Reel_Fic Two: In This Together, Part I
Title: In This Together, Part I
Author: xaritomene
Movie Prompt: "High School Musical" Or, as I persisted on calling it right up to the end of writing, "High School Magical". IDEK. o.O
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur
Rating: PG. C'mon, people, Disney. ^_^
Word Count: My very shortest reel!fic at a mere 9,395 words, and still cut into two parts for length. :( Editing, what is this editing of which you speak?
Spoilers/Warnings: Well, HIgh School Musical stuff. *g* Possibly offensive to musical-lovers.
Author's Notes: Beta'd by the wonderful phantomjam who is amazing and thorough and just all round brilliant. All mistakes left are most definitely my own, put sneakily in after she'd gone through it. kuhekabir was equally wonderful in looking it over for me, and the awesome smokey2307 smokey2307 cheerled, beta'd it while it was still in bits and listened to me whine about it. ^_^
This may not be what people were expecting from this film, because I'm not really involved in HSM as a fandom; but I had loads of fun writing it. Hope you enjoy!
**
Traditionally the Pendragon men spent New Year at home, practicing a little fencing, eating some pizza, maybe watching their neighbour's fireworks - nice, peaceful and, well, traditional. But some bullying from Uther's nominal boss and old friend, Gaius, saw them heading up from their comfortable London home to the middle of the Lake District, for - as Gaius put it - "a change of scenery". Just because Uther had been rather focussed since his wife Igraine's death didn't mean that he was wrong to be so.
And it certainly didn't mean Arthur should be forced to come with his father to the bloody Lake District and forced to go to some stupid children's New Year party while his dad went to the real one with Gaius. He was sixteen, for God's sake.
Gaius appeared in the doorway to the salle they were using for fencing practice. "You two," he said, an eyebrow raised in disapproval. "You don't have long until the party, why aren't you ready?"
Uther flashed his old friend a grin and seemed ready to stop; Arthur, far from eager to go to any children's party, shook his head. "One more pass, Gaius - I've almost got this move."
He sighed. "If you ever started using your brain and not your sword-"
Really, some thoughts were just not appropriate around his father's oldest friend, but Gaius did court them so easily. Rather than connect that sort of thought with Gaius, Arthur threw himself into the short pass with his father and finally succeeded in twisting his foil just so to send his father's flying out of his hand.
"Very good." Uther smiled. "Now, get out of my sight until you're clean again."
**
"Merlin, you can't take your book to the party, it's a party," Hunith pleaded with her son to little avail.
"That sounds like a fantastic reason to take it," Merlin muttered, but didn't have the heart to wipe the hopeful smile off his mother's face by saying it any louder. "Let me just finish this spell?" he asked hopefully and she relented.
"Fine. But just one," she said, a smile ruining the firmness of her voice. She ruffled his hair gently. "It's not like you need to be studying it that hard, after all."
True to his word, he finished the spell and put the book away with a reluctant sigh. "Do I have to go to the stupid children's party again, Mum?" he asked, pleadingly. "I'm sixteen, I can-"
"You can't come to the adult's party," she told him. "And I'm not letting you spend New Year's Eve on your own in a hotel room."
"We could always stay at home?" he suggested quickly. "I mean, we're moving soon, we could have used the time..."
"Your dad loved the Lake District at New Year." his mother said sadly and he winced. "I just like to - keep him alive this way..."
Privately Merlin thought this showed fairly bad taste on his dad's part, but kept quiet. "Of course, Ma." he agreed quietly. "I was only joking."
"Good!" Hunith brightened noticeably. "I bought a nice shirt for you to wear to the party-"
"No." he said, quickly. "At least let me wear my own clothes!"
**
The downside of coming to a stupid party here, Arthur thought viciously, was the way everyone else here knew each other. They might not all be friends, exactly, but they got on well enough to not have to bother getting to know any strangers that happened to turn up at their party.
Arthur, not used to being ignored, hated it.
At half-eleven, after enduring an hour and a half of lurking awkwardly in corners, Arthur turned to go. He wasn't going to see in the New Year with people who ignored him completely.
