the one where merlin thinks gaius is a zombie
Title: The One Where Merlin Thinks Gaius Is A Zombie
Rating: M for naughty, naughty swears
Word Count: 2,216
Author's Note: Written for the challenge at merlinaustralia. Picture #3 was my inspiration.
When Gaius had first grunted in response to Merlin’s sleepy ‘Good Morning’, Merlin hadn’t thought anything of it. He’d been too busy putting one foot in front of the other and worrying about falling asleep and faceplanting into Arthur’s breakfast when he delivered it that morning. Staying up all night reading totally illegal magical tomes was a bitch, and not for the first time, he wondered sleepily why he couldn’t just be a normal young man and stay up all night reading totally hot and filthy porn.
They’d been back from the Isle of the Blessed (which Merlin had taken to calling ‘The Isle of the Crispy Fried Nimueh’ in his head) for maybe a month, and the weather had taken a turn for the worse soon after their return. As a result, a sickness seemed to have overtaken Camelot, laying low most of the poorer folk in the Lower City.
There was much coughing and sneezing, quite a bit of dying, and a whole lot of highly infectious going on. Uther kept hinting darkly at there being magical causes for this malady, but as far as Merlin could see, it was just some sort of super duper winter cold. Gaius was working overtime trying to find a viable, safe treatment that didn’t involve the traditional slicing and dicing of his patients. He’d vaguely mumbled something about a promise to do no harm when Merlin had asked him about it, and Merlin, because he had much, much bigger problems to deal with (Arthur, he had Arthur to deal with) he’d left it at that. After all, he didn’t have time in between all the completely unnecessary dressing and undressing of Arthur, who despite being quite, quite recovered now, still made him strip him off and button him up every day, and the vaguely homoerotic weapon polishing that normally took up a great portion of his days.
Another month later again, and nothing had really gotten any better. Merlin still didn’t think about it though, until one night he was woken up by an almighty clatterbang coming from Gaius’ workshop. When Merlin fell through his bedroom door and down the stairs, he found Gaius standing in a state of confusion, in the middle of several completely destroyed beakers, just sort of … groaning.
“Gaius?” said Merlin, hastening over to pick up the pieces of glass littering the floor. Gaius just grunted and shuffled out of the way. Merlin blinked. “Have you not been to bed yet?” he asked, and Gaius just grunted again and leant back against the bench, chewing one of his fingernails, watching Merlin clean with an oddly vacant expression. Merlin flicked his hand, rather more flamboyantly than usual, and everything was back together and in its rightful place. “You need some rest,” he said slowly, when Gaius didn’t even blink or tell him not to use his magic for trivial, mundane chores, and Gaius nodded slowly and shuffled over to his bed.
Which would have been fine, except for when Merlin got up again a few hours later, brimming with all the sarcastic and vaguely-fond things he’d thought up to say to Arthur overnight, Gaius still had that same vacant, far-away expression on his face, and when Merlin asked him how he was feeling, Gaius merely grunted and said ‘Brains’.
“Brains,” said Merlin flatly. But Gaius shuffled over to the bookcase and began tapping it, seemingly unaware that bookcases were a storage facility for, well, books, and not a percussive instrument. Merlin noticed he’d chewed all his fingernails down to the stubs, and try though he might, he couldn’t get a decent answer out of his friend no matter what he asked - just grunts, moans, and the occasional ‘brains’.
Merlin was puzzled. Something didn’t add up - he couldn’t put his finger on it, exactly, but Gaius’ behaviour was ringing some pretty significant bells in his pretty little (vacant, Arthur would add, totally vacant) head. He puzzled over Gaius’ strange behaviour all morning - he puzzled while Arthur ate breakfast (‘for heaven’s sake, Merlin, stop staring. Just steal some of my food like you always do if you’re hungry!’), he puzzled while he watched the knights practice their jousting (‘Merlin if you keep staring like that they’re going to get angry at you!’ Gwen hissed, ‘for God’s sake look away when they’re fixing their trousers!’ ‘Whatever for?’ leered Morgana), and he puzzled about it right up until - -
“Oh SHITBALLS,” Merlin yelped, dropping Arthur’s rather heavy (thick, long, masculine, Arthur had often added with a significant glance) sword on princely toes, “Oh fucking shitcakes, we’re all going to die,”
“No,” said Arthur through gritted teeth, hopping comically in circles, “Not all. Just you. Ow ow owfuck ow!”
