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The store cupboard on the third floor east corridor is not a large room. It's big enough to house one person comfortably, but when there's two of them in there (and they're both pretty tall, even if Merlin isn't anywhere near as well-muscled as Arthur) it ends up being slightly too cosy.
It's also not particularly well lit, and the silence isn't making things any easier, either.
“Okay,” Arthur says, leaning against the shelves behind him. “Are you going to tell me why we’re in here, Merlin?”
“Um,” Merlin says, bracing himself for the fallout. “So. I'm a sorcerer?”
What with the gloom, he's not entirely sure, but Merlin thinks Arthur nods. It might be a flinch, but it's definitely not a sword being drawn and Arthur hasn't started shouting yet so he's going to look on the bright side.
“I can explain?” he continues, and since Arthur doesn't immediately interrupt him he figures he might as well continue. “I'm being blackmailed, and the first thing you need to know is that it's really not my fault.”
Arthur huffs, low and almost inaudible; Merlin’s going to continue being optimistic and call it a laugh. “Oh, really?” he asks. “Tell me, Merlin, how exactly is this not your fault?”
“Okay,” Merlin starts, “So, it started like this.”
xXx
It’s not supposed to be anything other than a very average week. Lord and Lady Whoever-They-Are are visiting with their enormous brood of eligible sons and daughters, Gaius is pottering about uttering dire warnings and dropping unsubtle hints about his supplies of various herbs running low, Kilgharrah is throwing out equally dire and very much contradictory warnings, and Arthur is gleefully throwing things at Merlin whenever he has the opportunity.
It’s supposed to be an entirely unexciting week.
X
The first sign things aren’t going quite as smoothly as Merlin would like is an illness going around the city. It’s not particularly serious, as illnesses go: headaches, a slight fever, the occasional incident of vomiting – not exactly pleasant, but also not overly dangerous either, and Gaius is able to put together a cure that promises to have everyone infected back on their feet within a week.
Unfortunately, they continue to be contagious until the cure is completed, enough so that anyone who comes down with it needs to be quarantined in the physician’s quarters.
It’s not the first time something like this has happened, so it is with little more than a sigh that Merlin, still perfectly healthy, collects together his clothes, hides his spellbook, and charms the loose floorboard to be utterly unnoticeable, then takes his clothes and himself to Arthur’s room to sleep in the servant’s bed up there. A good servant would stay there every night, ready to cater to his master’s every whim, but then no one has ever called Merlin a good servant, and as much as he loves and respects Arthur (and he does, even if he shows it in an entirely disrespectful way) he does like having a few hours of knowing that Arthur isn’t going to be making demands on him unless it’s an emergency.
But, Merlin tells himself, it’s only going to be for a few nights. He can handle Arthur finding a hundred obnoxious excuses to wake him for a few nights.
(Oh, if only Arthur was the worst of his problems.)
xXx
“Oi!”
xXx
Lord and Lady Thingamajig are clearly either aiming very high or trying to maximise their opportunities, because in addition to the two daughters of approximately Arthur’s age they have also brought three sons who seem to be vying for Morgana’s attention. That said, there’s also a whole horde of children who are far too young to be married to either prince or royal ward, so maybe it’s just that they don’t want to leave any of their precious offspring at home to cause chaos there.
For the first two days of their visit, Merlin sees nothing at all of the younger set and rather more than he might like of the five older ones. The three men (well, a man and two boys, if Merlin’s being technical) follow Morgana much of the time – the eldest with respectful determination, the second with sullen reluctance, and the third, barely old enough to be courting anyone, with a kind of endearing earnestness that seems to be more about admiration than attraction – while the young women seem content with arranging themselves artistically in any place they think Arthur is likely to frequent, although neither of them seems overly concerned that Arthur never gives them more than a vaguely appreciative glance.
The numerous (he's not quite sure of the actual number) smaller children are cared for by a governess, who successfully keeps them out of their parents’ sight and similarly out of mind. Merlin sees her occasionally, usually in or around the kitchens, and so far finds her formidable to the point of intimidating. Tall, sturdy, and with slightly severe features, she gives the impression that no obstacle is insurmountable, whether it be ensuring each of her charges has clean clothes and a meal they are willing to eat or fighting off any man, woman or creature that may pose a threat to them. Her uniform is always perfectly pressed and absolutely spotless, her hair tied back in a very practical bun, and her voice, when Merlin has overheard her issuing instructions to various castle employees, is both calm and entirely implacable.
