Warnings: Minimal, particularly compared to normal.
Rating: T. Possibly even K+.
Notes: Ugh. Struggling for a song for this one, and I meant to post it on Friday night. Sorry, forgot about it until this evening in the face of all the magical white stuff covering the ground outside (what? I have yet to get over the childish oh-my-god-it's-SNOWING reaction. To hell with how difficult travelling is, it's pretty). This one is back to Arthur's POV, and it picks up the morning after both last chapter and the previous Arthury one. Next one...at some point. Peach.
In any other world
You could tell the difference.
And let it all unfurl
Into broken remnants.
Any Other World - Mika
Chapter Seven - In Any Other World
"Are you quite sure you can't rearrange things, Arthur?"
Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose between his index finger and thumb, then dragged them upwards and apart, trying to rub away the headache building behind his brow. It was his own fault, he knew, and anyone waking up the morning after a day like the one he'd just had was an idiot if they weren't expecting a headache, but still. Phoning his father before ten in the morning wasn't helping matters, either, but it was best to get things like this over and done with. "I am, Father. My new secretary hasn't quite adjusted to the fact that brunch is every Tuesday, not just those I tell her about, and she accidentally scheduled a meeting that clashes. I am sorry."
And he was sorry, of that there was no question, but it was far more because he felt guilty about using Elena's occasional moments of less than stellar timekeeping as his excuse for skipping family brunch on Tuesday than because he wasn't going to be there. Arthur was certain that nothing would come of it – Uther rarely troubled himself to worry about anyone below a managerial position in the company, so much so that he hadn't even noticed that at just over three months in Arthur's employ, Elena hardly counted as new, and had in fact outlasted at least eighty five percent of Arthur's previous secretaries – but he still felt bad. He'd offer her a few days of holiday on Monday, Arthur decided, as compensation for being his unwitting alibi.
"Very well," Uther agreed. "There's nothing to be done about it. See that it doesn't happen again, though, and be sure she knows her job is forfeit if it does."
"Certainly, Father," Arthur replied obediently, and made a mental note to make that a week of holiday, paid, and preferably at a time when Uther was likely to be visiting Arthur at work. "Give my regards to Morgana, please, and I shall see you next week."
Arthur staggered down to the kitchen some time later, hair still dripping from his shower and head still thundering uncomfortably, to find that Val had made waffles for breakfast, sticky with syrup, and a pot of Arthur's extremely expensive coffee that was far too much effort for him to bother with usually. By the time he'd finished eating, he felt almost human again, and couldn't put things off any longer.
He stood in the living room for seconds that felt like hours, staring at the console on the floor in front of the TV, then picked it up and packed it away again in the cardboard box Merlin had put behind the sofa, far neater than it had been when he unpacked it. He left the flaps unstuck, because the only tape he could easily locate lived in the kitchen drawer where things like that always lived, next to scissors and birthday cake candles, toothpicks and batteries and light bulbs, and Val was still in the kitchen.
In an act of rebellion so small as to be meaningless, Arthur didn't say anything as he put on his trainers, snagged his car keys from the table by the front door and carried the box out of the house.
.
.
.
"Hmm," Gwaine said, opening the door to Merlin's flat and standing in the doorway. He reached out a hand, gripping Arthur's chin and turning his head to the side, frowning. "Looks worse in daylight."
His own hands full of cardboard box, Arthur couldn't exactly knock Gwaine's away, however much he wanted to. The alternative to letting the hand stay there was backing up, though, and that just wasn't happening. He said nothing.
"You'll not want to be coming in," Gwaine continued, when Arthur's intention to remain silent became apparent. "Unless, of course, you want Merlin to know you let your boyfriend hit you."
"When did you get here?" Arthur asked, ignoring the squirming in his stomach prompted by Gwaine's words. He was fairly certain that Gwaine would have said something if he'd been at Merlin's last night when Arthur phoned him, but he was spectacularly drunk enough that his memory of most of the evening wasn't grand.
Gwaine released his face, although his eyes still lingered on Arthur's cheek. "Couldn't sleep. Merlin gave me a key a while back, so I figured I might as well put it to good use. He wasn't exactly keen on me showing up in his bed at three am, but I brought him around." His tone was conspiratorial, smirk the same arrogance Gwaine wore as easily as he wore clothing (and, from some things Arthur had heard, probably easier), but his eyes didn't match, filled as they were with a cool, assessing distance.
Find what you wanted? Arthur wanted to ask, but didn't. The answer wouldn't please him; he didn't need to know what Gwaine was looking for in his expression to know that he probably didn't actually want to know if it was there. "Here," he muttered, shoving the box at Gwaine. "Merlin forgot this yesterday."
"Yeah, he said he was in a rush to get out of there. 'Escape' was the word he used, I think. Still, I'm fairly sure he meant to leave it behind."
