Fic: Second Chances
Title: Second Chances (2/3)
Author: oomnydevvotchka
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin
Word Count: 6.5k
Warnings: Mild homophobia
Summary: This prompt over at Kink Me Merlin.
Three months later, Morgana strode into Arthur and Merlin’s shared flat as though she owned the place.
This wasn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence, but Arthur, who was sitting at the kitchen table looking over financial figures, groaned and asked “Who the hell let you in?” like it was the first time that it had happened.
Morgana, predictably, ignored him in favor of hugging Merlin, who she tended to treat a bit like a lapdog.
“Merlin! How are you?”
Merlin (the traitor, Arthur thought) smiled, hugged her back, and said “Hello, Morgana. I’m fantastic. How are you?”
“Oh, I’m fine. But, I’m actually here to see you, Arthur, if you’ve decided to stop being such a tosser.”
Arthur looked up, wounded expression on his face. “What gives you the right to come into my home and insult me, you harpy?”
Morgana sniffed. “Well, if you’re going to be like that, maybe I won’t give you the good news.”
“Good news?” Arthur perked up at the words. Merlin crossed the room to stand next to Arthur’s chair, unwilling to be left out of possible excitement.
Morgana pulled a newspaper out of the bag she wore over her shoulder, and flipped to a page in the middle of it. She slapped the paper down on the table and jabbed her finger at a tiny section of the page. “Read that.”
Arthur pulled the paper toward him, and Merlin rested his chin on Arthur’s shoulder so he could see as well.
The headline to the blurb read ‘PENDRAGON GIVES GENEROUS GIFT TO STONEWALL’. As Arthur read through it, his eyebrows climbed higher and higher on his forehead, so that when he looked up at Morgana, his expression looked somewhere between shocked and disbelieving. Merlin, on the other hand, merely looked worried. Better than anyone else in the world, Merlin knew how much it had affected Arthur to be disowned because of his sexuality, how difficult he had found it to cut all contact with his father. The article, which explained how Uther had made a large donation to a prominent LGBTQ oriented charity, was suspicious, given the attitude that he had shown toward his son, and Merlin was concerned that it may upset his boyfriend.
Morgana looked at Arthur expectantly. “Well? Isn’t this good news?”
“Hardly.” Arthur didn’t elaborate any further than that. He got up and grabbed the kettle. “Tea, anyone?”
Morgana refused to be dissuaded by Arthur’s obvious subject change. “Of course it’s a good thing! Maybe he’s changing his mind?”
Arthur slammed his hands down on the counter, but didn’t turn around to face either of his companions. “It’s far more likely that he’s realized that the general public is in favor of gay rights, and he’s trying to make the company look good. I’ll bet he and his CEO friends all complain to each other about how they have to donate to the queers.”
Morgana had not been expecting this sort of response. Unlike her brother, she had gone back to speaking to her father after a few weeks, although their meetings were still a bit strained. They hadn’t talked much about the situation with Arthur, but when they had, Uther had seemed remorseful about his actions. Despite that, Uther hadn’t made any attempt to contact Arthur since their fight. When Morgana had seen the report of Uther’s donation, she had thought that it may be Uther’s emotionally constipated attempt to apologize to his son. When she voiced this thought to Arthur, however, he only seemed to become angrier.
“If Uther was trying to apologize to me and didn’t have the decency to do so in person, don’t you think he’d have done something to draw a bit more attention? I’m surprised they even reported this in the papers.”
Merlin, wanting to head off Arthur’s anger, took his hand and led him to sit back down, taking over the making of the tea himself. “Maybe he thought it’d attract more attention than it did?” he suggested, plunking a mug down in front of Arthur and giving another to Morgana.
Arthur wrapped his hands around the mug and heaved a deep sigh. “I doubt it. My father’s intelligent. He’d know that even a large donation wouldn’t matter much to people who weren’t involved with that particular charity. Honestly, this just sends the message that he’s fine with gay people, as long as they aren’t in his family.”
Morgana hadn’t thought of that possibility, which seemed more in line with the views Uther would hold than Arthur’s earlier explanation. Still, she couldn’t help but feel optimistic. Money was important to Uther, and though he was hardly a miser, it wasn’t like him to spend money on things he didn’t like or support.
