Chapter Text
Merlin held back a yawn as he made Arthur’s bed. The last thing he wanted while running on five hours of sleep was to get called lazy. Was there basically no correlation between feeling tired and being lazy? Yes, but that never stopped Arthur’s comments in the past. Then again, doing near perfect work never stopped his comments either, so Merlin wasn’t sure why he even bothered trying.
The sound of birds chirping outside the window momentarily distracted him. They seemed louder than normal this morning. Merlin’s thoughts flashed back to when he and Will used to practice mimicking bird calls as kids and found himself absentmindedly chirping back as he worked. The memories created equally intense waves of nostalgia and sadness. Gaius had said that, while the sadness may never go away, it would lessen over time and let him look back on those times with fondness rather than loss. Merlin wished he could believe that.
“What the hell are you doing?” Arthur asked, bringing Merlin’s thoughts back to the present. Right, Arthur was still in here. He sat at his desk skimming through some papers Merlin wasn’t allowed to read.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re chirping.”
“The birds are saying good morning to us. It’d be rude not to say it back.”
“Only you could possibly delude yourself into thinking they’re talking to you specifically.”
Merlin shrugged. “Better to be safe than sorry.”
“Well, if you want to say good morning to them, you can do it on your way to the armory.”
“The armory? Arthur, I just polished your things two days ago and you haven’t used anything yet. There’s no way you need me to do it again.”
“For once in your life, you’re right about something. I’m not sending you there for me. I heard the steward talking about how a lot of the staff are out sick and they need someone to fill in.”
“So you volunteered me?”
“Yes. Aren’t I generous for offering to lose my manservant for a while? You’re going to stop in every morning for the next few weeks and ask them if they need anything. If they do, I’ll find someone else for whatever I would’ve had you doing here.”
Merlin rolled his eyes. In all honesty, he didn’t mind this. He could use a break from Arthur and it’d be nice to have an excuse to see the knights more often. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a proper conversation with one of them. Arthur definitely should’ve asked Merlin if he’d be okay with this first, but when had he ever cared about his opinion?
He attempted to turn his attention back to making the bed when his eyes locked on a strange clear goo in the top right corner of the window. The intense aura of wrongness radiating off of it made him shiver. He wrapped one of Arthur’s dirty shirts around his hand as a makeshift glove and touched it. Nothing happened. He tried to pull it down but it wouldn’t budge. He couldn’t even get a small bit of it to break away from the rest.
“Arthur, do you know what this is?”
“What what is?”
“There’s this goo in the corner of your window.”
“Then get rid of it.”
“Are you not even gonna come look at it?”
Arthur sighed. “I’m sure even you can handle a little bit of goo by yourself.”
“But I think it’s something weird”
“I don’t care what you think. I have more important things to worry about. Taking care of weird things like that is your job, not mine.”
Merlin wanted to take Arthur’s shoulders and shake him until he saw sense. How many times would he need to be right about everything for Arthur to start taking him seriously? Arthur was meant to be better than most royalty when it came to treating commoners fairly. “I was trying to take care of it, but-”
Someone knocked on the door. Leon entered moments later, his eyes darting between the two of them. “Did I interrupt something?”
“No. Prince Arthur was just reminding me that, as an unworthy peasant, my opinions mean nothing to him and my concerns deserve no regard.” Merlin turned back to Arthur. “Now, if your royal excellency does not mind, I will leave my betters to discuss whatever it is they talk about when lowly people like me aren’t around. Please let me know when you would like me to return later so I may have the pleasure of washing your disgusting underwear.” He gave Arthur a ridiculously deep bow before leaving, flashing a friendly smile at Leon on the way out.
“I hate it when he does that,” he heard Arthur say as the door closed behind him.
Merlin didn’t bother to hide his smirk as he made his way to Gaius. Even if Merlin couldn’t bring him a sample, they might be able to find something in his books. It didn’t seem too dangerous at the moment, but it never hurt to be vigilant.
After finding that first clump of goo in Arthur’s room, Merlin started seeing them everywhere. His eyes were drawn to them as if they were bright yellow rather than clear. He had no idea how he could spot them so easily now, so he wasn’t surprised that no one else seemed to notice them. Perhaps this was a bigger issue than he’d initially thought.
Once he made it outside, it hit him that he needed to go to the armory. Surely it would be best to start researching the goo as soon as possible, but he’d heard other servants talking about how stressed everyone was there. Merlin couldn’t justify abandoning them when Arther promised help. He looked around the courtyard for someone who could help. He spotted Gwen and Morgana in the crowd of people and ran over to them.
“Good morning,” Gwen said when she saw him. “It’s good we ran into you. We wanted to invite you to have lunch with us later.”
“We were just talking about how long it’s been since we spent time together. I know Arthur likes to keep you busy, but surely you can stop by for a little while,” Morgana said.
