This takes place in the near future, but after Uther's death; minor spoilers up to "Lancelot"; established Merlin/Arthur.

Disclaimer: I don't own BBC's Merlin, I don't own the characters, I make no profit with this, no copyright infringement intended.

Tradition

"You're lying," Merlin said, hands rummaging through the heaps of fabric, again and again, as if he was hoping he'd unexpectedly find something acceptable to wear hidden somewhere among them. "I know you're lying."

"Oh, because you know about my family history, do you?" Arthur mocked from his chair, where he was comfortably installed, feet on the table, looking at him with amused eyes.

That was a bit rich, in Merlin's opinion, considering he was the one who had helped uncover the whole gruesome tale of Arthur's birth; he glowered at the prince – king, right. He'd need some more time to get used to that.

"I know," he said through grit teeth, "that magic was forbidden!"

"Only recently," Arthur explained in a tone of strained patience. "Before that, we used magic, we had a court magician, and he had official court magician robes."

"Oh, and your father kept all that a secret, but he kept the robes' designs around, did he?!" Merlin snapped. "And they look like –" He heaved the long, heavy, extravagant, multicoloured robes up accusingly. "– this."

"Yes, Merlin," said Arthur, his grave tone contradicted by the amused smile he was not trying to hide. "Now get dressed already."

"Prat," Merlin muttered darkly, looking down at the robes in his hands, but so quietly that Arthur could pretend he hadn't heard.

When Arthur had first announced he was having clothes for his new position made, Merlin had looked so pleased about this kind attention that came with the lift of the ban and the acknowledgement of his services, that Arthur had almost felt bad, so much that he'd had another set of clothes made expressly for him, justifying this to himself with the thought that without this, Merlin would just keep running around in his same old servant's clothes when he was his official advisor, never mind that he had money, and that would just be embarrassing for him. He now was glad he hadn't also given up his original plan, because there were few things as wonderful as the angry, frustrated look that was on Merlin's face at this very moment.

"Let me look through the records, I'm sure I'll find something less stupid," Merlin argued again.

"Oh, like I'd trust anything you bring back from the records," Arthur dismissed, proving that he clearly had no qualms about using Merlin's long, trustful account of all the times he'd been using magic over his time in Camelot against him; to be fair, Merlin had longingly been thinking of forgery. "But," Arthur added, and took his feet off the table and leant over it, smirking, "if you want, we can just find out what the last court magician was wearing instead, and forget about the records."

Merlin blinked at him suspiciously.

"What –"

"Nimue," Arthur explained cheerfully; Merlin glared at him; well, it was nice that Arthur had gotten over the whole story enough to joke about its participants – at his expense. "Now come on, or you'll be late for your own introduction to office. You said you'd wear them already."

Merlin put the robes down in a huff.

"You were sucking my cock at the time," he snapped, and hitched a breath when Arthur instinctively darted out his tongue at that and briefly licked over his lips. "It doesn't count. It's..." He waved around. "Entrapment."

Arthur was nibbling on his lower lip now.

"I'm sure there's something wrong with me needing to suck off my own manservant to get him to do anything," he mused.

"I'm not your manservant anymore," Merlin pointed out. "I'm the official court magician of Camelot." He said the title as if he suspected it of hiding something terrible underneath. Arthur couldn't blame him.

"The records don't say anything about them being mutually exclusive."

Merlin threw him an annoyed glance, then got another good look at his face, and glared instead.

"You're joking," he said, in a warning kind of tone.

"I won't make someone else do that work if you can just do it like that!" He snapped his fingers.

"Or maybe you could just learn to get dressed by yourself," Merlin threw back.

"It's what court magicians are for," Arthur said confidently.

"Arthur, no," Merlin said, in a definite tone. "I am not running around in this and cleaning your boots. There are limits."

"But you will do one!" Arthur pounced, and jumped to his feet.

"What?" said Merlin, and instinctively stepped back, robes clenched to his chest.

"I promise," Arthur said, approaching. "That I will not ask you to clean my boots ever again. Except under extreme dourness. Now," he added, having reached Merlin, who stared at him, transfixed. "Get. Dressed."

Merlin sighed deeply; he could tell that Arthur was going to win this by sheer obstinacy.

"I'm going to look like an idiot," he complained, resigned.

Arthur nodded cheerfully and put a companionable arm around his shoulders.

