hello dead boy detectives fandom and bbc merlin fandom. i know there is a decent overlap between the two out there because i am either followed by or have followed several blogs myself that post about both merlin and dead boy detectives, so hopefully this finds its target audience. anyway a little while ago i became obsessed with the idea of merlin and kashi being besties, so i started writing a thing, and i don’t know if or WHEN i’ll finish the thing but i don’t want it to stay hidden until then so i am posting the incomplete and very unpolished version to tumblr. and who knows maybe if people like it that will give me the motivation to rewatch some merlin and actually finish it
anyways without further ado. here’s 1000 words of merlin engaging in (fairly mild) shenanigans in port townsend
—
There was a cat sitting on a rock.
Port Townsend had quite a lot of cats, Merlin had discovered. There had been at least one in sight at all times since he’d arrived in the small coastal town. This cat was regarding him with an expression that might have been called scrutinizing, had it been made by any face other than a cat’s. That is to say, it looked rather like cats typically do, which is scrutinizing as it is.
“Hello,” said Merlin, just to be polite. He had a bit of time before Kashi’s host—Angie, he’d said her name was—came to the surface, after all, and he was in the mood for a spot of conversation.
“Oh, great, it’s another o’ you English twats,” said the cat. “The hell are you doin’ here?”
“I’m visiting an old friend,” said Merlin. “We meet for tea every so often, to catch up. This’ll be my first time seeing his new place. I won’t be staying long.”
The cat settled further onto the rock, folding all four of its legs underneath its body. Its tail flicked lightly before curling around its haunches.
“Good,” it said. “Hopefully you won’t cause as much trouble as those two dead little shits from a couple months back. Brits, I tell ya—ain’t good for nothin’. The Cat King’s still hung up on the stuffy little asshole.”
Merlin hummed. “Huh. I don’t think I’ve met a king of cats before. What’s he like?” He’d met a number of kings in his times, including, quite recently, the King of Dreams—but that number had never included a king of Cats.
“None o’ your fuckin’ business,” said the cat. “Hold on—who are you, anyway? You don’t smell human, and you’re not dead.”
“I’m Merlin,” said Merlin. He thought it sticking his hand out for a shake, then thought better of it. “Pleased to meet you.”
The cat snorted. “What, like the wizard?”
“Warlock, actually,” said Merlin. “But yes.”
The cat opened its mouth to speak again, but was interrupted by a whispered voice floating up from the shore.
Arthur’s voice.
“Merlin,” he called, his voice sounding exactly as it always had when Merlin did something far too stupid and risky for a servant, and he had to hide his worry under blankets of annoyance. “Merlin, are you there?”
“Fuckin’ Christ, again?” The cat grumbled. “There wadn’t even no storm last night!”
Merlin cleared his throat, shaking loose the small lump that had grown there at the sound. Kashi had warned him about Angie’s hunting techniques, so he’d known what to expect, but it was still something of a shock to hear in person.
“I think that’s my ride,” Merlin said. He turned to the cat and gave a little wave. “I’ll be off, then. Thanks for chatting with me!”
“Wha—hey!!” The cat exclaimed as Merlin turned and headed for the cliff. “No—Oi, stop that! Don’t—oh, brother…”
Merlin leaned over the stone barrier to peer down into the water, where a large light was pulsing visibly just below the surface. As he watched, his phone began to ring in his jeans pocket. He was still watching when he brought it up to his ear to answer.
“Hello, my friend!” Crackled Kashi’s enthusiastic voice from the end of the line.
Merlin squinted against the rays of sunlight lancing off the water.
“Is that you down there, Kashi?”
“Yes, it is me. And this is Angie! Say, hello, Angie!”
A loud, almost thunderous roar shook the sound, sending waves clawing at the sandy shore below.
“Hi, Angie,” Merlin shouted down to the creature. Then he waved. He doubted she could see him, but it didn’t hurt to be polite.
To Kashi, he asked, “How should I get in? Should I teleport?”
“Best not,” said Kashi. “Your style of teleportation might upset her stomach. Just jump down! She will catch you. Being swallowed is not the most pleasant feeling, but I’ve asked her not to chew on you.”
