Disclaimer: Merlin and its associated material are the property of its creators and the BBC.

Marriage is what you make it

Chapter 2

When Merlin finally dragged himself from the bedroom he found Arthur sitting at what amounted to a dining table. He had only left the safety it had offered because he couldn't bare the thought of hiding from a prat like Arthur. Not that he had been hiding; not really, it was just that he did not know what to say. He felt as though he should apologise for what he had said, but all he could bring himself to do was to apologise for being overheard, and he had a sneaking suspicion that might just make things work.

Padding over to the table, he took the seat opposite Arthur's and waited for the other boy to say something.

"I suppose we should talk over this project then?" Arthur said at last, and the arrogance with which he usually addressed the entire world seemed somewhat diminished, but the next moment his eyes met Merlin's and a sneer curled his lips, and Merlin was sure he must have imagined it.

"Alright then," He agreed and fished the crumpled piece of paper denoting his work placement from out of his pocket. Beneath the information telling him where to go, who to speak to, and what to do, were a series of bullet points outlining his 'job' for the placement. "I'm working at the hospital." He offered after a moment's quiet and pushed the piece of paper towards Arthur so he could see.

Grudgingly, Arthur returned the favour and Merlin had the opportunity to see what Arthur planned to do with the rest of his life. The work placements were geared towards their own career goals, which had surprised Merlin until he remembered Hurt was also their careers advisor and knew these sorts of things. He was surprised to see that Arthur's placement was with a local, if prestigious, law firm – one renowned for doing a lot of pro-bono human rights work.

He was unsurprised to see that Arthur's 'salary' was roughly four times more than his. It took little imagination to guess who would be the breadwinner in this family.

"We can work out a budget for food tomorrow, and at some point we'll have to pick up a property magazine."

Merlin blinked at him. "Property magazine? Whatever for?"

Arthur looked at him as though he were the village idiot. "Weren't you listening to Hurt this morning?" He demanded. "We have to go house hunting together. Part of this 'marriage'." Merlin wondered if he should be offended at the way Arthur spat the final word, but decided it was not worth the effort.

"Won't the local real-estate agencies get pretty annoyed if they have a bunch of kids asking to look round houses?" He asked instead.

Arthur snorted. "That's what I said. Hurt's crazy." He stood up and snatched his own paper from off the table. "I'll be at the library if you need me." He glared at Merlin. "Don't need me."

Watching the other boy disappear from the room, Merlin wondered if Arthur knew just how much time he spent walking away from him.

When he awoke the next morning, Merlin had a moment's confusion before he remembered where he was. Enlightenment dawned, when he heard a drawling voice say, "Ah, you're awake."

Sitting up, Merlin saw a disgustingly awake and dressed Arthur Pendragon straightening his tie in the mirror. With horror, Merlin realised that Arthur must be one of those people who got up well in time for class and probably had time for a leisurely breakfast and a cup of coffee before he had to leave. Merlin was more the get up and go variety. With a moan of despair, that he did not in the slightest try to hide, the young man dropped back down into a horizontal position, before flinging and arm over his eyes to block out the light.

He managed to experience three blissful moments of peace, which was enough to for him to begin to fall asleep, before a finger prodded him sharply in the ribs.

"Get up." A rather imperious voice commanded. "We're supposed to be having breakfast together." The words took a few minutes to work their way into Merlin's sleep-addled brain, but when they did he opened his eyes to stare at Arthur and managed a very articulate, "Huh?"

"Breakfast Merlin." Arthur drawled. "It's the meal one normally consumes between waking and beginning work for the day." When Merlin simply continued to gaze blearily at him, Arthur sighed and ran a hand threw his hair. Merlin suppressed the urge to reach out and run his own hands through the golden strands. Watching Arthurs lips move, Merlin realised that Arthur was speaking,

" – supposed to be acting as though we're married. Married couples have breakfast together."

"Can't we have a dysfunctional marriage like most people?" Merlin asked desperately trying to will away the beginnings of an erection as Arthur growled low in his throat and clenched his teeth, making the muscles in his jaw jump and tighten.

"No." The blonde ground out, running another aggravated hand through his hair, and marching back over towards the mirror. "Breakfast. Ten Minutes. Be There." He did not particularly want to spend time with Emrys, but he was damned if he was going to prove true, even a single word of what the boy had told his friend last night.