She is not the sort of person he can imagine being taken down by a decidedly ordinary illness.
X
“Oh,” says Lady Whojamaflip, when one of Camelot’s servants brings the news that the governess has taken ill and that in her absence the five younger children are running wild. “Oh, no.”
“Shouldn’t there be six of them?” asks her husband.
X
It takes rather longer than it should do to locate all six children, largely because in the time it takes to find one of them at least another one has found a way to escape.
Finally, though, Gwen manages to herd the smallest child (a boy, Herbert, or at least that’s the name Merlin’s been calling for the last twenty minutes) into the same room as all ten of his siblings. He’s a tiny child, maybe two or three, and from the state of him he’s been hiding in a coal bucket somewhere, but Gwen doesn’t seem overly concerned by the trails of soot he’s leaving on her skirt as he clings to her.
“Oh,” says Lady Whattheheck, keeping a safe distance between the assorted grubby children and her impractically pale silk gown. “Oh, my poor precious darlings, something terrible has happened. Hildegard has taken ill.”
Contrary to their mother’s opinion, none of the children seem to think this is anything even close to terrible: those old enough to no longer require minding seem deeply unmoved by this news, the middle group are trying not to look more gleeful than is appropriate, and the ones too young to understand social etiquette are nothing short of ecstatic.
“It’s simply terrible,” her Ladyship repeats, her hand fluttering at her chest like an anxious butterfly. “Oh, whatever will we do?”
“Hildegard will recover, my lady,” Gaius says, in what Merlin recognises as his very best reassuring frantic relatives voice. “She’ll be back on her feet in little more than a week, I assure you.”
“But who will watch the children until then?” Lady Who-Even-Cares wails.
Lord Not-As-Melodramatic-As-His-Wife –
xXx
“It's Brown, Merlin,” Arthur interrupts, which is kind of disappointing; Merlin had a bet with himself that he could make it to ten ridiculous names before Arthur finally gave in to the need to correct him. “Lord Cuthbert and Lady Josephine Brown.”
Merlin rolls his eyes (though the gloom of the store cupboard entirely negates the effect) and continues.
xXx
– Lord Cuthbert Brown sighs and takes his wife’s hand. “Perhaps we ought to consider taking the children home.”
Lady Josephine looks far more distressed by this than she did by the news of the governess’ illness. “But you've been looking forward to visiting with Uther for so long, my love,” she says, batting her eyelashes at her husband the exact same way Merlin’s witnessed their eldest daughter bat her eyelashes at Arthur. “It would be such a shame to cut things short.”
Merlin, lurking in a corner next to Gwen, mutters, “Yeah, you've not secured a proposal yet. Can't leave without that.”
Gwen shushes him, planting an elbow in his ribs, but she’s very nearly smiling.
“Of course, if she really wants him to enjoy his visit, she could always look after the children herself,” Merlin continues, which gets him elbowed again, harder this time, but it also gets him an actual smile, small but definitely present.
“I’m sure we can arrange something, Josephine,” Uther says, looking from Josephine to Cuthbert, then around the room. His gaze pauses on Merlin and Gwen’s corner, the tiny, soot-covered child now playing quite happily with wooden blocks at their feet, and Merlin feels his stomach sink. “Arthur, Morgana, I trust you’re both willing to spare your servants in order to help our guests, yes?”
Say no , Merlin thinks. Arthur, goddamn you, please say no.
“Are you sure that’s wise, sire?” Arthur asks; Merlin doesn’t know if he ought to be more grateful for Arthur’s objection or offended by whatever he’s about to say. “Merlin struggles to take care of himself most days. I dread to think what trouble might come from leaving children in his care.”
“Don’t be cruel, Arthur,” Morgana chides. “I’m sure he and Gwen are more than up to the task.”
“Then it’s settled,” Uther declares, his arms spread wide as though in victory. “Come, Cuthbert, let us discuss tomorrow’s hunting trip.”
With that, he sweeps from the room, taking Lord Cuthbert, Lady Josephine, and their oldest children with him, though Merlin notices they don’t follow their parents any further than the hallway outside.
