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definewisdomPart 1
Thursday afternoon was Arthur’s therapy session, which was probably a good thing because Morgana did not turn up for their lunch.
Merlin was sitting patiently by the counter, Gaius perched next to him, eating some sort of pastry that Merlin was almost positive was going to give him a heart attack, there was that much cream in it. Arthur was sitting, getting gradually more and more frustrated when Gwen walked in and caught Merlin’s eye with an apologetic smile. He was expecting her to cross over to them at the counter, but instead, she headed straight over to Arthur at the table and leant down to tell him something in a hushed voice.
Morgana was not coming. Merlin felt his heart drop as he watched Arthur’s face. Next to him Gaius asked for another cream filled monstrosity, muttering that he was at least going to go out happy.
Gwen turned to go, but as she did so, Arthur caught hold of her arm and gestured for her to sit down opposite him.
It took a lot of will power for Merlin not to go up to them and ask what was going on. But Gwen gave him a look of mixed confusion, terror and apology and he sagged back against the counter again.
“This is not going well,” he said under his breath to Gaius. A plate was waved under his nose and he looked down to see a slice of indecently chocolatey gateau being thrust towards him.
“We might as well make the most of it, I put it on his bill,” Gaius said, turning to watch Arthur and Gwen with him. “At least Arthur might actually get over her this time.” Merlin scoffed and began to dig in.
Arthur and Gwen seemed to be getting along quite well, they were both smiling and Gwen seemed to be relaxing as Arthur cranked the charm up. For a minute Merlin wished that the café sold alcohol, because he could really do with a drink. There was a soft laugh and Merlin winced.
“I wouldn’t worry,” Gaius commented, “she’s a sensible girl, she’s got more sense than to fall for him.” Merlin nodded, but he did not believe it. He knew from personal experience that common sense seemed to fly out of the window when Arthur was concerned. He could charm anyone.
“Right,” he said, watching as Arthur reached out a hand to rest lightly on Gwen’s wrist and she blushed a little. “Of course she is.” He tried to remind himself that Gwen was in a serious relationship and that she wouldn’t cheat on Greg ever, but he attacked the gateau with a little too much vehemence all the same.
Gwen left without saying goodbye and Merlin was called away by Arthur as they headed for his appointment.
The drive was tense, although Merlin was certain he was the only one who felt it. Arthur spent the entire trip cursing Morgana. Merlin was slowly losing the will to live, and as the drive continued his answers became shorter and shorter until he was simply muttering meaningless consonant sounds at Arthur. The man did not appear to notice.
“I can’t believe her,” Arthur growled as they pulled up outside the doctor’s office.
Merlin made an affirmative humming noise and slipped out of the vehicle, heading towards the office. The first few months they had done this, the street had been filled with cameras and the papers had been full of ‘star in breakdown?’ ‘Arthur losing his marbles?’ but after a year the novelty had worn off and people had realised that Arthur was as sane as ever.
The receptionist was a lovely girl, about their age, with a huge crush on Arthur, which Merlin sympathised with. The pair of them got along quite well, actually. They joked with each other and were on a first name basis. She had even tried to ask him out for drinks a few months ago and for once he had been fairly certain it was not just an ‘Arthur substitute’ thing, but he had turned her down for obvious reasons. Luckily it had not hurt their friendship, which he appreciated.
“Hey Merlin…” she said with a cheerful smile, glancing over his shoulder with unrestrained awe at where Arthur was standing admiring the artwork that adorned the walls. “Good week?”
“Hey Hannah… reasonable, really. Could have been better.”
“Couldn’t they all?” she asked with a smile and leaned over to press the intercom button.
“Mr Pendragon here to see Dr Drake,” she said in a clear voice. There was a moment of static before a muffled voice told her to send him on through. Merlin gave her another smile before following Arthur to the lift.
Dr Drake’s office was on the fourth floor, and he had a small waiting area outside where Merlin was expected to sit while Arthur was inside pouring his heart out.
He could never really picture what that would be like. Arthur never gave away too much of his emotions. He would yell or silently fume when he was angry, and he would complain about Morgana, but he never really told you anything. The very idea of Arthur sitting down voluntarily and talking out his problems seemed unnatural to Merlin. But there didn’t seem to be any doubt that it worked, because Arthur was still coming back even a year later.
As Arthur walked directly across to the Doctor’s office, Merlin settled down into one of the torturous waiting chairs and reached for a magazine. The selection was atrocious, but he always forgot to bring a book. He flicked through until he found a suitably hilarious looking article – My Moobs Ruined My Life – and began to read.
The session went as he had expected it would. Despite how ‘nice’ Gwen had been, Arthur was still irritated by Morgana’s actions the previous night and standing him up for lunch, and it was no time at all before man outside heard the voices in the room rise. Well, Arthur’s voice rose, Dr Drake’s always seemed to stay at a reasonable level. Even Gaius never managed to maintain that level of composure when dealing with Arthur in one of his worse moods.
Merlin quite liked Arthur’s therapy sessions. His mobile officially ‘had no signal’ because of the building design and Arthur was off his hands for an hour. Sometimes he just sat and stared at the walls, grateful for a moment to switch off. Of course, that often led to Arthur leaving the office to find him vacant and gormless, which in turn led to a week’s worth of teasing, but it was worth it. He thought he had found his first grey hair the other day, which had thrown him for a loop. This job was making him age far more quickly than he had expected… not that it had been a grey hair, though, just the light shining on one of them oddly.
He read the meaningless article, trying to ignore the fact that there was a photograph of Arthur glowering at him from the opposite page (Top Ten Hot Celebrities 2008). It was vapid and required no higher brain function whatsoever. He sighed in relief.
There was a crash from next door as Merlin came to the end of the article. Arthur had obviously started throwing things. He turned the page and began to hum a Beatles song to himself. It reminded him of his mother and his home. She was always singing the Beatles around the house.
The house he was going home to in three weeks for Christmas. He had managed to find a few minutes to buy a present for her, in between Arthur’s unnecessary audition for his father’s new film and his many attempts to woo Morgana. Uther always made his son audition, even when everyone knew he was the only person for the part. It was one part not wanting to be accused of nepotism, nine parts desire to impress on his son that he was not that important. The whole thing was a circus, in which Arthur was paraded around like a horse. Merlin found it sickening, but Arthur always got tight-lipped with quiet anger when he brought it up, so they did not talk about it.
He only had a handful of days off, as per usual, but it was enough time to get home. There were only the two of them, really, although Will would probably show up, carrying some bottle of illegally strong alcohol and a huge grin.
The angry voice next door had calmed down and Merlin looked at his watch. The sessions were getting a lot quicker. At the beginning Arthur would still have been shouting when he left, these days he was done with the tantrums when they were barely half way through.
The time ticked slowly by, although far too fast for Merlin’s liking and it seemed like no time at all before Arthur strode, fuming, from Dr Drake’s office. He did not even look at Merlin as he walked towards the doors, pushing them open as hard as he could and expecting his assistant to fall in beside him.
Merlin, as Arthur had known he would, hurried after him, wondering why, when their legs were roughly the same length, it always took him one and a half strides to match each of Arthur’s.
They did not talk about Arthur’s therapy sessions. It was one of the most important rules Merlin had learnt. The first week he had attempted to make polite conversation about it: ‘How did it go?’ ‘Did he tell you that you were completely sane, because you really shouldn’t trust everything these people say? ‘and that sort of thing. Arthur had turned on him and snapped that all such meetings were legally confidential and why should he tell Merlin anything.
That had put an end to that, so Merlin had grown used to reading between the lines and overhearing the little snatches that he could from outside the office, piecing them together so he could predict Arthur’s mood as best as he could.
As soon as they walked out the front door, Merlin’s phone got signal once more and the insistent bleeping informed him that his absence had not meant that the world had stopped.
He dragged it out of his pocket and went through the messages one by one. His mother wanted to know when she should expect him back for Christmas, Will wanted him to know that he was an imbecile, and ask if he had ravaged Arthur against a wall yet. The others were all far less interesting. The editor of one of the leading teen magazines asked whether Arthur would pose for their cover and do an exclusive interview. Gaius told him that the promo shots for Arthur’s last project were ready for him to look over back at the office. Gwen informed him that Morgana was requesting she and Arthur never have another lunch date – ever. At the bottom of the list, the most recent message blinked at him and he grimaced as he saw the sender ID.
Uther Pendragon requested his son’s presence at a charity ball he was holding for Christmas in two weeks time.
Merlin shot a look at Arthur, who was slipping sunglasses back on as they headed to the car that was waiting for them. It was probably not the best time to tell the man that he had to make nice at another of his father’s parties. He would have to let him glare at things for a little while before he broke the news. Looking on the bright side, at least it would help to take Arthur’s mind off Morgana.
In the car, Arthur stared blankly out of the window, his sunglasses still firmly on. If there was any sign that Arthur did not want to talk, that was it. Merlin took his cue and began to reply to the messages as quickly as he could, keeping his eyes down.
He gave his mother his train information, informed people that he would have to check Arthur’s schedule before giving them a definite answer – which was always best when he was first contacted – and told Gaius that they would get back to him by the end of the day. The final reply took a little more concentration.
Merlin had known Will since they were in primary school together. They were always best friends, sometimes lovers and each other’s worst nightmares because they knew everything there was to know about each other. Will had been with Merlin since the beginning of his crush on Arthur Pendragon. In fact, they had been to see Valiant together and when Merlin had walked out with a star-struck expression on his face and the conviction that it was utterly the best film he had ever seen, Will had teased him that he was in love with Arthur.
