Work Text:
*
Heading for his phone on its charger in the living room, he almost tripped over his laptop. He settled into his favorite spot on the couch, reached for his phone, and sat the laptop next to him.
No texts about the dog, no emails, nothing. Just one message from Morgana:
*
That evening, Arthur noticed Gwen’s facebook status.
He longed for the Gwen he had married when he was twenty-three. She never would have fought with him about something as stupid as breakfast.
*
Arthur’s relationship with facebook had changed quite a bit since he began using it as a twenty-one-year-old. Then, it was all booze and parties and football scores. He and his friends had watched (and commented) as they all graduated, interviewed, and eventually found jobs. Today, as his friends had all “grown up,” it was full of baby pictures, status updates about babies, and potty training progress. It was disgusting.
This meant that logging into facebook was more habit than anything else. Check for new notifications and messages, scroll quickly through status updates, then log out. Tonight he had two notifications:
*
Before Arthur could even minimize his Internet browser, he’d received an invitation to videochat. As soon as he accepted, Merlin’s face filled the screen.
“Merlin, what’s wrong?”
He looked totally unlike himself. Instead of his usual neat polo or button-up, Merlin was wearing a faded blue sweatshirt with a frayed collar and a hole in the left shoulder seam. His eyes were red. It was obvious that he had been crying.
From the little Arthur could see of the bedroom, it looked as though Merlin had been crying for quite a while. The desktop was littered with used tissues.
“Merlin, did something happen? Are you all right?”
*
He heard the annoying buzz of another voice mail notification and decided to finally just check them. After all, he hadn’t so much as glanced at his phone for the last five days.
Every text, missed call, and message was from Merlin.
*
He had no idea how long he had been standing there on the pedestrian bridge, waiting for Merlin and the answer that was going to change his life, one way or the other. It was almost midnight, and he was starting to panic.
He had sent Merlin all over the city, backtracking when it would have been easier to just visit each location in some sort of order. However, part of his goal had been to give Merlin the chance to really enjoy the city. He hoped that Merlin had appreciated it. God, he hoped Merlin wasn’t annoyed or angry with him. Had he come on too strong? Had he seemed desperate and needy, or even laughable to Merlin?
There was nothing to do but wait and hope that he showed up.