"And now," a voice said over the sound system as Arthur started fighting his way through the crowd towards the door, wondering why they were all being so damn obstructive, "we're going to have the traditional New Year karaoke!" Good god, no, Arthur thought, almost at the door. "Now, remember, kids, if the light picks you, it's up to you to carry the singing!"
He was so nearly free when some sodding bastard beamed a spotlight down on him. Someone grabbed him - someone who, obviously, was going to die a slow and painful death in the near future - and he was tugged, protesting all the way, to the impromptu stage which had been set up for this little slice of hell.
He tried to protest - Arthur Pendragon did not sing - but all he got was laughter. Yes, next year he would refuse to be taken anywhere for New Year, he thought darkly, watching as some other poor sod was dragged up on stage to endure this torment with him.
**
Merlin had been sat on one of the more out-of-the-way sofas designed for this thing, running through various spells in his head, and barely heard the announcement about karaoke. If he had, he would have used one of the many disappearance charms he knew. If he could possibly help it, he never sang. Too many people looking at him and noticing him and - no. He hated it.
It was only when they got him up on stage with some good-looking, probably-brainless blond that the idiots finally realised the problem here.
"They're both boys!" Someone objected.
"The spotlight is truly random." The DJ was trying to sound jocular, but only managed faintly ruffled. "We'll choose a nice, unobjectionable song."
The well-known romantic song which started up a couple of seconds later ensured that this particular DJ was never going to get this booking again ever.
Arthur cleared his throat, and resigned himself to his fate. “Living in my own world... didn’t understand, that anything can happen - if you take a chance...” he sang, then turned away. He wasn’t going to stay up here on this stage for any more humiliation than he had to endure. He’d done one verse. That would have to be enough for them. The other boy obviously wouldn’t be able to sing, and Arthur wouldn’t-
“I never believed in what I couldn’t see... I never opened my heart to all the possibilities...”
To Arthur's surprise, the scrawny dark boy's singing voice was nice, lighter than Arthur’s own. And OK, it would obviously be unfair to leave him here on stage by himself. Just one song. It couldn’t harm anyone - right?
They got through the song without mishap - even well, their voices complementing each other’s nicely. In all honestly, although he had been surprised that the other boy could sing so well, Arthur mostly surprised himself with his own ability to sing. Uther had drawn the line at singing, even singing in the shower - apparently an old trick of Arthur's mother, and one of several things her death had put an end to - and he didn't make much of a habit of sneaking off to sing to himself. From the look on his face the scrawny dark boy was equally surprised, and Arthur immediately abandoned his tentative urge to find out the boy's name; who was he to assume that Arthur couldn’t sing? Patronising dick. Probably everyone's best friend here, thought it would be a laugh to sing with the stupid stranger, and-
"-your name?"
So, Mr. Popularity spoke as well as sang, Arthur thought, sarcastically.
"I'm sorry, did you say something to me?" He asked, blandly, and the boy looked a little taken aback. Yeah, probably no one dared talk to him like that normally.
"I just asked what your name was." The boy shrugged and turned away. "Never mind."
He might be feeling a little raw but Arthur had also be raised polite; not to mention he didn't want to push away the first person who'd really spoken to him all night. "No, sorry," he said, quickly. "I just didn't hear you. I'm Arthur."
The other boy held his hand out. "Merlin," he said, smiling tentatively.
"Nice to meet you." Arthur said, still more polite than truthful.
"You too." The smile grew just a little. "Are you from round here?"
Arthur frowned. "No. I thought you were, though."
He shook his head quickly. "No."
"So where are you from?" they asked each other, at the same time. "You go first," Arthur gestured and Merlin shrugged.
"I'm from London," he said, looking down at his hands.
"Really?" Arthur said, a little surprised. "Me too," he paused. "Why are you up here for New Year?"
"We come here ever year."
"You and your parents?"
"My mum. Because my dad loved it up here." He glanced up. "You?"
