Only Two Tragedies (4/4)
Title: The Only Two Tragedies (AU, FINISHED 4/4)
Author: ifeelbetter
Rating: PG-13 (for the presence of alcohol-shock!)
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur (eventually), slight Gwen/Lancelot
Word Count: 2, 238
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 wins himself a less-than-willing model.
Notes: This is the final chapter! Congrats to anyone who managed to keep track of all the parts, if anyone actually did. In case it's been lost, the title comes from Oscar Wilde: "In this world, there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it." Also: Sophia stole the show in the eleventh hour.
The subway car is packed--of course--and Merlin finds himself separated from Arthur by a few elbows and a briefcase or two. And there was that weird silence you get on subways. It's unlike any other kind of silence since it's filled, absolutely packed solid, with people. And Merlin finds himself staring at the only piece of Arthur he could really see--his ear--and thinking.
Mostly he's alternating between rage against Arthur's raging vanity and this something else that, if he's being honest with himself (something he hardly ever is, for efficiency's sake), has been hovering for a while. Seeing Arthur thoroughly drunk, then relaxed, then friendly had all been a whirlwind of some sort of emotion that, again, identifying might not be wise but there was this something else before then even.
And that may be the stupidest thing he's ever admitted to himself. And that's counting the time he had to admit to himself that he had, indeed, just told Gwen's adviser that he was trying to kill two stones with one bird, laughed, and continued to paint a lovely verbal picture about how he would train a ninja-killer bird to attack and destroy troublesome stones.
Because who feels something else for someone like Arthur? Who, in their right mind, would start a silly process like that about someone who thinks calling a British person a "Brit" is actually an insult and, thinking thusly, therefore does so as frequently as possible? Or finds his own electronic devices mysterious and malevolent simply because he refuses to read a manual but still manages to push all the right buttons to self-destruct given two seconds of opportunity?
Merlin sighed. Him, obviously. That's who.
***
By the time they leave the subway, Arthur had managed to find a plateau between the fidgety discomfort and something very girly, possibly even warm and fuzzy. That's when he heard a familiar voice behind him.
"Arthur!"
He winced. Merlin looked over his shoulder curiously.
"Don't encourage her," Arthur hissed. He pasted a non-guilty, non-annoyed smiled on his face and turned.
"Soph! Long time no see," he said, as casually as possible.
"Darling, you silly goof, I saw you last night!" she said, in her oh-so-annoying voice, halfway between flapper-debutante and disaffected teen. She kissed the air approximately near both of his cheeks, which were burning under Merlin's amused gaze. "Remind me never to have fried food past 3 AM. It's never good for anyone." She noticed Merlin and was showing signs of pulling him in for a similar ritual.
"Soph, you'd have to actually eat for that to be a useful warning. Also, consider this your warning: never eat fried food past 3AM," he repeated dutifully. "Now, we really have to go--"
"I don't think that we've met," she said to Merlin.
"I don't think so either," he agreed.
"British! I adore a good British accent," she said, fulfilling her threat of kissing the air near both sides of Merlin's face but then threading an arm through one of his as an additional level of faux intimacy.
"I hope mine passes muster," Merlin said, grinning over her head at Arthur who rolled his eyes.
"It's delightful," she said. "Makes you sound like such an aristocrat. Like you have a butler stashed in your back pocket."
"God, Soph, make yourself sound more ignorant, why don't you?" Arthur scoffed.
"What a boar, Arthur-darling! You can really be so catty!" Sophia said, typing diligently at her oh-so-expensive phone as she spoke. She looked up brightly. "I simply insist you serenade me with your Britishness. We must lunch sometime or other."
"Absolutely must," Merlin agreed, amusement writ large across his face.
"He's an artist," Arthur blurted out. He was still pinkish in the cheeks, stumbling over his words. Awkward conversations did that to him.
"Darling, really! An absolute real-deal Van Gogh in the flesh?" she simpered.
"Definitely not the real Van Gogh but, yes, a real-deal artist. With paint brushes and everything," Merlin said. Sophia laughed, high-pitched, false, and -- oh god, I want to die, thought Arthur -- flirtatious.
