Work Text:
Gwen awoke abruptly to the insistent ringing of her cellphone. 8 am. She shook the sleep from her eyes, and struggles to reach her phone without waking Lance. He was sleeping next to her with his arm resting gently on her shoulder. She smiled at his peaceful form, and brushes her arm over his. With her phone in her other hand, she looks at the message lighting up the screen.
Meet me at Camelot Coffee. It's an emergency. Well not an EMERGENCY emergency, but still HURRY!!
Gwen groans. Lance's even breathing stutters, and he wakes up. He turns to face her. His eyes are still partly closed, but he manages to kiss her shoulder softly, and whispers "Good Morning, dear." She groans in reply. His eyebrow furrows together and he looks at her with a slightly affronted look. She gestures towards her phone.
"Merlin?" asks Lance through a yawn.
She nods and hands over her phone. As he reads the message he raises an eyebrow, and looks at her worriedly. "Well you'd better go."
"I hate him." she grumbles, still groggy with sleep.
"Yeah, about as much as you hate puppies and chocolate cake." Lance smooths the hair from her face and kisses her lips.
She can't help but grin and snuggle closer to him. "He abuses my niceness."
---
When she arrives at the coffee shop twenty minutes later, Merlin is already sitting at a table, saving a spot for her. He doesn't see her at first because he's staring into space, thinking deeply about something. He looks so lost that Gwen's heart softens a little. She could never stay mad at him for long.
"So what's the matter?" Gwen asks, sitting across from Merlin.
Merlin smiles when he sees her. "Thank you so much for coming, especially this early in the morning." He takes a sip of his coffee. "Uther likes me, right?"
Gwen gives him a strange look. Of all the emergencies that required an 8:30 AM coffee meetup. "I beg your pardon?"
"Uther. Do you think he hates me?"
"Well, you're not exactly best mates, but I'm pretty sure he likes you." Merlin looks at her skeptically. "What's with the look? You've been with Arthur practically since birth, so I'm sure Uther's warmed up to you by now." Why did this require her to get up again? "Is this your emergency?"
"Kind of, my nerves have been going haywire, and I needed someone level-headed to talk to. So obviously Will was off the list."
Gwen laughs, imagining Will smacking Merlin for giving a damn about what people thought of him.
He smiles and takes a slow sip of his coffee and wipes the corners of his mouth before he continues. "No. I'm going to ask for his blessing to marry Arthur."
All thoughts of ways to get revenge on Merlin for pulling her out of bed and cutting short her lazy morning cuddle with Lance went out the window. She unashamedly squeals. Merlin looks at her with wide eyes and then starts to laugh at her. She gets up to give him a hug. "About time!"
A few people in the cafe were staring at them. Gwen blushes as she sits down. She notices the apprehensiveness of Merlin's expression. "Wait, are you kidding me right now? You think he's not going to give you his blessing?"
Merlin scratches the side of his chin, and looks out the window to the street. "I didn't say that, it's just..." He's turned away from her. When he looks back, she notices how red his ears suddenly got.
"Oh honey, you're overreacting."
"I have every right to be."
"Uther loves you."
"He tolerates me."
"Stop, you know that's not true."
Gwen stares as Merlin slumps down in his chair, pulling his hands to his sides. He looks at her seriously, and opens his mouth like he's about to say something, but then he bites his bottom lip and shakes his head.
She's so tired of his lack of confidence. He was such a worrier, it pained her. He had no reason to be.
"Please Merlin, humor me. What's the worst that could happen?"
"He could reject me, or worse-- laugh in my face."
"And how exactly would that be worse?"
"He has a terrifying laugh."
Gwen tries hard not to smile. "Relax, he's not that bad."
"As if I'd take your word for it. You never say a mean thing about anyone."
She shakes her head and takes a sip of her coffee. "Really, I think you're just overreacting. Why would he refuse?"
"Because, I'm fresh out of uni, whereas Arthur's going to be a billionaire CEO of Pendragon Industries. He might not think I'm worthy of his son, I barely think I am."
"Don't be daft. You majored in chemistry, that's amazing. Besides Arthur wouldn't give a damn if you polished shoes for a living. Uther knows that."
Merlin can't quite hide his grin. "That's not the point."
Gwen reaches out and holds his hands, then looks at him seriously. "Do you love Arthur?"
Merlin rolls his eyes. "You seriously have to ask me that?"
"Just answer the damn question."
"I would scream his name from the mountain tops, I would go to war for him, and I would serve him until the day I die." Merlin meets her gaze. "Is that the kind of answer you're looking for?"
Gwen hits his arm. "You're so full of it."
---
It's been a long time since Merlin wore a suit. He feels constricted, and the tie around his neck seems to be tightening with every step he takes. He was worried he might pass out before he even got to the elevator. He feels a bit guilty for lying to Arthur and telling him that he was meeting his mum at a fancy place for lunch for some made up celebration. But it explained the suit and Arthur wouldn't have to come along.
Although, it was terribly hard leaving him alone in their flat. Especially when Arthur had nearly made him want to forget about his plans, and join him on the couch for some other celebrating. But damn it, he was going to do this, and if he didn't Gwen might skin him alive.
He approaches the main entrance to Pendragon Industries and slides Arthur's ID card into the lock before he's allowed to enter the building. The sharp beep lets him through. Arthur had an extra one that he rarely used so Merlin saw no reason he had to ask to use it.