“He’s going to devour our brains and then beat out a samba with our severed limbs!” Merlin wailed, and Arthur stopped examining his poor, poor toe (definitely broken, fuck my luck, he thought) and levelled Merlin with a Class One Princess Pratface Glare ™.
“Start at the beginning, Merlin, or I swear I’ll break both your toes and one of your ears as well,” he threatened.
Merlin stopped flapping about in a mad panic long enough to say “But you love my ears!” before Arthur clocked him one upside the head, and snapped Merlin back to reality long enough to explain himself.
;;
“Shitcakes indeed,” said Arthur when Merlin had done, “We are so doomed,”
“I can fix it,” Merlin fretted, wringing his hands, “I can totally fix it, I just need time, that’s all,”
“What, like the several months you’ve had already where you’ve done exactly nothing?” said Arthur, rather more scathingly than Merlin felt was really necessary.
Merlin levelled Arthur with his own glare, a Classic Imitation Princess Pratface ™, but as usual, it failed to have any effect at all. “There are books,” he explained very, very calmly indeed, don’t let Arthur tell you he wasn’t calm, because he totally was, “in Gaius’ rooms, that’ll help us. I’ve read about this somewhere, I know I have. It must have been in one of Gaius’ books.”
“Merlin,” Arthur said, “Merlin, Gaius is in Gaius’ rooms! What if he goes for you?”
Merlin blanched, “I --“
But Arthur continued, “Because he’ll go right for your brains, and you’ve nothing to offer him have you?” he waved his hand about imperiously, “and then he’ll go for me! Camelot cannot lose it’s prince to a deranged undead physician, Merlin!”
“I hate you,” Merlin said, head in his hands, “I really, honest-to-God hate you,”
“You love me,” Arthur corrected him, “Which is why you’re going to protect me with your life and prevent anybody from snacking on my cerebellum.”
“Well I’m no good with a sword,” Merlin spat back, “so how can I protect you if I can’t even protect myself?”
;;
Which is how they both ended up, Merlin armed with a poker and Arthur with his sword and a heavy bookend, dithering outside of Gaius’ quarters, nervously watching as the old man puttered back and forth from stacks of herbs and ingredients, and a sinister looking series of beakers and cauldrons.
“Oh my God,” Arthur breathed, “He’s plotting our downfall!”
Merlin chose to ignore that, in favour of sneaking through the doorway, which worked perfectly, up until the point where Gaius turned around and stared him full in the face. Behind him, Merlin could hear Arthur start to choke.
“Er,” Merlin said, unsure of what to do, “Just…forgot…a book. For Arthur. Over there,” and he waved his poker for emphasis. Gaius, thankfully, didn’t seem to hear him, or even really register that he was there. Perhaps he had more important things to do. Merlin had no idea what the reanimated dead did with their time, and he didn’t really care - right now all he cared about was escaping that room with the book he needed, and his cranium intact.
“I thought we were done for,” said Arthur, after Merlin had bolted the door and was leaning against it, pasty white and breathing heavily.
Merlin glared at him, “Fat lot of good you were,” he said, “standing back by the door and completely failing to watch my back.”
“I was so watching your back,” Arthur protested, “I watched it all the way over to the bookcase and back. It’s still attached, isn’t it? What are you complaining about!”
“Let’s just fix this,” Merlin sighed, “Sooner rather than later.”
;;
“ABSOLUTELY NOT,” Merlin said.
“He’s your Uncle,” Arthur pointed out, “Or mentor, or creepily interested old man, or whatever he is - you should do it.”
