Just Holding Your Hand
Title: Just Holding Your Hand
Summary: In which there are copious jazz and 40s references, Elena is Arthur's BFF, and Gwaine is Jane Bennett. Yet it's somehow not crack.
A/N: Spoilers for 3x04 and 3x06! For this prompt on kinkme_merlin . I wanted to write Elena/Gwaine but didn't trust myself to write it in the foreground, so ... um, have a jazz-bar-Pride-and-Prejudice AU?
Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin.
Arthur is pressed against a wall in the gents’ of his favourite pub when his phone starts playing something poppy and ridiculous and not at all appropriate for the situation. For one second, he thinks about ignoring it, because he knows he’s late, but he knows that Elena won’t be blaming him for being late, which means she’s having an emergency. Again. He sighs and detaches--oh, shit, what’s his name?--well, he detaches someone’s lips from his neck and grimaces an apology while flipping the phone open. “This had better be good.”
“Arthur,” Elena hisses. She’s already at The Dragon, judging by the level of noise in the background. “Arthur, where are you? Gwen’s still backstage with Morgana and I need rescuing.”
He takes a moment to think wistfully of how things could proceed, but he’s known Elena even longer than he’s known Morgana (which is saying something), and when she says she needs rescuing, she invariably means it. “I’ll be there in ten. Try not to do anything ... encouraging.”
“Arse,” she says, and then gasps. “Oh bollocks, here he comes again, who said I wanted a drink with an umbrella in--”
The line goes dead, and Arthur leans back against the wall. His companion is looking supremely unimpressed and doing the buttons on his shirt back up. “Boyfriend?”
Arthur shrugs. “Best friend. What can you do?” The other man just glares and starts washing his hands. Arthur spares another moment to regret the rapid downturn of his evening before rushing out, slamming a fiver on the bar for the lager he’d been drinking before the interlude in the gents’ and hailing a cab.
Eight minutes later, he’s out front of The Dragon, and he texts Elena, who meets him at the door with an attempt at a hug that ends with her face planted in his chest because she trips at the last minute. “Oh thank God,” she whispers while he pats her back.
Arthur glances at the bar, where there’s a man with greasy hair and a ridiculous moustache watching them with narrowed eyes. Elena sure knows how to pick winners. “Well, what am I tonight? Jealous boyfriend or overprotective brother?”
Elena pulls back to scrutinize him before rolling her eyes. “You’ve got a hickey and stubble burn, Arthur, I don’t think the boyfriend trick will fly. Filthy hussy,” she adds while Arthur attempts to adjust his collar.
“I am your knight in shining armour and you know it,” he says, fixing his hair and putting an arm around her. “Now, do we need to go over to your admirer?”
“I left my purse.” Elena gives him a rueful smile and tugs him across the bar, smoky with the strong scent of the clove cigarettes that Morgana sometimes smokes and full of people in too much eyeliner. One of them’s even wearing a beret.
“Who’s this?” asks the man with the moustache when Elena grabs her purse and prepares to retreat.
“I’m her brother, and this is a family-only gathering. Bugger off,” says Arthur, and ignores the man’s narrowed eyes to signal Gaius, who’s ancient but still tends bar at his own establishment, for a pint for himself and a glass of wine for Elena. She gives him a sheepish smile and retreats to a table, and Arthur gives Moustache Man a steely glower before grabbing his drinks and following her. “You certainly do attract the best sort,” he informs her.
“Oh yes, and I’m sure that whoever gave you that mark was a perfect gentleman,” she returns, and before he can give her the scathing retort she deserves Gwen emerges from the back room and spots them. She gives a relieved sigh and turns around to shout something behind her, probably telling Morgana that her truant brother has arrived at last.
Morgana’s been fretting about this gig for weeks--after Cenred and Morgause had decamped for Spain (Arthur still tells her he told her so on occasion, just because he so rarely gets to do it), she had to put a new band together quickly if she wanted to keep her venues, and he knows she’s probably been working the new musicians to the bone. Arthur spares a second to feel a bit guilty for being late and leaving Gwen to calm her down before deciding Gwen probably would be calming her down anyway. “They’re starting in five,” says Gwen, and it’s too gentle to be a scold but it feels like one nonetheless. “And Gwaine has already had two pints, so Morgana’s thinking about killing him, but he swears up and down he keeps the rhythm better pissed. And Merlin just threw up, poor thing. It’s his first professional gig, even though he’s been playing for ages.”
Arthur swaps a long-suffering look with Elena. “I didn’t want to know that. I don’t know him, I don’t want to know about his vomit, simple as that.”
Gwen tuts at him and bustles off to the bar to get her own drink. “She is meant to be baking biscuits for loads of children and hauling them about to footie games,” Elena decides, not for the first time, and Arthur silently agrees, not for the first time. He will never understand how she and Morgana got involved.
When Gwen returns, they all make polite conversation about their weeks and Gwen very carefully doesn’t mention the love bite that is probably only getting darker on Arthur’s skin, though it’s obvious she notices it. He’s very glad when Morgana comes out, saxophone on her hip, followed by two men Arthur’s never seen.
One is scruffy and grinning and stumbling a bit, so Arthur decides he must be Gwaine, who plays better drunk. Morgana gives him a narrow-eyed look as he seats himself behind a drum kit a good deal more complex than Cenred’s, but he smirks back without seeming intimidated, so he immediately rises a few points in Arthur’s estimation. The other one, on the other hand, is paper-white and shaking visibly, eyes wide and glazed-over in the manner of a startled fawn, an impression only strengthened by his gangly, skinny frame. Morgana actually pats his hand as he shuffles by her towards the piano in a disturbingly maternal manner. She must have learned the move from Gwen, there’s no other explanation.
“Welcome to The Dragon, everyone,” says Morgana into the microphone, to applause from everyone who can remember to do anything but ogle her cleavage. Arthur takes a long pull from his pint. “I’m Morgana, and these are Gwaine and Merlin, having their debut on this stage. Give them a hand!”
And the evening begins.
*
It takes Arthur two songs and most of his pint and Elena attracting three more unwashed miscreants to their table for him to realize that Bambi (okay, okay, Merlin) is really fucking good. Not that Morgana isn’t, of course--her smoky voice and fabulous playing would be (and has been in the past) more than enough to carry along incompetent backup, and he doesn’t say that as an adoring brother--and this Gwaine can apparently play with a few pints in him, but after one last terrified look at the audience, Merlin had proceeded to ignore them to start playing.
He notices when they start “Misty,” always one of Morgana’s favourites, and one where she will let any pianist she trusts have a solo. It’s her first gig with Merlin, and he knows her, so when the break comes he expects a soulful saxophone solo, but instead there’s the rich sound of the piano improvising around the chords while Morgana smiles and sways, eyes closed, and it’s--good.
Merlin’s still tense and pale, but his eyes are closed and he’s smiling, just a little, enough to seem mysterious if he were trying, though Arthur thinks it’s natural and that’s what fascinates him for a second until he glances down at Merlin’s hands and finds himself transfixed. He isn’t precise, he’s no virtuoso--she had that with Morgause, who’d been brought up on Mozart and Rachmaninoff--but he caresses the keys, holding notes almost-too-long until Gwaine’s steady beat drags him off like he’s reluctant to leave them.
“Can’t you see that you’re leading me on?” Morgana sings, and he answers her with the piano, moving across the whole keyboard, spanning across the hellish splashes of notes that are jazz chords with what seems like no effort at all. “But it’s just what I want you to do ...”
“Oh, honestly,” mutters Elena three songs later when Morgana is playing something syncopated and fast and Arthur is still staring at Merlin’s hands darting over the keys, never hitting a wrong note even though he must be making up at least half the part.
“Shut up,” says Arthur, almost under his breath in hopes that Gwen won’t notice, but of course Gwen notices everything and proceeds to look between he and Merlin and beam she’s never been happier. Arthur decides he may as well enjoy that, because Morgana will gut him rather than let him date one of her bandmates again (it isn’t his fault Lancelot was gorgeous, and equally isn’t his fault that Lancelot wanted to join Greenpeace).
