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Arthur had nothing against France. He just didn’t want to be there. This business trip had been meant to last a week but was stretching out into two and even Leon – whose patience verged on the saint-like when it came to tolerating Arthur’s moods – remarked over breakfast on day nine that maybe he should put down his phone once in a while. What Leon clearly did not understand was that Merlin was on the other end of that phone and Arthur had not seen him in two weeks. It was cruel and unusual.
“I haven’t seen Mithian either,” Leon pointed out wearily, taking a piece of toast and not making the dig about phone sex that any of Arthur’s other friends would have. Vivian would probably have offered tips. “But really, Arthur. We’re not on the moon.”
“Might as well be,” Arthur said darkly, and texted Merlin photos of the hotel buffet to complain about their entirely unsatisfactory concept of breakfast food.
Though Arthur did not feel like explaining as much to Leon, it was not just being away from Merlin that had him so unsettled, or the frustration at having his methodical house-hunting campaign disrupted. Arthur did actually have one unreasonable grudge against France: it had known Ygraine Dubois first. She had grown up in Paris before her family moved to England, where she would later become Ygraine Pendragon. Arthur’s uncle Agravaine might be a human sinkhole where money, time and emotional energy were concerned, but thanks to him Arthur knew the name of the street where Ygraine had lived, the school she’d gone to, which had been her favourite paintings in the Louvre. He’d glimpse a blonde woman walking down the street and be caught in an odd sort of mental photography as his memory tried to recapture moments he’d never got to see.
Arthur didn’t brood well. It only made him prickly and irritable. When all the contracts were finally signed, it was a toss-up who was more relieved about it: Arthur, Leon, or Arthur’s long-suffering personal assistant George. Based on how fast he packed, it was probably Leon. They were in the car within half an hour of the final meeting. Arthur waxed uncharacteristically poetic about English soil and swept Leon up in his enthusiasm to the extent that they sang ‘God Save the Queen’ to a range of show-tune melodies all the way to the airport, Leon outdoing himself by matching the anthem to ‘Defying Gravity’.
Mithian was waiting to pick them up when their plane landed. She kissed Arthur on the cheek and wrapped her arms around Leon’s neck for a much lengthier hello, involving more tongue than was necessarily appropriate for a public place. Arthur suspected that marrying Leon was the reason she wore high heels so often, he was tall enough that it was either that or cart around a stepping stool.
They dropped Arthur off at his flat on the way to their place in the suburbs, where Leon needed to reunite with his enormous adorable dogs, and Arthur stood on the street for a few minutes with a bag slung over each shoulder, looking up at the glassy exterior of his building. It had never been much more than a way station between work and night-life; while he’d enjoyed his time here, he wouldn’t be sorry to move.
The flat was quiet when he unlocked the door. It was Thursday, so Merlin was at the library, but his presence was everywhere: in the books on the coffee table, holding each other open with their edges, and the pillows thrown all over the sofa in a vain attempt to make it comfortable. Definitely in the dishes abandoned in the sink; Merlin had not yet bothered to learn how to use the dishwasher and left most domestic chores to the very last minute.
He’d probably have cleaned up if he’d realised Arthur was getting home tonight instead of tomorrow morning. Then again, he might not have. He was not Arthur’s flatmate, after all, there was no use pretending he was not a chaotically messy person by nature – though he was much better at remembering to buy groceries than Arthur was, and much more creative about it too. When Arthur opened the fridge, there were lots of neatly labelled Tupperware containers stacked up on the shelves, testament to a recent cooking binge, a variety of peculiar condiments recommended by Freya in the side drawer and a vegetable crisper stuffed with vegetables that were actually crisp, as opposed to the well-intentioned celery sticks Arthur used to leave in there and forget about until they turned into a liquid.
He nosed around in the containers until he found one he liked, put the pasta in the microwave to heat up and opened his laptop on the counter. He wasn’t expected into the office until tomorrow morning and Merlin wasn’t going to be back until six-thirty, leaving plenty of time to hunt through real-estate websites. He settled onto a bar-stool facing the fridge, where he had stuck a list of all the features he and Merlin had agreed their new place should have, and a few things on which they hadn’t exactly agreed but were willing to compromise on. The list had had to be rewritten three times as it got longer and longer. After a lot of argument (and the deployment of Arthur’s sad face, which Merlin generally caved in to), having a garden had stayed on there, annotated with the qualifier ‘or large balcony’. At the top of the page was a demand of ‘SPACE FOR BOOKSHELVES’ in Merlin’s cramped handwriting, underlined twice, and underneath that was ‘SPACE FOR PAINTINGS’ in Arthur’s scrawl. At this point it looked like the more walls their new place had, the better.