Years had passed and Will had never let up, and as Merlin had come to realise that maybe he was a little bit infatuated with the unbelievably good looking movie star, Will had mocked his pining mercilessly. Then he had got the job as a cleaner and Will had jokingly laughed that he could become Arthur’s official stalker and then…
Merlin supposed that ‘Arthur’s official stalker’ might as well be his job title. He risked a long glance to the side, and saw Arthur resting his chin on one hand, leaning against the tinted windows. The sun had come out from behind a cloud, and his hair was almost glowing. Merlin tore his eyes away and reminded himself that staring at Arthur was creepy beyond belief and that Arthur was his employer, for crying out loud.
That did not help him in replying to Will, though. He had to be careful with his friend, because Will could read novels into a text message. Merlin sighed and began to tap out a response. He informed Will that he was a pillock with a pea sized brain and that the likelihood of Merlin ravaging Arthur any time soon was only greater than the likelihood that aliens would visit them from Mars and teach them the secret of time travel.
It took about twenty seconds for Will’s reply to come back.
So it happened yesterday, hey? Merlin’s response, was short, to the point and not something that he would ever dream of saying to his mother.
A movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention and he turned to see Arthur removing his sunglasses. His eyes looked tired and his mouth was set in a firm line, but the lack of shades was a good sign.
“Merlin?” he said, turning to his assistant, and Merlin resisted the urge to rest a hand on his shoulder. Inappropriate touching was a bad idea.
“Your father wants to know if you’ll be attending the charity ball on the twenty third,” Merlin said as lightly as he could. Arthur scoffed a little.
“You mean he wants me to know that I’m going to be attending,” he said.
“I had already scheduled it in…” Merlin commented, pulling up a copy of Arthur’s schedule for the next three weeks up on his iphone. “In June, when the date was finalised.”
“Of course you had,” Arthur said with a half smile. “You know, Merlin, sometimes you’re almost competent.”
“Thank you,” Merlin said. “Of course, I could tell him that I mixed up the timetable and got you double booked for that night, if you don’t want to go.”
“Don’t be ridiculous Merlin. I’m going. I’ll dance and flirt and be positively charming,” Arthur told him, tucking his glasses into his shirt pocket.
“Don’t strain yourself,” Merlin replied with a small grin of his own. Arthur shot him a suspicious glance, but let the implications slide.
“Well, you’ll be there to elbow me when I get out of hand, won’t you?” Merlin froze at Arthur’s blasé attitude. He opened his mouth and turned, conflicted. “Merlin?”
“You… I’m going home for Christmas on the twenty third.” Arthur gaped at him. “I did tell you – a month ago – and you said it would be alright.”
“Right… yes, of course I did,” he said uncertainly. Merlin paused, unwilling to push the subject further. If the conversation went on too long, he was afraid he would give in and tell Arthur he would stay with him over Christmas, and he really needed to go home and see his mother some time. “You should go. I’ll be fine. Better than fine, actually, because I won’t have you around to fuck things up.”
Merlin smirked and nodded.
“Do you know who else is going?”
“Home for Christmas?” Merlin asked in confusion. Arthur shot him a long, unimpressed, look.
“To the party, idiot. Honestly, I don’t know why I put up with you,” The star shook his head and rolled his eyes.
“Because you need someone to be the butt of your rapier sharp wit and sparkling repartee,” Merlin said without even considering his response. To his surprise, he managed to raise a chuckle.
“Something like that.”
***
The run up to Christmas was a flurry of present buying and photo-shoots with the odd interview thrown in. Merlin found himself flying over to LA for a long weekend, then back to London for a brunch with the script writers of Uther’s newest project. Admittedly, because Arthur insisted on having him on hand for any possible emergency (or just so he could yell at the stewardesses for him and no one would make Arthur out to be unreasonable) he ended up in first class, but the complimentary champagne and the extra space for the reclining seats did nothing to make up for the fact that they had run out of earplugs.
No earplugs meant he was stuck on a twelve-hour flight with nothing to stop the noise of Arthur’s complaints, commentary on the films that were available and the stars in them, and, when he finally decided sleep would be a good option, the snoring.
That was one thing Merlin had not anticipated before becoming the actor’s assistant. Arthur snored like some sort of pneumatic drill. Merlin had never told him, although he had listened with much amusement to Arthur’s rants after Morgana had mentioned it. It was the only thing that made him question his fantasies. Somehow, the idea of having Arthur in his bed was less appealing when the reason he would not get any sleep was the actor’s nasal passages.
When the seemingly interminable flight finally came to an end, Merlin did not know who was more relieved, him, Arthur, or the stewardesses who gave him sympathetic smiles and handshakes on the way out.
“Apparently the ears aren’t a turn off to everyone,” Arthur said with a yawn as they stepped back onto British soil once again. There were a few photographers to the right and he gave them a small wave and a tired smile.
“What do you mean?” Merlin asked, too exhausted to try and figure out Arthur’s leaps of imagination.
“Those girls back there, you could have joined the mile high club.” Merlin gaped at the back of his head as Arthur walked off to the baggage retrieval point.
There was no time to sleep though, as they were whisked off to the brunch and Merlin had to pay attention and take notes because he could tell that Arthur was struggling to stay awake, for all he looked bright eyed and bushy-tailed. Merlin whipped out his notebook and took longhand notes as quickly as he could, although he found, when they came to the end of the meeting that more than half of the page was filled with doodles of interesting ways to kill people on a film set. Some of them had suspiciously light hair and smug smiles.
He sighed as they settled back into the car and looked down at the schedule again. Three more meetings before they would get a chance for a rest.
Nothing changed for the rest of the three weeks, every day was full of activity. Arthur insisted on every little thing being completely perfect and Merlin had to make sure that everything would chunter along happily while he was away. He was not egocentric, but he was pretty sure that without him to arrange everything and manipulate Arthur into doing the things he was supposed to, the well oiled mechanism that was Arthur’s life would grind to a halt.
Arthur was spending Christmas with his father and a cohort of servants and relations, so he should not get into any trouble, and even if he did the people at hand were more than capable of dealing with it. Merlin made sure that everyone possible had his number, though, just in case of emergencies. He didn’t fancy finding out when he came back that Arthur had accidentally killed himself in a freak accident.
The morning of the twenty-third dawned brilliant and frosty, and Merlin spent most of it on the phone with Uther’s secretary, trying to make sure that the arrangements for the party that night were ready. He checked Arthur’s date book five times and highlighted everything that he thought might go wrong. He grabbed Arthur and gave him a list of things not to say that night, and a list of people he would have to talk to at the event, including several members of the royal family who had been invited.
“No comments about the Queen or the Prince of Wales, please,” he said, sighing as he remembered the last time Arthur had horribly insulted the monarchy to one of their cousins. “And if in doubt about who a person is…”
“Get them to introduce themselves to someone else,” Arthur said in a bored tone, “I have done this before, you know. I was the one who taught you how to behave at things like that.”
“But you never follow your own rules,” Merlin pointed out, thrusting a pile of clothes into Arthur’s arms. “This is what you should be wearing… You’re not allowed to clash with the decorations apparently.”
“Blue?” Arthur asked looking down at the shirt. “I hate blue.” He glared at the offending articles and pushed them back towards Merlin, but he just crossed his arms and refused to take them.
“Like I said, Marjorie doesn’t want anyone to clash with her decorations, so…”
“Who’s Marjorie?” Arthur asked.
“Your father’s party planner,” Merlin said, wondering if he should add ‘harpy’ to the description. He had only met the woman on two occasions, but on both of those she had made him feel about two feet tall. If she said she did not want anyone to clash with the décor, then no one would clash with the décor.
“Right… so blue?”
“Yes, Arthur… Now. My taxi’s in five minutes, so are you sure you’ve got everything?”
“I’m not incompetent, Merlin,” Arthur snapped, still glaring down at the clothing with distaste.
“It’s just a colour, Arthur... relax,” he said, ignoring his employer’s comment, and reminding himself that, for the next three days he was free. “You know my number if anything goes horribly wrong… and I mean horribly, Arthur. I am not getting the train all the way back here if someone accidentally spills champagne on you.”
“Just go, Merlin. I’ll be fine,” Arthur insisted, standing up to shoo him out of the door. “I’m a grown man, I can take care of myself.”
Merlin only wished he could be as certain of that as he loaded his bag into the boot of the taxi and asked for the train station. As he was getting into the back seat his phone buzzed in his back pocket and he groaned when he saw who the text was from. Arthur had probably dropped something down the back of his desk or something. He hit read and looked down.
Have a good Christmas, idiot.
He grinned and looked up in roughly the direction of Arthur’s window. It was too much to hope that the man was watching his taxi leave, but there was a small part of his brain, the part that wanted to cry at Titanic and admit that he sometimes listened to songs for the lyrics but never did because he was not a little girl (even if he did have a little girl’s crush on Arthur Pendragon), which hoped that blue eyes were watching him go.
The train was packed. He had not taken first class, seeing as he was on his own and the price of first class train tickets these days was scandalous. The man across the table from him was drinking a plastic bottle of cheap cider, and across the aisle a student was reading some book that looked more like an encyclopaedia than a textbook. He sighed and got out his own book, but it had been so long since he had a chance to read it that he had forgotten everything that had happened and he had to start from the beginning again.
The annoying thing about living in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere was that you had to get the train that stopped at every single station, which took a couple of hours longer than any other train.
He found it highly depressing that, even though he had set off in the morning, sunset had already come and gone by the time the train came in to the station and he shuffled off onto the platform, checking his pockets and counting his bags several times in paranoia.
His mother was standing at the far end of the platform and he could not help but smile as he caught sight of her and she ran towards him to pull him into a bear hug.
“Hey Mum…” he said lifting her up and marvelling, as he always did when he saw her again, at how short she seemed in real life.
