Chapter 5

Of all the people Merlin would think he'd hear calling his name during work, Arthur Pendragon was not one of them. He turned around from the plate he was serving to see the blonde prince of Camelot walk up to him with a purpose. Everyone paused in their jobs to watch Arthur walk up to him.

"Anna, I'm going to borrow Merlin for a few minutes, okay," he said.

"O-Of course, Arthur," she said. She had been working in Camelot's kitchen for twenty years and very rarely had Arthur came into the kitchen outside of his childhood.

"Thank you, Anna," he said and turned to Merlin. "Come, Merlin."

Merlin frowned at the authoritive tone in Arthur's voice before following him outside of the kitchen and into the staff lobby. It was a small room with a few chairs and tables. There were even vending machines for snacks and sodas. Arthur turned to Merlin as the other man entered the room.

"Shut the door," he said. Merlin did and put his hands in his pockets, watching Arthur expectantly. What was the other man up to? Why did he want to talk to Merlin for the first time in four years? "I want to hire your band."

Merlin blinked in surprise. "What?"

"I want to hire your band, but you have to do something for me."

Merlin was still wrapping his head around the band part.

"Why do you want to hire my band?" he asked.

"The band my father hired canceled last minute," said Arthur. "He needs another band or be forced to cancel the benefit."

"Gee, that would be a loss," said Merlin sarcastically but was forcing himself calm. If there was no benefit then he couldn't meet Excalibur. He at first decided he was going to make some kind of excuse to Anna, switch tuxedos since waiters were to wear white tuxedos with white masks, pilfer a blue rose from one of the vases and get to the dance floor before eleven. If he was with the band, they could easily cover for him for a while when he goes to meet Excalibur. Plus the Pendragons would pay him more than the nickels and dimes Uncle 'Gharrah was paying them. "What's the favor?"

"I need you to tutor me."

Merlin looked at him in confusion.

"Tutor?" he said. "Last I heard you were doing all right in Literature."

"It's not for Literature. It's for Hotel Management."

Merlin looked at him curiously.

"I'm not taking Hotel Management," he said.

"No, but you know everything going on in a hotel. I need that experience."

"Why not ask Anna or Nathan?"

"I'm asking you."

Merlin sighed. He didn't need this added to his schedule. It would take a lot out of his time. He couldn't afford taking time off to tutor a prim socialite. He had his mother to think about and student loans to pay.

"I'm sorry but I can't help you with the tutoring," he said turning back to the door. "The band on the other hand I can do. Just let my boss know and we'll set up tomorrow."

"I'll pay you," said Arthur as Merlin's hand reached the door. Merlin paused and turned back to him.

"What?"

"I'll pay you for the tutoring."

Merlin gaped at him.

"I just told you I'm not in Hotel Management. I can't help you."

"Then just come and watch me study, I don't care, but I'll pay you for any time off you take for the sessions."

"Why me?" he asked. "Out of everyone in the hotel, why me?"

Arthur studied him for a moment before answering.

"Because you're the only one I know that'll not hold me back."

Merlin scoffed a laugh. That was certainly true.

"I don't think so," he said turning back to the door.

"A thousand dollars."

Merlin froze. Arthur just offered him a thousand dollars to tutor him. A thousand dollars would pay for his mother's medical bills and his student's loan. Merlin wasn't a greedy person. Living from paycheck to paycheck taught a person to put needs first. They had been doing all right until Hunith got sick five years ago. Since then, everything had been going into medical bills and treatments.

Now Hunith was sick again, which meant more bills and more treatments. A thousand dollars would go a long way to paying for those, and while he was at it, Merlin might as well make the most of it. It was only three months till the end of the semester and then graduation.

"A month," he said. Arthur looked at him confused.

"What?" he asked.

"A thousand dollars a month," said Merlin. "That's my deal."

"A thousand dollars is more than sufficient. Why do you need more?"

"That's my business. You asked me to tutor you and I will, under my terms. So do we have a deal or not?"

"Very well, a thousand dollars a month, paid after graduation."

Merlin smirked.

"Nice try, Pendragon, but no sell. I get paid and whether you graduate or not is up to you. That is my deal, take it or leave it."

Arthur smirked in amusement.

"Good. Deal. First session will be Monday. One o'clock at the library." He took out his wallet, pulled out a card and handed it to Merlin. "This is my number. You'll text me your address and I'll have a cab be sent to your house. I know you don't have a car. As for your band, be here at seven or don't come at all."

Next Arthur pulled out a check book and started writing on a check. Merlin watched in confusion.

"What are you doing now?" he asked.

"Writing you your down payment," said Arthur. He carefully ripped the check from the book and held it out to Merlin. Merlin read the amount and gaped.

