Chapter Text
"I dunno – I think he actually makes quite a shaggable bird," said Owain, looking Merlin up and down in some surprise. "Nice tits."
"They're built into the dress," said Merlin, irritably. "I didn't grow them specially, you know."
"Oooh! Clever!" exclaimed Blanche, glancing down at her own modest cleavage in the skimpy French Maid costume. "Are they those chicken fillet things?" she asked Morgana, and Merlin and Arthur exchanged a look of mutual What-the-fuck?
"Yeah," said Morgana, grinning. "Feel!"
And then before he knew quite what was happening, Morgana was massaging the front of his dress like something from a soft porn movie.
"Oi!" said Merlin, feeling strangely affronted – and all the more so when Blanche took over the groping.
"God, they're brilliant!" said Blanche to Morgana. "You've got to tell me where you got them!"
"Hello? Standing right here, thank you very much!" snapped Merlin, as Kay took a photograph.
"Oh, Christ. Tell me that isn't going on Facebook," said Merlin, without much hope.
"Of course it's going on Facebook, Emrys," said Kay, pityingly.
"Wonderful."
"Oh, shut up. You actually look almost fuckable, for the first time in your pathetic life."
Merlin felt his jaw drop, and was conscious that several other heads had turned to stare at both of them. But mostly at Kay.
"Kay, just to be absolutely crystal clear - not if it was solid gold and ten inches long. Or if the road to paradise was hidden up your bum. Not ever. I thought we covered that," he said, feeling a wee bit disconcerted.
"Oh, you should be so lucky," said Kay.
"Believe me, the prospect of having hot monkey sex with a six foot tall Smurf is really not on my To Do List," Merlin said. "In fact I think I'm going to be spending the rest of my University career trying to obliterate that image from my mind. Dear God."
"Are we all ready?" asked Bradamante, looking around at the various ludicrous figures lounging around Morgana's living room.
"Think so," said Helen. Although not technically in costume herself, she did seem to have managed to get an awful lot of blue paint on herself along the way. However, the size of the blue handprints on her arse strongly indicated that she'd had some help with that.
"So – it's off to visit your Academic Fathers to collect your Raisin Receipts, and then on to Foamageddon in Sallies Quad. But before we do that – group photo!"
If Lance was pining miserably for Gwen, he was doing a – well, actually a pretty lousy job of hiding it, to be honest. The smile he wore when they turned up at his door was much too bright, and Merlin couldn't imagine that it was fooling anyone. Except Gwen. Merlin could sympathise, though – he wasn't particularly enjoying being a third wheel himself, and actually it didn't help even a little bit that, if the Dragon was to be believed, they were all trapped in repeating the same patterns again and again, and the whole Arthur-and-Guinevere-and-Lance thing had been inevitable from the get go. It still sucked, as far as Merlin was concerned. And, clearly, as far as Lance was concerned too.
"Good morning!" he said, brightly, not meeting Gwen's eyes. "Happy Raisin Monday!"
Morgana looked speculatively from Lance to Gwen and back again, and then over at Morgause, and very visibly bit her tongue. Morgause raised one eyebrow very slightly.
"Er – thanks for, you know. Seeing me home last night," said Gwen, looking distinctly flustered.
Which was news to Merlin – Arthur had been asleep when Merlin had stumbled in the night before, but if Lance had seen Gwen home then maybe all that "it was just a snog" stuff was true. Not that there was anything 'just' about it. Damn it.
"No problem," said Lance, determinedly cheerful. "All part of the service!" His smile relaxed a little. "As is giving your lovely Children a receipt for all your raisins. Or, well, organic grape juice."
Merlin looked at Lance expectantly. Tradition dictated that the receipt be written in Latin on – well, anything, basically, and the more cumbersome the better. Merlin had heard stories about people having to cart everything from inflatable sex dolls to battered old Ford Cortinas to real live goats all the way to Sallies Quad on Raisin Monday, all with the Latin words inscribed on them somewhere. He couldn't see Lance giving them a goat, because he was fairly sure that Lance would regard that as cruel and abusive treatment of an animal, but he didn't dare hope that it was going to be anything discreet and pocket-sized either.
