endless your moms jokes.

[furloughday]

Title: Screen control your motherboard
Words: 11k + pictures
Rating: PG
Summary: Arthur is Merlin's tech support at work.
A/N: For creepy-secret, as always. ilu, sweet frijole. Happy late birthday. And by late, I mean way back in 2010.
And thank you to my lovely betas, rufflefeather & archaeologist_d ♥ lots of inspiration from shifty-gardener.
Russian Translation!
master fic post



The CEO's son was standing at the microwave, and he was taking forever.

After a few minutes, he motioned Merlin forward, but when Merlin went to put in his leftover pasta, the guy held up a hand to stop him. He mimed pressing buttons, mouthing, "three minutes," and then said into his cell phone, "No, I'm right here, Owen. If anything, this deal means more for my career than it does yours."

Merlin frowned, but punched the numbers 3 and 0 and 0 into the keypad. The microwave beeped to life. The guy stepped forward again, saying, "Of course I'm invested."

*

"And then he just pushes in front of me!"

"Mm," Arthur hummed into the phone.

Merlin knew Arthur wasn't listening too closely, because programs were opening and closing on Merlin's desktop, and menus were popping up all over the place, meaning Arthur was doing his job, screen controlling to fix whatever it was that Merlin had messed up this time.

Regardless, Merlin was feeling better already. Telling anyone what he thought of the CEO's son could be deemed highly unprofessional, and where Gaius always ignored him, Arthur was like a quieting force, someone he didn't work with so it was safe, the techie version of an anger management counselor whose general disdain was somehow calming and nonjudgmental in its scorn.

"You don't say." Arthur sounded like he hadn't heard anything Merlin had said.

"Yes!" Merlin said. "I'd been obviously waiting, and then, turns out he doesn't know how to use the microwave. The microwave! And although I cannot reveal the identity of this person for professional reasons, know that a person of his standing should be familiar with that level of technology."

"Those microwaves are useless," Arthur muttered, while the cursor on Merlin's screen blinked in a dos-box, and fed out a string of curative code. "About a decade old, with foolish buttons marked 'popcorn' and 'potato.'"

"I'm sure you at least know how to turn it on," Merlin said, with unfounded conviction.

"Says the guy who can't use a computer to save his life."

Merlin's computer went dead.

"Ah-"

"Now what you should be seeing is a blank screen." Arthur's voice soothed his worry instantly, like he could read Merlin's mind instead of just his error report. "If you'll just click the start button again-"

"Er-"

"On the system unit," Arthur's voice directed. "Right side."

"Uh-"

"The tower-type box. On the ground, by your chair. There should be a rather large button."

"Oh, I see." Merlin did as instructed, a tentative finger groping, and-

"Voilà." Arthur sounded bored, if amused. "Try not to break it again, will you? You're a chemist, you've no excuse."

"I'm a chemist," Merlin countered. "I have every excuse."

"21st century," Arthur reminded him. "It might as well be the Middle Ages, though, seeing how you refuse to update from pen and paper."

"I like the assurance of my own brain, no intermediary that might jumble my findings. Leave all the data analysis to the interns and paper pushers, I'm not bothered after that point."

There came a laugh on the other end, and Merlin stooped over his desk so the security cameras wouldn't catch his expression. He didn't trust it.

"Have a good day, Arthur."

A click was his only response.

Merlin had been working at the company for the past year, but this tentative friendship was a recent, welcome development. He'd started as a sort of consulting chemist working under Dr. Gaius, who was a big name in the field of preventative medicine, and a few months ago had been taken on as a full-time employee. He had had the chance to work on some pretty great, pretty cutting-edge stuff. This gave him something to tell his mother when he went home, which meant she could tell her friends, which meant Merlin had been the pride of the village when he had gone home that Christmas.

He had never been happier, really, and the one rub of the job was trying to act as a normal, socially acceptable employee.

"But I try to stay out of there as much as I can." He was pleading with the old man later that day. Gaius' safety goggles rose as they were pushed up with the force of the lone eyebrow within. Merlin held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Fine, fine, you're right, it is my turn to get the coffee."

"And gather your paperwork while you're at it," Gaius' voice followed him out the swinging doors. "I received a text from HR saying you haven't filled out evaluations."

"That's what interns are for," Merlin called, looking over to where a few tanned twenty-year-olds were chatting it up in the corner, disregarding the skin cells that they were meant to be testing.

"Get to it, Merlin," Gaius told him.

The doors swung closed behind him. He entered the wide office area, thinking of how he was going to need to teach those interns a thing or two, whip them into shape, threaten them with no course credit if they didn't give the project the respect it warranted. Great leaps in science, all that.

Once at his desk for the second time that day, he shuffled around through the mess of file folders and eraser detritus to collect the necessary documents. In so doing, he bumped the monitor of his giant, flat-screen pc with a shoulder, and there was a zapping noise. He threw a hand up in front of him, as if to ward off an attack, an inexplicable reaction because it was, after all, just a piece of equipment.

In any case, all that happened was that the screen blinked on to display a peculiar message in an open Word document:



Merlin looked wildly around. He was sure he hadn't written that - at least 97% sure - there was no way that he had written this strange note which seemed, at first glance, rather invasive and calculating.

He read it again, then glanced around the open-plan office floor.

The office was pacific at its best; all aids and document clerks were seated nicely in their chairs, and rectangle patches of sun warmed paper-strewn desktops and fell across the close carpet.

The only person making himself noticeable was William over by the window, who was leaning forward in his chair as he spoke intensely to someone on the phone, his face ruddy as he wound himself up into a fervor of hand gestures and expletives. But this was normal, and, with a certain fondness, Merlin shook his head. What a strange person, but he was all heart, Merlin knew. William had spent hours helping out at the free clinic where the company shipped much of its product, and he often came by to sit at the edge of Merlin's desk and rail against the executive-types that ran their otherwise philanthropic business of keeping people beautiful.

Merlin turned back to his screen. He tried to click out of the Word document, and felt panic coil in his stomach when, instead closing to the desktop screen, a small notice popped up:



This strange learning curve was something he did not need right now. When he was younger he'd had a turquoise, Mac desktop computer that had lasted him through uni, the kind with the bulbous back that were donated to libraries to start children on the track of Mac-dependency, so really Merlin could claim his current ignorance as brand loyalty.

There was no time for this sort of foolishness. He was, after all, in the important post-test stages of his cosmeceutical product, and had no time for this sort of distraction. He fumbled around the front of the floor-tower and held down what was ostensibly the power button as Arthur had had him do a few times before, counting to ten or until the computer zapped off.

He put the note out of his mind.

