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The mid afternoon heat was pounding on Will’s back and he had regretfully forgotten to put on sunscreen. He would be bright red way before the game reached halftime. The football players were starting to arrive on the field. The stands were almost full.
Will shifted in his seat, craning his neck to search for Merlin. 32 C. That’s the seat number he had told him. So where the hell was he? He had been holding his seat for over half an hour and the crowd wasn't getting any smaller. He wasn’t going to be able to keep his seat open much longer if Merlin didn’t get here in the next minute. Will resolved to give it to the pretty girl walking down the steps towards his row.
But before she was within five feet of him, Merlin was pushing his way through the crowd; arms flailing and pointing at Will. “That’s my mate! He saved me that seat!” Merlin yells. His hair's a mess and he’s carrying a funnel cake. Merlin nearly elbows the man behind him as he climbs over rows of knees, finally plopping himself next to Will.
“I wasn’t too long. Was I?” He takes a bite out of his funnel cake and offers some to Will; he takes it and rips off more than half.
“Hey! Well, then that’s all you’re getting.” Merlin snatches it back and makes a point of holding it away from him.
“Sorry mate, I’m starved and you did take too long.” Will shrugs and wipes off the sugary powder on his pant legs.
He looks over at Merlin. His lips are coated in sugar and he's trying to lick it off in a rather ridiculous fashion. His hair is wet with sweat on his scalp. Although the sun hadn’t burnt his skin yet, he was still pasty pale as ever. Clearly he had put on heaps of sunscreen, Will could smell it on him, even when he turned his face away.
“Sorry again for the wait.” Merlin genuinely does seem to be apologetic, he turns to look at Will. “It was Arthur’s fault.”
"I figured." He raises his arms and stretches them in front of him. “Got enough sunscreen on?” Will noticed Merlin’s nose looking paler than the rest of him, if that was possible.
“Yeah, well you know how I promised to kiss him good luck before his game?” Will rolls his eyes and Merlin ignores him and continues. “He basically forced this stuff on me.”
“Some boyfriend.” Will swallows the last bite of the funnel cake and glances over to the field, where the players are walking to their positions.
He clears his throat. “Well, I don’t see him. Where is he? He’s not on the field. He’s number seven right?” asks Will, glancing at Merlin’s football shirt. It's well worn. The cotton is stretched thin and it frays a bit at the sleeves, but Merlin refuses to throw it out. He chalks it up to being for some silly sentimental-lovers-crap, something Will would never understand. Honestly he was just looking out for Merlin's reputation. He didn’t want people thinking his best friend was a hobo.
“Oh. Um… He’s going to be a little late.” Merlin’s face turns red, but it’s not from the sun. There’s a tiny flicker of mischief in his eyes, and Will thinks he knows what that means.
“Dammit Merlin! Right before the game? If he fucks it up for Camelot, It’s on you.” Will points an accusing finger on Merlin before turning back to focus on the field.
“What the hell are you on about?”
“Oh I don't know? Maybe jumping your boyfriend before the final game of the season?”
Merlin’s eyes widened in amusement. "As if, mate. I care about us winning too you know.”
Will instantly relaxes. “Then why is he taking so long?”
"The coach was yelling at him for letting me in the locker rooms without telling him first. Apparently they are very protective of their pre-game rituals and outsiders aren't always welcome." Merlin gives him an appeasing look."It's not like I haven't been in there before games, but I guess it's because the coach is on edge since it’s the last one and all."
Will gives him a pointed look. Merlin looks back to the field. “Look there he is now.” He points to Arthur running from the sidelines and joining his team on the field.
Will searches the green for Arthur and finds him running to meet up with the rest of the team. Gwaine claps him on the back and whispers something into his ear. Whatever it was grants him a light-hearted shove on the chest.
Arthur gathers the team around and they form a circle connecting hands around shoulders, probably refreshing everyone's strategies for the field. They break two minutes later and line up with the other team.