Today was a Sunday. Arthur was probably at home napping on the couch right about now, while Uther never quite understood the meaning of a weekend. He was at the office nearly everyday. Merlin only hoped that it would be less crowded today, so he could actually talk to him.
"Going up?" a man enters the elevator and stands next to him.
"Yeah. Top floor." answers Merlin wiping the sweat off his brow.
"Yeah, me too." The man smiles at him, he has short cropped black hair and he's wearing a grey pinstriped suit."I'm Oliver."
"Merlin."
Oliver scans Merlin's face subtly. "Are you alright there mate?"
Never one for small talk, he tells Oliver what he's planning on doing. The elevator dings when they reach the top floor and they walk out.
The man lets out a low whistle. "Don't sweat it, mate. Uther talks about you all the time-- even refers to you sometimes as his soon to be son-in-law." His hand claps Merlin's shoulder, then he smiles and walks in the other direction.
Merlin stands there gaping after him. If anything, that made his heart rate pick up even more.
The office floor sprawls in front of him. Cubicles line up to his left and right. All in neat rows. There are dark oak wood trimmings on the walls, and grey marble floors. The place was like a palace. There were tall columns, in the corners of the room, adding height to the already tall ceilings. Floor to ceiling windows all around while glass-walled offices sat around the perimeter of the room. Light shown through the closed blinds of a couple, and the sound of muffled voices was heard beyond.
The geometric pattern on the floor seemed to point to a single room. Uther's. It was almost like the way a throne room led the eyes to face the king and queen. The blinds were closed, yet Merlin saw there was light coming through under the door. Uther's secretary informed Merlin that he was in his office and free to see him. The door was shut, and the metallic plaque reading CEO; Uther Pendragon made him quiver in his shoes. He took a moment to collect himself before he knocked.
"Come in, Merlin."
Uther sat behind his desk, tapping at the keys on his laptop. He was wearing glasses perched low on his face, never once looking away from his screen. "I'll be with you in a moment, I just need to wrap this up. Please, sit down and make yourself comfortable."
Merlin nods and sits in the chair in front of Uther's desk. He's never been inside his office before. He looks at the photographs Uther has around his room. There's one of Arthur and Uther at last year's Christmas Party. Merlin remembers taking the picture. There's one of Arthur's Graduation with Morgana and Uther. There's one of Morgana and Arthur as children fishing at the lake. There's a picture of Morgana and Leon from when they just moved into their new home. There's one of-- wait a second, Merlin's eyes widen. It's a picture of him at his uni graduation. He's holding his diploma, while Arthur's kissing his cheek. In the picture they're both smiling like crazy. His eyes linger on that one the longest.
"You didn't know I had that one, did you?"
Merlin flinches in surprise. Uther had stopped working at some point and was now fixing his eyes on Merlin with a rare grin dressing his lips.
"I had no idea, I mean I--"
"Merlin. You are practically a second son to me." Uther gives him a hard glance. "Hold on, why does this all seem like news to you?"
"Uther, I mean no disrespect, but you scare the shit out of me." Uther stares at him, mouth agape. Merlin immediately sobers up. Foot in the mouth disease. Merlin prepares himself to escape quickly while he still has the chance.
But then suddenly, Uther starts to laugh and then he's laughing so much he has to wipe his eyes. "Good. I need to instill some fear into my son's future husband. That is why you came here, right? To ask me?"
"How'd you know?"
"Merlin, I run a multi-million dollar company. Nothing around here gets past me. How did you think I wouldn't be able to tell why you came? Honestly, I was expecting this talk ages ago." Uther smiles at him. "You needn't have troubled yourself coming down here. A simple text would have been fine." He points at his suit. "Though I see the suit does wonders at making you look marriage material. Now, if you'll excuse me I have to take this call. I'll see you at dinner tomorrow?"
"Yes sir."
"For the hundreth time, call me Uther."
"Yes sir--I mean Uther." The name feels strange coming out of his mouth. He waves goodbye and walks out of the office feeling like he'd just mounted a dragon, and was soaring through the air without a single thing weighing him down.
---
"How was lunch?" he hears Arthur call from the living room. He's watching football on the telly and Merlin hears the roar of the audience followed by Arthur's own cheering.
"Tasty!"
Merlin walks towards the living room and heads towards the closet to put his coat away.
"Yeah? What did you eat?"
"Oh um... Pasta with Pesto." He hopes that will suffice.
"Mmm."
"Very much, yeah."
"What was the place called again?"
"It was something in Italian, I can't pronounce it." He was a terrible liar.
Merlin took off his coat and went into the closet to hang it up. When he came out, Arthur was staring at him strangely. "Why are you wearing my ID card?"
Shite. "Oh um. yeah." Merlin looked down at his shirt. Arthur was looking at him smugly, waiting for an answer.
"I thought it would be fun?"
Arthur laughs out loud. He gets up off the couch and stands in front of Merlin. He holds his breath as Arthur takes the ID off his shirt and gives him a skeptical look.
Merlin's mind searches for a plausible explanation and draws a blank. Instead he says, "Want to have sex?"
Arthur rolls his eyes and grins at him. "Don't change the subject."
Merlin pretends not to hear him and starts to take off his shirt, taking his time to slowly pull it off.
He hears Arthur say "Hot damn."
And really, how badly did Arthur want to know Merlin's strange behavior? There were more important things at hand.