“This is going to be a disaster,” Elena whispers, and he ignores her and claps as the song finishes.
A few more instrumental numbers later, Morgana grins into the microphone. “Now, my mouth is getting tired,” she begins, and waits for the whistles to die down before continuing, “so I’m going to let the gentlemen have a number and take a bit of a break.” With that, she surrenders the microphone to Gwaine, who’s left his drum kit, and slinks off the stage.
She looks like a noir femme fatale, and Arthur would tell her so if Elena wouldn’t mock him for eternity about his love for The Maltese Falcon. “You sound wonderful,” Gwen says the second Morgana reaches them, standing to kiss her girlfriend’s cheek.
Elena gives Morgana a smile. “The new band is fabulous.”
“Aren’t we?” says Morgana, unabashed, and sits on Gwen’s lap instead of in the empty seat, producing a cigarette holder because she likes looking like a ‘40s stereotype when she’s at gigs. “The lads are wonderful, and Gwaine has a lovely voice.” She gestures to the stage, where “the lads” are playing something that sounds like Cole Porter. “What do you think, Arthur?”
Elena snickers, but Arthur does his best to look lofty and disinterested, despite the disconcertingly wide grin that’s spread across Merlin’s face while Gwaine sings ... ah, it’s “Let’s Misbehave.” “Perhaps not as sophisticated as Cenred and Morgause, but they seem good sorts.”
Gwen and Elena give him matching looks of appalled disbelief, but Morgana just produces one of her dazzling smiles and lets a passing man light her cigarette. “Of course they do. That’s why you’ve been staring at Merlin all night like he’s Superman and you’re Lois Lane.”
“That is patently untrue,” says Elena, and Arthur gives Morgana a smug look before she continues. “Merlin is Spiderman, of course. Arthur would be a very pretty MJ.”
“You are all ridiculous,” says Arthur, and goes to the bar for another pint before they can mock him any more, Gwaine’s voice on the line “We’re merely mammals” following him as he goes.
“What do you think of the new band?” Gaius asks as he fills Arthur’s glass. “Merlin’s my nephew, you know. I gave him Morgana’s name when I heard she was looking for a pianist.”
“He’s very good,” says Arthur, turning around in time to see Merlin regain his Bambi look when Gwaine finishes the song with a flourish and makes grand gestures in Merlin’s direction. “Isn’t he used to performance? He seems a bit ... shy.”
“He’s not conservatory-trained, if that’s what you mean. He’ll be all right in a few weeks, though.” Gaius hands his pint over. “You ought to stop by more often, Arthur. How’s your father?”
Arthur sighs. Queries about Uther are half the reason he doesn’t come to the bar more often. “He’s ... himself, as always. What more is there to say?” Gaius raises an eyebrow. “I’ve got to go back to my table before Elena gets herself kidnapped by a motorbiker with bad teeth, I think that’s the next step down the scale.” He doesn’t wait for Gaius’s answer, just flees back to his table because Morgana has returned to the stage and Elena and Gwen are less inclined to mock him shamelessly when she’s not around.
He stays for the rest of the set and part of the next, but it’s been a long week at work, so he ducks out before midnight when he’s caught himself watching Merlin’s hands dance across the keys one time too many.
“Come back next week,” says Gwen before he goes, “they’re playing again.”
Elena just smirks.
*
Arthur doesn’t usually go to many of Morgana’s gigs--his attendance is the exception, not the rule, in fact. He goes to her first concert in a new venue, or her first with a new group of musicians, and every once in a while another one, but he’s never gone to two in as many weeks, which is why he understands the surprise on her face when he arrives at The Dragon the next Friday, Elena at his heels.
Gwen isn’t there this time, it seems--she’s a nurse, so sometimes she works odd shifts and misses Morgana’s performances, so Arthur and Elena get a table in a corner where they won’t constantly be inhaling smoke and she goes to buy their first round before her incredible ability to attract arseholes kicks in.
The cheer is louder when the band troupes out this time, and Merlin still looks like a terrified baby animal, but he’s shaking less, and Gwaine isn’t tottering around as much, either. Morgana is as icy and lovely as ever, in a dress she probably went back in time and beat Audrey Hepburn to death for. Once she’s sure she has the audience’s undivided attention, she smirks at Merlin, who gives her an instant and blinding grin before bursting into a sweep of chords that goes all the way up the piano and then back down, looking at Morgana the whole time before she bursts into “Maybe This Time,” a song he’s heard her say a hundred times before is too trite to be borne in any situation.
Merlin’s playing and Morgana’s ironic smile keep it from sounding overdone, and Elena’s not the only one with a smile on her face by the end of it. She seems, horrifyingly, to be smiling at Gwaine especially, and while Arthur will grant that he is at least Elena’s age and doesn’t seem a complete arse, his huge shit-eating grin is not exactly comforting.
This time, they stay the whole night, Morgana stopping by to see them during breaks while Gwaine makes a beeline for the bar and Merlin retreats backstage with his baby forest animal look on again. Arthur watches Merlin more than he would care to admit, how he modulates wrong notes into the right chords so quickly it seems intentional, almost never glancing down at what his fingers are doing.
At the end of the show, it’s last orders and Arthur is lounging lazily in his chair, not quite ready to go out in the night’s chill to hail a cab for Elena and himself. He pours the last of their pitcher of beer into his glass while Gaius cleans the bar, and Morgana raises her eyebrows when she comes out of the back room bundled up in her coat, trailing her bandmates. Merlin seems to have acquired a raggedy scarf. “Still here, Arthur? You’ve never been such an aficionado of jazz before.”
“You seem to play less of your complicated arrhythmic nonsense with these two. It’s quite refreshing.” She makes a face at him, and he holds his hand out to the men behind her. “Arthur Pendragon.”
Gwaine shakes his hand first, although he’s looking at Elena sidelong while he does it. “Gwaine, though I guess you’ve picked that up from the patter up on stage.” He takes Elena’s hand without her offering it and actually kisses it, to her wide-eyed shock. Arthur glares at him. “And who are you?”
She answers, blushing, and Arthur stands up to shrug on his jacket before realizing that Merlin is still standing there looking worn-out but not terrified for once. Arthur raises an eyebrow and waits for him to stammer his way through an introduction like Gwen, but Merlin just produces the echo of the grins he gives Morgana on stage. “Merlin. You’re Morgana’s brother, right?”
“Foster brother,” they say at the same time, but Morgana lets Arthur continue. “I’m flattered she’s talked about me.”
Merlin replies with a smirk that makes him look a great deal less like Bambi, and Arthur’s momentarily distracted with realizing that he’s actually attractive and not just amazing on the piano. “Complaints, mostly. And warning us to stay away from you unless we want our ears talked off about stocks and bonds and noir films.”
Arthur gives Morgana a dirty look and makes a note to remind her that he can tell them all sorts of stories about her as well. The one where she almost inadvertently kidnapped a little boy, for instance. (He hopes it was inadvertent, at least. Morgana’s going to build herself a gingerbread house when she’s older.) “You can’t play jazz unless you have at least a bit of an appreciation for the feeling of the era,” he says.
Elena and Gwaine, he realizes with a sinking heart, are still making inane comments at each other while exchanging flirtatious glances. He decides to drag her away before she can do anything irrevocable. Gwaine seems the sort to love them and leave them. “Come on, time to get back,” he says with a wave at Merlin.
“Maybe I’ll see you next week,” Gwaine says to Elena, smiling at her in a way obviously calculated to melt any resistance she might have managed to muster.
“Maybe you will,” says Morgana, looking at Arthur, because she knows he’s got a weak spot where Elena is concerned and that he’ll never let her come alone.
“Looking forward to it,” says Elena, and Arthur drags her out, pretending all the while that he doesn’t have his own reason to come back.
