on her leg until it practically bruised but it did the job and after three
days of that, brownies and much gentler Merlin-lower-back rubs, Gwen was up and
waltzing Merlin around the living room.
Merlin made a distressed noise from the kitchen.
“Don’t eat the unsweetened baking chocolate until there’s sugar in it.”
“But it looks like real chocolate.” Merlin mourned as he clanged about a bit,
humming to himself. “On a scale of bourbon, from eh, bourbon to in that moment
I swear we were bourbon how much bourbon are we talking about?”
Gwen made another distressed noise.
“Holy fuck bourbon it is.” Merlin said and Arthur rolled up to his feet to
check on him. Merlin was usually pretty decent in the kitchen, ever since the
Great Food Epiphany which ended up in Merlin making, roughly, all the cookies.
But sometimes he got…liberal, with recipes. “These shall be Better Get A Spoon
Because We Aren’t Messing Around Here Bourbon Brownies.” Merlin said as he
sifted flour, salt, and cocoa into a mixing bowl.
Arthur looked at the door and then carefully put his chin on Merlin’s shoulder,
fitting his hands to Merlin’s hips and inhaling the sharp, acidic scent of
unsweetened cocoa and Merlin’s faintly-vanilla scent that he always got after a
long study session.
(“There’s a chemical in paper that’s a close relative to vanilla, and as the
book ages it breaks down and releases the scent, which is why they smell so
good.” “So basically everyone in Silence In The Library was harbouring an
abject longing for pound cake along with the soul-bending terror.” “They
seriously could have just dropped some ham down in there. They’re shadow
piranhas. They want meat. They don’t care. Get one of the creepy wants-to-be-
eaten meat dudes from The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe and they’ll be
all ‘oh hello shadow, how are you? I have delicious hindquarters’ aahhh.” “Did
you distress yourself?” “They want to be eaten. And maybe that’s better than
animals that don’t want to be eaten, but ahhhh… I need a milkshake. I need six
milkshakes.”)
“How was your day?” Arthur kept his voice quiet, eyes on the door.
“Good.” Merlin rolled his head back and sighed. “Hate my Narrative class, the
professor took an instant dislike to me, and I don’t think it’ll improve since
I hate every single article assigned so far. He’s one of those folklorists that
think the folk are mountainous aboriginal people completely isolated from all
effects of globalization whose language we haven’t even translated. To him the
folk are other, and the folk aren’t other. We are the folk: the folk are us.”
“Mmm.” Arthur said as Merlin put the sifter aside and began whisking the
granulated and brown sugar into the chocolate. He, of course, then immediately
took a scoop of that and licked it off his finger, humming to himself with one
of his disgustingly precious little smiles.
“You?”
“Jigsaw broke again.” Arthur helped Merlin crack eggs into the chocolate as
Merlin stirred. “Four people dropped out of my beginner class, but the rest
look like they’ll stay on. A few because their parents are making them, but
it’s still money. The more advanced class is all retired hobbyists who want to
make rocking horses for their grandkids and sort of take a dim view on my age.”
“How long until the jigsaw is up again?” Merlin poured an entire fist of
bourbon into the batter with a smile, and the faint vanilla smell intensified.
“I’m going in tomorrow to fix it.” Arthur took over for mixing once Merlin had
put the flour in. Arthur was basically Merlin’s stand mixer. He stood. He mixed
things. He didn’t take up counter space.
Merlin put parchment paper in the pan and greased it. A truly, properly, fudge-
y brownie had to be basically airlifted out of the pan, and, of course, eaten
with a spoon. If you could cut your brownie with a knife, something had gone
wrong, in Merlin’s opinion.
“Early?”
“I thought to get up the same time as you, we could take the bus together.”
Arthur stepped back when Merlin poured the batter into the pan, and then
scraped the leftovers into another bowl with a spoon, dumping whipped cream and
sprinkles on top. He looked at the door and kissed Arthur’s cheek, before
delivering the batter-and-cream unto the woeful Gwen, as Arthur stuck the pan
in the preheated oven and closed the door. He set the timer, because Merlin
never remembered to set a goddamn timer and then made distressed noises when
things, then, burned.
Someone turned on the telly proper and Arthur peeked out again. Stray and Robin
were on screen and Arthur flopped down next to the tangle of Merlin, Freya,
Gwen, Percy, and Percy’s dog (sitting victoriously on the back of the chair and
smiling down at all of them) since Elyan was in a sea of table arrangements and
flowers.
They were halfway through an episode of Batman: The New Animated Series. Gwen
made a happier noise around her whipped cream brownie batter sprinkle
monstrosity, as Merlin rubbed her lower back and Freya kept working on that
particular pressure point. “Seriously, just shove it off on him.”
Gwen sighed. “You tell me that every month, and I tell you every month that
he’s still on suppressants.”
“And every month I tell you that the second he’s not you just dump everyone on
him because he deserves it. I shove half of mine on Elyan.” Freya pointed.
“It’s his fault they’re so bad, let him suffer a little.”
On the screen Stray and Robin were facing down, Stray flipping out of the way
of Robin’s staff attack and smiling over his bag of stolen gems. ”Now, now
little bird. Don’t you know it’s the cat who catches the Robin?”
“Or, vamp vamp vamp, vamp, vamp vamp, I have diamonds, look how pretty I am.”
Freya filled in.
“I like Stray.” Merlin said. “He’s super precious. Like, the first Animated
Series added Harley Quinn, so of course the new series is going to give a
supervillian a new sidekick.”
“Is The Cat really a supervillian, though?” Freya asked. “She just kind of
wants to steal stuff. She doesn’t want to kill anyone, or destroy Gotham, or
take over anything. She just rolls into town when some cat related expensive
thing is around and rolls out again. That’s just sort of run-of-the-mill
villainy with cat ears, if you think about it.”
“Also to fill Bruce Wayne with way too much sexual tension.” Merlin pressed
down into the pads of Gwen’s spine. “Like, he confuses people about his gender
through…radar…bat-signal stuff, but Bruce Wayne is a sub. Which is why the
Jason thing? Super creepy. Dick Grayson? Sub, worked for the Teen Titans. Tim
Drake? Sub. Worked for Young Justice. Jason Todd? Dom and worked with no one
ever he’s mine, my precious.” Merlin switched to a terrible rendition of a
Gollum voice and Gwen snorted. “And then the Joker kills him and Bruce has,
like, a complete mental breakdown, enough that Tim Drake is like: honey.
Sweetie. I know you were already coo-coo-bananas, but now you’re cotton-room,
bughouse crazy and you need a Robin. Go talk to Dick. And eventually Batman is
just like No, You! because Heaven forbid he talk about feelings with anyone. So
The Cat rolls around and she doesn’t know what gender the Batman is, but by
god, she’s going to go for it.”
Robin said something that they talk over that basically boils down to “You are
pretty, but you need to give back to the diamonds for the Mission and Justice
and the Mission, justice, justice, justice.”
“Is this the episode when the weird Black Bat, Stray, Robin love triangle
starts?” Elyan looked up.
“It’s not a love triangle if Stray just wants to steal all pretty people and
keep them all to himself.” Merlin said, watching Stray do a double backflip in
his heels and smile at Robin before leaping off the roof. Robin runs forward
and Stray has already bounced across far too many rooftops to catch up with,
and fades into the background animation. “That’s how Stray’s love interests
work. He wants to keep all the pretty things and he and the Cat can cuddle up
in a giant kitten pile of leather and money and actual cats while they plan how
to keep Batman and whichever Robin all to themselves. But no, the episode where
that starts is later this season when Stray actually kidnaps Robin. He doesn’t
unmask him or anything, Stray just wants to keep him chained up in a little
bird cage.”
“Right.” Elyan looked at the screen a moment, before shaking his head.
“I love this show.” Freya sighed. “Though I regret that this Robin gets pants.
He’s just so tiny and precious and vicious.”
“Can you not ogle animated teenagers while I plan our wedding?” Elyan asked,
mildly. Freya shrugged and gestured at Robin climbing onto his far too big
motorcycle to report back to Batman.
“Fair enough. And I find it hilarious that Jason Todd didn’t get pants. Don’t
care if you’re a dom: No Pants For You.” Elyan said, biting on the end of his
pen. “When did they reboot Bruce Wayne into a sub?”
“Around the time they decided he needed to be all dark and broody and
tortured.” Merlin said, and he probably knew the exact storyline and title of
the series, but then they’d be here all day. “It added pathos that he was a sub
who was trying to be a dom, and also gave the world a good reason why people
wouldn’t catch on that Bruce Wayne was Batman, because clearly Brucie Wayne is
just the helpless but business minded, philanthropic, submissive heir to the
family fortune and Batman is a terrifying dominant who comes down from the
skies to wreak justice. And now I’ve reminded myself of Scarlet O’Hara. One of
the Cat’s costumes was basically a green evening dress and I sort of cried into
my pillow in confused frustration.”
Merlin took the dipping wine glass from a snoozing Gwen and nuzzled her temple.
They watched with only occasional commentary (“These locks have been broken!”
“The World’s Greatest Detective, folks!”) while Freya and Elyan snipped back
and forth about the wedding (“Should the plates be white or cream? White looks
more classic, but the cream sort of ties in with the orange and brown theme we
have.” “I think I honestly don’t care as long as they are delivered with food.”
“Pick something to pretend to care about. Just. Just one thing. You didn’t even
care what I wore to the ceremony.” “Honey, wear whatever makes you feel
pretty.” “But can you just have an opinion?”)
“Merlin, do your homework.”
“No, I want to analyze superheroes for the rest of the day.” Merlin whined.
“Do you want to stay up all night reading a terrible paper?” Arthur asked.
Merlin huffed and made a gesture to the book. “Force powers!”
Arthur sighed and rolled over, picked up the book and handed it over to Merlin,
who glowered at it and slipped down to the ground so Arthur could take over
rubbing Gwen’s lower back. It was understood that whenever anyone was feeling
particularly rubbish, it was everyone else’s job to spoil them senseless,
because at some point they spoiled you senseless, and it was only fair.
When Arthur had one of those vicious can’t-be-shaken colds, Gwen had made him
chicken soup with big hunks of white meat and big spiral noodles, with thyme
dumplings and thick cut carrots, celery and onions, with chicken stock she’d
boiled down herself because Gwen was committed when she made soup.
The timer went off and Elyan got them, because he was the only one who wouldn’t
need a quarter of an hour to remove himself from a tangle of limbs, nor would
he cause Percy’s dog to start helpfully barking.
“Is this done?” He held up the pan. Merlin poked the edges and then the centre.
“Grab-eth the spoons, Sir Elyan!” Merlin announced, and they all got teaspoons,
except for Gwen who got a soup ladle and she scooped in right at the middle,
where the brownie was gooiest and dumped it into her bowl with a satisfied
grunt. Elyan flopped down next to them when Freya grabbed his hand. “I need to
plan the wedding.”
“You need to snuggle your fiancé and watch cartoons with her, is what you need
to do.”
Elyan sighed and rested his head on her shoulder and she smiled quietly, the
two of them holding hands and looking happy and complete for a moment. Merlin
rested his head against Arthur’s knee and made grumbling noises as he continued
to page through his article and make notes in his notebook, most of which
involved, to some degree the thesis: “This is the absolute worst.”
They watched another episode, letting it roll by without comment. It was a good
show, well animated, with actual professional martial artists and film fight
choreographers on staff to help with the fight scenes, and writers who’d grown
up with the original Batman: The Animated Series, paying tribute, but also
letting it actually grow and develop. Hopefully they wouldn’t change the
animation halfway through to be more like some other show, because the sudden
shift in the original series was still really disconcerting. Most of the
original voice actors came back on again to reclaim their parts without missing
a beat. Merlin had basically died a little when they’d announced it, and spent
the next six months waiting for it going “Please don’t suck, please don’t suck,
please, please, please don’t suck.” and re-watching the entire first run like
he needed it to live.
Gwen shifted and Percy took over, kneading with one huge hand and she flopped
on top of Arthur, snuggling in for a nap and Arthur took her empty bowl and put
it on the top of the bookcase so Percy’s dog wouldn’t try and eat it and
basically immediately die from chocolate poisoning.
Arthur closed his eyes and rested it against Percy’s arm, because Percy was
good for that sort of thing, and while Arthur wasn’t a big…lap…sitter, but that
was just sort of what Percy was for. You sat him down in a library to go find a
book, you’d come back and he’d just be…like…covered in babies. He would be
absolutely dripping which children, all of whom were just sort of climbing on
him, or reading, or doing whatever, because that was just who Percy was.
And that was what was important about this particular group of people. They
just sort of…had things about them and everyone else accepted it. Gwen had her
whole…tragic…love interest thing going on, Percy was basically a superhero,
Freya would kill a person over a really intense game of Cluedo, but was
otherwise fine, Elyan had been a teenage runaway and tended to just sort of
vanish for a day or three at a time for no real known reason, Leon was loyal as
a goddamn dog to the worst sorts of people, and Arthur and Merlin were. Well.
Themselves. And everyone was just…fine with it. They fit in here, as much as
they fit in anywhere, and yes they had to lie about it, but…
“Merlin, I feel drunk.” Gwen mumbled. “How much bourbon was in those brownies?”
Merlin smiled at her, upside down and she snorted and shoved her hand in his
face, shaking him back and forth and he laughed.
                                      ---
While some pre-gendered children present very strongly in favour of one gender
or another, this should be considered indicative of nothing more than the
preferred interests of your child. There is nothing inherently dominating about
sports, vehicles, noises, or physical activities. A pre-gendered sub may enjoy
the order and rules of a after-school sports team, or the child, regardless of
their eventual gender, may simply have a naturally high energy level. There
isn’t anything inherently submissive about creativity, an interest in beauty,
or activities that allow for nurturing. A pre-gendered dom may still enjoy
playing with dolls as ze wishes to have children with zer partner and start a
family. Developmental psychologist Dr. Harry Chen argues that “[D]om’s, if
anything, are more naturally nurturing and attentive because they wish to take
care of their sub, which is an aspect often forgotten by society as a whole
[i].” Or, as human sexuality expert Dr. Yolanda Reynolds states “a submissive
is someone who chooses whom to submit to and how they wish to do so. It is not
that they are overwhelmed by a dominant natural charisma and simply fall to
their knees. It takes planning and deliberation, and above all, a great deal of
self-knowledge and agency to do so. It is well known fact of well-established
couples that the best scene is the one that takes the needs of the submissive
and puts them above the needs of the dominant partner. It is unwise—and even
dangerous— to pretend that it should, at all, be otherwise.”
It is with this in mind that you should give your child the skills necessary to
live as a whole person until ze finds zer fiancée, regardless of how you feel
your child will develop. We have no idea when your child will find zer after
all, and thus they need to enter the world with a balanced set of skills and a
stable sense of self. Every adult should be able to cook for and clean after
zer self. Every adult should be able to put forward and express zer needs,
opinions, and wants. Every adult should be able to empathize with others,
should be able to walk with confidence in zerself instead of holding back out
of some outdated social protocol. These are skills that are never wasted—a dom
may decide to pamper zer sub by cooking a nice meal for their anniversary. A
sub needs to know how to protect themselves—emotionally and physically— in a
crisis. A switch needs to learn zerself, and needs the strong foundation of a
good home and supportive family to find this.
In order to be that family, be supportive of your child’s interests, establish
clear rules for your child early (such as reasonable bedtimes, noise curfews,
and times when homework should be completed), and then enforce those rules. As
your child gets older allow zer more freedom, so that ze knows what to do with
said freedom before ze goes out into the world, but equally give a bigger sense
of responsibility to temper that freedom (the use of the family car may come
with a need for a job to pay for gas, a later curfew comes with a
responsibility to always tell you, the parent, where they will be.) Give your
child age-appropriate chores so they understand being part of a family means
that the work of the house is shared, but don’t burden zer so much ze has no
downtime to play. Remember that play is important; play allows the child to
learn and contextualize lessons, as well as giving the child downtime to
process information gained that day. Play is how a child discovers zer world
and who ze is in response to it. Play, regardless of gendered stereotypes of
said playthings, is absolutely vital to the healthy development of any child.
I recommend involving your child in games that engages the child—creatively,
physically, etc. While video games (especially educational ones, or ones that
invite a child to explore more about a subject even if the game itself is not
instructional) have their place, children need to play without clear direction.
Sports are of course useful both as social institutions, and physical
exercises, and if your child shows an interest in them, by all means encourage
it (but never attempt to force a child into any activity they hate. Trying new
things is one thing, but a continued march, week after week to tennis practice
or ballroom lessons will not make your child the genius prodigy the movies said
they would) but ‘play pretend’ is, quite simply, the most vital and useful game
for development of varied skills. Playing pretend is how you child sets zer own
limits and experiences zer own mind. Ze can recreate books that you read
together the night before (and I cannot stress the importance of reading
together enough), ze can deal with things that have stressed zer or frightened
zer (many children who have dealt with the loss of one or more parents simulate
funerals with their playthings to try and make death something they can
contextualize and control[ii]).
The best way to encourage your child to exercise zer creativity is to give zer
space and time in which to do so. Of course this space should be a safe space,
which you can monitor, but it should also be a space the child feels free
within. Toys that can act as props (such as old garments, pots and pans, etc),
are more useful than toys that seek to do the playing for the child. Fun is
something that is made, entertainment is something that is made for them, and
any child—if they are to grow to be functional adults—must learn how to make
their own fun.
--Misha Schlovsky “The Importance of Play” Parenting Psychology Vol 2. Issue 26
pgs 54-78.
                                      ---
July, 2001
His uncle didn’t even bother to ask how the scrapbooking class went. Arthur
just came home and he printed some pictures off on the free photo paper his
printer had come with. The photos were too dark and alien looking, but he
waited for them to dry, put them on the pages and left them somewhere where his
aunt could find them and make what she would out of it. Then he had homework,
because after school classes were basically the definition of a recursive waste
of time, he stared down at his maths book and tapped his pen against his
notebook before shoving it away and staring up at the ceiling, then sighing and
going back to it, flopping along the desk and writing out the problem, and
working it out to, at least, a solution.
The day Arthur got out of school forever would be the happiest day of both his
and the educational system’s lives. At least no one had sent him to boarding
school yet. Yet. Arthur dropped his head to his desk. Merlin had read him a lot
of books. Not that he couldn’t read, but…he sort of couldn’t. Or. He could
read, but it fell right out of his head, just…scattered apart. Merlin had read
him a lot of books, and nobody liked school for long. It wasn’t learning,
nobody hated learning. Everyone had interests. Merlin would hunch over research
until he fell asleep right there at his desk, because he was interested. I was
just…learning was something you did. Education was something done to you. And
there wasn’t a single thing in this world that was better forced than it was
voluntary. A tattoo you picked—even if you regretted it later—was yours. Waking
up with a tattoo someone else put on you? Yeah.
Arthur stared at the books.
And they say they did it to help you. Like surgery with no prior warning, just
in, out, oh look we left a scalpel, look you have to heal for a few years,
look, you’re never going to walk properly again, look, you can get angry or you
can move on, okay kid? Education was the mind killer. Merlin’s school was all
about guided learning, figuring out what you were interested in and expanding
beyond it. The physics of roller coasters, the merit of whatever book series
you were already reading, the science of baking—that sort of thing. Help when
you needed it. Not…a forced march through bullshit which you wouldn’t ever use
purely out of spite.
If he didn’t get more problems done by the time Aunt Rebecca showed up she was
going to bring it up in therapy tomorrow.
It was disgusting how much time you wished would just pass already. Youth
wasn’t wasted on the young, it was wasted by the old who wished they were
young, so instead they lived through you to give you a good future and…
Solve for x.
                                       *
Every therapy session began with his aunt and uncle going into the room before
him, talking for however long while Arthur drank a bottle of water, and then
coming out so Dr. Whitman could do whatever repairs his aunt and uncle thought
were needed based on his last week of behaviour.
Arthur then went in, handed over his, as Merlin put it “Feelings Diary of
Bullshit Feelings That I Am Totally Feeling.” He tells him about the class.
Shows him the layouts. Merlin calls this the “Three Ring Circus Of Look How
Totally Fine I Am!”
“Merlin was there?” Dr. Whitman asked, when it came up.
“Yeah, he signed up after I told him that I did.” Arthur picked at some dried,
loose skin around his nail. “Why?”
Dr. Whitman sighed. “Arthur. The point of this exercise is for you to explore
yourself. You need to get in touch with yourself and stop distancing your
actions from your inclinations.”
“I am!” Arthur defended. “I went to the class, I did what I was told. It was
boring, but I did it.”
“But you brought Merlin.” Dr. Whitman corrected. “The idea was for you to go
out and do things on your own. To experience them by yourself, and connect with
how you felt. And, perhaps, should the occasion arise, make new friends.”
“I don’t need new friends. Everyone in that class is either too young or too
old for me.” Arthur defended. “He’s been with me since I was three. We. We
survived this long, and we’re not going to just…stop because my Uncle doesn’t
think he’s suitable.”
“I didn’t mention your uncle.”
“He’s the only reason I’m here.” Arthur gestured around them. “He’s the one who
hates Merlin. You don’t need to mention him for me to know what this is about.
I tried to do scrapbooking. It was boring. Merlin is staying.”
Dr. Whitman bridged his fingers and stared at Arthur. “I am aware the two of
you are very close. I am happy you have such a strong bond with him.” Arthur
didn’t flinch. He just stared at the table and didn’t touch anything. “But you
are growing up. You’ve said before that you have very different interests. You
go to different schools. As you age you’ll have less time for one another.”
“We’ll make time.” Arthur clenched his jaw. “We’ve made time before. He just
joined the class to keep me company.”
“You need a larger network of friends.” Dr. Whitman stated, quietly. “You’re
using Merlin like a crutch, so you don’t have to go out and do anything new, or
meet anyone, and I think you feel trapped by it. I think you know this, and
that’s why you get angry.”
“I don’t feel trapped.” Arthur crossed his arms. “Not by Merlin. I--”
“But you feel trapped by something?” Dr. Whitman pressed.
“School. My Aunt and Uncle. Just. Merlin isn’t the problem. He is my friend.”
Arthur clenched and unclenched his fists. “Isn’t this the point? To get me in
touch with my more submissive qualities, and Merlin is a submissive too. He
wears sundresses and make-up and he talks about doms, for fuck’s sake.”
“And are those the qualities you most associate with being submissive, Arthur?”
“Well you gave me a long list of submissive activities. All good house-partner
things, all about keeping quiet and out of the way.” Arthur rubs his jaw and
paced over to the window, because if he looked at Dr. Whitman any longer he was
going to throw something at him. “From what Uncle Tristan tells me, I’m too
loud, I run around too much, I do not have the qualities that benefits my
dominant.” Arthur and his uncle don’t talk much.
His Aunt tended to try. She sat them both down, offered activities, but his
Uncle was…traditional. His Aunt wasn’t. She didn’t keep him at her side, on his
knees, she didn’t have him stay several steps behind her when they go out. But
he still looked at Arthur like he was put together out of scrap-box pieces and
didn’t belong in the house. Had Arthur been a dom he’d be fine, his Uncle would
have let him run rampant, because that was just what doms did. But he wasn’t.
And he should be. And he should be, and that was what made him feel the most
trapped. When all those wants inside of himself that clamoured to the surface
and he didn’t… He wanted them and he didn’t want to, and it would just be
better if he were different. He could do all the things he liked, and he could
be with Merlin without it being perverse and...
Arthur rested his head against the glass. “So isn’t having a submissive friend
good for me?”
Dr. Whitman was silent for a moment. “Having a fellow submissive is good and
healthy, provided they are a good influence on you. Is Merlin a good influence
on you?”
“Yes.” Arthur grit his teeth. “My uncle doesn’t like him, but my uncle doesn’t
like anybody. I don’t know what he’s said.”
“This isn’t about your uncle, Arthur. This is about what you think.” Dr.
Whitman corrected.
“It is about my uncle and my aunt. They’re the reason why I’m here. They’re the
ones who are paying you. It’s up to them whether we stay here or find another
psych. They decide when I’m better. So yes, this is about my uncle and don’t
pretend I’m too stupid to know that. He’s the one who hates Merlin. He doesn’t
like how loud he is anymore than he likes how active I am.” Arthur grit his
teeth.
“You’re looking angry, Arthur. Do you need a cool down time?” Dr. Whitman
placated and Arthur could feel his nostrils flaring like he was a bull.
“I don’t need a cool down time. I need you to talk to me like a person.” Arthur
squared his shoulders. “That is the problem. I would be fine, you know? I would
be fine if people could just... talk to me. Instead of telling me what to do
like I should just bow my head-- my Uncle and Aunt treating me like I’m not
good enough because I turned out a sub instead of a dom...and if I’d been a dom
they’d just be fine with me, and that’s-” Arthur inhaled sharply. “I don’t need
to be here.”
“Arthur, you need to sit down and take a moment.” Dr. Whitman held up a hand
and gestured to a chair.
“Merlin is my friend and if you’re saying I shouldn’t be friends with him,
because my uncle doesn’t think he’s right for me. And the only reason I’m here
is because...and.” Arthur stopped being able to get words out. He just. He
wanted to punch Dr. Whitman. Or throw the table or just. Run and not come back
and it was too hot and his skin was too tight and he couldn’t think. He
couldn’t think he was just angry and he was on his feet and-
It didn’t so much rush out of him as get tackled down with a rush of…
something. Something not-anger and it gave him enough time to inhale, exhale,
drop his hand and swallow.
Dr. Whitman looked unperturbed and stared up at Arthur. “All I am attempting to
say, is that as much as you don’t want to admit it, someday you and Merlin will
go separate ways, and you need to be prepared for it.”
Arthur turned to the door and left, anger just barely held back by the rush of
Merlin’s… existence, basically. No finesse, no specificity, Merlin had just
shoved everything he had at Arthur and it’s. Arthur could drown in it, if he
wanted. He did want, actually, kind of to just lose himself entirely. Because
he couldn’t get therapy if he’d just been made wrong, or broken somewhere along
the way... It’s-- it’s not something anyone could solve. Not something he
wanted solved, really. Merlin was his.
Arthur ran off and away until he found a bench parked in some little corner of
nothing. He sat, dug his hands through his hair. Tried to keep breathing. He
didn’t come up for air for a long, long time. Just let himself drown.
                                      ---
Pavi Of The Chopped Off Hands
There was once a king who loved his Wife with all of heart, soul and obedience,
and under Her firm, loving hand, and under his supporting, careful
consideration, their rulership flourished. Their fields were fat with crops,
their people well fed and cared for, no other rulerships encroaching upon their
territory, for though they were a small and wealthy rulership, God blessed
them, and none dared throw their armies against Zer might.
And so it was that the Queen blessed the king with a child, a son they named
Pavi, a child who was as lovely as daylight, and as sweet as a night breeze
after a hot summer day. He was a blessed child, with eyes and hair just like
his father’s and a smile and heart as good and pure as his Mother’s. The king
and Queen loved their boy and when he came of age, dressed him in fine fabrics
and precious jewels, allowing him every luxury and sitting up at night to
listen to the sweet, perfect noises he made of his harp. He was a much loved
prince, and all who saw him could not help but love his beautiful features, but
more, his faithful and unwavering heart, that helped the ill and broke for the
sinful.
It was then, however, that the Queen fell ill. The king called for the greatest
healers, the strongest mages and the most brilliant minds to find a cure, but
there were none to be found. And so it was the Queen called the king to her
deathbed and made him swear upon his love, oath and collar that he was to marry
none that were less virtuous, beautiful, or loving of their rulership. The king
did swear, performing his last act of service to his Queen and it was with this
that she passed, and found her soulmate and her Saviour in Heaven.
Years passed, and the king tried to rule over his lonely kingdom by himself,
but it began to fail under his grief, and his advisors began to fear the
neighbouring rulerships would conquer them. They were rich with trade still,
and none wished to make the first move, but the people’s joy dimmed under the
shade of fear. They ordered the king that he was to find a strong hand to marry
and he consented, for all that he grieved for his Wife, he loved his kingdom
and could not see it suffer. So they set forth a call for all bachelors of
particular valour, faith, virtue and handsome feature come forth to win the
hand of the king. All available dominants came, and they were given fine
clothing, bathed and fed, allowed to exercise and study and prove that they
were the best to join the king and rule. As each was presented to him, the
king’s heart dimmed, for none was as virtuous, intelligent, and handsome as his
wife had been, and soon there was not a single bachelor left, and not one had
called in his heart for him to kneel. And it was thus the king’s heart truly
and finally broke and there was nothing of joy in him, and he took to long
walks about his grounds as his kingdom began to collapse about him.
It was on one such walk that he saw his dear Pavi, sitting in the sunlight and
playing his harp more beautifully than ever he had before. The king had sent
his son away, unable to look upon him and dour his good life with his own
grief, and so the son had spent these long, lonely years in his wing of the
castle, mourning for his Mother and not knowing of the kingdom’s suffering. And
the king, mad with grief, looked upon him and saw the only soul virtuous,
intelligent and lovely enough in the entire kingdom to sit upon the throne
beside him. He immediately leapt forward and grabbed Pavi’s wrists. “Son, you
are the only soul in all my searches who is as lovely, pure and virtuous as
your mother. It is to you I must be wed to save the kingdom.”
Pavi, being well-taught and good spirited, was lanced through with horror at
his father’s proclamation, and declared that they could not, for it was a sin
and they would be damned, and their kingdom no longer blessed. Surely this was
a trial of God and they would be saved if they continued to be virtuous and
live faithfully.
The king fell to his knees, as if his son were one of the bachelors and begged
again that they be wed, and if God wished to damn them, he may, for he would
not wed another.
