Merlin: M/A : The Idiot and the Weirdo: A Travel Through Time
Title: The Idiot and the Weirdo: A Travel Through Time
Series: Merlin
Rating: T
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur with a side of Morgana/Gwen
Disclaimer: dis- (not); claim- (mine); -er (no, really)
Summary: Written for prompt in Kink Me! Merlin: Merlin is a mad scientist who invented a time-machine. He decides to take Arthur along on his adventures.
Gwen was grateful that her best friend lived across the hall. And that he was gay, which meant that she could wear obscenely short shorts in front of him and never had to worry if her legs were shaved. In fact, he seemed to prefer hairy legs, and was constantly telling her that she shouldn’t bother shaving, what with nonstop fights with razor burn, nicks, and there was always a missed spot or two.
“Troublesome, really,” Merlin told her, scrounging through messy drawers and beneath couch cushions to find what Gwen could only guess was a wrench. Or possibly some kind of device that would turn her tea cup into a wrench. One could never tell with Merlin.
“It almost sounds as though you speak from experience,” she teased good-naturedly, crossing her legs and grimacing at the normal state of her next door neighbor’s place.
Gwen remembered one time his mother had come to visit, and throughout her weekend stay had decided to pick up a little and reorganize to help her only child. It had been a disaster. Merlin hadn’t known where anything was, even if it was labeled and sitting in front of him, as his toaster had been that one Monday morning. Merlin had called Hunith from Gwen’s phone - because he still couldn’t find his - and had ranted and raved at her for no less than an hour because why would you put a toaster in the kitchen? It’s supposed to be in the living room, beside the couch, under the lamp, so it’s in easy access for very busy nights… and the telephone goes in the shower, Mom.
Merlin seemed almost OCD about his mess. There was no recognizable order to his books - or anything, really - but he always seemed to know where everything was. He was a tad crazy, but still completely loveable.
Merlin’s eyebrows darted up with a shy grin, his cheek’s darkening as he spoke. “I did it, once. Lost a bet to Will… Unfortunately, not the stupidest thing we ever did.”
Gwen nodded knowingly. “Like trying to build a time machine out of your bathtub?”
Merlin gaped at her, and shook his finger at her. “That was once, and it almost worked.”
She fought the urge to laugh. “Better than the time you tried to turn my freezer into a time-differential-space-thing.”
“TDST was nearly an almost-success,” he told her admonishingly.
“It put you into a coma for a week,” she said flatly, staring at him. “And tdst sounds like something a fly or a bee would say.”
“Don’t mock the name, dear Gwen. And I didn’t know that the temperature of the freezer combined with the flow of power from the TDST would put me into a sort of cryogenic sleep.” He turned and smiled at her. “I’m just glad you came along when you did. Who knows how long I would’ve been left in there if you hadn’t been in the mood for some of my mother’s leftover New Year’s Stew.”
Gwen, feeling smug and wondering vaguely what flavor of lifesaver she would be if given the choice, just smiled back at him, and then made the mistake of asking, “So what are you making this time?
-
Merlin had been born a genius.
His mother like to call him special, but not so much in that tone that actually meant something good, and more in that tone that meant it was possible he had some kind of mental affliction. But she was his mother, so she had a right to say it like that.
The childhood pain-in-the-neck, however, did not. And Will realized that as soon as Merlin built a crazy robot to throw him in the washer and turn it on spin cycle. After that, he wasn’t so much special in the head as he was mad genius scientist who will someday rule the world.
Merlin actually thought long and hard about the whole Ruling the World bit, but in the end decided it would be way too much trouble. Besides, if everyone knew his face, he couldn’t very well be a good evil genius - or a bad evil genius, at that. Trying to convince Will of that took a few extra years, but it allowed them both to grow into an addiction of Doctor Who, H.G. Wells, and Back to the Future.
Despite what Gwen thought, the bathtub was not his first attempt at a time machine. That grand title belonged to Will’s first car. They were lucky it hadn’t exploded. The second had been a school desk. The third, his mother’s recliner. The fourth, the refrigerator. There had been a few more before the bathtub, but he preferred not to think about it.
He met Gwen in high school. She was a volunteer in the library, and seeing as how he was trying to glean as much information on relativity and quantum physics and time-space mechanics, he was often found there. She went to a different school, a richer kind of school that she
only got into by scholarship. Her dad was a mechanic.
