Chapter One: It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

o0o0

"Merlin, I'm beginning to think that you enjoy being in my office more than you enjoy the classroom," Gaius declared, trying, Merlin supposed, to sound strict. Mostly he just sounded amused. As well he should. It had been a glorious moment, and set off the sprinklers in eight different classrooms. The squeals of the girls alone as they were drenched in the contents of the sprinkler system in mid-December had made it all worthwhile.

But that didn't mean Gaius wouldn't punish him so Merlin smiled brightly, hands folded in his lap, eyes wide and trusting, the very picture of innocence. "I have no idea what you're talking about. Tea?" He gestured to the freshly brewed cup sitting on the desk.

It was a tribute to Merlin's influence that Gaius responded with a heavy, earsplitting sigh, and picked up the teacup without questioning how a teacup had come to be. He brought it up and sniffed—that's bloody well rude, thought Merlin, mildly affronted—and raised an eyebrow. "Not poisoned, I take it?"

Merlin stared back solemnly now. "I'm hurt you'd think that of me, Gaius."

"That's Headmaster Gaius to the likes of you," grumbled the old man, heaving himself into his desk chair without taking a sip of the tea. His white curls nearly dipped into the cup, because Gaius insisted on wearing his hair long and in a fashion that had gone out of style in the Dark Ages. Something about tradition. He'd had exactly one conversation with Merlin about it and when Merlin had returned to school the next morning with a baldly gleaming head and an odd sense of shame, it hadn't recurred.

"And you have poisoned my drinks before," Gaius pointed out, giving Merlin one of those 'I see through you and just try to stop me looks' from above the teacup. And Merlin had gotten the nice china and everything. Really, that should earn him some points.

Merlin responded with a smile that had broken many a guardian down into either submission or incoherent rage. Gaius had fallen prey to neither. So far. There was still time. "Not poisoned—I only drugged it." Merlin realized as he was saying it that this didn't particularly sound like it was helping his case. "And it was just the once, anyway. You've laced my food loads of times…" Gaius coughed, leaning back, with a grumble as Merlin added, "…Headmaster Gaius."

Gaius took a sip of the tea at that. Merlin counted it as a victory, and grinned accordingly. "Come on. It was good, you have to admit."

"The tea?" Gaius asked sharply, which hadn't been what Merlin was referring to, but no one argued with Gaius's In Trouble voice. He hadn't used it until now. Drat. Merlin's thumbs pressed together nervously. "The aroma is quite good. You have a knack for it, I'm sure." Maybe Merlin could get out of trouble if he went and fetched Gaius some more. By hand and everything to show he was properly contrite. "But Merlin, you should not let the teapot whistle until it screams."

Merlin frowned, but he didn't argue. "…Right."

"People will talk," Gaius went on, setting the teacup down. "And I'm sure you don't want that."

"I don't?" Merlin asked. Gaius cleared his throat. "Oh! Right, I don't. Nope. Not at all."

"What I'm trying to tell you, Merlin, is that you're not putting your talents to good use." Gaius made a steeple of his hands and oh dear, the In Trouble face. Something about the tea, probably. He should have gone with chamomile. Damn his stupid split second decisions. "If you keep troubling the water, eventually you'll meet consequences. And someday you won't find them so easy to smile your way out of. This is the fourth time this week. It's not only my patience that has run dry."

Blast, there was no getting out of this, was there? Merlin swallowed, turning his head to eye Gaius with a nervous wince. "Er… we're not talking about tea anymore, are we…?"

Gaius's lips quirked into a smile. "No, Merlin. I'm afraid not."

Merlin got to the point quickly. "Have I been expelled, Gaius?"

Gaius regarded Merlin with wordless solemnity until Merlin was squirming in his seat and balling his sweaty hands into fists. It had been such an excellent morning too, Merlin reflected. What he would give to listen to a hall of high school students screaming their heads off again, right now. Because what he was anticipating now was his mother quite literally blowing something and then having to retire to her room with a 'headache'.

I'm sorry was on the tip of Merlin's tongue.

Gaius shook his head, and Merlin felt his heart fall. "No, Merlin, you have not." Merlin's eyes closed as he sighed, banishing the thought of his mother's tears. When his eyes opened again, Gaius was staring at him rather exasperated kindness. "But that doesn't mean you won't be next time! Merlin, you're not a child anymore. It's time you start to think of—"

"Detention?" Merlin suggested, flashing another winning smile at his headmaster. "Cause that's what I'm thinking of. Dying to do, really. What'll it be—sweeping out the locker rooms? Peeling gum off the desks? Or windows, maybe?" He clapped his hands together. "I've got it—I'll make tea for all your chaps in the office and we'll call it square. How's that?"