"Soph, we're on our way someplace," Arthur insisted.
"But it was an absolute pleasure," Merlin said, shaking Sophia's hand, like a total lord-of-the-manor.
"Goodness, do Brits still say that?" Sophia giggled.
"Only the gentlemen," Merlin smirked. Arthur rolled his eyes.
"Do lay off it," he grumbled. "Soph. See you around."
"No gentleman, then," she said, grinning like a Cheshire cat, "And you--" to Arthur "--behave." She disappeared up the stairs in a flurry of fashion.
"She seemed ... interesting," Merlin said, as they made their way out of the station.
"She is that," Arthur agreed, trying to impress and also a representative terrible decision that walks and talks and bumps into me just when I was doing so well into every syllable. Not that he really knew what he meant let alone what he was saying. Just that it was suddenly vitally important that Merlin think well of him.
Not at all in a gay way.
His hand brushed Merlin's as they walked.
And, yes, it tingled afterward.
***
Lancelot was with Gwen when they approached. He had a hand on her lower back as they both looked up at the statue.
Merlin thought, If they were cartoons, they'd have hearts for eyes right now.
Lancelot caught sight of Merlin and his smile started, stopped as he registered Arthur, and froze and the comprehension dawned that he would be spending the afternoon with both.
Gwen managed to express her pleasure and anger in one glance. It said to Merlin You have done a severely stupid thing that I will forgive you for because it makes me so ecstatically happy, a bit like a besotted tween.
He tried to apologize and congratulate with his eyes.
"Are you alright, Merlin?" Lancelot said, looking worried. Merlin decided he was less capable of message-sending-via-eyes than Gwen and he would, therefore, cede that territory to her entirely.
"Yeah, alright. Only my model here was being a right twat all morning," he said, bumping Arthur lightly, shoulder-to-shoulder. There was a split-second pause where Arthur just looked at Merlin and Merlin was being looked at in this very intense way. But it was over in a fraction of a second.
"I don't see why you expect a man to be up at ungodly hours and to stay awake when all you want him for is to sit for ages," Arthur grumbled. Gwen laughed.
"He woke me up in the middle of the night once to sit on the fire escape because of 'perfect lighting' from a neon sign," she said, "It's the danger of being the intimate friend of an artiste."
"If I remember correctly, you fell asleep on the fire escape," Merlin interjected.
"Justifiably so!" Lancelot said in chivalric defense.
"And you snored," Merlin said, "But I was right about the lighting."
"Still no way to treat a lady," Lancelot maintained.
"Not dainty ladies like you and milady here," Merlin said, "You both obviously get plenty of beauty sleep. Maxed out, I'd say."
And, as if to prove himself dainty, Lancelot blushed with Gwen.
"Grow a pair, you pansy," Arthur grumbled. Merlin froze in mid-grin.
"Arthur, don't--" he said.
"I have better things to do than watch you two flounce around each other. Just kiss and makeup already," he growled and stalked off.
Gwen looked to Merlin.
"Aren't you going after him?" she asked.
"Why must I be responsible for his fits?" Merlin whined. "Can't we do something fun instead? Something without entitled twats?"
"Twat he may be," Lancelot observed, the British-ism hanging heavily in his accent, "But I think he was jealous."
Merlin scoffed. Then he contemplated. Then he scoffed again, but halfheartedly.
***
Merlin wiped down the last table in the shop. It had been slow, he'd wiped the tables down on the hour for the entire shift, simply as a way to mark the time go by. He'd also drawn sketches of the one or two people who had stopped by, Gwen, and the wall -- not exactly uniformly fascinating material.
When he thought about Arthur -- and he was willing to admit that the blonde crossed his mind every now and then (nothing unreasonable, thankyouverymuch!) -- he always ended in a state of mind halfway between Veruca Salt and Madame Bovary. He was pretty sure he was having an interior temper tantrum -- Gwen had actually stalked away from him earlier, informing him that his "interior" temper tantrum was decidedly "external" -- while simultaneously moodily bewailing ennui.