Merlin knew Morgana meant more than eating lunch. He couldn’t remember the last time he snuck into her room at night to teach her magic, but it must’ve been at least a few weeks. “Sorry, I don’t think I can today. I need to help Gaius this morning and Arthur’s having me help out in the armory. I’m not even sure I’ll have time to stop by the kitchens for lunch, let alone eat with you.” Merlin realized how sad that sounded and tried to flash them an ‘everything is fine’ smile. Neither woman fell for it.
“I’ll talk to Arthur about this. He can’t treat you like this.” Morgana squeezed his hand. She knew better than anyone just how much Merlin had to do everyday. There wasn’t much she could do to help him, nor did he necessarily want her to take some of his burden.
“I’ll make sure to bring you something to eat later. Is there anything else I can do?” Gwen asked.
“Yes, actually. I was supposed to go to the armory this morning, but I don’t know how long I’ll be with Gaius. Can you tell them I’ll come in this afternoon?”
“Of course.”
Merlin thanked her and continued on his way to Gaius’s chambers.
Gaius didn’t take Merlin’s suspicions seriously until he explained how easily he could see the goo when no one else noticed it. He may not always trust Merlin’s judgment, but he knew enough about the boy to trust his instincts. Merlin was glad to have someone on his side. Gaius collected a large pile of books and gave half of them to Merlin. He barely held back a groan as he opened the first one. Surely the man must know by now that Merlin was useless when it came to research. Gaius almost always found what they were looking for first. ‘If you hadn’t been here, I would’ve wasted more time looking through the wrong books,’ Gaius had told him when he first pointed that out. That did nothing to stop Merlin from feeling like he had wasted hours of his day.
Merlin could barely pay attention to the book as he skimmed the pages. His thoughts kept flashing back to everything he would have to do today. Help in the armory, do laundry, clean Arthur’s windows. Did he even finish making Arthur’s bed before storming off earlier? If not, he’d have to go back and do that. With all that plus whatever else Arthur threw at him, he’d be working long into the night. Again.
They spent a good few hours reading through books before Gaius found something useful. Merlin looked at a picture and confirmed that the goo looked like that. “It is a Bwyfruud, or a Beastly Assassin.”
“Oh, great…”
“The Bwyfruud sends clumps of clear, sentient goo into the location where the assasination will take place. The goo acts as eyes and ears for the beast, allowing it to learn the behavioral patterns of the target. It actively repulses the attention of its target. Even non-targets will struggle to see the goo due to its translucent nature. After a period of surveillance (typically one week), the Bwyfruud will properly attack.”
“So, we should wait a week and I’ll start watching out to make sure it can’t get Arthur?”
“That would work, but we can’t be sure exactly when the beast will attack. It’s possible the goo has been there for six days already.”
“So I’m supposed to stay with Arthur all the time until I kill it?”
“We could inform the king. Nothing about you seeing the goo hints to your magic and he’ll act on a threat to his son’s life.”
Merlin shook his head. “There’s probably some in the audience hall. We don’t want the beast to know we’re onto it. Speaking of which…” He did a quick scan of the room. “Good, I don’t see anything in here.”
Gaius raised an eyebrow. “I’m very glad you thought of that after we spent hours talking about it.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine, but you’re right that we should be vigilant.” He read more of the book. “The good news is the beast will only ever attack when the sun is down. You’ll only need to watch him at night.”
“How am I supposed to stay up all night every night until this is fixed?”
“Well, I suppose…” He shook his head. “No no, too dangerous.”
“What is it?”
“There are potions that can cause a person to feel as if they have had a full night’s sleep.”
Merlin’s jaw dropped. “You’ve been able to make that this entire time and you haven’t told me?”
“As I said, it’s dangerous. It’s easy for the body to become reliant on the potion and the withdrawal is horrific. I wouldn’t risk it on my worst enemy, let alone you.”
“But I need something to help me stay awake. No one else can fight this as well as I can.”
“I know, I know.” Gaius sighed. “I will make it for you, but there will be some conditions. You will not watch me make the potion, or even see which book I’m getting it from. You will come here after sunrise every morning and sleep for at least three hours. If this goes on for longer than two weeks, we will tell the king about the beast. I will not let you use the potion for that long.”
“I can’t sleep that long after sunrise. Arthur will throw a fit.”
“Tell him I’ll need extra help from you in the mornings for a while. I’ll confirm your story if he asks.”
“Okay, that should work.” Merlin looked at the drawing of the Bwyfruud. “Does this say anything about how to find who sent it?”
“Not that I can see. It just says that they can be made by a powerful spell and ‘can be easily killed by most weapons or offensive spells’.”
“Darn it. That would’ve made my job a lot easier.” Merlin looked out the window to gauge how many hours of sunlight he still had. “It’s kinda funny. I’m not gonna have to sleep for a whole night and I’m still gonna waste my time not getting work done.”
“Sleeping is not wasting time. Statements like that are exactly why I don’t want to give you this potion.”
“Well, we really don’t have much choice.” Merlin put his jacket back on. “I’ve gotta go check in on the armory and see if Arthur needs me. You go ahead and make your special secret potion.”
Merlin almost made it out the door when Gaius said, “Try not to overwork yourself too much.” As if Merlin had any say in the matter.