lady_ragnell (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lady_ragnell) wrote2011-06-02 11:01 pm
lady_ragnell) wrote2011-06-02 11:01 pm
These Inconvenient Fireworks (2/2)
Part One
Thursday
An hour and three glasses of champagne into Freya’s party, Gwaine is ready to run for the hills. It’s not so much that it’s completely different from Merlin and Arthur’s stag night (although it is, considering there’s far less beer and loose women involved and this one won’t end up with a priceless phone call from Merlin in the morning asking why there’s a pair of women’s underwear stuck in his jeans pocket), which he still isn’t completely recovered from. It’s more that he’s never liked to stay someplace where his date is completely miserable.
Freya is, no question, completely miserable. She’s better at hiding it than Gwaine would have expected, chatting brightly with Killian Garvey (who is indeed a deeply creepy old fucker) and smiling shyly at everyone she’s introduced to, but he’s had a few days to get used to her. For one thing, she’s not the sort for bright chatter even with people she does know well, and for another she’s clutching her champagne glass so hard he’s a bit afraid she might break it. Most telling, however, is the fact that she’s clinging to Gwaine’s arm like she’s worried he’ll disappear, and while he’s flattered to be the least of a whole lot of evils he’s also relatively certain she wouldn’t be doing it if there were people she knew better around.
“Come on,” Gwaine whispers after a true crime writer named Aredian asks Freya about her “picture books” with a curl to his lip that makes everyone around them wince, leading her away from the clumps of people with an arm around her waist. “If we’re going to stay, you’re going to need to be a whole lot drunker.”
“The man in all the leather was staring down my dress,” she says mournfully, and perhaps she’s a bit tipsier than he thought. “Cenred? Was that his name?”
“Well, to be fair to him, it’s a very nice dress,” says Gwaine, signaling a waiter carrying a tray with red wine instead of champagne in the glasses. At least it will give them variety, and him something to concentrate on besides looking down Freya’s front, now that she’s mentioned it. The dress was distracting enough when she came out of her room earlier, the dark red making her look even paler than she already is, and he doesn’t need to think about it now that he’s a few glasses of champagne down.
“I’m wearing it to the wedding too. I haven’t got that many nice dresses.” She hands over her champagne glass when the waiter gestures for it and drinks half her glass of red in one gulp. Gwaine is beginning to suspect that this night is going to end badly.
“Merlin and Arthur will like it. Sometimes I wonder if they are actually aware that colours besides red and blue exist.”
He gets a real smile for that, the first one he’s seen all night. “I saw Merlin in a green shirt once, but he borrowed it off someone else so I don’t know if it counts. And he still had that brown jacket of his on.”
“He bought a new one last year. Arthur tried to talk him into something more fashionable.” He catches sight of Garvey heading in their direction. “The old dragon’s on his way over. How much longer are you expected to stay?”
That brings the glum look right back into her eyes. “Probably another hour at least.”
Gwaine debates the ethics of getting her drunk. On one hand, he suspects it will be the only way they’ll get through the rest of this party without Freya fretting herself half to death. On the other, he can picture Merlin’s maiden-auntish expression already when they arrive to help with last-minute wedding preparations in the morning and he doesn’t particularly want to deal with that, especially since Arthur gets cross when Merlin is cross. Then again, it’s not really his decision anyway. “Will it be easier if you’re smashed?”
“Probably not, but I intend to be anyway.”
“Cheers,” he says, and clinks his glass against hers, because he’s never claimed to be a good influence and after last night’s stag night he doesn’t think anyone of his acquaintance would argue that he is.
After another hour and more glasses of wine than Gwaine cares to count, Freya is certainly more than a bit tipsy. She isn’t loud or maudlin, but she’s swaying and she’s clinging even harder to his arm and is letting him take over more and more of the conversations Garvey tries to engage her in. When yet another editor dismisses her almost completely to ask Gwaine about last year’s article for the National Geographic, Gwaine decides he’s had quite enough.
“Come on, sweetheart, time to go home,” he whispers in the lull between conversations, and doesn’t even think how domestic that sounds until Freya looks up at him wide-eyed. “There’s neurofen in my flat,” he adds. “And water. Lots of it, in fact. Merlin will scold me if we show up hungover tomorrow.”
“We probably should.” She grimaces. “I haven’t been this drunk in years.”
“It’s nice that I’m such a good influence on you.” Gwaine looks around. Garvey is talking to a woman with a lot of lipstick and a red dress, so the coast is probably clear. He puts his arm around Freya’s shoulders. “It looks like we’re clear. Ready to make a dash for the coat check?”
“Ready,” she says, and lets him drag her off.
The party is only a few stops on the Underground from Gwaine’s flat, but Freya needs to be manhandled into her coat and he decides it’s probably best if they take a cab. She doesn’t put up an objection when he flags one down, so he considers that permission to sit her in it and give the cabbie directions back to his flat.
Freya nods off on his shoulder while they drive, and if he didn’t think she would be horrified, Gwaine would just try to carry her up to his flat when they pull up there, but instead he gently shakes her awake while he pays the cabbie and takes her by the elbow to get her up the stairs. “Merlin is going to kill me,” he mutters, because she seems a bit more sober after her little kip in the cab, but that doesn’t stop the fact that he got her drunk.
“Merlin will think it’s funny. He always told me I’m a cheap date.”
“Guarantee you he’s cheaper,” says Gwaine, getting her through the door to his flat. “And he’s a mite protective of you nowadays.”
“It’s why I broke up with him,” she says, and Gwaine has to remind himself that she’s still drunk, and she isn’t saying this because she actually wants to confide. “I felt more like one of his patients than his girlfriend, by the end, after my parents died.”
“Let’s get you to bed, sweetheart. Have a seat on the couch while I get you some water.” Freya just looks at him for a moment, disconcertingly clear-eyed, before she stumbles her way into the living room, not bothering with the light. Gwaine goes to the kitchen and pours her a glass of water, finds her some neurofen; he won’t feel a thing in the morning, since it takes a bit more than a few glasses of wine to get him drunk these days, but he doubts she’ll have that benefit.
She takes the pills without objecting, seeming a little more herself. “Thank you for coming with me tonight,” she says once she’s finished off the water. “I will still be there, and probably miserable, otherwise. I owe you a great deal for this week.”
He wants to sit down on the couch with her, maybe have a chat like they did yesterday, but if she keeps looking at him with those big eyes of hers, he has a suspicion that he’s going to do something stupid. Gwaine thinks very carefully about spending a day dealing with Merlin and Arthur glaring and Hunith giving him disappointed looks every few seconds. “My pleasure. Now let’s get ready for bed, Merlin is expecting us in the morning.”
“We’re just there to keep him from panicking,” says Freya. “He won’t care if we’re late.”
“Yes, he will. He’ll think I’ve ravished you of your virtue.”
“Protective,” she mutters, but when Gwaine holds out a hand to bring her to her feet, she takes it, and only stumbles a bit taking her own weight. That’s likely because she’s tired, not because of the drink, but he can’t be sure, so he prods her in the direction of the bathroom and changes out of his suit while she does whatever mystical feminine rituals she needs to get through the night.
He steps out into the hall just as she comes out of the bathroom, barefoot and hair down and looking a bit surer on her feet. “Sleep well,” he says before he can say or do anything that Merlin is going to classify as “being a fuckwit.”
Freya doesn’t answer. Instead, apparently between one blink and the next, she’s right in front of him, hands on his shoulders, pulling his mouth down to hers and giving him a slow kiss from just-parted lips. It’s certainly not the most expert he’s had, but it doesn’t much matter when she’s warm and soft and he can feel the shape of her smile against his mouth. For about five seconds, he relaxes into the wall at his back, chasing the taste of mint from when she brushed her teeth, winding his fingers in her hair.
Then he remembers that just because she doesn’t taste of it doesn’t mean all the wine he slipped her at the party magically disappeared, and that chances are in the morning she’ll be horrified at herself. Gwaine’s not very good at being a gentleman, but despite what Merlin and Arthur may claim he does try not to be an arsehole. He lets it go on just another second before moving his hands to gently push Freya away. “Very bad idea,” he whispers.
Freya steps away so fast it looks like he pushed her, even though he knows he didn’t. When he reaches out to remind her that she admitted herself that she’s drunk and that he’d be more than happy to take it up again tomorrow, she just wraps her arms around her middle. “I’m not a child,” she says softly.
“You’re drunk,” and yes, he could phrase it with more tact, but he’s only human and he’s been drinking as well and every instinct he’s got is shouting at him for being four feet from Freya right now. She winces like he hit her. Gwaine runs a hand through his hair and musters up what charm he can. “Look, if you still want to do this in the morning, I will personally call Merlin and Arthur and tell them I’m deathly ill and you’re tending to me so we can skive off everything. Just not right now.”
