A Metaphor of Human Bloody Existence
Title: A Metaphor of Human Bloody Existence
Wordcount: ~19,500 (good heavens)
Summary: In which Merlin and Arthur (and others) band together to fight evil on the advice of a can of peas.
A/N: Inspired by this kinkme_merlin prompt. Title from Terry Pratchett's "Guards! Guards!" It's ... there is really no excuse for this, and it is half the length it potentially could have been (so there might be deleted scenes at some later date if I am so inclined, especially because Gwaine and Freya insisted on sort of shipping themselves and I didn't get to explore it as much as I wanted ...). But I had fun writing it, so I hope you have fun reading it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin.
It’s not that Merlin isn’t used to things talking to him that really shouldn’t be talking. He has talked, on various occasions, with dogs, cats, snakes, goats, horses, cows, more sheep than he cares to admit, the occasional fish, and one time a llama at a petting zoo. And a mime, once, but that was only shocking because he was five and didn’t think mimes ever got time off.
However, this time it’s the stylized dragon on a can of peas talking to him while he’s making a veg delivery at Camelot Market, which is … unprecedented. He lowers his voice so nobody inside can hear him and bends close to the can. “What?”
“How small you are,” says the dragon on the can of peas in as grand a tone of voice as a dragon on a can of peas can, “for such a great destiny.”
Merlin looks from side to side, but it’s only him and Arthur the Prat in the store, and Arthur the Prat is determinedly stocking the veg that Merlin’s just brought around, after informing him that Merlin couldn’t possibly do so in any aesthetically pleasing way. “Is this a magic thing, or a Merlin-might-need-to-be-hospitalized thing?” he hisses. Will and Gaius have both told him that it’s a good idea to check.
“I have been waiting for your arrival for a long time, young warlock,” the dragon announces. Merlin checks the sell-by date, which implies that the dragon can’t have been waiting for much over two weeks. “This is merely a manifestation of my presence, not the reality,” it snaps, and Merlin turns it back right side up.
“So where is the reality?”
There’s a slightly awkward silence. “You are destined for great things,” the dragon reminds him.
“Yeah, we did that bit already.”
“It is your destiny to save Albion from sure destruction, to raise it back to glory, but you cannot do this thing alone. The other side of your coin, one whose path is entwined with yours, needs your help as you need his, to unite Albion against greed and evil.”
Merlin blinks. “I didn’t think Albion was ever glorious. I mean, it’s a nice little town, but--and who’s this mysterious other side of my coin, anyway?”
“The Prince of Camelot. He is your destiny, your other half, your--”
“Merlin, just what is so interesting about the canned goods? Do you want the money to take back to Gaius and the farm or not?”
Merlin starts and stands up straight. “Um, yes. Don’t think we need anything for the farm today, and even if we do, Gaius will probably end up in town sometime today anyway. We just wanted to get you the greens before they wilted.” He gives the can of peas a sidelong look, and gets the distinct impression that the dragon is smirking at him. “So, I’ll be on my way.”
“After I give you the money.”
“After you give me the money,” Merlin agrees, glaring because Arthur is smirking at him as well. Again. This is why he doesn’t usually make the deliveries to Albion’s Camelot Market. He much prefers delivering to The Castle Restaurant & Inn, also owned by Arthur’s father but run by his foster sister and catered by her girlfriend Gwen, both of whom are much nicer than Arthur.
“Your destiny,” hisses the can of peas.
Merlin gives it a vicious look, because Arthur is an arse and does not deserve the tiny little crush Merlin may or may not have on him. “You shut up.”
“Talking to yourself, Merlin?” says Arthur from the register, where he’s doing something with computers. “Gaius probably has some sort of herbal remedy for that.”
“Too bad he doesn’t have one for being a prat.”
“That insult is getting old after ten months, Merlin.” Arthur comes back out from behind the register and hands Merlin an envelope. “Perhaps you ought to get a thesaurus and come up with some new ones.”
“Clotpole,” says Merlin, pulling out one of the things Will called him in primary school. “Dollophead.”
Arthur shakes his head sadly. “You won’t be finding those in the thesaurus. Well, at least I know what to give you for Christmas this year.”
“Sod off, arsehole, like you’re giving me a Christmas present.” He snatches the envelope. “Gaius will call about the next delivery.”
“Merlin!” says the can of peas. “You cannot deny your--”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” says Merlin, and stalks down the aisle to get the can. “Sorry, Arthur, actually, can I buy this? I think Gaius needs some for tonight’s stew.” He rummages a few coins out of his pocket and tosses them. “Keep the change, yeah? Just apply it to our account.”
Arthur stares at him. “Aren’t peas in season right now?”
“Ours is not to ask,” Merlin deflects, and flees the shop, sticking the can in his bicycle basket and cycling off before Arthur can come out and mock him some more under cover of cleaning the windows. He pulls into the space between two buildings a few seconds later and glares at the can of peas. “What was all that about? What’s all this about my destiny? Arthur the Prat is not my destiny.”
The can of peas remains stubbornly silent, and Merlin takes great pleasure in blowing it up with his mind.
*
Every time Will visits, he complains that Albion must be the most boring town in England. They grew up in Ealdor Apartments in Birmingham, and Will is doing something with ledgers at a bank, so he really doesn’t have a leg to stand on with that, but he still insists. Ten months after Merlin moved out to Gaius’s farm on the outskirts of Albion to grow produce and learn magic, he’s still charmed by the town.
Everyone knows everyone else, for one thing. His neighborhood in Birmingham was close-knit enough, but now he can’t walk down the street without stopping for a chat. The countryside is lovely, most of the people are as well, and it’s clean and bursting with small businesses, from Camelot Market to Gwen’s dad’s hardware store to the GP’s office run out of the home of Alice, Gaius’s on-again-off-again flame.
His favorite place in town, though, aside from Gaius’s fields, is undoubtedly The Castle. It’s not the local, which he usually ends up at once or twice a week, but Gwen feeds him tastes of whatever she’s cooking if he washes a few dishes and Morgana talks about bed linens in an almost frighteningly intense way, and even Uther Pendragon, who is Arthur and Morgana’s father and pretty much runs Albion, deigns to give Merlin a smile sometimes and ask how things are out at the farm.
After he finishes blowing up the can of peas and cleans up the mess so none of the town’s teenagers go into the alley to neck and wonder why someone tossed pea soup about, Merlin goes to The Castle because Morgana tends to take his side over her brother’s and Gwen will perhaps feed him samples of dessert. When he gets there, however, Morgana and Uther are shouting at each other.
“People would go there for different reasons, Uther!” Morgana is yelling when Merlin finishes retreating before he gets enlisted to one side or the other. “It wouldn’t lose you business, and it would be nice not having to drive half an hour to get the things that you don’t stock!”
“You could always ask me to stock them!”
“You just can’t handle a little competition!”
Merlin sidles over to the door to the kitchen, where Gwen is frozen with a spoonful of what looks like bechamel sauce dripping on the pristine floor. He unties his neckerchief and holds it under before Morgana sees and throttles her poor innocent girlfriend. “What’s going on?” he whispers as Uther talks about loyalty and local business and shady practices.
