"The Boy and the Box" (Oneshot)
Title: The Boy and the Box (Oneshot)
Author: juxtapose/JLT/caughtfire
Rating/Genre: PG-13, AU
Pairing: slight Merlin (The Doctor)/Arthur but mostly friendship
Summary: Arthur Pendragon is the son of a billionaire, living a fairly uneventful life--until he meets the strange boy with dark hair, bright blue eyes, and an even bluer box.
Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin or Doctor Who.
"Sit up straight, Arthur."
Arthur Pendragon sighs agitatedly before rolling his shoulders back and lifting his chin just a bit, as he's been taught to do all his life.
His father, Uther, nods curtly in what Arthur has to assume is approval (that's the most extensive reaction he's gotten from him all morning), and turns back to the ceremony.
Arthur isn't even sure what he's doing here. His tie is itchy, the auditorium is way too hot, and yet he's sitting in the front row watching an elderly man being adorned with medals and certificates for a reason Arthur can't even recall. All he remembers is Uther knocking on his bedroom door at 6 o'clock in the morning (on a Sunday, mind you), to tell him to "get ready, and look presentable. This is an important awards ceremony for Mr. Blah Blah, who has shown exemplary work in the field of Something Something."
Arthur would rather be sleeping.
But the fact is, he can't.
Because Arthur is the son of one of the richest men in the country, and keeping up appearances is what he's forced to eat, sleep, and breathe. Arthur, son of billionaire Uther Pendragon, is nineteen years old and has his entire future laid out for him on a silver platter.
And still, he'd rather be sleeping.
"Arthur!" Uther hisses, breaking Arthur out of his daydream, "Pay attention!"
Arthur resists the urge to roll his eyes, wishing idly that something interesting would happen to spare him from his boredom.
What he doesn't expect is that his wish is granted within a matter of seconds.
As the too-old man is in the middle of making his droning speech and Arthur starts counting sheep, there is a rumbling on the floor below, and a piercing screech coming from the back of the room.
The audience bustles about and turns their heads, and Arthur follows suit and almost faints on the spot.
There is a large--bird? No, it's not a bird--creature with the head of a bird and legs like a cat, wings flapping threateningly, in the middle of Hastings Memorial Auditorium.
"Dear God!" Arthur's father shouts.
A couple of policemen in the back take out their guns and begin to shoot--and that doesn't seem to help; rather, it makes the creature angrier as it stomps forward, charging toward the group.
Arthur is surrounded by screams of terror and becomes lost in the crowds trying to get to the nearest exits. He claws through them, trying to find his father who has long run off, but his eyes are still transfixed on the thing, overpowering and menacing with yellow eyes like the sun.
Entranced, it takes Arthur a little while to realize that he's the only one left in the auditorium.
Besides the overgrown bird-cat-thing, as it wades through seats, crushing them all step by step.
"Oh," Arthur says, blinking, "Bugger."
The creature moves toward him, squawking, and Arthur's breathing heavily and wondering why he never told his sister Morgana he never really hated her or told Sophia she had nice eyes even though he'd teased her relentlessly in primary school.
He wonders why his father has always been so cold to him, and set up for him a life he had no say in.
Arthur's shaking, various emotions tugging at his insides as he backs away inch by inch and the creature moves closer and closer.
Its beak is mere centimeters from his face when Arthur hears another noise entirely, faint but growing louder, something strange and rhythmic and like he's never heard before. Even the creature is distracted, cocking its head to the side in concentration as the noise presses on.
And suddenly, the noise stops, replaced by a voice:
"Whewh! Got to get used to these new hands. At least I've got hands. Hands are nice. Younger hands than last time. Huh."
Arthur follows the voice to see a young boy, who looks to be about seventeen or eighteen years old, with jet black hair and bright blue eyes. He's standing in front of a large blue box that reads "POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX", holding some type of strange contraption in his right hand, pointing it at the creature, and unavoidably at Arthur.
