ONE

Beautiful, amazing cover can be found under the name "Warm Merthur" by kneelmortals on DeviantArt! FF, you need to work on allowing links, it is quite irritating to not be able to provide them. *glowers*

A/N: According to the vast and often untrue database known as the World Wide Web, Merlin, as his most recognizable reincarnation to the one we know today "first appeared as a combination of the existing stories of Myrddin Wylt (Merlinus Caledonensis), a northern madman with no connection to King Arthur, and the tales of Aurelius Ambroisius, which together formed the figure called Merlin Ambrosius."

Ambrosius is quite a mouthful, so I took the liberty of shortening and hopefully slightly modernizing it to "Ambrose."

Merlin Ambrose nervously glanced down once again at the tiny slip of paper he clutched as the dull voice of the loudspeaker called out yet more destinations and gate numbers. The barely filled small backpack the dark haired young man clutched to his stomach didn't give any observer the impression he was leaving his life here behind, or the reason he now sat in a uniformly pristine, bland airport.

Merlin himself couldn't believe it either, after living in poverty for most of his life.

A mere month before, he'd never supposed he would ever make a trip like this. His clothes were patched and thinning, his life comprised mainly of drifting from job to job, and his mother had been healthy.

But then she'd caught something. A fever, maybe, but her age and already frail body had worsened the condition. He'd bought all the medicines he could, tried to take her to a doctor, but she'd known as soon as the coughs had started that it was her time.

The last day, she'd stumbled out to the nearest old payphone and with trembling fingers called his latest workplace.

He found her still slumped in the booth when he got home almost an hour later, shivering and burning up.

"Mom? Oh God."

He tried to take her back in, scooping her up, but she stopped him.

"Merlin. Merlin, my baby boy. I…I have a box. You know the box?"

Yes, the old shoebox. It had pictures and memorabilia from happier times, when his father had been alive, when he'd been born, when they hadn't been practically homeless.

"Yes." She kept it next to the stained, ripped old mattress they slept on, though so far as he knew, neither of them had touched it in years. "Yes, Mom. What about it?"

"I didn't want to use it. And I didn't want you to use it on me. I have money, Merlin. For you, I wanted to save for you to go to college. But you can't, not now. What's most important is for you to get out of here, to somewhere where you can get a job and save and maybe start a family. I want you to buy yourself a first class ticket like you deserve and fly to…to that lovely place we used to vacation to, that city, what was it, dear? Camelot. You'll…you'll find the life you need there, Merlin. I know, it was always so magical. Go to Camelot." Her voice was reedy and cracking by the time she finished, and her shivers had turned into full tremors, rattling the old plastic of the booth. She reached up for his forehead, and he let her press a dry kiss to it before the rasp that was her breath stopped.

"Mom?" he'd whispered, unable to believe it, even as the burning liquid in his eyes had dripped to land on her own cold cheek, and the wracking sobs had begun.

He'd bought the ticket, per her dying wish, with astonishing wad of bills he'd found tucked into the old box. He'd gathered all he could from their rundown home. He buried his mother under the scraggly oak on the corner, leaving the broken shovel he'd scavenged by the grave. He'd fashioned a simple cross from the dead branches lying strewn across the crumbling sidewalk and scattered the few wilted daisies he could find across the mound of fresh dirt.

Now Merlin sat in the airport, feeling acutely aware he belonged anywhere but here. He tugged at his scarf, an old red scrap of some piece of clothing his mother had worn. She had liked to tie it around her head to keep back her graying hair, and Merlin couldn't bear to leave it behind.

"Flight 237 to Camelot, second call for first class passengers."

Merlin started, leaping to his feet. He'd missed the first call, he'd been too busy trying to keep the lump in his throat down. He tripped as he got to the line, nearly taking down a woman wheeling a giant pink suitcase behind her. She glared at him as he straightened himself. He felt clumsy and bumbling and too out of place, but other than the suitcase woman, he only caught a few glances directed his way as a flight attendant checked his ticket and he stepped through the gate. All the people who had made it the first call sat in their seats, and Merlin found himself on the receiving end of the many judgmental once-overs he'd been expecting.

He was sitting in row 3. Most of the other passengers were sitting alone, so Merlin stopped in surprise at the man who reclined next to row 3's window, a soft looking cushion around his neck, his eyes closed. His blond hair brushed against his darker tinted eyelashes, and his lightly muscled arms, folded across his chest, rose and fell deeply with his breath.

