AN - well would you look at that?! i'm back, guys! yay! sorry this has taken me so long, but it's been a busy couple of months! next time i take this long between stories, pester me would you? i'm told guilt-trips work very well. in fact, you all have Lynx of E-Unit to thank for doing just that and getting me to update today! but i'm back now, so yaaaaaaaaaaaayy! :D

so how is everyone? hope you haven't all got discouraged and run away! i really don't think the title works quite right for this one, so if anyone has a better idea (anything, seriously!) than let me know!

I'll let you get on with it now, and see you all at the bottom! :D

disclaimer - still not mine

Merlin

Suddenly, I started coughing, as, for the fifth time that morning; I was engulfed in thick black smoke issuing from the failed experiment I was working on.

"I don't understand it." I muttered to myself, carefully examining the blackened mess on the desk. "That's exactly how it says to do it."

Over by the fireplace, Freya sighed. "I do wish you wouldn't do this in our rooms, Merlin." she told me for the third or forth time that day, and I ran a hand through my hair wearily. I'd done that so many times today, that it was probably stood completely on end by now.

"I'm sorry." I told her sincerely. "If I could just get this right…"

My five-month pregnant wife sighed. "It's sweet that you're trying, but Merlin, perhaps you should try again tomorrow, with a new perspective."

"Hold on." I told her, completely ignoring her, and she sighed.

With a semi-dramatic flourish, I once again threw the final ingredients in, and once again, I was engulfed with black smoke. As I emerged, still coughing, I looked up sheepishly at my wife, who was glaring at me slightly.

"Right." I told her. "No more experiments in our rooms. I'll go and see Arthur about it tomorrow." I approached her carefully. "I'm sorry."

"I know you are." she told me, reaching up to kiss me. "Now go and clean up. You look a bit like you've been struck by lightning, honestly."

With a small sigh, I headed up the stairs to our bedroom, smiling slightly. Sometimes, I really didn't know what I'd do without her.

"Arthur?" I approached him questioningly the next day, and he looked up as he heard me coming.

"Good morning brother." he greeted me, before noticing my expression and frowning. "What's wrong? Has something happened?" I sighed.

"Freya…well, let's just say that I messed up that experiment again last night." I told him sheepishly, rubbing the back of my neck. He smiled at me knowingly.

"How many times?"

"Six." I admitted, and he whistled lowly.

"And now, Freya's told you to find somewhere else to do your experiments, and you wanted to know if I knew of anywhere?" he asked me, and I looked at him in surprise.

"We guessed that that would be the case a while ago. In fact, you lasted longer then most of us expected. In actual fact, I owe Percy two gold coins now. Damn." He cursed, and I looked at him curiously. He shrugged.

"What else is there to do on patrol but bet on the outcomes of things?" he asked me, and I snorted.

"You could always actually patrol?" I suggested, and he laughed.

"As if any bandit's going to come within a mile of entering Camelot's borders with you here, mister mighty warlock!"

I laughed too. "Actually, I had an idea of where I could go, if you didn't object, but first, tell me about some of those bets. I think I might want in, if that's okay?" I asked, and he grinned.

"Sure. It's your gold."

"Hold it." I told him from where we were sat at the table in his chambers, all thoughts of a workroom gone from our heads. "I can settle that one for you. The cooks' daughter is with Lord Daggart's servant." Arthur looked at me in amazement.

"How on earth do you know that?" he asked me, and I shrugged.

"Servants hear and see a lot of things no-one suspects them too, and when no-one's around, they're the worst gossips of anyone. I just happen to have ears in the right places, is all. I expect Gwen would probably know, too." I told him, and he shook his head ruefully.

"You're probably right." he agreed, before pushing the next piece of paper towards me. "What about this one?"

He'd explained to me that eventually, they'd had so many bets going that they'd begun to lose track of them, so they'd had to write them down, with who had bet what at the bottom. He'd explained that Elyan used to participate, too, but since he was still unconscious, all of his bets were frozen until he woke up again.

If he woke up again.