The boy walks toward the creature and stops, looking utterly entranced. "Oh. You're beautiful, aren't you? Stuff of legend, you are."
The creature squawks loudly and Arthur covers his ears.
"You must've come here by mistake. That's all right. I can take you home." He holds up the contraption again (which looks to Arthur like some kind of screwdriver), and the creature flaps its wings loudly, another loud screech escaping its beak.
"Er, that's not good." Arthur watches as the boy looks around frantically until his eyes land on Arthur himself. "Ah! Hi. Hello. Would you be so kind as to do me a favor?"
"Huh?" Arthur can't believe what he's hearing. "A favor?"
"Yes. You've got to distract it!"
Arthur's jaw drops. "How the hell am I supposed to do that?!"
"Er . . . poke at it or something; that'll work!"
"Poke at it?" Arthur gapes at the boy, dumbfounded. "I'm not touching that thing!"
"Oh, don't be a prat--quick! Hurry!"
A prat? Who is this kid calling a prat? Fueled by sheer annoyance, Arthur pokes at the winged beast with his finger. "Yeah. See that? Wanna row, mate?"
The beast charges toward Arthur, and Arthur suddenly thinks maybe listening to this weird kid wasn't the best idea after all, when suddenly there's a loud ringing noise as the boy comes up behind the creature, light streaming from that same small contraption in his hands.
The creature staggers away from Arthur and whirls around toward the boy, who now looks at the beast with understanding. "You're just afraid, aren't you? Confused, because everyone ran away from you."
The creature squawks again, and the boy makes the bold move of reaching out to pet it.
"Are you insane?!" Arthur starts to say, but the boy cuts him off:
"Oh, I know, you poor thing," he says, his voice soft, and the creature bows its head as if to nuzzle against the boy's hand, "You're magical. Even where you're from, not everyone's always accepting of that. It must be very hard."
The creature ruffles its wings a bit and crows sadly--sadly. Arthur's head is spinning.
"But I promise you. I promise things will get better, my friend. I've got to take you home. You don't belong here."
The creature is silent now, and the boy steps back and motions for it to follow him. "Come on, then. I'm going to take you back. It's all right. I hate to have to do this, but it'll only be for transportation purposes. Follow me."
And much to Arthur's utter surprise--the previously menacing beast is tame as a kitten now, following the boy back to that ostentatious blue box a few yards away.
"Er, one moment," the boy says, and he opens the door of the box and disappears into it for a moment. Arthur can hear some shuffling, and the sound of scraping metal. Then, slowly but surely, the boy reappears again, pale skin against bright eyes and coal-black hair, tugging on what seems to be a very large metal chain. That, by Arthur's observations, really shouldn't have been able to fit inside a phone box.
"What," Arthur breathes, "the fu--"
"Well!" the boy smiles, grabs the little screwy-thing from his pocket again, and starts--amazingly--fusing the chain around one of the creature's feet. "How often do you get to say you've got a half lion-half eagle as cargo?" He laughs, but when Arthur simply stares, he clears his throat and says:
"Apologies for the name-calling, earlier. Uh. I do that when I'm under pressure . . . I think, anyway." Arthur has no idea what that's supposed to mean, but he takes a few tentative steps closer as the boy now begins to work the hook of the chain onto the box, tugging at it for safety.
"How did you . . . just get that chain . . . from in there?" He points to the box meekly.
The boy sighs. "It's bigger on the inside. Long story. What's your name?" He flashes a grin.
"Arthur. Arthur Pendragon," says Arthur slowly.
The boy has been pacing in front of the big box again up until this point, and now he pauses. "You're kidding."
Arthur raises an eyebrow. "Er, no. I'm not."
"Arthur Pendragon?" He chuckles. "Let me guess. Your father's named Uther."
When the boy sees Arthur's extremely serious expression in response, he pales (which says a lot, since Arthur thinks the boy's as pale as a ghost as it is). "Right. Remind me to look into that wibbly-wobbly later. Moving on."
