See-Saws: Part 2 (2011 Big Bang)
Title: (When I Think of Your Kisses, My Mind) See-Saws...
Summary: Modern AU. Sometimes the road to love is paved in ridiculous, if not somewhat awkward Facebook and Twitter posts, far too many pop culture references than are strictly necessary, nosy supporting cast members with insanely large personalities, the establishment of "Comfy Couch of Cuddles and Conversations", and a little bit of liquid courage. Call it a bonus when destiny lives next door. Loosely based on this KMM prompt.
Part 2
Arthur Pendragon pressed the lift button for the 35th floor and waited for the doors to close before using the back of them as a mirror to adjust his navy-striped tie. He was early to work, as usual, and knew he wouldn’t encounter anyone on his way upstairs, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t look absolutely impeccable.
Once he’d straightened his tie and picked all the imaginary lint from his navy blue suit, he adjusted the brown leather satchel on his shoulder and stared hard and practically unseeing at his reflection in the lift doors. He noted the puffiness under his eyes and made a mental note to not stay late tonight, like he normally would.
Going out the previous night with Gwen and Morgana had been a bit of a bad idea. Normally Leon would have come along, being the more practical of all of them (Arthur was plenty practical, he just didn’t get out often enough to find the practicality in going home at a decent time once he was out) and knowing when it was time to call it quits, especially on a weekday night, but his physical therapy appointment had been extra rough that afternoon and Morgana said he needed to stay home and get rest up.
At that point, Arthur should have just said that the girls could go on their own and he was going to call it an early evening, as well - especially since he knew they were going to be working hard all weekend on the move - but, instead, he’d said he didn’t want them to go alone and had tagged along anyway.
And when Arthur had stumbled into his partially boxed flat at 4 AM, feeling light-headed with drunkenness and looking worse for wear, he realized that the following day of work was going to be pure torture. He’d sobered quickly at the thought, took a cold shower, drank nearly 2 litres of water, power napped for approximately 45 minutes and then got up to drink a pot of coffee and get ready for work.
If his mind had been plagued almost the entire time by large ears, thin limbs, dark hair and bright blue eyes, Arthur was fully ready to blame it on the large amounts of alcohol he had consumed.
Arthur shook his head. "Not today, Pendragon," he said to himself and tried to block the fresh images from invading his mind again. He hadn’t known who the man was that had approached him in the pub, but he had been almost immediately attracted to him, despite Ears’ (Arthur had heard his friend call him Merlin, but Arthur - not accepting of all that destiny bullshit Morgana spouts off - refused to recognize him as anything other than Ears) continued use of lame pick-up lines. And that was strange for Arthur in a way he wasn’t sure he could or wanted to analyze. It wasn’t because Arthur was homophobic or anything like that - after all, it was hard to be homophobic when you were an out and proud bi-sexual man - but because Ears had definitely not been his type.
He had, in fact, been so far from Arthur’s type that he wasn’t sure how he’d even zeroed in on Ears when they’d first entered the pub. But Arthur had become aware of him right away and had been watching... stealthily, he’d thought, so imagine his surprise when Ears had walked over to him, pick-up line at the ready.
The whole thing had been hilarious and unexpected and kind of cute, really.
Arthur shook his head. No, it had not been cute. It had been utterly pathetic. At least that’s what Arthur would normally have thought.
When the lift doors opened, he still felt slightly off-kilter, which was something Arthur Pendragon didn’t care to admit ever happened, but he knew that once he got to his desk and started working for the day, instinct would kick in and he’d be back to his business-savvy self. He didn’t have time to think about lithe body frames and defined cheekbones. No, sir.
Arthur stepped off the lift and strode purposefully down the hall to the left. He pulled out his keys and opened up the office, disengaging the alarm.
All business, Arthur thought as he went about flipping light switches. And then he was going over his schedule for the day, even before Vivian would have a chance to know it existed.
Arthur shook his head. Vivian English was beautiful and ruthless, but she was far from efficient. He wasn’t even sure how that particular combination was possible, but he didn’t really have the time to find yet another executive assistant. Thankfully he was quite capable of running his own schedule, even if Vivian thought she was in charge of it. She handled the daily emails and phone calls well, and even set up the following day’s schedule enough that Arthur could easily make changes to it (as he often did) so that it actually made sense, but she just wasn’t cut out to work for someone. Unfortunately, since her father had died and, unknowingly to her, had left her with more debt than money, she was forced to file for bankruptcy on his many businesses and get a "real" job.
Uther had made the suggestion that Vivian be his assistant. Arthur had complied because it was pointless to argue with Uther.
Inside his private office, Arthur dropped his satchel neatly on the chair just inside his door and walked over to his desk. He hit the button to boot up his computer and then made a cup of coffee with his Kuerig behind his desk. And while both of those things happened, Arthur grabbed a bottle of water from his mini-fridge and set it on his desk.
Not thirty seconds later, Arthur was sitting at his desk in his large, comfortable, leather chair and waiting the final moments for his computer to boot. And it was then that he realized that from the moment he’d walked off the lift until that very second, Arthur had been running on auto-pilot. He tried his hardest not to be bitter about the six years that had brought him to this place in life.
It wasn’t that Arthur hated his job, because he didn’t. He loved being the public face of the company his father had built from scratch when he was only eighteen. He loved knowing that their company, Camelot Security & Detail, was the largest home security and personal security detailing company in Europe. And Arthur revelled in the fact that, even during the tough economic times, CSD had never needed to consider laying off any of their employees.
But occasionally, when he had enough time to sit and really think about his life and the things he’d given up to live it that way, Arthur felt slighted. And there was no one to blame but himself of course, which made it all the worse.
Arthur sighed, took a large drink of his coffee, followed it with a drink of his water and pressed a few buttons on his keyboard. Moments later he stared at his Facebook News Feed.
Arthur might be a bit of a workaholic who got to work far earlier than everyone else, but it didn’t stop him from taking a smidgen of "me" time in the morning to check his favorite social networking site.
With little emotion on his face, Arthur clicked the icon that said he had one notification. It was a wall post from Morgana. Arthur didn’t roll his eyes, even though he wanted to, and clicked on the darkened link.
Arthur shook his head and smirked, before typing out his own response.
Arthur minimized the Internet window and pulled open his Outlook. While it loaded his emails from overnight - which there were bound to be at least fifty - his Facebook window flashed at him that he had another notification. Morgana had responded already with the link and Arthur immediately clicked on it.
And gasped in horror.
It was the god-awful ugliest sofa set Arthur had ever seen. The only thing Morgana had apparently heard when Arthur was explaining the kind of couch he wanted for his and Gwen’s new flat was that it be big and comfortable. The set looked exceptionally large, plush and comfortable, but it definitely didn’t hit the marks on colour.
Arthur stared at the black, pink peonies-covered abomination and shuddered. And that was before he looked at the price.
Arthur pounded the "Enter" key so hard, his keyboard jumped. "She’s a bloody lunatic!" he shouted into the empty office. Arthur quickly closed down his Internet window - he really didn’t want to see Morgana’s response right that moment - and maximized his Outlook window again. Fifty-one new emails, none of which were junk mail, stared back at him. Arthur put on his game face and started at the bottom.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
By 11:30 AM, Arthur had drunk three cups of coffee, four bottles of water and one cup of tea, answered all fifty-one emails and the additional fourteen that had come through in the meantime, called the furniture store and purchased a far too expensive living room set to be picked up the following morning, and managed to do three telephone interviews and schedule two television appearances with local media covering the recent botched assassination attempt on one of their biggest clients, Morgause Black.
Arthur didn’t even pretend he knew what Morgause did that required her to have such heavy security, nor did he really care so long as she continued to pay for her coverage. Unfortunately, she was becoming exceptionally difficult to keep secure. The most recent attempt on her life, the fourth in the same number of weeks, had got her detail shot. Thankfully, it had hit Percy’s Kevlar jacket and only broken a couple of ribs. But, of course, that took Percy, who was one of their top guards at the company, out of the rotation until he’d recovered. And those kinds of issues made it difficult to assign and was strenuous for whoever her detail was at the time. That, in turn, raised Arthur’s stress levels and his concern for their employees greatly.
Tapping his finger against the large calendar covering his desk and studying the marks he’d made there to show the number of issues the company had had recently (and frequently) with Morgause, Arthur made a decision he wasn’t even aware he was contemplating.
"Viv!" he hollered.
Seconds later, Vivian came bustling around the corner and stood just inside his office door. "Yes?"
There was no denying it; Vivian was gorgeous. She was petite in all the right ways and curvy where she needed to be. Arthur couldn’t help but remember the many times he’d laid his hands all over those dips and curves (thankfully years before she had started to work for him because that would have been awkward). Of course, dating Vivian had been a short-lived affair and he knew the minute he’d met her that it wouldn’t be anything long-term or spectacular. But he’d decided it was worth it anyway.
