Free Hug Rejections
Modern AU. MerlinMorgana, MerlinArthur. Merlin wants a hug, Lance offers advice and Gwen isn't there to save the day.

Warnings for OOC-ness and just general crackiness. And cats, because cats are dangerous.

It all starts when Gwen calls Merlin to tell him she won't be at school, which means Merlin will have Lance and probably be on his own in a few classes. She apologises to him, between coughs and sniffles, and tells him to stay out of trouble. Merlin tells Gwen to get well soon, and not to worry.
Merlin turns up late to his first class because, well honestly, he was riding his bike to school and got distracted by that creepy cat that always stares at him obsessively and he somehow ended up on the ground and there was a little bit of blood. Luckily a kind citizen helped him out with that. So Merlin turns up to school late, with his left arm bandaged from his wrist up past his elbow because of tiny scratches and a bruise on his ribs but his hoodie covers up the damage. He stumbles in, stops at the door to catch his breath and looks up to find that the entire class, teacher included, are staring at him. At this point he starts to feel self conscious and freezes up a little. The teacher says, "Please take a seat Mr. Emrys, how nice of you to join us," and Merlin rushes to his usual seat next to Lance. The students return their attention to the front but Merlin still kind of feels like someone's staring at him.
He figures he's just being paranoid.

In his chemistry class Morgana comes up to him and asks him where Gwen is, since she usually sits next to him in chemistry. When Merlin tells her she's away the last thing he expects is for Morgana to sit next to him.
"Well, I wouldn't want you sitting alone," Morgana explains, "If we did an experiment, you'd probably blow up the classroom, protecting the people, and all."
"Thank you for being so confident in my abilities," Merlin mumbles.
"It's not your skill that concerns me," Morgana replies, she's smiling at him in a teasing way and he feels like he can probably figure out the real reason she sat next to him. "It's your clumsiness that may doom us all; after all, Gwen isn't here to save the day." Merlin laughs a little and smiles at her, Morgana's smile brightens even more. He gets that strange feeling like someone's watching him again.

Merlin remembers that time he walked the school with Gwen while they were wearing 'Free Hugs' shirts. He remembers that a lot of people would actually walk up to them take said offer for a free hug, normally from both of them. Merlin remembers two people in particular who gave Gwen a hug (though, in one case not so willingly) but didn't give one to Merlin; Arthur and Morgana. He kind of wants those hugs now.

He decides to ask Lance for advice at lunch while they're sitting their usual lunch table off in the corner where no one listens in on their conversations.
"You want to hug Arthur Pendragon and Morgana La Flay?" he questions; his tone of voice is suggesting to Merlin that he's crazy. "You're insane," okay, so maybe his actual words are too.
"Are you going to help?" Merlin asks. Lance sits for a moment staring at his food in contemplation.
"Yeah, okay," he answers, "Friends help each other out."
Gwen, who is sitting in her living room watching television, suddenly gets a very bad feeling about being sick. You could just say her 'Merlin and Lance are getting up to something really stupid' senses are tingling. They do that a lot these days.

They didn't start their plan until the next day, though Merlin turning up later again wasn't exactly a part of the plan. He walks in, ignores the whole class staring at him and the familiar laugh from the back of the classroom, and takes his seat next to Lance.
"Why are you soaking wet?" Lance asks. Merlin is not going to admit that he got distracted by that damn cat again but landed on grass instead of concrete like last time, which would've been alright if the sprinkles on that lawn hadn't come on at that exact moment.
"It was raining," Merlin mumbles. Lance looks out the window to stare at the cloudless sky.
"Right..."

After first class Merlin is wandering towards chemistry when all of a sudden there's an arm around his shoulder and Arthur is walking next to him. The arm withdraws and Arthur starts complaining about how he's soaking wet, the boy keeps a straight face for a couple of seconds before he bursts out laughing. Some students nearby get a little freaked out by the out of character behaviour and start bolting away, this goes unnoticed by Arthur. Arthur's saying something but Merlin's missing most of the words because the blonde's laughing so hard.
"...And when sprinklers came on and you started panicking and yelling about how you were going to drown-," Merlin cuts Arthur off by shoving him, it doesn't really do much, considering Merlin's a bit of a weakling and Arthur's, well, not.
"You saw that?" Merlin is going to pretend his voice can't actually go that high pitched. The blonde just starts laughing again, Merlin storms off.

