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Merlin slapped a leaflet onto the dining table. “This came in the post today.”
“What’s it for?” Gwen asked, peering over his shoulder with a plate of scrambled eggs in hand.
“A pub.”
“A pub?”
“Pub!” Gwaine reached across the table to look at the leaflet.
“It’s also where we’re going for dinner on Sunday.” Merlin said. “And before you both protest, I’ve already checked the schedules and we’re all free and I’ve booked a table.”
“I am not a believer in protesting about going to pubs.” Gwaine told Merlin.
Gwen sat down and looked at the leaflet some more. “I like the look of their menu.”
Gwaine and Merlin exchanged a smile.
-
The pub was nicer than any of them had expected.
It was certainly nicer than Gwen and Merlin had expected, both having had rather little experience with pubs, which made visiting them an exciting treat. Gwaine was much more accustomed to them, but less so at the end of visiting pubs without the intention of drinking large quantities of alcohol until the small hours of the night.
“I’ll drive back.” Merlin said as they sat down on a picnic table in the pub garden. “If Gwen wants to drink.”
“Why aren’t you asking me if I want to drink?” Gwaine asked with mock indignance.
“Because I already know what your answer to that will be.”
“Let’s not start with drinking.” Gwen suggested.
Gwaine and Merlin looked at her in surprise.
“Let’s be sober for a bit and then we can do nice talking and reminiscing that we’ll all remember tomorrow morning.” Gwen suggested. “Then we can have some beer.”
“Please don’t order tap water.” Gwaine said to Merlin imploringly. “Please be normal and get lemonade or orange juice or something.”
“I’ll go and get us lemonade.”
-
Merlin came back with three bottles of fancy lemonade that all made them wince a bit when they drank it. They ordered food, were told it was going to be a long wait due to an oven not working as it ought to, then leaned back in their chairs and drank lemonade in the sun.
“What do you think was our first date?” Merlin asked. “Because we didn’t really have an official first date, did we?”
“I thought we did.” Gwaine said. “It was when you two took me to go and get chips after we went to that meeting in town about if we would be allowed to have alpacas on a dragon sanctuary without needing to change our insurance policy.”
“Why were we the ones that had to go to that meeting?” Gwen asked. “That was utterly ridiculous, why wasn’t it Arthur who had to deal with it?”
“I think Arthur was on holiday.” Merlin said.
“Arthur’s always on holiday.” Gwaine muttered. “When was the last time we went on holiday?”
“We should go on holiday.”
“That was a good first date.” Gwaine returned to the original topic.
“I think that was our first date too.” Gwen said. “That was when I kissed Gwaine for the first time.”
“That was not when I kissed Gwaine for the first time.” Merlin said sourly. “I didn’t kiss him until like nearly a week later.”
“That was a good kiss though.”
“It was.”
“How long was it before you felt like we were properly together?” Gwaine asked.
“It was when we had the conversation about if we were in a relationship or not and if we wanted to carry on like that or not.” Merlin said.
“Did we get quite drunk after that conversation?” Gwen asked.
“You and I did.” Gwaine said. “Merlin was being emotionally mature and didn't partake."
"Have you noticed how much less emotionally mature I behave since I started dating you?" Merlin said.
Gwen and Gwaine nodded. They were still giggling when their drinks arrived.
-
As they drank, they began to discuss other milestones from their relationship.
"What was the first night when we were all in the same bed?" Merlin wondered.
"It was the night when it was too windy for Gwaine to drive home so he stayed and we drank hot chocolate with brandy in it and Merlin, I don't think you were having a very emotionally mature moment at all, we ate biscuits in bed and you had a packet of jelly babies hidden under your pillow that you failed to mention."
"How was that emotionally immature of me?"
"Because you should have said that you had jelly babies and shared them with us before we got too tired to appreciate them properly."
"That was a nice night." Gwaine said softly. "I liked not having sex."
Gwen and Merlin nodded their agreement.
"It was nice not feeling like I had to do that. It was nice just being with you two and eating and drinking and-"
"Snogging."
"Yeah, that's nice too."
-
The food arrived.
Gwen and Gwaine had variations on chips and meat; Merlin had pasta. He’d taken one look at the Italian name for the pasta dish on the menu and decided that whatever it was and whatever the Italian meant, it seemed exciting.
“Is it supposed to be the colours of the Italian flag?” Gwen asked, peering into his bowl.