“They might be building an Avalon Supermart in Mercia,” Gwen returns, talking about the next town over, and Merlin winces. “Morgana made the mistake of saying that it might not be a terrible idea in Uther’s hearing.”
“Maybe I should go,” says Merlin, because Morgana has noticed him and he’s going to have to disagree with her and then she won’t let him wash his clothes in the inn’s laundry and it’s generally best to flee before he crosses her.
“I will never make you cherry tarts again,” Gwen hisses, which is just a low blow. “Come into the back room and taste tonight’s dinner.”
Merlin lets her drag him, because he’s a good friend and because her cherry tarts are probably the best he’s ever tasted. But then again her everything is about the best he’s ever tasted because his mother is wonderful but can’t cook to save her life. “You don’t agree with her either,” he accuses once they’re out of earshot.
“Hush,” says Gwen. “The walls have ears.”
“Your sous-chef has ears, but he’s on your side,” says Merlin. “Hello, Lancelot. We’ll have that shipment of greens in to you later this week, it’s just that the peas have been exploding and there’s only so much Gaius and I can do.”
“Hello, Merlin,” says Lancelot, waving his spatula and doing something with the tray of scones he’s just removed from the oven. “Are Morgana and his Majesty still at it out there, Gwen?”
“Just because Morgana went to uni with that Morgause woman,” Gwen mutters direly, returning to her bechamel, spoon in hand. Merlin looks sadly down at his neckerchief, which is now covered in cheese. It is just not his day, what with the talking canned goods and the potential supermarket. And the presence of Arthur the Prat. “Merlin, you look absolutely shattered, sit down, you really need to stop running off your feet like this. Wasn’t Gaius thinking about hiring Gilli? You could use another pair of hands, business is booming since you arrived--not that it wasn’t before, of course, it’s just that Gaius is getting on--and besides, you’ve got a green thumb.”
“Gilli …” Gilli blew up half a bed of radishes trying a fertility spell and doesn’t seem to share Merlin’s magical green thumb, but Gwen doesn’t need to do that. “Gilli doesn’t want to work full-time, he still visits his mam a lot.”
“You should find someone, then. You’ve got the farm pretty much to yourself now that Gaius is concentrating on his remedies, so you should hire help. It’s too bad Edwin didn’t stay on.”
Edwin is the single best argument for pesticides Merlin has ever heard of, with his creepy little beetles, but Merlin doesn’t say that. Truly, he is the epitome of restraint. “Er, yes. But yes, we’re looking for someone, sort of. Gilli’s helping where he can, for now, but we’re trying.”
Gwen hands him a chocolate biscuit. “Let me know if you need help, I know everyone and if I don’t know them my da does. Best to give out jobs while we can.”
Merlin looks sharply up from his biscuit, since Gwen never sounds that bitter about anything, but Morgana bursts into the back room at that moment and her eyes light on Merlin instantly. “Merlin! You can talk some sense into Uther, he’s being completely unreasonable!”
“Actually, I have some very urgent berry-picking to do,” he blurts, and runs out before he can get dragged into the argument, ignoring Gwen’s indulgent mutter of “Traitor” from behind him.
*
“Arthur asked me how last night’s pea soup was when I stopped in at Camelot this morning,” Gaius says when he gets back from town the next day. Merlin starts and looks up from the spinach he’s picking. “Do I want to know, Merlin?”
Merlin considers that. “Probably not.”
“Let me know if that changes, will you? And take the spinach to The Castle when you’re finished and pick up an extra bag of fertilizer from Camelot while you’re in town.”
“We don’t need fertilizer.”
“Unless we want the government asking questions, we need fertilizer.”
Merlin ponders that. “Why do I have to buy it, then? You were just in town.”
“I forgot it. Now hurry with that picking, Gwen and Lancelot want that for tonight’s salads.”
Merlin grumbles, but Gaius is his employer and his mentor and he can deal with being in Camelot long enough to pick up a bag of fertilizer. He hitches up a cart to his bicycle and piles crates of spinach on it before peddling to The Castle, where he manages to drop off the spinach without getting in the middle of the quiet argument Gwen and Morgana are having in a corner. Both of them give him tight smiles but don’t come over, so he chats for a minute with Lancelot before fleeing. It’s always disconcerting when Gwen and Morgana actually fight. Apparently they’ve been together forever (well, since uni, but they’ve been dancing around each other pretty much since Morgana moved to Albion when she was twelve), and while they have their share of spats, normally they don’t last more than an hour before they’re over. He’s only seen them fight properly once before, when Morgana almost entered a contract to get their vegetables supplied by a man named Tauren instead of by Gaius while they were dealing with the blight issues Edwin had brought down on them. Gwen had slept on Gaius’s sofa for a whole week before Morgana had apologized.
“Tell them I’ll be by later this week,” Merlin whispers to Lance as he heads out, and Lance grimaces before he nods.
When Merlin gets to Camelot, Arthur is dealing with a customer, so Merlin goes to the back and gets a bag of Gaius’s usual fertilizer and then dawdles his way through the rest of the store. “You cannot run from your destiny,” the same voice from yesterday says as Merlin wanders past the cereal, and Merlin almost drops fertilizer on his foot.
When he turns around, the cheerful cartoon dragon on a box of sugary children’s cereal is looking at him in a disappointed manner that reminds him unnervingly of Gaius. “I do not have a destiny,” he says under his breath.
“Your path and that of the young Pendragon lie together. They always have, and they always shall.”
“We hate each other,” Merlin hisses before realizing that he is arguing with a cartoon dragon on a cereal box.
“A half cannot truly hate that which makes it whole. You and Arthur must save Camelot, and all of Albion, from the dark forces working against it.”
“Look, whoever you’re looking for, you’ve got the wrong person. Arthur and I wouldn’t piss on each other if we were on fire.” Arthur is also finishing up with his customer at the register, a dark-haired woman Merlin doesn’t recognize buying eggs and milk and honey. “Destiny can fuck right off,” he finishes, and hefts the bag over his shoulder.
“Talking to yourself again, Merlin?” says Arthur from the register, raising his eyebrows as he bags the woman’s groceries. “Perhaps you ought to go see Alice, if you’re under that much stress.”
Before Merlin can muster the retort that Arthur deserves, there’s a flash of something that feels like magic, and while Merlin’s distracted by that, the woman shrieks and points at the floor. “A mouse! There’s a mouse in your shop!”
“Save Camelot!” shouts a whole row of cereal box dragons, and probably a whole stack of can of peas dragons, and Merlin yelps and drops his bag of fertilizer, which explodes everywhere--and covers up the red “recording” light on the woman’s camera.
It transpires, when half the town (but most importantly Uther and Officer Leon) shows up, that the woman was paid by an anonymous source to shut Camelot down, and Merlin is hailed as an accidental hero and Uther pays for his replacement bag of fertilizer (but not the one he broke). Merlin mutters a lot about not having meant to, but thank you, and ignores the smug looks he keeps getting from cartoon dragons.