The fact that she could offer him the books he needed and the tools - borrowed from her father - was probably what drew him to her. That, and her disarming smile and winning personality. If ever he changed his mind about Ruling the World, she and Will would be right by his side.
Merlin knew Will had other friends - drinking friends, sexing friends, friends who did the kind of things that Merlin didn’t waste his time doing - but he hadn’t been aware Gwen had similar friends. He hadn’t expected more people than Gwen when he barged into her apartment mumbling about transfer of data through the time-space continuum and the need for magically enhanced screwdrivers, but there had been more than Gwen. Three people more, at least. And they were all looking at him.
“Merlin,” Gwen called, holding a red plastic cup and swaying towards him. “Care for a drink?”
He shook his head, eyeing the contents of the cup nervously as they sloshed towards him. “Will gave me one, once. It’s why there’s a piranha in a plastic bottle orbiting the space station.”
Gwen blinked at him, as did all of her guests. “Right. Toolbox is in the bedroom.”
Merlin frowned at her and shook his head. “In the bedroom? Honestly Gwen, no wonder I can never find anything over here. Toolbox in the bedroom? You know this is going to set me back by two hours, at the least, right?”
She smiled blearily at him and patted his cheek. “Next time you decide you want to be a Time Lord, give me some warning so I can clear out some room in my freezer, okay?”
Merlin took a moment to think about her words before nodding, fetching the screwdriver out of the inappropriately placed toolbox, and promptly vacating Gwen’s apartment and her party friends.
-
Arthur knew he had too much to drink the moment before he opened his eyes. His stomach lurched, his head spun, and he could feel every line in the sofa etched into his face. He was also evidently hallucinating that crazy man from last night talking to the milk in Gwen’s fridge.
Strange, as that had never happened before.
The hallucinating, at least. All the others before that he was more than familiar with. He definitely needed another past time than getting drunk and spending the night on his friends couches. He’d actually slept with Lance once, but neither of them could remember if they’d been so drunk they just passed out or if something had actually happened.
College, he thought, was definitely crazy. And challenged everything his father knew about sexuality. Luckily, Uther didn’t have to know. As long as he kept quiet about Morgana’s kinky drunken exploits with Gwen in the bedroom, she’d never tell a soul about his fumbled attempts on the couch with Lance. Or Gwaine. Or Leon. Or Gwen - but that had been a one-time thing, and a bit of a misunderstanding, as she and her brother had both been dressed the same.
But now there was a gawky looking man in a bathrobe and goggles standing in Gwen’s kitchen, pouring milk into some kind of - contraption. Arthur wasn’t sure what it was, but it looked contraptiony. He wasn’t much into science, but he was into how much aspirin Gwen kept in the cabinet above the oven.
Arthur knocked a couple into his hand and then took the milk from the mumbling weirdo and drank straight from the carton. Gwen shouldn’t mind, his mouth had been worse places. The milk, evidently, had been as well.
“What the hell is this?” he grimaced.
“Goat’s milk. It’s a better conductor that cow’s milk. Or at least what Gwen thinks is cow’s milk. I’m still positive the government is trying to force us into mind-control by making us think its cow’s milk when really it’s just the cast off of lactating radioactive pterodactyls.”
Arthur wasn’t even sure what to say to that. It was too early in the morning, his head still ached, and the aspirin was so not working fast enough for this. So he just nodded, handed back the carton, and went to sit on the couch. Which turned out to be the worst thing he could have done, because the crazy conspiracy theorist followed him there.
“I’m Merlin,” he offered good-naturedly, without actually looking at anything but the contraptiony contraption in his hands. The goat’s milk in it was actually glowing. Arthur vaguely wondered if he should be worried before Merlin reached into the milk - more of a pudding than liquid now - and pulled out a small glowing stick with a triumphant grin.
Arthur watched speechless as Merlin pushed a button - literally, a button, like the kind sewn onto his shirt - on the couch that magically brought out a console of sorts between them. Merlin inserted the glow stick thing, pushed a series of buttons and gadgets and then sat back and smiled.
Arthur had exactly three seconds to be terrified before Gwen’s apartment blinked out of existence.
-
When Arthur opened his eyes, he would have loved to see Gwen’s TV, or even the dirty wall of a back alley, or the bright lights of the hospital ceiling. Instead he saw thick green foliage and a ginormous foot being set down in front of them.
It was like that one time he’d had that nightmare after watching Jurassic Park, only he didn’t have a hangover at the time and he wasn’t sitting on a sofa next to a madman. The idiot couldn’t seem to stop smiling.