“Fine.” She turns around and walks, a bit unsteadily, towards Elyan’s old room.
“Good night,” says Gwaine, since there isn’t much else to say. She doesn’t bother answering, just shuts the door softly behind her. Gwaine goes to the bathroom and cleans his teeth, then stands in the hall like an idiot for a good two minutes when he’s done, but there isn’t so much as a rustle from Freya’s room. He wants to knock and apologize, but it certainly isn’t the time for that conversation, and he doesn’t know if she’s the sort to forget the morning after she drinks.
This, he decides as he goes into his bedroom, definitely qualifies as being a fuckwit.
*
Friday
“Merlin is going to kill you,” Arthur says in tones of deep disinterest the second Gwaine walks into their flat.
Considering Gwaine is half an hour late and seems to have misplaced Freya, that bit of information is not surprising. Especially if Freya left all her things and fled back to Hampshire in the wake of last night, which he has a suspicion might have happened. “I could take him,” he says. “And besides, if he kills me he’ll never find out which stripper’s panties those were.” They were actually ones Gwaine bought before the stag night for precisely that purpose, but he doesn’t intend to share that until their tenth anniversary party.
Arthur’s lips twitch, because for all he gets tetchy if anyone teases Merlin, he thinks it’s hilarious to take the piss out of him himself and Gwaine has given him fodder for years. “You’re lucky Hunith is out having brunch with a school friend.”
“Where’s the groom, then, if he’s going to murder me?”
“He is in our bedroom with Freya and a box of tissues.”
Gwaine opens his mouth and closes it again a few times. Well, at least she hasn’t run off to Hampshire. “Ah,” he says at last. “For the record, I didn’t assault her virtue or anything.”
“From what I caught before Merlin ushered her off, that seems to be the problem.”
Gwaine collapses into one of their chairs, which are much more comfortable than the ones in his flat. He really needs new furniture. Or just a different flat, since he can’t afford the one he’s got now on his own forever. “I can’t win.”
“I’m getting married tomorrow. I give not a single fuck about whatever drama this is. Keep Merlin happy until we leave for the honeymoon and you and Freya can dance around each other all you like, as far as I’m concerned.”
“We aren’t dancing,” he objects, and then can’t resist a joke, because he’s sorry about last night but not that sorry. “Well, a bit of a polka, maybe. Not a tango or anything.”
“The polka is rather a happy dance.” Arthur has an annoying talent (probably picked up from Morgana) for implying rather a lot with simple statements. That combined with the mention of a box of tissues doesn’t give Gwaine a very good picture of the state Freya’s in.
“Fuck, what a mess.” He’s been trying all week to get her to smile at him, and now it seems he’s back at square one, or even several squares before that. “You wouldn’t happen to have a beer to spare, would you?”
“Merlin says he’s never drinking again and poured out all the alcohol.” Arthur grins at him. “Expect him to call you tonight while I’m staying with my father and ask for a bottle of something strong, though. We’ve had almost a week since his last attack of cold feet and I’m betting we’re due for a bad one sometime before tomorrow afternoon.”
After a moment, Gwaine decides not to bring up the fact that Arthur was the one who went on a five-minute rant in between puking at the stag night about how he doesn’t know how Merlin puts up with him, because Merlin definitely isn’t on his side today and if he plays his cards right Arthur might actually be. “I won’t bring him anything, no need to have a hungover groom.”
Merlin comes out of their bedroom and fixes Gwaine with a glare that just dares him to say something flippant. Gwaine almost does, just to see if Merlin actually will shout at him, but then Freya appears behind him. She looks ragged, and he hopes at least some of it is from the hangover or otherwise he will feel like the biggest arsehole to ever live. He decides to speak before either of them can. “Would have got here sooner, but I was …” He pauses, but Arthur’s soft snort goads him on. “I was looking for you, actually,” he tells Freya. “Should have thought to call over here.”
“You and I are going to have words,” Merlin says in the tone that always reminds Gwaine that Merlin once gave a man who came into his clinic to harass a patient a concussion and more than a few bruises. “Arthur, Gwaine and I will meet you at your dad’s place in a bit. Freya’s offered to help with the flowers.”
“Don’t kill him, I have every intention of putting him on Morgana duty,” says Arthur cheerfully, and stands up to go over to Merlin and murmur in his ear while Merlin looks progressively less dangerous and more besotted and Freya and Gwaine stand in awkward silence. “Right, then. Coming, Freya?”
Merlin kisses Freya on the cheek and gives her a gentle shove in the direction of the door, Arthur a few steps behind her after giving Merlin one more kiss. Gwaine gives Arthur a wave and tries to catch Freya’s eye, but she leaves without looking at him. When they’ve gone down the hall and out of earshot, Gwaine turns to Merlin.
For a few seconds, he wonders if Merlin is actually going to hit him. Then he realizes that Merlin is getting married tomorrow and even for Freya he won’t risk showing up at the ceremony with a black eye, and for all he’s more badass than he looks Gwaine sure isn’t useless. Eventually, though, Merlin’s face softens. “You’ve got to be careful with her. She thinks you hate her now.”
“I told her that if she wanted to in the morning I would be more than glad but that I wouldn’t do it while she was drunk. A bit hard to misconstrue, that.”
“Except when I’ve spent a year and a half telling her about your escapades and she knows what a flirt you are.” Merlin walks across the flat into the kitchen, where the kettle is still warm enough for him to poor himself a cuppa. Gwaine wonders if it would be pushing his luck to ask for one too. “She heard all about you because she thought it was funny and it took a good deal to make Freya happy. It’s better now than it was, but it means she’s got a lot of stories about you.”
Gwaine tries not to be pissed at Merlin, because he’s getting to know what it takes to make Freya smile and he would do it too, even if it is rather fucking things up now. “You did tell her my virtue hasn’t been tarnished or anything because she kissed me, right?”
“Did you mean it?” Merlin asks, and Gwaine doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I won’t tell you off for getting her drunk, since she said that was her choice and then spent five minutes telling me she’s not a child, but if you’re leading her on I’m going to move her out of your flat. She and I can bunk down tonight since Arthur won’t be here.”
“I’m not saying I’m going to propose, Merlin, but you’ve got nothing to worry about. I know you get protective of her, and if you don’t want to tell me the whole story, that’s fine, I’ll get her to tell me eventually, but like she said, she’s a grown woman. We can work it out ourselves.”
Merlin finishes off his cup of tea in a few quick gulps before he speaks again. “She likes you, Gwaine. She’s a bit terrified because she hasn’t dated anyone since me, but she does. And she leaves for Hampshire on Sunday morning. Try to work it out before then, won’t you?”
“We’ll work it out,” promises Gwaine, and Merlin smiles at him. “Now, shall we go give the poor girl some backup before Morgana and Uther terrify her to death?”
“I wouldn’t have sent her with Arthur if Gwen weren’t there, but we should.”
That signals a truce, and they talk about everything but Freya on the way to Arthur’s father’s house, and when they get there they find Gwen, Freya and Arthur arranging table centerpieces while Morgana harangues someone on the phone and Uther stands by looking intimidating and making pointed remarks about how they should have hired a wedding planner.
Merlin gives Gwaine an eloquent look that Gwaine is completely at a loss to translate. He sits down at the table and pulls a pile of ribbons towards him, since that seems to be the last step in the assembly line and he can’t mess up tying bows. As that makes Merlin beam at him, he figures he’s on the right track. “Ladies,” he says, giving Arthur his most obnoxious grin.
“I am going to uninvite you from the wedding,” says Arthur without heat.
“I planned your stag night, mate, I don’t think you can rescind your invitation now.” He takes the pot of flowers that Freya passes him and tosses a ribbon around it.
It’s under five seconds before she removes it gently from his grasp. “Not like that, it’s not like tying your shoes.” She undoes his work and puts the ribbon back on much more carefully, smoothing it out and making sure the right side is facing out all the way round. When that’s done, she ties it in a big floppy bow. “There.”
Merlin slides into Arthur’s lap, which means neither of them is going to get a thing done. Uther looks like he swallowed a lemon from where he’s lurking in a chair. Morgana lets out a huff and stalks out of the room. Merlin makes a face after her, then turns back to Gwaine, who is following exactly what Freya just did and trying not to laugh because bows aren’t exactly serious business. “This better?” he asks after doing another.
Gwen reaches across the table and actually fluffs the bow up, then nods and shunts it towards the pile of finished ones. He keeps looking at Freya, though, until she nods as well, even if she isn’t looking at him still. There’s time for that.