“Good journey?” she asked, shouldering one of his bags without question. He tried to take it off her, but she slapped his hand away.
“Long.”
“Good thing that I’ve got a hot dinner and a warm bed waiting for you, isn’t it?” Merlin grinned and walked a little taller. “It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to be back,” he agreed, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. It was nice to be just Merlin again and not Merlin, Arthur’s slave. “And I have missed your cooking.”
“You certainly look like you have,” she said with a disapproving frown, poking at his ribs. “Have they been starving you down in London?”
“I eat!” he protested, but she looked unconvinced.
“Not enough...” she said.
“Well, I’m not going to object if you want to feed me,” he said with a shrug and a small laugh.
***
Dinner was as delicious as Merlin had expected, and afterwards his mother commented on the bags under his eyes and shooed him off to bed immediately.
Merlin dumped his bags on the floor and collapsed onto the bed without bothering to get undressed. His room looked exactly the same as it always had. Hunith had not changed a thing, from the posters covering the walls to the postit note reminders to himself that were scattered across every surface. He sighed and closed his eyes when the phone in his trouser pocket buzzed again.
“Fuck…” he breathed to himself. He hoped that was Will asking if he was back yet, or else he was going to kill something.
It wasn’t Will.
Charity balls are boring. Arthur’s text message read. Merlin had tried, at first, to ignore Arthur’s pointless messages, but ignoring the git only meant that he would keep texting until Merlin’s inbox was completely clogged. Merlin would turn his phone off immediately, but Arthur was more likely to take the hint if Merlin at least showed an interest first.
Tough. Suck it up. He sent back. A few minutes of staring at the ceiling later, the reply came.
There’s no one here worth talking to.
I’m on holiday, Arthur. He pointed out. I don’t have to talk to you, either.
There was no reply after that, which was unusual, but not exactly unwelcome. He could only hope that Arthur had either drunk himself into a coma and been surreptitiously escorted to one of the guest rooms by his father’s employees, or had found someone more interesting to bother than Merlin. If the man had done anything terrible Merlin would have been informed.
Unless he had burnt the building down and killed everyone.
But Arthur would never do that… on purpose.
Blazing inferno or not, there was nothing Merlin could do about it now, or from where he was, so he might as well sleep so he could deal with it better in the morning.
***
Christmas Eve was probably Merlin’s favourite day of the year, anticipation, good food, relaxing, and Midnight mass… at midnight. His mother had decorated the tree already, which had used to be Merlin’s job, and the two of them would just sit on the sofa watching television for half of the day.
These days the companionable silence would be punctuated with questions about his job. Hunith wanted to know everything there was to know about Arthur and Gwen and Gaius, who she had known at some point in the dim distant past. She smiled at him gently as he described Arthur’s ill-fated attempts to resume his relationship with Morgana.
“Then he started asking me about Gwen,” Merlin continued with a laugh. “First he wanted to know if we were going out – which was ridiculous in itself – then he kept asking me what sort of stuff she liked. In the end Gwen had to take him over to one side at one of the casting meetings and explain that she’s seeing Greg, has been for three years and they’re talking about getting married. Of course, after that, he acted like he’d never been after her at all.”
“You look relieved that she said no,” his mother said quietly. Merlin stopped with a start, shrugging a little self-consciously.
“Well, you know, girls tend to get a little odd when Arthur pays any attention to them. It’s different with Morgana, she’s famous enough that he doesn’t… she doesn’t see him as some sort of superior being. But most people don’t think of him as being available, so when he shows that he is, they get…”
“Merlin?”
“I didn’t want her to screw things up with Greg just because Arthur thought that he might fancy her,” he said, looking away and standing up. “Would you like some tea?” She nodded, a small smile pulling at her lips as he fled the room.
His mother knew he was gay, of course she knew he was gay. He had never been able to keep anything from her and, within a week of the first time he and Will had kissed experimentally, she had sat down at the dinner table and told him that she had no qualms about him having sex with whoever he wanted to, as long as he was safe and knew what he was doing. And at least, if it was a man, she didn’t have to worry about unwanted pregnancies.
He had gaped at her, and turned a shade of red that she had later affectionately teased him about. When he had asked her how she had known she had shrugged and offered him seconds.
Sometimes it was as though she could read his mind, and that made him feel more than a little terrified. She knew he had liked Arthur when he was younger, anyone walking into his room would have known that, but he had thought that his current infatuation was quite well hidden. Except Gwen knew, and Will… and possibly Gaius, but he was never sure when Gaius was joking and when he was being serious. Those comments about old married couples might have just been some twisted joke.
The subject did not come up again, however, and they settled down to enjoy the rest of the evening. Hunith co-opted Merlin into helping prepare the vegetables and the turkey, which led to a light hearted argument about whether they needed so much food. By the time they had finished there was enough to feed a small army, not including the giant turkey.
“So I guess you’ll be eating turkey soup ‘til judgement day,” Merlin said with a laugh as they looked at their handiwork.
“I invited Will round for lunch, and you know the pair of you eat like horses, and I meant what I said about you not eating enough,” she surveyed his frame with a mixture of distaste and worry that only a mother could manage. “I’m sure you’ve lost weight. You’re nothing but skin and bones these days.” He swiftly distracted her with questions about distant relatives.
There still had not been a reply from Arthur, but since there had been no message or frantic phone call from anyone else either saying ‘Arthur’s been found dead in a ditch’ or ‘Arthur’s done it again, sort it out’, he presumed that everything was going fine.
They bundled up warm for Midnight mass. Merlin hadn’t worn a proper scarf since Christmas the year before and found himself grinning like an idiot as he wrapped it round his neck and his mother threw a woolly hat and a pair of gloves at him.
“I don’t need gloves, Mum,” he protested as he watched her doing up her coat. She just looked at him and he pulled them on in spite of himself, poking at his ears until they went underneath the edges of the hat instead of being forced out further.
St Margaret’s Church was one of those typical country churches, thick stone walls, beautiful stained glass windows and a box in the narthex asking for contributions to the roof fund. It was less than ten minutes walk from the house, so they didn’t bother with the car, hurrying along the pavements in the deadly cold. Every breath Merlin expelled slid to one side in a cloud of steam, and he felt a little like a dragon, puffing out smoke.
More than half the village turned out to midnight mass, even those who usually avoided church for one reason or another, and Merlin and his mother had to squeeze in at the back. There was no sign of Will though, which was not unusual. They had been fifteen when Will had decided that he was an atheist and stood up in their GCSE RS class to question their teacher’s beliefs. She had stammered and squirmed under his interrogation until Merlin had taken pity on her and kicked Will under the table to make him shut up.
It had taken another three weeks for Merlin to convince Will that he was not interested in hearing about the hypocrisy of organised religion and another two months for Will to explain, in dribs and drabs, his inability to believe in an all knowing deity who gave a shit about him when his father had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour the year before.
The conversations about religion had ended after that.
Merlin wasn’t sure what he believed really, and he had never found the time away from home to go to any sort of religious event, but he did like midnight mass. There was something magical about it, and the carol singing was fun. So he went along with his mother and joined in.
***
Christmas passed quietly, as it always did, presents were opened, phone calls were made and Mrs Partridge next door came around to wish them a good day and make bad jokes about pear trees. Will came around at twenty to one, bearing gifts, though not of gold, frankincense, or myrrh as he had threatened, and they sat down to Christmas lunch, bickering happily.
“You work too hard,” Will commented, batting Merlin’s hands out of the way to get to the stuffing first. Merlin stuck his tongue out and stole a roast potato off his plate.
“I do my job,” he said with a shrug.
“Which involves you staying up working until four am?” Will asked again, compensating for his missing potato by taking two more.
“That was one night, when you happened to ring me and there was a late event going on. I had to be available in case Arthur called,” he reached across the table to grab the cranberry sauce and had his hand slapped away by his mother, who gave him a hard look. “Could you please pass the cranberry sauce?” he asked dutifully. Will smirked at him across the table as Hunith passed Merlin the sauce and then reached out to take more meat, only to have the same process repeated on him.
“You always have to be available for Arthur,” Will shot back bitterly, “your entire life is spent waiting for Arthur to need you! You have to get out and live your own life, Merlin. He’s slowly destroying you.”
“Will…” Merlin began. They had had this argument before. “He pays me to take care of things… it’s just... intense.”
“Yeah, intense,” Will said round a mouthful of turkey, “right. Last time I checked slavery was illegal.”
“I’m not his slave,” Merlin repeated.
“As good as,” Will told him. “You can’t run around arranging the prat’s life forever. Just tell me, when are you going to quit?”
Merlin reached out his forked and savagely speared a roast parsnip from Will’s plate holding it up triumphantly.
“When he doesn’t need me anymore,” he said, before sticking the parsnip in his mouth and chewing with a self satisfied grin. “Best Christmas dinner ever, Mum.” He said, changing the conversation without bothering with subtlety. Will glared at him from across the table.
“Thank you,” she said with a small smile. “Eat as much as you want, Will, there’s plenty more.”
“There really is,” Merlin agreed, “we had a mountain of vegetables last night and that turkey was huge.”
“Thanks, Hunith,” Will said quietly, dropping his head down and beginning to eat with a single-mindedness that raised Merlin and his mother’s eyebrows. Over the table, Merlin shifted uncomfortably, realising that the conversation had got a little out of hand. Will muttered something under his breath that sounded a lot like ‘bloody Arthur bloody Pendragon,’ but Merlin let it slide that once. It was Christmas after all.
The turkey was taken out and the pudding brought in, covered in blue flame. Polite conversation was made and crackers were pulled.