He went to get coffee, a sheath of forms under one arm and in a rush. This was what happened when he ventured into the more socially-condensed territory of the office, strange letters that may or may not be directed at him. As far as he could tell, he didn't share the desk with anyone, so it wasn't conceit that led him to believe it was he whom the letter was addressing, merely logic.

The CEO's son was down in the break room again. How was he always there? Hadn't he any work to do? Hadn't he stocks to buy and sell, small businesses to quash in his father's name? He was pressing his mobile to one ear, positioned in front of the coffee machine as if destiny drew him to whichever electronic appliance Merlin needed to use at the time. He was listening intently to whoever was on the line, and Merlin thought - not uncharitably exactly, because there was some element of skill to it - that perhaps he was quashing small businesses currently, even as he stood trying to work out how to change a coffee filter.

Merlin slid by him to get to the coffee, but stopped when the man held up a staying hand. Merlin waited, giving the situation the benefit of the doubt. The room was silent save the burbling sound of a voice through Uther Pendragon's son's mobile.

They stood there, Merlin's own hand hovering near the mugs, waiting, as Pendragon listened intently.

Just as Merlin was about to say something, anything, the man said "uh-huh” into his mobile. He made a dismissive gesture without even glancing over.

Now, Merlin liked to view things objectively: no matter how attractive you were, no matter how good you smelled up close, it was your actions that defined you, that sort of thing.

"Idiot," Merlin decided, and poured himself and Gaius full mugs, coffee as black as his cool rage. When he left the quiet room, Pendragon was still pacing, mind a million miles away.

*

Merlin's fingers skidded, unwieldy things, over the keypad of his iphone.

Help.

He couldn't figure out how to send it, though, so he called instead. Arthur said Merlin's name with a very audible sigh, but with the type of familiarity that spoke to the converse. Merlin hid a smile behind his hand. It was becoming clear that, in spite of the expressions of disdain IT support threw at him, Arthur was a man who loved nothing more than to feel useful.

"What is it this time?"

"Oh, don't act like I'm the dunce, here. You wouldn't be able to find your way around a lab if your life depended on it." Merlin leaned back in his chair, but then caught himself with a quiet woof of surprise against the edge of the desk when the chair nearly flipped.

"I have got other talents, though," Arthur was saying over the phone. "I do plenty with my life, yet am somehow still competent at both not breaking my computer and also turning it on."

"Arthur, it's been two days since I've needed your help. Also, why are you whispering?"

"Never mind that, what is it this time? I don't sit around at your beck and call, you know. I could be reprimanded for taking time off just because you feel like a little chat."

"You don't have to sit around all day waiting," Merlin said. "I give you time off to do whatever else it is you think is more important than keeping the computers running."

Arthur laughed, as if he was surprising himself by doing so. Merlin thought, not for the first time, that perhaps Arthur was more sequestered away in his little world of computer screens and IT books than Merlin himself was in his own spartan world of glass tubes and chrome tables. He imagined Arthur's office to be not much larger than a darkened closet, the type of control center you see in 70s representations of space ship navigation consoles.

"I do," Merlin continued. "I don't always call you, you know. Only when I'm at my desk - besides, you've got to help me. I’m sure you signed papers when you took on that job. You're contractually bound. So: what do I do if all of my programs have frozen on the screen?"

"Right," Arthur said. "Find the 'control,' 'alt,' and 'delete' keys on your keyboard. Press them all at the same time. Anyway, I don't think you get it yet-"

"At the same time?" Merlin felt on edge, like too much was being asked of him. Even so, he did as he was told

"Are you very busy, though?" Merlin asked, once his excel spreadsheet had closed out and been lost forever. "I've wondered. How many calls do you get a day?"

"Ah, well," Arthur said. "My job's a lot more complex than I perhaps let on.”

"Oh really?" Merlin doodled on a piece of paper which he then realized was an important form overdue to administration.

He scrabbled around his desk looking for whiteout, while Arthur hummed, and said, "Yes, I'm constantly in meetings, for one."

Merlin closed his finger in the drawer, and then shook out his hand, wincing silently.

“So,” he gasped out. “What are IT meetings like, then?"

"It's not all IT, very little in fact. I just, you know, write reports, talk to the CEO, give him updates about things, and then he makes it a point to ignore my very good advice. Although don't tell anyone I said that."

"Sure, sure," Merlin said, playing along. He tried to imagine if Uther Pendragon had ever ventured down into the basement that was the tech department, let alone asked advice.

"I barely have any free time."

"You're quite important," Merlin said, sarcasm clear as day. "I've always known it. And very pleasant as well, especially that first time when I called you and you asked me, quite brusquely, who I thought I was, calling you for simple questions about my computer. But see how nice I've made you."

"I was very busy," Arthur told him. Merlin just laughed and Arthur said, "You can't just do that, laugh at me. It's unprofessional-"

"Well, I've got to get back to the lab," Merlin said. "Much as I'd like to spend all day talking on the phone, I don't get paid nearly enough as it is. Had to live on oatmeal last month."

"Oatmeal?" The tone was unimpressed.

"Anyway, I will doubtlessly need your help later," Merlin said. And, because he suspected that Arthur was somehow someone who spent long hours at the office, although Merlin couldn't for the life of him figure out why, he said, "Don't work too hard."

"Right."

*

Merlin couldn't enter the break room because the CEO's son was lurking around like it was his second office.

It was the fourth day this week that Merlin had seen him there, leaning back against the counter in one corner. Today he had a plate of lasagna on the counter next to him.

The only explanation was that Merlin's recent forays into stem cell research to the ends of decreasing the likelihood of under-eye circles were also decreasing his luck on some karmic scale, and it would be unfortunate run-ins with the man, every day, from here on out.

William, who was in there as well rooting under the cabinets for more filters, waved Merlin in.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he said. “There’s my man.“

“Alright, Will?” Merlin greeted him, finally entering in spite of the intense, silent scrutiny from that one corner. He went to the fridge to grab the cream.

The world outside of the chem lab was replete with hazards and stressors alike. Merlin sometimes suspected that Gaius had only taken him on so that he himself wouldn’t need to venture out of the lab. Merlin was probably just his glorified intern, however more pasty and competent than the rest.

"What's with the face?" Will asked him.

“Just thinking how I shouldn’t have listed my restaurant job on my CV. That was when I was seventeen! I'm not actually that good at coffee service.”

His voice seemed loud in this quiet, small space.

There was a ringing, and an answering. “Pendragon here.”

“Not his private phone room,” Will muttered.