Merlin waits until the door closes behind them, then turns his most furious glare on Arthur. “I hate you,” he says under his breath, while a fight breaks out between two of the children, prompted by absolutely nothing as far as Merlin can tell.
“Now, Merlin, is that any way to talk in front of the children,” Arthur answers, grinning broadly as he makes his escape.
X
Morgana, being a far better human being than Arthur is, doesn't jump on the first opportunity to get away. Instead, she joins Gwen in organising the six children suddenly in their care (by cleanliness, Merlin thinks, since the line she has them standing in doesn't seem to be by age, height or anything else) and announces cheerily that they will be going on an adventure.
“But,” she continues conspiratorially, when half the children look less than inspired by this statement, “It’s a secret adventure, so you'll have to be extra quiet until we get outside. If your parents are at all like Uther, they won't like you hunting dragons through the city.”
“Dragons?” Herbert squeaks, his eyes huge and awestruck in his grubby, grimy face.
“Dragons,” Morgana promises solemnly.
Herbert turns to his oldest sister. “Can we?” he asks, and Merlin doesn't know if it's his big, sort of adorable eyes or if the girl is secretly just as eager to get out of the castle as he is, but either way she huffs a huge, over-dramatic sigh.
“Fiiiiine,” she says, and anything further is drowned out by raucous cheering.
“Excellent!” Morgana announces with a large, sweeping wave of her hands. “Lead on, Sir Guinevere.”
Rolling her eyes, Gwen leads the children from the room, while Morgana smiles at them like a benevolent queen. “We’ve got this, Merlin,” she says, letting them all crocodile their way past her. “You’ve got two hours to tidy their rooms and find them all clean clothes before we bring them back inside to scrub up so they can be presented to their parents for dinner. Understand?”
“Understood,” Merlin answers gratefully.
xXx
“How gallant of you, Merlin,” Arthur interrupts, his smirk audible even if it isn't visible. “Leave the women to do the work while you run and hide.”
“Really?” Merlin asks. “You know how much mess you manage to create in a day? Now imagine there are six of you.”
xXx
Contrary to what Merlin might have expected, the room allocated to the three younger Brown boys isn't actually that bad. Certainly, Herbert seems to have left very small dirty clothes strewn throughout the room, but once Merlin has picked them up (and, okay, magicked them clean, but only because he can't find any clean clothes that small and he rather suspects being clothed is a crucial part of presenting the children to their parents) and made the beds, the boys’ room really isn't that bad. A quick sweep of the floor, an even quicker swish of a duster, two bathtubs filled and steaming by the fire and three fresh sets of clothes laid out at the foot of one of the beds, and Merlin’s happy to call it clean.
Feeling pleased with his progress, Merlin crosses the hallway to where the three youngest girls have been placed, pushing open the door and stepping into the only six feet of clear floor space in the whole room.
“Gods,” Merlin mutters, taking a moment just to boggle at the sheer volume of mess in front of him, then says it again as something considerably closer to a prayer. “Gods.”
Unfortunately, prayer doesn’t have any immediately visible results on this occasion; Merlin sighs, takes a step further into the room, and picks up the first thing in front of him, a green cotton dress. Underneath it are two left shoes, one a slightly darker brown than the other, and a very long pink ribbon.
This, he thinks, is going to take a while.
X
Merlin picks up anything that seems like it might be important to a young child – clothing, jewellery, shoes, hair ribbons, drawings, toys, a bunch of flowers that are only a little wilted – then, when he’s as certain as he can be that there’s nothing left on the floor that they’ll actually miss, he promptly vanishes everything that remains, dust included.
Once that’s done, it’s easy enough to launder and hang up all the clothes, place all the toys in a chest under the window and all the pictures on the dining table, and line up the many pairs of shoes in the base of the wardrobe. By this point, the room is finally starting to look fit for human habitation, and Merlin speeds through making the beds and conjuring hot water in the bathtubs just in time to hear the thump of little but very loud footsteps and even louder laughter racing down the hallway.
Merlin turns, heart pounding, back prickling with the sensation of someone watching him, to the door behind him, left open; almost no one comes to this part of the castle – that’s why the children were put in these rooms, far away from anyone who might be disturbed by their presence – meaning the risk of being seen is so minor that Merlin elected not to shut himself in the claustrophobic mess of the room.