It’s a quiet day, mostly. Uther stalks in and out looking more disapproving with every fight that Gwaine starts with the supplies for whatever task Merlin and Arthur set (which is worth it because Freya eventually gives in and pelts him with some of the grains of rice that Hunith insisted on them putting in little bags to give the guests). Hunith arrives in the early afternoon, bringing organization and relieving Gwen of the burden of trying to make them all act like adults.
Eventually, Morgana arrives again and declares that dinner is ready, and they all troop into the dining room, where she presides over the meal looking exactly as gorgeous and terrifying as ever. Hunith takes one for the team and engages Uther in extremely awkward conversation, leaving the rest of them to chat about wedding business and the fact that, miraculously, until they go to the hotel where they’re having the reception to set a few things out and make sure the catering is under control, they don’t have anything left to do. Freya turns down the wine, so Gwaine does as well, which startles everyone but Uther.
It’s halfway through dinner before Freya starts really joining the conversation, and Gwaine and Merlin spend the first half trying to get her to talk without actually harassing her. It’s Morgana, however, with a carefully indifferent comment about how much the child she mentors enjoys Freya’s books and wondering if she would consider writing any slightly longer ones for older children, that actually gets her talking. Morgana, for all she’s a bitch, always knows exactly how to set people at ease.
Freya even starts talking to Gwaine, after Merlin elbows her. He carefully skirts the issue of what happened after the party, although he intends to mention it at some point when they’re in private and bring up perhaps doing it again, without the wine and misery this time.
Instead, he waits until everyone else is talking about something to do with Merlin and Arthur’s honeymoon to lean close to Freya. “Are you coming home tonight? To my flat, I mean?”
“If you’re sure you want me there,” she replies, and it occurs to Gwaine that she really does think he rejected her last night, or that she assaulted his nonexistent virtue or something ridiculous like that.
“Definitely,” he says, a bit too loud since Merlin gives them a sharp glance that softens a bit when he sees how close together they’re sitting. Gwaine gives him a quick smile when Freya turns back to her plate for a second. “Otherwise you’ll spend the whole night listening to Merlin whine about stupid tradition and why can’t he and Arthur just spend the night together like always,” he says a bit louder, more for Merlin’s benefit than Freya’s.
“Bad luck,” Arthur calls down the table. “Some things I have to insist on.”
“Of course, princess,” Gwaine says easily, and he doesn’t miss a second of Freya’s smile.
*
Saturday
Despite everything (despite a panicked call at four in the morning from Merlin that Gwaine eventually had to pass off to Freya when she came to see what the matter was since he’s rubbish at being soothing, despite a fucking ridiculous morning at the hotel where they made sure everything was set up without letting Arthur and Merlin see each other because Arthur is superstitious and will never be able to call Merlin a girl again, despite Morgause intimidating all the guests as they walk in), the wedding is a bit magical. Leon’s the registrar, running the ceremony in his gruff, quiet way while Merlin and Arthur stand there looking a bit bewildered and saying what’s required when prompted. Their vows aren’t anything to write home about, although Merlin manages to call Arthur a prat in his, but nearly everyone cries anyway (including Merlin, a bit, which he will probably deny to his grave). Gwaine’s managed to snag a seat next to Freya and he shoves her with his shoulder when the tears get to be a bit much, earning a tiny smile in return.
At last, Merlin and Arthur sign the register and Hunith and Gwen step up to sign as witnesses while Uther and Morgana glare because there were two weeks of rows when Arthur chose Gwen as his witness instead of a family member. Gwaine grabs on to Freya’s arm the second everyone starts standing up to congratulate the grooms. “If we stay, Merlin will make us get in the pictures. Want to scarper off and pretend to supervise the catering staff?”
She’s still not talking to him much, so it’s a bit of a risk, but he’s rewarded when she nods fervently and nods to the nearest exit, a side one that nobody is going towards. Gwaine catches Lancelot’s eye and points to the door, grins when Lance looks disapproving, and follows Freya out the door to make the one-block walk to the hotel.
By the time the guests start arriving, Gwaine and Freya are sampling the finger foods that are around to keep everyone occupied before dinner. He’s making a point of not mentioning Thursday, and Freya is unbending more all the time. If he had another week he might convince her to actually talk with him properly again. Unfortunately, he doesn’t, since she’s going back to Hampshire on Sunday, which means he’s got the reception and the night after it to come up with a clever plan. As long as clever plans aren’t forthcoming, though, he enjoys the finger foods, and makes Freya try everything as well.
Merlin and Arthur, along with their families, Gwen, Lancelot, Leon, and inexplicably Morgause, arrive last, probably because the photographer was harrying them as Merlin and Arthur are incapable of taking a picture where one of them isn’t making a face. Freya stands up the second they walk in, probably feeling guilty that Gwaine dragged her away from the church before she could congratulate them, and to Gwaine’s surprise she turns and looks at him expectantly before walking away. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Gwaine finishes his bite of an hors d’oeuvre and follows her.
When they get there, Gwaine fighting his way through the crowd of well-wishers with judicious use of his elbows while Freya just sort of slips through, Merlin gives them what Gwaine suspects would be a glare if he didn’t look so ridiculously besotted. “You two certainly got out of there fast enough,” he observes.
“I was afraid I would get struck by lightning if I stayed in there too much longer,” says Gwaine cheerfully, and gives Merlin a hug and Arthur a clap on the back.
“It wasn’t a church, you knob,” says Arthur, which makes Morgana smack him on the arm. Merlin is busy hugging Freya while she whispers her congratulations or he would likely be the one to do it. “You just wanted to get first crack at the food.”
“Truth is I couldn’t stand to look at you two staring at each other like you’re made of rainbows and candyfloss for too much longer.”
“Like you’re so much better,” Merlin says with a pointed look at Freya, who blinks between them. Gwaine winces. “Anyway,” he adds far too brightly, apparently having figured out that Gwaine didn’t use their early departure from the wedding to woo Freya, “I’ve got plenty of guests to greet, I’ll talk to you two later. Freya, save me a dance?”
Freya nods, although she still seems a bit inclined to give Gwaine uncertain looks every few seconds, but she follows his example when he hugs Hunith and retreats to the table they’ve been assigned for dinner, the one right next to the grooms and their families. Neither of them speaks until they get there, and even then there’s a bit of an awkward silence. Freya, miraculously, breaks it first. “So, who was that blonde woman next to Morgana? I’ve seen her around, but I haven’t met her yet.”
It’s not exactly the subject he was hoping to discuss, but there’s a whole wedding reception for that. “That’s Morgause. She’s Morgana’s half-sister, but not Arthur’s. They have a complicated family.”
Freya looks across the room, where Morgana and Morgause are standing with their heads bent together, probably plotting the demise of the government, and giggling. “Sisters?”
“They have a complicated family,” Gwaine repeats, because he has no idea what’s going on and doesn’t especially care to know. He’s a bit more worried about trying to work the conversation around to telling Freya not to drink too much champagne so they can work out the kissing thing sober this time.
However, it turns out that a wedding reception is not the easiest place to have that sort of discussion, because of course everyone seems bound and determined to tell everyone else just how lovely the wedding was. Which of course it was, and probably would have been if they’d just stopped at the registry office in jeans and trainers, but after the third time hearing it Gwaine gets more than a bit annoyed. Especially because everyone’s called to sit down for dinner before he can find a lull in the conversations to talk properly with Freya.
The table contains Elyan and Percival and the incomparable Elena, as well as a school friend of Merlin’s named Gilli who Freya seems to know a bit. Freya opens up a bit throughout dinner and the toasts (of which Gwaine is not allowed to give one because Merlin and Arthur are obviously cowards and afraid that he would mention several things he has promised not to mention again. Which of course he would, but he’s still a bit miffed he doesn’t get to give a speech), but she still talks to Gwaine the most. He’s a bit proud of that, and he can tell everybody else notices.
When the dancing starts, Gwaine loses track of Freya for a while. He dances with Hunith, Elena, Morgana (who glares at him the whole time) and both grooms (he lets Merlin lead but insists on leading with Arthur, who thus also glares at him the whole time), before going off to find his wallflower, who danced once with Merlin and then disappeared.
As he might have guessed, she’s halfway hidden behind the drapes near the door, which are of course red and thus match her dress. “Care to dance?” he asks when she nods at him.
“I’m not a very good dancer.”
Gwaine looks pointedly at the dance floor, where Merlin is tripping over Arthur ever three seconds while Arthur just continues to look a bit concussed with happiness, and where Elyan is doing some sort of confused bunny hop with Elena. “We’ll stumble through somehow. Come on, sweetheart, just one dance.”