“Yes, no, I’m not telling you where I am.” Merlin spooned granulated sugar slowly into his mug and listened to the half-conversation. “Why? Because I don’t want to be found, you twit. Not only has father been setting up these sort of mock competitions where I need to prove my financial skills, but he parades me around in front of investors and makes me meet their sons. And Morgana’s been smirking at me all day like she knows something. And I swear there’s been something off about the coffee upstairs, something poisonous, and there are strange women I’ve never seen before proposition me…”

“Oh really,” Will mouthed to Merlin. Merlin elbowed him so he would at least pretend not to be eavesdropping.

He heard Pendragon mutter into the phone, sounding fed up and tragic: “This is a place of business, not some perverse social circle.”

Merlin couldn’t agree more.

*

Merlin went out with the guys on Friday and Saturday nights, but he didn't really have any hobbies other than chemistry, so daylight hours found him doing his own, off-the-record sort of experimentation, the kind that could possibly end in disaster, but was all fun and impressive up till that point of disaster.

“I think,” Merlin told his toaster that Saturday, goggles on, “that today will be most productive.”

He put on eggs and toast, and shimmied around the kitchen to the dulcet warbling of the lead singer of Tool. It reminded him of weekends back home in the pastoral town of Blip on the Map, UK, how he would wake up at seven every day to do whatever chores that needed doing on a not-quite farm, headphones on while he swept out the front walk before heading down to the village store to buy milk.

They hadn’t had cows or other animals, and in fact mainly lived on the money that his father had left them, quite a substantial sum, quite generous seeing as he hadn’t seen fit to help raise his son. When he tried to imagine his father, Merlin came up with a blurry idea of a soldier, something respectable, but he could have been a peddler of cheap tricks, a party magician, for all Merlin knew of him. He could have been a cave troll, that was just as likely, because his mother had barely spoken of him.

In any case, it was barely gone nine o’clock and Merlin had all the time in the world. The sun was coming in the window, riding the traffic noise, and it was Saturday, a day which always seemed infused with eternal weekend. Once the toast had popped and he'd wrangled the hummus onto it with minimal mess, Merlin spread the newspaper open on the warm kitchen table and spent a morning getting some real work done.

There was nothing wrong, nothing at all, except he idly wondered at one point about Arthur, the IT guy who had somehow become an acquaintance, possibly a work friend. He wondered why Arthur hadn't emailed him back on Friday, when he usually responded within the hour. Maybe Merlin had said something to offend him, or overstep his bounds? But no, their last emails had been purely professional, normal.



"Hm," Merlin thought. Arthur said again and again that he was constantly busy, but sometimes Merlin suspected that he was the only one Arthur really spoke with all day.

He wouldn't know it then, but the next Monday would mark the beginning of a very strange week.

For starters, he thought he saw the CEO’s son in the window of the small Italian place just round the corner from the office. This was possible, of course, but it wasn’t really a classy place to eat. There were paper menus thrown haphazardly on red-checked tablecloths, and the bathrooms were small with one-ply toilet paper.

Of course he imagined Pendragon there; Merlin adored the place. He wanted to spend all day there, drinking espresso con panna for breakfast and then reading a book until maybe ten, a reasonable time for early lunch. He’d eat some sort of cheesed noodle dish and then snack his way until dinner time, at which point he’d forgo anything nutritious and eat about five slices of tiramisu.

When he peered in through the glass as he walked past and caught sight of a business jacket that could have been anyone’s really, and blond hair which, although impossibly feathery and shiny, could also have been the hair of many people, not just the head of his company, he thought to himself: “Great, I’m supplanting my gorgeous nemesis into my culinary fantasies.”

Next, he came across the following document open on his desktop:



"You think I know anything about this?" Arthur asked. He was always rather surly just after the weekend, like he hadn't rested at all. Merlin wondered sometimes if Arthur ever went home, or if he just set up camp on the floor beside a pile of spare electrical parts and abandoned keyboards.

"Look, sorry to bother you," Merlin said, aware that he was not, nor did he sound, sorry in the slightest. "But you're the expert, I just mix things and hope they don't explode."

"That all you do then? Brain just full of formulae, mumbo jumbo?" Merlin ducked his head to the phone, snickering because Arthur's voice always shaped oddly around expressions.

"All titrations in here," he agreed.

The cursor on his screen was again moving without visible ministration. He liked that he could see evidence of Arthur where the cursor was blinking, how words like 'plexiglass' and 'day' were being highlighted at random as Arthur spoke. He wondered what Arthur looked like, whether he sat cross legged in a rolling chair with wire-rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of his nose or had a few friends in IT that he lounged around with, whether they spoke in some computer short hand that Merlin would never be fluent in.

"It looks like a sort of secret admirer letter," the voice came over the phone, just as the cursor ran over 'even me.' "Perhaps you've caught someone's eye."

"Stalker?"

Arthur interrupted him. "No, no, I wouldn't go that far, just a sort of, 'dropping you a line, telling you I think you're fit' sort of message. I'm sure it happens all the time."

"If you're asking if I am constantly on the receiving end of anonymous love notes, then you really don't know who you're talking to-"

"Ah, so you're more accustomed to sending them, is that what you're implying?"

"Not that either, no. I am not in the habit of going into peoples' computers and leaving them creepy notes."

"Interesting choice of words, 'creepy,'" Arthur said. "If I were pressed to choose, I'd have labeled it more 'brave' or perhaps 'casually romantic.'"

"Casually romantic, huh? Have you actually read the letter? He says he very obviously stands outside the window and watches me. If that's not creepy then...."

"Interesting you assume it's a 'he,'" Arthur said, which caught Merlin up short. He couldn't think of a response to that, shouldn't have had to either, and after a moment of silence, chest clenching up in that sort of internalized homophobia that made him instantly assume the worst reaction, Arthur said, "Alright, alright, we don't have to talk about it. Just- Just calm the fuck down, will you? I can hear your giant brain imploding over the phone."

Words scrolled out before him at the bottom of the word document:

Calm. Down.

Merlin laughed tightly, feeling the beginnings of a stress headache.

"Alright," he finally said. "So, maybe she-"

"He," Arthur insisted.

"-they are creepy as hell but don't realize it. They are, therefore, well-meaning, despite watching me through the lab window. You know what I find interesting, though?"

"I doubt it's all that interesting, but if you must share..."

"What I find interesting is that you, oh bitter tech support, are giving this unknown person the benefit of the doubt. You're softer than you make yourself out to be. I've found you out."

"So, how about the weather?" Arthur said, to which Merlin said, "Maybe you're even a stalker yourself, that's why you sympathize," and Arthur drowned him out, saying, "Or no, wait, you're in the lab at all times, probably only read about the weather in the paper. Or do you even get the paper?"

