Apparently, walking Gwaine home was proving a bit more problematic than Merlin had anticipated. He was about to escape to his own room for some long-needed sleep (in a real bed, no less, and not in a tent on the ground) but now Gwaine was acting... very strange.
Merlin looked at the knight with one of those deer-in-the-headlights looks of complete and utter confusion. First of all, Gwaine had snarled at him, a snarl which in Merlin's experience Gwaine reserved for when he was seriously annoyed at Leon. Also, he appeared to be much, much less drunk than Merlin had thought, or than he'd been acting the entire walk back. At which point Merlin realized that this had probably been Gwaine's intention the whole time. But he was not quite sure what Gwaine was on about, for all that this was clearly some elaborate plot of his to get Merlin to talk, unless... Merlin did some quick thinking. The looks he'd been getting like the one in the clearing when he dropped the branch on the deer, as well as several of Gwaine's not-very-subtle comments kind of started to make sense. Yeah, that might explain why Gwaine had that look he got on his face when he was pouting- though usually it was because Arthur had ordered him to stay away from the tavern, or some girl, or had assigned him guard duty during a feast.
Not that he was going to admit anything. Trying to appear perfectly innocent, Merlin smiled disarmingly and went for using distraction as a tactic.
"Okay, okay. Fine. I told Percy where you keep your secret stash of food. I'll find you a new one tomorrow. Can I go—" he said, and tried to stand up again before Gwaine glared at him, and he sat back down.
"Merlin."
Gwaine didn't even fully understand himself why he was so angry about this. Sure, his temper tended to be a bit on the fiery side, but not with Merlin, never to Merlin. With Arthur, yes, with Leon, definitely, but Merlin wasn't capable of getting on his bad side.
And maybe that was the problem. Gwaine didn't exactly have a great deal of experience in these sorts of things, but this friendship thing was meant to be a two-way street, wasn't it? Merlin knew—well, except for Leon—thank you very much, it's-the-alcohol-talking—more about his past than anyone. And Gwaine, in his own way, had tried to make it crystal clear to Merlin that he'd jump down a dragon's throat just to keep him company. And yet Merlin didn't trust him.
Well, not that Gwaine blamed him, really.
"You tell Percy whatever you like, I'm getting fat, anyway," Gwaine said, doggedly refusing to be distracted by anything other than Merlin's normally-hilarious-but-right-now-unamusing attempts at being evasive. He stared at Merlin, arms crossed, for a long moment, but Merlin refused to talk. "Look, Merlin, I know you're not dumb, and I'm sure as hell not as dumb as you think I am if you think that nonsense is going to work on me. You know exactly what I'm talking about. I just want to hear you say it."