It was a busy day, interiorly speaking, and not at all manly.
He sighed. Again.
The bell above the door jingled as the door opened behind him.
"We're actually closed--" he started to say as he turned. He stopped because Sophia was standing in the door, hip cocked to one side and stiletto perched stylishly in a pose he was pretty sure he had seen on America's Next Top Model.
She looked utterly ridiculous in Legal Grounds. She may as well have stepped out of Breakfast At Tiffany's and, yet, here she was...in Legal Grounds. She removed her overly large (and Coach, of course, he saw the logo) sunglasses.
"My god, you're stylish," he said and then cursed the mouth that never checked in with his brain before plunging into conversation.
"Flattery will get you anywhere, darling," she drawled, "But, pleasantries aside, I come on business."
"Business?"
"Important business. I understand you're queer?" she said, dropping her glasses into her bag as nonchalantly as if she had begun their conversation in a normal-person way. He goggled but was unable to speak. She looked up again.
"I'll take a half-caf, no-foam latte," she continued. "Queer, yes?"
And his hands were already going for the coffee, having left his goggling mind behind.
"Yes?" he managed, "That's business, is it?" He felt he was back on solider footing, participating again in the world around him, moving beyond pure WTF??.
"I take it, then, that you have eyes as well?" she continued, draping herself in a chair. "Functioning ones, I mean?"
"Yes?" Still the only participation he felt capable of. It was a good word, especially framed as a question.
"Then you simply must be salivating over Arthur," she said, "The man is pure sex on legs. I wish I could bottle him. I swear, I'd make my fortune off him."
"Oh?" Yes was no longer safe territory.
"I could eat him. I don't often contemplate cannibalism but every time I get near that boy I simply want to--" she trailed off into a mimed snarl "--you know what I mean?"
"Umm--"
"Of course you do. Everyone does. It's biological, that's the only explanation. I read this article about these things--pheromones--and I thought to myself, I thought, 'Sophia, this positively explains Arthur' and you know, I think it does, I really do."
"Yes?"
"So you understand my point then? And how the average man may be a tad unclear about your current position re: Arthur?"
"...what?"
"Oh, yes. I never said, did I?"
"No, you definitely didn't," Merlin said, handing over her coffee.
"Of course. I'll begin again."
"Please do. With gaps filled in."
"I, and most of the population, are unhappy with you. Perplexed and unhappy," she said, sipping gingerly.
"..why?" He felt he was stuck in a defensive position, conversationally speaking. He was definitely one step behind.
"I have known that sex god for years, simply years, and I would do that thing they say in films about training for war--what's that thing again?"
"..."
"Oh, yes. That If-I-say-jump-you-say-how-high thing. I'd be like that if he offered. Which he never has."
"..." His stunned silence did not seem to dampen Sophia's conversation in the slightest.
"And then he calls me, out of the blue, the other night and spends the whole night obviously angsting over every twink with dark hair and I thought to myself, 'Sophia, darling, someone has hooked this fish but good' if you pardon the slang."
"Yes?"
"And then I saw the two of you the next day, with you simply dripping class--it's that accent, darling--and I said to myself, 'Sophia, darling, there's the fish.'"
"The fish?"
"That hooked him."
"I don't think that's how fishing works."
"You know what I mean," she said, waving away his concern. "I love the boy but I watch Gossip Girls for Chuck Bass but I hardly enjoy an evening out with him, if you know what I mean."
"I really don't."
She sighed.
"Must I spell this out for you? I thought I was already speaking caveman," she said, lowering her drink solemnly, "Read my lips: you've got him, hook, line, and stinker."
"'Sinker' I'm pretty sure."
"Don't be a dolt. Say the word and that boy is yours, for keeps even. Only a twerp would not say the word."
"But that's...I don't...Even if I would...He hasn't..." Merlin stammered. He trailed off. Sophia seemed to consider her point won and finished her coffee. She pulled her sunglasses out of her bag again.
"Something to think about," she said as she left. The bells twinkled again. He stared at the closed door.
And he felt the universe setting him up for a giant, lifelong practical joke.
He pulled his phone out.