*
Next Friday, sure enough he’s back at The Dragon, where Gaius raises his eyebrows as Arthur collects his and Elena’s drinks. Gwen’s back in her usual spot, smiling at him wide and sweet and a bit wicked because Morgana’s probably been filling her head with tales that are patently untrue.
They stay late again, and Gwaine flirts shamelessly with Elena and catches her when she trips over a barstool on their way out. Arthur catches Merlin looking a few times, but mostly Merlin’s talking to Gwen, as apparently they knew each other a bit before Merlin joined the band. Morgana raises her eyebrows at him, but Arthur mostly ignores her.
The next several Fridays are taken up with jazz at The Dragon, and other regulars are starting to notice them. Morgana’s playing less and less of the fancy, incomprehensible instrumentals that marked the old group, and more old standards, which Gwaine and Merlin both seem to enjoy. Every week, Merlin loses his terror a little sooner, and every week, Arthur finds himself mesmerized by the way Merlin’s hands dance across the keys, the little private smile he gets on his face when he plays something perfectly.
Arthur would be content to keep going to the gigs and maybe eventually win Merlin over enough to ask him on a date, but there’s a blot on the experience: Elena and Gwaine. One night they’d all gone to a club after The Dragon closed, where Gwaine proceeded to get pissed and vomit on the sidewalk, and Elena had been the one to take care of him, never one to be fazed by disgusting things. After that, Gwaine’s flirting had got all the worse. Arthur tries hard to see Gwaine as anything but a playboy, but he’s still not found any evidence that he really likes Elena, and Elena is far too apt to fall for men who break her heart.
He talks his father out of a pair of tickets to an art opening Elena’s been dying to go to one Friday and talks her into missing jazz night, which is getting more popular every week. “There will be other gigs,” he reminds her, and doesn’t tell her he intends for their Friday nights to be busy until both of them have forgotten the routine they’ve let themselves get into.
Morgana calls him on a Saturday morning after he’s missed the third Friday in a row. “We debuted ‘Over the Rainbow’ last night after Elena begged for it,” she rebukes him, “and neither of you showed up.”
“I’ve never been to your gigs that regularly, as you recall,” he returns, starting up the coffee machine. “If you’re languishing without your most faithful groupies, of course ...”
“Piss off,” she snaps. “Gwaine looks like a kicked puppy, Merlin is pouting, and you haven’t even got the decency to come up with good excuses.”
Arthur sighs. “I never said I would come to all of your gigs, Morgana. As it happens, I’m pretty sure Gwaine will break poor Elena’s heart if they’re allowed to continue on as they were, and I’d rather not have that happen.”
“Has it occurred to you to let Elena make her own choices? Being protective is one thing ...” She stops and lets him fill in the rest of the lecture for himself. “And what about Merlin?”
“What about him?” he asks, very carefully not thinking about Merlin’s sure hands on the piano, following Morgana far better than Morgause ever had.
“You can’t be an idiot forever,” Morgana says, and hangs up.
His father calls the next Sunday afternoon, after Arthur again convinces Elena that seeing a limited-run movie is more important than going to jazz night yet again. “I’m stuck at the office, but I need to send something to Gaius.”
The pause that follows means You are expected to take it to him on my behalf. “Can’t you have it messengered?”
“The services I trust don’t run on Sundays. Just drop it by The Dragon, have a drink while you’re there, Arthur.”
Arthur reminds himself that it’s not Friday night and he has no reason to be avoiding the place. “Fine, father, I’ll be at the office in twenty minutes.”
It’s an hour before he finishes running all over the city and makes it to The Dragon with a folder full of papers that are apparently too important to wait for Monday morning. There are a few people scattered around the bar, nursing pints or plates of chips--and of course, because his life can’t be easy, Merlin’s up on the stage, playing solo, a tune Arthur half-remembers. His eyes are closed and he’s smiling and Arthur’s distracted by his hands again, spanning the octaves as he wanders off into improv.
Gaius clears his throat. “Uther said you might be coming.”
Arthur straightens his shoulders, unwilling to admit that he was staring. “Yes, I brought that folder. Mind drawing me a pint? I might sit for a while, nothing better to do.”
“Yes,” says Gaius, tone dry and face straight, “I don’t imagine you do.”
He refuses to be embarrassed, so he sits at his usual table and watches Merlin play, enjoying the opportunity to do so without three people raising their eyebrows and mocking him while he does so. When Merlin looks around after one song, regaining his Bambi look, he notices Arthur and gives him an uncertain smile. Arthur waves back, and is surprised when Merlin comes over to talk to him after another song. He looks assessing instead of cheerful, but Arthur gives his best smile and is rewarded when Merlin speaks.
“I’m due a break and Gaius is distracted at the bar--mind if I join?”
“Go ahead. How long have you been playing Sunday afternoons?”
“Not long. Gaius just suggested it last week, actually, and Morgana said it would be good for my stage fright.”
There’s a long, slightly painful silence while Arthur realizes how little he and Merlin have actually conversed. “You seem to be doing quite well,” he offers, hating how pompous he sounds, and scrambles to cover it up with anything else. “How much longer are you working? Would you want to get dinner after, maybe?”
Merlin cocks his head. “You stopped coming to Friday nights.”
Arthur blinks and wonders what that has to do with anything. “I’m busy. Morgana must have told you I don’t often come to her gigs.”
There’s another pause, and when Merlin speaks again he sounds a great deal colder. “Morgana tells me a lot of things. Gwaine’s one of my best friends, you know.” Arthur winces and then tries to pretend he did no such thing. “And he’d treat Elena well, no matter what you think. So no, I won’t go to dinner, because I don’t make a habit of spending time with arses who judge my friends without getting to know them.” Merlin stands and leans forward, lips almost brushing Arthur’s ear. “I won’t play the sap for you, sweetheart.”
With that, he heads back to the piano, leaving Arthur staring after him feeling like a complete idiot, wondering when Merlin figured out how much he loves The Maltese Falcon. Merlin’s playing again before he moves, lush crisp chords turning into a familiar melody. “You must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss ...”
Arthur stands up, pays Gaius, and walks out.
Of all the gin joins, of all the towns, in all the world ...
*
The next Friday night, Arthur pretends to be sick, and when Elena offers to come over and make him chicken soup, he gently reminds her that last time she tried she set her sleeve and his oven mitts on fire before sending her off to jazz night at The Dragon.
Elena calls the next morning, practically trilling her delight. “Gwaine asked me to dinner! Tonight! And he said he missed me, Arthur. You don’t mind my missing movie night, do you? Since you’re sick anyway?”
Arthur produces a cough on cue that he hopes doesn’t sound horribly false. “You go ahead. I’m glad you like him. Call me if you need rescuing.”
For a second, the line’s so quiet he thinks they’ve been cut off. “I won’t, I think. He seems a good sort.”
“I’ll break his kneecaps if he isn’t,” says Arthur, and coughs again for good measure.
“Merlin asked after you,” she blurts after another moment, and Arthur freezes. “Seemed surprised when I showed up without you. Did you two ... fight, or something? Is that why we started missing?”
“We hardly know each other well enough to fight,” Arthur scoffs.
“You’ll come next week,” she says, and hangs up on him, only to call back ten minutes later to ask what she should wear on her date with Gwaine.
To Arthur’s embarrassment, Elena calls on Sunday to talk about how lovely Gwaine was, and how fun he is, and to say they have a date on Tuesday, and he pretends to be recovering from his convenient illness and takes her for coffee so they can talk about it in detail, since he at least owes her that. She’s more than happy to talk about Gwaine till the end, when she mentions Merlin again in the least subtle manner possible. “You did fight, or something,” she accuses him. “Gwaine says he talked to Merlin about it, and he was just as close-mouthed, and Merlin will talk about anything to anyone.”
“Yes, well, not to me,” says Arthur, and orders another coffee before her looks can get too pitying. “But if it will make you feel better, I’ll come on Friday.”
Elena beams. “And will you actually talk to Gwaine, instead of glaring at him?”