There were more basic considerations to weigh up too, of course. Arthur had done the calculations to figure out what constituted an acceptable distance from his workplace and both of Merlin’s, taking into account bus stops, Tube stations and work hours, then circled a circumference of suitable neighbourhoods onto a map of the city. After that he’d gone through a stack of interior design magazines for ideas and cut out the ones that appealed most, writing on each page what made it desirable (‘light’, ‘stone floor tiles’, ‘built-in bookcases’) which worked well until Merlin started writing on them too (‘this is in a castle, Arthur, I AM NOT LIVING IN A CASTLE’). Everything was stuck around the list on the fridge, using up all of Merlin’s runic alphabet magnets. Morgana said it looked like a cop show murder-board. Arthur said she thought about murder too much.
He was four pages into a notepad, listing pros and cons and musing on how Merlin would react to a crimson bathroom, when the click of the front door opening made his head jerk up. He did not always bother to lock it when he was home and couldn’t remember if he’d done it this time. Then the thump of shoes being kicked off told him exactly who it was. By the time Merlin reached the kitchen, and he was moving fast, Arthur had closed his laptop and was coming to meet him, kissing Merlin’s attempt at a greeting right out of his mouth.
Merlin was completely on board with the program. He hooked his arms around Arthur’s waist and pulled him towards the bedroom, a perilous enterprise as he was too busy kissing down Arthur’s neck to look where he was going. He nearly tripped as he toed off his shoes, steadying himself with one hand on the door frame and the other on Arthur’s hip.
“Two weeks,” he said, surfacing long enough to unbutton his trousers. “It’s a stupidly long time to sign a bloody contract.”
“I know,” Arthur said against Merlin’s jaw. His face was chilled from the evening air outside; he gasped at the heat of Arthur’s tongue flicking behind his ear. “I need to send George a fruit basket or something.”
Merlin pulled back to frown at him. “Your PA? Why?”
Arthur shrugged. “He’s put up with me.” He kissed Merlin again, licking deep into his mouth. “I’m told I’ve been impatient.”
Merlin snorted. “That’s not the half of it, according to Leon. Mithian thinks it’s hilarious.” He paused thoughtfully with his hands on Arthur’s belt. “Why do all your friends find you being grumpy so funny?”
“Why do my friends tell you everything, that’s the real question, I have no secrets any more,” Arthur complained, unbuttoning his shirt. “Freya and Gwen haven’t been blabbing to me about your moping, it took the fridge to tell me that.”
“The fridge?”
“You labelled everything. You hate labelling things, you only do it when you’re bored or procrastinating.” Arthur grinned. “You missed me.”
Merlin rolled his eyes and dragged him onto the bed. “You genius, Arthur, how did you guess?”
Neither of them had the patience just now for anything complicated. Merlin wouldn’t even take the time to get his shirt off, catching Arthur’s hands on the hem and sliding them down to frame his hips instead. He groped a bottle of lube out of the bedside drawer, slicking them both up before starting a steady, easy rocking. That wasn’t quite enough for Arthur. He piled up the pillows against the headboard, lifting Merlin into a sitting position, and straddled his waist to kiss him thoroughly as they moved together. It was dark in the bedroom, with just the light from the kitchen spilling through the half-open bedroom door. It reminded Arthur of their first time, when Merlin was just a face (yes, and body) Arthur couldn’t look away from. It seemed a lot longer ago than five months.
Underneath him, Merlin made a soft impatient noise and slid a hand between their bodies to stroke them both off. Arthur panted into his shoulder, his hand tightening on Merlin’s thigh as he came. He kissed Merlin through his orgasm and slipped bonelessly onto the mattress beside him afterwards, feeling fully relaxed for the first time in…well, about fourteen days. He wrapped an arm around Merlin’s waist and felt the contented hum of response as a vibration under his hand.
“All right,” Merlin mumbled. “I missed you.”
They dozed for a bit. Merlin didn't budge when Arthur finally got up for a shower and blinked at him pathetically until Arthur went off to heat up more food so Merlin could have dinner in bed. Arthur brought his laptop back to the bedroom, turning the screen towards Merlin whenever he saw a place with potential. Eventually Merlin wrestled it off him, dumping it on the floor.