"Not quite good enough this time." Gaius's eyes bored into him. Merlin smiled back perhaps a little too sharply and Gaius sighed once more. "…You'll spend the rest of the day cleaning up your own mess, from top to bottom. I want all the classrooms dry and tidied before the end of the day, and anything your sprinklers damaged, you repair. I trust you have no complaints?"

"What, no letters of apology to the emotionally traumatized?" Merlin muttered, peeved at the thought of so much work. It had just been a little fire and the sprinklers had done exactly what they were meant to. No one had been hurt—it was practically a testing exercise! They should be thanking him, honestly, for making sure the bloody sprinklers did as they ought. And helping Camelot's student body escape typical Tuesday monotony. Bah.

Gaius cleared his throat. "What was that?"

"Nothing," Merlin replied at once. "Not a thing, thank you. I'll get right to it." He sprung from the chair with a jaunty nod to the headmaster and made for the door. Gaius's voice stopped him just before he reached it, making Merlin's jaw tighten.

"Oh and Merlin?" Merlin waited for the rest to come without turning around. If he did, he'd start shouting, wouldn't he? And it did no good to shout at Gaius. The only thing that would get him was his ears boxed and his mother on his case. "Do try to stay out of trouble. Try to recall that if you were any other student, you would be expelled."

"But I'm not any other student," Merlin muttered under his breath, annoyed that Gaius was even bringing it up. What point was there to thinking about hypothetical situations, particularly ones that were so uninteresting? It wasn't as if Merlin would ever be normal.

He tilted his head back, just enough so that Gaius would be sure to see his eyes flash from stormy blue to brilliant cold. A fresh cloud of steam came from the teacup as Gaius's lips pursed, no doubt biting back another reprimand. "Enjoy your tea, aye?" Merlin grinned and slipped out the door before Gaius could think of anything else to say about it.

Gaius scowled at the barrier and sighed a third time. For all that he owed and loved Hunith, that boy of hers was a terror.

Literally.

He sipped his tea. Piping hot, it was. Quite good.

0o0o

Merlin was escorted by James The Exceptionally Built Custodian since apparently menaces to society couldn't be expected to make it from point A to point B without causing collateral damage.

They were quite right about that. But it pained Merlin that they thought so little of him as to send him along with a man whose collective IQ was about six.

James opened the classroom door and grunted at Merlin in a fashion that suggested Merlin step inside like a good lad. Merlin eyed James's biceps and graciously stepped inside. He nearly slipped and fell on his backside as he did, and stopped himself by grabbing onto the nearest desk in mid-flail. The smell assaulted him then. Ugh, it was vile. A combination of sewage and what happened when Merlin didn't open the refrigerator for a few months. The result of water fermented in pipes for oh, say, a few decades.

Merlin leaned against the desk with what grace he could muster, and surveyed the drenched classroom. He turned to grin back at James. "It's mad, isn't it? Now how can they expect me to clean all this up?"

James glared at him. He'd never quite forgiven Merlin for lighting one of his eyebrows on fire. It was a pity—he tended to keep his distance from Merlin now, so his face was rather asymmetrical, with one eyebrow growing back and the other bushy and potentially flammable. Just taunting Merlin, really. Of course, James couldn't prove Merlin was the culprit or begin to comprehend how Merlin had managed it from several feet away, but being the only one to double over laughing tended to place a certain level of culpability on you.

James shoved the bucket he was carrying into Merlin's shoulder plexus with the force of a traffic accident and as Merlin doubled over (not laughing), he tossed the rag at Merlin's head. It landed in his hair and Merlin tipped over with a groan, landing hard on his backside as bucket water splashed over his face. Merlin sat up slowly and spat out the cleaning water. James was already gone. Sodding bastard. Merlin spat again for good measure. Soapy.

Grumbling to himself, Merlin shuffled back to the classroom door and slammed it shut. A whisper rolled off his tongue to make the lock click shut—no sense in letting the man peek in on Merlin's slave labor—and Merlin looked across the room again. It was a lot less amusing now that he had to deal with the prospect of cleaning it. He rolled up his sleeves, shaking his head and muttering before retrieving the cleaning rag from the floor. He eyed it askance. It looked sort of furry. Cleaning rags were not meant to look furry.

Oh, to hell with it all. Classrooms didn't have security cameras.

Merlin's eyes lit up with brilliant gold and he spun around to point with both his finger and his will. "Espretium!"

Seven classroom doors swung closed, and a tilt of Merlin's wrist locked them in symphonic harmony. Merlin grinned and turned to the windows, swiping his hand through the air.