Arthur looked over her impeccable white trouser suit and black Oxford shirt, her blond hair pulled off her neck into a tight bun and black-rimmed, square glasses (that he knew she didn’t have to wear because she had perfect 20/20 vision, but she wanted to be more like Morgana, for some reason) covering beautiful blue eyes and thought that maybe he’d made a mistake when he’d broken it off with her all those years ago.
Arthur mentally shook his head as the other memories came flooding back.
Like the time she had purposely started a rift between him and her father, when he was still alive, just to see which would win. Arthur had been just young and cocky enough to think that he could win, even though he wasn’t really even sure what he had been fighting about. And, of course, it had led to arguments all around, that had also included Uther. And that - well that was just taking it a bit too far, wasn’t it?
Or the time she’d confessed her undying love to him. In the middle of the work Christmas party. That she hadn’t been invited to. Because they were broken up. Of course, when she threw an epic-sized temper tantrum when he tried to send her on her way, he called her a child. And that, in turn, had caused a massive ruckus that had, once again, involved Uther.
Arthur grimaced internally. No, he had definitely not made a mistake.
"Arthur?" she asked, when he hadn’t answered her.
Arthur shook his head. "Call Catrina and have her schedule a time for me to meet with Uther before the day is out."
Viv jotted something down in the small, wire-bound, black book she carried with her everywhere. Arthur tried not to roll his eyes, because it was a fairly simple message that didn’t really need documenting, but left her to her ways. Of course, he was assuming she was writing down his instructions, but knowing Viv the way he did, it was probably something for her grocery list or which pair of Prada shoes she wanted to get that weekend.
"She’ll want to know what it’s regarding," she said, looking up.
Arthur sighed. Yes, she would. "Tell her it’s about the Black file." When Vivian’s left eyebrow rose dramatically, Arthur added, "Tell her I said that Father will just have to get over it. It’s time to talk about it."
Vivian snorted, but jotted more notes in her book. "Anything else?" she asked when she’d finished.
"Yeah," Arthur said, already distracted by the three additional emails that had come through in the time it had taken him to talk to her. "Make me another coffee, get Paul to restock the water in my fridge and, for God’s sake, bring me some Nurofen."
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Merlin sat in his exceptionally hard chair at his desk with his head in his hands, massaging his thundering temples, while his class worked in the lab. He knew he should be walking around, monitoring their progress and answering questions and commenting on their good work, but he just didn’t have it in him.
And besides, it’s not like they were going to blow up the classroom today. The lab was ridiculously easy and only required a few weights, a couple of beakers, measuring tools and some sodium chloride.
Of course, it was far from the experiment he’d originally been planning to do today. They were far past this sort of elementary chemistry, but after barely making it into the building before his students that morning, and not having a single thing set up, Merlin had stuck his hand in a drawer of old handouts, pulled out the first thing that had enough copies to give to all the students today and said that it was "a refresher" assignment. The sad part about it was that Merlin didn’t even have it in him to feel bad that they were doing something far below their actual level of knowledge. He didn’t have the strength to focus on the lesson plan he’d made for the day, and made an executive decision they’d do it the following week.
Merlin groaned when one of the girls slammed their book shut. Then and there, he decided that he was never, ever, evereverevereverever going to let Will and Gwaine talk him into going out on a school night ever again. It was just not worth it.
Not to mention coming into work hungover was wholly unprofessional. He was counting his lucky stars that Dr. Nimueh, the school’s scary headmistress, was at a conference this week. Everyone else in the school seemed to like him - teachers, lunchroom staff, and even the caretakers - but Dr. Nimueh was dead set on hating him. Merlin was about ninety-eight percent sure that if theboard of governors hadn’t been the ones to make the final decision to hire him, he’d never have have got the position.
In his defense, though, Dr. Nimueh didn’t seem to like anyone. Every smile she gave - which were few and far between - looked calculating and evil, maybe even slightly maniacal, and a lifted eyebrow was enough to make you contemplate the state of your affairs.
Another of Merlin’s students slammed her book closed - the universal signal that class was almost over - and he rubbed at his aching eyes. When he opened them, he lifted his head just enough to look at the class through slits and said weakly, "Read chapter six this weekend and ready yourself for the experiment found on page 230. We’ll be doing it on Monday morning." The girls shuffled feet and rustled paper as they wrote down the assignment - quietly, bless them - and then the bell toned, releasing the first block of classes. Merlin tried not to cringe at the high-pitched sound, but he feared that he’d done a poor job of it. "Have a good weekend, ladies."
He sat up a little straighter in his chair as the girls chatted their way out of the classroom. Several of them gave Merlin tentative smiles and wished him a happy weekend; Merlin smiled (grimaced) in return and prayed that they only thought he was sick, and not hungover.
At last the final girl had walked out of the room and the door clicked softly shut behind them. The blessed peace and quiet that hung in the room instantly made Merlin feel better. He could still faintly hear students in the hallways, talking and moving on to their next classes, but felt utter relief that his planning hour was early in the day.
He hadn’t had a chance to take anything for his pounding headache, as he’d been literally rushing out the door, half-dressed, and Gwaine calling after him from the couch to, "Have a great day, Casanova," so Merlin pulled open his left-hand top drawer and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the emergency bottle of water and sleeve of Nurofen tablets right on top. He quickly popped two tablets out of the sleeve and downed them with a gulp of lukewarm water and then another.
What he’d give for some coffee at that very moment.
Merlin stared at his desk contemplating whether he could pull off a nap during the next hour without making himself feel worse. He decided quickly that, in fact, no he would not be able to do that and opened the top of his laptop instead. As soon as it was connected to the Internet, he refreshed the already open Facebook page. He knew it wasn’t exactly the best idea he’d had in a while but honestly, he just didn’t give a damn.
Merlin clicked on on the icon that said he had three notifications; Freya had left a post on his Wall, someone Merlin didn’t know had made a comment in his favorite cooking group (not that Merlin did a whole lot of cooking - he left that up to Will, which wasn’t exactly a genius idea either - but he liked to think that maybe one day he’d really get into it) and Gwaine had tagged Merlin in multiple photos in the album "Merlin Emrys has a hole in his lip."
If it didn’t hurt so bad to do so, Merlin would have rolled his eyes... hard. Instead, he clicked on the album and started scrolling. All of the pictures were from the night before, and for the life of him, Merlin had absolutely no idea when Gwaine had taken any of them. He never once remembered him taking his phone out of his pocket, where it resided almost all of the time.
Merlin kept clicking forward quickly, his appearance becoming more disheveled and inebriated with each picture, until he got to the end, where Merlin was leaned over a rubbish bin outside and seemed to be hurling the contents of his stomach into it.
He absolutely did not remember that happening.
The caption said: "Merlin getting up close and personal with a trash can. Fortunately, it wasn’t his most intimate encounter all night."
Merlin wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but chalked it up to Gwaine being... well, Gwaine and clicked back to his news feed. The first item on his list, posted two minutes prior, was from Will to Gwaine. When Merlin read the post, he nearly choked on the sip of water he was taking.
Merlin instantly hit the "Like" button and opened the album once more to see that Gwaine had, in fact, tagged his pictures accordingly. He was only slightly annoyed that he hadn’t been given a more exciting name for tagging purposes.
Then again, knowing Gwaine, maybe Merlin was better off.
Merlin looked up when there was a tentative knock on his door and quickly pushed the lid closed on his laptop. He needn’t have panicked, however, when Lance DuLac - P.E. teacher, cross country coach, exceptionally nice guy and bloody Adonis - poked his head in and smiled. "Hey," he said softly and walked in before Merlin even had a chance to answer him.
Merlin’s return greeting froze on his lips and ended up coming out as a low moan of pleasure when he saw the two, extra tall coffee cups in Lance’s hands. Lance laughed, a sound that rumbled low in his throat (and the first time he’d heard it, had Merlin’s turning to complete jelly), and said, "I thought you'd need this."
Merlin loved how Lance always knew when he was hungover. And not for the first time, Merlin realized just how lucky he was in the friends department. Of course, it was bloody awful to be surrounded all the time by gorgeous men he couldn’t touch, when all he wanted to do was lick them from head to toe, but love was sort of a tramp like that.
"I would have brought them to you sooner, but I had a meeting with my department this morning." He passed one of the cups to Merlin before grabby hands could be made, and at this point, Merlin was really okay with making grabby hands. "Don’t worry, though. It’s piping hot, the way you like it, and has enough sugar and flavored cream in it to rot your teeth. Enjoy." Merlin took a sip and felt his eyelids close in ecstasy. "How are you feeling?" Lance asked, trying not to sound more than a little amused.
