Only Two Tragedies (2/?)
Title: The Only Two Tragedies (AU + WIP 2/?)
Author: ifeelbetter
Rating: PG-13 (for the presence of alcohol-shock!)
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur (eventually), slight Gwen/Lancelot
Word Count: 3,200
Disclaimer: Don’t own, won’t ever. It’s all a lie.
Summary: Merlin is a young British artist living in New York but has, of late, lost his inspiration. While he’s looking for his missing spark, he winds up challenging Arthur, wealthy son of a PR mogul, to a drinking competition and ends up winning himself a less-than-willing model.
Notes: Sorry for the delays, if anybody's been keeping track. Real life has been cruel and I wasn't sure what to do next anyway. So, please, comment.
Morganna was so common a guest that it was not surprising in the least, even to his sleep-addled brain, when Merlin woke to the smell of her eggs. (They had a particular-to-Morganna smell to them because they were always burnt and creative. She had never bothered to learn how to make eggs, being born to an elite social status that left her, despite her rebelliousness, with the sense that she actually could do anything she set her mind to, being a creature of superior genetic material.)
What was surprising, however, was the note she left next to his own drunken one from the night before. It read, simply: See me later re: Arthur and potential for steamy Titanic scenes. --M
"What's all this about?" he asked, coming into the kitchen with both notes.
"I thought your note lacked clarity," Morganna explained. "I wanted to be sure last night didn't go to waste, so I thought I better re-enforce." She spooned a portion of a speckled brownish mass onto a plate and handed it to him. It was at this point that he noticed the mustache drawn across her upper lip but her carefully schooled his face into a blank.
"Oh...lovely. Eggs?" he said without any certainty in his voice. She gave him a quick glare but waved his insinuation away with her spatula.
"Don't try to change the subject," she said.
"Was I? I thought I was being polite."
"You're never polite about my eggs."
"I wish I never had anything to do with your eggs," he said, carefully pushing them around the plate, looking for indications of what went into this morning's concoction.
"Shut up and eat," Morganna said in a tone that brooked no argument. He found his legs placing him in a chair by the table and his fork moving towards his mouth within seconds. Her voice had the sort of tones that carried generations of nobility in their wake. It was the kind of voice that would have just as easily have carried the room if it said, "Attack the French at dawn!" as "Pick up your towel now!"
"The point that I was getting to," Morganna continued, "is the bet from last night. You do remember the bet from last night, don't you?" Merlin groaned. "That's a 'yes,' then?"
"Yes, that's a definite 'yes,'" Merlin said.
"So what's your next step?" she asked.
"Why do I have to make the next step? Can't I just pretend to have forgotten and leave it at that?"
"Why the hell would you do that? I know you and Arthur don't get on--" she said, pausing for an emphatic snort from Merlin, "--but he is decidedly good looking. And he's at your disposal now." She paused again as Merlin choked a little and pretended to be convinced by his cover of a cough. "I don't see why you wouldn't want him to model for you."
"Because he's an arse and he'll just be all--" he made a completely unhelpful gesture "--and then I'll have to yell and I honestly don't like rows and it's just so complex."
"It's really not," she countered, and Merlin was well aware that she was going to win the argument. "It's a phone call. It's not even that. I can call him. He's honor bound. He never welches on a bet."
"Welches?"
"Shut up."
"You do know you have a mustache, right?"
--------
Arthur groaned at his phone when it rang a second time. He'd already told it that it was Saturday and he was hungover, dammit, but that hadn't stopped it. He'd asked it why it wanted to torture him on the weekend when he was supposed to be sleeping in and drinking late and not existing in any of the AM hour except for the ones he came to properly, coming out of the two-digit PM hours. He'd taken the cessation of the ringtone as promise of a higher intellect than he had previously given his phone credit for, and a degree of compassion unlike any other, until it had become clear that whoever hated him enough to call hated him enough to call twice.
"I will disembowel you," he promised into the phone. Except that he was still mostly asleep so it sounded more like a series of caveman grunts.