“If I must.”
“And you’ll be nice to Merlin?”
“If he’s nice to me.”
She rolls her eyes at him. “Whatever you did, just apologize. It can’t have been that heinous, you don’t know him well enough to be really insulting.”
“I already did,” Arthur says, because anyone with sense would realize that his sending Elena back to jazz night meant he was done interfering and regrets doing it in the first place.
She smiles. “You really like him, don’t you?”
Arthur raises his eyebrows and tries to look nonchalant, though he suspects Elena knows him a bit too well for that. She’s seen him infatuated before, and she must know the signs, how he can’t take his eyes off Merlin while he’s playing if nothing else. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he says, mostly for form’s sake.
Elena squints at him, but he’s used to Morgana, so he just smiles back and leads the track of conversation back to Gwaine.
*
Arthur refuses to admit that he’s nervous as he walks into The Dragon that Friday, but he’s certainly felt more comfortable. He’s a bit later than usual, after staying late at the office to work out something his father had deemed an emergency, so the band’s already planning and Elena is waiting with Gwen, wearing Gwaine’s leather jacket and a huge grin.
“I was starting to think you weren’t coming--not that you would have been afraid, or--I’m glad you’re here,” says Gwen, who is apparently in fine form.
“I would have done something drastic if he hadn’t,” says Elena, and pours him a beer from the pitcher. “And Morgana would have helped, I said you were coming.”
“She’s getting spoiled, having me about at all her gigs,” he says, pulling up a chair and waving towards the stage, since Morgana is looking at them. She smirks and raises her eyebrows in Merlin’s direction and Merlin stumbles over a chord for the first time that Arthur’s seen before fixing it like there wasn’t a mistake at all and sneaking a glance over his shoulder at their table. He gives Arthur a look he can’t interpret before sailing off into backing up Morgana’s solo on “How High the Moon.”
It’s a night full of Arthur’s favourites, Porter and Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, and Merlin’s in fine form, all over the keyboard, full of dramatic arpeggios and quick chromatic runs and other things that Arthur is pretty sure are just showing off. He’s still no virtuoso, and he still looks like Bambi, but he’s clearly having fun, and that’s far better than Morgause’s cold precision.
They close with “Misty,” Morgana soft and soulful and smiling at Gwen more besottedly than she’ll ever admit, Gwaine grinning at his drumsticks while Elena swoons quietly next to Arthur, and Merlin with his eyes closed, the most relaxed Arthur’s ever seen him, fingers dancing as he keeps the accompaniment light and sweet.
Arthur closes his eyes to listen and doesn’t open them until Elena elbows him during the applause. She’s smiling when he opens his eyes to glare at him, and raising her eyebrows significantly. He glances at the stage, clapping automatically, to find Merlin watching with a thoughtful look on his face.
While he’s prepared to retreat, hoping that his presence and Elena’s have softened Merlin up a bit, or at least laid a groundwork where Arthur might be able to ask him out again eventually, Elena grabs his arm and refuses to let go while the band packs up and grabs their coats from backstage before coming out. Gwen goes to Morgana immediately, to kiss off the last of her lipstick, and Elena finally releases Arthur to bounce over to Gwaine (she trips on the way and he manages to catch her, which raises him a few notches in Arthur’s book), and Arthur realizes that unless he and Merlin chat, they are going to be left standing awkwardly next to the two couples forever, since nearly everyone but Gaius is clearing out.
“So, how have you been?” he says, stepping around a chair so he doesn’t have to shout.
“Fine,” says Merlin, and shifts uncomfortably. “Look, I’m sorry if I upset you last week--”
“No, really, it was my fault,” says Arthur, and pretends he doesn’t notice Morgana peering at them, because it’s not often he takes the blame for something.
Gwaine interrupts their conversation. “Elena and I are going out to Albion, since it doesn’t close for a few more hours. Any takers?”
“I just need to get home and crash,” says Gwen, and Morgana nods agreement.
“Arthur?” says Elena, and there is a world of ask-him-out-you-tit in her innocent query.
“I don’t think I’m in the mood for dance music after tonight’s set,” he says, and looks at Merlin out of the corner of his eye to find him looking back. “I might walk around a bit, find an open store and get a snack.”
“Mind if I join?” says Merlin, and Arthur blinks at him. “Performing is hungry work.”
“Sure.” They all head for the door, waving at Gaius as they leave, and Gaius smiles at them benevolently, with an extra twitch of the eyebrow for Arthur.
Elena catches him at the door while Morgana and Gwen say goodbye to the other two. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she hisses, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek, “and don’t call me too early in the morning.”
“Use protection,” he retaliates, and winces when she hits him a little harder than necessary.
They walk with Morgana and Gwen for a block or two, past all the closing bars, until they turn off, leaving Arthur and Merlin searching for a late-night convenience store or something. “So,” Merlin starts, and Arthur interrupts him.
“It wasn’t Gwaine in particular, you know. It’s just that ninety percent of the men Elena attracts are complete arses.”
Merlin smiles at the sidewalk. “I was actually just going to ask what sort of snack you were in the mood for.”
“Since there’s almost no chance of a kebab stand being open this late, I’ll put up with whatever you’re in the mood for, as long as you don’t have dreadful taste.”
After a second, Merlin starts steering them in a particular direction, and since he seems to know where he’s going Arthur follows along behind, resisting the urge to hum one of the tunes they played, considering he’s never been able to carry a tune and doesn’t want to be mocked horribly.
Eventually they reach a shop where Merlin gets tea and a greasy piece of pizza from a turntable and Arthur gets a packet of crisps because he doesn’t trust anything else not to give him food poisoning. “The food’s not great,” Merlin admits when they’re outside, “but there’s a park near here that I walk to sometimes when I’m too wound to sleep after a gig.” He puts his arm through Arthur’s without any warning and probably manages to scrub grease across Arthur’s jacket, but Arthur can’t say that he minds.
“If I were to ask you out again,” he says when they get to the park and settle onto a bench, “what would you say?”
Merlin grins at him, whole face lighting up in a way that Arthur doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to. “Guess you’ll just have to ask me and find out, won’t you?”
*
Sunday, Arthur just barely manages to get Elena off the phone before getting into The Dragon, and she only lets him hang up because he promises to call her Monday at his lunch break to tell her “absolutely everything, and don’t you dare stint on the details.”
Merlin’s playing, back to the door, in the middle of something complicated and fast that Arthur doesn’t recognize--likely a new bit of repertoire Morgana is forcing on the band now that they’re getting more gigs at places a bit more upscale than Gaius’s little bar. Arthur unwinds his scarf and sits at the bar instead of his usual table, sitting backwards on the stool so he can watch Merlin, his face furrowed in concentration even as he plays every note perfectly.
When the song’s over, Arthur hops off his stool and walks up to the stage, startling Merlin. “Sorry I’m late, Elena wanted to tell me all about Gwaine. More than I wanted to know, actually. Are you about ready?”
Merlin smiles at him. “One more song, yeah? I want to finish on a good note.”
Arthur obediently retreats to the bar, where Gaius smiles at him and gives him a glass of water without being asked, and Merlin starts playing--”Misty,” of course, fancier now that Morgana isn’t singing the melody, though he thinks he sees Merlin’s lips move as he sings quietly. Mostly, he keeps his eyes on Merlin’s hands, and finishes his water and stands as Merlin finishes and scoops his tips into a bag.
A minute later, Merlin waves to Gaius and threads those long fingers through Arthur’s like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Did you notice I played our song?”
Arthur’s a second away from telling him that this is their first date and they certainly haven’t known each other long enough to have a song before he decides just to go with it instead and clears his throat. “Let’s go.”
He pretends not to notice Merlin’s smirk, but he squeezes his hand as they walk out.
A/N the second: There will be no fics posted to this journal in the month of November! (NaNoWriMo, how I love thee.) Hopefully I'll be back in December sometime, though then I'll be off my hiatus from original fiction so there will probably be less fic as a result.
