JUST ONE OF ARTHUR'S MOODS
I decided to write a good-ol' banter fic between Merlin and Arthur because their relationship is pretty much the main reason to watch Merlin. And because it's fun. :D
Note: AU because Gwen chooses Lancelot instead of Arthur
Enjoy!
It had been a week since Gwen and Lancelot's marriage and despite Arthur's constant assurances that all he felt was happiness for them, everyone- servants, knights and nobles alike -had all been steering clear of the perpetually angry King who had taken to storming round the castle shouting. Everyone, that is, except Merlin.
'Merlin!' yelled Arthur for the fifth time, poking his head out of the door of his room scaring a serving girl and causing her to spill water all over the floor.
He merely scowled at her and proceeded to call for his abysmally useless servant for the sixth time that morning.
'MERLIN!' screamed Arthur as loudly as he possibly could making half of Camelot go deaf and the other half bemused at the King's shouting. It seemed almost every morning the castle was plagued with the King's impatient cries for his manservant, the sound replacing the conventional rooster crowing that woke everyone up.
The serving girl slipped and fell over into the water that she was trying to clean up but it still didn't serve to quench Arthur's anger.
With a final torrent of profanities directed at his absent manservant Arthur slammed the door on the serving girl's shocked face and resumed a position on his chair that he hoped conveyed how utterly unimpressed he was and how much trouble Merlin was going to be in, arms folded, scowl firmly fixed in place, swearwords muttered under his breath.
Where was that lazy, good-for-nothing pile of useless-
Arthur heard the ungainly shuffle of his manservant's far too relaxed walk outside the door before it opened slowly; Merlin's head emerging displaying his usual goofy grin, seemingly unaware of the pure vehemence being directed at him.
'I think you might have called me, sire?' Merlin's smile growing as he caught sight of Arthur's expression.
'Yes, Merlin I'm glad you noticed and came with such speed,'
'I'm here to please, sire,' grinned Merlin, annoyingly unaffected by Arthur's anger.
'I'm glad to hear it, Merlin, although all the evidence seems to suggest otherwise. Where have you been?'
At this point Merlin really should have known better, but Arthur had been a complete and utter prat recently and the desire to irritate him was overwhelmingly tempting.
'The tavern,' Merlin watched with a guilty gleefulness as Arthur's face grew red.
'The tavern? You are neglecting your duties to your King and country to go and drink in the tavern? Do you ever work, Merlin?' Arthur ranted, Merlin's amusement not making him feel any better.
'Well since you've had such a well-deserved break from all your hard work maybe it's about time you got back to it,' continued Arthur, his voice suddenly mischievous. Merlin did not like the sudden change in his tone. Maybe he shouldn't have mentioned the tavern.
'What would you like me to do, sire? Muck out the stables, polish your armour, lick your boots?' added Merlin, in his best innocent voice and instantly regretted it as he saw a look cross Arthur's face.
Yes, Merlin, by all means lick my boots. They could do with a good clean,' said Arthur impishly, suddenly cheerful.
Arthur looked at Merlin expectantly and held out his foot.
'Um, Arthur, you aren't serious?' Merlin said, unsure of whether Arthur was joking. Arthur really wasn't in that much of a bad mood was he?
'Yes, Merlin, I am completely serious. Start licking.'
'I'm not doing that, Arthur,' said Merlin, hoping to appeal to Arthur's apparently lighter mood.
'If you don't, Merlin, I will have it seen to that you get put in the stocks. I hear the villagers have had a good harvest this year and there is an abundance of lovely rotten vegetables that are just waiting to be thrown at your face.
Merlin watched Arthur's face for a sign of a joke but his face was impassive, before hesitantly getting down on his knees and extending his tongue slowly towards Arthur's boot.
His tongue touched the dirty leather. He gagged and drew away.
'That, Merlin, is the taste of dirty boots. Why are they dirty? Because I have an incompetent servant who can't do his job!' Arthur stormed. 'I want my boots scrubbed by this afternoon.'
Arthur flounced out the room.
'Arthur,' Merlin called, his voice tinged with amusement.
'What, Merlin?' asked Arthur imperiously.
'I might actually need the boots, in order to clean them. It helps.' Merlin said before getting hit in the face by a leather boot that was closely followed by its pair, hitting the cabinet with a crash that was testimony to Arthur's strength.
'Thank you, sire,' Merlin called at Arthur's retreating figure.
Merlin's boot licking incident had only served to cheer Arthur up for a few meagre hours and by the time afternoon came Arthur was back to biting anyone's head of who dared so much as look at him.
