A/N: Thank you GuestM Live and Buckhunter for reviewing!
And a random cute fluff piece to end Comfortember on.
Alt. 4 Plushies
Living forever versus being resurrected centuries after death carried their own unique burdens. For Merlin, he had grown old in his soul if not body. Dragoon was just a disguise he wore for ages until he felt a subtle shift in the fabric of the world. Magic was stirring. And so he abandoned the old man persona and took up one as a wealthy descendant of the English nobility. He purchased an old manor in the country and made preparations.
It was another decade before the gathering magic came to fruition and King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table rose from the Lake. For them, being thrust back into living in a modern world was disorienting and a trauma on its own. Merlin took them all back to his manor and helped them adjust. Even Lancelot was among them, to Merlin's surprise. He hadn't known the fate of his friend's soul after he released it from Morgana's enslavement.
Arthur and his knights had been in Avalon and "awake" all this time, and had resolved all the issues from their former life, which for Merlin was many, many lifetimes ago. It left a gulf between them. They were just as Merlin remembered, but he was different to them—quieter, sager…world weary.
But he didn't neglect his role as caretaker. He saw to every one of their needs, taught them how to function in this strange world of gadgets and tech. He told the manor staff he was helping a group of wounded soldiers readjust after returning from war, which wasn't untrue. And as his friends gradually got their footing in their new existence, Merlin naturally retreated to his old, hermit ways, spending most of his time in his massive library. He was anchored in his routines while his friends were adrift in a place and time they didn't belong.
Despite Merlin's distance, he wasn't oblivious. He knew Lancelot wasn't sleeping well. The past may have been an eternity ago, but returning to a human body apparently dug up all those past horrors and trauma. Brains were funny that way. Merlin had discovered long ago that after he passed five hundred years of age, he no longer needed much sleep or sustenance. And so the light in the library was always on in the late hours of the night. Merlin wanted to wait for Lancelot to come to him, but he never did. Perhaps he wasn't ready; perhaps the relational distance between Merlin and his friends had grown too wide.
In any case, he wasn't going to just ignore the issue forever. But he also wasn't going to push, not if it wouldn't be well-received. He settled instead for a rather unorthodox approach…
When Lancelot retired to his room for the night, he found a stuffed pink llama sitting on his bed. The stitched smile and big, bright eyes were looking directly back at him. He went over to pick it up, not sure what to do with it, and was met with the immediate scent of soothing lavender. There was something else, too, something that smelled of ancient lands when magic was woven into the very air they used to breathe, before today's pollution.
He didn't know what joke Merlin was trying to make with the silly plushie, and he set it back on the bed. But when the nightmares inevitably woke him later that night and he was left choking on the horrific memories, the pink llama was right there, lying toppled on its side but still looking at him. Lancelot grabbed it and pulled it against his chest. The infused lavender wafted up, relaxing his shuddering breaths. When he drifted back to sleep, his dreams were quieter…
Merlin noted Lancelot didn't get up again after midnight, and he was pleased. The next morning at breakfast, the knight came up to him and whispered a "thank you." From then on, there were fewer nightly disturbances from Lancelot's corner.
The next issue, however, came from Elyan. He was suffering from insomnia and spent half the night tossing and turning in his bed. The modern world was too full of overstimulation, and while Merlin had tailored a lot of it down in the manor, it was still overwhelming to someone from the Arthurian Age. Allergies didn't help matters, which Elyan also had the misfortune of developing. There were a lot more toxins in the modern world as well.
Merlin could have just put a humidifier in Elyan's room to help with the congestion, but that wouldn't help with the rest of the problem. So he decided to repeat the strategy he'd used with Lancelot…
Elyan was leery of the shark plushie he randomly found on his bed one day. He wasn't sure who had gotten it for him. And it was kind of childish, even if he did love sharks (discovering their existence through the television had been an exciting day).
Well, whoever was poking fun at him wouldn't get the satisfaction. He stuffed that toy shark under his bed and never spoke a word of it to the guys.
