Merlin and Arthur made to leave the cryosleep pod at the same time and knocked shoulders with each other.
"Sorry."
"You go first," Arthur ordered.
"After you." Merlin gestured at the wide-open door.
Through narrowed eyes, Arthur gauged him as though he were going to whip out a pulse rifle and blast him in the back the second it was turned, which was getting more tempting the longer Pendragon was on the Havita.
The garden would benefit from some organic and all-natural fertilizer.
Waste not, want not, as his mother always said.
With a harrumph, Arthur went through the door.
Sighing, Merlin snapped off the lights to the pod and followed him, shutting the door behind himself.
It was going to be a long flight, he thought, for what was definitely not the first — nor the last — time.
…
While Arthur headed back in the direction of the kitchen to more than likely steal some of Merlin's precious food, Merlin went back to the airlock hallway.
Pendragon may have oozed an aura of pureness and nobility, but Merlin wouldn't put anything past him should the idea occur to him that he could manage the Havita without Merlin.
After gathering up all the pulse rifles from where they had been discarded and forgotten about on the floor, Merlin threw them into the nearest locker and sealed it.
Satisfied that he would only have to sleep with one eye open instead of two that night, he headed off to the kitchen to keep Goldilocks out of his porridge.
…
When he got there, Arthur was slurping his way through a food packet. "So," the prat said, "this place is a rubbish heap. What are you going to do if we're attacked?"
"Throw you outside as a distraction and make a run for it."
"I'd like to see you try."
"Oh, really-"
"As I said, this spacecraft is a rubbish heap. What defense systems do you have?"
Although Arthur was looking at him expectantly, Merlin took his sweet time picking up the food packets that Arthur had haphazardly strewn about in his haste to find one that suited his no doubt refined palate. He put them back in the bin.
"Well?"
"I don't know." Merlin wasn't exactly keen on spilling all the ship's secrets to a magic hater.
And he wasn't sure he even knew all of them himself.
"You don't know," Arthur repeated flatly.
"That's right." Merlin crossed his arms. "I don't know."
"Are you daft?"
"No. I just don't know."
In his chair, Arthur straightened. "A good captain is familiar with his spacecraft inside and out. He knows every nook and cranny, every program, and every pod."
"Well, there's your problem. I never said I was a good captain."
Arthur's face looked as though his packet of food were about to come back up. Before he could say anything, however, an alarm started beeping.
Thank goodness.
Kilghar crackled to life. "Young warlock, a matter requires your attention."
Merlin didn't know if it was on purpose for once or an accident, but he took the chance to escape.
…
The cockpit of the Havita hummed quietly.
With his left elbow against part of the dash, Merlin alternated between staring out at the view and fiddling with the navigation system.
It was about time to wrap up shop and head to bed for what was a (fairly) well-earned sleep.
Tweaking the map with the thumb of his right hand, he sighed. "Kilghar-" he started.
"Aha. So this is where you squirreled off to. What on earth are you doing?"
"Plotting your death," Merlin muttered as Arthur strode into the control room as though he owned it.
"What was that?"
"Planning our trip."
Arthur stopped in front of the dash and squinted out into the blackness rushing towards and then past them. "Where are you taking us?"
Merlin sighed.
If he was going to get asked twenty questions every time he so much as turned in a different direction, he was going to knock Arthur out right there and shove him into the extra cryosleep pod.
This was worse than having a probation officer.
Not that Merlin had ever had the experience.
"The nearest trading port for more fuel and to unload some junk." Even though he wasn't in the mood for doing Pendragon favors, he expanded the map so both of them could see. "We're currently out in very deep space. I'm going to have to cut some of the power to some areas or pods to conserve energy."
He really shouldn't have gone out that far, but his curiosity had gotten the better of him.
If it hadn't he wouldn't be stuck in this mess.
Leaning forward and looming over Merlin's chair, Arthur peered at the map.
Merlin was tempted to jam his fingers into the other man's side.
He did not.
"Well, that's stupid," Arthur declared. "Why bother with shutting off all the power to conserve fuel when you could just go to this other planet? It's closer. Any reasonable person with eyes could see that."
"No."
"Why in Jupiter's name not?"
"Because I said so." Not-so-gently nudging Arthur out of the way, Merlin minimized the map. "Kilghar-"
"That's not a good enough reason."