"Promises, promises," came Morganna's happy chirp from the phone and he groaned. "Speaking of which--"
"Why, Morganna? Did I do something to you in our childhood that blackened your soul enough to call me when you know--having been responsible for it--I'm dead from alcohol poisoning? Is this about that time with your American Girl doll? It is, isn't it?"
"No, but that was awful and you'd deserve it if it was. And it's not about the charming mustache you left me with either. This is about a certain bet you made last night."
Arthur tried to remember a bet. Then he tried to remember anything about last night.
"Oh goodness gracious," she said and he opened his mouth to mock her for it but she rode over him, as she always did, "And people say that. It's called a 'saying' because of how people say it."
"Old people, sure."
"You don't remember your drinking contest with Merlin, do you?" He sighed. Nothing came to mind but he had a track record with Merlin. If he had the opportunity to do anything cool or impressive in front of Merlin, he always somehow came away looking like an ass or a lunatic or both. When he had visited Morganna on her very first day, during her I-Will-Prove-Myself-Independent phase, where everything began and ended with Girl Power and long psychological explanations about being raised wealthy and self sufficiency, he had managed to stick his foot in his mouth within five seconds of noticing Merlin's eyes. And then he'd only made it worse when he regressed to a pigtail-pulling state and had mocked Merlin's ears. Whenever he tried to repair the damage or just to be basically friendly, which worked on everyone else in the whole world, he only made it worse.
"I lost, didn't I?"
"You sure did."
"I can't believe I lost to that skinny twink."
"He's not a twink. And he drank you under the table. I mean, literally. You were passed out under a table."
"Please tell me you're joking," he said, finding it was time to groan again.
"Definitely not joking."
"Why can't you be joking?"
"You haven't asked what the terms of the bet were."
"I was hoping that part would go away."
"You agreed to model for him."
Arthur paused. "Like model in a Agyness Deyn kind of way or ... ?"
"Why do you know who Agyness Deyn is?"
"I know stuff!"
"Gay stuff?"
"That's not a gay thing to know! Lots of people know who she is," he pouted. He threw his legs over the side of the bed and went in search of coffee. He had all the best equipment for it which all had come with manuals nearly as large as the machines themselves and which, if he had bothered to read them, could possibly have alleviated most of the problems associated with owning them. They were all programmed to produce a coffee product of some sort before he woke up, he just was never sure which one was actually going to make good on its promise.
"Lots of girls, sure. And the answer is no. Not in an Agyness Deyn kind of way. You have heard of art, right?"
"Yes, yes, the stuff with the brushes and chalk and charcoal and shit..." he trailed off. "Oh shit."
"Oh yes."
"I didn't agree to do a steamy Titanic thing, did I? This is not one of those 'Paint me in this giant ass necklace and nothing else' sort of things, is it?"
"I think you left that up to his discretion."
"Oh god."
"That's what you get for drawing mustaches on nice young women."
"You've never been nice."
"I can be very nice."
"A nice young woman would have stopped me from making that bet."
"No one would be so dull."
One of the coffee machines he'd been poking made a hissing sound and hit him in the face with a cloud of steam. Morganna laughed as he cursed at it.
"You're trying to make your own coffee, aren't you?" she asked, still laughing.
"How else do you suppose I can get enough caffeine to be a human being?" He poked it again, gentler this time. It hissed again. He backed away.
"I'll buy you a latte at Legal Grounds in twenty minutes. Meet me there."
"But what about--" he started to say but she had already hung up on him. "Fuck."
The machine let off another cloud of steam. He quickly unplugged all the machines, setting the grumbler down in the middle of the floor where it would do the least damage if it spontaneously combusted, and ran out of the kitchen. He threw on the first clothes he found and was out the door before the obviously possessed and angry machine attacked him.
It was exactly this problem which brought him back to Legal Grounds every morning. If he was left to his own devices, his devices attacked him. His coffee machines were built to kill him. There were knobs and buttons and timers all over every machine and yet they seemed to take it personally when he got the exact order of button-pushing and knob-pulling wrong. He always figured that if he were a coffee machine, he would have a sense of his own incomprehensibility and would have pity on the poor saps who had to operate him. But they seemed to be decidedly more viciously inclined than he would be in their position.
