Chapter Text
Battlefields were totally Merlin’s cup of tea (post battle anyway). All those dead alphas that were never going to need what they kept in their pants again… all for Merlin.
It was like a box of chocolates (metaphorically only, because chocolate in boxes wouldn’t exist for quite some time) – you never knew what you were going to get, since every alpha had slightly different thoughts about what an omega might like, should one happen to decide to loot his undergarments post battle.
Generally being on a budget, soldiers didn’t always have the best goodies, but some alpha were uncommonly clever when it came to attracting an omega’s attention. Take this chap for example… he’d stuffed his underwear with ladies underwear… the absurdity of that could potentially keep an omega beguiled long enough for an injured alpha to regain consciousness and grab them. Not Merlin though. That’s what daggers were for.
Now Merlin was more of a sweets omega, or in a pinch soldiers rations… but looting was a time limited pursuit. The corpses were already starting to bloat in the sun and their hidden treasures would soon be tainted – so he had to take what he could get and hope to find a use for it later.
“Check for survivors. Seems their attackers headed north!” declared Arthur with pride (as he should; watching your omega loot the corpses of other dead alphas was a real turn on). “Merlin…? Is that a girl’s petticoat?” Asked Arthur with dread as Merlin sized up the garment on Arthur.
“Sire, how many more men are you going to lose in this quest?” begged Gaius. As physician he had to have someone to heal after all… it had been a while since Killy had ravaged Camelot and with everyone happy and healthy there wasn’t a great deal of income for a physician. He needed injured, not dead!
“As many as it takes.” Declared Uther ruthlessly.
“I need to speak to you as a friend….” Wheedled Gaius.
“I have no time for friends!” declared Uther like the sociopath he was not-so-secretly at heart.
“Then I'll speak to you as your physician.” You’re a nutcase. “This is madness. She’s been missing for some time now. When are you going to stop?”
“When Morgana is found.” Huffed Uther. Having his omega daughter snatched from under his nose had wounded his alpha pride badly – but not as much as knowing that Merlin had had to have at least two heats since then and spent neither with Uther.
The answer was obvious. He would keep sending alphas out until they either returned with Morgana or all died and Merlin had no other choice.
Merlin’s rubbed his sore bottom.
“Is there something wrong with you?” Asked Arthur with concern.
Merlin glared. While looting was a lovely surprise, it didn’t change the fact that Merlin had had to spend his last heat with a *Hawthorn tree because rather inconveniently Uther kept sending Arthur and all the other knights out on these stupid missions. Many omegas in the middle ages sought comfort in nature during heat, and presumably this is where the association of witches dancing naked in the wood’s comes from, but we digress. The point was Merlin wasn’t letting Arthur out of his sight again – and if that meant following him all over Albion… so be it.
*according to Better Omega Homes & Gardens, Hawthorn trees prefer a well-drained, slightly acidic soil but are unflappable in heat. https://www.bhg.com/gardening/plant-dictionary/tree/hawthorn/
Merlin was hardly prepared to admit he had a prickle in his botty when Gaius kept telling him to avoid tree’s with thorns (like it was that easy to resist them when they had such sexy foliage…). He scowled at Arthur again.
“Is your little bottom sore?” cooed Arthur, presuming Merlin was saddle sore… Merlin had been rather insistent on riding out with him lately, which was to be expected really. Without Morgana to distract him, father had doubled down on his efforts to seduce Merlin lately, all of which Merlin seemed to be mostly oblivious to.
Merlin growled. “Fat.” He accused, pointing at Arthur’s own bottom in retaliation (the petticoat had been disappointingly too small).
“It’s muscle!” gasped Arthur defensively.
“Dollophead.” Accused Merlin.
Merlin had found a dictionary a few weeks back and seemed to take great delight in occasionally throwing out scathing, vernacular insults that may or may not be real, depending on Merlin’s mood at the time.
“There's no such word!” Arthur exclaimed. Arthur didn’t really like Merlin learning all those words. Knowing words meant he had to use them and some other alpha was sure to think it was a pre-heat pick up.
“Idiomatic.” Merlin replied flippantly.
Arthur frowned. He wasn’t sure what idiomatic meant, but it sounded awfully like ‘idiot’ so he presumed it wasn’t good.
“Describe "dollop head".” Arthur challenged.
Merlin tilted his head and pointed directly at Arthur.
“…that’s cheating.” Huffed Arthur as they rode on. However since the idea that Merlin had a pet name exclusively for him was quite endearing, he was soon preening.
Shortly they came upon an abandoned campsite.
Or not so abandoned as they soon discovered, as one of the knights was shot with an arrow and bandits attacked.
“On me!” cried Arthur, as the fight broke out – attempting to draw attention away from Merlin who was unarmed and looting the camp.
Merlin wasn’t about to be forgotten, however. He grabbed a fallen sword and swung it around experimentally before looking for someone to stab. Ah!
The attack came from one particularly burly bandit who knocked the sword straight out of Merlin’s hands.
“What now, omega?” he demanded with a smirk.
“Ecg geteoh þing to.” Merlin growled.
The attacker's sword magnetised, and metal tools abandoned around the camp flew at it, causing him to fall backwards, hitting his head and rendering his unconscious. Fascinating… but slow. Merlin decided to stick with what he knew and dropped a tree on the next attacker.
He was running over to check on Arthur when he tripped and fell. A bandit was sneaking up on Arthur so Merlin dropped a tree branch on that one too (it’s worth noting that in modern times omega’s are more likely to resort to dropping traffic signs or streetlights on alphas due to the decreasing number of tree in cityscapes, and overall environmental consciousness).
Once the fight was over, Arthur glanced around desperately to see if Merlin was safe, and found him on the forest floor. “Merlin, it’s safe now, you can come out of hiding!” he declared proudly, having defended his omega successfully (without any help at all… nope… unless you counted natural phenomena like root rot causing those trees to fall... ).
“Dollophead.” Muttered Merlin.
Arthur preened.
And then something completely unexpected happened (which was not Arthur getting over his daddy issues and bonding Merlin). Morgana stumbled out of the fog.
“Morgana!” gasped Arthur.
Oh shit! The bitch was back.