note: many thanks to my wonderful beta, schweet_heart (on ao3), without whom this fic wouldn't be worth reading.

1. e4 e5 (the opening)

Arthur had never needed to run across campus to class before, so it was only natural that the first and only time he did it would result in him falling over an inconvenient stretched out leg, as if the universe wanted him to suffer for being late.

"Look," the boy who tripped him began hesitantly, "we're both to blame here."

Arthur merely breathed in, glaring at him, so the boy rushed on, "You tripped over my leg, but you weren't looking where you were going, either."

"And the translation of hideously cheap coffee from your travel mug to my sweatshirt? How did that come about, pray tell?"

The boy grew mutinous. "You shouldn't have called me a pointless trammel in your God-given path to class, then," he muttered.

"Who the hell sits down in the middle of the road and plays on his phone?" Arthur shouted, forgetting he was still sprawled out on the ground.

"You're on a bloody lawn," the boy yelled back, distractingly pretty with his flushed cheeks and dark hair. "You would've seen that if you'd looked up from your phone."

Arthur finally took a look around. They were indeed in the campus park, incongruously located amongst stylishly drab odes to pedagogy and affectionately called the Dick following a disastrous campus-wide naming poll.

"Huh," Arthur said, pushing himself up.

The boy looked unimpressed and folded his arms.

"I'd like my apology before I die," he said.

"Plan to live forever, do you?" Arthur spat, seeing his notes scattered around the two of them. He gritted his teeth. Complex Analysis II, beckoning him with its attendance-counts-for-marks sheet, was impossible to get to on time now, thanks to the fucker getting to his feet before him.

"If that's what it takes to knock you down a couple pegs," Fucker-with-the-full-lips answered shortly. "Since clearly no one's ever bothered to show you how much of an ass you are till now."

"Why, thank you," Arthur said, watching as the boy bent to pick up Arthur's papers, refusing to help. "Wonder why."

"Because you're the famous Arthur Pendragon whose father the Vice-Chancellor regularly threatens students with expulsion and academic ruin?" the boy offered, along with Arthur's notes. Arthur snatched them out of his hand. He would contest those claims but they weren't baseless, no matter how much Arthur wasn't his father.

"Pity that's not stopping you right now." (Didn't mean he couldn't use those claims when he was so inclined.)

"At least a thanks?" Fucker said with an annoying smile and his high cheekbones virtually glinting in the sun.

"Fuck off," Arthur muttered, glancing at the boy's phone. The boy followed his gaze and—

"Shit!" He dived for the device, tapped it a couple of times in panic, then glowered at Arthur.

"You made me lose on time!"

"What?"

"I hope you fail your class!"

The boy stalked off. Arthur stared after him almost ruefully—then remembered his maths class and dashed off, reeking of disgusting coffee all day.

2. f4 exf4 (the apology)

Losing on time was something chess players did, which was why Arthur found himself climbing the stairs to the third floor of the Willy (really, only his dad called it the William Baker Hall of Activities) the following week in an effort to track down the chess club.

Arthur didn't want to be there. It was all Morgana's fault. And Gwen, with her guilt-inducing eyes.

And the boy, who disappeared whenever Arthur spotted him, made eye contact, and pretended to take a step towards him.

("He's Gwen's friend, so he's my friend," Morgana told him. Arthur had long ago stopped hoping that she would take his side, even though she was his sister. "You know it was your fault, so beg forgiveness before I make you regret being alive. And his name's Merlin—yes, shut up—so stop calling him the boy.")

Classroom 382B was a dingy sliding-door room. Arthur wrinkled his nose as his eyes ran over the handmade Tintagel Chess Club — Join Today! poster tacked onto the door. He slid the door open, not without some difficulty.

There were fourteen people in the room, arrayed on either side of a long table holding seven chessboards in various stages of play. Thirteen froze at the sight of the Vice-Chancellor's son; Arthur chose to believe it was because his handsomeness regularly struck people dumb. He wasn't really here for chess anyway—he just wanted to get Morgana and Gwen (mostly Morgana) off his back and maybe shamefully ogle the unfortunately attractive nerd a bit.

"Hi," Arthur announced to the room. "Arthur here. Just looking for someone."

The fourteenth somewhere in the back emitted a groan (of disgust, Arthur supposed, unsurprised). Arthur craned his neck and—yeah, there he was. Merlin. Joke of a name, especially since Gwen and Morgana had instantly made the mythical connection and teased him to no end about destiny and soulmates born to find each other.

"You," Arthur called. "Can I talk to you?"