Traditionally, after dinner, Will and Merlin would do the dishes while Hunith took a little time off to watch the Queen’s speech, or anything more interesting she could find. In previous years there had been bubble fights and singing of Christmas songs. Will had always loved Fairytale of New York, and made Merlin do the girl’s parts. But the pair of them were practically silent as they began, Will washing, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows as he scrubbed furiously at the baking tray. To one side, Merlin watched him pensively.
“You know, I don’t know why you hate him so much,” he said after a moment. “If you just got over yourself sometime and let me introduce the pair of you, you’d probably like each other.”
“Get over myself?” Will asked, incredulously. He turned, soap suds floating out as he twirled around, some sticking to his hands and shirt, one enterprising clump of bubbles even making it to his chin. “I don’t think I’m the one who needs to get over myself. You remember when we were at school and you wanted to save the world? You said you were going to go to Africa and do charity work, or become a Doctor or a scientist and invent something that would change people’s lives.” He sighed. “Now you’re slaving for some overstuffed film star, who can’t act and thinks he’s God’s gift to the world and you’re so blindly infatuated with him you don’t even realise you’re not yourself anymore, you’re just his fucking lapdog.”
“I am not,” Merlin yelled back, although privately he knew Will had a point. “And who says I’m not helping to save the world?” he asked. “Arthur does lots of charity work.”
“You mean you write a cheque every now and then on his behalf and send it to a charity he picked out at random,” Will said scathingly.
“That’s not true… Arthur’s going to Africa next year for Comic Relief,” Merlin said stubbornly.
“Good for Arthur,” Will said, swivelling back to look down at the sink. “Good for him, he’s just so generous and wonderful, isn’t he?” Merlin didn’t reply, just seized the baking tray from him as he finished rinsing it off. “You’re so full of shit, Merlin.”
“Please, Will…” Merlin said with a sigh, “It’s Christmas.”
“Peace on earth and good will to all men.”
“Precisely,” Merlin said, risking a little smile as Will looked over at him out of the corner of his eye. It did not work.
“Well maybe I’m fed up with Good Will.”
The rest of the dishes were done in silence, except for the odd question about where something went, Hunith having decided to rearrange the kitchen while Merlin was gone, and what to do with the left-overs. The pair of them avoided looking at each other and then, as Merlin put away the last mug, Will turned silently on his heel and stuffed his hands in his pockets, heading for the front door.
“Bye Hunith, thanks for dinner, and the coat,” he said as he pulled the door open. Merlin winced as it slammed behind him and slumped down onto a chair.
After a few minutes Hunith came in, looking for her son.
“Merlin?” she said, leaning in the doorway. Merlin looked up at her and knew that she had heard every word.
“I don’t understand what his problem is,” Merlin muttered, “it’s my job, not his. I’m the one who should be complaining.” Hunith crossed over to him and pulled him into a gentle hug, stroking his hair.
“Perhaps he’s complaining for you, because he doesn’t think you can,” she suggested.
“But… I do complain. I complain all the time,” Merlin said, remembering lengthy conversations with Gwen and the doll with the pins stuck in it that was shoved unceremoniously in one of his bags. “That’s practically all I do. It doesn’t mean I want to resign though. I like what I do it’s just…”
“It’s your life,” she said into his hair, pulling back and looking up into his face with a sad smile. Merlin shrugged. “Are you happy?” she asked.
“Yes,” Merlin answered, he didn’t even have to think about it. He hated washing Arthur’s clothes and cooking him breakfast and making sure he knew who everyone was at a party and organising his schedule and fielding calls from his father, but at the same time he sort of loved it.
“Then that’s all I’m worried about,” she said, “now… how about we break open another bottle of wine?”
“You’re going to become an alcoholic at this rate, Mum,” he joked with a weak smile. Hunith gave him a light cuff round the back of the head, as she always had done when he was rude. “Hey! Child abuse!”
“You’re an adult,” she pointed out and he sulked for a second, “and I hardly think that a bottle of wine on Christmas day makes me an alcoholic.”
“It’s a slippery slope,” he said, shaking his head and waggling a finger in front of her nose.
“Get the glasses and go and turn the afternoon film on… what is it anyway?” she asked.
“The Beginning of the End,” Merlin said without even thinking about it. “Morgana’s second to last. She’s actually really good in it. Almost won that Oscar as well.” Hunith gave him an amused look and he shifted uncomfortably. “What? It’s my job to know stuff like that… and she’s a friend.”
“I still have a hard time believing it…” she said with a rueful smile, picking up a bottle of red from the worktop. “You’re friends with people who get nominated for Oscars…” she waited a second. “Are you going to get any glasses, or do you want to swig this from the bottle?”
They curled up on the sofa again to watch Morgana’s film and Merlin irritated his mother by commenting on the actors.
“She’s had a boob job,” he said as the main female antagonist came on screen. “Last year, when she said she was going to Switzerland, she checked into one of those clinics.”
“Merlin…” Hunith said, turning to look at him, “I don’t want to hear about her breasts, if I did I’d read the gossip columns.”
“Sorry Mum.”
The film was getting to its climax, where Morgana’s character aided the escape of the refugee she had fallen in love with, when a knock came at the door.
Merlin levered himself off the sofa, and left his Mum to watch the touching parting scene between the two characters. She had always been an old romantic. He opened the door and froze when he saw who was on the other side.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, a little more bitterly than he had wanted to.
“It’s Christmas,” Will said, shifting from foot to foot, looking over Merlin’s shoulder at where his mother was on the sofa.
“It is,” Merlin agreed. Will reached out and grabbed his wrist, pulling him out and letting the door swing shut behind him. “It’s freezing out here,” Merlin protested, wrapping his arms around himself. “What do you want, Will?”
“I’m sorry,” Will muttered and Merlin nodded. They stared at each other for a second before Will reached out to grab Merlin by the shoulders and dragged their faces together until his lips crashed against Merlin’s. It took a moment or two before Merlin relaxed, smiling into the kiss. He wrapped his arms around Will’s neck stealing as much of the other mans’ heat as he could, pressing them together and ignoring the fact that they were on his doorstep in the middle of winter.
“You should apologise more often,” he said as they pulled away. Will chuckled. They stopped for a second, just breathing, arms still wrapped around each other before the moment was broken by a call from inside the house.
“If you two have kissed and made up then maybe you should come inside before my son catches his death of cold,” Hunith commented and Merlin could feel himself flushing brilliant red as Will cringed slightly.
“Come on in,” Merlin said, turning to push the door open and tugging Will in after him.
At the end of the film, as Will and his mother argued about what game to play before the inevitable turkey sandwiches, Merlin snuck a look at his phone. There was no further word from Arthur, which was unsettling. He didn’t think he had gone this long without Arthur contacting him in some way since he had met the man. It felt like there was something wrong, in the pit of his stomach. His finger hovered over the call button, but Will’s voice distracted him.
“Hey, dreamer, Trivial Pursuit or Pictionary?” he asked. Merlin shoved his phone back into his pocket and applied himself to the problem at hand although part of his brain was still worrying.
***
Merlin’s train the next day was delayed by an hour, not that that was surprising. He managed to get his reserved seat though, which was unusual and he settled down to rest for the next few hours.
Halfway through the journey, his worries were allayed by a buzzing in his pocket.
Shouldn’t you be back by now?
He could picture Arthur asking that very question, and he texted back immediately.
Train was delayed. I’ll call you when I get in. It was a long moment before his phone buzzed again, except it wasn’t Arthur this time.
Merlin, ur back 2day right? Gwen sent. Merlin shot back an affirmative. Morgana says 2 keep an eye on Arthur. Stop him doing nething stupid.
That did not sound good. Merlin stared at the screen for a moment. Morgana, when she was not busy causing Arthur’s black moods and anger, was quite good at spotting when he was about to fly off the handle or get into something he should not. He paused before replying. The last time Morgana would have seen Arthur was Uther’s Christmas party on the twenty-third. Whatever she was talking about must have happened then and Gwen had just not wanted to interrupt his holiday.
“Bugger,” he muttered, earning himself a dirty look from the woman next to him. He smiled apologetically at her before turning back to the text.
Such as? He asked, trying to keep as vague as possible. He held onto his phone until the reply came through.
Not sure. Something 2 do w Sophia. Gwen sent back to him.
Who’s Sophia? He wrote out and, before sending, he added Arthur and Gaius to his list of recipients.
Three minutes later and all the answers were in.
According to Gwen, Sophia was ‘Some girl from the party. M thinks there’s sth off abt her’
Gaius’ answer was even more worrying, all he replied was ‘I don’t know. Keep an eye on her. ’
Arthur had only one word to say on the subject, ‘Incredible,’ which Merlin did not find particularly encouraging.
He took a deep breath and thudded his head back against the seat, ignoring the woman next to him as she glared at him again. He went away for a few days and what happened, Arthur had decided to become obsessed with someone new. Brilliant, that was just brilliant.
He decided to keep an open mind. Just because Morgana thought there was something off about her and Gaius had no idea who she was, didn’t mean that it was time to panic. For all he knew, she could be some sweet, friendly girl who would make friends with him, be great for Arthur and help keep him down to earth.
That didn’t help his jealousy, but he pushed it down savagely. Arthur was straight and Merlin would have to get used to this. The man wouldn’t be doing one night stands forever. There were bound to be relationships as well, and Merlin would have to get on with Sophia.
Of course, she could be an evil, gold-digging, bitch monster. He smiled a little but told himself off sternly for prejudicing himself against the girl. She could be wonderful. He had to keep telling himself that. She could be wonderful.
***
Next Part
-
Thursday afternoon was Arthur’s therapy session, which was probably a good thing because Morgana did not turn up for their lunch.