Pavi cried out, “No, no father. We will be cast out of Heaven and our names
will be filth. Tell me what it is of me that you find so lovely and I will cast
it from me. Better to lose an eye that to burn entire body in hellfire.”
“You are the only one as lovely, good and righteous as your Mother,” the king
lamented, “and it is your hand I will have in marriage and no other, for your
hands are as strong and beautiful as hers, and as long as they are there, I
will continue to love and serve only you.”
So the son commanded his maidservant to remove his hands, so his father would
not be tempted by sin any longer. And the king, so enraged and maddened by
this, locked his son in a watertight chest and threw him out to sea, declaring
if it was not to him his son was to wed, then he could wed no one.
cont.
December, 2011
The dance floor is as packed as such places tend to be, bodies rolling like
waves, sweat on everything, arms in the air, hands on bodies, lips on lips, but
too chaotic and pressing to notice anything but the person right in front of
you. Which, at the moment (for Arthur), is Merlin.
They’ve danced before, mostly because the high press of bodies makes it
impossible to really look at anyone and see what’s happening, but they’ve still
always been…careful about it. Dancing like how subs dance, only pushing close
as a joke, mostly arms in the air, bodies bumping by accident, hips swaying
because that’s what you do with them, apparently.
Here the floor is packed to exploding, no one knows who they are, no one can
tell what they are, and so Arthur reels Merlin in, carefully settles his hands
on Merlin’s waist, pressing his nose to the slightly perfumed join of his neck
and shoulder. They can’t talk at all, it’s too loud for that, but Merlin’s is
immediately aroused, his back pressed flush with Arthur’s front. Arthur closes
his eyes, and the music isn’t anything real. Just thumping. Direction for how
to guide Merlin’s body, as so much as Arthur ever does. Merlin ropes his arms
behind Arthur’s neck, and when Arthur looks, arches his everything in a long
undulation, smiling with all he has and feeling so damn safe Arthur wants to
just keep him here without pause or question.
Arthur rubs his fingers over Merlin’s shirt, looking around. No one is paying
them any attention. No one knows who they are. They’re just two…people. Two
people dancing like any two people. Or three people. Or an entire knot of
moving, kissing, humanity that’s just waiting for a flat space of floor to get
serious on.
Merlin rocks his hips and Arthur sighs down his low-cut shirt, rides his hand
up Merlin’s bare, shaved thigh and fiddles with the hem of his skirt (“It has
to twirl, Arthur. There is no sense getting a skirt that doesn’t twirl.” “It’s
short enough that if you spin the entire world will see everything you’ve got
going on under there.” “And you’ll defend my honour against ruffians and it’ll
be genius.”) Merlin body has always been his. He’s owned it forever, every
growth spurt and hair, every cut and bruise and scar. They are his, because he
was there for all of them, can list how Merlin got the burn on his arm
(cookies), the cut on his fingers (cookies), the slash on his calf (jumping a
broken bridge), the spots on his stomach (chicken pox), he knows all of them.
Merlin is the only story Arthur has memorized and he squeezes his hands just
hard enough on Merlin’s hips, kneading his fingers and sucking a fresh, warm
mark on Merlin’s neck.
He can feel the moan against his lips and Merlin turns in his arms, pressing
them front-to-front and not a single inch left for the Holy Spirit, because
Merlin doesn’t care. He would happily ride Arthur’s thigh right here without a
blush or a stutter, because Merlin loves him with all of himself.
He would…he would tell everyone, Arthur thinks. Even if Merlin is the one who
puts the most effort into keeping their secret. Even if he does all the heavy
lifting, he would…he would tell everyone. Arthur closes his eyes and puts his
mouth to Merlin’s neck, inhales the scent he’s so fully imprinted on that he
can’t sleep without it. He licks a wet path up to his ear and Merlin shivers
under his hands. Merlin used to be such a precious, gap-toothed little kid, big
jug-handled ears and huge, bright blue eyes that could get Arthur to do just
about anything. Climb any kind of tree, jump from rock to slippery rock at the
creek, climb on top of buildings and throw homemade bird “poop” from the top
and watched doms and subs scramble and look at the sky in disgust. Scraped
knees and dirty elbows, big ideas and a tiny little self.
Merlin rolled his head back and Arthur put that thought aside for the Merlin
between his hands, his beautiful, pale throat that Arthur, on one hand, wants
to collar, but on the other, loves to see bare and free. They compromise with
necklaces Arthur makes for him, out of gemstone-bright tiny glass beads
threaded and woven together in hours and hours of careful, painstaking work
that is only ever for Merlin.
He runs his hands up and down Merlin’s ribs, ignoring the press of other
people, keeping his nose against the only good smell in the entire world and he
could slip his thigh between Merlin’s legs, if he wanted. Go into a backroom,
maybe. Except…except there would be security cameras, probably. Someone.
Someone would see. The bathroom, shove Merlin into a stall and suck him off,
because then no one is in control. Merlin grabs his hair and fucks his mouth,
Arthur pulls back and teases, it’s…
He sucks a wet patch onto Merlin’s collarbone, shivers when Merlin digs his
hand into his hair and no one knows. No one knows. No one can look at them and
see anything but two men who could be anyone. They could be strangers. They
could have met here for the first time, thought the other was attractive and
now just doing…whatever they wanted. He could just now be discovering the spot
under Merlin’s ear that you had to bite just this hard and he’d shudder. He
could be delighted by how easy Merlin was for someone rubbing his stomach. He
could be anyone.
He could feel Merlin talking, the vibration of his throat against Arthur’s
lips, but he didn’t hear any words, and warmth and love and heat are twisting
inside him like they’re alive. Happiness. That bright flare, buyout and
irrepressible is happiness and Arthur feels drugged with it, the tension he
carries, always, slips down and away with a jerk, the omnipresent pain in his
neck and shoulders vanishing down and he just…he feels good.
Merlin is still talking, but it doesn’t mean anything, so Arthur kisses him.
Right there. Right there were people could see. People can see them kissing.
People will look at Merlin, look at his bright-bruised lips and know who did
that, but not what it means. He could kiss Merlin the rest of the night, just
sway and grind to this thumping, dropping, unce-unce-unce for the rest of time
and just kiss Merlin, let his hands wander and Merlin is laughing into his
mouth. His eyes are so bright, so fucking bright, so Arthur kisses his eyelids,
drops more down his nose, nipping at the tip and Merlin bites his chin,
grinning and his hands knead at Arthur’s hair, his scalp.
“I love you,” Arthur says aloud, because no one will hear him. He promises it
down Merlin’s throat, kneading it into his skin with his finger, rocking to it
with his hips—and it doesn’t matter that dancing is something that other people
do, he’s never leaving here, even if everyone else is jumping and jostling and
they’re just here, making out like they can’t do it anywhere else.
And Merlin is happy. Arthur wraps his arms up tight around Merlin, tight enough
that he probably squeaked, even if Arthur couldn’t hear it, he’s packed tight
with happiness, filled to the brim with it and Arthur…Arthur wants that always.
He wants Merlin to always be this giddy-high-fresh-beautiful-joy, this rich
with it, he doesn’t care if he can never turn Merlin on, or get him off the
right way, or make him feel properly, really safe, but if he could... if he
could just make Merlin this happy all the time, he would.
Merlin is clinging to him like a baby marmoset, nothing of his touching the
floor and Arthur can totally manage to get them somewhere to sit, even if he
has to move slowly. Merlin is just clinging and Arthur is clinging, and they
find a single, empty chair and Merlin’s just…on him, everywhere and beaming
down at him and Arthur presses his fingers to the smile. Merlin kisses his
fingertips and sucks them into his mouth, hot and soft and familiar. Wet.
Arthur strokes his tongue and Merlin’s eyes flutter closed, curling up in
Arthur’s lap and they’re anonymous. No one is even looking at them. It’s still
their secret, but Merlin is brilliant with joy and Arthur will find a way to
come here every week if it means Merlin will just keep looking like this and
not looking anywhere else. Scarlet O’Hara herself could come and grab him by
the collar and he wouldn’t even look at her.
And Arthur feels giddy with power, and then uncomfortable with it, unsure what
to do with it, if he should. He could try. He could. Um. He could do anything
to Merlin. He could do anything, and Merlin would let him and no one would stop
him or tell him if he went too far and he’s…he could…someone could… He doesn’t
know what to do. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what to do because
he could do anything and that is terrifying.
Merlin pulls away slowly and then just rests his head on Arthur’s shoulder,
sighing in a gust against Arthur’s neck and their touches switch from greedy
need to comfort and Arthur presses his face into his hand and Merlin’s
happiness dwindles down with worry and Arthur should…he. Someday he’ll be
better than this, maybe. Someday he won’t panic about…
He’s why Merlin makes up his stories. He’s why they keep it a secret. He’s why…
Merlin cups him through his trousers and Arthur jumps. Merlin is giving him one
of his many looks, the ones that translate into “I’m tired of you marinating in
your own issues, so we’re going to find a way to fuck that calms your shit down
and talk about it later over ice cream.”
Arthur snorts, but relaxes his hips and Merlin keeps rubbing, slowly, sneakily,
and he’s so arranged them that he could probably tug Arthur out and jerk him
off right here, if either of them weren’t terrified of staining the upholstery.
You don’t stain upholstery. It’s rude. Someone would have to clean it.
Merlin moved up and rubbed his abdomen, right above his pelvis. Arthur used to.
Used to toss off with one hand on his cock, the other pressed down there as
hard as he could manage, abs pressing back until he just…lost the thread of
everything for a stark, brilliant second. Arthur fiddles with Merlin’s earrings
and smiling as ruefully as he knows how. Merlin shrugs, forgivingly, and rubs a
thumb over Arthur’s eyebrow, smiling to himself—probably humming. Arthur cups
his hands around one of Merlin’s bare thighs, the skirt riding high and free
and Merlin—who had done life-modelling in uni, been a naked model for several
photography students, and done a self-directed naked shoot for the sexual
advocacy group’s “Love Your Body” campaign (none of which had been terrifically
sexy)--just sort of went with it, because that’s what Merlin does when there is
potential nakedness.
Arthur likes at least two layers between himself and the world. Usually three.
Merlin sighs and they lounge for a bit, not touching in any particular telling
way, but still touching. But then, they generally are.
When a song comes on that Merlin recognizes, and likes, he drags Arthur back
out, but the movements are frenetic. Merlin’s arms crossed over his head, hips
swaying and a truly stupidly big smile on his face, because he knows he can’t
dance and he doesn’t, exactly, care. Arthur…doesn’t examine how poorly he
dances. He just knows he really can’t. It requires a certain lack of
inhibition. Arthur has a lot of inhibitions.
He could make a set of collectable trading cards out of them, probably.
                                      ---

         Variants of the Fox-Wife tale type in Modern Japanese Culture
Cast:
Hinata Sen: A young submissive who gets pregnant with someone other than her
fiancée, whose parents made him rebuke her and take repressive drugs so that he
make a better name for himself and cover the dishonour. She tries to drown
herself but is pulled from the lake by Keera—a young fox. After giving birth to
Hikaru she discovers that both she and the baby are werewolves.
Keera: A young female fox that saves Hinata and (the still unborn) Hikaru, then
turns into a human to help take care of the baby in exchange for a favor Hinata
had done for her previously.
Akira Yui: Hinata’s fiancé. He spends most of the anime trying to get enough
political clout to marry Hinata. His family develops intricate plots to keep
them apart.
Hikaru Sen: Werewolf baby.
Miao Miao: Kitten, who in the anime is also a dragon, but in the original manga
was a normal, if sparsely appearing, cat.
Abstract
The anime Japanese: Kitsune to Ryouken—translated into English as Keera’s
Honor— shows clear signs of being influenced by variant 3C of the “Fox-Wife”
tale type[1]. The “Fox-Wife” is notable in folkloric terms because of the sheer
number of variants sharing the common theme of said fox wife. Variant 3C is
notable for the fact that it is one of the more ‘positive’ variants; As with
all versions of variant 3 it begins with the human protagonist—in this case a
submissive, saving a fox. The fox then seeks to repay the favor, when the
submissive is in need. In variant 3C the submissive is cut off from zer
bondmate and the fox establishes a phantom bond with the submissive, to balance
zer for a time. In most versions the phantom bond is destroyed when the
dominant returns to claim zer bondmate, or the fox is chased off by the pair’s
dog—who is usually acting to restore things to the ‘natural order’. In some
variants—those in which the submissive is female and pregnant or recently given
birth—the fox may return to care for the child. For unknown reasons this does
not hold true if the fox herself is the one who has a baby.
In Kitsune to Ryouken, the protagonist Hinata saves the Fox- Keera- as a child,
and Keera waits to return the favor. The opportunity arises when Hinata’s
fiancé is forced by his family to repudiate her due to her bearing another
man’s child. Keera saves Hinata when she attempts to drown herself and uses a
phantom bond to stabilize Hinata’s mental state.
Following the first arc of the series, when Hinata gives birth to her son
Hikaru, it is revealed that she and the baby are both werewolves (although
Hinata was not one prior to the pregnancy). This then brings in the tension of
the dog chasing the fox off—and one of the underlying conflicts in the series
is the fear that either Hinata or Hikaru will chase Keera off. This is
especially poignant as the manga has Hinata, Keera, and Akira form a stable
triad to raise Hikaru, giving the fox what could be easily construed as a
happier ending than the one she receives in most of the actual folk tales.
 
[1] As defined by Hiro Shiba’s treatise [trans]Faces of the Fox Wife in
Folklore
                                      ---
May, 2002
Arthur was still, basically, completely unused to doing his own thing only to
be struck through with a sudden, sharp spike of some feeling that he had no
right to be feeling. Merlin said it was like they’d jumped into a game without
reading the tutorial or handbook, and now they didn’t know how the controls
worked. They’d gone, basically, from being complete null-heads, to throwing
their combined selves in a blender and making a delicious milkshake out of
them. In Merlin’s words.
Most kids tended to have a few years to poke at the second presence in their
head while it was still dampened down. They would get to practice showing
select emotions off, and hiding others. Arthur and Merlin had been in over
their heads from the start line. There was no learning curve, just full,
wholehearted emotions and physical sensations. There had been…a lot of awkward
nights that they didn’t…talk about.
He should not have been that excited about dishwashing, yet his hands were
shaking and his heart was thumping, his stomach twisted around in his gut.
Excitement was really, very close to fear, wasn’t it? He’d never gotten a
chance to really analyze an emotion before. Generally he was too busy feeling
it.
Merlin thumped in through the back door a few plates later and Aunt Rebecca
sighed, pushing her hand down flat on Merlin’s head. “At least knock before
coming in, hmm?”
“Yes, sorry.” He smiled up at her and she’d let it go—like she always did—and
went back to whatever it was that she’d been doing. Uncle Tristan ignored them
as he always did those days and Merlin paid him no more mind than a No
Trespassing sign. Merlin grabbed Arthur by the elbow, “come on, I found
something. Come on-“
“Merlin, Arthur needs to finish the dishes.” Aunt Rebecca chastised and Merlin
huffed out an impatient little noise, shoved Arthur over to drying and began
scrubbing the silverware at hyper speed, examining them carefully for food
spots and then handing them to Arthur polish and dry before putting in the
dishwasher, because his Uncle was psychotic about dirty dishes, and then he was
hauling Arthur out the backdoor with suds still clinging to their hands. He
jumped over a bush between their two yards and yanked Arthur past Lance and
Merlin’s mum before he could do more than wave and be dragged up the stairs. He
shoved Arthur onto the bed and pressed a thick booklet into Arthur’s hands.
“Merlin, I am not reading a book of academic essays for you or anyone else.”
Arthur handed it back.
“Okay, yes, I expected that, and I’d tell you to just read the one, but it’s,
you know. Fifty pages of in-depth analysis about an anime I’ve never heard of
before. Granted I don’t really watch anime, but, the point is that this? This
is what we’ve been looking for.” Merlin took the booklet from him. “Look, so I
was going through medical journals and psychology papers and news reels and
history, but all of them talk about deviant sexuality like…I mean they use the
word deviant, you know? They’re pretty biased, and they.” Merlin shook his head
to get himself to focus. “Well, you’ve been here for most of the helpful ones,
and there are like…thirty unhelpful ones for every even mildly useful one, and
it’d be better if I could get into a university library, but. But, this is
about, and here’s what she calls it, ‘perceived transgressive sexuality, that
which does not follow societal condoned patterns.’” Merlin looked up with a
grin, like that was supposed to mean anything to Arthur.
“Okay so, every other article has taken this…looking down their nose kind of
tone about anything except a relationship that contains both a sub and a dom.
They don’t even like switches most of the time, and it’s only the really
liberal ones who accept stable triads as a relationship type. Even when they
have information, it’s always looked at as problematic, right? Like: here is
something obviously wrong. Let’s poke it.”
Arthur nodded and looked at his feet and Merlin just shoved the article in his
face again. “No, no, but this just talks about a fictional relationship, in
this case, you know, one between a submissive and a non-dynamic fox, because
it’s a fox, and foxes are all about the making babies and faffing about, and it
eventually becomes a triad between a dom, sub and non-dynamic fox, but the
point, the point is that it examines the relationship without sounding judgey.”
Arthur frowned and Merlin plopped down next to him. “It’s the only academic
thing I’ve found that wants to explore different relationship make-ups without
this underlying feeling of someone looking at the alien. Like, you get memoirs
and biographies and personal essay from non-dynamics, and switches and
monosexuals and people who were in triads, and the Internet—if you look hard
enough, mind—has some stuff about same-dynamic couples, but it keeps it real
quiet, you know? And there’s nothing, not one thing about same-dynamic
soulbonds. You get monosexuals soulbonding with someone wrong-sexed, but not.”
Merlin sighed and Arthur rubbed the back of his neck. Merlin hummed and leaned
into it, sent the warm pleasure right back at Arthur. Arthur shifted so he
could work Merlin’s muscles properly. He could feel the tight knots under his
thumbs, sure, but he could feel even better the relief of them being worked,
the slight pain as he dug in and the slowly, heated relief as they let go. It
was a form of meditation, of self-pleasure that they’d gotten lost in before,
and probably could again. If they. He tried not to think too much about...more
pleasurable things. Merlin moaned quietly and let the article rest in his lap,
giving himself over to Arthur’s hands
“There aren’t really any novels either, though.” Arthur said as Merlin went to
putty beneath his fingers. They couldn’t afford to get too trapped in a
feedback loop. “Not that…end well. For the couple.”
Merlin sighed and fiddled with the hem of his trousers. “No. Not that I’ve
found. But.” Merlin turned and gripped Arthur’s hand. It was still a shock,
still a strange feeling of…of doing something wildly inappropriate. You didn’t
just link fingers with people.
“But all I have is this library system, and they’re not going to have things
like that. If I could just get to a good library.” Merlin grumbled. “There have
to be other people like us. There…there have to be stories about it, at least.
Fairy tales, the earlier ones, they’re about all kinds of things. There have to
be. I’ll find them, Arthur. You know I will. I can’t be stopped. I’m a force of
nature.”
Arthur snorted, but curled his fingers against Merlin’s. “Yeah, you will.”
Merlin licked his lips and squeezed his hand and Arthur was hard. Instantly.
Fast enough to make him dizzy and they couldn’t keep doing this. They. But he
needed this, loved-completely-the rush of Merlin against his brain the thump of
his heart syncing with his own. Just...being a whole person, and being loved
and. And Merlin does this all the goddamn time, because if he didn’t, then
Arthur wouldn’t just…go along with stupid ideas.
“So, uh. I was also reading some. Um.” Merlin’s eyes flicked between Arthur’s
mouth and his eyes and Arthur raised an eyebrow, tried to be cool, because
Merlin got so much more flustered when Arthur was pretending to be above it
all, and it was... cute. Merlin didn’t get this flustered for other people.
This was just for Arthur. “Some of those…uh. Fics.”
“I know.” Arthur swallowed and put his free hand on Merlin’s hip. “You kind
of…last night.”
Merlin flushed and looked down, before getting a certain sort of glint in his
eye and looking back up. “You got all that?”
“Yeah.” Arthur’s hand seized involuntarily and Merlin’s hips twitched forward,
splotchy-beautiful with his blushing and Arthur wanted to.... wanted to--
Something. He never knew what it is, never had words for it. Merlin had the
words. Arthur had the... something. Whatever it was he wanted to do it so badly
it hurt. It ached inside him and if he could just…figure it out, they could be
happy. If he could just get inside Merlin they would be fine.
Merlin ran his free hand over Arthur’s thigh. He stopped before going too high.
“Did, um- You- You liked it?”
If Arthur had been a dom they would have had so much sex by then. Nevermind
chaperones, Merlin would have found a way. Merlin was devious.
“Yeah.” He said and his hand crept up, under Merlin’s shirt. They were
just…touching. They couldn’t do anything, no really. Not anything that would
have shown up in those fics. They were both subs. So they were just…touching.
Nothing. Nothing that counted, right?
“I could- I felt- You.”
Merlin bumped their noses together. “Lance and mum are going to work soon. We
could practice. You…you could stay over.” Merlin rubbed his knuckles against
Arthur’s abdomen. “We- I like sleeping with you.”
“You steal all the blankets.”
“If you wanted them, you’d fight for them more.” Merlin sniffed and then
there’s the call from downstairs, Merlin’s mum telling them not to burn down
the house. They waited, and Merlin pulled away, opened his bedroom door and
called down. No response.
Arthur sat on the bed, suddenly cold and feeling like the last bean in a bag,
rattling around emptily and about to be tossed in a bin. So when Merlin closed
the door and came back Arthur kissed him, just because he couldn’t do anything
else. Merlin made a happy little noise and squeezed their fingers together
again.
“Fuck, you’re pretty.” Merlin murmured when Arthur pulled back.
Arthur snorted and Merlin kissed him again, wet and brief, before pulling back,
“I mean it. You’re all…tanned and…your hair and…muscles.” Merlin licked his
lips and ran his free hand over Arthur’s shoulder. “You’re big.”
“But I’m not going to use it the way you want me to.”
Merlin carded his fingers through Arthur’s hair. “But. What if you had to
protect me from something? Like…you push me out the way of a car and then we’re
on the ground and you’re over me, keeping me safe, protecting me from
everything, and I’m under you, being held…being held down.” Merlin had a
devious mind.
Arthur checked the door, like an idiot, and then turned them so Merlin was on
his back and Arthur was over him. Merlin’s breath hitched and Arthur watched
his thin chest jerk.
“Come on.” Merlin swallowed. “I’m getting cold.”
Arthur moved to cover as much as Merlin’s body from the rest of the room as
possible and Merlin jerked under him, startled, even if this whole thing had
been his idea. The sharp twist of arousal was theirs to share, coiling between
them like something alive. Arthur ducked his head, riding it out. Merlin arched
his neck, luxuriating in it.
“If.” Merlin licked his lips. “If you had the kind of dom you wanted. She’d...
she’d like to be held just like this. She’d want to see just how big you’d
gotten for…for her.” Merlin’s voice was low and hoarse and Arthur couldn’t look
away from his lips. He physically could not. “She’d. She’d want to know how
strong you were so she’d know she was entirely in charge.”
“Fuck, Merlin.” Arthur squeezed his hands against the sheets. “She likes it?”
“Yeah.” Merlin breathed, quiet, “yeah she loves it. She. She loves how big you
are. For her. Big and…hard and…hers. All for her.” Merlin’s breath was quick
and Arthur bent and ate it out of his mouth, their tongues sliding together in
a way they haven’t figured out how to make their bodies emulate. “She puts you
in tight clothing so she can just…look at you. Lets you shave your head when
you want to, because she. She’s so small. But she takes up so much space with
just... her voice and her--ah! ”
Arthur groaned and Merlin smoothed his hands up Arthur’s ribs. “She’s so small
and you’re big and no matter what she-“
“You.” Arthur demanded.
“I tell you to do, you find a way to do it.” Merlin agreed, switched,
immediately. Arthur was lowering his body, keeping himself between the world
and Merlin, covering and protecting him and Merlin was struggling to breathe
under the weight but he liked that. Liked being covered. Liked being smothered
a little bit. Sometimes he crawled under his mattress and lay under it when he
was trying to think. Sometimes he let the heavy armchair in the living room
gently lean back until it was practically crushing him. He said it made him
feel grounded, like small spaces and Arthur did.
A good dom would tie Merlin up. Would. Would know how to do that, how to keep
him all wrapped up and Merlin would love every single fucking second of it.
Suspend him maybe. Or…or tie him up and put him in a cupboard or…something. A
good dom would know what do with a pretty, desperate sub underneath them.
Merlin could make almost anyone into a good dom for him, Arthur thought
(sometimes), he could make almost anyone want to see him desperate.
Arthur, meanwhile, panicked, slightly.
“No, no, we’re practicing, we’re just practicing.” Merlin wrapped his arms
around Arthur’s neck, briefly, before that wasn’t enough contact and he was
pressing his fingers along Arthur’s ribs like they were piano keys. “It doesn’t
count. We’re just. We’re getting good at kissing. People do it at your school
all the time, right? They don’t mean anything by it.”
“Not your school?”
Merlin shrugged and kept sweeping his hands, touching and holding, like he was
unsure of what to do or how to let go. “We have fifteen kids, fourteen of whom
view sex as something that other people do, when there isn’t something more
interesting going on, and the last of which is me.” Merlin fidgeted under
Arthur, biting his lip.
“Come on, just. We’re just kissing. Friends kiss.”
“Not with tongue.” Arthur shifted again, just so their skin could slide a bit,
and Merlin’s breath caught and Arthur almost pulled off again. Merlin tugged
him back down, all the way, so he was crushing him, and Merlin caught breaths
in tiny, tiny, desperate pants. Arthur watched, fascinated. How did his eyes
stand being so big and blue? How. You could make a new world in them, if you
wanted.
He felt dizzy and beautiful against Arthur’s mind.
“Sorry. I just. I don’t know what we’re doing.”
He lifted up a little so Merlin could actually catch some air, and Merlin
inhaled purposefully slowly, closed his eyes and then stared right into Arthur.
“Whatever feels good?” Merlin cupped Arthur’s face again. “Just. No one is here
to judge us. We’re careful. We- I’m not ever going to try and trick you into
domming me, okay? I don’t.... That isn’t what we’re doing. We’re just…”
“If you say practicing-”
“We’re just making lemonade.” Merlin smiled, then cupped his arm over Arthur
head and pulls him down to Merlin’s shoulder.
“When… when I feel you, um. When you start wanking, I…I have to, too. No matter
what I’m doing, I just. I feel you getting all hot and the way you. Stroke.”
Merlin swallowed, and when Arthur tried to look up, Merlin kept him down.
“I can feel you getting--And then you start... Touching and I can feel that and
then I have to touch and it’s- It’s like that, okay? It’s. We’re not doing
anything wrong, we’re just. Sharing what feels good, like we’re going to do
anyways, but in the same bed.”
Arthur didn’t make any kind of noise and Merlin flicked off the bedside lamp
and fidgeted. “We’re asleep.” Merlin said like he could command the world if he
just thought of how. “Come on, slump over, we’re asleep.”
“We’re not asleep.”
“We are.” Merlin insisted. “Come on. We’re taking a nap. We’re asleep, slump
over.”
Arthur had a direct line to Merlin’s brain and he still never knew what went on
in there. But he slumped over and Merlin moved around until they were under the
blankets, heads on pillows, and no books digging into anything. Arthur huffed
and when he tried to open his eyes, Merlin pressed his hand over them. “No,
we’re asleep.”
“Fine. We’re asleep.” Arthur re-settled himself, because he was still hard, and
his trousers didn’t exactly make that comfortable.
“Do you sleep in your trousers, Arthur?” Merlin asked and Arthur slowly shucked
them off, the whole thing easier with his eyes closed. He pushed them to the
end of the bed, then regretted it, because his cock took that as complete
encouragement and rode up against his plain-as-Jane boxer briefs. Obvious. He
was so disgustingly obvious all of the time and Merlin liked puzzles. He- He
didn’t understand why-
“Merlin-“
“Shh. Asleep.” Merlin moved until he was lying with his font all along Arthur’s
side, prick digging into Arthur’s hip. “We’re just two subs, having an
afternoon nap, because growing up is exhausting. Nothing wrong here.” Merlin
kept his voice quiet, and his arm was suddenly flopped on Arthur’s stomach,
low, his forearm just brushing the base of his dick in a way that couldn’t be
accidental. Arthur inhaled sharply and Merlin made a sleepy sort of comforting
hum, nuzzling at Arthur’s shoulder with a hot, wet breath, dragging down
Arthur’s arm.
“Merlin-”
“We. Are. Asleep.” Merlin repeated and kissed Arthur shoulder. “Just... We
aren’t doing anything. We’re asleep. Sometimes you wake up with sticky sheets,
and it wasn’t you doing anything. It’s just your body doing whatever, while
you’re asleep.”
Arthur’s heart thumped in his chest, but he allowed himself to relax against
the sheets and Merlin snuggled closer.
They’d done this plenty of times, fallen asleep together. In this bed, even.
Curled up under the blankets, but never…never this tense. Merlin waited, waited
until Arthur’s heart stopped thudding quite so terrifically. He slowly dragged
his still-covered cock against Arthur’s hip, languid and subtle, but Arthur was
hyper-aware of the hard line of it against his hip. He didn’t- He didn’t know
what to do.
“I’m having a dream.” Merlin said, so quiet Arthur could pretend he wasn’t
talking. That he was just muttering in his sleep. “It’s a…a good dream. And I
feel hot and you… You can feel it now, too. And then you push up and I feel
that. And it’s fine, because we’re asleep.”