Merlin didn't look away from the board in front of him, but colour rushed into his cheeks and his fists clenched.

"I've got a name, and no, not until this game's finished," Merlin said, glaring at the chess pieces as if they'd ruined his life.

Merlin's opponent stared at him in shock. "You know Arthur Pendragon?" he hissed, as if Arthur didn't have ears.

Merlin casually moved a bishop—

"Is that a bishop?"

"Yes, shut up."

—and, okay, it wasn't like Arthur needed to impress Merlin, did he? He did not—and the opponent snapped back to the game, frowning slightly as he slipped back into intense concentration.

Arthur cheerfully manoeuvred his way around the first six pairs of people who were now busy trying not to be awestruck and play at the same time and drew up a chair next to Merlin. Merlin jerked a bit, but otherwise reacted not at all.

Ten minutes passed, and Merlin made all of two moves. Arthur yawned widely.

"Quiet," Merlin muttered, blinking once and dragging his black queen over to a square in line with the white king. His opponent inhaled sharply and intercepted the check with a rook.

Arthur yawned again. Merlin turned to scowl at him.

"Do you mind?" he demanded.

"Not really," Arthur said.

Merlin blinked.

"Why don't you fuck off and I'll meet you outside Willy in about twenty minutes?" he elected to say in the end.

"You'll lose before then, don't worry, Merls," the opponent told him.

Merlin whipped around to glare at him, too. "Shut up, Mordred."

Merlin clearly had anger management issues. Arthur held back his snort as Mordred watched his pawn get eaten up by Merlin's queen.

"You'll be there?" he asked Merlin.

"Unless I decide to jump out the window to escape you, yes. Now, shoo."

Arthur left with a broad smile, ignoring the frenzied whispers that broke out in his wake.

3. Bc4 Qh4+ (the fall)

"What," Merlin said flatly as he appeared in Arthur's line of sight.

"Six minutes," Arthur said, not budging from his place against the wall of the building. "You won?"

"He resigned. As if I'd lose to that arrogant, pompous brat," Merlin huffed, rolling his eyes. Then he quickly gathered himself. "Speaking of, what do you want?"

"I want to say I'm sorry," Arthur said. "I shouldn't have blamed you for something that was my fault in the first place."

Merlin looked gobsmacked. Then he smiled a little, and every thought in Arthur's mind faded into insignificance. It was as if the memory of Merlin flinging his coffee mug at him was sweetening by the day.

"Pigs are flying today if the Vice-Chancellor's berk of a son is apologising to me," Merlin declared, looking up at the skies.

"They're up there, just invisible," Arthur said, wry. "Anyway, I had more to say, wait—"

He dramatically pulled out a piece of paper from his blazer pocket (Arthur didn't wear sweatshirts all the time) and unfolded it. "I'm an incandescent cretin and I deserved the coffee bath I got. I'm an idiot who deserves to fail Maths and I pray I get my comeuppance in mojitos next time." He snuck a glance at Merlin. "God, Morgana and Gwen can be vicious when they want to be."

Merlin snorted. Arthur quickly put the paper away before Merlin could see it was just his two-week-old shopping list.

4. Kf1 b5?! (the plan)

"So," Morgana said, irritating Arthur already. "How was Merlin?"

"Alive?" Arthur said. "Go away."

"Why?" Morgana's sneer outmatched Arthur's sometimes and, unfortunately, this was one of those times. "Interrupting your Very Important Maths Work that actually looks like an eight-by-eight chequered board with, oh my, chess pieces on it?"

"I'm taking up a new hobby," Arthur said defensively. Morgana laughed.

"New hobby? Don't think I don't know how you hid your chess board from Dad in school, Arthur."

"Shut up," Arthur said, but without much heat. Of course he loved chess. Strategy, planning, cunning. Bit of maths and memorisation. Arthur was good, no, bloody fantastic at those. In another life, he would've probably been a king, the king Morgana and Gwen teased him about.

"No, but really, Arthur." Morgana leaned close. "How's Merlin?"

"He's…" Arthur cast about for the right words to say. "Certainly something."

"Gwen talks about him a lot," Morgana mused. "I haven't yet had the pleasure of talking to him at length, though. He always blushes and runs away whenever he sees me. I suppose ethereal beauty does that to people."

That most certainly did not upset Arthur.

"You're no oil painting, so don't go getting a swollen head. Just invite him to one of your parties," and no, Arthur didn't sound disgruntled at all, what are you talking about, "and get to know him once you've both had two shots of vodka."

"Good idea." Morgana smiled winningly and ignored the jab. "Thank you, darling brother."