"Five hundred dollars?!"

"That's only half of what I'm paying you," said Arthur putting the check back in his inside jacket pocket. "Try to not spend it in one place."

Merlin glared at Arthur as the blonde walked to the door and opened it. Before he left he turned back to Merlin with a smirk.

"See you tomorrw," he said and left.

Merlin continued to glare at the door until he looked back at the check in his hand. Five hundred dollars. That was more than he made in his two week paycheck. It wasn't much but it was a start. Grinning he pulled out his phone and dialed.

"Hello?"

"Gwen, you'll never guess what just happened!" he said. "We got a gig!"

"What? When? How?"

"Uther had a last minute cancelation on a band and Arthur wanted to hire us."

"And you took the job without consulting the other two members of the band?"

Merlin immediately felt guilty. He did jump the gun but he was so excited to finally get a good gig that he didn't think that Gwen and Will would be busy tomorrow.

"You're right, I'm sorry," he said. "I'll understand if you have to turn in down…"

"Are you shitting me? These are the Pendragons! I'm milking them for all their worth! What time?"

Merlin smiled at his friend in appreciation.

"Seven at the Camelot. Best to come a little bit early. Have Will pull up at the employee entrance."

"Okay, will do!"

"And…" Merlin bit his bottom lip nervously. "I need you to do me a huge favor."

"And what's that?" asked Gwen curiously.

"I need you to pick up a blue rose comber bun."

Gwen paused on her end. "Why?"

"Because..." He started aloud but finished softly. "I'm meeting Excalibur tomorrow at the benefit."

Gwen paused again, this time in shock.

"I'm sorry, but that sounded like you're going to meet Excalibur tomorrow at the benefit," she said.

"I am."

The next thing he knew Merlin was holding the phone at arm's length to keep his hearing away from Gwen's enthusiastic screams.

"This is great, Merlin!" she said. "An even better reason to get the job! I have a lot to do before seven. I'll call Will. Don't worry. We'll take care of everything."

She hung up. Merlin groaned. The words were meant to reassure merlin but somehow they always made him worry. Probably because Gwen always did something that was a little over the top. He just hoped she'd tone it down tomorrow. The last thing he wanted was to scare Excalibur off.

Pocketing his phone he went back to the kitchen to return to work.

XXXXXX

Returning to the restaurant Arthur was more than happy to see that Sophia and her cronies had truly left. Elyan, Gwaine and Percival had left also. Elyan had work and the couple wanted to have a date day, whatever that was, and left to an amusement park or wherever Gwaine dragged Percival. He was an overgrown kid sometimes and Arthur didn't know how Percival put up with him. The only person left at the table was Lancelot. Lancelot looked up as Arthur walked up.

"What did daddy-dearest want?" he asked as he sipped his water.

"To bitch, what else?" said Arthur sitting down. "He somehow got a hold of my grades. Furious that I'm failing my business courses."

Lancelot gave him a sympathetic groan. He was an orphan rich kid with a substantial trust fund. He didn't have any relatives to fight over the family fortune with so the state held his assets and gave him "allowances" once a week while he stayed in foster care. He jumped form foster home to foster home, never staying long for different reasons. A couple times it was because the families were trying to swindle themselves into his fortune. On his eighteenth birthday he was allowed access to his trust fund and came to Avalon for college. Uther didn't even want Arthur to be friends with Lancelot until he heard that Lancelot was heir to du Loche Industries. Now Uther tolerated Arthur's best friend's presence.

"What did he say?" asked Lancelot.

"He said that I'd either get a tutor or quit my 'extracurricular activities'."

"Dude!" said Lancelot in shock. "Can he do that? You've paid for those classes with your own money."

"Which is connected to his many, many bank accounts, never mind it was my mother's trust fund to me. I can't believe he would do this to me."

"What are you going to do?"

"I agreed of course."

Lancelot stared at his friend in surprise. "What?!"

"I agreed, if I pick the tutor and he allows a band I know play for the benefit tomorrow."

"Why did you want to pick the band?" asked Lancelot.

"Because the band my father had scheduled canceled and if he didn't find a band soon he was going to have to cancel the benefit."

"And what would be so bad about that?" asked Lancelot. "You hate those stuffy 'peacock parties'." Lancelot used Arthur's term for the formal parties his father hosts. "Why would you want to keep this one going?"

Arthur was silent for a full minute before answering.

"I'm meeting Wizard tomorrow at the benefit," he said.

Lancelot gaped at him, more surprised than when Arthur said Uther was threatening Arthur's classes. A few days ago he was adamant on not meeting with the guy and now he was all for it.