Merlin was sitting patiently by the counter, Gaius perched next to him, eating some sort of pastry that Merlin was almost positive was going to give him a heart attack, there was that much cream in it. Arthur was sitting, getting gradually more and more frustrated when Gwen walked in and caught Merlin’s eye with an apologetic smile. He was expecting her to cross over to them at the counter, but instead, she headed straight over to Arthur at the table and leant down to tell him something in a hushed voice.
Morgana was not coming. Merlin felt his heart drop as he watched Arthur’s face. Next to him Gaius asked for another cream filled monstrosity, muttering that he was at least going to go out happy.
Gwen turned to go, but as she did so, Arthur caught hold of her arm and gestured for her to sit down opposite him.
It took a lot of will power for Merlin not to go up to them and ask what was going on. But Gwen gave him a look of mixed confusion, terror and apology and he sagged back against the counter again.
“This is not going well,” he said under his breath to Gaius. A plate was waved under his nose and he looked down to see a slice of indecently chocolatey gateau being thrust towards him.
“We might as well make the most of it, I put it on his bill,” Gaius said, turning to watch Arthur and Gwen with him. “At least Arthur might actually get over her this time.” Merlin scoffed and began to dig in.
Arthur and Gwen seemed to be getting along quite well, they were both smiling and Gwen seemed to be relaxing as Arthur cranked the charm up. For a minute Merlin wished that the café sold alcohol, because he could really do with a drink. There was a soft laugh and Merlin winced.
“I wouldn’t worry,” Gaius commented, “she’s a sensible girl, she’s got more sense than to fall for him.” Merlin nodded, but he did not believe it. He knew from personal experience that common sense seemed to fly out of the window when Arthur was concerned. He could charm anyone.
“Right,” he said, watching as Arthur reached out a hand to rest lightly on Gwen’s wrist and she blushed a little. “Of course she is.” He tried to remind himself that Gwen was in a serious relationship and that she wouldn’t cheat on Greg ever, but he attacked the gateau with a little too much vehemence all the same.
Gwen left without saying goodbye and Merlin was called away by Arthur as they headed for his appointment.
The drive was tense, although Merlin was certain he was the only one who felt it. Arthur spent the entire trip cursing Morgana. Merlin was slowly losing the will to live, and as the drive continued his answers became shorter and shorter until he was simply muttering meaningless consonant sounds at Arthur. The man did not appear to notice.
“I can’t believe her,” Arthur growled as they pulled up outside the doctor’s office.
Merlin made an affirmative humming noise and slipped out of the vehicle, heading towards the office. The first few months they had done this, the street had been filled with cameras and the papers had been full of ‘star in breakdown?’ ‘Arthur losing his marbles?’ but after a year the novelty had worn off and people had realised that Arthur was as sane as ever.
The receptionist was a lovely girl, about their age, with a huge crush on Arthur, which Merlin sympathised with. The pair of them got along quite well, actually. They joked with each other and were on a first name basis. She had even tried to ask him out for drinks a few months ago and for once he had been fairly certain it was not just an ‘Arthur substitute’ thing, but he had turned her down for obvious reasons. Luckily it had not hurt their friendship, which he appreciated.
“Hey Merlin…” she said with a cheerful smile, glancing over his shoulder with unrestrained awe at where Arthur was standing admiring the artwork that adorned the walls. “Good week?”
“Hey Hannah… reasonable, really. Could have been better.”
“Couldn’t they all?” she asked with a smile and leaned over to press the intercom button.
“Mr Pendragon here to see Dr Drake,” she said in a clear voice. There was a moment of static before a muffled voice told her to send him on through. Merlin gave her another smile before following Arthur to the lift.
Dr Drake’s office was on the fourth floor, and he had a small waiting area outside where Merlin was expected to sit while Arthur was inside pouring his heart out.
He could never really picture what that would be like. Arthur never gave away too much of his emotions. He would yell or silently fume when he was angry, and he would complain about Morgana, but he never really told you anything. The very idea of Arthur sitting down voluntarily and talking out his problems seemed unnatural to Merlin. But there didn’t seem to be any doubt that it worked, because Arthur was still coming back even a year later.
As Arthur walked directly across to the Doctor’s office, Merlin settled down into one of the torturous waiting chairs and reached for a magazine. The selection was atrocious, but he always forgot to bring a book. He flicked through until he found a suitably hilarious looking article – My Moobs Ruined My Life – and began to read.
The session went as he had expected it would. Despite how ‘nice’ Gwen had been, Arthur was still irritated by Morgana’s actions the previous night and standing him up for lunch, and it was no time at all before man outside heard the voices in the room rise. Well, Arthur’s voice rose, Dr Drake’s always seemed to stay at a reasonable level. Even Gaius never managed to maintain that level of composure when dealing with Arthur in one of his worse moods.
Merlin quite liked Arthur’s therapy sessions. His mobile officially ‘had no signal’ because of the building design and Arthur was off his hands for an hour. Sometimes he just sat and stared at the walls, grateful for a moment to switch off. Of course, that often led to Arthur leaving the office to find him vacant and gormless, which in turn led to a week’s worth of teasing, but it was worth it. He thought he had found his first grey hair the other day, which had thrown him for a loop. This job was making him age far more quickly than he had expected… not that it had been a grey hair, though, just the light shining on one of them oddly.
He read the meaningless article, trying to ignore the fact that there was a photograph of Arthur glowering at him from the opposite page (Top Ten Hot Celebrities 2008). It was vapid and required no higher brain function whatsoever. He sighed in relief.
There was a crash from next door as Merlin came to the end of the article. Arthur had obviously started throwing things. He turned the page and began to hum a Beatles song to himself. It reminded him of his mother and his home. She was always singing the Beatles around the house.
The house he was going home to in three weeks for Christmas. He had managed to find a few minutes to buy a present for her, in between Arthur’s unnecessary audition for his father’s new film and his many attempts to woo Morgana. Uther always made his son audition, even when everyone knew he was the only person for the part. It was one part not wanting to be accused of nepotism, nine parts desire to impress on his son that he was not that important. The whole thing was a circus, in which Arthur was paraded around like a horse. Merlin found it sickening, but Arthur always got tight-lipped with quiet anger when he brought it up, so they did not talk about it.
He only had a handful of days off, as per usual, but it was enough time to get home. There were only the two of them, really, although Will would probably show up, carrying some bottle of illegally strong alcohol and a huge grin.
The angry voice next door had calmed down and Merlin looked at his watch. The sessions were getting a lot quicker. At the beginning Arthur would still have been shouting when he left, these days he was done with the tantrums when they were barely half way through.
The time ticked slowly by, although far too fast for Merlin’s liking and it seemed like no time at all before Arthur strode, fuming, from Dr Drake’s office. He did not even look at Merlin as he walked towards the doors, pushing them open as hard as he could and expecting his assistant to fall in beside him.
Merlin, as Arthur had known he would, hurried after him, wondering why, when their legs were roughly the same length, it always took him one and a half strides to match each of Arthur’s.
They did not talk about Arthur’s therapy sessions. It was one of the most important rules Merlin had learnt. The first week he had attempted to make polite conversation about it: ‘How did it go?’ ‘Did he tell you that you were completely sane, because you really shouldn’t trust everything these people say? ‘and that sort of thing. Arthur had turned on him and snapped that all such meetings were legally confidential and why should he tell Merlin anything.
That had put an end to that, so Merlin had grown used to reading between the lines and overhearing the little snatches that he could from outside the office, piecing them together so he could predict Arthur’s mood as best as he could.
As soon as they walked out the front door, Merlin’s phone got signal once more and the insistent bleeping informed him that his absence had not meant that the world had stopped.
He dragged it out of his pocket and went through the messages one by one. His mother wanted to know when she should expect him back for Christmas, Will wanted him to know that he was an imbecile, and ask if he had ravaged Arthur against a wall yet. The others were all far less interesting. The editor of one of the leading teen magazines asked whether Arthur would pose for their cover and do an exclusive interview. Gaius told him that the promo shots for Arthur’s last project were ready for him to look over back at the office. Gwen informed him that Morgana was requesting she and Arthur never have another lunch date – ever. At the bottom of the list, the most recent message blinked at him and he grimaced as he saw the sender ID.
Uther Pendragon requested his son’s presence at a charity ball he was holding for Christmas in two weeks time.
Merlin shot a look at Arthur, who was slipping sunglasses back on as they headed to the car that was waiting for them. It was probably not the best time to tell the man that he had to make nice at another of his father’s parties. He would have to let him glare at things for a little while before he broke the news. Looking on the bright side, at least it would help to take Arthur’s mind off Morgana.
In the car, Arthur stared blankly out of the window, his sunglasses still firmly on. If there was any sign that Arthur did not want to talk, that was it. Merlin took his cue and began to reply to the messages as quickly as he could, keeping his eyes down.
He gave his mother his train information, informed people that he would have to check Arthur’s schedule before giving them a definite answer – which was always best when he was first contacted – and told Gaius that they would get back to him by the end of the day. The final reply took a little more concentration.
Merlin had known Will since they were in primary school together. They were always best friends, sometimes lovers and each other’s worst nightmares because they knew everything there was to know about each other. Will had been with Merlin since the beginning of his crush on Arthur Pendragon. In fact, they had been to see Valiant together and when Merlin had walked out with a star-struck expression on his face and the conviction that it was utterly the best film he had ever seen, Will had teased him that he was in love with Arthur.
Years had passed and Will had never let up, and as Merlin had come to realise that maybe he was a little bit infatuated with the unbelievably good looking movie star, Will had mocked his pining mercilessly. Then he had got the job as a cleaner and Will had jokingly laughed that he could become Arthur’s official stalker and then…
Merlin supposed that ‘Arthur’s official stalker’ might as well be his job title. He risked a long glance to the side, and saw Arthur resting his chin on one hand, leaning against the tinted windows. The sun had come out from behind a cloud, and his hair was almost glowing. Merlin tore his eyes away and reminded himself that staring at Arthur was creepy beyond belief and that Arthur was his employer, for crying out loud.
