I should be doing my chemistry homework right now.
Title: Fearless.
Pairing(s): Arthur/Merlin.
Warnings: Rambly and jumpy, so my usual style. I'm pretty sure the tenses are a bit screwed up, but other than that I don't think there is really anything to warn about.
Spoiler(s): Nope.
Word count: 2284.
Rating: PG.
Summary: Arthur is on the best first date he's ever had, with one Merlin Emrys.
Author's Notes: I was sitting doing my chemistry homework and listening to Fearless by Taylor Swift. I got inspired and so went and wrote this. It's another dramatic monologue, because I love the style. This time, however, it is from Arthur's point of view. He is thinking about meeting Merlin and going on their first date. Note that while neither of their names are actually mentioned, but trust me, it's them.
There's somethin' 'bout the way
The street looks when it's just rained
There’s a glow off the pavement.
It’s orange. Golden. The way the streetlights reflect off the pavement is beautiful, just like you. You look paler than ever in the orange-darkness, and the glow bounces off those cheekbones and those ears and those lips. All the things that I first noticed at the party. Your hair looks darker, too, and there is some inner glow to you. Your skin looks pearly, and I wish I had the guts to tell you that you are just as precious. More precious. At least to me.
You walk me to the car
And you know I wanna ask you to dance right there
In the middle of the parking lot.
I really do. No one has ever made me feel this way before. What is it about you? It’s just you. With your pearly skin, so pale and soft that it makes me sigh just looking at it. We haven’t even kissed yet, but your hand is soft. Insanely soft. I always thought that a guy’s hand wouldn’t be, but yours is. And there was that dance, at the party. You felt soft then. Soft, and yet hard and so very masculine. But you were mature, too - you didn’t let me kiss you. Said you preferred to do it sober. I knew what you meant the next day - I didn’t remember anything, except you. Only you.
We're drivin' down the road
I wonder if you know
I'm tryin' so hard not to get caught up now.
I can drive, but you said you wanted to. I want to know where we are going, but you won’t tell me. That makes me all the more interested. We’re driving past a lake now. We are in the countryside, and I really can’t help but wonder where it is you are taking me. Are you kidnapping me? No, you aren’t the type. I can tell that when I look at you, the way your lips are tilting up slightly at the corners despite the fact that you aren’t really smiling. Not truly. You are just happy. I am too. And I don’t want to get too caught up in this, whatever this is, but it’s hard because you are just…you are just you.
But you're just so cool
Run your hands through your hair
Absent mindedly makin' me want you.
You really are incredible. I’ve never met anyone like you. Impossibly cool and suave. Well, I think so. I always thought that I was a charmer, and then I met you. It’s only because it was Morgana’s party that I was invited. A bunch of college kids at a university party? Sure, we’re only seventeen, but we are just as good as you are. And besides, Uther was out of town and since his place was bigger than her flat, she was holding the party there. At my place. And so I said she could as long as I could attend and bring my friend. She agreed, albeit reluctantly, and that’s how I ended up there. And I’m glad I let her, even though we both got yelled at about it, because it was where I met you. I saw you across the room, dressed up in these dark jeans and one of those band shirts you seem to live in. I’ve never heard of the bands, but that’s okay. You looked arty, and when I questioned Morgana about you she said that you were doing Art History. That made a lot of sense, really. I was too scared to go over because, really, I’ve never been attracted to a man before. But you just looked so different to all the other men I’d ever met. And you ran your pale hand through your dark hair and looked awkward and I was hit with wave of pure desire so strong my knees almost buckled. I knew I had to talk to you after that, I just had to have a few drinks first.
And I don't know how it gets better than this
You take my hand and drag me head first
Fearless.
We’re still driving, and I’m still reminiscing. That’s how it happened, wasn’t it? I’d had one too many beers and so I went to sit outside in the fresh air, and you were seated on the steps with a sketch pad. You didn’t let me see what you were drawing for ages. I sat next to you and I didn’t realise you where there for a while until your pencil started scratching away. It was dark, and I couldn’t see, so I flicked my phone on and saw you there in the glow, dark head bent, concentration on your pixie-like features, sketching away. You tilted the pad away from me when I tried to look. Once you’d finished, you flashed it to me. It was a portrait of me, perfect. It looked like what I saw in the mirror everyday, except reversed, from your point of view. Then you shoved your pad and pencil away, grabbed my hand and dragged me head first back inside to dance. You were an awful dancer, but you didn’t care. You feared nothing.
And I don't know why but with you I'd dance
In a storm in my best dress
Fearless.
I don’t normally dance. But watching you dance - if the uncoordinated movements you made in a vague attempt to keep in time with the music could be called dancing - made me laugh. And I started dancing, too. You just made me want to do anything. I could have happily danced in the rain in my best clothes. You just made me feel that way. You were so impossible, so seemingly fearless, and that made me feel brave, too. And so I danced, better than you, but still.
So baby drive slow
‘Til we run out of road
In this one horse town.