"Icky," Merlin grunted, even as the coffee worked through his body, and watched as Lance’s eyebrows quirked. He huffed. "Yes, Lance; don’t look at me like that. I’m icky. Icky, icky, icky." He paused, looking thoughtful. "And crabby." Lance’s lips twitched. "I know. It’s a pitiful combination."
"Yes. Very." Lance grinned at him and took a seat at one of the desks in front of him, taking a sip of his own coffee.
They sat in companionable silence for a while, Lance knowing that Merlin really needed the coffee to work its magic before venturing into other topics. Merlin liked everything about Lance and they had hit it off immediately when they’d met.
Merlin had just started at Balor as one of the teaching assistants in the P.E. department, and had absolutely no idea how to find anything - that included his own office. While quite literally wandering around the school, Lance found him. Merlin was, of course, in the complete opposite end of the school that he needed to be in, and Lance was kind enough to show him the way.
And really, that’s all it had taken. They chatted briefly on the way to Merlin’s office and then for a few more minutes after Lance had explained to Merlin how to get back out of the school and to the football field. It had been nothing earth-shattering or other-worldly. It had simply been instantaneous friendship.
And what made their friendship even easier was that even though Lance was practically God’s gift to drooling women - a fact even Gwaine, self-proclaimed (and rightly so) Sexiest Man Alive, agreed to - and even when he had told Lance that he was gay, Merlin hadn’t ever developed a crush on him. Sure, Merlin had no qualms against thinking about Lance naked and sweaty and the things he’d be more than willing to do with him if given the opportunity (and Lance just upped and decided that the straight and narrow was far too boring a life to live), Merlin just didn’t feel that way about him. It was actually refreshing, for once.
And that was exactly how their friendship was. Easy. Simple. No drama.
Merlin smiled at Lance. "Thank you, mate. You have no idea how badly I needed this."
"I had an inkling," Lance grinned and took another sip of his coffee. "Of course," he mused, "I should probably mention that I did see the pictures Gwaine posted this morning."
Merlin groaned. "Oh god."
"They were very enlightening."
"I hate you."
Lance laughed. "No you don’t."
Merlin shook his head. "I really don’t even know what happened last night. I have an unsettling feeling that I did something really ridiculous. Someone should stop me next time."
"Or not allow you out of the house in the first place?" Lance asked, a smirk on his lips.
"That, too." Merlin shook his head again and took a burning gulp from his coffee. "I vaguely remember using some poorly chosen pick-up lines," Merlin grimaced. "But for the life of me, I can’t remember to whom they were directed."
"Black hole?"
"More like a black crater-hole."
"That is not an actual thing, Merlin. And even if it were, I think a regular black hole is far bigger than a crater-hole, don’t you?" Merlin narrowed his eyes at him and Lance grinned back. "You really shouldn’t drink that much, you know?"
Merlin waved his hand dismissively. "I know," he muttered, then looked thoughtful before his eyes opened wide in shock. "God, Lance, I think I actually hit on a couple of girls!"
Lance forgot all about Merlin’s pounding headache when he threw his head back and burst into loud laughter.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
"Arthur," Uther Pendragon said as Arthur made his way into his ridiculously large office on the 48th floor. Before his arse hit the seat of the expensive, high-backed, extremely uncomfortable chair (the way Uther liked it; to keep unwanted "guests" from staying for too long) across from Uther, he asked, "What makes you think we need to re-evaluate our largest account? And I urge you to think before you speak, because I will not tolerate you wasting my time on this."
Arthur resisted the urge to do either of the two things he wanted to (which were 1. turn right back around and walk out of the office or 2. say loudly and sarcastically, "Why, it’s nice to see you, too, Father. Wonderful weather we’re having, don’t you think?") and instead sat fully down in the chair and counted to ten before saying, "She nearly got Percy killed last week."
Uther looked up from his computer and narrowed his eyes, "I don’t think I need to stress to you, Arthur, that Percival is far from dead."
Arthur resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Thanks to his Kevlar, of course. He does, however, have multiple wounds that are keeping him from working."
"We are a security company, Arthur. It comes with the territory. Percival knows that and I thought you did as well." Uther said it as if he was commenting about the easy flow of traffic on a mid-summer Sunday; bored.
Sweat beaded on Arthur’s brow. He avoided reaching up to brush at it and instead tried to will it away; it wouldn’t do for Uther to see how worked up he got whenever they had to have intense conversations about work (or anything, for that matter). This was not going to go well and Arthur knew it. And if if he could avoid the inevitable just a bit longer, he’d do it.
"Yes, Father, I’m well aware of this fact," Arthur replied, his voice as level and emotionless as he could make it. He had been aiming for Uther’s same bored tone, but knew he hadn’t hit it quite right. No matter how hard he tried (even when he didn’t want to be), he couldn’t be like his father. They were just two different people. It was too bad Uther couldn’t see that, as well.
"However," Arthur continued, "Percy is her twelfth detail in less than a month. If they’re not being shot at or suffering stab wounds to protect her, she’s filing complaints with the department about their lack of attentiveness, their overt affections, or her inability to - and I quote - ‘function like a normal human being because Owain’s stupidity flows by osmosis’."
Uther sighed and looked back over at his computer. "I fail to see your point, Arthur. And I suggest you make it soon."
"My point, Father," Arthur said, straightening his back and sitting toward the front of his seat, "is that if we have to keep reassigning her detail and/or replacing them because of sudden death," Uther scoffed at that, "we’re not going to have much of a company left."
Uther only cocked an eyebrow and pounded on a few of the keys on his keyboard. Arthur sat back again in his seat and forced himself not to rub at his pounding temples.
"And furthermore," he added, as a last minute thought. He told himself when he came in that he wouldn’t say anything, but now it needed to be done. Uther needed to see. "I’ve been getting a lot of questions about the type of people CSA is willing to secure. I know you and Morgause have a very hush-hush relationship in regards to her... career, but maybe it’s time I knew." Uther looked away from his computer once more and Arthur pressed on, not wanting to be interrupted yet. "I am the public face of the company and it’s exceptionally hard to run the public relationships department when I don’t even know what kind of relations we have with our own clients." Arthur sat forward in his seat again; a manoeuvre he’d learned from Uther that was used to drill his point home. "I can’t even begin to tell you the different rumours I’ve heard about the type of person Morgause is, or the type of business she runs."
Arthur narrowed his eyes at his father and he moved forward even further in his seat. He looked his father in the eye and said, very carefully, "If I knew, Father, it would be easier for me to either cover the truth or glorify it. When I don’t know a thing about it, I sound like I don’t know a thing about it and that causes more speculation in the media and confusion with our customers - large and small."
"Arthur," Uther started, but Arthur interrupted him.
"I fully understand that this is your company, Father, but at some you are going to have to trust me with this, don’t you think?"
Uther turned full in his seat, annoyance written all over his face, before he steepled his fingers in front of him and glared at Arthur. "This, Arthur, is not about trust or speculation or confusion. In fact, it’s not even so important that there should even be talk over the kind of work that Morgause does. I think that she just attracts trouble like a magnet."
Arthur sat back in his seat and crossed his legs and arms. Uther wasn’t going to tell him and that was just utterly ridiculous. He could make it sound completely unimportant all he wanted, but Arthur knew better. He was hiding something and he was determined to figure it out.
It upset him more, though, that his father obviously didn’t care enough about him or trust him enough to just tell him what was going on. Arthur didn’t feel good about that particular idea at all.
"Therefore, you’ll drop this whole Morgause issue and get back to your job," Uther finished, and Arthur hadn’t heard a single word of his speech; he knew it all by heart anyway. "Good day, Arthur."
And with that, Arthur was dismissed. As he pulled Uther’s office door shut behind him, Arthur schooled his face into a bored, straight line, and walked to the lift to go back down to his office.
He wasn’t going to let the issue go that easily, though.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
It was nearing 7:30 that evening when Arthur finally closed down his computer and let his head fall into his hands, rubbing at his eyes and feeling bone-deep weariness after an entire day of work. He’d only moved from his desk a couple of times all day, and had even eaten his lunch at his desk when his lunch meeting had called to cancel. His bones were stiff and he was feeling so much older than his thirty years.
When had it come to this? When had his life turned into long days at the office, sitting at his desk for hours on end, and going out with his friends maybe once a month? Was this how it was going to be for the rest of his life?
Arthur pressed the heel of his palms into his eyes until white lights popped behind his lids.
"You look like shit."
Arthur lifted his head to see Morgana standing just inside his door, looking smart and crisp in a black pencil skirt and white oxford combo (that he was sure was Valentino or Versace), dark hair hanging down in loose curls, green eyes covered but far from invisible behind square, dark-rimmed glasses, and black, scary-looking, spiked Manolo heels. She looked like she’d just walked out of a magazine and Arthur kind of wanted to hate her for it. He never had perfected the art of keeping his attire sharp all day long like Morgana had. Damn her.