That did not help him in replying to Will, though. He had to be careful with his friend, because Will could read novels into a text message. Merlin sighed and began to tap out a response. He informed Will that he was a pillock with a pea sized brain and that the likelihood of Merlin ravaging Arthur any time soon was only greater than the likelihood that aliens would visit them from Mars and teach them the secret of time travel.
It took about twenty seconds for Will’s reply to come back.
So it happened yesterday, hey? Merlin’s response, was short, to the point and not something that he would ever dream of saying to his mother.
A movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention and he turned to see Arthur removing his sunglasses. His eyes looked tired and his mouth was set in a firm line, but the lack of shades was a good sign.
“Merlin?” he said, turning to his assistant, and Merlin resisted the urge to rest a hand on his shoulder. Inappropriate touching was a bad idea.
“Your father wants to know if you’ll be attending the charity ball on the twenty third,” Merlin said as lightly as he could. Arthur scoffed a little.
“You mean he wants me to know that I’m going to be attending,” he said.
“I had already scheduled it in…” Merlin commented, pulling up a copy of Arthur’s schedule for the next three weeks up on his iphone. “In June, when the date was finalised.”
“Of course you had,” Arthur said with a half smile. “You know, Merlin, sometimes you’re almost competent.”
“Thank you,” Merlin said. “Of course, I could tell him that I mixed up the timetable and got you double booked for that night, if you don’t want to go.”
“Don’t be ridiculous Merlin. I’m going. I’ll dance and flirt and be positively charming,” Arthur told him, tucking his glasses into his shirt pocket.
“Don’t strain yourself,” Merlin replied with a small grin of his own. Arthur shot him a suspicious glance, but let the implications slide.
“Well, you’ll be there to elbow me when I get out of hand, won’t you?” Merlin froze at Arthur’s blasé attitude. He opened his mouth and turned, conflicted. “Merlin?”
“You… I’m going home for Christmas on the twenty third.” Arthur gaped at him. “I did tell you – a month ago – and you said it would be alright.”
“Right… yes, of course I did,” he said uncertainly. Merlin paused, unwilling to push the subject further. If the conversation went on too long, he was afraid he would give in and tell Arthur he would stay with him over Christmas, and he really needed to go home and see his mother some time. “You should go. I’ll be fine. Better than fine, actually, because I won’t have you around to fuck things up.”
Merlin smirked and nodded.
“Do you know who else is going?”
“Home for Christmas?” Merlin asked in confusion. Arthur shot him a long, unimpressed, look.
“To the party, idiot. Honestly, I don’t know why I put up with you,” The star shook his head and rolled his eyes.
“Because you need someone to be the butt of your rapier sharp wit and sparkling repartee,” Merlin said without even considering his response. To his surprise, he managed to raise a chuckle.
“Something like that.”
***
The run up to Christmas was a flurry of present buying and photo-shoots with the odd interview thrown in. Merlin found himself flying over to LA for a long weekend, then back to London for a brunch with the script writers of Uther’s newest project. Admittedly, because Arthur insisted on having him on hand for any possible emergency (or just so he could yell at the stewardesses for him and no one would make Arthur out to be unreasonable) he ended up in first class, but the complimentary champagne and the extra space for the reclining seats did nothing to make up for the fact that they had run out of earplugs.
No earplugs meant he was stuck on a twelve-hour flight with nothing to stop the noise of Arthur’s complaints, commentary on the films that were available and the stars in them, and, when he finally decided sleep would be a good option, the snoring.
That was one thing Merlin had not anticipated before becoming the actor’s assistant. Arthur snored like some sort of pneumatic drill. Merlin had never told him, although he had listened with much amusement to Arthur’s rants after Morgana had mentioned it. It was the only thing that made him question his fantasies. Somehow, the idea of having Arthur in his bed was less appealing when the reason he would not get any sleep was the actor’s nasal passages.
When the seemingly interminable flight finally came to an end, Merlin did not know who was more relieved, him, Arthur, or the stewardesses who gave him sympathetic smiles and handshakes on the way out.
“Apparently the ears aren’t a turn off to everyone,” Arthur said with a yawn as they stepped back onto British soil once again. There were a few photographers to the right and he gave them a small wave and a tired smile.
“What do you mean?” Merlin asked, too exhausted to try and figure out Arthur’s leaps of imagination.
“Those girls back there, you could have joined the mile high club.” Merlin gaped at the back of his head as Arthur walked off to the baggage retrieval point.
There was no time to sleep though, as they were whisked off to the brunch and Merlin had to pay attention and take notes because he could tell that Arthur was struggling to stay awake, for all he looked bright eyed and bushy-tailed. Merlin whipped out his notebook and took longhand notes as quickly as he could, although he found, when they came to the end of the meeting that more than half of the page was filled with doodles of interesting ways to kill people on a film set. Some of them had suspiciously light hair and smug smiles.
He sighed as they settled back into the car and looked down at the schedule again. Three more meetings before they would get a chance for a rest.
Nothing changed for the rest of the three weeks, every day was full of activity. Arthur insisted on every little thing being completely perfect and Merlin had to make sure that everything would chunter along happily while he was away. He was not egocentric, but he was pretty sure that without him to arrange everything and manipulate Arthur into doing the things he was supposed to, the well oiled mechanism that was Arthur’s life would grind to a halt.
Arthur was spending Christmas with his father and a cohort of servants and relations, so he should not get into any trouble, and even if he did the people at hand were more than capable of dealing with it. Merlin made sure that everyone possible had his number, though, just in case of emergencies. He didn’t fancy finding out when he came back that Arthur had accidentally killed himself in a freak accident.
The morning of the twenty-third dawned brilliant and frosty, and Merlin spent most of it on the phone with Uther’s secretary, trying to make sure that the arrangements for the party that night were ready. He checked Arthur’s date book five times and highlighted everything that he thought might go wrong. He grabbed Arthur and gave him a list of things not to say that night, and a list of people he would have to talk to at the event, including several members of the royal family who had been invited.
“No comments about the Queen or the Prince of Wales, please,” he said, sighing as he remembered the last time Arthur had horribly insulted the monarchy to one of their cousins. “And if in doubt about who a person is…”
“Get them to introduce themselves to someone else,” Arthur said in a bored tone, “I have done this before, you know. I was the one who taught you how to behave at things like that.”
“But you never follow your own rules,” Merlin pointed out, thrusting a pile of clothes into Arthur’s arms. “This is what you should be wearing… You’re not allowed to clash with the decorations apparently.”
“Blue?” Arthur asked looking down at the shirt. “I hate blue.” He glared at the offending articles and pushed them back towards Merlin, but he just crossed his arms and refused to take them.
“Like I said, Marjorie doesn’t want anyone to clash with her decorations, so…”
“Who’s Marjorie?” Arthur asked.
“Your father’s party planner,” Merlin said, wondering if he should add ‘harpy’ to the description. He had only met the woman on two occasions, but on both of those she had made him feel about two feet tall. If she said she did not want anyone to clash with the décor, then no one would clash with the décor.
“Right… so blue?”
“Yes, Arthur… Now. My taxi’s in five minutes, so are you sure you’ve got everything?”
“I’m not incompetent, Merlin,” Arthur snapped, still glaring down at the clothing with distaste.
“It’s just a colour, Arthur... relax,” he said, ignoring his employer’s comment, and reminding himself that, for the next three days he was free. “You know my number if anything goes horribly wrong… and I mean horribly, Arthur. I am not getting the train all the way back here if someone accidentally spills champagne on you.”
“Just go, Merlin. I’ll be fine,” Arthur insisted, standing up to shoo him out of the door. “I’m a grown man, I can take care of myself.”
Merlin only wished he could be as certain of that as he loaded his bag into the boot of the taxi and asked for the train station. As he was getting into the back seat his phone buzzed in his back pocket and he groaned when he saw who the text was from. Arthur had probably dropped something down the back of his desk or something. He hit read and looked down.
Have a good Christmas, idiot.
He grinned and looked up in roughly the direction of Arthur’s window. It was too much to hope that the man was watching his taxi leave, but there was a small part of his brain, the part that wanted to cry at Titanic and admit that he sometimes listened to songs for the lyrics but never did because he was not a little girl (even if he did have a little girl’s crush on Arthur Pendragon), which hoped that blue eyes were watching him go.
The train was packed. He had not taken first class, seeing as he was on his own and the price of first class train tickets these days was scandalous. The man across the table from him was drinking a plastic bottle of cheap cider, and across the aisle a student was reading some book that looked more like an encyclopaedia than a textbook. He sighed and got out his own book, but it had been so long since he had a chance to read it that he had forgotten everything that had happened and he had to start from the beginning again.
The annoying thing about living in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere was that you had to get the train that stopped at every single station, which took a couple of hours longer than any other train.
He found it highly depressing that, even though he had set off in the morning, sunset had already come and gone by the time the train came in to the station and he shuffled off onto the platform, checking his pockets and counting his bags several times in paranoia.
His mother was standing at the far end of the platform and he could not help but smile as he caught sight of her and she ran towards him to pull him into a bear hug.
“Hey Mum…” he said lifting her up and marvelling, as he always did when he saw her again, at how short she seemed in real life.
“Good journey?” she asked, shouldering one of his bags without question. He tried to take it off her, but she slapped his hand away.
“Long.”
“Good thing that I’ve got a hot dinner and a warm bed waiting for you, isn’t it?” Merlin grinned and walked a little taller. “It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to be back,” he agreed, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. It was nice to be just Merlin again and not Merlin, Arthur’s slave. “And I have missed your cooking.”
