Chapter Text
Act One.
In which Arthur and Merlin become partners in crime, and also maybe friends.
“Arthur,” Leon bites his lip, “I don’t think this is going to work out very well.”
Arthur pauses to look down at the hulking contraption he’s been busy setting up in his room. It’s large, black, and blocky; haphazard, like something one might have nicked from a mad wizard’s workshop (emphasis on mad). One metallic arm falls off with a clunk, and the machine tilts and whirs worryingly.
“It just looks bad,” Arthur says, more to convince himself than anything else. “Look, Leon, the man I consulted had a license and everything. He must have known what he was doing. And let’s face it; I could never win over Morgana without enlisting magic!”
Over the past half-year or so, Arthur has been involved in a prolonged prank war with his sister, Morgana. Morgana, despite being family, makes a formidable enemy- even for something as trivial as a prank war. She has battered him, bruised him, and humiliated him more times than he can count. Never mind that Arthur has been jinxed within an inch of his life! The day before yesterday, Morgana had the audacity to charm Arthur’s voice to sound like a little girl’s. That had been the last straw for him.
Alright, so the consulting office Arthur visited had seemed a bit run-down, strangely slick-looking black vinyl sheets adorning every single piece of furniture in sight. And there had been a stuffed snake’s head glaring at him from the wall that had been downright unsettling. The owner, Valiant, had seemed a tad shifty, too; but Arthur had just supposed that was how all magic-users were. Heavens knew Morgana was already eccentric enough. Morgana had the disconcerting habit of painting her nails blood-red, and occasionally shaping her head into a strange bird’s nest heap that she claimed was ‘all the jazz nowadays’.
The owner had been surprisingly persuasive in that shifty way of his, though. Now, a scant few hours later, Arthur is back at his his flat, wallet considerably lighter. The Very Costly piece of highly magical equipment Arthur had apparently been lucky enough to catch on ‘sale’ stands proudly in the middle of his home.
Leon sighs a little, shifting his broad shoulders to rest against the walls of Arthur’s cramped bedroom. The hideous yellow wallpaper only serves to make his red curls seem even more frazzled than usual. “I guess so. But really, Arthur, I think you should just give up. This prank war of yours is getting ridiculous, and I’m worried Morgana might go a bit too far and end up doing something she regrets.”
Arthur bristles. “No, she’s the one who started it,” he grumbles, knowing he sounds like a child and not caring one bit. Leon has always been the voice of reason to his and Morgana’s hot-headed antics growing up. But that also means that Arthur has had over ten years of listening to Leon’s sensible but dry advice, and he is entitled to throw little tantrums from time to time.
“…But I’ll be the one to end it. Just you wait and see.” He slaps a confident hand against Valiant’s machine. It hisses a little, and a pipe on the side begins emitting a constant stream of smoke. Arthur blinks and stares at it. The smoke, strangely enough, seems to contain pretty much every color of the rainbow. It also smells like fish left out to rot in the toilet before being set on fire.
Leon coughs. Arthur bites his lip. Well.
“Maybe it was supposed to do that,” he says.
Leon narrows his eyes at it.
“…And what was that supposed to be, pray tell?”
Arthur brightens, clapping his hands together. He has always loved machines, the soothing way their little whirs and clicks seem to speak to him. While this contraption may be magical in nature, it’s just another machine, in the end. “Well, it’s a transporter.”
“Transporter?”
“Transporter-multiplier, the seller said.” All in all, the machine looks like a mismatched oven, a small trap-door hanging open to the side, numerous pipes and levers sticking out at odd angles. There’s a rectangular screen on the top, complete with a small keyboard that looks a little like it was lifted off of some junk-garage shop. But, well, who is Arthur to complain?
“-So, if I put whatever I want into that little door there, it will multiply it and send it off to whatever address I type up.” Arthur pauses to tap at the screen. “There, like that. I’ve gotten the hang of it, see?”
“I’m not so sure magic is supposed to work like that,” Leon says, sidling up to peer into the machine’s many arm holes. “What are these supposed to do, then?”
Oh. Valiant hadn’t explained that.
“Maybe it’s, umm, for the amplifying?” Arthur frowns.
He doesn’t like not understanding things. It’s part of what had driven him towards engineering back in university. Arthur has ended up working the counter at his father’s flower shop, after years of drifting, but his diploma still hangs proudly on the wall right over his telly. Arthur shrugs. “Well, you did say magic wasn’t supposed to be so clear-cut. Maybe it’s for something- mystical.” He waves his hands about in what he hopes is a passing imitation of the intricate hand-motions he’d sometimes seen some of the professors of magic perform. Leon shakes his head.
“I’m not so sure I trust this Valiant of yours, Arthur,” he says.
The voice of reason, as always. But Arthur has always been stubborn, and he has already invested far too much in this godforsaken machine (he’ll have to eat canned noodles for a month) to afford to be skeptical now.
A dangerous combination, as Arthur will soon come to learn the hard way.
“Just you wait and see,” Arthur says, quickly snuffing out the niggling sense of doubt that had started to grow in his gut. “Morgana is never going to forget this.”