"Thanks, dear sister," he clipped and got up from his desk. He made to reach for his suit jacket, but decided that a good stretch was a better idea. He really was getting too old for this.
As he stretched out his muscles, like he would getting ready for a footie match with his mates on the weekend (that he didn’t really want to think about right now, because it had been far too long since he’d been to one of those), Morgana walked into his office, the usual click-click of her shoes muffled by the lush carpet, and perched on the arm of the couch in the corner.
"You’re welcome," she said, smirking. "You’ve been working extra late the last few weeks."
Arthur nodded and started pulling down his shirt sleeves and doing up the buttons. "It’s one of those things that happens when your largest client somehow manages to have multiple assassination attempts against her every other day." Arthur pulled on his jacket and said, as sarcastically as he could, "Inquiring minds want to know."
Morgana was inspecting her perfectly manicure fingernails. "Hmm. So I see." She looked up at Arthur and her face was serious. "I heard about your chat with Uther today."
"You mean to say that you heard I had a chat with him," Arthur responded, forgoing the tightening of his tie. He’d like to say it was because he wanted to pull off the I’m fresh off work from a long hard day, but I still know how to look sexy look, but in reality, he was just too tired to care at the moment. "Because I know that no matter how many conspiracy theories you have against Catrina, she doesn’t have Father’s office bugged."
Morgana smirked. "Everyone seems to know that but you and Uther, Arthur. You should get with the programme," she said. "And no, that’s not what I meant to say. I had a chat with Uther today, as well."
"About?"
Arthur picked up his satchel and made to walk out of the office, hoping that it would motivate his sister to go as well. He needed to leave and he didn’t want to talk about Uther anymore. Arthur had spent a full hour after he’d left his father’s office scowling at the paper files that he had access to on Morgause Black. However, the only information really in them, outside of her security detail bios and schedules, were her filed complaints and his random notes. An Internet search had only brought up news articles speculating the kind of work that Morgause did - which usually had something to do with firearms dealings, drug smuggling and international terrorism in general - but, as it was all just hearsay and not based on any real facts, Arthur knew he could only take each article with a grain of salt. He had even sat down and called multiple contacts he had in the security business around Europe and a few in America, where he knew Morgause had lived for about ten years, but the most helpful response he received was that they "weren’t at liberty to discuss any past or present clients, no matter how crazy they are."
And really, that hadn’t helped Arthur at all.
Morgana placed a hand gently on his forearm to stop him. "It’s not just you," she said, softly. "I’m concerned about her account, as well." Arthur just stared at her for a moment, waiting for her to continue, but she didn’t.
"Why?" Arthur asked. "You don’t have to deal with her."
Morgana sighed. "No, but I do have to deal with the backlash in HR. Did you know that three of her last four detail have come to me and asked for extended leaves? Leon had to go to Uther last week for permission to pick up new personal security detail just to help cover her account. We’re not equipped for that kind of hiring in this economy, Arthur. And I would say that it’s ninety-eight percent related to the Black file."
"And I’d say it’s one hundred percent related," Arthur said and sat in the chair by his door, his body attempting to give up on him at any given second. Running a full day, on a Friday of all times, on only an hour of sleep and loads of caffeine was probably not the best idea. Arthur briefly wondered if he’d be better off taking a taxi home and coming back in the morning to get his car. But when he remembered the busy weekend they had ahead of them with the move, he thought better of it. He didn’t want his car here all weekend.
"What did he say?" Arthur asked.
Morgana waved her hand dismissively. "Probably the exact same thing he said to me. That it wasn’t that big a deal and to leave it alone." Morgana smirked. "Of course, I probably did a fair bit more yelling at him than you did."
Arthur laughed, despite his annoyance with the whole ordeal with Uther. "I’m sure you did. You two always have been at odds with each other. I’m sorry I missed it."
"I’m sure it’s entertaining from an outsider’s point of view," Morgana said, matter-of-fact. "Who am I kidding? It’s entertaining for me, too."
Arthur smiled at his sister. "I’m sure." He got up from the chair and asked, "Dinner?"
Morgana got up as well and walked out of his office with him. "No," she answered, as Arthur shut the lights down and set the alarm, locking the door behind him. "I have to get home. Leon said something about him spending the entire day in the kitchen and that I’m a terrible girlfriend, even if I am hot, because I can’t get home at a normal time. Next time, though."
Arthur called for the lift and rolled his eyes. "He’s certainly turned into the domestic diva since the accident and surgery kept him home those few months, hasn’t he? I should see about having his man-card revoked."
Morgana winked at him as Arthur got on the lift and she kept on to the stairs to go down one floor to her office. Just as the doors were closing, she said, "Don’t worry - domesticated of not, he’s all man, little brother."
Arthur shook his head when the door closed. "She is a sick woman."
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Merlin walked in his door that night to find Will and Gwaine sitting in front of the television playing the Wii, drinking beer and having one of their famous insult competitions. In the past Merlin had, on multiple occasions, told them to just whip them out right then since it was obvious that was going to be the only thing that would stop them from the constant bickering.
Unfortunately for Merlin (or was that fortunately?), one night when he said that, both Will and Gwaine were spectacularly pissed and did exactly that. Measurements had been made while Merlin had tried his very hardest to not look.
Merlin Emrys had totally looked.
They had been exactly the same size.
Things had never been the same.
"Merlin!" Gwaine called. "Join us! Will needs someone he can actually beat at Smash Brothers!"
Merlin rolled his eyes and walked into the living room, dropped into his favorite chair, kicked off his shoes and threw his bag full of essays that needed correcting onto the floor beside him. "Oh, yes," Will said. "You’re so funny, dickhead." Will flashed a quick look over at Merlin. "You look like shit."
"Nice to see you, too," Merlin said and contemplated starting on his correcting right that second. He knew if he put it off too long, he’d end up leaving it until late Sunday night again, and then he’d be exhausted come Monday morning. It was not something he was looking forward to. He just really didn’t have it in him right now. He was still feeling like crap since the night before and he had practice with the girls Saturday morning.
No, it would be best if he just took himself right off to bed and slept for a solid 12 hours.
Will paused the game and looked over at Gwaine. Merlin saw the smirk and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one bit. But before he could move, they had both jumped off the couch and were attacking him in his chair, Gwaine on his lap and Will hanging from his neck, each of them punching softly, slapping lightly or tickling mercilessly.
"Oh Merlin!"
"Merlin, you’re so cute, Merlin."
"Merlin, don’t be so sad!"
"Sad Panda, Merlin? No sad panda!"
"We have missed you so much!"
"Merlin."
"Merlin!"
"MERLIN!"
When they finally got off of him, elbows and palms digging in for leverage (and good measure), Merlin was thoroughly annoyed, but laughing just the same. "I hate you both," he said, chucking each of his shoes at them in turn and missing them each by a mile. "You suck and I’m going to bed."
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Three hours later, however, Merlin hadn’t moved from his very comfortable place in his chair, nor was he sleeping. Instead, he had a Wii controller in his hand and was being sufficiently thrashed by both Will and Gwaine in Smash Brothers.
They had got take-away again - pizza this time, which had somehow strewn itself over multiple surfaces in the living room, including the floor (Merlin Emrys is not cleaning that up tomorrow.) - and Gwaine had actually taken a few moments to go out and get more beer.
Of course, he had drank the last one, and house rules stated that last drank is next bought. However, Will and Merlin weren’t going to tell Gwaine that they had a couple of beers stashed in the crisper drawer for such times when Gwaine happened to be over and drinking it all. After all, where was the fun in that?
Merlin was feeling loose-limbed and calm, but completely dead tired. He hadn’t got nearly enough sleep the night before (Merlin Emrys really isn’t going out on a school night again.) and had suffered through the long and exhausting Friday on top of his massive hangover. He had a right to be tired.
Merlin reached for his beer, losing a life in the process. Will shot him a look and rolled his eyes, but Merlin just shrugged and took a swig from the bottle. He definitely shouldn’t have been drinking (no one had ever accused Merlin of making good decisions when Will and Gwaine were around), but it was Friday night and Merlin was still in his 20’s.
Barely.
Merlin lost his last life (not at all on purpose - Merlin Emrys never loses on purpose.) and dropped his controller down onto the coffee table beside him. As he finished off his beer, he watched Will lose to Gwaine - like always.
"Dude!" Gwaine shouted, jumping up from his seat and throwing his hands in the air. "I am the champion!" Will loudly tried to argue that the only reason he had lost was because he’d been distracted by Merlin’s stupid pouting ("HEY!"), but Gwaine just broke out into an even louder, very off-key, exceptionally slow version of Queen’s "We Are the Champions."
It wasn’t enough to shut Will up - who could get far louder than Merlin cared to deal with when they were sitting so close together - and as the volume level in the living room continued to increase, Merlin decided it was a good time to bow out and head to bed.
