Heartgrove Part 2
Brrrrrring, brrrrrring.
Brrrrring, brrrrrrring.
A hand scrabbled around on the bedside table. Merlin bashed at his alarm clock.
Brrrrrring, brrrrrring.
Brrrrring, brrrrrrring.
Why the hell hadn't the bloody ringing stopped?
He sat up and looked blearily around the room.
Finally figuring out that it wasn't the alarm, and noticing that there was a slight buzzing in the background, Merlin grumbled to himself and rolled out of bed. He grabbed yesterday's jeans from the pile on the floor where he'd dumped them after getting in, exhausted, from his flight from Britain.
He flipped open the phone without looking at the display and flopped backwards onto his bed.
“'Lo.”
The sound of the Crown Prince's voice came through the speaker, sounding far too smug for - Merlin glanced at the alarm clock - five o'clock in the morning.
“Merlin, welcome back. How was your summer?”
“Wha - It's - What's going on - it's -” He checked the clock again. No, he hadn't been wrong. Maybe this was all some terrible dream? “Five o'clock in the fucking morning.”
Arthur sounded exceedingly amused. “Yes, well. Hurry up and get dressed, you're coming out with us today.”
“Us - what - you?” Merlin really didn't like mornings.
“Your mum's already up here, remember? The car'll be along at 5:20 to bring you up here. Wear something warm, and comfortable shoes.”
And with that, the prince hung up. Sighing, Merlin looked at it wanly, before calling his mother. She picked up on the second ring, sounding disgustingly wide awake. But then, Hunith Emrys had always worked too hard, and waking up at five in the morning was just part of her daily routine.
“Mum?” he asked, stifling a yawn. “Why is Arthur calling me at five am?”
“Oh hello, baby,” she said happily. “How was the flight? Sorry I missed your phone call, I was at a dinner with the King. Did you get my text?”
“Yes, it was fine, Mum, yes, I got your text, I'm glad the meetings are going well, but... why is Arthur calling me at five in the morning?”
“Oh, I mentioned last night that you were home, so he invited you up here to the country house so we wouldn't have to spend the last week of your holiday apart. Wasn't that nice of him?”
“But five am?”
“Well, I think he wants you to come along on the trip today - please try not to be too offensive about it all, I'm just getting somewhere with Uther. I know it's not really going to be your thing, dear, but at least I'll be able to see you before next week this way. We'll have a cup of tea this evening, and you can tell me all about how your uncle's doing.”
“What-”
“Wear warm clothes and I suggest the brown boots. There's scones in the kitchen if you want some breakfast before you go. Love you, darling, see you in a bit.”
Two people putting down the phone on him in one morning. Merlin's first day back in Albion was already not going well at all.
*-*-*
Just when he decided that it couldn't possibly get any worse, it did. Having fallen asleep in the limo, it was a rather sleep-ruffled Merlin who finally made his way onto the grounds of the royal family's country residence.
Only to see what appeared to be most of Albion's nobility sitting on...
Horses.
“Oh, no no no, no no no,” he muttered. “Why are you doing this to me?”
Noticing that Uther was glaring slightly from where he stood by an open top Jeep, Merlin pasted a smile on his face, and wound his way through the assembled horses, dogs and men all dressed in the various shades of each noble house, until he reached the sea of Pendragon red in the centre.
“This is a hunt,” he said to Arthur after bowing perfunctorily to Uther and casting a glare at his mother when he thought that the King wasn't looking.
“Well done,” said Arthur, cheerful and rather smug. The effect was not helped in that he was looking down at Merlin from atop a giant white horse. “What gave it away? Was it... the horses everywhere? The men with guns? The dogs? The sound of horns?”
Merlin glared at him. “Shut up.”
Arthur pretended to look wounded. “I invite you on the last hunt before school starts up, a most prestigious event, and you don't feel the need to thank your prince profusely, but instead call him a prat?”
“You're not my prince - in case you'd forgotten, I'm British. Deal with it.”
Arthur mock-scowled. “Come on then, get on the horse.” He gestured to a big brown horse being held by two grooms.
