In which K ruins Merlin's life, and Gwaine and Merlin are definitely not mad at each other...

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A DISH BEST SERVED COLD

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Merlin yawned and looked at the plates sitting on the table in the kitchens, idly sidestepping as the cook walked behind him with a bread-laden baking stone intended for the oven. He'd gotten up slightly earlier than usual because, this being Gwen and Athur's first "official" morning back from their honeymoon, and having not been able to make anything really decent-tasting while he'd been accompanying them, he'd wanted to take them a really good breakfast. It wasn't even that he'd had to get up much earlier than usual to accomplish it, but since he'd been up far, far too late the previous night at their welcome home banquet, he was feeling incredibly sleep-deprived. And also hungry, because he hadn't eaten yet either. His stomach growled, and he grabbed the plates to take them upstairs, because if he didn't do so soon, he'd probably end up eating one himself. That probably wouldn't go over well, although the mental image of Arthur's face if he handed a half-empty plate to him and said, "I made you breakfast, but then I ate it," did make him laugh.

He knocked before he entered, but the door was already slightly ajar and he heard three voices inside conversing, which made him pause for a moment before he remembered Arthur's visiting cousin. Then he shrugged. If K wanted to get up early to chat with his cousin, that was fine, but Merlin wasn't his manservant or his friend, so he wouldn't be getting him breakfast.

"Arthur, I brought you and Gwen—" he stopped suddenly, having turned from opening the door to see that Arthur and Gwen were already eating with K. They all looked up at him when he entered, and he stood foolishly holding the plates, wishing he could possibly hide them behind his back and spare himself the embarrassment. Clearly Arthur hadn't been responsible for the breakfast. Merlin was pretty sure he hadn't been in the kitchens in any of the years he'd known him, and besides… he'd been there the whole morning. Speaking of that, how had K snuck in and out without him noticing? Maybe he'd beaten him to the kitchens and left before Merlin had even showed up.

While he was standing there with what was probably a thoroughly stupid look on his face, K took the opportunity to speak up, and Merlin wondered if this hadn't been a deliberate attempt to elbow in on his own duties. If it had, why couldn't he have polished some bloody armor, and left Arthur and Gwen out of it? As much as Merlin dared, he gave K a withering look, but there was a limit to the angry faces you could make at the king's cousins with the king sitting right there staring at you. Especially when said king had known you for long enough to know when you were making irritated faces.

"I'm sorry, Merlin, did no one in the kitchens tell you I'd already been in?" K asked with infuriating innocence. Merlin forced himself to smile, and shook his head. "Well, I'm sure they just forgot. Perhaps someone else would be glad of the food?" he asked, and Merlin looked at the plates he was still holding. Past them, he caught a glance of that hideous gnome K had brought with him. It was standing next to one of the legs of the bed, staring straight forward with a cheery ceramic gaze. Straight forward? Hadn't it been looking off to the side last night? Merlin squinted at it, trying to remember, but he didn't remember things well when annoyed.

"Oh, come now, Merlin, don't be so sullen. It's one less thing you have to worry about! Besides, now you have more time to go deal with the horses. We'll be going on a hunt after K has met the knights at practice," Arthur said, which was possibly the one thing he could have said to make this morning even worse. Of course Merlin'd have to go along, and he hated hunts. But Arthur wasn't quite done talking. "And K is going to ride Diablo, since his horse is still tired. I'm sure Gwaine will let you borrow one of his horses," he said, the icing on the cake. Merlin muttered something that sounded vaguely like, "Yes, sire," and turned around to leave before anyone could say anything else. He went straight to the kitchens and dumped the food into a napkin to take to the practice field, where he was sure Gwaine or someone would eat it. He entered the armory to find that Gwaine was half-in, half-out of his armor, one whole sleeve of it sitting on the bench in front of him.

"Arthur and Gwen didn't want this, so I thought you might like it," Merlin said tiredly as he walked in, setting the tied up napkin next to the sleeve.

"Not right now, but if you leave it I'll eat it," Gwaine said around an end of one of the ribbons that tied the armor he was wearing together. Merlin's reaction was more overreaction, and mistaking Gwaine's statement for altogether not wanting the food, he threw both hands in the air with an annoyed growl and stalked back towards the door.

"Oi! What're you so cranky about?" Gwaine half shouted indignantly to him as he changed his mind and, instead of shouldering the door open, looked for something to fix. Aggressively.

"NOTHING," Merlin snapped, snatching up a nearby discarded arm guard that had broken in the middle of practice and endeavoring to repair it.

"Put that down, Merlin, you're just going to break it," Gwaine snapped, leaving the shoulder-plate he was wrestling with to drop, swinging on its hinge. He stalked over and snatched the bracer from Merlin's grasp.

"It's already broken," Merlin replied, snatching it back.

Gwaine, not really sure why he was so angry—well, of course he knew why, but why his freaky fantasy frustrations translated into being mad at Merlin for fiddling with a busted arm guard was beyond him—in fact, the whole scene was playing out like he was watching someone else do it—snatched the bracer back and cuffed Merlin in the back of the head. "Stop it, Merlin, my God, what's gotten into you this morning?"

"What's gotten into you?" Merlin shouted back. "You wake up on the wrong side of a hangover this morning? Or is this what you're always like when you're up before noon?"

"What the hell was that for?"

"I don't know! I brought you breakfast and you treat me like an idiot!"

"Maybe you are an idiot!"

"Takes one to know one!"

Gwaine advanced on Merlin, probably, in his current stupidly angry mood, about to do something truly idiotic like try to hurt his best friend whose lack of any kind of muscle mass belied the fact that he was actually a powerful sorcerer who could probably snap Gwaine's neck without any trouble. Just as he raised his hand, Gwaine saw Merlin's eyes sparkle gold, and perhaps in fear or perhaps realizing what he was about to do, he managed to rein in the retarded and his fist instead connected with the wall just to the side of Merlin's head.

Merlin flinched, the gold gone.

"I'm—" WHAM! "not—" BAM! "mad—" CRASH! "at—" WHACK! "you!" Gwaine gasped out as he repeatedly pounded his fist into the wall.

The good news was, this kept him from taking out his anger on the faultless Merlin. Also good, the pain in his hand and wrist now outweighed whatever might have been going on with his downstairs brain. It gave him something else to focus on, anyway, and perhaps even satisfiedhim, but he wasn't going to go there.

The bad news was—

"Holy fecking shite!"

Gwaine immediately turned away from Merlin, holding his wrist and fairly mangled hand. He didn't even want to look at it now. It was the same hand that not a week before had been shot clean through by—

Best not to think about her.

"Sorry!" Gwaine barked, like this was somehow Merlin's fault and it was painfully obvious he clearly hadn't actually worked anything out of his system and now Lancelot was going to kick his arse on the field because he wasn't going to be doing anything with his right hand and—

Gwaine stalked out the door before he could do something else massively stupid.