"It's downstairs," said Lance, with a twinkle in his eye that only faded when his glance fell on Gwen. "I like your outfit," he added, trying to smile at her.
Gwen gave him an awkward half-smile, and it was all that Merlin could do to keep himself from shouting: "Kiss her, you fool! You're the one she wants!"
"Come on, I'll show you," said Lance, pulling his door shut behind him.
In retrospect, Merlin thought that he really should have seen it coming.
"It's a bin," he said, staring.
"It's a recycling bin," Lance corrected him, helpfully. "One each – metal, glass, and paper or cardboard. I know that the University provides a skip outside the Quad for people to dump their rubbish into, but this is much more environmentally sound. I've got a bloke coming to collect them once you're all finished with foamapalooza."
Morgana beamed at him. "That's a really excellent idea," she said, approvingly. He gave an embarrassed little shrug, and his eyes darted over to Gwen.
Merlin cocked his head to one side and read the large, handwritten sign that Lance had painstakingly written on recycled paper and taped onto the side of Merlin's bin. It read:
Ego, magistrandus Lancelot DuLac, huius illustris Universitate Sancti Andreae, a te, Merlin Emrys, meo bejanto carissimo, unam livram uvarum sicarum me accepisse pro qua multas gratias tibi ago ab universitate condita DLXVIII ano
"I'm afraid that if anyone feels like being a git, they can still demand you show them the receipt and then dunk you in the fountain for the mistake," Lance apologised.
Merlin took a small step backwards. "That doesn't seem very fair," he said. "I thought Latin was one of your superpowers?"
"Oh, the Latin's fine," said Morgause. Merlin blinked. He tended to forget that she'd come away with a First herself – she was so very good at that whole lethal weapon thing. "But nobody's quite sure exactly when the University was founded. Could be anywhere from 1411 to 1415, so if they want to be perverse, they can always argue with the date."
"If anyone tries to dunk me in a fountain, I won't be answerable for the consequences," said Merlin, firmly. "But they will be dire. We're talking Apocalypse Now."
"Yeah...you're not really selling big and scary in that dress," Lance told him, with a small shake of his head. "It's a very nice dress, though. Does wonders for your complexion."
"It really does, doesn't it?" said Morgana, delightedly.
"I hate you all," said Merlin.
Merlin nearly tripped over the hem of his dress for the fiftieth time. "Why are we doing this again?"
"Because it's traditional," said Arthur.
"That's a crap reason."
"No it's not. Respecting traditions is part of what makes us British."
Merlin made a rude noise. "No, but lots of traditions are stupid. Like...like brussel sprouts at Christmas. Everyone goes a whole year never once thinking about eating brussel sprouts, and then on Christmas Day it's like they're mandatory, even though nobody likes them."
"I like brussel sprouts, actually," said Arthur.
"Oh, you bloody would do, wouldn't you? Well then – like Wales cheering for anyone who's playing against England. That's traditional. Or like Greece giving Cyprus 12 points in Eurovision, or – look, I'm just saying, let's take a stand here, people," Merlin said, dragging his wheelie bin grimly down North Street. "Let's lead the way! Let's say 'Bugger tradition!' and go out for chips instead. You know you want to!"
"You're getting over the hangover, aren't you?" said Gwen, nodding to herself. "I can tell."
"Oh, come on – what kind of daft git came up with this idea in the first place? I mean, they must have laughed themselves sick when they thought of it! 'Ooh, let's make generations of students dress up like numpties and parade around town dragging random objects behind them! And then have a fight with shaving foam! Which we haven't even invented yet!' I mean, honestly – how traditional can a shaving foam fight be, when you get right down to it?"
"Merlin, if you don't stop whining, I'm going to take Gwen's sword and beat you to death with it," said Arthur, evenly.
"It's plastic."
"So it will take me a long time. I'm still game."