“I’m not severing his head from his shoulders,” Merlin said, “It took a lot of doing to keep him alive, I’m not wasting all my hard work! Besides,” he added, “EW.”
“If you hadn’t accidentally raised the dead and called this curse upon Camelot,” Arthur deadpanned, “then none of this would be happening. It’s your fault, you fix it.”
;;
They watched him from the door for a while. Merlin hated what he was about to do, but Arthur was right - it had to be done. What’s the point of protecting the once and future king if he’s only future king of rotting corpses? Arthur gave him a manly shoulder squeeze, and Merlin had just enough time to begin to feel touched, emotionally, since obviously with a manly shoulder squeeze there has to be some actual, physical, hand to shoulder action, when Arthur roughly shoved him into the room and locked the door behind him.
“Don’t get eaten!” Arthur called through the door, and Merlin made a very rude gesture in the general direction of the doorknob. “I know what you’re doing right now,” Arthur went on, voice slightly muffled, “and if you keep it up you’ll spend the night in the stocks.” Merlin hurriedly put his hand away and stuck his tongue out instead.
Merlin sighed, squared his shoulders, and made his way toward Gaius. The old man was still shuffling about, muttering to himself, and he even looked dead, Merlin noted, as he raised Arthur’s sword up high, preparing to deliver the final blow.
“I’m sorry, Gaius,” he whispered, “I’ll miss you,” and he closed his eyes, not wanting to see -
“WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” Gaius shouted, and Merlin dropped the sword on his toe in surprise.
“Don’t eat my brains!” he yelped as he tried to hop away without injuring himself further.
“Brains? Why would I want to eat your brains?” said Gaius, picking up the sword, “Have you gone mad?”
“You’ve fucked it up, haven’t you?” Arthur called through the door, “I can hear you failing from all the way over here. You are the worst manservant and zombie-slayer in the history of ever, Merlin, I swear!”
Gaius sighed and leant the sword against the wall, then stepped over Merlin, where he lay sprawled on the floor having gone ass over tits after colliding with a stack of books, and made his way to the door.
“Zombies, your highness?” he said in a long-suffering tone as he opened the door to reveal a startled looking Arthur standing there, wall sconce at the ready in case of zombie attack.
“Er,” said Arthur.
“Do I even want to know?” said Gaius.
“Probably not,” said Merlin weakly from his position on the floor, “but I’d say you’re owed a brief explanation at least.”
“Seeing as how you just tried to kill me, I’d say so, yes,” Gaius agreed, crossed his arms across his chest, and waited.
;;
“Merlin,” Gaius pinched the bridge of his nose, “You’re a very intelligent young man, but honestly sometimes you can be so stupid you break my brain,” and before Arthur could laugh too much, he added “and you, your highness, words fail me! I shudder to think of a Camelot with you in charge, given what I’ve seen today.”
Arthur pouted.
“I was talking to myself,” Gaius explained, feeling a headache coming on, “I was telling myself to use my brains to solve the medical crisis that the people of Camelot were facing. Which, thankfully, I think is passing, and with a minimum of casualties,” he nodded at Arthur, “so you can tell your father to stop worrying about Dark Forces and get back to doing whatever it is he pretends to do all day.”
Arthur kept pouting. Merlin tried (and failed) not to smirk slightly.
“There are no such things as zombies, not in Albion anyway. I certainly never was one, and I never plan to be one. Now if you boys are finished playing,” Gaius said scathingly, “I have patients to see.” He ushered them out the door, and left them standing foolishly in the corridor.
“So,” said Arthur, “ That was fun. I totally knew, though, all along. Zombies! Hah!”
“You are a big fat liarpants,” Merlin said, then, shyly, “You wouldn’t really break my ears, would you?”
Arthur looked at him appraisingly. Merlin shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.
“Nah,” Arthur said after a moment, “You were right, I do like them.” Merlin felt himself begin to flush pink, when Arthur added, “Only thing you’ve been right about this week, mind,”
“You are such a prat,” Merlin said, but it came out more fond than anything else.
