Hello yes it's only been three months whoops. I am here friends, I apologise profusely for being ~gone~, there is actually no excuse. This chapter is actually relatively short, and really fucking sucky, deepest apologies, but I actually know where I'm going now with this an it' going to pick up on the next chapter, I promise. Just bear with me, I'll be much nicer this time around I promise. Live long and prosper.

Also I am oh so tired to fix italics, etc, so they are indicated with / /.

Arthur frowns down at the program in his hand.

He skims over the description again, and thinks, and not for the first time, mind you, that for a community play, Les Miserables is probably not the best choice. He really doesn't want to complain - good Samaritan, for charity and all - but a performance this long with this much singing should at least come with a break or two, and needless to say, it hasn't. Morgana, of course, is on one side of him, all apt attention and good posture and he resists the urge to roll his eyes at her. Constantly. On his other side is Gwaine, who is all smiles and loud cheers and Arthur thinks he's entirely inappropriate but he's not about to voice that particular opinion.

His displeasure for musicals does not help in any way, either.

He felt the dire need to use the bathroom about thirty minutes back and he's been motionless ever since. Because Arthur Pendragon may be a lot of things, especially many fake things, but rude in the face of bloody charity, he is not. So he waits, and he thanks every god in Heaven that it's the last act because he's suspicious that he wouldn't have lasted much longer.

That's not to say the performance is bad - quite the contrary. Sure, he can't keep track of the characters names, the plot, can't even understand what they're singing half the time (and they never stop. Ever), but it's lively and very emotional and he'll deny it until the ends of the Earth but there might have been a tear shed. He's yet to see Merlin of course, or maybe he has, and maybe he's missed him - and he feels completely fucking ridiculous at this prospect because why would he be seeking out Merlin, at all. If anything, he should be seeking out Gwen, who he likes to think of as friend, but in his (very meager) defense, her role has come and gone.

Arthur thinks this is the sort of thing that Morgana and her friends - his friends - do, and so he decides that he won't give much of his experience away when queried about it, outside of a "spectacular performance, very moving, wonderful cause for the" - Homeless Children of the UK? Children's Hospital Relief? Child something something?

So, perhaps he shouldn't give out that much information. In yet another attempt at defending himself to nobody but his own thoughts he tells himself that he's been under too much pressure from his father. Then again, when is he not?

Arthur is pulled from his thoughts when Gwaine stands and cheers to loud in the dead silence, and there's quite a few bickers and sneers to go around in reaction to that. Arthur himself leans away as casually as possible, nearly falling into Morgana who makes a noise of complaint and shifts away herself. Arthur gives Gwaine enough response to see what exactly it is he's cheering at, and he's not surprised when it's Merlin.

He looks wonderful, Arthur thinks without meaning to at all, all done up in costume, and not really like himself, but his best features highlighted all tat the same time. Irrational. Illogical. He ought to stop, he really ought to, but when somebody expresses /that/ much distaste for you without rhyme or reason, one can't help but notice everything about that other person. Or maybe one can, and he's just the exception to the rule, but he doesn't particularly feel like dwelling on that idea.

Arthur isn't sure what Merlin's singing, but he reflects back to the first time he heard him do so at the pub, and it's just as beautiful as before. All smooth vocals, without a single crack or wrong note or strain, and Arthur may not know a damn thing about the plot but the emotion that Merlin is quite capable of portraying is enough to raise a flash of goose bumps on his forearms.

Arthur resists the urge to make a noise at himself in disgust.

Some fifteen minutes, forty-seven seconds (no, Arthur was not counting, he's just very apt at keeping track of time), and the entire (too many people) cast is bowing and there's cheering, and the children in the front row are smiling and Arthur rejects his own experience as actually mattering. He should be gratefully, really, in every way possible, because for once he was invited t such an event - nothing prestigious even, which is enough to send Arthur on an internal thrill ride.

The auditorium is deafening for a while, and the sea of frayed red seats are lost in a collision of colour as the audience gives a standing ovation. Morgana grabs Arthur by the elbow and drags him to his feet as well, and in his ear Gwaine is whooping louder than anyone else.

And then the shuffling out begins and the convergence of colour becomes a little more physical than Arthur enjoys.

~X~

It takes far longer than it ought to to find Merlin and Gwen backstage, and the fact that Morgana managed to get them in at all is a miracle in itself, but when they do Lance sweeps Gwen into one of those twirling hugs like one straight out of a film, and even Gwaine slings an arm around Merlin's shoulder, whose high cheekbones look a little too good flushed.