Arthur wondered how they could both share the same two parents and yet he, who was considered a ruffian by his latest ex-girlfriend (though the ex thing might've had something to do with it), was somehow more refined than Morgana.

"We share only the minimum requisite DNA," Arthur told her. "Don't call me brother."

"Thank goodness, imagine if I'd had your eyebrows," Morgana said and shuddered. "All right, I told Gwen and she said she's got a class with Merlin in an hour and she'll ask him then. I wonder if he's single?"

Arthur vehemently hoped he was—wasn't—was—ugh.

And his eyebrows were magnificent, by the way, thank you very much.

He's up for drinks this Saturday, came the text to Arthur's phone from someone called Morgana, no idea who that was, that evening. You're not invited, but I know you're going to show up anyway.

Arthur hated to disappoint.

5. Bb5 Nf6 (the middle game)

What are you doing here, Arthur read in Merlin's unhappy frown as he entered the Have Mercia! Dance Bar.

"Thanks for the warm welcome," he said, seating himself across from Merlin. "Don't worry, I won't be suffering your presence all by myself, I've got a couple of friends coming in about two minutes."

"Hope they're not—" Merlin hesitated, rethinking his insult. "Like you," he finished. "Rude and obnoxious and going around calling people pointless trammels."

Arthur sighed in nostalgia. "That was a good one," he said dreamily. "Pity I wasted it on you."

He was rewarded with a light snort from Merlin and a calculating stare from Morgana, who liked to stare at people calculatingly. Gwen was in the washroom, redoing her makeup before Lance, the one-sided love of her life and Arthur's best friend, turned up.

"Arthur picked this place," Morgana told Merlin, who blushed yet again and pulled his elbows in. Arthur ordered a tequila shot. No, it wasn't why you think. "He's been here before and quite liked it."

"Really? I'm sure I'm going to hate it, then," Merlin said, loosening a bit to push his glasses up his nose and narrow his eyes at Arthur.

Arthur tried not to think about those glasses, which he was seeing on Merlin for the first time (clearly Merlin had dressed up for Morgana and gone the extra mile. No, Arthur was not dismayed). They were somehow a perfect fit for Merlin, yet Arthur would rather see Merlin bare—no, that sounded wrong. The glasses were frameless with dark green temples—there was a hipster Harry Potter joke in there somewhere that Arthur couldn't be arsed to make, because every time he glanced Merlin's way his mind went blank, and he needed to keep his wits about him to parry Morgana and her rapier-sharp barbs (don't tell Morgana he said that).

"I'm back," Gwen said cheerfully, settling into the seat next to Arthur and squeezing his arm. "Redoing my lipstick was a chore."

"If you weren't so in love with Lance, I'd snap you up and make a mess of that mouth in a moment," said Morgana with a wicked grin. She may or may not have downed a few drinks when she'd thought no one was looking.

Merlin choked. Not one sympathetic soul offered to help, in the interest of building up Merlin's immunity to the hag—

"Morgana," Gwen chided. Okay, one sympathetic soul.

It was then that Lancelot and Gwaine made their entrance, and the next thing Arthur knew he was jerking awake on the floor in Lancelot's apartment.

6. Nf3 Qh6 (the alcohol)

All right. It didn't happen exactly that way. Arthur didn't spot his friends and immediately black out. The blackout took its own sweet time, during which Arthur probably made several monumental mistakes.

Introductions were made first. Merlin had already known Lancelot via Gwen and Morgana. Something special lit up in his eyes as he grinned at Gwaine, though, who leered right back—sexual attraction!?—shut up, Arthur, sorry, he was already quite squiffy by this point.

(Arthur called for a whisky in the background while Gwaine and Merlin gazed longingly into each other's eyes. Morgana nicked it when it arrived.)

The two got on like a house on fire, just like Arthur and the bottle of he-didn't-remember-what he'd requisitioned. (But correlation doesn't equal causation and all that tosh, so stop thinking what you were thinking.) Morgana kept slyly glancing towards him and beaming whenever Merlin laughed uproariously at one of Gwaine's jokes. All the more reason for Arthur to drink, right? Right. So the drinks kept flowing.

Then they laughed over the ignominious way Merlin had been shanghaied into their group for a bit. There was swatting and shoving, mostly of Arthur by Gwen when she heard the whole story:

"Arthur, you really could do with being a little less mean to people you don't know—" nudge "You're the one working t'wards a law degree, so I assume you know you just said I can be regular-level mean to you lot—" shove "How much have you had to drink—" "Wind your neck in—" SWAT.