"What's up with you?" Morgana asks as she takes Gwen's seat in chemistry. Merlin looks at her like he has no idea why anything would be wrong. "You were muttering something about cats, or prats, I wasn't really sure."
"Really? I should probably see someone about that," Merlin says, more to himself then to Morgana.
"Yeah, I don't think it's normal to mutter things under your breath without realising it," she replies.
"Protecting the people again today?" Merlin asks her with a smile.
"Of course."
"During a theory lesson?" he questions.
"Merlin, your clumsiness and ability to cause trouble knows no bounds," she tells him. "I wouldn't be surprised if you set the room on fire with a piece of paper and a pencil." They both laugh a little and then move on to do some work. Five minutes later Merlin gets hit in the head with a piece of paper and turns around to see Lance giving him a look that says, 'I think you've got a chance.' Merlin doesn't remember Lance being in this chemistry class.

At lunch they once again sit at their table in the corner. Lance and Merlin are in the middle of a conversation that variates between Lance telling Merlin he has a chance of succeeding with Morgana and talking about which girl he should ask out next and Merlin's side involves making fun of Lance for being good with 'the ladies' and talking about the some show he watched last night. It is a very confusing conversation to anyone that isn't Merlin, Lance or Gwen. Merlin is in the middle of talking about this awesome new show that Lance should watch because he and Gwen are watching it when Arthur suddenly takes a seat next to him at the table. He doesn't have food or anything so Merlin's going to presume he's here to be a douche.
"Is there any particular reason your here?" Merlin asks, "Or did you just want to interrupt my conversation?" Merlin looks across the table to see Lance giving him a look that says, 'he won't ever hug you if you're a bitch.' They talk without words too often to be normal.
"Just give me a minute," Arthur mumbles. At least that's what Merlin thinks he says, he was a little too quiet for Merlin to hear probably and he's sitting right next to him. The blonde looks Merlin in the eyes for a second before slamming his hand on the table, standing up and walking away. Lance and Merlin sit in complete silence for a moment.
"What the hell just happened?" Lance asks.
"I have no idea," Merlin replies.

For the third day in a row Gwen is sick and Merlin turns up late. That damned cat is way too distracting. So he once again turns up late, has the whole class stare at him and the teacher is seriously scowling at him.
"This is becoming a habit," he says.
"Well," Merlin mumbles, "I had to help an old lady move furniture." Merlin isn't actually lying when he says this, he just doesn't feel like explain that the only reason he had to help was because he left his bike, chased that damned cat and somehow fell down a chimney. When he finally got back out of that old ladies house his bike was gone.
"Mr. Emrys, next time, tell the old lady that you need to get to school," the teacher tells him. "Get to your seat." Merlin does what he's told without argument, the class quickly return to their lesson.
"Someone stole my bike," he whispers to Lance. The brunette stops himself from laughing and then puts on a concerned face.
"And how does that make you feel?" Lance asks.
"Are you talking like that because you missed your last psych class to stalk me or have you just gone crazy?" Merlin retorts.
"A little bit of both," Lance whispers. "I'm mostly doing it because I now have to write a psych paper about a real life situation and I'm blaming you for that."

Merlin's walking towards his chemistry class when all of a sudden Arthur is walking along next to him. Merlin stops and stares at the blonde.
"So I hear you're practicing to be Santa Claus," Arthur teases.
"Wait, if you saw that, then you must've seen who took my bike, why didn't you stop them?" Arthur laughs at him and then starts walking away backwards.
"It's in the bike rack," he calls out as he tosses Merlin's keys back at him. That's the exact moment in time where Merlin realises his keys were missing as well.

Morgana is away that day so Merlin has to sit alone in chemistry. Luckily it's only a theory lesson, but ironically enough Merlin does somehow manage to start a fire with just a pencil and piece of paper. He swears the page just lit up on its own, he has nothing to do with it.