“Oh dear Lord, you do realise that the last time I went riding was when I was ten, and my Uncle Gaius bought a lesson for my birthday as some kind of sick joke?”
Arthur grinned mischeviously at him. “You can't be any worse at this than you are at tennis! Hurry up, unless you want to be stuck in the car with the parents!”
Since “the parents” included King Uther Pendragon, Merlin decided that the horse would probably be safer.
He couldn't have been more wrong. After nearly an hour of attempting to keep up with the hunt, by which time the prince was riding at the front, after the fox as though chasing some mythical beast from literature, Merlin had given up and was clinging to the reins as though his life depended upon it as his horse walked sedately down the bridle path. He'd decided that attempting to jump fences probably wasn't the best idea if he wanted to keep his neck.
He was wallowing in misery when he noticed that Morgana had dropped back from her place with the other noblewomen to ride by him.
“Have a good summer, Merlin?” she asked.
“Not bad,” he said, trying to sound a little more cheerful than he felt.
“It was a little mean of my brother to spring this on you. But then, he's always been a wilful prat. Like father, like son.”
Merlin winced at the venom in her voice. “Has something happened?” he asked carefully.
“It's fine, I'm just a bit cross with Uther right now. I mean - not only is this an actual hunt, chasing a poor fox across the bloody countryside for sport, but he just completely rejects everything which is sensible and right and one day it's going to come back and bite him in the arse. He doesn't even think it even should matter to me. After all, I’m not the heir. I was born twenty minutes too late for that.”
After a short silence, Merlin ventured: “Erm - Why are you suddenly calling him by his first name?”
“I refuse to acknowledge him as my father until he comes to his senses,” she said, nose in the air.
Merlin nodded, and smiled vaguely. Really, those penguins in Madagascar were onto a good thing with the whole “smile and wave” system.
He was grateful when only a few moments later, Arthur wheeled his stallion around and came back to join Merlin and Morgana, who had now stopped glaring and was smiling sweetly at the world instead. This was somehow scarier.
His gratefulness evaporated rapidly when Arthur crooked his finger and a second person on a horse - Merlin recognised him as the Prince's manservant, George - came along side and held up an extremely dead and bloody fox.
“For you,” Arthur said imperiously.
Merlin recoiled.
Arthur put on a pained expression. “You don't like your gift?”
Morgana dissolved into peals of laughter. “Oh - you - barbaric - chivalrous - courtship - idiot - prat-” were the only few words which Merlin could make out. He couldn't help but laugh too, at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation.
Arthur looked pained for only a minute more before he, too, collapsed, guffawing loudly, and waved away a very irritated looking George.
*-*-*
Merlin's class teacher for Year Ten turned out to be Dr. Gary Kellen. Nobody was entirely sure what he had a doctorate in - theories varied from “A History of Magic” (Gwen's suggestion, but then, she was a little obsessed with Harry Potter at the moment) to “How to Rule a Country Despite Being Only a High School Teacher” (Arthur - who swore that King Uther occasionally called the man for advice) to “How to Scare Students to Death” (Leon, in one of his darker moments). Merlin's money was on Dr. Kellen having a PhD in “Fortune Cookie Phrases and other Indecipherable Bits of Advice”.
Not that anyone ever called him by his name - everyone, from the headmaster downwards knew him as Dr. K. He was an elderly, white haired man, with the darkest skin Merlin had ever seen. His bright green eyes stood out from his face, a face which seemed to always know your deepest secrets. He was rather large, too, although Arthur assured him that Dr. K moved wickedly fast on a tennis court when he was coaching the team.
In many ways, Merlin's second year at AIS was much the same as his first. There were still long, drawn out projects which covered all the subjects for him to do - although he gave daily thanks to whatever gods might be listening that they'd finally gotten over the whole Camelot thing. The Year Ten project for the autumn term was entitled “Religions of the World” - which at least had some breadth to it (besides, growing lotus flowers in biology was nice and easy). Gwen mentioned often that Elena would have hated it - they covered every religion, large and small, but the only one given any semblance of respect was the Old Ways. Merlin just shrugged - it was the national religion, to be fair.