“Yeah, I’ve been swallowed before,” said Merlin, thinking back to a very particular instance with a giant snake in the Andes mountains. That was the time he discovered he could bounce back from being fully digested—although digging himself out of a pellet of giant snake dung after his body reformed inside it had not been fun.
“Are you there, Merlin?”
Merlin shuddered and shook his head to clear it of the discomfiting deja vu. “Yeah—yep. I’ll be right down. I just jump in?”
“Exactly, yes,” said Kashi. “It is not a far drop, so you should be fine.”
“Right,” said Merlin. “Well, see you in a minute, then.”
“Looking forward to it!”
Merlin hung up and deftly tucked the phone back into his pocket. Then, he climbed up onto the stone wall, and—after ensuring there was no one around to be traumatized by what it would seem like he was doing—performed an exquisite swan dive into the water.
Being swallowed was about as pleasant a feeling as Merlin remembered it being. That is to say, he felt rather how he imagined toothpaste being squeezed out of the tube might feel, had it possessed any of the five senses or been in any way alive. This time, though, he did not have to endure the process of being digested—which had taken nearly a month, given that Merlin’s first time being swallowed had been by a gigantic snake—and was instead spat out onto the floor of a large, warmly-lit cavern, drenched to the bone and coated in fish mucus.
A step up from being digested by a snake, all things considered.
“Eugh,” said Merlin.
It was then, of course, that Kashi appeared, stooping down and offering Merlin a hand to pull himself up with. Merlin took it and thanked him.
“Welcome in, welcome in!” Kashi said, grinning widely. “Sorry about the mess. I tried to clean up a bit before you came, but things got thrown around in the journey to the surface. Speaking of—“ he raised a finger, and the ground beneath Merlin’s feet—which was disturbingly hard and dry for being the stomach of a fish—began to shake. “—she seems to be going back to the bottom now. Come, sit, so you don’t lose your feet!”
“Nice place you’ve got,” Merlin said, allowing Kashi to lead him across the quaking floor to a small table near the back. “Definitely the best-furnished stomach I’ve ever been in.”
Actually upon rewatch it seems like Hell gets alerted when the Nurse touches the Hell tick on her paper and Kashi's ring influences her to give the boys a chance so
a mild crackfic and/or actual-serious-fic idea/headcanon i just had that i feel the need to share with the masses:
so, i know this a small community of people intrigued by the idea of the cat king and tragic mick, which is lovely and i am behind you all wholeheartedly. but also. i raise you: tragic mick and kashi.
just consider it. for a few seconds, or a few minutes, or a few hours. sit down and think about it with me. it can be platonic or romantic or whatever the fuck, but just think about them meeting. interacting with each other.
because—in a way, it makes sense, doesn't it? mick is a (possibly immortal? though that's more of a personal headcanon for me) walrus-turned-man that longs to become a walrus again and return to his brothers and sisters in the ocean, and kashi is an immortal incessantly optimistic man who lives inside a giant man-eating angler fish monster at the bottom of the ocean. and mick seems awfully familiar with angie, doesn't he?
walruses don't live off the coast of new york; they live up in the arctic and sub-arctic areas way up north. mick as a man lives in port townsend NOW, but he had to get there somehow. maybe he spent a lot of time traveling the world as a sailor, as close to the sea as he could get now, procuring magical objects in an attempt to find something that could turn him into a walrus again, and eventually wound up in port townsend. maybe he came during a storm, and angie woke up. maybe mick, if he IS immortal, became one of her victims; maybe he heard the voices of his brothers and sisters calling him back to the sea, or the voice of sedna saying she'd forgiven him and wanted him to come back, or maybe just the voice of the sea itself. maybe he woke up inside angie and met kashi there, and kashi had angie take him back to the surface later like he did for the night nurse.
maybe mick got some counsel from kashi, while he was in angie's stomach. maybe kashi helped him to see a light side to his human existence, or at least convinced him to settle down in port townsend. maybe mick wasn't mad at angie for eating him; she was just hungry, like the sea, and like sedna. she was just doing what her instincts told her to do. maybe that was when mick started to call her angie. maybe kashi gave him one of his rings, or something else from the collection of trinkets in angie's stomach.