"Look, it's all right for you. You don't have to walk along pulling the damned bin while you're wearing a bloody great dress that keeps tripping you up."
Arthur made an impatient noise. "Have you seen my outfit? The only difference between what we're wearing is that yours shows more cleavage and mine comes with a beard."
"It does not show cleavage!" Merlin exclaimed, temporarily distracted. He squinted down at his chest. "I haven't got any cleavage for it to show!"
"Oh, you know what I mean. This explosion in a sequin factory that I'm wearing is just as long as your bloody dress, so stop your whining."
"Oh my God – can't you two stop bickering for five minutes?" demanded Gwen, incredulously. They both turned to look at her, startled into silence, and then their eyes met.
"No," they both said, in synch, grinning in spite of themselves.
Merlin made a grumpy huffing noise. "Look, I'm just saying that this thing we're doing is daft. Just because lots of other people have done it, doesn't make it any less daft. If everyone was jumping off a bridge, would you? And, okay, wow, suddenly I sound like my mum. That's – weird."
Arthur sighed. "Traditions are important," he said. "They show a respect for the past, and they make us part of something bigger than ourselves. They tell us who we are."
Merlin groaned. "Well in that case, this one tells us that we're a load of lemmings. Oh, look – I'm not talking about traditions like, er, like Remembrance Sunday, or Bonfire Night, or whatever. I'm just saying – just because people have been doing a bloody silly thing for hundreds of years doesn't mean that you have to do it too. It's okay to take a stand, and say that the Emperor has no clothes. Or, in this case, that Raisin Monday is bloody ridiculous."
"But it's fun too, though," said Gwen. "The tea party and the Raisin Strings and – and – er. You know. All of it. Er." She looked as though she very much wished she hadn't started this particular line of reasoning, and Arthur had taken on a rather tense, constipated expression.
"Well," said Merlin, feeling hideously uncomfortable. "I'm not saying that it's not fun. Some of it. But I'm not loving this bit."
"At least we're not Smurfs?" offered Gwen. "Or French Maids?"
At this point an unshaven bloke with bloodshot eyes and bedhead from hell staggered past wearing a large nappy, a floral bonnet and an expression of pure wretchedness on his hungover face. He was clutching onto a naked shop window dummy covered in wobbly Latin which was bleeding ink all over his pasty skin. They all watched him lurch down the road in silence.
"At least we're not him," said Arthur, when he was well out of earshot, and Merlin felt obliged to concede the point.
They trudged on for a little longer, passing The New Picture House on their left and wandering in between gaggles of students in various flavours of hungover and ridiculously clad. Merlin's favourite costume, for a while, was a really gorgeous peacock-bright Mermaid outfit that a very glamourous young lady was wearing; then, however, he spotted a little group dressed as various characters from the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movies, and for a while they had pride of place. But then he saw his first Arthur, and he had to stop walking and lean on his bin for a bit while he howled with laughter.
"What do you mean, it's me?" demanded Arthur, crossly. "It looks nothing like me!"
"He's wearing a blond wig, and aviator shades, and a jacket just like the one you were wearing yesterday, and a crown with a load of Latin on it for a Raisin Receipt and – oh, God, no, look! Look what they've done! It's not just him! The whole family are all you! Only different varieties, see? Look, he's Football-playing-Arthur, and he's Jogging-on-the-beach-Arthur, and she's Pilot-Arthur, and that poor bastard over there must be Water-polo-Arthur. And that one in the suit of armour is – er – do you ever wear armour?"
"That's King Arthur. Like me," said Gwen. "The other one."
"Right! Ha! That is genius! Oh my God – you should go over there and out yourself! Say 'I'm Arthur' and we could have a whole "No, I'm Arthur! No, I am, no I am, no, I am' thing! Like Spartacus!"
"I don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about. And they clearly are not supposed to be me."
"Crowns," said Morgana, pointedly. "Sunglasses. Blond wigs."
"I'm not listening."
"No change there, then," said Merlin, waving over at the assembled Arthurs. The football playing version waved back.
