Merlin's magic (Oneshots) 1

Tiptoeing around the mistle (part 2)

A.N.:// ( The art just shows Colin Morgan. Because I like drawing him. He's difficult)

Arthur knew from the very beginning that this bet was a bad idea. He KNEW it wasn't easy to turn people down. As crown prince he had always had trouble keeping people at a certain distance.
Because even a fling with some stable girl could make the stable girl incredibly rich.
Even more so, if she were to become pregnant and claimed Arthur to be the father.
Now that Arthur was king, it was even worse, actually.
Still. Leon's repulsion by the entire tradition struck him as a bit extreme.

It was later that afternoon, when Arthur realized just how many people this castle actually had.

And in addition, how many mistletoes Gwaine had pulled up in the entire Castle.
Every room, every hall, every alcove, filled with the tiny green twigs.
Spirit protection was one thing. THIS was madness.

Arthur had always – in the past years – avoided routes that were covered in mistletoes for similar reasons that Leon did.
Right now it was impossible to find a route that wasn't occupied by knights, servants or people from the lower town that wanted to 'see' their king at least once.

"This is going to be worse than I thought.", Arthur gulped as he tried to walk past a small woman with beautiful blond locks and bright blue eyes.
She smiled at him all flirtatiously.
Arthur sighed and was about to do, what he usually did. Namely, kissing the girl politely on the hand.
But he had a feeling that Leon wouldn't excuse this form of kissing from any other and therefore he'd loose the bet.
So Arthur swallowed down any guilt and tried to pretend like he hadn't seen her.

Naturally, he wouldn't get away with that.
She called out to him. "Sire. Your majesty. What a beautiful day. Oh look at that, a mistletoe.", she pointed over their heads, not even wasting her precious time to talk around the issue.
Arthur sighed. This wasn't good.
"It's bad luck if we don't kiss, you know?", she said and fluttered her eyelashes at him. Arthur opened his mouth to say something, but then he shook his head.
"I'm sorry, I have to.... be somewhere. I don't have the time.", he hushed out and tried to walk past, but she stopped him.
"Oh please, it will be just a second."

"I'm sorry. I can't.", Arthur tried, but she looked disappointed.
And then, as if she just looked through his facade, her eyes turned soft.
"There is someone else, isn't there?", she said and pouted understandingly.
She was right, but Arthur wasn't allowed to admit that. Merely for a second he wondered why.
Then he answered while shrugging nervously.
"I just don't want to kiss you.", he was neither confirming nor denying her accusation. It was true though. He had no interest in her.

"Am I -", she blinked, looking visibly hurt. "Am I not pretty enough?"
"What? No!", Arthur gave back, startled by the sudden question. And that was the moment he understood, why he wasn't allowed to blame this on a crush.
Leon didn't want to kiss anyone. But he DIDN'T have an excuse for it. And Leon didn't want to lie to people.
"You're really pretty. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."
"And yet, it's not enough, is it?"
"It's not about that.", Arthur tried, but he already knew it was pointless.
"No, I understand.", she frowned. "You could have just said you don't want to kiss me. That would have been the polite way, Sire.", she said and then turned on her heels and left.

"But that is...", Arthur said, but she was already out of earshot. "- exactly what I said.", he muttered to himself. Then he shook his head and continued on. Needless to say, almost every other confrontation from then on continued almost the exact same way.

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"It can't be hard to NOT kiss anyone.", Gwaine shook his head. Really, this was the easiest bet he's ever went into. Or so he thought.