So instead of attempting the operation of his own complex coffee machines, especially on weekdays when he was up long before a young man of his age would ever be by choice, he left the coffee to the professionals. And Legal Grounds had a sentimental value, what with Morganna temporarily being gainfully employed there and all. And if Arthur still went there years after she quit, it didn't have anything to do with Merlin.
Or his eyes.
It was entirely a matter of a need for caffeine. He needed it, they sold it. And Morganna liked that he supported the place. It didn't really matter that it was a bit out of his way. They had good coffee. And all those other reasons.
As he approached the cafe, he remembered that he had fled his apartment without showering, shaving, or even looking in a mirror. Damn scary coffee machines. The clothes he had grabbed were at least clean, that much he could be grateful for. He himself was just barely on the scruffy side of filthy, being not smelly but looking somewhat rugged in his chin fuzz. He sighed again, for what seemed like the billionth time that morning. He would have to remember not to compete with Brits when it comes to drinking ever again.
He silently wished that Morganna didn't bring Merlin, that it was his day off or something, and reminded the universe that his morning had been awful and he deserved a break.
The universe obviously didn't hear him.
-----
When Arthur pushed open the door, there was Morganna, grinning at him, with Merlin sitting somewhat shamefacedly at her side. Merlin hadn't wanted to participate in Morganna's plan but had found her impossible to resist. As always. And then there had been Gwen getting a phone call from Lancelot while they ate "eggs" and she'd blushed and shooed them out of the room and Merlin figured it would be easier to just be out of the apartment.
So he found himself sitting across from Arthur in his own cafe on his day off.
"I was promised coffee," Arthur grumbled. Morganna pushed a cup across the table towards him.
"Did your machines attack you again?" she asked, smirking.
"Your machines attack you?" Merlin asked, diverted from the train of thought that Arthur's unusually disheveled appearance had started him on.
"The coffee ones do. They hate me," Arthur explained, sipping his latte and possibly making a slightly indecent sound. "Thank god for people who know how to operate the damn machines."
"Your machines attack you?" Merlin repeated. "Like that Will Smith film?"
"What Will Smith film?" Arthur paused.
"You know. The one with the killer machines. And he's got a robot arm or something. You know."
"Oh. That one." Arthur thought for a moment. "It's a lot like that, actually."
"It isn't, you idiot," Morganna said. She turned to Merlin. "He loves coffee--needs it, really--and has all the best appliances and accoutrements--"
"I don't! I don't even know what an accoutrement is!"
"--but he never reads instruction manuals and so has no idea how to operate any of his fancy-schmancy creme-de-la-creme machinery."
"I would read the manuals but they're very unhelpful." Arthur honest-to-god pouted. Like a toddler. Maybe it was the early morning-ness of the whole affair but Merlin was finding him unbearably adorable. Obviously he needed more caffeine.
"They're not that hard, honestly," Merlin said. "But the manuals are spectacularly obtuse. I spent my first two weeks here without eyebrows because of it."
"That's what I keep trying to tell this one!" Arthur said, waving a hand angrily towards Morganna. "They burn me, they hiss, they are just angry. I think it's safer to avoid them altogether."
"Boy," Morganna said in her lay-down-the-law voice, "I am sensing a conversational pattern here and I want to end it before it becomes engrained: you bore me. Stop talking about rubbish and start talking about the exciting topic I brought you here to talk about."
"But I don't--" Merlin started but Arthur was speaking simultaneously.
"Why can't I--" They both stopped and looked at each other, a grin tugging at the corner of Merlin's mouth.
"So we had this bet," Arthur said, after a nearly-uncomfortable pause.
"Yes."
"And you may have won."
"You passed out under a table. Yes."
"So I have to ... you know."
"Yes."
There was another pause and both men found themselves looking expectantly at Morganna for help.
"Oh goodness gracious," she said, exasperated.