Arthur kept his eyes closed and he just. Lay still. Wanted to clutch at Merlin,
wanted to run away. Wanted to just…have someone tell him what to do so that he
would know he was doing it correctly. If he didn’t know what to do, how does--
Merlin rubbed at his lower abdomen and Arthur shifted his legs open a little,
because that was what felt right. Merlin’s breath gusted out of him. He slipped
a leg over Arthur’s groin and Arthur pressed up against it. A tease of
pressure, and Merlin was thrusting again, slowly, carefully, and Arthur--
They’d done a lot of kissing. They got hard. But they’d always…ignored it. It
hadn’t been something they could do anything about, so they would sit until
they calmed down, and then walk home, taking care of it…later.
Merlin’s fingers kneaded, sleepily, haphazardly and Arthur carefully thrust
against Merlin’s thigh. The drag of it was so fucking…it was sweet, it was hot
and warm and damp and he immediately did it again. Merlin thrust against his
hip, just as slow and lazy as if he actually were asleep, slight and shuddery
and selfish, a low rumbly kind of moan, high and just this side of breathy.
Arthur pushed up again and then rolled over, enough to be something
unconscious, something done only a little awake to get more comfortable.
They stilled a moment, then shifted a little, legs tangled until scissored,
Merlin’s thigh was up against his cock, his against Merlin’s hipbone, and after
a moment Merlin began to rock, slowly, moving until his head was nestled under
Arthur’s, his arms curled up against his chest.
Arthur made something approximating a sleepy murmur and hitched his own hips.
He shivered against the slow friction against his prick, another body besides
his own, Merlin shuddered as he moved, and when Arthur opened his eyes, Merlin
stared right at him. Merlin sighed and brought two fingers up, closed Arthur’s
eyelids again.
“Asleep, Arthur.”
“You have your eyes open.”
“Asleep.” Merlin said again, desperate, pleading. So, Arthur kept his eyes
closed, squeezed his hands into fists and rocked because-- It didn’t count if
they were asleep. It- It didn’t count.
Merlin got off with a choked little sound, hips stuttering over Arthur’ thigh,
leaving it sticky and wet. Merlin sobbed a little, this tiny, forgettable
noise, except that Arthur had done that. It would. It would play or repeat
until he burned in Hell, and he... He’d done that.
Merlin’s thigh pressed up, gave him a little more, perfect, pressure, and he
would have liked a warm, squeezing hand more, or…or a mouth or…
Or someone to tell him now was the right time. Or to hold off. Or. Or what to
do and he was supposed to know what to do. He was supposed to know and he
didn’t.
“You’re asleep.” Merlin said, petted his thumb across Arthur’s mouth. “Do
whatever your body wants. You’re asleep. Arthur is offline.”
Arthur shook his head and felt Merlin’s long fingers curled up against his jaw.
“Arthur. Arthur please. Don’t. Can we have this?” He pleads. “I need you.”
Arthur tucked his head down, buried his face in the pillow and thrust until it
was all he could think about. Until that was all that mattered: sliding his
cock against Merlin’s skinny, bare thigh, getting that bit more friction, that
atom more heat,
Until-
Until-
Until Merlin held his hand and he couldn’t…think, it was just.
And.
Good.
Merlin was smiling at him Arthur opened his eyes and Arthur felt…okay.
“I’ll get some washcloths.” Merlin decided as he rolled out of bed. “Just lie
there and feel floaty.”
“Sure.” Arthur agreed and shoved his face into Merlin’s pillow, because it was
the best scent in the world, right then. He did feel…light. Or maybe the
correct kind of heavy, because he didn’t want to move at all.
Merlin cleaned him up first, hands gentle and humming something stupid to
himself. Arthur knew it was something stupid, because Merlin only listened to
stupid things, and then Arthur would get some small part of it stuck in his
head.
He cleaned himself less carefully, and rinsed out the rag a few times so it
wouldn’t get…wank-sock-esque, then got back into bed with a flop and groan,
half on Arthur and half on all the blankets, before they really did go down for
an afternoon nap, partly naked and entirely fine with it.
Granted, when they woke up again, Arthur stared at the ceiling and, after a in-
depth study of the stain on the plaster that looked like a pile of noodles, had
a panic attack about…everything. Nothing-- just... Second verse, same as the
first, and he tugged his trousers on and bolted back to his house. Where he hid
like a fucking coward, because he was. He was, and he couldn’t... He shouldn’t
have-- dragged anyone into his mess.
But Merlin, being Merlin, climbed onto his roof and knocked at his window.
Incessantly.
Arthur opened it, because Merlin didn’t really stop doing things just because
you ignored him, Merlin squirreled in and sat on Arthur’s spotless desk so to
best stare at him.
“I don’t…know what we’re doing either.” Merlin announced, finally, looking down
at his fingers. Arthur kept his arms crossed and doesn’t go and comfort Merlin,
because...because he doesn’t.
He should have gotten this-- they should have gone to a doctor. Except that Dr.
Whitman was horrible, and they’d never... They’d just be alone, then. And
Arthur isn’t sure he’d stop loving Merlin, even if he couldn’t feel him all the
time. And then what excuse would they have?
“You’ve got it more together than I do.” Arthur rubbed his face with open
palms, before falling back and let his head knock against the wall with a
hollow thud. “You never panic. You’re always...” Arthur frowned and rubs his
chest, stared at the all-too-familiar ceiling, bereft of a even single stain,
crack, or mark.
“You’re panicking enough for both of us.” Merlin popped his knuckles,
restlessly, and got up to pace. “I’ve told you. I. Arthur, I was so fucking
happy when it was you. I’ve told you. You were there, you…felt it. You had to
have.”
Arthur swallowed. “How can you be happy about the fact that we’re fucked up?”
“You’re mine, forever.” The bed dipped as Merlin lay down, curling himself
around Arthur’s legs. “I didn’t have friends. I don’t have friends. Mum found
Lance, and I know she still loves me, but. New soulbond is going to distract
anyone, for a little while. I have fourteen classmates, of which I am the most
socially adept, and in case you haven’t noticed, I am not actually good at
people—”
“Bollocks.” Arthur shoved him and Merlin snorted.
“I am. I mean-- I’m good at parents and teachers, and I’m good at appearing
decently normal for a little while. But, Arthur. You can’t seriously think that
anyone besides you or mum really wants to listen to me wax poetic about spotted
hyena sexual hierarchy.”
“A biologist, I assume.” Arthur put his hand to Merlin’s head, and Merlin
arched up into it.
“You are my only friend. And you... I used to daydream that we’d end up
soulbonded. Not in a sex way, but just-- We’d get dogs, and live together, and
tell our adopted kids about how we knew each other as kids, and you’d never.”
Merlin sighed and bowed his head. “Jesus, I’m pathetic.”
“And I’m messed up.” Arthur clutched Merlin’s hair briefly and dropped his
hand. “So...what? You think this is your fault? You wished this into
existence?”
Merlin didn’t look up from staring at Arthur’s knee. “And you think you should
have been a dom and you’ve doomed me forever because of it. And you will not
let it go.”
“Look at me. I should have been dom. My Aunt and Uncle thought so, all my
teammates just took it as read we’d all be doms, my teachers and coaches just
let me go off the handle because they thought it was just pre-identity
aggression.” Arthur knocked his head against the wall again, kept his voice
quiet, because who knew who would be listening? “I don’t. I don’t like anything
subs are supposed to like, I don’t look like a sub, I don’t…I don’t want
anyone…’
“You want someone to tell you want to do.” Merlin said, rubbing Arthur’s knee.
“You’re terrified you’re going to hurt someone with one of your Hulk-outs, so
you want someone who can take you out. Keep you down. Someone who will let you
be angry and give you something to fight against. Someone who can shove you out
of your own head for a bit, but the idea of being responsible for someone else,
for having to be in touch enough with your own instincts that you could bring
them the edge and not an inch further scares the fuck out of you. You would, if
you had to.”
Merlin rolled over. “If I wanted you to, you’d learn how to dom. You’d...”
Merlin sighed and looked at Arthur’s stomach. “If-- if I let you, you’d
overcome every inch of that terror and just…do it because you’d do what you
thought I wanted. But you’d hate it.”
Arthur swallowed and looked out the window.
“You don’t want to hurt anybody.” Merlin crawled up the bed and pressed his
forehead to Arthur’s shoulder.
“Even at your most angry you don’t…you only hit people when they hit you first.
You punch walls, and you throw things, but-- I think.... I think it would have
taken a lot for you to learn how to be okay with hurting someone. Even if
someone wanted it. I think-- I think it’d take an entirely different life for
you to-- Enjoy. Hurting anyone else... You--” Merlin rubbed Arthur’s throat and
Arthur swallowed.
“You always want to be the one who gets hurt, you know? In all our games, you
always wanted to be the martyr. You...” Merlin licked his lips and considered
him. “You would be the first one to try a jump, the first to try and climb
something. If you got hurt, we’d get you to stop bleeding and it’d be fine.
When I got hurt you’d go mental.”
Arthur cupped the back of Merlin’s head and Merlin kissed his jaw. “You are who
you are. I don’t... I really don’t want you to be different. I want you as you
are, and who you’re going to be, and I want to sit on a porch with you and
play…fucking bridge, or something. If you were a dom, you’d be different and
it’d be weird and you’d-- It’d be different.” Merlin clutched at him.
“Maybe better.”
“Maybe worse.” Merlin countered, then paused, listening, before the door
creaked and Merlin shoved his face against Arthur’s shoulder-- instead of
pushing away, like he should-- and began…crying?
Arthur’s Aunt opened the door to look in at them, mouth already open to say
something, and then took in Merlin sobbing and the way Arthur was holding him.
“What’s…wrong?” She asked, instead of whatever it was she intended to say.
Likely ready to demand Merlin go back to his own house, like that’d ever worked
before.
Merlin shook his head and curled up tighter, and Arthur doesn’t even need to
think about it before he pulled him closer. “It’s just. A thing. Can you-?”
“Right.” She stood there another moment. “Sorry, I just-- Is there anything I
can do?”
Merlin shook a bit too realistically and Arthur kept petting his head, taking a
tissue from the bed stand so Merlin could blow his nose. “I’ve got it.”
“Right... I--” She pulled the door closed. After a moment her footsteps
retreated down the hall, and Merlin perked up and wiped his eyes.
“Damn.” Arthur commented.
“We’re doing a segment on acting.” Merlin smiled and wrinkled his nose to try
and get the red out.
“It’s good I’m not a dom.” Arthur tugged his hair. “You’d run circles around
me.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty much amazing.” Merlin beamed and kissed Arthur’s cheek. The
conversation turned, again, before Merlin slipped out the window and Arthur
went to bed late enough that he was ridiculous groggy the entire next school
day, but didn’t much mind.
                                      ---
January 2012
Gwen was twenty-five and married, technically.
She’d lived, previous to this last year with Elyan and Freya, with her father
for her entire life—not that that was very long. It wasn’t like she was thirty
and still living in home. Not that there was anything wrong with that, provided
you were close to your family. And she was, at least, to her father. She and
her father had spent most of her life playing an extended game of house, since,
for all the good soulbonds were supposed to do for everyone, they sure left a
lot of broken homes in their wake.
Her father had been forty-four when she’d been born, and Gwen, at nine, had
read between the lines and saw “accident”. Elyan had been planned because, at
forty, her father had given up on ever finding his fiancé, so dated, found
someone, fell in love and they got married and had Elyan before suddenly
finding themselves with Gwen. And, of course, the fill-in attending doctor to
Gwen’s birth had turned out to be her mother’s soulmate, and they’d run off
together.
Immediate no-fault divorce, her father getting custody at first temporarily,
because her mother and her fiancée were a little too occupied with each other
to raise two kids, and then because they moved to America and never filed for
custody. Gwen. Gwen didn’t agree with a world where you could say you were
completely and utterly in love with somebody, say you’d happily spend your life
with them, and then look into the eyes of some other person and forget all
about the first. And it wasn’t like she was any different than any of her
classmates. She identified on time, she started feeling her fiancée, she heard
the same stories, watched the same telly, read the same books, but…
Her dad hadn’t quite ever gotten over it, buried himself in fatherhood when he
was there, buried himself in work when he wasn’t, didn’t date anyone else. So
Gwen grew up making sandwiches for him to take to work, and Elyan helped her
read cookbooks, turned on the stove while she carefully measured everything,
the two of them making simple little dinners, and then the three of them
sitting in front of telly with bowls of condensed soup and grilled cheese
sandwiches, talking over the programs and eating ice cream for dessert. She’d
grown up sitting between Elyan and her father on the bus, sandwiches between
them walking down the street. She’d grown up knowing her father would come to
her dance recitals, and Elyan would be the one to make sure she got to
practice, after school. Sitting in the waiting room and doing his homework as
she stretched and listened to the teacher, finding the isolations in her
growing body, reclaiming every new-found inch and using them to make her arches
more graceful, her leaps more dramatic. She never got very big, her brother
said the dancing stunted her growth, but she had lifts if she wanted to see
more of the world.
Elyan had run away when she was twelve and Gwen had never known why. Still
didn’t really know why, for all that she now lived with her brother. He’d never
been able to explain it, no matter how she pushed and so that. That was a thing
that they left alone. At twenty-five Gwen was living with her brother and his
fiancée and it was a relationship built on the understanding that there were
things they didn’t talk about. They worked their problems out between
themselves, she worked her problems out in front of the mirror, the tiny stereo
in the corner giving her something to think about. She was twenty-five and in
charge of her own, small, community dance troupe. She was twenty-five and
teaching uni students how to accept who they were and move with that. Body
consciousness had no place. Awkwardness and shyness had no place. They weren’t
full on professional, she was paid for her time, along with tutoring rich
little pre-gendered identified subs how to look pretty for their parent’s
garden party talent shows, with ribbons and spins, smiles and skirts.
And so she didn’t talk to Elyan about how their father had bent his head down
and accepted it, accepted his son leaving like it was the way things worked in
this world. There was a lot, too, her father didn’t talk about. But he worked
that little bit harder so she could have nice things, coming home and helping
with her homework, no matter how tired he was, going to bed at nine, getting up
at five, where she was already up, making breakfast and packing his lunch,
before going back to bed until she had to get ready for school.
She found her fiancé at twenty, still living at home, working as a waiter
because dancing couldn’t make you any actual, real money. Not if you looked
like her instead of the sort of people who were in music videos. But she still
practiced, did shows when there was a chance to, came home after being
lambasted and exhausted and then did her stretches, pulling her leg up to her
chest and breathing through it, falling into a splits and arching, practicing
her routine if she had one, making up something if she didn’t. Dancers had
their own form of monologues to beat into their bodies. Waiting made money, if
nothing else.
She met her fiancé waiting tables, in her co-workers section, sure, but it was
still the sort of movie cliché that she expected to have a soundtrack for.
She’d gotten off work early, gone to his hotel room, and they hadn’t crawled
out again for a week, and she hadn’t cared that she hadn’t had a job at the end
of it. There was always somewhere else to wait tables. They’d found a flat,
moved her stuff into it, he’d met her dad, she’d told Elyan on the phone,
they’d christened the entire flat like they were a bottle of champagne on the
side of a boat, him looking for work, making crazy delicious meals out of food
he got from somewhere or other, watching telly and telling the other everything
they knew about themselves, dancing for him, teaching him how to do basic lifts
in their tiny living room so she could feel like they made something together.
Then she’d been stuck with a six-month lease by herself with her fiancée off in
Tibet somewhere with no warning, after a small single little fight about
blanket hogging sort of maybe spread into being a fight about dishes and then
took over to whether to leave the shower curtain open on the inside or the
outside and then the laundry and the…and then they’d just fall into bed and
it’d be perfect and they’d talk and everything would be perfect until he left
his egg pan on the counter and he ran her paintbrushes through the dishwasher
and-
So by the end of the first month they were trying to not fight while fighting
and it wasn’t that she was stubborn, it was just. She. She’d been taking care
of her father, yes, and it wasn’t that she couldn’t do it for him, too, she’d
just. Her father had also done his best to take care of her too, and she’d
thought, maybe, once she moved out she could have a bit of a more…equal
relationship. Except then she’d go through fits of doing everything for him and
then resenting that she’d done everything, which, yes, sure, was a little
annoying. Probably. But that was no reason to just scamper off and become a
globetrotter without warning.
Gwen was twenty-five and living with Freya and Elyan, with one big bare room in
the house for her to map out the steps to the dance she was working on. She
stretched in the mirror, careful in her movements, moving into her body,
breathing, keeping the video recorder going so she can watch herself later,
taking choreographer notes, remaking her steps for each part, building the
ensemble in her head for her troupe. She wasn’t waiting. She wasn’t going to
sit around waiting for the tosser, just because she loved him in that helpless,
all-consuming way that horror movies were about. She was just doing her own
thing, only letting herself have a screaming row about it once a month, at
maximum, and Freya would calm her down, Elyan would sit quietly and they’d
watch a dumb film about things that exploded or kissed one another, because
there should be both kissing and explosions in everything.
Gwen liked dancing, even if she knew she was slowly falling out of her prime
and she still hadn’t made anything of herself, and she wasn’t going to. She had
refused to make a series of thumping, vicious, heartbroken routines, and
instead put it into finding places to work. All ensemble shows, all the chorus
line—she couldn’t sing, and she couldn’t act, so no point trying for many
plays—did a bit of burlesque, because she could, helped in children’s theatre,
was one of seventy dancers in a scene for a straight-to-video sequel to
something or other, worked as a model for a small, indie, animation studio.
If nothing else was dependable, her body was. She knew how long her reach was,
the circumference of her hips, the strength of her thighs and the flexibility
of her back. She knew herself, even if she didn’t really know anyone else, and
the one person she was supposed to get— money-back guarantee, lifetime
warranty, 24/7 customer service and technical support—had run off on her with
no reason and so she didn’t even have that. She could bend forward this far.
She could bend back to that angle. She could spin, she could hold this for five
beats, six beat, seven, nine, twelve, holding and holding as still as possible,
effortless and aching. Ballroom competition because she knew how to move,
working in retail and swinging through the aisles, working in an office and
practicing her stretches while entering data. Standing next to buskers in the
warm summer months, during festivals, and moving with them, letting them hand
her crumpled singles after a long day. Living statue, holding difficult poses
for thirty-minute intervals. Security guard and kicked a shoplifter right in
the jaw and became known as The Ninja. Community theatre teaching amateur
actors how to do a proper waltz for the crowd, how to salsa dance and make
people feel it, even if it was just a few, playful steps. Karaoke night and
doing a handstand on a chair with full split extended, Freya laughing drunkenly
into Elyan shoulder, as he gamely continued to make it through “Show Me Your
Whiphand.” off-key and full of power.
No postcards. She keeps her ring in her wallet. She doesn’t try to take anyone
home, she doesn’t want anyone. She isn’t sure she’d take her soulmate, at this
point, even if he showed up in her bed, naked and apologetic. She’s interviewed
for a student documentary on the cities burlesque revival circuit. She teaches
aging married couples how to move together, she goes to clubs and gives
absolutely no fucks about how she looks. She doesn’t get over tripping over her
words, because while she never underestimates the importance of body language,
the rest of the whole…communicating…thing is sort of. An awkward. Mess. Merlin
dances with her sometimes, clumsy, but game for everything, invested as a
stockbroker in her lectures on the history of dance and it’s use as a
storytelling device. Merlin loves people’s passions, passionately. She took him
to an office party (if you’re going to something boring, bring Merlin. Merlin
can liven up anything) and had talked to James from Market Research about his
three pet rats with sincere and unqualified interest, then let Gwen spin him
around the dancefloor, bending into her dip extravagantly, full of attitude and
silliness as always. And when the head of a different department tried to kiss
her in the copy room, Merlin had tackled her with a Viking yell and grinned up
at her.
Merlin could liven up anything.
She can still get both legs behind her head, and crawl her legs up the wall and
lie them flat, torso on the ground and watch telly. Arthur quietly kneels on
the ground and hold up his arm when she wants to do an over the shoulder lift,
stretching out her body like she’s the figure on the front of some old
fashioned pirate ship and will stand still if she wants to do a flip over his
arm, but he won’t actually dance. He will make her lovely stage jewellery,
though, and when she’d needed to play a wizard for a show, he’d ended up making
a beautiful, ornate staff for her to work into her routine. One of the patrons
had ended up buying it for a few hundred, but she’d felt powerful holding it in
her hands for the two week run.
Arthur is. Solid. He’s dependable. He’ll help you bring in the groceries, and
help you move. He’ll slam someone giving you trouble into a wall and just…hold
them there. And if that particular person is trying to steal their money, she
might climb up Arthur like he’s a tree and hold a can of pepper spray to the
asshole’s face while Arthur stays steady as a goddamn rock underneath her, and
she phones the police. They’re good friends, the both of them.
She loves Freya, who adopted Gwen immediately and without qualm, letting her
sob drunkenly about how people were so stupid and then dealing with the fact
that Gwen would feel guilty about it the next morning. She watches Gwen’s
dances, and drags everyone to every single show and they clap the loudest, the
proudest…possibly the drunkest. She and Elyan were rebuilding broken bridges,
and they watch bad movies and he helps her re-fit her costumes, because he got
into clothing in a big way somewhere along the line. She’s a ghost for a
haunted house, she’s part of an amateur music video contest and they get third
place. Freya teaches her to roller skate, because that’s the kind of person
Freya is.
Her mobile rang while she was planning out her next routine, still figuring out
the intro, stretching out her arm and staring mindlessly into the mirror as she
feels the floor under her feet and trying to think of what, exactly the
direction is she wants to go. Most of the time she just improvises at this
stage, letting the music run on repeat as the video goes, finding sequences she
likes and linking them together. But she likes to have a direction, an idea of
what she’s trying to do, instead of just movement, followed by movement,
followed by isolation. She moves over to the mobile and step right, step left,
leg lift, turn—
“Gwen, hi, it’s Arthur I-“
Gwen did not think Arthur had ever called her. Merlin, certainly. Merlin
sometimes called, shouted, “You are a good and charming person!” and then
disconnected, just for the sake of doing so. Merlin wasn’t one to be forgotten.
No, more energetic than that, it’s an upbeat sequence. Not just attitude, no,
not just energy. Maybe she should just watch how Merlin moves for a day, take
some of his gestures and incorporate them. No one is made of more energy than
Merlin. Oh, that’s an idea.
“I... I’m sorry for bothering you.” He sounded distressed, his voice oddly
distant and she could not think of a single reason why they were talking. But
it couldn’t be good and she stops thinking about the routine. Arthur was also a
creature of the physical, she and Freya had agreed, once. He isn’t good with
words, and stops talking entirely if stressed enough, but he knows how to move.
She’s addressed how he plays footie in a piece, once, the way his world becomes
the ball. Freya had worked with her, letting her work with the ball until she
was comfortable with how to hit it with her head, her chest, her feet, before
she brought it to her troupe. He isn’t as aggressive as Freya, but he’s
beautiful focused and…relaxed. His body is only happy when it’s moving with
purpose.
“It’s no trouble.” She said. “Is something the matter? Not that something needs
to be the matter for you to call me. You just sound... Um.”
“Look-- We’re.” Arthur’s voice cut out a moment. “Merlin’s hurt. He’s-- I don’t
know if he’s dislocated his shoulder or...” There was a pained grunt followed
by a few moment of panting and she looked at her phone in case it’d gotten a
particular idea of what static sounded like. “It’s. A… thing… went wrong and
we’re kind of. Can you please just? I’m sorry, Merlin, just don’t move any.”
“Where are you?”
“Our flat. We-- It’s going to look.. Just-- Don’t.” Arthur’s voice caught and
he sounded scared, and she wondered what exactly they’d gone and gotten done to
themselves. Household accident? She had the car, she would be the one to take
them to the hospital. Home invasion? Unsafe dom? She knew Merlin and Arthur
were close, probably close enough to want to do a scene together, if that was
what they liked. She had a few dancers who were into that sort of thing,
especially after one of those shows where they were all over each other
anyways. You had to be comfortable with other bodies to do this sort of thing.
But she had a hard time imagining them finding a dom they both liked, they were
just…very different people? But fascinating to watch. Arthur reeling Merlin in,
pushing him up, always there when Merlin needing catching. Merlin wound Arthur
up, relaxed him back down. They had the beat of the other.
“Please come and don’t... Bring anyone. We might need to get Merlin to the
hospital-- I don’t...”
“Calm down, I’ll be right over, don’t, um. Don’t do anything.” She got up and
tugged her trousers on over her dance clothes and stuffed her bound feet into
her trainers. “Should I bring anything? Is…I mean are you two alone. Now?”
“There’s no one else here. Merlin, for the love of Christ, stop moving, you’re
just making it worse.
Gwen didn’t have to be good at words to know something else was happening here.
She closed her mobile and drove.
                                      ---
December, 2011
Morgana knew how to get what she wanted. She’d been taught well.
Her father was especially skilled at it, of course, the lockpicking lessons,
and the proper way to pick a pocket or handbag, but also the right way to
smile, how to cry on cue, how to be a pretty, little innocent so daddy can rush
in and save her, or rush in and make it worse (but only pretend) and they can
get the payday. He knew how to smile, what to say, how to make people give them
what they wanted in the hopes that they would get what they wanted. (“Gotta go
for the ones with greed, Mork. No good person has ever fallen into a con,
because no good person ever thinks they can get something for nothing. It’s the
people who think they deserve it that pay out the most, babygirl.”)
She was taught how to throw a good punch, how to run like crazy, how to kick
and bite and properly, really, fight like she was going to die. She was taught
how to break someone’s wrist, three different ways to choke someone. She can
get what she wants with her fists and her teeth, but she doesn’t do that often.
Mostly uses that to keep what she already has, because she is not a mugger. She
breaks muggers’ teeth, or their ribs, or, at minimum, their sense of wellbeing.
The other models had taught an object lesson about how to use being pretty to
her advantage. And then, later, how to use being attractive. It’s something
most attractive people learn, eventually, but you need to look at each target
and think of how far you can push before it goes too far. Never push too far,
unless you have something in mind for when you need to push back, and that only
happened a few times, when she’d been young and testing herself out. Sometimes
you needed to break someone’s foot and run like they could never even begin to
catch you. The designers and photographers had taught her, in part, how to
move, how to stop, how to pose and turn and twist to get herself in magazines.
Morgause had taught her how to put it all together. How to be dangerous,
clever, changeable and lovely.
“How do I get him?” She’d asked, standing on the walkway and looking down at
the two of them, because they demand her notice. No one else’s, because no one
else cares to look. But she is looking and she…wants. They’re worth the second,
long lingering, glance. Morgause has approached her, and Morgana always knows
where her sister is. Usually next to her, as steady as mountains, and she is
watching too. Wants as well, because they’re… well matched, Morgana thinks. The
two of them come as a package, you can tell from the way they move, the way
Arthur is already offering his drink as Merlin begins to steal it. The way
Merlin shifts as Arthur does until they’re both comfortable. The way people
take a look, want, ask and get denied with either an apologetic smile or a look
that could cure leather.
“Merlin will be easy.” Morgause says. “He already wants you.”
Morgause has grown up to think of herself as the top standard of beauty, she
has to think that if she wants anyone else to. Even eggs, if you put equal
pressure on them, will not break. Not unless there’s already a crack. Morgause
is seamless and Morgana is trying to be. Will be. Will weld herself shut, if
need be, so she had to present herself as the most beautiful to be treated as
lovely at all. Merlin…reminds her of herself, and it’s a bit warped, but the
sort of warped she likes.
Morgana looks at Morgause and Morgause is studying them, compiling, and will
report when she’s done.
Morgause gets that studious little frown that means something is wrong.
“What?”
“It’s harder when they’re happy.” She says and cups her fingers under her chin.
“He wants sex.”
“Yes…” Morgana tilted her head. “What about Arthur, then?”
“Arthur wants guidance.” She turns her gaze. “He won’t accept it, he’s wary. He
doesn’t trust people, he’s sitting with his back to the wall, he’s watching
everyone, and letting Merlin do as he wishes.” She smiles a little. “He’s not
comfortable in his own skin. He wants to be removed from it. Pain, probably, he
wouldn’t want someone to be soft with him. He…” She frowns. “They’re very good
friends.”
“So. Merlin?”
“Wants to be the centre of someone’s attention, he’s used to it.” She points to
how Merlin is comfortably assured that Arthur is always listening, keeping
chattering and never once snaps his fingers in front of Arthur’s eyes, or gets
the kind of look like someone who's being ignored again. “Wants someone
to…entertain?” She cocks her head. “Wants someone to impress. He’ll be
beautiful for you, not much effort at all. But you want what you always want.”
Morgause knows Morgana doesn’t mean Morgana wants him in her bed. That’s easy,
she can do that with anyone. She wants to keep some part of him for herself.
She wants, even if she never sees him again, to have conquered some small part
of his mind. She likes to leave a mark. When she submits, her doms earn it, and
love her for making them. When she controls, her sub is hers for a night. For
as long as she has them, they are hers. Morgana gets what she wants, because
she has made it her lifelong study to figure out how.
Morgause stays silent for a long time watching the two of them and Morgana
follows suit.
The two subs have an easy friendship, a partnership, maybe, of years and years.
They’ve had no steady relationships to get in the way. Arthur had followed when
Merlin had moved out to uni. They were solid. Impenetrable. Provided each
other’s needs in tiny, effortless little ways that made her just want that much
more. If they could... keep them. If they could keep them, then they would be
perfect, an Arthur for Morgause, a Merlin for Morgana, it’d be…family.
A nice fantasy, for all she has no intention of properly doing anything about
it. Yet.
