Chapter Text
It was an act of appalling, ghastly cruelty that, had Arthur not been so horribly in love with him, he might never have noticed Merlin was a sorcerer.
He didn’t like to think about Merlin in such terms; it was annoying and heart-achy and it made his palms itch. He didn’t even like to ascribe the word ‘love’ to it, though that was undoubtedly what it was, because nothing else would account for the feelings that Merlin seemed to constantly stir up. These were, namely, an intense need for attention, a certain unbefitting giddiness, and also (alarmingly) the desire to just sort of look at him, at any and all hours.
It was the last one that was his undoing.
Arthur was looking at him, like usual, even though he was meant to be scraping mud off his shoes. He had one ankle propped on his opposite knee and a sturdy twig in hand, and he was distracted looking at Merlin looking at the horses. He couldn’t even properly see Merlin, just the chicken-wing of his elbow flapping about below his horse’s head, and even that single spindly joint was enough to have Arthur’s heart sighing dreamily below his ribs. It was dreadful.
Merlin’s head poked out from behind the horse, and Arthur busied himself hastily with his boot.
When he looked back up, Merlin was feeding the horse an apple. It was winter.
Arthur narrowed his eyes. He looked at the apple nestled red and shiny in between Merlin’s fingers, and he noted that it was indeed an apple, and he noted again that it was winter. The feeling this stirred up was also dreadful, but in rather too literal a sense.
Merlin looked at him again, and his eyes went wide and guilty when he noticed Arthur looking back. He stepped in front of the horse, tucking his arm quickly behind his back, and the question stuck in Arthur’s throat.
“What?” he said instead, and Merlin shrugged.
“Nothing,” he said.
Arthur’s heart hurt, but he swiped off the last of the mud anyway.
“Get on with it, then,” he said, which didn’t really make sense, but he heard Merlin shuffling about a bit more while he stared keenly at the ground, so it was alright. Arthur’s ears were buzzing, but it was just an apple, and, well— still. It didn’t have to mean anything.
It was just that after that, Arthur couldn’t stop looking.
He watched Merlin constantly, which was awful, because he was looking for evidence of treason and all he got in return was Merlin’s tiny little smile and his hands knotting Arthur’s drawstrings and once, terribly, a bit of snow clinging to Merlin’s eyelash. He watched Merlin trip over his boots and walk into tables and scratch at his head and he watched Merlin roll his eyes and tug on his ears and pick seeds out of his teeth. He even sat in the alcove of his chambers and watched Merlin run around in the courtyard below, all the while nursing the sore spot above his heart, fingers digging into the skin above the muscle.
Arthur couldn’t catch him at it, was the thing, and that was— a relief, certainly, but it also conjured a sense of sickly foreboding that he couldn’t shake.
On the fifth day, Arthur sent Merlin on a late-night quest for pickled eggs, and while he was gone he swapped out the prepared dry logs on the hearth for three that were sopping wet, and he sat back in his chair and he waited.
“Ta da,” said Merlin, waltzing back in with the goods in hand. He plonked them down in front of Arthur, heedless of the very important document Arthur was currently amending.
“Thank you, Merlin,” Arthur said, and moved them away. Merlin’s fringe was doing what it always did, and was hanging down all stringy atop his forehead.
“Welcome,” said Merlin, and rubbed his arms fervently. “It’s cold in here, isn’t it?”
Arthur nodded.
“Do you want me to do something about that, then?” asked Merlin, and Arthur looked up at him, at Merlin looking down all guileless and pink in the cheeks, and thought he would probably be sick.
“That is your job,” said Arthur slowly, and Merlin rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, alright,” said Merlin, and Arthur watched him walk over to the fire, his shoulders set the same way as always, his gangly gait no different to usual. Merlin never wore chainmail, so Arthur had never had to learn the subtleties of his movements in order to distinguish him from the other knights, but that hadn’t stopped him. He knew Merlin as well as he knew himself, as well as he knew his sword. Merlin was his friend and his companion, his confidante and eternal bane. Arthur knew everything he cared to know about Merlin, and he cared to know it all.
Merlin squatted down by the fire rather than kneeling, because the cold stone was hard on his knees. He didn’t even pick up the flint; it stayed solitary and damning on the edge of the hearth. Arthur watched his coat bunch across the curve of his spine.