“Hey, Merlin,” calls Arthur when Merlin finally manages to escape, and Merlin braces himself for yet another cutting comment, probably about his clumsiness and the fact that Arthur will have to pick up the spilled fertilizer. “Just wanted to say thanks,” he says while Merlin loads up his bicycle. “She could have shut us down, and with Avalon coming to Mercia even something temporary could have been bad.”
Arthur looks disconcertingly earnest and he’s looking right in Merlin’s eyes and it occurs to Merlin that they’re having another moment. Considering they don’t actually like each other (Merlin considered for about five minutes once the possibility that Arthur is pining for him and thus being an arse, but then discarded it, because come on, like Arthur Pendragon couldn’t do any better), they have a lot of ridiculous cinema-worthy moments where they sort of get stuck looking at each other and forget to stop, or where Arthur puts a hand on his shoulder for emphasis, or … well, it happens once a week on average. “Hey, don’t mention it,” he says at last when he remembers that the products in Arthur’s shop are telling him they have a destiny and he wants to thwart them, not encourage them.
“Yes, okay, fine.” He produces a chocolate bar from the pocket of his shirt. “These are your favorites, right? Not organic or anything, but I figure it’s the least I could do.”
Merlin grins at him and takes it, because he’s never one to turn down chocolate. “Thanks. I guess you should get in there and talk to Leon some more, yeah? And I’ve got to get back to Gaius, he’s going to yell at me for disappearing.”
“Can’t have that, he might use the eyebrow on you and then you would never recover.”
“I’m fragile that way,” Merlin agrees, and then there’s another moment while Arthur grins at him in a really disconcerting way and Merlin definitely doesn’t blurt anything about Arthur being the other side of his coin because he Does Not Listen to cartoon dragons on groceries. “Really, really need to go,” he says at last.
“Right, yeah. See you at The Castle sometime, then.”
Merlin waves and gets on his bike before he can do anything else hugely embarrassing.
(And Gaius does give him the eyebrow when he gets home, which is really not fair.)
*
Merlin’s heroism is overshadowed the next day when he walks into The Castle and Lancelot immediately sticks a paper under his nose: Avalon Supermart is indeed building in Mercia. “We’ve got to stop them,” Gwen proclaims from nearby, and then looks around guiltily. “We’ve done just fine with Camelot and ordering what we can’t get there, and so has everyone else in the area.”
“What are we supposed to do about it, Gwen?” Merlin asks, and looks around for Morgana, who is absent. “And where’s Morgana?”
“Morgause is one of the CEOs of Avalon, and she and the regional manager Cenred are viewing the building site.” Gwen looks miserable. “Morgana went to have coffee with her or something, I don’t know.”
Merlin pats her shoulder. “I brought you a crateload of young potatoes, if that will cheer you up.” It’s a rare day when produce won’t cheer Gwen up.
“She and Morgause dated in uni, before she and I got it together, and they really only broke up because they found out they were third cousins or something and decided it was weird.”
“It would still be weird, then,” Merlin says firmly after exchanging a look with Lancelot over her head. “Besides, Morgana loves you. She would never cheat on you.”
“If she did, she would be run out of town on a rail,” says Arthur as he wanders into the kitchen. “She may be my foster sister, but you’ve been here longer, Guinevere. Bringing them the best produce, Merlin?”
“Of course. We’re having a torrid affair, so I’m obligated.”
Arther raises his eyebrows. “Does ‘we’ mean you and Gwen, you and Morgana, or you and Lancelot?”
“All of them,” Merlin replies promptly, and Gwen chokes on nothing.
“Does that mean if I have a torrid affair with you Camelot will get better produce?”
Merlin pretends to consider it while he staves off his blush. “I don’t know. Perhaps a little better, but then there would still be the three of them at The Castle and you alone at Camelot, so …”
Arthur just smirks. “Oh, I’m worth better produce even if it’s one against three, I promise.” Merlin rolls his eyes and they don’t stop looking at each other, which means they’re having a moment again, and this one in public, which they generally manage to avoid. They’re getting worse. If he knew what the scientific or magical term for one was he would try to find a cure for them. “Anyway, that’s not why I’m here. I assume you lot have heard about Avalon?”
“Your sister is off having coffee with Morgause,” says Gwen. The rest of them wince. “I haven’t heard from your father, though.”
“He’s preparing to compete aggressively,” says Arthur, a perfect parrot. “I am preparing to figure out how to shut them down. Their business practices are shady, and I suspect they might be behind the mouse incident.”
“Have you got any proof?” asks Lance, ever the sensible one.
Merlin opens his mouth to say he agrees with Arthur and then remembers that he refuses to obey the orders of cartoon dragons and shuts his mouth instead. “Well, no,” says Arthur. “But she was paid to get the health and safety inspectors in, and I can’t think of anyone else who would do that.”
“We just have to make sure that everyone boycotts them,” says Lancelot in the tones of someone who knows that his solution will never work.
“Yes, that’ll work when Morgana’ll just swan off to buy industrial-sized tanks of mayonnaise or something.”
Gwen looks at him reproachfully. “I would never use store-bought mayonnaise, Arthur, and you know it.”
“Well, vinegar and eggs, then, to make it with. Large vats of products, anyway.” Arthur flaps a hand irritably. “That isn’t the point.” He turns unexpectedly to Merlin, who is attempting to sidle towards the door. “What do you think, Merlin?”
“I think I’d better get the potatoes in here,” he says. “Honestly, I can’t do much, and you all know the area much better than I do. I’ll talk to Gaius about it all, yeah? He’ll definitely have more suggestions than I will.” With that, he flees, and wishes there were something around with a dragon face so he could rub in his refusal to help Arthur with anything.
He finishes his delivery quickly despite Gwen’s disapproving look and Lancelot’s curious glances (not to mention Arthur mocking him for nearly dropping the whole crate of potatoes) and goes back to the farm, where Gaius and Alice are sitting on the porch talking about Avalon and how awful it is and what they can do to stop it.
This, much to his annoyance, is the template for his next seven weeks.
*
Will, for reasons best known to himself, gave Merlin a ball-in-a-cup toy at his Easter visit to Albion. Merlin has had it for months now and still has not managed to get the ball in the cup without the use of magic. However, it’s useful for his fine-motor magical control, so he’s sitting cross-legged on his bed playing with it one August evening when someone knocks on the door. “I’m coming in, Emrys, get your hands out of your pants if you’re wanking.”
Merlin drops the toy on the floor while Arthur throws the door open, and then there’s an awkward silence while Arthur processes precisely what Merlin was doing and presumably prepares lists and lists of things to say to him as a result. “That would not have been enough time to get my hands out of my pants if I was wanking,” Merlin points out. “What the hell do you want?”
“To catch you jerking off, Merlin, of course. It’s my life’s ambition,” says Arthur dryly. “What do you think I want?”
“An order of vegetables?” Merlin guesses hopefully.