There’s no one there, though, and Merlin casts one last glance over the room before stepping into the hallway, finding himself immediately surrounded by the horde of children, all of who seem determined to tell him about the excellent adventure Morgana led them on.
It’s fine, he tells his racing pulse. If anyone had seen him, they’d already be yelling for guards to come and take him away. Since the only shouting is that of six over-excited children who seem deeply opposed to the idea of bathing, clearly that’s not happening.
Merlin resolves to be far more careful in future, vows to always close doors before doing magic no matter how much mess he might be trapping himself in with, and then chivvies the boys into their room so that they can wash and dress for dinner.
It’s fine.
xXx
“Given that you've unceremoniously bundled me into a cupboard, I can only assume everything is not fine,” Arthur says, when Merlin pauses to see how Arthur is receiving the tale so far.
“You could say that, yeah.”
xXx
Bath time, whilst rather splashy and loud, isn't as bad as Merlin might have expected, and between he, Morgana and Gwen all six children are clean, tidy and actually on time for dinner. The meal is also largely uneventful, if once again quite loud – the children seem to be entirely incapable of taking turns in their attempt to tell their parents and older siblings about their exciting afternoon – and Merlin approaches bedtime with the same weary determination he approaches most unpleasant tasks he's assigned.
He has absolutely no expectation that any of the children are at all likely to sleep once he and Gwen leave, but he's had more than enough of pretending he's at all capable of looking after anyone younger than Arthur for one day. He and Gwen exchange equally tired farewells, then head off to their actual jobs.
X
The following morning arrives long before Merlin is ready for it, bringing with it all the usual mundane tasks. Arthur seems to have decided to be extra difficult today, presumably in revenge for the fact that Merlin is going to spend another day running around after other people and never mind that it's not remotely Merlin’s fault, so it's far later than he might like by the time he's able to meet Gwen and Morgana at the children’s rooms.
Being the most terrifyingly capable women he's ever met, the two of them have successfully got the children out of bed, fed and dressed, and have gathered all half dozen of them into one room.
Still, the very first thing Merlin hears after knocking on the open door is a very plaintive, “But I don't feel well.”
“Oh, no,” Gwen answers lightly. Merlin, crossing the room quickly to where the second smallest girl is sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees, wonders if she's genuinely not that concerned or if she's just trying to put a brave face on.
“Can I check your temperature?” Merlin asks, though he doesn't wait for the girl to answer – if she's coming down with the same illness as Hildegard the governess and everyone else Gaius is treating, it's best to get her away from her siblings as soon as possible – before placing a hand on her forehead. “You don't seem to have a fever,” he says after a moment, letting his hand fall away. “Can you tell me what the matter is?”
He's expecting at least one of the same complaints the other patients have, so it's sort of a surprise when the little girl looks directly up at him and announces, “My nose hurts.”
Merlin exchanges glances with Gwen. “Your nose, sweetheart?” Gwen asks.
The girl throws them a look that's so haughty even Arthur would be proud of it. “That's what I said, isn't it?”
“Mabel,” Morgana chides from where she's sat on the floor braiding another girl’s hair. “I told you yesterday, that's not how we talk to people.”
“Sorry, Lady Morgana.” The girl – Mabel, apparently – looks appropriately chastened (which is pleasing, given that Merlin and Gwen both know better than to tell off a child of noble blood themselves), even if she still sounds disgruntled when she adds a second apology to Gwen.
“That's quite alright, Mabel,” Gwen answers. “Is it only your nose that hurts? Not the rest of your head, or your tummy?”
Mabel looks between the three adults in the room, and Merlin might just be paranoid but he's pretty sure he gets more than his fair share of her attention. “Yes,” she says firmly. “I don't think I should play outside with the others today.”
Again, Merlin and Gwen exchange glances, then turn as one to Morgana. She, helpfully, shrugs.
“Okay,” Gwen says. “Would you like me or Morgana to stay inside with you?”
Mabel shakes her head. “No,” she announces. “I want Merlin to look after me.”
X
Despite Merlin’s protests, Mabel remains fast in her decision, and it's with a sense of something akin to dread that he bids Morgana, Gwen and the remaining five children goodbye and good luck with their hunt (faeries today, Morgana says, since the dragons remained elusive yesterday).
“She's just a child pretending to be ill, Merlin,” Morgana murmurs on her way out. “It's not that difficult. I know for a fact you deal with Arthur doing the same thing all the time.”