"Too bad. I'm going to bed. Kilghar, initiate Nighttime Pilot according to the route I just selected."
"Why are you being such an idiot?" Arthur demanded. "The most logical-"
"Nighttime Pilot set."
As Arthur listed all the possible ways his ancestors could have lost their brain cells (magic was to be blamed, if you asked him, which no one had), Merlin stood and stretched.
The thought of his pillow was sounding better and better.
But first, he was going to grab some food since he'd skipped dinner.
When Arthur tried and proceeded to fail at operating the map, Merlin slipped out of the cockpit.
…
After dinner, Merlin checked back in, but Arthur had vanished.
"Kilghar, where is he?" Merlin asked, checking under the control panel and then in the two lockers.
"Nighttime Pilot set, young warlock."
"No, where is Pendragon, not pilot. Pendragon."
"Nighttime Pilot set."
One of these days, Merlin was going to take a screwdriver to the AI. He wasn't entirely sure it wasn't doing this on purpose. He wanted to go to bed, but now he was going to have to find Arthur on his own.
Heading down the hallway, he weaved in and out of crates of junk to trade that hadn't fit into storage. "Hey…you," he called. "Where are you?"
He scoured most of the unlocked pods (even the cryosleep one in case Arthur had changed his mind), but the prat was in none of them.
Fine.
Since Arthur probably wasn't going to explode the whole ship with both his crew and Merlin on board, Merlin was going to bed. Arthur could dig around the extra supplies until he found a pillow by himself.
Ready to just crash until what passed for morning in space, Merlin went to his own private pod and flicked on the lights so he wouldn't trip over the stuff he'd left on the floor.
And that was when he spotted him.
Pendragon.
Fast asleep in Merlin's bed.
For a moment, all Merlin could do was stare.
He was hugging and drooling onto Merlin's pillow.
That sort of thing just didn't come out in the wash.
Merlin stormed over and yanked it out from underneath him, jerking him awake. "What in the blue blazes do you think you're doing?"
"What?" Arthur slurred, blinking and looking around as though he couldn't understand what was wrong.
"This is my pod and my pillow. Get out." Hugging the unsoiled part of the pillow to his chest, Merlin gave Arthur his best glare.
"This is your pod?"
"No, it's for my pet gerbil."
"Oh, in that case-" Arthur made as if to go back to sleep.
Merlin hit him with the pillow.
"Hey!"
"Get out before I turn you into a salamander."
The threat worked. Arthur almost fell out of the bed in his haste. "Where am I supposed to sleep, then?" he complained as he tried to find the fancy jacket that he had discarded amid Merlin's junk.
"There's an extra storage pod somewhere."
"You want me to sleep in a storage pod?"
"Anywhere. I don't care where it is as long as it isn't here." If he kept Merlin awake any longer, Merlin was going to find out if he actually could turn him into a salamander.
Grumbling, Arthur left the pod, shooting Merlin a look that probably worked on his normal crew.
Merlin locked the door of the pod behind him and threw the drool-infested pillow into a corner of the pod. Tomorrow, he would waste precious energy and wash it. For now, he face-planted into his bed and sighed.
He couldn't wait for this trip to be over.
…
In the morning, Kilghar woke him up with an alarm.
"I'm awake," he groaned. "I'm awake. Leave me alone. Five more minutes."
If possible, the alarm blared louder.
As he threw off his blanket, Merlin dearly hoped that Arthur was hearing it and suffering just as much as he was. After tugging on his boots, which were starting to pinch just a little, Merlin padded through the Havita to the kitchen.
Arthur was standing at the counter, hitting a button on Merlin's coffee machine over and over again in frustration.
"Where in the blue blazes have you been?" he asked without looking up. "I can't get this blasted machine to work. And I thought you told me we didn't have any coffee."
"We don't." At least none that Merlin was going to let Arthur have. "That was tea."
"What's the use of having a ruddy coffee pot if you're not going to use it?"
"I have a whole 'ruddy' spacecraft and don't use half of it. I don't really see a problem." Although now he was probably going to have to give up coffee until he got Arthur out of there.
"If you stopped at the closer port, you could get some."
"I have more important things to buy than coffee grounds."
Sagely, Arthur nodded. "Tea."
"No. New boots." Staring at the counter, Merlin ran a hand through his hair. He'd forgotten why he had come there in the first place. "How long have you been up?"