“Get on with it, Merlin,” Arthur wanted to say, but he didn’t, because his throat hurt. It was dry and he could feel where his lips pressed together, and he could feel his pulse beating behind his ears.
Merlin put his hands on his knees and stood up, making a loud oofing sound as he did, and cracked his neck side to side. The flames flickered happily in his wake, and Arthur didn’t do anything. He looked at the parchment on his desk and he looked at his thumb and forefinger on the quill, and by the time he looked up at Merlin again, Merlin was folding the laundry and singing.
Arthur’s first quantifiable thought was: He’s going to get himself killed.
Arthur’s second thought was: Merlin is not even remotely this stupid.
Merlin was, of course, many things, including bumbling and insolent and brave to an absolute fault, but his wits, when they were about him, were quick. He was clever and could solve riddles and he kept his mouth shut tight when magic came up, and while Merlin might have been an idiot, he was not so much of an idiot as to learn magic just to light fires and feed out of season fruit to horses. It would be bigger than that, because it had to be.
Arthur looked at him.
“Merlin,” he said slowly, not really knowing how he was going to finish it. Merlin had his chin tucked against his chest, holding one of Arthur’s tunics there so he could fold it, but he made a noise to indicate that he’d heard. “Did you get my sword sharpened?”
“No, I forgot about it,” said Merlin, in a tone of great flippancy. “You only mentioned it twenty thousand times.”
“It’s important,” Arthur said, and Merlin nodded sagely, the tunic now folded neatly on the bed.
“Of course,” said Merlin. “No point waving it about if it’s not all swordy, is there?”
Arthur smiled, only a bit weakly. “I suppose not. That’ll be all, Merlin. Go and have an early night.”
Merlin blinked at him. “But I’ve still got to put out the torches, and do this—”
“It’s fine.” Arthur was very tired, suddenly. “You can finish it in the morning.”
“Alright,” said Merlin after a moment, those stupid eyebrows of his drawing together, like he was concerned about Arthur but didn’t really want to show it, which was one of his many contradictions, but one Arthur knew about because he knew Merlin, upside down and backwards and every way in-between. “Goodnight, then.”
“Goodnight,” said Arthur, and he got up and bolted the door after Merlin had left.
This was fine. This was going to be fine. Merlin was a sorcerer, but that was alright. Merlin had, clearly, been doing magic for quite a while, if he didn’t even get jumpy about doing it under Arthur’s nose. He was only going to find himself corrupted and turned evil and eventually forced to raise his hand against Arthur, but that was fine.
Arthur, of course, would then have no choice but to kill him, or perhaps to lay down and die if the being-in-love-with him thing turned out the better of him.
Arthur uncurled his fists with a very deep, very measured breath. He stomped over to the window and drew the curtains because Merlin hadn’t, because he was useless and rubbish and using magic and he was going to die, and Arthur was abruptly so angry—
He sat down on the bed and started at the beginning.
Merlin was a sorcerer. That was a fact, and it was nothing worth going back on now. Arthur had looked and Arthur had prodded, and he’d tested Merlin and come out victorious. Whatever life he had been living before he no longer was, and there was no choice but to accept it and move forward. This was, obviously, easier said than done, but it was going to have to happen at some point.
He put the laundry away and then hovered by the fireplace, the usual pitcher of drinking water clasped in his left hand, just hovering.
Merlin had made the fire, and Merlin would never hurt him.
But, also: magic had made the fire, and magic had hurt him lots.
He’d made a fist again by accident, like his muscles were lamenting the lack of weapon, and he frowned at it. This was awful. This was worse than falling in love, actually, and that had been plenty bad enough.
He wished Morgana were with him, or his mother, or Gwen, or someone who could tell him what to do. Merlin was such an idiot, dangling the guillotine over his own head, dancing with the sticks they’d light the pyre with. Why would he learn it, when he knew what it could do? How could he be so flippant with his life? It was moronic, it was beyond what Arthur thought him capable of, and he’d done it on his own, without even the decency to ask Arthur’s blessing—
Arthur doused the fire.