“Go to sleep,” he said, dropping his full weight on Arthur’s chest. “Morgana will make fun of me forever if I let you get real estate insomnia.”
“You worry too much about Morgana,” Arthur grouched. “She’s not that bad.”
“I’ll remind you of that next time you bitch to me about her.”
Arthur found it easier to roll his eyes and capitulate than argue with that one. “You’re still wearing your shirt,” he pointed out to Merlin, who answered by pulling the doona up to his nose and getting comfortable among the pillows. He fell asleep quickly but Arthur lay awake for a while, listening to the steady sound of breathing beside him in the dark. He’d never realised how soothing it was.
When he was sure Merlin was sound asleep, he reached over carefully and opened his laptop again.
* * *
Uther liked to say that the way to hell was paved with good intentions, specifically the intentions of people he disagreed with, but Arthur believed it was probably paved in schedules. Even George, who was a specialist in this arena, couldn’t do much with the last-minute updates that kept Arthur running from one meeting to another all day. By the time the last one rolled around, he’d answered the same set of questions so many times he felt like a parrot and all he wanted to do was play a discreet game of noughts and crosses with Leon while the Paris branch manager worked out how to use Skype.
Today, however, Annis Caerleon herself was in attendance, sitting at the head of the table looking coolly fed up and making everyone nervous. Despite years of rocketing up the ranks in her organisation, Arthur had always had the impression Annis was waiting for him to slip up, so he sat bolt upright and resisted the urge to drown himself in a coffee cup.
He’d got into work at seven and it was past nine p.m. by the time he left; as Friday nights were the one shift Merlin had kept at the Cavern, the two of them didn’t see each other again until Arthur woke up late on Saturday morning to the sound of his phone ringing. It wasn’t a sound he inherently disliked, but when it was rousing him out of a comfortable blanket cocoon, the ringtone was suddenly unforgivably cheery. He went into the kitchen to answer it before the noise could wake Merlin.
“What is it, Morgana?” he hissed.
“Aren’t you a ray of sunshine,” Morgana said, also unforgivably cheery. “May I remind you of that time you woke me at an ungodly hour of the morning to bewail your romantic misfortunes, and I was a veritable font of solace?”
“Font of Solace sounds like a terrible James Bond movie. What do you want?”
“Firstly, it’s nearly eleven in the morning so it’s perfectly reasonable for me to call you about anything I want. Secondly, I have tickets to the opening of the Essetir Gallery’s latest exhibition and of all the people I could have invited, I’ve picked you and Merlin. Surprise!”
“The Essetir Gallery?” Arthur echoed dubiously. “Doesn’t Morgause’s ex run that place?”
“Not any more. Elena’s father took the place over after Cenred fell out with a big American arts dealer. Isn’t it fun having friends in high places? And they’re doing much more exciting things now, obviously, Cenred had no vision. The exhibition is called Lost In Taxation. I’ll meet you outside at seven with the tickets.”
She hung up before Arthur could tell her that he didn’t actually want to go. He weighed up his options: dig in his heels and deal with Morgana’s indignation for a few weeks, or go along and hope the night was more fun than it sounded. It wasn’t a new conundrum. In much the same spirit that he had tried to indoctrinate his children with Shakespeare, Uther had dragged them around art galleries from an early age. He’d succeeded in imparting his enthusiasm to Morgana, whose home was practically a gallery in itself, but Arthur’s taste ran along quite different lines. More like his mother, though he would never say so out loud – just the sight of Ygraine’s painted butterflies on Arthur’s wall was usually enough to put Uther in a grim mood.
Arthur sighed. When in doubt, go to the gym.
A lengthy workout later, he had decided to let Morgana have her way, provided Merlin did not object. Weird art would at least be something to talk about next time Uther implied that he thought Arthur was getting culturally malnourished. It was nearly one when Arthur let himself back into the flat and he was greeted by the rich aroma of melted cheese; Merlin had woken up and was making huge toasted sandwiches, using half a dozen ingredients that Arthur was reasonably sure didn’t belong in sandwiches but which he’d definitely be eating anyway.
“Do you have plans for tonight?” he asked, stealing bits of capsicum off the chopping board. “Morgana has a thing she wants us to go to. I don’t know why she’s decided that a bonding activity is necessary, it’s a little ominous, but we may as well go.”
