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Merlin was no stranger to waking up early in the morning.
Starting your day before the dawn was commonplace in any job in the UK during the winter, but significantly less so during the summer. Working on a dragon sanctuary didn’t really match up with that, as anything could happen during the night or need working on during the day. Moving days, however, meant getting up before dawn no matter what time of year it was or who you were.
“Why is the alarm going off so early?” Gwen asked Merlin, hand clamped over her eyes as he turned on the bedroom light.
“Moving day.”
Gwen made a disgruntled noise and rolled over so her face was pressing into the sheets. “What time is it?”
“Quarter to five. You’re supposed to be going over to Gwaine’s for half five.”
Gwen rolled onto her back and sat up, eyes still closed. “This is the biggest ever test of my love for him.”
“I’m doing half of your rounds this morning and in return you’re making breakfast.” Merlin told her, hopping around the edge of the bed and pulling on a pair of jeans.
“Did we decide that?”
“Yes. Last night. We wrote it all down; it’s on a list on the kitchen table.”
“I don’t remember doing that.”
“I think you were paying more attention to the cricket commentary on the radio than you were to the things I was asking you to do today.”
Gwen sighed and opened her eyes. “I should probably go and see what else I’m doing today then. What do you want for breakfast?”
“Scrambled eggs.” Merlin finished tugging a top over his head and looked around the room. “Where have the dogs gone? And the cats?”
“Maybe they’ve already gone downstairs.”
“I’ll go and look.” Merlin picked his way over the assorted dog beds, piles of books and clothes scattered across the bedroom floor. The landing and stairs were much neater, as they had learned from experience that there were some places that could never be allowed to become messy without accidents occurring. The kitchen was rather a different story, though it shouldn’t have been.
When Merlin turned the kitchen lights on, he hadn’t been expecting to see the three cats asleep on various cupboards and shelves, with the dogs asleep on the floor and the remains of the leg of pork that had been left to defrost on the counter overnight all over the floor.
Merlin walked to the foot of the stairs. “Gwen, you might need to stop at a supermarket while you’re out to find something different for dinner.”
“What’s wrong with the pork?”
“It’s already been eaten. I think we forgot to shut the kitchen door last night.”
“Oh.”
It was not the most auspicious of pre-5am starts.
-
Breakfast was not quite the affair either Gwen or Merlin had hoped for. The cats and dogs forewent theirs as Merlin felt they’d eaten quite enough during the night; dry biscuits were put out on the side for them and that was their sorry lot to come back to after a gallivant around the garden and the small grey cat yet to get a name made its morning trip to dance in the bath while Gwen took a shower.
Merlin fed the chickens- rather disgruntled about just how early their day was starting- and took the eggs back to the kitchen for his breakfast, then ran to the main gate after a phone call from Percival saying he’d forgotten his key for the padlock.
“Morning!” Merlin called out as he approached the gate.
“Sorry you had to come all the way up here.” Percival apologised. “Especially with the moving.”
“No need to apologise as you’re the one doing all the work with the dragons today.” Merlin unlocked the gate and swung it open. “And would you mind swapping this favour for another favour?”
“You unlocking the gate in return for me doing something?”
“Yeah. Could you feed the rest of the animals today? I’ll do the chickens, the cats and the dogs but if you could do all the rest of them…” Merlin gave Percival a hopeful look.
“Of course. Lock the gate and I’ll drive you the rest of the way.”
“Cheers.”
The drive from the main gate at the roadside to the yard of the dragon sanctuary was nearly a kilometer and on the way back, they encountered Gwen driving the other way. She waved at them to pull-over so she could have more space to get past and then carried on her way.
“Don’t we technically have right of way?” Percival asked Merlin.
“Yeah, but she has to go and fetch Gwaine, so she can probably have it this once. And she should have made breakfast for me.”
“As you’re going to be in and out all the time for most of the day, can I use your kitchen for making my lunch instead of the microwave in the office?”
“It depends on what your lunch is.” Merlin said. “This is turning out to be a lot of favours for 5:15 in the morning. Sure, go for it, but don’t give the cats or the dogs any scraps because they demolished a pork leg between them last night.”