Rating: M for naughty, naughty swears
Word Count: 2,216
Author's Note: Written for the challenge at merlinaustralia. Picture #3 was my inspiration.
When Gaius had first grunted in response to Merlin’s sleepy ‘Good Morning’, Merlin hadn’t thought anything of it. He’d been too busy putting one foot in front of the other and worrying about falling asleep and faceplanting into Arthur’s breakfast when he delivered it that morning. Staying up all night reading totally illegal magical tomes was a bitch, and not for the first time, he wondered sleepily why he couldn’t just be a normal young man and stay up all night reading totally hot and filthy porn.
They’d been back from the Isle of the Blessed (which Merlin had taken to calling ‘The Isle of the Crispy Fried Nimueh’ in his head) for maybe a month, and the weather had taken a turn for the worse soon after their return. As a result, a sickness seemed to have overtaken Camelot, laying low most of the poorer folk in the Lower City.
There was much coughing and sneezing, quite a bit of dying, and a whole lot of highly infectious going on. Uther kept hinting darkly at there being magical causes for this malady, but as far as Merlin could see, it was just some sort of super duper winter cold. Gaius was working overtime trying to find a viable, safe treatment that didn’t involve the traditional slicing and dicing of his patients. He’d vaguely mumbled something about a promise to do no harm when Merlin had asked him about it, and Merlin, because he had much, much bigger problems to deal with (Arthur, he had Arthur to deal with) he’d left it at that. After all, he didn’t have time in between all the completely unnecessary dressing and undressing of Arthur, who despite being quite, quite recovered now, still made him strip him off and button him up every day, and the vaguely homoerotic weapon polishing that normally took up a great portion of his days.
Another month later again, and nothing had really gotten any better. Merlin still didn’t think about it though, until one night he was woken up by an almighty clatterbang coming from Gaius’ workshop. When Merlin fell through his bedroom door and down the stairs, he found Gaius standing in a state of confusion, in the middle of several completely destroyed beakers, just sort of … groaning.
“Gaius?” said Merlin, hastening over to pick up the pieces of glass littering the floor. Gaius just grunted and shuffled out of the way. Merlin blinked. “Have you not been to bed yet?” he asked, and Gaius just grunted again and leant back against the bench, chewing one of his fingernails, watching Merlin clean with an oddly vacant expression. Merlin flicked his hand, rather more flamboyantly than usual, and everything was back together and in its rightful place. “You need some rest,” he said slowly, when Gaius didn’t even blink or tell him not to use his magic for trivial, mundane chores, and Gaius nodded slowly and shuffled over to his bed.
Which would have been fine, except for when Merlin got up again a few hours later, brimming with all the sarcastic and vaguely-fond things he’d thought up to say to Arthur overnight, Gaius still had that same vacant, far-away expression on his face, and when Merlin asked him how he was feeling, Gaius merely grunted and said ‘Brains’.
“Brains,” said Merlin flatly. But Gaius shuffled over to the bookcase and began tapping it, seemingly unaware that bookcases were a storage facility for, well, books, and not a percussive instrument. Merlin noticed he’d chewed all his fingernails down to the stubs, and try though he might, he couldn’t get a decent answer out of his friend no matter what he asked - just grunts, moans, and the occasional ‘brains’.
Merlin was puzzled. Something didn’t add up - he couldn’t put his finger on it, exactly, but Gaius’ behaviour was ringing some pretty significant bells in his pretty little (vacant, Arthur would add, totally vacant) head. He puzzled over Gaius’ strange behaviour all morning - he puzzled while Arthur ate breakfast (‘for heaven’s sake, Merlin, stop staring. Just steal some of my food like you always do if you’re hungry!’), he puzzled while he watched the knights practice their jousting (‘Merlin if you keep staring like that they’re going to get angry at you!’ Gwen hissed, ‘for God’s sake look away when they’re fixing their trousers!’ ‘Whatever for?’ leered Morgana), and he puzzled about it right up until - -
“Oh SHITBALLS,” Merlin yelped, dropping Arthur’s rather heavy (thick, long, masculine, Arthur had often added with a significant glance) sword on princely toes, “Oh fucking shitcakes, we’re all going to die,”
“No,” said Arthur through gritted teeth, hopping comically in circles, “Not all. Just you. Ow ow owfuck ow!”
