fic: the world forgetting, by the world forgot - part 5
title: the world forgetting, by the world forgot
film prompt: eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
characters/pairings: merlin, arthur, morgana, gwen (main); merlin/arthur (main); everyone/everyone on the side
rating: pg-13
| part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8 | part 9 | part 10 | part 11 | part 12 | part 13 | part 14 | part 15 | part 16 |
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|►gwen|
She has been scouring the craft stores all morning for the thick wooden beads she’d seen in the flyers. The previous night, her fingers had found thread and wire and were on their way working at a new bracelet for Morgana before her mind had been aware of it. Since she's in the area, she figures she might as well swing by the record store and say hello to Merlin.
She manages the trek only to have Freya tell her that Merlin’s stepped out for dinner with a friend. She doesn't remember him mentioning anyone; then again, it isn't as if they're all that attuned to each other's daily lives anymore. Freya says something about the fellow coming by quite often, adding with a wink, “And he's quite dashing to boot.” Before heading off to ring out a customer, she throws over her shoulder, “I'm sorry you missed him, but it's good to see you, Gwen.”
Gwen mirrors the words and the sentiment and walks out in a daze. At any rate, she gathers it will probably do Merlin good to have new people in his life. Sometimes the old ones just didn’t cut it anymore. It sounds bitter at face value but she genuinely doesn’t think of it that way. It’s just a truth, and one she has seen play out before her.
She thinks of the years they've shared, the way she'd pretended to be his girlfriend through high school, been his first kiss. For her, it had all been real, and the fact that she had known full well that it would never be entirely real to him never made it mean any less.
When he'd come out, it had been to her first. He'd said, absolutely straight-faced, "I'm so, so sorry Gwen,” and, “I never meant to string you along,” and, “can we please still be friends even if I don't want to sleep with you? I still love you to death."
She had laughed and laughed with tears in her eyes and said, "I know. I've always known,” and, “don't ever be sorry for anything,” and, “I love you back to death.”
And on the night of Merlin’s college graduation, a slightly inebriated Gaius had let the news slip that Merlin and Arthur had signed a lease near Nassau Boulevard. Morgana had taken everyone out for a celebratory dinner, called it an unofficial engagement party, and laughed with the kind of mirth that Gwen had rarely seen on her face since.
In the spirit of things, Gwen had made a toast. She’d thought, here is someone who will take care of you for me, and she had said, “Here's to all of us and what’s to come."
And in that moment, she had felt feather-light.
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|◄◄|2001|►arthur|forgotten|
Arthur hadn’t understood at first why everyone cooed at Merlin and wanted to be his best friend. Maybe it was because their first meeting had been rushed and absentminded that he never took all the adoration in Morgana and Gwen’s voices seriously when they brought him up.
All of that came later, something to do with a smile, which grew into laughter, and the crinkling corners of the eyes that came with it.
In the winter of '98, Morgana had dragged Arthur to a music festival. There was a group of low-key artists doing a series of concerts in venues across Long Island, and she’d called him up and said, “It’s not as if you have a life anyway so you might as well come along.”
Once there, he'd found Gwen and this Merlin character also in attendance. Gwen, he could understand. She and Morgana had been joint at the hip ever since Morgana had gone off to college, but this guy? Arthur supposed he would just have to play it by ear. For all his easy conversation and making light of situations, he had never been all that great with new people.
Arthur can’t remember now which venue it was or even who was on stage that night but he remembers bright lights and ear-splitting riffs and how he’d meant to turn to Morgana and scream in her ear, ‘This? Seriously?’ He was convinced that might have been the only way he would have ever been heard. Instead, he'd turned to the wrong side and maybe stopped for a second or so because there was light and colour everywhere and, for a fleeting moment, Merlin had turned to look at him. It had been nothing more than a slight upward quirk of lips, something catching lightning-quick like a shimmer in his eye, and Arthur thinks that maybe that had been the when and where of it, the slow swell of when it had really started. For all of Arthur’s disorientation in that place, surrounded by people and sounds and an atmosphere he knew nothing of and wanted to do very little with, Arthur had smiled back.
Now, Merlin's asleep on his shoulder, a half-hour after they've collapsed in front of mindless late-night television. It's the first break they've allowed themselves after a day and a half of unpacking and assembling the new furniture.
Arthur puts the infomercial on mute and, without quite meaning to, looks around the living room, at their space, and all the ways they are filling it with their idiosyncrasies. It’s all them and all theirs and it’s in the collision of worlds that throw together a black leather couch and blue and orange throw pillows, dark oak tables and paper lanterns. Perhaps, he would have found it kitschy once but he can’t even tell any longer.