“I think so.” Merlin poked at the pasta. “Tomato for the red bit, pesto for the green bit, I guess cheese or flour for the white sauce. Those are all sauces you normally have pasta in, right?"
Gwaine nodded. “Just not normally all at the same time.”
“Try it.” Gwen instructed. “And then if you don’t like any of the sauces, I can put my chips in it.”
“Are we sharing food?” Gwaine asked eagerly.
Merlin, who had pulled a slightly horrified face when he tasted the green sauce, nodded.
-
The posh lemonade was enjoyed so much that they ordered another round of them about halfway through the meal.
“How far into the relationship were we when you realised you could stand the thought of moving in with us?” Gwen asked Gwaine.
“When I realised it would mean no more commute and no more rent.” Gwaine grinned and quickly put a forkful of food into his mouth so he could have a few seconds spare to formulate a response to the mock outrage being thrown his way by Gwen and Merlin.
“So absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you really like being around us, or the pets, or that you like my cooking, or you wanted to spend more time with us and develop our relationship….” Merlin drawled, spinning pasta around on his fork with a mischievous glint in his eyes.
Gwaine grinned back with equal quantities of mischief. “You’re completely correct, my good sir. Nothing to do with any of that. I was just fed up of getting up early every morning to drive to work and having to spend money on boring things like paying rent and buying petrol when instead I could buy fun things like chocolate. And succulents."
“Succulents?” Gwen asked, confused, with her fork halfway to her mouth. “I’ve never heard you use that word before.”
“I only found out what they were yesterday; they’re these little plant cactus things that you grow in gravel on pots on windowsills and they’re really pretty. I saw them on Pinterest. I want some. It was the first fun thing that I could think of.” Gwaine said brightly. “I reckon that’s the kind of plant that I would be really good at keeping alive because you only have to water them like once a week or something.”
“Do you want some for Christmas?”
“I would really like some for Christmas.”
Gwen started searching through her bag for a pen and a notebook so she could write it down. “I used to write down people’s phone numbers when I came to pubs.” she muttered.
“I have never got anyone’s phone number at a pub.” Merlin said. He chuckled. “The only phone number I ever got from someone in a romantic context was-”
“Merlin, you’re showing the length of our relationship through your phrasing.” Gwaine interrupted.
“No, he’s showing how little he was interested in dating before our relationship.” Gwen said. “No one says things like ‘romantic context’ in the same sentence as describing getting phone numbers off people. That’s not a thing.”
Merlin pulled a face at her. “I did get someone’s phone number in a garden centre.”
“Only you, Merlin.” Gwaine smiled at him fondly. “Please, tell us the story of how you got someone’s phone number at a garden centre.”
“I was 19 and there was a cute girl working there and I went to buy grass seed for my uncle and a birthday present for my mam and when I was paying, I asked her for her phone number.” Merlin said simply.
“And she gave a geeky 19-year-old standing in a garden centre her phone number?” Gwen asked slightly disbelievingly.
Merlin nodded smugly and ate another mouthful of pasta slowly. “I asked her for her number and she told me she was a lesbian but she’d like to give me her number anyway because she could see the dragon biology textbook sticking out of the hole in my rucksack and she was studying zoology or something.”
Gwaine and Gwen exchanged looks of astonishment.
“And that’s how I met Freya.” Merlin smiled at them.
“Ooh that makes more sense now.”
“Yep, fits much better with the rest of the stories of your adolescence. Also makes sense with your friendship with Freya.”
Merlin chuckled and then paused. “How did we end up talking about all that?”
-
By the end of the night, there was a rather high number of empty lemonade bottles pushed neatly into one corner of the table.
“None of us have had any alcohol all night.” Gwen observed. She and Gwaine were putting their coats on while Merlin went to pay the bill. “We’re getting old and boring.”
“Gwen.” Gwaine wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “We work at a dragon sanctuary. And we’re in a polyamorous relationship. Who on earth would even stop to think that we’re boring even if we are older than we used to be?”
-
They drove home happy and sober and sated. Merlin had also learned the very important lesson of asking what food with names in foreign languages was before actually ordering it, even if it had turned out mostly okay this time.
Somehow, the house and all the outbuildings seemed to still be intact when they got home. The dogs hadn’t shredded any soft furnishings in their absence and the cats hadn’t dragged in any mice. There was no sign of any crisis, mishap or incidence. There were no woodland-dwelling dragons mooching around the paddocks or river dragons splashing in the puddles in the potholes in the driveway (that had been a long week).