When she nods, Gwaine doesn’t wait for the next song to start before he takes her arm and half-drags her to the dance floor. She is, it seems, from the Merlin school of dance, but they start getting on much better when he takes most of the weight off her feet and she lets him close most of the distance between them. “I’m due to go back to Hampshire in the morning,” she says after a while, so quietly he almost wonders if she’s actually talking to him.
“If you want to stay, though, I’m glad to have you around for longer.” She doesn’t quite look up at him, but she isn’t saying no and telling him she really can’t impose any longer, so he decides to push his luck a bit. “I don’t leave for Egypt for another month, and I’ll bet your agent would find you things to do, as long as you promise not to go to any more parties. Those don’t end well for us.”
“I’m sorry about the other night,” she says, and bites her lip. “I’d drunk too much, and you were being so kind …”
“I’d love to try it again without the drinking part,” he answers, which immediately makes her look a bit panicky. Gwaine mentally curses Merlin and his insinuations that Freya is interested. “Unless you don’t want to,” he amends, because he doesn’t want to terrify her.
Gwaine can’t see properly with the lighting on the dance floor, but he doesn’t need it to tell him Freya is blushing. “It’s been a while, and Merlin talks about you …”
“Listen to me, not Merlin. He grossly misinterprets my character.” And Gwaine may be a flirt, but he doesn’t spend nearly a week trying to coax smiles out of most women, or stoop to asking Merlin for advice about them, or invite them to stay at his flat without ever having met them before, no matter what Merlin and Arthur say. “Come on, have an adventure. Take a chance. If I prove to be a bastard, we’ll figure out a custody arrangement for Merlin.”
Freya laughs, and the smile lingers more than a few seconds this time as the music changes. He doesn’t let her go. “This is the most adventure I’ve had in two years.”
Someday he’ll get the whole story out of her, of what happened to make her leave London and what Merlin had to do with all of it, but it isn’t important right now, and he’d like to keep her smiling even longer if he can. “We’ll just have to get you some more, then. Perhaps you should research new locations for those cats of yours to visit.” He pauses. “They used to worship cats in Egypt, you know.”
“I know,” Freya says, and kisses him again. This time, any stumbling is completely his fault as their swaying stutters to a halt and he adjusts his grip on her, and she doesn’t taste in the least like champagne. She pulls away first, all ready to start stammering another apology. Gwaine kisses her instead, bending instead of making her reach up, and then going the extra step and bending her a bit backwards when she doesn’t pull away.
“Adventure enough for you?” he asks when he remembers that a few of the guests have small children who might start asking awkward questions.
“I think so.”
Gwaine looks around the dance floor. They’ve certainly been noticed. Merlin is giving him a completely unsubtle thumbs up, Arthur is rolling his eyes, and Elena seems to have collapsed in a fit of hysterical giggles, leaning on Leon for balance. Freya follows his gaze and turns her face into his shoulder from embarrassment. He certainly doesn’t object. “They’ll be cutting the cake soon,” he says, mostly to change the subject before she tries to sink through the floor. “Shall we dance until that starts?”
“Okay,” says Freya, and she still looks uncertain, but this time she leans into him without any hesitation at all.
*
Sunday (but not the next day)
Gwaine wakes up alone in bed with his face smashed in a pillow and the noise of Mombasa’s streets right outside his window. The latter two circumstances have become familiar over the last three weeks, but the first is disappointing. And probably means that he slept in later than he meant to. He groans himself properly awake.
“I wondered when you’d wake,” says Freya, and he can tell without lifting his head that she’s smiling. He lifts his head anyway, though, and finds her perched on the windowsill with a sketchbook on her lap. It’s her cat one, which means she wasn’t drawing him while he slept, disappointingly enough. “You slept through the cool part of the morning.”
Gwaine rolls over to his back and props himself up on his elbows. “I don’t have any interviews or sights to see today, so I have every right. Why aren’t you having a lie-in? Come over here, I don’t like waking up alone.”
“You would stay in bed all day if you could,” she says, but she shuts her sketchbook and comes to sit on the edge of his bed, and doesn’t even use her ninja skills to avoid being pulled to sprawl across him.
“Only if you stayed with me.” Her hair is wet, which means he’s missed a shower as well. “What were you drawing?”
“A few ideas for the books for the older children that Mr. Garvey wants me to try. I think it might work.” She attempts to free herself and he just holds on tighter. He’ll make her have a lazy Sunday morning someday. He suspects today will not be that day, but he’s willing to try. “Merlin e-mailed. Says to tell you to finish your article, he misses talking to me.”
“Tell him to drag his grumpy wife down here for a visit, it will do wonders for Arthur’s disposition, not to mention those of everyone in his office.”
She laughs. “I think Gwen is pregnant. Neither of them will be leaving London, let alone the country, until the baby is safely born. They’re going to spoil the child rotten.”
“So are we,” Gwaine points out. “You’re cool Aunt Freya who writes the books about kittens, and I’m cool Uncle Gwaine who’ll teach the brat how to swear in fifteen languages.”
“If Gwen has any sense, she won’t let you anywhere near it until it’s twenty, at least.” Gwaine kisses her forehead and Freya finally stops gently trying to remove herself from bed. That means he’s won the morning. Or possibly the day. It depends on whether he can tempt her into sloth and eating the slightly stale crisps they’ve got for food in their room. He doubts it, but it’s worth a shot. “I think the books for the older children are going to be about the Merlin cat and the Arthur cat. They would have good adventures.”
“Adventures for children?” She grimaces, and he laughs. “Although Mr. Garvey loved them an absurd amount at that party you made them go to, so he might not object to a little more …”
“For children just barely old enough for chapter books,” she reminds him, as if he didn’t know. “And that’s disturbing.”
“Why can’t it be us?” he asks, because she’s got pages in her sketchbook full of his cat flopping about, usually while hers watches. Freya clambers over him, apparently resigned to being kept in bed for a while and unwilling to fall off the bed in the midst of it. “I make a very dashing cat.”
“Maybe us too. Maybe all of us. Visiting far-off locales.” She looks out the window.
“Wherever I happen to be at the time?” Gwaine asks, as a bit of a risk. Freya went with him to Egypt a month after meeting him, he’s spent weeks at her house in Hampshire and she’s often in London, she’s come with him to Mombasa, but neither of them is given to grand declarations like Merlin or Arthur tend to be.
“You should try to get an assignment somewhere a bit less sweltering,” she says by way of answer. “I hear Iceland is nice. Or Norway.”
“Maybe by a lake. You like lakes.” Freya laughs a bit and shoves him gently, not enough to mean business. And he knows when she means business. He tried to sneak up on her while she was sketching a few days ago and the next thing he knew he was staring up at the sky, completely bemused and definitely impressed. “I’ll let you choose.”
Both of them know that’s not true, since for all his writing is freelance he does have to take assignments and offers that will actually interest people or find his ability to travel very much curtailed, but neither of them mentions that. “Iceland, then,” she says. “We’ll go to the hot springs.”
“And then America. Vegas.” Freya stiffens. “Not for that.” For a few years, at least, and isn’t that a terrifying thought. Merlin and Arthur are going to mock him forever for giving up his bachelorhood. “I just love it there, it’s tacky.”
“Italy,” she counters. “I want to see Tuscany.”
“Rio.”
“Do you plan to go anywhere you won’t be arrested? New Zealand.”
They can play this game for hours, sometimes, mostly when they’re up late and staring at the ceiling, naming off places they want to go someday. But it’s a hot morning and she’s barely stopped smiling since he woke up, so Gwaine doesn’t name off Madagascar or Tahiti or Dublin so she can meet his gran, the only family he cares to talk to most days. “I love you,” he says instead.
“Oh.” She turns to face him properly, and she’s wide-eyed and biting her lip, but she isn’t running or telling him it’s too soon. “I--”
“Surprise me,” says Gwaine easily. They’ve done everything else backwards and out of order and like no one else, so he isn’t expecting rosebuds and tearful confessions right now. He would have actually gone and bought some sodding flowers, were that the case. “It’s always better to hear it as a surprise, the first time.”
Freya’s smile is a little tearful, but she doesn’t look upset. Gwaine knows she’ll tell him someday, and it’s just a matter of waiting for it. Maybe it will be a rainy afternoon in his London flat, or later this week when they go to the Nature Preserve to see if they can find some lions, or while they’re swimming in the warm ocean somewhere. Now, though, she’s cupping his face and kissing him, hard and sweet, and it doesn’t matter that she hasn’t said it, because Gwaine knows.
And they all lived happily ever after.