“Theatricality.” Morgause says at last. “Make it big. Make it dramatic. Make
it…larger than it is and he’ll remember it.”
“He has a good memory.” Morgana says and Morgause fixes her hair, it’s stiff
with hairspray and mousse, thick with product, it takes on the appearance of
softly falling curls, it has the image of something luxurious to touch, but it
crunches under her fingers when she fixes her pins. She can’t look even a bit
out of it tonight, she can’t look tired, or overworked, can’t look dishevelled,
she has to last until 3 am looking perfectly, beautifully put together. Smiling
and effortless, energized but collected. It’s all there in the makeup, in her
hair and clothing, in her posture and smile.
It’s a big opening, and she circulates through the bloodstream, finding pulse
points and making sure she beats along with them. Morgana wants this club to do
well, to do ludicrously well, and she knows how to get it. She will conquer
this city, it will belong to her. If, even, for a short time.
“He wants someone big.” Morgause says. “He wants someone larger than life, and
if you put your mind to it, you could block out the sun, sister. Give him every
single inch of that and he will forget he’s ever had anyone else.”
Morgana tilts her head to look at her sister. “And you want the other one?”
Morgause smiles to herself. “Seems a shame to break up a set.”
Morgana looks back at them, feeling…something. Something she’ll tuck away for
later and examine. “It does, doesn’t it?” She agrees and pushes away from the
bar, striding down the walkway precisely the way she does, because she does own
it, and even if she didn’t, she’d own it for a little while. Only give up fake
inches, Morkie. Only give them up when you know you’ll get back a mile.
Otherwise you keep those in your pocket. No matter what, you’ve got to know who
you are, because no one else is allowed to.
Morgause follows and the crowd parts for them. As well they should.
September, 2001
“No.” Arthur repeats, staring at the wall.
“You need therapy, Arthur. You’re out of control.” Uncle Tristan has his arms
crossed. “Your anger is probably why you haven’t formed a proper soulbond yet.
No dom wants-“
“No.” Arthur repeats and stands. “Or does ‘no’ not mean anything to anyone
anymore? You can drag me to whoever you want, I won’t do it.”
“Then how about we send you to a school that can-“
“The neighbours would know, then.” Arthur holds his ground. “I will make the
biggest scene you can imagine. I will get myself kicked out of every school you
can find and I will drag your names through the mud to do it.” Arthur works his
jaw. “I am done with therapy, I am done with how you think I need to act.”
“Your mother-“
“Is dead.” Arthur pushes, packed full of rage and willing to throw his uncle in
a woodchipper if he would just stop talking. “And the only time you ever talk
about her, ever, is to say how disappointed she’d be. It doesn’t even mean
anything because, if you’ll remember, I don’t know who she was. The only time
you mention my father is to blame him, how everything is his fault.” Arthur
squares his shoulder and shoves himself into his Uncle’s space. “I think she’d
be disappointed in what a fuck-all awful job you’ve done in raising me.”
His uncle opens his mouth, then snaps it closed. “You can’t speak to your
elders like that. You are a rude, unlovable child, and if it weren’t for your
aunt’s insistence, we would have left you to rot somewhere. Your father was a
waste, and you’re no better. Nothing good will come of you.” His uncle looks
him over. “You’re an ugly, ill-behaved sub, and if your soul-mate has any mind
at all, ze will never make zerself known. You will go to therapy, or I will
find the strictest school in this country and hopefully they’ll beat this out
of you.”
“This is how you talk to him?” Merlin says from behind his uncle and he turns
around.
“Because, you know, that qualifies as emotional abuse.” Merlin lifts his tape
recorder. “If you want to keep talking, that’s cool. I can- Whoa now.” Merlin
steps back as Uncle Tristan steps closer. “You lay a hand on me and my mom
presses charges on my behalf.”
“You will give that to me right now.” His uncle shoves out his hand and Merlin
puts the tape recorder in his pocket, crossing his arms.
“If you think you’ll be able to see Arthur once I send him off-“
“You won’t send him off.” Merlin feels terrified, Arthur could smell the stink
of muddy pond water, hovering just outside of consciousness. But Merlin looks
like he could conquer England. Drama classes. “Do you think that’s the only
thing I have on tape? I could ruin you in this community.”
“Hand that over immediately. Anyone who's met Arthur knows he’s out of control.
Rebecca allows it to a degree because she feels sorry for him. But his mother
would be appalled.”
“I have records of you insulting every sub in this neighbourhood.” Merlin’s
breath is coming fast and Arthur is getting all this…fear and he just…pulls.
Keeps it all locked up in himself and Merlin stands taller, smiling. “I have
back-ups of those. No one would ever talk to you again. Or Rebecca.” Merlin
shoves his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know what your problem is, but you’re
going to leave Arthur alone, or you’ll regret it.”
His uncle looks between them, eyes flashing and his smile is thin. “Oh I see.
You’ve perverted yourself that much?”
Merlin blinks and Arthur is holding onto the fear, all of it. Merlin can take
care of this, and Arthur is going to hold onto all of his fear so it can’t stop
him. He feels like throwing up, he wants to shove it away but he can’t. He
wants to smash his uncle’s head into the mantelpiece so he’ll stop talking, for
the love of God, stop talking, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop talking.
He’s got his uncle slammed against the wall, every ounce of rugby muscle
pinning him there and he’s ready to rip him in half, oh god stop talking.
“You’re disgusting.” His uncle is shaking and Arthur can feel himself snarling
and he isn’t doing anything. Just. Keeping him away and Merlin appears next to
Arthur’s shoulder.
“Leave him alone, or I will ruin you. If you just shut up and stay out and
we’ll be gone before you even know it. If you don’t I will take both you and
Rebecca down.” He holds up his tape recorder in Uncle Tristan’s face. “Arthur,
let go.”
Arthur lets go and his uncle fixes himself and then Merlin is in front of his
face. “Engineer Winslow is so ugly it’s no little wonder she’s buried herself
into a technical career. She needs to lose at least twenty pounds before anyone
would think of touching her. Teacher Lester is far too loud to make anyone a
good sub, she should learn to keep her mouth closed, I cannot believe how
little control House-partner Lee has over his children, he is a dishonour to
his dom—“
He goes pale and Merlin stops and leans in, whispers something and his uncle
slumps against the wall after looking at Arthur, face going slowly, splotchily
red. “How did you hear that?”
“Ventilation in the loft.” Merlin lifts his chin. “I can burn CDs and everyone
you want to respect Rebecca will never look at the two of you again.”
“She’ll do something.” Uncle Tristan sniffs.
“You think I don’t have anything on her?” Merlin looks at Arthur and then back
at Tristan. “Arthur is my friend. You’ve been threatening to send him away for
years. Remember that time you shoved him in the car, only to have it break down
a block away? Remember every phone call you’ve gotten just as the three of you
have gotten into a fight that would end up with him in a boarding school?”
Merlin rolls his shoulders. “Remember how you invited Rebecca’s boss to dinner
and everything went wrong? Funny, all of those, really.”
“You destructive little shit, I will-“
Merlin holds up the tape recorder, and when Uncle Tristan tries to grab it from
him, Arthur slams his wrist against the wall. Merlin tucks it away and smiles.
“Leave us alone, we’ll go away, you can continue to be a miserable wanker in
peace. Let go, Arthur.”
His uncle looks between them and Merlin holds up the tape recorder. “I will
know everything you ever say again, I am high achieving, I am dedicated, and I
do not care what I have to do to embarrass you into silence, and I fully intend
on keeping my friend here.”
“You’re perverse, the both of you. They’ll catch you. It’s disgusting. You’re
both disgusting.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Merlin says and Arthur can barely
breathe he just. He wants. He wants to hurt someone and.
Arthur follows Merlin out the door, because Merlin is gripping his wrist.
Merlin gets them to his bedroom, with all the projects and dirigibles and
books, and he gently untangles his fear from Arthur’s, leaving Arthur
exhausted. “Sit tight.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do.” Arthur grumbles as Merlin tugs off his
shoes and stuffs a pillow under his head.
“I do right now. I get to be bossy.” Merlin grins and scrubs Arthur’s hair.
“Let me take care of this. No one, but no one, is sending you away from me.”
Arthur stares at him and nods, crossing his arms over his chest. Merlin licks
his lips. “Sit tight.” He repeats and then leaves and doesn’t come back
for…however long Arthur ends up napping for.
He doesn’t know, actually, precisely what Merlin said or played for Aunt
Rebecca. He knows that when someone called Merlin a weirdo he punched them in
the gut. He knows when someone tried to steal Merlin’s handbag he tackled them.
He knows that when someone presses their suit to hard, Arthur is the one who
gets them to back off.
 
But Merlin is the one with the plans, and when he comes back he kisses Arthur
on the forehead and they lie in bed. The next day his uncle is…resigned, his
aunt…furious, and no one makes him go see Dr. Whitman again.
                                      ---
Hymn 293
Let me be as a submissive
to our Lord God up above
Let me bow to zer orders
and be rewarded with zer love
Let zer strength stand and protect me
Let zer forgiveness cleanse my soul
Let me love zer like no other
Let me never falter, faint or fall.
Verse 1 of Hymn 293 from The New Lutheran Hymnal
                                      ---
December, 2011
Arthur was not surprised that-by the end of the night- they found themselves in
a limo with Morgana and Morgause. Well. He was a little surprised by the limo,
he’d never been in one before. Merlin was looking at the sunroof thoughtfully
and Arthur was sitting a little closer to Morgause than was entirely
comfortable, but not so close that he felt trapped.
“I should be holding a bottle of booze and standing up out of there and
screaming ‘woooo!’ I think.” Merlin said, at last, thoughtfully. “It’s a thing
people do. Telly told me this.”
“Given the sort of telly you’ve told me you watch, I think I’m going to have to
keep you down here. Or you’ll end up getting hit in the head with a skull and
we’ll be the opening to one of your murder mysteries.”
“It’ll be a cannibal.” Merlin told her, and they’re sitting next to one
another, Arthur and Morgause on the opposite side. And she isn’t ignoring him,
exactly, watching Merlin and then glancing at him for reactions, but she also
isn’t trying to drag him into the conversation, isn’t doing the whole…small
talk while our friends basically ride each other’s thighs…thing, that he keeps
ending up in. “And a serial killer. And it’ll go on for the whole season and
then Zaaaaach” Merlin shoved his face in his hands “I would have taught you the
ways of love, you confused adorable little dom creepy face. Ugh. Ugh.”
“He is never going to be over it.” Arthur supplied.
“Not ever.” Merlin said from behind his wall of not-ever-going-to-be-over-it.
“Like, Bones, we’re all—with the exception of Morgause, that we would be on our
knees for her so hard and letting her rationalize how pretty we are all over
the place right? Right? We’re good with this.”
“Did she wear green on that show?” Morgana frowned
“She did.” Arthur leaned his head against the back of the seat. “Merlin could
probably tell you every episode we see her in green. Don’t…don’t ask him to.”
“But. Seriously. On my knees all over the place. But Zach, I would break that
poor little darling in.” Merlin shoved his face against Morgana’s arm. “And how
much do I love that he is a dom? How much. How much do I love that they let him
be that confused and socially awkward and literal and a dom. How. How much do I
love that?”
“How much telly do you watch?” Morgana asked.
“An Internet. I watch an Internet amount of telly.” Merlin looked up at her and
smiled. “I make Arthur watch with me so he knows what I’m talking about.”
Morgause smiled. “Morgana does the same with books.”
Morgana returned the smile, “It’s good for you. You make me listen to your
music.”
“Arthur drags me to his films.” Merlin made the worst face and Arthur reached
across to flick his nose, hitting his eyebrow instead when the limo jumped over
something. “They are artsy and full of thoughts and social issues and talking.
So much talking. That last one? That one was entirely comprised of talking and
then some bad touching.”
“It was brilliant and terrifying and you are exceedingly plebeian in your movie
tastes.” Arthur defended, because it had been an amazing film and Merlin had
fallen asleep. Arthur couldn’t take him to anything.
“I just want there to be dogs and kissing and explosions, but no exploding
dogs. I don’t see why that’s so…” Merlin trailed off, then purred as Morgana
stroked over his head, letting her hand carry his weight and she smiled to
herself, lipstick so perfect Arthur wanted to scrub his hand against it just so
she’d stop being so…
He was sweaty, not terrifically well dressed to begin with. Merlin skirt was
riding up his thighs, his legs shaved and his neckline dropping down until it
would just take a bit of a tug to see his areola. Morgana was looking at Merlin
like…like…like how doms looked at Merlin, when he was being silly, and sexy and
adorable. Like they wanted to take him home and chain him at the end of the
bed, and then make him meet their parents, but maybe not both of those at the
same time.
Morgause, when she did look at Arthur, looked…speculative, Arthur guessed. She-
-
He felt like he was a skittish dog, or something, the way she was holding
herself—body facing Arthur, an invitation, but no reach. No demand. She didn’t
look at him overly long, and Arthur hated feeling…comforted, by that. Merlin
needed to be the star; he talked in grand gestures and hyperbole.
He did it, in part, because that was who he was.
He did it, in part, because he knew who Arthur was. Arthur wanted to be
backstage. Arthur wanted to do the lights and the music, the sound and the
stage setting. Not…not act. Not be stared at. Just be window dressing to Merlin
squishing his face around with his hands as he enthusiastically described how
much love he had for something.
“What film?” Morgause asked, carefully. He wasn’t fragile. He didn’t need
anyone being careful with him. But he. He also didn’t enjoy being rushed,
either. Not fragile, dangerous. She was... She was showing respect, he thought,
and maybe she was like him. Maybe she was used to standing back and watching
and protecting. And he…
It’s a little too close to home, how this could turn out. Too close to a folder
in Merlin’s filing cabinet, an invention he had made to get them through a long
night, or two. Tori and Jennifer were two doms who had soulbonded, Jennifer
tiny, rock steady and serene sort and Tori the curvaceously muscled
mischievously playful kind, because why not? They never played with Tori and
Jennifer (never, ever Victoria and never, ever Jenny), because they couldn’t
figure out how. They didn’t know what it would look like. There was foursome
porn to be found, of course, of two doms and their submissives all going at it.
But it never felt…right.
Tori and Jennifer were for when they were feeling particularly sorry for
themselves while Arthur worked on making sturdy wooden and ceramic jewellery
for a commission and Merlin stressed over his distribution requirements,
trading stories back and forth while Arthur squinted under the bright light of
his work desk and Merlin chewed on his pen over his French transitional
clauses.
But, of course, according to recent statistics the normally even balance
between submissives and dominants (with a small percentage of switches) was
pulling ahead in favour of submissives for reasons that people had a lot of
theories about—pollution, overpopulation, the media—meaning that more
submissives were identifying each year with no fiancé until much later in life,
like Merlin’s mum. In the 1940’s it was generally assumed that if you didn’t
connect by the time you were 18 you didn’t have a partner, but by the 1960’s
one out of every fifty submissives who identified reported no feelings of any
soulbond at all, and other children who would later identify as dominant
shifted their entire bell curve over until it was more common to feel a
connection at seven or eight rather than the previously normal thirteen or
fourteen. It was not something parents were pleased about for a variety of
reasons.
Most of their research about same-dynamic turned up either Fisher Mulder and
Annie Carter documentaries, case studies, pulp fiction rip offs, psychological
horror movie tributes or research papers, websites and porn sites about Group
Stress Connectivity Syndrome and the army, There was probably a support website
somewhere, some underground system, maybe, but it was hidden well and judging
from the way people treated both of the above subjects, it was no big surprise.
Electroshock therapy was mostly off the table these days, but heavy medication
and “medically necessitated” bond splits were not. The DSM may have taken same-
dynamic bonding out of their newest edition, but better to just keep it a
secret.
But here they were, in a limo driving to…somewhere. Arthur hadn’t heard the
conversation, really, just followed Merlin’s leading hand as they’d returned
the bracelets and reclaimed their coats. Here they were, together, with Merlin
flirting in his own particular way (“Like, DC doesn’t want to deal with
soulbonds. Superman? Alien, so he doesn’t have one. Batman? Fiancée died, just
to rub it in for him. Wonder Woman> Amazons are completely Non-dynamic. Green
Lantern? Power ring just went ahead and stole that physic power for itself.
Just ‘cause. They just do not want to deal with soubonds, but Marvel, like,
fucking delights in them. Marvel is like ‘Oh! Oh! And then we tease at who
their soulbonded partner is for the next thirty years. Except obviously Captain
America’s is now dead, and he can angst about that, and Bruce Banner’s powers
went and ate up his head and kind of made him a switch a little bit? But Tony
Stark. We are going to motherfucking taunt you bitches over that.’ They are all
bastards.”) and Arthur was being…courted? Soothed? And if they hadn’t been
sisters, and Morgause had been Morgana’s dom, then maybe this could have...
Maybe this might--
But they wouldn’t. They’d see how they looked at each other, and Arthur was
starting to get his ability to distinguish gender back, and without that grey
area the entire ride felt doomed.
But wouldn’t it just be perfect? If they could find…something like that. People
who would just let them…people they didn’t have to pay to not ask any questions
and pretend they were stone-stupid.
“Glass. It’s a film festival circuit psychological horror film.” Arthur
replied, “I thought it was brilliant.”
“By Howard Isen? We saw that. With Kelly Stan, actually.”
“I’ve done a few shoots with her.” Morgana said, “she’s mostly an art model,
she gets traded around this one group of genderqueer artists, for paintings and
photography and the like, and they had a gallery opening where they needed a
few more models, and I had a free weekend, so.” Morgana made a ‘and the rest is
history’ gesture. “It was interesting, and then she’d said she’d been in a
movie, so.”
“Did you like it?”
“I did,” Morgause said. “Morgana doesn’t particularly like psychological horror
films.”
“There should be gore.” Morgana clarified and Merlin enthusiastically echoed
her and then they were off talking about their favourite gore-fests, and Arthur
was never, ever going to like the same sort of films that Merlin did, except
the few times when something of their mutual interest came along, but then they
wouldn’t agree on the parts they liked. Like The Dark Knight. They could agree
on telly shows, but Merlin’s interest in films was an entirely different
animal.
It was three-thirty am, they were in a limo and Arthur was very likely going to
get shagged. And he didn’t mind the prospect.
Merlin and Morgana were discussing Repo! The Genetic Opera (“Why is there a
famous singer if everyone is always singing all the time.” “That? That’s the
problem you have with that whole thing? Not…why would anyone default on their
organ loans if they knew they were going to get murdered? Not that?” “Well, I
assume they’re all really dumb. They got a new heart because they’d thought it
be cool. They’re not smart people. That’s fine.”) And he and a handsome,
interesting dom were talking about a weird little Cinderella story.
Merlin was clearly going to get shagged tonight. And then they’d do the walk of
shame back to their flat, sleep for awhile, Arthur would write the first draft
of his article, Merlin might work on homework, and later that night Merlin
would tell Arthur about all of it, the two of them wanking each other as Merlin
voice stayed low and fresh in his ear.
But.
But maybe, that time, Arthur would have something to share. Maybe they
would...maybe tonight would start in a shared room. Though, actually, maybe
that was too much to hope for. Probably. But they might go up for a drink, and
then Merlin would scoot closer, so Morgana would slip a hand up his thigh,
because it would be there, all bare and tempting. Merlin had lovely legs,
really, slim, and curved, pale and just, apparently, begging to be spread open
a little bit.
Arthur didn’t shave, because the few times he’d tried he’d just cut himself up
after a frustrating hour that had still left some stubborn hair clinging to his
ankles and knees. And afterwards his legs had itched until the hair grew back,
so, no. Arthur’s legs were bulky and unshaven and he did not wear dresses or
skirts or even shorts, most of the time. Arthur’s body was not like Merlin’s.
It didn’t invite anything.
But Morgause had been looking at him, in brief, polite bursts, like it did. The
looks lingered on his neck, on his wrists, on…his stomach? And he didn’t... He
had slept with five doms, all of them only once, four of them terrible and one
of them had been, ah, “Sophia.”
So he’d slept with four doms who’d yelled at him because, fuck, he wasn’t
Merlin. He wasn’t easy. He didn’t go down and he didn’t. It was hard because he
wanted to. He wanted to have that fuzzy sense of perfect well being that Merlin
described and he sometimes felt on the edges of his brain, but it wasn’t
simple, and he didn’t leave his number and they didn’t ask for it.
It wasn’t going to work. He looked at his hands, and refocused on Merlin being
as precious as he knew how to be, wide and guileless like all the world was his
playground. A lie. But a nice one. Merlin’s focus shifted, immediately and he
bolstered up Arthur’s mood, just shoved good feeling at him: love and affection
and attraction until Arthur leant back in his seat and could ride those
emotions better than any other drug he knew of.
“-and you’re like no, no Bruce. No. Stop being creepy. Stop it. Stop taking in
all these young, some unidentified, kids and making them your sidekick and
being creepy at them. For the love of all that is good, stop. Stop it Bruce. He
is so creepy. Batman is fine, but Bruce is so goddamn creepy. Like, for the
third Robin’s birthday? His super special birthday surprise was to dress Alfred
up as future him and be all ‘One of your friends or family is going to go dark
side, figure out who’ just to make him that more paranoid and isolated then he
already was. He is so goddamn creepy, is Bruce.” Merlin was babbling on
autopilot as looked at Arthur in glances, testing the waters. It must have been
hard, being Merlin and never knowing if Arthur’s sudden changes in mood were
due to external or internal factors.
“We have a theory that Alfred is a demon butler, a la Black Butler, who made a
deal with the Wayne family that he will serve and protect them and then eat
their souls when they die. And he didn’t get Bruce’s parents because they were
murdered.”
Morgana frowned. “But if he has demon powers that makes him less… fantastic.”
“Well it’s like Batman. He’s a human. He’s a well-trained, very rich,
supposedly intelligent human, but he’s still a human. And yet to compete in the
Justice League they basically made him the God in the Machine. How does he do
stuff? He’s Batman! It doesn’t even mean anything anymore.” Merlin explained.
“There is an actual rule at DC that says that Batman can never actually, really
fail. In the end he always has to win. So Alfred doesn’t even make sense. One
bloke cannot run that entire household, unless he has demon powers.”
“And he wishes Bruce would stop pushing the Robins away, because he knows Bruce
won’t have kids—”
“Except he does—” Merlin interrupted.
“Wait, what?”
“He has a psychopath broken kid with an insane assassin. It’s a thing that
happens.” Merlin hand waved. “But Alfred wants all the Robins to be adopted so
he can nom, nom, nom souls.”
“I have never been in this extended of a conversation about Batman.” Morgana
replied. “I have never enjoyed a conversation about Batman, though, so… fair
enough.”
“He is the creepiest.” Merlin made a distressed face and flapping his hands
slightly. “He is made of all that is creepy and why, Bruce, why. Why no
trousers on Robins ever?”
Merlin turned and Morgana was staring at him. Arthur watched their reflections
in the window, as Morgana cupped Merlin’s face and just… took his mouth. Arthur
wondered how you did that, exactly. Just dive in and claim someone with a kiss.
Merlin and he had kissed. But it had never been. It had been exploratory and
quiet, never…
Morgause looked at him and he turned. She cocked her head. “May I kiss you?”
Arthur blinked and glanced back at Merlin and Morgana. She was just…taking…
what she wanted. She hadn’t yet pulled Merlin into her lap, and she kept her
hands above his neck, but it was... She clearly had intent in any case.
Arthur looked back to Morgause, who cocked her head, waiting for his answer.
“Do you want to, or do you just…?” Arthur cleared his throat.
“I want to.” She asserted, firmly. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t. I would very
much like to kiss you. I’d like to do a great deal more than that.” She wasn’t
touching him, wasn’t moving closer and he studied her right back.
“But you won’t unless I say you can.” Arthur clarified.
“I won’t.” She agreed. “It won’t stop me wanting to, and I can’t say I wouldn’t
ask again, but I won’t, unless you say I can.”
“And if I do.”
She smiled, mysterious and pleased and Arthur licked his lips. Kissing was. He
could do kissing. He was very good at kissing. He’s had- ha- practice.
He glanced at Merlin when Merlin makes a little moan, one Morgana takes right
from his mouth, her teeth on his tongue with a pull. Merlin was pressed against
the door, radiating love for every moment of being pressed against a dom and a
hard place. Merlin’s kinks were, generally, really straightforward.
Arthur turned back. “And if I don’t?”
She shrugged. “I could take you home. We could watch a movie. We could watch
them go at it for the rest of the limo ride. We could tell them to stop.”
Merlin took verbal exception to that last one.
“I could offer you a list of reasons why letting me kiss you is the decision of
a person with distinguished intelligence.” She considered a moment. “Or I could
throw film quotes at you.”
Merlin pulled away and looked over. “He only likes the weird, brain-y—ah.”
Merlin was pulled into Morgana’s lap, the two of them tilted so Arthur and
Morgause got a nice view of Morgana wrapping his hands around Merlin’s waist in
a firm, long-fingered grip.
He maybe should have stopped staring at them so much, but Merlin was flushed
and he had his hands curled politely against his chest, head bent so she could
reach him. Her hand trailed up his back and dug into the unruly mess of his
product-ladened hair.
“Though if we’ve drastically misread the situation and it is, in fact, my
sister you are interested in, you should let us know.”
“No, I. Uh.” Arthur cleared his throat. “I just.”
Morgause reached forward and nudged his chin over until he’s back to looking at
her. She let her fingers trail along his jaw as she moved her hand back to her
lap. He licked his lips and thought…though why not? She was handsome and she
was, at least, looking at him like he was…attractive?
And Merlin’s arousal jittered up his nerves, bounced in his stomach, and he
could never help but respond. It…
Arthur didn’t let her kiss him, so much as he attacked first. If she couldn’t
beat him back, then she didn’t deserve any of it. She didn’t slam him down like
he expected, instead she allowed his assault, allowed him to bite and slide his
tongue alongside hers, to push himself up and growl. She got him by the chin
and rose, tilted his head and smoothed her lips over his, hummed her approval
and he--
The other doms, besides ‘Sophia’, had shoved him against a wall, or against the
bed, or against something and he didn’t like to be manhandled. He wasn’t
Merlin. Merlin liked to be slammed and lifted and shoved. Arthur likes to hold
to... he wanted someone who would use him like furniture, who would like that
he wasn’t some slim, svelte, fey creature instead of. Instead of pretending he
was.
Morgause didn’t shove him. She didn’t climb into his lap either, but she didn’t
shove him. She held her own, and let his attack continue. She replicated the
way he’d scraped his teeth on her lower lip and smiled when his fingers
clenched, didn’t pay attention to the way it was Merlin who moaned.
They were trading sensations, echoed them back and forth and Arthur shivered at
the way Morgana’s nails bit into Merlin’s neck. Merlin let out a low, rumbling
groan at Morgause’s teeth nibbling along Arthur’s upper lip. After a moment
Arthur wasn’t sure who was reacting to what, and the two sisters probably
thought they were the best at sex ever the way the two of them were just both,
suddenly, entirely game for it.
They should have done this sooner.
                                      ---
cont.
Pavi lay weeping in the chest, rocked by the ocean and cleaning his bloody,
healing wrists with his tears. He mourned his father’s madness, wishing he had
been born ugly so never to drive his father to such terrible lengths. He prayed
he would pass into Heaven and spend eternity kneeling for his soulmate, and if
he was to die, he might die with as much grace as his Eternal Saviour had. He
prayed, mostly, that his father could redeem himself from his madness and atone
so he might join Pavi and his Mother in Heaven where they could rejoice in the
light of the Guardian and this would be burned away as all terrible things.
But instead of death, a trade ship sailing to distant lands rescued Pavi. They
saw the chest bobbing on the waves, and—hoping it to be full of treasure—and
the boy they found inside indeed was. He was the loveliest creature any of the
foul, working sailors had ever seen, and upon rescuing from the chest and
hearing his wretched story, sobbed for all their drinking, carousing and woeful
behaviour and they were forgiven. They fed and watered him, reforming their
vulgarity and filth so he might be comfortable, and served him, for he had no
hands and could not serve himself, and they told him stories so he might laugh
and forget his troubles for a moment. But it was not his own troubles that
caused Pavi to mourn and pray so, but the troubles of his father and the
kingdom he had left behind, leaving no pity or woe for himself. They revelled
in his pure soul as once they had in hard drink and loose submissives, and
swore they would take him to the Emperor, so he might be protected and never
have fear or trouble again. Pavi thanked them, and spent many weeks teaching
them of God’s word, and singing for them hymns instead of shanties, so their
minds were made clean and their hearts reformed.
However, such a night came when a storm brewed and the ship was tossed wildly,
crashed, the sailors aboard dying to keep them afloat. When morning rose, Pavi
mourned and prayed for his rescuers, but rejoiced that they had found their way
to heaven. He had landed upon an island, and he climbed down from the shipwreck
carefully, unable to take provisions with him, for he had no hands with which
to pack them.
He walked for days and nights, bending to drink from a stream, and eating
berries from bushes, pricking his cheeks and lips, but refusing to give into
vanity. He walked and he found a tower. The door was open, and though he called
and asked permission, no one answered. He entered the tower and walked up the
hundreds and hundreds of stairs, finally reaching the top, which was the home
to a powerful wizard, currently set to his evil work. The wizard gasped upon
seeing the beauty of the boy, and allowed him the use of his chambers so he
might bathe, eat and drink. And, upon hearing the boy’s story the wizard
renounced his terrible ways. “How terrible that you should have such things as
these happen to you.”
“I mourn only for my father, for my friends on the ship and my Mother are in
Heaven, and I rejoice for their good fortune. But my father has strayed from
grace, and it is for him I pray.”