"Three hours. You slept late," Arthur noted with a frown, as though Merlin had broken some captain's creed or something.
For crying out loud.
Merlin hoped he hadn't stuck his nose into anything. Maybe Kilghar would be in a good mood and rat him out if Merlin asked.
He needed to find something that would keep the guy occupied so Merlin could go about his own business without being annoyed every ten minutes.
"How good are you at radios?" he tried.
"Radios? That is Elyan's area of expertise. I'm the captain, remember?" Arthur was still glowering at the coffee pot as though it would realize just whom it was defying and produce coffee out of nothing.
"Not on this craft," Merlin muttered.
"What?"
"How about a shot?"
"On what?"
"The radio. You can check the channels and see if there are any incoming signals for other ships. If there is one, it can take you."
At the idea of getting away from Merlin and his magic, Arthur perked up considerably.
…
Merlin unsealed the communication pod and set Arthur up with a headset inside.
"Do you know how to use any of this?" he asked.
Arthur snorted. "Of course I do. I'm not an idiot. Every captain-"
"Right, of course, sorry."
Satisfied that Arthur would be kept occupied for the next couple of hours until he realized half of the paraphernalia was broken and didn't work anyway, Merlin left him to it.
…
The second the sorcerer left, Arthur started frantically pressing buttons. "Fil-par or whatever your name is," he hissed. "How do I operate this equipment?"
There was a red button.
He pressed it.
A shrill ring started.
Did everything have to make noise on this blasted ship?
"No, no, no. Stop." He slapped it again, but the sound only intensified. "Bil-mar! Blast it," he swore, slapping the rickety table whoever had set up the communications room thought was big enough for all of the equipment.
The ringing stopped.
It was about time something on this sorcerer-infested spaceship listened to him, he thought sourly, adjusting the headset that Merlin had given him.
He started pressing more buttons.
…
Merlin hied it back to the Havita's kitchen and retrieved his precious bag of coffee grounds from where Arthur had passed over it earlier.
He hid it in another locker.
Arthur could take his pillow, but he was not going to take Merlin's coffee.
…
"Kilghar?"
"Yes, young warlock."
"What else needs fixing?"
"The glasshouse is currently undergoing difficulties."
Merlin's heart sank.
The Havita really shouldn't have had a glasshouse - it was meant for scavenging, not performing scientific experiments, and getting rid of it would have saved on fuel even though it was smaller than what most spacecrafts were equipped with. It wasn't even large enough to provide meals. Merlin had mostly kept it because his mother loved to garden and was always giving him tiny seedlings.
He was fairly certain that he had permanently stunted the growth of the last batch trying to get them to sprout more with his magic. But he'd been at least hoping for a coffee bean plant or two to keep his stock up.
When he reached the door to the glass house, Merlin stopped and stared.
Undergoing difficulties, his foot.
The pod was practically destroyed.
In fact, the only reason that the rest of the ship hadn't gone up with it was that Merlin usually kept it sealed so he wouldn't be tempted to stash more parts to trade in it.
The glass was shattered and cracked, and the plants were blackened and shriveled.
For a moment, he rested his forehead against the pod door.
He didn't know why it felt like such a loss when he wasn't even a good botanist, but it did.
Although he would have to fork over a fortune to have an actual craft engineer fix the broken seals between the rest of the ship and the glasshouse, he could at least fix the glass with his magic before some space element ripped any more of it off.
"Is Arthur still busy?" he asked Kilghar as he mentally mapped out what he was going to do.
The AI didn't answer.
"Kilghar?"
When the AI still didn't reply, Merlin started saying spells, bringing the larger pieces of glass back together one by one and then trying to patch the smaller spiderweb cracks in them.
He hoped that whatever it was that had crushed the ship was staying far away.
He wasn't sure the Havita could take another attack like that.
When he finished fixing the glass as best as he could, he manually sealed the door and shut down what few devices were still working in it.
Every little bit of fuel conservation helped.
…
On his way past the communications room to check the weather radar map for storms, Merlin checked on Arthur.
He was red in the face, furiously pushing things around, and yelling into the microphone that was on the headset.
It was looking good.
…
The cockpit of the Havita, however, was not looking good.
As Merlin stared at the screens, he frowned.
They were down ten percent on fuel.
Ten percent.
They'd had so little to begin with that ten percent wasn't going to go missing without being noticed, but Merlin couldn't think of where in the blue blazes it had gone.
