Date Night
Arthur saves Merlin from a bad date when they're nineteen and life gets more interesting from then on. Based on the "pick each other up from bad dates AU" idea on tumblr.
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Arthur Pendragon could honestly say that he had never been on a date this bad in his life.
He was handsome, rich, an athlete, and intelligent, so everyone and their cousin seemed to want to date him. He was used to his teammates younger siblings asking him out, with said teammates standing next to them with horror on their faces. He'd gone to job interviews and had the interviewer end the meeting by slipping him their number. He even had it on good authority that a few of his college classes had been so packed because other people found out he was taking it and wanted to take it with him just for a chance to catch his eye.
Suffice to say, he'd been on a lot of dates.
The girl across from him - Emma - had long, dark hair and bright green eyes, like Spring grass, behind sophisticated glasses. She had an ample bosom and knew how to dress to best accentuate her figure. She had a degree in psychology even. The restaurant they were sitting in had a relaxed ambiance and comfortable booth seating. The food was lovely. Conversation was not lagging, except when Arthur would find his mind trailing away. Yet he was hating every minute of it. Arthur couldn't even say he didn't know why. He knew exactly why.
He was sitting across from the wrong date. He wanted someone else.
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There was a time before Arthur knew what he was doing with women, or men, or anyone in between. He had not yet learned how to tell when someone only wanted him for his father's money and connections - or when their parents did, at least. He wasn't knowledgeable about dating cues and expectations. He was awful at flirting without sounding like he was quoting a bad 80s movie.
But by nineteen, he had pretty much figured it out. And since he could now get into clubs, albeit without drinking, he went about once every two weeks to practice his flirting and see who he could pull.
Arthur was barely halfway through his second drink of the night - nonalcoholic but used for appearances. The blue lights of the club were casting an odd shadow on the people dancing as Arthur cast his gaze around to find someone to his liking, and that was when he caught sight of Merlin Emrys for the first time.
Gangly, still growing into his long limbs. A dark mop of hair that had obviously rebelled against styling. A strangely endearing, mousy face. Eyes so blue it must've been the club lighting. He wasn't Arthur's usual taste (he tended to run toward red heads), but he caught Arthur's eyes regardless.
The teen was obviously there on a date, dressed more for a dinner than a club and looking completely out of sorts. The girl next to him was taller than him, but not older, and talking loudly and with effusive hand motions. She nearly knocked the drink from his hands at one point. The boy was visibly uncomfortable, with the girl, the club, and the night in general.
Before Arthur knew what he was doing, he'd abandoned his seat at the bar and moved around the room toward the couple. He didn't slow down or hesitate or even really think about what he was doing as he slid into the other boy's personal space, wrapping an arm around his waist in a way that was casually possessive and nudging his cheek with his nose.
The boy jumped and his head snapped over to see who had grabbed him at the same time the girl stopped talking. Arthur paid her no mind.
"You should've told me you were going to be here tonight," Arthur intoned petulantly. He pointed to the bar. "I can't believe you let me sit over there for over an hour, bored out of my mind without you, when I could have taken you dancing and had the time of my life."
For a moment, neither the girl nor the boy said a word. Then, eyes still wide, the boy managed, "I can't dance."
Arthur took this in stride, rolling his eyes. "Of course not. That's why it would be fun!" Never say Uther Pendragon had never taught his son anything. Lying with a smile on your face wasn't actually an inherited trait, after all.
The boy looked like he didn't know whether to smile or frown, but his eyes had stopped being so wide and frightened, so Arthur considered it a win. He turned his gaze on the still startled girl as if seeing her for the first time.
"Oh. My apologies," he said with a mock bow, never taking his arm from around the other boy. "Did I just break up a date?" He held out his hand to her before anyone could answer. "My name's Arthur."
She shook his hand absently, staring more at the arm Arthur had around Merlin than at Arthur himself. "Janine," she said, barely loud enough to be heard over the music. "I'm sorry, who are you?"
Arthur furrowed his brow. "I just said my name's Arthur," he repeated. "Me and this idiot have been friends for...," he trailed off as he looked at the other boy for a moment. His gaze was returned and it seemed the boy was just waiting to see what kind of bullshit was going to come out of Arthur's mouth. "Gosh, I can't remember," Arthur settled on, casting a beaming smile at the girl. "Ages. I honestly can't remember a time without him."