“What the hell did you do?” Arthur honestly tried not to yell. He’d seen the movies - he didn’t want to have any kind of overgrown lizard’s attention on him. But his voice came out as a shriek and one of the babies gave him a sideways glance. That thing probably ate flies bigger than him.
“I sent us into the past. Exciting, isn’t it?” Merlin looked down at the thing that was still in his hands. “Oh. Seems we need more milk. I didn’t know it’d take so much. I should’ve brought extra.” He glanced up then, and Arthur knew something bad was about to happen.
Merlin sauntered over to a baby, started talking to it - as if it understood human speech, Arthur scoffed - and then waited a moment as it reached up, nursed, and gave Merlin a mouthful of dino-milk. Arthur wasn’t sure if he should be sick or in awe.
As Merlin sat back down and waited for the little glowy thing to charge, Arthur stared in disbelief.
“That’s it? You just talked to a dinosaur like it’s nothing and now we’re just going to go back?”
Merlin quirked his brow. “No. We’re going forward. I’d hate to see what was before dinosaurs. Probably something without milk. And then where would we be?” He put the stick in the hole and then pushed buttons and toggled toggles before glancing up. “By the way, what’s your name again?”
Unfortunately, Arthur never got a chance to say.
-
Merlin grinned when he opened his eyes. They were sitting in a field of cows. Convenient, if he did say so himself. Not so for his time-traveling companion however, as he realized what color the blond prat seemed to favor - a color not in high regard it seemed with the bull staring them down from across the field.
“What did you say your name was?”
Arthur blinked at him, trying to settle his stomach. “Arthur,” he grunted, trying not to grimace from the smell.
“Yes, well, Arthur, you might want to run.”
Before he could ask, Merlin helpfully pointed to the bull whose easy trot was getting faster. Arthur grabbed Merlin’s hand and ran until they were up the path and away from anything with horns. Out of breath, Arthur leaned against a tree and motioned to Merlin. “Where… When are we now?”
Merlin shrugged. “Possibly the middle ages.”
“You don’t know?”
Merlin shrugged again. “It’s not an exact science.”
“Merlin!”
There was a market a little down the ways. People selling fruits and wares and fabrics and giving them strange looks, and stranger still when Merlin tried to barter a squirrel for some food. After nicking a couple apples from a preoccupied vendor, Arthur grabbed Merlin by the tie of his bathrobe and dragged him back down the road and into the cow pasture.
They ate while the milk charged and then settled back to see what would happen next.
-
Arthur and Merlin stared at the vision before them. The first glimpse of the future, and it had to be this?
The last two trips had brought them to, first, a group of meditating Druids chanting something creepy that Arthur didn’t want to dwell on, and second to a group of naked hippies doing something that he had actually wanted to join.
And now this.
It was obviously Gwen’s apartment, because she was there, standing in the doorway, wearing the exact same expression that they currently wore. She was staring across the hall, at Merlin’s door - open wide, and giving her a very good view of Arthur and Merlin on the table doing similar things the hippies had been offering to do for them just moments before.
Arthur didn’t waste any time before leaping from the couch, grabbing the milk carton from a smirking but surprised Morgana’s hands and thrusting them into Merlin’s, who wasted no time in pouring, charging and moving.
-
The next time they landed was in the middle of a little village with a couple of smiling children running circles around them. A few people gave them weird looks, but most acted as though nothing was out of place, as though it were normal for people to suddenly appear out of thin air on a couch. Who knew - maybe Merlin had done this kind of thing before.
One of the kids climbed up into Arthur’s lap and grinned a gap-toothed smile at him. “What’s this one run on?”
Merlin caught on faster than Arthur, apparently. “Milk. Have we been here before?”
The kids nodded. “You come here lots,” they said in sync. “Mummy has milk. And peanut butter, jus’ in case.”
“Peanut butter?” Arthur asked carefully, letting the kids drag him from the couch and into a hut. “Dare I ask?”
“The bath tub runs on it. And the dragons like it.”
“Smart dragons,” Merlin said, following along.
“Where are the ladies?” one kid asked, only to be hit by the other.
“Stupid. They only come in the tub.”
“Nah-uh. They came once on the couch.”
“They said it was an assident and that we shouldn’t tell Merlin and Arthur.”
The kids stared up at them innocently, as though they hadn’t just revealed something they weren’t supposed to.