“This is stupid,” said Arthur, in the sudden low-light. He grumpily snuffed out all the candles. “Damned idiot of a fool—”
He walked back to bed and thrust himself under the covers, drawing them tight around his neck and then, in a fit of frustration, batting them away again. He folded his arms atop them, but it was chilly and his skin goose-bumped unpleasantly, so he swore and rolled onto his side. He was going to kill him, he decided. He was going to strangle Merlin first thing tomorrow, was going to pick him up by the scruff of his neck and hammer at least one damn ounce of sense into him, and he would do it again every morning until it stuck. The nerve of him, the cheek! To make Arthur feel this way, and to clearly not care in the world for it, was unthinkable!
Arthur swallowed and pressed his face into the pillow, his head spinning. His hands and legs trembled, and he clutched again at that soreness above his heart, palm pressed to his chest.
Merlin was dead, was the crux of it. Not today and perhaps not tomorrow, but next week or the week after, or perhaps even next summer if Arthur was lucky—
He wiped at his wet face, and collected himself. He would make it better in the morning, he resolved. He would do what he always did, and fix the blasted mess Merlin had dragged them both into if it killed him.
*
Merlin clearly did not know any useful types of sorcery, reflected Arthur, or else he would have come up with some spell or enchantment to alert him when his secret was revealed. That’s what Arthur himself would have arranged for, had he been properly consulted on the matter. There was no other excuse for why Merlin arrived in his chambers as brightly and as chipper as usual, apparently unaware of Arthur’s sleepless night.
“You’re dressed,” said Merlin, and Arthur was. He had given up on rest at some time before dawn, and dressed himself in his usual attire. Merlin made a start on extinguishing the candles Arthur had lit, and then turned his attention to the fireplace, since it was still freezing.
Arthur didn’t watch, this time. He busied himself deliberately with his book, hiding his nose in it as well as he could, so that he could at least claim ignorance if questioned. Not, Arthur was sure, that there would be a small supply of witnesses. Surely everyone and their mother must have noticed by now, if Merlin was as careless as he appeared. The lead-weight feeling re-established itself in Arthur’s stomach.
Breakfast was brought up at the usual time and Merlin chattered on, ignoring the fact that Arthur barely responded. He couldn’t even muster up the usual insults, and the smell of cooked meat was making him queasy. He pushed the plate towards Merlin instead, as had become custom, and Merlin pinched one of the sausages.
“You could at least sit down,” said Arthur, disgusted, as Merlin wolfed the offending thing down in three bites.
“Can’t, I’ve got things to do,” said Merlin, unintelligibly. Only the following syllables actually escaped his mouth: “Kahn—fff—go’—fing—fa—whoo.”
“Be that as it may,” said Arthur, following perfectly, “You won’t be fit for any of it if you meet your end like this. What am I supposed to tell your mother? That you died choking on a sausage?”
“Wha’ a way ‘uh go, ‘oh,” said Merlin, and Arthur wrinkled his nose. Merlin swallowed and beamed that stupid grin of his, his cheeks a little pink and his eyes shiny with mirth.
“Shut up, Merlin,” said Arthur, and felt abruptly like he was going to cry. He busied himself with his boiled egg, cutting it into slices. Something occurred to him.
“Do you actually hate boiled eggs?” he demanded, and Merlin blinked at him.
“What?”
“Do you actually—” Arthur faltered. “You told me once that you hated them.”
“You remember that?”
Of course, Arthur didn’t say. He shrugged, and stabbed at half the egg with his knife. “It has been brought to my attention that people say things they do not mean. That people are not always honest with me.”
“It’s a bit late in life to discover the concept of lying,” teased Merlin, but his eyebrows were wriggling again and he licked his lips and he looked, damn it all, nervous.
“Just answer the question, Merlin.”
Merlin sat down in the other chair. “Yes,” he said, hands tugging down his sleeves. “They’re disgusting. Yolks aren’t meant to be crumbly.”
Arthur nodded, and peeled the shell off another one. “Would you eat it if I told you to?”
Merlin cocked his head. “If this is some new kind of punishment…”
It wasn’t meant to be, but Arthur wanted to know, now. The sunlight streaming through the windows hit Merlin’s face sharply on the corner of his eye, his right nostril, and the cleft of his chin. It made him look rather ethereal, like something of old. Arthur had thought that was a side-effect of fancying him so very awfully, but now he wondered about it.
“Would you eat it,” repeated Arthur slowly, as he held out the offender, “if I told you to?”
Merlin looked at the egg and then at his face, and he reached out and plucked it carefully from Arthur’s fingers. He took the tension with him, sitting back in his chair and turning the egg over in his hand.