Fifteen minutes saw Merlin, showered, shaved, changed, and drinking black, sweet coffee. Despite Arthur's insistence that they eat breakfast together, "Like normal people Emrys." Both had forgotten that one of the points of the project was that they had to cook their own meals and neither had bothered to do any shopping. Merlin rarely ate when Gwen or Gauis did not remind him and Arthur had apparently eaten in town last night. Together they had managed to locate coffee, sugar and a kettle, but no milk.

Merlin stifled a smile when Arthur stomach rumbled loudly.

"Sod this." Arthur said, and Merlin laughed. "We have forty-five minutes, let's go." Merlin stood up and followed, without even bothering to ask where it was they were going.

As it transpired, their destination had been a rather exclusive patisserie in town. Arthur ordered coffee and croissants at a price Merlin would have balked at had he been footing the bill. He opened his mouth to tell Arthur he wasn't hungry, as there was no way he could afford to spend this amount of money on breakfast, when the other boy shot him a look, "Married, remember?" He said dryly and handed over his card to the girl behind the counter. Merlin nodded mutely, and then felt his lips twitch when he saw the girl mouth 'taken' at her colleague and motion at Arthur and Merlin with a mournful expression. Arthur remained oblivious.

Following Arthur to a table in the corner, Merlin took a sip of his beverage, humming in delight as the bouquet of flavours hit his tongue. Normally, he just threw milk and sugar at his coffee and hoped for the best, but this had hints of cinnamon and was made with real cream. Merlin resisted the urge to smack his lips in contentment.

Slinging his suit jacket over the back of the chair, Merlin plopped himself down in front of Arthur. The other boy ran his eyes of Merlin's clothes and raised an eyebrow but he did not say anything. Merlin felt a flash of annoyance. He knew his suit was not was not of the same quality as Arthur's, but it was the best he could afford. Suits were the uniform at the academy and Merlin's scholarship only provided a small amount for clothing.

They sat in silence, each drinking their coffee, whilst Merlin carefully shredded his pastry and did not eat any of it. Eventually, Arthur sighed and broke the silence.

"I'll probably be home around six thirty – I suspect you'll be the same. You're closer, so do you think you could pick something up for dinner on your way home? We can work out a hypothetical budget based on our 'salaries', and a real budget based on the grant we've been given, this evening."

"What grant?" Merlin asked, getting the distinct impression that he had missed more of Hurt's class than he originally thought.

"Were you even in class yesterday?" Arthur demanded, before huffing in frustration and addressing Merlin as though he were a little stupid. "Each 'marriage' has been given a grant of money to buy food and to socialise on. It's not much, but it supposed to teach us how to work as a team and figure out the difference between need and want."

Merlin thought privately, that Hurt had put far too much thought into this project and wondered if the man derived some perverse pleasure from playing with his students like puppets on strings.

"Sure," Merlin heard himself saying, "I'll pick something up from the supermarket on the way home."

"Great," Arthur said, shaking his cuff back to glance at his overly expensive watch. "Well, I've got to go. I'll see you at home tonight." He downed the rest of his coffee, set the mug on the table and hurried out the door, shrugging into his jacket as he went.

Merlin glared down into the dregs of his coffee and speculated whether Arthur realised how domestic that last exchange was.

Merlin was just beginning to prepare the salad when he heard the door to the annex open and Arthur walk in the door. He thought about calling out a greeting, but decided that he was not Suzie Homemaker and that if Arthur wanted to start the whole 'Honey, I'm home,' business that was his prerogative. He listened with half and ear and Arthur shuffled into the bedroom they shared, no doubt intent on changing into something less official.

Merlin knew the feeling. The first thing he had done upon arriving home, after dumping the groceries in the kitchen, was to thrown on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and ditch the dress shoes. Arthur padded into the kitchen and a glance down, told Merlin that he too was barefoot. It seemed he and Arthur had at least one thing in common. A glance upwards told him that Arthur had a bottle of red wine clutched in one hand.

At Merlin's incredulous gaze, Arthur shrugged. "After the day I've had –" He let the sentence trail off and Merlin chuckled. His day at the hospital had been similar. After the bright shining moment when he had been told that casual dress was perfectly acceptable for a placement as a research technician, his day had been an endless rush of preparations and paperwork. He was not allowed to participate in any of the actual research, but they had him helping the junior technicians ready the equipment and of course he was saddled with all the administrative work that no one wanted to do, but which could be done with anybody with half a brain. There was also a surprising amount of heavy lifting involved.