Merlin forces a smile, choosing not to point out that when Arthur feigns illness or injury he usually lets Merlin know why he's doing it, and then figures that since he's there he might as well tidy up the mess they've made overnight and this morning.
He's half buried in the wardrobe – folding clothes by hand today, given the fact that he's not alone – when he hears the swish of cloth moving as Mabel stands up, followed shortly by the hollow thunk of the door closing. And, okay, he was anticipating Mabel making a bid for freedom, but he really didn't think she'd do it quite so soon.
Except, he sees when he turns to go after her, Mabel hasn't left. Instead, she's leaning against the closed door with her arms folded and a determined expression on her face.
“I know what you are,” she says, gazing up at Merlin, precocious and tiny and every bit as sure of herself as Arthur is.
“Um,” Merlin manages. “I don’t know what you’re talking about?”
Mabel continues to look up at him, settling in for what looks to be a pretty impressive pout. “You do,” she answers. “You’re a sorcerer.”
“Erm,” says Merlin (which, as it happens, isn’t exactly any better than um). “I’m really not.”
Mabel puts her foot down both firmly and literally, stomping hard enough to make Merlin glad his toes weren’t where her shoe landed. “You are ,” she says. “I saw you, and if you don’t do a trick for me I’ll tell Prince Arthur and he’ll chop your head off!”
Well, shit, Merlin thinks.
X
The thing is, Merlin’s pretty sure it wouldn’t happen like that. Sure, Arthur wouldn’t be happy with him, but Merlin doesn’t think he’d be angry enough to turn Merlin over to his father, let alone actually do the beheading himself. Arthur might not admit it, but they are friends and Merlin isn’t scared of him.
Arthur wouldn’t hurt him, almost certainly wouldn’t let anyone else hurt him either, but Merlin isn’t at all sure what he would do, and he can’t take the risk that Arthur would send him away. Maybe it’d be because he couldn’t bear to be in Merlin’s presence after his betrayal, or because he was determined to keep Merlin safe, but the end result would be the same either way.
Merlin would be gone, and Arthur wouldn’t live a whole lot longer.
Merlin would do a hell of a lot worse than a few petty tricks in order to keep Arthur safe.
xXx
“Oh, come on, Mer lin,” Arthur says. “I’m not some helpless kitten stuck in a tree waiting for you to rescue me.”
“Really?” Merlin asks. “Would you like to know how many times I've saved your life since I came here?”
“Would you like to know how many times I've been blackmailed by a six year old?” Arthur answers. “Because I can guarantee it's at least one fewer than you have.”
xXx
“Mabel,” Merlin kneels in front of her, his voice low and urgent; even if he's theoretically willing to do as many tricks as she wants to buy her silence, he needs to be sure it's not too late for that. “Mabel, have you told anyone this?”
Thankfully, Mabel just looks at him like he's an absolute idiot. “No,” she says, as though it ought to be entirely obvious. “If I tell someone, you won't have a head anymore, and then how will you do magic for me?”
“Actually, I think Uther’d probably choose a pyre for me,” Merlin mutters, then pastes a smile on his face. “Okay, what kind of trick do you want me to do?”
X
Honestly, Mabel isn't really that bad. Yes, she’s kind of demanding, but then so’s Arthur and Merlin puts up with him on a daily basis so it’s not much of a change.
Besides, most of what Mabel demands is flowers, butterflies and a selection of cakes, all of which are easy enough for Merlin to give her. The cakes he pinches from the kitchen (after reminding Mabel that she’s supposedly unwell and won’t be able to continue her ruse if anyone catches her roaming around the castle), the rest he conjures, and everything seems like it’s going to be just fine.
Mabel makes a miraculous recovery shortly after lunch, and spends the next few days happily playing games of Morgana’s invention with her siblings, demanding only the occasional trick from Merlin. She likes a fresh daisy to put in her hair each morning, the sash on her dress to be a different colour to her sisters’, and for Merlin to fix her scuffed shoes or broken toys before her siblings’, and all in all being blackmailed doesn't really seem all that bad.
It's not until the final day of Hildegard’s quarantine, the day before the Brown family are set to depart, that things go horribly, horribly wrong.
X
When Merlin and Gwen bring the children their breakfast that morning, they find them all already awake. More suspiciously, they're all out of bed and fully clothed, shoes on and hair sloppily brushed.
