Title: Lonely Ghosts
Author: EachPeachPearPlum
Rating: M (although not for a couple of chapters)
Warnings: Brief mentions of domestic abuse in this one, which get more specific/detailed in later chapters (including violence, emotional abuse, and what should really count as dub-con despite the fact that characters are too unintelligent to see it that way. All of these will get their own warnings when they appear). Arthur/Valiant (yes, I think that merits a warning, because as pairings go...well, there needed to be a bad guy, and he fitted the bill).
Disclaimer: I've had a kind of sucky week. If anyone out there wants to give me the rights to Merlin, it would make it seem a whole lot brighter. Nope? Okay, it's not mine.
Notes: This comes with epic amounts of gratitude to Hiza Montmorency (who read this first and nagged me to do something other than leave this as a prologue and a first chapter sitting on my laptop and decaying away into nothingness), WitchWarren (who doesn't even like Merthur but who gave me a third opinion anyway) and to Kat Nightfox (whose fic Hold on Loosely is in a very vague way responsible for the teeny tiny bunny that said 'oi, Peach, you should write a fic where Arthur is in an abusive relationship rather than Merlin' and then proved to be a horribly persistent teeny tiny bunny). Chapters of this are all fairly short, and I have a few of them written. Expect updates fortnightly, weekly if I'm feeling particularly needy. Please note that the title did at one point make sense (at least in the context of the lyrics below), although the plot has drifted a little since then. But anyway, let me know what you think, please? Peach.

The devil that you know
is better
than the one you don't
So like lonely ghosts at a roadside cross
We stay because
we don't know where else to go
Lonely Ghosts - O+S

Prologue

Initially, it was just jealousy, and Arthur found it flattering. It was stupid of him; he knew what he looked like, knew that people wanted him, but he'd never had a relationship where the person he was with made it so obvious that he was theirs, and he liked it. Idiot that he was, he thought it was a sign that Val cared about him. He saw it as belonging with someone, not belonging to them; he didn't know that he was just another possession, didn't realise his name was just another thing on the long list of stuff Valiant owned.

.

.

.

"Don't ever stay with a man who hits you," his mum said, once, a long time ago. The instruction was directed at Morgana, of course, not at him, which was ridiculous. Morgana didn't need to hear it; if any man laid so much as a finger on her that she didn't want him to, he'd lose it. "It doesn't matter what he says, or however much he apologises. If he hits you once, he'll do it again."

Morgana had nodded once, seriously, pressed her lips to their mother's cheek, and gone off on her way. She didn't tell her that the advice was unnecessary; they both knew that their mum had had a bad boyfriend before she met their father. She never talked about it, and they never asked, but they knew.

And then his mum had turned to him and given him the strictest look he could remember ever seeing. "If I ever hear of you raising your hand to a woman, you are no longer my son," she said, and he believed her unquestioningly. It wasn't an issue, of course – he already knew he was gay, even if he wasn't out yet – but he had agreed anyway, solemnly promising that he wouldn't.

He didn't, but then Arthur had never broken a promise to his mum.

(Promises to himself were a whole different matter)

.

.

.

Initially, it was just jealousy. Valiant would stand a little closer than necessary to him at parties, wrap his arm around him a little tighter than he had to, place love bites a little more obviously than was perhaps proper.

Arthur loved it.

(Then)