Arthur shrugged. "My dad's best friend bullied us into coming. Said we 'needed a break'. My mum - she died a couple of years ago. Dad never really got over it; his best friend thinks he's been moping ever since. It was him who insisted we came up here."
They paused in faintly awkward silence until Merlin broke it. "I'm sorry." He said, quietly, then hurried on. "You know, you sing really well."
"Thanks, you too. Are you - I mean, do you...?"
"Sing often?" he shrugged. "No, not really. I'm guessing you don't?"
"Oh, no." Arthur said quickly. "I'm more into - y'know - other stuff. Like fencing."
"Fencing?" Merlin looked rather interested. "That's unusual."
"Yeah, well. You know, it's big at my school... and my dad coaches the school team. We’re hosting the National Youth Competition there this term."
"Oh." He paused. "Well, do you like it?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I love it. It's like-" He realised how hurried and rushed his voice sounded and stopped. "Well. It's one of the only things I'm really good at."
"Fencing and singing." Merlin cracked a smile, a huge, ridiculous grin that somehow suited his face exactly. "Unusual combination."
"Well, what do you team singing with?" Arthur asked, keeping the spirit of the joke alive.
"Oh," Merlin waved a hand, rather awkwardly, "nothing in particular." The joke died an ignominious death, and the slightly relaxed attitude went with it.
Arthur didn't push it. "It's nearly midnight," he said, regaining as much of it as he could and gesturing at the door to the patio, "want to go and see the fireworks?"
"Sounds good." He smiled. "Well, already this is more interesting than I was expecting."
"Really?"
"Yeah." He sighed. "Every year I sit in the corner reading. I can't seem to find a way of convincing my mum that I'd have just as good a time if she'd let me stay in my room. Probably better."
Arthur cracked a smile of his own. "Well, I'm glad that you came. It would have been very boring for me if you hadn't."
"That makes me feel so much better." The boy grinned.
“So do you have any plans for the rest of the holiday?” Arthur asked, in a friendly sort of way, leaning back against the wall, and watching the fireworks explode high overhead.
“No, not really. My mum and I are moving, so it’s all about that at the moment.”
“Oh, right.” He nodded.
“How about you?”
“No, nothing much. Hanging out with my friends, doing some fencing practice... Nothing exciting.” He paused. “Look, why don’t I give you my number, then we could meet up, back home. If you wanted to, you know?”
“Sounds like a great plan. Here, you put your number in mine, and I’ll put mine in yours.” They swapped phones and keyed in the numbers in silence before handing the phones back.
“You know,” Arthur said, awkwardly, staring up at the fireworks so he wouldn’t have to look at Merlin, “I had a - a really good time up there tonight. I wasn’t expecting to, y’know? I hate that sort of thing. But I kind of actually enjoyed it! How about y-” He looked round; Merlin was nowhere to be seen.
Dammit.
**
"So, we're going to make sure I'm normal at this school, right?" Merlin said pointedly to his mother as she walked with him and Gaius through the entrance hall of Merlin’s fourth new school in as many years.
"Of course." Hunith smiled. "And this should be the last move we make before you take your A-Levels; I made the bank promise me it would be."
"So long as they don't treat me like some kind of freaky all-powerful sorcerer they did at Ealdor High." Merlin said darkly. "No one liked me - but they all loved what I could do for them in tournaments, didn't they? Even if it did scare the hell out of them."
Gaius smiled at his stepsister and godson and patted Merlin's shoulder. "Ealdor was very small." he said, kindly. "Things are different in Camelot; we're much more cosmopolitan."
"So long as I can just be normal..."
"I'm sure you'll fit in just fine."
**
They'd turned up early to make sure that they could fill in all the paperwork without having to worry about Merlin missing any school time, so he was there with everyone else in time for the beginning of school. By the time Arthur arrived - late, because he'd overslept after a particularly vigorous fencing practice - Merlin was absently playing with a tiny fireball, and half-listening to the teacher, Ms Nimueh, talk about all the rules and regulations she expected them to follow.