He came storming out of the hall where he had been supposedly discussing matters of state, although from the sounds of it, it had been more of an Arthur shouting at everyone for being 'incompetent fools' session.
'MERLIN!' came the predictable cry that signalled the arrival of the King in his empty chambers.
Merlin rolled his eyes at Gwaine who had been keeping him company as he scrubbed Arthur's boots, thankfully not with his tongue.
'The princess awaits,' Gwaine grinned as Merlin scampered to his feet.
'The princess never waits,' grumbled Merlin as he gathered the boots and armour and made his way to Arthur's chambers less casually than he normally did thinking maybe he had annoyed the King enough for one day.
'Good luck,' Gwaine smiled sympathetically, clapping Merlin on the back as they reached Arthur's door.
'I would take dragons or Morgana any day,' he said before departing. Merlin sighed; he could practically hear Arthur's teeth grinding from behind the door.
He pushed the door open tentatively to find a formidable Arthur on the other side.
'My liege?' Arthur scowled. Why was Merlin only ever polite when he wanted to mock Arthur?
'Merlin,'
'You so patiently called?'
'Have you been drinking yourself into oblivion all day, Merlin?'
Actually, sire, I was-' Arthur cut in.
'Do you know how annoying it is to call your servant to fetch some papers only to realise that your servant is mysteriously absent?' Arthur grumbled.
'Actually, sire, I was cleaning your boots,' Merlin quickly objected, Arthur always wanted to think the worst of him.
'Do you have my boots?'
'I do, sire, freshly cleaned by the finest servant in all of Camelot,' Merlin joked, trying to lighten Arthur's enduring bad mood.
Arthur snorted.
'Well,'
'Well, what, fine King?'
'Where are they?' Arthur growled.
Merlin hastened to produce the boots from behind the door. Arthur snatched them from him and inspected them before huffing, obviously unable to find anything wrong with Merlin's hard work.
Merlin smirked.
'It seems you're not a complete and utter idiot after all,' said Arthur.
'I'm undervalued, sire,'
'So you are, Merlin.'
Merlin was shocked, was Arthur actually admitting he had done something right.
'What was that?' grinned Merlin.
'I said, Merlin, that you're undervalued as a servant. And good servants should be rewarded, right?' Arthur's face morphed into a suspicious grin.
Merlin nodded slowly.
'Let's think of a suitable reward then,' said Arthur, his mouth curling evilly.
Oh no.
'Since you have been neglecting your duties to clean my boots I think it's fitting that you catch up on them.' Merlin's heart sank at Arthur's atrocious and downright mean logic.
'How about you muck out the stables,' said Arthur, and was rewarded with Merlin's angry glare. 'Yes, I think that's a suitable reward. Then you can scrub the floors, wax my shield, sharpen my sword, take out the dirty laundry and make the bed.'
'But you're going to sleep in the bed in a few hours,' protested Merlin angrily. Really, Arthur was getting way to grumpy lately.
'Yes, Merlin, and I want to sleep in a nice, freshly made bed,' spelled out Arthur patronisingly.
Merlin just scowled at Arthur and stalked off to muck out the stables.
It was dark by the time Merlin had finished shovelling horse manure, imagining he was spearing the King's head as he stuck the pronged pitch-fork into the steaming pile of poo. It wasn't a hard leap to make.
Merlin was ready to collapse and he had only done the first chore on the ridiculously long list that Arthur had dictated.
He wiped the sweat off his forehead as Gwaine strolled into the stables. Merlin still managed to return the ever-joking smile that Gwaine gave him.
'Hey, Merlin,' grinned Gwaine.
'Hey,'
'Even I knew not to upset the princess when she's in this mood,'
Merlin smiled ruefully, he knew Gwaine was right but he just couldn't help himself when Arthur was being a prat. Which was pretty much most of the time.
'I know, Gwaine,'
'Then again, he is being a total raging tyrant' rectified Gwaine and Merlin laughed his agreement. 'If I were you, which thankfully I'm not,' Gwaine looked pointedly at splatters of horse dung attached to Merlin's trousers. 'Then I would get the princess back. It's about time someone taught him not to be an arrogant idiot.'
Gwaine smiled a gleeful smile and Merlin recognised the spark in his eye.
'No, not another of your plans Gwaine,' pleaded Merlin, but he was already half-sold on whatever idea was in Gwaine's head, he was that fed-up with Arthur.
