CAMPING
Dinner!
The campfire was crackling away, the conversation was flowing… and the wine was too. For such a cold time of year, the atmosphere was relatively jovial and the party that had ended up camped out in the woods in the middle of winter was somehow managing to keep their spirits up. After all, it was only one night of discomfort compared to the rest of their lives sleeping in the luxurious beds bestowed to the Knights of Camelot. Well, apart from the residential man-servant, Merlin, to whom this night was nothing different to his sack of rags back home and was just slightly worse that his straw-lined, harsh, wooden bed at the castle. Not that he was sore about it or anything.
"Merlin!" Arthur Pendragon, the future King of Camelot, and pompous cabbage-brain, called to the gallant man-servant. "Merlin! Get me some more wine. And when will the food be ready?"
"Of course, sire." Merlin appeared by his lordship's needy, lazy side and poured out even more wine into his, seemingly bottomless, goblet. "And just as soon as I can get more than 5 minutes to sort it out before you order me to do something else…" he finished with his, only slightly sarcastic, pleasant smile.
"Well…" Arthur stuttered, at a loss to know what to say. "Hurry up." He finished lamely.
Merlin did his, again only slightly sarcastic, head incline. He returned to the pot where he was brewing up a meal made only from the things he had foraged in this very forest… and yet that still didn't seem to be enough for the clot-pole prince, oh no, he was always doing something wrong wasn't he? 'Do this Merlin, do that. Hurry up, would you?' Merlin had to take a deep mental breath and calm himself before he exploded all over this dinner that he was so arduously preparing.
Eventually, Merlin felt his mental oven clock ding and removed the pot from the fire. He called over to the knights "Food's ready!" and immediately heard the other conversation drop and all eyes on him as he brought it over. He laid it down on the flattest part of the ground near where they were seated on a circle of logs, and looked up for the bowls. Within a split-second the whole stack was passed to him by an eager hand. Glancing up, he thanked the assistant, although he guessed that their thanks were going to be more in the reward about to fill their stomach. However, he did notice that the dollop-head himself, that had nagged him and ordered him and hurried him along was nowhere to be seen.
"Where's Arthur?" he asked, trying his best not to grit his teeth.
"Gone a little way out into the woods." Came the reply from, Gwaine. "Either he needed to relieve himself or he needed a moment to sort out the latest events; it has been a pretty hectic day, even for him. Why? Does it matter? We don't have to wait for him to eat do we?" His eyes widened in slight panic.
"No, no, I don't think so. I was just wondering." Merlin murmured, half in a daze of annoyance.
How dare he leave just when he knew that the food was about to be ready, and he had been bugging Merlin about it for the good part of the last half an hour. Did he not realise how irritating he had been? Did he not know how much his arrogant, expecting questions were belittling and getting to his might-as-well-be-a-slave 'servant'?
Merlin was so caught up in his own indignation that he didn't hear the ripples of mutters that passed through the knights whenever they noticed moments such as these coming from the servant or the prince. The whispers usually went along the lines of "There they go again, just like an old married couple."
Meanwhile, Arthur returned from his small stroll into the woods, with a feeling of contentment that his brain had settled the events of today, just as the food was being dished out. He leant against a tree for a minute, just to observe the general situation. There was plenty of grub for everyone, extra for Arthur, he noticed, and little more than scraps for Merlin. As usual.
But as he watched Merlin spooning out the stew, something rather strange happened.
His eye happened to catch the way that the flickering light from the fire latched onto his cheekbones, pronouncing them, and defined his jaw-bone in a rather flattering way. He couldn't help but notice his fringe brushing gently across his forehead or the way he would flick his head slightly to move it, naturally, out of habit. He found himself captivated by the gentle indentations upon his cheeks, where his smile was forming dimples on the smooth surface.
And, oh, that smile; practically gleaming teeth and those lusciously soft-looking lips. And just the way his whole face seemed to lift and clear when that smile happened to grace the world with its presence, if only for a couple of seconds. He wondered if he had ever been lucky enough to be the reason for that smile. He wished he had been.
