Hi there! So I'm planning on making this into 3 chapters but it might stretch into 4. The next chapter will be from Arthur's POV.
On a lazy corner sat a cozy coffeehouse, where the colours were as soft as the morning light, the whirring of the espresso machine became the comfortable backdrop to conversations and the rich scent of the freshly ground coffee sent a zing through the early morning haze. It was Sunday morning and in Merlin's opinion it was the best time of the week to frequent a coffeehouse. It was early enough that the place wasn't crawling with caffeine-deprived zombies: only the early risers, all-nighters and city crawlers wandered through to get their cup of choice.
I guess Merlin saw himself as fitting the all-of-the-above and yet none-of-the-above categories. His shift at the hospital finished early on Sunday mornings and he was always so high on the adrenaline and the fast-pace of it all that he found himself wandering over to the coffeehouse around the corner.
He'd order himself some tea and sit in front of the window and watch the city wake up as he slowed down enough to go home and slip in a few hours of sleep. It was quiet, save for a few commonplace noises, and Merlin let the welcomed warmth of the tea seep through his body and relax all the knots in his muscles – in his thoughts.
Merlin discovered that knots were a common ailment of his, or at least since Arthur started keeping him company on these early mornings. If Merlin was being truthful with himself the knots might have always been there, where Arthur was concerned anyway.
Merlin had been friends with Arthur since grade school when they got partnered together for biology dissection laboratories. Merlin hadn't minded the whole blood and tissue of it all but the smell of the cocktail of preservatives the creatures were marinated in tickled his gag reflex. Arthur must have noticed because on the second day of dissections he put a pack of peppermint gum on Merlin's desk and said, "Try not to snap bubbles as the teacher walks by."
It was an unlikely friendship. Arthur was loud and was always surrounded by a crowd of friends who were even louder. Merlin, although he had his friends, enjoyed quiet moments where he could get lost in the emotions the characters he was reading about were feeling. In those quiet moments, as he rested an open book in his lap and he peered past the black words on a white page, he felt invisible in the best possible way. The book swallowed him and the words, strung along like beads on a necklace, carried him to a different time – a different place.
It was the purest form of escape that Merlin knew. He traveled and yet he had no passport. He saw castles and yet he sent no postcards. He dueled with shades, elves and warlocks and yet he was still alive.
Somehow, the two of them just worked.
It wasn't long before Arthur started bringing Merlin to his lunch table after dissections. There Merlin met friendly Gwen, flirtatious Gwaine, sarcastic Morgana and affable Leon. They made him feel like he'd been coming to their table for years. Gwaine winked, Morgana jabbed, Gwen reassured and Leon chuckled. They pulled laughs out of Merlin, held his attention between their eager hands and made Merlin proficient at eye rolls – especially when a group of girls would walk by their table and Gwaine would start in with a round of winking so fierce that the girls all probably believed that he'd stuck a handful of sand into his eye beforehand.
They were great – more than great. It was as if someone had collected all the best secondary characters from books and stuck them at one lunch table. Even still, Arthur stole his thoughts and his focus like no secondary character ever could.
No, Arthur was definitely not a secondary character.
He didn't know what it was about Arthur that made his mind swing in so many different directions but the ropes of his thoughts were a tangled mess. But even in this mess the ropes twisted and bent to spell our words, words he did not want to acknowledge. These words pushed and prodded his thoughts everyday and yet even as he saw them spelled out in front of him, he swirled his fingers through the ropes until the words were eaten up by the chaos.
He didn't want to see those words because they spoke of possibilities. They spoke of dreams and longing. They spoke of impossibilities.
Because Arthur was his best friend – his best friend of almost twelve years. Twelve years. Twelve years of borrowed lunches, copied homework and crinkled smiles. Twelve years of shared memories and moments and heartaches. He'd spent almost half his life being best friends with Arthur.
He'd spent almost half his life being in love with his best friend.
But after twelve years how was a person supposed to bring that up? It was like being introduced to someone hastily and only twelve years later asking for their name.
It was impossible.
Merlin was in no way trying to be melodramatic. He didn't carry a perfect picture of Arthur in his wallet and pull it out every night to stroke his face and sigh his name. He was resigned to reality and reality said that he'd missed his chance, if he even had one to begin with.
His feelings for Arthur slept on the floor of his heart, pulled down by the gravity of all the years. They were only disturbed on days where a particular stab of longing hugged Merlin or a stubborn loneliness settled in beside him.
"Merlin?"
"Merlin?"
Merlin snapped out of his mind and looked across at Arthur. Arthur held his mug of coffee between both hands and looked curiously over at Merlin.
"Where did you go? You were a million miles away," Arthur said softly. It was the gentle part of the morning – one where it felt crass to speak in normal tones, as if the sun would get startled and hide back into the pocket of the earth.
Merlin smiled lightly. He looked out the window to the street in front of them. "I was trying to guess at what the woman in the green coat was looking for in her purse."
Arthur followed Merlin's gaze to the woman standing on the sidewalk who was searching through her purse. Merlin thought that he saw a flash of sadness pass over Arthur's face but he figured he must have imagined it. Merlin knew no reason for Arthur to be sad.
They both watched the woman with their curiosities piqued.
"Bet she's looking for her lipstick," Arthur ventured.
"Nah, she's looking for her wallet to buy a newspaper," Merlin countered.
"Loser buys next Sunday's order?" Arthur asked.
"You're on."
They watched the woman with invested interest. Her searching hands stilled and they both leaned forward eagerly.
She pulled out a small banana.
They leaned back in their chairs and chuckled to themselves. These were the moments that Merlin enjoyed the most from their Sunday mornings. The shared companionship of watching others wake up and start their day. It almost made up for the fact that they weren't waking up together.
"Well I still think that you should be the one to buy my coffee next week," Arthur said before he took a sip of his coffee.
Merlin snorted. "Oh yeah? How do you figure?"
"Well, the banana looked more like a tube of lipstick than a wallet."
"Arthur," Merlin said in complete seriousness, "they make banana shaped phones, who's to say that someone out there hasn't made a banana shaped wallet yet?"
Arthur closed his eyes and laughed into his mug. Merlin watched the smile he'd seen a thousand times before take shape on Arthur's face. He heard the familiar sound of Arthur's laugh fill the space between them. He was still looking at Arthur when Arthur opened his eyes. Arthur looked at him warmly and Merlin had to look away before the ropes of his thoughts reformed the words he worked so hard to keep scattered.
He wasn't going to think them. He didn't want to say them. He would sit on the words and hope that he either squished them or Arthur would notice that Merlin was sitting a little higher up than he was supposed to be. He would sit on them until they flattened and he couldn't feel them anymore or until Arthur would take his hand, pull him to his feet and see the secret that Merlin had been trying so hard to hide.
Thanks for reading. :)