“You certainly look like you have,” she said with a disapproving frown, poking at his ribs. “Have they been starving you down in London?”
“I eat!” he protested, but she looked unconvinced.
“Not enough...” she said.
“Well, I’m not going to object if you want to feed me,” he said with a shrug and a small laugh.
***
Dinner was as delicious as Merlin had expected, and afterwards his mother commented on the bags under his eyes and shooed him off to bed immediately.
Merlin dumped his bags on the floor and collapsed onto the bed without bothering to get undressed. His room looked exactly the same as it always had. Hunith had not changed a thing, from the posters covering the walls to the postit note reminders to himself that were scattered across every surface. He sighed and closed his eyes when the phone in his trouser pocket buzzed again.
“Fuck…” he breathed to himself. He hoped that was Will asking if he was back yet, or else he was going to kill something.
It wasn’t Will.
Charity balls are boring. Arthur’s text message read. Merlin had tried, at first, to ignore Arthur’s pointless messages, but ignoring the git only meant that he would keep texting until Merlin’s inbox was completely clogged. Merlin would turn his phone off immediately, but Arthur was more likely to take the hint if Merlin at least showed an interest first.
Tough. Suck it up. He sent back. A few minutes of staring at the ceiling later, the reply came.
There’s no one here worth talking to.
I’m on holiday, Arthur. He pointed out. I don’t have to talk to you, either.
There was no reply after that, which was unusual, but not exactly unwelcome. He could only hope that Arthur had either drunk himself into a coma and been surreptitiously escorted to one of the guest rooms by his father’s employees, or had found someone more interesting to bother than Merlin. If the man had done anything terrible Merlin would have been informed.
Unless he had burnt the building down and killed everyone.
But Arthur would never do that… on purpose.
Blazing inferno or not, there was nothing Merlin could do about it now, or from where he was, so he might as well sleep so he could deal with it better in the morning.
***
Christmas Eve was probably Merlin’s favourite day of the year, anticipation, good food, relaxing, and Midnight mass… at midnight. His mother had decorated the tree already, which had used to be Merlin’s job, and the two of them would just sit on the sofa watching television for half of the day.
These days the companionable silence would be punctuated with questions about his job. Hunith wanted to know everything there was to know about Arthur and Gwen and Gaius, who she had known at some point in the dim distant past. She smiled at him gently as he described Arthur’s ill-fated attempts to resume his relationship with Morgana.
“Then he started asking me about Gwen,” Merlin continued with a laugh. “First he wanted to know if we were going out – which was ridiculous in itself – then he kept asking me what sort of stuff she liked. In the end Gwen had to take him over to one side at one of the casting meetings and explain that she’s seeing Greg, has been for three years and they’re talking about getting married. Of course, after that, he acted like he’d never been after her at all.”
“You look relieved that she said no,” his mother said quietly. Merlin stopped with a start, shrugging a little self-consciously.
“Well, you know, girls tend to get a little odd when Arthur pays any attention to them. It’s different with Morgana, she’s famous enough that he doesn’t… she doesn’t see him as some sort of superior being. But most people don’t think of him as being available, so when he shows that he is, they get…”
“Merlin?”
“I didn’t want her to screw things up with Greg just because Arthur thought that he might fancy her,” he said, looking away and standing up. “Would you like some tea?” She nodded, a small smile pulling at her lips as he fled the room.
His mother knew he was gay, of course she knew he was gay. He had never been able to keep anything from her and, within a week of the first time he and Will had kissed experimentally, she had sat down at the dinner table and told him that she had no qualms about him having sex with whoever he wanted to, as long as he was safe and knew what he was doing. And at least, if it was a man, she didn’t have to worry about unwanted pregnancies.
He had gaped at her, and turned a shade of red that she had later affectionately teased him about. When he had asked her how she had known she had shrugged and offered him seconds.
Sometimes it was as though she could read his mind, and that made him feel more than a little terrified. She knew he had liked Arthur when he was younger, anyone walking into his room would have known that, but he had thought that his current infatuation was quite well hidden. Except Gwen knew, and Will… and possibly Gaius, but he was never sure when Gaius was joking and when he was being serious. Those comments about old married couples might have just been some twisted joke.
The subject did not come up again, however, and they settled down to enjoy the rest of the evening. Hunith co-opted Merlin into helping prepare the vegetables and the turkey, which led to a light hearted argument about whether they needed so much food. By the time they had finished there was enough to feed a small army, not including the giant turkey.
“So I guess you’ll be eating turkey soup ‘til judgement day,” Merlin said with a laugh as they looked at their handiwork.
“I invited Will round for lunch, and you know the pair of you eat like horses, and I meant what I said about you not eating enough,” she surveyed his frame with a mixture of distaste and worry that only a mother could manage. “I’m sure you’ve lost weight. You’re nothing but skin and bones these days.” He swiftly distracted her with questions about distant relatives.
There still had not been a reply from Arthur, but since there had been no message or frantic phone call from anyone else either saying ‘Arthur’s been found dead in a ditch’ or ‘Arthur’s done it again, sort it out’, he presumed that everything was going fine.
They bundled up warm for Midnight mass. Merlin hadn’t worn a proper scarf since Christmas the year before and found himself grinning like an idiot as he wrapped it round his neck and his mother threw a woolly hat and a pair of gloves at him.
“I don’t need gloves, Mum,” he protested as he watched her doing up her coat. She just looked at him and he pulled them on in spite of himself, poking at his ears until they went underneath the edges of the hat instead of being forced out further.
St Margaret’s Church was one of those typical country churches, thick stone walls, beautiful stained glass windows and a box in the narthex asking for contributions to the roof fund. It was less than ten minutes walk from the house, so they didn’t bother with the car, hurrying along the pavements in the deadly cold. Every breath Merlin expelled slid to one side in a cloud of steam, and he felt a little like a dragon, puffing out smoke.
More than half the village turned out to midnight mass, even those who usually avoided church for one reason or another, and Merlin and his mother had to squeeze in at the back. There was no sign of Will though, which was not unusual. They had been fifteen when Will had decided that he was an atheist and stood up in their GCSE RS class to question their teacher’s beliefs. She had stammered and squirmed under his interrogation until Merlin had taken pity on her and kicked Will under the table to make him shut up.
It had taken another three weeks for Merlin to convince Will that he was not interested in hearing about the hypocrisy of organised religion and another two months for Will to explain, in dribs and drabs, his inability to believe in an all knowing deity who gave a shit about him when his father had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour the year before.
The conversations about religion had ended after that.
Merlin wasn’t sure what he believed really, and he had never found the time away from home to go to any sort of religious event, but he did like midnight mass. There was something magical about it, and the carol singing was fun. So he went along with his mother and joined in.
***
Christmas passed quietly, as it always did, presents were opened, phone calls were made and Mrs Partridge next door came around to wish them a good day and make bad jokes about pear trees. Will came around at twenty to one, bearing gifts, though not of gold, frankincense, or myrrh as he had threatened, and they sat down to Christmas lunch, bickering happily.
“You work too hard,” Will commented, batting Merlin’s hands out of the way to get to the stuffing first. Merlin stuck his tongue out and stole a roast potato off his plate.
“I do my job,” he said with a shrug.
“Which involves you staying up working until four am?” Will asked again, compensating for his missing potato by taking two more.
“That was one night, when you happened to ring me and there was a late event going on. I had to be available in case Arthur called,” he reached across the table to grab the cranberry sauce and had his hand slapped away by his mother, who gave him a hard look. “Could you please pass the cranberry sauce?” he asked dutifully. Will smirked at him across the table as Hunith passed Merlin the sauce and then reached out to take more meat, only to have the same process repeated on him.
“You always have to be available for Arthur,” Will shot back bitterly, “your entire life is spent waiting for Arthur to need you! You have to get out and live your own life, Merlin. He’s slowly destroying you.”
“Will…” Merlin began. They had had this argument before. “He pays me to take care of things… it’s just... intense.”
“Yeah, intense,” Will said round a mouthful of turkey, “right. Last time I checked slavery was illegal.”
“I’m not his slave,” Merlin repeated.
“As good as,” Will told him. “You can’t run around arranging the prat’s life forever. Just tell me, when are you going to quit?”
Merlin reached out his forked and savagely speared a roast parsnip from Will’s plate holding it up triumphantly.
“When he doesn’t need me anymore,” he said, before sticking the parsnip in his mouth and chewing with a self satisfied grin. “Best Christmas dinner ever, Mum.” He said, changing the conversation without bothering with subtlety. Will glared at him from across the table.
“Thank you,” she said with a small smile. “Eat as much as you want, Will, there’s plenty more.”
“There really is,” Merlin agreed, “we had a mountain of vegetables last night and that turkey was huge.”
“Thanks, Hunith,” Will said quietly, dropping his head down and beginning to eat with a single-mindedness that raised Merlin and his mother’s eyebrows. Over the table, Merlin shifted uncomfortably, realising that the conversation had got a little out of hand. Will muttered something under his breath that sounded a lot like ‘bloody Arthur bloody Pendragon,’ but Merlin let it slide that once. It was Christmas after all.
The turkey was taken out and the pudding brought in, covered in blue flame. Polite conversation was made and crackers were pulled.
Traditionally, after dinner, Will and Merlin would do the dishes while Hunith took a little time off to watch the Queen’s speech, or anything more interesting she could find. In previous years there had been bubble fights and singing of Christmas songs. Will had always loved Fairytale of New York, and made Merlin do the girl’s parts. But the pair of them were practically silent as they began, Will washing, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows as he scrubbed furiously at the baking tray. To one side, Merlin watched him pensively.