No, she never will. But, as it turns out, neither will Arthur.
✨
“What have you done to yourself?” Arthur hears, as he fights his way out of the clinging traces of sleep. It’s a very familiar voice.
“Wha’?” he grumbles. There’s something squishy pressed against his face. The smell of cheap rubber fills his nose, and when Arthur tries to move, the thing stretches with a plastic-like elasticity. Arthur opens his eyes, and gapes.
There’s a veritable flock of balloons in his room, filling his view with brightly-colored dots of red, blue, and yellow. They’re the same balloons that he had put into Valiant’s transporter-multiplier yesterday and sent on their merry way towards Morgana’s flat.
Well, it seems the machine did its multiplying part well enough. The transporting, however, sent the results spitting right back into Arthur’s cramped room, instead of sending it off to where Arthur had wanted it to.
Beyond the small gaps between balloons, Arthur manages to catch a glimpse of none other than Morgana herself, tears streaming down her face with how hard she’s laughing.
“What’s going on?” he cries, which comes out as more of a muffled ‘smrrph’, obscured by the balloon pressing insistently against his lips.
“Well, brother dear,” Morgana chokes in between bursts of laughter, “it seems you’ve managed to find yourself a malfunctioning machine! Where, pray tell, did you manage to buy such a hideous contraption?”
Arthur is too proud to admit that what it was supposed to do was prank Morgana. Good heavens, the mess he’s gotten himself into… He should have listened to Leon. He ought to have suspected something when Valiant had near-leaped in joy when Arthur had said he’d buy, all the while faking tears about ‘handing such a valuable device off at such a meager price!’ Meager price to Valiant, maybe. Arthur is going to make this Valiant fellow regret ever having crossed him if it’s the last thing he does.
“That’s none of your business,” Arthur sniffs. “And I’ll have you know that this is actually quite the impressive piece of engineering. I’ve been looking for a way to multiply the things I need, you see.”
“And you needed… balloons?”
“Sefa’s birthday is coming up.”
Sefa is Gwaine’s baby sister, and both of them know that her birthday is a good six months away. Morgana laughs. “Even you wouldn’t go so far as to stock up for a party half a year away! Admit it, Arthur. You can’t win. You’re just too boring to be good at pranks.”
Arthur narrows his eyes, trying to look intimidating. A noble cause, but not so easy a feat, with murderous balloons of his own making intent on suffocating him. “It’s not my fault you’re too twisted to take your brother’s word at face value,” he says. Morgana near well cackles. (It’s moments like these that Arthur is convinced Morgana might’ve made a fantastic fairytale witch. A terrifyingly capable one, at that.)
“I’ve taken pictures,” she informs him gleefully, before sashaying out. The door lock slides loyally open for her. (And Arthur had thought he’d managed to successfully magic proof it!)
It takes Arthur the whole day to rid his flat of balloons. Then, to add to it all, Valiant’s multiplier-not-transporter promptly begins smoking ominously before literally blowing its top.
Arthur clenches his fists, staring down at the smoking heap of steel that is now the piece-de-resistance of his meager sitting room. There’s no way he’s going to let that giant lump simply stay in his home- at least Arthur knows for sure that his blood pressure is going to skyrocket whenever he sees the wretched thing. Well, then, it’s a good thing that Arthur’s a qualified professional in taking machines apart, isn’t it? He doesn’t have a degree in engineering for nothing, after all.
Arthur takes great pleasure in prying it open bit by precious bit.
✨
Valiant’s Arcane Consulting is nowhere to be found when a resentful Arthur with a bone to pick heads over. He bangs his fists on the door until he’s nearly bruised.
It takes the landlady threatening to call the police to finally make him stop.
“You don’t understand,” Arthur says, exasperated, feeling like a tea-kettle full of fumes. One touch, and then- boom. Massive (potentially deadly) explosion. “I’ve been cheated.”
A knowing look crosses her kindly, wrinkled face. “Ah. Valiant?”
“That bastard!” Arthur cries with feeling. It isn’t often that he curses, but he feels that the situation more than merits it.
“That’s what they all say,” the landlady says, sagely, and sends him on his way with a packet of crisps and a pat to the back.
Suffice to say, it does not make Arthur feel much better.
✨✨✨
Arthur’s friends jibe at him and comfort him in equal measures.
“What did I say?” Gwaine guffaws over his overlarge pint of beer. “I told you that you ought to do away with that ridiculous prank war of yours, which is precious, you know, coming from me. But do you listen? No! I told you, Morgana would get you hook, line, and sinker, and take your treasure-ship to boot, and I stand by them. So say we.” He then makes a vague gesture that may or may not have been a cross before taking a solemn chug from his (now half-empty) pint. Arthur aims a discreet kick at him under the table; from Elyan’s wince, it found the wrong person.
“I don’t understand,” Arthur fumes. Not that he doesn’t understand how that lying weasel Valiant fooled him, because he’s had plenty time to think it over as he chewed agonizingly over his pot of flavorless salty pot noodles. (That, incidentally, he’ll be eating for most of the next month, because again: Valiant is a dirty cheating liar.) What he doesn’t understand is that for all his planning, for all his advances to strategy, how does Morgana always manage to come up on top?