"Who says 'goodness gracious' anymore? What, are you suddenly a crazy cat lady and no one told me?" Merlin said. Arthur pointed at him.
"He said it this time."
"Boys."
"Fine!" Merlin said, accepting his fate. He looked at Arthur. "We'll have to go to my flat. It'll take a couple of days if we do it in, say, three hour sittings."
"Fine."
"Fine."
"Good!"
"Yeah. Good."
Morganna rolled her eyes.
-----------
"What's this one then?" Arthur said, thumbing through another pile of Merlin's sketches stacked against a wall. Merlin was searching for his paints -- it had been ages since he'd worked up the energy to actually get to the painting stage, he'd been stuck on pencil and charcoal sketches for weeks. He glanced up at the one Arthur held up.
"He's one of my mates back home," Merlin said. It wasn't telling the whole story, which Merlin felt a twinge of guilt for before he remembered that this was Arthur sodding Pendragon and he owed him no burden of truth.
"I dunno. It seems ... personal or something," Arthur said and Merlin agreed silently.
"Yeah," was all he said though. Arthur was looking at him with some sort of immediate, unspoken understanding and Merlin felt a blush rising.
"Right," Arthur said, dropping the painting back into the pile and turning back to Merlin. "How do we do this?"
"You find a comfortable way to sit and look pretty and I do all the work," Merlin answered. "I'll just sketch a couple of ideas and then we can go from there, shall we?"
Arthur nodded and plopped nonchalantly onto Merlin's ratty sofa. He grinned in what can only be described as a rakish way. "I always look pretty." Merlin snorted and began to sketch.
He'd been asked on more than one occasion if it was awkward to stare at the model while drawing them. People assumed that there would be a lot of eyes meeting over the canvas, blushing, uncomfortable silences, and the like. It didn't usually end up that way, outside of the films. In classes he never knew the model personally and when someone is comfortable dropping their pants and having a dozen or so strangers draw them, it's hard to resist the impulse to behave the same. In his private life, he'd drawn friends and family over drinks or while watching TV but that was inherently comfortable as well.
This, however. This he had never done before. He had no idea what had gone wrong with his mouth the night before when he'd even come up with the daft idea. He'd had a friend in school who used to walk up to people on the street and just ask if they'd come back to her flat and sit for a portrait, no pre-amble or anything. Merlin had just never been the type. When he couldn't get someone to sit for him-- and, literally, that meant "sit" in the traditional "stay still in a chair for a bit please" and not the artsy sense -- he drew bridges and parks and buildings. He preferred people, specifically faces, but nothing but liquid courage could inspire him to walk up to strangers and ask the pretentious question.
And yet he had somehow asked Arthur. Arthur, who he sometimes hated. The same Arthur who had started gazing out of a window with his cheek pillowed by one hand and this sunbeam falling on that stupidly blonde hair like a stupid Danielle Steel cover...or something.
"I didn't know you were an artist," Arthur said suddenly. Merlin glanced up.
"It's not like we're mates or anything."
"It's just . . ." Arthur said thoughtfully. "You know, you often have smudges on your face. I thought you were . . ." he trailed off.
"What?"
"I don't even know. I just didn't think artist. It's sort of too perfect, isn't it?" Arthur said and Merlin smirked.
"Artists are too perfect?"
"I just meant -- you know," Arthur said, none too helpfully. "You don't just meet actual artists, alright?"
"I do, actually. All the time."
"Well, that's different. I meet celebrities all the time but that's appropriate. I just meant. You know."
"You just meant. . ." Merlin started, still trying to work out the meanderings of Arthur's point.
"It's. I don't know. Different." Arthur paused and then mumbled, "Cool, sort of." He met Merlin's eyes for a moment and Merlin couldn't help the grin that threatened to split his face in half.
"You think I'm cool."
"Shut up."
"You think I'm too cool for school."
"Shut up."
"You gonna ask me to the prom next?"
"Shut up now."
But Arthur was blushing under his anger and that damn sunbeam was still on his stupid hair and Merlin maybe had one of the best afternoons of his life.