In just over five minutes they found themselves outside Sallies Quad, along with hundreds of other ridiculously dressed people. One poor bloke in a baggy Batman suit was vomiting helplessly into a skip, and being berated by somebody official-looking, while his Academic Mother, presumably, took pictures of him with her phone. There were various normal people – residents and tourists – ranged around the edges of the crowd, wearing expressions varying from tolerant amusement to outright irritation and watching the students warily. Several of them were wielding cameras, and Merlin would have bet all the meagre contents of his bank account that they were hoping for a glimpse of Arthur in fancy dress (possibly as a French Maid) before he went inside. Merlin, Arthur and Gwen dragged their wheelie bins up to the skip and parked them there, then started to look around for their friends.
"How long now?" asked Merlin, waving at Percy, who was lugging a hatstand along to the skip.
Arthur rolled his eyes. "However can we find out the answer? If only there was an enormous clock tower right in front of us. Oh! Look! There is!"
"Yeah, all right, all right, Your Majesty! Keep your beard on," said Merlin. "Fine – three more minutes or so before they open the doors."
"Let me take another picture of you all before your outfits get trashed," said Morgana, and they dutifully posed together, grinning cheesily into the camera.
Afterwards, Merlin shook his cans of shaving foam in readiness, and held them as if they were deadly weapons. "In just a couple of minutes, you are going to be one big, sloppy blob of foam, Arthur Pendragon."
Arthur raised his eyebrows. "Oh, you are not threatening me," he said, looking Merlin up and down. "Not looking like Liv Tylor's character in 'Lord of the Rings'. Oooh. Scary."
"Hey, Arwen kicked ass," said Morgana, glaring at her cousin.
"Yeah," agreed Merlin, managing not to stick out his tongue by sheer force of will. "We'll see how smug you look when you've got foam up your nose," said Merlin. "Foamy vengeance will be mine!"
"Two minutes," said Gwen, biting her lip. "Oh! Look! There's Elaine! Hey, Elaine!" Elaine, who had evidently escorted her own little gang of what seemed to be Pokemon characters, waved back.
"Vengeance?" repeated Arthur, in incredulous tones. "What on earth have you got to feel vengeful about, Baldrick? I don't beat you, or steal your turnip, or have you locked in the stocks and pelted with rotten eggs. Although, actually, that's not a bad idea..."
"Vengeance for – for the flooding of the Tryweryn Valley to make a bloody reservoir for you English!" said Merlin, because he couldn't exactly say 'Vengeance for flirting with me and then getting off with one of my best mates, you git'."
Arthur blinked. "You do realise that I wasn't alive then, don't you?"
"So? You think that a little thing like that is going to keep you safe from foamy vengeance?"
"Oh, fine," said Arthur, rolling his eyes. "Bring it on, princess."
Merlin adjusted his tiara. "I'm a Queen, thank you very much. Get it right, you loser."
"Oh, your arse is mine, Merlin Emrys," said Arthur, his eyes narrowing. It was entirely unfair and inappropriate that those words in that husky, threatening tone should send such a delicious shiver through Merlin.
"Time!" said Gwen, as the bell began to chime and the ancient wooden doors creaked open. Arthur caught Merlin's eye with a look of such smugness that Merlin was torn between wanting to knock his hat off, and to snog him through his ugly beard. He felt himself grinning, stupidly gleeful and giddy, and he stuck his tongue out at Arthur.
"Bet you can't catch me," he said, laughing, and flung himself off into the crowd swirling through into the Quad.
Once inside the Quad, all hell broke loose. Merlin had a can of shaving foam in each hand, and all around him faces strange and familiar were streaked with colour and smudged with foam. The grass, which no foot was allowed to sully for 364 days, 23 hours and 55 minutes of the year, was suddenly slick and slippery underfoot, drifts and globs of foam clinging to the sharp little blades and smearing over the hems of capes and gowns and dresses. Merlin ran, his head back and Morgana's ridiculous wig trailing out behind him, the heavy skirts tangling his feet and nearly tripping him again and again as he darted through the fray, squirting any half-familiar face with glee and wondering whether Arthur was enough of a five year old to take him up on his dare.