“Religions of the World”, however, came with its own issues. Namely, the fact that though Merlin had finally gotten rid of Ms. Nimueh's strange obsession with sacrifice, he now had to contend with an active evangelist in the form of his teacher.
It started in the very first week of term.
“Merlin, have you thought about your soul lately?”
He had just been trying to hand in some maths homework (“How many worshippers would it take for a god to be able to be called 'predominant'?”), rubbed the shell of his left ear and peered worriedly over the desk.
“Er.”
“Consider it,” said Dr. K seriously, peering over his thin-rimmed glasses. “For when your Soul is in Place, only then will your Soulmate be able to find you.”
Merlin backed away slowly. Dr. K always seemed to speak as though dropping Random Capital Letters into his sentences.
A few weeks later, out of the blue in the middle of an Old English class, he asked Merlin very seriously if he believed in magic.
Arthur, sitting next to him, sniggered loudly, remembering their many debates on the topic.
Shooting a glare at him, Merlin expounded his usual theory on the topic, that it had all been a huge and rather brilliant PR stunt by the original Merlin. The teacher just nodded along, until Merlin finally trailed off. Then, he said:
“Perversity may be the Life of the Soul, but you, young Warlock, should leave it behind, and listen to your Other Half in your Journey to the Rightful Truth.”
Merlin could almost hear the Random Capital Letters fall into place.
There was a short silence throughout the classroom. Then the whole room burst into laughter, Arthur guffawing loudest of all. Even Mithian was hiding a smile.
Merlin sighed. Of course, Arthur spent the next month referring to him as “Young Warlock”.
*-*-*
There had been a strange change in their group dynamic, now that Gwaine and Elena were gone. On the first day of term, as Merlin had been about to head for his usual seat at the foot of the table, Arthur had dragged him to the head and placed him in Gwaine's old spot. No-one seemed to think this strange, so Merlin didn't comment. Percy gave him a strange sort of looking grin, but that was all. It did mean that Merlin was suddenly at the centre of all the conversations and plans for the group, rather than somewhere on the periphery.
Perhaps there was less joking, without Gwaine. Certainly, it was quieter - he and Elena had been the loudest members. Morgana was slightly louder and more vehement in her rants, as though trying to make up the shortfall - although that might just have been because Gwaine had always been the only person who could head her off when she got started. More and more often, she sat with Gwen at one end of the table, rather than in her accustomed place by Arthur at its head. More and more, she found it difficult to accept Arthur's apathy towards world politics, and she seemed to resent the fact that he was the one who would end up in charge of a major world power, not she. Merlin tried to mediate where he could, but there was only so much that he could do.
But the gaps became less noticeable after a few weeks, particularly after a new arrival joined the ranks.
Lancelot DuLac was half-French, half-Albish, and the nicest person that Merlin had ever met, except perhaps Gwen. Lance had joined the school at around a month into year ten - an unorthodox point, even for an international school that had people forever moving in and out. He'd spent all of the summer in Cambodia with his parents, who worked for the UN Human Rights commission and often took time out in order to go and save the world and so on.
Of course, since they worked for the UN, that “waste of space of a load of idiots doing nothing”, according to one scurrilous expose of the King's private voicemails in a tabloid, Uther absolutely detested them. This may have been a part of the reason that as soon as Morgana heard his name in class that morning (she and Percy were in Mrs. Anderson's class this year, escaping the strange pronouncements of Dr. Kellen), she claimed him as one of their group. He immediately sat down next to Gwen, in her usual spot, so she shrugged and returned to sit by Arthur and Merlin.
“Lost your new crush already then, Gana?” Arthur asked snidely.
A raised eyebrow, even more terrifying than Mr. Gaius', was turned on her twin brother. “Do you really want to have this conversation with me now, Arthur? Here?”
The prince's mouth thinned slightly, and he shook his head, turning to talk to Leon about tennis. What was all that about? thought Merlin. Although, with this particular prince and princess, it was usually safest not to ask that kind of question.