Author: ifeelbetter
Rating: PG-13 (for the presence of alcohol-shock!)
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur (eventually), slight Gwen/Lancelot
Word Count: 3,200
Disclaimer: Don’t own, won’t ever. It’s all a lie.
Summary: Merlin is a young British artist living in New York but has, of late, lost his inspiration. While he’s looking for his missing spark, he winds up challenging Arthur, wealthy son of a PR mogul, to a drinking competition and ends up winning himself a less-than-willing model.
Notes: Sorry for the delays, if anybody's been keeping track. Real life has been cruel and I wasn't sure what to do next anyway. So, please, comment.
Morganna was so common a guest that it was not surprising in the least, even to his sleep-addled brain, when Merlin woke to the smell of her eggs. (They had a particular-to-Morganna smell to them because they were always burnt and creative. She had never bothered to learn how to make eggs, being born to an elite social status that left her, despite her rebelliousness, with the sense that she actually could do anything she set her mind to, being a creature of superior genetic material.)
What was surprising, however, was the note she left next to his own drunken one from the night before. It read, simply: See me later re: Arthur and potential for steamy Titanic scenes. --M
"What's all this about?" he asked, coming into the kitchen with both notes.
"I thought your note lacked clarity," Morganna explained. "I wanted to be sure last night didn't go to waste, so I thought I better re-enforce." She spooned a portion of a speckled brownish mass onto a plate and handed it to him. It was at this point that he noticed the mustache drawn across her upper lip but her carefully schooled his face into a blank.
"Oh...lovely. Eggs?" he said without any certainty in his voice. She gave him a quick glare but waved his insinuation away with her spatula.
"Don't try to change the subject," she said.
"Was I? I thought I was being polite."
"You're never polite about my eggs."
"I wish I never had anything to do with your eggs," he said, carefully pushing them around the plate, looking for indications of what went into this morning's concoction.
"Shut up and eat," Morganna said in a tone that brooked no argument. He found his legs placing him in a chair by the table and his fork moving towards his mouth within seconds. Her voice had the sort of tones that carried generations of nobility in their wake. It was the kind of voice that would have just as easily have carried the room if it said, "Attack the French at dawn!" as "Pick up your towel now!"
"The point that I was getting to," Morganna continued, "is the bet from last night. You do remember the bet from last night, don't you?" Merlin groaned. "That's a 'yes,' then?"
"Yes, that's a definite 'yes,'" Merlin said.
"So what's your next step?" she asked.
"Why do I have to make the next step? Can't I just pretend to have forgotten and leave it at that?"
"Why the hell would you do that? I know you and Arthur don't get on--" she said, pausing for an emphatic snort from Merlin, "--but he is decidedly good looking. And he's at your disposal now." She paused again as Merlin choked a little and pretended to be convinced by his cover of a cough. "I don't see why you wouldn't want him to model for you."
"Because he's an arse and he'll just be all--" he made a completely unhelpful gesture "--and then I'll have to yell and I honestly don't like rows and it's just so complex."
"It's really not," she countered, and Merlin was well aware that she was going to win the argument. "It's a phone call. It's not even that. I can call him. He's honor bound. He never welches on a bet."
"Welches?"
"Shut up."
"You do know you have a mustache, right?"
--------
Arthur groaned at his phone when it rang a second time. He'd already told it that it was Saturday and he was hungover, dammit, but that hadn't stopped it. He'd asked it why it wanted to torture him on the weekend when he was supposed to be sleeping in and drinking late and not existing in any of the AM hour except for the ones he came to properly, coming out of the two-digit PM hours. He'd taken the cessation of the ringtone as promise of a higher intellect than he had previously given his phone credit for, and a degree of compassion unlike any other, until it had become clear that whoever hated him enough to call hated him enough to call twice.
"I will disembowel you," he promised into the phone. Except that he was still mostly asleep so it sounded more like a series of caveman grunts.