Surely, Kilghar would have told him if there was a fuel leak somewhere.
He'd warned Merlin about the busted engine, hadn't he?
Merlin pulled up the system log and read through it, trying to see where all the fuel was mysteriously disappearing.
Halfway through the list, he halted.
Wait a minute.
The captain's pod.
Several years ago, he'd sealed up the captain's pod because it was too large, and he currently slept in a smaller crew pod. There was no reason for it to be unsealed now unless the monster had ruined it like the glasshouse.
He groaned.
Everything was falling apart.
It was going to cost him a fortune to fix whatever his magic couldn't.
He'd just have to get rid of Arthur, Gwaine, and Lancelot as soon as possible and pick up more loads.
When he reached the captain's pod, he stopped in his tracks.
The door, which should have been sealed shut like the cryosleep pods, was cracked.
And they weren't dead.
Which meant that somebody had opened it on purpose.
Cautiously, he stuck his head inside.
Fancier, well-made clothes that Merlin hadn't even realized were on the Havita to begin with were scattered on the floor, the lights were on the brightest possible setting that rivaled staring directly into a star, and the ceiling fan was blowing, whipping the decorative curtains on the window into a frenzy.
Merlin blinked.
Then, he whirled on his heel and marched back to the communications room.
There, he found Arthur leaning close to the equipment, his brow furrowed in conversation.
"Hey!" he cried when Merlin ripped the headset off. "What was that for? I was so close-"
"You unsealed a pod without asking my permission!" Merlin yelled. "Do you know how much fuel you just wasted?"
"That's all?"
"That's all? That was to get us back to a planet! Now, we can't because of you."
"I don't have to ask your permission to do things," Arthur said, irritated. "And the fuel isn't that big of a deal. You can just reroute the ship to head to that other port."
"We aren't going to that other port."
"Why not? Is it because of your magic?"
Arthur looked rather pleased at the idea of Merlin getting in trouble, and Merlin wanted to smack the smug look off his face because it wasn't that far from the truth.
"If I set foot on that planet, I'm going to get arrested," Merlin said, "and on top of that, I can't leave you there because it's out in the middle of nowhere, and chances are that we're not going to run into another ship that'll take you."
"That's all?" Arthur asked.
Did he not really see a problem with this?
"Arrested," Merlin stressed again.
Arthur snatched the headset back from Merlin. "You'd get arrested on any planet. In fact, if we were on another planet, I would arrest you. I really don't see what the big deal is."
Yeah, probably because he was planning all the ways he could mutiny and get rid of Merlin when they made their stop. His ship had been destroyed, and if he thought he was entitled to do whatever he wanted, he more than likely thought he could take Merlin's ship, too.
Merlin ground his teeth together.
Satisfied that the conversation was over, Arthur put the headset back on and leaned forward in his seat, unaware of how close Merlin was to losing it on him.
Merlin really wished Gwaine or Lancelot was awake instead of him. He really did.
Since arguing about it wasn't going to get through to Pendragon's thick skull, Merlin left the communications pod to shut down the captain's quarters once again.
If he rerouted the ship, it would take them an earth week to get to the backwater planet, so that gave Merlin a little bit of time.
Since they would recognize him as Merlin Emrys, he would just have to think of a way to disguise himself.
…
Merlin and Arthur spent the next week avoiding each other, and that suited both men just fine.
It was odd, however, that the two of them seemed to develop a habit of reading. Whenever Merlin made sure Arthur wasn't doing anything else stupid without asking first, he found his guest either fiddling with the defunct communications system (which he still hadn't figured out was broken, apparently) or reading on a tablet.
Merlin poured through the files that his uncle Gaius had sent him on magic, looking for what he had in mind.
It appeared that there was going to be a change of ownership on the Havita, after all.
…
This Merlin fellow, Arthur had decided fairly early on, was a fool for letting Arthur tamper with the communications system.
Although Arthur didn't know how seventy-five percent of the ship worked, he'd found a manual on a reading tablet with instructions on how to fix a lot of things. If Arthur could find out what buttons to press, he could send a distress call. Whoever answered would no doubt help him get rid of Merlin and his magic.
Then, he could unfreeze Gwaine and Lancelot and reunite with the rest of the Guinievere's separated crew.
It appeared that he wouldn't be stuck in this uncomfortable situation for much longer.