At lunch Lance and Merlin try to figure out where their plan should go next.
"Okay," Lance says, looking at Merlin with a very serious face as he looks up from the start of his psych paper. "How about you just wearS your free hugs shirt tomorrow, 'cause if neither of them hug you at least all the hugs from everyone else will cheer you up."
"That's a good idea," Merlin says. "I was hoping Gwen would be better the next time I did that, since it feels weird to do it alone."
Lance stares at Merlin with a look that say, 'I think I know how to fix this' and Merlin's pretty sure he has a look that says 'you just want hugs from the ladies' and once again Merlin is reminded of how weird it is to have entire conversations without words. This is also something that only Lance, Merlin and Gwen can understand.
"It's been a while since I wore my 'free hugs' shirt," Lance says with a confident grin.
At her house Gwen is in the middle of eating chicken soup when she suddenly gets that really bad feeling that she associates with Merlin and Lance's bad schemes.

This time Merlin isn't late, mainly because he rode his bike to Lance's before he rode to school which means he completely missed the creepy cat that always ends up distracting him. So Merlin and Lance end up at school a little earlier than they normally would be. Merlin has on a jacket, rather than his usual hoodie, so people can see his shirt and Lance wears it proudly. Women wander up to them (and sometimes guys too, which makes Lance laugh and Merlin feel like a girl) and give them hugs.
Merlin is in the middle of hugging one of said girls when Arthur is suddenly standing next to him. The girl pulls away from Merlin's hug and looks at Arthur for a second like she's waiting for him to either explain his presence or hug Merlin.
"If you're not too busy trying to gain the attention of the ladies Merlin, maybe you could start heading to class so you can make it on time," Arthur tells him. The girl giggles and says something about how she hadn't realised the bell had gone and that she'll probably find Merlin later. Merlin turns to face Arthur and smiles.
"You sound like you need a hug," Merlin says with his arms held out like he's waiting for a hug. The blonde just frowns at him before turning and walking away. Lance pats him on the shoulder and tells him, "to bad, better luck next time."

In chemistry Merlin takes his seat and hopes Morgana is here today because otherwise this was all a little pointless. She turns up a little while later and when she notices Merlin's shirt she smiles at him.
"Oh, so you're doing that again," she comments.
"This time with Lance, since Gwen is away," Merlin informs her. Said Lance is actually in this classroom sitting with a group of girls and flirting. Which is rather out of character for Lance, but the shirt gives him way too much confidence.
"Oh, I see," Morgana says.
"You know, you didn't hug me that last time I did this," Merlin tells her with a smile. She smiles back and then leans in to hug him.
"Well I did this time, didn't I?" Morgana frowns a little. "You know," she tells him, looking him right in the eyes. "The only reason I didn't hug you last time was 'cause I was too nervous." She doesn't outright admit that she likes him but Merlin understands that's what she's saying. He smiles brightly at her and the smile doesn't fade for the rest of the lesson.

Lance and Merlin are sitting at their usual table at lunch. They have one of their usual confusing conversations and sometimes someone will wander up to their table and ask for a hug from one or both of them and they'll comply before sitting down and returning to the conversation. Merlin is in the middle of explaining to Lance why the Chronicles of Narnia are good books and great movies when Arthur suddenly takes a seat next to Merlin. Lance and Merlin both go quiet and stare at the blonde.
"Stop hugging people," the blonde says, he looks Merlin right in the eyes when he says it, so there's no doubt about who it's directed at.
"The whole point of the shirt is to allow people to hug you, its 'free hugs' not 'free hug rejections'," Merlin tells him. He looks at Lance who has that 'stop being bitchy' look on his face and then back to Arthur who is glaring at him for, Merlin presumes, taking a tone with him. When he looks back at Lance again it's as if Lance has just realised something and Merlin suddenly feels out of the loop because now Lance won't look him in the eyes.
"Why do you care if I hug people?" Merlin asks Arthur, his tone was supposed to suggest that it's none of Arthur's business but it somehow comes out as a genuine question. The blonde slams his hand on the table and storms out of the canteen. Merlin looks back at Lance for answers; Lance still avoids looking him in the eye.

