Wedding rings, because that was a thing now! There wasn't much time until Merlin was supposed to go through with this thing, and rings really felt like an after thought. But then again, Merlin wasn't all too surprised the Wednesday after lunch with his mother, Gwen called him to come meet her and Arthur at the mall, for ring shopping. Merlin wasn't entirely sure he wanted to and not entirely sure he cared much about the ring itself. But he still shoved himself into his car and headed to the mall either way. He had never been to the jewelry store before, why would he? So he parked on the wrong side of the mall and had to walk the entire complex, just to find the store. But once he finally did, he walked in and there was Gwen and Arthur, leaning against the glass cases, looking at the woman's engagement rings. Merlin rolled his eyes, as he walked closer.
"I had a princess cut for my first marriage, I would like something different..." Gwen was saying. She wasn't facing him, but Merlin could see the gleam in her eye at the rings, it was shining brighter than the rings themselves. He cleared his throat and they both looked over, Gwen glared at him, as if annoyed he interrupted her viewing of the rings she wouldn't be getting any time soon. "You're late."
"I didn't know there was a time to be on time for..." said Merlin, and then made a face, not entirely sure that made a lot of sense. Gwen rolled her eyes at it either way, and huffed.
"You're not late, we were just browsing," said Arthur, calmly. "The men's rings are other there." He pointed to cases just passed the towers of earrings. "I waited for you before I went to look."
Merlin didn't say anything to this, not entirely sure what there was to say. This whole thing was odd, it begged the question of if Merlin was insane, for letting it go on at all. He turned around and headed in the direction Arthur had pointed. There were lots and lots of rings for men, a lot more than Merlin would have ever thought. Every wedding band Merlin had ever seen on a man was very basic, just a gold band around their finger. That's what his dad's was like, also Tom's and a few of Merlin's Professors. They were all very basic, if not gold than silver. And this store had those, but also countless others as well. Three cases full of different rings to be exact. There were thick bands and thin bands and even bands that had designs and a few with small stones. Merlin wasn't sure how he was supposed to ever possibly choose just one...
"Can I help you?" said a voice, Merlin looked up from the cases and noticed the man standing behind the counter, he raised his red eyebrows at Merlin impatiently and Merlin shook his head, not sure what ring, if any, he wanted to look at yet.
"We are looking for a few wedding bands for men," said Gwen then, suddenly behind Merlin. Gwen had Arthur had both appeared behind him without him noticing. "Nothing too fancy, just basic. As cheap as possible as well..."
Before the man behind the counter could say anything Arthur held up his hand. "Hold on a moment," he said and then pulled Gwen away, not too far away where Merlin couldn't hear his loud whispering, but far enough where Arthur thought he couldn't. "Guinevere...why don't you...go shop for a bit?" he asked her, and the face she made at this said Merlin had not heard wrong. "Not that I don't want you here, but our rings have very little do to with you. We should be able to pick them out for ourselves."
"Why are you trying to exclude me?" she asked then, not in a whisper at all and very pointedly. Arthur licked his lips, taking a long moment to answer, because he knew he had to choose his next words carefully. Merlin watched, with batted breath.
"I'm not excluding you, I only thought it would be a good bonding experience for him and I."
"What do you need to bond for?"
"Guinevere, really...?" said Arthur with a laugh and she must have understood how stupid that sounded, she sighed, angry. "It won't be long, I promise."
"Fine," she huffed and didn't look over at Merlin before just walking out of the store all together. Merlin quickly turned back, trying to pretend he hadn't been watching them. If Arthur noticed, he didn't say anything, as he walked back over. The man behind the counter, who had obviously overheard just as Merlin had, pretended as if he hadn't as well.
"Right, our most affordable band is-" he started to say, as Arthur got closer and shook his head.
"Never mind about that," he said, turning his head to look over at Merlin now, as he spoke. "Price is not a problem, let's just pick out something we like." Merlin nodded, still not really sure what that was. What did he like? He stared at each ring in the case one by one, trying to see if he could imagine it on his finger, that wasn't as easy as someone may think. It needed to be something Merlin saw himself in and wouldn't mind wearing for the next few years, but it also needed to be something he wouldn't mind pitching into the sea once this was all over. "Anything you like so far?"
Merlin noticed a sliver and blue ring, with what looked like gears wrapping around it. "Ooh, that one!" he said, leaning over the case to look at it better. "That one looks like Doctor Who to me," he explained and Arthur leaned over, too and shrugged.
"Do you like Doctor who?" asked Arthur and Merlin nodded aggressively.
"It's my favorite show," explained Merlin, but then carried on looking. "I'm not sure I'd want it as a ring though." He saw another ring, a few cases down that had a stone that looked like an eye. "That one looks like a dragon's eyeball!"
"Listen, I know our name is Pendragon, but that's a little too on the nose, eh?" said Arthur and Merlin looked up at him in some form of confused shock. Was Arthur implying Merlin was to take his last name? Because they had not discussed that before, they had discussed very little about any of it, actually.
