It was true that Merlin had been reading about moving himself from place to place with a spell before he'd gone to sleep, so he wasn't at all surprised to find himself in a different place than his own bed as he woke up in the middle of the night. His mind liked to work on spells at night while he slept, and save for the time he'd woken up and found his and Gaius' rooms bursting with flowers, it was usually pretty quiet and discreet about what it did.

What did surprise him is WHERE he had wound up when he had moved.

Merlin had been awakened by a kick, and as he opened his eyes, he realized that he had landed in the bed of his dear, darling prat of a master...who wasn't looking very dear, darling, or anything of the like.

In fact Arthur was looking more than a little angry, not to mention shocked.

"MER-lin..." he said, sitting up suddenly.

Merlin tried to smile back at the prince, to make it seem like he appeared out of nowhere in Arthur's bed every day of the week and this wasn't a strange occurrence, not at ALL...

"Yes, sire?" he said, keeping his tone deliberately aloof.

"What. Are. You. Doing?" Arthur said through gritted teeth, his nose two inches from Merlin's face.

Trying not to be intimidated by Arthur's pissiness, Merlin hopped out of the bed, fishing for an explanation that didn't sound mad, stupid, or execution-worthy.

"Um..." Merlin said, if only to give him thinking time.

"Mer-lin. I'm wait-ing," Arthur said, his voice getting that soft but dangerous edge to it.

"I wanted to ask you a question. Sire." Merlin said, planting his most cheeky and endearing grin and hoping that Arthur would let him get away with it.

"And it couldn't wait till morning?"

"No, no. Absolutely no. It needs to be settled now."

There was a momentary silence.

"Well?" said Arthur, gesturing a hand towards him.

"Well, what?"

"Ask me the damned question, you twit!"

"Oh. All right then. Um...I wanted to know...um..."

"WHAT?"

"What kind of...what kind of cake you wanted for your birthday this year."

Arthur's face twisted up, as if he couldn't figure out if he was amused or bewildered by the question.

"THAT'S what you wanted to ask me? About...cake?"

"Yes, sire. Cake."

"It didn't occur to you until now to ask this?"

"No, sire."

"And it didn't dawn on you that my birthday isn't FOR ANOTHER TWO MONTHS?"

"No, sire. Didn't dawn on me. Not until now. When you reminded me. Sire."

Arthur sighed and shook his head.

"Get out of here, Merlin. Please," he said, gesturing his arm desperately towards the door.

"Yes, sire," Merlin said, turning to leave through the door this time (wouldn't do to have people suspicious, now would it?)

He just about had his fingers around the handle when a mumbled voice from the bed called out, "Oh, and Merlin?"

"Yes, sire?"

"I want a..." here Arthur paused to yawn, "a honey cake this year. Not that stupid wheaten thing they had last year, got it?"

"Will do, sire. Thanks for letting me know."

"Mhm. Now go away."

"Yes, sire," Merlin said, and he slipped out the door and back to his own quarters, vowing that he would never read teleportation spells before bedtime again.