“Right… So, milk?” Arthur inquired.
-
Merlin felt warm. It was a weird feeling, being squashed and yet on the precipice near to falling. He wouldn’t fall, though, because there was an arm wrapped around him and a head on his shoulder and he was too tired to roll over.
Who knew a full day of time travel could take so much out of a person. They had seen so much - most of it was just parts of history that were forgotten, that nobody thought of anymore, others were during the grandest moments. London Blitz. Dinosaurs. Industrial Revolution.
Age of Enlightenment. The 60s. The Beatles.
He knew Arthur had fun, too, despite the disquiet looks and crazy eyes as he was chased several times until the couch was charged. Too often they had barely escaped.
It had been exciting. And he couldn’t wait to take Will and Gwen with him, too, and share the experiences with them. Granted, he doubted it would be the same as it had been with Arthur, who seemed to have a flair for the dramatic.
Merlin smiled and snuggled closer. He supposed being overdramatic was okay in the case of one’s first time-travel. Now, he wondered if
Gwen had any peanut butter on hand. If not, then he had some in his dishwasher.
Peanut butter for the bath tub… He should have known.
-
Gwen stumbled out of her run at what felt like ass o’clock in the morning only to stare at her couch stupidly for five minutes before wondering when Merlin had decided to stay over and crash on Arthur. He’d been mumbling about finally figuring something out with his damnable time machine, something she’d been too sane to follow and possibly too drunk to understand and then he’d gone back across the hall.
And now here he was, sleeping with Arthur on her couch. Obviously there was something else in that alcohol last night because she was hallucinating her best friend and her… other best friend spooning in her living room.
Quietly, Morgana came up behind her, staring over her shoulder, staring at the Idiot and the Weirdo. “You sure do move fast, Arthur,” she said loudly.
Arthur jerked on the couch and shot up with wild eyes. “Talking dinosaurs,” was the first thing out of his mouth, and then with visible relaxation, “Oh, it’s just you,” before flopping back down onto the still sleeping Merlin.
Morgana just arched a brow, not even willing to ask.
Sleepily, Merlin mumbled, “Peanut butter…”
To which Arthur replied in the same tone, “Only in the bath tub.”
Behind them, Morgana and Gwen shared a look and shrugged. They’d heard weirder things, after all.
Series: Merlin
Rating: T
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur with a side of Morgana/Gwen
Disclaimer: dis- (not); claim- (mine); -er (no, really)
Summary: Written for prompt in Kink Me! Merlin: Merlin is a mad scientist who invented a time-machine. He decides to take Arthur along on his adventures.
Gwen was grateful that her best friend lived across the hall. And that he was gay, which meant that she could wear obscenely short shorts in front of him and never had to worry if her legs were shaved. In fact, he seemed to prefer hairy legs, and was constantly telling her that she shouldn’t bother shaving, what with nonstop fights with razor burn, nicks, and there was always a missed spot or two.
“Troublesome, really,” Merlin told her, scrounging through messy drawers and beneath couch cushions to find what Gwen could only guess was a wrench. Or possibly some kind of device that would turn her tea cup into a wrench. One could never tell with Merlin.
“It almost sounds as though you speak from experience,” she teased good-naturedly, crossing her legs and grimacing at the normal state of her next door neighbor’s place.
Gwen remembered one time his mother had come to visit, and throughout her weekend stay had decided to pick up a little and reorganize to help her only child. It had been a disaster. Merlin hadn’t known where anything was, even if it was labeled and sitting in front of him, as his toaster had been that one Monday morning. Merlin had called Hunith from Gwen’s phone - because he still couldn’t find his - and had ranted and raved at her for no less than an hour because why would you put a toaster in the kitchen? It’s supposed to be in the living room, beside the couch, under the lamp, so it’s in easy access for very busy nights… and the telephone goes in the shower, Mom.
Merlin seemed almost OCD about his mess. There was no recognizable order to his books - or anything, really - but he always seemed to know where everything was. He was a tad crazy, but still completely loveable.
Merlin’s eyebrows darted up with a shy grin, his cheek’s darkening as he spoke. “I did it, once. Lost a bet to Will… Unfortunately, not the stupidest thing we ever did.”
Gwen nodded knowingly. “Like trying to build a time machine out of your bathtub?”
Merlin gaped at her, and shook his finger at her. “That was once, and it almost worked.”
She fought the urge to laugh. “Better than the time you tried to turn my freezer into a time-differential-space-thing.”