Arthur gives him a withering look. “Don’t you think I would have called Gaius up if that were the case? Or even stopped by here and talked to Gaius? No, Gwen says you’ve been complaining about Avalon just as much as everyone but Morgana, so you’re going to help us get rid of it.”
“I’m sort of busy. It’s just Gaius and I on the farm these days and it’s harvest season.” And he’s been avoiding Camelot because apparently half their products somehow have dragons on them and they won’t shut up and they always sound really smug about his and Arthur’s destiny. Besides which the moments still haven’t reduced in frequency and he suspects it is freaking both he and Arthur out because neither of them is actually in a film.
“Be that as it may,” says Arthur, which is Arthur-speak for I am going to be a gigantic prat and take over your life without your consent, “we really need everyone in town to pull together on this. You can sacrifice the time that you would otherwise spend playing with your toys to the cause.” He gives a pointed look at the ball-in-a-cup sitting pathetically on the floor, and then rummages around in his pocket to produce something. “I brought chocolate as bribery.”
Merlin takes the chocolate bar only to discover with a certain sense of inevitability that it’s some ridiculously fancy sort with a dragon on the label. “None of us can choose our destiny, Merlin,” the chocolate bar informs him, “and none of us can escape it.”
“Oh, shit,” says Merlin, because this is the first time something has spoken to him outside of Camelot.
Arthur beams, apparently taking that as resignation to the inevitable. “Knew you had a chocolate addiction. We’re meeting in my flat tonight at eight to discuss what we can do. Though you’ll likely end up drawing our posters for us or something equally useless.”
“If I’m so useless, why do you even want me there?” he mutters.
“Your souls are entwined, your destinies lie together,” says the bar of chocolate in a tone that can only be described as lascivious.
“Gaius says he’s busy--”
“So do I!”
“Yes, but I believe Gaius because I didn’t catch him playing with a children’s toy. As I was saying, Gaius is busy and we want a representative from the farm because your farmstand and private orders are going to take a hit with Avalon around.”
Merlin spares a moment to wonder why Arthur didn’t send Gwen before shrugging. “Fine, as long as you don’t expect miracles.”
“Together, you and Arthur shall save Albion,” the dragon on the chocolate bar reminds Merlin, who wonders how Arthur would react if Merlin threw his peace offering out the window. “For you are two sides of the same coin, two halves of the whole--”
Arthur, mercifully, interrupts what must seem like an awkward silence to him. Since Merlin is refusing to look at him they don’t even have the excuse of a moment. “Well, then, I’ll leave you to your fascinating game.” He scoops the toy up off the floor and gets the ball in the cup on his second try, the arse. “See you tonight, Merlin.”
“Yeah,” says Merlin, and crumples up the chocolate wrapping the second Arthur is out of the room. Each square of the chocolate has a little dragon imprinted on it, and he eats it quickly, before he finds out if those will talk to him too.
He refuses to speak at the meeting that night except when spoken to and manages not to have any moments with Arthur, so he counts it as a win.
*
Merlin tries very hard not to think that destiny is working against him when Gaius picks up two new workers for the farm in the next three days. The first is Freya, a terrified-looking girl who shows up on their doorstep one afternoon with no sign of a car and says that she heard about them from a man named Aglain after she got into a bit of trouble in her old town. Gaius doesn’t ask questions, although he gives Freya the eyebrow enough to make her quail whenever she’s in his presence. Merlin sets her to weeding, because he suspects she won’t be wanting to use magic for a while.
The second is a man named Gwaine, who is apparently an old uni friend of Lancelot’s in between jobs, and Lancelot, not knowing about Freya, sends him to Gaius. Gaius, even though Gwaine shows no hints of knowing about magic, let alone having it, invites Gwaine to stay through the season immediately.
Merlin takes to Gwaine immediately, reminded of what Will would be like if he didn’t feel the obligation to stay at the job he practically inherited from his father, but that doesn’t mean he thinks it’s a good idea to have him around. “Gaius,” he hisses while Gwaine is settling into his guest room. “Not that I don’t appreciate the help, but we just got Freya in, and she’s terrified of us and we have magic. I don’t even know how she’ll react to Gilli when he gets back from his trip and he’s harmless!”
“She doesn’t want to use her magic right now, Merlin, and she seems accustomed to keeping it secret anyway. And Gwaine is personable enough, isn’t he?”
Gwaine could flirt with a rock, Merlin suspects, which is what’s making him nervous. “Perhaps Freya should help out in your lab, Gwaine and I can take care of the fields.”
“I don’t need help in the lab, not with Gilli coming back soon. And this will give you more free time for the Avalon effort.” Merlin grimaces. Gaius raises his eyebrows. “I don’t know what you have against Arthur, Merlin, but whatever it is, you need to get over it. The whole town must pull together for this.”
“You sound like someone else I know,” Merlin mutters.
Gaius smiles. “I’m glad you listen to Gwen when she speaks sense.”
“Right. Gwen,” says Merlin, because he hasn’t quite got around to telling his mentor about the dragons on groceries speaking to him yet. Either Gaius will have him committed or Gaius will do hours worth of research and then take the dragon’s side, so he figures it’s best not to mention it until he can prove that the dragons speaking to him are both real and slightly dotty.
Gwaine, thankfully, picks that time to knock on Gaius’s office door. “Ah, just the men I wanted to see. I seem to have frightened your … sister, Merlin?”
“Just an employee,” says Merlin, and goes to fix it after giving Gaius an I-told-you-so look in return for all the ones he’s gotten himself.
For all Gwaine is great company, over the next week he also proves that he attracts difficult situations like a magnet. For one thing, he terrifies Freya every time he tries to be friendly, and she takes to doing her share of the chores early in the morning, while Gwaine’s still asleep, and then fleeing to Gaius’s lab. For another, since he knows Lancelot, he’s always tagging after Merlin when he goes to town, and everyone loves him instantly--except the Pendragons. Uther seems to think he’s a spy for Avalon, since he showed up at just the wrong time, so he glares whenever Gwaine dares enter The Castle. And Arthur, well …
“New boyfriend, Merlin?” he asks when Gwaine comes along to one of their meetings at Lancelot’s invitation. “If he distracts you, I’m kicking him out.”
Gwaine, either because he’s an arse or because he’s actually rather sweet (actually, probably for both of those reasons), slings an arm across Merlin’s shoulders. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, princess. We’ll be good.”
Merlin turns bright red and looks down at his lap. “Really, we’re not--”
“Don’t want to hear it, Merlin,” says Arthur, and stalks off and is generally an arse to Gwaine for the rest of the night. And throws a notebook at Merlin when he asks for paper, which is just not fair. There isn’t even a moment, and Merlin doesn’t know what the hell Arthur’s problem is with Gwaine but it’s all very disconcerting.
(Okay, so maybe he has a bit of an idea, but it’s too nerve-wracking to ponder.)
“So,” says Gwaine as they walk in the door of Gaius’s farmhouse that night, slurring a bit from the wine Gwen had produced at the end of the meeting. “You and Arthur, yeah?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” says Merlin, and flees.