“He’s going to devour our brains and then beat out a samba with our severed limbs!” Merlin wailed, and Arthur stopped examining his poor, poor toe (definitely broken, fuck my luck, he thought) and levelled Merlin with a Class One Princess Pratface Glare ™.
“Start at the beginning, Merlin, or I swear I’ll break both your toes and one of your ears as well,” he threatened.
Merlin stopped flapping about in a mad panic long enough to say “But you love my ears!” before Arthur clocked him one upside the head, and snapped Merlin back to reality long enough to explain himself.
;;
“Shitcakes indeed,” said Arthur when Merlin had done, “We are so doomed,”
“I can fix it,” Merlin fretted, wringing his hands, “I can totally fix it, I just need time, that’s all,”
“What, like the several months you’ve had already where you’ve done exactly nothing?” said Arthur, rather more scathingly than Merlin felt was really necessary.
Merlin levelled Arthur with his own glare, a Classic Imitation Princess Pratface ™, but as usual, it failed to have any effect at all. “There are books,” he explained very, very calmly indeed, don’t let Arthur tell you he wasn’t calm, because he totally was, “in Gaius’ rooms, that’ll help us. I’ve read about this somewhere, I know I have. It must have been in one of Gaius’ books.”
“Merlin,” Arthur said, “Merlin, Gaius is in Gaius’ rooms! What if he goes for you?”
Merlin blanched, “I --“
But Arthur continued, “Because he’ll go right for your brains, and you’ve nothing to offer him have you?” he waved his hand about imperiously, “and then he’ll go for me! Camelot cannot lose it’s prince to a deranged undead physician, Merlin!”
“I hate you,” Merlin said, head in his hands, “I really, honest-to-God hate you,”
“You love me,” Arthur corrected him, “Which is why you’re going to protect me with your life and prevent anybody from snacking on my cerebellum.”
“Well I’m no good with a sword,” Merlin spat back, “so how can I protect you if I can’t even protect myself?”
;;
Which is how they both ended up, Merlin armed with a poker and Arthur with his sword and a heavy bookend, dithering outside of Gaius’ quarters, nervously watching as the old man puttered back and forth from stacks of herbs and ingredients, and a sinister looking series of beakers and cauldrons.
“Oh my God,” Arthur breathed, “He’s plotting our downfall!”
Merlin chose to ignore that, in favour of sneaking through the doorway, which worked perfectly, up until the point where Gaius turned around and stared him full in the face. Behind him, Merlin could hear Arthur start to choke.
“Er,” Merlin said, unsure of what to do, “Just…forgot…a book. For Arthur. Over there,” and he waved his poker for emphasis. Gaius, thankfully, didn’t seem to hear him, or even really register that he was there. Perhaps he had more important things to do. Merlin had no idea what the reanimated dead did with their time, and he didn’t really care - right now all he cared about was escaping that room with the book he needed, and his cranium intact.
“I thought we were done for,” said Arthur, after Merlin had bolted the door and was leaning against it, pasty white and breathing heavily.
Merlin glared at him, “Fat lot of good you were,” he said, “standing back by the door and completely failing to watch my back.”
“I was so watching your back,” Arthur protested, “I watched it all the way over to the bookcase and back. It’s still attached, isn’t it? What are you complaining about!”
“Let’s just fix this,” Merlin sighed, “Sooner rather than later.”
;;
“ABSOLUTELY NOT,” Merlin said.
“He’s your Uncle,” Arthur pointed out, “Or mentor, or creepily interested old man, or whatever he is - you should do it.”
