A/N: This is the last of my romantic fics. Yay for a finished challenge!
Please note that this is a companion to Destiny Enough for Both. To refresh your memory on that oneshot: Arthur is talking to the dragon, he knows about magic and Merlin, but Merlin doesn't know that Arthur knows, and Arthur doesn't know that Merlin knows anything at all.
The first time it happens, it's the poisoned chalice all over again.
It's not quite the same, because as far as Arthur knows, Merlin has no more idea the food is poisoned than he does, but it doesn't matter, because it's still Arthur's fault. Merlin had brought up burned porridge for breakfast, and Arthur had made him eat some of it.
He had thought Merlin's mouth would screw up, and he would spit it out. He had thought Merlin would glare at him and make some sort of smart remark before stomping off to get him something else for breakfast.
He had not thought that Merlin would stumble back and curl in on himself like he's been stabbed in the stomach.
"Merlin?" He's on his feet in an instant, ready to call for the guards and for Gaius, but Merlin straightens almost instantly. Arthur isn't quite breathing yet, though, because he remembers the chalice all too well.
Merlin's eyes are glazed. "Lady Elaine," he says. "I have to find Lady Elaine."
"Why?" Arthur asks, bewildered.
"She's my one true love," Merlin announces.
Arthur ends up locking Merlin in his room and running off to speak with the great dragon to find out how to get his idiot manservant out of the thrall of the love potion he inadvertently swallowed.
Merlin ends up somehow escaping from the room, breaking into Lady Elaine's, and proposing marriage to her.
Fortunately, Arthur manages to track him down before things can get too out of hand, and he manages to persuade the lady to undo the spell in exchange for their silence on how it had come about in the first place. Seeing as she had never wanted to spell Merlin in the first place, she quickly agrees.
She ends up scared off magic, Merlin remembers nothing of the experience, and Arthur doesn't have to hunt down Merlin's true love. Everyone wins.
Or Arthur wins at least, and after his father finishes yelling at him for skiving off practice to spend the day with Lady Elaine, that's all Arthur cares about.
The second time it happens, it's a troll looking for revenge for her dead sister, and Arthur is absolutely, positively done with all trolls, ever.
Fortunately, getting Merlin to cry tears of true remorse is far easier than it was getting Uther to cry over something. Arthur's plan is to hand him over to Gaius for a lecture on his many faults, but Merlin slips away before he can drag him there.
He ends up finding him staring after a retreating Morgana with tears welling in his eyes. Arthur knows he should probably ask him what happened, but he doesn't trust himself to talk about Morgana at the moment without giving away the fact that he's beginning to suspect she's a traitor, so he lets it go. Merlin is free of the troll's enchantment, and that leaves Arthur free to go stab the thing.
The fight is very therapeutic.
The third time, Merlin takes to writing love poetry, and Arthur refuses to put up with that a second longer than he has to. He leaves Merlin in Gaius's care and goes to hunt down the awestruck druid girl who had cast the thing in the first place.
"As of this morning, I had no quarrel with your people," he says through gritted teeth. "Then Merlin came in reciting sonnets to your eyebrows."
The girl cringes back from his ferocious glare.
"Fix it," he hisses.
She does.
The fourth time, it's Morgana, and Merlin expresses his love through assassination attempts, which is a problem, because Merlin is a surprisingly competent assassin. The only reason everyone's still alive is that Merlin has apparently decided to start with the ailing Uther, and he refuses to kill anyone else until he does so.
It's times like these that Arthur misses the dragon.
Fortunately for everyone, Hunith is visiting her son at the time, and even more fortunately, it's not romantic love needed to break the spell, just sincere love. One kiss on his forehead from his mother, and Merlin is back to his usual idiot self.
Arthur starts giving Merlin more freedom after that. Hunith has to go home eventually, and when she does, they all need a backup plan in case this happens again. Maybe if Merlin has some time to himself he'll finally find himself a girl.
Gwaine mentions that an extremely drunk Merlin had once mentioned a girl. Arthur investigates this possibility eagerly.
Gaius reveals the girl is dead.
Arthur resists the urge to start banging his head against something.
The fifth time it happens, Merlin is his Court Sorcerer, and there is still no girl.
Well, no 'true love' girl. There is a girl with an obsession with Emrys, but that girl's the reason they're all in this mess in the first place.
This mess being the fact that Merlin has turned the castle the girl's favorite color, and the girl's favorite color is a nauseating green that makes Arthur sick to look at for more than a minute.
The good news is that the dragon is no longer faking his death, so Arthur can at least consult him about it. The bad news is that the dragon is too busy laughing to be of much help.
"Is there some kind of charm to ward these things off?" Arthur demands. "Because if so, I'm going to start demanding Merlin wear one at all times."
"Peace, young king," Kilgharrah chortles. "The witch little knew what she was about. Emrys' own magic will throw it off in a few days."
"I am not living with my castle this color for any number of days," Arthur says flatly.
Kilgharrah just keeps laughing.