“You sound enthusiastic,” Merlin remarked, pulling the chopping board away from him. He still looked tired, tense around the shoulders the way he got before an exam, but at least he wasn’t trying to read while he chopped. That experiment had been made in a sleep-deprived haze of Why the Hell Not unique to three in the morning, and hadn’t ended well.
“So why don’t you want to go?” Merlin asked.
“Art exhibitions are all right. Exhibition openings are full of drunk people and critics. The Essetir Gallery especially, when Cenred was running it.” Arthur crossed his arms on the counter-top and rested his chin on them, watching Merlin push the sandwiches under the grill. “And Morgana takes forever. She interprets everything. She and Morgause could do an intellectual analysis on an abandoned champagne glass and convince you it symbolised the Cup of Life.”
“We don’t have to stay long,” Merlin said. “If you don’t want to.”
There was something off in his tone. “You’ve got a suspicious air about you,” Arthur said, narrowing his eyes. “Shifty.”
“What?” Merlin asked, wide-eyed. “Me?”
“Like you’ve got something to hide.”
“I’m an open book!”
“Have you already talked to Morgana behind my back?”
“Nope,” Merlin said immediately, dropping a spoon. “Oh, oops.”
* * *
Seven o’clock that evening found them in the gallery parking lot, Arthur more sulky than he wanted to admit. He wasn’t sure which part of his sister and his boyfriend making plans without him that he objected to, apart from a vague sense of horror at what they might accomplish together if they found wider common ground than water dragons and Macbeth, but the whole thing had put him in a disgruntled state of mind and Merlin was being abnormally quiet instead of laughing at him like he usually did. They didn’t talk as they climbed the side entrance steps, and Arthur wondered if they were fighting. He hoped not. They argued all the time, but fighting was different.
Morgana was standing by the door in a glinting silver mini dress. Unsurprisingly, Vivian was with her, but Arthur was startled to see Gwen and Lance there too. While Lance was a terrible correspondent, Gwen would usually mention her plans to Arthur.
“Of all the people you could have invited?” he said to Morgana, as he approached. “I feel less special now.”
“That’s because you’re not special,” Morgana assured him, handing over the tickets.
“Hello, Arthur,” Lance said, giving him a hug. Lance was all about hugs. “It’s been too long, how are you doing? How was Paris?”
Arthur told him about the business trip to France. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Gwen slip away to go talk to Merlin, a brief exchange that only made Merlin look tenser. What was going on? Was this somebody’s surprise birthday party and Arthur had forgotten? He didn’t think so, he had an app on his phone to take care of that. Was Cenred here after all? Morgana thought of confrontation as a spectator sport, after all. Arthur eyed Lance, looking for tells. Lance had a terrible poker face. Tonight, though, he just looked really happy, like somebody had presented him with a basket of kittens and told him they were all going to good homes.
“Jump in, losers, we’re going to look at art,” Morgana announced, and led the way into the gallery.
Walking around Lost in Taxation was a bit like looking at a protest rally that had got lost on the set of a science fiction movie. It was the brainchild of Tristan and Isolde Carter, who, according to Arthur’s quick Google search, preferred to be known professionally as Bandit Blondes. The first room was dominated by huge paper-mache hands making rude gestures, layered with ‘terms of service’ fine print. The fingers flexed as you watched, casting long shadows in thin bluish light. Morgana was fascinated; Arthur seized the opportunity to pull Gwen away from the others on the pretext of getting gallery pamphlets.
“What’s happening?” he demanded. “Merlin’s got himself all worked up over something, Morgana’s – gleeful, which concerns me, and you are nervous. What are the lot of you up to?”
“I’m not up to anything,” Gwen said, twitching.
“Is this one of Morgana’s plots? Because you don’t have to help her with those, and I’m not giving legal advice if you do – ”
“Come and look at this, Arthur!” Lance said, coming up behind them and tugging him away into the next room. Arthur glared over his shoulder at Gwen, who waved innocently.
The next part of the exhibition was more to Arthur’s taste, at least; a city made out cardboard boxes complete with flashing billboards of sarcastic advertisements. A flock of winged newspaper pigs were suspended from the ceiling, floating above the rooftops. This room was brighter and more crowded than the first, with fellow attendees standing around the edges of the city in small groups, drinking sparkling wine and laughing at each other’s witty asides. These were Morgana’s people, not Arthur’s. He stood back with his hands in his pockets, watching a set of pink lightbulbs blink out YOUR MONEY AND YOUR LIFE from a re-purposed cereal box.