"I thought you didn't want to meet him," he said.

"I didn't, at the time, but I was sitting here with Sophia clinging to my arm and chattering away about fashion, the dos and don'ts and making fun of Gwen and Merlin and I realized that I didn't want to spent the rest of my life doing what everyone else wanted. I wanted to be with people who liked me for who I am…"

"Hey!"

"Extended company excluded, but the point is I had the sudden urge to meet him. I wanted…needed to meet him."

"That wouldn't have anything to do with your sudden breakup with Sophia?"

Arthur laughed in relief.

"I've wanted to do that for six months," he said.

"Then why haven't you?" asked Lancelot and Arthur gave him a look of disbelief.

"Have you met Sophia?"

"Good point."

Arthur laughed again, this time in humor of Lancelot's forgetfulness.

"So what about the tutoring?" asked Lancelot.

"I've got Merlin to tutor for me," said Arthur.

Lancelot frowned at him. "But the guy doesn't know anything about Hotel Management."

"But he does know the ins and outs of a hotel. I can use that for my class."

"He won't agree," said Lancelot sipping his drink.

"H already did. I'm paying him a thousand a month."

The water lodged in Lancelot's throat and he sputtered the rest up. He grabbed his napkin and coughed hard in it. Everyone turned to look at him in shock. Arthur reached and hit Lancelot hard in the middle of his friend's back. Lancelot coughed once and took a deep breath.

"You what?" he said when he could breathe again. "And he took it?"

"Everyone can be bought," said Arthur with a shrug. "He's probably already thinking about the video games and the books he'll buy."

"Not Merlin. If he took the money than he had a very good reason to do it. Merlin's not a material person. There has to be a reason why he took the money."

"Yeah, because it's money."

Lancelot shook his head. Arthur didn't know Merlin the way Lancelot did. Lancelot owed Merlin a lot and he didn't like anyone putting the man down, not even his best friend.

"How do you know, Merlin," asked Arthur after a minute. Lancelot sighed.

"The year Gwaine joined the team, he was dating Merlin," said Lancelot.

"Merlin's gay?" asked Arthur in shock. Lancelot nodded.

"Yep. Out and proud. And you know how open Gwaine is with his sexuality."

Arthur nodded. From day one Gwaine was out with his sexuality, making him a target to the more bigoted team members until he befriended Arthur and Lancelot. The group of friends took Gwaine in and protected him from the bashing. Arthur knew Gwaine was a party-goer and thought the man had multiple sex partners. He didn't thing he had a monogamous relationship, and certainly not with Merlin.

"They were dating?" said Arthur in shock. "Why didn't he tell us?"

"To protect Merlin. Merlin might be out too, but they still protect their own. If any homophobe idiots found out that there were two gay men on campus, and that they were dating, then there would have been a late night bashing with one or both of them dead. They kept their relationship secret to protect each other."

"But Gwaine and Percival are open to their relationship."

Lancelot gave him a look.

"Do you really think someone would fuck with Percy?" he asked.

Arthur saw the point. As calm as Percival may be in the presence of his friends, once a person he cares about his threatened he's like a bull. He would fight until physically and mentally exhausted to protect those he cares about.

Merlin, on the other hand, was a twig. Anyone could easily snap him in two.

"I can see your point," said Arthur.

Lancelot nodded.

"Anyway, the year they were dating, I was a party and I almost hit on Valiant's newest main squeeze."

Arthur nodded. Valiant was a student an Avalon and was on the soccer team until he got kicked out for fighting on campus. Everyone knew to not mess with anything that belong to him, especially his girlfriends. The last person that slept with one of Valiant's girls wound up in intensive care.

"Well, there I was hitting on who was possibly the hottest girl at the party when Merlin just grabs me and says, 'There you are, babe. I've been looking everywhere for you!'"

Arthur laughed. He could just imagine Lancelot's face. It wasn't the first time he got hit on by a man, Gwaine does it at least twenty times a day, and he took it all in stride, but to be hit on by your friend's boyfriend was something completely different.

"Then he thanked the girl for finding me and led me off. I asked him what the hell he thought he was doing, that I had the girl in the bag, and he said my balls would have been handed to me in a bag if I kept hitting on Valiant's girl. He nodded toward where the keg was and sure enough there was Valiant glaring daggers at me. The guy literally saved my bacon."

Arthur nodded. Seems Merlin's not entirely the bookworm geek Arthur made him out to be. If he had the guts to save a near stranger than he must be an okay guy.

"Geez, Arthur!" said Lancelot after a minute. "Your dad, Merlin, Wizard, Sophia; I hope you know what the hell you're doing."

Funnily enough, so did Arthur.

TBC