Most worryingly of all, the seven of them (the third oldest son gave up pretending to be an adult a couple of days ago, apparently deciding that playing the kind of games he'd never have been allowed to play at home with his younger brothers and sisters is a heck of a lot more fun than pursuing his doomed attempt to court Morgana) are all in one room, and they're whispering. Being young, they're not wholly successful at going unheard, and Merlin and Gwen pause outside the half open door to listen in (they've discovered, over the last few days, that it's best to learn as much as possible about any potential trouble before they walk into it).
“But I don't want to go home,” Herbert says, by far the squeakiest and loudest of the lot. “I want to stay here.”
“Me too,” says Alice, the youngest girl. “Lady Morgana and Gwen are much better than Hildegard.”
“Don't I feel loved,” Merlin mutters, looking down at Gwen in time to catch the flattered expression she quickly masks with mock sympathy.
“It's not fair,” Robert, the oldest boy, whinges. “If one of us had managed to get engaged, we wouldn't have to leave yet. We’d be able to stay for ages, at least until the wedding. Longer if it was one of the girls. Mother would insist on it.”
There's silence (even more of a concern than the whispering was), and then Mabel pipes up. “I wonder where breakfast is,” she says. “I'm hungry.”
“When aren't you?” Agatha asks snidely; she and Mabel are closest in age, barely nine months between them, and the two of them squabble at every opportunity.
“That's our cue,” Gwen says, rolling her eyes, and pushes the door the rest of the way open.
X
It's a downtrodden, miserable group that accompany Merlin and Gwen out into the gardens after breakfast, and even the assortment of wooden swords Morgana brings with her when she joins them a little later cause only a very slight lightening of the mood. It's a shame, after how excitable the children have been since the three of them took over minding them, and Merlin finds himself cracking jokes, pulling faces, doing anything he can to get a smile out of them.
He doesn't protest when Mabel takes hold of his hand, even when she dawdles so much that he loses sight of the others. She's sad to be leaving, after all, and if a few extra conjuring tricks are going to cheer her up a bit, who is Merlin to refuse.
“You're my friend, right, Merlin?” she asks, after looking around to make sure her siblings are all gone.
“I guess?” Merlin answers, very, very reluctantly. He's more than a little certain it's not the correct answer, but he's also fairly sure it's a bad idea to upset someone who is blackmailing him, even if she's only six.
Mabel smiles, pleased; Merlin finds it very far from reassuring. “If you could do something to make it so I could stay here, you'd do it, wouldn't you?” she says.
He's even more certain answering that one with either a yes or no is a really bad idea, so Merlin scrapes together every ounce of tact he has in him and says, “Don’t you think your parents will miss you if you stay here? And you’ll be ever so lonely once all your brothers and sisters have gone home.”
“They won't be going home, silly,” Mabel answers, in the tone all children use when they think adults are being even more daft than usual. “You can make it so we all stay here forever.”
“I know you'd like that, Mabel,” Merlin says, trying ever so hard to be placating. “But I really don't think I can do that.”
“But you can, Merlin,” she tells him earnestly, like it's nothing more than Merlin’s self-doubt that has him disagreeing. “You can do a spell to make Arthur fall in love with Annabel, and then they can get married and live happily ever after and we can all live here forever and ever.”
Yeah, sure, Merlin thinks. There's no way in hell that’s going to happen.
“Mabel, sweetheart, that sounds…” Absolutely despicable, he thinks, but he can't say that, nor does he imagine like something I'd deserve to get executed for doing will appease her any. Unfortunately, the only response she's likely to be happy with is something along the lines of lovely or romantic, neither of which is even close to applying, and Merlin gives up on finishing that sentence before he finds himself giving a long lecture on the importance of consent.
“I understand why you like the idea, Mabel,” he says instead. “But I really don't think I can do that.”
“Of course you can,” Mabel scoffs. “And if you refuse to try, I shall scream and scream until the guards come, and I shall tell them to tell the king that you're a sorcerer and he will chop off your head.”
“Mabel,” Merlin starts, trying very hard to be reasonable. “I can’t d-”
“Chop!” she replies, louder now.
“I ca-”
“CHOP!” she yells, loud enough to startle birds from a not-quite-nearby tree.
