Arthur bit his tongue harshly as he entered his father's office building, which also happened to be his workplace. He was immediately bombarded with questions and congratulations, the former for his extended time off, the latter for his birthday. Yes, today was Arthur's birthday, and he was pissed. Not only was he back to work, but his father was entertaining a stony silence between them, both because he hadn't been to work in days and because he hadn't shown up to the meetings he was supposed to attend yesterday. He had told his assistant to cancel them the day before, but yet again the boy had 'forgotten.'
Arthur smiled pleasantly enough at the office works, ignored their questions, and slipped up the stairs to his own office.
He never had liked his birthday much. It had never...felt right, if that made sense. Like something was missing. When he was a kid, he would suffer through the birthday party, then go play videogames with Morgana until the sun went down. Later, after Morgana had moved out and he was alone in a big empty house with only his father for company, he lay and stare up at the ceiling. That's when he decided to move out early.
Then he had met Leon, and he'd spent every birthday with him. They quickly became work friends, and then regular friends as well, going out for a drink at least once a week, their schedules permitting. Leon had even saved his life once, pulling him out of the way of a drunk driver.
Arthur sat in his expensive leather computer chair, with his expensive shoes and tie, and wished desperately that he could have one more day off. He would have stayed in his apartment and watched movies all day. Instead, he got to work on his computer, sorting files and organizing events.
Not ten minutes into his work day, his phone rang. It startled him and he yanked it out to see an unfamiliar number. He had a sharp reprimand for the reporter on the other side of the phone ready when a familiar voice said, "Arthur?"
He grinned. "Merlin! I was hoping to hear from you. I wanted to thank you for helping me with my ghost problem."
"It was nothing, really." the other man said, obviously uncomfortable with the praise even through the phone. This just made Arthur grin more.
"No really, I insist. Why don't you come by my work and I'll take you for a drink?"
"Uh, sure?" Merlin confirmed, but he sounded unsure. Granted, they didn't know each other hardly at all, and hadn't gotten off to the best start, but Arthur couldn't seem to just let it go. He felt like leaving the other man alone would either end badly or not work at all. So he persisted.
"How about Milton's, down the road from the theater?"
"They're closed today." A few silent seconds passed until Merlin offered, "I have a friend that owns a pub down the road from Gaius's. We could go there, and probably get discounts."
"Sounds like a plan."
Arthur felt a weird sense of anticipation all through the rest of the day, waiting for his shift to end. He didn't get much work done, and mostly flipped between a few different tabs the whole time. Finally six o'clock arrived and he eagerly powered off his computer, grabbed his messenger bag with all his things already in it, and headed out the door.
He was halfway out the front doors when someone called him back. He turned to see Something Valiant. He hadn't bothered to learn his first name. The man worked closely with his father, and had known Arthur for years. They were never friendly, though their interactions never came to blows, as some had.
"Arthur!" the man smiled. His smile stretched his cheeks to far. Fake. "Here."
Valiant shoved a small green wrapped box into his hands. Arthur raised an eyebrow.
"You got me a present?" he asked in surprise.
"Yeah. Open it!"
The man seemed overly excited about the present, so he cautiously ripped off the paper and opened the box. He was pleasantly surprised to see a gold watch, not the cheap kind, swaddled in tissue paper. Two twin green snakes blinked at him with ruby eyes from the face of the watch, the hands of the clock counting the hours.
"It's...nice." he admitted, and gently clipped it onto his wrist. He gave a mostly genuine grin at Valiant, who smiled back too widely and with far too much satisfaction, and then walked off.
Arthur left the building, his mood slightly dampened from the odd exchange and unfamiliar weight on his wrist. He shook it off as he spotted Merlin, leaning on a wall and looking boredly around.
"So," he said as soon as he was close enough, "Who's this friend that owns this bar?"
Merlin gave him a welcoming if shy grin. "His name's Gwaine. We take a business class together at my university.'
Arthur raised his eyebrows as they began walking. "You take a business class?"
"Is that so hard to believe?"
"Well, yeah. No offence, but you don't really strike me as a business savvy person."
Merlin's grin took on a teasing note. "What, you suddenly know my entire life?"
Arthur smirked back at him. "I happen to be a very established business presence. Unlike you common people, I have been raised as a perfect example of perfection each and every employee should strive to be like."
Merlin took it as the taunt it was. "So us common people are nothing more than bugs on your windshield?"
Arthur nodded presumptuously, nose held high in an exaggeration of arrogance.
They shared playful banter as they walked the short way to Gaius's clinic, then pass it to the pub.
The Odd Club was a cozy little place, tucked into the space between two reasonably tall office buildings. The brick walls and tinted windows gave the quaint little place the exact feeling you would expect from a bar, comfort and caution at the same time. They entered to find the cliché red stools and stained glass overhead lights one would expect from a pub.
"Merlin!" a ruggedly handsome man yelled from behind a counter. "Been a while man!"
Gwaine, Arthur presumed, rounded the counter and embraced Merlin before turning to him with a grin.
"Whos your date, you rascal?" he cast a mischievous glance to Arthur.
Merlin rolled his eyes, apparently completely used to this kind of teasing. "He's not my date, Gwaine, and you know it."
Gwaine shrugged, still teasing. "Whatever you say, man. Now I don't know about you, but I want a drink."