"Promises, promises," came Morganna's happy chirp from the phone and he groaned. "Speaking of which--"
"Why, Morganna? Did I do something to you in our childhood that blackened your soul enough to call me when you know--having been responsible for it--I'm dead from alcohol poisoning? Is this about that time with your American Girl doll? It is, isn't it?"
"No, but that was awful and you'd deserve it if it was. And it's not about the charming mustache you left me with either. This is about a certain bet you made last night."
Arthur tried to remember a bet. Then he tried to remember anything about last night.
"Oh goodness gracious," she said and he opened his mouth to mock her for it but she rode over him, as she always did, "And people say that. It's called a 'saying' because of how people say it."
"Old people, sure."
"You don't remember your drinking contest with Merlin, do you?" He sighed. Nothing came to mind but he had a track record with Merlin. If he had the opportunity to do anything cool or impressive in front of Merlin, he always somehow came away looking like an ass or a lunatic or both. When he had visited Morganna on her very first day, during her I-Will-Prove-Myself-Independent phase, where everything began and ended with Girl Power and long psychological explanations about being raised wealthy and self sufficiency, he had managed to stick his foot in his mouth within five seconds of noticing Merlin's eyes. And then he'd only made it worse when he regressed to a pigtail-pulling state and had mocked Merlin's ears. Whenever he tried to repair the damage or just to be basically friendly, which worked on everyone else in the whole world, he only made it worse.
"I lost, didn't I?"
"You sure did."
"I can't believe I lost to that skinny twink."
"He's not a twink. And he drank you under the table. I mean, literally. You were passed out under a table."
"Please tell me you're joking," he said, finding it was time to groan again.
"Definitely not joking."
"Why can't you be joking?"
"You haven't asked what the terms of the bet were."
"I was hoping that part would go away."
"You agreed to model for him."
Arthur paused. "Like model in a Agyness Deyn kind of way or ... ?"
"Why do you know who Agyness Deyn is?"
"I know stuff!"
"Gay stuff?"
"That's not a gay thing to know! Lots of people know who she is," he pouted. He threw his legs over the side of the bed and went in search of coffee. He had all the best equipment for it which all had come with manuals nearly as large as the machines themselves and which, if he had bothered to read them, could possibly have alleviated most of the problems associated with owning them. They were all programmed to produce a coffee product of some sort before he woke up, he just was never sure which one was actually going to make good on its promise.
"Lots of girls, sure. And the answer is no. Not in an Agyness Deyn kind of way. You have heard of art, right?"
"Yes, yes, the stuff with the brushes and chalk and charcoal and shit..." he trailed off. "Oh shit."
"Oh yes."
"I didn't agree to do a steamy Titanic thing, did I? This is not one of those 'Paint me in this giant ass necklace and nothing else' sort of things, is it?"
"I think you left that up to his discretion."
"Oh god."
"That's what you get for drawing mustaches on nice young women."
"You've never been nice."
"I can be very nice."
"A nice young woman would have stopped me from making that bet."
"No one would be so dull."
One of the coffee machines he'd been poking made a hissing sound and hit him in the face with a cloud of steam. Morganna laughed as he cursed at it.
"You're trying to make your own coffee, aren't you?" she asked, still laughing.
"How else do you suppose I can get enough caffeine to be a human being?" He poked it again, gentler this time. It hissed again. He backed away.
"I'll buy you a latte at Legal Grounds in twenty minutes. Meet me there."
"But what about--" he started to say but she had already hung up on him. "Fuck."
The machine let off another cloud of steam. He quickly unplugged all the machines, setting the grumbler down in the middle of the floor where it would do the least damage if it spontaneously combusted, and ran out of the kitchen. He threw on the first clothes he found and was out the door before the obviously possessed and angry machine attacked him.
It was exactly this problem which brought him back to Legal Grounds every morning. If he was left to his own devices, his devices attacked him. His coffee machines were built to kill him. There were knobs and buttons and timers all over every machine and yet they seemed to take it personally when he got the exact order of button-pushing and knob-pulling wrong. He always figured that if he were a coffee machine, he would have a sense of his own incomprehensibility and would have pity on the poor saps who had to operate him. But they seemed to be decidedly more viciously inclined than he would be in their position.