“Fine,” Merlin huffs, rolling his eyes and lying through his teeth. “I'll try, okay?”
Mabel beams up at him. “Okay,” she says. “Go on, then.”
xXx
“So,” Arthur says, after a long, long moment of staring at Merlin through the gloom. “What you're saying, Merlin, is that Mabel said she’d tell my father you're a sorcerer unless you enchanted me into falling in love with one of her sisters, and you thought hiding us both in a cupboard and confessing was, what, a better option?”
“Well, yes,” Merlin tells him, stating the absolute obvious because apparently Arthur needs to hear it. “Given the choice between you and your father finding out, of course I'm going to pick you. And, since you've neither stabbed me nor had me arrested, it was obviously the right one.”
“And it never occurred to you to just do what she wanted you to?”
“Arthur,” Merlin says, because if he's confessed that much already he might as well confess his other sizeable secret too. “If I was the kind of person who was willing to force you to love someone, I'd have done it ages ago and it wouldn't have been to some money-hungry lord’s daughter.”
“Oh?” asks Arthur, haughty as anything. It’s the imperious voice he uses when he’s expecting Merlin to crack and tell him everything, and the fact that it never works is apparently not enough to keep him from using it.
“Yeah,” Merlin says, chin up, not ashamed and choosing not to be embarrassed either.
It’s quiet a moment, just the sound of their breathing, the rustle of fabric as Arthur fidgets slightly, and then, “Oh,” says Arthur, sounding awfully surprised for something that really ought to be glaringly obvious. Certainly everyone else (or at least Morgana, Gwen, Gaius, Kilgharrah, Lancelot, Hunith, Will, and probably a half dozen other people Merlin’s overlooked) knows how he feels about Arthur, to the point where Merlin barely bothers trying to hide it anymore, so how the heck Arthur’s surprised he really doesn’t know.
“Yeah,” Merlin repeats.
“Ages?” Arthur asks. Merlin shrugs. “How long is ages, Merlin?”
Merlin shrugs again. “A year,” he says, then corrects himself. “Well, a year and a few months, I guess. Since you followed us to Ealdor. And if you could say something other than oh now, that would be great. Fully expecting it to be report to the stocks at once, Merlin, but that's still- That was my chin, Arthur, is that really the best you can-”
“Shut up, Merlin,” Arthur says, low and breathy and very, very persuasive. His hands cradle Merlin’s jaw, his chest is pressed close to Merlin’s, and his boots are clomping all over Merlin’s toes, but since it's dark in the store cupboard and his second attempt at a kiss has actually landed on Merlin’s lips, Merlin thinks he can probably forgive him.
X
“Erm,” Merlin says, pulling away an unknown amount of time later. His lips are stinging, his hair and clothes are undoubtedly even more dishevelled than they normally are, and he'd like nothing more than to continue kissing Arthur for the rest of eternity (well, maybe not nothing more, but kissing is good for now), but there is the slight problem of his potential execution tomorrow morning. “It’s not that I'm not really, really enjoying this, but I was sort of hoping you might have some ideas about how I don't get killed.”
“You do know how to ruin a mood, Merlin,” Arthur answers.
“Yeah, well, my impending demise doesn't really do it for me,” Merlin tells him, even if he's matching the way Arthur’s mouth continues its momentum along Merlin’s jaw to his neck with sliding his hands up inside Arthur’s shirt, rucking it up until Arthur’s belt gets in the way.
The noise Arthur makes seems to be a mix of groan and growl, which is actually much more appealing than Merlin would have expected. “She’s six, Merlin,” he says, moving back far enough that Merlin can feel his breath ghosting across his lips. “I'll go with you to talk to her, and we can tell her that you tried your best but explain that love spells don't work if the person is already in love with someone else. She’ll think it's sweet, and then forget all about it because she's a six-year-old.”
Merlin thinks about it for a moment or two, then figures it's as good a plan as they're likely to come up with. “Okay then,” he says, pressing forward to claim Arthur's mouth again.
“And,” Arthur adds, next time they separate for air. “If that doesn't work, I’ll tell my father that you're far too stupid to have hidden the fact that you're a sorcerer for this long. Given that he's met you, I'm sure he won't have any problem believing me.”
“I hate you,” Merlin mutters.
Based on the way Arthur kisses him, it's pretty safe to say he knows that's not true.