Summary: In which there are copious jazz and 40s references, Elena is Arthur's BFF, and Gwaine is Jane Bennett. Yet it's somehow not crack.
A/N: Spoilers for 3x04 and 3x06! For this prompt on kinkme_merlin . I wanted to write Elena/Gwaine but didn't trust myself to write it in the foreground, so ... um, have a jazz-bar-Pride-and-Prejudice AU?
Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin.
Arthur is pressed against a wall in the gents’ of his favourite pub when his phone starts playing something poppy and ridiculous and not at all appropriate for the situation. For one second, he thinks about ignoring it, because he knows he’s late, but he knows that Elena won’t be blaming him for being late, which means she’s having an emergency. Again. He sighs and detaches--oh, shit, what’s his name?--well, he detaches someone’s lips from his neck and grimaces an apology while flipping the phone open. “This had better be good.”
“Arthur,” Elena hisses. She’s already at The Dragon, judging by the level of noise in the background. “Arthur, where are you? Gwen’s still backstage with Morgana and I need rescuing.”
He takes a moment to think wistfully of how things could proceed, but he’s known Elena even longer than he’s known Morgana (which is saying something), and when she says she needs rescuing, she invariably means it. “I’ll be there in ten. Try not to do anything ... encouraging.”
“Arse,” she says, and then gasps. “Oh bollocks, here he comes again, who said I wanted a drink with an umbrella in--”
The line goes dead, and Arthur leans back against the wall. His companion is looking supremely unimpressed and doing the buttons on his shirt back up. “Boyfriend?”
Arthur shrugs. “Best friend. What can you do?” The other man just glares and starts washing his hands. Arthur spares another moment to regret the rapid downturn of his evening before rushing out, slamming a fiver on the bar for the lager he’d been drinking before the interlude in the gents’ and hailing a cab.
Eight minutes later, he’s out front of The Dragon, and he texts Elena, who meets him at the door with an attempt at a hug that ends with her face planted in his chest because she trips at the last minute. “Oh thank God,” she whispers while he pats her back.
Arthur glances at the bar, where there’s a man with greasy hair and a ridiculous moustache watching them with narrowed eyes. Elena sure knows how to pick winners. “Well, what am I tonight? Jealous boyfriend or overprotective brother?”
Elena pulls back to scrutinize him before rolling her eyes. “You’ve got a hickey and stubble burn, Arthur, I don’t think the boyfriend trick will fly. Filthy hussy,” she adds while Arthur attempts to adjust his collar.
“I am your knight in shining armour and you know it,” he says, fixing his hair and putting an arm around her. “Now, do we need to go over to your admirer?”
“I left my purse.” Elena gives him a rueful smile and tugs him across the bar, smoky with the strong scent of the clove cigarettes that Morgana sometimes smokes and full of people in too much eyeliner. One of them’s even wearing a beret.
“Who’s this?” asks the man with the moustache when Elena grabs her purse and prepares to retreat.
“I’m her brother, and this is a family-only gathering. Bugger off,” says Arthur, and ignores the man’s narrowed eyes to signal Gaius, who’s ancient but still tends bar at his own establishment, for a pint for himself and a glass of wine for Elena. She gives him a sheepish smile and retreats to a table, and Arthur gives Moustache Man a steely glower before grabbing his drinks and following her. “You certainly do attract the best sort,” he informs her.
“Oh yes, and I’m sure that whoever gave you that mark was a perfect gentleman,” she returns, and before he can give her the scathing retort she deserves Gwen emerges from the back room and spots them. She gives a relieved sigh and turns around to shout something behind her, probably telling Morgana that her truant brother has arrived at last.
Morgana’s been fretting about this gig for weeks--after Cenred and Morgause had decamped for Spain (Arthur still tells her he told her so on occasion, just because he so rarely gets to do it), she had to put a new band together quickly if she wanted to keep her venues, and he knows she’s probably been working the new musicians to the bone. Arthur spares a second to feel a bit guilty for being late and leaving Gwen to calm her down before deciding Gwen probably would be calming her down anyway. “They’re starting in five,” says Gwen, and it’s too gentle to be a scold but it feels like one nonetheless. “And Gwaine has already had two pints, so Morgana’s thinking about killing him, but he swears up and down he keeps the rhythm better pissed. And Merlin just threw up, poor thing. It’s his first professional gig, even though he’s been playing for ages.”
Arthur swaps a long-suffering look with Elena. “I didn’t want to know that. I don’t know him, I don’t want to know about his vomit, simple as that.”
Gwen tuts at him and bustles off to the bar to get her own drink. “She is meant to be baking biscuits for loads of children and hauling them about to footie games,” Elena decides, not for the first time, and Arthur silently agrees, not for the first time. He will never understand how she and Morgana got involved.
When Gwen returns, they all make polite conversation about their weeks and Gwen very carefully doesn’t mention the love bite that is probably only getting darker on Arthur’s skin, though it’s obvious she notices it. He’s very glad when Morgana comes out, saxophone on her hip, followed by two men Arthur’s never seen.
One is scruffy and grinning and stumbling a bit, so Arthur decides he must be Gwaine, who plays better drunk. Morgana gives him a narrow-eyed look as he seats himself behind a drum kit a good deal more complex than Cenred’s, but he smirks back without seeming intimidated, so he immediately rises a few points in Arthur’s estimation. The other one, on the other hand, is paper-white and shaking visibly, eyes wide and glazed-over in the manner of a startled fawn, an impression only strengthened by his gangly, skinny frame. Morgana actually pats his hand as he shuffles by her towards the piano in a disturbingly maternal manner. She must have learned the move from Gwen, there’s no other explanation.
“Welcome to The Dragon, everyone,” says Morgana into the microphone, to applause from everyone who can remember to do anything but ogle her cleavage. Arthur takes a long pull from his pint. “I’m Morgana, and these are Gwaine and Merlin, having their debut on this stage. Give them a hand!”
And the evening begins.
*
It takes Arthur two songs and most of his pint and Elena attracting three more unwashed miscreants to their table for him to realize that Bambi (okay, okay, Merlin) is really fucking good. Not that Morgana isn’t, of course--her smoky voice and fabulous playing would be (and has been in the past) more than enough to carry along incompetent backup, and he doesn’t say that as an adoring brother--and this Gwaine can apparently play with a few pints in him, but after one last terrified look at the audience, Merlin had proceeded to ignore them to start playing.
He notices when they start “Misty,” always one of Morgana’s favourites, and one where she will let any pianist she trusts have a solo. It’s her first gig with Merlin, and he knows her, so when the break comes he expects a soulful saxophone solo, but instead there’s the rich sound of the piano improvising around the chords while Morgana smiles and sways, eyes closed, and it’s--good.
Merlin’s still tense and pale, but his eyes are closed and he’s smiling, just a little, enough to seem mysterious if he were trying, though Arthur thinks it’s natural and that’s what fascinates him for a second until he glances down at Merlin’s hands and finds himself transfixed. He isn’t precise, he’s no virtuoso--she had that with Morgause, who’d been brought up on Mozart and Rachmaninoff--but he caresses the keys, holding notes almost-too-long until Gwaine’s steady beat drags him off like he’s reluctant to leave them.
“Can’t you see that you’re leading me on?” Morgana sings, and he answers her with the piano, moving across the whole keyboard, spanning across the hellish splashes of notes that are jazz chords with what seems like no effort at all. “But it’s just what I want you to do ...”
“Oh, honestly,” mutters Elena three songs later when Morgana is playing something syncopated and fast and Arthur is still staring at Merlin’s hands darting over the keys, never hitting a wrong note even though he must be making up at least half the part.
“Shut up,” says Arthur, almost under his breath in hopes that Gwen won’t notice, but of course Gwen notices everything and proceeds to look between he and Merlin and beam she’s never been happier. Arthur decides he may as well enjoy that, because Morgana will gut him rather than let him date one of her bandmates again (it isn’t his fault Lancelot was gorgeous, and equally isn’t his fault that Lancelot wanted to join Greenpeace).