I looked at the next one Arthur had pushed towards me, and studied it thoughtfully with one eye.

"Hmm." I said as I studied it. "Put me down for a gold coin on Sir Robert." Arthur looked at me as if I was mad.

"As most likely to be admiring Gwaine from afar?" he asked me incredulously, and I looked at him pointedly.

"Have you seen the way he handles his sword?!" I asked him, and he thought bout it for a minute, before nodding.

"Good point." He added his name next to mine on the paper.

"Hey, what's this one?" I asked, spotting my name and pulling it towards me. He grinned as I read.

"You bet on the gender of my child?" I asked him, surprised, and he grinned wider. "Put me down for a boy." I told him, and he nodded.

"What about this one?" he asked me. "The number of attempts on either my or your life in the next month?" We both grinned at each other.

"Ooh, at least ten." I told him, and he laughed.

"And on that note, it's time for lunch."

It had become tradition, sort of, unlike in the times of previous Kings, that whoever wasn't busy out of myself, Arthur, Gwen, Freya, Percy, Gwaine, and Leon would all sit down together for at least one meal a day, usually lunch, or, we soon realised, some of us would never find the time to see each other. Eventually, should he wake up, this group would expand to include Elyan, too.

Today, unusually, all of us were there. Most days one or other of the knights were out on patrol, but today, it seemed, they'd all managed to escape it.

As we sat down to eat, Freya started up the conversation.

"So Merlin, have you managed to find a workroom yet?" she asked me, and I gasped.

"Um…oops?" I asked. She shook her head.

"Sometimes, Merlin, you have a memory like a sieve." she told me, exasperated, and I smiled.

"Well, that's one of the reasons I need you around so much, to remind me." I leant over and kissed her.

"So what were you doing?" she asked me as I pulled away, and Arthur and I both grinned.

"Merlin discovered our patrol pastime." Arthur explained, and the other knights grinned. Gwen smiled slightly. Freya looked confused. I shot Arthur a questioning look and he nodded.

"They make bets on the outcomes of things with each other." I explained. "On anything, it seems, actually." she nodded in understandingly.

"So which ones did you bet on?" she asked me, and I grinned while Gwaine laughed. She really did know me.

"I bet that our child would be a boy." I told her with a smile on my face, and she smiled in return, before I turned back to the rest of the table. "I also bet that Gwaine was more likely that Leon to fall down the stairs first - although why I wasn't an option for that, I don't know. I've fallen down more steps than the rest of you put together!" There were a few laughs.

"That's why you weren't an option, Merlin." Leon explained. "You'd be the obvious choice!" A few more laughs.

"Anyway." I continued, leaning towards Gwen conspiringly. "Did you know that they didn't know that the Cook's daughter was with Lord Daggart's servant?" I asked her, and she gasped.

"What? But I thought everyone knew that!" she exclaimed, and I nodded.

"So did I." I confirmed.

Freya giggled as everyone else looked at us in amusement and a little curiosity.

"What else do you two know?" Percy asked us, and we grinned at each other.

"Well…" I began, trying to think of something good to start with, while Gwen smiled.

"I've got a good one." she told me, and I looked at her interested, as she said "I heard from one of the kitchen maids that, in fact, Lord Memiad's been sneaking down to the dungeons to meet up with his secret girlfriend." There were a few gasps from around the table, and I grinned too.

"Yes, I'd heard that one. What about that footman who keeps trying to attract the attention of one of the ladies, but she just thinks he's got a mental affliction instead!" There was a lot of laughter from around the table, and I spotted Gwen's eyes twinkling.

"What about the one about Sir Gwaine?" she asked me, and I understood what she meant immediately, as the laughter from around the table died down slightly.

"What? What about me?" he asked curiously, and we grinned again.

"I heard he was kissing Sir Percival." I told them conspiringly, and they looked slightly confused.

"Well, of course he is." Percy said, slightly confused, and Gwen chimed in.

"Yes, but I also heard that he was kissing Sir Leon, too."

"And that he'd kissed Sir Elyan."

"And Sir Robert."