He tilted his head to bump the other boy's head with his own in a move more suited to cuddling on the couch than standing in a club. Still, it made Janine's face screw up in distaste and she took a step back.
"Well, I'll just let you...dance," she grumbled before disappearing into the crowd.
Arthur kept his hand on the other boy's waist, for appearances - no seriously, even as he moved to face him. He even gave a sheepish smile.
"Sorry," he apologized. "You looked like you could use the help."
The other boy blinked at him for a moment before shaking his head and giving a wry smile. "Merlin," he said above the roar of the music. At Arthur's confused eyebrow raise, he said, "My name. My name is Merlin. And don't apologize. I was having an awful time."
Merlin.
Merlin and Arthur.
Arthur laughed. "Well, a king has to protect his subjects, even the weird magic ones," he teased. It took a moment, but Merlin started laughing too. "Come on, let me buy you a drink. A nonalcoholic one," he added quickly, seeing the smile dim on Merlin's face. He raised his hand, showing off the neon yellow band around his wrist, and said, "but at least it'll be free."
With another smile, Merlin knocked their banded wrists together like some weird fist bump and then nodded toward the bar Arthur had just vacated. Teasingly, he said, "Well I'm always up for free stuff."
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Merlin was lousy at dating. He was Arthur back when Arthur was twelve and just learning what dating was. Whenever Merlin showed interest in someone, Arthur would give him a pep talk and then send him over to woo them. Merlin always somehow managed to stick his foot in his mouth, trip, break something important, or in some other way ruin the moment.
Some people found that adorable, so Merlin still got dates from a few of them. Those dates didn't go well and he always came back to Arthur the next day looking wretched and sad.
Arthur and Merlin did not start out with mutual friends. Merlin was lower middle class and Arthur was very rich. Merlin studied pediatrics and Arthur studied law. They went to different high schools before meeting and different colleges when they did meet. But that one bar drink had become party invites and friend outings and soon Merlin's friends had mixed with Arthur's friends, even across long distances.
Merlin's friends had decided that online dating was better for Merlin - less chance of him saying the wrong thing and making a bad first impression if his first impression was his dating profile. It had worked to get Merlin a new date about once a month or once every two months.
Arthur had swooped in on more than one occasion to save Merlin from these dates. It wasn't always that the person Merlin was dating was a bad person (except that one who had lied about their age and ended up being about 65 and a total pervert, or the one who spent the whole date hitting on anyone that walked by whether they were taken or not). Sometimes Arthur jumped in because Merlin looked trapped or a bit sick or generally uncomfortable.
Sometimes Arthur was Merlin's asshole best friend who crashed a date, or his adoptive brother who talked too loud and over shared about himself, or his ex-boyfriend angry to see him moving on with someone new, or he was Merlin's current boyfriend upset at finding him cheating. They'd been kicked out of a few places over the years with these charades, but it ensured the person wouldn't try contacting Merlin again later.
Maybe they should've been actors.
It only occurred to Arthur years later - when they were both graduates in their chosen fields, when Gwen and Lancelot had married in a small ceremony and Morgana and Leon had married in a big one, when Gwaine had finished backpacking around the world and came home with a mountain of a mountain man as his life partner, when Elena and Mithian had adopted a boy named Daegal, when Arthur's father had passed away - that maybe he had helped Merlin that first night because he was exactly Arthur's type.
Despite dating consistently throughout the years, Arthur had never found someone who captured his attention the way Merlin did. He never wanted to have a repeat date with anyone. He would rather sit on his plush couch and watch awful movies with Merlin. His mind was always thinking about Merlin, never about the date he'd just left.
Arthur hated when Merlin had a new date, from real life or the internet. He enjoyed pretending to be Merlin's boyfriend, even if only for a few minutes to scare someone off. Seeing Merlin tired from a long shift at work but with a smile on his face because a child was feeling better made Arthur's chest warm. And Merlin's praise when Arthur closed a case meant more to him than anyone else's.
It had taken almost a decade, but Arthur finally realized that he was in love with Merlin.
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Emma was a friend of a former coworker from Arthur's internship when he was still in college. She was beautiful and smart and sassy. She had a son from a previous relationship, but Arthur had only seen him once. They had bumped into each other a week ago and agreed to dinner, and Arthur was regretting every minute since. But Merlin had mentioned getting a bunch of hits on his newest dating profile and Arthur had been feeling sorry for himself, so he had agreed. Stupid and short-sighted.