"Arthur Pendragon, late as usual, what a surprise," she said with sickening sweetness. "Is it really too much to ask that you turn up on time for school? I understand that it's not quite as exciting as waving a sword around, but it is more useful." She favoured him with an over-sweet smile.
Arthur was barely looking at her, too busy staring at Merlin sat at the back of the classroom.
"Yes, Ms. Nimueh. Sorry I'm late." he said, absently.
Irritated, she waved him to his usual seat, which had been saved by his best friend, Lance.
"Lastly, of course," she continued, eyes raking over the class, "mobile phones will not be tolerated in class, and is that a mobile phone I see, Mr. Pendragon?"
Arthur only just had time to press 'send' on the text he'd just written to the new boy when Nimueh called the phone out of his hands without even leaving her desk. "Detention for you, Mr. Pendragon," she said, smoothly.
"Ms Nimueh, we've got fencing practice after school!" Lance protested, just as Arthur said, "But it's the first day!"
"A perfect time to get the lesson home. Mobile phones have no place in class." She whipped round, and saw Merlin reading the message Arthur had just sent him. "Mr. Emrys, I would make an exception for your first day had you not just heard me assign detention to Mr. Pendragon for exactly the same offence. Now." She turned back to Lance. "What were you saying, Mr. du Lac?"
"We've got a fencing practice scheduled tonight, Ms. Nimueh," he said, smiling ingratiatingly.
"And you think this is a better use of Mr. Pendragon's time than detention?" she asked silkily.
"Well... yes." He shrugged.
"Then take a detention of your own, so you can make a more educated judgement later."
Across the other side of the room, a terrifyingly beautiful girl raised an eyebrow. "What a world," she whispered to a friend, "when whacking people with sticks is supposed to be more important than brains and magic."
"Miss Fay, some respect for your fellow students, please! Perhaps you might learn it in the detention you'll be serving with me tonight!" Nimueh sang out. "And, before the end of form time, remember that the first round of auditions for the winter musicale will be taking place tomorrow afternoon, and that no sign up is necessary - but would help to keep things moving. In the appropriate inclusive spirit of this season," she gave an almost ghastly smile, “Miss Smith has written a musical in which the main couple can either be played by the traditional girl and boy, or by any variation thereupon - should two boys or two girls decide to audition, there is no reason why they should not!” The bell rang. “And on that sweet note, I will see some of you later for detention, and a good term to you all!”
**
Arthur managed to catch Merlin in the scramble that always followed form time, grabbing hold of his elbow and making the other boy wheel round sharply.
"I didn't know you were going to be here!" he said, unfortunately sounding indignant instead of surprised. To temper it, he managed a smile.
Merlin shrugged. "Well, I didn't know you were going to be here either."
"If you hadn't disappeared so quickly on New Year's Eve, you might have found out." Arthur pointed out, falling into step with Merlin.
"Sorry. I wanted to say happy New Year to my mum before the fireworks ended." Merlin apologised, looking round the school corridors with interest, eyes lighting on the notice board with the sign up sheet for musical auditions. "Planning to sign up?" he asked, nodding towards it, and Arthur shook his head quickly.
"Not really my sort of thing," he said, awkwardly. "How about you?"
"Nah." Merlin agreed, equally quickly. "I, er, yeah. I don't perform. Not on stage, anyway. Or, um, not often. That time with you was pretty much the only one."
"No, me neither. Or, er, me too." There was a long, rather awkward pause as they walked. Arthur knew he shouldn't do it - after all, he never did things like this - but there was just something about Merlin that seemed to make him do all sorts of things he wouldn't usually do. "Why don't I show you round?" he offered. "Lunch break or something?"
Merlin looked suddenly wary. "'Show you round' isn't Camelot-School-speak for 'beat you up behind the bike-shed', is it?"
Arthur paused then laughed. "No, you idiot, it's not. Much more interesting things happen behind the bike-shed."
Merlin flushed, but grinned back. "Then lunch break sounds good. It's a bit bigger than my last schools."