He thinks of how it is that he had always been black and white and crisp lines and cuts of fitted shirts and Merlin had been colour and frayed hems of cotton and denim and mismatched jewelry with more sentimental value than anyone’s heart could possibly hold. And yet, somehow, it had fit. They had fit, to the point where he could barely draw the lines now.
|►►|2004
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|►merlin|
In his head, he has stopped questioning Arthur's recurring presence in the store some time ago. Even when he feels that maybe he should, he stops before he can start. The thing is, whatever it is that they have going on here feels more than a little perfect in its own fragile way and Merlin doesn’t want to rattle it.
The next time Arthur comes in happens to be another Thursday and at a time when Merlin is about to step out for his dinner break. Arthur claims to have just gotten off work and that he's starving, and so, together, they walk around the block to the express Thai place that Merlin and Freya eat at regularly.
It’s right when they sit down with Merlin’s spicy tofu and Arthur’s hot-and-sour soup with vermicelli that Arthur’s phone rings, loud and shrill and disappointingly devoid of an embarrassing ring-tone. Unremarkably, he answers a work call with his name, his full name, but it becomes less unremarkable when Merlin fully registers what Arthur’s full name really is and hopes against hope that the realization doesn’t show on his face.
They've known each other maybe a little over a month now but it is when Arthur flips his phone shut that Merlin considers precisely how neat and tidy their association is. They pick and choose what they want the other to know about their lives, bypassing anything inconvenient or irrelevant, because where else will they see one another outside a record store? Of course, changing this, turning it into something tangible with possibly a little more consequence, means compromising the ease of this. Merlin is not entirely sure how to go about it or if he even wants to but he worries that if Arthur keeps looking at him like that, he might one day be tempted.
“So,” Merlin starts, “Pendragon. You’re Arthur Pendragon.”
Arthur juts out his chin. “Who wants to know?”
“Any relation to Uther Pendragon?”
“I’m his son,” Arthur says, an edge creeping into his voice. “Why?”
That might have been what Merlin had crossed his fingers against because, well, this could change everything. He laughs in spite of himself and shakes his head. “Of course you are. Just my luck too.”
“Why? What have you got against my father?”
It’s amusing that Arthur doesn’t even get defensive, just says it like he has heard it a hundred times before. With Uther Pendragon for a father, he probably has too. This might be why Merlin feels a little less paranoid about giving an honest answer.
“Well,” he starts delicately, because this is still someone’s father he’s talking about, and then thinks, hell with it, because there's no being delicate about Uther Pendragon. “Other than the fact that he is a heartless corporate giant working under the guise of modern medicine, he also fired my uncle a while back. You’ll have to excuse me for not being his biggest fan.”
Arthur nearly chokes on his soup at that but he manages to down a glass of water and let out a laugh, throwing Merlin off entirely in the process.
“Listen, Merlin. Normally, I’d punch you in the face for talking about my father like that but you should know that he is a gravely misunderstood man.” Merlin’s fairly certain that the look on his face succeeds in giving away that he’s not buying it because Arthur sighs and adds, “I’m sorry about your uncle. My father...he has good intentions. There’s a long convoluted story behind it that perhaps you’ll hear one day, but you should know that he means well. And that I don’t agree with his methods either.”
“Glad we’re on the same page then,” and Merlin takes the next few minutes to pick at his tofu in silence.
He recounts what little he knows of Arthur. The man is a full-time accountant and a part-time magician with a penchant for ancient vinyl or whatever it is that he frequents Lake Records for. He finds it perplexing that this should be Uther’s son. Merlin maybe wants to resent him for it because it feels a little bit like deception even if it is ultimately no one’s fault. He has to remind himself that Gaius was once Uther’s right hand man and was just as passionate about the work he did for the company. Merlin had never liked it but it didn’t stop Gaius from being his uncle.
He looks up from his food to find Arthur watching him.
“Come on now, what is it?”
“You’re not about to follow in his footsteps, are you?” Merlin doesn’t know why but he really, really needs to know (and he really, really hopes not). There’s something about Arthur that speaks of so much more and Merlin’s pretty sure a part of him would be crushed if he were wrong about that.
“Me? Run that place?” And there’s some small comfort in Arthur’s explosive laughter at the thought of it. His voice is still rich with it when he adds, “I am so far from the person they would need. Besides, I think my sister’s got that covered, which I am more than okay with.”
And the idea that this man could be anything like his father suddenly seems outrageous and farfetched in Merlin’s head; it's hard to imagine how it crossed his mind at all.
“Were you actually worried, Merlin?”
“Of course not,” he lies badly, but it’s like a breath of fresh air, a relief he hadn’t seen coming.
*
This is, more or less, how it plays out:
It doesn’t take long for Arthur Pendragon to start ranking up there with the other regulars at Lake Records or for Merlin to realize that these days, he's always waiting for Thursdays to come around.
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