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“Mr. Emrys?”
Merlin, who had run out of lives on Candy Crush forty minutes ago and had been dispassionately flipping through a Vogue magazine since then, blinked up at the dentist, a pale man maybe ten years his senior, with wiry hair and a nervous grin.
A nervous grin that said he did not want to be having this conversation with Merlin.
He’s a dentist, Merlin reasoned with himself. Nothing ever goes horribly wrong during dental surgery.
“Yes?” He finally asked, dreading whatever the answer was.
“Mr. Pendragon is out of surgery,” the doctor said, and Merlin couldn’t help but be a little relieved. "However, he’s being quite…belligerent.”
“Yes, well, he usually is,” Merlin deflated slightly. Arthur being a prat; that was something he dealt with daily. That wasn’t something to worry himself over. “What’s he doing?”
“He…” The dentist laughed, the noise nasally and permeating the waiting room. Thankfully, it was still early in the day and there were only two others there to witness the noise. “I must remind you he has taken nitrous oxide and is not exactly in control right now.”
“And?” Merlin said. He’d actually been quite looking forward to this part, the laughing gas. Arthur would be loosened up and giggly like he was when he was drunk, and Merlin could take embarrassing videos and forward them to all of their friends.
“Well,” the doctor’s lower lip twitched. “He’s demanding that we return his teeth to him immediately so that he can wear them like a necklace. Or he’ll have us beheaded.”
Merlin blinked.
“Are you sure he’s on laughing gas?” Merlin asked. “That sounds exactly like the kind of unreasonable demand he’d make any day of the week.”
The doctor tittered, clearly not able to tell whether or not Merlin was joking.
He was.
Well…he was mostly joking.
“We’ve explained to him that that’s not how the surgery works, that his teeth are not intact anymore,” the doctor continued. “And his response was to start cursing at us. He’s quite angry, and instead of being lethargic, keeps trying to lunge at the nurses. I think the situation might be improved if he could see a familiar face.”
Would it, though? Merlin thought to himself as he nodded in assent anyway and followed the doctor out of the waiting room and down a long, sterile, off-white hallway.
Still, he had to see this. See it and capture it on video.
Please, God, don’t videotape me, Arthur had whined in the car all the way here. Isn’t it bad enough that I have to have surgery today without you sending blackmail material to my sister?
I won’t send it to Morgana, then, Merlin replied cheerfully. Just…some other people.
Other people mean Gwaine, Arthur said grouchily, shoving at Merlin’s shoulder, which hadn’t exactly helped with the driving. Why are you doing this to me, Merlin? Why? Aren’t I a good boyfriend? Or at least a tolerable one? I do make you dinner, after all.
You’re going to get spoiled rotten the next week and make me do absolutely everything for you, Merlin reminded him. This is my reward.
Actually, Merlin was looking forward to the next few days, though he’d never admit it to Arthur. He’d have his boyfriend all to himself for a change, and even though he’d be making Arthur food and cleaning up after him, Arthur was more affectionate when he was sick, as Merlin had learned from the flu epidemic two months ago.
The doctor finally ushered him inside of a larger, sterile room with recliner chairs for patients. Merlin saw Arthur in the one nearest the door, his mouth and cheeks swollen and his eyes drooping.
They alit with fury when they landed on the dentist, however.
“You!” Arthur yelled through the gauze in his mouth, and it sounded more like ooh than anything. “S’where’s my teeth? I need them.”
“Arthur,” Merlin knelt down next to him after a cursory look at the doctor. “You can’t have your teeth back, I’m sorry. That’s not how the doctors do things around here.”
“But I want a necklace,” Arthur regarded Merlin with wide and serious eyes, with enough gravitas to merit the end of the world. “So they stay right next to my heart.”
Merlin bit his lip to keep from laughing. The doctor interjected “Your friend’s right, Arthur, you –”
“You shut up! You son of a bitch!” Arthur’s attention flashed back to the doctor for half a second before his eyes settled on Merlin’s, “these goddamn sons of bitches won’t let me keep my teeth.”
“Yes, I know, they’re very mean people,” Merlin decided the best route of action was to just agree with Arthur because arguing with him, especially when he looked so cute and pathetic, was impossible. “But soon we’re gonna go home and eat pudding cups, okay?”
He took Arthur’s hand in his own, rubbing his thumb across Arthur’s knuckles, and Arthur’s anger seemed to melt into a pout before his eyes, his head lolling to the side as he said “Mmhm. Pudding.”
Merlin looked back up at the dentist. “When can I take him home?”
“I just need to clear him with the nurses and then one of them will give you his painkillers and antibiotics and escort you to your vehicle,” the dentist smiled. “Excuse me.”
The moment the dentist left, Arthur’s eyes snapped back to Merlin’s, alert and twitching. “I want to duel the dentist.”
Now, Merlin decided, was the best possible time to get his phone out.
“What did you say, Arthur?” Merlin asked, hitting record on the phone and letting it balance on the arm of Arthur’s chair.
“I said,” Arthur began, the volume of his voice muffled by the gauze in his mouth, “that I want to challenge the dentist to a duel!”
Merlin snickered at Arthur’s belligerence. “And why is that?”
“Because he won’t let me keep my teeth!” Arthur wailed, and Merlin almost felt bad for videotaping when tears started to roll down Arthur’s face, his skin growing red and blotchy.
“Hey, hey,” Merlin said, reaching a hand out to hold his tightly. “How about I duel the dentist for you?”
That seemed to excite Arthur, for the tears were replaced by curious blinking.
“Yeah, yeah,” Merlin giggled, glad that he was still taping. “I’ll go duel him in the name of your honor, okay?”