*
Part Two
Part Three
Wordcount: ~19,500 (good heavens)
Summary: In which Merlin and Arthur (and others) band together to fight evil on the advice of a can of peas.
A/N: Inspired by this kinkme_merlin prompt. Title from Terry Pratchett's "Guards! Guards!" It's ... there is really no excuse for this, and it is half the length it potentially could have been (so there might be deleted scenes at some later date if I am so inclined, especially because Gwaine and Freya insisted on sort of shipping themselves and I didn't get to explore it as much as I wanted ...). But I had fun writing it, so I hope you have fun reading it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin.
It’s not that Merlin isn’t used to things talking to him that really shouldn’t be talking. He has talked, on various occasions, with dogs, cats, snakes, goats, horses, cows, more sheep than he cares to admit, the occasional fish, and one time a llama at a petting zoo. And a mime, once, but that was only shocking because he was five and didn’t think mimes ever got time off.
However, this time it’s the stylized dragon on a can of peas talking to him while he’s making a veg delivery at Camelot Market, which is … unprecedented. He lowers his voice so nobody inside can hear him and bends close to the can. “What?”
“How small you are,” says the dragon on the can of peas in as grand a tone of voice as a dragon on a can of peas can, “for such a great destiny.”
Merlin looks from side to side, but it’s only him and Arthur the Prat in the store, and Arthur the Prat is determinedly stocking the veg that Merlin’s just brought around, after informing him that Merlin couldn’t possibly do so in any aesthetically pleasing way. “Is this a magic thing, or a Merlin-might-need-to-be-hospitalized thing?” he hisses. Will and Gaius have both told him that it’s a good idea to check.
“I have been waiting for your arrival for a long time, young warlock,” the dragon announces. Merlin checks the sell-by date, which implies that the dragon can’t have been waiting for much over two weeks. “This is merely a manifestation of my presence, not the reality,” it snaps, and Merlin turns it back right side up.
“So where is the reality?”
There’s a slightly awkward silence. “You are destined for great things,” the dragon reminds him.
“Yeah, we did that bit already.”
“It is your destiny to save Albion from sure destruction, to raise it back to glory, but you cannot do this thing alone. The other side of your coin, one whose path is entwined with yours, needs your help as you need his, to unite Albion against greed and evil.”
Merlin blinks. “I didn’t think Albion was ever glorious. I mean, it’s a nice little town, but--and who’s this mysterious other side of my coin, anyway?”
“The Prince of Camelot. He is your destiny, your other half, your--”
“Merlin, just what is so interesting about the canned goods? Do you want the money to take back to Gaius and the farm or not?”
Merlin starts and stands up straight. “Um, yes. Don’t think we need anything for the farm today, and even if we do, Gaius will probably end up in town sometime today anyway. We just wanted to get you the greens before they wilted.” He gives the can of peas a sidelong look, and gets the distinct impression that the dragon is smirking at him. “So, I’ll be on my way.”
“After I give you the money.”
“After you give me the money,” Merlin agrees, glaring because Arthur is smirking at him as well. Again. This is why he doesn’t usually make the deliveries to Albion’s Camelot Market. He much prefers delivering to The Castle Restaurant & Inn, also owned by Arthur’s father but run by his foster sister and catered by her girlfriend Gwen, both of whom are much nicer than Arthur.
“Your destiny,” hisses the can of peas.
Merlin gives it a vicious look, because Arthur is an arse and does not deserve the tiny little crush Merlin may or may not have on him. “You shut up.”
“Talking to yourself, Merlin?” says Arthur from the register, where he’s doing something with computers. “Gaius probably has some sort of herbal remedy for that.”
“Too bad he doesn’t have one for being a prat.”
“That insult is getting old after ten months, Merlin.” Arthur comes back out from behind the register and hands Merlin an envelope. “Perhaps you ought to get a thesaurus and come up with some new ones.”
“Clotpole,” says Merlin, pulling out one of the things Will called him in primary school. “Dollophead.”
Arthur shakes his head sadly. “You won’t be finding those in the thesaurus. Well, at least I know what to give you for Christmas this year.”
“Sod off, arsehole, like you’re giving me a Christmas present.” He snatches the envelope. “Gaius will call about the next delivery.”
“Merlin!” says the can of peas. “You cannot deny your--”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” says Merlin, and stalks down the aisle to get the can. “Sorry, Arthur, actually, can I buy this? I think Gaius needs some for tonight’s stew.” He rummages a few coins out of his pocket and tosses them. “Keep the change, yeah? Just apply it to our account.”
Arthur stares at him. “Aren’t peas in season right now?”
“Ours is not to ask,” Merlin deflects, and flees the shop, sticking the can in his bicycle basket and cycling off before Arthur can come out and mock him some more under cover of cleaning the windows. He pulls into the space between two buildings a few seconds later and glares at the can of peas. “What was all that about? What’s all this about my destiny? Arthur the Prat is not my destiny.”
The can of peas remains stubbornly silent, and Merlin takes great pleasure in blowing it up with his mind.
*
Every time Will visits, he complains that Albion must be the most boring town in England. They grew up in Ealdor Apartments in Birmingham, and Will is doing something with ledgers at a bank, so he really doesn’t have a leg to stand on with that, but he still insists. Ten months after Merlin moved out to Gaius’s farm on the outskirts of Albion to grow produce and learn magic, he’s still charmed by the town.
Everyone knows everyone else, for one thing. His neighborhood in Birmingham was close-knit enough, but now he can’t walk down the street without stopping for a chat. The countryside is lovely, most of the people are as well, and it’s clean and bursting with small businesses, from Camelot Market to Gwen’s dad’s hardware store to the GP’s office run out of the home of Alice, Gaius’s on-again-off-again flame.
His favorite place in town, though, aside from Gaius’s fields, is undoubtedly The Castle. It’s not the local, which he usually ends up at once or twice a week, but Gwen feeds him tastes of whatever she’s cooking if he washes a few dishes and Morgana talks about bed linens in an almost frighteningly intense way, and even Uther Pendragon, who is Arthur and Morgana’s father and pretty much runs Albion, deigns to give Merlin a smile sometimes and ask how things are out at the farm.
After he finishes blowing up the can of peas and cleans up the mess so none of the town’s teenagers go into the alley to neck and wonder why someone tossed pea soup about, Merlin goes to The Castle because Morgana tends to take his side over her brother’s and Gwen will perhaps feed him samples of dessert. When he gets there, however, Morgana and Uther are shouting at each other.
“People would go there for different reasons, Uther!” Morgana is yelling when Merlin finishes retreating before he gets enlisted to one side or the other. “It wouldn’t lose you business, and it would be nice not having to drive half an hour to get the things that you don’t stock!”
“You could always ask me to stock them!”
“You just can’t handle a little competition!”
Merlin sidles over to the door to the kitchen, where Gwen is frozen with a spoonful of what looks like bechamel sauce dripping on the pristine floor. He unties his neckerchief and holds it under before Morgana sees and throttles her poor innocent girlfriend. “What’s going on?” he whispers as Uther talks about loyalty and local business and shady practices.
