It Can't Get No Worse
Author: railise
Title: It Can't Get No Worse
Rating: PG
Pairing/s: light Arthur/Gwen
Character/s: Arthur, Merlin, Gaius
Summary: Arthur is having A Day (actually, a few of them). Set toward the end of "Beauty and the Beast, Part 2".
Warnings: none
Word Count: 656
Prompt: poison (also using a side prompt: "what went through Arthur's head when he thought Merlin had been hiding under his bed for the last three or four days")
Author's Notes: It's been so fun getting back to the show and fanfiction! I'm quite rusty (no surprise, I guess, since the last fic I wrote was in 2013) but I think I'm starting to get the hang of things again. :) All the same, it'll probably be obvious for the next couple of weeks which season I'm on in my rewatch, lol.
Title from The Beatles' "Getting Better".
The way Arthur's week was going, he shouldn't be surprised. This might as well happen after all the rest- it was the perfect capstone to a perfectly abhorrent several days.
First, Arthur had been forced to watch his father make googly eyes at Lady Katrina, practically tripping over his tongue around her. It was enough to put one off one's lunch (if one didn't enjoy lunch as much as Arthur did), and it took all the willpower he'd honed over the years to talk himself around to the match being a good thing. He was really quite proud of himself for the maturity with which he was accepting his father's new relationship, despite the fact that being present for the courtship made him ill (theoretically. He hadn't missed a meal).
But then, while he'd been breaking every rule in the kingdom by allowing Merlin to escape the castle guards, Arthur found himself on the receiving end of one of Merlin's patented Looks of Sincerity- those earnest expressions that implored Arthur to believe whatever madness Merlin was currently spouting- as Merlin said the new queen was a troll. The strangest part was, Arthur almost believed him. However, he just didn't have the capacity to really consider it in the moment, since Merlin needed to move along before they both got caught and arrested.
In retrospect, that might have made his life easier. If he'd been locked up, he wouldn't have been utterly humiliated in front of his men- other than being thrown in the dungeon- and openly disinherited. Or, maybe he would've been disinherited, regardless. The way this week was going, anything was possible.
The only good thing about the last couple of days was the visit from Guinevere. Their brief conversation was all that was keeping him going. That, and the faint recollection of Merlin's words drifting through the back of his mind: "She is a troll." Would that it were true.
Even though it turned out to actually be true, nothing changed. Arthur hadn't thought he could be more nauseated (theoretically) by his father's infatuation, but the theoretical nausea nearly became factual at the stench that pervaded the castle once her real form was revealed. Uther was clearly under some sort of influence, but Arthur could see no way to alter that.
And the gods still weren't willing to smile upon him despite everything he'd endured thus far. His life took another immediate nosedive when he discovered Merlin under his bed three days after he was to have escaped. During the seconds before Merlin denied that he'd been there the entire time he was in hiding, Arthur performed a frantic mental review of every moment he'd been in that bed for the last few days. He was pretty sure he'd kept his pouting under his breath for the most part, and he'd been too furious to cry earlier… but that look Guinevere had given him in the town yesterday had gone to his head (and she had looked exceptionally beautiful, with her eyes shining and the breeze blowing her hair gently against her skin), so quite frankly Arthur was just going to have to kill Merlin if there was any chance he'd been under the bed last night.
Things looked up when it turned out that Merlin could live.
Things turned right back around when it turned out that Arthur had to die.
Well, he didn't actually have to die, just almost die. Unless anything went wrong, in which case he would die. (Such an unimportant detail, that.) But of course, there was no chance of anything going wrong, because Merlin was in charge of giving him the antidote. The antidote to the poison potion. (Another unimportant detail, apparently.)
Arthur blew out a breath and took the vial from Gaius, wincing as the liquid burned his throat like a strong drink at the tavern.
After everything else this week, what was a little poison, right?
Title: It Can't Get No Worse
Rating: PG
Pairing/s: light Arthur/Gwen
Character/s: Arthur, Merlin, Gaius
Summary: Arthur is having A Day (actually, a few of them). Set toward the end of "Beauty and the Beast, Part 2".
Warnings: none
Word Count: 656
Prompt: poison (also using a side prompt: "what went through Arthur's head when he thought Merlin had been hiding under his bed for the last three or four days")
Author's Notes: It's been so fun getting back to the show and fanfiction! I'm quite rusty (no surprise, I guess, since the last fic I wrote was in 2013) but I think I'm starting to get the hang of things again. :) All the same, it'll probably be obvious for the next couple of weeks which season I'm on in my rewatch, lol.
Title from The Beatles' "Getting Better".
The way Arthur's week was going, he shouldn't be surprised. This might as well happen after all the rest- it was the perfect capstone to a perfectly abhorrent several days.
First, Arthur had been forced to watch his father make googly eyes at Lady Katrina, practically tripping over his tongue around her. It was enough to put one off one's lunch (if one didn't enjoy lunch as much as Arthur did), and it took all the willpower he'd honed over the years to talk himself around to the match being a good thing. He was really quite proud of himself for the maturity with which he was accepting his father's new relationship, despite the fact that being present for the courtship made him ill (theoretically. He hadn't missed a meal).
But then, while he'd been breaking every rule in the kingdom by allowing Merlin to escape the castle guards, Arthur found himself on the receiving end of one of Merlin's patented Looks of Sincerity- those earnest expressions that implored Arthur to believe whatever madness Merlin was currently spouting- as Merlin said the new queen was a troll. The strangest part was, Arthur almost believed him. However, he just didn't have the capacity to really consider it in the moment, since Merlin needed to move along before they both got caught and arrested.
In retrospect, that might have made his life easier. If he'd been locked up, he wouldn't have been utterly humiliated in front of his men- other than being thrown in the dungeon- and openly disinherited. Or, maybe he would've been disinherited, regardless. The way this week was going, anything was possible.
The only good thing about the last couple of days was the visit from Guinevere. Their brief conversation was all that was keeping him going. That, and the faint recollection of Merlin's words drifting through the back of his mind: "She is a troll." Would that it were true.
Even though it turned out to actually be true, nothing changed. Arthur hadn't thought he could be more nauseated (theoretically) by his father's infatuation, but the theoretical nausea nearly became factual at the stench that pervaded the castle once her real form was revealed. Uther was clearly under some sort of influence, but Arthur could see no way to alter that.
And the gods still weren't willing to smile upon him despite everything he'd endured thus far. His life took another immediate nosedive when he discovered Merlin under his bed three days after he was to have escaped. During the seconds before Merlin denied that he'd been there the entire time he was in hiding, Arthur performed a frantic mental review of every moment he'd been in that bed for the last few days. He was pretty sure he'd kept his pouting under his breath for the most part, and he'd been too furious to cry earlier… but that look Guinevere had given him in the town yesterday had gone to his head (and she had looked exceptionally beautiful, with her eyes shining and the breeze blowing her hair gently against her skin), so quite frankly Arthur was just going to have to kill Merlin if there was any chance he'd been under the bed last night.
Things looked up when it turned out that Merlin could live.
Things turned right back around when it turned out that Arthur had to die.
Well, he didn't actually have to die, just almost die. Unless anything went wrong, in which case he would die. (Such an unimportant detail, that.) But of course, there was no chance of anything going wrong, because Merlin was in charge of giving him the antidote. The antidote to the poison potion. (Another unimportant detail, apparently.)
Arthur blew out a breath and took the vial from Gaius, wincing as the liquid burned his throat like a strong drink at the tavern.
After everything else this week, what was a little poison, right?