“I’m not severing his head from his shoulders,” Merlin said, “It took a lot of doing to keep him alive, I’m not wasting all my hard work! Besides,” he added, “EW.”
“If you hadn’t accidentally raised the dead and called this curse upon Camelot,” Arthur deadpanned, “then none of this would be happening. It’s your fault, you fix it.”
;;
They watched him from the door for a while. Merlin hated what he was about to do, but Arthur was right - it had to be done. What’s the point of protecting the once and future king if he’s only future king of rotting corpses? Arthur gave him a manly shoulder squeeze, and Merlin had just enough time to begin to feel touched, emotionally, since obviously with a manly shoulder squeeze there has to be some actual, physical, hand to shoulder action, when Arthur roughly shoved him into the room and locked the door behind him.
“Don’t get eaten!” Arthur called through the door, and Merlin made a very rude gesture in the general direction of the doorknob. “I know what you’re doing right now,” Arthur went on, voice slightly muffled, “and if you keep it up you’ll spend the night in the stocks.” Merlin hurriedly put his hand away and stuck his tongue out instead.
Merlin sighed, squared his shoulders, and made his way toward Gaius. The old man was still shuffling about, muttering to himself, and he even looked dead, Merlin noted, as he raised Arthur’s sword up high, preparing to deliver the final blow.
“I’m sorry, Gaius,” he whispered, “I’ll miss you,” and he closed his eyes, not wanting to see -
“WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” Gaius shouted, and Merlin dropped the sword on his toe in surprise.
“Don’t eat my brains!” he yelped as he tried to hop away without injuring himself further.
“Brains? Why would I want to eat your brains?” said Gaius, picking up the sword, “Have you gone mad?”
“You’ve fucked it up, haven’t you?” Arthur called through the door, “I can hear you failing from all the way over here. You are the worst manservant and zombie-slayer in the history of ever, Merlin, I swear!”
Gaius sighed and leant the sword against the wall, then stepped over Merlin, where he lay sprawled on the floor having gone ass over tits after colliding with a stack of books, and made his way to the door.
“Zombies, your highness?” he said in a long-suffering tone as he opened the door to reveal a startled looking Arthur standing there, wall sconce at the ready in case of zombie attack.
“Er,” said Arthur.
“Do I even want to know?” said Gaius.
“Probably not,” said Merlin weakly from his position on the floor, “but I’d say you’re owed a brief explanation at least.”
“Seeing as how you just tried to kill me, I’d say so, yes,” Gaius agreed, crossed his arms across his chest, and waited.
;;
“Merlin,” Gaius pinched the bridge of his nose, “You’re a very intelligent young man, but honestly sometimes you can be so stupid you break my brain,” and before Arthur could laugh too much, he added “and you, your highness, words fail me! I shudder to think of a Camelot with you in charge, given what I’ve seen today.”
Arthur pouted.
“I was talking to myself,” Gaius explained, feeling a headache coming on, “I was telling myself to use my brains to solve the medical crisis that the people of Camelot were facing. Which, thankfully, I think is passing, and with a minimum of casualties,” he nodded at Arthur, “so you can tell your father to stop worrying about Dark Forces and get back to doing whatever it is he pretends to do all day.”
Arthur kept pouting. Merlin tried (and failed) not to smirk slightly.
“There are no such things as zombies, not in Albion anyway. I certainly never was one, and I never plan to be one. Now if you boys are finished playing,” Gaius said scathingly, “I have patients to see.” He ushered them out the door, and left them standing foolishly in the corridor.
“So,” said Arthur, “ That was fun. I totally knew, though, all along. Zombies! Hah!”
“You are a big fat liarpants,” Merlin said, then, shyly, “You wouldn’t really break my ears, would you?”
Arthur looked at him appraisingly. Merlin shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.
“Nah,” Arthur said after a moment, “You were right, I do like them.” Merlin felt himself begin to flush pink, when Arthur added, “Only thing you’ve been right about this week, mind,”
“You are such a prat,” Merlin said, but it came out more fond than anything else.