"Merlin. Merlin, did you get one?"
"Mhm."
"We need to talk about this."
There are less complicated ways for future best friends to meet than to discover that you're both dating the same girl. In most scenarios when two people unknowingly share a girlfriend, lifelong friendship is actually pretty far from the anticipated outcome. However, in the case of Gwen Smith and Merlin Emrys, probability had elected to take a holiday. Heartbroken as they both were over the monstrous betrayal of a certain Morgana Fay, they leaned on each other and bonded over the experience. They quickly found that they had a lot more in common than their taste in women. Over time, Morgana was almost forgotten - until the day when they both received an invitation to one of her big, flashy parties.
"This is a trick. It must be."
"How would it be a trick? What could she possibly be trying to achieve?"
"You know her. She's insecure. This is going to be posh, it's going to be fabulous, she's going to have the elite swarming around her, and she is going to lord our loneliness in our faces so that we regret ever breaking up with her."
"What did she expect us to do? Share?"
"I think she was banking on one of us to stay."
"Well, she lost her savings. I'm not going anywhere near her again."
"We have to go."
"What?"
Merlin emerged from the mug of green tea he had been slowly drowning himself in. Gwen's smirk assured him that his perplexity was written all over his face.
"We have to go to this party," Gwen repeated.
"Why? Why do we have to do that? You said yourself, she just wants to humiliate us. Make it clear that it's our loss, which it isn't, but which we will be hard pressed to prove when stuck on her home turf."
"We'll go to the party and prove her wrong. Show her we're not lonely, we're great, and much better off without her treacherous socialite nonsense."
Merlin raised an eyebrow.
"Speak for yourself. I'm not exactly wishing for her back, but I'm as lonely as Cinderella's left shoe. And weren't you moaning just the other day that no-one remotely attractive ever looks at you twice?"
"Oh, shush. For one, that shoe thing is possibly the worst metaphor you've ever used."
"Semantics."
"And what I mean is, we need to step up our game. Find ourselves some girlfriends, or boyfriends, or lovers of any in between variation if the opportunity arises. We have to become happy and not-lonely in time for the party. Which is," she double checked on her phone, "Actually quite a doable time limit. She's planned way ahead, we have all the way until end of the shoot."
The problem with Gwen was that she was incredibly determined. When she decided on something, for instance that Morgana would not get the best of her, she would not be persuaded otherwise. Whether Merlin argued in favour of staying away and being the better people - "You know she's just going to frame that as cowardice. I don't want her to fool even herself into thinking that she's somehow beat me. Not again." - or that Morgana was obviously trying to save face so maybe they should let her win - "Of course not! She needs to learn that she can't just use people like that! If we never show her, she'll never learn! We'd be doing her a favour." - or even that if they should go, they could go together, pretending to be a couple - "That'll never work. She knows us both too well. No, it has to be real." - she just would not budge.
"Wait a minute. This sudden enthusiasm for getting, as it were, back in the game wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that we have both landed incredibly minor jobs in a film production starring your favourite actor?"
"How could it possibly relate?"
"Gwen. Gwen, look me in the eye. You are not going to make an attempt at seducing Arthur Pendragon, are you?"
"No. Oh, come on, why'd you have to mention - I can't concentrate on scheming for a date while I'm conscious of the fact that in three days I'll be working in the same building as him."
Merlin chuckled and rolled his eyes. It wasn't that he disliked Arthur Pendragon, not in any way, but he wasn't exactly a fan. He'd obviously heard of him, but then, who hadn't? The man's face was on the cover of every other magazine and featured in every other film trailer. Pendragon was very much an "every other" kind of celebrity, the kind that has not yet ascended to the throne of the pantheon, but whose presence is impossible to miss. And he was not in any way a bad actor, he was brilliant, in fact. Merlin liked him. That being said, he wasn't exactly pissing himself over the fact that Pendragon was to star in the picture. The same could not be said for Gwen, although thankfully there was no literal urination involved. As the start of work approached, she did at times squeeze Merlin's arm so hard and for so long that he could feel it turning blue. She hopped up and down like a little rabbit, which was both adorable and disconcerting, though not quite as disconcerting as the prospect of amputation, which Merlin's poor arm was likely to be facing. And of course, she had taken to repeating a mantra of prayers to a god he up until then been fairly sure she did not believe in.
"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God," she repeated, until Merlin suspected his ears might soon want to fall off together with his arm. He lifted the anguished limb's unoccupied twin to pat her hair in comfort.
"There there," he said, "I'm sure you'll survive. His loveliness is sure to adore you with your infallible charm."
To the great sadness of them both, however, this claim for Arthur's loveliness was soon disproved, and in his very first lunch break on set, Merlin faced a friend reminiscent of an excited puppy with the knowledge that he had to quench all her hopes and dreams.
Merlin was a floor runner on the set, and was to spend a lot of time making tea and coffee and being a general dogsbody. It did not make full use of his hard won media degree, but would fit well on his CV. Gwen was a costume designer by trade, but had accepted a role as a fitter for the experience of working on a big production.
As she spent most of her time in the costume workshop, she didn't see much of the big star except from that moment early in the day when she had almost fainted at the sight of blonde locks. Merlin, however, had sped back and forth across sets featuring the man all day, and could with grave confidence announce:
"He's an absolute prick."
Gwen's face fell.
"What?"
Merlin shrugged apologetically.
"No, you have to give me more detail than that. What did he do that's so bad? He's Arthur Pendragon! He's everyone's favourite! He can't be a prick."
"He can. And he is."
This certainty stemmed primarily from an incident surrounding a water bottle. Well, several water bottles. Merlin had been darting around the set, placing bundles of them in key locations and handing them to thirsty looking technicians. As he placed a bottle next to the big star's own chair, a voice had rung out from behind him.
"What are you doing?"
"Handing out water. Here."
Pendragon had simply furrowed his perfectly made up brow and asserted,
"I don't drink that water."
As it turned out, Arthur Pendragon only drank a particular brand of bottled water, which was not the one Merlin tried to offer him. The mistake could apparently not be forgiven, as he insisted that Merlin be the one to subsequently fetch him that water. Once Merlin had found out where Pendragon's special water bottles were stored, the one he brought was apparently "too warm," and he received a splash to the face. When he finally did serve up a perfectly chilled bottle of Arthur's favourite water, the smirk on the actor's face was insufferable.
"He was enjoying my suffering, Gwen. There's no doubt about it. He is a prick, through and through, and I'm going to get revenge."