Arthur stood over the sink, his body was supported by his arms and he drew out a large puff of air while looking at the cold water streaming out of the tap. It was an intense past week and he was happy that tonight could be a night where he would be able to relax a little bit. Tonight was the night of the banquet for all the riders and honestly, Arthur thought he was in desperate need for it. He had mixed feelings, because he was sure that there would be press and stares from people, but he would also be surrounded by people who care and love him and that was meaning more than anything to him.

Arthur cupped his hands under the stream and splashed the water onto his face, feeling some of the tension glide away at the same time the water dripped from his face. Gently, he dabbed his face dry with a towel and just stared at his own reflection in the mirror for a few moments.

There were darkening circles showing beneath his eyes and Arthur hadn't expected anything less. In the past week he had little sleep and lots of worries. In this past week happened just so much, Gwaine's arrest, the press attention, the hearing and everything just took a strain on him and if it weren't for his father and Leon and Merlin, he was certain that he would absolutely succumbed under the pressure.

He had started to get nightmares once more, something he had started to get when he was raped last year. Arthur called his psychiatrist, Doctor Bailey, and had told her about what happened the last few weeks. She immediately made some free time for him and helped him to get through it. He had gotten everything of his chest and already felt a little bit more at ease.

Arthur walked back to his bedroom and sat heavily down on his bed where his suit and tie were already lain out, ready for putting on.

Arthur sighed. If it weren't for his father's powerful contacts in the police force as well in the legal department, than Gwaine would be still walking around free.

The trial against Gwaine began within days after the initial arrest, because his father wanted Gwaine to be locked up sooner rather than later.

The intense but short trial was widely covered through all kinds of media and Arthur felt incredibly self-conscious and uneasy about it all. He never liked being in the spotlights and certainly not for stuff like this. Thankfully Merlin was with him every step of the process and helped him through it. Arthur was sure that he would have given up a long time ago if he didn't had Merlin at his side.

People all over the country were shocked for several reasons by what they learnt through the media. One because they learnt about Arthur's sexuality, second because they heard about the rape and the third that they learned that it was Gwaine who had done it to him. It felt so unreal and unbelievable since Gwaine was a respected and well-known figure in the British party society.

During the trial, Arthur stood eye to eye with his tormenter again for the first time since the incident in the changing room. Arthur was determined to not let Gwaine know how much he actually frightened him, but when it was his turn to get up the stand to give his statement, his whole body felt as if it could shut down any moment. There was a lump in his throat that he just couldn't get rid of and he kept seeking for Merlin in the audience. Once he found him, he could smile and start to relax just a little bit more, but he never noticed how Gwaine was following every move. Gwaine had clenched his hands into tight fists once he found out who brought that smile to the love of his life's face.

The lawyers on Arthur's side had demanded at least fifteen years in prison and treatment in a psychiatric clinic for the rest of Gwaine's life, but unfortunally for them, Gwaine and his family also had a lot of influence in the legal department.

In return Gwaine's team of lawyers had appealed the decision on ground that Arthur had given himself over to Gwaine with consent on the relevant night. They said that Arthur just made up this rape story because he wasn't ready to come out yet.

Arthur and his supporters were absolutely shocked by that statement and his lawyers tried to convince the judge that Gwaine was lying. The judge had adjourned the court case until next month, however, he had stated that the suspect should be kept in custody until the court date with bail set on two million Pounds.

Uther and Arthur weren't really happy about that decision, but were satisfied that Gwaine was kept in custody with a ridiculous high bail price.

The moment before Gwaine was being escorted away through the doors, he had turned to Arthur's direction and mouthed 'I love you.' to him. Merlin had rubbed on Arthur's arms and telling him that it wouldn't be long now, that it was almost fully over.

He looked to his side to his suit and a smile crept onto his face. He was excited now and couldn't wait to pick Merlin up and to see Merlin in the suit that he got custom made the day after Merlin told him he would love to escort him to the banquet.

