(So, hello again! So, I really wanted to write another chapter fic, but I also didn't want to do canon, I do a lot of canon and I'm tired of canon, well, not really tired, but had enough of it for awhile. And I also really love modern fics right now. I don't know how popular modern chapter fics are, Flame's was pretty popular but that wasn't completely modern, this is, but I do hope you give it a chance. This idea was literally thought up because I love bad puns, you'll see why this even matters later on. I then added the bit that Merlin and Morgana used to date for drama reasons. I plan on making this a pretty long chapter fic, hopefully, with pretty long chapters, because I want to work on my writing skills more and using canon isn't really creating my own back story and whatnot, this is though, this is more, just using other peoples characters to tell a story, if that makes sense, I hope it does. I don't own Merlin, I wish I did...)

"This is my new boyfriend, Merlin," she had said, smiling happily, with a string bean connected to her arm. Alright, he wasn't a string bean, but he was close enough. Arthur had never seen such a skinny excuse for a guy in his life. But he supposed he was nice enough, a bit of a dork, honestly. But, just as long as he made Arthur's sister happy, what more could Arthur ask for?

Of course, nine months later, he didn't have any trouble at all, going over to the string beans house at three in the morning and punching him right in the eye, that's what happens when you hurt Arthur's little sister. The string bean wasn't thought about again.

XXX

Uther (Glare Of Disapproval) Pendragon was expanding the company, building another office in Wales, and obviously, he needed someone there to run it the way he wanted his business run, so who else would do this but his own son, Arthur? No one that's who, and so Arthur told him, and so he agreed. It's not that Arthur wanted to move away from his father and sister and his entire life, basically, but this was good for him, really good. It proved Arthur could be responsible and take charge, so when that unfortunate time comes, that Uther kicks the bucket, Arthur will be allowed to take over the business. Not that stuffy bloke, Geoffrey, who has been up Uther's ass for the past twenty years.

So, he packed up his stuff, and said his goodbyes, his father let his warnings be heard, about not screwing up, Morgana told him she'd call as often as she could, so he didn't feel lonesome all on his own, (though Arthur thought it was just because she's nosy,) and Gwen cried a lot. Leon patted him on the back and told him he was rooting for him, Lance smiled proudly as they bro hugged and Gwaine tried to tag along, which made Arthur promptly kick him out of his car.

He was only moving four hours away, it wasn't like he was moving to the states or something. And really, it was he who should be upset, he was the one moving to a town he didn't know and the one who didn't know anyone in this town, sure he would make friends, he was good at that, but really, his family and friends were acting like someone just died.

It felt like someone had just died though, once he finally got to his new home, a two bedroom flat, two blocks away from his new place of work. It hadn't quite dawned on him, of course, that he would be all alone, never before, in his entire life had he been all alone, he didn't like it, not one bit. He ended up talking to Morgana all night that night, he didn't want to admit it, but he was kind of scared, of course she knew that though, Morgana had a way of just knowing things, and of course, she made fun of him like there was no tomorrow.

Two days later, on the morning of his first day at work, he was less scared now, he had been out exploring and found a good pub and a decent restaurant to eat for lunch, that's all he really needed right now, friends would come later.

He headed out, down the hall to catch a lift. His phone buzzed in his new, freshly pressed, dark, navy blue trousers and he pulled it out, rolling his eyes at his sister's text.

"Is the little baby scared of his first day of being a grown up?"

He knew it was her way of asking if he was alright and he appreciated it, sending back a zinger about her being a cold hearted bitch. The lifts dinged and he walked forward, hitting send on his phone, marveling at his cleverly crafted, hateful words to his little sister, when he ran into something. It was hard and pointy and it made an umph sound as it staggered back. Arthur didn't look up quick enough to see the bag of groceries fall from the pointy things arms and start spilling out of their paper bag, not until he heard what sounded like breaking glass and suddenly felt rather wet around the leg area.

"Son of a bitch!" Arthur shouted, looking at the red souce all over his pants.

"I'm sorry," sputtered the fool that just ruined Arthurs new trousers. "I'm so sorry, I can pay for that, I can get it out actually, just give me like…twenty-"

"I'll be late for work!" Arthur stopped him, looking up to glare daggers at the idiot. Of course, it wasn't really his fault, but it was eight thirty in the morning, Arthur was due at the office at nine and these were expensive pants!

"Oh…I am so sor-wait a second," the bloke said and Arthur finally looked at him properly for the first time. The bloke, dark haired and blue eyed, he had a certain look about him, like Arthur had seen him before. His eyes narrowed just as the blokes did. They looked at each other. "You're Arthur Pendragon!" he finally said, just as the lift started dinging, the doors had been open too long. But now the bloke was laughing. "You probably don't remember me, do you?"

"I can't say that I do!" Arthur barked, deeming this matter of who the hell this guy was, a problem for later, now, he had red sauce all over his pants and was going to be late for work. "But if you'll excuse me."

He turned around, heading back toward his flat, to his dismay, the bloke followed. "I doubt you much care now, now that you've got my dinner all over your pants, but-"

"I wouldn't care even if I didn't have your dinner all over my pants," Arthur continued to bark, finally reaching his door. He wasn't sure why this guy thought Arthur would care, if anything, he should be fearing for his life right now. But instead, the guy was smiling at him. "What?!"

