X 4 X

Arthur knows, the second Merlin offers to buy him lunch, exactly what he wants to talk to him about. He also knows that today is going to be far, far worse than yesterday.

"I can't, really," he says, barely glancing up from his computer. "I'm just a little too busy, today."

His barely-a-glance is still too much of a glance, though, because Merlin is looking at him pathetically, beseechingly, the please, Arthur, please look he's made a mission of ruining Arthur's life with.

"Come on, Arthur, please," he says, just in case the look wasn't persuading enough for him. "The world won't end if you escape for half an hour, and I want to talk to you."

"Working, Merlin," Arthur argues, but it's already too late, and he and Merlin both know it, both know that, somehow, Merlin always gets his way.

"But-"

"No."

"Arthur-"

"No."

"I'll never ask you for anything else."

"Yes, you will."

"I promise, Arthur. Never."

Arthur sighs, rolling his eyes. "You always make promises you can't keep, Merlin," he says, because the very next time Merlin wants something Arthur can help him with, he'll be back again, begging eyes and all. He'll be back, and Arthur will be just as incapable of saying no then as he is now.

"Half an hour," he concedes, standing up and putting his laptop to sleep. "That is it, and we're not just going to one of your germ-infested burger vans, either."

Merlin grins his million-watt grin, snickers nervously enough that Arthur knows he has no idea where to go now that he's nixed that idea, and as good as skips from the office.

X

They end up in some fuddy-duddy cafe, full of doilies and ugly fake flowers in massive planters, but Merlin is making a point and his point is that there are worse places than the burger van opposite Arthur's work.

His point is well and truly made, and they both know it, even if Arthur is too stubborn to tell him he wins, stubborn enough that they will eat their lunch here, surrounded by old married couples bickering with their friends about who has the most successful grandchildren. And the doilies. Far too many doilies, although Merlin isn't entirely sure that it's possible to have any doilies at all without automatically having too many.

Still, he's won, and that makes it a lot easier for Merlin to smile through his nerves, even if he's still hiding his hands in his lap to conceal their shaking.

"So she said yes, then," Arthur says, as they look through pages and pages of sandwich and soup options, his tone more fitting for asking if Merlin's mother is dead, which is a tad off-putting.

"I know she's your sister," Merlin answers, "But you could try being a little excited for me. It's hardly the end of the world."

"I'm very happy for you." When's the funeral?

Merlin is saved from having to come up with any kind of response (which is good, since the woman, eighty if she's a day but remarkably swift with her knitting needles, sat at the table next to them probably wouldn't appreciate his language) by the arrival of a waitress. She's young, compared to all the patrons other than them, and she looks like she's trying to decide whether to take their order or ask if they're lost.

Arthur saves her the trouble, ordering a ham and cheese sandwich, then actually looks at Merlin for the first time since they left his office.

"Oh," Merlin says, and he doesn't really want to say he's not ready when Arthur has already ordered, even if he hasn't actually opened the menu yet. "Yeah, I'll have the same," he finishes, smiling as winningly as he can. "And a banana milkshake, please."

"Flirt," Arthur mutters, after she's smiled back and returned to the counter. "Shouldn't you be stopping that now?"

"I was being polite," Merlin says. "Nice. You should probably try it sometime."

Arthur frowns at him, the same irritation that Merlin thinks caused his initial refusal to come out making a comeback, and with it Merlin's nervousness crashes down again. It's stupid, senseless, but Merlin thinks he's probably more nervous now than he was when he proposed to Morgana, even though it's only Arthur. It's not like Merlin's asking him to marry him, just to stand there and smile when he marries Morgana, and Merlin doesn't really think Arthur will say no, the way he half-expected Morgana to. It's Arthur, Merlin's best friend and Morgana's twin brother, and there is absolutely no reason to be anxious about asking him this.

Even so, Arthur's frown and Merlin's inexplicable jitters last until their lunches arrive, by which point the silence is so present it might as well be a third person sat at their table.

"So Morgana said yes," Arthur says eventually, and it as good as shatters all the momentum Merlin has built up, all the effort he's put in to making himself speak.

"Yeah," he answers, even though it still isn't a question. "She told you she found the ring, then? I thought for once I'd actually managed to hide something somewhere she wouldn't find it."

Arthur smiles a death-bed smile. "Not so much," he answers, and Merlin thinks of the smile Morgana had given him when he told her he knew she knew, her I know everything smile, and, really, Merlin has never doubted that she does. "She told me you were going to ask her, though."

"Right," Merlin says, because it's easier than trying to work out the ins and outs of Morgana's apparent prescience. "So, I proposed, and she said yes, and…" he pauses, those nerves again, creeping and cruel, wrapping around his throat and putting a tremble in his voice to match the one in his hands. "And so I've been thinking, about all the planning and whatever, and I don't much care about where we have it or what kind of service it is. I'll let Morgana sort all that, it's her day and it doesn't matter to me. But…"

He pauses again, takes a fortifying gulp of milkshake (better than alcohol any day, he thinks, at least in terms of liquid courage), then finishes his request in a rush. "But I do know one thing I want for it, and that's that you be there. Arthur, will you be my best man?"

X

And there it is, Arthur thinks, the question he was waiting for, the question Merlin has spent so long building up to, and maybe his instinctive reaction to Merlin asking him a question is to give him whatever he wants, but that doesn't mean he does, and it doesn't mean he's going to now. He will not stop Merlin marrying Morgana, will not take their happiness from them so cavalierly, but he won't be there to watch it, either.