The boy leans against the box for a moment. "That creature you saw was a gryffin. Ever heard of it?"
"Yeah," Arthur nods, his eyebrows furrowed, "In storybooks. Fairytales."
"Mmm," the boy agrees, "But. Who says those fairytales aren't real? What if I told you," he says, pacing a bit, "that what you just saw was entirely real, and if I wanted to, I could take you to the very place it came from?" His eyes dance blue, the exact color of the box standing tall and bulky and mismatched behind him.
"Uh . . . "Arthur blinks. "I'd tell you you're mad?"
"No!" The boy pauses in mid-step and whirls around to face Arthur. "Well, yeah, I suppose you might. But that'd make you a narrow-minded clotpole, now, wouldn't it?" He laughs at himself then, his hands moving sporadically. "'Clotpole'. Hah. Do I say 'clotpole', now? I guess so. But I digress.
"I don't think you're a narrow-minded clotpole. Not always, anyway. You've got potential. I saw it earlier, when you were fighting that gryffin."
"Right," Arthur says slowly, "The gryffin . . . which is now locked up on that . . . box thing where you're going to . . . take it back to where it belongs."
The boy smirks. "You catch on fast. I like you!"
"Oh," says Arthur simply. He can't help but smile a bit, though. The boy's energy is contagious.
"Anyway." The boy looks around. Arthur sees his eyes sparkle. "Looks like everyone else ran away when this all happened. But you stayed. That says something, I think. So." The boy clears his throat, moving toward the door of the box again. "If I said to you, hypothetically of course, that this box is a time machine that can travel anywhere in time and space, would you be interested?"
Arthur crosses his arms. "Interested in what, exactly?"
"Traveling throughout the galaxies is hard work, y'know. And frankly, it's not as fun when you're going at it alone . . . " The boy trails off, and there's something wistful in his eyes that looks to Arthur to be far beyond his years.
"Are you saying you want me to come with you?" Arthur asks. "I don't even know your name."
The boy opens the door to the apparent time-traveling-machine and says, "Oh, me? I'm called The Doctor. Nice to meet you, Arthur Pendragon."
The gryffin squawks in approval, and Arthur walks up to the box, touching the wood and knocking on it a few times. How this could possibly be a time machine, he hasn't the faintest clue.
"You don't have to, of course . . . " The Doctor turns back round to face Arthur again, standing in the doorway of his box."Come with me, I mean. But like I said . . . I like you. You're wearing Gucci sunglasses and you've got really nicely combed hair." He pauses. "Nice. Really nice hair. Y'know, I wish I'd been made a blonde this time around . . . " Off Arthur's perplexed look, he continues with an apologetic smile. "So I'm going to assume you've got a great life ahead of you out there. And I'm not stopping you. But if you'd like . . . " He pats the box. "This is here for you, too. I mean, not for always. Just for a while. If you wanted."
He looks Arthur in the eyes. There is something in those blues, Arthur thinks, that is full of trust. Of compassion, and of unadulterated enthusiasm. It's like nothing Arthur has ever seen before.
Arthur clenches his fists, and looks back toward the now destructed auditorium. And he thinks. What is waiting for him there? He has his entire life planned out for him--full of money and shiny things, and that's all well and good. But what beyond that? What beyond the material things?
What he has waiting for him here at Hastings Auditorium is a life.
But what he could have with the Doctor, he thinks, is an experience.
He takes a deep breath and says, "Y-yeah . . . yeah. I'll come with you."
A lopsided grin spreads across the Doctor's face then, and he grabs Arthur's arm. "Great! We'll have loads of fun, you and I. Arthur Pendragon . . . the man who stayed and fought the gryffin!"
Arthur chuckles. "You're strange, mate."
"So I'm told. Ready, then?"
So Arthur Pendragon steps inside the blue-box-time-machine with the boy, the Doctor, where he is about to discover worlds beautiful and different from his own, and a life that is much, much bigger on the inside.