"It's bigger and better than most schools," Arthur said, proudly, but caught Merlin's look, and subsided with a rather rueful grin. "Sorry. My dad's a PE teacher here, I'm - proud of it."
"Obviously." Merlin grinned back. "So, your dad's a PE teacher? Like that advert*?"
Arthur had no idea which advert Merlin was talking about, but ignored it. "Well. Sometimes he has to take an actual class, but mostly he's the fencing coach. He's head of PE."
"Fencing?" Merlin looked interested. "D'you fence?"
Arthur nodded. “I told you, remember?”
Merlin flushed. “Oh. Yeah.”
Arthur brushed it off and was about to start on a long spiel about the joys of fencing when the bell rang. By mutual, unspoken decision, they both ran for it.
Just before they entered the classroom, Arthur spoke. "Lunch break?"
"Lunch break."
**
Before lunch, however, was the optional sorcery class, one of Merlin's GCSE options which Arthur didn't take, and it was there that he was cornered by a girl with long, curly brown hair and a venomous smile.
"Merlin, right?" she said with vicious sweetness. "I'm Sophia. You're new here, aren't you?"
He nodded. "Yeah, hi. Nice to meet you. Um, if you'd just give me one second, I think-"
"Well, why don't I show you around at lunch break?" she offered, though Merlin had the distinct impression that this was not a favour.
"I'm sorry." He apologised. "I'm meeting someone. Maybe some other time?"
"So, you know Arthur Pendragon, then?" she asked, and though he would have liked to wonder how she knew, he was fairly certain she'd either been spying on them - unintentionally or not - or she had Second Sight. Anything was possible with the people who took this option, after all.
"Not really." He shrugged. "We met at a party at New Year; we haven't spoken since."
She digested this in silence for a few minutes and he concentrated on the spell Gaius was writing on the board. "That should be awakk," he murmured.
"Mr. Emrys, did you have something to say?" Gaius asked, raising his eyebrow even further than normal. Being his godfather wasn't enough to make Gaius abandon the formalities of teacher-student relationships.
Taking his cue from Gaius, Merlin shook his head. "No, it's just - shouldn't that be awakk, not baran?"
"That's not possible, it would change the whole shape of the spell..." He consulted his notes. "I stand corrected." he said, after a brief pause, and re-wrote the word. "Thank goodness for prodigy." He offered Merlin a rather warmer smile than he might have done had he not known him.
Sophia's eyes on his back, he could feel, were coolly assessing him, and over the other side of the room, the same stunningly beautiful girl with long, long dark hair from form time was giving him a thoughtful look. Merlin shuddered and went back to his notes.
**
After the class Sophia Tiamor watched with interest as the new boy - gawky, underfed thing that he was - headed towards the door and turned to her side-kick, Will, with a flounce.
"Come with me," she ordered, heading to the computer room.
"But - but, lunch?" Will protested, but she glared at him.
"You've got sandwiches, you can eat them when we get to the computer room. I have things to do," she snapped, already striding off.
"But it's lasagne!" he said, and she gave him a put-upon sigh.
"Oh, Will," she said. "Do you ever think of anything but your stomach?"
"Yes!" he said, hurt. "Sometimes." He trailed after her, rather miserably. "What are we doing in the computer room, anyway?"
"That new boy," she flung over her shoulder. "Arthur Pendragon is far too interested in him, I don't like it. So it has to stop. And I think..." She ordered another student off her favourite computer, sitting down and logging in. "I think I have the perfect way to warn him off him for good."
"You're going to blackmail him into it?" Will frowned. "I don't want to-"
"Oh, no." Sophia's smile scared even Will, who'd known her since they were tiny. "I'm just going to make him a social outcast. Arthur Pendragon would never go for someone like that."
She typed 'Merlin Emrys' into Google, and waited. The first few links were useless - but the next one was golden. 'High School Sorcerer Makes Magic - and History!' 'Just like magic! Teenage magician takes the glory.'
Sophia's lips curled into another rather frightening self-satisfied smile. "Bingo," she said, clicking 'print' on both of them.