She’s still in college, for god’s sake. Arthur is supposed to be the experienced one here. So much for being the more mature sibling of the two. (Though, if he’s to be very honest with himself, Arthur has to admit that he’s pretty much given up all his rights on maturity the very moment he agreed on a prank war with his sister, of all things.)
“Well.” Leon shifts his weight and scratches at his short growth of stubble. It’s what Leon always does before he has to break an uncomfortable truth. Arthur braces himself. “What exactly were you trying to do?”
“Well.” Now that it comes down to that. “To fill Morgana’s room with balloons?”
“And what was that supposed to achieve?”
“Get Morgana annoyed?” Arthur shrugs. “Does it matter? I mean, Leon, it’s a prank.”
Gwaine makes a whole barrage of weird tooting-mocking noises like those reality TV shows, and gets a sound smack upside the head from Elena in retaliation. Gwaine staggers, but rights himself with the ease of long practice. “Mate, it’s a prank! It’s supposed to be funny.”
“The website I consulted told me it would be,” Arthur plows on stubbornly. Fine. So he knows that he isn’t always the best when things come down to humor. But at least he tries. He sighs, letting his forehead fall down on the linoleum table with a muffled clunk. “By the gods this is hard.”
“So, what about giving up?” Elena suggests, always the peacemaker. Her shirt of the day reads CAT MOM in large, neon-pink letters. While it’s a pretty accurate phrase when it comes to Elena, it’s incredibly loud, as far as colors go. Arthur blinks over his encroaching drunken headache.
“Over my dead body.”
“And you say Pendragons aren’t stubborn?”
“Someone had to show Morgana that she can’t just twist the world around her little finger.” The Pendragons had never been rich, but Uther had always wanted a baby girl of his own, and he’d doted on little Morgana like the princess of Great Britain herself. She’d probably gotten more clothes in a year than Arthur ever had in his entire life. And his father complains about the flower shop ‘not doing well.’ Arthur is rather certain it would be doing worlds better if only father stopped buying every single thing Morgana so much as looked at funny.
So, yes, stopping Morgana from getting spoilt sick. Well, at least that’s what Arthur tells everyone else, and there is a grain of truth in that too. But, to be honest, the real reason goes a little more like this: Arthur is an older brother, whom anyone will inform you has full rights to annoy said younger sibling whenever needed. Which, Arthur thinks, is pretty much every other second, because otherwise her head may well burst from sheer size. He’s doing a great public service here.
Elyan, who had just popped outside for a quick phone call with his sister Gwen, jumps back into the pub with a giant grin splitting his face. It isn’t an uncommon reaction after talking to Gwen, because if anyone knows how to brighten a day it’s her, but Elyan’s grin is a little wide even for that.
“Shite! Bloody- why hadn’t I ever thought of-?”
Gwaine smacks Elyan in the back hard enough to send him careening sideways into their booth. Note to anyone unfamiliar with the man: Gwaine on a good day is a menace; Gwaine drunk is to be avoided at all costs. (Well, unless you’re his friend, in which case you’re pretty much honor-bound to stick with him and buy him crappy beer. And occasionally receive surprisingly astute pep talks in return.) “Well, you’ll have to actually tell us what you’re thinking, because none of us here is Professor bloody Snape!”
“Snape?” Arthur blinks.
“Not important. Anyhow, what got your trousers in a twist?”
Elyan’s hands come up to unconsciously adjust the lay of his trousers. He shakes his head, as if to clear his head of stray thoughts, and beams at Arthur again. “It’s Merlin!”
“Merlin?” Arthur tilts his head. “As in, you know, merlin the bird?”
Someone helpfully provides little tittering sound-effects, which Arthur is pretty sure is not how falcons sound. Elyan shakes his head.
“No! So, Merlin’s this bloke, who’s my sister Gwen’s roommate, and he was supposed to be a ridiculous prankster back in uni, except now he isn’t, because he’s settled down and has a job and has to keep it- but don’t you see? He can help you!”
“Elyan, I never knew I’d say this, but you’re almost as bad as Gwen when you’re excited.” Elyan scowls, but Arthur knows the siblings’ legendary fondness for each other well enough to know that Elyan isn’t really offended. Wait. So, Merlin- prankster-
“You want to enlist this person’s help to prank Morgana?” Arthur asks disbelievingly. His pride smarts sharply. Because, well, it’s one thing to go (secretly, although it had turned out to be more public than he’d ever imagined) to a charlatan of a self-proclaimed consultant to help, and-
It’s another thing to actually ask someone your friend knows for help.
It’s like- like going ‘round to your neighbors’ to ask for spare boxers. Or ringing your long-estranged gran just to, say, ask her advice on dating that gorgeous man next doors.
To his surprise, Gwaine is loudly roaring his approval- Arthur is instantly wary at that- and Elena hums thoughtfully in response.
“Where did you say he worked?” Leon asks. Elyan beams at him.