Coffee? he texted Arthur.
Be right there was the response.
Author: ifeelbetter
Rating: PG-13 (for the presence of alcohol-shock!)
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur (eventually), slight Gwen/Lancelot
Word Count: 2, 238
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 wins himself a less-than-willing model.
Notes: This is the final chapter! Congrats to anyone who managed to keep track of all the parts, if anyone actually did. In case it's been lost, the title comes from Oscar Wilde: "In this world, there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it." Also: Sophia stole the show in the eleventh hour.
The subway car is packed--of course--and Merlin finds himself separated from Arthur by a few elbows and a briefcase or two. And there was that weird silence you get on subways. It's unlike any other kind of silence since it's filled, absolutely packed solid, with people. And Merlin finds himself staring at the only piece of Arthur he could really see--his ear--and thinking.
Mostly he's alternating between rage against Arthur's raging vanity and this something else that, if he's being honest with himself (something he hardly ever is, for efficiency's sake), has been hovering for a while. Seeing Arthur thoroughly drunk, then relaxed, then friendly had all been a whirlwind of some sort of emotion that, again, identifying might not be wise but there was this something else before then even.
And that may be the stupidest thing he's ever admitted to himself. And that's counting the time he had to admit to himself that he had, indeed, just told Gwen's adviser that he was trying to kill two stones with one bird, laughed, and continued to paint a lovely verbal picture about how he would train a ninja-killer bird to attack and destroy troublesome stones.
Because who feels something else for someone like Arthur? Who, in their right mind, would start a silly process like that about someone who thinks calling a British person a "Brit" is actually an insult and, thinking thusly, therefore does so as frequently as possible? Or finds his own electronic devices mysterious and malevolent simply because he refuses to read a manual but still manages to push all the right buttons to self-destruct given two seconds of opportunity?
Merlin sighed. Him, obviously. That's who.
***
By the time they leave the subway, Arthur had managed to find a plateau between the fidgety discomfort and something very girly, possibly even warm and fuzzy. That's when he heard a familiar voice behind him.
"Arthur!"
He winced. Merlin looked over his shoulder curiously.
"Don't encourage her," Arthur hissed. He pasted a non-guilty, non-annoyed smiled on his face and turned.
"Soph! Long time no see," he said, as casually as possible.
"Darling, you silly goof, I saw you last night!" she said, in her oh-so-annoying voice, halfway between flapper-debutante and disaffected teen. She kissed the air approximately near both of his cheeks, which were burning under Merlin's amused gaze. "Remind me never to have fried food past 3 AM. It's never good for anyone." She noticed Merlin and was showing signs of pulling him in for a similar ritual.
"Soph, you'd have to actually eat for that to be a useful warning. Also, consider this your warning: never eat fried food past 3AM," he repeated dutifully. "Now, we really have to go--"
"I don't think that we've met," she said to Merlin.
"I don't think so either," he agreed.
"British! I adore a good British accent," she said, fulfilling her threat of kissing the air near both sides of Merlin's face but then threading an arm through one of his as an additional level of faux intimacy.
"I hope mine passes muster," Merlin said, grinning over her head at Arthur who rolled his eyes.
"It's delightful," she said. "Makes you sound like such an aristocrat. Like you have a butler stashed in your back pocket."
"God, Soph, make yourself sound more ignorant, why don't you?" Arthur scoffed.
"What a boar, Arthur-darling! You can really be so catty!" Sophia said, typing diligently at her oh-so-expensive phone as she spoke. She looked up brightly. "I simply insist you serenade me with your Britishness. We must lunch sometime or other."
"Absolutely must," Merlin agreed, amusement writ large across his face.
"He's an artist," Arthur blurted out. He was still pinkish in the cheeks, stumbling over his words. Awkward conversations did that to him.
"Darling, really! An absolute real-deal Van Gogh in the flesh?" she simpered.
"Definitely not the real Van Gogh but, yes, a real-deal artist. With paint brushes and everything," Merlin said. Sophia laughed, high-pitched, false, and -- oh god, I want to die, thought Arthur -- flirtatious.
