There had always been this certain feeling in the air, when Merlin was a kid and his parents were expecting company over, a sort of appending doom that lodged itself into Merlin's chest as he was forced to detail clean the entire house...twice. That was how he felt now, as Gwen yelled at him to clean every single surface in the house mutable times. He didn't know why he needed to clean out the closet in the hall so many times or how many times he could 'clean' the spots off of the cutlery, but that's what he was doing now. Or more like that's what he had been pretending to do while Gwen had run to the store to get some last minute things. Instead, Merlin stood in the kitchen with several knives in front of him on the counter, and the rag he had been supposed to be using laid next to them, while he had a sandwich. He wasn't sure why he had been roped into this, he had wanted to go stay at Gwen's house alone for the night but for some reason Gwen refused and forced him to stay. She claimed she needed help, but Arthur was more than capable of helping her do whatever she needed to do and if they were supposed to the ones who were married rather than him and Arthur, then it made no sense why he was there at all. Merlin supposed though, that she just wanted help cleaning the house, so she forced him to stay, so she could work him like a dog.

Suddenly there were footsteps coming from the dinning room and quickly Merin shoved the rest of his sandwich into his mouth and picked up the rag, in fear it was Gwen. But, it had only been Arthur, who had been forced to do his own work, this work was much worse than polishing knives, it was outside, power washing the house and mowing the lawn. He walked in with frost bit, red cheeks, sweaty and covered in green-ish kinda brown grass. He raised an eyebrow at Merlin as he walked passed him to get to the fridge, Merlin didn't say anything right away, partly because he still had sandwich lodged in his mouth, and he was also judging him. He only watched as Arthur opened the refrigerator and pulled out a beer already. It was noon and the guests hadn't even arrived yet, but Merlin couldn't blame him.

It was Arthur who spoke first, "I see you're working hard," he commented, looking at the same amount of knives still sitting on the counter, probably the same count as before Gwen had left an hour ago. Merlin's eyes flashed to them and then back to Arthur, judging him again. He figured he was safe and he wouldn't tell Gwen, because if he did Merlin would wave those papers right in his face, so he had better not dare. "While I'm killing myself outside..."

"We could switch?" offered Merlin, after finally having finished the wad of ham and cheese in his mouth, it was Arthur's turn to judge him now, because they both knew Merlin wouldn't be doing any more work outside than he was inside. "I love grass...not that kind of grass, but grass."

Arthur rolled his eyes. "I cut my finger on the mower!" he complained, and Merlin smiled. Arthur lifted his left hand and there was a significant cut on his pointer finger. "I couldn't get the bloody thing to start..."

"You poor baby..." Merlin trailed off, unimpressed, Arthur seemed offended by this.

"You could at least care?"

"I'm not your husband today, I don't have to," he retorted and Arthur corked an eyebrow at this.

"Oh, I see how it is..."

"Yeah," grinned Merlin. Of course he did care, even if Arthur was just being a whinner, his finger did look like it hurt at least a little bit. But teasing Arthur was more fun. "That is the way it is. Maybe you should get your wife to kiss it better...oh wait, she's off buying more stuff with your money again...right!"

"Jealous?" Arthur retorted and Merlin nodded.

"Yeah, I'd love to spend your money."

Some sort of imaginary line must have been crossed in Arthur's mind at this point apparently, because he breathed out rather aggressively and took several steps closer to Merlin, yanked the rag out of his hand and slapped him right over the shoulder with it. "Asshole."

"Be mad all you want," retorted Merlin back, rubbing his shoulder. "At least I don't smell like a golf course."

"So I don't suppose you want a hug then?" said Arthur and Merlin bit his lip.

"Oh, I do," he said, happily. "...from Sebastian Stan, but you can keep your greenhouse self away from me," Arthur glared at him now, as he grinned. "There isn't going to be any hole in one for you tonight, Daddy."

It took a minute for what Merlin said to hit Arthur's brain, for that second that it been passing through his ears, he had continued to glare, but then once he figured it out, something broke him and he started to laugh, shaking his head. "I hate you..."

"I know," grinned Merlin still. But it was at this moment, again, where Merlin heard footsteps, but had also heard the front door open and shut. He quickly considered throwing the knives out of the window, but abandoned that idea quickly, instead he just left them on the counter, instead staring at the doorframe he knew Gwen was going to walk into any second. Once she did, the ruffling of plastic bags as she did, her disappointment was very clear.