If Arthur remembered correctly (he didn't), something something happened and then another thing did… eh, well. Arthur's memory of last night was well and truly shot. Even He of the Second Highest Tolerance (After Morgana) had been utterly pissed by the end of the night. Let it never be said that Arthur Pendragon didn't achieve whatever goals he set in life.

Erm, think, Arthur… more drinks, blah, Merlin smiling, Merlin looking at Arthur and not smiling anymore, Arthur doing a series of rum shots—rum, God, Arthur had really let his hair down last night—to Morgana's boisterous encouragement, vision swimming, vision clearing and somehow he and an equally sloshed Gwaine were—

—were on the bar's dance floor, strutting to Beyoncé, egged on by the raucous cheers of bloody everyone else in the bar.

No, no, vision, black out again, please, please, please—

Wait, was someone kissing him?

Someone was definitely kissing him. Arthur wracked his brains, but for the love of God he couldn't remember who it was, only that their lips were incredibly soft and their cold hands underneath Arthur's shirt warmed him up.

He also remembered something along the lines of fuck, there's no way you're going to remember this in the morning and oh, say my name again, Arthur, like that—

Arthur, you great idiot, why did you have to drink so much? Whose name had he said? Arthur could already strike one person off the list, though—it couldn't have been Merlin, not when he hated Arthur so much.

7. d3 Nh5 (the hangover)

"Lance?" Arthur called in panic, though it hurt his brain to do it. He dared not get up.

He didn't have to wait very long—Lance walked into the room and grinned down at him.

"Morning, Sasha Fierce."

"Please tell me—"

"Morgana had her phone out the second she challenged you to do it, Arthur, what did you think was going to happen?"

The back of Arthur's head hit the floor with a painful thud. Lancelot tossed his phone to him.

Arthur spent his morning staring down in horror at the spectacle of his very drunk self channelling Beyoncé to Crazy In Love.

The one consolation, if you could call it that, was that he'd absolutely destroyed Gwaine.

His father rang him in the evening. Arthur almost didn't pick up, but Lance was too good a friend to not want to see him face the music, pun intended.

In his fatally pleasant voice, Vice-Chancellor Uther Pendragon, Tintagel University, asked exactly why he had just watched his son—the pride of his institution and the bastion of the Pendragon dynasty—bend and snap to some American musician on the Internet.

Arthur didn't answer, sniffling like a puppy into the phone until Uther said, "For God's sake, Arthur. I simply meant that you'd be better off pursuing your less decorous interests where Morgana doesn't have an Internet connection. We've all been to university. I myself streaked a football match once. Cease your whining immediately."

Arthur heard the phone click (his father still used landline phones in his quest to preserve the traditions of his time) and tried not to think about his father running naked across a football ground. He succeeded, but only because he was thinking about his mystery kisser, which, in a way, was no better.

"Lance?" he said, as his best friend put down a pot of pasta between the two of them.

"Vice-Chancellor Uther Pendragon streaked—yeah, sorry, he was quite loud—all right, I'll laugh about it when you're not around. What is it?"

"Did I kiss someone yesterday?"

Lance stilled.

Arthur waited.

"I don't remember, actually," Lance said, colouring, which made Arthur think it could've been him except that Lance added, "Wasn't me, though."

8. Nh4 Qg5 (the take-back)

"Hello," Merlin said, sitting down next to Arthur and distracting him from Actual Maths Homework. "Nice moves."

"Oh, shut up," Arthur said. Clearly Merlin was never going to be interested in him when there were Morgana and Gwaine to be had—not that Arthur wanted Merlin to be interested in him, treacherous brain—and Arthur wasn't going to sit around and mope after someone who'd hated him on first sight, never mind that he'd been just as quick to fall in hate with Merlin, too.

"I mean it," Merlin said, and surprisingly he looked like he did. "In case your whole business maths thing falls through, you have a career in noughties dance."

"No one calls it that," Arthur said, taking pity on the absolute anorak beside him. "Please stop. You're embarrassing the both of us."

Merlin laughed, stretching his arms over the table.

"Saturday was really fun, despite all my expectations," he said. Arthur's heart was suddenly thudding a mile a minute.

"Yeah, if only I could remember any of it," Arthur said. Merlin bit his lip and blushed for some reason. Arthur stored the sight in his memory, all manner of romantic twaddle settling on his tongue that he would never get out.

"Yeah, who wouldn't want to remember dragging Gwaine onto the dance floor like that?"

Arthur shook his head.

"Up for a game of chess?" Merlin asked shyly.

Arthur glanced at Merlin out of the corner of his eyes. Calculus of Variations suddenly sounded far less interesting than getting trounced in a certain highly-intellectual game.