“But why not yourself. You have lost your hands are away from your home and all
you know. Never again will you play your harp, and your soulmate, should you
find him in this life, will never hold your hand.”
“If my sacrifice has redeemed my father, I can only see it with joy.” Pavi
replied and the wizard wept and promised to get Pavi to the Emperor, and though
he renounced all his magic, he did have a wondrous ship and they set sail to
the Emperor and the renounced wizard took care of Pavi, feeding and caring for
him as if he were his own son and when they reached the distant shore, the
former wizard shuddered and died. He had lived many centuries in his evil, and
he had kept his life in the tower, and being so far away from it ended his
unnaturally and painfully long life. Pavi mourned and rejoiced that his friend
had found salvation and went to find the Emperor.
August, 1989
Arthur is small and the world is big. Arthur is small and the world is pain.
His chest still hurts, a lot. To breathe is to hurt, but it doesn’t hurt as
much as it did. It hurt a lot for a long, long time, except when he was in the
hospital, when everything was constantly foggy and he never knew what was
happening. There were a lot of strangers there, and two strangers who said they
were his aunt and uncle, but they wouldn’t let him see any of his parents
either.
He used to have three parents, all who loved and played with him and he’d
thought he was lucky, because he had three parents, and he always had a lap to
sit on. And now he was in a hospital bed, and there were other children, and he
didn’t like any of them, and he had nightmares, but no one was there when he
woke up.
When he’d gotten out the hospital, he’d had to go to his aunt and uncle’s house
and that hadn’t been anything like home, he didn’t have any of his toys, and
the sheets smelled bad, and the water tasted bad, and his parents still weren’t
there. And he is small and the world is big and he doesn’t understand why
people keep giving him toys instead of his parents. He doesn’t want any of
them. His chest hurts. They made him dress up. It’s the same dress up clothing
as… as when he saw his mums.
This building is like the hospital. His mums hadn’t visited him. He wants his
mums, he wants his daddy. He doesn’t have his blanket, or his teddy, and his
uncle is holding his wrist, but he doesn’t do it like his mums did, one on each
side, him gripping their wrists back so they could swing him up on every step,
laughing, and letting him ride on daddy’s shoulder when they got tired. He
wants them back. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything,
because maybe if he doesn’t say anything his mums will be back. They won’t be
cold and alone and away from him.
This hold drags him along and he wants to go home. But they said he was going
to see his daddy. He wants to see his daddy. So he walks as fast as he can and
he’s behind his uncle, who is behind his aunt, and the halls smell like a
hospital, but there’s a blue wave on the wall, so he follows that with his eyes
instead. If he keeps being quiet he will see his daddy and his daddy will take
him home. If he keeps being quiet everything will be okay. He just can’t say a
word and everything will be okay.
The adults talk and he doesn’t care, because there’s his daddy in a chair, and
Arthur wrestles his wrist away and moves over. There’s his daddy. Daddy will
take him home, and take him to his mums (who can’t be in suitcases in the
ground. They can’t be.) and he runs over before anyone can stop him and climbs
right into his daddy’s lap. His daddy is here and he’ll make everything good
again. He’ll make Arthur’s chest stop hurting, making breathing easier, make
his aunt and uncle go away, and then he’ll have his mums and-
“No.” His daddy says, gripping Arthur’s waist. “No, no, no, you are wrong.” His
face is turning red and he’s hurting Arthur’s sides. “No. Where is Igraine?
Where is Igraine-” They’re trying to wrestle Arthur away and he feels something
in him give. Pain, again, familiar, like being in the hospital again and
waiting for his mum or Daddy or anyone, and getting nobody good. Then breathing
hurts more. Can’t. Can’t breathe because. His chest. Can’t. Daddy. He reaches.
He’s quiet. He’s being quiet. He’s not going to talk ever again if everything
will be alright. If he just never talks again. His daddy’s face is twisted and
Arthur is terrified but he doesn’t make a sound.
He reaches and they give his daddy a shot and he can’t. Can’t breathe. He needs
his. He needs his daddy to make this okay again. His mums can’t be in those
suitcases and buried. They can’t breathe down there. He wants to tell his daddy
that they can’t breathe, they aren’t happy, they need him. He can’t breathe,
but he isn’t going to make a sound. He’ll be good. He’ll be the best-behaved
boy in the world if it’ll bring his parents back. He’ll never cry again. He’ll
never ask for any toys. If they just walk in now, he’ll be good. He won’t tell
them how his chest and side burn. He’ll be the best behaved, and he’ll follow
them out and he won’t cry. He was...he was crying before. When the car
exploded. He’d been crying. He didn’t tell anyone. He’ll be quiet forever.
He needs to get them out. He didn’t get to see them. The suitcases were closed
and he’d been too small to open them. And people had said they were sorry.
People had hugged him and it had hurt his chest. He needs to see them. He needs
his daddy to hug him and this isn’t. This isn’t a hug. It hurts too much. Hugs
make things better, and this makes all his hurts hurt again. His chest hurts so
much and no one. There’s not one. He’d been crying and his mum had reached back
to grab his hand and--
They get him away and the world swims around him, because it hurts. He doesn’t
make a sound. He doesn’t. He won’t, because he’d cried in the hospital and
nobody had come, and his mums always came when he cried so... So he wasn’t
going to anymore. His daddy is being taken away, still shouting at Arthur,
screaming, screaming. Arthur doesn’t hear the words, and he doesn’t move when
his daddy grabs a clipboard and throws it at him. Doesn’t move when it hits him
in the stomach and clatters to the floor. He won’t cry. He won’t.
Arthur is silent, his Aunt’s arms gripping his chest and it hurts, it hurts too
much to breathe, but he isn’t going to cry. He isn’t. If he just keeps quiet
everything will be good again. He made a deal. He. He’ll never talk again if it
brings his mums and daddy back. And now the nurse is holding him, and he
coughs, and it hurts. He should tell them it hurts, but he can’t. He won’t. His
aunt yelling and he just.
He’ll be quiet.
He’ll be good.
 
January 2012
Gwen didn’t ask. They. They’d never asked about her deal, and she’d always been
the most…accepting of their friend group (former friend group?). She was even-
keeled. She. She might not. She would at least help them. Arthur wrists ached,
fingers tingling from how hard he’d been trying to break the handcuffs by sheer
force.
She just got there, followed Arthur’s voice and stopped in the doorway briefly,
taking in the room for only a moment. How she got in the flat proper Arthur
didn’t really think about until she was already there. Maybe Merlin had given
them a spare key. Maybe she could pick locks. He didn’t. She was there and she
was. Arthur hadn’t been thinking properly. Wasn’t. Thinking properly, just
trying to wrestle the pain from Merlin, trying to calm his own panicked heart.
“What do you need me to do?” Gwen asked after a beat.
“Grab Merlin’s trousers.” Arthur ordered, “he left the keys in them. The.”
Arthur’s jaw clenched shut and he stayed silent until she fumbled the keys out
and bent behind him to get his hands free. There were bright red welts around
his wrists, he was still naked and she was… but that didn’t matter half so much
as snatching the keys from her and getting on the floor next to Merlin. He was
bent up and breathing, arms still twisted up awkwardly behind him and his face
had gone white from pain, tiny little sobs echoing out on the exhale.
“You’re okay. You’re okay, I can fix this.” Arthur carefully freed his hands
and Merlin let out a punched-out grunt of pain as Arthur felt around his
shoulder. “The joint is still in place, I think. I’ve seen plenty of rugby
injuries; I know what a dislocated shoulder looks like. But you probably tore a
muscle, because you are not an escape artist and I had a plan. I had.” Arthur
slowly got Merlin up on his feet, Merlin sighted Gwen and shoved his face into
Arthur’s shoulder, and Arthur could feel the exhaustion and pain, pulling
Merlin down like a wet towel. This was Arthur’s to deal with.
“Okay, we’re going to get you dressed and get you to the hospital. It’ll be
fine.” Arthur tried to keep his voice soothing. He didn’t think he was
succeeding.
“Just cut out the pain and let me sleep.” Merlin mumbled, trying for joking and
completely failing. Gwen hovered awkwardly, biting her lip and wringing her
hands, but still not asking as Arthur got Merlin dressed. Their secret was out.
It had to be out. There was no way she could think anything else was going on.
She. She wouldn’t think they soulbonded. She probably thought Arthur was...
nondynamic and Merlin just…humoured him. There was plenty of evidence to that.
Or. Or they were perverts. Or. But they’d both been handcuffed and so they
both. They were subs and. And she was still in shock but she was going to pull
away after this, they couldn’t hang out with her and Leon, Freya and Elyan and
Percy and… well maybe Percy. Percy had once had saved a same-dynamic couple
from hecklers by tying the hecklers to a tree and explaining why they were
wrong, before taking everyone out to dinner and, through the magic of Percy,
making them like each other, rounding out the night with karaoke. True story.
So. Maybe Percy. But. But not Freya, or Gwen, or Elyan or Leon and they. They
were friends. They’d had friends finally.
So he just got Merlin in his clothing, carefully grabbing one of his own dress
shirts and sliding it over Merlin’s arm and carefully around his shoulder.
Merlin swam in it, as he always did, and hunched over himself as Arthur closed
the buttons, keeping his breathing as even as possible, hazy around the eyes.
Arthur bolstered him as best he could, even if Merlin wouldn’t let him take the
pain, and then got him into his shoes. Only then did Arthur get his clothing
on, shoving himself into his trousers and hoodie with little regard to anything
except being decent enough to go outside.
“Can.” Arthur began and Gwen interrupted with “of course.” and they were on
their way to the hospital. He’d say Merlin tried to pick up something heavy the
wrong way and. But the welts. He’d. He’d say he’d gotten a safety call? His
hoodie covered his own welts, he’d just be careful about gesticulating. An
accident. He sucked at coming up with stories, that’s why Merlin did it.
Gwen still didn’t say anything, tapping her fingers against the wheel of the
only car their entire friend group had. Leon’s purchase, because he had this
idea that they could take road trips and have wacky adventures. Mostly it sat
and sometimes it’d be used to get off with somebody, but they had it. Gwen,
Arthur and Leon could drive it, Freya had nearly killed them all, and Merlin
got a look of desperate terror in his eyes, followed by a giddy mad-with-power
feeling that made Arthur drag him away from the wheel and ban him from touching
it until he stopped being a nutter.
“How do your hands feel?”
“Fine.” Merlin leaned with his good side against Arthur. “Mostly everything is
fine except for the screaming pain in my shoulder.” Merlin grit his teeth and
Arthur’s insides were entirely comprised of worry and trying to take the pain
away from Merlin and Merlin refusing to give it up.
“Stop that.” Arthur whispered. “You’re about to pass out. Let me have some of
it.”
“No. You need to.” Merlin whined and Arthur caught him around the back of the
neck, rubbing along one trip-wire tight tendon. He looked up at Gwen and then
squeezed his eyes shut. “I’ll think of something.” He murmured, and Arthur
carefully squeezed Merlin’s wrist. “No, just. I’ve got it. I can take care of
you.”
Merlin looked up at him and then closed his eyes and kept breathing. “The sub-
drop from this is going to be really bad for me, by the way.”
“What?”
“I... May have convinced myself that I’m being good if I can just-- I’m being
good.” Merlin kept breathing. “I’m being good.”
Arthur swallowed and didn’t grab Merlin’s hand, though he wanted to with every
atom he had, because Gwen didn’t properly know and that. Just. Any grey area
would be. Would be good. “You are very good. Just keep being good for me, okay?
You’re brave and strong and you need to let me take some of the pain, okay?” He
kept his voice as low as he could, Gwen listening to the radio up front to give
them some sense of privacy. “Shh, I’ll take care of you.” He rubbed Merlin’s
neck. “Just give it up.”
Merlin whined and shook his head.
“Do it.” Arthur ordered, snapped, and the pain flared in his arm, white-hot and
intense, the searing hated fire of a ruined muscle. He refused to let himself
react to it beside clenching his teeth and cradling Merlin’s relaxing body.
Merlin still had the lion’s share, but his breathing came a little easier.
Merlin was easy. And if he wanted to drop into headspace to contextualize the
situation, fine. Arthur could. Arthur could protect them. He stroked through
Merlin’s hair and quietly repeated every porn line and quoted phrase he could
remember, letting Merlin drop farther, letting him curl up against him and get
foggy and distant from his body, coating Merlin’s head with every bit of love
he had, of respect and…and possessiveness. Focusing on Merlin in his shirt.
Merlin leaning against him. Merlin needing him and nobody else.
Merlin was willing let himself be duped, leaning heavily on Arthur once they
parked and went to Emergency, eventually Arthur just hoisted him up and Merlin
clung as he always did, bad arm curled up on his stomach and being good and not
crying even as Arthur jostled him with every step.
Gwen stayed as a silent, steady presence next to them, watching Arthur fill out
Merlin’s information, not saying a word when Arthur knew every single item and
Merlin kept sitting on his lap, gripping onto Arthur’s shirt and keeping his
eyes closed from everything. Arthur almost stopped himself from burying his
fingers in Merlin’s sweaty-greasy hair, checking himself, looking around, and
then his shoulder just kept spasming so he did it anyways, ducked his head and
ignored the rest of the waiting room.
He should have thought of a story. Of how this happened. But he can’t-- He
can’t think of.
Merlin inhaled. “I was with a dom, play-struggling. The scene was going fine,
complete consensual and I pulled myself just the wrong way. They called you, my
safety call, to come over, because he didn’t know what to do and I’d passed out
from pain. Gwen offered to drive you, he’s near to here, and so you decided to
drive me instead of calling 999. It was a stupid accident.” Merlin voice was
shaky and quiet, he swallowed, kneading at Arthur’s shirt, not looking at Gwen.
Gwen was staring at one of the extremely outdated magazines, pretending she’s
in an entirely different room.
“They’ll pop my shoulder back in joint, and I’ll be fine.”
“The tendons—” Arthur began, knowing about the shoulder. It’s just a sort of
cup and ball, and only tendons hold the ball joint in place, and if they get
too stretched out, he’d need surgery and… And soulmates needed to be sedated
together, for surgery. The body could still feel what the brain was too far
gone to, and it’d just…and they’d know. They couldn’t
“Shh.” Merlin’s breath was still shaky, his face still blanched-white from
pain. He closed his eyes again. “Shhh, he petted Arthur’s hoodie. “You got me.
I’m safe. You can keep me safe.”
Arthur swallowed and tucked his head against Merlin’s scalp. Held on.
December, 2011
They wind up in a penthouse.
A mother. fucking penthouse. With like…huge windows looking at other buildings,
and a Jacuzzi and a telly that was bigger than a telly had any right being,
really. Morgana hung up her coat and stretched, back and back until her spine
popped. She climbed out of her shoes and buried her toes into the carpet.
Arthur took off his shoes, because that was just what you did when you went
inside someone’s house. Merlin looked around, hands tucked in the small of his
back, rocking back and forth slightly as he took it in. Morgause took Arthur’s
jacket from him, and hung it up where he could find it easily, putting Merlin’s
up beside it.
“Coffee?” Morgana asked. “Tea? Liquor of some kind?”
“Do you have a brandy snifter?” Merlin perked up. “Or port? In those, like,
super tiny sipping glasses. Oh, hey, you have an actual bar.” Merlin scurried
over and Arthur stood in the entryway and watched Merlin investigate.
“How are you this effusive at three thirty am?” Morgana asked, following him at
a statelier pace. Arthur and Morgause wind up on the couch, watching. “And not
high.” She said taking him by the chin and looked into his eyes. “Mmm. No pupil
dilation—oh, no, there it is.” She plucked up a heavy crystal flask, puts it on
the bar and took the stopper out. “Brandy snifter.”
Merlin sniffed it and made a face. “That is roughly six hundred percent too
fancy for me.”
“How about vanilla rum and orange juice?” Morgana asked and Merlin snapped his
fingers in agreement.
“That is my exact level of fanciness. Things that taste like things that come
out of ice cream trucks are the things that are my level of fanciness. Not that
I ever got to see an ice cream truck, but it’s a truck! That runs around with
ice cream! It’s the most solid business plan I’ve ever heard of.”
Morgause huffed, amused. “They play off each other well.”
Arthur nodded, and started to feel how it was three-thirty am. “I’ll take you
up on that tea, please.”
She nodded and placed a hand on his shoulder as she moved to the kitchen to
brew a cuppa. Arthur turned around, stared at the blank telly, listening to
Merlin and Morgana playing off one another like they were Pong, or something.
Arthur worked at a dead piece of skin on his thumb. A burn, or cut or
something. His hands were so beaten, used and callused that abuse was just
another thing that happened.
“I didn’t know how you took it, so.” She put down a little pot of cream and a
sugar bowl, along with a few thin rounds of lemon. He put a bit of everything
in and drank it down, the tea was scalding, but you had to drink it fast or—
“Tea!” Merlin clambered over the couch. “Tea for me?” He made grabby hands and
Morgause put a mug in his hands, slipping a proper teacup into Morgana’s.
Merlin made a pleased noise and dumped far too much sugar and nothing else,
smiling and generally being as rambunctiously precious as possible. He had
tried sultry, vampy, sub next-door, and approachable and mysterious, bratty and
everything else under the sun, but adorable worked for him. He was marvellous
at being so precious you wanted to hold him down and fuck it out of him.
Arthur was just…he didn’t. Have. Anything. He wasn’t any kind of seductive. He
just. Was. He didn’t draw anyone in, that wasn’t what he was here for. Morgause
was sitting too near to him to make him believe that entirely, at the moment.
Merlin leaned against Arthur’s arm and pulled one of Morgana’s feet into his
lap, working on them with his thumbs and Morgana makes a pleased noise. “Never
met a dom who didn’t want their feet rubbed.” Merlin said, shifting and
snuggling closer to Arthur under the guise of getting more comfortable. “Or an
Arthur that didn’t need his forearms massaged. Hint. Nudge.”
“Taken and accepted.” Morgause said and plucked up Arthur’s left arm, and
she…knows what she’s doing. Arthur’s forearms always hurt, he does stretches,
alternates heat and ice, but the combination of typing, woodwork, and
occasional fistfight isn’t terrifically kind on his arms or hands. But you
don’t rub someone’s hands. Merlin will do it, when they’re home alone, Merlin
kneading Arthur’s palms, rubbing at each knuckle, lacing their fingers together
and using his thumbs to make Arthur head drop forward so they can watch
something terrible with kissing, puppies and explosions. Arthur had watched
many horrible films in the name of getting his hands to stop hurting.
“Not the crook of his elbow, though.” Merlin said and worked her at the big toe
and the balls of her feet. “I get that heels make doms feel all big and sexy
and powerful, but dear fuck does it mess up your feet.”
“That’s what pretty little subs with talented fingers are for.” Morgana knocked
her free foot against Merlin’s chin, then pushed past to rest it over the back
of the couch. “I might just want to do this the rest of the night.”
“He had cats as a child.” Arthur said, face lolling against the back of
Merlin’s head.
“I’m very well trained,” Merlin intoned gravely and kissed her ankle. “And
because I can’t think of a smoother segue, would you like to see?”
Arthur couldn’t see his face, but he knew Merlin was giving here the dorkiest
smile he had and Morgana tapped Merlin’s face with her foot again before
turning backwards over herself like Stray after a successful heist. She held
out a hand. Merlin placed his wrist into it as formally as he knew how and she
tugged him up. “You two have fun. See you in the morning.”
“If you don’t wear him out too much he’ll make crepes in the morning. If you do
wear him out too much he’ll demand crepes in bed.” Arthur said and Morgana made
a speculative noise and she tugged her capture down the hall.
He didn’t watch them go, because he knew he’d stare, and staring was telling.
Instead he turned to Morgause and watched her work his wrist. “You needn’t feel
compelled to play with me if you don’t want to.”
Arthur stared at her. She looked up at him and quirked a smile. “But I can
promise you won’t regret it if we do.”
Arthur should have had something arch or flirty to say. This was the moment for
something arch or flirty.
“What do you want?” Is what he said instead, because he was good at life,
clearly. He wiped his mouth and shook his head and she disregarded the
question. “So, listen.” Arthur began, instead. He got up and stuffed his hands
in his pockets like he could lose them somewhere and thus have a reasonable
excuse to go home. “I. This isn’t what I normally. Do.”
“One offs?” She cocked her head, giving him her full attention and he felt
disquieted. He wasn’t used to attention being a “good thing” from anyone but
Merlin. Generally if people looked at you like that it ended poorly. But
Morgause asked for things. She was... tactical. She looked at Arthur like she
knew he’d bolt with the wrong move, yes, but she didn’t make wrong moves.
“No. Or sceneing in general really.” Arthur stared at the giant telly and then
at the tiny tea set on the table.
“I have my list.” He went to his coat and pulled out his wallet, thumbed
through and handed her his yes/maybe/no/really goddamn no, list, written in
ballpoint and pencil on creased notebook paper. Merlin had a printed
spreadsheet that he replaced whenever he found out something new about himself.
Arthur just scribbled it on with pencil. Mostly in the no/really goddamn no
section.
She took the paper from him and read it, considering. “I imagine the ones in
pen are the ones you researched and took a distinct disliking to, and the ones
in pencil snuck up on you.”
Arthur nodded, looking down the hallway. “If I were in a committed relationship
with someone I trusted I might reorganize a little, but. Right now that’s
pretty solid.”
She rubbed her lip and considered, putting her feet up on the table and he
looked out the window.
“You don’t like things that humiliate, degrade or in any consideration, lessen.
You do like things that restrain and punish.” She noted after a moment,
quietly. “I had no intention of humiliating you.”
Arthur shrugged and continued to look out the window. “I think a better
question is what you want. I have preferences, of course, but you look rather
more...” She cocked her head, studying, “Hard done by.”
She continued to look at him and his stomach shifted inside him. He cleared his
throat and rolled back his shoulders. “I just. I don’t go down.”
“Easily?”
“At all. Usually. And I don’t mean subspace, because I’m not sure that exists.
Or. Or if it does then I don’t. I mean. I can’t get into any kind of headspace
at all, usually, and doms get upset at me about it, and it just gets worse when
they try and...push it.”
She considered this and slowly stood. “So you’d consider yourself…challenging?”
“Sub on expert mode.” Arthur shrugged and lifted his chin. “Why, you the sort
who likes a challenge?”
“Let’s say I’m not the sort who lets a thrown gauntlet lie.” She didn’t touch
him then, like they would on telly. She just stood nearby with intent. “Talk to
me.”
“What?” Arthur watched her as she moved past him to grab a chair, setting it
down next to him before retrieving her own.
“I’m not going to go in blind. You have a hard time submitting, but it isn’t
going to be solved by my dominating harder. You don’t want me to backhand you,
press your face in the ground and make you lick your blood off the carpet.”
Arthur jerked and she nodded. “My point. And if all your previous partners have
responded to your... disinclination as purposeful baiting, then I can only
imagine how that would make the situation more difficult. I need to know where
to apply pressure.” She sat and relaxed in a controlled sprawl: owning the
chair and staring him down. “So. You’re a protector.”
Merlin made a noise loud enough to be heard down the hall and Arthur turned,
like he could see if he tried.
“She’ll take good care of him.” She added. “He is not so difficult, is he?”
“Merlin’s easy. He gets in his headspace when the telly yells at him with the
right tone of voice.” Arthur turned his attention back. Wouldn’t do him any
favours if he spent all night pining down the hall. They’d both shoved their
attention away from the bond, but. But maybe once he was into it, he could
cheat a little? Merlin already felt fuzzy edged, like Arthur could crawl into
his brain for a nap, if he wanted.
“Which is a good reason to be protective of him.” She studied him,
thoughtfully, and Arthur met her head-on, because he wasn’t... He didn’t just
back down like that. “But he’s safe right now, and enjoying himself. You would
know if he wasn’t.”
Arthur tensed and she gestured down the hall. “He’d call for you. Morgana hates
gags, she finds them...detracting from her overall aesthetic purpose.”
He rubbed his hands together and stared at the couch. “Look. I’m just. I’m
complicated. Or. Just. I’ve got a lot of...brain trash just sort of sitting
around and we’re not going to get through that in one night so let’s just. I
mean. It’s not that I don’t—” Arthur rubbed his face and took a deep breath.
“It is not that I do not wish to try, I just don’t want the backlash if it...”
“Alright.” She agreed, and it was. It was weird. The few doms Arthur had slept
with, that he’d told about his whole…issue, had immediately latched on and
thought the problem was that his previous partners simply hadn’t shoved him
around enough. They hadn’t done this…sharing and caring and feelings business.
Maybe he should have tried sceneing with doms he could talk to, instead of just
ones that wanted him that he would consent to scene with. But that would have
made his already small pool of potential partners a drop in a wineglass.
“Why not tell me what you like?” Morgause folded up his paper and gave it back
to him. “I can see the things you will do, but I want to know what it is you
need right now.”
He shrugged because he didn’t know, really. Or, well... He did. He enjoyed when
Merlin made up a world for them, but he didn’t know if he liked it, or he liked
the way Merlin liked it. He had a whole host of things he was pretty sure he
hated, but, again, he didn’t know if he hated them objectively, or if he’d just
had a poor introduction. But then, there were only a few things he craved that
Merlin couldn’t give him, and he’d might as well take the opportunity.
“Impact play.” He looked at his feet. “Not in a punishment or humiliation
sense. Just unto itself. I--” He pressed his lips together. “Sorry, I know you
were just in for a fun night. Sorry. I can.” Arthur moved toward the door and
Morgause gripped his wrist and pulled him back in.
“I am not here just for a night of fun. I knew you’d be difficult.” Morgause
cocked her head. “You’re like me. Morgana and Merlin are the ones with the open
minds and easy hearts. They are theatrical, they play the part.” Morgause
smiled a little to herself. “Morgana says she’s not an actor, she’s just the
stage. She is dressed and she becomes 1950’s small town America, or the throne
room of a majestic palace, or the blank black box theatre. But she still
becomes what people want her to be.” Morgause stroked her thumb along the
inside of Arthur’s wrist. “Your Merlin is a…storyteller? He has the hand
gestures and vocal intonation of one.”
“Yeah.” Arthur licked his lips.
“So. They’re theatrical, they’re used to slipping into different headspaces.
They’re used to allowing others to make them other people.”
“And I don’t?”
“We don’t.” Morgause pulled him a little closer, slipping her other hand around
Arthur’s wrist and moving her free hand to his waist. “We are ourselves. We do
not become other people for anyone. Who we appear is always exactly who we are.
We do not shift gears. When I dominate, it’s because that’s exactly what I want
to do to someone. They inspire that in me.” She trailed her fingers up to
Arthur’s elbow, moving them closer. “If I don’t feel it down to the marrow of
me, then I don’t do it. I only do exactly as I believe. And, if I am not
mistaken, you are much the same way.”
Arthur watched her and she tilted her head, searching his face, considering.
“You can submit. You just won’t unless that is exactly how you feel, and
nothing I, or any other dom, can do will make you change your mind. You won’t
until you want to. You won’t until you find someone who you trust and you won’t
find someone you can trust until you trust someone.”
“Catch-22.” Arthur tilted his head up. “So, what do you suggest? If I can’t do
something I believe, and I can’t believe something until I believe it, and I
don’t believe in you, yet.”
“That I hit you.” She slid her hand up to his shoulder and rubbed his shoulder.
“I just hit you. You tell me if you want it harder or faster, lighter or
slower. You tell me what you want it with, and you tell me when you’re done. I
hit you, because I like seeing my marks on somebody, and you get hit, because
that’s what you need right now.” She carefully carded her fingers through his
hair. “No mind games, no teasing. You don’t need to trust me to take over for
you. We have the kind of fun we want to have.”
Arthur paused, looked down the hall. Merlin was down there. Maybe. Maybe the
rooms were right next to each other so he could hear. “So I would just get
comfortable, and you’d let me position myself however I wanted and then you’d
hit me?”
“With whatever you wanted, however you wanted. I’m not in charge of you, you
aren’t in charge of me. It’s a rather straightforward physical exchange. You
tell me to stop, and I will. And if I want, or think I should, stop, I will. No
bells. No whistles.”
The prospect of getting what he wanted without having to muddle through the
complications of everything else that usually went with it was... It was a much
better deal than he’d thought he was going to get, when they’d climbed into the
limo.
“What do you have?”
She arched an eyebrow and then turned, offering her wrist. He took it.
They went down the hallway and into her room. He sat down in the desk chair as
she opened her tool chest. It had usual assortment to be sure, but it lent
itself well to what he was interested in. She had got the run of it, all nice
quality from what he could tell and clearly well cared for. She stepped back
and hovered a hand over them. “Examine them all you like and pick whatever you
want. I’m skilled with all of them.”
“How skilled?”
“Professionally taught and examined.”
Arthur raised his eyebrows. Not a lot of doms outside of professionals could
say that, and Arthur’s skin still tingled from how ‘Sophia’ had worked him
over, just the right amount of force, the blows perfectly spaced… It’d made him
relax. Not drop, but at least feel somewhat…comfortable in his skin. Like it
was something he belonged in. Something he was meant for. Merlin always
explained it like he was being made better, that he was being made…good? And
Arthur just saw it as…as settling in.
She pointedly turned her gaze away so he could think about his options. He
didn’t take anything out, just spent a moment touching. He’d never been head-
over-tit for leather in and of itself. He liked the sharp tangy scent of it,
yes, and he could appreciate something that was made with care by artisans who
knew their craft. He liked, mostly, that they were things people had put time
into. That someone had made that particular strap with their hands, that they
had examined it and hung their hat on its quality. The strap was worked in, but
not worn out, soft to the touch, but heavy enough to really leave a mark. He
considered it a moment, then puts it back as carefully as he’d found it.