*-*-*
Merlin was, by this time, a perfectly ordinary, healthy fourteen (“nearly fifteen!”) year old boy. It wasn't like he wasn't aware of the mechanics of sex and romance. He just hadn't been very interested in it. There'd been jokes about Morgana and Gwaine (well, there'd been jokes when Morgana wasn't around, anyway; nobody wanted to risk her wrath), but other than that, their little group had been mainly untouched by romance.
Lance's arrival changed that completely. From that first day at lunch, it was absolutely clear to Merlin that Gwen had hearts in her eyes whenever she looked at Lance.
And not just because he had a vague sense of observation, either. Gwen was really rather explicit in her adoration.
“Oh,” she said in French one day, as Merlin was poring over her homework trying to figure how on Earth she'd managed to conjugate all the verbs, “Lance helped me. Isn't he wonderful?”
Merlin, who had a very strong suspicion that Monsieur Lancelot DuLac was a large part of why she'd chosen to take iGCSE French this year, made a non-committal noise. He was only taking the damn thing because his mother had informed him that since it was what most British schools taught, so he should be prepared for when her tour ended and they went back to Britain in time for his A-Levels. Merlin hated French. It was like Italian, which he already spoke fluently after his time in Rome, but somehow the French couldn't spell anything without funny accents and had all these rules that Italians just didn't bother with.
Gwen, on the other hand, absolutely loved it, and was top of the class, largely by dint of her “tutoring sessions” three times a week with Lance. Of course, Percy snorted every time he heard that phrase, and Arthur made snide remarks. But Lance simply shot them both a look, one clearly learned from his formidable human-rights lawyer parents. Even Merlin, who was fairly used to Hunith occasionally going into what he joked was her “diplomatic mode”, an icy calm which was more frightening than any shouting, was quelled. And well, Arthur lived with King Uther, and even he knew when not to joke about Gwen and Lance.
*-*-*
The dragon roared as they soared across the rain-soaked sky. Merlin huddled down closer into Kilgharrah's neck, whispering a spell to keep himself warm as they swooped upwards to avoid a sudden surge of arrows from the battlements below.
“Come on,” he called to the dragon. “The pikes are advancing! Move faster!”
“Faster, young warlock?” Merlin heard a chuckle in his mind, and suddenly they were dropping like a stone, down, down towards the castle.
Merlin saw a hail of arrows soaring up towards them - Kilgharrah executed a sudden barrel roll and the warlock was jerked off his back - falling, falling -
Merlin woke with a start, feeling himself jerk downwards. But he was alone in his room in the Embassy. No castle, no dragon, no nothing.
He sat up, looking around at his alarm clock. 3:24 am. Far too early to get up, especially because it was the Christmas holiday. Three days till Christmas, and he refused to be insomniac over his favourite holiday, even if it was going to be just him and Mum and another round of boring embassy dinners. He envied Arthur; at least the royal family got to spend the break at a hunting lodge in Brega to avoid the politics for a bit. Merlin turned over his pillow, which was drenched in sweat - and were those tears on his face? No.
He went back to sleep, and proceeded to forget all about the strange dream.
*-*-*
Part II
Prince Arthur Myriddin Canute Pendragon of Albion awoke to find himself on the floor, rather than in his king-sized (and wasn't that a joke!) bed. Was that dragon? He'd seen it bearing down on their army, but somehow it wasn't frightening, just a comforting presence with a bright golden light surrounding it, deflecting the arrows the enemy sent their way.
And then, a small, dark, shape, fell from the sky, and Arthur felt his heart constrict suddenly, as though all the air had gone out of the world. He awoke, gasping, scrabbling around for purchase on bedsheets that weren't there.
The figure seemed to be - well, Merlin. That was only to be expected, Arthur supposed, since he seemed to have Merlin on the brain more often than not these days. But dream-Merlin had magic. Arthur couldn't articulate exactly how he knew, but that golden light somehow had Merlin written all over it. And it felt so real.
Arthur decided that he must have hit his head rather hard on the wooden logs of the authentic(-ish) floor when he fell. Groaning, he climbed back into the bed, fluffed up his pillows a little, and went to sleep.