“Were they supposed to demolish a pork leg?”
“No.”
“Ah.”
-
After Percival had dropped Merlin off and gone to start feeding the dragons, Merlin went back to the house to send all the dogs into the garden where they would be out of the way of moving loads of boxes into the house. He ate his breakfast in rushed mouthfuls inbetween clearing things off tables to make space for more boxes and making sure that the way upstairs was clear enough that they wouldn't have to deal with a trip to A&E over a broken ankle on top of everything else they had to do that day.
He was finished by 6:10 am. He checked his watch, did a walk around the house to check that everyone was ready, highlighted some things on his list of things that needed to be done that day and then checked his watch. 6:17 am.
Merlin sighed and went to stand at the window, waiting for the arrival of Gwaine and Gwen.
-
"The cats and the dogs got hold of the pork we were supposed to have tonight so we're going to need to go to a supermarket at some point; how many trips do you think we're going to need from here to the sanctuary?" Gwen called out to Gwaine as she climbed out of her car.
Gwaine stared at her, slightly taken aback. "No 'good morning'? No 'hello'?"
Gwen shook her head and her hand at him. “Nope it’s been to chaotic so far for that. No time for pleasantries this morning. How many trips do you think it will be?”
“Three? Maybe four?”
“Okay. We’ll try and get it all done by midday. Then we can go to the supermarket. I’ve got the seats down in the back of the car; let’s get the boxes in.”
“Start with the ones in the living room. I’ve got a few more things to pack up in the kitchen and upstairs. I’ve got people coming to pick up the sofa and the garden table this afternoon.”
“Oh I forgot about that.” Gwen sighed and ran a hand across her face. “What time are they coming?”
“Uh, one should be here at 1, the other should be here at 3.”
“Right. Where have you found these people from?”
“Elyan’s mate is having the sofa. The person for the garden table I found on Facebook.”
“You’re getting rid of something through Facebook?” Gwen asked incredulously.
“Is that bad? I haven’t done it before because I only go on Facebook about once a year.”
“People who you sell things to on Facebook rarely ever show up to pick up the thing you’re getting rid of.” Gwen said. “If they don’t show up we can just take it back to the sanctuary and the goats can have it to play on or something.”
“Or if they don’t show up we could have it as a garden table?” Gwaine suggested. “We could eat outside in the summer.”
“Sounds great we can deal with it later.” Gwen had already picked up a box and was striding out towards the car with it.
Gwaine shook his head at her fondly. “I forgot how driven you get when there’s a ton of stuff to do.”
-
The first delivery of Gwaine’s boxes to the sanctuary went smoothly. The journey back was quick, with very little traffic on the roads before seven am. It didn’t take long to get the boxes into the house with three of them helping and then Gwen and Gwaine went to get the second load of boxes.
Things were significantly less calm when they returned to the sanctuary for a second time than they had been when they got back the first time. Merlin wasn;t waiting for them at the main gate, which wasn’t a major concern but it did seem a little bit strange given that he’d told them to text him when they left so he could wait for them. “Did we forget to text him?” Gwen asked Gwaine as she jumped out to get the gate.
Gwaine shook his head. “No, I texted him.”
As they went down the drive, a slight smell of burning began to fill the car.
“Can you smell that?” Gwaine asked, peering out of the window to see if it was the car or a dragon that they needed to focus their attention on.
“The burning?”
“Yeah.”
“I think it’s coming from that smoke in the distance.” Gwen said, pointing to the slight trail of smoke coming from the yard.
“Is it a bonfire day today?”
“I can’t remember, Percival might have his own plan going on.”
They parked the car in the yard and realised that the fire was not a bonfire.
Millicent, one of the larger dragons that lived on the sanctuary, was responsible for the smoke.
Millicent was about sixty years old and would probably live for another forty. She would carry on growing for the rest of her life. She was about twice the size of the cottage that Gwen and Merlin lived in and spent most of her time in the caves on the far side of the sanctuary where she kept her hoard. She was a very curious dragon and nearly always came flying over to meet new dragons when she first heard that there was a newcomer. She also had something of a penchant for mischief, which had been there ever since she met her mate, a smaller blue dragon called Louis XVI (don’t ask).