Will and Gwaine didn’t even notice.
Summary: Modern AU. Sometimes the road to love is paved in ridiculous, if not somewhat awkward Facebook and Twitter posts, far too many pop culture references than are strictly necessary, nosy supporting cast members with insanely large personalities, the establishment of "Comfy Couch of Cuddles and Conversations", and a little bit of liquid courage. Call it a bonus when destiny lives next door. Loosely based on this KMM prompt.
Part 2
Arthur Pendragon pressed the lift button for the 35th floor and waited for the doors to close before using the back of them as a mirror to adjust his navy-striped tie. He was early to work, as usual, and knew he wouldn’t encounter anyone on his way upstairs, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t look absolutely impeccable.
Once he’d straightened his tie and picked all the imaginary lint from his navy blue suit, he adjusted the brown leather satchel on his shoulder and stared hard and practically unseeing at his reflection in the lift doors. He noted the puffiness under his eyes and made a mental note to not stay late tonight, like he normally would.
Going out the previous night with Gwen and Morgana had been a bit of a bad idea. Normally Leon would have come along, being the more practical of all of them (Arthur was plenty practical, he just didn’t get out often enough to find the practicality in going home at a decent time once he was out) and knowing when it was time to call it quits, especially on a weekday night, but his physical therapy appointment had been extra rough that afternoon and Morgana said he needed to stay home and get rest up.
At that point, Arthur should have just said that the girls could go on their own and he was going to call it an early evening, as well - especially since he knew they were going to be working hard all weekend on the move - but, instead, he’d said he didn’t want them to go alone and had tagged along anyway.
And when Arthur had stumbled into his partially boxed flat at 4 AM, feeling light-headed with drunkenness and looking worse for wear, he realized that the following day of work was going to be pure torture. He’d sobered quickly at the thought, took a cold shower, drank nearly 2 litres of water, power napped for approximately 45 minutes and then got up to drink a pot of coffee and get ready for work.
If his mind had been plagued almost the entire time by large ears, thin limbs, dark hair and bright blue eyes, Arthur was fully ready to blame it on the large amounts of alcohol he had consumed.
Arthur shook his head. "Not today, Pendragon," he said to himself and tried to block the fresh images from invading his mind again. He hadn’t known who the man was that had approached him in the pub, but he had been almost immediately attracted to him, despite Ears’ (Arthur had heard his friend call him Merlin, but Arthur - not accepting of all that destiny bullshit Morgana spouts off - refused to recognize him as anything other than Ears) continued use of lame pick-up lines. And that was strange for Arthur in a way he wasn’t sure he could or wanted to analyze. It wasn’t because Arthur was homophobic or anything like that - after all, it was hard to be homophobic when you were an out and proud bi-sexual man - but because Ears had definitely not been his type.
He had, in fact, been so far from Arthur’s type that he wasn’t sure how he’d even zeroed in on Ears when they’d first entered the pub. But Arthur had become aware of him right away and had been watching... stealthily, he’d thought, so imagine his surprise when Ears had walked over to him, pick-up line at the ready.
The whole thing had been hilarious and unexpected and kind of cute, really.
Arthur shook his head. No, it had not been cute. It had been utterly pathetic. At least that’s what Arthur would normally have thought.
When the lift doors opened, he still felt slightly off-kilter, which was something Arthur Pendragon didn’t care to admit ever happened, but he knew that once he got to his desk and started working for the day, instinct would kick in and he’d be back to his business-savvy self. He didn’t have time to think about lithe body frames and defined cheekbones. No, sir.
Arthur stepped off the lift and strode purposefully down the hall to the left. He pulled out his keys and opened up the office, disengaging the alarm.
All business, Arthur thought as he went about flipping light switches. And then he was going over his schedule for the day, even before Vivian would have a chance to know it existed.
Arthur shook his head. Vivian English was beautiful and ruthless, but she was far from efficient. He wasn’t even sure how that particular combination was possible, but he didn’t really have the time to find yet another executive assistant. Thankfully he was quite capable of running his own schedule, even if Vivian thought she was in charge of it. She handled the daily emails and phone calls well, and even set up the following day’s schedule enough that Arthur could easily make changes to it (as he often did) so that it actually made sense, but she just wasn’t cut out to work for someone. Unfortunately, since her father had died and, unknowingly to her, had left her with more debt than money, she was forced to file for bankruptcy on his many businesses and get a "real" job.
Uther had made the suggestion that Vivian be his assistant. Arthur had complied because it was pointless to argue with Uther.
Inside his private office, Arthur dropped his satchel neatly on the chair just inside his door and walked over to his desk. He hit the button to boot up his computer and then made a cup of coffee with his Kuerig behind his desk. And while both of those things happened, Arthur grabbed a bottle of water from his mini-fridge and set it on his desk.
Not thirty seconds later, Arthur was sitting at his desk in his large, comfortable, leather chair and waiting the final moments for his computer to boot. And it was then that he realized that from the moment he’d walked off the lift until that very second, Arthur had been running on auto-pilot. He tried his hardest not to be bitter about the six years that had brought him to this place in life.
It wasn’t that Arthur hated his job, because he didn’t. He loved being the public face of the company his father had built from scratch when he was only eighteen. He loved knowing that their company, Camelot Security & Detail, was the largest home security and personal security detailing company in Europe. And Arthur revelled in the fact that, even during the tough economic times, CSD had never needed to consider laying off any of their employees.
But occasionally, when he had enough time to sit and really think about his life and the things he’d given up to live it that way, Arthur felt slighted. And there was no one to blame but himself of course, which made it all the worse.
Arthur sighed, took a large drink of his coffee, followed it with a drink of his water and pressed a few buttons on his keyboard. Moments later he stared at his Facebook News Feed.
Arthur might be a bit of a workaholic who got to work far earlier than everyone else, but it didn’t stop him from taking a smidgen of "me" time in the morning to check his favorite social networking site.
With little emotion on his face, Arthur clicked the icon that said he had one notification. It was a wall post from Morgana. Arthur didn’t roll his eyes, even though he wanted to, and clicked on the darkened link.
Arthur shook his head and smirked, before typing out his own response.
Arthur minimized the Internet window and pulled open his Outlook. While it loaded his emails from overnight - which there were bound to be at least fifty - his Facebook window flashed at him that he had another notification. Morgana had responded already with the link and Arthur immediately clicked on it.
And gasped in horror.
It was the god-awful ugliest sofa set Arthur had ever seen. The only thing Morgana had apparently heard when Arthur was explaining the kind of couch he wanted for his and Gwen’s new flat was that it be big and comfortable. The set looked exceptionally large, plush and comfortable, but it definitely didn’t hit the marks on colour.
Arthur stared at the black, pink peonies-covered abomination and shuddered. And that was before he looked at the price.
Arthur pounded the "Enter" key so hard, his keyboard jumped. "She’s a bloody lunatic!" he shouted into the empty office. Arthur quickly closed down his Internet window - he really didn’t want to see Morgana’s response right that moment - and maximized his Outlook window again. Fifty-one new emails, none of which were junk mail, stared back at him. Arthur put on his game face and started at the bottom.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
By 11:30 AM, Arthur had drunk three cups of coffee, four bottles of water and one cup of tea, answered all fifty-one emails and the additional fourteen that had come through in the meantime, called the furniture store and purchased a far too expensive living room set to be picked up the following morning, and managed to do three telephone interviews and schedule two television appearances with local media covering the recent botched assassination attempt on one of their biggest clients, Morgause Black.
Arthur didn’t even pretend he knew what Morgause did that required her to have such heavy security, nor did he really care so long as she continued to pay for her coverage. Unfortunately, she was becoming exceptionally difficult to keep secure. The most recent attempt on her life, the fourth in the same number of weeks, had got her detail shot. Thankfully, it had hit Percy’s Kevlar jacket and only broken a couple of ribs. But, of course, that took Percy, who was one of their top guards at the company, out of the rotation until he’d recovered. And those kinds of issues made it difficult to assign and was strenuous for whoever her detail was at the time. That, in turn, raised Arthur’s stress levels and his concern for their employees greatly.
Tapping his finger against the large calendar covering his desk and studying the marks he’d made there to show the number of issues the company had had recently (and frequently) with Morgause, Arthur made a decision he wasn’t even aware he was contemplating.
"Viv!" he hollered.
Seconds later, Vivian came bustling around the corner and stood just inside his office door. "Yes?"
There was no denying it; Vivian was gorgeous. She was petite in all the right ways and curvy where she needed to be. Arthur couldn’t help but remember the many times he’d laid his hands all over those dips and curves (thankfully years before she had started to work for him because that would have been awkward). Of course, dating Vivian had been a short-lived affair and he knew the minute he’d met her that it wouldn’t be anything long-term or spectacular. But he’d decided it was worth it anyway.