So instead of attempting the operation of his own complex coffee machines, especially on weekdays when he was up long before a young man of his age would ever be by choice, he left the coffee to the professionals. And Legal Grounds had a sentimental value, what with Morganna temporarily being gainfully employed there and all. And if Arthur still went there years after she quit, it didn't have anything to do with Merlin.
Or his eyes.
It was entirely a matter of a need for caffeine. He needed it, they sold it. And Morganna liked that he supported the place. It didn't really matter that it was a bit out of his way. They had good coffee. And all those other reasons.
As he approached the cafe, he remembered that he had fled his apartment without showering, shaving, or even looking in a mirror. Damn scary coffee machines. The clothes he had grabbed were at least clean, that much he could be grateful for. He himself was just barely on the scruffy side of filthy, being not smelly but looking somewhat rugged in his chin fuzz. He sighed again, for what seemed like the billionth time that morning. He would have to remember not to compete with Brits when it comes to drinking ever again.
He silently wished that Morganna didn't bring Merlin, that it was his day off or something, and reminded the universe that his morning had been awful and he deserved a break.
The universe obviously didn't hear him.
-----
When Arthur pushed open the door, there was Morganna, grinning at him, with Merlin sitting somewhat shamefacedly at her side. Merlin hadn't wanted to participate in Morganna's plan but had found her impossible to resist. As always. And then there had been Gwen getting a phone call from Lancelot while they ate "eggs" and she'd blushed and shooed them out of the room and Merlin figured it would be easier to just be out of the apartment.
So he found himself sitting across from Arthur in his own cafe on his day off.
"I was promised coffee," Arthur grumbled. Morganna pushed a cup across the table towards him.
"Did your machines attack you again?" she asked, smirking.
"Your machines attack you?" Merlin asked, diverted from the train of thought that Arthur's unusually disheveled appearance had started him on.
"The coffee ones do. They hate me," Arthur explained, sipping his latte and possibly making a slightly indecent sound. "Thank god for people who know how to operate the damn machines."
"Your machines attack you?" Merlin repeated. "Like that Will Smith film?"
"What Will Smith film?" Arthur paused.
"You know. The one with the killer machines. And he's got a robot arm or something. You know."
"Oh. That one." Arthur thought for a moment. "It's a lot like that, actually."
"It isn't, you idiot," Morganna said. She turned to Merlin. "He loves coffee--needs it, really--and has all the best appliances and accoutrements--"
"I don't! I don't even know what an accoutrement is!"
"--but he never reads instruction manuals and so has no idea how to operate any of his fancy-schmancy creme-de-la-creme machinery."
"I would read the manuals but they're very unhelpful." Arthur honest-to-god pouted. Like a toddler. Maybe it was the early morning-ness of the whole affair but Merlin was finding him unbearably adorable. Obviously he needed more caffeine.
"They're not that hard, honestly," Merlin said. "But the manuals are spectacularly obtuse. I spent my first two weeks here without eyebrows because of it."
"That's what I keep trying to tell this one!" Arthur said, waving a hand angrily towards Morganna. "They burn me, they hiss, they are just angry. I think it's safer to avoid them altogether."
"Boy," Morganna said in her lay-down-the-law voice, "I am sensing a conversational pattern here and I want to end it before it becomes engrained: you bore me. Stop talking about rubbish and start talking about the exciting topic I brought you here to talk about."
"But I don't--" Merlin started but Arthur was speaking simultaneously.
"Why can't I--" They both stopped and looked at each other, a grin tugging at the corner of Merlin's mouth.
"So we had this bet," Arthur said, after a nearly-uncomfortable pause.
"Yes."
"And you may have won."
"You passed out under a table. Yes."
"So I have to ... you know."
"Yes."
There was another pause and both men found themselves looking expectantly at Morganna for help.
"Oh goodness gracious," she said, exasperated.
