Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me.
Notes: Text drabble to xxxayakaxxx, with a little bit added on. I like coming up with AUs for the boys. :)
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Merlin plays the piano Tuesday and Thursday nights in a little bar two blocks away from his flat. It's a quiet place, thick with the scent of alcohol and loneliness. Merlin has clever fingers and plays on request often; sometimes he goes home with someone looking to forget, sometimes he just watches the people around him, people who look like they understand solitude in its many forms.
There's one man, a regular Thursday night patron—he sits, head bowed, blond hair falling over his eyes in tendrils, glass of whiskey set before him. He never asks Merlin to play anything in particular, just watches him with tired eyes; Merlin wonders what he would do if he went over there, invitation unmistakable in half-lowered eyes and brushing fingers. Would he turn away? Or would he hesitate, caught in the promises whispered in Merlin's eyes?
It's a relationship alive in the meeting of their gazes, the recognition of each other's souls in this dark, misery-breathing bar. Merlin wants the vulnerable curve of his neck, the pain in his eyes. He wants to part those lips with his own, thinks he will taste bitterness deep on his tongue. He wants to press his mouth to his collarbone, undress him carefully. Put him to bed and brush away all his troubles with tender hands. Merlin immerses himself in this what-if relationship so much that he is surprised when the man comes up to his piano one night and says quietly, "I'm Arthur. Come home with me tonight."
Merlin's yes falls out of his mouth with haste, and the man—Arthur, finally smiles a smile that reaches his eyes. What Merlin keeps close from that night is simple: the way Arthur bites on his lower lip to hold back noises but they escape anyway; the half-light washing through the window and turning Arthur's beauty otherworldly; the feeling of Arthur's lips pressed over Merlin's heart, overshadowing even the way he moves inside him. The undercurrent of fear in Arthur's voice when he swallows and says softly, "Stay." And how can Merlin do anything else?
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