“The Avalon Magical Disaster Control Center. He’s actually one of their more talented guys. Knows what he’s doing, I’d reckon.”
Gwaine nods in agreement. “Damn most powerful magic-user they’s seen in a century, I’ve heard. Say, tha’ really is somethin’! And I ain’t just saying so because Merlin’s my friend.” He pauses to take another swig from his tankard. “You see ‘im in action and you’ll see. Damn powerful…” The end of his sentence is lost in a muffled clunk as he leans his head on the wall, blinking blearily at the bar’s overhead lights.
Oh. That doesn’t actually sound that bad.
An actual, government-approved job, check. At least he won’t (hopefully) be some slimy curmudgeon like Valiant had turned out to be. (And no, Gwaine, Arthur most certainly does not curse like a grandfather.) And, well, if his friends approve-
After the Balloon Incident, Arthur would have made a deal with the devil if it meant he could get one up on Morgana. She’d gone and posted the photo on Instagram, and if that doesn’t merit immediate retaliation Arthur doesn’t know what does.
In comparison to a large, red horned guy, well, Merlin can’t be that terrible- can he?
✨✨✨
Gwen sets up a meeting between the two of them easily enough. Arthur hears the phone call disconnect with Gwen’s voice ringing out. “-make sure to be nice- he’s a nice one, you get it, Elyan?”
The said sibling simply winces and smiles a little sheepishly at Arthur. “She does that,” he says, shaking his head fondly. “You’d think it’s the first time we met up- but Merlin and I are practically on a first-name basis, y’know?”
The wonders of family indeed. It will never fail to baffle Arthur how someone so inherently soft-spoken and gentle can slip into that Admonishing Voice of Doom at the drop of a coin. Arthur stifles a smile, because Elyan will probably punch him in the arm if he sees it, and pushes in the door of the café they’d agreed to meet at…
…And takes a step back out, because there’s only one customer sitting in the café, and things aren’t looking very promising.
“Elyan,” Arthur hisses, “Are you absolutely sure this is it?”
“Yeah? Probably?” Elyan shrugs. He takes a step back and squints at the large sign hanging above the rusty turquoise door of the shop. It reads the Corner Café in large, cheerful letters. “I mean, I’m pretty sure I aren’t illiterate, mate. What’s the problem?”
“The problem is him!”
Merlin, from what Arthur could catch from that distance, is a nice, young fellow (probably around the same age as Arthur) with a mess of tousled dark curls and sharp, clear-cut cheekbones. The problem, though:
His trousers are bright purple, his cap has feathers in it, and he’s twiddling with a pen shaped like an octopus.
Arthur is not feeling very optimistic if that’s the expert who is supposed to help him.
“Ahhh,” Elyan draws out, comprehension dawning on his face. He smiles sheepishly. “Yeah, I mean, I admit that Merlin could come across as a bit eccentric at first. But he’s really a nice fellow, y’know? Just have to get to know him.”
“He’s an idiot!” Arthur bursts out, because while he may not be one to say appearances are everything (re: Morgana, who looks pretty much flawless but in reality, is everything but)- appearances do matter, and this one does not bode very well.
And then several things happen at once.
Elyan takes a look behind him and freezes. There’s a faint creak as the café’s rusty door swings open. And Arthur must have been a lot louder than he’d thought when he’d cracked the door open at first, or Merlin must have gotten tired of waiting for them and come to investigate, because when Arthur spins around, he comes eye-to-eye with a pair of furiously narrowed ones.
They’re very blue, Arthur thinks, absentmindedly.
And then reality comes rushing back with a whoosh.
“Very nice to see you’ve been making my acquaintance,” Merlin says, words soft but very undoubtedly angry. “Except for that little problem that I wasn’t in it.”
Up close, he’s strange, true, but not in a bad way. His eyes are a vivid gemstone-blue surrounded by a thin outline of kohl, lips full but pulled thinly together. His feathered cap and ridiculous trousers are paired with a surprisingly mundane black long-sleeved shirt- a combination that ought to have looked downright strange but somehow works.
“No reason to get your trousers in a twist,” Arthur protests, and this is exactly why Arthur should never be let out of the flat without his customary cup of morning coffee. He’s sounding like a prat and he knows it, but he can’t think of any salvageable way to scrape something out of the situation. He snaps his mouth shut. Well.
“No, no, obviously you’re right,” Merlin mutters, and are those-? Honest-to-goodness sparks skip off of his skin and fizzle out. “I was an idiot, because I’d never have agreed to help such a prat if I were in my bloody right mind!”
He closes his mouth and glares at Arthur for a moment, fingernails digging into his palms. He seems torn between the desire to tell Arthur off some more and the urge to simply turn around and storm off. Then, a moment later, he huffs and gives Elyan a quick nod before spinning on his heels and stalking angrily down the road. Even his retreating back seems stiff.
Elyan blinks. Then punches Arthur in the arm, hard.
“Ouch!” Arthur hisses. Elyan ought to stop going to the gym- sure, it’s his job, and he probably can’t afford to if he wants to keep his livelihood, but. That hurt. “What was that for- actually, no, I take that back. I probably deserved that punch.”