Somewhere along the line, Merlin had started grinning. The man at the desk over smiled back, because it was a catching thing. Arthur was a ridiculous, chronically annoyed person, and was the sort of person Merlin felt compelled to hold on to.

"You're an ass, you know that? Of course I get the paper."

"But do you read it?" Arthur asked him. "I bet you don't."

"I skim some articles, yeah," Merlin said, only bending the truth a little. He screwed up his mouth, thinking of how he used the weekend paper as a mat when he had to bring his work home with him. Every once and a while a headline would become visible, magnified and distorted through the bottom of his Erlenmeyer flask, making it easy to read.

"Entertainment section then?" Arthur said. "Sports?"

"Sports? Never. And I wouldn't take you for a sporty type."

"I beg your pardon," Arthur said. "I was the star of our school football team, and wasn't half bad at tennis."

"Huh."

"Not fitting your image?"

"I figured you were always in front of a computer, the way you go on."

"What father doesn't want his son to be on the football team?"

"I wouldn't know, I never met mine."

"Well," Arthur's voice came, a bit strained.

Merlin covered with: "Besides, my mother was uncertain about me being a chemist, it didn't really fit her idea."

"Your mother and my father both," Arthur laughed. "Sorry mate, but my father's always said, 'If you cut a chemist any slack, they'll just try to extend their deadlines.'"

Merlin was amused, both at Arthur's apparent impersonation of his father and at the truth to the statement.

"Yeah, we're a bit behind in the lab, to be honest," he said. "Although don't tell the higher-ups."

"Is that so?" Arthur said. "I'd heard you were well on schedule."

"This isn't some easy thing. Vaccines don't happen by magic, just like that. And who did you hear that from, anyhow? I never took you for a gossip."

"Me!" Arthur scoffed. "Hardly. It's just my business, everything about this company is."

"Keep it to yourself, Arthur, seriously!" Merlin laughed. "Don't tell your pal the CEO or you might have one less person to talk with on the phone."

"Yes, well," Arthur said. "Get back to work. Now you've got me worrying about the profits, or lack thereof, of our current campaign."

"I'll be off, then, to continue to work for nothing," Merlin told him.

"For god's sake, feed yourself," Arthur said.

"I'm going to finish up some forms that will prove to HR that I'm somehow responsible, but after that I'll get a snack, I promise. Twenty minutes."

"Honestly, you really don't do any work, do you? I should take you to lunch one of these days, make sure that you're not wasting away over a Bunsen burner."

"Oh slag off," Merlin said. "Get yourself a coffee or something."

"Might do."

Merlin clicked out of the call, and changed his besotted reflection into a stern look on the dark screen.

He was aware that this was getting ridiculous, but as it wasn't hurting anything, then, well. It's just that, however infuriating, it was oddly comforting how competent Arthur was. He acted like he owned the world, company included, and thought it his duty to fix everything.

Merlin wandered to get food, as he'd said he would. He was thinking of Arthur, wondering why he insisted of speaking in half-lies and jokes. He was just a computer guy. How overworked was he, really? And did he like that Merlin called constantly, even when it was obviously just an excuse to talk for a while? Arthur hadn't called him, not once, so maybe he was trying to keep it purely professional.

When he got to the break room, the CEO's son was standing amidst a group of other business men. Merlin stopped in his tracks and shifted the cardboard box he was carrying under one arm, stuck two steps from entering. He wondered why he was so at ease over the phone with someone he had never met, some grumpy guy who could really be anyone, when he couldn't even go into a casual setting of colleagues without having to steel his nerves.

The bunch of attractive, climb-the-ladder types made Merlin's palms sweat and consider coming back later. The coffee would be depleted, now, and Merlin didn't really need it anyhow. He had just needed a break, not more caffeine. Shaky hands messed with titration and all that.

But instead of leaving, he leaned against the door jam, gathering the cardboard box a bit more securely under one arm. It was full of thin paper and tins from the storeroom that they needed for the latest batch of tests on fruit flies. His interns had been out on lunch break for the past few hours, but that didn't change the fact that the lab was out of litmus.

Merlin waited, examining his nails which were still dusted from the latex of the gloves he'd tossed over an hour ago, and looked at the CEO's son, watched him throw his head back and laugh at something the lion-faced guy said, and -

Oh, the teeth. The teeth.

If someone that attractive had teeth like that, well. Merlin wasn't doing half bad himself.

As always, his gut-attraction to the CEO's son was stemmed. William was passing by at that moment, and when Merlin turned to say hello, he knocked the box against the door jam, and dumped half of the contents onto the carpet with a loud clanging.

"Ah, whoops." He dropped to his knees quickly to save the rest of it from spilling out.

William turned on the men in the break room.

"Are you serious?" When Merlin looked up, William's face was ruddy with anger. "Are you really all just standing there laughing?"

A dark-haired man said, "You've got to admit, it's rather unfortunate-"

William bent to help Merlin gather papers and tins back into the box.

"I can't-"

"Leave it, Will."

Merlin stood with the box held awkwardly in both arms, the top gaping. He glared at Pendragon, who spread his hands, still laughing, and said, "What? What did I do?"

The guy, Leon was his name, put out a placating hand, but Pendragon shrugged it off.

"Don't you have anything better to be doing right now?" Merlin said.

"Apparently not." He was sarcastic and unmovable.

Merlin frowned at the room, hoisting his box back on a hip. A man with a beard eyed Merlin’s box like he wondered if Merlin would throw it. Points of stress burned just behind his eyes, momentarily, and then he said, "This is really not worth my time. Come on, Will."

Because this was a place of business, rather than the playground it felt like.

He went out into the hall, although he knew, as if on instinct, that he would be followed. He nodded to William, and then slowed to let the footsteps catch up to him.

"Don't I know you?"

Merlin rounded at the voice gathering his box under one arm.

"Why are you always-" Merlin said, but was cut off.

"Yes!" Pendragon said. "Yes! You're that tired-looking guy who's always at the coffee."

"And you're the berk who's always lurking in someone else's break room," Merlin said. "Don't your offices take up an entire floor? Go bother your own admins."

"Oh yes, well, purveying the company is in my job description. I'll need to keep tabs on every room, even your precious break room. What department are you in anyhow?"

"I work in the lab," Merlin said, a bit on the defensive. "Keep this place running, just as much as you do, maybe more."

"Made progress on the vaccine, have you?" Pendragon said, a cruel twist to his mouth. How he got that information Merlin would probably never know. Merlin just stared at him, shocked face affirming everything. "I thought not."

