Title: We Are Young
Author: Peach
Rating: T
Warnings: As of yet, nothing beyond a bit of language. Let me state early on that this will get dark, because despite the fact that I set out trying to write fluff, it veered rapidly in the opposite direction. But for now, it's all peachy.
Disclaimer: Plot, mostly mine. Characters, really not. Nor, obviously, is the song, though I have been singing it (terribly) quite a lot.
Notes: So, I do not like today. People expect me to be happy today, and I am not. Combine that with the fact that I am failing miserably at doing anything with the next chapter of Hunger, and we have me inflicting this thing on the world. Updates potentially once a fortnight, depending on how quickly I write it, how much people like it, and how often other projects decide to barge into my brain (which they do with alarming frequency). So, please, make my day a little brighter and review? Peach

Tonight
We are young
So let's set the world on fire
We can burn brighter
Than the sun
We Are Young, Fun. ft Janelle Monae

We Are Young

Ruined Jeans and Apology Muffins

He didn't meet Merlin in a bar. For Gwaine, that was something of an achievement. He should probably have known, then and there, that that meant something big, something important.

After all, Merlin was not by anyone's standards normal.

But anyway, his first meeting with Merlin was hot, sticky, and slightly painful.

Merlin worked in a coffee shop. Poorly. It wasn't his fault, and no one had ever questioned his dedication to his job. But he had the unfortunate combination of delightful enthusiasm and dangerous clumsiness, and so Gwaine, sat quite contentedly (okay, no, he had a bitch of a hangover and really just wanted the strongest cup of coffee known to man before forcing himself to go to work) at a low, round table, ended up with someone else's drink in his lap.

Facing the thought of spending the rest of the day smelling of toffee and wearing hideous brown stains on his best doesn't my arse look fantastic? jeans – and oh, God, were those marshmallows stuck to his legs? –, Gwaine rounded on the man with the same anger anyone would.

"What the hell do you-" he began, cutting himself short when he actually laid eyes on him. The man was tall and gangly, pale skinned and dark haired, and he looked like he'd been dressed by a colour-blind five year old (an image only further emphasised by the green half-apron he smoothed out as he stood, and the ridiculous hat he returned to his head). This alone would have been nothing to write home about, but the cheekbones on this guy...Gwaine's hand, previously occupied with trying to sponge the coffee – he used the word loosely – from his leg with paper napkins, twitched with the desire to touch. He resisted it; stroking the cheekbones of a complete stranger would be entirely inappropriate, and there was a tiny, idiotic, and possibly still intoxicated part of his mind that thought doing so might have cut him.

"Damn," the man said, after looking hopefully for the cup and seeing it laying a metre or so away, its contents splattered across Gwaine's thighs. He dropped to his knees and grabbed the napkins from Gwaine's very startled hands, taking over dabbing at the stains. "Damn. I am so sorry."

Wide eyes, startlingly blue, blinked up at Gwaine, effectively wiping the last strains of anger from his mind. "It's fine," he replied, though of course it wasn't. "Stop that." He batted the hands away from him, with the expectation that the man would stand up and retreat to a slightly less personal distance.

"Really, I'm sorry," the man continued, still kneeling and looking at Gwaine in a way that made him feel the blonde girl he'd left in a flat somewhere that morning had been an uncomfortably long time ago. "Let me- I don't know, let me get you a free drink, or I- I can pay for your trousers to be cleaned or-"

"Look, mate, it's not that bad. Just get me my coffee and we're cool."

"Oh, yeah." The man rose, finally, to his feet. "I'll just go do that."

"Merlin! Merlin, where are- what are you doing?" The speaker was a girl – okay, woman, about Gwaine's age – dark skinned and pretty, wearing a denim miniskirt and yellow t-shirt under the hideous apron and hat. "Merlin, that's the third time this month."

The woman's tone of exasperation – which Gwaine had initially thought a little extreme, because everyone made the odd mistake (Gwaine's latest being the aforementioned blonde, name unknown/unrecalled) – began to make sense. Spilling one drink on a customer was bad, yes, but not unforgiveable. Three in only sixteen days had to be some sort of record.

"Are you alright, sir?" She asked, smiling kindly. "Merlin will just go get you your coffee now, on the house, and if you have difficulty with those stains you just bring in the dry-cleaning bill and we'll take care of it for you." With that, she hustled away the man – Merlin – and left Gwaine with a handful of crumpled, damp napkins, a slightly stronger headache than before, and a peculiar desire to smile.

A desire he successfully resisted, because smiling widely after being doused in something disgustingly syrupy and unnaturally frothy would definitely have been a decisive sign of insanity.

He thought, though, as Merlin brought out his coffee and placed it very carefully on the table, that he wouldn't be entirely against the possibility of going back there.

X

The second time Gwaine went by the coffee shop, Merlin didn't appear to be working; the counter was instead manned by a slightly grungy looking brown-haired guy.

"Okay then," he said, when Gwaine had made his order. "If you take a seat, someone'll bring that over for you in a minute.

Even if Merlin didn't seem to be around, Gwaine preferred not to take the chance. "I'll wait here, thanks."

The guy looked him up and down in an assessing sort of way, a touch of confusion to it, then laughed. "Merlin's latest vic, right?"

"Yeah. That happen a lot?" Gwaine asked, already knowing the answer.

"Merlin's a good guy, don't get me wrong. He's been my mate since we were kids. But he's kind of a klutz."

"Noticed that already, really."

"I suppose you would have," Grunge-Guy laughed. "Still, you're safe for now. He doesn't start 'til this afternoon."