Elyan nods, then sighs, shrugging. “Not really your fault, really. I mean, the timing was horrible.”
It was. Now there’s probably one more soul in the world who’s absolutely convinced that Arthur Pendragon is a giant prat, and, on top of that, Arthur still doesn’t have a way to combat Morgana and her magic-wielding madness.
Arthur is beginning to think that the world may just hate him a little bit. Just a teeny, tiny bit.
And then it begins to rain.
“Good gods!” Arthur cries, fumbling for the umbrella he keeps in his backpack. Elyan bites his lip. “That hasn’t happened in a while,” he frowns.
“What? Rain?” Arthur grits his teeth, trying to balance his sack in one hand and juggle his umbrella with another. “Elyan, you may have forgotten, but we actually live next to the Thames.”
“Nah. That.” Elyan jerks his chin towards the sky. It’s a pale, strange shade of grey. As Arthur watches, clouds roll out like a great, wet blanket over it. “That’s Merlin’s feel-bad drizzle. He must have really liked you.”
Liked. That’s past-tense. Arthur wonders if the sudden feeling of loss is a normal reaction. “Wait. You mean that the rain-“
“Uh-huh. Gwaine wasn’t joking when he said Merlin was, well.” He shrugs. Arthur buries his face in his hands and groans.
Add random stranger who can make it rain at a whim hates me to the list, Arthur thinks, morose. Fate hates him. A Lot.
✨✨✨
That particular theory is proven when, not even a few weeks later, Arthur ends up with a pair of donkey ears stuck to his head.
It’s Morgana’s idea of retribution, after Arthur had managed to successfully switch all of Morgana’s prized photos out to pictures of David Bowie screaming into his mic. She’d fumed and hissed and taken the whole afternoon painstakingly replacing every single one of her precious photographs, before promptly popping out her book of hexes and curses (which she oughtn’t even have owned; even Arthur knows that’s supposed to be in her fourth-year curriculum) and thumbed to the first page that caught her fancy.
It’s very advanced magic, which is why it’s a miracle that Morgana succeeds. However, it’s also still Very Advanced, which means that Morgana has no idea in hell how to undo whatever she’s done. According to the book, Arthur should have sprouted donkey’s ears and a tail, and bleated instead of speaking. Arthur can still speak, and he doesn’t have a tail, but the ears Morgana have given him are truly a monstrosity- easily twice as big as any donkeys’ ought to be.
Arthur is rather thankful for that, though. Arthur doesn’t know what he might have done had he ended up with a donkey’s voice to boot, but it most certainly wouldn’t have been pleasant.
Morgana stands looking at him with wide, horrified eyes for exactly five seconds. Then she promptly bursts out into bouts of choked laughter. “I’m sorry, Arthur,” she gasps, between teary laughs. “I don’t really want to laugh, I swear, but this is-“ with that, she goes back to laughing so hard that tears stream down her face. Her expression is a strange mix of horrified and terribly amused, although horrified seems to be winning out as of now.
She actually does look remorseful, and that’s one apology he’s gotten out of Morgana, so Arthur decides to call it a victory. But really. She’s his baby sister, and Arthur will always do his best to look after her- not that he would ever admit it unless his life was on the stake. And Morgana has to rein in that temper of hers before she ends up doing something that she regrets, again.
The regret fades all too quickly, though.
A few google searches and frantic phone calls later (Gwaine makes sure to contact Arthur via video chat and take a screenshot of his ears, that bastard) Arthur finds himself outside the large, imposing front gates of the Avalon Magical Disaster Control Center.
It actually looks more like a congress building or a jail then a center for magical maladies. It’s large, imposing, covered with mossy red brick that’s crumbling in places. Some spots look blackened, scorched, as if someone had taken a torch to the wall just for the fun of it. Arthur blinks. Some things are better left unknown.
There’s a man with a green face that doesn’t look like any face-paint Arthur knows of, and another woman whose knitting needles keep trying to stab her in the back. They’re all headed towards the building’s doors, making a sort of makeshift queue. Looks like the right place, then. Arthur only has to wait several minutes or so in the generic, linoleum-covered chairs of the waiting room before he’s ushered in by a frazzled-looking nurse with frazzled hair and steel-rimmed spectacles.
Arthur stumbles to a stop.
Because, sitting behind the desk of the room he’s just been herded into, is Merlin.
Arthur almost doesn’t recognize him at first. He’s still wearing his characteristic kohl around the eyes, but thinner, and the only thing that’s left of his hideous feathered monstrosity of the other day is a feather earring dangling from his right ear. He’s still dressed as colorfully as before, though- a tie-dyed shirt with a grinning dragon printed on the front and faded teal jeans, with an unbuttoned doctor’s coat draped on top of it all. There’s a staff leaning almost haphazardly against the far wall, blue crystal glinting in the shuttered half-light of the room.
Still, those high, sweeping cheekbones and full lips, along with that particular shade of electric blue eyes, couldn’t possibly have been anyone but him. Arthur almost turns away and goes right back home, because-
Morgana is bound to find a remedy one day, really, and running into someone who’d literally stormed off on you a mere few weeks ago…
Talk about awkward. Arthur rather thinks he may have discovered a whole new definition for the word.