As far as the humans were aware, Milicent had started living at the sanctuary of her own accord, sometimes in the 1970s or the 1980s. Most of the dragons that lived there had been rescued from places where it was no longer safe for them to live, or found injured and taken there to recuperate. There were a number of dragons that needed to be fed by humans, or looked after regularly. The sanctuary was a safe haven for endangered species and there were also dragons that had been on and in the land with their families for many, many years before anyone had even thought of making a dragon sanctuary there. Most of the time, the dragons got on fairly well with the other creatures that lived there. Both the wildlife in the woods, the fields and the river- though a number of them were prey for the dragons- but also the other animals: alpacas, chickens, cats, dogs, sheep, so on and so forth.
The current situation seemed to imply that Millicent had never met an alpaca before, or at the very least never noticed any of the five living at the sanctuary. She was sitting at one end of the alpaca field, patting her front legs on the grass as an invitation to play with smoke (happy smoke) coming out of her nostrils. The alpacas were as far away from her as they could possibly get, standing by the hedge. Three of them were staring at Millicent and the other two were grazing as if nothing was going on. The dragons that could normally be found in this area of the sanctuary were nowhere near as Millicent.
Merlin was nowhere to be seen.
“What do we do?” Gwen asked Gwaine.
“Uh, get Millicent out of there. And maybe try to find Merlin.”
“Do you think she might eat the alpacas?”
“No. She looks like she wants to play with them.”
They got out of the car. “What’s Millicent doing out here anyway?” Gwen asked as they started to jog towards the gate for the field. “Do you think she’s hurt?”
“We’ll have a better look at her in a minute.” Gwaine climbed over the gate. “Millicent! Oi! Millicent! What are you doing here?”
Millicent turned her head towards Gwaine and blinked at him innocently. She started tapping her paws at him.
"No, I'm not playing with you, what are you doing in the alpaca field?" Gwaine got a bit closer so he could look her up and down.
"Does she look okay?" Gwen asked.
"She looks fine."
"Can you handle her and I'll look for Merlin?"
"I can try!"
Gwen found Merlin in one of the barns. A massive crate of frozen fish had fallen over and strewn fish and ice cubes everywhere. "Did you know that Millicent is in the alpaca field trying to get them to play with her?"
"I think she's here for the smell of the fish." Merlin said. "Aithusa got in here and knocked four crates over. I've just got one left to deal with."
Merlin waved to a corner of the barn where Aithusa, an eight-month-old hatchling they were hand raising who had a talent for causing mischief, was asleep flat on her back, snoring lightly. "She's had her fill of fish."
"GWEN!" Gwaine shouted from outside. "One of the alpacas is trying to play with Millicent now!"
-
Eventually, the boxes had all been moved into the house and Gwaine's furniture had all been collected.
“What’s for dinner?” Gwaine walked into the living room and flopped straight onto the sofa, displacing a cat.
“Whatever’s in the cupboard.” Gwen said, walking straight past him and into the kitchen.
“I thought you were going to go shopping for something for dinner.” Gwaine said.
“Never got the chance.”
Merlin walked in at that moment. His eyebrows shot up when he saw Gwaine lying on the sofa. “What are you doing?”
“Having a rest.”
“Get up.” Merlin put his hands on his hips. “It is ten at night. We have been awake since before five to help you move in. We are just as hungry and as tired as you are, so get up and help us make dinner.”
“I think it’s going to have to be a chaos dinner.” Gwen called from the kitchen. “We’ve got crisps, tinned sardines, apples and a box of chocolate brownie mix.”
“Have we not got anything sensible like carrots or a courgette?” Merlin asked.
“Yes, but all of those things involve cooking to be able to eat them.”
“I’m up for raw courgette.” Gwaine said.
“I’m not interested in eating raw courgette.” Gwen said. “Shall I just get the food and put it on the coffee table?”
“Gwaine, what time did you wake up this morning?” Merlin asked.