Merlin carefully stowed his small bag beneath the seat in front of him and sat down in the aisle seat, glancing again at the sleeping man and now noticing the tiny white wires that ran from his ears down to his dark wash jeans' pocket, where an iPhone was tucked. His striped red button up was partly undone, show a small strip of the man's broad chest. Something about him seemed familiar, but Merlin shook the vague recognition off. Surely he didn't know anyone who would be riding in first class.

Merlin wiggled in his seat, trying to get comfortable, wondering how someone could fall asleep as fast as this man appeared to have, especially on a plane. Nothing had even started up yet and Merlin could feel the nerves bubbling in the pit of his stomach as he glanced around at the giant contraption that was somehow supposed to become airborne in the near future.

There were lots of bells and whistles in the first class seats. Merlin's eyes landed on the screen inlaid into the seat in front of him. Pressing the power button, he stared at row upon row of genres it showed after a brief blue screen with the name of the airline, Pendragon Flight.

Movies, he realized as he read Disney. He hadn't seen a movie in forever.

"God, are you going to watch a movie already? At least put in some headphones for the rest of us."

Merlin jumped at the annoyed voice and turned to see the blond man glaring at him as he pulled his earbuds out.

"No," Merlin said quickly, pressing the power button again. "I was just looking. Sorry."

"I hope so." The stranger readjusted his neck pillow and stretched out further in his seat.

Merlin, uncomfortable, tried to look away and focus on the slow trickle of passengers walking down the aisle, but he found his gaze wandering back to his row mate, who was now typing on his iPhone. Glancing up as he felt Merlin's gaze on him, he raised an eyebrow. "Flattered as I am by your attention, I'm not interested in giving you my number."

Red rushing to his face as Merlin realized what the man was saying, he hastened to shake his head insistently. "No, no! It's just…I'm just ‒ I'm Merlin," he muttered awkwardly. The man, who had turned back to his phone, rolled his eyes. "Arthur," he sighed, rubbing his temple as he leaned against the window.

Merlin, despite the hostility he was obviously being received with, decided to attempt conversation. "So. Why are you going to Camelot?"

Arthur looked annoyed again, still focusing on whatever he was typing. "Sadly enough, I live there."

"Sadly? Camelot's beautiful!"

Arthur scoffed, finally raising his eyes from the screen to give Merlin a disdainful look. "Beautiful? The only parts of Camelot that have the slightest chance of being regarded as passably attractive are ridiculously touristy, tacky, and expensive as hell. I don't know what you were on when you visited, but Camelot is nowhere near beautiful."

"We used to visit this lake by an old castle, and it was the nicest place in the ‒"

"I know the lake," Arthur interrupted. "It's as tourist-centered as the best of 'em. A sellout is what Camelot is."

He looked inexplicably bitter for a few moments before turning to eye Merlin again. "And what are you planning on doing there? Not vacationing, I hope, it's pathetic as hell to take a vacation there."

"No, I'm moving."

Arthur's eyes narrowed. "Relatives?"

"Sorry?"

"Are you moving to be near relatives or something? Why would you live there? The only good place is the penthouses up in the hills. Do you have a rich, doting aunt? Getting away from overbearing parents?"

"No…" Merlin could feel his patheticness growing by the minute. He wasn't telling this rude, probably rich guy he'd been penniless and was moving without the faintest idea of where he would go.

"What on earth are you doing, then?"

"I have a hotel room booked until I finalize my purchase of a house." It was a lie. Merlin had no idea where he'd go when he got to Camelot.

"Hm." Arthur leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes again, his interest lost in the conversation.

"Why are you going back if you hate it so much?"

"Good question," Arthur murmured, his eyes fluttering back open as he glanced out the window. "I hope not for a very good reason."

By the end of the main wave of passengers, a large, loud, bossy woman, her husband, and their whiny, equally loud toddler had taken up the seats across from them, but their luggage seemed to be going elsewhere.

"Ex-cuse me. I'm afraid I have the worst back imaginable so if you wouldn't mind moving over…"

The woman practically shoved her giant, human-sized pink suitcase into Merlin's lap, her ridiculously high, girlish voice grating on his ears as he realized it was the same woman that he'd nearly knocked over.

Arthur, busy with his beeping phone, only realized what was happening when Merlin jumped up from his seat and nearly bumped into him. "There's a perfectly good luggage rack above your seat, for God's sake," he scoffed at the woman.