Arthur must have ended up making some sound or the other, because Merlin looks up from where he’d been scribbling some notes into the margin of a sheet full of something that looks suspiciously like Sidhe runes. His eyes widen, almost comically, and then he blinks. To be honest, he looks almost as surprised as Arthur is.
Arthur coughs. “Well.”
Merlin raises a brow. “Why are you just standing there, pray tell? I can’t actually help you if you don’t let me know what’s wrong.”
“Well, that’s-“ it isn’t often that Arthur is at a loss for words, but he kind of is, now. He does his best to convey I-was-accidentally-a-prat-and-you-stormed-out-on-me with a well-placed eyebrow-wiggle and a few gestures. Something must have gotten through, because Merlin sighs, a smile dancing at the edges of his lips. He points at the comfortable-looking chair set across from him.
“Yeah. I do remember. And I’ll admit that this is a bit of an awkward situation. But-” he pauses to shrug. “I don’t let personal grudges bleed into my work, however big or small they may be. You have nothing to worry about.”
Arthur nods, obediently making his way over towards the chair Merlin is pointing to. His ears (pointy and exceedingly furry, as of now) have begun to itch under the overlarge, shapeless cap he’d chosen for concealment purposes.
Merlin rummages about in his drawer for a bit, emerging with a fresh notepad and a bouncy pen that’s shaped like a carrot. He taps the end against the notepad, humming thoughtfully. “Cursed?”
“How could you tell?” Arthur asks, a little impressed despite himself. Something of that must have showed on his face, because Merlin’s miniscule smile grows a little further.
“I haven’t got this job on merits of my eccentricity, you know. I do know what I’m doing. So. I’m imagining it’s got something to do with what’s under your cap. Remove it for me, please?”
As a rule, willing humiliation isn’t something Arthur very routinely undergoes. And while his prank war with Morgana has stretched it to its limits, that rule still holds. Arthur does have his pride, as anyone who knows him is well aware. But he can’t exactly act shy now of all times. He bites his lip and takes his cap off.
Morgana has truly overdone herself this time around. His donkey’s ears are huge, much larger than any real-life donkey’s, and covered with long, coarse brown fur. Leon had told him (upon examining Gwaine’s screenshots, which- while Arthur is tempted to curse every time he sees them- are actually pretty clean, accurate ones) that they were a rather nice set of ears, really, well-formed and all, if he didn’t mind being compared to a farm animal.
Well, Arthur really did mind, and he’d told Leon- his poor, loyal friend- exactly that. But the point is that they are very large, very noticeable, and, apparently, as far as ass’s ears go, exceedingly well-formed.
Merlin doesn’t say anything for a heartbeat, two, and then he lets out a very loud, much undignified snort.
“Looks like you’re a bit of an-“ another snort. “Ass now,” he says, slapping a hand over his mouth. So much for not letting personal grudges bleed into work!
“Hey!” Arthur says, indignant. “Just because I was a bit of an arse at our first meeting-“
“You do admit it?”
“I was,” Arthur grumbles, “but that doesn’t give you an excuse to laugh at me when I’m here for help.”
Merlin sobers up quickly enough after that, even though the edges of his mouth still twitch treacherously. “Yes, that was rather unprofessional of me, wasn’t it? And… I may or may not have overreacted that day. Bad morning, you see.” Merlin brings up long, slim fingers to prod carefully at Arthur’s temples. Arthur can almost feel the magic in them, tingling, searching, probing.
“Overreacted? You made it rain on me.” Arthur bites his lip. “Good gods, you actually made it rain on me. I didn’t even have an umbrella!”
“It wasn’t on purpose,” Merlin says guiltily, leaning a little ways back so he can look Arthur in the eye. “Plus, admit it, you might’ve been upset if you’d overheard what I had, too! It was very incriminating.”
“I thought you were apologizing!”
“I was, until you brought up the rain- which wasn’t even on purpose, need I mention- and I thought you were the one who was apologizing?“
“On purpose or not, I walked home sopping wet, you- you-“
Arthur pauses, searching for an appropriate, dignified curse-word that preferably isn’t ‘idiot’ and still manages to convey Arthur’s profound sense of aggravation. Then it hits him how childish they both sound. Fighting about who apologized better, of all things! Even little Sefa wouldn’t act like that. As soon as the thought hits him, he can’t help but let out a short, undignified snort.
Merlin pauses in his argument about the inevitability and un-intentionality of sudden rains to look at Arthur strangely. “What?”
“Just.” Arthur pauses to stifle another bout of laughter. “You do realize how silly we must sound, right?”
A considering look crosses Merlin’s face, rendering him cross-eyed and ridiculous for a split second, before he bursts into laughter as well. His laughter crinkles the edges of his eyes and brings out his cheekbones; he doesn’t look quite as ridiculous then.
“Alright,” he says. “Yes. Yes, I think we ought to get back down to business, yeah?”