Thursday
An hour and three glasses of champagne into Freya’s party, Gwaine is ready to run for the hills. It’s not so much that it’s completely different from Merlin and Arthur’s stag night (although it is, considering there’s far less beer and loose women involved and this one won’t end up with a priceless phone call from Merlin in the morning asking why there’s a pair of women’s underwear stuck in his jeans pocket), which he still isn’t completely recovered from. It’s more that he’s never liked to stay someplace where his date is completely miserable.
Freya is, no question, completely miserable. She’s better at hiding it than Gwaine would have expected, chatting brightly with Killian Garvey (who is indeed a deeply creepy old fucker) and smiling shyly at everyone she’s introduced to, but he’s had a few days to get used to her. For one thing, she’s not the sort for bright chatter even with people she does know well, and for another she’s clutching her champagne glass so hard he’s a bit afraid she might break it. Most telling, however, is the fact that she’s clinging to Gwaine’s arm like she’s worried he’ll disappear, and while he’s flattered to be the least of a whole lot of evils he’s also relatively certain she wouldn’t be doing it if there were people she knew better around.
“Come on,” Gwaine whispers after a true crime writer named Aredian asks Freya about her “picture books” with a curl to his lip that makes everyone around them wince, leading her away from the clumps of people with an arm around her waist. “If we’re going to stay, you’re going to need to be a whole lot drunker.”
“The man in all the leather was staring down my dress,” she says mournfully, and perhaps she’s a bit tipsier than he thought. “Cenred? Was that his name?”
“Well, to be fair to him, it’s a very nice dress,” says Gwaine, signaling a waiter carrying a tray with red wine instead of champagne in the glasses. At least it will give them variety, and him something to concentrate on besides looking down Freya’s front, now that she’s mentioned it. The dress was distracting enough when she came out of her room earlier, the dark red making her look even paler than she already is, and he doesn’t need to think about it now that he’s a few glasses of champagne down.
“I’m wearing it to the wedding too. I haven’t got that many nice dresses.” She hands over her champagne glass when the waiter gestures for it and drinks half her glass of red in one gulp. Gwaine is beginning to suspect that this night is going to end badly.
“Merlin and Arthur will like it. Sometimes I wonder if they are actually aware that colours besides red and blue exist.”
He gets a real smile for that, the first one he’s seen all night. “I saw Merlin in a green shirt once, but he borrowed it off someone else so I don’t know if it counts. And he still had that brown jacket of his on.”
“He bought a new one last year. Arthur tried to talk him into something more fashionable.” He catches sight of Garvey heading in their direction. “The old dragon’s on his way over. How much longer are you expected to stay?”
That brings the glum look right back into her eyes. “Probably another hour at least.”
Gwaine debates the ethics of getting her drunk. On one hand, he suspects it will be the only way they’ll get through the rest of this party without Freya fretting herself half to death. On the other, he can picture Merlin’s maiden-auntish expression already when they arrive to help with last-minute wedding preparations in the morning and he doesn’t particularly want to deal with that, especially since Arthur gets cross when Merlin is cross. Then again, it’s not really his decision anyway. “Will it be easier if you’re smashed?”
“Probably not, but I intend to be anyway.”
“Cheers,” he says, and clinks his glass against hers, because he’s never claimed to be a good influence and after last night’s stag night he doesn’t think anyone of his acquaintance would argue that he is.
After another hour and more glasses of wine than Gwaine cares to count, Freya is certainly more than a bit tipsy. She isn’t loud or maudlin, but she’s swaying and she’s clinging even harder to his arm and is letting him take over more and more of the conversations Garvey tries to engage her in. When yet another editor dismisses her almost completely to ask Gwaine about last year’s article for the National Geographic, Gwaine decides he’s had quite enough.
“Come on, sweetheart, time to go home,” he whispers in the lull between conversations, and doesn’t even think how domestic that sounds until Freya looks up at him wide-eyed. “There’s neurofen in my flat,” he adds. “And water. Lots of it, in fact. Merlin will scold me if we show up hungover tomorrow.”
“We probably should.” She grimaces. “I haven’t been this drunk in years.”
“It’s nice that I’m such a good influence on you.” Gwaine looks around. Garvey is talking to a woman with a lot of lipstick and a red dress, so the coast is probably clear. He puts his arm around Freya’s shoulders. “It looks like we’re clear. Ready to make a dash for the coat check?”
“Ready,” she says, and lets him drag her off.
The party is only a few stops on the Underground from Gwaine’s flat, but Freya needs to be manhandled into her coat and he decides it’s probably best if they take a cab. She doesn’t put up an objection when he flags one down, so he considers that permission to sit her in it and give the cabbie directions back to his flat.
Freya nods off on his shoulder while they drive, and if he didn’t think she would be horrified, Gwaine would just try to carry her up to his flat when they pull up there, but instead he gently shakes her awake while he pays the cabbie and takes her by the elbow to get her up the stairs. “Merlin is going to kill me,” he mutters, because she seems a bit more sober after her little kip in the cab, but that doesn’t stop the fact that he got her drunk.
“Merlin will think it’s funny. He always told me I’m a cheap date.”
“Guarantee you he’s cheaper,” says Gwaine, getting her through the door to his flat. “And he’s a mite protective of you nowadays.”
“It’s why I broke up with him,” she says, and Gwaine has to remind himself that she’s still drunk, and she isn’t saying this because she actually wants to confide. “I felt more like one of his patients than his girlfriend, by the end, after my parents died.”
“Let’s get you to bed, sweetheart. Have a seat on the couch while I get you some water.” Freya just looks at him for a moment, disconcertingly clear-eyed, before she stumbles her way into the living room, not bothering with the light. Gwaine goes to the kitchen and pours her a glass of water, finds her some neurofen; he won’t feel a thing in the morning, since it takes a bit more than a few glasses of wine to get him drunk these days, but he doubts she’ll have that benefit.
She takes the pills without objecting, seeming a little more herself. “Thank you for coming with me tonight,” she says once she’s finished off the water. “I will still be there, and probably miserable, otherwise. I owe you a great deal for this week.”
He wants to sit down on the couch with her, maybe have a chat like they did yesterday, but if she keeps looking at him with those big eyes of hers, he has a suspicion that he’s going to do something stupid. Gwaine thinks very carefully about spending a day dealing with Merlin and Arthur glaring and Hunith giving him disappointed looks every few seconds. “My pleasure. Now let’s get ready for bed, Merlin is expecting us in the morning.”
“We’re just there to keep him from panicking,” says Freya. “He won’t care if we’re late.”
“Yes, he will. He’ll think I’ve ravished you of your virtue.”
“Protective,” she mutters, but when Gwaine holds out a hand to bring her to her feet, she takes it, and only stumbles a bit taking her own weight. That’s likely because she’s tired, not because of the drink, but he can’t be sure, so he prods her in the direction of the bathroom and changes out of his suit while she does whatever mystical feminine rituals she needs to get through the night.
He steps out into the hall just as she comes out of the bathroom, barefoot and hair down and looking a bit surer on her feet. “Sleep well,” he says before he can say or do anything that Merlin is going to classify as “being a fuckwit.”
Freya doesn’t answer. Instead, apparently between one blink and the next, she’s right in front of him, hands on his shoulders, pulling his mouth down to hers and giving him a slow kiss from just-parted lips. It’s certainly not the most expert he’s had, but it doesn’t much matter when she’s warm and soft and he can feel the shape of her smile against his mouth. For about five seconds, he relaxes into the wall at his back, chasing the taste of mint from when she brushed her teeth, winding his fingers in her hair.
Then he remembers that just because she doesn’t taste of it doesn’t mean all the wine he slipped her at the party magically disappeared, and that chances are in the morning she’ll be horrified at herself. Gwaine’s not very good at being a gentleman, but despite what Merlin and Arthur may claim he does try not to be an arsehole. He lets it go on just another second before moving his hands to gently push Freya away. “Very bad idea,” he whispers.
Freya steps away so fast it looks like he pushed her, even though he knows he didn’t. When he reaches out to remind her that she admitted herself that she’s drunk and that he’d be more than happy to take it up again tomorrow, she just wraps her arms around her middle. “I’m not a child,” she says softly.
“You’re drunk,” and yes, he could phrase it with more tact, but he’s only human and he’s been drinking as well and every instinct he’s got is shouting at him for being four feet from Freya right now. She winces like he hit her. Gwaine runs a hand through his hair and musters up what charm he can. “Look, if you still want to do this in the morning, I will personally call Merlin and Arthur and tell them I’m deathly ill and you’re tending to me so we can skive off everything. Just not right now.”
“Fine.” She turns around and walks, a bit unsteadily, towards Elyan’s old room.