*-*-*
Arthur threw his head backwards on the soft leather of the limo which was now taking him towards school. The winter holidays were now over, and they were a week in to term so he really should have gotten used to the early mornings, but he was somehow still very, very tired. Arthur hadn't really been sleeping very well at all for the last few weeks, though he never remembered the dreams which kept him awake.
And the last thing that he needed now was more of Morgana's arguments about Father's latest mining initiative. Intellectually, he knew she was right, and had supported her and Morgause when they'd put the petition to his father to get rid of the scheme, but there was only so much one could do with a stubborn Uther and he just didn't have the energy to argue any more this morning.
“They're killing the forest, Arthur! The mining project is set to destroy nearly a hundred kilometres of prime pine forest in Escetia's wild lands - it'll completely undermine Albion's biodiversity, not to mention that that wild land is one of the most important tourist hotspots we have in the north! Thousands of people each year come to walk our trails. The conservationists predict that we could lose fifty million Albish Pounds over the first two years of this mining project alone!”
She finally seemed to notice that he wasn't exactly paying attention. Her expression turned somewhat more sympathetic. Emphasis on the 'somewhat' - his twin sister was still, after all, the Devil incarnate. And far too fond of speaking in exclamation marks. Though Arthur had often thought that she'd be the better ruler for Albion.
It wasn't that Arthur wanted to shirk his duties. He'd been a good prince so far, and hopefully would be an alright king when the time came. It was just that Morgana was always so much more passionate about everything, and actively enjoyed the whole politics thing. Arthur would rather stick to his hunting and tennis, personally.
“Still not sleeping?” M asked softly, reaching a hand across the car towards him.
He shook his head ruefully.
“You should see someone about it - Doc Lewis? He was really helpful when I had trouble, before.”
Arthur shifted uneasily. Morgana's year of terrible insomnia was rarely spoken of, even between themselves. It had led to her collapsing frequently during the day and sometimes even losing her memory of several hours at a time. She was off the sleeping pills now, and had thrown herself into the daily politics of the realm with even more gusto than before, but for a while there, it had been... scary.
He made some non-committal mutterings about going if it kept up, but really he could do without the fuss. The media were under an agreement (well, a Royal Decree from King Uther, which it was best to agree to if you valued your business) not to write about Arthur's day-to-day life until he reached his eighteenth birthday, but he preferred not to draw attention to himself by going to a doctor. He could just see the headlines now.
IS PRINCE ARTHUR DYING
PRINCE ILL, SEES GP
THE CURSE OF THE PENDRAGONS: BOTH HEIRS SEE DOCTOR
Morgana was looking at him as though she knew exactly what he was thinking and didn't like it. How did she do that? Fortunately, he was saved by the limo rolling up to school. Arthur grinned to see Merlin standing outside with Gwen, waving to them. He bounded over, suddenly feeling much lighter.
“Morning guys!” he said, more cheerfully than he felt.
Merlin smiled, his eyes looking amazingly blue in the wintery sunlight. “Hey.”
Gwen smiled absently, eyes already fixed on Lance, who was just crossing the parking lot. Really, thought Arthur. Those two really need to get over themselves and start dating.
Just as he was about to follow the train of thought to its own unhappy conclusion, he was saved his pining by the bell.
*-*-*
“This year,” said Dr. K solemnly, “the Year Ten trip will be to the most important place of this or any other world: the sacred spot where Magic is at its strongest and the Threads of History and Destiny are Twined Together forever, an Unbreakable Bond as that between the Land and the Old Ways.”
Arthur was really starting to see what Merlin meant about the Random Capital Letters. Couldn't the guy just say “We're going to Heartgrove next week” without invoking some kind of medieval ritual, not to mention crimes against grammatical accuracy?
And dear gods, he'd just thought the phrase “grammatical accuracy”. He really was spending too much time with Merlin.