"Yeah, why not."

Merlin eagerly whipped a foldable chessboard and a pouch of chess pieces out onto the table. Arthur laughed to himself at that—who carries around a chess set with them? Merlin caught his snort and narrowed his eyes at him.

Arthur watched as Merlin picked a black pawn and a white one and then hid both in his fists behind his back.

"Which one?" Merlin asked, bringing the closed fists back out, presenting them to Arthur. Arthur went for the left one and got black, which meant he was able to blame his inevitable loss on the innate disadvantage of his side.

Merlin didn't buy it.

9. Nf5 c6 (the deception)

Damp, humid, sweltering heat—sunlight—eyes with hot eyelids perpetually closed against the sun, and a hand ready to wipe away the accumulating forehead sweat. Summer and a new semester came before Arthur knew it.

He shed his hoodies and his blazers for cotton shirts and T-shirts. They were tight, and he only wore them because Morgana had dropped by his flat and swapped them for most of his regular clothes. She said they made him look like Captain America—well, no, his ugly face couldn't compare to Chris Evans but his body might if it tried hard—and wouldn't it just make Merlin salivate. Arthur pretended not to know who Chris Evans was, but didn't even think of buying new clothes after that.

It was much, much later that he realised Morgana said Merlin and salivate in a sentence about Arthur's body and—how?

Merlin's mouth didn't actually water when he first saw Arthur in his new ensemble: a plain white cotton shirt (this was one of the full-sleeved button-down ones; Arthur's Balloon of Surety Merlin Didn't Hate Him was a limp gasbag with all the helium leaked out of it and so the tight T-shirts stayed at home) and deep blue pinstriped trousers because Arthur would rather choose drenched legs and his dignity over Bermuda shorts.

He—Merlin—just smiled a bit and said, "It's only a local competition, you didn't need to get all dolled up. Do I see mascara?"

"I have to look good when I'm on the podium accepting my trophy." Impressing you.

Arthur did look stunning on the podium accepting his trophy, even though it was just for second place. Who in their right mind would have thought Arthur could(n't) do it? Only absolute simpletons, like Merlin on the first-place platform, who… actually just looked elated and proud and had eyes for no one but Arthur and who set Arthur's chest alight.

If he slung an arm around Merlin's shoulders afterwards and held him much too close for a second, no one would mind.

Merlin didn't, if his snuggling into the half-embrace was any indication, but Arthur wasn't going to read too much into it.

10. g4? Nf6 (the apology pt. 2)

Merlin slapped down a recruitment form in front of Arthur the very next day, staring pointedly.

Arthur felt a terribly warm blush creep into his cheeks as he pulled the form towards himself.

"We need you if we want to win the intercollegiate championship," Merlin said. "I know you're in a bunch of other clubs already, but I—we need you."

"I can't attend meetings. I'll—show up for the competitions, though, I suppose."

"Why aren't you on the FIDE list? For fuck's sake, did you see your last opponent? He was nearly in tears by the time he resigned, and he's in the England top hundred."

God, Arthur's classroom was a sauna, or maybe Arthur was just hot and bothered by Merlin's praise.

"I never told anyone about this; I didn't want to give my father more reasons to pressure me," and oh, Merlin looked a bit sorry.

"Wish you would've just told me, instead of pretending to not know what a bishop is or how the King's Gambit isn't worth the effort—why would you do that, though—?"

"I'm sorry," Arthur said, getting up from his side of the desk and moving over to Merlin's. The classroom was bright, sunlight filtering in through the plastic blinds and painting the room in a hazy glow. "I didn't mean to lie to you." I just wanted to surprise you with how amazing I am at everything except getting your attention—shut up, Arthur.

Merlin shook his head.

"I know what it's like to have to hide things from… friends," he said, and glanced shyly up at Arthur.

"Of course we're friends," Arthur snorted, the tiniest bit proud that he knew Merlin so well despite having known him for all of… where did six months find the time to fly by?

And Merlin… didn't despise him.

Good, good.

Not that Arthur particularly cared.

"Arthur, I need to confess something to you," Merlin said. "Since we're friends and not keeping secrets from each other and everything."

"Go on," Arthur said. "Need an alibi for the police?"

"What? No. I. That night, the Beyoncé night—"

"Thank you, Merlin, I've been trying to repress that memory—"

"—I might have got sloshed and snogged you on the dance floor." Merlin was delightfully red in the face as he dropped this bombshell.

"You what?" Arthur was pretty sure he'd just been hit over the head with a mace.