However, Arthur was understandably still smarting from the blow Uther had given him, so she didn’t share this view, choosing instead to ask Merlin about his studies.
The grateful smile Merlin sent her way told her that this was the right decision.
***
Merlin’s Chemistry class, which he loathed more than anything else in the world, ran a bit late one Thursday. Professor Monmouth, a dry older man, had taken the chance to lecture the entire class about the state of their lab reports (the comment on Merlin’s paper had read “This is a mess”, which Merlin thought was more than a bit unfair).
Anyway, Monmouth’s lecture had run ten minutes over the time that the class usually ended, which meant Merlin was currently running across campus, schoolbag bumping against his hip at every step, on the way to his meeting.
During his first year as a graduate student, Merlin had been welcomed with open arms into the LGBTQ group on campus, which met promptly at 4:00 every Thursday. He had been involved in the group, which welcomed interested advocates from the general population as well as students, ever since.
Merlin finally reached the room in which the meetings were held, throwing the door open so enthusiastically that it hit the wall with a loud bang.
Freya, the current president of the group, was cut off mid-spiel, and she gave Merlin a good-natured glare. “Hello, Merlin. It’s nice of you to have joined us, but couldn’t you be a little quieter?”
Merlin, attempting to get his breathing under control, gave Freya an apologetic smile before crossing the room to drop into a chair next to Gwen.
Gwen, who was one of the club’s few straight members, looked away from her boyfriend, Lancelot, to quietly greet Merlin.
He nodded at her, still panting, and cast a look around the room as Freya resumed reviewing the minutes from the last meeting. Most of the people in the room were their regulars, students or community members that tried to show up to every meeting, but there was one man who was new to the group.
The man was older than their typical member, and looked supremely uncomfortable to be in the room. Probably straight, then, and looking to open his mind, maybe due to a child coming out of the closet or something similar. That was Merlin’s favorite type of group member, the ones who were realizing for the first time that homosexuality, which they might have been against or simply indifferent to in the past, was really no different than heterosexuality, that there were all types of gay people, good and bad.
It was these thoughts that led Merlin to approach the man after the meeting, shooing Gwen, Lancelot, and Freya away with a promise to catch up to them in a bit. Up close, the man looked vaguely familiar, as though Merlin had seen him before, although he couldn’t put his finger on why. The man was facing away from Merlin, so Merlin tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention.
The man turned around slowly and regarded Merlin with an impassive look. Merlin was slightly taken aback, but he introduced himself anyway. “Hi there, my name’s Merlin. I haven’t seen you here before. Is this your first meeting?”
As the man continued to look at Merlin, something almost like recognition flared in his eyes. It was quickly hidden, however, and the man took Merlin’s outstretched hand and gave it a firm shake. “Merlin. My name is…Tristan. Yes, this is in fact my first meeting.”
Merlin smiled. “Tristan. It’s nice to meet you. I’m the vice-president of the group, so feel free to ask me any questions you might have. I’ll see you next week, I hope?”
The odd look had returned to ‘Tristan’s’ eyes, but he merely gave a nod and assured Merlin that he would, in fact, be returning next week.
As Merlin excused himself to run after his friends, Uther wondered if his hunch could possibly be correct, that this young man was Arthur’s lover.
***
Since Morgana had shown him the article detailing his father’s suspicious donation, Arthur hadn’t heard anything about the man.
Which is why it came as such a surprise when he answered the phone to hear his father’s voice at the other end.
“Arthur?” was Uther’s uncharacteristically hesitant opening.
To Arthur’s horror, the sound of his father’s voice, which he hadn’t heard for nearly four months, caused him to have an almost Pavlovian reaction. His throat closed up, so he had to clear it several times before he could answer, and when he did return with “Father?”, it came out far less confident than he would have wished.
“Yes, hello. It’s been a while.”
Uther sounded quite disinterested when he said this, and Arthur’s anger at his father abruptly returned. “Yes, and whose fault is that?”
Uther sighed, the noise loud in Arthur’s ear. “Arthur -”.
“Father, if you are trying to resume our conversation from four months ago, then there is little point in this phone call. I am happier than I have ever been in my life, and I have no intention of returning to the closet.”