“What’s going on, Arthur?” he asked, and Arthur sighed.
“Nothing,” said Arthur, and looked away. “Eat the egg, Merlin.”
“Piss off,” said Merlin, and lobbed it at him. Arthur caught it against his chest, and looked down in dismay.
“I suppose you wouldn’t, would you?” he asked, and Merlin said something else, but Arthur had stopped listening.
*
It was just that, well— it was Merlin.
Merlin and magic should have been unthinkable, or at the very least limited to an idiom of the night-and-day, black-and-white sort. The idea that Merlin could be a sorcerer, and could possess commonalities with those ruthless, calculating bastards that kept mucking up Arthur’s tourneys and feasts was almost laughable.
Arthur had laughed at it, even, though the laughter had been of the hysterical sort. Twice now Merlin had had the label of sorcerer dangled over his head, and twice now Arthur had defended him from the accusation. The knowledge that he had been wrong should have sat poorly, but, in honesty, Arthur knew there was no point in feeling it. A knight could accuse Merlin of sorcery tomorrow and Arthur knew he would still be there, a hand on Merlin’s neck as he dragged him from the fire.
He lifted his head from his hands, the stone cold and unforgiving beneath his elbows. It was one thing to convince Uther that an accusation meant nothing. It was another thing entirely to argue for a reduced sentence. The king had not been persuaded in the case of Guinevere, oh so very long ago, and Merlin’s magic was being used in at least equal acts of kindness. Arthur felt vaguely sick.
Far away a blacksmith struck his anvil, and it made its way to Arthur’s ears, though he stood high above the town. There were no guards on this landing, for which he was grateful. He paced up and then down and then back again, thinking with each turn of his heel that he was going to stomp his way to Gaius’ chambers, and deciding against it at the last second.
Arthur wasn’t an idiot, and he wasn’t his father, either. Whatever perils magic had wrought in the time before his birth, Arthur hadn’t seen them, and he wasn’t so foolish as to believe the matter simple. In the early years of Uther’s reign the kingdom had been cracked, undoubtedly, full of chaos and calamity, but these things didn’t exist in isolation. To act as though magic had been the sole instigator would be a misstep, not least because the same cracks existed today, also, when magic had been all but eradicated.
What good was knowing this, though? It told him only that Merlin was not responsible for the kingdom’s decline, but he had known that already. As if Merlin could have affected something so wholly beyond his scope. As if Merlin had the power to topple it.
Arthur turned the band on his finger, uneasy. It didn’t matter what Arthur believed. The use of magic was not permitted, and if his father found out—
He clasped his hand into a fist and forced himself to lay roots, laying his hands again on the stone ledge that stopped him from plummeting off the castle. There were moving pieces, was all. A lit fire and an apple (and undented armour and a supposed lucky catch and appearing right when Arthur needed him, and, and, and) did not acts of evil make, no matter how much Arthur might have scrutinised them. He had made up his mind quite firmly that the punishment he eventually doled out should fit Merlin’s crime, but as it was, Arthur couldn’t find it much worse than his usual insolence.
Still, something had to be done. Arthur could not, without knowing when Merlin began to practice, yet judge how much corruption had taken place. He didn’t know how long these sorts of things took (though he imagined it would take longer with Merlin, what with him having so little brains between his ears), but two years was surely a decent head start.
In the city below, Arthur watched smoke rise from the chimneys and curl in the cold air, watched the grey little people bustle about amongst the lower town. He had stood here, in this spot, when Merlin had told him he was going back to Ealdor. He had stood here when he decided to follow him, too, scarcely moments after Merlin’s departure, when his father’s ire and potential war ceased in their meaning.
God, this was awful. God damn the incessant bane of Arthur’s life, and God damn that he’d ever fallen in love with it.
Arthur turned from his view of Camelot and started back to the council chambers, recognising by the shadows that it must almost be noon, and that it was time to stop moping. Was Merlin even capable of being corrupted? Arthur had seen many men tempted by gold, by legacy, by the promise of power, but those seemed to hold little value to Merlin. If he was indifferent to it to begin with, could the corruption take hold? Could Merlin hold it off?
Should Arthur be giving him a raise?
