Jumping Horn Toads (Merlin)

[Merlin Emrys]

Merlin, of course, had absolutely no idea that Arthur was having some sort of crisis outside his room, he was too busy having his own crisis inside. Every time he tried to push those thoughts away, they came rushing back. The way Arthur had looked, the pressure of his hands pushing Merlin against the wall, and it didn't stop there, the problem was that Merlin was Arthur's manservant, which meant he had - on more than one occasion - seen the prince in the altogether, so every time his imagination strayed in that direction, his memory helpfully supplied a few mental images to make it all just that little more frustrating.

Finally managing to calm himself down with a mental litany of all the reasons that Arthur was an annoying prat and all the ways he would make fun of Merlin if he found out some of his darker urges, and all the things that Gwen would say to him if she'd known he got carried away like that, and picturing the irritating way she would be trying desperately not to snigger if he ever told her about this little incident, he stood up and pulled on a t-shirt, running his fingers unhelpfully through his hair.

Then Arthur apologised and he had to close his eyes and remind himself of everything he just thought of in order to make his rebellious body behave.
Could the stupid prat not do anything without Merlin finding it somehow attractive?
...well, actually, yes, he could do a lot of things. That thought helped a little, and he turned to open the door.

"Don't apologise," he said calmly "Let's just forget about this before we start bickering, again, I'm sure we'd both like to scrub the last thirty minutes from our memory, agreed?"

[Arthur]

“Yes. Definitely,” said Arthur with more feeling than he intended, he wanted to laugh and joke about it, but he really, really wanted to forget about it.

He tried smiling instead when Merlin opened the door but instead it came out as a smirk as he leaned against the door frame. He was dressed now, that was a good thing at least, but still…looking at him…and sadly he couldn‘t forget the last 30 minutes, no, right now they were firmly set within his mind. The smirk only faltered a little. “Although, I’m sorry I didn’t have my camera, that could have been a good few months of mocking, even better than the hat,” he said a little nervously, not really finding his joking tone and/or mocking tone.

“I uh,” he looked down at his feet, “I should probably get going, tell Gwen that I’m sorry, but I…uh…couldn’t stay. I just remembered that I have…something to do, something important…so, uh…yeah.”

[Merlin Emrys]

"I am not sorry you don't have your camera." Merlin responded ferverently, though trying to keep his tone as light as possible.
When Arthur said he had to go, in such uncertain terms, Merlin was tempted to try and make him stay, to keep him from running off yet again.
Then he wondered if maybe all that running off actually helped the prince come to terms with everything he learnt, and at least this time they'd managed to calm the situation before he left, so it was less likely that he was going to go awol for a while yet again, right?

He could only hope so, because trying to make Arthur stay would probably just make things worse, so he nodded as casually as he could.
"Yea, sure, of course. I'll see you later then..."

[Arthur]

“Yes…uh, yes I’ll…see you later then…” he said already backing away towards the door.

He was reminded of the bag of DVD’s and headed back towards Merlin holding them out towards him, “Oh and uh, give these to Gwen will you. I was uh, going to try and get her out of this insane obsession she has with those stupid broody idiots that call themselves demon hunters. I don’t get it, I really don’t, so I brought her some ‘True Blood’, tell her she has to at least watch it till the fourth episode. I have a feeling she might find something that changes her mind in that one.”

Smiling he turned and headed towards the door as quickly as possible, opening it he turned back to look at Merlin and said, “Just…take care of yourself alright?”

[Merlin Emrys]

Merlin took the bag, nodding on autopilot at the explanation, he only just understood what Arthur was talking about, but knew that it was best to pretend he completely got it rather than asking for any sort of clarification - that could take hours.

The parting comment was an odd one, but he was getting sort of used to Arthur acting particularly oddly after one of these encounters, so he just nodded again.
"Yea, you too. See you later." He waved Arthur away casually, hoping that the next time he saw the prince, he would have sorted this out in his head and be ready to carry on as normal.

[Arthur]

Arthur nodded one last time, smiled and left, closing the door behind. He took a long deep breathe and calmed himself down, he needed to think about this as rationally as he could. It helped that they were no longer in the same room, he could think clearly he could…no he needed to be further away, a lot further away. He started walking down the hall and decided that he couldn’t stay, he couldn’t come back here, ever. This was bad, this was really bad, everything else he could have dealt with but not this, this just confirmed everything that he had suspected, that Meg had suspected…

She knew, she had dumped him because she knew and even then he refused to believe it. Even know he was still thinking there was a way out of it, a way he would never have to confront it, a way he could change it and…no. There wasn’t, there really wasn’t. He had to admit it, he had to face it, accept it.

He was in love with Merlin.

Damn.

He was now at the top of the stairs down to the exit and he hadn’t calmed down yet. Facing it hadn’t helped, it really hadn’t helped because there was too much else, too many other things that stood in the way that…no. He’d faced, it, he’d almost accepted it, now all that was left for him to do was run away from it. He would go home, he would return to Camelot and sort his head out and…maybe one day he would tell Merlin to come back too.

Running down the stairs still lost in planning how he was going to leave he knocked in to someone else coming the other way.

“OW!” said Gwen rubbing her shoulder, “Why are you in such a rush?!”

Arthur looked at her and her angry expression dropped from her face to that of one concerned when she saw the look on his face. She dropped her shopping bags and placed her hands on his arms, “Arthur? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said automatically, and looking down at the ground.

“It’s clearly not, Arthur-“

“I’m going home."