“This is going to be a disaster,” Elena whispers, and he ignores her and claps as the song finishes.
A few more instrumental numbers later, Morgana grins into the microphone. “Now, my mouth is getting tired,” she begins, and waits for the whistles to die down before continuing, “so I’m going to let the gentlemen have a number and take a bit of a break.” With that, she surrenders the microphone to Gwaine, who’s left his drum kit, and slinks off the stage.
She looks like a noir femme fatale, and Arthur would tell her so if Elena wouldn’t mock him for eternity about his love for The Maltese Falcon. “You sound wonderful,” Gwen says the second Morgana reaches them, standing to kiss her girlfriend’s cheek.
Elena gives Morgana a smile. “The new band is fabulous.”
“Aren’t we?” says Morgana, unabashed, and sits on Gwen’s lap instead of in the empty seat, producing a cigarette holder because she likes looking like a ‘40s stereotype when she’s at gigs. “The lads are wonderful, and Gwaine has a lovely voice.” She gestures to the stage, where “the lads” are playing something that sounds like Cole Porter. “What do you think, Arthur?”
Elena snickers, but Arthur does his best to look lofty and disinterested, despite the disconcertingly wide grin that’s spread across Merlin’s face while Gwaine sings ... ah, it’s “Let’s Misbehave.” “Perhaps not as sophisticated as Cenred and Morgause, but they seem good sorts.”
Gwen and Elena give him matching looks of appalled disbelief, but Morgana just produces one of her dazzling smiles and lets a passing man light her cigarette. “Of course they do. That’s why you’ve been staring at Merlin all night like he’s Superman and you’re Lois Lane.”
“That is patently untrue,” says Elena, and Arthur gives Morgana a smug look before she continues. “Merlin is Spiderman, of course. Arthur would be a very pretty MJ.”
“You are all ridiculous,” says Arthur, and goes to the bar for another pint before they can mock him any more, Gwaine’s voice on the line “We’re merely mammals” following him as he goes.
“What do you think of the new band?” Gaius asks as he fills Arthur’s glass. “Merlin’s my nephew, you know. I gave him Morgana’s name when I heard she was looking for a pianist.”
“He’s very good,” says Arthur, turning around in time to see Merlin regain his Bambi look when Gwaine finishes the song with a flourish and makes grand gestures in Merlin’s direction. “Isn’t he used to performance? He seems a bit ... shy.”
“He’s not conservatory-trained, if that’s what you mean. He’ll be all right in a few weeks, though.” Gaius hands his pint over. “You ought to stop by more often, Arthur. How’s your father?”
Arthur sighs. Queries about Uther are half the reason he doesn’t come to the bar more often. “He’s ... himself, as always. What more is there to say?” Gaius raises an eyebrow. “I’ve got to go back to my table before Elena gets herself kidnapped by a motorbiker with bad teeth, I think that’s the next step down the scale.” He doesn’t wait for Gaius’s answer, just flees back to his table because Morgana has returned to the stage and Elena and Gwen are less inclined to mock him shamelessly when she’s not around.
He stays for the rest of the set and part of the next, but it’s been a long week at work, so he ducks out before midnight when he’s caught himself watching Merlin’s hands dance across the keys one time too many.
“Come back next week,” says Gwen before he goes, “they’re playing again.”
Elena just smirks.
*
Arthur doesn’t usually go to many of Morgana’s gigs--his attendance is the exception, not the rule, in fact. He goes to her first concert in a new venue, or her first with a new group of musicians, and every once in a while another one, but he’s never gone to two in as many weeks, which is why he understands the surprise on her face when he arrives at The Dragon the next Friday, Elena at his heels.
Gwen isn’t there this time, it seems--she’s a nurse, so sometimes she works odd shifts and misses Morgana’s performances, so Arthur and Elena get a table in a corner where they won’t constantly be inhaling smoke and she goes to buy their first round before her incredible ability to attract arseholes kicks in.
The cheer is louder when the band troupes out this time, and Merlin still looks like a terrified baby animal, but he’s shaking less, and Gwaine isn’t tottering around as much, either. Morgana is as icy and lovely as ever, in a dress she probably went back in time and beat Audrey Hepburn to death for. Once she’s sure she has the audience’s undivided attention, she smirks at Merlin, who gives her an instant and blinding grin before bursting into a sweep of chords that goes all the way up the piano and then back down, looking at Morgana the whole time before she bursts into “Maybe This Time,” a song he’s heard her say a hundred times before is too trite to be borne in any situation.
Merlin’s playing and Morgana’s ironic smile keep it from sounding overdone, and Elena’s not the only one with a smile on her face by the end of it. She seems, horrifyingly, to be smiling at Gwaine especially, and while Arthur will grant that he is at least Elena’s age and doesn’t seem a complete arse, his huge shit-eating grin is not exactly comforting.
This time, they stay the whole night, Morgana stopping by to see them during breaks while Gwaine makes a beeline for the bar and Merlin retreats backstage with his baby forest animal look on again. Arthur watches Merlin more than he would care to admit, how he modulates wrong notes into the right chords so quickly it seems intentional, almost never glancing down at what his fingers are doing.
At the end of the show, it’s last orders and Arthur is lounging lazily in his chair, not quite ready to go out in the night’s chill to hail a cab for Elena and himself. He pours the last of their pitcher of beer into his glass while Gaius cleans the bar, and Morgana raises her eyebrows when she comes out of the back room bundled up in her coat, trailing her bandmates. Merlin seems to have acquired a raggedy scarf. “Still here, Arthur? You’ve never been such an aficionado of jazz before.”
“You seem to play less of your complicated arrhythmic nonsense with these two. It’s quite refreshing.” She makes a face at him, and he holds his hand out to the men behind her. “Arthur Pendragon.”
Gwaine shakes his hand first, although he’s looking at Elena sidelong while he does it. “Gwaine, though I guess you’ve picked that up from the patter up on stage.” He takes Elena’s hand without her offering it and actually kisses it, to her wide-eyed shock. Arthur glares at him. “And who are you?”
She answers, blushing, and Arthur stands up to shrug on his jacket before realizing that Merlin is still standing there looking worn-out but not terrified for once. Arthur raises an eyebrow and waits for him to stammer his way through an introduction like Gwen, but Merlin just produces the echo of the grins he gives Morgana on stage. “Merlin. You’re Morgana’s brother, right?”
“Foster brother,” they say at the same time, but Morgana lets Arthur continue. “I’m flattered she’s talked about me.”
Merlin replies with a smirk that makes him look a great deal less like Bambi, and Arthur’s momentarily distracted with realizing that he’s actually attractive and not just amazing on the piano. “Complaints, mostly. And warning us to stay away from you unless we want our ears talked off about stocks and bonds and noir films.”
Arthur gives Morgana a dirty look and makes a note to remind her that he can tell them all sorts of stories about her as well. The one where she almost inadvertently kidnapped a little boy, for instance. (He hopes it was inadvertent, at least. Morgana’s going to build herself a gingerbread house when she’s older.) “You can’t play jazz unless you have at least a bit of an appreciation for the feeling of the era,” he says.
Elena and Gwaine, he realizes with a sinking heart, are still making inane comments at each other while exchanging flirtatious glances. He decides to drag her away before she can do anything irrevocable. Gwaine seems the sort to love them and leave them. “Come on, time to get back,” he says with a wave at Merlin.
“Maybe I’ll see you next week,” Gwaine says to Elena, smiling at her in a way obviously calculated to melt any resistance she might have managed to muster.
“Maybe you will,” says Morgana, looking at Arthur, because she knows he’s got a weak spot where Elena is concerned and that he’ll never let her come alone.
“Looking forward to it,” says Elena, and Arthur drags her out, pretending all the while that he doesn’t have his own reason to come back.