"I have a bad back," blustered the woman, her hands fluttering for emphasis.

"Oh hell."

"Is there a problem?" a high-heeled flight attendant coming down the aisle interjected, glancing between Merlin and the large woman looking about ready to smack Arthur.

"Yes," Arthur began, "this idiot won't ‒"

"No," Merlin interrupted, forcing a smile at the attendant, who still wore a, if mildly confused, smile. "There's no problem. We're fine, thanks."

"All right." The suited woman cast them a vaguely skeptical look and clicked back up the aisle.

Arthur glared at him as Merlin took the empty seat next to him and the loud woman sat smugly in her own seat across the aisle.

"What? It doesn't really matter." Merlin sat back.

"Yes, believe it or not, Merlin, it does matter," Arthur snapped.

"No, it doesn't. There was an empty seat anyway."

Arthur sighed. "I suppose you'll understand when you try to sleep."

Merlin jumped when the cheery female voice finally came over the loudspeaker. "Hello and welcome."

She outlined enough safety protocol for Merlin's stomach butterflies to evolve into stomach pterodactyls, insistently beating their giant wings faster than his heartbeat. He found himself gripping his armrests so hard that his fingers began to ache as the plane started to taxi.

"Hey."

Merlin had plastered his entire body against the back of the chair, but he glanced over, trying to calm his breathing, which was picking up as the engines roared louder.

Arthur was looking at him with a somewhat sympathetic expression.

"Yeah?" Merlin gasped.

"Dude. It's all right. Okay?"

"Okay," Merlin wheezed.

"We're not gonna crash. Yeah?"

"Yeah," the dark haired boy whispered.

Arthur clasped his shoulder. "I've taken these planes a thousand times. We'll be fine. All right?"

Merlin nodded, completely out of breath now.

By the time they reached their intended height in the sky, Merlin's nerves had lessened to one finger tapping lightly against his armrest.

He would have been fine had the cabin not started to bounce slightly.

"Are you all right, sweetie? You look a little green." The same, now encouragingly smiling flight attendant gently touched Merlin's arm.

"He'll be fine."

Both the flight attendant and a queasy Merlin turned to Arthur, who gave Merlin a little grin and turned his attention to the blue-clad woman.

"Get him something."

"I…ah…of course, sir." The woman looked extraordinarily flustered all of a sudden as she did a double take at Arthur, tugging at her neck scarf as she rushed off.

A moment later, she returned, a faint flush in her face, again staring at Arthur, though she clearly spoke to Merlin. "I'm sorry, what would you like?"

Merlin couldn't speak as again the plane hit some turbulence, so Arthur ordered for him.

When Merlin realized he was holding a cup, the pink juice was room temperature and Arthur had finished half of his own dinner.

"No ice." Arthur noticed his companion's blinking down at his cup. "Don't ever get ice in that. It's a tropical juice, hand squeezed by a family owned Camelot company. It's good when you're feeling ill, go on."

Merlin took a cautious sip and found, indeed, his stomach settled slightly.

"Thanks."

Arthur gave a casual shrug, as if he didn't actually care. But Merlin could see the corner of his mouth quirk upwards for a brief moment a grill-marked piece of chicken into it.

The flight grew tedious as it wore on without distractions, like Arthur and all the other passengers seemed to have. After being growled at for turning on the screen for the first time and without earbuds, Merlin decided he'd rather not take the risk of being reprimanded again and scrunched down in his seat instead. He hadn't thought of bringing books, none of the few his mother had owned had held any meaning or interesting reading material for him, so he'd left them behind. Now he couldn't think of anything else to do.

Sleeping, though he'd have liked to do it, wasn't high on his list. The nervousness he'd been feeling had lessened any chances of shut-eye.

So the waves of sleepiness that began hitting him as the plane droned on and the sunlight and robin egg blue outside the window started to darken to a deep purple took him by some surprise. As his eyes fluttered shut and his head began to drift to the side without him realizing it, Merlin's thoughts floated away.

Of course, waking up wasn't the best experience he'd ever had, with a sour taste in his mouth, his head heavy, and the piece of cold metal and plastic digging into his side didn't add to it.

But he was also leaning into something else, something warm, something he rested his cheek against.

"Finally awake, are you?" came another voice, sounding as drowsy as Merlin felt.