“Ok, well we can do this another night-“

“No…Gwen…I’m going home,” he said and glanced up at her, “I just…I need to go home, I cant explain it right now but I just really, really need to go home. I’ll tell my father that he has convinced me and I should return home, and…that we should be married back there or something, gods.”

He rubbed his face and Gwen imagined that he looked like he was close to tears, “Arthur-“

“We’re getting married. Us…what happened Gwen? When did it all get so complicated? Can you make it right, can you just make everything ok again?” he pleaded with her, looking very much like the scared little boy she had met when she was younger.

“I wish I could.”

Before she could say anything else he shrugged her hands off and said, “I’m sorry I just…I’m going to go. I’ll…I’ll write to you, tell you what’s happening.”

Gwen nodded as he leaned in and kissed her cheek. After that he ran off down the rest of the stairs and as she looked out the window she saw he didn’t stop running after that. Utterly confused she picked up her bags and headed the rest of the way up to the flat, letting herself in and dropping the bags once more. She smiled at the little owl on the back of the seat and said, “Hiya Archie, you wanting some dinner?”

She head towards the kitchen and shouted, “Merlin! What did you do to Arthur?!”

[Merlin Emrys]

"Madame," Archimedes began, feeling quite disgruntled that he'd been so completely ignored during Arthur and Merlin's useless crisis, and drawing himself up to his full (albeit diminuitive) height at the indignity of it all "My name is Archimedes, Archie is really quite undignified."

"Oh shut up and say 'yes, thank you'." Merlin just muttered tiredly at the owl, earning a disgusted glare that he ignored. He couldn't be bothered with the owl's grouchiness after that emotionally draining encounter.

"Ah..." he said after a moment, finally clicking that Gwen had spoken to him, obviously having run into Arthur on his way past. "Uh... nothing important... he left these for you." he held the DVDs out.

[Guinevere]

Without really taking note of who was speaking Gwen replied, “Archie is an adorable name for such an adorably hideous little creature. And don’t take that tone with me young-…bird…WHAT THE HELL?!”
 
Gwen turned round to look at the grumpy bird that was looking rather indignant as Merlin told it off. She was so shocked by the fact the bird had been speaking to her it took a moment for her to realise that Merlin was speaking to her and holding something out. She took the bag of DVD’s from him in a bit of a daze, still looking at the bird and said, “Oh…right…thank you…”
 
She shook her head trying to think clearly for a moment, the talking bird would just have to wait. Whilst she dealt with Arthur’s strangeness her mind could process the bird. It was magic, Merlin did magic, Merlin probably cast a spell that went wrong and now the bird could talk. There. That made sense. Crisis over.
 
“Nothing important? It didn’t look that way,” she said looking away from the bird and down in to the bag, “he was freaking out. He asked me if I could make it all right and then said he was going home-oh for goodness sake.”
 
She pulled out the True Blood DVD’s and said, “oh Arthur give it up, I’m not interested. I just cant take that vampire with the sideburns seriously.”

[Merlin Emrys]

"Hideous!? What, what, who! Hideous indeed!" Archimedes ruffled his feathers in irritation before taking flight back into Merlin's room, grumbling all the way at the indignities of life.

Merlin paused for a moment, sorting through everything that had just been said to try and formulate an appropriate response. He regretted that Gwen was apparently so used to living with him that she managed to adapt to Archimedes talking relatively quickly, and thus it was not the sort of thing that would helpfully distract her from her line of questioning.

"I haven't been able to undo the spell, and I don't think he'd want me to now that he has a voice to complain with..." he explained, hoping for a moment that maybe he could change the subject, or even leap onto the new topic of True Blood and all would be forgotten... until she brought it up again letter. Gwen didn't let things go, she liked to know what was going on. "Arthur was just being Arthur, he walked in on something a little..uh...embarrassing, don't you dare ask for details, but we talked about it, it's ok, he'll just be doing his usual running away, but I think it's ok this time, it won't last as long."

[Guinevere]

“Something embarrassing?” said Gwen turning to face him and raising her eyebrows suggestively, allowing her own imagination to run wild but didn’t press for any more details, “well you’re off the hook for just now but I expect the full story later.”

Placing the DVD’s on the couch she leaned against the back of it and said, “Well whatever it is, it’s got him really spooked this time Merlin, and I’m not sure how long it’s going to take him. He said he was going home. Back to Camelot home. Maybe that’ll do him some good though, just to be back to normality for a bit.”

She walked towards the kitchen and said, “Alright, what are you making for dinner tonight that I can supervise?”

[Merlin Emrys]

He really, really hoped that she didn't remember asking for that 'full story' because it really wasn't one he wanted to share, in fact he'd rather just forget all about it and file it away in the deepest, darkest corner of his memories, where it - wait, did she just say Camelot?

"Camelot home? He's going back to Camelot?"
Maybe it hadn't been as alright as he'd thought, maybe he should have made him stay that little bit longer and get over it while Merlin was there, in the room. Clearly he was wrong when he thought running away sometimes helped Arthur deal.

Grabbing his coat and shoving his feet in his shoes, he made a run for it. By the time Gwen spoke again, he was already out the door.

[Guinevere]

“Yes, yes, yes, he’s gone back to Camelot, but you know, I think it might be good for him, get his head sorted out and-” she said from the kitchen, cutting herself off when she heard the door slam.

She sighed and opened the fridge to find that there was nothing there she could be trusted to cook. Walking back into the living room she leaned against the doorframe and said, “those, silly, silly boys. Now what am I going to eat?”

She looked at Merlin’s bedroom door and smirking said, “Archie! You don’t happen to know how to cook do you?”