"Look; everyone in Camelot is used to viewing magic and sorcerers as something evil and dangerous. I'm sure they'll be reassured when they see..." He motioned Merlin up and down with a hand gesture. "This."

Merlin ineffectually tried to get out of his embrace and glowered at him.

"So you admit this is just about making me look ridiculous."

"It's all for the greater good," Arthur continued, coaxingly, and moved to stand behind Merlin, and drew one arm around his chest; he went on, mouth very close to his ear. "Do that thing where you..."

He whispered the word. Merlin stiffened, then swallowed and spoke:

"Asraf."

He could feel Arthur tremble against his back before he'd even finished, as if the mere word was sending a tremor through his body; then his clothes vanished, scattered around the room (the original spell, Merlin knew, was supposed to lay them out, neatly folded, into one pile; he'd been careful not to let Arthur know; he'd never hear the end of it.)

Behind him, Arthur's breath had quickened, and Merlin felt his own arousal as Arthur's body, dressed for the ceremony in dark, soft silks, brushed against his naked skin.

"Dressing," Arthur murmured, with effort, and made a step back, but without taking off the hand that was resting on his shoulder; it was only his lasting annoyance that kept Merlin from letting escape a pathetic whine at the loss of contact.

He sighed deeply, and as Arthur went to recollect his clothes – to hide them away somewhere, no doubt – dressed quickly; he was sorely tempted to make some changes to his costume, to at least dim some of the absurd colours and the glitter, and thin the layers and layers of fabric, but he didn't feel completely confident in these spells, and if something went wrong Arthur would make him wear it. He knew better than to think things couldn't get worse.

Speaking of which...

"There's a hat, isn't there?" he called over to Arthur, who had disappeared behind a cupboard door; Merlin was almost surprised he even knew how to open his cupboards, for all he got things in and out of them himself. "There's always a hat."

On cue, Arthur reappeared with, indeed, a hat in his hand. One day, Merlin was going to find out what it was with Arthur and hats.

Preferably, he decided, with widening eyes, right now, so he could cure him of it and wouldn't have to wear this... this thing.

"No," he said, in his sternest voice.

"Yes."

"There's... there's more feathers than hat!"

"It's a wizard's hat," said Arthur, marching up to him and cramming it unto his head; Merlin was surprised it didn't just collapse under the weight of decorating feathers. "It's pointy, see."

He cupped the tip with his nail, then made a few steps back to contemplate Merlin in his new official robes, tried, very hard, to keep a straight face for a moment, and then bust out laughing.

"I'm going to turn you into a frog," Merlin said, looking at the laughing prince – king – dejectedly. "Don't think I won't." Admittedly, he wasn't sure he could, because it wasn't the kind of spell you could practice very well, but this was an occasion!

"Mhm," Arthur managed to say, fighting down something that sounded suspiciously like giggles, and still grinning. "This will work. No-one will believe you're dangerous."

"They will when I make the new king spontaneously combust in front of them."

"That's treason," Arthur said, stepping back forward and whisking a feather that was falling into Merlin's face aside. "It didn't matter when you were just a slow-witted servant, but now... Anyway, you wouldn't do that, I'm really good at sucking cock."

"You..." Merlin's mouth dropped open. There was a pause. "I can't believe you said that."

Arthur raised his eyebrows.

"You told me that I need to find arguments other than 'because I'm the king and I said so'," he said, sounding like he felt this was a ridiculous idea and he was only generously indulging Merlin.

Merlin crossed his arms, which was a bit of an accomplishment, what with the robe's wide sleeves.

"You're actually listening to what I say now?"

"You're going to be my advisor," Arthur teased back, and, for a moment, his mocking, really rather mean smirk softened into a happy smile. "I'd better get used to it."

"Yes," Merlin said slowly, suddenly terrified by the whole thing and yet hopeful, and he found himself smiling back despite of himself, and reached up to brush imaginary dust from the hem of Arthur's tunic; the king rolled his eyes at him, but didn't move. "You should."

"Come on, then," Arthur said briskly, and turned away to open the door; he narrowed his eyes when he turned back to Merlin. "And don't think I can't see you shrinking the feathers."

Merlin put on a wholly unconvincing innocent face – one of these days he'd really have to learn to lie – and followed. Arthur watched the hat like a hawk on the whole way to the throne room.