*
Next Friday, sure enough he’s back at The Dragon, where Gaius raises his eyebrows as Arthur collects his and Elena’s drinks. Gwen’s back in her usual spot, smiling at him wide and sweet and a bit wicked because Morgana’s probably been filling her head with tales that are patently untrue.
They stay late again, and Gwaine flirts shamelessly with Elena and catches her when she trips over a barstool on their way out. Arthur catches Merlin looking a few times, but mostly Merlin’s talking to Gwen, as apparently they knew each other a bit before Merlin joined the band. Morgana raises her eyebrows at him, but Arthur mostly ignores her.
The next several Fridays are taken up with jazz at The Dragon, and other regulars are starting to notice them. Morgana’s playing less and less of the fancy, incomprehensible instrumentals that marked the old group, and more old standards, which Gwaine and Merlin both seem to enjoy. Every week, Merlin loses his terror a little sooner, and every week, Arthur finds himself mesmerized by the way Merlin’s hands dance across the keys, the little private smile he gets on his face when he plays something perfectly.
Arthur would be content to keep going to the gigs and maybe eventually win Merlin over enough to ask him on a date, but there’s a blot on the experience: Elena and Gwaine. One night they’d all gone to a club after The Dragon closed, where Gwaine proceeded to get pissed and vomit on the sidewalk, and Elena had been the one to take care of him, never one to be fazed by disgusting things. After that, Gwaine’s flirting had got all the worse. Arthur tries hard to see Gwaine as anything but a playboy, but he’s still not found any evidence that he really likes Elena, and Elena is far too apt to fall for men who break her heart.
He talks his father out of a pair of tickets to an art opening Elena’s been dying to go to one Friday and talks her into missing jazz night, which is getting more popular every week. “There will be other gigs,” he reminds her, and doesn’t tell her he intends for their Friday nights to be busy until both of them have forgotten the routine they’ve let themselves get into.
Morgana calls him on a Saturday morning after he’s missed the third Friday in a row. “We debuted ‘Over the Rainbow’ last night after Elena begged for it,” she rebukes him, “and neither of you showed up.”
“I’ve never been to your gigs that regularly, as you recall,” he returns, starting up the coffee machine. “If you’re languishing without your most faithful groupies, of course ...”
“Piss off,” she snaps. “Gwaine looks like a kicked puppy, Merlin is pouting, and you haven’t even got the decency to come up with good excuses.”
Arthur sighs. “I never said I would come to all of your gigs, Morgana. As it happens, I’m pretty sure Gwaine will break poor Elena’s heart if they’re allowed to continue on as they were, and I’d rather not have that happen.”
“Has it occurred to you to let Elena make her own choices? Being protective is one thing ...” She stops and lets him fill in the rest of the lecture for himself. “And what about Merlin?”
“What about him?” he asks, very carefully not thinking about Merlin’s sure hands on the piano, following Morgana far better than Morgause ever had.
“You can’t be an idiot forever,” Morgana says, and hangs up.
His father calls the next Sunday afternoon, after Arthur again convinces Elena that seeing a limited-run movie is more important than going to jazz night yet again. “I’m stuck at the office, but I need to send something to Gaius.”
The pause that follows means You are expected to take it to him on my behalf. “Can’t you have it messengered?”
“The services I trust don’t run on Sundays. Just drop it by The Dragon, have a drink while you’re there, Arthur.”
Arthur reminds himself that it’s not Friday night and he has no reason to be avoiding the place. “Fine, father, I’ll be at the office in twenty minutes.”
It’s an hour before he finishes running all over the city and makes it to The Dragon with a folder full of papers that are apparently too important to wait for Monday morning. There are a few people scattered around the bar, nursing pints or plates of chips--and of course, because his life can’t be easy, Merlin’s up on the stage, playing solo, a tune Arthur half-remembers. His eyes are closed and he’s smiling and Arthur’s distracted by his hands again, spanning the octaves as he wanders off into improv.
Gaius clears his throat. “Uther said you might be coming.”
Arthur straightens his shoulders, unwilling to admit that he was staring. “Yes, I brought that folder. Mind drawing me a pint? I might sit for a while, nothing better to do.”
“Yes,” says Gaius, tone dry and face straight, “I don’t imagine you do.”
He refuses to be embarrassed, so he sits at his usual table and watches Merlin play, enjoying the opportunity to do so without three people raising their eyebrows and mocking him while he does so. When Merlin looks around after one song, regaining his Bambi look, he notices Arthur and gives him an uncertain smile. Arthur waves back, and is surprised when Merlin comes over to talk to him after another song. He looks assessing instead of cheerful, but Arthur gives his best smile and is rewarded when Merlin speaks.
“I’m due a break and Gaius is distracted at the bar--mind if I join?”
“Go ahead. How long have you been playing Sunday afternoons?”
“Not long. Gaius just suggested it last week, actually, and Morgana said it would be good for my stage fright.”
There’s a long, slightly painful silence while Arthur realizes how little he and Merlin have actually conversed. “You seem to be doing quite well,” he offers, hating how pompous he sounds, and scrambles to cover it up with anything else. “How much longer are you working? Would you want to get dinner after, maybe?”
Merlin cocks his head. “You stopped coming to Friday nights.”
Arthur blinks and wonders what that has to do with anything. “I’m busy. Morgana must have told you I don’t often come to her gigs.”
There’s another pause, and when Merlin speaks again he sounds a great deal colder. “Morgana tells me a lot of things. Gwaine’s one of my best friends, you know.” Arthur winces and then tries to pretend he did no such thing. “And he’d treat Elena well, no matter what you think. So no, I won’t go to dinner, because I don’t make a habit of spending time with arses who judge my friends without getting to know them.” Merlin stands and leans forward, lips almost brushing Arthur’s ear. “I won’t play the sap for you, sweetheart.”
With that, he heads back to the piano, leaving Arthur staring after him feeling like a complete idiot, wondering when Merlin figured out how much he loves The Maltese Falcon. Merlin’s playing again before he moves, lush crisp chords turning into a familiar melody. “You must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss ...”
Arthur stands up, pays Gaius, and walks out.
Of all the gin joins, of all the towns, in all the world ...
*
The next Friday night, Arthur pretends to be sick, and when Elena offers to come over and make him chicken soup, he gently reminds her that last time she tried she set her sleeve and his oven mitts on fire before sending her off to jazz night at The Dragon.
Elena calls the next morning, practically trilling her delight. “Gwaine asked me to dinner! Tonight! And he said he missed me, Arthur. You don’t mind my missing movie night, do you? Since you’re sick anyway?”
Arthur produces a cough on cue that he hopes doesn’t sound horribly false. “You go ahead. I’m glad you like him. Call me if you need rescuing.”
For a second, the line’s so quiet he thinks they’ve been cut off. “I won’t, I think. He seems a good sort.”
“I’ll break his kneecaps if he isn’t,” says Arthur, and coughs again for good measure.
“Merlin asked after you,” she blurts after another moment, and Arthur freezes. “Seemed surprised when I showed up without you. Did you two ... fight, or something? Is that why we started missing?”
“We hardly know each other well enough to fight,” Arthur scoffs.
“You’ll come next week,” she says, and hangs up on him, only to call back ten minutes later to ask what she should wear on her date with Gwaine.
To Arthur’s embarrassment, Elena calls on Sunday to talk about how lovely Gwaine was, and how fun he is, and to say they have a date on Tuesday, and he pretends to be recovering from his convenient illness and takes her for coffee so they can talk about it in detail, since he at least owes her that. She’s more than happy to talk about Gwaine till the end, when she mentions Merlin again in the least subtle manner possible. “You did fight, or something,” she accuses him. “Gwaine says he talked to Merlin about it, and he was just as close-mouthed, and Merlin will talk about anything to anyone.”
“Yes, well, not to me,” says Arthur, and orders another coffee before her looks can get too pitying. “But if it will make you feel better, I’ll come on Friday.”
Elena beams. “And will you actually talk to Gwaine, instead of glaring at him?”