“Like... “ Gwaine thought for a moment. “Quarter past five.”
“Gwen, sit down.” Merlin said. “I’ll sit down too. Gwaine can make the tea and bring the food in. And the plates. And the cutlery.”
Merlin flopped onto the sofa beside Gwen. "This is nice."
"I know the real reason you wanted me to move in with you now!" Gwaine shouted from the kitchen. "It's to do all the household labour for you!"
Gwen clapped a hand to her forehead. "Oh what a shame, he's onto us."
"Shall I put the telly on?" Merlin asked.
"I'm too tired to watch TV."
"Not even Grace and Frankie?"
"Especially Grace and Frankie. That program is exhausting because there's so much going on all the time and about 8 different main characters to keep track of."
"Eight isn't that many."
"Darling, we have nearly a hundred animals here that are our responsibility." Gwen reminded him. "And now we have an extra person to keep track of too."
"Technically, Arthur's responsible for them all tonight." Merlin said. "Gwaine, how much longer?"
"Keep your hair on, I've only been in here a minute and a half!"
"Yeah but I'm really hungry, so how much longer is it going to be?"
Gwaine hummed. "Like, three more minutes? And then it'll be a while longer before the chocolate brownies are ready."
"I don't know if I can wait three more minutes." Merlin said.
Gwen gave him a look of utter incredulity. "Merlin, surely-"
Merlin winked at her. "I'm messing with him." he whispered.
"I'm not sure I can wait three minutes either." Gwen called out to Gwaine.
"Oh my word how hungry are the pair of you?" Gwaine appeared in the doorway, brandishing a spatula. "You can have a packet of crisps each."
"You sound like your mum." Merlin told Gwaine. "That's what she does when we go round her house. Straight in-"
"And she tells us how long it will be until the meal we're having and if we're hungry, we can have a packet of crisps while we wait." Gwen finished. "I'm going to text her and tell her that you're becoming her in your old age." she fished her phone out of her pocket and started typing.
"Well, do you want the crisps or not?" Gwaine asked, gesturing wildly with the spatula. "There's a multipack in the cupboard; I can get you roast chicken, or cheese and onion, or-"
"We're messing with you." Merlin said at the same time as Gwen said, "Roast chicken please."
Gwaine looked at the ceiling in despair and went back into the kitchen. "Get your own crisps!"
Gwen yawned and got up from the sofa. "Do you want any?"
"Not really."
"You can come and collect your dinner now, along with your crisps!" Gwaine shouted.
"I will have crisps." Merlin decided.
It was not the most chaotic dinner they had ever had. Tinned sardines, raw courgette and grated carrot were a long way from the reheated porridge, roast potatoes and cold fish fingers they had once made a dinner out of. They settled on the sofas and then the dogs started scratching to come in, as did the cats, who perched on various sofa backs and windowsills while the dogs sat on the floor and looked longingly at the food.
"Shall we have alcohol tonight or are we going to be really tired tomorrow anyway?" Merlin asked.
"Really tired." was the chorus.
"And you're the lightweight here." Gwen pointed out to him.
"Let's save my first hangover as an actual official resident of this house for the weekend." Gwaine said. "We can have a house warming party."
"Wouldn't it just be a house warming party just for you, though?" Gwen said.
"A party just for me sounds even better than a house warming party." Gwaine said, grinning.
"And do you know what sounds even better than that?" Merlin said, reaching out to take Gwaine's empty plate. "You going to go to the kitchen to turn off the timer that's telling you the chocolate brownies are ready?"
Gwaine shot out of his chair and went to get the brownies.
"This is the domestic bliss we were hoping for when we asked Gwaine to move in with us." Gwen said fondly.
Gwaine came back in a couple of moments later with a tray full of warm chocolate brownies and a trio of spoons.
"This is the domestic bliss I was hoping for when we asked Gwaine to move in with us." Merlin said, smiling, as he reached out for a spoon. "Gwen come and sit with us so we can all eat the brownies."
They sat on the sofa and ate warm brownies. It was the most blissfully domestic thing any of them had ever experienced.