"Figure out the microwave yet?" Merlin countered. It sounded petty even before it had left his brain via his mouth, but the CEO's son just looked shocked as well. Merlin made to push past him.

Being grabbed by the arm probably violated the company harassment code from about five different angles. Fisting a hand in Merlin's shirtsleeve, Pendragon kind of considered all of Merlin's skinny person with a squint to his eyes that was more calculating than anything.

"What's your name?"

"It's Merlin. And let go of me, you're not allowed to just manhandle employees."

"Merlin?" he released Merlin's shirt, an inexplicable look of resignation on his face. Merlin pulled his clothing straight and stepped away, sullenly.

"Yes, like the wizard. Now, are you going to fire me? If not, I have some work to do."

They stared at each other for a moment. Pendragon was the first to look away.

Merlin watched the tense set shoulders as the CEO's son walked away; Merlin had never been able to do a proper stalk himself. He pulled out his mobile as he pushed angrily back into the lab, dropping the box on the counter with a quiet crash of semi-durable equipment.

He dialed Arthur's number, with no legitimate reason to talk to him, he just knew that listening to Arthur's lazy mocking would make him feel miles better.

When Arthur didn't respond, Merlin was more annoyed than he should have been. The adrenaline hadn't worn off yet, so he set about torturing cell cultures in the name of science.

The lab was silent for a long while, the only sound the rough scratch of his small blade against the appropriate solids.

Eventually, he set the timer, and began swirling a flask in a fluid back and forth motion, swishing the clear liquid in a counter-clockwise whirl. He thought about dependency, and how possibly he was in the throes of it. Arthur, despite assumptions Merlin had made, probably had a large social circle, and even when he wasn’t corresponding with other people in the office, he was likely actually doing his work, screen controlling computers all around the building, getting things up and running again while people other than Merlin got to bask in his surly rejoinders and curt replies.

“What’s got you in such a state?”

Merlin dropped the flask, but caught it somehow just before it hit the ground.

“If there’s one thing that can be said for you, boy,” Gaius said. “You’ve got excellent reflexes. Although it would help if you weren’t clumsy in the first place.”

Merlin straightened carefully, flask magically unturned, liquid still contained inside the glass.

“Sorry about that, Gaius,” Merlin said. “Bad day.”

Gaius put a hand on his shoulder, and clicked off the timer for him.

“But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m lucky to have you. I don't say it enough, but I’m glad you’re here, Merlin.”

"Thanks." He resumed swishing the flask, hoping the brief free-fall hadn't ruined anything. “Gaius?”

“Yes?”

Merlin couldn't believe he was about to discuss personal business with a man four times his age.

“Do you think it’s possible to be in love with someone when you haven't even met them.”

Gaius looked considering.

“I’d say so," he responded at length. "But just remember, Merlin, there are many nice young ladies here. Don't let heartbreak over one ruin your ability to see good in others.”

"Nice young ladies," Merlin repeated. The only women he'd noticed working in the office were Gwen, who was on the techie side of things and he saw her only rarely, and a dark haired woman who came through sometimes to check up on production. How many women worked in this office, anyhow?

"In my considerable experience," Gaius was saying. "It is best to attempt a friendship before marriage, which probably means you'll need to meet this person first, Merlin. Honestly, it can't be too difficult."

"Thanks, Gaius," he said, firmly not imagining anything past a first date.

*

"I forgot to mention yesterday," Merlin said as he swung through the doors of the office. It was only 8am, but Arthur answered like he had been awake for at least a few hours, voice strained but alert.

"Yes?"

"A friend of mine in the lab says her laptop won't start. It just froze last week and she hasn't been able to start it since. She called the help line, and they said she might need a new hard drive. I told her I had a friend in IT."

"Friend," Arthur said.

"Yes, of a sort. I told her I knew a really good IT guy, that being you, by the way. Think you could take a look?"

"About that," Arthur said. "I'm not actually in IT. I'm not an expert at computers, however much I just about run this company, and I can only fix your problems because they're child's work. And if I don't know the answer, I just google it."

Merlin really was beginning to find these hints of insecurity rather endearing.

"Hah hah," he said, knowing that Arthur could not have faked two months of biweekly phone calls on just google dot com. "Fine, I'll tell her you're a lazy arse and that she should call IT herself if she wants any results. Surprised you answer the phone for me at all, one might call you lackadaisical, slacking off on the job."

"That's the spirit. Anyway, how's break room guy?"

"I can't even begin- You know, I thought for a while that he was a good guy, but just kind of a jerk, but now...."

"Now what?"

"Oh, it doesn't even matter. How are you, Arthur?"

"Sorry, Merlin. I've got to go. But just-"

Merlin waited.

"-have a good day." And if Arthur's voice sounded weak-kneed and worn-out, it was probably because he had about a hundred people like Merlin calling him every day, useless at technology in an increasingly computerized world.

Once a trend began, it seemed really to orbit Merlin's life. So when he entered the break room that Thursday, the CEO's son was there looking unruffled and composed, perhaps even more so because Merlin had discolored patches from where NaOCl had splattered on his trousers, his hair was in a state, sticking up at all angles, perhaps due to the static electricity (that balloon had been -)

"It's no secret that my father is the most powerful executive in the pharmaceuticals bracket," the CEO's son said rather sternly. Merlin blinked out of his thoughts and quickly leaned back and away because the man had gotten all up in his space without Merlin's noticing. He wondered if, after their recent words in the hallway, they were going to brawl.

"He owns shares in a multitude of businesses and ekes out a modest fortune by breakfast...daily."

"Right," Merlin said.

He went to grab a mug. It seemed necessary to be doing something with his hands.

There was something entitled in the way the man was speaking to him, and Merlin was both understandably annoyed yet uncomfortably pleased in the way anyone would be if an attractively dressed and faced person were to suddenly act overly familiar in an otherwise empty room, even if he were about to be hit or in some other way maimed.

"Look," Merlin continued. "If you're looking for an accountant, I'm not your man. Floor three."

"I would never ask you to be my accountant, I know how you are with-" the CEO's stopped, as if uncertain. "But never mind that, I don't need an accountant, I'm explaining this so that you'll know it's not sacrifice, what I'm about to say, but rather barely noticeable in my father's books."

"I really have no idea what you're talking about," Merlin told him.

"It's been brought to my attention that I might come off at first meeting, or indeed third and fifth meeting, as a rather selfish and spoilt individual."

"Oh really?"

"It is for this reason that I'm giving you a raise, not just because you need it, which you most obviously do, but because I am a generally giving person."

"What? I- what?" Merlin was offended and miffed and in all ways indignant. "I don't want your charity."