"You heard me," Merlin said, agitated. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have, I know. I didn't—"

Arthur suddenly couldn't bear to hear the next bit.

"I wanted—" he began.

"—I didn't mean to," Merlin finished unhappily. "It was a mistake."

Arthur crumpled inwardly. Well then.

11. Rg1! cxb5? (the defeat)

Gwaine was far too cheerful for an 8 o'clock class on Wednesday, waving as Arthur ambled into Statistical Biology, a course Arthur had no use for except insofar as it pissed his father off. Not that Gwaine really paid attention to the lectures either, having registered for the class only because Arthur got drunk (he did like getting drunk) and promised him it would be an easy pass. Needless to say, it wasn't.

"Pendragon," he greeted, as Arthur yawned into his palm. "You'll never guess what just happened."

"Found a new fuck-buddy?"

"Boyfriend," Gwaine said, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms behind his head. "He's quite a catch, too."

"Wait till he sees that video of us dancing to Beyoncé."

"No need," Gwaine said, grinning like the cat that got the cream. "He was there."

Arthur's stomach plummeted to his knees.

"You mean—Merlin?" he asked.

Gwaine brought out his phone and pulled up his Photos app, scrolling for a bit until—"Look," he said, brandishing the handset.

Arthur didn't want to look. He would rather vomit all over Vice-Chancellor Uther Pendragon, Tintagel University's desk than look. He would rather turn back time and never make it to class and Gwaine. He would rather—he looked.

…Merlin seemed very happy, Arthur would give him that. It was one of those nauseating photos that couples everywhere never tired of taking: Merlin, beaming and taking a selfie while Gwaine kissed his cheek. Ugh.

"Ugh," Arthur said, weakly shoving Gwaine's hand away. "Could you be any more clichéd?"

Gwaine laughed and kissed his phone screen before putting the thing away.

Arthur sat through Statistical Biology with a stomach-ache and shiny eyes, and this time, correlation was definitely equal to causation—the shiny eyes were caused by the stomach-ache, no matter what smart-arse readers scoffing at the screen might think.

12. h4! Qg6 (the indignity)

He had no excuse for this one. None at all.

"Arthur, what did I tell you last time?"

"I'd be better off pursuing my less decorous interests where Morgana doesn't have an Internet connection," Arthur parroted dully.

"Now look what you've done," sighed Vice-Chancellor Uther Pendragon, Tintagel University, who from now on shall be referred to as Pendragon Senior for the sake of the sentences he stars in. "My telling you that streaking story wasn't meant to be taken as permission for a transformative performance, Arthur."

"'m sorry, Father," Arthur said, slurring his words. He was still absolutely hammered; he had just got off the stage in a not-quite-seedy club he hadn't known existed just outside campus grounds when his father had called him.

"My son doing a striptease to Dance for You on Instagram Live!" Arthur winced, regretting all his life choices. "Do you have a Beyoncé addiction you need to talk about?"

Arthur wanted to ask if his father had a social media addiction he needed to talk about, and why the hell did his father sit through Arthur peeling off his trousers and bowing to the resulting applause? But no, Morgana probably messaged Pendragon Senior every time she set out to mortify her brother. It was the sort of thing she'd do.

"Sorry, Father, it's just that it's Lance's birthday and he needed a laugh," Arthur said, learning with horror that his half-naked body, his control of which had taken a backseat to his zombie propensities, was preparing to cry.

"Arthur," Pendragon Senior sighed. "Take care of yourself, would you? I won't expel you like I did that Edward boy—or was it Edwin?—but I can make you miserable."

"I'm already miserable. Bye, Father." And that was the first time Arthur ever hung up on his father.

His group of traitors friends all whooped as he rejoined them.

"God bless Arthur and his thighs," Morgana said loudly, turning off her phone. Arthur winced at the lascivious undertones but rolled his eyes and raised his drink along with the others anyway.

The incestuous gleam in Morgana's eyes intensified as she said, "And God bless Lancelot for requesting this as his birthday present."

"I wish I had some ready cash to stuff down your pants," Lance said, very sincere or very drunk—either way grinning so hard Arthur just had to grin back.

"Do as you want," Arthur said, because his boxers were quite accessible (thighs existed to be shown off to people in whom he wasn't interested). "Happy birthday, Lance. No one mention the Instagram video ever again."

He snuck a glance at Merlin, who was blushing horribly and staring everywhere but at him. The alcohol on Arthur's tongue soured—surely he wasn't that unappealing; there were a couple of girls he recognised from his Operations Research class still drooling in the corner—and he looked away to Lancelot, who was smiling at Gwen and whispering something in her ear.