“They might be building an Avalon Supermart in Mercia,” Gwen returns, talking about the next town over, and Merlin winces. “Morgana made the mistake of saying that it might not be a terrible idea in Uther’s hearing.”
“Maybe I should go,” says Merlin, because Morgana has noticed him and he’s going to have to disagree with her and then she won’t let him wash his clothes in the inn’s laundry and it’s generally best to flee before he crosses her.
“I will never make you cherry tarts again,” Gwen hisses, which is just a low blow. “Come into the back room and taste tonight’s dinner.”
Merlin lets her drag him, because he’s a good friend and because her cherry tarts are probably the best he’s ever tasted. But then again her everything is about the best he’s ever tasted because his mother is wonderful but can’t cook to save her life. “You don’t agree with her either,” he accuses once they’re out of earshot.
“Hush,” says Gwen. “The walls have ears.”
“Your sous-chef has ears, but he’s on your side,” says Merlin. “Hello, Lancelot. We’ll have that shipment of greens in to you later this week, it’s just that the peas have been exploding and there’s only so much Gaius and I can do.”
“Hello, Merlin,” says Lancelot, waving his spatula and doing something with the tray of scones he’s just removed from the oven. “Are Morgana and his Majesty still at it out there, Gwen?”
“Just because Morgana went to uni with that Morgause woman,” Gwen mutters direly, returning to her bechamel, spoon in hand. Merlin looks sadly down at his neckerchief, which is now covered in cheese. It is just not his day, what with the talking canned goods and the potential supermarket. And the presence of Arthur the Prat. “Merlin, you look absolutely shattered, sit down, you really need to stop running off your feet like this. Wasn’t Gaius thinking about hiring Gilli? You could use another pair of hands, business is booming since you arrived--not that it wasn’t before, of course, it’s just that Gaius is getting on--and besides, you’ve got a green thumb.”
“Gilli …” Gilli blew up half a bed of radishes trying a fertility spell and doesn’t seem to share Merlin’s magical green thumb, but Gwen doesn’t need to do that. “Gilli doesn’t want to work full-time, he still visits his mam a lot.”
“You should find someone, then. You’ve got the farm pretty much to yourself now that Gaius is concentrating on his remedies, so you should hire help. It’s too bad Edwin didn’t stay on.”
Edwin is the single best argument for pesticides Merlin has ever heard of, with his creepy little beetles, but Merlin doesn’t say that. Truly, he is the epitome of restraint. “Er, yes. But yes, we’re looking for someone, sort of. Gilli’s helping where he can, for now, but we’re trying.”
Gwen hands him a chocolate biscuit. “Let me know if you need help, I know everyone and if I don’t know them my da does. Best to give out jobs while we can.”
Merlin looks sharply up from his biscuit, since Gwen never sounds that bitter about anything, but Morgana bursts into the back room at that moment and her eyes light on Merlin instantly. “Merlin! You can talk some sense into Uther, he’s being completely unreasonable!”
“Actually, I have some very urgent berry-picking to do,” he blurts, and runs out before he can get dragged into the argument, ignoring Gwen’s indulgent mutter of “Traitor” from behind him.
*
“Arthur asked me how last night’s pea soup was when I stopped in at Camelot this morning,” Gaius says when he gets back from town the next day. Merlin starts and looks up from the spinach he’s picking. “Do I want to know, Merlin?”
Merlin considers that. “Probably not.”
“Let me know if that changes, will you? And take the spinach to The Castle when you’re finished and pick up an extra bag of fertilizer from Camelot while you’re in town.”
“We don’t need fertilizer.”
“Unless we want the government asking questions, we need fertilizer.”
Merlin ponders that. “Why do I have to buy it, then? You were just in town.”
“I forgot it. Now hurry with that picking, Gwen and Lancelot want that for tonight’s salads.”
Merlin grumbles, but Gaius is his employer and his mentor and he can deal with being in Camelot long enough to pick up a bag of fertilizer. He hitches up a cart to his bicycle and piles crates of spinach on it before peddling to The Castle, where he manages to drop off the spinach without getting in the middle of the quiet argument Gwen and Morgana are having in a corner. Both of them give him tight smiles but don’t come over, so he chats for a minute with Lancelot before fleeing. It’s always disconcerting when Gwen and Morgana actually fight. Apparently they’ve been together forever (well, since uni, but they’ve been dancing around each other pretty much since Morgana moved to Albion when she was twelve), and while they have their share of spats, normally they don’t last more than an hour before they’re over. He’s only seen them fight properly once before, when Morgana almost entered a contract to get their vegetables supplied by a man named Tauren instead of by Gaius while they were dealing with the blight issues Edwin had brought down on them. Gwen had slept on Gaius’s sofa for a whole week before Morgana had apologized.
“Tell them I’ll be by later this week,” Merlin whispers to Lance as he heads out, and Lance grimaces before he nods.
When Merlin gets to Camelot, Arthur is dealing with a customer, so Merlin goes to the back and gets a bag of Gaius’s usual fertilizer and then dawdles his way through the rest of the store. “You cannot run from your destiny,” the same voice from yesterday says as Merlin wanders past the cereal, and Merlin almost drops fertilizer on his foot.
When he turns around, the cheerful cartoon dragon on a box of sugary children’s cereal is looking at him in a disappointed manner that reminds him unnervingly of Gaius. “I do not have a destiny,” he says under his breath.
“Your path and that of the young Pendragon lie together. They always have, and they always shall.”
“We hate each other,” Merlin hisses before realizing that he is arguing with a cartoon dragon on a cereal box.
“A half cannot truly hate that which makes it whole. You and Arthur must save Camelot, and all of Albion, from the dark forces working against it.”
“Look, whoever you’re looking for, you’ve got the wrong person. Arthur and I wouldn’t piss on each other if we were on fire.” Arthur is also finishing up with his customer at the register, a dark-haired woman Merlin doesn’t recognize buying eggs and milk and honey. “Destiny can fuck right off,” he finishes, and hefts the bag over his shoulder.
“Talking to yourself again, Merlin?” says Arthur from the register, raising his eyebrows as he bags the woman’s groceries. “Perhaps you ought to go see Alice, if you’re under that much stress.”
Before Merlin can muster the retort that Arthur deserves, there’s a flash of something that feels like magic, and while Merlin’s distracted by that, the woman shrieks and points at the floor. “A mouse! There’s a mouse in your shop!”
“Save Camelot!” shouts a whole row of cereal box dragons, and probably a whole stack of can of peas dragons, and Merlin yelps and drops his bag of fertilizer, which explodes everywhere--and covers up the red “recording” light on the woman’s camera.
It transpires, when half the town (but most importantly Uther and Officer Leon) shows up, that the woman was paid by an anonymous source to shut Camelot down, and Merlin is hailed as an accidental hero and Uther pays for his replacement bag of fertilizer (but not the one he broke). Merlin mutters a lot about not having meant to, but thank you, and ignores the smug looks he keeps getting from cartoon dragons.
