Well, hell, fellas. It's been a while!

There's actually a reason for today's update - it's exactly one year since I posted the first chapter! At first I thought that "hey, this is. This is too cheesy even for me, what the fuck, man, an anniversary fic?", but then I decided that hey, I actually am that cheesy. Hooray for tiny anniversary story.

Anyway, about this chapter... It's a rather old plot bunny by now, so I can't remember how/why on earth I decided that this was something that needed to be written. It seemed like a good idea at the time? Also, it was a good way to throw myself back into this lovely fandom.

Warnings: Stupidity, really. And probably a very inaccuarate portrayal of the actual tale.

Summary: In which Merlin is tired of all these bloody assassination plots, Gwen is the accidental hero of the story, and Arthur unwillingly gives birth to the tale of sleeping beauty.

In retrospect, Merlin thinks he should have seen this coming. He's not overly surprised, but he is a tad… disappointed.

Due to a rather clever assassination attempt (that Merlin oh-so-surprisingly had to deal with) he hasn't slept in what feels like forever, his stomach is tragically empty, and he'd been promised a freaking day off after his endless chores (or at least half a day. Possibly). Now, looking at Arthur sprawled across the floor at his feet, said day off is laughing its head off while gleefully flying out of sight.

Like he said – it's disappointing.

He let his guard down, that's it. Usually he gets at least a few days of downtime in between the different assassination attempts – short story even shorter; he was unprepared and ready to go to sleep, and therefore he made the mistake of leaving Arthur alone.

He crouches down next to the unconscious king and tries to detect any injuries – overlooking the charming bump getting ready to appear on his forehead (courtesy of his less than gracious fall), he seems fine. Except for the unconsciousness, that is.

There's nothing out of place in Arthur's room, except for one (very blatant) thing: there's a spinning wheel in the middle of the room, and a tiny drop of blood at the base of the spindle.

…He's loath to suspect a spindle of all things, but nonetheless, he supposes he needs to fetch Gaius. Leaving the king knocked out on the floor is generally a bad idea.

oOoOo

"…Well how about a kiss?" Gwaine suggests, breaking the heavy silence in the room. He's studiously ignored by the others standing around the bed (Gaius saw it fit to collect some knights in order to move Arthur to his bed – obviously, one needs four knights to lift the prat). Merlin is too tired to completely keep up with the ongoing conversation in the room, and he's not entirely sure why they're on the subject of kisses.

"As far as I can tell, there's nothing physically wrong with him," Gaius says, as though Gwaine hadn't opened his mouth. "He's just… asleep."

"Can you do anything for him?" Gwen asks, her lips pressed into a thin line.

"With the right amount of studying, I believe I will be able to come up with an antidote," Gaius continues, giving Merlin a very pointed stare. Merlin thinks about following Arthur's example and putting himself in a magical sleep – that way, he's sure he'd be able to get some rest.

"We'll need to gather the council," Leon says, "They'll want to know what's going on. Gaius, please keep me updated."

Gwen stands up from her seat at Arthur's bedside, and straightens her dress. "I'll get ready for the council then," she says dryly, "I'm sure they'll be a lovely bunch to talk with; what with the king being threatened by a spinning wheel of all things. With my luck I'm sure they'll want to burn every spinning wheel in Camelot. Gaius, if you need any help…"

"I'll have Merlin for that," Gaius fills in, giving the queen a kind smile. Merlin lets his head thud against Arthur's bed, contemplating if he should just go to sleep right here, right now.

"What about the kiss?" Gwaine tries again, "Everyone knows about the power of a true love's kiss, milady."

"I think I'll stick to kissing my husband while he's awake, thank you very much, sir Gwaine," Gwen deadpans. One by one, they start leaving the room, until only Gaius and Merlin (and the sleeping king) remain.

Gaius waits until the door is closed before lightly smacking the warlock over the head. "Up, Merlin," he chides, and skilfully ignores Merlin's pitiful moaning.

"I'm quite fine here, thank you, Gaius."

He doesn't have to look up to feel his mentor's disapproving glare. "Are you suggesting we leave Arthur under this spell for a prolonged amount of time?"

"Well it's not like it's hurting him," Merlin argues, "He's just sleeping!"

Gaius doesn't bother gracing him with an answer, opting for instead inspecting the tiny wound at Arthur's finger yet again. "A poisonous, cursed spindle – interesting choice of weapon…"

"Certainly something new."

"Certainly something that will need some researching," Gaius points out mildly, and Merlin very pointedly whimpers in dread.

With that, they leave Arthur's room as well, Gaius prompting Merlin to go fetch more books from the library. Gaius lights candles and reads books until his back is crooked like an old, withering tree. Merlin sleeps with a book as a pillow until his neck is ready to commit mutiny.

oOoOo

The next few days are spent in (another) chaotic frenzy, made even harder (as usual) by the fact that he has to pretend he's not magically (illegally) trying to come up with a solution. Gaius has an endless amount of possible solutions, which obviously means Merlin has to be the one running around trying to turn them into practical solutions.