He was distracted, giving only half his ear to the lords and ladies of the court. It was inconsequential that Merlin hadn’t told him; of course he hadn’t. How could he have, when a mere two days’ worth of knowledge had Arthur’s stomach in knots? To live with this fear, this constant threat of persecution… Arthur couldn’t imagine it. He wouldn’t have placed Merlin’s life in his hands either.
He scratched a mark in his parchment with his quill, and nodded contemplatively at Lord Bayron’s most recent comment. He wanted to talk to Morgana. She always had interesting things to say on magic, had been by his side when they went to bat for Gwen, but he wasn’t willing to risk it. Probably she would have nothing to say but to call him a twat, but even that held a certain appeal.
He went to Gaius’ chambers once the meeting was done, but neither he nor Merlin were there. The workroom was clearly in use, though, with something bubbling away in the cauldron over the fire, and a pleasant sort of smell about. Arthur stopped in the middle of the room.
He swallowed. It was loud in the silence.
He checked behind the door, and then he strode quite determinedly over to Merlin's door, and rapped on it hard with his knuckles.
“Merlin,” said Arthur gruffly, in pretence, and pushed it open. “Where the bloody hell are you?”
He’d never properly seen Merlin’s room except when searching it. The first few times he hadn’t looked more than he needed to fire off a few jabs about Merlin’s cleanliness, and the latter few times had been the definition of half-hearted. Even after the goblin mix up only a few weeks ago, Arthur had cared more about finding evidence of Merlin’s allegations than doing a proper exam.
He looked around the room now, one hand on the doorframe, and grit his jaw. Merlin really was appallingly messy. Arthur sometimes forgot that it wasn’t an act to deliberately rile him up. There were blankets half-draped across the bed, books piled on the floor, and dirty rags from where Merlin had started cleaning and then obviously abandoned it.
Arthur tightened his hand on the doorframe.
It smelled like Merlin, too. People had smells, even when they all lived in the same castle and probably should have all smelled the same. Morgana always smelt like her expensive incenses, and Gwen usually had a flowery scent about her, and Arthur’s men smelt like sweat and hard work.
Merlin, Arthur noted with disdain, was sporting the same fragrance Arthur associated with the safety and comfort of home.
“This is ridiculous,” said Arthur, and looked up at the ceiling. His mouth curled in on itself, twisting so that it wouldn’t devolve into blubber. “He probably did this on purpose, and everything.”
The truth stared him in the face: it was no good being cross, because in order not to be cross Merlin would have had to have told him about the magic immediately, and if Merlin had told him about the magic immediately, then they could never have been friends.
He glared at the beams holding up the roof, a treacherous wobbling sensation overtaking his face and jaw. Was this how Morgana had felt, trying to defend Gwen? Arthur didn’t think he’d be nearly so composed. And he was going to have to figure it out, find some way to give Merlin an iron-clad defence, perhaps somebody who owed Arthur a favour and could swear Merlin was with them the next time magic was used inside the castle. Bribery might have to be involved.
Arthur took one final sweep of Merlin’s rooms, looking at the physicians books and the flowers from Gwen and the comfortable leather boots Arthur had handed down to him but Merlin refused to wear, because he said they didn’t have enough buckles. As if Merlin wasn’t wearing his own tatty boots to pieces. They’d probably put him on the pyre in them.
Arthur closed the door behind him. Something had to be done.
*
He was going to have to tell him.
Arthur had let another week go past, and had just about managed to stop twitching when doors opened. He was getting better at falling asleep rather than listening for the clanging of the warning bell, and had mostly succeeded when it came to keeping all of his stupid and embarrassing thoughts to himself. He didn’t insist Merlin attach them both at the wrist, and he thought that was mighty good of him.
But Arthur was still going to have to tell him.
He understood, now, a little more about why Merlin hadn’t. It required so much planning, and so much more thought than Arthur had suspected it to need, and it unnerved him that he couldn’t for the life of him predict how Merlin would respond. He turned it over and over in his head, imagining what Merlin might be thinking, or might be wanting, and adjusting his own words accordingly. He rehearsed a lot of it to his bed hangings.
It wasn’t going to be terrible, though. Merlin was probably going to fall over his feet in gratitude, assuming that he was (as Arthur uncharitably hoped) in complete and total gut-wrenching agony over his deception. He wasn’t worried about his own self— if Merlin had failed to kill him during any of the numerous opportunities he had had so far, then it stood to reason that Merlin had no business in killing him at all.