“TDST was nearly an almost-success,” he told her admonishingly.
“It put you into a coma for a week,” she said flatly, staring at him. “And tdst sounds like something a fly or a bee would say.”
“Don’t mock the name, dear Gwen. And I didn’t know that the temperature of the freezer combined with the flow of power from the TDST would put me into a sort of cryogenic sleep.” He turned and smiled at her. “I’m just glad you came along when you did. Who knows how long I would’ve been left in there if you hadn’t been in the mood for some of my mother’s leftover New Year’s Stew.”
Gwen, feeling smug and wondering vaguely what flavor of lifesaver she would be if given the choice, just smiled back at him, and then made the mistake of asking, “So what are you making this time?
-
Merlin had been born a genius.
His mother like to call him special, but not so much in that tone that actually meant something good, and more in that tone that meant it was possible he had some kind of mental affliction. But she was his mother, so she had a right to say it like that.
The childhood pain-in-the-neck, however, did not. And Will realized that as soon as Merlin built a crazy robot to throw him in the washer and turn it on spin cycle. After that, he wasn’t so much special in the head as he was mad genius scientist who will someday rule the world.
Merlin actually thought long and hard about the whole Ruling the World bit, but in the end decided it would be way too much trouble. Besides, if everyone knew his face, he couldn’t very well be a good evil genius - or a bad evil genius, at that. Trying to convince Will of that took a few extra years, but it allowed them both to grow into an addiction of Doctor Who, H.G. Wells, and Back to the Future.
Despite what Gwen thought, the bathtub was not his first attempt at a time machine. That grand title belonged to Will’s first car. They were lucky it hadn’t exploded. The second had been a school desk. The third, his mother’s recliner. The fourth, the refrigerator. There had been a few more before the bathtub, but he preferred not to think about it.
He met Gwen in high school. She was a volunteer in the library, and seeing as how he was trying to glean as much information on relativity and quantum physics and time-space mechanics, he was often found there. She went to a different school, a richer kind of school that she
only got into by scholarship. Her dad was a mechanic.
The fact that she could offer him the books he needed and the tools - borrowed from her father - was probably what drew him to her. That, and her disarming smile and winning personality. If ever he changed his mind about Ruling the World, she and Will would be right by his side.
Merlin knew Will had other friends - drinking friends, sexing friends, friends who did the kind of things that Merlin didn’t waste his time doing - but he hadn’t been aware Gwen had similar friends. He hadn’t expected more people than Gwen when he barged into her apartment mumbling about transfer of data through the time-space continuum and the need for magically enhanced screwdrivers, but there had been more than Gwen. Three people more, at least. And they were all looking at him.
“Merlin,” Gwen called, holding a red plastic cup and swaying towards him. “Care for a drink?”
He shook his head, eyeing the contents of the cup nervously as they sloshed towards him. “Will gave me one, once. It’s why there’s a piranha in a plastic bottle orbiting the space station.”
Gwen blinked at him, as did all of her guests. “Right. Toolbox is in the bedroom.”
Merlin frowned at her and shook his head. “In the bedroom? Honestly Gwen, no wonder I can never find anything over here. Toolbox in the bedroom? You know this is going to set me back by two hours, at the least, right?”
She smiled blearily at him and patted his cheek. “Next time you decide you want to be a Time Lord, give me some warning so I can clear out some room in my freezer, okay?”
Merlin took a moment to think about her words before nodding, fetching the screwdriver out of the inappropriately placed toolbox, and promptly vacating Gwen’s apartment and her party friends.
-
Arthur knew he had too much to drink the moment before he opened his eyes. His stomach lurched, his head spun, and he could feel every line in the sofa etched into his face. He was also evidently hallucinating that crazy man from last night talking to the milk in Gwen’s fridge.
Strange, as that had never happened before.
The hallucinating, at least. All the others before that he was more than familiar with. He definitely needed another past time than getting drunk and spending the night on his friends couches. He’d actually slept with Lance once, but neither of them could remember if they’d been so drunk they just passed out or if something had actually happened.
College, he thought, was definitely crazy. And challenged everything his father knew about sexuality. Luckily, Uther didn’t have to know. As long as he kept quiet about Morgana’s kinky drunken exploits with Gwen in the bedroom, she’d never tell a soul about his fumbled attempts on the couch with Lance. Or Gwaine. Or Leon. Or Gwen - but that had been a one-time thing, and a bit of a misunderstanding, as she and her brother had both been dressed the same.