There are magical (forbidden) herbs to fetch, sorcerers to find and interrogate, spells to be learned and tried and eventually dismissed, and even an embarrassing talk with a (supposedly dead) dragon that thrives off being cryptic...

None of it works.

Merlin hasn't honestly worried yet – he's been pulling Arthur's royal arse out of the fire for years, can anyone really blame him for finding it a bit dull these days? – but now the worry is starting to creep upon him. It's not as simple as he thought it'd be, and maybe he ought to know better than to underestimate magical objects, but…

It's a bloody spindle. Pardon him for having a hard time looking at it like it's a threat.

He's slumped in a chair in Arthur's room, occasionally dragging a rug against one of Arthur's many shoes in order to look somewhat busy (it takes him a while to notice that the rug is only making the previously clean boot dirty).

Gwen is sitting by the bed, watching as Gaius yet again investigates the tiny wound (Merlin's sure he can draw parallels between the man's investigating and Merlin's useless shoe-polishing), and the knights are haphazardly lounging around in the room.

"What do we do, Gaius?" he hears Gwen quietly ask Gaius, whose eyebrows only lower further.

"I'm afraid," he states heavily, "that I do not know."

"Well, there must be something," Leon says roughly, "I say we focus on every possible solution; what about the swamp herb you mentioned the day before yesterday?"

Merlin makes a vaguely angry noise.

"I, ah, already sent Merlin to fetch those," Gaius says briskly. "My apologies for not informing anyone of this; I simply didn't want anyone to get their hopes up. It was a bit of a fool's errand."

Merlin makes another (less vague) angry noise, and defiantly starts dirtying the boot again. Fool's errand, indeed!

"…Well," Gwaine starts.

"Don't," Gwen interrupts immediately, sending the knight a tired glare.

"I'm just saying, your Highness – "

"I'd prefer if you didn't say anything at all."

"I repeat; true love's kiss."

"Gwaine, leave my sister alone."

"What? I'm merely trying to be a good knight of the realm and protect our beloved king!"

"I'm sure our beloved king would prefer it if you shut your mouth."

Over the other's arguing, Gaius suddenly stiffens. It's not subtle (Merlin knows Gaius can hide his tells if he so wishes), meaning the physician actually wants to share his new discovery.

"Ah," he starts faintly.

Funny how one syllable manages to catch the attention of everyone in the room, Merlin muses bitterly. If he himself said ah most people would just assume he's fallen or dropped something or otherwise managed to earn him a day in the stocks.

"I, ahem, seem to recall one occasion where…" Gaius' voice falters.

Gwen's eyebrows appear to be conflicted whether they should lower or climb towards her hairline. "Yes?"

Gaius clears his throat, appearing reluctant to continue. "Well, there was that one time, a few years ago, when Arthur was under a rather peculiar spell…"

"Oh no," Merlin mutters, a sinking feeling in his gut.

"A spell that was broken by a true love's kiss."

In Gaius' defence, it sounded like it caused him physical pain to even utter those words.

Gwaine lets out a whoop of glee and slaps his hands together. "Would you look at that, fellas? Alas, sir Gwaine has yet again found the solution to the problem!"

"You can't be serious," Elyan says sourly.

Leon coughs briefly. "It does sound a tad… ridiculous."

"Utterly ridiculous," Merlin agrees readily, because he did not waste days upon days trying to undo a spell only to be beaten to the punch by a kiss, of all things.

"I can't say for – "

"Oh for the love of god," Gwen cries, before leaning down and giving Arthur a sound kiss on the lips. There's nothing particularly romantic about it. In fact, Merlin's pretty sure at least one of them is going to have a sore lip from their teeth knocking together, and he peeks at Arthur just to see if he's about to start choking on blood from a split lip or something equally dangerous.

"There," Gwen snaps as she straightens her back, widely gesticulating at her unconscious husband, "Since that ridiculous idea obviously didn't work, can we please return to trying to figure out how to actually– "

Arthur coughs.

The king's eyes blink open, peering up at his wife and knights who in turn stare at him with mouths gaping open.

"Well, I'll be damned," Gwaine whistles, sounding remarkably impressed with himself.

Merlin lets the boot fall to the floor and throws his hands up in the air, cursing the bloody moron who thought a spindle was a good assassination plot. And Gaius for his stupid, multiple fool's errands. And Arthur for being a complete and utter moron.

He leaves the room quickly – before Arthur manages to call for him. He's earned a whole day off by now, and so help him, he'll get that day off (even if he has to make the entire castle fall asleep).

oOoOo

He can, however, admit that there are a few benefits from the whole ordeal.

Like the fact that Gwaine apparently decided to go to the tavern and spread a romanticised version of the story, and that said story turned out to be quite popular – Merlin can't tell exactly how many different versions of the tale he's already heard. It got even better when the bards decided to turn them into poetic songs, singing ballads about the fair beauty being woken by a kiss from the brave hero of the story.

It may make the king a bit cranky, but Merlin can always enjoy the look of horror on Arthur's face when he realizes that he's the one being described as having hair of sunshine gold and lips red as the rose.

Reviews, as always, equal virtual cookies for you and some fuel for me! :)