Merlin made a loud, shuddering noise in the next room and Arthur could feel it
in his gut. Merlin had never been very good at being quiet, and he wouldn’t try
to be, especially, if Arthur was the only one who was going to overhear him.
Maybe Arthur would be louder than him for once. Give him a story worth hearing.
Maybe. Maybe tonight would be…good.
He did prefer wood, or other plant life. He was used to it. Woodcrafting was
the first hobby he’d ever found that he’d liked. He knew how it should feel
under his fingers. And the cane was a beautiful piece of work, high quality
kooboo rattan woven evenly and without flaw. He picked it up and measured the
thickness. She had several weights and sizes, and this was a lovely example of
a senior judicial cane, a good 10 millimetres thick, beautiful and glowing in
the light. She had a junior cane as well, a tiny, snappy tool that would barely
leave more than a bit of a sting, provided she didn’t try and slice his skin
open. It would be good for someone who wanted, say, a naughty school child
fantasy, but not that actual, proper pain of it. Still resting in its slot were
two suitably terrifying reformatory cane, 12 millimetres thick, the other half
an inch in diameter, neither of which he had any intention of touching.
“These are very high quality,” he noted.
Merlin and he had done a lot of research, back in the day, looking at pictures,
watching videos, sitting on top of each other and studying the submissive’s
face carefully, wondering how each hit felt. They’d weighed the heavy, fleshy,
thump of something rubber, versus the shuddering, gleeful smack of a flat
paddle, or heavy leather slipper.
The cane was smooth and unmarred: clearly his choice. He stood and offered it
to her on his own two feet, chin up, no declaration, pleading, or request. His
stomach seized a moment, but she just took it from him and stroked the very
tips of her fingers down the length, like she was looking for fault. She ran
her thumb along the handle as she gripped it. She was clearly familiar with it.
This was her craft.
“Do you prefer a warm up, or to be put directly to business?” She tested her
swing in the air a few times, even and measured and he was thankful she
couldn’t actually tell how much he wanted that up against his skin. His throat
ached with it, a need he could feel behind his teeth.
“Warm up.” Arthur wasn’t sure whether to get undressed then, of if he should
wait for her to tell him. But she wasn’t going to tell him. That was the point
of this. This was. This was something new.
She stepped out of her heels and placed them in her wardrobe. She closed the
lid of her chest.
He pulled off his socks, stripped his trousers and his (entirely too
utilitarian, really) pants off and then stood there a moment, with his back
turned, before yanking off his shirt. He was not a coward. He’d been naked
before. It wasn’t a big deal. If she was the kind of person who couldn’t stand
to see a sub with some flaws, then she was not the kind of person he wanted to
scene with anyways.
“I have found the bed is the most comfortable place to play, either the posts
or the mattress, but there is also the desk, chairs or walls,” she offered,
holding herself back from him. He stood there a moment, then looked over at the
wall, climbing on the bed, right up against the headboard, so he could place
his palms against the wallpaper. He could hear Merlin more clearly from here,
the low near-constant murmur of his voice rising and falling in pitch and tone
as she did whatever she was doing to him, as he contextualized it however he
wanted. He wondered what story he was telling. Hopefully a good one.
“Do you want anything to help hold you up?” She asked, gesturing back to the
chest. “They don’t have to be restraints. They can just be something to hold
onto. She held up a pair of climbing-rope-strength nylon loops. “Or I have any
number of bondage implements, if you’d prefer to be restrained.”
Arthur nodded to the loops and she smiled and pressed his forehead against the
wall, digging his nails in and if Merlin were here he would come up with a
reason why this was happening. But if Merlin were here, he wouldn’t be getting
caned, and Arthur hadn’t gotten this sort of release in ages. Not without
having to get on his knees, kiss the whip, look down at their feet and ask for
it nicely. Follow all the rules. He knew all of them. His uncle had taught him.
He. He knew how to ask. But he wasn’t being ask to be in any of the formal
kneels, he wasn’t being asked to refer to himself in the lower third person,
wasn’t asked to refer to her in the higher second.
Or he might get a few cursory slaps on his arse for his trouble, might get
bruised, or he might bleed. He’d get nothing close to what he wanted. And then
he felt worse for having to ask for it, especially when he was used to Merlin’s
semi-omnipotent fantasy doms who always knew exactly what Arthur wanted and
needed.
Morgause put up the loops and Arthur slipped his hands inside, wrapping his
hands around to get a grip. He could slip out in a moment, he settled on his
knees, braced himself and didn’t watch her. “Warm up with the cane or something
else?”
“Cane.” He said and she stroked down his back with the long edge of the tool,
following the curve of his spine, over his arse and down his thighs. “Any areas
off limits? Ones you want me to pay particular attention to?”
Arthur shifted. “Um. Stay. Don’t hit my front and. Um. CBT is not. Obviously
kidneys and I don’t. I don’t like my arms or the bottom of my feet whipped.”
She nodded like all this was fair and continues stroking him with the cane.
“Not my shoulders or upper back if we’re using a cane. I just. Traditional, I
guess. Arse, thighs, that…sort of thing.” Arthur watched the wall shudder a
little, they both listened to Merlin’s high-and-tight cry and Arthur gripped
the cord and took a breath.
She started with a few teasing little cuts, tiny stings along his thighs, a bit
of blaring warmth. Arthur shifted and settled down. He liked a little bit of a
warm up. If she just went for it, he tended to react like it was danger. But a
warm up was good, provided it didn’t go on too long. Then he got an inch
between his shoulder blades, a hunger under his muscles, and he got…tetchy.
“That’s good.” He said, after a moment, a part of him squeamish as fuck to say
anything. You weren’t supposed to order. You asked, you formally requested you
begged, and, mostly, you accepted what was given to you. “I. Just like you
would anyone else I gues-ah.”
Arthur jerked under the first hit, and it blared, bright and beautiful and like
the only light in some foul pit. His breath hitched and Merlin was warm, deep,
inside him, tangled up in pleasure and pushing himself closer to Arthur, his
little cries just audible if Arthur rested his forehead against the wall. She
kept the strikes even, rhythmic, something that was nearly lulling, how it
shook his body and then rose high, mingling with the rest of him. He closed his
eyes and breathed. Strike, inhale. Strike, exhale. She didn’t change it up to
put him off his toes, and when she crossed her strikes, she was careful,
hitting lighter but making those welts…His skin itched to sweat, it would bead
and bleed into the welts and she might have to stop because wet skin bled
easier.
His first dom made him bleed. Arthur was very good at-- He’d learned well how
to not talk. Not talking was second nature, just hiding himself down deep in
his gut, no matter what happened. Falling off a swing and refusing to cry out,
someone else from the playgroup stealing his cupcake and not making a protest,
quietly watching his babysitter and his dom making out and feeling each other
up on the couch when he was supposed to be in bed, because he’d needed a glass
of water and hadn’t said anything. Quietly, quietly, quietly slamming that
self-same cupcake-stealing child’s face into their own birthday cake without
comment. Forrest Mark.
His first dom had made him bleed, because Arthur had been scared and he hadn’t
known how to say anything, so they just…hit him. With their belt, and it had
been too wide and too sharp on the edges—sewn closed instead of a single strip
of leather—and he’d bled and the dom had called out and sent him home
still…messed up and silent because the dom, like all of Arthur’s classmates,
hadn’t been able to look his stillness in the face.
When he made a noise, Merlin made one as well, matching him, and when he opened
himself a little Merlin was right there, high as towers and just. Arthur could
sink into that. It wouldn’t be the same as his own, but it made his head feel
soft and dark, made going down seem so easy, but he dug his heels in. He
didn’t. If something went wrong he’d have to.
“You’re tensing.” Morgause notes. “Should I continue?”
“Yes. I just.” Arthur shook his head like there were flies on the inside he had
to be rid of. She kept going and he couldn’t feel wrong in his skin. He
couldn’t. It was too tight for him to rattle around in. It was being tailored
to him, the mugginess of pain clashing out thoughts. He was just. And there was
Merlin, warm and inviting and the pain, hot and searing and Arthur, hung. Like
a childhood science experiment about buoyancy, hanging in the middle of a fish
tank. The pain built, and it wasn’t. It wasn’t a direct translation to
pleasure. It hurt, he wanted to get away and move, it was too much. Not enough-
- he needed to be hit until his skin pulled too tight and he just…split open
and found himself in the mess.
His second dom hadn’t…they hadn’t liked that Arthur didn’t go down. It ruffled
her feathers. It’d started out nice enough, but escalated when he’d still been
too…himself, he guesses. She’d gotten angry with him. She’d shoved his head
down, hogtied him and insulted him, spat on him when that did work, and when
he’d finally, finally, found his voice enough to safeword out, he hadn’t looked
at her at all before scrambling for his clothing and getting out as she tried
to tell him what was wrong with him. Melissa Rangely.
Morgause paused for a moment. Her inhale was audible, a beautiful little noise
of ownership and he turned. It was Morgause’s eyes that made him shudder. Her
tempo was strict; her hits fell like she was trying to make him into something.
But she wasn’t looking at Arthur like he was... Precious? Well, like he was the
only one she wanted anywhere near her bed, and maybe he only knew what that
looked like because Merlin. She was too hard to be Merlin, but there was a
similar quality. And that was new. That was. New.
He shivered and she stops, hovering a hand over his shoulder. He nodded and she
stroked, carefully. “Good?”
He nodded again, like he was all he knew how to do. He took a few deep, careful
breaths. She pressed a finger to one of the red, raised welts and he jerked,
gasping.
“You could make noise if you wanted. I wouldn’t judge you.” She stroked her
knuckle along one throbbing line as he hunches over and hisses. “I would enjoy
it, in fact. It can be very therapeutic, I hear. Not telling you what to do.
Just mentioning.” her breath hitched as Arthur twisted. “You are, indeed,
lovely.”
“You are good at what you do.” Arthur licked his lips. His blood felt too hot,
his skin too tight, toes twisted into the sheets and fingers against the cords.
“This…I feel…weird.”
She trailed her nails up to the back of his neck and she stroked. “Good weird?”
Arthur shook his head and his skin was hungry. His muscles ached, his…his teeth
ache and he couldn’t. He didn’t know what he needed. He just. The skin under
his nails itched. “I don’t know. I just.” Merlin usually made this easier.
Merlin knew what to say.
His third dom and him had managed, at least, to get through the whole, insipid,
boring scene. He’d wanted to roleplay, but it hadn’t been up to Merlin’s…level,
and Arthur had sort of lay there and played along, gritting his teeth with
frustration at the barely-there spanks, and he hadn’t come, but his dom hadn’t
much seemed to care. His dom had liked it well enough, but Arthur hadn’t stayed
for aftercare, hadn’t left a real number, gone home and felt…sick with himself
for staying for the whole thing. It hadn’t been bad, exactly, not in a
traumatizing sort of way. It had just been…bad. Tyrone Pith.
The wall jumped and Arthur kept shifting. He was fidgety, he couldn’t...
“May I try something?” Morgause asked, quietly. “I don’t…like seeing my partner
distressed.”
Arthur shook his head and rolled his shoulders. He tried to catch the rhythm of
his breath. Tried to- His- Buzzing. He might have nodded his head, he just- He
needed.... He hungered. Everything buzzed and tingled and hurts and his throat
ached. She grabbed him by the hair, carefully, deliberately.
“Arthur, listen to me. You are fine. You are safe.” She rubbed his neck. “You
are here with me. And you took that beating—no.” She stopped and inhaled,
rested her head against his shoulder. “Feel the marks, Arthur. They’re yours.
You wanted them. Enjoy them.”
Arthur shifted and she scratched lightly down his back. “Do you feel these?
Those are yours. They belong to you. You earned them, why are you fighting
them?”
“I don’t. I feel.” Arthur tugged at the ropes, rolled his forehead against the
wall. Merlin had stopped talking, and…Morgana must...
Arthur listened, desperately, for noises from Merlin. A catch in his breath. A
whine on the exhale. He wanted them to be in the same room. Two beds, no. No.
Same. One big bed, Morgana on one side and Morgause on the other and he would
be able hear. He would be able to watch Merlin and know if he was okay. But he
felt okay. He felt…drifting, happy. Arthur smiled briefly, tried to let it
soothe out all of his rough, sharp edges. He was too…he was too jagged. He.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Skin was too tight. Skin was tailored wrong, too
narrow in the chest and too big in the head. That was what he got for buying
something off the rack—no. Charity shop.
Merlin had gotten his bespoke, custom made and beautiful, settled right over
his bones. He knew how to wear makeup and how to walk and if Arthur could just
slip into Merlin’s self for a day, then everything would be sunshine and
boneless, brainless jellyfish (“Sea jellies”) drifting through the water like
trash bags.
Everything was sharp. He was going to impale himself. No. What was the word for
that? Merlin knew the word for that. If you got a cracked rib and it…went
through your lungs or. Or if a leatherback turtle got tonsillitis or.
Merlin had told Arthur’s fourth dom to get blown by a leatherback turtle. They
hadn’t even really gotten to the scene. It’d been a date and they’d-- Too
personal, too fast. Asking if Arthur had been raped and that was why he was so
closed off. Tried to get naked pictures of him before the dessert and he’d
called Merlin and Merlin had shown up and thrown a glass of wine in her face
before taking Arthur home without a word. She hadn’t let Arthur order for
himself and scowled when he tried to tell her what he might like. She’d gotten
him a salad. With balsamic vinaigrette. Anita Bower.
His thoughts felt like holding too many things at once. Something would give.
Drop. Fall. Clang. Crash. Whatever the sound was for when things were still
reverberating on the floor and the room had gone quiet because everyone was
staring at you
“Shhh.” Morgause put her hands on his hips, holding on tight. “Shhh. They’re
yours. You took them, you earned them. Stop fighting them. They’re your
prizes.” She nestled mouth to his ear. “Your victory. Relish it.”
“It-- I don’t... I want to be able to.” Arthur dug his fingernails into the
wall. “I can’t.”
“You are not giving in. You are not weak. You are not getting fuzzy. You aren’t
going down.” She followed his arms. “You are strong for accepting this. You are
beautiful. Shall I quote arcane things for you? There are High Queens, well
mannered and lovely from crown to slippered foot, but O! my dearest liege, but
O! you are the only who shall have my sword.” She pressed herself along his
back. “I hit you as you wanted. Feel what you deserve.”
Arthur reached out blindly, but Merlin was deeper down than he was, and dragged
Arthur with him, sinking them both into the ocean, a warm ocean. With
terrifying creatures that Merlin can point out along the way. Arthur almost
felt like they’re the same, right then. Not separated by a wall, or skin, or
personality. A single, centred, creation. Something unbroken, melded together
and steadily and perfectly as if planned.
Arthur’s fifth dom was a gift to him from Merlin, designed by Merlin, perfect,
only, in Merlin’s image. The closest they’d ever had to what they wanted, and
it still fell short. Too exposed, flayed alive, fuck, fuck.
“Go.” She commanded and he…hung, and he didn’t get in the right headspace, but
he did…something and the world narrowed down to just. Merlin, and the way
Merlin felt and the way they should be able to click together and complete a
circuit instead. Redundancy. Program error.
                                       *
Arthur didn’t see his sixth dom check the time and make note of it. He did feel
when she freed his hands from the straps. Did feel when she pressed his head to
her lap, did feel her stroke through his hair.
Didn’t notice as she listened to her half sister doing the same to
his…friend…on the other side.
                                      ---
cont.
So it came that Pavi found the Emperor, but was refused entrance. Pavi stood at
the gate, watching as members of the rulership came and went, standing as his
sleeves draped over his hands. He did not beg, and he did not steal, instead
standing outside the gate for three days and three nights, watching as the
guards changed and asking again if he might see the Emperor, and again being
rebuffed at each attempt. And Pavi may have died there, had not the Emperor not
chosen to go for a ride.
The Emperor was a wise and powerful ruler, and as he left the gate he saw Pavi,
and wondered that one of his rulership should wait for entrance, for he wished
to hear the grievances of all his people so he might cast judgement and fix
problems. He asked his guards why they had not allowed Pavi in, and they said
he was not of the rulership. The Emperor guided his horse to Pavi, who had
bowed his head and stood waiting.
“Young one, what is it that you wish to speak to me about?”
And when Pavi raised his head, the Emperor felt his heart shudder, for there,
as truly as sunlight, was his intended, beloved and most pure. He leapt from
his horse and swept his beloved into his arms, laughing with joy that such good
fortune had befallen him. He held out his hand and Pavi turned his head, and
the Emperor pressed his hand to his beloved’s face. “My life and joy, why will
you not clasp hands with me? Surely you feel as I do, that we are a single
soul. It is only right that we should touch.”
“My lord,” Pavi said, “I cannot clasp hands with you, for mine tempted another
to sin, so I cast them away to save them. I am sorry to be so ill-used for you,
my lord. For you are Emperor and your beloved should be pure and perfect, and I
am not.”
And the Emperor saw that his beloved had no hands, and he was filled with grief
that his most perfect and beautiful should have hurt in this way. “My soul,
what has happened that caused this? You are far more beautiful and lovely than
any other, and if you were not, I would still love you, for your soul has
walked along mine all these years.”
And Pavi told him everything, as the Emperor took him inside his beautiful
palace, for his rulership was vast and powerful and for every wonder Pavi had
ever known, the Emperor had a thousand. The Emperor wept for Pavi’s terrible
fortune and good spirit in the face of it, and he had them wed immediately,
happy that his beloved had hurt himself, rather than led another to sin. He
could not clasp hands, but he revelled in the beautiful spirit that shown along
his own, and their rulership shown brighter than any other for Pavi’s love and
virtue, leading all those to the path of righteousness, and the Emperor cared
for Pavi all of his days, until they died and entered into the Kingdom of
Heaven together, hand in hand.
end
- Myra Anders “The Straight And Narrow Path: A Christian Book of Fairy Tales”
December, 2011
Merlin’s yes/no/really, no list is a carefully organized and laminated note
card, which does not have a “maybe” column, because, as he says, if it isn’t on
there, he’s willing to try it once, unless it is a derivative of something on
the really, no column. He pokes around her room with absolutely no shame,
looking at the glass swan on her desk, and begins talking about the mating
habits of swans in a disturbingly conversational tone, while she thinks.
“You have roleplaying underlined twice and circled.” Morgana notes, when he
reaches a pause point. He’s flipping through one of her books, head tilted and
he looks up, like he forgot he was talking.
“It’s a really, very, super yes.” Merlin shrugs. “I mean. I don’t need it. But
it’s really, very, super yes.”
“What kind of roleplaying?” She taps the laminated card against her cheek. “A
little dress up? Some props?”
“Umm.” He shrugs and rubs the hem of his skirt between his fingers. “I’m kind
of disturbingly into it? Like. All into character. You don’t have to be if you
don’t want to, just playing along is fine, but I tend to. Uh. It’s like a
story, in my head.” He looks at one of the drawings she’s hung on the wall and
studies it awhile. “I like stories. I like the way people contextualize their
world and impart knowledge. And then I also really like trashy, trashy romance
novels. I mean, just horrible stuff, where the good sub is kidnapped by a
terrible, horrible, filthy brigand dom, and ze cannot be zer soulmate, ze
simply cannot and there’s maybe some really problematic rape apology in there
somewhere because they don’t speak the same language and the brigand knows
their soulmates so ze just goes for it and…” Merlin shrugs. “So I like that,
but only in a fantasy setting, because in real life that is the absolute worst
and I would punch anyone who supported it in all of their faces.” Merlin runs
his fingers over her footboard and grips it.
“You’ve very open.” Morgana notes and watches him. He’s smiling and far too
energetic, considering the time, and she wouldn’t mind just…chaining him to her
bed and keeping him there for awhile. He’d be lovely to come home to, she
thinks, he’d even enjoy it for a while. He’s built of stories, and she could
make him tell her all of them, about how she’s a demon, and he jumped from a
bridge, and if you throw away your life, someone might take it. Or how she
bought him as a pretty little decorative piece and has no problems riding him
hard and leaving him to suffer once she done. Or she’s a wizard and he’s her
demon, or familiar, which she can use any which way she likes. He’s filled to
the brim with stories and she isn’t an actress, but she likes knowing what
she’s displaying.
Merlin hops up on her desk and swings his bare legs in a purposefully adorable
way. “I like getting what I want. What I want is a good story, and you’re the
most beautiful woman in the world.” Merlin said, and his tone was perfectly,
on-key, matter of fact. “Unto You— most lovely, unto You—most perfect, unto
You—most knowing: this lowly servant gives himself.” He bows his head a little
and then peeks up at her, a tilt to his smile, formal words tripping out like a
tongue-twister well-rehearsed.
“She sells seashells by the sea shore.” Morgana says, instead of the formal
reply, because she doesn’t think standing on ceremony will get her very far.
Merlin replied without missing a beat. “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled
peppers, popped the pickled peppers past Petra Piper’s pack, who put the
pickled peppers in poor Peter Piper puppy’s punch, so Peter Pipers puppy pee
pickled peppers on Petra Piper’s puce purse.”
Morgana raises her eyebrows, cracks her neck, “A bitter biting bitter bit a
better brother bittern and the bitter better bittern bit the bitter biter back.
And the bitter bittern, bitten by the better bitten bittern, said: ‘I’m a
bitter biter bit, alack!’”
They stare at each other. “Girl gargoyle, guy gargoyle?”
“Agreed.” She says and they stand off for almost a full minute, before Merlin
trips over himself and laughs, poking his tongue out of his mouth and shakes
his head. “Alright, fair enough. I consent to your victory.” He hops off the
desk and leaps like the floor is made of lava to the footboard of the bed,
holding onto the bedpost and staring at Morgana, bare foot circling the air.
“So. What do you claim as your prize?”
She looked down at the little note card again. “Are you sure you don’t want me
to wrestle you? You like man-handling and I may know a bit about that.”
Merlin’s eyes light up and he crawled over the mattress and extended over the
bedspread, cradling his chin in his hands in a posed look of charm and whimsy.
Morgana huffs and puts her feet up on the mattress. “What kind of roleplaying
were you thinking of?”
Merlin looks down at that, rolling back up to his knees and then scooting to
the edge, taking her feet back up on his lap and began working on her arches,
moving back up to her toes and tugging each one, her big toe popping and
Morgana settling down, tapping the card against her chin. “You have something
specific in mind, but you’re stalling for time so you don’t seem creepy.”
Merlin shrugged. “You inspire imagination.”
“Tell me.” She rotated her ankle and he cupped her toes shaking her foot back
and forth to try and get some of the tension out.
“I can add any elements you like in.” Merlin looked down at the blanket. “I’m
adaptable. But. Um.” He clears his throat. “I mean if you don’t like it I can
change problematic elements.”
“Ah, so there are problematic elements.” Morgana nudged Merlin’s arm. “If I
want something I’ll tell you. Now, tell me what you want, you have imagined
something. Stayed up late one night, put a scenario together. How tailored is
it? Off the rack? With a bit of tailoring for me? From a designer line?
Completely bespoke?” She knocks her foot against Merlin’s knee.
“A previous sketch left on some coffee shop napkin, reborn and redesigned with
you in mind, sketched out from every angle. Fabric picked out, cut, and pinned,
on the mannequin and waiting for your first fitting.”
She likes this. She wants to hear the scenario first, of course. It might be
boring. It might be any one of the boring dime-a-dozen porn scenarios, the
light burning behind his eyes might be faux-fire, might…might not be the
addicting potential she hopes it is. She hopes he’s as beautiful inside his
head as he sounds like he is. All those memorized things have built something
worth seeing in there. Not the overly complex rat-maze of some pet fetish
fantasy, locked up too long. Not a straightforward costume-shop job. Something
with meat, something with teeth, something that is worth holding onto. If he
can do that, if he can make a story worth listening to. Then. Then she is going
to keep him chained at the end of the bed by his wrists and squeeze every story
he has out of him.
If Vulgate takes off the way they think it will, she could be in the business
for a kept sub. She could get Merlin all the pretty dresses he could stand, tow
him around on one of those designer chains, let him liven up a few parties. She
could only imagine how much less boring they’d be with someone like Merlin
talking into her ear about how they’d constructed a jellyfish out of rat heart
cells, and then explaining to someone rich enough to be in a party mostly
comprised of models how that worked and what the purpose was behind doing that.
She knew a few designs he would be perfect for, with those legs, the slope of
his shoulders, pale, lovely skin. She could dress him in complementary colours,
a lovely collar…maybe…silver? Metal. Arthur would look best in leather, of
course, but Merlin would look good in metal, with some…sapphires.
Merlin licked his lips. “Can um. This is dumb, but can I be on your lap?”
Morgana re-adjusts herself without comment. “Usually the storyteller is the one
who is sat upon.”
“We all have our methods.” Merlin grumbled and climbed on, shifting around so
nothing was digging into her thighs. He rubs one of the buttons on her
waistcoat, trailing his fingers along the line of buttons. “What I normally do
is tell you the story, tell you who you are, who I am, what the scene is. Hit
the high points, you saw what to avoid, you add some ideas as they come to
you…” Merlin stroked over her bowtie, fiddled with one of the ears, tucked his
free arm over her shoulder. “The night takes off from there.”
“Costuming?” She asked.
Merlin raised his eyebrows and Morgana pointed to the closet doors. “Walk-in,
packed to the gills with a lot of options, if you like. I’m a switch fashion
model with your colouring, and at times in my life, your body type. I have a
lot of options here.”
Merlin smiles and nuzzles her cheek. “Oh, I like you.”
“Tell me.” She takes his chin in her fingers. “Don’t feel too much pressure for
it to be brilliant, except for the bits where you do such a lovely job of
convincing people that your brain is everywhere at once. So, perhaps I have
some high expectations.”
Merlin licks his lips. “I think you’ll like it.”
“Mmm?”
“You get to be a God.” Merlin offers, stroking her arm. “Nearly every Pantheon
had a switch God, and they are, to me, usually the most interesting.
Tricksters, sometimes, like Anansi, who is both man and spider, who is both
clever and stupid, who is both dom and sub, all at the same time, always. Loki
and Coyote, obviously. And then you have non-Trickster switches, usually to
stand in for…or I mean. Like Janus, whose got two faces and is the God of
doorways. So he’s less both dom and sub at all times, and more…one half dom,
and one half sub, like they got grafted onto each other, but that’s that for
you. The Holy Spirit is considered a form of switch, depending on the
canonization, but also sometimes non-dynamic, so it’s up to interpretation, but
since Christianity is technically monotheism and the Guardian is dom, and the
son is sub, so if they are the three in one, then the one, technically is both
dom and sub, so. Ganesha, the God of Luck-” Merlin stops when she puts a finger
to his lips.
“Focus,” she says. “While I appreciate how much more research you have done
into my gender than anyone else I have ever spoken to—or worse: listened to—
there is a time and a place.”
Merlin smiles ruefully and looks contrite until she lowers her finger. “So, I
am a God. I like this so far.”
“You are a God of pain and pleasure. You can’t have one without the other, the
switch god makes sure of it.” Merlin plays his fingers over her collarbone. “Do
you want to be a Trickster?” He cocks his head. “Are you straightforward? Are
you mischievous?”
“Mmm…maybe slightly… capricious?” She smiles, rubbing Merlin’s throat with the
back of her knuckles. “It wouldn’t be good for you if I were predictable. And,
speaking of which…you are?”
“Well.” Merlin snuggles closer. “I am, of course, your fervent follower. I get
on my knees for you every night and you grew to like the quality of my
prayers.”
Morgana laughs and sticks her thumb in his mouth. “So, I grow to love your
rambling, and instead of asking me for suitable lovers, or to bless your
marriage, or to give you a little more of one side of myself and less of the
other. You…talk to me like a friend.”
Merlin laughs and nips her thumb. “You are my patron God, you deserve all my
love and thoughts.” He says, pulling back, before sinking his mouth back down
on her finger. His mouth is hot and he twists his tongue over her thumbnail.
 
“So, you are precious and lovely and so very faithful, so I kidnap you into my
bower for a night of…my talents?”
Merlin ducks his head and smiles, still sucking her thumb.
                                      ~~~
His prayers are, by far, her favourite. She gets thousands of prayers, daily,
more by night, lovers all calling up to her, pleading that she bless their
union. But his prayers are always singular, and long. Poetic, perhaps, in their
inclusiveness. She is not the one who gets beautiful, lovely prayers. It is not
her who gets the long, drawn out praises. Hers are frequent, yes, enthusiastic,
surely. But brief, unimaginative. Powerful, in their way, filling her veins
with life and her fingertips with ability.
His prayers are entertaining, throwing up joy to her for things that are,
maybe, under her purview, but no one ever thanks her for, bowing to her
siblings in this matter, the God of joy and despair got many prayers that
could, perhaps, be hers. But Merlin’s included all the things that pleased him,
all the things that pained him, and praised her for both, thanking her for her
gift of bliss so he can enjoy it, and equally so for her punishments so he
might learn and grow stronger.
He had been a darling young submissive entirely devoted to her. He’d been
worshipping since puberty. He had looked upon the Pantheon he had been taught
since he was a young boy, and, at the tender age of twelve, put his token onto
her altar and hasn’t looked back since. He was unafraid to grab her attention,
even as she tested him. He never faltered and was never satisfied even when she
gave him rewards, didn’t relax his faith, and didn’t falter once.
She was the god of pain and pleasure, she was a god who both doled each out and
accepted both. She was not, as some of her siblings, either one thing or
another, being firmly a giver of joy or despair at any given moment, but
always, simultaneously both. Pleasure and pain were interlinked, tightly woven
together in a lovely pattern that must be view in its entirety to be fully
enjoyed.