Merlin lived paycheck to paycheck, but his pride was larger than his stomach! His pride was a great, unwieldy thing that made him reject good things like money when he felt slandered.

"You're getting it, because I say so." The CEO's son fixed him with a steely look that allowed for no argument. "So do whatever sort of whinging you need to do to someone else. The money will be in your bank account by Monday. That is all."

And with that, he swept from the room, gorgeous and infuriating, and Merlin was left frowning in his wake, with the urge to throw his mug or maybe disfigure a few paperclips.

Merlin had only just sat at his desk when the phone, hidden under paperwork, rang.

"Curious," he thought, looking at it, unsure if the call would actually be for him. When he answered the phone, though, he was pleasantly surprised. "Arthur! I didn't know you knew my desk number!"

"I, unlike you, don't have the world saved in my mobile. Any updates about break room guy?"

"Funny you should ask, because today he just came up to me, and gave me a raise, can you believe that?"

"That is generally an act of goodwill, or so I've heard."

"Yes, but how dare he!"

"How dare he indeed?"

"There's a strange note of I-told-you-so in your voice," Merlin said. "But I'll have you know you made fun of him right along with me, never a positive word. Who does he think he is anyway? He's completely rude one minute, and the next second he's just casually coming up to employees he's never met, trying to prove he's a good person by giving them loads of money. He thinks I'm a charity case."

"Well, you are, aren't you?"

"What!"

"Merlin, hang on for a second."

Merlin slammed through a few drawers, looking for a stapler, while Arthur's voice came to him muted, hand over the receiver. Although he was annoyed in general at the moment, he was peripherally glad that Arthur did, in fact, have people coming into his office, interrupting him and infringing on what Merlin imagined to be a very organized, secluded life.

Moments later, Arthur came back on the line, picking up where he'd left off. "-a charity case, you lived on oatmeal, for God's sakes-"

"Yes, but I have a mind like a-"

"I haven't seen much competency."

"What would a pharmaceuticals company be without Dr. Gaius and his team of geniuses?"

"Without their coffee boy, you mean," Arthur laughed.

"What?" Merlin should have been more indignant, was about to laugh it off really, but there was something that struck him as odd about the comment.

"No, I'm joking. I...I wouldn't go so far as to call you brilliant, but you're not too bad, mate. And I'm just saying, you spend an inordinate amount of time in the break room for someone who's in the midst of a groundbreaking experiment."

"And how would you know about my break room habits?"

It wasn't his imagination, Arthur really did sound uncomfortable when he said, quickly, "So, he's somehow failed again in your eyes, despite giving you a large sum of money. What does one do to please someone like you?"

"He should just be a normal person," Merlin raged, but good-naturedly, because this was Arthur he was speaking with. "Don't just push your weight around and act insufferable all the time - not you of course, Arthur, just in general - and just, well, just have normal conversations. He's always standing there taking a business call, sounding angry."

"Anything else?" Arthur sighed.

"No. Enough about him," Merlin said, because really, this was a tired subject. "I was thinking that you sound like you could use a few hours outside of work. You said something about lunch before, and for the past few days you've been rather off, and I somehow doubt you've got many friends in that dark room you call an office -"

"-my office has floor to ceiling windows, I'll have you know, and a view of the-"

"-I know a good sandwich shop just round the corner, and if it wouldn't be too strange, or out of the way, I thought I could, you know, feed you in return for saving the data I've spent the past year slaving away at collecting."

"Ah." Arthur coughed. "Lunch."

"Yes?" It hadn't taken Merlin much courage to ask; he had thought that if Arthur wasn't interested, then it would come off as just a friendly gesture, but at Arthur's tone, he knew it was both not reciprocated, and also that his secondary motive, if you could call attraction a motive, had been quite clear.

"I don't really have the time to eat, is the issue, let alone-" Arthur said. "-although it is really very considerate of you, but I don't have-"

"-the time. Yeah, you said that." Merlin shoved down the twinge of disappointment. "No, no problem. That's just- Really, another time."

He pocketed his phone. His whole life, he had made friends naturally, a series of easy conversations that led to getting drinks together, dinners, maybe helping people move, the tenuous bonds made stronger when one of them nearly dropped a bookshelf and the other had to rush in to pick up the other end. This thing with Arthur, though, had been strange from the beginning. Merlin shouldn't have expected anything to come of a relationship built over phone lines and based on a one-sided incompetency.

*

Merlin spent the weekend catching naps in between checking on the in-apartment batch of fruit flies he was keeping for Gaius.

*

"Are you happy?"

"Excuse me?"

"With your job. Are you happy with it? How are you doing?"

Pendragon was smiling at him, and it looked phony and ominous. Toothy.

"I'm fine..." Merlin said, and although he wanted to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, he just had this creeping feeling every time they spoke. Something about his voice made Merlin feel like he was missing something, something really obvious.

"The money's been deposited into your accounts, I assume."

"Why are you so interested in my accounts?" Merlin was quick to say.

"I'm just trying to have a normal conversation." Pendragon tossed his almost-empty diet Snapple in the bin.

"What, too good to recycle?" Merlin said, which was rude considering the man had given him an impromptu raise. Normally he would suggest healthy lifestyle choices nicely, but something about this guy just threw him.

"Recycle!" the guy said. He rubbed a hand over his face. "Recycle bin! How could I have forgotten?"

Merlin frowned at him, so the guy would feel exactly how useless Merlin thought any conversation with him proved to be, time and again.

"I mean," Pendragon backpedaled. "Nothing about recycle bins, nothing at all. Excuse me."

Merlin was left with a suspicion, one that took form in his mind as he sipped at sour coffee that was probably left over from the morning.

The CEO's son was up to something, something shady that involved depositing money in Merlin's accounts for safekeeping.

"Pendragon," he soliloquized, voice aquiver.

"Augh, inconsiderate, insensitive, waste-leaving, executive, son of a CEO-" came a voice behind him. Merlin didn't need to turn to see who it was, so dripping was the disdain.

"Hello, Will," he said, and stooped to fish out the diet Snapple and drop it into the correct bin.

"-or that's what I would have said an hour ago. Now I'm just confused. He came up and talked to me just this morning."

Merlin gaped.

"He spoke to you? He was civil?"

"Well, it definitely looked like it was an effort. He asked a lot of vague questions, but Merlin, I got the impression that he was asking about you. What you liked, why we were friends. I don't know, it was a little strange, especially seeing as I usually call him names to his face when I see him. I made some crack about it being embarrassing to give love advice to one's boss, and instead of denying it, he just nodded and left. Then, a briefcase was sent to my desk, with a note that read 'Consider this compensation for your public humiliation.'"

