A Right Turn After Bad Idea
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“What can I get you?” Merlin asked.
“The last four hours of my life back,” Arthur said promptly.
“I can see why you’d be confused,” Merlin said, “but we don’t actually have any drinks called that."Series
- Part 1 of A Right Turn After Bad Idea
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“So,” Merlin remarked, turning a thoughtful eye on their destination, “your sister is getting married in...a castle. Which one of the brides was Daddy’s little princess?”
“Technically, Morgana,” Arthur said, “since we used to live here.”
Merlin blinked at him. “What.”
“Dad donated it to the National Trust during the last election,” Arthur said, tugging Merlin along, feeling this was not a conversation he wanted to have standing still. People tended to get a bit weird about the knowledge he had grown up in a literal castle, particularly when the castle in question was looming over their heads. Even Arthur had to admit, it was kind of big for three people. “Morgana refused to consider getting married anywhere else, though she’s still bitter that she can’t move things wherever she wants.”
“Sorry, I’m stuck on ‘castle’.”
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- Part 2 of A Right Turn After Bad Idea
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“My godfather knows the man who owns this place,” Merlin explained as he slid into the chair across from Arthur’s. “I’ve been coming here for years, they do a great all-day breakfast. And Will, that’s the bloke behind the counter, is an old friend of mine from school.”
Arthur looked at Will. Will looked at Arthur, polishing a glass and giving him the murder eyes.
“He seems charming,” Arthur said.
“He finds people annoying,” Merlin said quickly, shifting his chair to block Arthur’s sight-line. “Like, most people. Any people.”
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- Part 3 of A Right Turn After Bad Idea
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“I have a list of questions,” Arthur announced the next morning, sliding into the passenger side of his car and handing over said list with business-like efficiency. “If you read them now, you can answer them on our way to your mum’s place.”
Merlin looked at the list. There were bullet points and two different shades of highlighter pen. The first question was What is your favourite colour?
“I don’t have a favourite colour,” Merlin said.
Arthur looked shocked. “Everyone has a favourite colour.”
“Well, what’s yours?” Merlin looked at Arthur’s red button-down, one of an apparently unlimited supply of red button-downs, and sighed. “You don’t have to answer that, actually.” He returned to the list. “Do I have any recently deceased relatives?”
“So I know what not to mention,” Arthur explained. “Also, divorces, that’s number three.”
Series
- Part 4 of A Right Turn After Bad Idea
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“No, I mean, we broke up.” Arthur swallowed. “He broke up with me.”
That statement gave Morgana a series of war flashbacks to university, when it had seemed to be Arthur’s mission in life to date terrible people and in the process miss every clue as to how terrible they were. He had not noticed Valiant using the Pendragon family’s reputation as a social launching pad, or Ewain basking in the reflected glory, or Sophia’s everything. Morgana had met Merlin once – well, twice if you counted ordering drinks off him on her hen’s night, but she didn’t remember that encounter too well – and he had seemed a reasonable enough person, but so had Sophia at first glance and see how that had turned out.
(At the bottom of a river with search and rescue divers and a media circus. That was how it had turned out. Sophia was the worst, and Morgana would never let Arthur forget she had told him so.)
“What happened?” she demanded.
Series
- Part 5 of A Right Turn After Bad Idea
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“This is nice,” he murmured. “We should just stay here the rest of the day.”
“Or forever,” Merlin yawned, leaning back against the tree and plucking a leaf off Arthur’s chest. “We could live in the trees and make bread out of acorns. Like squirrels.”
“I can’t tell if you’re being romantic, sarcastic or idiotic,” Arthur said doubtfully.
“I can’t tell if I like you being rude or if I’ve just got used to it.”
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- Part 6 of A Right Turn After Bad Idea
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“Arthur likes company, and Morgana likes an audience,” Gwen went on, taking a bite of her sandwich. “And they both like showing off. They went through a few stages of stealing each other’s friends before they realised it was possible to share.”
“Much shock, so surprise,” Merlin muttered, scrolling through the deluge of texts in his inbox. Two were from Arthur, confirming their weekend plans to visit Hunith, and one was from Morgana, sharing a filthy meme, but there were also messages from Elena (the link to a music video in which everyone wore bright blue make-up and were having identity crises with a tambourine), Gwaine (a rambling stream of consciousness about the language of flowers), Mithian (a brunch invitation) and Mordred, who Merlin didn’t even remember getting properly introduced to but who had apparently acquired his phone number by telepathy – or more probably, Morgana – and wanted to talk about changing the socio-economic foundations of modern civilisation ‘when you have a minute to chat’.
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- Part 7 of A Right Turn After Bad Idea
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“All this talk of real estate,” Morgana said, “it makes me want a game of Monopoly. Have you still got the board, Father?”
“Of course,” Uther said at once, recognising this statement for the challenge that it was. “Arthur, are you able to stay?”
This was Merlin’s chance to say that no, he had plans, he had urgent business elsewhere, he needed to wash his damn hair, but he was an innocent and thought this was the prelude to a family game night. Arthur agreed to stay. Vivian chirped, “Oh, how fun!” and kicked Morgana furiously under the table. Never again, she had said, never again.
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- Part 8 of A Right Turn After Bad Idea
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“You’ve got a suspicious air about you,” Arthur said, narrowing his eyes. “Shifty.”
“What?” Merlin asked, wide-eyed. “Me?”
“Like you’ve got something to hide.”
“I’m an open book!”
“Have you already talked to Morgana behind my back?”
“Nope,” Merlin said immediately, dropping a spoon. “Oh, oops.”
Series
- Part 9 of A Right Turn After Bad Idea
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“You’re trying to study, move house and get married all at the same time?” Will whistled. “You’re a sucker for punishment, mate.”
“There’s a list,” Merlin told him. It was becoming a mantra. Trust in the list. Believe in the list.
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- Part 10 of A Right Turn After Bad Idea
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Oh, fabulous. Arthur has brought a date; double the blonde, no doubt double the irritation.
The girl is vaguely familiar. With the circles she moves in, there’s a certain set of people Morgana knows from sight and has probably exchanged pleasantries with over canapes at one of her father’s parties, but wouldn’t recognise if she met them under any other circumstances. Arthur is fully aware of this. “Vivian, this is my sister Morgana,” he says, putting a hand on his date’s waist. “Morgana, this is Vivian Alined. I’m sure you remember her.”
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- Part 11 of A Right Turn After Bad Idea
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“Why do I keep having parties?” he mumbled plaintively around his toothbrush. “Why didn’t you stop me inviting people?”
“You wouldn’t have listened if I’d tried,” Merlin pointed out unsympathetically, from the shower. He rinsed the suds out of his hair then poked his head around the curtain to add, “And it was your idea to bundle up three celebrations into one party.”
“Don’t rub it in,” Arthur said severely. “It’s unattractive to be smug.”
“Take it from me,” Merlin said, kissing his jaw on the way to the towel rack, “it’s not.”
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- Part 12 of A Right Turn After Bad Idea
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“Welcome, friends,” Gwaine declaimed sombrely, lifting his shotglass in a toast, “to the last night of our dear Merlin’s bachelorhood.”
“I’m not a bachelor,” Merlin complained. “I’ve had a boyfriend for months. I’ve got a fiancé.”
“Last night of freedom, then,” Gwaine said, unperturbed. “Drink up, Merlin, it’s a big moment.”
As he spoke, the music died away and the band started to play what was unmistakably a punk rock cover of the Wedding March.
Series
- Part 13 of A Right Turn After Bad Idea