And, if she was to have a faithful follower, then what, exactly, was the point
of being a God in the heyday of her power and prestige, if she wasn’t
to…examine him personally?
He looks lovely in her bed, all pale skin warmed by candlelight, no clothing
and just her medallion around his neck, where it always resided. She did not
have temples like some of her siblings, she did not have grand houses of
worship where he could have been a lovely little acolyte. She would have lain
him like a sacrifice on her own altar and prepared him exactly as she wanted,
in front of all her priests and let them know he, at that moment, was favoured.
But her altars were wherever people made them. So this bed would be her altar
and this lovely little mortal would be hers to devour however she liked. At
this moment, she wanted him stretched out over her bed, stretched across it and
bound, exactly like the kind of offering she would actually accept, had she
temples and sacrifices and services.
She stroked through Merlin’s hair, feeling his dreams flutter under her
fingertips. They’re good dreams, sweet little darlings that she could just eat
out of his head like candy. Full of fluttery, beautiful little thoughts, most
of which he gives to her, on his knees, in a formal Offering kneel, giving her
plenty of time and thoughts and all of his emotion, all of his bliss, all his
agony without question, without hesitation, does not try and shield himself and
when he rages, he rages and laments and mourns and gives every ounce of that to
her, and it sends shivers up her spine, arrests all of her attention.
She grips his hair, and he wakes, because she wants him to, groggy and slow,
still and little under, just enough to get that slow, sleepy wonder as he
blinks awake and stares at her. He blinks and tries to reach for her, then
turns to stare at his bound wrist, then down at his ankle, before going back to
her and biting his lip. “Um, hi.”
She strokes over his nose. “Hello there, little darling.”
“My liege,” he managed, then frowned at how slow and sloppy his voice sounded.
He ran his tongue between his teeth and frowned, then smiled because a mortal
being in the presence of a God tended to have…reactions. Sometimes good,
sometimes bad, but there certainly weren’t unaffected. “I feel…um. Hi.” He
shifted on the bed and licked his lips. “I. Didn’t have anything prepared for
this, actually. Um. You’re…”
She plucks up the medallion from his chest and rubbed her thumb over it.
“You’ve prayed to me for hours every single night since you were thirteen and
you didn’t even consider what would happen if I took notice?”
“Whatever you wanted would happen.” Merlin smiles, content with everything.
“You are you. I didn’t think you’d take notice. I mean. You must notice
everything, but. I didn’t think I was. I imagine you get much more eloquent
prayers and praises than what I have to offer, from... um. Nicer looking
people.”
She huffs a laugh. “Are we fishing for compliments, little one?”
He fidgets and she examines the medallion. It is a simple one, not cheap, and
almost certainly the best he could afford. She likes being in the notch of his
collarbone, likes that if she pushes down on the medallion with her thumb he’ll
cough, struggle to breathe a little. She likes that he wears it around his
neck, like she already owns him. Others wear their medallions on their wrists,
in their hair, on their ears, dangling from any number of piercings. And she
likes that, like the pain people go through to have her on them, the sharp,
aching tribute present every time a lover pulls on it, afterward.
“Is it not simply enough that I chose you?” She asks and he looks ashamed with
himself and she flicks his nose. “Hush now. You have my attentions, though you
may regret that.”
Merlin blinks at her, slow and confused.
“I am who I am. I am not like, say, my sister of Order and Chaos, who does not
inflict the latter, just takes away the former. I do not give gifts and take
them away, I am not at one moment present and another absent, I am who I am,
Merlin. And you know this.” She stroked though his hair, gentle, caring. “You
know this, little one. That is why you praise me, even when you suffer, truly,
honestly suffer. Not a bedroom game, not stubbed toes. But when you grieve…”
She cradles his head and presses down on the hinge of his jaw. “When you
grieve. When you hurt. When you are in agony of the spirit or body, you give
yourself to me. You trust me. Not my siblings. Not my parents. You give
yourself only and truly to me.” She inhales and he doesn’t fight her, she could
gouge out his eye and he wouldn’t fight her, she thinks, except for the
instinctual writhe of a body in pain.
“So, you know, that if I wished it, this could be about your suffering.” She
took his lower lip and pinched it between her knuckles. “That would please me
exactly as much as seeing your writhe in bliss would. Or any combination of the
two. Would you praise me then, if your skin was hanging off you in tatters?”
He stares at her and then carefully reaches and bites her knuckle, eyes wide
and blue as a song. She cocks her head and strokes his cheekbone. “Or perhaps I
will torture you another way. Make you feel good until you lose every single
bit of yourself to it and you longed for something to take your mind off it.
Would you still be mine?”
Merlin smiles around her knuckle and she pulls back. “You will do whatever you
want with me. Just as you always have. You are going to do whatever makes you
happy.” Merlin smiles and he’s all teeth and joy, all eyes and ears and pale,
uniform skin. Ah, of course, nicked and cut here and there. A burn here. A
scrape there. But those are just part of the canvas, like the hair over his
chest and the indents of his ribs. A life lived leaves leftovers.
“And you’re happy with that?”
He inhales deeply, closes his eyes and smiles to himself. “That’s for you to
decide.”
“And you’ll accept my choice?” She fits her thumb into his navel, tugging
downwards. Maybe she’ll leave him pierced. That would be a good present, she
thinks, to let him wake up in his bed with her mark firmly on him. Or a tattoo.
A brand? She’s branded a lover or two before, and they screamed for the honour.
They lived their lives differently afterward. What would he do, she wonders.
“I’m yours.” He repeats. “You will do what you want with me. I may try and
convince you to do things I like, but…” He shrugs. “Mortal human. We have our
flaws. One of them being that I’m really selfish. But I’ve also loved you as
long as I’ve known how to, and I guess I’ve grabbed your attention, somehow,
and I hope in a good way, and…and whatever you want to leave me with that’s.”
He shrugs, helplessly, hands lax in the bonds and smile fidgeting over his
mouth. “That’s what I’m happy with having. But I think.” He licks his lips. “I
think you’re happy. That I’m yours, I mean. I think you want me to keep being
yours. And I will.” Merlin added, fervently, even as she digs her nail into his
skin. “I will be, unless you drive me mad or kill me, or…or whatnot. Because
then I wouldn’t be. So. If you want to test me, then that’s good, however you
want to do it. Because I’m happy if you. I mean. I’ll do my best.” He licks his
lips and looks down at her hand on him.
“Oh little one.” She rolls over to lie on top of him, rest just enough weight
on him that he has to struggle to breathe, and he does struggle, but doesn’t
complain, staring at her with all the respect and love that she is due. Or, if
not love then…she is not used to love. That is not what she is for. People
enjoy her, but they don’t love her. Merlin does, though. He wears her medallion
around his neck, where he should be wearing his dom’s collar. Where his
soulmate is going to want to clasp something permanent and final. But he wears
her medallion there. She won’t collar him. She doesn’t want to keep anyone that
long. But. Then. Mortals don’t live that long at all, do they? And the thought
of her sibling keeping his soul in her citadel forever? The thought of her
having him, just as she has all of those worshippers, makes her sick.
“I do like having you.” She says and rubs at his arm, pulled taught and exposed
for her. “You are right about that. And you have been a…lovely worshipper, who
I will enjoy keeping under my heel, under my hand, lovely as welts. So. I think
I will enjoy you, tonight, my beautiful little one, and if you really are mine,
you will enjoy it as well.”
Merlin shivers under her hand and he doesn’t beg for anything, doesn’t plead or
order. He looks a natural in those ropes, perfect in bindings, and she slides
from the bed, stretching and enjoying his worship of her form. She is a God,
she could be anything. She could be man or woman, human or other, young, old,
anything else… but she likes being what is most effective, and this is what is
effective.
“So, the question is not what I’m going to do to you, then.” She drags her foot
over the plush carpet and spins on her toe, slightly, looking around her. “I’m
going to do whatever I what, however I want. But, ah. The how.” She cups his
feet and stares at him. “Not that I’m asking for your input, little one. I just
need to decide…what pain looks best on you.” She runs her hands up his calves
and back down again. “What about you will please me the most, I wonder.”
Merlin licks his lips and his fingers twitch, eyes bright.
“Oh, you have a suggestion?”
“I. Just um.” He clears his throat and his eyes flick down her body, before
dragging, slow and purposeful, back up to her eyes. “A thought was all. I.”
She crawls up the bed and hangs over him, stares down as he flushes, and then
watches it spread with interest, tracing the blotchy, uneven borders of colour
with intent. “Look at you. How far down does this go, anyways?” She flicks one
of his nipples and he jumps a little, licks his lips again. “Your idea?”
“I just. I mean. Um.” He clears his throat. “I realize it may have occurred to
you, because. I mean. Um.”
“Say it.” She presses her nail into his areola and he fidgets.
Merlin dips his eyes. “This lowly one—ah!”
She twists his ear. “I am not my sister of order and chaos, I do not like
formality, so you will address me with, ha, painful honesty at all times,
unless I wish the pleasure of a pretty, pretty lie. You are in my bower, little
one. When I took you, I took everything that’s inside your lovely head as
well.”
Merlin stares up at her and licks his lips again. “I just. I am yours, to do
with as you want, whatever it is that you want, and if you want a passive…I
mean, if you just. Want to do things to me; I will live happily for the rest of
my days. But I would like to... worship you? A little?” He smiles, perfect and
off-kilter and rueful. “I’m in the presence of my patron God, and she picked me
out of…everyone everywhere. I’d…feel weird if I didn’t get a chance to show her
my appreciation. I mean. If I can do that by just. Being here. Then good. But.”
He inhales, sharp and desperate. “If it pleases you. I would like to…” He
sucked his lower lip into his mouth and bit down, harder than a nervous habit.
A tiny little tribute, just for her..
“Harder.” She says and he does, pressing down with those precious, sharp little
teeth into the meat of his lip, getting it nice and bruised for her. Tender and
wet, a steady, growing kind of pain that sends a shiver down her spine. “That’s
lovely. But, you still haven’t actually asked for what you want.”
“I-”
She presses their noses together and stares down at him. “Ten words or less,
little one.”
“May I offer the use of my mouth?” He blurted and his flush is the perfect
match for the candlelight. He doesn’t flush prettily, exactly, not two high
spots of colour on his cheekbones. He is splotchy and ruddy and beautifully
mortal. Fragile. Trusting. His lips bruised and she would have to straddle his
head for him to work and that…is a lovely image.
“Why?” She asks, continuing to toy with his nipple, alternating sweet and spice
just because it makes his breath hitch.
“I want to make you feel good. I mean. I want. I want to do something and be
responsible for it pleasing you.” His hands twisted, trying to gesture and
failing. “But I also just…like doing that and. Um.” He fidgeted in the ropes
and she knelt up over his stomach and considered him.
“I will consider it.” She says and a flick of candle catches her eye. A soft,
white one, sweet smelling paraffin and mineral oil and just about exactly
perfect, something light to leave darker marks on him. Heat to make him shiver,
soft enough to give a little under her fingers, a ring of wax on the stand
she’d left it on. She drips some on her own wrist; it stings. It stings and
then sinks into her skin like a hot bath, tingles down her arm and makes her
salivate, the wax pulling tight on the skin as it cools.
Oh, her boy will look beautiful covered in this.
But first…
She takes up a flask of oil, heated enough to make it comfortable and pours
some on her hands, rubbing them together before stroking long and purposefully
over his skin. Merlin rolls up into it, his eyes slitting with intent and she
keeps her strokes hard, not really massaging, but he relaxes like she’s giving
him one anyways. Trusting her entirely as she rubs down his arms, sweeps up
again to his chest and over his soft, giving belly, down over his legs and
back, rubbing over his prick and he doesn’t thrust, doesn’t move at all. Just
watches her, quiet and happy, feet kicking in his bond, happy as flames in
wood.
He stares at her, unashamed and trusting as she puts the flask back down, as
she holds the candle up, high enough to test him, and watches his skin jump at
the trail of wax over his chest. His breath catches and then his eyes are back
on the candle, watching as the wax pools, as her hand tilts and he’s jerking
before it even properly lands on his stomach, inhaling as sharp as a bracing
wind.
“Well, you seem perfectly capable of that.” She lowers the candle a bit and
lets good amount of wax develop in the divot, peeling the wax she’s already
lain down off, so she can see the fresh pink marks. She bends to taste one, a
slightly waxy residue left, but sweat is pricking up to replace any other
flavour. But he’s just a bit sweet, she thinks, and she sucks a mark onto his
chest. She likes that he never closes his eyes, or—if he does—it’s only for an
instant before they’re snapping open again, watching her. Studying. Keeping it
for later, like he’ll wake up and it’ll all be gone.
She likes how he looks at her. She is powerful, but she has always been. This
makes her feel it, and she could have him on her hook with just that. She could
lay hands on him and leave him feeling whatever she wanted. But he’s watching
her. Studying. Keeping. And she wants to give him something to remember.
She drops a large puddle right at his navel and his abs clench, feet and arms
up and then down again as he pants, the wax dribbling down the divot of his
stomach, down his side, and she hasn’t given him anything but this. She’s tied
his hands. She’s bound his feet. She’s marked him with wax and his cock is
hard. Not fully, not as much as it will be, but he’s interested. She cocks her
head. He’s smooth, shaven and she pushes his prick out the way and raises the
candle again. He watched her, breath caught and lip between his teeth. She
smiles and tilts the candle and he doesn’t try and get away, the wax slowly
sliding down and a single, tiny little droplet lands right on his sac. He
fidgets, a little.
“This is my lowest burning candle. It doesn’t even really hurt, does it? You
just think it will. It’s just heat, and then it cools and pulls, restricts. Not
pain, just… something to think about.” She rubs one of the marks, already
fading. He can take more. If he’s hers, he can take more. She slaps his cock a
little and Merlin rides up into it, and he gets harder for it. He’s one of
hers. She wraps her hand around him and tugs a little, to reward him, maybe, or
to see what other little noises he can make. He is unlike a whore, he isn’t
theatrical with his noises, he isn’t trying to distract or convince. They’re
honest, little things. Quiet, mostly. Vulnerable, like something she could
carve right out of him and keep. But it would rot in her hands; go pulpy and
fetid before she could even enjoy it. She is not her brother of Health and
Disease, she does not enjoy gangrenous limbs or broken hearts.
“I have hotter candles, of course.” She lets another stream trail down his
inner thigh, loving his tiny, broken little gasp. “And if I get bored of that,
perhaps I will get one of my pinwheels.” She didn’t want to use anything where
she’d have to move, to stop touching him. The pain should be close, should be
trapped between them like heat in a snowstorm. And then, maybe, she’ll kneel
astride his head and see what he’s capable of.
She drops a thicker stream over his nipple and she toys with it. Maybe
clamps…clamps would make them all red and tight. They’d bounce if she let him
up, tugging and aching, working for her even when she changes her mind and
decides to mix her two domains more fully. She is a creature of sensation.
She reaches up and pinches the nipple she’s been happily abusing thus far and
Merlin just makes a tiny little “ah” noise, pushing up against her fingers,
torso tilted up, and he isn’t trying to pull away. But then, moving away would
just pull harder, so perhaps he is trying to free himself. No, no clamps. She
wants to do this herself. This will be hands-on, her masterpiece, her lovely,
little servant. She releases her prize. They’re both high and perky, waiting
for her attention, so she bends and sucks the abused one into her mouth. The
heat probably isn’t soothing, not after how hard she pinched it, but Merlin’s
sounds aren’t distressed, just questioning.
She pulls back and drips the candle wax over Merlin’s hipbone, long beautiful
ellipsis over his knee and down his calf. His legs are shaved, under his arms,
his sac, his face, but not his chest. He’s trying to look vulnerable; he’s
giving her plenty of space to work with, open spaces ready for her nails, for
her teeth, for the wax trailing down the muscles of his leg. Beautiful little
darling. She wants hotter wax. She wants him to squirm. To dance under the
drips. Skitter over the bed, sizzle like butter in a hot pan, sweet like sugar
and caramelizing.
Coloured wax doesn’t actually burn any hotter than uncoloured—given a few
understood factors—but people tend to think it does, and she wants him
splattered with colour. She wants patterns all over him, for him to look like a
painter’s smock. For him to be her perfect bit of art, panting and cock hard,
and she wishes she’d thought to have a bowl of wax ready. To prepare something
so she could trail it in huge swatches over his body, so she could dip his cock
in, maybe, as a finale.
She picks up the blue, because he’ll look beautiful in blue and trails it in a
line down his sternum, drips it down his ribs.
He looks at her hand, at her eyes, down at the wax and then the inside of his
own eyelids for a brief, desperate second.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not. Yes.” He licks his lips and breaths. “It’s hot. It burns, but then it… Do
you.” Merlin breathes a moment. “It burns for a moment. Hot enough that I want
it off, but then it cools down and it…it feels good.”
She trails a line up his arm and he jerks harder for that, for the inside of
his elbow, entire arm bouncing and then he calms again.
“You look lovely for me. You’re going to look better, dripping with my marks.”
She flakes off a stray mark that she doesn’t like and picks up the white candle
again, offering a bit of counterpoint, oh. No. Green. Green is what is needed.
Green is one of her colours, and that’s what she wants to see him in. Green and
purples, blue only because it suits him so perfectly, but no red. Red is…wrong,
somehow. Clashes.
He doesn’t react much for wax on his legs, laughs a little breathless when it
trails down the arch of his foot, spasms away when a splash hits his inner arm.
She stays away from his face, is careful to guard his eyes when it’s an issue.
She wants his pain, not for him to be harmed. Not him. She has brought pain to
people who have—in her opinion— deserved it, left blood trails where they once
had pride.
She drips purple down the underside of his cock and she gets a thin jet of pre-
come for her trouble, and she laughs. “Good boy. So lovely when you flinch.”
His breath is laboured, beautiful, aching down his windpipe, scraping around
his lungs like a trapped dog. She sets the candles aside, and lays on top of
him, biting into his mouth, feeling the air trapped in his chest and he moans,
tiny little whimpers as wax comes loose and pulls at his tender skin. She rolls
up his body and clutches his hair, kissing him as viciously as she can, because
she wants to see his lips plump up. Wants it to hurt when she sinks down on
them, when he gets what he wants.
He allows her in, accepting every nip, accept how hard she’s pressing, and
then, equally, accepts when she pulls back and soothing, petting the side of
his face and shushing him, and he follows her up until he can’t go any further,
and then he falls back, staring up at her, blinking as little as possible.
He’s like her own personal crime scene, her fingerprints are everywhere on him.
She doesn’t need her medallion around his neck to know he belongs to her. It’s
there in his eyes, it’s drenched into his skin. “I could keep you here as long
as I wanted.” She noted, trailing her nail along one perfect arc of green wax.
“You have pledged yourself to me. I could keep you here. You could be my
personal pet, suffering and enjoying according to my every whim.”
He looks so hopelessly desperate for it that it pains her. She closes her eyes
and enjoys it, petting his cheek with a sigh. “I could keep you here forever, I
could teach you how to love and hate everything I did to you.”
“Why don’t you?”
She trails up and grabs his right wrist and squeezes. “Ze wouldn’t get you. I
am a switch. I am complete unto myself. But you…oh you little darling.” She
kisses his eyelids. “You need someone, and they are there for you. So very
close.”
He stares at her and she puts her hand on the wall to support herself and his
breath gets caught. “Does ze feel this? Are you sharing it?”
Merlin’s pulse jumps in his throat, and then he shakes his head.
“Do it. Give this over. Bring them into it.” She moves up and closes her legs
over his arms and kneels over him. “Now.”
His eyes don’t go glazed like she expects, he’s still entirely there with her,
but his mouth goes slack and he rides up in a way that has nothing to do with
her. His mouth looks so wet and inviting that she lowers herself, not expecting
how he’ll immediately latch onto her, how he moans and she doesn’t know what
the cause is, but he is delicious, heat and need and focus, tongue and lips and
it has to hurt. Has to, the way she’s left his mouth, but he doesn’t pause,
eyes fluttering closed and going for it with everything he has.
She wonders how it is for her dominant siblings. How odd it must be to look
down at a sub like this, full of power because of how much they want and it’s
up to you to decide what to give them, but not to know what it’s like to be
there themselves. She’s been on her back, packed full with all the need and
desire to make a dom remember her. Love her. She knows exactly how strong the
need is to prove oneself is, tied up and soaked in marks of ownership.
She gets a hand in his hair and uses it to guide him, to keep her sense of
balance. He’s attentive, eyes on her even as his mouth works, trying to gauge
if what he’s doing it correct.
“Suck.” She tells him, after he’s tried flicking his tongue at increment speeds
and pressures, flattening it against her and writhing, tip of his tongue
dragging up against her and she grabs the headboard with her other hand,
licking her lips. He purses his lips around her and pulls, light pressure at
first, increasing as she tugs harder, adjusting herself as she feels like,
liking the strong pulls of breath he manages when she rises over him. “How long
can you do this for?”
He swallows. “As long as you need me to. Am I…is there something I should be—”
She gets his hands out of the ropes, rolling them over so she can relax on the
pillows. His legs are still tied, crossed over one another, but she throws a
leg over his shoulder and drags his mouth back in towards her. “Impress me,
then.”
He does his very best, keeping his hands spread on the bedspread, changing
angles and goes easily when she hooks her fingers on the chain of his medallion
and kisses him, tasting herself and purring to herself. It isn’t even about how
well he works, but he is enthusiastic and unashamed, making hungry, slurping,
lapping noises without care or worry. He does, in his way, worship, body curved
in supplication, mouth-forming prayers, and she drags her foot against his
spine, enjoying the curve of it, pleasure tensing low in her body and she
smiles at the fingers of wax still visible on the lovely little priest,
caressing his skin while she tugs his head up, curves her arm around his neck
and pressing him down on her nipple. “Suckle, the nature of which is rather
divorced from sucking, you’ll note.”
Merlin nods, body long and hot against hers, and she cradles him against her,
as his mouth works on her nipple, soft and rhythmic, tongue cradled against the
bottom, eyes closed and fingers curled and relaxed against his chest. She
strokes his hair as he works, trails her nails down the back of his neck,
shifting over until she can nudge her knee against his cock, dripping steadily
and his eyes flash open staring at her.
“Is ze with you right now?”
Merlin nods carefully as she keeps the pressure on his pretty little prick
steady, rubbing her thigh over it, as wax flaked off in a slow, wincing peel.
“And what is ze feeling about this, exactly?”
Merlin flushed. It was rude, of course, to talk about your partner’s soulmate,
or to mention your own too frequently. But she has none of her own, and
she’s…interested. Always interested in what it must be like, being half a
person. Does it bleed? Do they trade bits of themselves back and forth in order
to keep working? It was her sister, of love and longing, who spilt souls in
half, crammed them into bodies. Bodies are so much easier to manufacture than
souls, after all.
“Ze.” Merlin swallows. “Ze is…enjoying how. Um. They like how aroused I am. And
they’re…” His eyes flutter. “Ze’s sort of…just. Making sure I know that I
belong to zer. Ze is just…I can feel zer more. Ze is listening.”
She hums and reaches a hand down to stroke him; he shudders, biting his lip and
hands fisted against his chest, her thigh running under his prick, rubbing
against his sac and keeping his attention very firmly on her. She gets the rest
of the wax off of his cock, liking the little choked hiccups he has once she
gets a particularly…stubborn, piece off. She press his head back down to her
other nipple before shoving him down, wrapping both her legs over his head,
squeezing down until his ears are pressed flat against his skull, and he adapts
easily, tonguing into her carefully, undulating before dragging tongue back up
and sucking, slow and steady, an inch climbing her thighs, a twist in her
abdomen. “Yes, good boy. Just like that.”
He shudders under her foot and she cocks her head, sweat beading at her
temples. “Good, good boy. You are lovely, you are pleasing me deeply.”
Merlin sobs and practically rolls against the bed, fingers clasped in the
sheets, so she lowers her voice, keeps it steady even if all she wants to do is
grip her hair and press hard against his chin. “You’re such a good little love,
you’re doing exactly what I want.” She continues a stream of praise that’s
doing more for him than her hand on his cock had, every strip of skin that she
can see from between the fingers of wax is flushed red, and he’s mouthing at
her with more-than-an-under-flavour of desperation, fingers scraping against
the sheets, pulling back to breathe hot air over her skin, let it get hot and
sensitized before pushing in again.
“I should keep you.” She has her nails buried in her own skin. “I will keep
you, wrapped up like a present at the end of my bed, and use your mouth
whenever it pleases me. I would lock you in the dark like my own personal
monster.”
Merlin whines high and needy, pulling back, staring up at her, eyes hollowed
out with need, a fleshy abyss that she could fill with whatever she wanted and
she slams him back down to the bed, pinning him down and she is filthy wet, so
close she could take care of it herself in seconds, but his mouth is shiny and
he’s staring at her like she could fix him, if she just reached in and yanked
the right bit back into place.
“You are a sweetheart.” She murmurs, and slips down, and slides, shifts until
they’re joined and his eyes nearly cross as she sinks down, as she digs her
nails into his chest and sighs. Her body accepts him easily, greedily, his cock
feeling perfect inside her, where she’d been clenching emptily against nothing
every time Merlin had done something particularly clever. She arches back until
she’s fully seated. He’s shuddering beneath her, keeping still until she tells
him otherwise. He’s covered in sweat, flushed; wax chipping off where her nails
shred, bite marks scattered over his neck and she grinds against his hipbone,
squeezing him a little and he looks about ready to cry, or vibrate off the bed,
or turn into hydrogen.
She rises and falls, enjoying the slow drag of him inside her and he shudders
again, breathing shallow and quick and she wants to clasp her hands around his
neck, force him to take slow, deep gasps and not faint on her. But she doesn’t,
just presses her fingers to his lips. “How long has it been, little one?”
“Since, um.” Merlin licked his lips, squeezing his eyes closed a moment and
taking a slow, shuddering breath. “Since what?”
“Since someone has taken their pleasure from you like this.” She rises and
falls again so he has a clear idea about what she is referring to. His hands go
up to the cut ropes and he squeezes, taking in another set of harsh, quick
little breaths before calming himself down again.
“Um. Never.” He presses his hips more tightly against the bed. Trying to be
still. Trying to be good. She pets his lips again and he laps his tongue
against them, just a quick, friendly thing. She slips her fingers in to press
his tongue down. Just…just for a moment, before sliding out again.
“Never?”
“Not. Um.” He shifts on the bed and takes another few breaths. “I mean.
They’ve…in me. And. Um. Sometimes, with their mouths but not.” he drops his
eyes to where they’re joined and shudders moment. “It’s…”
“Good?’
He nods fervently, flushed as bright as ever she’s seen, and she might have
wanted to push him to the edge, to fully, properly test him, but with that tiny
admission she wants it to be slow and easy and she sets up a rhythm for it,
loving how his hips fidget upwards before he remembers himself. She presses
down on his lower abdomen to help remind him and he jerks up hard at that,
bouncing her up a bit and she bends over at the sudden rush of heat, the twist
in her and she curls inward so she can enjoy it, rolling her hips and Merlin
whimpers, feet kicking and holding himself in control, staring at her like
she’s the only thing with a gravitational pull in all of creation.
She feels almost that powerful, coming out of it and staring down at him,
smiling to herself—bracing herself— and earning every drop of sweat that beaded
off his forehead, keeping her pace steady, luxuriating in the burn of her own
thighs, in the desperate sounds coming out of Merlin as he slams his hands
against the wall, fingers digging into the paint, reaching and stretching as
far as he can to get there, a singular pale arch, too much weight resting on
his head and shoulders, hips up until she slams him back down again, grabbing
him by the head and kissing him, his arms helplessly flinging over her
shoulders, mouth slack and mindless.
                                      ~~~
Morgana can hear Morgause and Arthur on the other side of the wall, and if she
can hear them, then Merlin certainly can. He is lovely, truly lovely, and she
is watching his every breath, every movement and he’s… she doesn’t know if it’s
headspace or the story he tells himself or what. But he’s not entirely present,
moving them up the bed slowly, trying hard enough that she frees his legs and
before she knows it they’re up against the headboard, Merlin’s hands tense
against the wall like they’re bound there. And if she can hear her sister and
Arthur this clearly, then they must be right next to the wall as well.
She presses a hand to Merlin’s throat, not enough to cut off air, just to push
his ear to the wall and his eyes alight. He’s listening. She can tell he’s
listening, and he’s too far down in himself to even care if she notices. She
notices, of course, she notices things. She had been trained to observe and use
what she’s learned. And what she’s learning now is that Merlin is desperate to
hear what’s on the other side of that wall.
What she already knew is in a folder in her sister’s bag, waiting for them to
look over and begin a plan, because she wants them. She wants to keep them,
both of them. Maybe just for a bit, maybe for a week, maybe forever. She wants
them because they’re so hungry, so needful, and so obvious about it. You
can’t…or, she can’t help but look at them and see it. See where she could slip
in, grab a foothold and take them for all they were worth. They are black pits.
But.
Oh…but. This is the delicious part. This is the part that can make her
salivate. They need, they need, but they are…like her. They are complete. They
need because they want to need, they need to feed their own little motor-
engine. They didn’t need new parts, they just need fuel, and that was perfect.
They were needful, but not needy. Wouldn’t hold her or her sister back,
wouldn’t root them down once they got tired of Vulgate, took the money and did
something else.
And they’re special. Morgana…likes special things. She doesn’t keep them. But
she likes having them for a while, at least.
When Merlin goes, he goes perfectly. He goes because she gives him permission,
he goes with a cry and he goes as she hears a similar-maybe-familiar cry from
the other side of the wall. She flops down next to him, pulling his head into
her lap as he shivers and checks her watch. 4:36 am. She notes it for later
and, for the moment, lets Merlin snuggle until he’s calmed down enough to get
clean.