Arthur looked over her impeccable white trouser suit and black Oxford shirt, her blond hair pulled off her neck into a tight bun and black-rimmed, square glasses (that he knew she didn’t have to wear because she had perfect 20/20 vision, but she wanted to be more like Morgana, for some reason) covering beautiful blue eyes and thought that maybe he’d made a mistake when he’d broken it off with her all those years ago.
Arthur mentally shook his head as the other memories came flooding back.
Like the time she had purposely started a rift between him and her father, when he was still alive, just to see which would win. Arthur had been just young and cocky enough to think that he could win, even though he wasn’t really even sure what he had been fighting about. And, of course, it had led to arguments all around, that had also included Uther. And that - well that was just taking it a bit too far, wasn’t it?
Or the time she’d confessed her undying love to him. In the middle of the work Christmas party. That she hadn’t been invited to. Because they were broken up. Of course, when she threw an epic-sized temper tantrum when he tried to send her on her way, he called her a child. And that, in turn, had caused a massive ruckus that had, once again, involved Uther.
Arthur grimaced internally. No, he had definitely not made a mistake.
"Arthur?" she asked, when he hadn’t answered her.
Arthur shook his head. "Call Catrina and have her schedule a time for me to meet with Uther before the day is out."
Viv jotted something down in the small, wire-bound, black book she carried with her everywhere. Arthur tried not to roll his eyes, because it was a fairly simple message that didn’t really need documenting, but left her to her ways. Of course, he was assuming she was writing down his instructions, but knowing Viv the way he did, it was probably something for her grocery list or which pair of Prada shoes she wanted to get that weekend.
"She’ll want to know what it’s regarding," she said, looking up.
Arthur sighed. Yes, she would. "Tell her it’s about the Black file." When Vivian’s left eyebrow rose dramatically, Arthur added, "Tell her I said that Father will just have to get over it. It’s time to talk about it."
Vivian snorted, but jotted more notes in her book. "Anything else?" she asked when she’d finished.
"Yeah," Arthur said, already distracted by the three additional emails that had come through in the time it had taken him to talk to her. "Make me another coffee, get Paul to restock the water in my fridge and, for God’s sake, bring me some Nurofen."
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Merlin sat in his exceptionally hard chair at his desk with his head in his hands, massaging his thundering temples, while his class worked in the lab. He knew he should be walking around, monitoring their progress and answering questions and commenting on their good work, but he just didn’t have it in him.
And besides, it’s not like they were going to blow up the classroom today. The lab was ridiculously easy and only required a few weights, a couple of beakers, measuring tools and some sodium chloride.
Of course, it was far from the experiment he’d originally been planning to do today. They were far past this sort of elementary chemistry, but after barely making it into the building before his students that morning, and not having a single thing set up, Merlin had stuck his hand in a drawer of old handouts, pulled out the first thing that had enough copies to give to all the students today and said that it was "a refresher" assignment. The sad part about it was that Merlin didn’t even have it in him to feel bad that they were doing something far below their actual level of knowledge. He didn’t have the strength to focus on the lesson plan he’d made for the day, and made an executive decision they’d do it the following week.
Merlin groaned when one of the girls slammed their book shut. Then and there, he decided that he was never, ever, evereverevereverever going to let Will and Gwaine talk him into going out on a school night ever again. It was just not worth it.
Not to mention coming into work hungover was wholly unprofessional. He was counting his lucky stars that Dr. Nimueh, the school’s scary headmistress, was at a conference this week. Everyone else in the school seemed to like him - teachers, lunchroom staff, and even the caretakers - but Dr. Nimueh was dead set on hating him. Merlin was about ninety-eight percent sure that if theboard of governors hadn’t been the ones to make the final decision to hire him, he’d never have have got the position.
In his defense, though, Dr. Nimueh didn’t seem to like anyone. Every smile she gave - which were few and far between - looked calculating and evil, maybe even slightly maniacal, and a lifted eyebrow was enough to make you contemplate the state of your affairs.
Another of Merlin’s students slammed her book closed - the universal signal that class was almost over - and he rubbed at his aching eyes. When he opened them, he lifted his head just enough to look at the class through slits and said weakly, "Read chapter six this weekend and ready yourself for the experiment found on page 230. We’ll be doing it on Monday morning." The girls shuffled feet and rustled paper as they wrote down the assignment - quietly, bless them - and then the bell toned, releasing the first block of classes. Merlin tried not to cringe at the high-pitched sound, but he feared that he’d done a poor job of it. "Have a good weekend, ladies."
He sat up a little straighter in his chair as the girls chatted their way out of the classroom. Several of them gave Merlin tentative smiles and wished him a happy weekend; Merlin smiled (grimaced) in return and prayed that they only thought he was sick, and not hungover.
At last the final girl had walked out of the room and the door clicked softly shut behind them. The blessed peace and quiet that hung in the room instantly made Merlin feel better. He could still faintly hear students in the hallways, talking and moving on to their next classes, but felt utter relief that his planning hour was early in the day.
He hadn’t had a chance to take anything for his pounding headache, as he’d been literally rushing out the door, half-dressed, and Gwaine calling after him from the couch to, "Have a great day, Casanova," so Merlin pulled open his left-hand top drawer and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the emergency bottle of water and sleeve of Nurofen tablets right on top. He quickly popped two tablets out of the sleeve and downed them with a gulp of lukewarm water and then another.
What he’d give for some coffee at that very moment.
Merlin stared at his desk contemplating whether he could pull off a nap during the next hour without making himself feel worse. He decided quickly that, in fact, no he would not be able to do that and opened the top of his laptop instead. As soon as it was connected to the Internet, he refreshed the already open Facebook page. He knew it wasn’t exactly the best idea he’d had in a while but honestly, he just didn’t give a damn.
Merlin clicked on on the icon that said he had three notifications; Freya had left a post on his Wall, someone Merlin didn’t know had made a comment in his favorite cooking group (not that Merlin did a whole lot of cooking - he left that up to Will, which wasn’t exactly a genius idea either - but he liked to think that maybe one day he’d really get into it) and Gwaine had tagged Merlin in multiple photos in the album "Merlin Emrys has a hole in his lip."
If it didn’t hurt so bad to do so, Merlin would have rolled his eyes... hard. Instead, he clicked on the album and started scrolling. All of the pictures were from the night before, and for the life of him, Merlin had absolutely no idea when Gwaine had taken any of them. He never once remembered him taking his phone out of his pocket, where it resided almost all of the time.
Merlin kept clicking forward quickly, his appearance becoming more disheveled and inebriated with each picture, until he got to the end, where Merlin was leaned over a rubbish bin outside and seemed to be hurling the contents of his stomach into it.
He absolutely did not remember that happening.
The caption said: "Merlin getting up close and personal with a trash can. Fortunately, it wasn’t his most intimate encounter all night."
Merlin wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but chalked it up to Gwaine being... well, Gwaine and clicked back to his news feed. The first item on his list, posted two minutes prior, was from Will to Gwaine. When Merlin read the post, he nearly choked on the sip of water he was taking.
Merlin instantly hit the "Like" button and opened the album once more to see that Gwaine had, in fact, tagged his pictures accordingly. He was only slightly annoyed that he hadn’t been given a more exciting name for tagging purposes.
Then again, knowing Gwaine, maybe Merlin was better off.
Merlin looked up when there was a tentative knock on his door and quickly pushed the lid closed on his laptop. He needn’t have panicked, however, when Lance DuLac - P.E. teacher, cross country coach, exceptionally nice guy and bloody Adonis - poked his head in and smiled. "Hey," he said softly and walked in before Merlin even had a chance to answer him.
Merlin’s return greeting froze on his lips and ended up coming out as a low moan of pleasure when he saw the two, extra tall coffee cups in Lance’s hands. Lance laughed, a sound that rumbled low in his throat (and the first time he’d heard it, had Merlin’s turning to complete jelly), and said, "I thought you'd need this."
Merlin loved how Lance always knew when he was hungover. And not for the first time, Merlin realized just how lucky he was in the friends department. Of course, it was bloody awful to be surrounded all the time by gorgeous men he couldn’t touch, when all he wanted to do was lick them from head to toe, but love was sort of a tramp like that.
"I would have brought them to you sooner, but I had a meeting with my department this morning." He passed one of the cups to Merlin before grabby hands could be made, and at this point, Merlin was really okay with making grabby hands. "Don’t worry, though. It’s piping hot, the way you like it, and has enough sugar and flavored cream in it to rot your teeth. Enjoy." Merlin took a sip and felt his eyelids close in ecstasy. "How are you feeling?" Lance asked, trying not to sound more than a little amused.
"Icky," Merlin grunted, even as the coffee worked through his body, and watched as Lance’s eyebrows quirked. He huffed. "Yes, Lance; don’t look at me like that. I’m icky. Icky, icky, icky." He paused, looking thoughtful. "And crabby." Lance’s lips twitched. "I know. It’s a pitiful combination."