The problem with being friends, or even just acquaintances, with the person you were on a date with was that it was infinitely harder to end it quickly. Emma was nice. Arthur genuinely liked her. He just didn't want to date her, and he didn't want to be sitting with her in this nice restaurant pretending that he was enjoying himself. It wasn't fair to either of them.
Staring at Emma, all Arthur wanted to do was go find Merlin and confess. He wanted to date Merlin. He wanted to marry Merlin. He wanted to raise a kid with Merlin. He wanted Merlin. All of him, every day.
"Arthur?" she asked with a furrow of eyebrows. "Are you okay?"
No he wasn't.
Just as he opened his mouth, someone stepped up to the booth next to his seat. Like a humble guardian angel, Merlin was dressed in a semi-casual way - still his usual comfortable style but not out of place in the restaurant. Fluid in a way Merlin never was, Merlin placed his hand on the back of Arthur's booth and leaned in to press a quick kiss to his lips.
Arthur's brain shut down for three seconds while his heart restarted. In all the time that they had pretended to be boyfriends or ex-boyfriends, they had never actually kissed. It made Arthur feel tingly all over, knowing what those lips felt like on his own, and his eyes slipped shut for a moment.
"Hey," Merlin greeted when he pulled back. His eyes never left Arthur's and Arthur could see he was nervous behind his calm facade.
"Hey," Arthur greeted, feeling a bit thrown. "What are you doing here?"
Merlin gave a shrug. "You told me you were busy tonight, so I decided to go out with Elena." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to a booth in the corner, where Elena was sitting, badly pretending not to watch. "I was surprised to see you." He turned to Emma. "Hi, I'm Merlin," he greeted with an outstretched hand.
Emma shook his hand with a frown on her face. "Emma. And you are...?"
Now Merlin blushed, looking sheepish. "His boyfriend," he admitted quietly.
Emma nodded. "Why don't you have a seat?" she offered, motioning to the booth on Arthur's side.
Once he was seated, Merlin grabbed Arthur's hand under the table. His grip was tense even as he tried to seem casual about it. Emma couldn't see their hands, so it shouldn't matter anyway.
"I'm sorry, Emma," Arthur apologized, tearing his gaze from Merlin. Keeping his tone gentle, he said, "I feel I haven't been honest with you and maybe you got the wrong idea."
She shook her head, now with a small smile. "Don't worry about it. I'm just glad that you told me before things got awkward." Giving a little tilt of her head with a half shrug, she continued, "I think my son has his future step-father all picked out, anyway."
Merlin leaned into Arthur a bit even as he asked, "Oh? What's he like?"
Elena eventually abandoned her own booth to join them, sitting on Emma's side and managing to almost immediately knock over everyone's drinks. They talked about the man Emma's son liked, who seemed rough at first sight but was actually incredibly honorable and kind.
Elena sighed dreamily when Emma paused in describing the guy to them. "It makes me remember when I first met Mithian. I gave a terrible first impression, and second, and third, gosh an awful lot of times really, but I knew from the moment I spoke with her she was the one."
Seeing Emma get flustered and Elena teasing her, with Merlin pressed all along his side and their hands still clasped even as they ate, Arthur had to reevaluate the meal. It was perhaps the best date he'd ever been on.
Hours later, when the girls had gone home, Merlin and Arthur were left standing in front of the restaurant and still holding hands. As soon as the girls were completely out of sight, Merlin's grip loosened. Arthur tightened his own in response, not wanting to lose the connection even for a second. This was the moment, he told himself, when he did what he'd been wanting to do since the date began.
"Arthur?" Merlin asked.
Arthur took a steadying breath. "Thank you for crashing my date," he said. Before Merlin could reply, he sped on. "I know we pretend to be together often, to scare off bad dates, but if-that is-Merlin, if it's alright with you...I'd like to stop having bad dates and start dating you. Not as a ruse, but for real."
For several seconds, Merlin gaped like a fish out of water. Arthur had almost convinced himself to drop Merlin's hand and run for the hills when his grip was returned and a bright smile broke out across Merlin's face.
Merlin looked happy and relieved when he gushed out, "Oh thank God. Yes. Yes, I want to date you, you colossal idiot."
Arthur pouted, but the joy welling up inside him damped it a bit. "Idiot?"
"I've been in love with you for years." Merlin shook his head. "It doesn't matter. I'm going to kiss you now."
And kiss Arthur he did.
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fin.