So I know I disappeared for a long time. God, I think it's been a year! I'm the worst! I have been so ridiculously busy, I couldn't even tell you. Family drama, I just finished my last year of my Bachelor's degree and am starting my Master's, endless hours at work… I hardly have time to do anything I actually want to.

You should thank a reader named sierra. steinbrecher for my return, because she reviewed and reminded me this story existed. So I reread it and decided it deserves to be finished because I liked where I was going with it. Though I must admit I kept almost no notes on what my plans were. Soooo I'm going to have to make shit up as I go along—but worry not, that's almost always what I do when I write. I just don't know what shit I was making up previously, so it will have to be new shit. Also, I had already been a page into this chapter when I opened up this file again, because I forgot I tried to work on it a couple months back and found no inspiration, and it's a little hard to start in the middle of a scene like that…

But anyway, for being gone so long, I shall give you a present for this chapter.

Arthur's perspective.

You're welcome.

Arthur didn't know what to think. About any of it.

He appreciated Merlin—his help, his companionship—more than he was willing to say. He would never tell Merlin to stay away, or even to cut down the amount of time he spent at Arthur's side.

But he did wonder. Arthur got a lot out of the arrangement, but what in hell did Merlin get out of it? Sure, Merlin had given various explanations, but none of it made sense. Not really. And that didn't used to bother Arthur, but he couldn't keep pretending. He cared about Merlin. Of course he did. And now Merlin had quit his job in order to help Arthur all the time, and even had offered to do the extra work on weekends without pay. Which Arthur refused to do, of course. It's not like Arthur couldn't afford to pay him for the weekends as well as the weekdays.

But what was Merlin doing? Why was he giving everything up for Arthur? Did he think Arthur was still secretly thinking about ruining his life? Was he afraid?

The thought was exceedingly unpleasant for Arthur to consider, but he had far too much pride to ask Merlin what was really going on. Whenever Arthur planned to say something sentimental, something rude came from his mouth. He couldn't help it. He was like that with most people, but Merlin more than anyone.

At first Arthur just was silently thankful for it. Merlin did housework, Merlin went on errands, Merlin went with Arthur when he had to do things himself—Arthur sometimes didn't need Merlin's help at all, just inexplicably wanted him there (how had a kid that used to just work for him become his friend? Maybe even a close friend?). But then, as the break wore on, Arthur started really thinking about it, and started getting more and more nervous that Merlin had some reason for helping Arthur past his seemingly unending sense of kindness. He'd started really asking at that point, but couldn't get a clear answer.

And then he got desperate.

Lance was quite surprised to see Arthur on his doorstep a few days before Christmas.

"Arthur. I—hello."

"Is this a bad time? I probably should have texted or something. I just…" He just needed to know what was up with Merlin so badly that he didn't think of texting before showing up. "Hello," he said lamely instead.

Lance, as thoughtful and observant a person as he was, knew something was up. "Come in," he said, concern in his voice. Arthur nodded and stepped inside. Without Arthur saying anything about wanting to be alone, Lance took them to his bedroom and gestured for Arthur to take a seat on Lance's solitary chair. Lance sat on the edge of his bed.

"You seem flustered," Lance said, getting straight to the point in a way he might usually not.

"Sorry," Arthur muttered. "This is just… I'm out of my comfort zone. Coming here for this reason."

"And what reason is that?" asked Lance in a measured way. But Arthur got this weird feeling that Lance knew what this was about—or rather who this was about.

"Well. You… Erm. You…" He didn't know how to start. This was all really stupid of him. He had half a mind to make up some other reason for being here—or to just awkwardly walk out.

Lance had pity on him. "This is about Merlin."

Arthur met his eyes carefully, forcing himself not to get defensive like he might normally when someone ever brought up Merlin. "How did you know?" he asked quietly.

Lance sighed, but not in an angry way. He seemed thoughtful, and maybe a little commiserative—though Arthur couldn't imagine why. "You are a hard man to read, Arthur, but people who have known you a long time learn your looks and that's why I usually know how you're feeling even though you aren't an open person. But…" He started to look away with a carful expression. He was afraid his next words were going to make Arthur angry. Honestly, Arthur wasn't sure he was capable of being angry at the moment—especially since nobody had an easy time being mean to someone like Lance—but he still reminded himself to try to keep an open mind. He wanted Lance's help with something—or at least his opinion—so he couldn't be rude. Lance continued after some hesitation, "When Merlin is around, or when Merlin is the subject of conversation, you get… animated. Usually in negative ways, mind you. You yell a lot, or get defensive, or something like that, but still. There's a huge difference in the way you act when anything has to do with Merlin. So when you came to the door and looked as upset as you did, it had to be about Merlin, because if it were anything else you would have been much more guarded about it."