But suddenly he wasn't feeling so drowsy anymore. He sprang back from where he cuddled into his row partner's shoulder only to bang his head on the suitcase behind him.

Arthur, not having moved from where it almost seemed that he, too, had been leaning against Merlin, yawned a lazy smirk at the other man's obvious discomfort.

"S-sorry," Merlin mumbled, gritting his teeth as he rubbed his head.

"Told you that you shouldn't have given up your seat." Arthur rolled his shoulders as suddenly the flight attendant appeared next to the pink suitcase.

"Would you like a pillow, sir? …Sir?" Her eyes darted toward Merlin with slight uncertainty as she glanced back at Arthur, her low whisper questioning.

"Oh, he already found himself a pillow," Arthur snickered as he pulled out his phone again.

The attendant's eyes widened visibly as she turned them back to a pink Merlin. "I…I see."

He watched as she met her fellow attendant up the aisle and began whispering to her as they both surreptitiously glanced back toward Merlin and Arthur. The other woman's mouth was open in a scandal hearing gossip's smile.

"You're looking hot there, Merlin." Arthur leaned on his armrest, watching Merlin over the top of his phone.

"W-what?!"

Arthur's laugh was loud enough that several people shushed him angrily, so he quieted himself, but couldn't hold back the now soundless shaking.

"Warm. A little warm," he whispered. "Now you're about the color of the tomatoes in my salad."

For good reason. Merlin folded his arms, feeling sheepish for how flustered he was. Arthur was just teasing him. They had met a mere few hours ago, and in another few hours they'd part ways and never meet again.

Of course, with Merlin's luck, this wasn't to be the case.

They touched down at one in the morning Camelot time, two hours behind the time zone Merlin was used to. And after the first embarrassing nap, he'd determined that he would remain awake for the entirety of the rest of the flight, no matter what it took.

So now the pauper boy in first class stumbled off the plane, bleary eyed and a little out of his wits. The men and women shoving past him didn't help as he tried to keep his balance. A few directly knocked into him, not even apologizing as they hurried past.

By the time he'd passed baggage claim on his way out to hopefully hail a taxi to the nearest cheap lodgings, he'd woken up enough to reach into his pocket for his wallet.

Only his wallet wasn't in his pocket.

Or his other pocket.

The other two were just as empty.

Merlin desperately threw his pack to the ground, sifting through the meager contents for the ragged little brown pouch, but it wasn't anywhere.

His wallet was gone.

"Oh God," he murmured.

Here he was, in a strange place, his only living relative gone, homeless, at three ‒ one ‒ three in the morning, and his only chance for surviving in the world just…gone.

"What's the matter now, Merlin?"

Merlin looked up through watery eyes to see Arthur standing above him, with a large suitcase and a "too tired but caring anyway" expression.

"I…my wallet's gone." Merlin swiped at his eyes with his already damp sleeve.

Arthur heaved a sigh and held out his hand. "We'll just have to get you to your hotel, won't we?"

Shit. Shit shit shit.

"I'm…I can't. I'm supposed to pay when I get there. All my money was in my wallet." He should have just told Arthur then that he didn't have a hotel. But for some reason the lie spun on.

The sigh he received now was of a colossal scale, a "you really have fucked up, haven't you" sigh. But Arthur looked resigned as he remained holding out his hand.

"I don't…"

"Shut up, Merlin. We'll figure something out."

The limo that waited outside was gigantic and shiny, and Merlin started to walk past it, staring, before Arthur grabbed his arm. "Come on."

"What…that?"

"Yes," affirmed Arthur impatiently. "I'd like get to bed as soon as humanely possible. Please try not to be an idiot."

So Merlin stepped into the limo, certainly feeling like an idiot for even daring to talk to someone who casually got picked up by a limo as one in the morning, much less inconvenience that limo-user by making them drive him around.

"Sir? Your…friend?"

"Yes, friend." Arthur slammed his door and slumped in his seat, exhaling in tired relief. "You know the hotel. Drive."

"Of course, sir."

As the quiet purr of the limo lulled them, both of the already exhausted men dozed off.

"Here, sir."

"Whatzzit…yes. Oh yes." Arthur jerked awake. "Yes. Merlin."

"Mmm?"

"Come on. Stop being an idiot and wake up."

Merlin was yanked out of the car still only half conscious into the brightly lit interior of some posh building.

"May I help you?" The receptionist looked ridiculously ready to please with a dazzling smile, considering the time.