But now there was a gawky looking man in a bathrobe and goggles standing in Gwen’s kitchen, pouring milk into some kind of - contraption. Arthur wasn’t sure what it was, but it looked contraptiony. He wasn’t much into science, but he was into how much aspirin Gwen kept in the cabinet above the oven.
Arthur knocked a couple into his hand and then took the milk from the mumbling weirdo and drank straight from the carton. Gwen shouldn’t mind, his mouth had been worse places. The milk, evidently, had been as well.
“What the hell is this?” he grimaced.
“Goat’s milk. It’s a better conductor that cow’s milk. Or at least what Gwen thinks is cow’s milk. I’m still positive the government is trying to force us into mind-control by making us think its cow’s milk when really it’s just the cast off of lactating radioactive pterodactyls.”
Arthur wasn’t even sure what to say to that. It was too early in the morning, his head still ached, and the aspirin was so not working fast enough for this. So he just nodded, handed back the carton, and went to sit on the couch. Which turned out to be the worst thing he could have done, because the crazy conspiracy theorist followed him there.
“I’m Merlin,” he offered good-naturedly, without actually looking at anything but the contraptiony contraption in his hands. The goat’s milk in it was actually glowing. Arthur vaguely wondered if he should be worried before Merlin reached into the milk - more of a pudding than liquid now - and pulled out a small glowing stick with a triumphant grin.
Arthur watched speechless as Merlin pushed a button - literally, a button, like the kind sewn onto his shirt - on the couch that magically brought out a console of sorts between them. Merlin inserted the glow stick thing, pushed a series of buttons and gadgets and then sat back and smiled.
Arthur had exactly three seconds to be terrified before Gwen’s apartment blinked out of existence.
-
When Arthur opened his eyes, he would have loved to see Gwen’s TV, or even the dirty wall of a back alley, or the bright lights of the hospital ceiling. Instead he saw thick green foliage and a ginormous foot being set down in front of them.
It was like that one time he’d had that nightmare after watching Jurassic Park, only he didn’t have a hangover at the time and he wasn’t sitting on a sofa next to a madman. The idiot couldn’t seem to stop smiling.
“What the hell did you do?” Arthur honestly tried not to yell. He’d seen the movies - he didn’t want to have any kind of overgrown lizard’s attention on him. But his voice came out as a shriek and one of the babies gave him a sideways glance. That thing probably ate flies bigger than him.
“I sent us into the past. Exciting, isn’t it?” Merlin looked down at the thing that was still in his hands. “Oh. Seems we need more milk. I didn’t know it’d take so much. I should’ve brought extra.” He glanced up then, and Arthur knew something bad was about to happen.
Merlin sauntered over to a baby, started talking to it - as if it understood human speech, Arthur scoffed - and then waited a moment as it reached up, nursed, and gave Merlin a mouthful of dino-milk. Arthur wasn’t sure if he should be sick or in awe.
As Merlin sat back down and waited for the little glowy thing to charge, Arthur stared in disbelief.
“That’s it? You just talked to a dinosaur like it’s nothing and now we’re just going to go back?”
Merlin quirked his brow. “No. We’re going forward. I’d hate to see what was before dinosaurs. Probably something without milk. And then where would we be?” He put the stick in the hole and then pushed buttons and toggled toggles before glancing up. “By the way, what’s your name again?”
Unfortunately, Arthur never got a chance to say.
-
Merlin grinned when he opened his eyes. They were sitting in a field of cows. Convenient, if he did say so himself. Not so for his time-traveling companion however, as he realized what color the blond prat seemed to favor - a color not in high regard it seemed with the bull staring them down from across the field.
“What did you say your name was?”
Arthur blinked at him, trying to settle his stomach. “Arthur,” he grunted, trying not to grimace from the smell.
“Yes, well, Arthur, you might want to run.”
Before he could ask, Merlin helpfully pointed to the bull whose easy trot was getting faster. Arthur grabbed Merlin’s hand and ran until they were up the path and away from anything with horns. Out of breath, Arthur leaned against a tree and motioned to Merlin. “Where… When are we now?”
Merlin shrugged. “Possibly the middle ages.”
“You don’t know?”
Merlin shrugged again. “It’s not an exact science.”
“Merlin!”