"And Sir Lancelot."

"I heard he's kissed the Lady Freya, too."

"The Lady Freya?! But I'd heard she was married!"

"Yes, and the Queen, too, apparently he kissed her as well, would you know!?."

"Really? I heard it was the King!?"

"Yes, I heard that too. He's kissed both, so I heard. And his Court Sorcerer, while we're on the subject."

"Really? How delightfully scandalous! What about the cook? Had you heard that?"

"No, but I had heard about the Great Dragon." There was a small splutter from amid our laughing family, all of whom we ignored.

"Yes, and…"

"Okay, enough!" the butt of our joke finally burst out, and we joined the rest of our family in laughing at his red face. Eventually he saw the funny side and joined in too.

"Really, the two of you are too much sometimes!" Arthur told us, and we grinned. Since Gwen had helped me with my dancing two months ago, as I'd suspected, our bond had grown a lot stronger, and we often acted like this, ganging up on one of other of them when we ate together. It was all in jest, though, and we all knew that.

After lunch was over, and everyone had disappeared again, it was just me and Arthur left.

"Right, you said you had an idea of what you wanted?" he asked me, and I grinned. "I was wondering…."

"And you're sure that this is where you want?" he asked me, confused, and I nodded decisively, looking around again at the room we'd wrecked two or three nights before my wedding.

The paint was firmly dried to the ceiling by now, and the crater was deep as ever. The door was still in the courtyard, but I didn't care.

"If you'll let me have it." he shrugged.

"Sure. I didn't have any other plans for it." I grinned.

"In that case, would you mind if I…"

"Gwaine!" I rounded the corner, and almost bumped into him. He grasped my arm to make sure I stayed upright.

"Oops. Sorry." I told him, and he smiled.

"You were looking for me?" he asked, and I grinned.

"I need your help…"

"On three!" I told him. "One…Two…Three!"

Together, we let out a big burst of magic, and suddenly, the room was much larger, almost three times as large, in fact.

"Hopefully…" I told him, stepping out side, and I cheered.

"Yes! You can't tell from the outside!" he smiled at my enthusiasm.

"Come on, what did you want to do next?" he asked me.

We'd already removed the paint from the walls and ceiling, after a lot of effort, and next, I decided, was the door.

We quickly filled in the small tunnel we'd made last time, effectively trapping ourselves in the room. From there, we quickly made room for a new door, a little off to the side, and installed one carefully, before I suddenly had an ingenious idea.

"Hold on." I told Gwaine, and I set about quickly putting some wards on the door. Suddenly, Gwaine let out an exclamation.

"Hey! Where'd the door go?!" I grinned. It seemed to have worked perfectly.

Turning back to him, I added the final part of the spell to him, and he gasped as, to him, the door slowly shimmered back into view.

"Now no-one I don't want to can get in." I explained, and he grinned.

"That's brilliant, brother." I blushed slightly.

"Just remind me to tell everyone where it is, later. Now, you stay here, and I'll contact you when I get back to my rooms. There's one final thing I want to do…"

'Okay, I'm here!' I signaled Gwaine through our mind-link, and felt his affirmation that he'd heard me clearly.

I chose a clear spot in the room, against a wall, while Freya watched on curiously. Then, simultaneously, Gwaine and I cast our bits of magic, and then, suddenly, a glowing portal appeared. Slightly nervously, I stepped into it, and nearly crashed into Gwaine, who was stood in front of it on the other side. He stepped back quickly as I appeared, and then grinned.

"Hold on." I told him as I popped back through.

Freya was still standing curiously on the other side, and I quickly explained what I had done.

"It'll link the two rooms together." I explained. "Let me just hide it, then I'll let you see both, this and the door to the room, that is. Otherwise, anyone might be able to get in and use it."

I quickly repeated the spell on the new portal, and then keyed Freya into both, before popping back through and keying him in to the other spell too.

"I don't have a problem with you knowing it." I told him, and he grinned.

"Now." he asked me. "Did you want help with anything else, while I'm here? I've got nothing else I need to be doing right now, after all."