“This has been an astonishingly successful night.” Merlin said. “We should go on real dates more often.”
Gwen nodded. “Thanks for making us go.”
“That was a fun outing.” Gwaine agreed.
Merlin and Gwen looked at him suspiciously over his choice of words.
“Why are you talking like a 65-year-old English Tory?” Merlin asked him.
“Because I haven’t finished saying what I was going to say and once I’ve said the rest of it, everything will make sense.” Gwaine said. “So if you’ll let me carry on talking….”
“No. No more talking from you. It’s not allowed anymore because you’ve used up all your talking capacity with me so now you need to go and talk to someone else while we recover from hearing you talk like a Tory.”
Gwaine stuck his tongue out at Merlin. “That was a fun outing, however I now suggest that we have a fun inning-”
“Is that word the thing that makes it make sense?” Gwen asked.
Gwaine nodded. “I thought it was quite funny.”
“It just sounds like you’ve made a terrible cricket joke.” Merlin said. “And that makes you sound even more like a 65-year-old English Tory.”
Gwaine sighed. “I forgot that inning was a cricket word. Forget I said any of that and forgive me for talking like a Tory. Shall we eat ice cream in bed and watch a film?”
“Let’s eat ice cream in bed and watch a film. You are forgiven for talking like a Tory for two whole sentences.”
-
Eating ice cream in bed while watching a film was one of the most enjoyable things that they did together, particularly as they didn’t get to do it very often.
The dogs and cats were contentedly all sleeping in parts of the house other than their bedroom, for once. Typically there were at least two cats and one dog in their room at night, more if it was colder or they had been eating in bed and the smells had lured the pets upstairs.
Gwen was able to lay as many tubs of ice cream out on the bed as she wanted to and then they ate bits from each of them with enough spoons to supply an entire orchestra while Merlin tried to persuade Netflix to open on his ancient laptop.
“I want to watch that vampire program.” Gwaine said, carefully excavating the corners of the banoffee ice cream tub. “The one with the office vampire guy. That was funny.”
“That also wasn’t a film.” Merlin said. “I think we should give up on Netflix ever opening and watch How To Train Your Dragon instead.”
"Merlin, how many times have you seen that film?"
"Not that many." Merlin pressed the refresh button for the third time. "Not as many times as you watched Frozen." he gave Gwen a pointed look.
"It was the only DVD I had and I was a broke uni student who couldn't afford a TV licence or any streaming services." she reminded him. “And it’s a good film and I like the songs in it.”
“We know.” Gwaine said.
"How To Train Your Dragon is an excellent film and can be watched endlessly." Merlin said. "And can you really say you're a professional at working with dragons if you don't know at least the script of the first hour of the film off by heart?"
Gwen shook her head.
“I think you should have to sit an exam on it as part of getting a dragonology degree.” Gwaine said.
“I think there is an exam on How to Train Your Dragon in the dragonology course that Norwich offer.” Merlin said. “I read an article about how it was one of the components on their ‘Dragons in Media’ module.”
“Why is there a ‘Dragons in Media’ module in a dragonology degree?” Gwen asked.
“I think it was a Ba and not a BSc.”
“I don’t know what either of those things are.” Gwaine mumbled. “Uni’s for losers.”
“My student debt’s for losers.” Gwen mumbled.
Netflix opened. Gwaine cheered and then his face fell. “Oh. Now we have to find something that we all agree on.”
They decided that it would be quicker to just flip a coin to let one of them decide what they watched. Merlin ruled himself out, they realised there probably weren’t any coins in the room to flip and the physics of spoons stopped them from being useful substitutes.
“Let’s just watch the first gay thing we can find.” Gwen suggested. “We all approve of watching gay things.”
“Pose is supposed to be good.” Gwaine said.
Pose was very good indeed. They made it through a whole entire episode before they realised that they had truly become their teenage definitions of boring and were too old and tired to stay up any later to watch or do anything else.
Gwaine fed the dogs and checked to see how many cats had come in for the night. Merlin went out to check on all the dragons in the barns and the alpacas; Gwen went on her phone to look for the brand of lemonade they’d spent the night at the pub drinking.
They were asleep by 10:15.
They were woken up at 1:32 when the phone started to ring because could they please go and help catch a loose dragon inside a leisure centre about an hour away?
They wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.