He needn't have worried, because here was Arthur already, his long strides eating up the grass even in the glittering robes, his hat already lost, and an expression of absolute determination on his face. He had a smudge of foam running down from his cheekbone to the corner of his mouth, and a lot more splattered over his costume, but he wasn't slowing down for Smurfs or French Maids or Multiple Arthurs; he was completely focused on Merlin, and he was laughing more freely than Merlin could remember ever having seen as he closed in on him.
"Fuck," gasped Merlin, darting towards a distant corner of the grass and deciding to make his stand there. It wasn't exactly the most dramatic place for a showdown at High Noon, but Merlin still struck a pose, looking as threatening as he could with foam-sticky fake hair plastered to his face and a load of blue velvet skirts flapping around his ankles, holding a can in each hand and waiting.
Arthur took this in, and didn't slow down a jot. Merlin hadn't quite realised his intention until the idiot barreled right into him and the two of them went sprawling in a tangle of flailing, overdressed limbs. And then in an embarrassingly short time Merlin found himself pinned to the grass with Arthur straddling his waist, both wrists clasped in one slippery grip above his head, and Arthur grinning down at him. The beard dangled in Merlin's face and he twisted away and blew ineffectually at it.
"Get off, get off, get off, you fucker!" said Merlin, panting and giddy and really not meaning it, and Arthur just laughed, and grabbed one of the fallen cans of shaving foam, and started to work on covering every inch of Merlin's face with the stuff. And his throat. And his collarbones, and his shoulders, and the pale dip of chest that the beautiful, devastated dress revealed. Merlin squeezed his eyes shut and squirmed fruitlessly under Arthur, feeling warm and sticky and slightly crushed, but in a good way – feeling, in fact, unbelievably turned on.
Arthur stopped squirting the gloopy stuff onto him after a while, and just sat there, panting, holding Merlin trapped still.
"Told you your arse was mine, Merlin," he said, breathless and husky, and Merlin blinked open his eyes with great caution, his eyelashes clumping together, and looked up at Arthur's face framed against the sky.
"Take that stupid beard off," he said, his voice ragged, and Arthur did. And that was a much better picture to be staring up at.
"You look like a complete prat," said Arthur, tilting his head to one side and studying Merlin as if there weren't hundreds of other people stumbling and tumbling around them on the lawn. He reached down almost tentatively and swiped some of the foam off Merlin's face again, pushing it up into the wig and then pushing the wig right off. His mouth twitched, and then he was smoothing great globs of the shaving foam up into Merlin's hair and making it into a sticky mohawk while Merlin wriggled underneath him – more because he felt that he ought to be putting up a resistance than because he wanted Arthur to move. Arthur's fingers sliding wetly over his skin and working their way into his scalp felt absolutely amazing, even if he was just doing it to make Merlin look like a prat, and Merlin was feeling fairly grateful for all the layers of velvet and lamé and God knows what else that were separating them at this point, because hiding his growing arousal would have been pretty bloody difficult in a Smurf outfit. He stared up into Arthur's ridiculously blue eyes and tried to stop laughing long enough to swear at him.
"Oi, Arthur, stop trying to fuck the chav," yelled Kay, and Merlin watched all the laughter and gentleness fall right off Arthur's face to be replaced by a shocked, half-frightened expression. He let go of Merlin's wrists and pushed himself away as if Merlin had suddenly become contagious, and Merlin felt all the sunlight vanish from the day with that jerky, horrified rejection. He just lay there in the grass for a couple of minutes, staring up at the sky after Arthur had skidded away from him, and asked himself just what the hell he thought he was playing at.
And then Percy, in full Lando Calrissian regalia, tripped over him, and uttered a war cry as he got to his knees, and Merlin was scrambling to his feet, sticky and wigless and just a little bit broken, but hiding it well, and clutching at a can of shaving foam like it was a life line, and the battle was on.