He started to put on his own suit on and was struggling with his tie when he heard a knock on the door and bid the person permission to enter. It was his father, already all dressed up, and now checking if his son was also ready. Arthur turned around and gave up on his tie, he was just too unskilled to tie it properly.

Uther walked to him and clasped both his hands on his son's upper arms as he had been cleared from the sling just a few days ago. Uther gave his son a solemn smile. "You okay?" He asked.

Arthur just sighed and answered, "Coping." While trying once again to tie his tie.

"Here let me." Uther offered and took the two ends of the tie in his hands and started to put it together how it was supposed to be. "Your mother taught me how to tie a tie." Uther suddenly told his son, who looked up to his father with a surprised look on his face. His father never talked much about his mother after she passed away. Uther always said it was too hurtful for him to talk about her and Arthur didn't pressured his father too much after a while. That didn't took away the fact that he loved to hear stories about his mother.

Uther continued. "I was absolutely rubbish in tying one properly. I would usually just tie a knot into it and thought job well done, but your mother… your mother wouldn't let me leave the house looking like some kind of homeless person." Uther chuckled and Arthur let a small smile of his own appear on his lips. These moments were so rare and he loved to hear his father talking about his mother. Just like him, his father still missed her every single day.

"She once spent half a day teaching me, and since then I have never failed to tie one properly. There." Uther finished and Arthur looked down to see a perfectly tied tie resting on his chest. He let his fingers lightly glide over it, before closing his waist coat and shrugging his overcoat on. Arthur looked back up to his father he thanked him.

Uther knew it was not only for helping him with his tie, but that his son was also thanking him for talking about his mother.

"You're welcome son. Now come on, let's go before we're too late."

Arthur inhaled deeply through his nose and nodded his head and made his way to the car that was appointed to him. His father got in a different one, because his father would already go the banquet, while he would first pick up Merlin before making way to the venue.

~oOoOo~

Merlin turned in different angles in front of his mirror to see if there were no wrinkles in his completely new suit. He looked good, if he may say so himself. And the best of having a custom made suit, was that it fitted perfectly!

Normally, Merlin didn't like to wear suits, loathed them even. If he ever needed to wear one he would just buy one from a department store or even rent one. The only problem with those rented suits (and even the bought ones) were that they were always just that bit too big and hung around him like he was the hanger of it. Not that he couldn't afford a custom made suit himself (the salary he got from the hospital was high enough to supply him with a custom made suit), but he just never saw the point in owning one.

Good thing his mother wasn't here at the moment, because she would probably be cooing all over him and telling him how handsome he looked and telling him that he's a good boy. He never knew why, but even at twenty-seven his mother would call him a good boy and he just let her. If it made her happy when calling him that, why should he be the one oppose to that?

His mother was out of her mind when she heard that he was injured and especially after learning what had happened to Arthur. After she fretted about Merlin's well-being, she listened to the whole story that he told her - and Balinor.

Merlin had asked Arthur permission to tell his own parents beforehand, because he didn't want them to find out about Arthur's past via the media. The media had this tendency to blow up stories to an even more dramatic occurrence and he just wanted to tell his parents the truth and nothing but the truth.

Arthur had agreed, because he wasn't able to tell them himself, because it was too painful for him to keep repeating the same story. He went with Merlin when he would tell his parents, and had found himself in a bone crushing hug by Hunith when Merlin was done telling the story.

She had looked him into the eye and said that he was welcome here whenever he wanted to escape reality for a while. Their country home was outside the city, had a huge fence around it and the first neighbour lived a mile down the road, so he wouldn't be bothered. Arthur appreciated the offer and had said he would think about it.

Merlin glanced to his reflection one last time before making his way to the living room and he peeked out the window. The clock on the wall said it was almost eight so Arthur should be there soon, he just hoped that this night wouldn't be too hard for his boyfriend and that they could have a peaceful night for once.