“The captain is so sexy.” Says a female voice behind them. “But unfortunately, he’s gay and all.”
“No way. He’s gay?” says her friend.
“Yeah, supposedly he’s in this serious long term relationship with this guy he’s known since he was a little kid.”
“Woah. That’s some fairytale shit.”
Merlin goes from jealous boyfriend to blushing maiden in about ten seconds. Will tries poorly to keep from laughing.
"Who's his boyfriend then?" Asks the second voice.
Merlin is squirming quite noticeably in his seat and Will isn't sure if he's going to turn around and announce himself or just ignore them.
"Melvin? I think..."
Will snorts at that.
Merlin's face goes pale and he buries his face in his hands.
Will decides to help him out. He does claim to be Merlin's best friend, so maybe laughing at him wasn't the best way to convey that.
Will swirls around in his seat and the two women stare at him. Then the one he identifies with the first voice speaks. "Do we know you?"
"No." Will gives them a wide grin, and holds out his hand. “I’m Will.”
"Oh, nice to meet you. I’m Tris, she's Anna, and that's Lily.” She reaches over to shake his hand.
"I couldn't help overhearing your conversation about Arthur."
They stop smiling at that. "How much did you hear?"
"Oh, not too much. Just enough, to want to introduce you to MY FRIEND 'ERE! MELVIN-- I mean Merlin!" He laughs hard at his own joke, and quickly realizes he’s the only one.
At this point Merlin is nearly sunken in his seat, head turned away, but by the way his ears are red, Will knows he's heard every word.
The girls are a bit embarrassed that they were overheard. “You’re dating Arthur Pendragon?” The girl is genuinely surprised, but not in a way that made her seem rude.
“Yeah, actually.” Merlin reluctantly looks at them. It was three friends, all of them wearing Camelot Dragon jerseys, and one with the number seven on it.
“I’m just going to go melt in a pile of goo now don’t mind me.” Said the girl, smiling at him stupidly.
Merlin gives her a shy smile and turns back to the game.
The jumbotron screen is focusing on the players and it settles on a wide frame. The stands starts to quiet down and Camelot’s National Anthem reaches out through the speakers.
They stand up. As the anthem plays, the screen pans down the line of players, all mouthing the words exactly. A brief shot of each player is shown on screen. Lance, Gwaine, Percival, and Arthur all singing along proudly.
When the camera scrolls over Arthur, Will grits his teeth as a sharp pain goes through his arm. He looks down at his hand and finds Merlin’s basically cutting off his circulation him. “Geez. Merlin, watch it.”
“Sorry.” Merlin immediately releases him and is sitting there grinning like an idiot. He’s squirming so much it looks like he might piss himself.
The song plays out the last note holding it out for a good thirty seconds. When the songs fades to silence, there is a brief moment where he hears nothing. It’s a surreal scene, seeing so many people being quiet. Then almost instantly the roar of the crowd returns. The football players disperse into their positions and Arthur and a player from the Mercia team step forward to start the kick-off. The whistle blows, the ball is in the air and Arthur immediately goes towards it. He gains it and he shoots off, threading through the field, quick and careful, looking completely at ease, the hours of training, clearly not wasted.
Suddenly, Merlin is standing on his seat and cheering; somehow or another, he’s got a flag in his hand.
“Merlin, is that really necessary?”
“Absolutely! Go Dragons!” Merlin yells, and he’s not even subtle about it, alternating between waving the flag in large arcs, and cupping his mouth with his hands to cheer. Two seats next to him a baby starts to cry. Will sees a rosy faced boy with curly red hair sitting next to him scoot closer to his father and point at Merlin, “Daddy, is that man drunk?” Will can’t help but grin at that.
His father is wearing dark aviators and a red and gold Jersey with the number twenty-one. He glances at his son, spares Merlin an amused look, chuckles, and tells the kid to stop pointing, and watch the game.