Morgana smiles at the sight, and Arthur shifts uncomfortable from foot to foot. He doesn't mind public displays of affection, even thrown in his face, but he feels a bit warm back here.

"You were wonderful," Morgana gushes, taking Gwen's hands, who blushes and tries to wave her off.

"Oh, no, thank you, though, really. I missed a word, I think," Gwen replies in exasperation, and she seems a little mortified by the thought.

"Nobody noticed, if you did," Lance tells her, pressing close and Arthur hasn't quite seen him smile as big as he is now. "Which I doubt."

Gwen smiles and gives Lance a dramatic kiss on the cheek, which causes Arthur to avert his eyes - they land on Gwaine and Merlin, the former whispering fervently into the latters ear, and Arthur supposes he should avert his gaze yet again, but the red tint to the tip of Merlin's ears can't be ignored.

"Merlin was, too," Arthur blurts out into and his voice trips over itself like a nervous pageant girl. "Wonderful, I mean." Oh dear God.

Merlin's stare shifts to Arthur's face, but there's something about it that's a little softer than Arthur thinks is true, and it hardens quickly enough for Arthur to be unsure about it in the first place.

"Yes, of course!" Morgana says with just as much passion in her tone as she used when she complimented Gwen, and Arthur tallies off another mark in his mental list of "Times Morgana Pendragon Has Saved My Hide."

Merlin gives a thanks and a grin, but Gwaine's pulling him over to talk to him again, and the tension in the atmosphere between them changes into something else entirely.

"I'd offer to take us all out for drinks," Morgana says before Arthur can make the offer, which he most certainly has been planning, if wasn't all caught up in whatever it is his mind is doing to him. "But you seem awfully tired," she squeezes Gwen's wrists before letting go, and Gwen gives a chuckled sigh.

"I really am," Gwen confesses, and Lace gives her shoulders a sympathetic squeeze, Morgana giving a small smile.

And that pretty much marks the end of that, but it's more than enough for Arthur, because when they all go their separate ways, even Merlin offers a nod of farewell.

(And if Arthur sings Les Miserables in the shower later, well nobody has to know.)

~X~

The best part about the month that blurs by after that is that it's entirely uneventful, for all intents and purposes.

Sure, there's another argument filtered through Gaius with his father, and a drunken karaoke night, and a couple of performances from Merlin and his guitar (and goodbyes, and hellos, and Arthur supposes that's as far as they're going to get, and he's strangely okay with it. There's been no more late-night Googles and he doesn't have the will to wonder why all those ill feelings Merlin ever harbored occurred in the first place, because he'd rather not disrupt the flow of things, for lack of a better term.), but more than anything there's a sense of harmony and, the best part of all, belonging. Arthur doesn't even second guess the term of friend anymore, and he doesn't batter around in self loathing and worse, pity, and he even speaks up, and it's the best he's felt in his entire life.

It's the most loved, and every hug h gets from Gwen, and pat on the shoulder from Lance, and too-toothy grin from Gwaine, and good-bye from Merlin is enough to make him forget every ounce of negativity that's ever found it's way into his soul. He's not much of a romantic, even if Morgana argues that he is, but if he had to give a description of destiny, he'd name this group of people. Arthur doesn't even really understand how there was every a time before that, but those moments are dangerously dark to delve into past the surface, so he backs away from them as quick-footed possible.

It's mundane in all the right ways, and so when he wakes up one morning with the realization that his twenty-second birthday is a week away it rocks him to the core.

The thought of change frightens him in ways that he wishes more than anything it wouldn't, and he attempts greatly to tell himself he's being stupid, but he can't quite shake it off. He knows Morgana is not someone to forget birthdays either, and surely she'll do something more extravagant than Arthur would like. He's never been found of his birthdays, and his last one didn't bode over well with anyone, so he's not exactly eager to repeat the experience any time soon.

Arthur's intuition about his half-sister is startlingly accurate, because the moment the thought crosses his mind, his mobile on his nightstand buzzes.

Its loud enough to yank him fully from the haze of sleep still shimmering on the edges of his mind, and with a resigned noise in the back of his throat, he reaches over and grabs it between two fingers. He nearly drops it in the process of carrying it over to his face, but he manages to situate it comfortably in his palm and tap the touch screen to read the message flashing.

/Youre going to be twenty-two in a week dont you think it's about time you talk to Uther about moving out/. The thing about Morgana's texting habits is that while she isn't really apt at using proper punctuation, she spells everything as correctly as possibly, no matter how much time it takes up.