Merlin was now looking rather confused. Clearly, he had never heard of Heartgrove. Arthur mentally rolled his eyes. You'd have thought he'd have done some research by this point. Arthur leaned closer to him and whispered:
“Heartgrove, centre of the Old Ways, supposed to be very sacred and magical and stuff. It's basically a big clearing with a tree in the middle; we have to go every year for the Midsummer Ceremony.”
Unfortunately, Dr. K had heard his little side-explanation, and was glaring at them exasperatedly. Arthur gave him his best Prince Pendragon Patented “who, me? Never, I'm a lovely innocent little boy” smile, experimentally proven to work on every single servant or nanny he'd ever had. It had explained rather a few broken Ming vases over the years. Was it his fault if footballs sometimes seemed to have a life of their own around him, and enjoyed destroying ugly ornaments?
Apparently, the Prince Pendragon Patented smile worked, somewhat, because Mr. K looked mostly mollified.
“Yes, well, far from merely being, and I quote, 'a big clearing with a tree in the middle', Heartgrove is an extremely Sacred Area, which we are privileged, despite not all of us having yet discovered the Truth of the Old Ways,” he gave Merlin a significant look, “to be allowed to see.”
Arthur grinned and poked his friend in the side. Really, it was too funny the way Mr. K seemed to be obsessed with converting Merlin to his fanatical Old Ways.
Looking across the rest of the class, Mr. K addressed the details of the trip, thankfully dropping most of the Random Capitals. “The bus will be leaving promptly at seven am, on the twenty second of February. Anyone late, we will not wait for you. Girls, you must remember not to wear hair ties of any type, as loose hair is a sign of respect. You will also all be given a Morteus blossom to carry when we reach the grove. If you are found in Heartgrove without one, you will be immediately thrown out, lest you pollute the spirit of this Holy Place.”
Arthur refrained from rolling his eyes only because he was going to be the nominal head of this religion one day. Yet another duty which Morgana would be better at. She believed in all that Magic stuff; Arthur simply thought that if it had existed, it was clearly gone now, so not worth worrying about. Not, of course, that he'd ever admit that to Merlin during one of their debates. The other boy looked far too cute when flushed.
Arthur wondered idly whether Merlin would object to being called cute. Probably, he decided. That didn’t stop Arthur using the word all the time in his head, of course. He’d first realised that he found boys far more interesting than girls when he was twelve. He had decided that girls were boring and told his father at supper one evening that he was going to marry a boy because they were more fun. (Morgana was not pleased by the statement and had hit him very hard, breaking his nose. He conceded later that he’d deserved it.) Arthur had always been a rather forthright child.
That had led to a very, very awkward conversation with Uther. Arthur still cringed to think about it, but at least the king had been supportive and understanding, even if he had held about fifty crisis meetings with the council about the royal succession (Arthur had only known about those when he’d accidentally found the minutes in his father’s office, years later). But still, he felt that there were probably better ways to find out about your mother’s bisexuality than in the middle of “the talk”.
And then Merlin had arrived. Arthur wasn’t sure whether Merlin liked him in the same way. He so far hadn’t worked up the courage to risk their friendship by saying anything. But since no-one was policing his thoughts, he could use words like “cute” and “sweet” with impunity.
*-*-*
At lunch that day, Merlin made an announcement. “So, I think I should actually celebrate my birthday this year.”
Arthur looked up in surprise. He'd just sort of assumed it was in one of the holidays. Apparently not.
“Yeah, it's this Friday. So, I thought you guys could all come over to mine, we could do a movie night? I was thinking a Star Wars marathon, or a Doctor Who marathon; lots of popcorn, that sort of thing?”
Before anyone could answer, either positively or negatively, Arthur found himself interrupting loudly. Really, if he was going to be King he should focus on that brain-mouth filter thing.
“Wait, what? This week? Why didn't we know this?”
He immediately felt a bit bad, because Merlin looked rather uncomfortable. “Well, last year I was so new at this point I didn't really know anyone or want to make a big deal of it, so...”
Morgana took over as he stumbled. There were times when he objected to her slightly overbearing tendencies, but this was not one of them, as she saved him from putting his foot in his mouth once more. “What Arthur means is that he's only sorry because he wishes he had more time to get you a proper present, and of course we'd love to come over on Friday, and so would everyone else here. Seven okay?”