There was a market a little down the ways. People selling fruits and wares and fabrics and giving them strange looks, and stranger still when Merlin tried to barter a squirrel for some food. After nicking a couple apples from a preoccupied vendor, Arthur grabbed Merlin by the tie of his bathrobe and dragged him back down the road and into the cow pasture.
They ate while the milk charged and then settled back to see what would happen next.
-
Arthur and Merlin stared at the vision before them. The first glimpse of the future, and it had to be this?
The last two trips had brought them to, first, a group of meditating Druids chanting something creepy that Arthur didn’t want to dwell on, and second to a group of naked hippies doing something that he had actually wanted to join.
And now this.
It was obviously Gwen’s apartment, because she was there, standing in the doorway, wearing the exact same expression that they currently wore. She was staring across the hall, at Merlin’s door - open wide, and giving her a very good view of Arthur and Merlin on the table doing similar things the hippies had been offering to do for them just moments before.
Arthur didn’t waste any time before leaping from the couch, grabbing the milk carton from a smirking but surprised Morgana’s hands and thrusting them into Merlin’s, who wasted no time in pouring, charging and moving.
-
The next time they landed was in the middle of a little village with a couple of smiling children running circles around them. A few people gave them weird looks, but most acted as though nothing was out of place, as though it were normal for people to suddenly appear out of thin air on a couch. Who knew - maybe Merlin had done this kind of thing before.
One of the kids climbed up into Arthur’s lap and grinned a gap-toothed smile at him. “What’s this one run on?”
Merlin caught on faster than Arthur, apparently. “Milk. Have we been here before?”
The kids nodded. “You come here lots,” they said in sync. “Mummy has milk. And peanut butter, jus’ in case.”
“Peanut butter?” Arthur asked carefully, letting the kids drag him from the couch and into a hut. “Dare I ask?”
“The bath tub runs on it. And the dragons like it.”
“Smart dragons,” Merlin said, following along.
“Where are the ladies?” one kid asked, only to be hit by the other.
“Stupid. They only come in the tub.”
“Nah-uh. They came once on the couch.”
“They said it was an assident and that we shouldn’t tell Merlin and Arthur.”
The kids stared up at them innocently, as though they hadn’t just revealed something they weren’t supposed to.
“Right… So, milk?” Arthur inquired.
-
Merlin felt warm. It was a weird feeling, being squashed and yet on the precipice near to falling. He wouldn’t fall, though, because there was an arm wrapped around him and a head on his shoulder and he was too tired to roll over.
Who knew a full day of time travel could take so much out of a person. They had seen so much - most of it was just parts of history that were forgotten, that nobody thought of anymore, others were during the grandest moments. London Blitz. Dinosaurs. Industrial Revolution.
Age of Enlightenment. The 60s. The Beatles.
He knew Arthur had fun, too, despite the disquiet looks and crazy eyes as he was chased several times until the couch was charged. Too often they had barely escaped.
It had been exciting. And he couldn’t wait to take Will and Gwen with him, too, and share the experiences with them. Granted, he doubted it would be the same as it had been with Arthur, who seemed to have a flair for the dramatic.
Merlin smiled and snuggled closer. He supposed being overdramatic was okay in the case of one’s first time-travel. Now, he wondered if
Gwen had any peanut butter on hand. If not, then he had some in his dishwasher.
Peanut butter for the bath tub… He should have known.
-
Gwen stumbled out of her run at what felt like ass o’clock in the morning only to stare at her couch stupidly for five minutes before wondering when Merlin had decided to stay over and crash on Arthur. He’d been mumbling about finally figuring something out with his damnable time machine, something she’d been too sane to follow and possibly too drunk to understand and then he’d gone back across the hall.
And now here he was, sleeping with Arthur on her couch. Obviously there was something else in that alcohol last night because she was hallucinating her best friend and her… other best friend spooning in her living room.
Quietly, Morgana came up behind her, staring over her shoulder, staring at the Idiot and the Weirdo. “You sure do move fast, Arthur,” she said loudly.
Arthur jerked on the couch and shot up with wild eyes. “Talking dinosaurs,” was the first thing out of his mouth, and then with visible relaxation, “Oh, it’s just you,” before flopping back down onto the still sleeping Merlin.
Morgana just arched a brow, not even willing to ask.
Sleepily, Merlin mumbled, “Peanut butter…”
To which Arthur replied in the same tone, “Only in the bath tub.”
Behind them, Morgana and Gwen shared a look and shrugged. They’d heard weirder things, after all.