Gwaine nodded, smiling slightly. "I'll sit, then."

He did so, at the same table as before, wondering at the reason for the leaden feeling in the pit of his stomach. It couldn't, after all, have been disappointment. No one sensible could get disappointed over not seeing a man they didn't even know.

X

Still, the third visit he made was within two weeks of the first, at a time when he was pretty sure Merlin would be working (so maybe he had glanced in the window every time he'd walked past to see if Merlin was there, but it wasn't like he'd gone out of his way to do it. Much).

"So, you came back? I didn't think I'd see you again," Merlin told him, smiling, as Gwaine placed his order.

"Guessing the others didn't like the coffee enough to risk you, then," Gwaine smirked in response, then sort of regretted it. Insulting the guy you may or may not be trying to flirt with was never a good idea, even if it was only as a joke.

Fortunately, though, Merlin clearly had a sense of humour, choosing to laugh instead of taking offence. "No, I guess not. Still, I'm glad you're back." Gwaine blinked at him, slightly startled – because yes, he knew he was gorgeous, but Merlin didn't seem the type to flirt so overtly –, and Merlin blushed. "That wasn't - I didn't - I just meant, we make the best coffee in town. It would be a shame if you had to drink shitty coffee because of me."

"Right-oh, then. Thanks, Merlin." Someone tutted behind Gwaine, and he realised there was quite a queue forming behind him. "I'll sit, if you think you can bring my drink over without throwing it on me."

He turned to find a table, grabbing the last paper from the rack by the counter as he passed; The Sun, because who didn't love tits and outrage first thing in the morning?

Ten minutes later, when Gwaine was sincerely wishing there'd been any other paper to choose from and wondering just where his drink was, a large mug was oh-so-carefully placed in front of him. "Your drink, sir. And not in your lap this time."

"For which I am truly grateful, I assure you."

"Grateful enough to let me join you?" Merlin asked, adding a second mug and two muffins to the table. "Chocolate chip or blueberry? I didn't get your name earlier."

"Gwaine," he replied, after a moment of trying to figure out just how those two sentences were related (they weren't, he decided), then helped himself to the blueberry muffin (not his favourite, but better than chocolate). He would have given Merlin the okay to sit, but apparently he decided he didn't need it after all. "Aren't you supposed to be working, or something? Not that I mind, but..." Gwaine shrugged.

"Break-time." Merlin broke off a piece of muffin and popped it in his mouth. "Mmm. Eat that, would you. Apology cakes are the best sort."

"Apology cakes?"

"Yeah. Whenever Gwen and I – you met her when you were here before – used to argue, she'd bake to make up for it. It's how we say sorry. Don't worry, though; I didn't make these. I just serve them."

Gwaine peeled back the wrapper from his muffin and took a bite, surprised at how good it was. Merlin grinned, wide and goofy, at his face. "Yeah, you can see why I'd forgive her anything, can't you? Her cookies are even better, but they're not done yet."

"You've worked here a while, then?" Gwaine asked, between a slurp of coffee and another bite of muffin.

"Through university, yeah. I moved back home for a couple of years afterwards, then came back last summer. But I've known Gwen and Will for years; we went to school together."

"Will?"

"The other guy who works here. About your height, sandy hair. He mentioned he'd seen you in here last week."

Grunge-Guy, Gwaine realised, but had more sense than to say it out loud. "Yeah. He told me you were a klutz. Which, I have to say, I'd sort of worked out already. And if you really wanted to show you were sorry, you'd offer to buy me a drink tonight." So Gwaine wasn't entirely sure Merlin would be interested (hell, he hadn't even worked out whether Merlin was into blokes at all), but he'd always lived by the theory of nothing risked, nothing gained.

"Sorry. Working tonight." Merlin's nose wrinkled and Gwaine tried to move past thinking it was an unexpectedly cute facial expression and work out what it meant. Disgust at the idea? Displeasure at it being Gwaine who was asking? Genuine regret?

"I didn't know this place was open that late," Gwaine said, fishing slightly, then apologised when he realised how that sounded just a little like he was accusing this guy he barely knew of lying. "That didn't sound the way I meant it to."

"Didn't it?" Merlin replied, left eyebrow slightly raised, and Gwaine fidgeted uncomfortably. "Anyway, we aren't. I work three nights a week at Gedref's. It's a bar a few streets from here."

"Yeah, I know it." He didn't suggest a different day, though, because even if it was true it didn't mean that it wasn't also a convenient way to brush him off. "Speaking of working," he continued, after glancing at his watch, "I have to be going now. Thanks for the muffin."

Gwaine swallowed the last dregs of his coffee and stood, the half-eaten muffin in his left hand. "It was good talking to you," he said, sticking his right hand out to shake.

Merlin rose to his feet as well, holding Gwaine's hand just a second or two too long as he studied him carefully. "Friday," he said, letting go.

"What?"

Merlin smiled. "Meet me here at seven. An apology muffin is more than enough to say sorry, but I have no problem with you buying me dinner."

"Do you not?" Gwaine asked, face and voice deadpan but grinning mentally. "Interesting."

Merlin's face fell, his eyes looking anywhere but at Gwaine's. "Sorry, I didn't - I mean, I thought you were - I didn't mean to be presumptuous."

"You weren't. I was. Just joking, mate. Friday at seven sounds good. I'll see you then." Merlin's goofy grin made a come-back, and Gwaine thought it was probably reflected on his own face.

"Friday. You can tell me all about that job you're hurrying off to now."