"Paying you off!" Merlin said, completely ignoring half of what William had said, because it was clearly untrue. "This proves it. I knew he was up to something."

"You know, I'm the first to speak up against lazy, CEO-types," Will said. "But Merlin, maybe he's not all that bad."

Merlin made a final appeal: "What about solidarity?"

William just shook his head, clapped Merlin on the shoulder, and said, "You're on your own with this one."

*

"Money laundering?" Arthur's voice was weak over the line.

"It would seem so." Merlin kept his tone low and even, because anyone could be listening in. No one could be trusted, this went so high up. "Although I'd appreciate it if you kept this on the hush, hush. I'm aware of your lust for gossip, but now is probably not the time."

"Have you thought that perhaps he felt bad for that angry-looking fellow-"

"-William-"

"-William, and that you just look as if you could use a raise?" When Merlin made an outraged noise, Arthur rushed to amend what he'd said. "I mean, that maybe you've caught the eye of the higher-ups, that your work warrants a raise? And that the man was, as we'd spoken about, trying to have a normal conversation with an acquaintance by the coffee?"

“No, you had to have been there, Arthur. This guy is twitchy. And I just-" Merlin said. "It's just that, in some roundabout way, I do it all for him, Arthur. He and his father, and this company he's sure to take over someday. I really feel like we're making breakthroughs in the lab, it could be really massive, the sort that might change the face of cosmetic medicine forever, but he just thinks I'm an idiot."

Arthur was not one to put up with this sort of depressing conversation, and Merlin had probably taken this too far, accusing someone in the company of mob-type activity with very little proof, but Merlin just knew, there was something strange going on and the second-in-command of the entire company was at the heart of it. So Merlin wasn't surprised when this whining speech was met with the sound of the dial tone.

He looked forlornly at the "Call Ended" that was blinking on the screen.

He was, however, surprised when his computer made a dinging noise.

It was best not to go it in the dark. Because he’d seen where guessing got him when it came to electronics, it left him with no default computer font and ads that popped up all over the place every time he tried to use the internet. To avoid possible missteps, he managed to text Arthur: My computer just made a noise, like a ping. It sounded like a good noise. What do I do.

Arthur texted back, instantly, Check your email, Merlin.



Merlin read the email a few times, before doing as it said. He wondered why Arthur hadn't just told him over the phone instead of typing. Typing always took a long time, pointer fingers searching out each letter in that unalphabetized clusterfuck of keys.

He sifted through the papers on his desk to find the hard copy of office numbers. He found it a minute later, a half-sheet, eggshell blue, under a stack of file folders with equations written on them in messy hand.

He scanned down the list, wondering what Arthur was on about. It probably did horrible things to your brain, sitting in front of a computer screen all day, that and living in unsafe and damp conditions, because a job like Arthur's couldn't pay much.

He found the number for tech support, and looked at it, and didn't know what he was supposed to do after that. He once again rummaged for the barely-used desk phone which was still hidden under the stack of paper debris.

A man's voice answered.

"Hello, could I speak with Arthur, please?"

"Arthur?"

"Yes, Arthur, the computers specialist. Kind of sarcastic, really funny." Merlin actually felt himself blushing, like he had just admitted something to the head of Arthur's department. "I'm not sure of his last name."

"We haven't got an Arthur working here," the man said. "But we have got a Mordred."

Curious.

"Sounds familiar, but no."

"Sorry, try the front desk."

Merlin frowned at the dial tone. He hung up the phone and found the list again, and then thumbed through the contact list on his mobile. He pulled up the entry marked "tech support" for comparison. These were precious minutes he could have been dedicating to important research instead trying to match numbers.

Huh, the numbers weren’t the same. He started to see what Arthur had been getting at. Perhaps he’d accidentally been calling Arthur’s mobile number instead of the IT land line.

He scanned the blue paper for a number that matched his "tech support."

When Merlin found it, his jaw probably literally dropped.

He dropped his phone, in any case, and crumpled the list in a tight grip.

His email blipped.

He went to his desk, palmed the keyboard in a haphazard smooshing of keys to wake the monitor up again, and clicked to the new message.



Arthur answered on the first ring.

"You," Merlin said. "I've been speaking to you the whole time."

"Of course I'm the one you've been speaking to, although I didn't know until very recently. And don’t sound so accusing, you called me first."

Merlin wasn't angry, not really. He was, however, mortified.

"It's not my fault I have mild dyslexia. I was born like this! And maybe if you'd told me-"

"-I tried-"

"-well not hard enough."

"Well I'm saying yes, now."

"What?"

"Yes, I'll go to lunch with you. You asked me last week, and now I'm saying yes."

Merlin fumbled for the proper response.

"No."

Arthur just breathed over the phone.

"Arthur?"

"Fine," Arthur said. His tone was clipped, cold, and Merlin could see right through it. "You know what, just take the day off if you can't handle it. This is, overall, completely my fault. Go get yourself some overly-sugared drink, I've seen how you pour half the bowl into your cup every morning. Go have a good sulk, and come back when you're ready to be professional."

Poking the "End call" button on your iPhone screen was not nearly as satisfying as slamming a phone back onto its cradle or even snapping closed a flippy phone.

Merlin had never really been one of those people who ran and hid when the going got rough, but a bit of air did sound good just about now. The fluorescents were really frying his sense of self-worth. And Arthur Pendragon was, in every way, his boss. Thus, Merlin had, in a way, been ordered to leave.

He grasped ahold of this excuse and skipped out of work five minutes later in a petulant mood, following Arthur's directions to the letter but then feeling foolish and dumping the caramel macchiato into the trash outside the Starbucks, and then instantly wishing he hadn't, because he really did like them.

He was in such a mess.

When he arrived back at his flat, he wandered around the living room and kitchen areas a bit, poking at things, pouring out almost-empty tea cups and putting them back on their surfaces, arranging DVDs in stacks rather than placing them back on the shelf - you know, that sort of half-assed attempt at cleaning when you want to do something while you think, but can't be bothered to expend enough effort on the follow through.

He hit the jackpot when he noticed that his laundry basket runnethed over. Laundry was a task that always took up at least two hours, and was a hassle on the best days, but today it gave him the feeling of getting something done, clearing out his mind, some sort of symbolic dirty clothes that needed washing and then airing, in that order.

He gathered the basket and lugged it to the elevator. Once in the laundry room, he spent a while separating blues and reds into one pile and pulled out the rogue scarf that had somehow gotten mixed in there but wouldn't survive the wash. He'd had those things forever, since before uni, and maybe one reason he felt odd at work was that collared shirts seemed to accentuate, rather than downplay, his rather long neck.