“Hey, Merlin,” calls Arthur when Merlin finally manages to escape, and Merlin braces himself for yet another cutting comment, probably about his clumsiness and the fact that Arthur will have to pick up the spilled fertilizer. “Just wanted to say thanks,” he says while Merlin loads up his bicycle. “She could have shut us down, and with Avalon coming to Mercia even something temporary could have been bad.”
Arthur looks disconcertingly earnest and he’s looking right in Merlin’s eyes and it occurs to Merlin that they’re having another moment. Considering they don’t actually like each other (Merlin considered for about five minutes once the possibility that Arthur is pining for him and thus being an arse, but then discarded it, because come on, like Arthur Pendragon couldn’t do any better), they have a lot of ridiculous cinema-worthy moments where they sort of get stuck looking at each other and forget to stop, or where Arthur puts a hand on his shoulder for emphasis, or … well, it happens once a week on average. “Hey, don’t mention it,” he says at last when he remembers that the products in Arthur’s shop are telling him they have a destiny and he wants to thwart them, not encourage them.
“Yes, okay, fine.” He produces a chocolate bar from the pocket of his shirt. “These are your favorites, right? Not organic or anything, but I figure it’s the least I could do.”
Merlin grins at him and takes it, because he’s never one to turn down chocolate. “Thanks. I guess you should get in there and talk to Leon some more, yeah? And I’ve got to get back to Gaius, he’s going to yell at me for disappearing.”
“Can’t have that, he might use the eyebrow on you and then you would never recover.”
“I’m fragile that way,” Merlin agrees, and then there’s another moment while Arthur grins at him in a really disconcerting way and Merlin definitely doesn’t blurt anything about Arthur being the other side of his coin because he Does Not Listen to cartoon dragons on groceries. “Really, really need to go,” he says at last.
“Right, yeah. See you at The Castle sometime, then.”
Merlin waves and gets on his bike before he can do anything else hugely embarrassing.
(And Gaius does give him the eyebrow when he gets home, which is really not fair.)
*
Merlin’s heroism is overshadowed the next day when he walks into The Castle and Lancelot immediately sticks a paper under his nose: Avalon Supermart is indeed building in Mercia. “We’ve got to stop them,” Gwen proclaims from nearby, and then looks around guiltily. “We’ve done just fine with Camelot and ordering what we can’t get there, and so has everyone else in the area.”
“What are we supposed to do about it, Gwen?” Merlin asks, and looks around for Morgana, who is absent. “And where’s Morgana?”
“Morgause is one of the CEOs of Avalon, and she and the regional manager Cenred are viewing the building site.” Gwen looks miserable. “Morgana went to have coffee with her or something, I don’t know.”
Merlin pats her shoulder. “I brought you a crateload of young potatoes, if that will cheer you up.” It’s a rare day when produce won’t cheer Gwen up.
“She and Morgause dated in uni, before she and I got it together, and they really only broke up because they found out they were third cousins or something and decided it was weird.”
“It would still be weird, then,” Merlin says firmly after exchanging a look with Lancelot over her head. “Besides, Morgana loves you. She would never cheat on you.”
“If she did, she would be run out of town on a rail,” says Arthur as he wanders into the kitchen. “She may be my foster sister, but you’ve been here longer, Guinevere. Bringing them the best produce, Merlin?”
“Of course. We’re having a torrid affair, so I’m obligated.”
Arther raises his eyebrows. “Does ‘we’ mean you and Gwen, you and Morgana, or you and Lancelot?”
“All of them,” Merlin replies promptly, and Gwen chokes on nothing.
“Does that mean if I have a torrid affair with you Camelot will get better produce?”
Merlin pretends to consider it while he staves off his blush. “I don’t know. Perhaps a little better, but then there would still be the three of them at The Castle and you alone at Camelot, so …”
Arthur just smirks. “Oh, I’m worth better produce even if it’s one against three, I promise.” Merlin rolls his eyes and they don’t stop looking at each other, which means they’re having a moment again, and this one in public, which they generally manage to avoid. They’re getting worse. If he knew what the scientific or magical term for one was he would try to find a cure for them. “Anyway, that’s not why I’m here. I assume you lot have heard about Avalon?”
“Your sister is off having coffee with Morgause,” says Gwen. The rest of them wince. “I haven’t heard from your father, though.”
“He’s preparing to compete aggressively,” says Arthur, a perfect parrot. “I am preparing to figure out how to shut them down. Their business practices are shady, and I suspect they might be behind the mouse incident.”
“Have you got any proof?” asks Lance, ever the sensible one.
Merlin opens his mouth to say he agrees with Arthur and then remembers that he refuses to obey the orders of cartoon dragons and shuts his mouth instead. “Well, no,” says Arthur. “But she was paid to get the health and safety inspectors in, and I can’t think of anyone else who would do that.”
“We just have to make sure that everyone boycotts them,” says Lancelot in the tones of someone who knows that his solution will never work.
“Yes, that’ll work when Morgana’ll just swan off to buy industrial-sized tanks of mayonnaise or something.”
Gwen looks at him reproachfully. “I would never use store-bought mayonnaise, Arthur, and you know it.”
“Well, vinegar and eggs, then, to make it with. Large vats of products, anyway.” Arthur flaps a hand irritably. “That isn’t the point.” He turns unexpectedly to Merlin, who is attempting to sidle towards the door. “What do you think, Merlin?”
“I think I’d better get the potatoes in here,” he says. “Honestly, I can’t do much, and you all know the area much better than I do. I’ll talk to Gaius about it all, yeah? He’ll definitely have more suggestions than I will.” With that, he flees, and wishes there were something around with a dragon face so he could rub in his refusal to help Arthur with anything.
He finishes his delivery quickly despite Gwen’s disapproving look and Lancelot’s curious glances (not to mention Arthur mocking him for nearly dropping the whole crate of potatoes) and goes back to the farm, where Gaius and Alice are sitting on the porch talking about Avalon and how awful it is and what they can do to stop it.
This, much to his annoyance, is the template for his next seven weeks.
*
Will, for reasons best known to himself, gave Merlin a ball-in-a-cup toy at his Easter visit to Albion. Merlin has had it for months now and still has not managed to get the ball in the cup without the use of magic. However, it’s useful for his fine-motor magical control, so he’s sitting cross-legged on his bed playing with it one August evening when someone knocks on the door. “I’m coming in, Emrys, get your hands out of your pants if you’re wanking.”
Merlin drops the toy on the floor while Arthur throws the door open, and then there’s an awkward silence while Arthur processes precisely what Merlin was doing and presumably prepares lists and lists of things to say to him as a result. “That would not have been enough time to get my hands out of my pants if I was wanking,” Merlin points out. “What the hell do you want?”
“To catch you jerking off, Merlin, of course. It’s my life’s ambition,” says Arthur dryly. “What do you think I want?”
“An order of vegetables?” Merlin guesses hopefully.