"Have you two done anything while I was gone?!" She streaked and Arthur looked offended she asked, as he looked down at his grass laden shirt as if it was obvious he had. But she ignored him and instead started bitching at Merlin. "You're in the same exact spot I left you in, can you do anything, Merlin? Honestly...."

All Merlin could muster out was a, "Meh..." because he had been working for two days straight now, and he was tired of this. If this house was so dirty then why didn't she just have it at her own? She threw the plastic bags on the counter now and pointed. "Put this stuff away," she demanded and then looked to Arthur, her personality doing a full 360 all of a sudden. "I got something for us at the store...I hadn't planned on it, but I saw it and I said...well, we are pretending after all," she grinned and Arthur just sort of looked mildly alarmed at her as she started digging around in her purse. Merlin tried not to pay attention to them, as he put the potato's by the stovetop and put extra milk, heavy cream and an assortment of cheeses, all of which they already had, into the fridge. "Here it is..." she pulled out a small box from her purse and opened it, revealing to Arthur a small, engagement type ring. "I know it's nothing like what you'll actually buy me, but it will do the trick for tonight."

Merlin didn't know why he felt such an overwhelming feeling of alarm at the sight of the ring, which was silver and had just a little, fake diamond on it, but he did. He felt a great deal of irritation at it, because this was utter bullshit, here he was working away like a servant and there she was out there buying fake jewelry for a fake marriage that was even less real than the one Merlin was currently in. At least Merlin had documents, what did she have? A fake accessory. "Guinevere," said Arthur sternly, after he had stared at the ring in the same mild alarm he had been this entire time. "How much was this?"

"Barely anything," said Gwen, but she was obviously avoiding the question at hand. She took the ring out of the box and offered it to Arthur. "Well, are you going to put it on?" He looked at her for a second longer, and then down at the ring, he gently took it from her and she expended her left hand to him. He placed it on her ring finger, but didn't push it all the way down. She gladly did however and let out a high pitched giggle, leaning forward and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. "I do," she said happily and then kissed him. Merlin openly rolled his eyes and couldn't help looking disgusted, because honestly...he really was. She pulled away from the kiss and looked over at Merlin with a dark smile on her slightly redder lips. He looked away right at she did this, intent to never look at her again, but suddenly she gasped and he had no choice but to look back. "TAKE THAT OFF RIGHT NOW!" she yelled and he was suddenly confused. However, she looked angry now, letting go of Arthur and stomping toward him. "Your ring, take it off, NOW!"

"No," Merlin retorted, deadpan, almost instantly, as if she were insane, which she was. He wasn't going to take his ring off, first of all because he had no intentions of taking it off until this whole marriage thing was over, it just felt wrong if he did. And secondly, it was stupid, he shouldn't have to. This seemed to enrage Gwen however, and she lunged forward and grabbed his hand.

"YOU ALWAYS TRY TO RUIN EVERYTHING!" she screamed at him, as she tried to pry the ring off of his finger, he closed his fist and didn't let her. He thought about just straight punching her in the face, but he knew he couldn't do that. Arthur came over suddenly and pulled her away from him. He said her name a few times but it went ignored by both of them. "Take it off, Merlin, or I swear-"

Merlin sighed heavily, feeling somewhere between hurt and royally pissed off, but he didn't want to fight with her, he didn't actually want to ruin her night. He slipped the ring off and threw it onto the counter. "Fine," he retorted as he began to bolt from the room. "But I'm done doing anything else, get another fool to do it!"

He didn't wait to see what she had to say, he was already storming out of the room, her voice was much softer, as she spoke as he was leaving though, as if she hadn't just attacked him and screamed at him over a ring. "This really is the stupidest looking ring, Merlin..."

Merlin pleaded with himself not to say anything, while he swore he may be having a heart attack from anger, as he climbed the stairs.

(A/N: I did say this one was a bit longer, I hope it was worth it. And honestly...Gwen is a nightmare, glad I'm not the only one thinking so, I wouldn't blame Merlin for punching her. Anyway tho, I hope you enjoyed! Also, I really wanted to give another update, but forgive if there is any mess-ups, I am dead tired, I've been working like 13 hour days every day.)