"Abrilena esti gnera!"

Gold flashed and the windows banged open in all eight classrooms, letting a blast of winter air race through the rooms, sending droplets of foul water spraying off the desks and Merlin's hair flying in every direction. He grinned into the cold bite of the air, almost laughing. Saving the best for last, Merlin sucked in a big breath of air. To hell with the incantation. His eyes shined like a dragon's hoard as he blew out gently and every drop of moisture from the classrooms (and the forgotten bucket lying forlornly on the ground) rose obediently into the air and followed his breath, winding out the windows in a shining stream to join the clouds. Merlin did laugh then, watching the water glide by him and reaching out his fingers to run them through the liquid as it passed.

Mistake. It smelled bloody toxic. Merlin could only laugh harder, falling back onto the newly dried floor on his newly dried backside as the last of the water vanished. Wind whistled through the open windows again, inspecting Merlin's work. Merlin's heart hammered with delight. By God, nothing could top the rush of magic.

Another whispered incantation and a flick of his fingers sent the rag flying, darting this way and that, frantically polishing the room from top to bottom and assisting the wind in carrying away the awful smell. Merlin left it to its task, waving his hand to send it through the windows to the next room to clean as he hopped onto the teacher's desk to inspect the TV and see what needed fixing.

By lunchtime, Merlin was walking through the classrooms one last time to make sure it was in order—the windows were shut, the entire place gleamed with good old fashioned magical elbow grease, the bucket was nestled at the top of a TV set where it would prove the most difficult to retrieve—and smirked, pleased with himself. Going home early and taking a nice long nap sounded like a good plan. He could grab a bite to eat on his way home even, and maybe swing through the woods for a walk if he felt up to it.

It had turned out to be a good morning after all.

"Oi."

Merlin recoiled, realizing he'd been staring with paternal fondness at a poster of math problems on the wall. God, no. He turned to see who had called out and there was a boy staring at him from outside the door. Merlin identified him as none other than the King of the Prats himself and scowled automatically. If ever there was a bloke who needed the stick removed from his arse, it was Arthur Pendragon. He could use a matching set of black eyes and broken teeth to go along with that new, stick-less outlook on life.

"Lose something?" Merlin called over to him in the most neutral tones he could manage. Like your brain? Oh, you seem to function just fine without that. My mistake.

"What are you doing in here?" King Prat demanded, as if it was his God given right to be told Merlin's business the one percent of the time that wasn't spend ignoring his existence or kicking him around alongside the brave and true knights of the holy Prat Kingdom. Merlin rolled his eyes and turned to face King Prat with a sneer.

"You tell me." King Prat's blue eyes darkened. It was like Gaius's In Trouble look, only with Arthur it made Merlin want to punch him in the nose. God, he was a prat. Prat, prat, prat.

King Prat's voice boomed with the magnificent authority that had earned him his nickname in the first place. It made Merlin flinch a bit. "I'm asking you DID YOU SEE ANYTHING?!"

Merlin crossed his arms over his chest. "What, you snogging some girl in the hall just now? There's no need to shout." He walked over to the door, meeting King Prat's blazing eyes every step of the way. "I really don't care what the hell you do. Prat."

Naturally, King Prat shoved Merlin into the doorframe, knocking the wind out of him for a moment before Merlin snapped his head back up and smiled. What was a bruise or two from this lot? Merlin could have them all laid flat with a blink of his eye. He just chose not to. But goodness did King Prat test his patience every goddamn day of his life.

King Prat had yet to remove his hand from the center of Merlin's chest and after a second Merlin's eyes darted down to it and saw that aside from trying to break his ribs, it also contained a scrap of cloth.

A… sort of fuzzy… scrap of cloth.

Merlin's eyes darted swiftly back up to Arthur's, smile fading into guilt and burgeoning panic—did I check to see if the classrooms were empty before I locked the doors, could he have been, oh God, why does he have that, what did he see—and his blood turned to ice cubes in his veins, clogging, painful, and bitterly cold. King Prat—no, hell, ANYONE but him—smiled with vindictive interest, pulling his hand back and letting the cleaning rag drop between their feet.

"What's your name again?" He asked.

So of course Merlin shoved him hard and ran away like his life depended on it.

0o0o

A/N: I intend to actually finish this story. I think I can maintain the voice and all, so tell me what you folks think. Because the voice may be complete and utter shit. I'll try to improve on it. Then again, we know my track record. You all can just laugh indulgently at me if you like.

For the Reborn fans, yes, I am still trying to update the blasted things. There's a wee bit of hope left.