“If I must.”
“And you’ll be nice to Merlin?”
“If he’s nice to me.”
She rolls her eyes at him. “Whatever you did, just apologize. It can’t have been that heinous, you don’t know him well enough to be really insulting.”
“I already did,” Arthur says, because anyone with sense would realize that his sending Elena back to jazz night meant he was done interfering and regrets doing it in the first place.
She smiles. “You really like him, don’t you?”
Arthur raises his eyebrows and tries to look nonchalant, though he suspects Elena knows him a bit too well for that. She’s seen him infatuated before, and she must know the signs, how he can’t take his eyes off Merlin while he’s playing if nothing else. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he says, mostly for form’s sake.
Elena squints at him, but he’s used to Morgana, so he just smiles back and leads the track of conversation back to Gwaine.
*
Arthur refuses to admit that he’s nervous as he walks into The Dragon that Friday, but he’s certainly felt more comfortable. He’s a bit later than usual, after staying late at the office to work out something his father had deemed an emergency, so the band’s already planning and Elena is waiting with Gwen, wearing Gwaine’s leather jacket and a huge grin.
“I was starting to think you weren’t coming--not that you would have been afraid, or--I’m glad you’re here,” says Gwen, who is apparently in fine form.
“I would have done something drastic if he hadn’t,” says Elena, and pours him a beer from the pitcher. “And Morgana would have helped, I said you were coming.”
“She’s getting spoiled, having me about at all her gigs,” he says, pulling up a chair and waving towards the stage, since Morgana is looking at them. She smirks and raises her eyebrows in Merlin’s direction and Merlin stumbles over a chord for the first time that Arthur’s seen before fixing it like there wasn’t a mistake at all and sneaking a glance over his shoulder at their table. He gives Arthur a look he can’t interpret before sailing off into backing up Morgana’s solo on “How High the Moon.”
It’s a night full of Arthur’s favourites, Porter and Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, and Merlin’s in fine form, all over the keyboard, full of dramatic arpeggios and quick chromatic runs and other things that Arthur is pretty sure are just showing off. He’s still no virtuoso, and he still looks like Bambi, but he’s clearly having fun, and that’s far better than Morgause’s cold precision.
They close with “Misty,” Morgana soft and soulful and smiling at Gwen more besottedly than she’ll ever admit, Gwaine grinning at his drumsticks while Elena swoons quietly next to Arthur, and Merlin with his eyes closed, the most relaxed Arthur’s ever seen him, fingers dancing as he keeps the accompaniment light and sweet.
Arthur closes his eyes to listen and doesn’t open them until Elena elbows him during the applause. She’s smiling when he opens his eyes to glare at him, and raising her eyebrows significantly. He glances at the stage, clapping automatically, to find Merlin watching with a thoughtful look on his face.
While he’s prepared to retreat, hoping that his presence and Elena’s have softened Merlin up a bit, or at least laid a groundwork where Arthur might be able to ask him out again eventually, Elena grabs his arm and refuses to let go while the band packs up and grabs their coats from backstage before coming out. Gwen goes to Morgana immediately, to kiss off the last of her lipstick, and Elena finally releases Arthur to bounce over to Gwaine (she trips on the way and he manages to catch her, which raises him a few notches in Arthur’s book), and Arthur realizes that unless he and Merlin chat, they are going to be left standing awkwardly next to the two couples forever, since nearly everyone but Gaius is clearing out.
“So, how have you been?” he says, stepping around a chair so he doesn’t have to shout.
“Fine,” says Merlin, and shifts uncomfortably. “Look, I’m sorry if I upset you last week--”
“No, really, it was my fault,” says Arthur, and pretends he doesn’t notice Morgana peering at them, because it’s not often he takes the blame for something.
Gwaine interrupts their conversation. “Elena and I are going out to Albion, since it doesn’t close for a few more hours. Any takers?”
“I just need to get home and crash,” says Gwen, and Morgana nods agreement.
“Arthur?” says Elena, and there is a world of ask-him-out-you-tit in her innocent query.
“I don’t think I’m in the mood for dance music after tonight’s set,” he says, and looks at Merlin out of the corner of his eye to find him looking back. “I might walk around a bit, find an open store and get a snack.”
“Mind if I join?” says Merlin, and Arthur blinks at him. “Performing is hungry work.”
“Sure.” They all head for the door, waving at Gaius as they leave, and Gaius smiles at them benevolently, with an extra twitch of the eyebrow for Arthur.
Elena catches him at the door while Morgana and Gwen say goodbye to the other two. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she hisses, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek, “and don’t call me too early in the morning.”
“Use protection,” he retaliates, and winces when she hits him a little harder than necessary.
They walk with Morgana and Gwen for a block or two, past all the closing bars, until they turn off, leaving Arthur and Merlin searching for a late-night convenience store or something. “So,” Merlin starts, and Arthur interrupts him.
“It wasn’t Gwaine in particular, you know. It’s just that ninety percent of the men Elena attracts are complete arses.”
Merlin smiles at the sidewalk. “I was actually just going to ask what sort of snack you were in the mood for.”
“Since there’s almost no chance of a kebab stand being open this late, I’ll put up with whatever you’re in the mood for, as long as you don’t have dreadful taste.”
After a second, Merlin starts steering them in a particular direction, and since he seems to know where he’s going Arthur follows along behind, resisting the urge to hum one of the tunes they played, considering he’s never been able to carry a tune and doesn’t want to be mocked horribly.
Eventually they reach a shop where Merlin gets tea and a greasy piece of pizza from a turntable and Arthur gets a packet of crisps because he doesn’t trust anything else not to give him food poisoning. “The food’s not great,” Merlin admits when they’re outside, “but there’s a park near here that I walk to sometimes when I’m too wound to sleep after a gig.” He puts his arm through Arthur’s without any warning and probably manages to scrub grease across Arthur’s jacket, but Arthur can’t say that he minds.
“If I were to ask you out again,” he says when they get to the park and settle onto a bench, “what would you say?”
Merlin grins at him, whole face lighting up in a way that Arthur doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to. “Guess you’ll just have to ask me and find out, won’t you?”
*
Sunday, Arthur just barely manages to get Elena off the phone before getting into The Dragon, and she only lets him hang up because he promises to call her Monday at his lunch break to tell her “absolutely everything, and don’t you dare stint on the details.”
Merlin’s playing, back to the door, in the middle of something complicated and fast that Arthur doesn’t recognize--likely a new bit of repertoire Morgana is forcing on the band now that they’re getting more gigs at places a bit more upscale than Gaius’s little bar. Arthur unwinds his scarf and sits at the bar instead of his usual table, sitting backwards on the stool so he can watch Merlin, his face furrowed in concentration even as he plays every note perfectly.
When the song’s over, Arthur hops off his stool and walks up to the stage, startling Merlin. “Sorry I’m late, Elena wanted to tell me all about Gwaine. More than I wanted to know, actually. Are you about ready?”
Merlin smiles at him. “One more song, yeah? I want to finish on a good note.”
Arthur obediently retreats to the bar, where Gaius smiles at him and gives him a glass of water without being asked, and Merlin starts playing--”Misty,” of course, fancier now that Morgana isn’t singing the melody, though he thinks he sees Merlin’s lips move as he sings quietly. Mostly, he keeps his eyes on Merlin’s hands, and finishes his water and stands as Merlin finishes and scoops his tips into a bag.
A minute later, Merlin waves to Gaius and threads those long fingers through Arthur’s like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Did you notice I played our song?”
Arthur’s a second away from telling him that this is their first date and they certainly haven’t known each other long enough to have a song before he decides just to go with it instead and clears his throat. “Let’s go.”
He pretends not to notice Merlin’s smirk, but he squeezes his hand as they walk out.
A/N the second: There will be no fics posted to this journal in the month of November! (NaNoWriMo, how I love thee.) Hopefully I'll be back in December sometime, though then I'll be off my hiatus from original fiction so there will probably be less fic as a result.