He couldn’t decide if it was better to do it in the castle or out in the forest, and wished again that he had someone to talk to. His floor was getting tired of all the pacing, and his thoughts, with no outlet, were starting to circle. He was too afraid to put pen to paper, and the one person who usually sorted his thoughts from left and right (and his clothes from light and dark) was hardly a viable option.
He wanted to ask Merlin what to do. He wanted to know what was right, if Merlin wanted his secret to be known or would rather keep it to himself. Arthur knowing would complicate things, had complicated things, and it would be better for them both, probably, if Arthur could just put it out of his mind and forget he’d ever noticed.
But he couldn’t.
He wanted to, sometimes. It was shameful and wretched; he wanted to forget because he wanted it to be easy, and he wanted to pretend because he wanted Merlin to taste his own medicine. It seemed frightfully unfair, that Arthur should have given him everything and gotten so little in return, when Merlin claimed to be an open book.
Arthur snorted. An open book, perhaps, but so wily and distracting that Arthur had not realised it was code.
Of course he could not ignore it, because it was a matter of honour. He couldn’t have Merlin walking around thinking Arthur might execute him, and he couldn’t deny Merlin any relief that might be gained from knowing that Arthur knew. It wasn’t fair, and Arthur loved him, and that was that.
Still, though. A man had to have a certain way of going about things.
He chewed on his thumbnail a moment longer before discarding the book he’d been pretending to read. It fell with a smack onto his desk, but Merlin didn’t even have the courtesy to look around.
“I’ve been thinking,” Arthur said.
“Uh oh,” said Merlin.
“We should do something. Together. Tomorrow. You and me.”
Merlin’s eyebrows twitched and he pulled a face, and only after he’d had this little conversation with himself did he look over at Arthur. Arthur looked quickly at the ceiling.
“What did you have in mind?” he asked slowly.
Arthur shrugged. “Hell if I know.” He picked up his knife, and rocked it back and forth in a previously-made groove on the desk. “We could go hunting?”
Merlin pulled a face. “No thanks.”
Arthur shifted, and twirled the knife in his hand. Merlin didn’t look scared. Could he stop it in the air if Arthur threw it? He’d worked out that Merlin could at least make branches fall from their trees, but he didn’t know if the same applied elsewhere. “There must be other things to do in the forest. Doesn’t Gaius need his herbs stocked up, or something?”
“Probably?” said Merlin, closing one eye and his voice going all high at the end. “It doesn’t usually hurt.”
“Alright, then,” said Arthur, the matter settled. “We’ll do that.”
Merlin stared at him a few moments longer, the sort of expression on his face that usually meant he thought Arthur was being weird. Arthur pulled a face back and Merlin laughed. It was nauseatingly attractive.
“Is everything alright?” asked Merlin. “You’re being stranger than normal.”
“No I’m not,” said Arthur.
“Yes, you are.”
“Merlin,” said Arthur, and swung his feet off his table and stood. He slipped the knife back into his boot. “You don’t know this, because you’re a bumpkin, but every now and again a prince needs to get out of his castle and get his boots dirty. It’s good for him.”
“Right,” said Merlin, long and drawn out. “You were in the forest today, though.”
Arthur pursed his lips.
“Without his regiment,” he added, eventually. “It builds character. And it’s fun. Stop complaining.”
“I’m not complaining!” protested Merlin, and he sat down on Arthur’s bed because he was an absolute menace.
“Yes you are,” parroted Arthur. “Keep it up and I’ll think you don’t want to go.”
Merlin was sitting on the bed, which had been where Arthur was moving to, and now he was stuck, hovering, in the space between the desk and the object of his extremely annoying affections. He decided in the end to face-plant onto the bed. Merlin shifted to accommodate him.
“I guess it might be nice to leave the castle,” he said, and Arthur said “exactly” to his bedsheets. “Just you and me?”
Arthur coloured. He rolled onto his side, very pointedly not meeting Merlin’s eye, and shrugged. He saw Merlin’s mouth twitch, and remembered why he didn’t suggest that they did nice things together. It was almost unbearable.
“The knights’d probably just muck it up,” he said casually. “They’re a bit thick.”
Merlin said, “You do know that I’m not dying, don’t you?”