"What are you going to do with them?"
"Give them to Morgana," she said, sweetly. "Once Merlin is on the Sorcathlon, Arthur Pendragon won't even look at him."
"Everyone looks at Morgana...?" Will said, uncertainly.
"Morgana is an aberration." Sophia said dismissively. "Merlin Emrys is nowhere near as interesting."
"I hope you know what you're doing." Will said finally.
"Oh, William." She smiled again. "I always know what I'm doing."
**
Meanwhile Arthur had met Merlin outside the cafeteria and was showing him round the school, giving special attention to the gym - "one of the best school gyms in London!" - and giving as brief attention as possible to the theatre - "not bad, either, I suppose, if you're into that sort of thing. Which I'm not. Of course." After a while, though, there was very little to show him and, as Merlin pointed out, one classroom looked a lot like another after a while.
"It's not quite as - big and scary as I'd thought." he said, with a smile. "I thought it was going to be much easier to get lost."
"Yeah." Arthur agreed. "It's a bit off-putting when you're new."
"But I'll get used to it." Merlin said, airily.
They walked along the empty corridor in comfortable silence for a few minutes. "So, you said you were moving, how'd it go?" Arthur asked carefully and Merlin smiled.
"Not so bad. Mum's actually bought the house this time, rather than borrowing it from the bank she works for, so that's good. Bit more permanent."
"Mm."
"I hope your dad doesn't miss your mum quite so much?" Merlin said, without looking at Arthur.
"Oh, he'll always miss her." He shrugged. "Nothing I can do about it. But he's not quite as bad about it anymore."
They talked until the bell went and had to run to their next classes - but some part of them - a tiny, awkward, rather quiet part of each of them - felt elated at the time spent together. It was, though neither of them would ever have thought of it like that, the same feeling of elation of realising that a crush is crushing right back. But they wouldn't realise that for a while.
**
Detention was just as boring as Arthur had suspected, and Nimueh had them doing the oddest things - painting strange symbols onto egg shells, flowers on cups, and cracks onto grave statues - and just what was this musical supposed to be about?!
The only benefit of it was that his best friend, Lance, was there with him, and Merlin was also there, too, painting a backdrop of rather frightening trees. More off-putting than the back-drop, however, was the way Merlin was using two paintbrushes, and was only actually holding one of them.
"Mr. Emrys, no magic is allowed in detention!" Nimueh told him, sharply, and the second brush dropped with a splatter of paint. "I make allowance for your first day, but if you repeat the offence, there will be grave repercussions." Merlin gave his teacher a surprised look.
"I'm sorry, I didn't realise I was doing it."
"A likely story." She swept onwards. "No, Mr. Pendragon, paint, don't dawdle! Whatever behaviour you may be allowed to indulge in during fencing practice is not acceptable here!"
Thankfully, she left her goading at that, and Lance nudged his friend. "The Dragon-Lady has spoken, Arthur," he said, with a grin. "Paint!"
"I'll paint you in a minute if you don't shut up."
"So, how was your lunch-date?" he asked, still grinning in a way that made Arthur want to punch him.
"It wasn't a date," he muttered, painting a vicious smear of black on the stupid effigy. "I was just showing a new person round."
"Which you never do." Lance pointed out gleefully, the bastard. "C'mon, give."
"Do you ever shut up?" Arthur asked, and was then distracted by the arrival of his step-sister, Morgana, on the scene.
"The answer's yes!" she told Merlin, who jumped.
"Um - the answer to what?" he asked, looking askance at her.
"The answer to these!" She held out two articles which Merlin grabbed, going red and then white.
"I didn't give you these," he said, firmly.
"Doesn't matter," she said, eagerly. "You're obviously Sorcathlon material."
"I don't want to be Sorcathlon material," he said, handing the paper back to her. "I just want to be normal."
Morgana stared. "But - you'd be perfect!"
"But I don't want to be!"