Arthur winced at the thought of what Merlin might have said to Gwaine and wondered when he'd said it, whether it was before Arthur had called Gwaine to pick him up or after, whether Merlin had phoned Gwaine as soon as he left Val's house or if he'd waited until seeing him in person. Whether Merlin talked with Gwaine about Arthur a lot, whether he talked with Gwaine about things he might once have told Arthur first.
"He shouldn't have," Arthur said, finding it so very difficult to meet Gwaine's eyes all of a sudden. "His dad gave him it, he should keep it here."
"Perhaps that's his choice," Gwaine answered, and Arthur didn't think he'd ever had a conversation with Gwaine where so many of his sentences were utterly without inflection. It had to be deliberate, of that he was sure – Gwaine never said anything the meaning of which couldn't be trebled by the particular tone in which he said it – but Arthur had no idea why.
He shook his head, tried not to shuffle his feet. "No, it's not."
"In that case, it had damn well better be yours."
"It is," Arthur told him, the words tasting ashy as they left his mouth. "Who else's would it be?" he added, a vague and distinctly blunt stab at blasé humour, the question sounding a whole lot more serious than he'd intended it to; another thing he didn't want to know the answer to, Arthur decided, and decided he'd had quite enough for now. "Tell him I'm sorry I couldn't stay long enough to talk."
He left it at that, making his way down the hall to the stairs – trust Merlin to live somewhere without a lift – with as steady a pace as he could manage. "Take care of yourself, Arthur," Gwaine called as Arthur took the first of many steps down. "Even if that sometimes means letting someone else do it for you."
.
.
.
You'll not want to be coming in, Arthur heard again as he drove back to Val's. Unless you want Merlin to know you let your boyfriend hit you.
The words had the same complete lack of emphasis in his mind as they did when Gwaine said them, but Arthur wasn't quite stupid enough to think that meant Gwaine didn't intend there to be one. The only question was what it was.
He ignored his instinctive flinch at the basic meaning of the words, pushing it down as he had the argument yesterday. Angry words and angry actions exchanged in the heat of the moment and nothing more, but Gwaine didn't know that. Gwaine had obviously meant something, and Arthur couldn't prove that he was wrong if he didn't know what it was.
Unless you want Merlin to know you let your boyfriend hit you, he tested, but no. Too scornful, and while Gwaine's standard reaction to Arthur was scorn, it didn't particularly fit with the tone of the rest of the conversation.
Unless you want Merlin to know you let your boyfriend hit you, but that one went without saying. Merlin was...well, Merlin, and much as Arthur loved that most of the time, he had a habit of taking it upon himself to look after his friends, whether they wanted it or not. All good and well, obviously, but Arthur didn't need Merlin to look after him, didn't need the burden of explaining to him that it was all just a misunderstanding.
Unless you want Merlin to know you let your boyfriend hit you, but Gwaine wasn't in any position to judge where that was concerned. It wasn't like gender mattered to him, and this thing with Merlin kind of implied Gwaine was getting over his issues with commitment.
Unless you want Merlin to know you let your boyfriend hit you.
Let. Letletletletlet.
Arthur hit the button to turn the radio on, then turned the volume up as loud as it would go.
Let.
Letletletletlet.
(It didn't help)
.
.
.
Try as he might – and believe it, he tried – Arthur couldn't get Gwaine's words out of his mind.
It was ridiculous, it really was, because Gwaine didn't know what the hell he was talking about. There was no need for Arthur to keep obsessing over it. Going out and getting wasted on the day of an argument with his boyfriend was fine, a mostly-appropriate thing to do, not at all an overreaction, but carrying on now that he was sober and it was a whole day later was not.
But the problem wasn't the argument, not really. The problem was what people kept assuming. The problem was let.
Arthur could understand Morgana and Lance worrying, even though they didn't need to, could understand Gwaine offering help in some weird, roundabout, Gwaine way, even though it wasn't necessary. What made him uncomfortable, what Arthur couldn't deal with, was that Gwaine said he let it happen.
Arthur wasn't stupid. Sure, he wasn't a genius, not like Morgana, who got the lion's share of the brains in their family, but he wasn't an idiot.
Val had promised it wouldn't happen again, and Arthur had to – wanted to – give him the benefit of the doubt. But he wasn't stupid, wasn't willing to give him too much benefit. He didn't want to end things, not when, for the most part, his relationship with Val was good, easy and comfortable and he loved him, he really did.
That was why he waited until Val was in the shower that evening before packing a bag, just a few essentials, jeans and shirts and underwear, enough to last a few days. He wasn't going anywhere, and he didn't intend to use it.
But it didn't hurt to have a fully packed bag lying under the bed, ready to grab when – if, not when, because Arthur wasn't fool enough to stay if he thought it was going to be a matter of when– things got rough again. It didn't hurt to be ready to leave at a minute's notice.
(What hurt was the inability to stay gone)