Arthur gives him a withering look. “Don’t you think I would have called Gaius up if that were the case? Or even stopped by here and talked to Gaius? No, Gwen says you’ve been complaining about Avalon just as much as everyone but Morgana, so you’re going to help us get rid of it.”
“I’m sort of busy. It’s just Gaius and I on the farm these days and it’s harvest season.” And he’s been avoiding Camelot because apparently half their products somehow have dragons on them and they won’t shut up and they always sound really smug about his and Arthur’s destiny. Besides which the moments still haven’t reduced in frequency and he suspects it is freaking both he and Arthur out because neither of them is actually in a film.
“Be that as it may,” says Arthur, which is Arthur-speak for I am going to be a gigantic prat and take over your life without your consent, “we really need everyone in town to pull together on this. You can sacrifice the time that you would otherwise spend playing with your toys to the cause.” He gives a pointed look at the ball-in-a-cup sitting pathetically on the floor, and then rummages around in his pocket to produce something. “I brought chocolate as bribery.”
Merlin takes the chocolate bar only to discover with a certain sense of inevitability that it’s some ridiculously fancy sort with a dragon on the label. “None of us can choose our destiny, Merlin,” the chocolate bar informs him, “and none of us can escape it.”
“Oh, shit,” says Merlin, because this is the first time something has spoken to him outside of Camelot.
Arthur beams, apparently taking that as resignation to the inevitable. “Knew you had a chocolate addiction. We’re meeting in my flat tonight at eight to discuss what we can do. Though you’ll likely end up drawing our posters for us or something equally useless.”
“If I’m so useless, why do you even want me there?” he mutters.
“Your souls are entwined, your destinies lie together,” says the bar of chocolate in a tone that can only be described as lascivious.
“Gaius says he’s busy--”
“So do I!”
“Yes, but I believe Gaius because I didn’t catch him playing with a children’s toy. As I was saying, Gaius is busy and we want a representative from the farm because your farmstand and private orders are going to take a hit with Avalon around.”
Merlin spares a moment to wonder why Arthur didn’t send Gwen before shrugging. “Fine, as long as you don’t expect miracles.”
“Together, you and Arthur shall save Albion,” the dragon on the chocolate bar reminds Merlin, who wonders how Arthur would react if Merlin threw his peace offering out the window. “For you are two sides of the same coin, two halves of the whole--”
Arthur, mercifully, interrupts what must seem like an awkward silence to him. Since Merlin is refusing to look at him they don’t even have the excuse of a moment. “Well, then, I’ll leave you to your fascinating game.” He scoops the toy up off the floor and gets the ball in the cup on his second try, the arse. “See you tonight, Merlin.”
“Yeah,” says Merlin, and crumples up the chocolate wrapping the second Arthur is out of the room. Each square of the chocolate has a little dragon imprinted on it, and he eats it quickly, before he finds out if those will talk to him too.
He refuses to speak at the meeting that night except when spoken to and manages not to have any moments with Arthur, so he counts it as a win.
*
Merlin tries very hard not to think that destiny is working against him when Gaius picks up two new workers for the farm in the next three days. The first is Freya, a terrified-looking girl who shows up on their doorstep one afternoon with no sign of a car and says that she heard about them from a man named Aglain after she got into a bit of trouble in her old town. Gaius doesn’t ask questions, although he gives Freya the eyebrow enough to make her quail whenever she’s in his presence. Merlin sets her to weeding, because he suspects she won’t be wanting to use magic for a while.
The second is a man named Gwaine, who is apparently an old uni friend of Lancelot’s in between jobs, and Lancelot, not knowing about Freya, sends him to Gaius. Gaius, even though Gwaine shows no hints of knowing about magic, let alone having it, invites Gwaine to stay through the season immediately.
Merlin takes to Gwaine immediately, reminded of what Will would be like if he didn’t feel the obligation to stay at the job he practically inherited from his father, but that doesn’t mean he thinks it’s a good idea to have him around. “Gaius,” he hisses while Gwaine is settling into his guest room. “Not that I don’t appreciate the help, but we just got Freya in, and she’s terrified of us and we have magic. I don’t even know how she’ll react to Gilli when he gets back from his trip and he’s harmless!”
“She doesn’t want to use her magic right now, Merlin, and she seems accustomed to keeping it secret anyway. And Gwaine is personable enough, isn’t he?”
Gwaine could flirt with a rock, Merlin suspects, which is what’s making him nervous. “Perhaps Freya should help out in your lab, Gwaine and I can take care of the fields.”
“I don’t need help in the lab, not with Gilli coming back soon. And this will give you more free time for the Avalon effort.” Merlin grimaces. Gaius raises his eyebrows. “I don’t know what you have against Arthur, Merlin, but whatever it is, you need to get over it. The whole town must pull together for this.”
“You sound like someone else I know,” Merlin mutters.
Gaius smiles. “I’m glad you listen to Gwen when she speaks sense.”
“Right. Gwen,” says Merlin, because he hasn’t quite got around to telling his mentor about the dragons on groceries speaking to him yet. Either Gaius will have him committed or Gaius will do hours worth of research and then take the dragon’s side, so he figures it’s best not to mention it until he can prove that the dragons speaking to him are both real and slightly dotty.
Gwaine, thankfully, picks that time to knock on Gaius’s office door. “Ah, just the men I wanted to see. I seem to have frightened your … sister, Merlin?”
“Just an employee,” says Merlin, and goes to fix it after giving Gaius an I-told-you-so look in return for all the ones he’s gotten himself.
For all Gwaine is great company, over the next week he also proves that he attracts difficult situations like a magnet. For one thing, he terrifies Freya every time he tries to be friendly, and she takes to doing her share of the chores early in the morning, while Gwaine’s still asleep, and then fleeing to Gaius’s lab. For another, since he knows Lancelot, he’s always tagging after Merlin when he goes to town, and everyone loves him instantly--except the Pendragons. Uther seems to think he’s a spy for Avalon, since he showed up at just the wrong time, so he glares whenever Gwaine dares enter The Castle. And Arthur, well …
“New boyfriend, Merlin?” he asks when Gwaine comes along to one of their meetings at Lancelot’s invitation. “If he distracts you, I’m kicking him out.”
Gwaine, either because he’s an arse or because he’s actually rather sweet (actually, probably for both of those reasons), slings an arm across Merlin’s shoulders. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, princess. We’ll be good.”
Merlin turns bright red and looks down at his lap. “Really, we’re not--”
“Don’t want to hear it, Merlin,” says Arthur, and stalks off and is generally an arse to Gwaine for the rest of the night. And throws a notebook at Merlin when he asks for paper, which is just not fair. There isn’t even a moment, and Merlin doesn’t know what the hell Arthur’s problem is with Gwaine but it’s all very disconcerting.
(Okay, so maybe he has a bit of an idea, but it’s too nerve-wracking to ponder.)
“So,” says Gwaine as they walk in the door of Gaius’s farmhouse that night, slurring a bit from the wine Gwen had produced at the end of the meeting. “You and Arthur, yeah?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” says Merlin, and flees.
*
Part Two
Part Three