“That is not what I called about. I was merely wondering if you had seen the news, that I have been giving large sums of money to gay-friendly organizations lately.”
Arthur snorted, and his sarcasm was evident when he replied. “Yes, Morgana seemed to think that giving that money was some sort of grand gesture that you accepted my sexuality.”
“Arthur -”
“No, Father, you listen to me. I don’t care how much money you throw at gay-friendly organizations. You showed your true colors when you disowned me. If this is some sort of an attempt to buy me off, it won’t work.”
“Arthur -”
“Please do not contact me again.” Arthur ended the call and threw his phone across the room.
***
The bell above the door in the coffee shop rang, and Merlin looked up to smile at Tristan.
The older man had attended every meeting faithfully since that first, and had even been getting involved with the activities. He seemed especially interested in an upcoming Pride Parade the group would be participating in. However, in the most recent meeting, Tristan had seemed distracted. Merlin, who had decided that he would take the severe man under his wing, had approached him, and Tristan had asked to speak to Merlin privately.
Tristan, who perpetually wore a business suit, was quite obviously out of place in the student-dominated coffee shop. However, he seemed determined to blend into the venue as best as he could, ordering a black coffee at the counter, and then coming to sit opposite Merlin.
Up close, Tristan looked quite haggard, though he hid it well. There was an awkward silence after the two men exchanged greetings, which Merlin decided to break by getting straight to the point. “So, you seemed out of sorts at the last meeting. What was it you wanted to talk about?”
Tristan swallowed a mouthful of coffee and fixed Merlin with a piercing gaze. “As you probably guessed, I joined the LGBTQ group because a member of my family ‘came out’, so to speak.”
Merlin nodded gravely, managing not to laugh at how the slang sounded in the straight-laced man’s mouth.
Tristan continued. “A few months ago, my son told me that he was gay. I did not react well. To make a long story short, I haven’t spoken to him since then. Being out of contact with him has been…unbearable. I love my son dearly, though I may not always be able to show it properly. I joined your group to educate myself, and I now wish to reunite with him. The problem is, my son is quite stubborn, a character trait which he, admittedly, inherited from me. We have always had trouble speaking to each other. I thought that gestures, such as donating to Stonewall, would work better than words to repair our relationship. Unfortunately, my son seems to have gotten it into his head that this was some sort of bribe, and now I admit that I am at a loss as to how to proceed.”
Tristan was a man of few words, and this was easily the most Merlin had ever heard him speak. However, his conviction impressed Merlin. The man was horrendously out of touch - it seemed that a simple apology had never occurred to him - but he obviously cared for his son, and wanted nothing more than to fix his mistake. Merlin spared a second to wish that Arthur’s father was more like Tristan, before replying.
“Well, I think that the best thing you could do in this case is talk to your son and apologize for your reaction, but I understand if that’s not an option - my boyfriend’s a complete stubborn arse, I know how it is when they just won’t listen.”
An odd look came to Tristan’s face at Merlin’s affectionate insult. Merlin was quick to correct any mistaken assumptions he might have. “I love him, but that doesn’t make him less of a stubborn arse. No one’s perfect, right?”
Tristan gave a rare smile at that, and pretended to toast Merlin with his coffee cup.
“Anyway, it sounds like you need to make a bigger gesture. You seemed to be interested in the Pride Parade. Maybe if your son sees you at that, he’ll realize that you understand him now? I mean, that can hardly be construed as a bribe.”
Tristan looked thoughtful. “…that may actually work. I have a daughter as well, I can ask her to make sure he’s there…”
Merlin smiled at the hope in Tristan’s voice. “All you’ve got to do is get him to listen to you. After that, you can apologize and such. And hey, if that doesn’t work, I’d be happy to put in a good word for you.”
Tristan nodded decisively, then drained the rest of his coffee and stood up. “It’s a plan.” He turned to Merlin and offered his hand. “Thank you so much for your help, Merlin. You’re an exemplary young man.”
Though Merlin was amused at the archaic complement, he was nonetheless pleased that Tristan thought so highly of him. He shook Tristan’s hand firmly. “You’re welcome. Good luck!”
Tristan nodded once, then, lost in thought, left.
Part 3