"That was the most entertaining night I've had in a while," Gwaine said, jostling Arthur's shoulder good-naturedly, his other arm a snug fixture around Merlin's waist.

"I live to please," Arthur said, and suddenly he was very, very tired. "Good thing you didn't join me up there, yeah? I'd have fucking humiliated you, mate."

Gwaine looked slightly taken aback. Arthur ignored him.

"We need to reward you," Morgana said, still on about the stripper thing. "Thoughts?"

"Pay for my whisky bottle."

"Boring!"

"We'll pay you in hugs and kisses," Gwen said. "You deserve all the hugs and kisses for putting up with Lance and his insane, sadistic ideas."

"Yeah, imagine if he'd asked you for a lap dance—" Gwaine said before they all burst into laughter just a touch too cruel for Arthur, who swigged his drink—gin? Fuck me—to avoid having to react.

"My hug first," Morgana said, dropping an arm around Arthur's shoulder and squeezing briefly and far less incestuously than her words earlier had implied. "No kisses for you, prick."

Gwen hugged him tightly and kissed him on the forehead. Arthur felt like he was being deeply pitied for something, though the alcohol had him woozy enough to laugh with the others at Mother Gwen.

Gwaine pressed a kiss to the corner of Arthur's mouth—"Can't kiss you full on, what with my boyfriend watching"—and Merlin, still red in the face, shrugged and didn't move. Arthur wasn't disappointed, because he hadn't been hoping for Merlin to touch him.

"I'll make up for him," Lance promised, eyes glittering, definitely drunk.

And if Arthur got the living daylights snogged out of him by a man he'd thought was straighter than an arrow, he wasn't complaining. Especially when they broke apart and Arthur worriedly looked around for Gwen, who was thankfully unperturbed and crying with laughter into Morgana's shoulder.

Someone else might have looked quite dismayed, but that someone didn't have a shock of black hair and blue eyes and the poutiest mouth—all right, he did, but Arthur viciously wasn't thinking about it.

13. h5 Qg5 (the denial)

Merlin squeaked and ran away when he saw Arthur these days, and it ticked Arthur off to no end, who saw nothing but bastardisations of their first handful of meetings in these actions. But fine. Fuck Merlin for having whatever problem he did with Arthur.

Yes, fuck Merlin, his ever-treacherous brain supplied. Arthur gave up. Fine.

He found Mithian instead.

Or rather, Mithian found him.

"Think you could teach me some of those Queen B moves?" was her pick-up line as Arthur pored over War and Peace (fine, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, WE'RE ALL CHILDREN AT HEART) in the library where they were supposed to be quiet—and sure enough, someone coughed pointedly.

Arthur gaped at her, reclining in her rotating chair in the cubicle next to his, shocked for a second at her audacity to actually acknowledge the video elephant in the room. Then he burst into laughter (there was more shushing that both of them ignored) and invited her to dinner that very night.

He did teach her the moves.

And his traitorous heart learned to be good again.

Or maybe it was learning to be good at being traitorous, but Arthur really wasn't thinking about Merl—anyone anymore.

14. Qf3 Ng8 (the white flag)

"There's a chess tournament this weekend, and we could really do with having you there," Merlin said, looking down at Arthur. "You could be my second."

"I'd make a quip here about how I've been seconds away from talking to you every time you run away, but it's just not worth the effort," Arthur said. "And I think I need to stop loitering in the cafeteria, it's far too easy for you people to find me."

Merlin sighed. "I'm sorry, I'm not the most normal person to be around. And what do you mean, are you avoiding the others, too?"

"Not the most normal, really?"

"Fine, I'm a quirky oddball, what do you want? Will you be there?"

"Yes, just—text me the details, I'll be there. What are you going with?"

"Ruy Lopez or Semi-Slav, I suppose. Oh, wait, I don't have your number."

Arthur dutifully handed over his phone. Merlin sent himself a message with it and smiled awkwardly as he handed it back, both of them painfully aware that they'd added each other on Facebook Messenger ages ago.

To: Pointless Trammel
This is Merlin, from Arthur's phone! c:

(Arthur smiled just a tiny bit.)

"I'm really sorry, for what it's worth," Merlin said. "Right after you said we were friends, too."

Arthur closed his eyes. "How's Gwaine?"

"Gwaine? …All right, I think?"

"Won't he be happy to know how little his boyfriend cares," Arthur said, half-sneering. The confusion on Merlin's face faded to astonishment.

"Boyfriend!"