Will turns to look at the boy, and says, “No, he’s just a very very VERY enthusiastic boyfriend.”
The kid looks at him a bit surprised that he’d been heard. He glances from Merlin to the field. “But there are no girls on the football team.” The boy looks genuinely confused.
“Yeah, that’s because he has a boyfriend. He’s number seven on the field.” Will pipes in, carefully studying the kid, just waiting for him to say something, rude or insensitive, but the kid doesn’t do anything of the sort.
“Oh. I get it. He’s gay! That’s like my Uncle Jason and his boyfriend Keith.” The boy nudges his dad. “Dad, that man isn’t drunk, he’s just cheering for his boyfriend.”
His father just wraps a hand around his son’s shoulders and says, “Is he now?”
“Yeah, that guy told me.” He pokes Will in the shoulder, who looks over at him and smiles.
Like a wave about to crash the crowd’s volume grows steadily higher until it crashes forth with such ferocity and cheer, it leaves Will’s ear ringing. Merlin almost topples over the edge of his chair.
“Arthur scored!” Merlin is so overcome with joy he’s waving the flag in Will’s face and singing the anthem loudly and terribly off-key.
“I stand corrected.” Will tries, as he rolls his eyes, at Merlin’s completely loony behavior.
“He’s your boyfriend?” The kid points to the Arthur on the field.
Merlin looks over at the boy and smiles widely. “Yup! Arthur Pendragon. Number seven.”
“The captain?”
“That’s the one.”
“My brother Lucan is on his team. He talks about him sometimes. Calls him a dollophead. What’s a dollophead?”
Merlin bursts out laughing. “Let’s just say it’s a name I called him once in front of his teammates and they haven’t been able to let it down.”
---
With the Camelot Dragons barely holding on to their lead, their side of the stadium is more often on their feet then sitting. Will is on the edge of his seat and has to check himself for language, minding the boy next to him, when Mercia scores goal after goal. He gives Merlin a worried look, but he’s unfazed by it. They’ll pick it up, he says, though more to convince himself, he was sure.
After the seventh repeated goal, the buzzer for half-time is called. Merlin jumps up from his seat and runs over to the field. He’s stalks over to Arthur and his face is unreadable. Even from this distance, Will knows Arthur is being yelled at, mockingly of course, because all Arthur’s doing is smiling. But soon after, Merlin grabs him for a passionate kiss, which he easily returns, and pushes him back towards the team. Arthur stands dazed for a minute, clearly fthrown off by Merlin’s mixed messages. Will is laughing at him when he returns to his seat.
The game starts back up and something just clicks. The team gets into gear and they dominate the field.
Whizzing past Mercia, and scoring goal after goal. The game ends 33-15. The crowd is absolutely hysterical with joy. Everyone is hugging and jumping up and down. The kid next to him is sitting on his dad’s shoulder cheering his brother’s name.
Will watches the Jumbotron panning the many faces of elation and cheer. He sits back down in his seat, sore from the sun and shades a hand over his eyes to watch the happy faces on the screen. It’s panning the lawn now and he sees the faces of the players as they are being carried by their teammates. Gwaine’s holding the trophy while, Percival and Lance hold him up.
“Lucan!” The little boy is pointing to a guy with curly brown hair and dimples, smiling widely and supporting his team mates.
Now the camera pans over to Arthur, drinking water by the side of the stands, about to rejoin his teammates, when he’s stopped by a man running straight towards him, colliding into him with a hug. The man’s face is partially hidden and he kisses Arthur full on the mouth. Will’s mouth opens in shock. He turns towards Merlin to see his reaction, but he’s not there. Will looks back at the screen and there they are, Merlin and Arthur waving to the camera. Arthur is grinning like mad, and kisses Merlin’s cheek which makes him grin like an idiot.
“That’s your friend and the dollop head!” calls the little boy next to him.
Laughter explodes from his chest so hard, he’s tearing up a bit. “Right you are, kiddo.”