#omfhh

Anyone with half a brain probably would have told Arthur his current state of suffering and misery was his own damn fault—and those were exactly the sort of people Arthur did not want to talk to in his current state of suffering and misery, thank you very much. 

Because honestly, it wasn’t his own damn fault, it was Merlin’s, Merlin’s and... that bloke’s. And if Arthur wasn’t half sure that Merlin was currently tangled up in his sheets with said bloke he'd had a date with that night, Arthur would have gone over to Merlin's place, let himself in, and—

(—probably crawled into bed with the raven haired man, and confessed his deepest secrets with tugs and presses and pleas and bumps and lips and)

—given him a piece of his mind God damnit.

But Merlin had had a date with that bloke that night, and Arthur wasn't sure if Merlin was alone just then but God he needed him to be—n e e d e d him to be.

He really should have told Merlin sooner, should have caught his hand and held him back before he left Arthur’s flat for his date that evening. He should have caught him, he should have done something about the jealous, empty pit in the bottom of his stomach. He should have done something.

But he hadn’t. And because Arthur Pendragon, a man who had been about Doing Things his entire life, had chosen the most important thing not to do something about, he found himself sulking in his flat alone that night, ignoring text after text after prying text from friend and sister alike who were worried about him because they had known he needed to do something but had expected him to do nothing and they were worried about him.

Well so was he, honestly. 

When he finally picked up his phone, instead of returning any one of the numerous texts he’d been ignoring all night, he dialed Merlin's number. 

And immediately began to pray for voicemail, thinking he wouldn’t be able to handle actually talking to Merlin just then. He just... he wouldn’t be able to do it. 

“Hello, you’ve reached Merlin! Er, well, actually, you haven’t reached me at all, because I’m not here. But if you could just pretend that beeping tone is me saying ‘Hello there, friend!’ and leave your message, I’ll get back to you before you know it and we can just forget that I never answered your call!”

Arthur breathed out a sigh of relief as Merlin’s all too familiar voicemail message played for him, phone clutched tightly in his hand before it beeped, signalling his need to talk. He froze, not sure what to say, and quickly pulled the phone away from his ear to hang up.

Right. That had been. R i g h t.

He paused before he dialed again, letting the knowledge sink in that the only reason Merlin wouldn’t answer the phone for him just then would be because it was on the charger. In the other room. Because he’d gone to bed. Because—

Take two then.

He dialed again, waited for voicemail, and this time, when the beep came, he was… more ready than he had been last time. Barely, of course, but still somewhat ready all the same. 

“It should be M E.”

He hung up again quickly then; he hadn't exactly planned on blurting out a thing like that—of course he hadn't, but God, it'd come out anyway hadn't it? And there really was no taking it back at this point so it was better to just... go with it, to put everything out there already.

“I just mean,” he began when he tried it a third time, “that… if you're in bed with him right now… you shouldn't be, you should be with M E.”

Click—dial.

Ring—beep.

“And it's not just in bed we should be, it’s… God it's everywhere, Merlin. Out on dates and eating dinner at romantic restaurants and…seeing movies and cuddling on the couch together and…”

He hung up again, mid-sentence that time; Merlin was going to listen to those voicemails eventually, and there was no taking them back. Once Merlin heard them... there was no unhearing a n y of it. And Arthur knew that fact alone should have prevented him from making any more calls, from leaving any more messages for Merlin. And yet—

—he called him again anyway. And when he got voicemail this time, all he said was, “I love you.”

Upon hanging up that time, he turned his phone upside down and tried not to think about the damage he had just done and if it could ever be repaired or if he even wanted it to be.