"It's what you call someone who kisses your cheek as you take a selfie—" fine, Arthur was insanely bothered over that photo still and fine, you smart-arse readers were right, he was incredibly jealous even though he had Mithian to cherish; Mithian who didn't try too hard to be perfect and dainty, who snored sometimes and didn't care about morning breath and had sniffed Arthur's armpit once. But Merlin was Merlin and Arthur cared far too much about him, probably had ever since the day Merlin had cursed him with failing Complex Analysis II.

"That was just a bit of a joke, he dared me," Merlin said, then repeated, "Boyfriend?"

"And when he was glued to you like a barnacle that night—"

"That night you snogged Lance? Right," Merlin said, inexplicably bitter. Arthur looked around and they were making a scene and there were a couple of people with their phones out looking like they hoped Arthur would do the Crazy In Love strut again so Arthur grabbed Merlin's arm and dragged him outside the cafeteria, dragged him all the way back to Arthur's flat. The surprise was that Merlin let him.

The conversation at the flat went something like this:

"He called you his boyfriend and you let him! What else was I supposed to think? Come in."

"Thank you, I'll take my shoes off. I was shit-faced! I didn't even understand what was going on the whole time they were all hugging and kissing you, but let me tell you, you and Lance make a perfect pair, so don't let me get in the way."

"Would you like some tea? I have coffee too, and you know he and Gwen are destined to be together and you weren't the only shit-faced one that night! D'you know how hard it is to do a striptease when you've half a litre of tequila in you?"

"I—I don't know. You looked like you were quite enjoying it, though. I. Erm. Coffee would be nice."

"Merlin, what—what's going on?"

"Arthur…you and Lance necked. And now you're with Mithian, so, this Gwaine thing...I shouldn't say anything but you kissed me back that night—"

"You're the one that said he didn't mean to do it in the first place!"

Silence.

"Maybe I should just go."

Tintagel won the chess tournament on Sunday. Arthur aimed a little pinch of a smile at Merlin, whose face was scrunched up and whose hands were wringing themselves but who didn't walk over to Arthur and who didn't analyse the game with him as he usually did. Arthur didn't care at all.

15. Bxf4 Qf6 (And

Then there was that time when Arthur and Mithian went out and she dragged him to the Have Mercia! Dance Bar so she could see just where Arthur had made his claim to fame and they found Gwaine and Merlin there, snickering and pulling each other up close on the dance floor; well, they certainly looked like boyfriends, no matter what Merlin said, and Mithian caught the look on Arthur's face and so Arthur kissed her because he couldn't bear to hear what she had to say and she broke up with him the next day—

16. Nc3 Bc5 at this point,

—and then Arthur went looking for Merlin, because what the hell, they were friends first, and they played a game of chess and Merlin said, "Are you honestly forcing all my moves to play the Anderssen-Kieseritzky game? Is this your way of telling me something in the universal language of fucking chess?"

And Arthur's lips twitched and he said, "I'm not with Mithian anymore," and Merlin covered his hand with his own and said,

"I've never been with Gwaine, he's just being an arse to you. I definitely meant to kiss you that night and I'd like to kiss you again, too."

And Arthur responded, "I've definitely not been in love with you forever," and immediately regretted it, only—

17. Nd5 Qxb2 Arthur

—only Merlin leaned over the table and the game to kiss Arthur and Arthur sacrificed his brand-new glass set to the floor as he dragged Merlin over it into his arms—

18. Bd6! Bxg1? resigned

—and they played games of chess on each other's skin, substituting lips, tongues, fingers, and everything else for queens, kings, pawns, and everything else—

19. e5! Qxa1+ the game

—and then there was that time Morgana walked in on them arguing furiously about something irrelevant and said, "Wait, you two aren't together still?" so Merlin glanced at Arthur and said, "I had to see Lance shove his tongue into your mouth so I think she can put up with this—

20. Ke2 Na6 against

—and Morgana screeched as Merlin did a thing with his tongue in Arthur's mouth—

21. Nxg7+ Kd8 his

—and Vice-Chancellor, Ut Pendragon Senior, with a long-suffering sigh, messaged Arthur the next day to ask if Morgana's Snapchat soft porn stories featuring him were going to be a regular occurrence—

22. Qf6+! Nxf6 heart.)

—and Gwaine and Gwen and Lance all winked at Arthur when they saw him the next day and Arthur realised that he might just have been the tiniest bit played, and, well, if he had been battling against his heart the entire time, it was a really fucking good thing he lost.

23. Be7# 1–0

note: the game referenced throughout the fic is called the Immortal Game (YES) and it's one of the most famous of all time.