"Just as much of a prat as always," he said, with a shake of the head and Arthur froze there, just as he thought about slamming the door in the blokes face, he remembered something. "It's all the same you don't remember me, you never liked me much anyway."

"You're Merlin," he said, like he was a genius, and (to at least himself,) he was. "You used to date my sister."

"Yeah," Merlin grinned. "Took you a bit to get there, didn't it? Hm, you never were overly bright."

"And you're still a jackass!" Arthur retorted, getting fed up, he slammed the door finally, just as it looked like Merlin was about to say something else. He had been right though, Arthur never liked him much.

Arthur changed his pants quickly, and then his shirt too, because he didn't match as well as he wanted to anymore. By the time he walked back out of his falt again, it was eight fifty and Arthur was surely going to be late, it was enviable. He didn't see Merlin in the hall this time, as he left, and it was a good thing for the other that Arthur didn't. He spirited from the building and jumped into his car like he was in a 70's, American sitcom and drove down the street like a madman. He reached the office at exactly nine o'clock and ran to the door, stopping there to smooth out his suit jacket and panic, because this was an awful time not to remember if you put on deodorant after that mornings shower.

He walked in, finally, like the professional he was, stopping in front of the welcome desk and flashed a smile. The elderly woman behind the desk grinned up at him.

"Arthur?" she asked, but he guessed she knew who he was already, because she was standing up and he had come to the grand opening with his father a few months back. So, he just nodded. "It's nice to see you again and finally, really meet you."

"You too," he agreed, reaching out to shake her hand. She shook his, with a pleased smile.

"I'm Alice," she said, letting go of his hand and walking out from behind the desk. "Let me show you to where your office will be and let's let you get settled."

He nodded once again and followed her. She was a nice old lady, he thought, as he followed, passing other offices with people working in them, some looked up and some pretended to be on the phone. It was like he was the boss already, and he was!

He had the biggest office in the building, it was all the way at the end of the hall and it had a plant on the desk, he would end up killing that in no time. He walked around the dark, wooden desk, running his fingers across it and smiled, this was his, all his. Of course he would still have to talk to his father about all big decisions and cases, but this was still his.

"I'll leave you to it," the woman said, who reminded him a bit of his grandmother, who had only came around a few times when Arthur was young, before she died. "I'll be right out there if you need anything, don't be afraid to call."

"Thank you…Alice," he grimaced, hoping he got her name right. But when she beamed at him, he supposed he did and then watched her walk out, surprisingly sharp-footed for an old lady. She shut the door on her way out and Arthur leaned back in the chair, arms stretching out and then went behind his head. This was his, he kept telling himself, his.

Needless to say, Merlin and red sauced pants didn't enter his mind, not once, the rest of the day.

At five thirty, Arthur walked off the lift and headed to his flat, texting Gwen this time, to tell her how things were going. He didn't bother looking up when he heard footsteps either in front or behind him. He had just finished writing the word fantastic when he ran into something, for the second time that day, but this time, this something was plushy and he fell back, landing on his ass, on the less than soft carpted floors of the hallway, something was on his lap too, it smelled like rotten fish. When he opened his eyes and saw a black bag full of rubbish in his lap, he yelped and pushed it off of him, standing up and glaring at who kocked him over. And of course, (of fucking course,) it was Merlin, he didn't look unsettled by this accident though, he looked pleased.

"You know you should really watch where you're going, neighbor," he said, in a voice that Arthur didn't like at all. Arthur, growled, mostly to contain the swears he was thinking, and screwed up his fists.

"Listen here…" but he stopped, running back through what Merlin had just said. "What the hell do you mean neighbor?"

Merlin had the audacity to laugh, "I live right here," he pointed to the door, right across from Arthur's. "We're neighbors now, I guess, isn't that great?"

"No, that is not great!" Arthur retorted, flabbergasted. He had never even thought about what Merlin was doing here, with bags of red sauce, didn't even assume he lived in the building. Merlin was laughing again.

"Aw, don't be so grumpy," he said, to which, Arthur rolled his eyes. "I'm sure we'll become good friends."

"Like hell we will!" Arthur told him, kicking his bag of rubbish toward him. "Knock into me again and I'll file!"he added for good measure. "Good day!"

He wrenched open his door and looked back to see Merlin frowning, he felt sort of bad, but not bad enough, when he thought of his sister and what this inbred did to her.

"Why did you always hate me so much?" Merlin asked, he sounded so pleading, like this was actually really important to him. "I couldn't ever figure it out…"

"After what you did to my sister?" Arthur scoffed. "You're lucky hate is all I ever did to you," it looked like Merlin wanted to say something; he was reaching his hand out as Arthur slammed the door in his face. "Idiot…" Arthur muttered, unfazed, as he unbuckled his second pair of ruined pants for the day. "What the hell was in his garbage anyway?"

"Fried herring!" He heard from behind his shut door, he rolled his eyes at that. Well, he was definitely going to have to shower.