For some reason, the task of doing laundry was overly familiar, comforting, just as a lot of housework was: sweeping, wiping things down, even that one time he'd darned socks he'd felt a sense of, oh bother, not this again. It was strange, seeing as his mother did all those things for him when he was at home, it was like a memory from another life, a relentless déjà vu. Or maybe it was destiny, tugging him in that direction. He should quit work now and start a cleaning business.

Merlin's thoughts turned inward. He had been in exactly one-and-a-half real relationships. They had both been glorious and had involved real people, unlike this strange long-distance-but-not situation he had felt he was in, a one-sided thing that Arthur wasn't even aware of. But now it had all become staggeringly real, and the guy probably didn't care a bit about him. Arthur had a whole company to run, after all, and Merlin had been calling him for chatty conversations under the guise of computer illiteracy.

The events of the day came rushing back to him, and, compounded with the events of his life in general up until this point, it made for a pretty pathetic picture. He pressed the heel of one hand into his eyebrow, hard, right where the headache was starting. Augh, he was completely unobservant, and on top of that, gay gay gay for his boss.

*

He took the next day off from work. The fruit flies died. He missed Arthur.

Over the weekend he went to the Italian place he loved, but the tiramisu would have been nicer if his stomach hadn't been tied in knots.

Life was hard, and, on top of that, kind of depressing.

*

It shouldn't have been possible to hide at work.

Arthur was probably avoiding the lab floor, but every time Merlin thought he saw a blond head he ducked behind partitions and made awkward conversation with the person in that cubicle for a few minutes until the danger had passed. He was talking to more people than he had the entire year he'd worked there.

Merlin buried himself in tests and in making sure everything was running smoothly while Gaius pushed them on towards yet another fantastic win in the name of medicine. He started coming up with ridiculous scenarios, mind left to wonder at the unresolved situation. He thought he should get rid of the money Arthur had basically given him, considered using the entire raise to buy Arthur a cruise somewhere because, even if he was the CEO's son, he was still the same overworked guy Merlin had spoken to for weeks. Instead, Merlin just let the money sit there in his account.

A week later, he entered the break room, knowing that the move was like a white flag.

And sure enough, just as he was placing the coffee pot back on its plate, the door to the room creaked open.

He turned to find Arthur hovering in the doorway.

"You-" Merlin said. He was still not quite able to mesh the idea of Pendragon with Arthur, second-in-command of the company with basement-dwelling computer genius. This Arthur was wearing slacks and a well-fitted button-down, opened tastefully at the collar, not a ratty polo.

"Yes."

"You're-"

"If it helps, I didn't know until about a week ago," Arthur said. He closed the door behind him. "It just clicked. So, here I am, saying it for the first time irl."

"I r.."

"Never mind," Arthur waved that thought away. "What I'm saying is, stranger things have happened."

"Have they?" Merlin said. "I really don't know what to say. Not only have I made it my hobby to come up with creative ways of tripping you while you're holding hot coffee, and have slandered your character to a faceless IT guy-"

"-which was me, so it really shouldn't matter-"

"-I've befriended someone who no longer exists," Merlin said. Arthur frowned. "Also, I'm on the verge of curing under-eye circles with a new, cutting-edge treatment. I don't think I have time for this sort of relationship, something that should never have begun in the first place. I hardly have time for friends in this crazy office, let alone enemies."

"Enemies," Arthur said, tone wry.

Merlin made to step around to the door, although everything in him wanted to stay and sip at his coffee while Arthur made snide comments about anything and everything. Arthur caught him by both elbows before he could make a run for it, and in fact blocked Merlin's way out.

"You know, this could be considered-"

"I don't care," Arthur said.

"What is it with you and manhandling people?"

"I apologize. It's just, with the guys, we're rather-" Arthur said, describing an ambiguous gesture in the air with one hand. "Anyway, I came to tell you a few things, try to make you understand. Are you willing to listen?"

"Fine."

"First thing's first: while it's true that I haven’t learnt to use the microwave, I pay many a salary eating out at expensive restaurants and ordering takeout late into the night."

Merlin scoffed, but stopped half-heartedly trying to yank his elbow out of Arthur's grip. Arthur continued speaking quickly, low.

"I tip well, doubtlessly funding many a delivery person's college tuition."

"Supercilious," Merlin sighed.

"-and the only reason I've been keeping up this charade is you've a colorful vocabulary. And, of course, the way you kept on haranguing the guy in the break room made me laugh and nearly spill coffee on a multi-million dollar contract."

"Look," Merlin said. "I won't deny that we have great conversations. But you bribed Will and hacked my computer."

"I left you the modern-day equivalent of a letter of intent," Arthur said, and Merlin's heart clenched a little. He made admirable attempts not to show this on his face.

"You know," Merlin said. "I really shouldn't forgive you."

Arthur did not seem the type to give in to disappointment. Rather, he examined the odds, calibrated, and carried on.

"But you're going to," he said. There it was, the beginning of yet another smirk. "No, my mistake, you have already forgiven me."

"I've just missed you, on the phone," Merlin grumped.

"Oh have you-" Arthur went serious-faced again when Merlin gave him a quelling look. "Right, please continue."

"I probably don't know you that well at all," Merlin said. "I know that you're very intelligent, and good at everything. You've got a kind of amusing world view, in an entitled way. But Arthur, you're a prat. You do realize that, don't you?"

"Of course I do," Arthur said, like if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that.

"But so am I," Merlin said. "Let's just, I don't know, do something together. Sort things out."

"What did you have in mind?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"How about hunting, this Saturday at my family's estate." Arthur looked thrilled. Merlin was more scandalized than he ever remembered being in his life.

"Hunting?!"

"That's a no then," Arthur said. "Noted. Let's have a nice...I'd say coffee, but-"

"The associations would not tip the situation favorably-"

"A nice meal then?" Arthur said. "I know a nice Italian place. Family-run, great dessert."

And Merlin could not believe he was standing in the very break room that had started this all, with Pendragon...Arthur Pendragon...debating over where he and Merlin should go for a first-

"It's just that- You make me want to be a better person," Arthur squinted, as if pained to be admitting it. "And not just publicly. No one's ever done that before."

"Alright, enough," Merlin laughed. "Just-"

And it was a sort of sweeping kiss, one that started with Merlin stepping in close, without really thinking about it, and ended with Arthur's hands twisted in Merlin's shirt collar, breathless like Merlin had never seen him.

In any case, it marked the beginning of what promised to be a rather ridiculous situation. And Merlin felt, in all ways, pleased.