“Good night,” says Gwaine, since there isn’t much else to say. She doesn’t bother answering, just shuts the door softly behind her. Gwaine goes to the bathroom and cleans his teeth, then stands in the hall like an idiot for a good two minutes when he’s done, but there isn’t so much as a rustle from Freya’s room. He wants to knock and apologize, but it certainly isn’t the time for that conversation, and he doesn’t know if she’s the sort to forget the morning after she drinks.
This, he decides as he goes into his bedroom, definitely qualifies as being a fuckwit.
*
Friday
“Merlin is going to kill you,” Arthur says in tones of deep disinterest the second Gwaine walks into their flat.
Considering Gwaine is half an hour late and seems to have misplaced Freya, that bit of information is not surprising. Especially if Freya left all her things and fled back to Hampshire in the wake of last night, which he has a suspicion might have happened. “I could take him,” he says. “And besides, if he kills me he’ll never find out which stripper’s panties those were.” They were actually ones Gwaine bought before the stag night for precisely that purpose, but he doesn’t intend to share that until their tenth anniversary party.
Arthur’s lips twitch, because for all he gets tetchy if anyone teases Merlin, he thinks it’s hilarious to take the piss out of him himself and Gwaine has given him fodder for years. “You’re lucky Hunith is out having brunch with a school friend.”
“Where’s the groom, then, if he’s going to murder me?”
“He is in our bedroom with Freya and a box of tissues.”
Gwaine opens his mouth and closes it again a few times. Well, at least she hasn’t run off to Hampshire. “Ah,” he says at last. “For the record, I didn’t assault her virtue or anything.”
“From what I caught before Merlin ushered her off, that seems to be the problem.”
Gwaine collapses into one of their chairs, which are much more comfortable than the ones in his flat. He really needs new furniture. Or just a different flat, since he can’t afford the one he’s got now on his own forever. “I can’t win.”
“I’m getting married tomorrow. I give not a single fuck about whatever drama this is. Keep Merlin happy until we leave for the honeymoon and you and Freya can dance around each other all you like, as far as I’m concerned.”
“We aren’t dancing,” he objects, and then can’t resist a joke, because he’s sorry about last night but not that sorry. “Well, a bit of a polka, maybe. Not a tango or anything.”
“The polka is rather a happy dance.” Arthur has an annoying talent (probably picked up from Morgana) for implying rather a lot with simple statements. That combined with the mention of a box of tissues doesn’t give Gwaine a very good picture of the state Freya’s in.
“Fuck, what a mess.” He’s been trying all week to get her to smile at him, and now it seems he’s back at square one, or even several squares before that. “You wouldn’t happen to have a beer to spare, would you?”
“Merlin says he’s never drinking again and poured out all the alcohol.” Arthur grins at him. “Expect him to call you tonight while I’m staying with my father and ask for a bottle of something strong, though. We’ve had almost a week since his last attack of cold feet and I’m betting we’re due for a bad one sometime before tomorrow afternoon.”
After a moment, Gwaine decides not to bring up the fact that Arthur was the one who went on a five-minute rant in between puking at the stag night about how he doesn’t know how Merlin puts up with him, because Merlin definitely isn’t on his side today and if he plays his cards right Arthur might actually be. “I won’t bring him anything, no need to have a hungover groom.”
Merlin comes out of their bedroom and fixes Gwaine with a glare that just dares him to say something flippant. Gwaine almost does, just to see if Merlin actually will shout at him, but then Freya appears behind him. She looks ragged, and he hopes at least some of it is from the hangover or otherwise he will feel like the biggest arsehole to ever live. He decides to speak before either of them can. “Would have got here sooner, but I was …” He pauses, but Arthur’s soft snort goads him on. “I was looking for you, actually,” he tells Freya. “Should have thought to call over here.”
“You and I are going to have words,” Merlin says in the tone that always reminds Gwaine that Merlin once gave a man who came into his clinic to harass a patient a concussion and more than a few bruises. “Arthur, Gwaine and I will meet you at your dad’s place in a bit. Freya’s offered to help with the flowers.”
“Don’t kill him, I have every intention of putting him on Morgana duty,” says Arthur cheerfully, and stands up to go over to Merlin and murmur in his ear while Merlin looks progressively less dangerous and more besotted and Freya and Gwaine stand in awkward silence. “Right, then. Coming, Freya?”
Merlin kisses Freya on the cheek and gives her a gentle shove in the direction of the door, Arthur a few steps behind her after giving Merlin one more kiss. Gwaine gives Arthur a wave and tries to catch Freya’s eye, but she leaves without looking at him. When they’ve gone down the hall and out of earshot, Gwaine turns to Merlin.
For a few seconds, he wonders if Merlin is actually going to hit him. Then he realizes that Merlin is getting married tomorrow and even for Freya he won’t risk showing up at the ceremony with a black eye, and for all he’s more badass than he looks Gwaine sure isn’t useless. Eventually, though, Merlin’s face softens. “You’ve got to be careful with her. She thinks you hate her now.”
“I told her that if she wanted to in the morning I would be more than glad but that I wouldn’t do it while she was drunk. A bit hard to misconstrue, that.”
“Except when I’ve spent a year and a half telling her about your escapades and she knows what a flirt you are.” Merlin walks across the flat into the kitchen, where the kettle is still warm enough for him to poor himself a cuppa. Gwaine wonders if it would be pushing his luck to ask for one too. “She heard all about you because she thought it was funny and it took a good deal to make Freya happy. It’s better now than it was, but it means she’s got a lot of stories about you.”
Gwaine tries not to be pissed at Merlin, because he’s getting to know what it takes to make Freya smile and he would do it too, even if it is rather fucking things up now. “You did tell her my virtue hasn’t been tarnished or anything because she kissed me, right?”
“Did you mean it?” Merlin asks, and Gwaine doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I won’t tell you off for getting her drunk, since she said that was her choice and then spent five minutes telling me she’s not a child, but if you’re leading her on I’m going to move her out of your flat. She and I can bunk down tonight since Arthur won’t be here.”
“I’m not saying I’m going to propose, Merlin, but you’ve got nothing to worry about. I know you get protective of her, and if you don’t want to tell me the whole story, that’s fine, I’ll get her to tell me eventually, but like she said, she’s a grown woman. We can work it out ourselves.”
Merlin finishes off his cup of tea in a few quick gulps before he speaks again. “She likes you, Gwaine. She’s a bit terrified because she hasn’t dated anyone since me, but she does. And she leaves for Hampshire on Sunday morning. Try to work it out before then, won’t you?”
“We’ll work it out,” promises Gwaine, and Merlin smiles at him. “Now, shall we go give the poor girl some backup before Morgana and Uther terrify her to death?”
“I wouldn’t have sent her with Arthur if Gwen weren’t there, but we should.”
That signals a truce, and they talk about everything but Freya on the way to Arthur’s father’s house, and when they get there they find Gwen, Freya and Arthur arranging table centerpieces while Morgana harangues someone on the phone and Uther stands by looking intimidating and making pointed remarks about how they should have hired a wedding planner.
Merlin gives Gwaine an eloquent look that Gwaine is completely at a loss to translate. He sits down at the table and pulls a pile of ribbons towards him, since that seems to be the last step in the assembly line and he can’t mess up tying bows. As that makes Merlin beam at him, he figures he’s on the right track. “Ladies,” he says, giving Arthur his most obnoxious grin.
“I am going to uninvite you from the wedding,” says Arthur without heat.
“I planned your stag night, mate, I don’t think you can rescind your invitation now.” He takes the pot of flowers that Freya passes him and tosses a ribbon around it.
It’s under five seconds before she removes it gently from his grasp. “Not like that, it’s not like tying your shoes.” She undoes his work and puts the ribbon back on much more carefully, smoothing it out and making sure the right side is facing out all the way round. When that’s done, she ties it in a big floppy bow. “There.”
Merlin slides into Arthur’s lap, which means neither of them is going to get a thing done. Uther looks like he swallowed a lemon from where he’s lurking in a chair. Morgana lets out a huff and stalks out of the room. Merlin makes a face after her, then turns back to Gwaine, who is following exactly what Freya just did and trying not to laugh because bows aren’t exactly serious business. “This better?” he asks after doing another.
Gwen reaches across the table and actually fluffs the bow up, then nods and shunts it towards the pile of finished ones. He keeps looking at Freya, though, until she nods as well, even if she isn’t looking at him still. There’s time for that.
It’s a quiet day, mostly. Uther stalks in and out looking more disapproving with every fight that Gwaine starts with the supplies for whatever task Merlin and Arthur set (which is worth it because Freya eventually gives in and pelts him with some of the grains of rice that Hunith insisted on them putting in little bags to give the guests). Hunith arrives in the early afternoon, bringing organization and relieving Gwen of the burden of trying to make them all act like adults.