"Soph, we're on our way someplace," Arthur insisted.
"But it was an absolute pleasure," Merlin said, shaking Sophia's hand, like a total lord-of-the-manor.
"Goodness, do Brits still say that?" Sophia giggled.
"Only the gentlemen," Merlin smirked. Arthur rolled his eyes.
"Do lay off it," he grumbled. "Soph. See you around."
"No gentleman, then," she said, grinning like a Cheshire cat, "And you--" to Arthur "--behave." She disappeared up the stairs in a flurry of fashion.
"She seemed ... interesting," Merlin said, as they made their way out of the station.
"She is that," Arthur agreed, trying to impress and also a representative terrible decision that walks and talks and bumps into me just when I was doing so well into every syllable. Not that he really knew what he meant let alone what he was saying. Just that it was suddenly vitally important that Merlin think well of him.
Not at all in a gay way.
His hand brushed Merlin's as they walked.
And, yes, it tingled afterward.
***
Lancelot was with Gwen when they approached. He had a hand on her lower back as they both looked up at the statue.
Merlin thought, If they were cartoons, they'd have hearts for eyes right now.
Lancelot caught sight of Merlin and his smile started, stopped as he registered Arthur, and froze and the comprehension dawned that he would be spending the afternoon with both.
Gwen managed to express her pleasure and anger in one glance. It said to Merlin You have done a severely stupid thing that I will forgive you for because it makes me so ecstatically happy, a bit like a besotted tween.
He tried to apologize and congratulate with his eyes.
"Are you alright, Merlin?" Lancelot said, looking worried. Merlin decided he was less capable of message-sending-via-eyes than Gwen and he would, therefore, cede that territory to her entirely.
"Yeah, alright. Only my model here was being a right twat all morning," he said, bumping Arthur lightly, shoulder-to-shoulder. There was a split-second pause where Arthur just looked at Merlin and Merlin was being looked at in this very intense way. But it was over in a fraction of a second.
"I don't see why you expect a man to be up at ungodly hours and to stay awake when all you want him for is to sit for ages," Arthur grumbled. Gwen laughed.
"He woke me up in the middle of the night once to sit on the fire escape because of 'perfect lighting' from a neon sign," she said, "It's the danger of being the intimate friend of an artiste."
"If I remember correctly, you fell asleep on the fire escape," Merlin interjected.
"Justifiably so!" Lancelot said in chivalric defense.
"And you snored," Merlin said, "But I was right about the lighting."
"Still no way to treat a lady," Lancelot maintained.
"Not dainty ladies like you and milady here," Merlin said, "You both obviously get plenty of beauty sleep. Maxed out, I'd say."
And, as if to prove himself dainty, Lancelot blushed with Gwen.
"Grow a pair, you pansy," Arthur grumbled. Merlin froze in mid-grin.
"Arthur, don't--" he said.
"I have better things to do than watch you two flounce around each other. Just kiss and makeup already," he growled and stalked off.
Gwen looked to Merlin.
"Aren't you going after him?" she asked.
"Why must I be responsible for his fits?" Merlin whined. "Can't we do something fun instead? Something without entitled twats?"
"Twat he may be," Lancelot observed, the British-ism hanging heavily in his accent, "But I think he was jealous."
Merlin scoffed. Then he contemplated. Then he scoffed again, but halfheartedly.
***
Merlin wiped down the last table in the shop. It had been slow, he'd wiped the tables down on the hour for the entire shift, simply as a way to mark the time go by. He'd also drawn sketches of the one or two people who had stopped by, Gwen, and the wall -- not exactly uniformly fascinating material.
When he thought about Arthur -- and he was willing to admit that the blonde crossed his mind every now and then (nothing unreasonable, thankyouverymuch!) -- he always ended in a state of mind halfway between Veruca Salt and Madame Bovary. He was pretty sure he was having an interior temper tantrum -- Gwen had actually stalked away from him earlier, informing him that his "interior" temper tantrum was decidedly "external" -- while simultaneously moodily bewailing ennui.
It was a busy day, interiorly speaking, and not at all manly.
He sighed. Again.