Even with all the mental preparation Arthur had, he wanted to react the way he always did when someone implied he was even a little fond of Merlin. In fact, he wanted to react in the way Lance had just accused him of reacting.

But why was he so afraid of liking Merlin? Arthur liked Lance. And Gwaine, and Leon, and Percy, and Elyan. He wasn't ashamed of that—he would never be angry with someone for saying that he liked any of them. But he was weird with Merlin and he knew it. He just didn't know why.

So he didn't say what he would normally. It didn't feel like a day for that anyway.

Just then, he got a text. He knew who it was before he looked.

Merlin: Hey, clotpole, it's fucking cold. You going to make me wait on your doorstep forever?

He didn't forget Merlin was coming, because he always did, but he kept wondering the closer they got to the holiday when Merlin would ask for time off, or would just quit showing up. It was Christmas, for god's sake. Didn't he have plans? Family? Anything?

But all that came back to why he was here in the first place.

"Merlin?" asked Lance in response to Arthur's smile at reading the text.

"Yeah. The idiot is waiting at my door, apparently." He said it as he typed out the response: I'm allowed to have a life. I'll be back soon.

"Then you best make it quick. It's freezing out there."

"Oh, he'll live," Arthur said. Lance rolled his eyes and looked disapproving, but said nothing. Arthur—affected by his strange mood and the proximity of Lance, who made everyone act kinder just by example, surely—texted his father and told him to let Merlin in and to tell him he could wait in Arthur's room. "But I did come here with a purpose," Arthur said when he was finished.

"Obviously."

Merlin texted back. Arthur couldn't help but look. Hey, what's the matter?

Jesus, how did Merlin always know? Merlin had been bugging him for days about something being wrong—since the moment Arthur had really started to worry about all of this. But in person it made a little sense. Over text? It was nothing short of sorcery.

Nothing's wrong.

Then why aren't you calling me names? You always call me names. Dollophead.

Arthur put the phone down because he was never going to get back to Merlin if he didn't stop texting Merlin. (Wow. What had his life come to that he was thinking that sentence unironically?) Plus, Arthur didn't want to have to answer the original question, so he figured it was a good time to stop responding.

He looked up at Lance, who didn't look impatient. In fact, he looked a little amused. Arthur didn't ask why.

"I needed to ask you something about Merlin." He knew he was still pussy-footing around, because Lance pretty much knew that. Before Lance could say anything else or Arthur could lose his nerve, he just started talking and hoped the words would be right. "I saw from that day I stopped in at the shop that you and he at least sometimes talk about his arrangement with me. So I wondered if you knew at all why he does what he does. I don't know if he mentioned, but I already told him I won't go blackmailing him any longer. If you knew I was doing that…" It was all much more embarrassing out loud. It made him sound like a prat. Which he was sometimes. He knew that much. "Anyway, I told him he could stop working for me, and he got very upset about it. Now he's working full time on weekdays, and he even offered to come over on weekends without pay. But I don't understand his obsessive devotion when I'm not forcing it anymore. And before you say I should ask him, I have asked, but won't tell me why he does it, not in any serious way. Just goes on about how I'm too stupid to go without him—which is entirely untrue and probably the opposite of reality, since he's an imbecile. So I wondered if he's ever admitted to you why he does it. If it's not too prying to ask. I just am afraid he does it because he still thinks I would try to ruin his life, because he doesn't trust that I really would never do that to him now."

Lance looked at Arthur in an overly intense way for longer than Arthur was comfortable with. He had started fidgeting before Lance replied, "Okay, let me ask you something." Damn it. He somehow thought Lance would give him a clear answer, but obviously that wasn't going to happen. He was kind of like a therapist sometimes, wanting people to come to their own conclusion. "If Merlin came to you and was having real trouble with something, something you knew you could help with, would you help him?"

With Arthur's defensive walls down, he was able to say with minimal shame, "Of course."

"Merlin knows you need help. He wants to help you. Does it have to be more complicated than that?"

"Yes, because it's over the top. He doesn't want to help, he needs to. It's as if helping me makes him happy or something. Which is stupid."

"Do you mind it? How dedicated he is to you?"

Arthur was embarrassed by the truth, but said it anyway. "Well. No." He paused before he said, "But he gets nothing out of it! I find it very hard to believe this is all because he's a kind person. You didn't come on a horse to my rescue and you're easily as pleasant as him."