“You’ve not having fun,” Merlin said, appearing at his elbow with a crestfallen look.
Arthur turned to answer and saw Morgana talking nearby with two disreputable-looking blonde people in leather. She gestured in Arthur's direction. “Oh, fuck," he whispered. "She’s corralled the artists.” He looked around for an exit and pulled Merlin into the next room, which was very dark. Little spotlights revealed more sculptures, cat burglars or something from their contortions, but Arthur wasn’t paying attention. He peered cautiously into the city room, looking for Morgana.
“I think we lost her,” he said.
Merlin laughed quietly, not quite happily. “You really didn’t want to come, did you?”
Arthur squinted at him in the gloom. “Why does it matter?”
A sharp sigh told him that wasn’t the right answer. “Of course it matters. I wanted – you know what? This was a bad plan. I shouldn’t have asked Morgana. Come with me, this way.”
Bemused, Arthur allowed himself to be tugged towards a barely visible door at the far end of the room. There was a sign fixed there that only became clear when they were right up close. “Uh, Merlin? It says this part of the gallery isn’t open to the public. We’re not supposed to – okay, where did you get a key-card?”
“Elena gave it to me,” Merlin said. “Wait here a second?”
It was dark in here too, smelling of fresh paint and wood varnish. Their voices echoed, implying a large and empty space – from memory, this was the last exhibition room on this side of the gallery, and from the smell, it was still under renovation after the take-over. Arthur hoped he wasn’t going to get brained by a falling beam or something. A flicker of light drew his eye and he frowned, confused; that was candlelight, incongruous and warm. As Merlin moved around, more candles flared in a pattern on the floor. M, then A, two Rs, a Y…
“…Merlin?” Arthur said, his voice coming out shakier than he’d intended.
Merlin finished spelling out ME and flicked the lighter off. He turned around, took a deep breath and dropped to one knee. “I didn’t get a ring,” he said, “because you’re fussy and I thought you’d want to choose one yourself. But I did get this.” He rolled up his sleeve while Arthur was busy gaping at him. Inked into the pale skin of his inner wrist was a brilliant blue butterfly.
“My – Merlin. From my mother’s painting?” Arthur had lost his grip on the situation, also on the English language. He reached out, his fingers hovering above the tattoo. Whatever expression was on his face encouraged Merlin, who began to smile.
“I know you see it and think of her,” he said softly, “but it makes me think of you. I had this done the day you left for that trip. I needed to ask before we moved in together. If you’re not ready, I don’t care, I’ll wait as long as you need. But I do want to marry you. I don’t want any future where you’re not there. I love you, and that is – ”
“Yes,” Arthur said. “Absolutely, we’re doing that, get up now.”
Merlin blinked, a dazzling grin spreading across his face. “Really?”
“Yep. Up.”
“But – there was more I wanted to say, I’ve got a speech – ”
“I don’t care if you’ve written a sonnet about my eyes, get up here now and kiss me.” Arthur hauled him to his feet, yanking him in with both arms around his neck. Merlin was smiling too much to kiss properly and Arthur pressed his face into his neck, shaking with slightly hysterical laughter.
“Did Vivian suggest the candles?” he asked eventually, pulling back a little.
“No, Gwen did.” Merlin pressed his forehead against Arthur’s. “And Elena offered the gallery. Actually, I messed up the timing. We were supposed to go through the exhibition and someone would come to let me know when the candles had been lit, so I could lead you in, but I wasn’t sure you were going to stick around that long.”
“I like this just fine,” Arthur said firmly, kissing him some more.
The others tracked them down a short while later. Morgana high-fived Vivian on her way over to congratulate Arthur and Gwen shoved the bottle of champagne she was carrying at Lance so she could hug the two of them. He put it on the floor so that he could hug them too. Merlin grinned around at everyone giddily. “He said yes!”
“Didn’t see that coming,” Vivian said drily. “The suspense was killing us.”
“What else would I say?” Arthur demanded. He popped open the champagne bottle to a round of cheers and Lance went to fetch glasses. The froth of bubbles shone golden in the candelight as Arthur poured it out. Gwen raised her glass high.
“To the two of you,” she said. “Once and future.”
Arthur and Merlin grinned at each other, and they all raised their glasses in unison. “Once and future.”