Camelot Publishing publishes romance novels, and when Arthur founds a new imprint of gay romance and invites his best friend and pet writer Merlin to write for it, it's a bit too easy to miss the fact that apparently he's living in one.

In which there is pining, Merlin bakes, Arthur borrows batteries he doesn't actually need, and did I mention the pining?

Arthur sees a vision of himself and Merlin married and happy, but they can barely stand each other. They both start doing everything they can to avoid it happening.

"What I'm thinking," Arthur says, dodging the crochet question with a small pinch to Merlin's side, "is that you need to let him catch you the way you caught him. See how he feels watching you shag some other man. Then when he confronts you, call him a hypocrite, tell him you'd never have done it if he hadn't first, and finish it off with a well-deserved fuck-you."

Merlin meets Morgana Le Fay at a support group for People With Freaky Unnatural Powers. Alright, it’s not technically called that, but it might as well be.

"Arthur wants you to pretend to be him so that he doesn’t have to get married to Princess Helena?"

"I left my key, and Gaius won't let me in."

It was the fifth in as many nights and each one had been more elaborate than the last. Camelot was playing host to several powerful barons from the borders of the kingdom and King Uther seemed determined to awe and impress them with Camelot's wealth and might by any means, including killing them with partying."

Merlin learns to fly. (Literally.)

In the not so distant future, Merlin builds a tower. That's not suspicious at all.

"To my great-nephew Arthur I bequeath Tintagel Distribution, wholly and without reserve, save for one condition. You must marry, and stay married, for a period of no less than six months."

Merlin was attempting to flirt. He had never really had the chance to learn the subtleties of this strangely difficult art in Ealdor. Yet, however little practice he’d had, Merlin was smart enough to understand that it was all going very, very badly.

He can't go back. He can't have Merlin undress him now. After seeing Gwen and Morgana together, Merlin helping to remove his clothes feels like too much.

And yet, the whole while he is nodding, Arthur is thinking of Merlin and all the ways Merlin is the most incompetent, lazy, useless manservant Arthur has ever had.

He doesn't mean to the first time. Truly. It was an honest mistake.

"I don't even care if half the court has had you. You vile tempter."

Arthur and Merlin have their own interpretations of what the hell happened That Night. They're both wrong and kind of deluded. But they still get lucky, so who's counting?

The more time Merlin spent as Arthur’s manservant, the more he realised that Arthur did have a lot of sex.

Arthur’s food taster had come back to the kitchens and within ten minutes had been trying to get a hand or two down everyone’s pants. Gwen had been the one to guess the cause and Merlin had immediately thrown himself out of the kitchen, nearly knocking over a few servants on his way.

Arthur, Merlin, frat brothers, the Dragon, Arthur's BlackBerry, script writing, shitty hip-hop music, Dogma, FATE & DESTINY - oh God I wish I were joking.

"Now, get your clothes off and get in there with him."

Arthur is a skilled hunter; the best, perhaps, in all of Camelot. Every trap he lays, he expects to find filled when he returns. Every plan he sets in motion, he expects to end in victory. He is used to success, so accustomed that it no longer rings true. Victory has grown hollow, though he’s not sure he’d admit that even to himself. When you’re the crown prince, anything less than first place is equal to defeat. Which is why, he thinks, this first taste of defeat is so sour in his mouth.

Arthur is the Royal Arbiter for Suitable Suitors' Disputes. He (and his trusty companion, the golden-dragon-tasselled hat) alone can determine who is fit to woo royal servants and other assorted courtiers in Uther's court.

In which there are giant ears, a curious cat, backfiring spells, a stick figure Arthur, some unfortunate truths and some very welcome ones.

One afternoon, some weekday—a normal day replete in all its mundane fetch-and-clean glory—Merlin sees something he wasn’t meant to see.

"When I was small, we used to have peaches," Arthur said, sounding a bit distracted. Apparently even strawberries were not enough to tempt him to his breakfast; Merlin would have to pester Gaius to check him over again. Perhaps he had some lingering touch of fever.

"Don't think I'm stupid--right, I know, you already think I'm stupid--but this is a bad time of year for my mum and I'm kind of--I miss her. I'd like to see her. Even though it's the worst time for it."

"Uther Pendragon is an elitist old fool," Her Highness said sharply, sighing in anger. "But he has a point. So long as the law stands, you are required to comply, or the crown will be forfeit."

There was a place Merlin liked to go after days like this. It was called the Tavern. Or rather, it was called the Cart And Horses but nobody called it that because everyone thought it was a very stupid name and Tavern was much clearer as to its purpose. There were some, in the interests of accuracy, who liked to call it the Ale Pit.

Merlin, you smell. And if I have to tolerate your presence tomorrow, I will not have you defiling my air with that foul stench you carry.

In which Merlin is oblivious, Arthur is nobly repressed, Gwen knows everything, and Morgana takes matters into her own hands.

Merlin wakes up in Arthur's bed five times and incidentally discovers time travel along the way.

The point of it is, anyone who’s sexually secure won’t freak out over kissing another guy.

Merlin was getting out of hand. Or rather, the people around Merlin were getting out of hand, and Arthur wondered how much his reputation as a benevolent king would suffer if he ended up decking everybody who dared to impose themselves on his -- well, Camelot's resident sorcerer.

When Merlin first hears that Arthur has been betrothed, his ribs pull inwards with an odd little hitch, and he only allows himself a second—which he needs in order to coordinate spinning in place without falling on his face—before he’s running to Arthur’s chambers.

This has been the worst day of Arthur’s life. Arthur shoves Merlin into the lockers as hard as he can, relishes the thud of Merlin’s body against metal and the whoosh of his lost breath. "You little fucking shit," he says.

What really happened was that when Prince Arthur was born the King started boasting of his manly virility, saying that Nimueh's magic had been a fraud and that only he was responsible for the Queen finally begetting a child. And so, when Nimueh heard about this she enchanted the King and all his subjects, as well as all children born henceforth on Camelot soil with the most fitting curse she could imagine.

Merlin has always felt like the fifth wheel. Theoretically he should be the fourth one, indispensable to the balance of the whole, but somehow the other three wheels have taken up all the weight and left the fourth wheel to wobble along, useless. It's not a good feeling; Merlin can tell you that. So he nods goodbye to Morgana, claps Arthur on the back, hugs Gwen tightly, and leaves.

Then, by the time Merlin is well and truly caught up in Lancelot, and the little edging feeling has manifested into a giant ball of unease, Arthur has to admit to himself that what he feels is jealousy.

"Here," said Sir Godfrey, who was the worst of the lot, "I shall draw some diagrams for you. You there, fetch me a quill, boy."

And Merlin, Court Sorcerer, who was probably enjoying himself too much at Arthur's expense to be bothered about being addressed as "you there", fetched.

It was love at first sight, and Merlin knew it - when it came to the flat, that was. Merlin wasn't anything like as clear about the man he was going to have to live with.

Merlin Emrys had strong convictions on the subjects of love and marriage—namely, that they should be avoided at all costs.