“You know, I don’t know why you hate him so much,” he said after a moment. “If you just got over yourself sometime and let me introduce the pair of you, you’d probably like each other.”
“Get over myself?” Will asked, incredulously. He turned, soap suds floating out as he twirled around, some sticking to his hands and shirt, one enterprising clump of bubbles even making it to his chin. “I don’t think I’m the one who needs to get over myself. You remember when we were at school and you wanted to save the world? You said you were going to go to Africa and do charity work, or become a Doctor or a scientist and invent something that would change people’s lives.” He sighed. “Now you’re slaving for some overstuffed film star, who can’t act and thinks he’s God’s gift to the world and you’re so blindly infatuated with him you don’t even realise you’re not yourself anymore, you’re just his fucking lapdog.”
“I am not,” Merlin yelled back, although privately he knew Will had a point. “And who says I’m not helping to save the world?” he asked. “Arthur does lots of charity work.”
“You mean you write a cheque every now and then on his behalf and send it to a charity he picked out at random,” Will said scathingly.
“That’s not true… Arthur’s going to Africa next year for Comic Relief,” Merlin said stubbornly.
“Good for Arthur,” Will said, swivelling back to look down at the sink. “Good for him, he’s just so generous and wonderful, isn’t he?” Merlin didn’t reply, just seized the baking tray from him as he finished rinsing it off. “You’re so full of shit, Merlin.”
“Please, Will…” Merlin said with a sigh, “It’s Christmas.”
“Peace on earth and good will to all men.”
“Precisely,” Merlin said, risking a little smile as Will looked over at him out of the corner of his eye. It did not work.
“Well maybe I’m fed up with Good Will.”
The rest of the dishes were done in silence, except for the odd question about where something went, Hunith having decided to rearrange the kitchen while Merlin was gone, and what to do with the left-overs. The pair of them avoided looking at each other and then, as Merlin put away the last mug, Will turned silently on his heel and stuffed his hands in his pockets, heading for the front door.
“Bye Hunith, thanks for dinner, and the coat,” he said as he pulled the door open. Merlin winced as it slammed behind him and slumped down onto a chair.
After a few minutes Hunith came in, looking for her son.
“Merlin?” she said, leaning in the doorway. Merlin looked up at her and knew that she had heard every word.
“I don’t understand what his problem is,” Merlin muttered, “it’s my job, not his. I’m the one who should be complaining.” Hunith crossed over to him and pulled him into a gentle hug, stroking his hair.
“Perhaps he’s complaining for you, because he doesn’t think you can,” she suggested.
“But… I do complain. I complain all the time,” Merlin said, remembering lengthy conversations with Gwen and the doll with the pins stuck in it that was shoved unceremoniously in one of his bags. “That’s practically all I do. It doesn’t mean I want to resign though. I like what I do it’s just…”
“It’s your life,” she said into his hair, pulling back and looking up into his face with a sad smile. Merlin shrugged. “Are you happy?” she asked.
“Yes,” Merlin answered, he didn’t even have to think about it. He hated washing Arthur’s clothes and cooking him breakfast and making sure he knew who everyone was at a party and organising his schedule and fielding calls from his father, but at the same time he sort of loved it.
“Then that’s all I’m worried about,” she said, “now… how about we break open another bottle of wine?”
“You’re going to become an alcoholic at this rate, Mum,” he joked with a weak smile. Hunith gave him a light cuff round the back of the head, as she always had done when he was rude. “Hey! Child abuse!”
“You’re an adult,” she pointed out and he sulked for a second, “and I hardly think that a bottle of wine on Christmas day makes me an alcoholic.”
“It’s a slippery slope,” he said, shaking his head and waggling a finger in front of her nose.
“Get the glasses and go and turn the afternoon film on… what is it anyway?” she asked.
“The Beginning of the End,” Merlin said without even thinking about it. “Morgana’s second to last. She’s actually really good in it. Almost won that Oscar as well.” Hunith gave him an amused look and he shifted uncomfortably. “What? It’s my job to know stuff like that… and she’s a friend.”
“I still have a hard time believing it…” she said with a rueful smile, picking up a bottle of red from the worktop. “You’re friends with people who get nominated for Oscars…” she waited a second. “Are you going to get any glasses, or do you want to swig this from the bottle?”
They curled up on the sofa again to watch Morgana’s film and Merlin irritated his mother by commenting on the actors.
“She’s had a boob job,” he said as the main female antagonist came on screen. “Last year, when she said she was going to Switzerland, she checked into one of those clinics.”
“Merlin…” Hunith said, turning to look at him, “I don’t want to hear about her breasts, if I did I’d read the gossip columns.”
“Sorry Mum.”
The film was getting to its climax, where Morgana’s character aided the escape of the refugee she had fallen in love with, when a knock came at the door.
Merlin levered himself off the sofa, and left his Mum to watch the touching parting scene between the two characters. She had always been an old romantic. He opened the door and froze when he saw who was on the other side.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, a little more bitterly than he had wanted to.
“It’s Christmas,” Will said, shifting from foot to foot, looking over Merlin’s shoulder at where his mother was on the sofa.
“It is,” Merlin agreed. Will reached out and grabbed his wrist, pulling him out and letting the door swing shut behind him. “It’s freezing out here,” Merlin protested, wrapping his arms around himself. “What do you want, Will?”
“I’m sorry,” Will muttered and Merlin nodded. They stared at each other for a second before Will reached out to grab Merlin by the shoulders and dragged their faces together until his lips crashed against Merlin’s. It took a moment or two before Merlin relaxed, smiling into the kiss. He wrapped his arms around Will’s neck stealing as much of the other mans’ heat as he could, pressing them together and ignoring the fact that they were on his doorstep in the middle of winter.
“You should apologise more often,” he said as they pulled away. Will chuckled. They stopped for a second, just breathing, arms still wrapped around each other before the moment was broken by a call from inside the house.
“If you two have kissed and made up then maybe you should come inside before my son catches his death of cold,” Hunith commented and Merlin could feel himself flushing brilliant red as Will cringed slightly.
“Come on in,” Merlin said, turning to push the door open and tugging Will in after him.
At the end of the film, as Will and his mother argued about what game to play before the inevitable turkey sandwiches, Merlin snuck a look at his phone. There was no further word from Arthur, which was unsettling. He didn’t think he had gone this long without Arthur contacting him in some way since he had met the man. It felt like there was something wrong, in the pit of his stomach. His finger hovered over the call button, but Will’s voice distracted him.
“Hey, dreamer, Trivial Pursuit or Pictionary?” he asked. Merlin shoved his phone back into his pocket and applied himself to the problem at hand although part of his brain was still worrying.
***
Merlin’s train the next day was delayed by an hour, not that that was surprising. He managed to get his reserved seat though, which was unusual and he settled down to rest for the next few hours.
Halfway through the journey, his worries were allayed by a buzzing in his pocket.
Shouldn’t you be back by now?
He could picture Arthur asking that very question, and he texted back immediately.
Train was delayed. I’ll call you when I get in. It was a long moment before his phone buzzed again, except it wasn’t Arthur this time.
Merlin, ur back 2day right? Gwen sent. Merlin shot back an affirmative. Morgana says 2 keep an eye on Arthur. Stop him doing nething stupid.
That did not sound good. Merlin stared at the screen for a moment. Morgana, when she was not busy causing Arthur’s black moods and anger, was quite good at spotting when he was about to fly off the handle or get into something he should not. He paused before replying. The last time Morgana would have seen Arthur was Uther’s Christmas party on the twenty-third. Whatever she was talking about must have happened then and Gwen had just not wanted to interrupt his holiday.
“Bugger,” he muttered, earning himself a dirty look from the woman next to him. He smiled apologetically at her before turning back to the text.
Such as? He asked, trying to keep as vague as possible. He held onto his phone until the reply came through.
Not sure. Something 2 do w Sophia. Gwen sent back to him.
Who’s Sophia? He wrote out and, before sending, he added Arthur and Gaius to his list of recipients.
Three minutes later and all the answers were in.
According to Gwen, Sophia was ‘Some girl from the party. M thinks there’s sth off abt her’
Gaius’ answer was even more worrying, all he replied was ‘I don’t know. Keep an eye on her. ’
Arthur had only one word to say on the subject, ‘Incredible,’ which Merlin did not find particularly encouraging.
He took a deep breath and thudded his head back against the seat, ignoring the woman next to him as she glared at him again. He went away for a few days and what happened, Arthur had decided to become obsessed with someone new. Brilliant, that was just brilliant.
He decided to keep an open mind. Just because Morgana thought there was something off about her and Gaius had no idea who she was, didn’t mean that it was time to panic. For all he knew, she could be some sweet, friendly girl who would make friends with him, be great for Arthur and help keep him down to earth.
That didn’t help his jealousy, but he pushed it down savagely. Arthur was straight and Merlin would have to get used to this. The man wouldn’t be doing one night stands forever. There were bound to be relationships as well, and Merlin would have to get on with Sophia.
Of course, she could be an evil, gold-digging, bitch monster. He smiled a little but told himself off sternly for prejudicing himself against the girl. She could be wonderful. He had to keep telling himself that. She could be wonderful.
***
Next Part
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![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-03-15 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-07 06:01 am (UTC)(Out of curiosity, how does one play Pictionary with three people anyway?)
no subject
Date: 2010-04-13 11:58 pm (UTC)Sophia! *cue ominous music*
no subject
Date: 2010-04-30 08:08 pm (UTC)I squee about it in detail in my rec, if you are interested:
http://marguerite-26.livejournal.com/381887.html
EXCELLENT fic. ♥
no subject
Date: 2011-01-28 02:07 am (UTC)I love to read your posts
Date: 2017-03-11 01:56 pm (UTC)