As the blonde reached down two glasses from the cabinet on the opposite side of the room, Merlin opened the oven door to check on the meal. Arthur watched him curiously, something in his eyes that Merlin could not place.

"What?" He asked eventually, when it became clear that the other boy was not going to say anything.

"You cooked." Arthur stated, tone flat. Merlin could not tell what he was thinking.

"So?" He asked, returning his attention to the bowl of salad by the sink.

"I was just expecting you to pick up a ready meal or something." Again there was no intonation and Merlin could not decide whether Arthur was glad that he had not or wished that he had. The silence stretched between them, before Arthur reached behind him and held out a glass to Merlin.

"Here." He said, thrusting the drink at Merlin. "You look worse than I do." The smile on his lips softened the words, and Merlin felt his lips twitching in return. He waved a hand in the general direction of the shelves of plates and cutlery, a silent request for Arthur to set the table, before turning once again to check on the lasagne.

He half expected Arthur to tell him to do it himself, but a moment later he heard the rattle of a draw opening and Arthur questing around for tablemats. (break)

"So, we have a combined income of roughly £130,000 per anum. Into this we need to factor: food costs, utilities, social expenses, taxes, and debts – namely in the form of a mortgage and university tuition fees."

Merlin's mind boggled as Arthur, with the precision of a military commander, analysed and reviewed their 'family finances', drawing up a rough guideline for them to use in their report. It had become quickly evident that Merlin had not a clue where to begin when dealing with a long term financial plan. He was quite content, therefore, to allow Arthur to take the lead, adding murmurs of consent whenever appropriate.

"So what do you think?" Arthur asked raising his head, from the papers scattered across the dining table, to address Merlin.

"Yeah, sounds great." Merlin said, hoping that his confusion did not show in his voice. Arthur squinted at him for a second and then sat back in his chair, a smirk decorating his face.

"You didn't understand a thing I just said, did you?"

Merlin shook his head ruefully, offering Arthur a grin. "Not a word."

Arthur laughed - a surprised, full blown sound and Merlin felt something inside his chest clench. Arthur never laughed like that at school – his laughs there were always more derisive, more cruel. This was an innocent sound; pure joy in every note. Merlin wondered how many people had ever heard Arthur Pendragon laugh like that.

Shaking his head, Arthur swept aside the current series of papers and pushed forward a new set. Merlin groaned.

Ignoring him, Arthur ran his gaze over page. "We basically have £350 for the month. We'll need to see what the prices at the supermarket are like, but I'd guess maybe £30-40 pounds a week on food, which leaves maybe £190 between the two of us for 'entertainment' for the remainder of the month." Arthur's voice said clearly how little he thought of the prospect.

"£95 for the next three and a bit weeks seems plenty to me." Merlin commented, aware that compared to some he did not have a very active social life. The look of Arthur's face suggested that £30 a week was hardly enough to cover a single night out let alone an entire week.

Merlin shrugged, and Arthur did not pursue the topic. Instead, he gathered the papers together, shuffled them until they were in an order that seemed to please him and then filed them away with a level of care Merlin thought just slightly excessive. Sensing that the 'family meeting' was over, Merlin excused himself to complete the reading for his next assignment. He thought it ridiculous that they were expected to complete their school work during their work placements. He at least had no paperwork to bring home with him. Arthur on the other hand was now bent over a mountain of legal reports all of which he was expected to review by morning, on top of completing his own assignments. Merlin had a fleeting sense of pity for his companion, but it wasn't enough to prompt him to stay in Arthur's company.

The next day was much the same, with the exception that Arthur was the one to pick up groceries and cook the dinner, and Merlin was the one to stumble through the door and slump tiredly into a seat at the table. Arthur once again had poured himself a glass of wine, but Merlin declined. He had no head for alcohol, having drunk only a few sips of the glass given to him last night, and he had no wish to become a babbling idiot in front of Pendragon Jr of all people.

They ate dinner in silence, with the exception of Merlin's muttered thanks at Arthur having cooked a vegetarian meal. Afterwards they went their separate ways, until Arthur entered the bedroom just after midnight. Merlin spared a thought that, if they really were married, it would be one of the quietest in all of history. (break)