Car lights neared and stopped in front of his apartment building and Merlin saw Arthur getting out of the car. Merlin quickly texted him that he would come down now, so no need to press the buzzer.

When Merlin opened the door of the building, Arthur stood waiting on the little staircase with his back towards the door. When he heard the door open, he turned and gawked when Merlin came down the few steps.

"What is it?" Merlin asked and looked down at his suit. "Is there something on my suit?" Merlin kept looking down to see if there was a stain on it that he missed, but he couldn't see anything. He looked up again and Arthur still had the same expression on his face so Merlin waved his hand in front of his boyfriend's face. "Hellooo?"

Arthur shook his head, coming out of his daze and looked up to Merlin's face. "Sorry, you just look… amazing." The black pinstriped two piece suit was following the smooth lines of Merlin's lithe body and the grey dress shirt made Merlin's skin look almost translucent and it brought out the brightness of those deep blue eyes. His hair looked windswept, but looking closely you could tell it took a long time to get that result.

Merlin blushed like a little school girl and closed the distance between them. "You don't look too bad yourself." Merlin commented low. He let his eyes glide over Arthur's body and was appreciating the deep dark blue three piece suit combined with a stark white dress shirt and a dark blue tie with diagonal lines with various lighter shades of blie on it.

Arthur grinned and offered Merlin his elbow. "Ready?"

Merlin gripped his arm. "Ready."

~oOoOo~

Merlin looked out of the tinted car window and saw the enormous crowd that had gathered in front of the hotel where the banquet took place. He had been expecting some press, from what Arthur had told him, but this amount of people was abnormal. He turned to Arthur who looked down at his fidgeting hands. "Is there always this many press for the banquet?"

"No." Answered Arthur curtly. The tone of his voice said it all, he was scared and afraid that people would look at him differently or treat him differently because of what had happened. Merlin placed a gentle hand on Arthur's restless ones and sent a small smile to Arthur.

"We can still go home if you want."

Arthur shook his head and inhaled deeply. "No, I'll have to get out at some point, I can't hide the rest of my life. I won't let Gwaine win you know."

Merlin squeezed reassuringly. "You get through this, I know it."

The chauffeur opened the door and Merlin got out first. There was just a small amount of flashing now, but it was already overwhelming him. He tried to ignore them as best as possible.

A few seconds later Arthur appeared from the car and now a lot more cameras flashed. People were yelling their questions to the couple, most of the questions involved Gwaine, but there were also a lot of questions about Arthur being gay. Arthur ignored their questions and the requests to stand still so they could take pictures of him and Merlin, instead he dragged Merlin quickly inside and let out a sigh once they were inside the hotel. His father was already waiting in the lobby for them.

"You alright?" Uther asked and Arthur only nodded without speaking. Uther quickly took them towards the room where the banquet would take place and, yes people looked a bit longer than usual when they entered, but didn't push the matter and went quickly back to their own conversations. Arthur let out a breath of relief and smiled when he saw Leon, Percy and his wife Elena and Lance walking towards them.

Percival -or Percy for short, and Lance were also riders and good friends of Arthur. They also belong to the group of people that were shocked when they learned about what had happened, but they could imagine that Arthur didn't want to talk about it right now, so they avoided that subject at all costs. Percy pushed a glass of champagne in Arthur's hand and he downed it in one go before he introduced Merlin to his friends. They clicked immediately and Arthur started to relax ever so slightly.

Merlin was engaged in a conversation with Leon when he heard another familiar voice and turned to look if it was really the person who he thought he heard speaking.

"Well, well, well. Look at that, Merlin Emrys in a suit. Never thought I'd lived that long to see that happening." Will walked toward the little group, champagne in his hand and an devilish smirk on his face.