The next day Gwen calls him to say she's all better and that she'll be at school today, which means she'll see the train wreck that he and Lance have made. He turns up to school late again, this time he chased that damn cat up a brick wall and then along it for a few meters before it disappeared and left Merlin looking really stupid crawling along a fence. He looks back at his bike to see a familiar blonde sitting on the ground next to it. By the time Merlin manages to get off the fence and back to his bike the blonde was gone. So he turns up in class, out of breath, with the entire class staring at him; mostly because he's got twigs and leaves in his hair, because they've gotten used to him being late. He walks up towards his desk and smiles when Gwen waves at him from her usual seat next to his usual seat. He takes his seat and it's at this moment that Gwen starts to realise that Lance and Merlin aren't actually talking.
"What happened while I was gone?" she whispers, both boys shrug.

While he's walking to chemistry Merlin realises that Arthur is basically tailgating him, when Gwen runs to catch up to him and starts walking with him he notices that Arthur wanders off to whatever class it is he has at this time.

Gwen and Merlin are back to their usual seats in chemistry and Morgana walks right up to them when she enters the classroom.
"Good to see you're better, Gwen," Morgana greets. "Did you know that Lance and Merlin pulled the whole 'free hugs' trick in your absence, guess that missed you or something," the dark haired girl smiles, "Please do make sure Merlin doesn't burn down the classroom." Gwen agrees to protect the people from the fire hazard that is Merlin Emrys, well, not in so many words, and then Morgana returns to her usual spot.

At lunch they sit at their usual table but Lance and Merlin don't talk, they don't even look at each other and Gwen sits next to Lance and feels very out of place. Morgana chooses that moment to sit down next to Gwen at their table with her food.
"You look like you might need some real company," she says to Gwen, and the pair laugh a little, smile and then begin a conversation. Then a couple of minutes later, when Merlin is starting to feel like he's diseased or something since he's the only one on this side of the table, Arthur takes a seat next to Merlin. He doubted it was possible, but the air of awkward around the table gets even worse as the blonde sit their quietly. Gwen's fed up with this.
"What happened while I was gone?" she asks.
"He yelled at me for hugging people," Merlin says, sparing a quick glare at Arthur as a way of explaining who Merlin's talking about. "I think he was jealous of the attention I was getting." Lance, who was in the middle of eating his sandwich, chokes a little at Merlin comment and Gwen has to smack him on the back to prevent death by sandwich. He looks up at Merlin with wide eyes that scream 'you know?' and then Merlin and Lance just stare at each other for a moment before Lance realises that Merlin didn't know and Merlin realises what Lance didn't want him to know.
"Oh," Merlin mutters and then turns to look at Gwen, the one that can understand their wordless conversations as well as them, and she looks about as shocked as him. "Oh."
"What is it?" Morgana asks; she's apparently smart enough to realise that these three are mentally connected or something.
"Well, that, that explains a lot," Merlin mutters.
"Yeah, it really does," Gwen adds. Merlin turns to look at Arthur who is staring at them like they're all crazy.
"Hug?" he asks with arms open wide and Arthur just looks at him like he's lost his marbles. Merlin is pretty sure he has. What with the fact he's chasing cats along fences and getting into very, very oblivious love triangles. It's at this point that Morgana somehow manages to understand what's going on.
"Just hug the boy Arthur," she says with exasperation.
"He's been trying to get you to hug him all week," Lance adds, which isn't exactly true, since Merlin wasn't really trying, he was just kind of hoping.
"Screw hugs," Arthur mutters and then moves in to kiss Merlin.
"Arthur," Morgana whines loudly, "not in front of people." Merlin doesn't really care, he's kind of forgotten the people are their anyway. In fact, Merlin is busy trying to decide on a name for that creepy cat that he's pretty sure is a stray. The damned cat is distracting even when it's not here.

The next day Merlin managed to make it too school on time, too bad it's a Saturday, but that doesn't matter 'cause Arthur's waiting there to laugh at him.