Merlin was nodding mutely, when Gwen awkwardly raised a hand.
“Um... Lance and I will come by later, if that's all right. If everyone's staying over, it should be okay, right? We’ve got last-minute tickets to the Green Day concert that night… we could cancel…”
“Of course you can come later,” said Merlin, not bothering to stifle his grin.
Arthur laughed. “We're all just glad you two have finally got your act together!”
There was a chorus of “Hear hear”s and “Finally!”s from around the table. Arthur grinned, giving Lance a slap on the back in congratulation at finally, finally getting over himself and just asking the girl out.
Now, there was the small issue of him doing the same.
*-*-*
Arthur was a heavy sleeper, but even his rest could not survive Merlin treading on him in the middle of the night. He sat up sharply with a yelp, and found himself with a lapful of friend as Merlin fell over his own feet in shock at the sudden movement. They untangled themselves from each other and the sleeping bag with difficulty.
“What on earth are you doing?” Arthur whispered once he was free. He looked around the room. Everyone else was still peacefully asleep, exhausted after their late night of films and unhealthy food. Percy and Mithian were curled around one another, Gwen and Lance had their hands reached out, just touching each other in their sleep. They'd wandered into the embassy at about eleven thirty, defiantly holding hands. Leon was snoring loudly in one corner, and Morgana had commandeered a settee to herself and was resting her head over an armrest, appearing to frown at whatever she was dreaming about.
“I’m hungry!” said Merlin, eyes looking impossibly wide in the darkness. “I’m going to make some brownies.”
Arthur picked up his phone from where it sat near his pillow and checked the time. “You’re making brownies at four am.”
“Yes! It’s my house, I can make brownies whenever I like! Want to join me?”
Unfortunately, saying no to Merlin was not a skill which Arthur had cultivated very much over the past year.
“Fine, then,” he said. “But only because you'd probably just kill us all in a house fire or something if I let you do it alone.”
Merlin grinned at him happily. “Prat.”
They found a box of brownie mix in the back of the cupboard, added eggs and water, and stirred vigorously. Arthur turned to pre-heat the oven, since Merlin claimed that it was “the spawn of the devil, designed to electrocute unsuspecting Merlins” because it had too many buttons. He turned to find Merlin, stirring way too vigorously and covering himself in the brownie mix, splashing it across the kitchen.
Arthur laughed aloud. “Mix in bowl, Merlin. That's what bowls are for.”
“I think it's ready to go in,” said Merlin. He held out the wooden spoon. “Taste!”
Arthur couldn't say, later, what had made him do it. Maybe it was the late night, or the fact that Merlin looked absolutely edible covered in chocolate. It was probably just that his hands were all buttery from greasing the tin. He leaned forward and licked a long, slow stripe up the end of the spoon. He looked up through his lashes and saw Merlin staring, a very strange look on his face, mouth slightly open, and his little pink tongue subconsciously darting to wet his lips.
“Um... yeah,” stuttered Merlin. “Done?”
Suddenly Arthur felt awkward and blushed scarlet, becoming very aware of the blood rushing southwards to somewhere he really didn't want it to go right now. Maybe that had been a bad idea. “Y-yeah, I think that's done.”
“Right.”
“Right.”
Merlin turned away to pour the mix into the tin. Arthur took the opportunity to put the counter between them. He wasn't hiding exactly. Just... strategically positioning. Yeah.
When Merlin had put the brownies in the oven, he turned around, colour high on his cheeks. “So, I'll just go... um... change my pyjamas. These ones are covered in chocolate.”
He practically fled up the stairs.
Arthur took the opportunity to go to the bathroom himself.
When they met again, half an hour later in the kitchen to take out the now finished brownies, Merlin refused to meet Arthur's eyes. Apparently, he was under the impression that there was some kind of unspoken agreement never to mention the incident again.
Well, thought Arthur, as he watched Merlin chew a warm brownie, covering himself in crumbs. Fuck that.