Over the next week, there was almost constant work being done on the room in some form or another, be that wards being erected to protect the rest of the castle should something go drastically wrong, or something as simple as arrangement of positions inside it.

I'd created a large window in the wall, so that I wouldn't need to use candles as much, which could drip wax, or fall and potentially react with something in there, and cause a lot of damage.

I'd also chosen the keep the crater in the center of the room, caused by who knows what on that night of drunkenness, as I'd decided that it would make a good place to keep a fire, both for warmth, and for any experiments or potions needing an open flame.

Eventually, I also remembered to clue the others into my two secret doorways, but not before I'd managed to cause a large amount of panic, and even a small amount of alarm, when Arthur had come looking for us, and then become convinced that I'd done something stupid when he couldn't find the room, and that I'd managed to move the room somewhere else unintentionally, as I had with the original door, or done something else equally stupid.

Finally, however, just over a week later, it was finished, and I was very pleased with the result.

The door, of course, was hidden from anyone who wasn't me, Arthur, Gwen, Freya, Percy, Leon, Gaius, or, strangely enough, Morgana, all though I had put a limit on hers, so that she could only be there when I was, however, she'd been making frequent trips to visit the druids lately, so this was unlikely to be a problem. Later on, Elyan would also be added to this list.

The center of the room was still the fire pit, although it was protected heavily so that I didn't wander into in accidentally should I not be watching where I was going, and also, so that if a bottle should fall off of a shelf, it couldn't roll into the fire and cause a massive reaction.

I also had in the corner, much to Arthur's amazement, an every-refilling bucket of water, so that if I should need some for an experiment, or should something catch fire, I didn't have to run all the way down to the courtyard in order to get some.

There were several dozen shelves lining the walls, all of which were lined with a numerous assortment of bottles in various shapes, sizes, and colours, most of which were currently empty, although some housed individual ingredients I would use for spells. All of the bottles were protected, so that should they fall, none of them would smash.

Against several other walls were bookshelves, all stuffed with various book Arthur and Gaius thought I would find useful. I'd asked Gaius if he'd minded that I seemed to be taking his job as chief monster-identifier, and he'd laughed, and told me he actually preferred the peace, which had made me laugh, too.

In another wall, obviously, was set the portal, swirling constantly, blue, purple, red, it was almost hypnotising to watch, and I'd had to pull myself away more than once.

Against the final wall was a large desk, which I could use for preparing my experiments and potions, and carefully organised in a divisional box were several different types of herbs, precious stones, and a collection of relatively-cheap talismans which I could enchant with various protections should the need ever arise.

It was perfect.

A large board on yet another wall, at Arthur's suggestion, instead of holding anything related to me or my magic, held, in a semi-organised state, the pieces of paper on which the various knights had written down the bets they'd made among each other.

I found it rather amusing to be able to look at all, and see some of the apparently rather random thing they'd bet on, such as whether or not it would rain on one day over another, or for how long the sun would shine for on another.

Luckily, it appeared that almost every bet included one or more of my brothers, so I wouldn't have several knights following me around every day in order to be able to see the board.

Occasionally, if I was stuck on a particular thing, I would go over for a while and look at it, laughing at something new I'd found almost every time, and more often than not, add my name to one or more of them, too.

Two weeks later, I finally admitted defeat.

"I can't do it." I told Arthur dejectedly. "I'm sorry, I've tried so many times, but I just can't get it!"

Before he could reply, most likely to tell me that it would be okay, even though we both knew it wasn't, Gwaine cut in.

"Let me have a look at it, Merlin." he offered. "You never know, a fresh pair of eyes might make all the difference."

"Thanks." I told him gratefully, and he nodded. We all knew how important this spell was to Arthur.

After lunch, we went back up to my rooms, and I showed him the spell.

"This is the one to ease childbirth, yes?" he asked me, and I nodded. "Let me try something." he suggested, and I stood back, slightly puzzled.