"Yes. Very." Lance grinned at him and took a seat at one of the desks in front of him, taking a sip of his own coffee.
They sat in companionable silence for a while, Lance knowing that Merlin really needed the coffee to work its magic before venturing into other topics. Merlin liked everything about Lance and they had hit it off immediately when they’d met.
Merlin had just started at Balor as one of the teaching assistants in the P.E. department, and had absolutely no idea how to find anything - that included his own office. While quite literally wandering around the school, Lance found him. Merlin was, of course, in the complete opposite end of the school that he needed to be in, and Lance was kind enough to show him the way.
And really, that’s all it had taken. They chatted briefly on the way to Merlin’s office and then for a few more minutes after Lance had explained to Merlin how to get back out of the school and to the football field. It had been nothing earth-shattering or other-worldly. It had simply been instantaneous friendship.
And what made their friendship even easier was that even though Lance was practically God’s gift to drooling women - a fact even Gwaine, self-proclaimed (and rightly so) Sexiest Man Alive, agreed to - and even when he had told Lance that he was gay, Merlin hadn’t ever developed a crush on him. Sure, Merlin had no qualms against thinking about Lance naked and sweaty and the things he’d be more than willing to do with him if given the opportunity (and Lance just upped and decided that the straight and narrow was far too boring a life to live), Merlin just didn’t feel that way about him. It was actually refreshing, for once.
And that was exactly how their friendship was. Easy. Simple. No drama.
Merlin smiled at Lance. "Thank you, mate. You have no idea how badly I needed this."
"I had an inkling," Lance grinned and took another sip of his coffee. "Of course," he mused, "I should probably mention that I did see the pictures Gwaine posted this morning."
Merlin groaned. "Oh god."
"They were very enlightening."
"I hate you."
Lance laughed. "No you don’t."
Merlin shook his head. "I really don’t even know what happened last night. I have an unsettling feeling that I did something really ridiculous. Someone should stop me next time."
"Or not allow you out of the house in the first place?" Lance asked, a smirk on his lips.
"That, too." Merlin shook his head again and took a burning gulp from his coffee. "I vaguely remember using some poorly chosen pick-up lines," Merlin grimaced. "But for the life of me, I can’t remember to whom they were directed."
"Black hole?"
"More like a black crater-hole."
"That is not an actual thing, Merlin. And even if it were, I think a regular black hole is far bigger than a crater-hole, don’t you?" Merlin narrowed his eyes at him and Lance grinned back. "You really shouldn’t drink that much, you know?"
Merlin waved his hand dismissively. "I know," he muttered, then looked thoughtful before his eyes opened wide in shock. "God, Lance, I think I actually hit on a couple of girls!"
Lance forgot all about Merlin’s pounding headache when he threw his head back and burst into loud laughter.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
"Arthur," Uther Pendragon said as Arthur made his way into his ridiculously large office on the 48th floor. Before his arse hit the seat of the expensive, high-backed, extremely uncomfortable chair (the way Uther liked it; to keep unwanted "guests" from staying for too long) across from Uther, he asked, "What makes you think we need to re-evaluate our largest account? And I urge you to think before you speak, because I will not tolerate you wasting my time on this."
Arthur resisted the urge to do either of the two things he wanted to (which were 1. turn right back around and walk out of the office or 2. say loudly and sarcastically, "Why, it’s nice to see you, too, Father. Wonderful weather we’re having, don’t you think?") and instead sat fully down in the chair and counted to ten before saying, "She nearly got Percy killed last week."
Uther looked up from his computer and narrowed his eyes, "I don’t think I need to stress to you, Arthur, that Percival is far from dead."
Arthur resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Thanks to his Kevlar, of course. He does, however, have multiple wounds that are keeping him from working."
"We are a security company, Arthur. It comes with the territory. Percival knows that and I thought you did as well." Uther said it as if he was commenting about the easy flow of traffic on a mid-summer Sunday; bored.
Sweat beaded on Arthur’s brow. He avoided reaching up to brush at it and instead tried to will it away; it wouldn’t do for Uther to see how worked up he got whenever they had to have intense conversations about work (or anything, for that matter). This was not going to go well and Arthur knew it. And if if he could avoid the inevitable just a bit longer, he’d do it.
"Yes, Father, I’m well aware of this fact," Arthur replied, his voice as level and emotionless as he could make it. He had been aiming for Uther’s same bored tone, but knew he hadn’t hit it quite right. No matter how hard he tried (even when he didn’t want to be), he couldn’t be like his father. They were just two different people. It was too bad Uther couldn’t see that, as well.
"However," Arthur continued, "Percy is her twelfth detail in less than a month. If they’re not being shot at or suffering stab wounds to protect her, she’s filing complaints with the department about their lack of attentiveness, their overt affections, or her inability to - and I quote - ‘function like a normal human being because Owain’s stupidity flows by osmosis’."
Uther sighed and looked back over at his computer. "I fail to see your point, Arthur. And I suggest you make it soon."
"My point, Father," Arthur said, straightening his back and sitting toward the front of his seat, "is that if we have to keep reassigning her detail and/or replacing them because of sudden death," Uther scoffed at that, "we’re not going to have much of a company left."
Uther only cocked an eyebrow and pounded on a few of the keys on his keyboard. Arthur sat back again in his seat and forced himself not to rub at his pounding temples.
"And furthermore," he added, as a last minute thought. He told himself when he came in that he wouldn’t say anything, but now it needed to be done. Uther needed to see. "I’ve been getting a lot of questions about the type of people CSA is willing to secure. I know you and Morgause have a very hush-hush relationship in regards to her... career, but maybe it’s time I knew." Uther looked away from his computer once more and Arthur pressed on, not wanting to be interrupted yet. "I am the public face of the company and it’s exceptionally hard to run the public relationships department when I don’t even know what kind of relations we have with our own clients." Arthur sat forward in his seat again; a manoeuvre he’d learned from Uther that was used to drill his point home. "I can’t even begin to tell you the different rumours I’ve heard about the type of person Morgause is, or the type of business she runs."
Arthur narrowed his eyes at his father and he moved forward even further in his seat. He looked his father in the eye and said, very carefully, "If I knew, Father, it would be easier for me to either cover the truth or glorify it. When I don’t know a thing about it, I sound like I don’t know a thing about it and that causes more speculation in the media and confusion with our customers - large and small."
"Arthur," Uther started, but Arthur interrupted him.
"I fully understand that this is your company, Father, but at some you are going to have to trust me with this, don’t you think?"
Uther turned full in his seat, annoyance written all over his face, before he steepled his fingers in front of him and glared at Arthur. "This, Arthur, is not about trust or speculation or confusion. In fact, it’s not even so important that there should even be talk over the kind of work that Morgause does. I think that she just attracts trouble like a magnet."
Arthur sat back in his seat and crossed his legs and arms. Uther wasn’t going to tell him and that was just utterly ridiculous. He could make it sound completely unimportant all he wanted, but Arthur knew better. He was hiding something and he was determined to figure it out.
It upset him more, though, that his father obviously didn’t care enough about him or trust him enough to just tell him what was going on. Arthur didn’t feel good about that particular idea at all.
"Therefore, you’ll drop this whole Morgause issue and get back to your job," Uther finished, and Arthur hadn’t heard a single word of his speech; he knew it all by heart anyway. "Good day, Arthur."
And with that, Arthur was dismissed. As he pulled Uther’s office door shut behind him, Arthur schooled his face into a bored, straight line, and walked to the lift to go back down to his office.
He wasn’t going to let the issue go that easily, though.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
It was nearing 7:30 that evening when Arthur finally closed down his computer and let his head fall into his hands, rubbing at his eyes and feeling bone-deep weariness after an entire day of work. He’d only moved from his desk a couple of times all day, and had even eaten his lunch at his desk when his lunch meeting had called to cancel. His bones were stiff and he was feeling so much older than his thirty years.
When had it come to this? When had his life turned into long days at the office, sitting at his desk for hours on end, and going out with his friends maybe once a month? Was this how it was going to be for the rest of his life?
Arthur pressed the heel of his palms into his eyes until white lights popped behind his lids.
"You look like shit."
Arthur lifted his head to see Morgana standing just inside his door, looking smart and crisp in a black pencil skirt and white oxford combo (that he was sure was Valentino or Versace), dark hair hanging down in loose curls, green eyes covered but far from invisible behind square, dark-rimmed glasses, and black, scary-looking, spiked Manolo heels. She looked like she’d just walked out of a magazine and Arthur kind of wanted to hate her for it. He never had perfected the art of keeping his attire sharp all day long like Morgana had. Damn her.