There’s a humorous glint in his eyes, the slightest bit sheepish and self-deprecating, and Arthur thinks that maybe the encounter mightn’t have been as bad as he’d made it out to be, after all.
✨
Merlin, true to his word, does seem to know quite well what he’s doing. He identifies the curse within three quick, efficient prods of his fingers, and frowns.
“How did you say you ended up like this?” he asks, and somehow the air in the room smells a little bit like liquid lightning. The small hairs on the back of Arthur’s hands stand straight up. It’s difficult to breathe. Arthur bites his lip, and Merlin does something, gold flashing across his irises, before the air is set to rights again. Merlin sends him an apologetic glance, tapping his ridiculous pen on the table-top. “Well?”
“Morgana,” Arthur admits reluctantly. He knows it’s a necessary part of getting rid of his curse, but it feels a little like tattling on his sister.
Merlin’s frown grows deeper, and his expression becomes visibly flabbergasted. “Morgana who?”
“My sister.” Arthur shrugs, trying to make light of the situation. He does have his pride, and the way Merlin taps his pen impatiently against his coat reminds him of some of his teachers back in grade school. Arthur had hated standing in front of them, trying to explain yet another ridiculous situation- of which Morgana or his friends had been the perpetrators more often than not- so that it made sense. To top that off, Merlin, for all his goofiness, does look quite imposing when he isn’t smiling. “She’s in college, Arcane Studies division. We were, ah, in a prank war, and…” Arthur spreads his hands. “She’s a bit hot-headed sometimes.”
“Hot-headed, my arse!” Merlin hisses, gold flashing in his eyes again. Arthur definitely does not yelp. “Didn’t her professor tell her not to meddle with things she doesn’t understand?”
“She doesn’t make a habit of listening to them,” Arthur mutters. Merlin shakes his head, muttering something about ridiculous students and donkey curses and young people these days, never mind that he doesn’t look a day over thirty. Arthur very resolutely does not tell Merlin Morgana’s address, because he has a suspicious feeling that he may well decide to pay her a visit to give her a piece of his mind. That visit, Arthur thinks, probably won’t be a particularly nice one either.
Arthur does value Morgana’s health and safety when all is said and done.
Merlin waves his hand and mutters a few gibberish words, and then easily enough, Arthur is set to rights. It’s actually sort of funny, the way Arthur has to sit still while Merlin waves his hands about and read words out of a book, but Arthur doesn’t tell him so. He’s seen how ridiculously serious the man could get when things came to work.
When Arthur makes to leave, Merlin puts a hand on his shoulder, and slips a piece of paper into his pocket. Arthur pulls it out and smooths out its wrinkles. It’s some stray receipt, with Merlin’s phone number scrawled hastily across it. Arthur blinks.
“Seeing what you’re getting up to, someone has to be responsible and even out the playing field,” Merlin says to Arthur’s questioning look. His smile makes the edges of his eyes crinkle good-naturedly. “Do you remember the café you and Elyan had agreed to meet me at? It’s called the Corner Café, and, well… I’m free on Friday afternoons.”
Arthur’s first reaction is to turn down Merlin’s offer. After their rocky first start, and Arthur having come to Merlin for help with his donkey ears, he feels all following meetings couldn’t possibly be anything but awkward. But then Arthur remembers the grief Morgana has caused him with those godforsaken ears, and nods determinedly. Sometimes magic can only be fought through magic, after all.
And so, it is decided: coffee, the Corner Café, Friday two o’clock.
✨✨✨
Arthur, because he prides himself on being a meticulous, well-organized human being, closes shop early on Friday. What father doesn’t know won’t hurt him, and Arthur does need time to get himself ready for the meet-up with Merlin later on. It’s a business meeting, however Gwaine may mock him- and it makes sense, doesn’t it? How can one win a battle if one isn’t even ready to acknowledge its importance?
It’s an honest-to-goodness war, is what. He’s realized as much after the whole donkey-ear debacle.
Then, Arthur sits in the cramped computer room behind the shop, and quickly types out a few blueprints to take with him. Always be prepared, Uther always says, though in father’s case it’s about watering the plants on time more often than not. Arthur has soaked those words in and lives by them.
Merlin is waiting for him on the curb.
“Because my waiting inside didn’t turn out so well last time ‘round,” he grins, scuffing the ground with a pair of tattered basketball shoes. He’s wearing dark blue eyeliner today. Arthur raises an eyebrow at Merlin’s T-shirt; it sports a lightning bolt complete with plastic eyes and a loud comic-font WHOA, DON’T BOLT!
“Didn’t I apologize enough last time we met?” Arthur grouses, because there’s something about Merlin that brings out the most childish version of him.
“No, I require a sacrifice, specially wrapped and burned. I’m interesting that way.” He says that with a perfectly straight face. Arthur barks out a laugh, despite himself, and then quickly schools his face into a serious mask. He refuses to fall to Merlin’s level of silliness. Merlin mouths spoilsport, and drags him through the café’s turquoise-shade door.