But…it was rather soft. And plump. Kind of perfect for spooning. And it smelled of something cool and refreshing. He didn't intend to fall asleep snuggling it, but he slept through the night and woke up able to breathe the next morning. He still wasn't going to admit he'd cuddled a plushie to anyone…
Gwaine drank. A lot. It was how he coped with the whole coming back from the dead thousands of years after one's lifetime. Not to mention his death hadn't been a pretty one. He had nightmares sometimes, in the beginning. Then he found that alcohol helped numb them. He paid for it in the morning, but the more he drank, the more functional he became around it. Leon disapproved, but since when did Gwaine ever care what anyone thought of him?
Well, maybe Merlin, once upon a time. That quirky servant boy was an enigma now. An immortal warlock with that same youthful face but aged eyes. And if Merlin did disapprove of Gwaine's drinking, he certainly never made it known, nor did he stop stocking the liquor cabinet.
But one night, when he ambled into his room with a bottle of vodka swinging from his hand, he found a plump, plushie raccoon sitting on his bed, arms holding a beer and a note that read, "Thought you could use a friend who won't judge. P.S. I won't either."
Gwaine smirked at the offering. He knew about Lancelot's and Elyan's plushies from snooping around when he was bored. He plopped on the bed next to the raccoon and clinked his bottle against the beer.
He didn't stop drinking, but a few days later, he started to cut back on the hard stuff. Eventually he got down to just a few beers, and the last one was always saved to have with his stuffed buddy. Then, later, Gwaine gathered up his courage to find Merlin and have some long overdue heart-to-hearts…
"Where'd you get the plushies?" Percival asked one day while they were all gathered in the den watching a football game.
"What plushie?" Elyan immediately replied defensively.
Percival rolled his eyes. "I know you have them. You, Lancelot, and Gwaine." His expression fell. "How come the rest of us didn't get one?"
"You want one?" Gwaine asked.
"Well, yeah," Percival answered.
"They're silly toys," Arthur put in.
"I think they're cute."
"Exactly. Knights don't do cute."
"In case you haven't noticed, we're not knights anymore," Gwaine rejoined.
Merlin sighed to himself as the jab effectively ended the lighthearted part of the conversation. "I'm sorry, Percival, I wasn't trying to exclude anyone."
"It's okay," he said, subdued.
They all went back to watching the game, though whether they were really paying attention or not was undetermined. Merlin pulled out his smart phone and got to work.
A few days later, Percival walked in to find a very plump blue elephant on his bed.
"Took a while to find one big enough for you to properly hug," the note read.
Unlike the others, who had kept their plushies hidden in their rooms, Percival carried that elephant around the manor in the biggest bear hug he could give.
After that, Lancelot, Elyan, and Gwaine started bringing their plushies out to just have around. Leon never said anything, but Merlin caught him looking at his friends almost wistfully. Good thing Merlin had bought more than just the elephant that time; he'd just been waiting for the right moment.
And so Leon ended up with a stuffed lion, and the smile on his face was worth more than all the wealth of the manor.
Arthur, sullen hold-out that he was, refrained from commenting on the growing menagerie of zoo animals. Until one afternoon when Elyan was watching another of his shark TV specials, hugging his plushie against his chest, that Arthur asked if he could see it.
Elyan hugged his shark tighter. "Get your own."
Arthur scowled. "I'm just curious."
Leon passed his lion over for Arthur to examine, but there was a palpable tension from everyone; they'd grown quite attached to their plushie buddies.
Arthur shrugged and handed it back. "I still don't see what the fuss is about," he muttered.
Merlin grinned and produced one last plushie from behind his back. "Maybe you'll rethink that now," he said and held out the panda.
Arthur arched a brow at it, always trying to maintain his uncaring royal air. But he took the plushie and gave it an experimental squish. The happiness in his eyes was unmistakeable, and Merlin beamed at the "win."
"What about you, Merlin?" Percival brought up. "Did you get one for yourself?"
"I don't need a new one," he replied with a knowing smile.
Upstairs in his room was a fraying and faded dragon that had accompanied him on all his journeys for the past thirty years. In a world as harsh as this one, you had to find comfort where you could.
And there were few better suited to the task than the squish-able plushies.