"Thanks, dear sister," he clipped and got up from his desk. He made to reach for his suit jacket, but decided that a good stretch was a better idea. He really was getting too old for this.
As he stretched out his muscles, like he would getting ready for a footie match with his mates on the weekend (that he didn’t really want to think about right now, because it had been far too long since he’d been to one of those), Morgana walked into his office, the usual click-click of her shoes muffled by the lush carpet, and perched on the arm of the couch in the corner.
"You’re welcome," she said, smirking. "You’ve been working extra late the last few weeks."
Arthur nodded and started pulling down his shirt sleeves and doing up the buttons. "It’s one of those things that happens when your largest client somehow manages to have multiple assassination attempts against her every other day." Arthur pulled on his jacket and said, as sarcastically as he could, "Inquiring minds want to know."
Morgana was inspecting her perfectly manicure fingernails. "Hmm. So I see." She looked up at Arthur and her face was serious. "I heard about your chat with Uther today."
"You mean to say that you heard I had a chat with him," Arthur responded, forgoing the tightening of his tie. He’d like to say it was because he wanted to pull off the I’m fresh off work from a long hard day, but I still know how to look sexy look, but in reality, he was just too tired to care at the moment. "Because I know that no matter how many conspiracy theories you have against Catrina, she doesn’t have Father’s office bugged."
Morgana smirked. "Everyone seems to know that but you and Uther, Arthur. You should get with the programme," she said. "And no, that’s not what I meant to say. I had a chat with Uther today, as well."
"About?"
Arthur picked up his satchel and made to walk out of the office, hoping that it would motivate his sister to go as well. He needed to leave and he didn’t want to talk about Uther anymore. Arthur had spent a full hour after he’d left his father’s office scowling at the paper files that he had access to on Morgause Black. However, the only information really in them, outside of her security detail bios and schedules, were her filed complaints and his random notes. An Internet search had only brought up news articles speculating the kind of work that Morgause did - which usually had something to do with firearms dealings, drug smuggling and international terrorism in general - but, as it was all just hearsay and not based on any real facts, Arthur knew he could only take each article with a grain of salt. He had even sat down and called multiple contacts he had in the security business around Europe and a few in America, where he knew Morgause had lived for about ten years, but the most helpful response he received was that they "weren’t at liberty to discuss any past or present clients, no matter how crazy they are."
And really, that hadn’t helped Arthur at all.
Morgana placed a hand gently on his forearm to stop him. "It’s not just you," she said, softly. "I’m concerned about her account, as well." Arthur just stared at her for a moment, waiting for her to continue, but she didn’t.
"Why?" Arthur asked. "You don’t have to deal with her."
Morgana sighed. "No, but I do have to deal with the backlash in HR. Did you know that three of her last four detail have come to me and asked for extended leaves? Leon had to go to Uther last week for permission to pick up new personal security detail just to help cover her account. We’re not equipped for that kind of hiring in this economy, Arthur. And I would say that it’s ninety-eight percent related to the Black file."
"And I’d say it’s one hundred percent related," Arthur said and sat in the chair by his door, his body attempting to give up on him at any given second. Running a full day, on a Friday of all times, on only an hour of sleep and loads of caffeine was probably not the best idea. Arthur briefly wondered if he’d be better off taking a taxi home and coming back in the morning to get his car. But when he remembered the busy weekend they had ahead of them with the move, he thought better of it. He didn’t want his car here all weekend.
"What did he say?" Arthur asked.
Morgana waved her hand dismissively. "Probably the exact same thing he said to me. That it wasn’t that big a deal and to leave it alone." Morgana smirked. "Of course, I probably did a fair bit more yelling at him than you did."
Arthur laughed, despite his annoyance with the whole ordeal with Uther. "I’m sure you did. You two always have been at odds with each other. I’m sorry I missed it."
"I’m sure it’s entertaining from an outsider’s point of view," Morgana said, matter-of-fact. "Who am I kidding? It’s entertaining for me, too."
Arthur smiled at his sister. "I’m sure." He got up from the chair and asked, "Dinner?"
Morgana got up as well and walked out of his office with him. "No," she answered, as Arthur shut the lights down and set the alarm, locking the door behind him. "I have to get home. Leon said something about him spending the entire day in the kitchen and that I’m a terrible girlfriend, even if I am hot, because I can’t get home at a normal time. Next time, though."
Arthur called for the lift and rolled his eyes. "He’s certainly turned into the domestic diva since the accident and surgery kept him home those few months, hasn’t he? I should see about having his man-card revoked."
Morgana winked at him as Arthur got on the lift and she kept on to the stairs to go down one floor to her office. Just as the doors were closing, she said, "Don’t worry - domesticated of not, he’s all man, little brother."
Arthur shook his head when the door closed. "She is a sick woman."
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Merlin walked in his door that night to find Will and Gwaine sitting in front of the television playing the Wii, drinking beer and having one of their famous insult competitions. In the past Merlin had, on multiple occasions, told them to just whip them out right then since it was obvious that was going to be the only thing that would stop them from the constant bickering.
Unfortunately for Merlin (or was that fortunately?), one night when he said that, both Will and Gwaine were spectacularly pissed and did exactly that. Measurements had been made while Merlin had tried his very hardest to not look.
Merlin Emrys had totally looked.
They had been exactly the same size.
Things had never been the same.
"Merlin!" Gwaine called. "Join us! Will needs someone he can actually beat at Smash Brothers!"
Merlin rolled his eyes and walked into the living room, dropped into his favorite chair, kicked off his shoes and threw his bag full of essays that needed correcting onto the floor beside him. "Oh, yes," Will said. "You’re so funny, dickhead." Will flashed a quick look over at Merlin. "You look like shit."
"Nice to see you, too," Merlin said and contemplated starting on his correcting right that second. He knew if he put it off too long, he’d end up leaving it until late Sunday night again, and then he’d be exhausted come Monday morning. It was not something he was looking forward to. He just really didn’t have it in him right now. He was still feeling like crap since the night before and he had practice with the girls Saturday morning.
No, it would be best if he just took himself right off to bed and slept for a solid 12 hours.
Will paused the game and looked over at Gwaine. Merlin saw the smirk and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one bit. But before he could move, they had both jumped off the couch and were attacking him in his chair, Gwaine on his lap and Will hanging from his neck, each of them punching softly, slapping lightly or tickling mercilessly.
"Oh Merlin!"
"Merlin, you’re so cute, Merlin."
"Merlin, don’t be so sad!"
"Sad Panda, Merlin? No sad panda!"
"We have missed you so much!"
"Merlin."
"Merlin!"
"MERLIN!"
When they finally got off of him, elbows and palms digging in for leverage (and good measure), Merlin was thoroughly annoyed, but laughing just the same. "I hate you both," he said, chucking each of his shoes at them in turn and missing them each by a mile. "You suck and I’m going to bed."
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Three hours later, however, Merlin hadn’t moved from his very comfortable place in his chair, nor was he sleeping. Instead, he had a Wii controller in his hand and was being sufficiently thrashed by both Will and Gwaine in Smash Brothers.
They had got take-away again - pizza this time, which had somehow strewn itself over multiple surfaces in the living room, including the floor (Merlin Emrys is not cleaning that up tomorrow.) - and Gwaine had actually taken a few moments to go out and get more beer.
Of course, he had drank the last one, and house rules stated that last drank is next bought. However, Will and Merlin weren’t going to tell Gwaine that they had a couple of beers stashed in the crisper drawer for such times when Gwaine happened to be over and drinking it all. After all, where was the fun in that?
Merlin was feeling loose-limbed and calm, but completely dead tired. He hadn’t got nearly enough sleep the night before (Merlin Emrys really isn’t going out on a school night again.) and had suffered through the long and exhausting Friday on top of his massive hangover. He had a right to be tired.
Merlin reached for his beer, losing a life in the process. Will shot him a look and rolled his eyes, but Merlin just shrugged and took a swig from the bottle. He definitely shouldn’t have been drinking (no one had ever accused Merlin of making good decisions when Will and Gwaine were around), but it was Friday night and Merlin was still in his 20’s.
Barely.
Merlin lost his last life (not at all on purpose - Merlin Emrys never loses on purpose.) and dropped his controller down onto the coffee table beside him. As he finished off his beer, he watched Will lose to Gwaine - like always.
"Dude!" Gwaine shouted, jumping up from his seat and throwing his hands in the air. "I am the champion!" Will loudly tried to argue that the only reason he had lost was because he’d been distracted by Merlin’s stupid pouting ("HEY!"), but Gwaine just broke out into an even louder, very off-key, exceptionally slow version of Queen’s "We Are the Champions."
It wasn’t enough to shut Will up - who could get far louder than Merlin cared to deal with when they were sitting so close together - and as the volume level in the living room continued to increase, Merlin decided it was a good time to bow out and head to bed.
Will and Gwaine didn’t even notice.