Merlin yawned and rubbed his eyes with his free arm as her nametag, reading Karen and Pendragon Inn. Arthur was still gripping the other tightly.

"Yes. I have a booking, but I'd like to change it to a two bed."

"Your name is…?"

Arthur fished in his pocket and pulled out a credit card, which he slid across the marble counter.

The receptionist picked it up only to echo the flight attendant's expression upon first noticing Arthur. Now the receptionist looked back up at Arthur with giant eyes before practically dropping the card to type something into the computer.

A tired Merlin could only think about the oddness of it for a moment as the woman's furiously typing fingers stopped.

"Uh‒um, yes, sir. Two ‒ I, ah, we don't…" She wilted in her chair. "I'm afraid we don't have any two bed rooms available at this time, sir. They're all taken."

"For God's sake." Arthur slumped onto the counter. "I've come hours and hours to have to put with all this shit. Do I have to go somewhere else?"

The receptionist scrambled to right the situation. "Sir, we can upgrade you to a double bed."

"What the hell," Arthur snarled, with sudden, impressive heat for someone who had been awake for however many hours. "Yeah, that'll make everything better. A double bed. Give me the fucking key, all right?"

"Yes, sir." Meekly the receptionist spun to grab the card key from the wall.

Arthur, still pulling Merlin, stalked up the stairs as she called after them the directions to the room.

The blond man swiped the card and shoved open the door. The bed was in the far end of the room, but in two strides, Arthur had collapsed onto it, yanking Merlin with him.

As Merlin's elbow in his ribcage evidently reminded him with an "oof" that Arthur had company, Arthur roused himself with a glare at the other man.

"Oh the floor. You're not sleeping in my bed."

Merlin stumbled to his feet with mumbled protests to curl on the floor. A blanket and a pillow fell on his head.

"Turn out the light, Merlin."

Merlin sat up, squinting at the nearest light switch, which took up space on the wall right above the headboard of Arthur's bed.

But Arthur only pulled the blankets up to his chin and was apparently falling asleep.

Tiredly, Merlin crawled up onto the dreamily soft mattress, pulling his blanket around his shoulders to reach up for the switch. As the lights clicked off, so did Merlin sinking into the feathery pillows.

The irritatingly loud jingle of a phone ringtone cut through Merlin's peaceful sleep, insistently picking up as it continued.

"Oh for ‒" Someone stumbled over Merlin's legs and there was a loud thump. "Godda ‒ Yes, Father?! What is it?"

Merlin rolled over, burying his nose in the clean, soft, nice-smelling pillow as he cracked open an eye to see a ruffled Arthur crouching next to his duffle bag ‒ his now only just buttoned shirt slipping off his shoulder and his hair sticking up in all directions. He was listening to his phone with a incredulous expression as bright sunlight shone into the white room through the only half closed drapes.

"What…? I don't…no, Dad. No, I'm not. Oh, for God's sake! Rumor ‒ no, it's rumor. Gossip. You know how they are, all right? Remember last year when they made your new female head of communications a big thing? You know, I ‒!"

Arthur stopped as the person on the other end shouted unintelligibly at him. His head dropped and he shoved his hand through his already wild hair.

"Yes, sir. I'm still here. Of course, sir. I understand. I'll be more careful. Of course I can completely explain when I get there.

The loud tones of the empty line as the other person hung up filled the room. Merlin felt suddenly uncomfortable with the silence as he realized he shouldn't have been where he was.

Arthur turned on him with narrowed eyes and Merlin shrank back. "I'm sorry, I…"

"Look what you've done."

Merlin stopped as Arthur held the phone out to him with a glare, a text open, and cautiously he took it.

The text was a screenshot of a gossip website, more specifically of an article with a giant, slightly fuzzy cell phone picture just below the headline.

A picture of Merlin sleeping on Arthur's shoulder.

"W-what?" Merlin stammered, and his eyes flashed to the headline.

PENDRAGON'S SON FINDS LOVE AGAINST HOMOPHOBIC FATHER'S WISHES?

It hit him like a ton of bricks.

Pendragon, the multi-million dollar mega company known everywhere. Owner of so much more than the airline he'd just flown on, the hotel he'd stayed in… The name on every billboard, the side of every truck, at the end of every commercial around here.

Camelot, their home base.

Arthur, familiar to Merlin because he did know him. Or his face, anyway.

Arthur Pendragon, the son of the head of the entire company, Uther Pendragon.