The wax peeled off in long, stringy webs and Merlin just stared at her for it,
eyes slitted and dazed, and he goes exactly where she wants him to, cuddles
close, almost…confused. She strokes through his hair and he doesn’t calm,
doesn’t focus on her, turns and looks at the door. “I should be…going.”
“Just rest for a bit.” She says, instead of anything. “You did well. You
deserve to rest for a bit.”
Merlin yawns hugely and flops closer to her, and it’s nearing five in the
morning. She’s accustomed to being up late, to getting home when people are
getting up, to finally taking off her shoes and showering as people are doing
the same in reverse. She’s used to crawling into bed at long last after
everyone has finally convinced their own tired bones to leave their covers.
Merlin is entirely exhausted and it’s a simply matter of putting one strong arm
around him and holding, until he’s fully asleep.
Morgana is good at getting what she wants.
                                      ---
                                      ---

     Loyalties Lie on the Flip of a Coin: The Trickster in Popular Culture
,
By Merlin Emmeryson (age 22 1/2) Arthur I can’t put that in an academic article
The role of the trickster is irrevocably (It’s precious when you use big
words.) tied with the sexual identity of a switch (You just jump right on in
there. Another introductory sentence would be good. Give them time to get into
your paper before you start throwing things at them). Ze is also one of the
most popular and widely used folklore characters in popular culture, (as you
will prove later? There’s a lot of declarative sentences really early in this
paper) although outside of the ‘safe’ realm of folklore zer identity as a
switch may be downplayed or even written out in order to be accepted by
mainstream culture. Many characters are written subtextually as switches, like
the Doctor from Doctor Who, (Merlin we need to talk about your abusive
relationship with commas) who switches dynamics when he regenerates into new
bodies, and few are overt—most of whom are outsiders or fringe members of
society, such as the con-man switch Neal Caffrey (i.e. Mr. Disturbingly
Attractive) Arthur I can’t put that in an academic article on the television
show White Collar. (This is your intro Merlin, it needs more folklore words and
also a thesis. And a concluding sentence. Also more intro) You’re not the boss
of me. Maybe my paper is avant-garde. (I am entirely the boss of you. Write it
correctly or you will fail and mope on me. I will mock you. You will end up
having to sell your ass on the street. I will eat all of your ice cream.)
Since Neal is a criminal and a con man, it is ‘safe’ to make him a trickster
and switch (is it ok for you to put safe in mocking single quotes twice in one
paragraph? I don’t think it is). Especially since he is partnered opposite the
happily married dom Peter whose wife Elizabeth helps cement the safeness (no
Merlin. No. Try words that exist in the real world.) Shakespeare made up words.
(You aren’t Shakespeare.) While the show plays at being transgressive (Real
words Merlin) Transgressive is a real word. (Word’s spell check disagrees with
you.) It’s not my fault it’s ill-read by inserting sexual subtext with Peter/
Neal/El or Peter/Neal, (because Neal is gorgeous) Arthur I can’t put that in an
academic article although it does not allow anything overt. The fans, being on
the internet and thus able to exert their agency (what?) Folklore thing. Just
go with it more freely, not only make this sexuality overt and expressed, they
further transgress by writing El/Neal and Neal/El, using Neal’s fluid nature to
challenge and flip dynamic norms. (You need to clarify that the dom’s name
comes first in pairings.) The dom’s name always comes first. We live in a
dominant centric society. (Is this paper for folklore or gender studies? Just
clarify it.)
The trickster, being a trickster and being a switch is untrustworthy because ze
is inconsistent (inconsistent. Learn to spell). Dom/sub, female/male, friend/
foe, ze is the embodiment of duality. (Are you sure duality is the word you
want?) In the case of the trickster culture hero (wait so is this like an
actual different typification thing or are you just making things up again?) I
do what I want, Thor this allows the trickster to overcome obstacles that
others cannot. The culture hero trickster is seen as benevolent and thus must
have a tie to a dynamic normative relationship, forming the third point of a
triangle and remaining balanced and sane (this sentence is confused. It was
wandering down the road and it kept picking up bits and then it had so many
bits and was dropping them everywhere.) The mythical trickster is often
portrayed in a more sinister light, taking up and putting down gender roles
like coats, hiding as one gender and tricking innocents into thinking they are
normal—that they even may be soul bonded. (You and commas need to spend some
time apart.) The most infamous trickster, Loki, stole Sigyn’s soulbond (do I
know who that is?) Norse goddess of fidelity (It’s funny because he stole her
away, isn’t it?) That is indeed why it’s funny. away from her fiancé by using
his magic to take away her bond and tying it to his own rib, as the Norse
believed that the name of one’s soulbonded partner would be carved onto one’s
rib (sources disagree on where this belief came from). The Loki/Sigyn myth is
argued, by scholars, to have been developed (in part) to explain disorders that
could dull or block a ‘natural’ soulbond, or would explain auditory
hallucinations that can occur with dysfunctional soulbonds. (Says who?) People.
Who know things. Don’t ask questions. Sources come later. Shhh. Sigyn, though
she found out Loki’s trick and decided to flee, eventually cleaved herself to
Loki loyally. Loki used this faux bond to make himself appear normal, and earn
the trust of the Asgardians. The unnatural state of affairs that arose from
this began to tear the very fabric of reality apart—eventually bringing about
Ragnorak. Additionally Loki was unable to remain faithful to Sigyn, his chaotic
nature calling him to submit to the frost giantess Angroboda, with whom his
monstrous offspring were born[1]. Of course, Loki’s nature is not entirely
malevolent, although that is how he is most often portrayed (because he caused
the end of the world.) Don’t be so judgmental. (He caused the end of the world,
Merlin.) He was chained up in his kid’s entrails underground while a snake
dripped poison in his eyes. That’ll make a guy cranky.
Contrasted with Loki is the Native American trickster Coyote, who while
transgressive, (you really like that word) had a place within his own society
from which to operate. Coyote uses his disconnect from the dynamic duality to
prank and trick the deserving. (Examples?) SOURCES COME LATER. I HAVE A LEGEND
I JUST NEED TO FIND IT, OH GOD DID WE LOSE THAT BOOK WHER-here it is.
The question then is, is Coyote written as a positive figure because switches
are an accepted part of Native American culture, or are switches an accepted
part of Native American culture because Coyote is a positive trickster/switch?
(That sentence made no sense at all, actually.) In The Dynamics of Non-Dynamism
Patricia Wriggly states that “the actual behaviour and psychological stability
of non-dynamic normative persons—be they non-dynamic entirely or dual dynamic,
depends largely on the acceptance of their society, as the dynamic atypical
will commonly take on whatever role their culture has set up for them (361).”
                                      ---
January, 2012
“You can go if you want.” Arthur offered, as another quarter hour passed in the
waiting room with no end in sight. They hadn’t let him go in. He was medical
proxy, but Merlin was still able to communicate and consent to his own medical
procedures, so Arthur was out here. Staring at the bland-boring-beige walls and
wanting, somewhat, to burn them down. “We’ll be fine.”
Gwen looked down at her gloves. “I don’t mind.”
Arthur was too tired to argue and Gwen continued to not ask any questions,
didn’t even look at him funny. Which meant she had to know something about them
was wrong, and tender, and she was just being…nice? Maybe she’d suspected for a
while. Maybe they all had. But she didn’t say anything, didn’t look at his
wrists and try to catch signs of the bruises welts. Arthur wasn’t sure whether
to be thankful for that or not. Maybe she was just saving it up for later.
Maybe she was hoping to find out more. What else could they have been doing?
The two of them, alone, in their flat, chained up and no one else there for
them to blame. Even if this mess had left Gwen thinking they scened together in
threesomes, which was more damning than Arthur wanted to deal with.
Jesus, how stupid had they been? Both being tied up, and the keys across the
room. That was. They’d gotten too comfortable. What if Merlin had gotten
seriously hurt and the mobile had been too far away? What if. He would have
gotten the mattress free eventually but. But there were so many things that
could go wrong. He should sue the company who made those cuffs. He should.
But Merlin had been hurt, and it was Arthur job to stop that from happening.
He’d failed and if he could take all of Merlin’s pain, Merlin could take the
sick stench of guilt away from Arthur.
“He’ll be okay.” Gwen lifted her hand to touch his shoulder and then dropped
it. “Just. Arthur, I won’t. I don’t know what I saw, and I’m not saying
anything, but I won’t ever bring it up again, and you won’t ever need to worry
about me. I don’t.” Gwen looked at her own nails and they sat there awhile,
silent as too many other people breathed around them. “It doesn’t matter to
me.”
Arthur nodded, staring at nothing. Staring at his nails. Morgause and Morgana
had guessed, had figured them out with much less evidence and they had…
carnival freakshow. Publicity tour. He has a headache, right at the base of his
skull, reaching with tendril fingers up to his temples and striking hard just
behind his eyes. Gwen had been the first person he could think of who would, at
least, be somewhat discreet. He just wanted to take Merlin home, tuck himself
over Merlin and just stay there.
Gwen shifted in her seat and continued to sit by him. She inhaled again and he
looked over. She’d steeled herself and turned to face him, carefully putting
her hand over his wrist. “Arthur, you and Merlin are my friends.”
He stared at her and she looked down at her hand and squeezed. “You are my
friends and I. I don’t. I’m happy you trusted me enough to call me when there
was a…problem.”
He looked at his feet and nodded. She nodded to herself and let go of his arm
carefully, like he’d blow away if she did it too quickly.
There was a sharp pull in his shoulder, a wrenching, horrible pain, before it
slowly ebbed away to a terrible, frustrating ache. He jerked in his seat, got
up to his feet, and began pacing to try and cover for it. Soulmates tended to
heal faster than unbonded persons did, because the pair could spread the injury
across the two of them, lessen the severity by half. It’d saved plenty of
people from death, turning terminal cancer into something more treatable. It
also gave the injured party something nearly tangible and inescapable to hold
onto. Rarely did one partner end in a coma that the other didn’t either join
them in, or pull them out of.
If Merlin had lost blood, Arthur’s would have been the best for a transfusion,
regardless of blood type. Not that Arthur would have been able to convince
anyone of that. Or if Merlin lost a kidney and needed Arthur’s or…a thousand
ways Merlin could injure himself and not get the best treatment because they
were... Because. They-- Or... Or if Merlin got really sick, they’d put him on
bond suppressants so his far and away bondmate wouldn’t get any of the adverse
reactions to the treatment without full consent and Arthur…
He didn’t panic. He just stared at the drinking fountain and didn’t panic. His
chest hurt and he rubbed it absently, fingers rolling over raised, smooth scars
and he didn’t panic.
If they, in the future, went to a nursing home there would be no guarantee
they’d be in the same room, for all the legal papers they’d signed.
He kept breathing. Kept breathing. He stepped aside as a kid in an arm cast
pushed past him to get water. Gwen led him back into the waiting room, and
there was Merlin, arm in a sling and shoulder immobilized. He signed something
awkwardly, holding a prescription. He smiled when he saw them, said something
and Arthur just nodded along, putting his arm around him. They’d never been on
painkillers before. He wondered how that would work.
Merlin was safe under his arm. He and Gwen were talking now. Maybe Merlin was
trying to spin it, make her forget what exactly she had seen. He was probably
attempting to adorable his way out of that one, like he’d had every other thing
in their lives, and maybe, maybe by the end of the ride Gwen would have some
reasonable doubt.
Freya would have been allowed into the back, had Elyan gotten injured. Hell, in
most cases, if Leon had taken the sub he was dating, or (since it was Leon),
collared to the emergency room, he would have been allowed in, soulbonded or
not. Leon was a serial monogamist who dated one sub extremely seriously for
several years until it ended for one reason or another. Ze met zer soulmate, ze
moved to Australia, ze got freaked about the level of commitment and fled. One
thing or another.
Maybe he should have gotten Leon and Merlin to date. Leon was disturbingly
loyal to every single one of his subs, and never had been (no matter how much
of a flagrant arseface said sub was to him) the one to call it off.
If Merlin and Leon dated, Leon would probably just grow to accept Arthur and
Merlin’s relationship, like he’d accept Kathy stealing (over the course of
their three year relationship) thirty thousand dollars from him-- not including
the rent he’d paid for her, and how many times he’d bailed her out of the drunk
tank. She’d been an actor, apparently, and just moments away from her big
break. Arthur had listened to one, singular, over-dramatic, over-wrought
monologue and left. And Leon had loved her and given her more money and told
her not to worry about it, until she took his telly and ran off with a
“director.” They tried not to assume she’d been murdered.
Or Juan! Juan had cheated (over his and Leon’s five years) on Leon, to their
knowledge, at least once a month, and they’d fight and Juan would cry and Leon
would just take him back, right up until Juan had tried to sleep with Percy and
Percy had…well, they’re pretty sure Percy did something to properly, really,
scare Juan off, but they couldn’t think of what. But Percy did not sleep with
people his mates were sleeping with. Or had slept with. Or wanted to sleep
with. Or were related to.
Percy had once pulled over on his way to work to help a sub fix their car,
gotten them to their work so he could explain to their (apparently psychotic)
boss what had happened, called in to work to his (really understanding because
it was fucking Percy, and Percy had helped her do her taxes and cleaned the
entire building by himself when the custodial staff had been short-handed) boss
and promised to work on his days off in exchange, and taken the newly fired sub
out for lunch to make him feel better, spending the entire day together, and
then introduced said sub to the group, and when one of Percy’s friends (who
Arthur didn’t know) showed an interest that said sub returned, Percy had
stepped the fuck off and gotten them a reservation at the restaurant of a chef
who he’d saved from drowning. True story.
To date, Leon’s only healthy relationship had been with Priya Shrivastava (two
years), and they’d hadn’t been great together, but she had, at least, been in
graduate school studying henna art in its traditional and contemporary
globalized forms (like how, since henna’s rise in popularity in America,
asymmetrical floral vines flowing down from the index finger had become popular
in India, especially since the design had been seen on movies stars, even
though the asymmetrical design breaks with traditional rules of Indian body
art, something Merlin had found fascinating and had interrogated Priya
fervently and Arthur had learned far more than he wanted to, as she decorated
his hands and arms with a peacock motif. (“No! No peacocks! No peacocks. If you
squeeze a peacock his penis comes out and there was a book and Sapphos and
sudden bestiality and I’m going to claw my eyes out now, why, why, why do books
not have warnings?” Merlin had sobbed upon seeing them. For the next two weeks.
Arthur had taken to long sleeves.)) and Arthur had let her practice on him, and
take pictures for her projects, because he was the only one of them capable of
sitting still. She’d finished her degree and moved back home to Banaras because
her family had needed her. Leon had considered moving, but they’d sat on him
until he realized there was nothing for him in India, except Priya, and while
they hadn’t been able to convince him Priya wasn’t worth it, they had managed
to sit on him long enough for Priya to find someone her family found more
appropriate, thus renouncing Leon.
If Merlin and Leon dated, then Arthur would just be another thing Leon looked
over blindly because he just wanted to love somebody. Arthur decided he might
bring it up later. Maybe. Leon was a foundational member of that friend group,
if…if they attached themselves like that then…
Then Arthur didn’t know. Arthur was tired, and worried, and he wanted to
just…be done with this. It was a terrible secret, and they were terrible at
keeping it, and the only way to do it was to just… Gwaine had been someone
Merlin had just dated too long, and maybe he’d-- Arthur still didn’t know what
Gwaine had thought of them. And Morgause and Morgana had just paid too much
attention. They'd had too many cameras on them when they had been being stupid.
When they had thought they’d had the crowd on their side. They were terrible at
this. That was just the brunt of it. They were really terrible at this.
Probably.... Maybe-- Probably because they were waiting for someone to catch
them, Arthur thought.
                                      ---
December, 2011
Arthur wakes up to a sudden rush of untempered panic that tastes exactly like
muddy pond water. Merlin.
He pushes himself up, rolls out of bed, and maybe Morgause wakes up, and maybe
she doesn’t. Arthur doesn’t know how to sleep next to people who aren’t Merlin.
He kept waking up in the night, wanting to turn over, but not wanting to
attract attention. Wanting to spread out but not wanting to knock his limbs
against hers. He almost wondered, somewhere around nine am (and he was still
tired at nine am, because he’d been up until five) if Merlin had this kind of
trouble, except…no. Merlin never stayed the entire night. He always came home
to Arthur.
Arthur can’t find his clothes right away, so he ventures out naked and finds
Merlin sitting in what had to be Morgana’s robe, staring down at a file folder.
He looks up at Arthur, lips thinned and eyes wide and Arthur goes to see what
he’s looking at.
Pictures.
Pictures of them. Arthur tugs them out of Merlin’s hand. Security camera,
security cameras at Vulgate, and it was… They’d gotten high off the
possibilities, they’d been buzzed off finally, finally being able to
just…touch. In. In public and then.
It was Merlin in his lap, in the chair. Kissing. Or, he knows they were
kissing. The picture doesn’t show anything explicit. The camera was too far
away, and there were too many people, and Arthur and Merlin are so tangled that
it doesn’t actually matter what they were doing. If…if Freya was looking at
this, she’d just snort and not think anything of it. This is who they are. This
is how they have presented themselves.
Merlin would be able to spin it. He’d focus on the outrage of being spied on,
or telling them that they were creepy. Or. Or something. Manipulate them right
back, because maybe they used their cameras to spy on them all night, but they
didn’t need to print the pictures off. Take them home. Make them into one of
Merlin’s stories. Merlin would ask what they wanted with the two of them.
“You were snooping?”
Merlin shrugs with a shoulder and frowns at the pictures. “I feel like we’re a
job. Or like. One of the…” He trails off, but Arthur hears him anyway. It feels
like they’re someone Merlin made up.
“Can’t we just…take them and go?” Arthur asks. And there are. There are notes?
It’s in a cipher (“Aimooi qk kai ycii eicmiemqqi ck yiiwqa moaa eiioaek a
aciyaw kiqiagkoqe scowg kommikm com qm gcik acm qa qmkiwk kommikm aawmoqam
qamiiikmqam qm qk moi saw moiw ycqi aicoag iaeo cmoii moam kocowg ci iuayqaig
eaim ck moam eaa ci iuewaqaig…”) and Merlin could probably break it if he
wanted, but then they’d need to take it, and that would be more telling
than…than playing it off…
“They might have copies.” Merlin says, frowning. “I found this.”
“And we need to do something about it.” Arthur says.
“No, I mean.” Merlin looks around. “They could have hidden it better, but they
didn’t. I found it.” Merlin taps the photographs, licks his lips, thinks,
standing in the kitchen of a penthouse they just went to. Like morons, because
they just... Thought it’d be okay. Are a little bit too close to living in
fantasy than is healthy. Maybe if we go here we’ll find those two people who
will accept us for who we are.
And who knew. Maybe they would. Maybe they already do, but they have pictures.
They have notes. And that is… it makes Arthur’s skin crawl and he knows better
than to stay somewhere his feet are telling him to leave.
“They wanted you to find it?” Arthur doesn’t know what any of this means except
that they need to go. They didn’t give either of those two their mobile
numbers, and if they just…if they just go then they might. Maybe Morgause just
watches anyone her sister wants to sleep with. It makes sense. A sort of creepy
kind of sense, given the cipher notes
“Maybe.” Merlin said, “They didn’t follow us home. They just took what was
available. And it’s not a very clear shot.” It isn’t. There’s just there, in
the image, and they could be doing anything. It’s not a close-up. Most of the
rest of them are just…of them. Being normal. Affectionate, yes, but they always
are. Close, but it’s a club. People get lost in those.
They could just leave. Not come back, and if either of those two find them…deal
with it then. That’s a terrible plan.
Merlin writes something on the bottom of the notes section and closes the
folder. “Go get your clothes, I’m going to get mine.”
Arthur looks up and Merlin is still scowling at the folder, so he sneaks into
the bedroom, collects what clothing he can find, and Merlin creeps out about as
sneakily, though Arthur suspects that that is not, in fact, his shirt. Merlin
checks everything is in his handbag.
“What do we—”
“We won’t.” Merlin says with a tone of finality and he looks at Arthur, and
then the bedroom door and he doesn’t actually hide the longing. It’s there. It.
Arthur doesn’t know what it tastes like, because he wasn’t there for that
formative memory, but he feels it and Merlin doesn’t try and hide it from him.
“We could—” Arthur almost suggests, but. No. They can’t. Not with the pictures
and the notes and the…everything. It’s dangerous and Arthur doesn’t know if
they’ll ever find someone to tell. If. If now they’ll just be more careful and
Merlin will just stop sleeping with anyone at all because it’s been too many
close calls too soon. “You liked them.”
Merlin wraps his coat around himself, gives Arthur’s back to Arthur. “If we
want to tell someone that is our choice. No one gets to make it for us or…or
take pictures or…” Merlin thins his mouth into a line. “They let me find that,
I think, so we’d know they know and…I don’t know. I don’t know what their
endgame was but I’m not.”
They slip out the door and Merlin isn’t angry. He was angry for just a flash,
just…a moment, and then he’d written his note and was fine again. Arthur
doesn’t ask him what he wrote, just watches Merlin shove his hands into his
coat pockets, stare at nothing, and manoeuvre them onto the streets, losing
themselves in the crowd.
“What now?”
“We go home.” Merlin says, keeping his distance, and Arthur tucks his hands in
his pockets. “We think about how to. What to do now. They could find us if they
really wanted to, but. I’ll.” Merlin looks tired and so Arthur tugs him in,
lets him rest his head against his shoulder. No one is paying attention, and
Merlin looks heartbroken enough for it, anyways. “I want to go home.”
“I’ll get us there.” Arthur says.
                                      ---
January 2012
They drove home quietly and Arthur waved a hand to Gwen. She didn’t try and
follow them out, but she took Arthur’s wrist again and squeezed. He nodded and
maybe, might have tried to smile. He didn’t... He didn’t really know. He walked
Merlin up to their flat; the lift was still broken, so they took the stairs,
slowly. The flat was unlocked, still, and Arthur looked around. Nothing looked
obviously stolen, the telly was still there, so he locked the door behind him-
- checking to see if it worked. It didn’t. He wondered how long that’d been
broken. He put the chain on and wrote a note to himself on the counter to call
the landlord. Maybe Gwen had broken the door down.
He gets them to their bedroom, navigating the spindly towers of books and piles
of probably dirty laundry. He removes Merlin’s trousers. Stopped. Took off
Merlin’s shoes and socks, put the socks in the hamper. The trousers in the
hamper. Shoes by the door. He kept the shirt on. It was too big, thick weight
and with the right amount of buttons. It made Merlin look small, or fragile. Or
maybe that was the heavy white sling, keeping his arm right next to his side.
Arthur rubbed the fabric and tried to feel better. He usually felt better when
Merlin was in his clothing. That usually worked. When no magical feeling of
comfort and safety rushed in, Arthur settled for tucking Merlin into bed,
putting the right amount of pillows under his head and pulling the blankets to
his chin.
He stood. He began cleaning. The room needed to be cleaned. Arthur had been
working more, and Merlin was in the middle of a project about something,
something, something in expressive culture, something as seen by the variants
of, something, something, that followed the volitional, temporal action of
something taken in the context of globalization and something, something,
something caused the emergence of art with something foci and something,
something, something super space ray death lasers.
Merlin let him clean without comment; let Arthur leave and put a load of
laundry in, let Arthur come back and hold up books so he could say whether it
was okay to put them back or not and where they went if it was. He even let
Arthur sweep and vacuum and then stand in the middle of their, comparatively,
clean room and stare down at his feet, five seconds from alphabetizing their
surprisingly large CD collection, or reorganizing the stuffed animals Merlin
had brought along with him, worried about their mental health because Toy Story
was a terrible thing to show someone like Merlin. He’d cried over all his toys
and promised he loved them and Toy Story 2 had brought them all down from the
top of his closet as hugged every single one of them and cried about the ones
he’d thoughtlessly and cruelly given to charity shops and boot sales.
Toy Story 3 had triggered an actual mental breakdown, Arthur thought, but that
was better left unconsidered. Arthur moved Beary and Nala to snuggle a little
more, since they were dating. Or siblings. Depending. Identities
were…malleable.
“What do we do?” Merlin asked as Arthur fiddled with Scarlet O’Hara’s hat,
letting her put a hand on Ollie The Otter of Oinksville (he was an otter raised
by pigs. It was quite tragic, but had saved them from a fair few aerial
attacks, seeing as pigs couldn’t look up.)
“She said she wouldn’t say anything.” Arthur looked at the display, stroking
Mustard’s raggedy and threadbare pelt, remembering him as the Sheriff of Fairly
Awesome Land. “I had to. You were hurt. You should have. We could have lifted
the mattress and gotten the tie-points and we would have.” Arthur exhaled,
squeezing Mustard’s paw and he stared at nothing for a moment. “I couldn’t
think of who else to call.”
Merlin was quiet he isn’t angry at Arthur, for all that Arthur is, unfairly
(maybe), angry at him for not just…for not just letting Arthur deal with the
problem. His wrists ache and he rubs, Merlin reaches and he goes. Merlin pulls
him down until he sits on the bed and Arthur sits. “You aren’t allowed to get
hurt.”
“Yeah, that rule doesn’t really work.” Merlin sighed and put his hand on his
stomach staring up at the ceiling. “I’m a person of action.”
“You are a person of stupid action. You tried to climb a slide with a pocket
knife.”
“I saw a play about pirates!” Merlin defended.
“You fell out of the top of a tree and bruised your arm so badly you couldn’t
lift it.”
“In the process of befriending a squirrel and thus beginning my squirrel army.”
Merlin reasoned and Arthur put his hand on Merlin’s stomach too, because it
seemed the thing to do. “It’s good neither of us have wisdom teeth, I guess.”
Merlin put his hand over Arthur’s. “I’m going to be fine. You’ll make sure I do
my exercises and take the pills and I’ll get to be spoiled rotten for a few
days.”
Arthur shucked off his hoodie and trousers, sliding into bed and wrapping
Merlin up as carefully as possible, keeping him against the wall, Arthur
between Merlin and the rest of the world, mindful of his arm and taking a deep
breath.
They sat a moment. “It’ll be better before you know it.” Merlin said, putting
his hand to Arthur’s shoulder. “Stop feeling angry at me. I don’t like when
you’re angry with me. I’m just going to be loveable until you stop.”
“You’re an idiot.” Arthur grumbled.
“You’re fieldwork, I’m ivory tower, remember?” Merlin rubbed his thumb along
Arthur’s index finger. “I’m meant to be the head-in-the-clouds academic, while
you’re the world weary—”
“She’ll look at us differently.” Arthur interrupted, “Even if she never says
anything, she’ll…she’ll look at us differently.”
Merlin rested his head back against the pillow and sighed. “I know. We’ll.
We’ll make up something. Give me time and we can.” Merlin squeezed his eyes
shut. “There has to be-- A prank or… A dare. We were drunk? We got a dom and
ze…left? Or if we just keep…acting normal she’ll. She’ll make up something
herself.”
Arthur stroked Merlin’s back. “It was just the two of us, naked, in a room that
doesn’t look like it belongs to either of us, chained up, and, until I went to
the bathroom, I was still spackled with come. We smelled like sex. There is
nothing else we could have been doing.”
They were quiet.
“We could move.” Merlin offered, after a long while.
“We could tell her.” Arthur counter-offered and they’d…they’d been keeping a
secret for long enough that the idea of telling someone was almost heresy.
“We can’t tell-“ Merlin began and then sighed, “can’t move either, really.
It’s. It’s a big city. We. We could just…” But they liked their friends. They
were the first people who just…didn’t mind that they were all over each other.
And. And maybe. Maybe that meant…
“We’re not perverts. We’re soulbonded, and even if we can never recognize, or
prove that, it’s true.” Arthur awkwardly managed to get their hands tangled
together. “If we just. She wouldn’t be able to blame us. She has a weird
soulbond going on. She knows what it’s like.”
Merlin sighed. “But what if. What is she?” Merlin bit the inside of his cheek.
“We’re not wrong. And I don’t want you to think we are.” He kissed Arthur’s
throat. “That’s why we’re keeping it a secret now. We aren’t wrong. We aren’t
messed up. We aren’t a mistake.”
“And maybe we should tell someone.’ Arthur argued. “Maybe. Maybe it’d be nice
to be able to kiss each other in front of our close friends without. Panic.
And. And we wouldn’t need to flirt with doms, and we could just.” Arthur
exhaled and loosened his grip. “Gwen wouldn’t tell anyone. Even if she never
talked to us again, she wouldn’t tell anyone.” Arthur ran his hand down
Merlin’s ribs. “We can’t…keep hiding forever and escaping once people figure us
out.”
Merlin squeezed Arthur’s fingers. “I just don’t want for you to feel like we
did when we were teenagers. You were. You felt guilty all the time, and I
didn’t know how to fix it, and it wasn’t until we’d been living here that you
haven’t. I haven’t felt you feel bad about us. And I don’t want you to feel bad
about us, because we’re fine.” Merlin shifted that little bit closer. “So if
you want to tell her, that’s good. But don’t feel guilty again.”
Arthur rubbed his thumb over Merlin’s knuckles. “I think. I think as long as
we’re hiding it, I’m going to always feel bad about it, because it’s. It’s like
we’re ashamed, and I’m not. I don’t know why we soulbonded, and I don’t know
what would have happened if we didn’t, but you belong to me, and I belong to
you and that. That should be good enough.”
Merlin thought about it and squeezed Arthur’s hand.
“Okay.” He agreed, quietly, shutting himself down and away from Arthur. Arthur
lay there in the dark until he followed.
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