Arthur rocketed up. “What?” he demanded. “Of course you’re not. Did someone tell you you were dying? Who threatened you?”
“Arthur,” said Merlin, and pried Arthur’s hands from where he was once again reaching for his knife and preparing to attack. He was laughing. “God, you are thick. I just meant because you’re being, you know. So nice to me.”
“I’m always nice to you,” said Arthur petulantly, and Merlin snickered a bit more.
“Of course, sire,” he said. “And I’m a perfectly model servant.”
“You’re alright,” said Arthur, more honestly than he’d meant to, and the concerned crease reappeared in Merlin’s brow.
“Like that,” he said. “You’re being weird. You’ve been being weird for ages. You’re not dying, are you?”
Arthur hit him. Merlin kicked back, and they scuffled a bit. Then Arthur remembered the calamitous conversation he had signed himself up for, and removed himself to lean against a bedpost.
“I’m not dying,” he said, and swallowed. “I’ve just been thinking.”
“About your father?” guessed Merlin, and Arthur was forced to concede to it with his expression.
“A bit,” he said truthfully. He propped one elbow up on his knee, and twirled his ring around on his forefinger. It gave him something to look at that wasn’t Merlin, which was agreeable. He sighed. “I’ve been thinking about what kind of king I shall be. About whether I do my people a disservice by feeling so differently to my father.”
Merlin looked surprised, and he twisted to mirror Arthur, leaning against a post. His knee nearly touched Arthur’s outstretched leg.
“I didn’t know you did,” he said slowly. “You always agree with him.”
Arthur flinched.
“That’s not—” he began, but he couldn’t say it. He re-evaluated himself. “It’s my duty,” he settled on, “to abide by my king’s word. I swore it, the day I became a knight.”
He fidgeted some more with his ring, wondering how to explain it to Merlin, who had never seemed to give a damn about any of it, except what was right. He was like Morgana, in that respect.
“He is not always my father,” said Arthur, turning his mother’s ring again and again so that it glinted in the daylight. “And when he isn’t, I can’t— I have to— There are things. Things I cannot do, or say. Especially in public. But I do— feel differently. In private. On a great many things.”
Merlin tilted his head. “You don’t discredit your people by thinking differently,” he said, and Arthur was forced to scratch at his head to hide his face.
“Don’t I? What if I steer them wrong? What if they are being steered wrong, and I do nothing?
He dragged his hand down his face. “When I am king,” he said, but he didn’t really know how to finish that sentence, either. “When I am king, things will be different.”
“I believe you,” said Merlin, and Arthur wondered, for the first time, if he really did.
*
They went into the forest and did a terrifically good job of pretending they were doing something important.
“What’s that one?” asked Arthur, and Merlin said, “Basil.”
Arthur sat down in the dirt. “What does that do?”
“It’s used mainly for stomach problems.”
“Huh,” said Arthur, and then, a bit later: “What’s that one?”
“Dill.”
“What’s that for?”
“Also stomachs. And haemorrhoids.”
“Charming,” said Arthur. He stood around for a bit, sword hanging loosely on his belt, and paced backwards and forth while Merlin took his sweet time fondling the leaves. He sighed loudly and drummed his fingers on his sword’s hilt. The nerves were making him antsy.
“What’re you doing now?” asked Arthur.
Merlin said, “I’m making myself a treatment for Arthur-itis.”
Arthur pushed him over. Merlin told him a deeply boring and excruciatingly long story about some castle gossip he’d just gotten off Gwen, for which Arthur didn’t care at all and was absolutely uninterested in.
“He did not,” cried Arthur, aghast, and Merlin nodded ferociously.
“He did!” said Merlin. “Gwen said he was diddling the cauliflowers!”
Arthur covered his ears, scandalised. “Guinevere did not say that.”
“Well, no, not exactly—”
“Aha!” said Arthur, and Merlin said, “But it was very much implied! And she said that Sarah said that Susan heard—”
“Merlin, enough,” said Arthur, but he was laughing. His cheeks felt hot and flushed. “If you want me to look any of my staff in the eye again—”
Merlin laughed too. The cold winter sun was bathing him in light fit for the finest painter, and Arthur had almost forgotten what they were supposed to be doing. He had told Merlin to expect camping, and as the sky turned to dusk he made them set up for it, planting his sword in the earth and making a fire to sit around. It would be dark soon, and the clock was ticking.