A scant few minutes later, they’re seated in the coziest corner seat they can find. Arthur has gotten a plain Americano for himself, and Merlin nurses a steaming cup of caramel hazelnut toffee latte with chocolate drizzles. The café’s atmosphere itself is comfortable, some soft, modern-sounding song playing from the speakers. It takes them a while to settle down, though, because the barista who serves them- a young man with a ruddy face and belligerent brown eyes- keeps sneaking dirty looks at Arthur. Merlin glances at the barista, whose name tag reads Will, and flushes a striking shade of red. There’s something exasperated in the way Merlin looks at ‘Will’, almost as if it isn’t the first time they’ve met.
Arthur’s eyes narrow.
“He bothering you?” he asks, because he can tell that the scrutiny is making Merlin uncomfortable. Arthur can sometimes be chivalrous like that. Like a story-book knight, Leon had said. Arthur does know that it’s Merlin’s own business and that his meddling may not be welcome, but he can’t bring himself to ignore Merlin’s obvious discomfort.
Merlin flushes again, shaking his head. “No,” he says. “No, goodness, Arthur- it isn’t anything like that.”
He does level an exasperated glare towards the barista’s retreating figure, muttering something that sounds like stupid Will. Still, they eventually manage to make themselves comfortable in their seats, even though their beanbag chairs are set rather close to each other and Merlin’s feet keep knocking into Arthur’s. Another waiter, thank gods, brings them the cheesecake they’d ordered to share. (Merlin ends up gobbling up over half of the thing. He looks so purely, childishly happy all the while that Arthur just lets him at it.)
Once they finish eating, and Merlin has brushed the last of the cheesecake’s crumbs off of his chin, Arthur gets down to business.
“What’s in there?” Merlin asks curiously, over the rim of his mug. It suits him; white, with a giant black moustache where Merlin’s mouth ought to be. Arthur looks down at his briefcase- which, alright, might be a little silly since he isn’t actually a businessman- and frowns. Brown, square, nondescript. There isn’t anything wrong with the thing.
“Our plans,” Arthur replies. “I mean, since you said you’d help me- I thought I ought to do some research, so.” His most recent venture had proved quite profitable. He’d found a whole new site dedicated on pranks and practical jokes, and while some of their ideas had seemed rather old-fashioned, Arthur does think that ‘tried and true’ isn’t a phrase to disregard.
“I found- here, a whoopie cushion is pretty classic, right? And this, here, a cup of water over the door…”
Merlin’s eyes fly comically wide. He snatches the bunch of paper from Arthur’s grasp, sending a few stray pieces flying in the process.
“Give me that.”
“What?” Arthur protests, but it falls on deaf ears, because Merlin is leafing through Arthur’s research at breakneck speeds, mouth twitching suspiciously, eyebrows at his hairline, muttering about thumbtacks on chairs and cling-wrap over doors.
“…glue in the carpet. Arthur, I do not believe you.”
“What!” Arthur says angrily, snatching his papers back. “Look, if all you’re going to do is mock me-“
That seems to have been the last straw. Merlin bends over nearly in half, almost knocking their respective drinks to the floor in the process. Arthur almost peers over to see if he’s alright, when a giant guffaw sounds from underneath the table. Arthur leans back, peeved for no particular reason. When Merlin resurfaces, his face is red, and there’s something that looks suspiciously like a tear streaming down the right side of his face.
“You did research,” Merlin chokes out. “For a prank. Honest-to-goodness research, like for a term paper.”
Arthur crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow. Merlin shakes his head, not quite managing to keep his mirth under wraps. He raises imploring blue eyes to Arthur’s.
“Come on, you can’t say you don’t think it’s funny. I mean, Arthur,” he pauses to laugh again. “Whoopie cushions. That’s, like, 60’s style. If not older.”
Arthur opens his mouth, retort at the ready. Then closes it.
He imagines himself and Merlin sneaking about Morgana’s no doubt heavily-warded flat, trying to install a whoopie cushion without getting caught. (Whoopie cushion, of all things. Do they even sell them anymore?)
He imagines how he himself must have looked, typing out ‘good pranks’ into google, pen at the ready, with that characteristically serious slant to his mouth.
It’s hilarious.
And then, almost like magic, Arthur finds himself bursting into laughter alongside Merlin. The few patrons in the café turn around to peer at them suspiciously, but Arthur just can’t stop once he’s begun, banging his fist down on the table.
By the time Arthur finally manages to calm himself down, his Americano has gone cold. His hand shakes when he makes to bring his mug to his mouth. When Arthur looks up, Merlin is watching him with a raised brow and a dimpled, laughing slant to his mouth. It’s an endearing smile, Arthur thinks.
“I’m beginning to think,” Merlin says, sticking out a hand, “that we might get along a lot better than I’d ever imagined.”
“Cheers.” Arthur replies, deadpan, and grasps Merlin’s hand. It doesn’t take long for them to catch each other’s eyes and burst into short bursts of laughter again. And no, Arthur most certainly does not giggle.
“Back to work?” Merlin says, retrieving Arthur’s scattered papers with a glimmer of gold and a flick of the wrist. Arthur grins, nods, and flips over his notepad.
He might just have made a new friend, he thinks. Might.
Morgana is never going to know what hit her.