"Please?" she asked, widening her eyes in a way that always got her what she wanted. Arthur waited with a sick sense of anticipation for Merlin to cave. Surprisingly, Merlin held firm and Morgana sighed. "It would mean such a lot to us all" she said honestly, and it was Merlin's turn to sigh.
"Fine," he said, rather resignedly, and Morgana beamed and hugged him.
"Wonderful! Now, we meet every Wednesday..."
**
"Nimueh!" a voice bellowed from the door, interrupting Morgana's lengthy flow of information to Merlin, and both Arthur and Lance looked up automatically. "Would you care to explain to me why, exactly, two of the key members of my fencing team are in detention when they should be at an important practice?!"
"Your 'key members', Pendragon, used a mobile in class and failed to show proper respect to a teacher," she returned stiffly. "There is not one rule for normal people and one rule for sports players." She spat the words out as though they left a nasty taste in her mouth. "The punishment for that is detention."
"The punishment for that can be detention after we've won the nationals." Uther Pendragon said, sharply. "Until then, Arthur, Lance, go kit up."
"Pendragon, if you do this, I will be forced to take this to the headmaster!" Nimueh shouted.
"Do it!" he said, over his shoulder. "I'll meet you there!"
Everyone else in detention stared as the two boys were herded out, and Nimueh fumed ineffectually in Uther's wake.
**
Five minutes later in Gaius' office saw Uther and Nimueh shouting at each other over the desk.
"We have a reputation to uphold for fencing!" he bellowed. "And I'm not going to let your petty grudges get in the way!"
"Oh, my petty grudges!?" she shrieked back. "From the man who says that drama is the work of the devil!?"
"It took my wife from me!" he shouted back.
"Your wife was killed on the way to an amateur dramatics rehearsal - hardly the fault of the rehearsal, Pendragon!"
"I will not have you using Arthur to get at me!"
"And I will not have you perverting the course of justice in this school!"
Gaius finally intervened. "Uther, if Arthur has done something wrong, of course he must be punished. What was the offence, Nimueh?"
"Use of a mobile in class," she said promptly, shooting Uther a victorious smile.
"What did he do with it?" he asked, patiently.
"Well..." she dithered, momentarily, and caught the triumphant smirk starting to grow on Uther's face. "I believe he sent some kind of message on it."
"But you have no proof?" Gaius pressed.
"Well - none as such... but he had it out!" She rallied. "And had evidently been using it!"
"And how long was he in detention for?" Gaius continued, very calmly.
"About twenty minutes before this lout came and dragged-"
"Then I would say he has been satisfactorily punished," he said, with a smile. "Further use of a mobile will, of course, result in further punishment-" Nimueh shot a smirk at Uther, "-but we must all try not to let our prejudices interfere with our actions towards the children we teach." Both teachers looked rather shame-faced at that. "Now, Uther-" he said, and Uther raised a regal eyebrow at him in query. "How is Arthur's fencing coming along? How good are our chances?"
Nimueh's teeth ground audibly.
**
While Uther and Nimueh were arguing, Arthur was singularly failing to concentrate on his fencing practice. There was, obviously, no way he was going to audition for that musical. He'd have to pretend to be in love with Merlin - because Merlin was the only person he would consider performing with. Not that that meant he liked him, or anything! - and that wasn't happening. Merlin was a boy. And he didn't know him. So obviously he couldn't pretend to love him. Even if he wasn't a boy.
Lance got through his guard for the third time in a row and frowned at him. "Arthur, get your head in the match!" he hissed. "We'll never win if you're distracted like this."
"I'm trying," he whispered back. "I just - yeah. I need to get my head in the match. I can do that."
But it was harder than he'd thought it would be. Concentrating on fencing had never been hard, but concentrating on fencing while another interest was threatening to intrude wasn't quite as easy as it always had been before.
He didn't know Merlin. But he couldn't convince himself that he didn't want to. And the musical - working with him - would be a great way to get to know him, wouldn't it?
"No. Head in the match, Arthur," he whispered, and attacked again.
**
Part II is just here: http://xaritomene.livejournal.com/17717.html#cutid1