And then, just as he was ogling, stuck in this limbo moment of awe, he saw Merlin's head begin to move, begin to turn. And, by God, the way that his eyes were glinting and seeming to grin within themselves was quite too much for Arthur and he could barely restrain himself from doing… who-knows-what. But what he wasn't counting on was the fact that the very eyes he had just been gazing at, where now locked straight with his.
There was a connection - like a bolt of electricity - that seemed to shoot between the two of them, jolting their brains and setting every one of their senses on fire. They were stuck, just locked in each other's beings…
And then the other knights turned too, to see what Merlin was staring at and the moment was broken.
"Come on, Arthur," "Where've you been?" "Took you long enough." "You're in luck; we're just beginning to eat."
The knights all beckoned him over, as though nothing had just happened, which, to them, it hadn't. Still disorientated by the intensity of the last couple of seconds, Arthur somehow managed to stagger over and plant himself firmly down, coincidentally, right next to Merlin. He was handed his bowl and, absentmindedly, took a sip from his spoon, forgetting it was something that Merlin had concocted from the "fruits of the forest", as he liked to call it. To his enormous surprise and relief, it actually tasted pretty good.
"Wow, Merlin!" he exclaimed. "This is actually decent!" The knights all laughed, reassured, and tucked in.
"Really?" Merlin replied, not so sure that he had done that good a job.
"Yes, really. Here, try." Arthur responded and, without thinking, got a spoonful and hand-fed it straight to Merlin's mouth.
Merlin, surprised, nearly choked. He coughed but managed to sort his head out and actually taste the food. As Arthur had said, it was really pretty good.
"Mmm," he agreed, appreciatively.
"For once, I must say, well done, Merlin. I'm very nearly bordering on the line of impressed!" Arthur exclaimed. "Here have some more." And he fed Merlin another spoon.
This time, Merlin was much more prepared for it and so was able to happily take the spoon in his mouth and get the food without too much mishap, even managing a happy nod. Arthur grinned and carried on eating and Merlin couldn't help but notice he had no quarrels eating from the spoon that Merlin himself had just salivated all over.
The knights were beside themselves; this was practically TV, just a few hundred centuries too early. What had begun as a simple lark - a running joke, if you will - of the fact that Merlin and Arthur were basically already married, was now becoming more and more plausible by the second.
Arthur was half way through his bowl and looked around, in preparation, for more, knowing that this wouldn't be enough to satisfy his aching hunger. Merlin was slowly making his way through his, much smaller, plate and saw the way the prince was eyeing up his meal. Reluctantly, he offered some to him. Arthur studied it contemplatively – he was very hungry and he'd had an incredibly tiring day, and Merlin was 'only a servant', after all. He was on the verge of reaching out to take it, when he heard Merlin's stomach rumble making the sound of a dying whale. Merlin immediately flushed bright red, almost matching his neckerchief, and mumbled something about him being cold.
Then something very strange happened.
Arthur was hungry. Merlin was evidently hungrier. Arthur had already eaten a fair amount. Merlin had had barely any. Arthur was the prince, soon to be king. Merlin was a servant, and that's all he would ever be. And yet Arthur, whose hand was seemingly already poised to reach out and take the food, shook his head.
"No, it's fine." He refused gallantly. "You eat it."
Merlin's eyes nearly popped out of his head. Arthur blushed and felt the need to explain himself.
"I've already had lots of mine, this is yours. Plus, don't think I haven't noticed you giving me extra portions. And it seems like your stomach requires it more than mine." He took another look at Merlin's food. "In fact… is that all you're eating?"
Merlin shrugged, confused.
"But that's barely anything!" Arthur could almost have laughed. "Is that all you've ever given yourself on these trips?!"
Again, Merlin shrugged; a flush starting to powder his cheeks.
"Ok, come on, Merlin. We all know you're small, but you're not that small. You're a growing boy, you need more than that."
Merlin was on the point where I think you would class that as a blush.
"Here." Arthur scraped a massive spoonful from his bowl and put it into Merlin's. He did this again. Then, he fed one more spoonful directly to Merlin's mouth and carried on with his, now considerably smaller, meal.
Merlin was definitely way beyond the blushing stage by now and teetering on the edge of… tomato. Silently, he continued through his food. He was so embarrassed and confused that he forgot to thank Arthur… or even give a witty remark.
More chapters to come! Hope you are enjoying so far!