“For my teeth?” Arthur said with a crushing amount of genuineness. “So I can make a necklace?”
“So you can make a necklace,” Merlin agreed somberly, standing up, still pointing his phone down at Arthur. “Okay, I’m gonna go duel him now. I’ll be right back.”
Arthur nodded, a steady glint in his eye as Merlin slowly backed away from him, outside the door and into the sterile hallway.
He pointed the phone toward himself, whispered “you’re so ridiculous right now” to future Arthur, and then waited about twenty seconds before coming back inside.
“Did you do it? Did you do it?”
Arthur blinked rapidly at him and Merlin couldn’t help but laugh. He’d kind of been hoping Arthur would immediately forget about the duel, but it was quite hilarious that he was so fixated on it.
“I’ve been defeated,” Merlin said with a heavy sigh as he pretended to dramatically collapse next to Arthur. “The dentist is too strong for me. I’m sorry. But I promise, I’ll be the bearer of pudding cups in mere hours.”
Arthur frowned at him, his lower lip even more pronounced from the swelling. It was kind of adorable, even if Merlin was never going to admit it to him.
“Are you hurt?” Arthur blinked, and to his surprise, another tear rolled down his cheek.
“Arthur,” Merlin marveled, reaching out to wipe the tear away. “I’m not hurt. Everything’s okay. We’re gonna go home any minute now. And I’m staying at your flat all week to make sure you take all of your pills. And we’ll watch your favorite movies and eat ice cream. Okay?”
“Okay,” Arthur said, though his voice was still wavering. It was more than a little sweet. Merlin could count the number of times he’d seen Arthur cry before on one hand, and it was a little flattering to earn a couple tears for himself. Still, he preferred Arthur’s Arthur-ness over all of this, and didn’t like seeing Arthur so upset. “Merlin?”
“Yeah?” Merlin said a little absentmindedly, tilting his phone up to capture Arthur’s face better.
“I love you,” Arthur said a little dreamily, his eyes half-closed.
Merlin blinked, thinking he’d misheard him. “I – what?”
“I love you,” Arthur repeated, head lolling onto his shoulder, his hand waving in the air as if trying to reach Merlin’s. Instinctively, Merlin reached out to hold onto his fingers like a lifeline.
“I….I love you, too,” Merlin whispered, more than a little shaken. He and Arthur had never said that to one another before. They’d been dating for more than six months, had been friends for a long time before that, but this was something that they’d never said through words, only actions. There was a vulnerability in an I love you, one Merlin had been building toward but hadn’t quite reached yet.
Arthur smiled dopily, his fingers holding tightly onto Merlin’s own.
In Merlin’s other hand was his phone, still recording.
Merlin let out a breathless laugh. At least he’d always remember this – and at least Arthur would know exactly how it happened.
“I didn’t even get to see your face!” Arthur looked up at him from the recording, betrayed, over his second pudding cup. The first one had been chocolate. This one was tapioca. A little of it was dripping from his chin and it was unfairly adorable.
“It was an I love you, too face!” Merlin ate a bite of his own vanilla pudding cup through his laughter. Getting Arthur home had been a marathon, and then Arthur had fallen asleep immediately and Merlin spent the better part of two hours curled around him, thinking of how he wanted to do this.
He decided the best course of action was just to show Arthur the video when he asked for it in a long-suffering tone, knowing that Merlin had taken one and that it was embarrassing and wanting to get it over with.
Merlin had obliged, his heart pounding.
“This doesn’t count,” Arthur proclaimed, his tongue more than a little inarticulate around the gauze in his mouth. At least it was still numb – he would start being insufferable as soon as he could feel pain. “We’re going to dinner next week and we’re going to say it over a champagne toast and it’s going to look very pretty and not at all like a dentist waiting room when I’m high and can’t remember it.”
The look on Arthur’s face was absolutely disgusted, and if his mouth had been in better shape, Merlin would have kissed it away. Instead, he leaned over to peck Arthur’s forehead.
“I like the dentist waiting room better,” he admitted. “Though I do wish you could remember.”
“I’m gonna make myself,” Arthur said grumpily, folding his arms over his chest with a scowl. “I’ll remember it eventually. I’ll know what the look on your face is someday, I promise.”
“Do you want another pudding cup?” Merlin asked, noticing he’d already inhaled the tapioca. Arthur nodded crossly, the look on his face not dissimilar to a five-year-old who didn’t get to play on the swings at recess.
“Another chocolate, please,” Arthur said in a voice that suggested please had nothing to do with it.
When Merlin returned, he dropped the cup in Arthur’s lap from behind the couch before wrapping his arms around Arthur’s shoulders and burying his head in the crook of Arthur’s neck.
“You’re really lucky I love you, you know,” Merlin said quietly, kissing Arthur’s jawline.
“I know,” Arthur assented, leaning his head against Merlin’s own with a soft hum. “I love you, too. That felt like the first time for me, you know.”
They stood like that for a moment before Arthur’s head jolted up and he laughed delightedly. Merlin frowned at him for the interruption of a soft moment before Arthur said “Ha! Now you can’t show that video to Morgana or Gwaine or anyone! It’s ours. Only ours.”
“Only ours,” Merlin agreed with a loving shake of his head. “Well. I mean, I think that if we get married, we should obviously play it at the wedding.”
Arthur stilled for a moment before smiling at the ground, just slightly avoiding Merlin’s eye. “Well, yeah. You can play it there if you really want to.”
Merlin was pretty sure he was going to play it every day on constant loop in his head, but whatever made Arthur happy.