"Will?" Merlin was stunned when his best friend came walking to him. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Will studied his hands and nails nonchalant. "Oh you haven't heard yet? As of last Wednesday, I'm a silent partner, sponsor, whatever you want to call me of Pendragon Racing. And that meant that me and my plus one were also invited to this… thing." He did a little wave of his hand.

After pinching his eyebrows together ever so slightly, Merlin turned to Arthur, "You knew about this?"

Arthur shook his head in response. He held however his hand out and welcomed Will as part of the Pendragon Racing Corporations and told him that he was looking forward in seeing him more often.

Merlin then spend some minutes catching up with Will. He hadn't seen him in so long and was eager to find out what he had been up to these last two months. Arthur excused himself from the conversation that he had with Leon, Percy and Lance went to stand next to Merlin.

Ever since the party he liked Will, even when Will was drunk at the end of that evening. He really wanted to get to know Merlin's best friend more and so he listened with much interest. What also wasn't unimportant, was that listening to Will helped him with taking his mind of things.

Will talked about all sorts of things. He talked about the travels he made the last two months, about the famous people he met and about the newest car he had purchased.

"As always you haven't been sitting still." Merlin said and chuckled. "And who's the "lucky" lady that is your date tonight?" He made sure to air quote the word lucky out of a joke, but saw Will wiggle his eyebrows.

"Oh you know her alright, let me see where she is." Will stood tip toe to look over the people in the room and caught sight of the woman that was his date, she saw him waving and made her way. She had to put in great effort to hold in her laugh and proceeded fast towards the trio. Merlin and Arthur were still facing her with their backs and the clicking of her heels came closer and closer. Then she appeared in their line of sight.

Merlin's jaw dropped, quite literally. His eyes widened almost comically, because in front of him stood his sister, dressed in a silk red dress that was pooled on the floor. There were a few loose curls draped down her face with the rest of her hair pulled up in a fancy hairdo. Arthur couldn't help himself but to lightly snicker at the funny sight of his boyfriend.

Almost having no control over his voice, Merlin pointed from Morgana to Will. "You… with him?"

He almost couldn't believe it, Will had never really shown interest in his sister, at least he didn't think he was being serious the few times he did comment on it. But that's not all, Will changed more often from girl than he changed socks. He wouldn't dare to dump Morgana that quickly, not if he didn't want to risk the friendship between himself and Merlin.

"How? … when?" Merlin continued asking, still not being able to make coherent sentences.

Will snaked an arm around Morgana's waist. "You tell him or should I? He looks quite shocked." Morgana nodded her head towards Will and so Will continued.

"We've been interested in each other for quite some while now, I think something like a year for serious, but we didn't act on it, because, well, we didn't know how you would react. We bumped into each other in a café about three weeks ago and we started talking and we just couldn't hide our feelings anymore. Yeah yeah, I know, I sound like a total sap, shut it."

"I didn't say anything." Merlin supplied half laughing.

"We had decided to keep it to ourselves for the time being, we just wanted to see how it went, but so far it goes really well. Hope you're not mad mate."

"Mad?" Merlin asked surprised. "Shocked, yes, but mad? How could I? My best friend and my sister! I-I… wow, okay it's a bit weird, but still!" Merlin's voice rose higher with every sentence, but he was just so happy that he couldn't get a firm grasp on his voice. "And you have my blessing, if that's what you want." He told them and Morgana threw her arms around her brother's neck.

As fast as they appeared, just as fast her arms disappeared from around his neck, saying, "This… never happened." She pointed a finger between the two of them that had to give meaning for the hug.

Merlin stepped a bit closer to Will and reached for his ear, whispering, "If you hurt her, I would run if I were you, because I'll find you."

Will laughed out loud and clapped Merlin a few times on his back. "Yeah, yeah. Calm down ninja."

Will held his hand out to Morgana who gracefully placed her hand on top of his and together they walked into the crowd, seeking people to socialize with. This left Merlin and Arthur on their own again.