"That is what I would consider a male engagement ring," said the salesman all of a sudden, pulling Merlin out of his thoughts. "Not a wedding band. It depends on what you want. Over here we have lovely bands with jewels in them, if you are looking for something flashy."
Merlin and Arthur both followed him to look, but Merlin wasn't very sure he wanted something flashy, he still wasn't sure what he wanted at all. "This one's nice," said Arthur, after a long pause, as they looked. He pointed to a gold ring with red rubies in it. "You know," he looked over at Merlin then." My favorite color is red."
"Mine's blue," said Merlin, simply and Arthur smirked.
"TARDIS blue?" he asked, amused and Merlin pouted.
"I didn't say that..."
Arthur laughed, "You didn't have to."
"Don't make fun of me!" said Merlin, seriously. Arthur looked at him for a long moment and shrugged one shoulder.
"I wasn't making fun of you," he said. "Don't take everything I say so seriously, alright?" Merlin didn't say anything and only looked at him for another long moment. Trying to judge him and see his real intentions. Why did he send Gwen away? Why did he care what ring Merlin liked? It was confusing and highly suspect. Arthur rolled his eyes after awhile, leaned forward and poked Merlin in the ribs, which made him jump a little in shock. "Stop standing around staring at me. No matter how hard you glare, I'm not going to melt away."
"Prat!" Merlin continued to pout and Arthur let out a bark of laughter. Arthur turned back to the cases of rings after that and Merlin did the same. They were taking longer than expected, clearly the worker thought so, because he was looking rather impatient again. Merlin tried to ignore him as he carried on looking. He came across another ring, one that was actually just a few feet away from the Doctor Who ring, it was an off gold color and still kind of looked like something from Doctor Who, or maybe some kind of old amulet. But this time, Merlin kept these thought to himself. "This one is pretty."
"Aw yes," said the salesman, unlocking the case and picking up the box the ring was in. "This is our rose gold take on a traditional Celtic wedding band. It is part of our Two-Halves collection," he explained as he handed it to Merlin. He looked it over, it was quite nice. It had little lines that weaved together and made O's every so often. It wasn't like any other wedding band Merlin had seen before. "Actually," said the man still. "I do have the other ring it goes with." He pulled out a gold ring, with similar line work, and showed it to Merlin. "If you wanted to get a matching set...of course."
"That is nice," said Arthur, coming closer to first look at the ring Merlin was holding and then the salesman's. "This one reminds me of a crown," said Arthur. "You know...when I used to play Football in high school my nickname was King Arthur."
"Well, that's original," retorted Merlin, without really thinking about it and Arthur looked over with a smirk.
"Oh, so who is making fun of who now?"
Merlin pursed his lips. "I mean...it's really bad, sorry."
"Do you like these?" offered Arthur then and Merlin looked down at the rose gold ring, which was now on his finger. Be it, a little too big. He nodded. "So do I," he said and then turned back to the salesman. "Can you have them sized within a week? I realize it's short notice, but things are moving a bit last minute."
"It shouldn't be a problem, we can have them resized within a day," said the man. A lot more interested now that he knew he had gotten a sale.
"I would like mine to be engraved," said Arthur and the man's eyes got a litter bigger and more full of greed. Merlin looked over at Arthur now, in question.
"Why do you need that?"
"Because I would like it," said Arthur simply. "What if I die? They can identify me that way."
Merlin frowned. "Or they can just read the giant, red Prat written across your forehead and know who you are instantly..."
"Shut up," said Arthur, but with no heat in his words. He carried on talking to the man now. "I would like it to have my initials. A.U.P."
"What does that stand for?" asked Merlin.
"Arthur Uther Pendragon.
"Uther?" said Merlin with a face. "That's not very good, why the hell did your parents pick that?"
"That's my father's name," said Arthur, as the man jotted down the details on a piece of paper. "Thank you for your lovely comments, by the way..." said Arthur also, over the man's head. "I feel loved."
"You shouldn't," retorted Merlin with a smirk. Arthur rolled his eyes as the man took both the rings back and started to ring them up. Merlin had a feeling all this was not going to be very cheap like Gwen had wanted.
"What's your middle name then, Judge-y?"
Merlin grinned, not sure if he really wanted to answer that. "Wilfred," he said, deciding to anyway. Arthur laughed.
"And you made fun of me..."
"There is nothing wrong with the name Wilfred!"
"If you're eighty-five."
"Well, you would know..."
Arthur's mouth fell open then, somewhere between amusement and shock and he stared at Merlin. "Is that a crack about my age?"
Merlin shrugged. "No..."
Arthur shook his head, but he smiled for some reason. Even though Merlin had just, very clearly and obviously, insulted his age. "And he calls me a prat..."
(A/N: I wasn't supposed to update tonight, I was going to take a night off of updating and write instead. But honestly, I am so excited for all the Marvel trailers that came out tonight. (Mainly the Loki one, if I am being honest.) and I am never going to be able to focus on writing. And since I have to get up early for work, I thought eh...let's do another update before bed. I hope you enjoy this. I find this chapter very cute. We really get to see Merlin and Arthur actually alone together for the first time...the first time they're not being rude to each other anyway. And now they're bonding!)