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Arthur wakes to a lovely sunny morning, Radio 4 burbling away in the kitchen, and Merlin kneeling next to their bed with wide, beseeching eyes.
“I need you not to freak out,” says Merlin.
“Ok.” He rubs the sleep dust from his eyes. “Waking up to find you Hannibal-staring at me isn’t exactly conducive to - “
“So you know our dads.”
“Our dads.”
“Yes, them.”
Is he hungover? Arthur could have sworn he didn’t drink last night. “Yes, Merlin, I am familiar with our fathers.”
“And how they hate each other.”
“Do I remember last Christmas? Yes.”
(“You fascist fucking sellout!” roared Balinor. “I’m sorry daddy never loved you, Uther, but did you have to let it turn you into a roiling mass of self-hatred, delusional nostalgia and half-remembered Churchwellian cliches?”
“I think we should play scrabble,” said Hunith. “Would anyone like to play scrabble?”
Uther pounded the table. “Better than being a bleeding-hearted pinko moron who can’t form an opinion without a Guardian columnist wanking it out of him!”
“Scrabble sounds lovely,” said Ygraine).
“So we’ve found something,” says Merlin. For the first time, Arthur notices a piece of card rolled up in his fist. “And it’s - I mean, it's from years ago, back in the 80s when they were at uni, and I really need you not to panic.”
“Oh, give it here.” He plucks the card from Merlin’s hand and -
“This is a photo,” he says.
“Yep.”
“Of our fathers.”
“Yep.”
“And they’re - “
“Making out. Yep.” He swallows. “Mum said they were - going through a phase.”
Arthur stares very long and hard at the photograph, carefully considering what the least painful method of blinding oneself might be. Then - “Wait, you called your mum about this?”
“Yes? Of course I called mum! What would you have done in my situation?”
“Burnt the bloody thing and pretended it never existed!” He folds it in half and hurls it across the room. “Which is what we’re going to do, ok? We never - ever - speak of this again.”
“Right.” Merlin nods. “Only see, the thing is, it’s that, I didn’t technically - “
“Spit it out.”
“Morgana is the one who actually found it.”
“Right.” He shuts his eyes. “So it’s - “
“Already on Twitter. And Facebook. She tagged them both.”
“Good, good. You know, I always suspected a loving god couldn’t exist, but it’s nice to finally have confirmation.”
“Maybe it will blow over by the time we next see them?”
Arthur glares at him. “It's our engagement party tonight.”
“Yeah.” Merlin scratches his chin. “Well, you know, they’re all reasonable adults. And they love us and want what’s best for us, so I’m sure that for just one night they could… they might…”
He trails off. On the radio, Graham fucking Norton is listing his desert island discs.
“Murder suicide?” says Arthur, and Merlin just nods and crawls into bed with him as the sounds of Vivaldi - what kind of unimaginative wanker picks Vivaldi? - slowly list over the wreckage of their life.