However, my puzzled look soon turned to one of amazement, as Gwaine proceeded to throw the ingredients together in a bowl, much as I had, but unlike mine, his instead created a flash of light, before leaving a protective amulet at the bottom of the bowl. He turned back to face me, grinning at the look on my face, where my jaw was nearly on the floor.

"How…?" I asked him weakly, coming forward and examining the bowl in his hand, and he pointed down at something on the page.

"This here says to add lavender to the mix." he told me, and I nodded. "But," he continued. "up here it says to add the moonstone, and sprinkle liberally with pixie dust." he explained, and I frowned.

"But I did that." I told him, and he patiently explained.

"Merlin, what was one of the first things you told me when working with potions?" he asked me as if speaking to a small child, and immediately I recited it, as had been drilled into me by Gaius.

"Moon products should never be mixed with base herbs and magic, for if they are, then they shall…." and I trailed off dumbly, realising what it was that he had.

"Explode." Gwaine finished for me.

"Oh." I exhaled. "How could I have been such an idiot!?" I exclaimed, and he smiled.

"Don't beat yourself up, Merlin, everyone makes mistakes occasionally, and this is fairly basic in comparison to some of the ones I've made.

"But Gwaine…I made the same mistake more than a dozen times!" I explained, and he laughed.

"Once people decide something, Merlin, they generally can't see any mistakes with it after that." he explained, and I frowned.

"So why did the recipe say that, and how did you fix it?" I asked him, before I thought of something. "Hold on…." I flipped to see the cover of the book and groaned.

"What is it?" he asked me, and I looked up at him.

"This book is notoriously tricky in itself, let alone in the recipes," I explained to him. "in that it's almost sentient, and if you're not in the right frame of mind when you open it, or you don't have enough power, it won't show the correct spells, as most of them are very tricky, or even very dangerous. Should even a small mistake be made, the results could be disastrous. Therefore, it changes the recipe to have a not quite as dangerous result, but still one that means the spell wont work properly, if at all. I don't know how you got round it." I told him, and he grinned.

"I decided to substitute Lavender, a base herb, for hogwart, which is a secondary base-herb..."

"But still has the same effects on a potion as lavender!" I finished for him. "Gwaine, that's brilliant!" I told him, and he blushed.

"It wasn't much." he told me. "All I did was…"

"All you did was notice a mistake in a recipe that the most powerful magic user ever to have existed, who's also the King of Magic to boot, hadn't, and then proceed to fix it without any prompting of hesitation. Gwaine, that's a bit more than 'not much' if you ask me!" he blushed again, and I grinned.

"I can't wait to tell Arthur!"

Gwiane groaned as I laughed even harder at his predicament.

"So let me get this straight." Arthur told us, a small grin appearing on his face. "Gwaine, a magic user without a technical classification, who's had his magic for less than a year, found a problem and a solution to the recipe you were using that you, Merlin, the King of Magic, hadn't?!" He grinned, as I bounced all the harder.

"Exactly!" I beamed. "That's just what I told him!" He laughed at both my enthusiasm for my pupil, and also at our brothers' growing embarrassment.

There was a small pause.

"Well, I don't think anyone could have bet on the outcome of that!" I said suddenly, and Arthur burst out laughing.

"No." he agreed. "I don't think anyone would have believed it was possible, let alone that it would actually ever happen!"

Now the three of us were laughing, and in that moment, we were just the three Brothers of Destiny again. Not kings, or warlocks, or knights. Just brothers.

And that's the way it always would be.

AN - so what did you think? was it worth the wait? was it as good as usual? i wasn't so sure. let me know, please! :D

the next one's a bit longer, two or three chapters, and the first one's already written, so lets give me a deadline of one month today, the third of december, to get that up by? how does that sound?

on a different note, who's been watching supernatural season nine? i haven't seen episode four yet, but it's definitely set to be a good season, methinks :D also, i seem to have become hooked on Agents of Shield and Atlantis, too! can anyone else see the similarities between the latter and Merlin? it's so obvious, but still it's own (brilliant) show despite that! three cheers for python! :D

see you all in a month, and please let me know what you're thinking!

-APP