Merlin sat in a quiet corner of the pub, a bottle of wine and two glasses on the table in front of him. He didn't look up as Cenred walked in, he was focused on sketching the interior of the pub, giving the picture a Gothic feel to it, as Percival wanted. The landlord, as he had spoken to Merlin about it earlier, was clearly very proud of his pub, which had been in his family since his grandfather had bought it.

As Merlin saw the movement he looked up at Cenred, feeling oddly detached as he stared up at him.

"Hello, I ordered a bottle."

Cenred sat down, and picked up the bottle, studying it carefully, before taking a sip out of the glass Merlin had poured for him. Merlin might have reacted to that behaviour before, but now he just watched, slightly detached.

"Adequate," Cenred said. Merlin paused sketching, putting the pad down on the table. Cenred regarded it for a moment.

"Not your usual sort of thing," he said.

Merlin shrugged. "I thought I would give it a try, Percival asked me. I might try an art class as well."

"You never thought to do that before. It's only a hobby."

"Still, it might be useful, I've had a few commissions, so it might be a worthwhile investment."

"Commissions, doing what?"

"Portraits of animals mostly. I did a cat and a few horses, and a baby. And I did a bit of work in the flat which someone saw and wants me to do a wall in their playroom."

"I hardly think it's worth it," Cenred said dismissively.

Normally, Merlin thought, he would have let it go. Shrunk away from the criticism. But this time he just shrugged and took a sip of his wine.

"I'm not going to sell myself short. What I've done so far has been well received, and the more people see it, the more commissions I seem to get. I have a couple more to do."

Cenred looked surprised at that. He sipped his wine again, giving a little grimace.

"And what are you charging?" he asked.

Merlin had noted that a lot of Cenred's life seemed to revolve around money.

"None of your business. More than I would expect thought. Arthur knows more about it than I do."

"Does he? Your bodyguard not with you today?"

"No, I haven't told him, or anyone, of this meeting. I can handle it myself. I am a grown up. Arthur's checked the contract and I signed it and dropped it off. I left my bank details so any money can be paid to me directly."

"Sounds like you don't need it."

"Considering how Morgana worked your assets out you don't need to stiff me out of my share of the house, but you tried to. So, all those businesses that you put in my name you can have back. Was that why you married me?"

Cenred had been about to take a sip of wine, but he blinked at the sudden, rather direct, question. He eyed Merlin for a moment, before he put the glass down again, sitting back in the chair.

"No, I wanted to marry you. I know you wanted to wait, and you were right; although you gave in easy enough."

"Because I wanted to please you. And I presume you were aware of the financial advantages to being married," Merlin said, and didn't give him a chance to answer as he carried on. "I just signed all those things, and I trusted you."

"I didn't do it to hurt you," Cenred said. "It just made sense at the time."

"And what would you have done if we had stayed together, given me other things to sign to get everything back."

Cenred stayed quiet, he sipped at the wine and grimaced at the taste. Merlin took a sip of his and enjoyed the flavour. The wine tasted fine to him, some of Cenred's expensive bottles had not exactly suited his pallet. This one was fine. Merlin stared at him and came to a conclusion.

"I think we are done aren't we?" Merlin said. "We don't have a single thing to say to each other."

"And your legal team will be cross with you for this."

"All the legal stuff is done," Merlin said. "And they are not my legal team, they are my friends. That was the reason they were so angry. I was in the hospital..."

"With the love of your life..."

"No," Merlin corrected patiently. "I am the love of Gwaine's life, according to him; when paramedics are keeping him docile on painkillers. He says that. I am perfectly happy in myself, as I am now. He wants to date me, I'll wait and see if I want to date him. They were not doing it to get at you legally. You pissed Arthur off by telling me I had no friends."

"And Arthur Pendragon was annoyed by that?"

"Yes, he was. He's been a good friend since I met him. And they found that very offensive, all of them. I have friends it appears. Will confirmed to them it was something you would likely say to me."

"He's never liked me."

"He didn't have to like you," Merlin said. "You just both had to like me enough to tolerate each other. Will might have tolerated you if he though you treated me well enough. You just didn't like him and you made that clear."

"He's a bad influence on you."

"No he's not," Merlin said. "He's my friend. He doesn't like sharing with my other friends, like you don't. But he'll behave himself enough and be polite in public."

"And I won't?"

"Doesn't matter, you don't have to now. I dropped off the paperwork at the office, and I have done this now. And you can leave."

"And if I choose not to?"

"I'll go and sit by the bar and you can drink the bottle."

Merlin got up and walked away, making sure he picked up his sketch pad to go and talk to Percival, who frowned and waited. Merlin looked up at him, but his eyes darted around. He hadn't told anyone what he was doing, but he carefully picked somewhere he knew well, and had someone on his side in situ. If he had wanted Percival to step him, he would have done without hesitation.

"He's leaving if that's what you want to know," Percival said, guessing that the meeting hadn't gone well, and he also presumed that Merlin's guest was his bell-end ex. "I guess he doesn't like my Shiraz."

"Fine for me, I'll go back there if he's gone. I'll drink it. I need to pay you for it."

"It's on the house. You've haven't told anyone you were meeting him?"

"No, and I don't want to tell them now. I just want to draw something, and drink the wine."

