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Everything, as always, was completely Arthur’s fault.
The bus ride was a disaster. For someone who’d spent the majority of his life gallivanting around the countryside on horseback, Arthur had surprisingly poor balance, and fell no less than three times trying to follow Merlin to their seats. After Merlin had successfully hauled the royal rump into a seat, Arthur had spent the majority of the ride loudly pointing out how fantastic perfectly ordinary technology was. This was most definitely done on purpose, as Arthur had been back in the land of the living for well over a month now and had adapted to the modern world swimmingly; especially Netflix – do not ask him his thoughts on The X-Files unless you’re prepared to sit through a five-hour diatribe on why Scully and Mulder were so obviously meant to be together. No, Arthur’s loud, carrying comments about how amazing it is that ‘carriages don’t need horses anymore’ and how iPhones are ‘magic indeed’ were said for a reason.
A reason that essentially boils down to – the Once and Future King is a brat.
A brat who decided, nay, decreed that Merlin’s flat – which he had taken great pains to upgrade and rearrange for Sir Soggybottom after his return from Avalon – wasn’t suited for two people. Secretly Merlin agreed, but he was slightly resentful of Arthur’s tone. He liked his flat. Sure, his furnishings aren’t exactly modern, but he’d had that furniture for ages: the Modern Age, the Machine Age, the Atomic Age, and the Information Age to be precise. They just don’t make furniture like they did in the 1700s. And he point blank refused to entertain the idea of moving as he’d signed a rent control agreement on his flat back in the 1960s and refused to give it up. But old habits die hard, and a month wasn’t quite enough time for Arthur to adjust to being truly equal to Merlin – though he was trying very hard and nearly always remembered to pick up after himself now.
So Arthur’s natural bossiness coupled with his new love of HGTV and Pinterest (oh yes, Pinterest) meant that the makeover of Merlin’s flat was inevitable. Which is how they ended up on the bus. On a Saturday morning. To Wembley. To go to Ikea.
Merlin finished the last of his now cold coffee wishing, not for the first time, that he could inject the caffeine straight into his eyeballs. The weather had decided to branch out a little today. Instead of being grey and rainy it was grey, rainy and windy, and Merlin was rapidly regretting his decision to get out of bed before 9 a.m. Beside him, Arthur bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, clearly not feeling stiff from the cramped bus ride. The one advantage to taking the bus was that it restricted the amount of stuff Arthur could buy in one trip; he hadn’t discovered the home delivery option yet and Merlin wasn’t in any particular hurry to introduce him.
They trouped towards the entrance with the other nutters who hadn’t wanted a lie-in and Arthur hesitated next to the cart return.
“No,” said Merlin, automatically.
Arthur gave him his best and widest blue-eyed stare of innocence. “You don’t even know what-”
“We’re not getting a cart.”
“But we might need it.”
“You said we were just coming for a stod…a stoda…a drawer thingy.”
“A Stӧdja, yes.” Arthur’s sudden fluency in Swedish was an unexpected consequence of the translation charm Merlin had performed shortly after his return. It was equal parts endearing and frustrating that he had sudden and complete competency in every language. Even Chamicuro which, after some intensive research, was revealed to have only 8 other speakers in the world.
“But I thought we might take a quick toddle through the showroom.”
“No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“They want you to walk through it, Merlin. Remember what happened last time when we tried to take the short cut and ended up going in circles for the better part of an hour?”
“We agreed, Arthur. One quick trip to the marketplace and back on the bus in time to catch Miss Marple.”
“Remember when we fought in the marketplace and you cheated horribly with magic?” Arthur sighed wistfully. “I think such dishonestly warrants an apology shopping trip.”
“That fight was literally a thousand years ago and you’re still trying to guilt trip me with it?”
“It doesn’t feel like a thousand years for me. And lets not forget that you spent a good chunk of that time asleep in the Crystal Cave.”
“You won the bloody fight!”
“And you’ve already seen every episode of Miss Marple!”
They glared at each other for a moment and passing shoppers gave them a wide birth, shooting curious glances over their shoulders. Acutely aware of how stupid they were both being, Merlin tried to think of something to say that would end the fight, but the caffeine hadn’t yet been fully absorbed and his brain still felt like it was full of cotton balls.
Arthur was apparently not suffering from the same type of brain fog.
“If we don’t do it today, you know we’ll just have to come back next weekend.”
“What on earth for?”
“The March Madness sale.”
Merlin considered this for a moment. On the one hand, it was very tempting to leave Arthur alone to shop to his heart’s content, leaving Merlin free to crawl back into his bed and hibernate til Monday. The downside though was in the key phrase ‘leave Arthur alone’. In his mind’s eye, Merlin had a sudden vision of Arthur rifling through sales bins and drawing his sword on anyone who dared to take anything he had his eye on. The brief yet horrifying scene ended with Ikea going up in flames and Arthur pushing a towering cart full of stolen loot away from the wreckage. “The quest was a success! Now come help me. The sofa isn’t going to haul itself up three flights of stairs…”
Sensing weakness, Arthur moved in with his closing bid.
“Tell you what.” He plucked the empty cup out of Merlin’s hands and tossed it in the bin. “If we go through the showroom, I’ll buy you a coffee now and a lovely, gooey cinnamon bun at the end.”
“I’m a grown ass man,” Merlin grumbled, “I can buy myself a cinnamon bun right now if I wanted.”
“Yes, but they always taste better when bought with love.”
“I hate you.”
“No you don’t.”
Merlin tried his best to keep scowling but he could feel his resolve weakening as Arthur beamed at him.
“Two cinnamon buns. And we need to be back in time to take Gandalf out for a pee. I don’t want to go home only to find out we need to come back and buy a new sofa- don’t get any ideas!”
But the damage was already done. Merlin could practically see the gears turning behind Arthur’s eyes as he imagined the possibilities of redecorating the sitting room. Resigning himself to a long day of meandering through furniture hell, Merlin headed for the cart return. But somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to feel properly grumpy about it. There was just something a little bit adorable about watching the Once and Future King get excited about the prospect of spending the rest of the day armed with nothing more than a hex key and an unintelligible set of instructions trying to best a piece of furniture made from sawdust and glue.
***
They made it home with just enough time to walk Gandalf down to their favourite takeaway and back before Miss Marple. The Stӧdja was not their only purchase.