"You always want a drink, Gwaine."
The man winked and swaggered back to the bar. "That's why I bought my own pub, mate."
They sat at the bar and Arthur was surprised he felt about as comfortable as he did around Merlin and Gwaine as he did around Leon. They drank and talked about random things that wouldn't make sense unless you were there.
At an hour after dark, Gwaine left them to close up the pub. It was nearly ten, and the warm summer air washed around Arthur as he and Merlin called their goodbyes to Gwaine. They were slightly tipsy, though Arthur would adamantly deny it, and they ambled down the street going nowhere in particular.
They had been walking for another hour and a half when Arthur's phone rang. Morgana's face appeared on the caller ID.
He pushed the button and shot Merlin a look, but the other man just nodded for him to go ahead. He put the phone to his ear.
"Arthur?" Morgana's voice was small and shaky, like she couldn't get enough breath.
"Morgana? What's wrong? You know it's almost midnight, right?"
"Oh thank God, I thought it would have killed you by now."
Naturally, this alarmed Arthur a bit.
"What? 'Gana, you're not making sense. Something's trying to kill me?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Merlin yank his head up.
"No, no, I just- I had a dream, and I needed to call you and make sure you were okay."
"Okay, well, I'm okay, alright? Nothing's wrong with me, so you don't have to worry about me."
They were approaching the stairs to the car lot where his car was parked. Merlin kept up easily enough with his long legs, casting him worried glances.
"Arthur, I need to know. Did you get a wristband today? Or maybe a watch?"
Arthur frowned. "Yeah, I did. How did you know?"
Her voice turned frantic. "Arthur, you have to take it off now. It's dangerous, please Arthur, I watched you fall!" She was nearly sobbing into the phone then, and Arthur didn't hesitate when he wrapped his fingers around the watch, ready to take it off. They were halfway up the main steps now. The watch wouldn't come off. He frowned and pulled a little harder. Morgana was still whimpering into his ear. Merlin was slightly ahead of him. The watch stayed on.
He paused to tug it off but never got the chance. A strong force, almost like two hands on his shoulders, pulled him backwards. He wheeled his arms, trying to regain his balance, but couldn't. He started to fall, his head going towards the concrete, as infront of him, Merlin slowly turned around to look.
Arthur closed his eyes and waited for the impact. It never came. He slowly opened his eyes to see Merlin, his hand flung out and his eyes flaring gold. He didn't remember them doing that when they had first met.
He softly landed on the ground, his legs still on the stairs. It felt as though someone was clutching his shirt, slowly lowering him safely to the ground. His chest heaved with the adrenaline rushing through him, and he stared up at the ceiling of the car park dazedly.
Merlin landed on his knees hard when he flung himself down next to him.
"Are you okay?" Merlin sounded panicked. But why was he panicking, he didn't almost just fall to his death.
He took a deep breath. "Ohhhhhhhhhhh, my God." Arthur gasped out. Then he started to giggle hysterically. "Oh my God, I almost died. You just saved me for the second time in less than a week."
Merlin chuckled along with him, and when their crazed laughter finally died down Arthur said, "I should probably call my sister."
"Is that who you were talking to earlier?"
"Yeah. She actually told me this was gonna happen, but I was supposed to die. Then she freaked out when I told her about this watch that I got." He held up his hand for Merlin to see, but the watch was gone. Arthur sat up and glanced around, finding the expensive watch a few feet away. Merlin stood to get it, dusting off his knees.
When his fingers brushed it, however, he hissed and jumped back. "You've been walking around with that thing?!"
"What?" Arthur asked in confusion. "What's wrong with it?"
"It's possessed! I'm surprised I didn't realize earlier."
"What do you mean possessed? I got that as a gift."
"From who?"
"From a coworker."
"And you didn't think it was weird?"
Arthur scowled at him. "Of course I thought it was weird. But it's my birthday, so I didn't think much of it."
Merlin sighed exasperatedly and pinched his nose. "Of course it is." He rubbed a hand down his face and offered Arthur a hand.
"I can exorcise the ghost out of the watch if you want to keep it."
Arthur wrinkled his nose. "You go ahead and do that, but I don't want anything to do with that thing. I'm pretty sure the ghost in that thing is pissed as hell, and I don't want someone else to get ahold of it."
Merlin grinned sidelong at him. "Aw, showing a little compassion towards others now, are we?"
Arthur scoffed. "As if. I just don't want someone with less than half of a brain to get ahold of it and accidentally cause a massacre."
They headed back up the stairs, this time the watch wrapped in Merlin's jacket, and Arthur called Morgana to assure her he wasn't dead and/or dying. Then he got in his expensive car while Merlin got into his slightly dinghy Jeep. It suited him, Arthur decided.
As Arthur drove home, he reflected on his day. He had gotten a possessed birthday present from his father's coworker, made a friend, gotten to know another friend, comforted his sister over the phone as she freaked out, and then almost died, only to be saved by the man he was slowly considering to be a close friend.
And as Arthur drove home to his empty apartment, with it's expensive appliances and walls devoid of pictures or other personal touches, he got the feeling that his life was about to change in a major way.
(A/N) I know literally nothing about cars. Anyway, here's another chapter, for you people that actually like the stuff that comes out of my head!