Eventually, Morgana arrives again and declares that dinner is ready, and they all troop into the dining room, where she presides over the meal looking exactly as gorgeous and terrifying as ever. Hunith takes one for the team and engages Uther in extremely awkward conversation, leaving the rest of them to chat about wedding business and the fact that, miraculously, until they go to the hotel where they’re having the reception to set a few things out and make sure the catering is under control, they don’t have anything left to do. Freya turns down the wine, so Gwaine does as well, which startles everyone but Uther.
It’s halfway through dinner before Freya starts really joining the conversation, and Gwaine and Merlin spend the first half trying to get her to talk without actually harassing her. It’s Morgana, however, with a carefully indifferent comment about how much the child she mentors enjoys Freya’s books and wondering if she would consider writing any slightly longer ones for older children, that actually gets her talking. Morgana, for all she’s a bitch, always knows exactly how to set people at ease.
Freya even starts talking to Gwaine, after Merlin elbows her. He carefully skirts the issue of what happened after the party, although he intends to mention it at some point when they’re in private and bring up perhaps doing it again, without the wine and misery this time.
Instead, he waits until everyone else is talking about something to do with Merlin and Arthur’s honeymoon to lean close to Freya. “Are you coming home tonight? To my flat, I mean?”
“If you’re sure you want me there,” she replies, and it occurs to Gwaine that she really does think he rejected her last night, or that she assaulted his nonexistent virtue or something ridiculous like that.
“Definitely,” he says, a bit too loud since Merlin gives them a sharp glance that softens a bit when he sees how close together they’re sitting. Gwaine gives him a quick smile when Freya turns back to her plate for a second. “Otherwise you’ll spend the whole night listening to Merlin whine about stupid tradition and why can’t he and Arthur just spend the night together like always,” he says a bit louder, more for Merlin’s benefit than Freya’s.
“Bad luck,” Arthur calls down the table. “Some things I have to insist on.”
“Of course, princess,” Gwaine says easily, and he doesn’t miss a second of Freya’s smile.
*
Saturday
Despite everything (despite a panicked call at four in the morning from Merlin that Gwaine eventually had to pass off to Freya when she came to see what the matter was since he’s rubbish at being soothing, despite a fucking ridiculous morning at the hotel where they made sure everything was set up without letting Arthur and Merlin see each other because Arthur is superstitious and will never be able to call Merlin a girl again, despite Morgause intimidating all the guests as they walk in), the wedding is a bit magical. Leon’s the registrar, running the ceremony in his gruff, quiet way while Merlin and Arthur stand there looking a bit bewildered and saying what’s required when prompted. Their vows aren’t anything to write home about, although Merlin manages to call Arthur a prat in his, but nearly everyone cries anyway (including Merlin, a bit, which he will probably deny to his grave). Gwaine’s managed to snag a seat next to Freya and he shoves her with his shoulder when the tears get to be a bit much, earning a tiny smile in return.
At last, Merlin and Arthur sign the register and Hunith and Gwen step up to sign as witnesses while Uther and Morgana glare because there were two weeks of rows when Arthur chose Gwen as his witness instead of a family member. Gwaine grabs on to Freya’s arm the second everyone starts standing up to congratulate the grooms. “If we stay, Merlin will make us get in the pictures. Want to scarper off and pretend to supervise the catering staff?”
She’s still not talking to him much, so it’s a bit of a risk, but he’s rewarded when she nods fervently and nods to the nearest exit, a side one that nobody is going towards. Gwaine catches Lancelot’s eye and points to the door, grins when Lance looks disapproving, and follows Freya out the door to make the one-block walk to the hotel.
By the time the guests start arriving, Gwaine and Freya are sampling the finger foods that are around to keep everyone occupied before dinner. He’s making a point of not mentioning Thursday, and Freya is unbending more all the time. If he had another week he might convince her to actually talk with him properly again. Unfortunately, he doesn’t, since she’s going back to Hampshire on Sunday, which means he’s got the reception and the night after it to come up with a clever plan. As long as clever plans aren’t forthcoming, though, he enjoys the finger foods, and makes Freya try everything as well.
Merlin and Arthur, along with their families, Gwen, Lancelot, Leon, and inexplicably Morgause, arrive last, probably because the photographer was harrying them as Merlin and Arthur are incapable of taking a picture where one of them isn’t making a face. Freya stands up the second they walk in, probably feeling guilty that Gwaine dragged her away from the church before she could congratulate them, and to Gwaine’s surprise she turns and looks at him expectantly before walking away. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Gwaine finishes his bite of an hors d’oeuvre and follows her.
When they get there, Gwaine fighting his way through the crowd of well-wishers with judicious use of his elbows while Freya just sort of slips through, Merlin gives them what Gwaine suspects would be a glare if he didn’t look so ridiculously besotted. “You two certainly got out of there fast enough,” he observes.
“I was afraid I would get struck by lightning if I stayed in there too much longer,” says Gwaine cheerfully, and gives Merlin a hug and Arthur a clap on the back.
“It wasn’t a church, you knob,” says Arthur, which makes Morgana smack him on the arm. Merlin is busy hugging Freya while she whispers her congratulations or he would likely be the one to do it. “You just wanted to get first crack at the food.”
“Truth is I couldn’t stand to look at you two staring at each other like you’re made of rainbows and candyfloss for too much longer.”
“Like you’re so much better,” Merlin says with a pointed look at Freya, who blinks between them. Gwaine winces. “Anyway,” he adds far too brightly, apparently having figured out that Gwaine didn’t use their early departure from the wedding to woo Freya, “I’ve got plenty of guests to greet, I’ll talk to you two later. Freya, save me a dance?”
Freya nods, although she still seems a bit inclined to give Gwaine uncertain looks every few seconds, but she follows his example when he hugs Hunith and retreats to the table they’ve been assigned for dinner, the one right next to the grooms and their families. Neither of them speaks until they get there, and even then there’s a bit of an awkward silence. Freya, miraculously, breaks it first. “So, who was that blonde woman next to Morgana? I’ve seen her around, but I haven’t met her yet.”
It’s not exactly the subject he was hoping to discuss, but there’s a whole wedding reception for that. “That’s Morgause. She’s Morgana’s half-sister, but not Arthur’s. They have a complicated family.”
Freya looks across the room, where Morgana and Morgause are standing with their heads bent together, probably plotting the demise of the government, and giggling. “Sisters?”
“They have a complicated family,” Gwaine repeats, because he has no idea what’s going on and doesn’t especially care to know. He’s a bit more worried about trying to work the conversation around to telling Freya not to drink too much champagne so they can work out the kissing thing sober this time.
However, it turns out that a wedding reception is not the easiest place to have that sort of discussion, because of course everyone seems bound and determined to tell everyone else just how lovely the wedding was. Which of course it was, and probably would have been if they’d just stopped at the registry office in jeans and trainers, but after the third time hearing it Gwaine gets more than a bit annoyed. Especially because everyone’s called to sit down for dinner before he can find a lull in the conversations to talk properly with Freya.
The table contains Elyan and Percival and the incomparable Elena, as well as a school friend of Merlin’s named Gilli who Freya seems to know a bit. Freya opens up a bit throughout dinner and the toasts (of which Gwaine is not allowed to give one because Merlin and Arthur are obviously cowards and afraid that he would mention several things he has promised not to mention again. Which of course he would, but he’s still a bit miffed he doesn’t get to give a speech), but she still talks to Gwaine the most. He’s a bit proud of that, and he can tell everybody else notices.
When the dancing starts, Gwaine loses track of Freya for a while. He dances with Hunith, Elena, Morgana (who glares at him the whole time) and both grooms (he lets Merlin lead but insists on leading with Arthur, who thus also glares at him the whole time), before going off to find his wallflower, who danced once with Merlin and then disappeared.
As he might have guessed, she’s halfway hidden behind the drapes near the door, which are of course red and thus match her dress. “Care to dance?” he asks when she nods at him.
“I’m not a very good dancer.”
Gwaine looks pointedly at the dance floor, where Merlin is tripping over Arthur ever three seconds while Arthur just continues to look a bit concussed with happiness, and where Elyan is doing some sort of confused bunny hop with Elena. “We’ll stumble through somehow. Come on, sweetheart, just one dance.”
When she nods, Gwaine doesn’t wait for the next song to start before he takes her arm and half-drags her to the dance floor. She is, it seems, from the Merlin school of dance, but they start getting on much better when he takes most of the weight off her feet and she lets him close most of the distance between them. “I’m due to go back to Hampshire in the morning,” she says after a while, so quietly he almost wonders if she’s actually talking to him.