You slow down a little - these winding country roads demand that. Your car is some vintage thing, a cream VW bug. It doesn’t air conditioning so the windows are open, and there is a breeze circulating through to keep the summer heat from making us swelter in the enclosed space of the car. It also doesn’t have power steering, and I can’t help but watch the muscles in your arms work as you navigate the twists and turns. Your biting your lower lip - oh, those lips of yours look so delicious - tiny frown lines of concentration furrowing between your eyebrows. I want you to just keep driving and driving until there is no road left and we are alone and we can just talk. Yes, that’s what I want.
I wanna stay right here
In this passenger’s seat
You put your eyes on me
In this moment now capture it, remember it.
This lovely passenger seat. Your car is ridiculous, it really is, but you seem so attached to it and you love it so much. You told me it is called Delilah, and I’ve never met anyone that named their car before, but then I’ve never met anyone quite like you before. You are honestly the very definition of unique - or at least in my world. So different to everyone else I know. And the way you look at me, like I’m all kinds of wonderful…we haven’t even known each other that long, but that look makes me feel so…amazing. Like I can do anything. And I am sure I give you that look back, because you really are all kinds of wonderful. I want to just take this moment and freeze it. I want to remember it when I am old and alone and I haven’t got long left, because right now I feel as though I am on top of the world.
And I don't know how it gets better than this
You take my hand and drag me head first
Fearless.
And then you are slowing your car - I just can’t bring myself to call it Delilah - and I see where you’ve brought us. It’s some field in the back end of nowhere. It’s pretty, sure. There is a little wood and lots of grass and flowers and you get out, and I follow suit, and you lock the doors and get a picnic basket out. A picnic basket! That’s something that I’d do for a girl, and it feels really weird to have someone - particularly a guy - do this for me for once. But really weird in the best way possible. The grass is wet and I say so and you get a rug out and say we can sit on it. I say we’ll get wet anyway and you say you don’t care. I find that I don’t either. And you smile at me and I smile back and you hold out your hand and I take it. I can’t fear anything when your hand is in mine.
And I don't know why but with you I’d dance
In a storm in my best dress
Fearless.
Champagne! I can’t believe you splashed that much out. You just smile and say it’s nothing, but it’s sparkling in the long, slender glasses - they look perfect clutched in your long, slender fingers - and you hand it to me and our fingers brush and I feel the blood rush to my face to colour it. You chuckle and say I look lovely like that, which makes me blush all the more. You laugh and your eyes crinkle at the corners, and your teeth are slightly off centre and you have a dimple on the right side of your mouth and you are beautiful. So beautiful it almost hurts, and I sip the champagne and the bubbles tickle my tongue and slide smoothly down my throat and I wonder what it would be like to kiss you. We’ve only known each other a couple of days, but I’ve never felt this way with anyone before. Only you. You make me feel strong and brave and like anything is possible when I’m with you.
Well you stood there with me in the doorway
My hands shake
I'm not usually this way.
And so we go home in your car, and my father is still away. You know this, and Morgana is still staying here, keeping an eye on me as she says. She’s probably out right now, though - she’s out a lot these days. You are saying good night and my hands are shaking and I’m never like this. It’s like it’s my first time, my first date, and that’s ridiculous because I was fifteen when I had my first date, and fourteen when I had my first kiss. But you make me feel like I am starting all over again, like I’ve never done this before. And that’s weird, but I can’t find it in myself to mind so much. Because with you, everything is just flawless.
You pull me in
And I’m a little more brave
It’s the first kiss, it's flawless, really somethin’
It’s fearless.
You just grab the front of my shirt and haul my forward. No warning or anything. And then those lips - those full, soft lips - that I’ve been dreaming about all day, all week, are on mine and I feel brave again. Fearless. And it’s like my very first kiss, except that it isn’t. It’s tentative and slow, and totally beyond compare. Your lips against mine is like nothing I’ve ever felt, and the movement and your tongue is warm and wet against mine. You taste like champagne and strawberries, the things we’d been eating and drinking. It may not be my first kiss, but it’s the only one that matters.
And I don't know how it gets better than this
You take my hand and drag me head first
Fearless.
You let go and your're smiling, your're laughing, and it’s so weird to think that you are older than I. Not by much, but it’s still weird. You are long and skinny and you look young, and you are, I suppose, just not quite as young as I am. It’s strange, but I don’t mind. You give me one last, brief kiss, give my hand a tug and hug me tight, whispering that you had a fantastic time. I say the same back, and then you let go and give me one last, one final, kiss. Then you are gone, the shadows on the front garden swallowing you up. I hear Delilah start and see the headlights, and you beep as you drive away. I watch until I can’t see your lights anymore.
And I don't know why but with you I’d dance
In a storm in my best dress
Fearless.
It’s not until later, years later, that I tell you I fell in love with you on that date. And you smile and peck me on the cheek and say you love me and that you knew. I look at you and you just shake your head and say it’s still not time. You don’t elaborate, and it confuses me. But we still have time. Yeah, we still have time. I’m sure you’ll tell me one day. You said I’d know, and that you’d know, when it happens. When I remember. I don’t know what I’m meant to be remembering, and you do, but I won’t pester you to tell me. For now, I’m happy to just be with you, to feel like I did on that first date everyday. Fearless.