"I'd love to, Merlin," he says, and for a fraction of a second Merlin's face lights up. "But I can't," he concludes, "It's a very busy time at work right now."

"We haven't even set a date yet."

That, Arthur thinks, is a distressingly fair point, and something he probably should have been smart enough to take into account before using such a dismal excuse. "Yes," he says; in for a penny, in for a pound. "However, things at work are always busy, and I don't have…I would, but…"

Merlin looks even more hurt than Arthur had expected him to, and it's terrible; he hates when Merlin looks like that, always feels the need to pummel whoever is responsible, feels it even more when the one responsible is him. That doesn't change anything, though.

"Ask Gwaine, maybe," he suggests, like he thinks that'll be in any way a suitable alternative; Gwaine isn't exactly Mr Commitment, and being asked to be best man at a wedding would probably have him breaking out in hives. "Or Lance, I'm sure he'd love to, and you know Gwen will be one of the bridesmaids. It makes far more sense."

"My God, you're an arse," Merlin says, and for all that they spend half their time squabbling (like an old married couple, Morgana said once, which she bloody would, wouldn't she, and now she's going to be the one Merlin bickers with endlessly as they stagger around on Zimmer frames together) this is far, far harsher than usual. "I don't want Lancelot, or Gwaine. I want you, and I don't want to do this without you by my side."

Arthur doesn't know what answer to give that, even though he still wants to refuse, to distance himself from this thing that will mean the end of life as he knows it, the end of life as he wishes it to be. He wants to be there for Merlin, with Merlin, standing at his side, but not like this. Not like this, at the wrong side of him.

"I can't," he says. "The planning, the speech, the stag night…I don't have time."

"Forget the planning," Merlin says, sounding equal parts devastated and desperate. "Forget the stag night and the speech and anything else that a best man usually does. They're not important. I just want you to show up, stand next to me, and give me the rings when I ask for them. One day, probably not much more than an hour, and that's it."

"I can't."

Merlin smiles, both triumphant and not, and the sight of it terrifies Arthur. "Fine," Merlin says, staring him down, refusing to give Arthur quarter with his gaze as much as his words. "Then you can explain to your sister why the wedding isn't going to happen."

Bastard, Arthur thinks, momentarily hating his best friend as much as he's ever loved him (which, it must be said, is an awful lot). Oh, you bastard, he thinks, this time directed at himself just as much as it is Merlin, because he wants to stand in their way, and this would be Merlin's decision. This would be Merlin calling it off, without Arthur asking him to, and it wouldn't be his fault.

But it would, really. It would be Arthur's fault, and, again, he would be ruining Merlin and his sister's happiness for nothing. No good would come of it.

He still can't give in, even if resisting will ruin their lives.

Merlin puts his sandwich down, glaring at Arthur across the table. "So, what is it?" he asks, and Arthur doesn't know if he should be relieved or not; surely if Merlin actually meant his threat to call off the wedding, he'd be storming out right about now, not sticking around to argue some more. "Would you be this much of a dick to anyone your sister was marrying, or is it just me you think isn't good enough for her?"

"No!" Arthur says, far too quickly, far too loudly, and Merlin startles a little. "Don't be such an idiot, Merlin; you know that's not it."

"Right," Merlin mutters, more dejected than outright argumentative. "Now I'm an idiot. Thanks, Arthur. Is that why you're so against this?"

Arthur struggles for words for a moment, feeling a little bit like Merlin is trying to make this difficult for him, like this is all just him causing Arthur trouble for no reason. It's not fair to think that, not when Merlin is probably the most unfailingly good bloke Arthur has ever met, but he thinks it anyway.

Merlin speaks when he doesn't, resigned and hollow. "I know there are better people out there," he says. "She's the only woman I've ever loved, and the only person who has ever wanted me back. Believe me, Arthur; I know how lucky I am that she'll settle for me, when there are so many better men out there."

No, Arthur thinks, and has absolutely no idea how to say the words in his mind, the words so frequently in his mind, that Merlin is probably the best man he's ever met. Merlin is beyond wonderful, beyond being a good man, and if Arthur had ever wondered if Merlin was once interested in him, this would be all the evidence he could need to prove he wasn't; if Arthur had been one of the people Merlin wanted, he would have had no doubt at all about Arthur being interested in return.

"There are no better men." Arthur says, with all the finality he can muster, hating that they have to talk about this, almost hating Merlin for refusing to let this drop. "She's not settling, Merlin," he says, and he definitely hates how much he wants Merlin to reply, No, I am. "She loves you."

"And I love her."

Even though Arthur knows that already, hearing it still hurts, will probably always hurt, but they can talk about this all day and that will never change. However much he loves Merlin, however often he's thought that maybe there's something there in return, some spark between them that could, if given the chance, become more, it is nothing compared to the way Merlin looks at his sister, the way she looks back.

"Fine," he says, and it is for Merlin's sake that he tries to keep the defeat out of his voice, though defeated he very definitely is; Merlin will marry his sister, and Arthur will be there to witness it. "You win, Merlin. Now, I need to get back to work."

He stands before Merlin can reply, stalks out before Merlin has the chance to drop some money on the table and run after him.

He runs away, Arthur can't deny that's what he's doing, but he's already stayed as long as he can.