"Go ahead. I'll put you in a cab when you're done, or call Arthur."

"Probably best to call Gwaine, he won't tell me off."

"Or Will, or Gwen. I'll decide at the time," Percival said, and he tilted his head to look at the sketch pad. "My pictures are nice."

"I can do a few of them, I'll look up the theme, a macabre touch but I can go with a Jack the Ripper feel to them, make it dark and..."

"Yes," Percival said, as he realised Merlin's hesitation was because he was not sure of himself. "That sort of thing. It used to be a secret highwayman's stop here, that's why there's that tree just on the edge of town."

"The hanging tree, at the crossroads, the one they wanted to cut down."

"They might still do, it has canker," Percival said.

"It that actually a thing?"

"Yes, that is why they are pruning it back, if it get too much of a hold it might be dangerous, but it would be a shame to lose it. I like it."

"I could do a picture of that as well if you want. I was going to do the outside and an interior one, and make it a bit dark and mysterious. I'll get back to it, and finish my wine."

XxxxxxxxxxxxxX

It turned out to be Gwaine who appeared, because he sent Merlin a text about something entirely different, and Merlin told him where he was.

"Hello," Gwaine said, appearing in the pub, minus his crutches. "Clean bill of health. I have physio exercises to do though."

"Okay," Merlin said. He had stopped drawing. Half a bottle of wine had ruined his perspective.

"That's good," Gwaine said, as he picked up the discarded sketch book and looked at the pub interior that Merlin had drawn. He held it up for Percival to look at.

"I've seen it, I'm going to get three, one of the outside, and inside and the hanging tree."

"Shall we string Cenred up from it?" Gwaine asked him, then looked to Merlin. "How was the bell-end?"

"Bell-endish," Merlin said.

"I don't think that is a word," Gwaine said. "Are you all right? We'd have come with you."

"I didn't want you to. Some of it I have to do on my own. I don't need to see him again."

"Fair enough," Gwaine said pilfering a mouthful of Merlin's wine, and he didn't pull a face at the vintage. Merlin gave a big beaming grin, his eyes slightly unfocussed, but he certainly, Gwaine gauged, was not unhappy.

"He was still annoyed with you," Merlin told him.

"I've never met the bell-end, what I have done? I like to at least meet people before I annoy them."

"You in the hospital."

"Which I missed. I don't remember doing it," Gwaine said sounding annoyed. "Thanks," he added to Percival as he brought a spare wine glass. Gwaine sloshed the rest of the wine into said glass.

"Can I get a coke?" Merlin asked Percival, starting to get up out of his seat.

"I'll bring it over," Percival said, heading off behind the bar, picking up glasses and talking to customers as he went. Gwaine looked at Merlin steadily, sipping the wine as he assessed him.

"Seriously, are you all right?"

"Seriously, I am," Merlin said. "I wasn't sure I would be, but I needed to do some part of his alone. I've sorted all the financial stuff I am just waiting on the paperwork to be through for the divorce and then all done, and I don't need to be anywhere near him after that. All I do is sign the papers and send them back. That I can do, without really thinking about it."

"Then you can marry me," Gwaine said. "Or not; I'm quite happy to live in sin."

"Stop it," Merlin said, not really meaning it.

"How about, we finish this wine, and go for pizza. You can stay over at mine," Gwaine offered. "You probably haven't had anything to eat."

"No, and I'm starving and I can go home. I am perfectly fine."

"Was that what seeing the bell-end was about? How you'd feel?"

Merlin shrugged, and smiled at Percival as he brought the coke over.

"Thanks."

"I guess you're not working tomorrow," Gwaine said.

"Late shift, I don't need to be there until 2 in the afternoon, then I'm on the late stock-take."

"Goody, I have a morning off, we can go for brunch. Whatever that is."

"Mid morning meal, not quite breakfast, but not lunch."

"What do you have for brunch?"

"A fry up, we can go to the cafe, my treat," Merlin said. Gwaine raised his eyebrows.

"Sure."

"Then I need to go and have a look at the tree, do a few sketches."

"I'll come, I can take some pictures, so you have something to use rather than having to sit outside endlessly."

"Yes. My phone can't manage pictures."

"That's because it's about a million years old, Merlin. You must be the only person in existence who had never lost or dropped their phone. How is it still going?"

"I'm careful with my stuff, except when you steal it to text my friends."

"Hey! I did good."

"You did," Merlin said drinking his coke and smiling at Gwaine. He felt very well with the world at that moment. That might have had something to do with the half bottle of wine he downed, or the knowledge that Gwaine adored him, and Percival wanted him to do some drawings and he had done well presenting his work to other people. All the things that Cenred had told him had been to keep him contained and now Merlin didn't feel contained, he felt as if a huge weight had just fallen off him. It would never have happened if he hadn't seen Cenred alone, because he would have had too many other people protecting him, for all the right reasons, in their own mind; but it would have stifled him.

"Are you all right?" Gwaine asked.

"Yes, pizza, then?"

Gwaine grinned, downing the wine and getting up. "Lets do it."

"Yes."

"And we can go for pizza as well," Gwaine said, taking Merlin's arm and grinning as Merlin started to laugh.

"Stop it, Gwaine."

"Never."