"Who says 'goodness gracious' anymore? What, are you suddenly a crazy cat lady and no one told me?" Merlin said. Arthur pointed at him.
"He said it this time."
"Boys."
"Fine!" Merlin said, accepting his fate. He looked at Arthur. "We'll have to go to my flat. It'll take a couple of days if we do it in, say, three hour sittings."
"Fine."
"Fine."
"Good!"
"Yeah. Good."
Morganna rolled her eyes.
-----------
"What's this one then?" Arthur said, thumbing through another pile of Merlin's sketches stacked against a wall. Merlin was searching for his paints -- it had been ages since he'd worked up the energy to actually get to the painting stage, he'd been stuck on pencil and charcoal sketches for weeks. He glanced up at the one Arthur held up.
"He's one of my mates back home," Merlin said. It wasn't telling the whole story, which Merlin felt a twinge of guilt for before he remembered that this was Arthur sodding Pendragon and he owed him no burden of truth.
"I dunno. It seems ... personal or something," Arthur said and Merlin agreed silently.
"Yeah," was all he said though. Arthur was looking at him with some sort of immediate, unspoken understanding and Merlin felt a blush rising.
"Right," Arthur said, dropping the painting back into the pile and turning back to Merlin. "How do we do this?"
"You find a comfortable way to sit and look pretty and I do all the work," Merlin answered. "I'll just sketch a couple of ideas and then we can go from there, shall we?"
Arthur nodded and plopped nonchalantly onto Merlin's ratty sofa. He grinned in what can only be described as a rakish way. "I always look pretty." Merlin snorted and began to sketch.
He'd been asked on more than one occasion if it was awkward to stare at the model while drawing them. People assumed that there would be a lot of eyes meeting over the canvas, blushing, uncomfortable silences, and the like. It didn't usually end up that way, outside of the films. In classes he never knew the model personally and when someone is comfortable dropping their pants and having a dozen or so strangers draw them, it's hard to resist the impulse to behave the same. In his private life, he'd drawn friends and family over drinks or while watching TV but that was inherently comfortable as well.
This, however. This he had never done before. He had no idea what had gone wrong with his mouth the night before when he'd even come up with the daft idea. He'd had a friend in school who used to walk up to people on the street and just ask if they'd come back to her flat and sit for a portrait, no pre-amble or anything. Merlin had just never been the type. When he couldn't get someone to sit for him-- and, literally, that meant "sit" in the traditional "stay still in a chair for a bit please" and not the artsy sense -- he drew bridges and parks and buildings. He preferred people, specifically faces, but nothing but liquid courage could inspire him to walk up to strangers and ask the pretentious question.
And yet he had somehow asked Arthur. Arthur, who he sometimes hated. The same Arthur who had started gazing out of a window with his cheek pillowed by one hand and this sunbeam falling on that stupidly blonde hair like a stupid Danielle Steel cover...or something.
"I didn't know you were an artist," Arthur said suddenly. Merlin glanced up.
"It's not like we're mates or anything."
"It's just . . ." Arthur said thoughtfully. "You know, you often have smudges on your face. I thought you were . . ." he trailed off.
"What?"
"I don't even know. I just didn't think artist. It's sort of too perfect, isn't it?" Arthur said and Merlin smirked.
"Artists are too perfect?"
"I just meant -- you know," Arthur said, none too helpfully. "You don't just meet actual artists, alright?"
"I do, actually. All the time."
"Well, that's different. I meet celebrities all the time but that's appropriate. I just meant. You know."
"You just meant. . ." Merlin started, still trying to work out the meanderings of Arthur's point.
"It's. I don't know. Different." Arthur paused and then mumbled, "Cool, sort of." He met Merlin's eyes for a moment and Merlin couldn't help the grin that threatened to split his face in half.
"You think I'm cool."
"Shut up."
"You think I'm too cool for school."
"Shut up."
"You gonna ask me to the prom next?"
"Shut up now."
But Arthur was blushing under his anger and that damn sunbeam was still on his stupid hair and Merlin maybe had one of the best afternoons of his life.