'Come on, if Arthur asks I'll take full responsibility,' Gwaine gave Merlin his most persuasive grin and Merlin found himself agreeing.
'Great. What have you got to do next?'
'Clean Arthur's sword, scrub his floors and make his beds,' Merlin listed. Gwaine's eyes gleamed with mischief.
'I think it would be a great shock to his royal princess if he found something else in his bed apart from clean sheets,' hinted Gwaine.
'Oh no, Gwaine. What are you thinking?'
'We'll put poo in his bed,' said Gwaine bluntly.
'Gwaine, am I angry at Arthur: yes, am I going to go to the toilet in his bed: no. I'll get kicked out of Camelot for one thing,' Merlin replied causing Gwaine to guffaw loudly.
'Not your poo you idiot, the horses',' Gwaine laughed as Merlin caught on.
'Ah,' said Merlin, a twinkle appearing in his eye.
Merlin had finished his duties at the sprightly hour of midnight. He had put Arthur's now shining and sharp sword back in the armoury as quietly as he could, and was hoping to get to bed before he fell asleep on the floor.
He decided to take the route back to his chambers across the battlements, thinking it would be nice to watch Camelot sleep in the chilly autumn night. He was walking across the top of the castle's torch-lit battlements when he noticed another lone figure, resting his chin on his palms, elbows on the hard stone as he looked out over Camelot.
It was Arthur.
Merlin tried to tiptoe past, Arthur had probably found the present he and Gwaine had left in his bed by now and might've been waiting for Merlin to get back so he could yell at him.
'I can hear you, you know,' said Arthur with contempt as Merlin very unsubtly hit his head on a hanging torch, fell over his own feet and fell to the ground.
He pulled himself back up and braced himself for the full force of Arthur's anger, reminding himself that it was worth it. Oh it was worth it.
But Arthur just kept on watching the dark Camelot spread out before him serenely… suspiciously serenely, more tranquil than Merlin had seen him for days.
'Why do you think she chose Lancelot?' Arthur asked unexpectedly, shocking Merlin.
'I don't know Arthur, I really don't know,' Merlin said honestly after a moment's pause.
'Was I just not good enough?'
Merlin was surprised, was this why Arthur had been so irritable? He thought Gwen had married Lancelot because Arthur was inadequate.
The wind blew through their hair flickering the torches behind and causing the light to flutter as Merlin considered Arthur's question. Thinking of the best way to make the idiot see that it wasn't his fault, it wasn't a reflection on him, it was just… destiny.
'It's not all a contest, Arthur,' he finally replied after considering it for a while. 'Gwen didn't marry Lancelot because she wasn't happy with you, I know it was the hardest choice she had to make in her life.'
'Then why did she choose him?' Arthur blustered. 'Why didn't she choose me?'
'Arthur, I'm not Gwen, you'll have to ask her, but as far as I can see she didn't choose him and she didn't not choose you; as cheesy as it sounds, the universe chose for her.' Merlin tried to explain. 'It was just meant to be, and so it happened.'
Arthur turned to Merlin, a hint of tears in his eyes.
'But what if it was me?' Merlin had never seen Arthur doubt himself so much, not since Uther had died anyway.
'Arthur you can't think that, you're kind and noble and you'll be perfect for someone. It's just not Gwen.'
There was silence apart from the wind whistling through the crevices in Camelot's walls and the faint footsteps of the guards patrolling below.
'Sorry I've been such a prat lately,' Arthur said genuinely, smiling at Merlin and blinking away the threat of tears.
'It's fine, Arthur,' Merlin smiled. 'I understand.'
'I know,'
'Yeah, it's your time of the month,' grinned Merlin earning himself a slap.
'I'm lucky to have you, Merlin, truly. You're the best manservant a King could wish for,'
'I'm going to hold you to that.'
'I will deny all knowledge.'
The servant and King looked at each other and smiled. Merlin grinned inwardly; Arthur was back.
They walked together in companionable silence through the hallways of the castle.
'Goodnight, Merlin,' said Arthur as they reached the turning for Gaius' chambers and Arthur's.
'Goodnight, Arthur,'
Merlin began to walk away when suddenly he remembered something.
'Um, Arthur,'
'Yes, Merlin?'
'Before, when I was angry at you, and you gave me all those chores to do…' Merlin said carefully.
'Yes,' said Arthur, his eyes narrowing.
'I might've, just might've… put some horse dung in your bed,' Merlin finished quickly watching Arthur's face as his expression went from confusion to understanding to…
'MERLIN!'
Hope you liked it :D x