More so, this isn't a conversation that's gone neglected beforehand, and Arthur resists the urge to shove his phone under the pillow and ignore her completely. Of course, it'd be to little avail - Morgana has a bad habit of blowing up his mobile until he responds. She's not one to give up easily.

/ive brought it up to him u knw i ave/ Arthur types back eventually, his still-awakening haze enabling him to text without mistakes.

/you havent done a very good job/

Arthur gives up on texting all-together and presses the dial button. He hears it pick up, but Morgana doesn't greet him, so he jumps right in. "You know how he is - inheriting the business, thus the estate." He gestures to nothing in particular, arm waving uselessly in the air. "He won't have any of it."

"I'm just saying," Morgana says back, breezy per usual. "You're a grown man, older than I am, even. You're quite capable of taking care of yourself - just because Uther isn't, doesn't mean you should have to stick around." Arthur suppresses another sigh - he has a limitless supply of them when he comes to Morgana. She's in one of her usual "I have an opinion and I'm going to state it openly and without fear of consequence" moods that Arthur adores oh so much. Plenty of sarcasm included.

"There's a flat open, apparently Merlin's friend Will is looking for one as well, and even a dingy ol' flat would be better for you than that place," Morgana's voice dips in a way it rarely does, and Arthur sits up, pressing the phone closer to the ear. It's always important to listen to Morgana when she does this, an so he remains silent, waiting for her to finish. "I'm just saying," she repeats, after a moment. "This whole getting out, it' been good for you. I don't - don't want Uther fucking you all up again."

"Really, Morgana," Arthur says, but there's plenty of light teasing in his tone. "As you said, I can take care of myself."

"Shut up, you know what I mean." Arthur's sure that if Morgana could hit him right now, she would. "This time of year, businesses always goes down, everyone on vacation and what-not. Now's about a great a time as any to get out of there."

"You're making it sound like a prison, Morgana," Arthur tells her, swinging his legs off the side of his bed. "It's my home, and father's not wrong. It will be mine someday." He knows he's just offering her the usual excuses, but what Morgana doesn't understand is that, unlike her, he makes a habit of avoiding conflict. Especially in a time like this, when things are going wonderfully, and his birthday may be a week away, but a birthday is a far less drastic change than an argument with his father, and moving out, and all that other nonsense.

To say Arthur Pendragon is afraid of change is about as much as a statement of the obvious is "the sky is blue."

"Anyhow," Morgana sing-songs in her usual change-of-the-subject way of hers. "Keep your birthday open, I have plans."

"Morgana -" Arthur begins to argue but the sound of a click and his phone flashing indicates that she's gone and hung up, and he drops his hand to his side with a shake of the head.

~X~

As good as he looks in them, amongst the other things that Arthur hates, suits are one of them.

But he'd never dare to stand in front of his father during "business hours" without one on his back, and that's exactly what he's doing at the moment. They're holed up in his father's home office, gone through fifty long minutes of phone conferences, and Arthur blesses weekends, because this would be much more brutal at HQ.

As soon as Uther's gone and hung up, he swivels back to his computer. "You're taking a trip," he tells Arthur with no opening line - straight to the punch, that's Uther Pendragon. "Thursday to Sunday, in the States," Uther hums more to himself than Arthur, pressing a few keys on his keyboard. "You're meeting with -"

"Er, Father," Arthur cuts in, and interrupting his father is never, in a million years, the brightest of ideas, but it causes enough alarm for Uther to actually make eye contact with him. "I have plans," Arthur continues before he loses the nerve. "With Morgana and . . . company." He tags on as an afterthought.

Uther's left eyebrow quirks up. "Reschedule." He says it briskly and almost gruff, and Arthur contemplates agreeing completely but Morgana's words get to him.

"I'm afraid that's impossible," Arthur says, picking through is words carefully. "They're for," he swallows. "My birthday. Sir."

The look of surprise on Uther's face is not one a father who remembers his own son's birthday should wear, but Arthur never really considered it as such. He always considered the date of his birth as more of the date of his mother's death, at least in Uther's eyes, and to think that would change at all is illogical.

"I see," Uther says, and his throat sounds a little sore, whereas it hadn't before. "Well, in that case, I suppose - I suppose Gaius could go." There's something troubling in Uther's eyes, and his smile is entirely false, but as he turns away again, Arthur can tell the conversation is closed off for discussion.

He's very aware that it's a topic that will have to be tackled later, but for now he's glad to get away with it, and so he leaves the office with a nod, shutting the door behind him.