"Well that's just stupid."

Arthur looked at him in confusion. "What's stupid?" he asked, a little insulted.

"What you just said was stupid. You think he gets nothing out of it? Come on, Arthur."

"Wait, I really don't get it. Just tell me. And no riddles," he added in his authoritative, football captain voice.

Lance sighed, but was smiling like Arthur was quaint—and it was annoying as hell, if you were wondering.

"What he gets out of it is spending time with his best friend, you idiot."

He said it fondly, so Arthur didn't get insulted. He was too baffled by the statement to even really be able to get insulted anyway.

"I am not Merlin's best friend."

"Yeah you are. And he's yours."

Arthur could never be in any mood that would keep him from refuting that one. "What? No! That's stupid!"

"No, it's true is what it is."

Arthur couldn't blindly deny it, not with Lance. He had to have a reason or Lance would always win. He was logical like that—not stupid like Merlin.

So Arthur started thinking of reasons Merlin wasn't his best friend. First he tried to think of who was… but nobody really came to mind. His football mates? Who he almost never spent time with outside school and training… at least not anymore, not since—

… Merlin. Not since Merlin.

Erm. Well.

What did best friends do? Spent lots of time together.

Well, Merlin was different. He was forced to mostly.

They were open with each other, more than they were with others.

Um.

They…

Oh, it was no use. Arthur didn't want to admit it was true, still wasn't sure it even was true, but he couldn't think of a reason why it wasn't. So whether or not he believed it, he wouldn't stop Lance from doing so.

"Okay, so we're mates," he finally relented. "But I know he has other friends! You, that skinny twerp that he got cross at me for bullying all that time ago… Not to mention that pretty girl at school. I used to think they were together, in the beginning, but she would've left him by now if he ignored her for me all the time."

Lance looked amused again. "She's not his girlfriend, for one. And sure, he's friends with me, but so are you. You don't go out of your way to spend time with me either. You guys just prefer each other's company, which is fine."

"But doesn't he want to spend time with other people?"

"Do you?" Lance retorted shrewdly.

Arthur didn't answer that because Lance knew the answer and Arthur was tired of embarrassing himself. He just plowed on. "Doesn't he want a girlfriend or something?" he asked, his voice a little desperate as he tried to find something Merlin was neglecting by constantly being by his side that he had to be regretting.

But Lance, in a surprising move, laughed. He seemed to have tried to keep it down but was unable.

Arthur really didn't get what was funny about that. "What?" he asked blankly.

"Oh, nothing." He was still smirking a little but had kept from laughing anymore.

"What's so funny about Merlin having a girlfriend?" He'd seemed entertained when Arthur implied that girl from school was his girlfriend too. What was with that? Did Lance think Merlin that undesirable? That was a little unfair. Someone in the world had to be fond of gangly idiots.

"It's not," Lance insisted.

"Then why are you laughing?"

"Don't worry about it."

But Arthur was worrying. Too much. He didn't know why he cared, but he did. "You're thinking something. You had to have laughed for a reason."

"Arthur," said Lance exasperatedly, "I can't tell you something about Merlin he didn't tell you himself. It's a breach of trust."

Arthur felt an unfamiliar—but definitely unpleasant—something at Lance knowing so many things about Merlin that Arthur evidently did not. "What about Merlin?"

Lance looked more closely at Arthur again. "You know, I've never seen you so curious about another person before."

"I… well…" Arthur couldn't say anything else and was too self-conscious to continue his line of questioning. This whole conversation was so out of his comfort zone that he'd been almost twitching to end it, and now he just couldn't do it any longer. In trying to learn more about Merlin, he was really just revealing an uncomfortable amount about himself. "You're probably right about getting back to Merlin. It really is cold." He didn't mention that Merlin was now inside as he stood.

"Alright," Lance said, standing too. He still looked a little concerned, but seemed unashamed of how evident Arthur's discomfort was.

Arthur thought Lance might not say anything else, but he imparted one piece of wisdom before Arthur left.

"You sometimes think about things too much. You let pride and your image get in the way when they just don't need to. When it comes to something like this, a person you spend a lot of time with, if it feels right, it probably is right. If you and Merlin make each other happy, there's no problem with being attached. Just be around people that make you happy. It's not complicated."

Arthur couldn't articulate the thought, as it was more humiliating than anything else was in this visit, but he sounded more like he was talking about relationship problems than anything else.

Arthur only nodded and left.