“If you want to stay, though, I’m glad to have you around for longer.” She doesn’t quite look up at him, but she isn’t saying no and telling him she really can’t impose any longer, so he decides to push his luck a bit. “I don’t leave for Egypt for another month, and I’ll bet your agent would find you things to do, as long as you promise not to go to any more parties. Those don’t end well for us.”
“I’m sorry about the other night,” she says, and bites her lip. “I’d drunk too much, and you were being so kind …”
“I’d love to try it again without the drinking part,” he answers, which immediately makes her look a bit panicky. Gwaine mentally curses Merlin and his insinuations that Freya is interested. “Unless you don’t want to,” he amends, because he doesn’t want to terrify her.
Gwaine can’t see properly with the lighting on the dance floor, but he doesn’t need it to tell him Freya is blushing. “It’s been a while, and Merlin talks about you …”
“Listen to me, not Merlin. He grossly misinterprets my character.” And Gwaine may be a flirt, but he doesn’t spend nearly a week trying to coax smiles out of most women, or stoop to asking Merlin for advice about them, or invite them to stay at his flat without ever having met them before, no matter what Merlin and Arthur say. “Come on, have an adventure. Take a chance. If I prove to be a bastard, we’ll figure out a custody arrangement for Merlin.”
Freya laughs, and the smile lingers more than a few seconds this time as the music changes. He doesn’t let her go. “This is the most adventure I’ve had in two years.”
Someday he’ll get the whole story out of her, of what happened to make her leave London and what Merlin had to do with all of it, but it isn’t important right now, and he’d like to keep her smiling even longer if he can. “We’ll just have to get you some more, then. Perhaps you should research new locations for those cats of yours to visit.” He pauses. “They used to worship cats in Egypt, you know.”
“I know,” Freya says, and kisses him again. This time, any stumbling is completely his fault as their swaying stutters to a halt and he adjusts his grip on her, and she doesn’t taste in the least like champagne. She pulls away first, all ready to start stammering another apology. Gwaine kisses her instead, bending instead of making her reach up, and then going the extra step and bending her a bit backwards when she doesn’t pull away.
“Adventure enough for you?” he asks when he remembers that a few of the guests have small children who might start asking awkward questions.
“I think so.”
Gwaine looks around the dance floor. They’ve certainly been noticed. Merlin is giving him a completely unsubtle thumbs up, Arthur is rolling his eyes, and Elena seems to have collapsed in a fit of hysterical giggles, leaning on Leon for balance. Freya follows his gaze and turns her face into his shoulder from embarrassment. He certainly doesn’t object. “They’ll be cutting the cake soon,” he says, mostly to change the subject before she tries to sink through the floor. “Shall we dance until that starts?”
“Okay,” says Freya, and she still looks uncertain, but this time she leans into him without any hesitation at all.
*
Sunday (but not the next day)
Gwaine wakes up alone in bed with his face smashed in a pillow and the noise of Mombasa’s streets right outside his window. The latter two circumstances have become familiar over the last three weeks, but the first is disappointing. And probably means that he slept in later than he meant to. He groans himself properly awake.
“I wondered when you’d wake,” says Freya, and he can tell without lifting his head that she’s smiling. He lifts his head anyway, though, and finds her perched on the windowsill with a sketchbook on her lap. It’s her cat one, which means she wasn’t drawing him while he slept, disappointingly enough. “You slept through the cool part of the morning.”
Gwaine rolls over to his back and props himself up on his elbows. “I don’t have any interviews or sights to see today, so I have every right. Why aren’t you having a lie-in? Come over here, I don’t like waking up alone.”
“You would stay in bed all day if you could,” she says, but she shuts her sketchbook and comes to sit on the edge of his bed, and doesn’t even use her ninja skills to avoid being pulled to sprawl across him.
“Only if you stayed with me.” Her hair is wet, which means he’s missed a shower as well. “What were you drawing?”
“A few ideas for the books for the older children that Mr. Garvey wants me to try. I think it might work.” She attempts to free herself and he just holds on tighter. He’ll make her have a lazy Sunday morning someday. He suspects today will not be that day, but he’s willing to try. “Merlin e-mailed. Says to tell you to finish your article, he misses talking to me.”
“Tell him to drag his grumpy wife down here for a visit, it will do wonders for Arthur’s disposition, not to mention those of everyone in his office.”
She laughs. “I think Gwen is pregnant. Neither of them will be leaving London, let alone the country, until the baby is safely born. They’re going to spoil the child rotten.”
“So are we,” Gwaine points out. “You’re cool Aunt Freya who writes the books about kittens, and I’m cool Uncle Gwaine who’ll teach the brat how to swear in fifteen languages.”
“If Gwen has any sense, she won’t let you anywhere near it until it’s twenty, at least.” Gwaine kisses her forehead and Freya finally stops gently trying to remove herself from bed. That means he’s won the morning. Or possibly the day. It depends on whether he can tempt her into sloth and eating the slightly stale crisps they’ve got for food in their room. He doubts it, but it’s worth a shot. “I think the books for the older children are going to be about the Merlin cat and the Arthur cat. They would have good adventures.”
“Adventures for children?” She grimaces, and he laughs. “Although Mr. Garvey loved them an absurd amount at that party you made them go to, so he might not object to a little more …”
“For children just barely old enough for chapter books,” she reminds him, as if he didn’t know. “And that’s disturbing.”
“Why can’t it be us?” he asks, because she’s got pages in her sketchbook full of his cat flopping about, usually while hers watches. Freya clambers over him, apparently resigned to being kept in bed for a while and unwilling to fall off the bed in the midst of it. “I make a very dashing cat.”
“Maybe us too. Maybe all of us. Visiting far-off locales.” She looks out the window.
“Wherever I happen to be at the time?” Gwaine asks, as a bit of a risk. Freya went with him to Egypt a month after meeting him, he’s spent weeks at her house in Hampshire and she’s often in London, she’s come with him to Mombasa, but neither of them is given to grand declarations like Merlin or Arthur tend to be.
“You should try to get an assignment somewhere a bit less sweltering,” she says by way of answer. “I hear Iceland is nice. Or Norway.”
“Maybe by a lake. You like lakes.” Freya laughs a bit and shoves him gently, not enough to mean business. And he knows when she means business. He tried to sneak up on her while she was sketching a few days ago and the next thing he knew he was staring up at the sky, completely bemused and definitely impressed. “I’ll let you choose.”
Both of them know that’s not true, since for all his writing is freelance he does have to take assignments and offers that will actually interest people or find his ability to travel very much curtailed, but neither of them mentions that. “Iceland, then,” she says. “We’ll go to the hot springs.”
“And then America. Vegas.” Freya stiffens. “Not for that.” For a few years, at least, and isn’t that a terrifying thought. Merlin and Arthur are going to mock him forever for giving up his bachelorhood. “I just love it there, it’s tacky.”
“Italy,” she counters. “I want to see Tuscany.”
“Rio.”
“Do you plan to go anywhere you won’t be arrested? New Zealand.”
They can play this game for hours, sometimes, mostly when they’re up late and staring at the ceiling, naming off places they want to go someday. But it’s a hot morning and she’s barely stopped smiling since he woke up, so Gwaine doesn’t name off Madagascar or Tahiti or Dublin so she can meet his gran, the only family he cares to talk to most days. “I love you,” he says instead.
“Oh.” She turns to face him properly, and she’s wide-eyed and biting her lip, but she isn’t running or telling him it’s too soon. “I--”
“Surprise me,” says Gwaine easily. They’ve done everything else backwards and out of order and like no one else, so he isn’t expecting rosebuds and tearful confessions right now. He would have actually gone and bought some sodding flowers, were that the case. “It’s always better to hear it as a surprise, the first time.”
Freya’s smile is a little tearful, but she doesn’t look upset. Gwaine knows she’ll tell him someday, and it’s just a matter of waiting for it. Maybe it will be a rainy afternoon in his London flat, or later this week when they go to the Nature Preserve to see if they can find some lions, or while they’re swimming in the warm ocean somewhere. Now, though, she’s cupping his face and kissing him, hard and sweet, and it doesn’t matter that she hasn’t said it, because Gwaine knows.
And they all lived happily ever after.
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Still love it every bit as much as I did when it was in pieces. :D ♥
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really wonderful ♥
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perfect. <3
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Arthur and Merlin's levels of besottedness had me grinning throughout. Thanks for another stellar read. This was charming.
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These Inconvenient Fireworks
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WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO NOW THAT I'VE READ ALL YOUR MERLIN/ARTHURS?!
Your Merlin/Arthur stories were my life, and this was the last one... My life is gone.