Arthur smiled. It was the most he smiled this whole week and Merlin wasn't going to ruin it by asking how he felt at this moment. Instead he wrapped his arms around Arthur's waist and drew him a bit closer. "This is nice isn't?"

Arthur hummed in contentment and put his hands on Merlin's hips. "Indeed. And this makes it even better." He closed the distance between them and their lips touched. Merlin just melted in the touch and slid his hand up to place it gently at the back of Arthur's neck, using the hold to draw Arthur even closer.

A clearing of someone's throat made them part and Merlin blushed at seeing Uther standing next to them with a slight smirk hidden on his lips.

"Didn't want to interrupt… believe me… but dinner will be served soon."

Merlin jerked his head down in embarrassment and Arthur laughed, grabbing Merlin's hand and searching for their names on the name cards that were placed on each table. They found out that they were sitting at a table with his father, Lance, Percy, Elena, Leon, Will and Morgana. Arthur guessed that it was probably his father's doing, but he didn't comment on it. He was far too happy that he was sharing a table with people that were in his opinion closest to him.

When everyone is seated, the first thing that was on the agenda was a boring speech from the Chairman of the Organisation of Professional Motorcycle Racing. He was blabbing about how this was the 64th annual banquet and then he welcomed everyone.

Merlin wasn't really paying attention to the speech though, instead he was trying his best to keep his face as neutral as possible as Arthur was starting to touch his leg with his feet. Merlin let him for now because he was just happy that Arthur was acting like his mischievous self again, even when it was at the worst moment possible.

"Arthur!" Merlin hissed softly in his boyfriend's direction when Merlin accidently kicked a table leg out of reflex when Arthur's foot travelled higher up his thigh. Arthur acted like he didn't knew what Merlin meant and was feigning to be interested in the brochure that was provided to them. Merlin's head turned brightly red when the rest of the table turned to look at him.

Luckily for him, no one questioned it and Merlin began to converse with Lance who sat next to him on the other side. He soon found out that Lancelot was dating a girl named Gwen and when Merlin asked where this Gwen was, Lance had told him that she was a nurse and that she had to work tonight.

Merlin was keen to find out if it was the same Gwen that worked with him. He just vaguely remembered that Gwen once talked about a Lance, it would be a total coincidence if it was indeed the Lance that sat next to him. He found out moments later that he and Lance were indeed talking about the same Gwen. Merlin just laughed and wished him the best and said that Gwen was a great girl.

Not much later, plates with delicious food arrived and Merlin was amazed at how fancy everything looked. Pieces of salmon were stacked up and cut in precision, and there were leaves of salad placed in a specific order and there was a sweet sauce drizzled on the plate and over the salmon. And this was just the starter.

By the time the plates of the third course were collected by the servers, there was a little break announced before the dessert would be served.

Uther excused himself when his phone rang as he saw it was his lawyer. He could hardly understand what his lawyer was saying because of the noise in the room and the slightly bad reception, and told the people at his table he would step outside to take the call.

Merlin also excused himself to go to the toilet and when Merlin was out of sight, Arthur's friends were immediately firing compliments to Arthur.

"He looks like a great guy." Percival said.

"Yeah, he's a keeper Arthur." Lance said and enthusiastically nodded his head in an approving manner.

"He makes you smile." Elena provided and dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin. Will and Morgana nodded with all statements, agreeing with every one of them.

Arthur's smile grew even bigger. "Thank you guys, I'm glad you all think so. He helped me a lot this week and- oh hold on." Arthur picked his phone out of his pocket when he felt it vibrate. Arthur's eyes got that little sparkle when he saw the text was from Merlin and a playful smile started to appear onto his lips when he read the text.

From: Merlin
Come and meet me in the cloakroom.

Arthur looked around the table and he could see the cheeky expressions his friends gave him, they immediately knew who had texted him based on his current expression.

Arthur wiggled his eyebrows and excused himself, telling them that he would be right back.