The bell above the door jingled as the door opened behind him.
"We're actually closed--" he started to say as he turned. He stopped because Sophia was standing in the door, hip cocked to one side and stiletto perched stylishly in a pose he was pretty sure he had seen on America's Next Top Model.
She looked utterly ridiculous in Legal Grounds. She may as well have stepped out of Breakfast At Tiffany's and, yet, here she was...in Legal Grounds. She removed her overly large (and Coach, of course, he saw the logo) sunglasses.
"My god, you're stylish," he said and then cursed the mouth that never checked in with his brain before plunging into conversation.
"Flattery will get you anywhere, darling," she drawled, "But, pleasantries aside, I come on business."
"Business?"
"Important business. I understand you're queer?" she said, dropping her glasses into her bag as nonchalantly as if she had begun their conversation in a normal-person way. He goggled but was unable to speak. She looked up again.
"I'll take a half-caf, no-foam latte," she continued. "Queer, yes?"
And his hands were already going for the coffee, having left his goggling mind behind.
"Yes?" he managed, "That's business, is it?" He felt he was back on solider footing, participating again in the world around him, moving beyond pure WTF??.
"I take it, then, that you have eyes as well?" she continued, draping herself in a chair. "Functioning ones, I mean?"
"Yes?" Still the only participation he felt capable of. It was a good word, especially framed as a question.
"Then you simply must be salivating over Arthur," she said, "The man is pure sex on legs. I wish I could bottle him. I swear, I'd make my fortune off him."
"Oh?" Yes was no longer safe territory.
"I could eat him. I don't often contemplate cannibalism but every time I get near that boy I simply want to--" she trailed off into a mimed snarl "--you know what I mean?"
"Umm--"
"Of course you do. Everyone does. It's biological, that's the only explanation. I read this article about these things--pheromones--and I thought to myself, I thought, 'Sophia, this positively explains Arthur' and you know, I think it does, I really do."
"Yes?"
"So you understand my point then? And how the average man may be a tad unclear about your current position re: Arthur?"
"...what?"
"Oh, yes. I never said, did I?"
"No, you definitely didn't," Merlin said, handing over her coffee.
"Of course. I'll begin again."
"Please do. With gaps filled in."
"I, and most of the population, are unhappy with you. Perplexed and unhappy," she said, sipping gingerly.
"..why?" He felt he was stuck in a defensive position, conversationally speaking. He was definitely one step behind.
"I have known that sex god for years, simply years, and I would do that thing they say in films about training for war--what's that thing again?"
"..."
"Oh, yes. That If-I-say-jump-you-say-how-high thing. I'd be like that if he offered. Which he never has."
"..." His stunned silence did not seem to dampen Sophia's conversation in the slightest.
"And then he calls me, out of the blue, the other night and spends the whole night obviously angsting over every twink with dark hair and I thought to myself, 'Sophia, darling, someone has hooked this fish but good' if you pardon the slang."
"Yes?"
"And then I saw the two of you the next day, with you simply dripping class--it's that accent, darling--and I said to myself, 'Sophia, darling, there's the fish.'"
"The fish?"
"That hooked him."
"I don't think that's how fishing works."
"You know what I mean," she said, waving away his concern. "I love the boy but I watch Gossip Girls for Chuck Bass but I hardly enjoy an evening out with him, if you know what I mean."
"I really don't."
She sighed.
"Must I spell this out for you? I thought I was already speaking caveman," she said, lowering her drink solemnly, "Read my lips: you've got him, hook, line, and stinker."
"'Sinker' I'm pretty sure."
"Don't be a dolt. Say the word and that boy is yours, for keeps even. Only a twerp would not say the word."
"But that's...I don't...Even if I would...He hasn't..." Merlin stammered. He trailed off. Sophia seemed to consider her point won and finished her coffee. She pulled her sunglasses out of her bag again.
"Something to think about," she said as she left. The bells twinkled again. He stared at the closed door.
And he felt the universe setting him up for a giant, lifelong practical joke.
He pulled his phone out.
Coffee? he texted Arthur.
Be right there was the response.