They ate the sandwiches Cook had prepared for them for dinner, cheese and ham and pickled egg, which Arthur didn’t cry over even though he knew Merlin had asked for them specially, because they were Arthur’s favourite, and Merlin hated hard boiled eggs and all they stood for.
They sat facing each other by the fire, on a few sturdy logs Merlin had just happened to find freshly fallen, and Arthur could tell Merlin was waiting, and waiting, and waiting.
“You ought to get this, Merlin,” said Arthur for the thousandth time, drawing once again a crescent infantry formation for Merlin to study. He carved it into the dirt between his feet with a nice and lengthy stick that he’d found. “It’s important.”
“Arthur,” said Merlin seriously, after he’d let Arthur prattle on about battle tactics for much longer than Arthur had expected him to. “Why are we really out here?”
Arthur sighed, and looked at the fire.
“I wanted to talk to you,” he said.
“About what?”
Merlin’s voice was terribly soft, and Arthur knew it was because he had noticed how sullen and agonised Arthur had been, and that made him feel even worse.
“About the sorcery business.”
Merlin went very still. His body tensed, and he didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look at Arthur, his eyes stayed perfectly trained on where they had already been resting, as though he was unwilling to move even the smallest of his muscles. It was a fear response Arthur had seen hundreds of times, but usually just when it was him and a deer on opposite sides of a crossbow.
“It’s alright,” he said, around the rattling of his own chest. “You’re not in trouble. I’m not—I’m not going to hurt you.”
Merlin’s eyes moved, snapping to look at him, and Arthur didn’t know what to do.
“Merlin,” he said, and to his horror, his voice broke on the word. “You can tell me."
His eyes roved over Arthur’s face, then towards the castle and back again. Arthur made himself stay still, his shoulders as far away from his ears as he could make them, his hands resting empty and obviously between his knees.
“How did you find out?” asked Merlin, and Arthur wanted nothing more than for that look to disappear from his face, so he said:
“You’re not very subtle, Merlin. I’d have a harder time not noticing.”
Merlin’s laugh was not much more than breath, and was equally unconvincing.
“I’m not angry,” said Arthur, because it seemed important. “You’ve clearly had this ability for some time, since before you came to Camelot.”
Merlin nodded, and so did Arthur.
“I guessed as much,” he said. “Magic isn’t outlawed in Cenred’s kingdom, so you could have learned and practiced it there as a boy. Why you would then choose to come here, I’ve no idea, but then I suppose you always have been rather stupid.”
“Thanks,” said Merlin weakly. His eyes were bright and his mouth was wobbly, and Arthur stabbed at the dirt with his stick.
“I wasn’t—,” he began, and then changed his mind. He drew a large cross with the stick, tracing it over and over again so he wouldn’t have to look at Merlin. He spoke very quietly. “I was angry, at first. Not that you lied to me, exactly, but because I’ve always thought that you and I could have been friends. I’ve always felt that we were friends. And, loathe though I am to admit it, it was— distressing. To think that you did not find me worthy of your trust.”
Arthur stopped drawing in the dirt, and pressed his lips together. He didn’t much want to go on, but thought he better ought to, because he wanted Merlin to know: “You know all there is to know about me. I’ve never once hidden myself from you, not in essentials, and I—foolishly— thought I knew everything there was to know about you.”
He swallowed. “I suppose I haven’t been looking hard enough,” he said. The smoke was getting in his eyes, but he made himself look at Merlin anyway.
“Merlin,” he said, and here it was: “I owe you an apology.”
Merlin stared at him, his eyes very wide and shiny in the firelight. Arthur went on.
“I understand why you did not tell me,” he admitted, and even the bitter sting of it had lessened somewhat over the two weeks, replaced by his sense of guilt. “And I wish— I wish that you had known that I would not harm you, that I would never—"
Arthur broke off, and collected himself. “But that is my failing, not yours. You mean more to me than almost anyone, and so— I wish that I could have known, so that I could have proven myself to you. So that you might have trusted me.”
“Arthur,” said Merlin, in a horribly choked voice. His hands were clenched tightly where they rested on his knees, his knuckles white around his sleeves. “I do trust you. You’re my friend. I trust you with my life.”
“But not with this,” said Arthur, and Merlin’s face twisted. He said, very quietly:
“No.”
Arthur nodded.
“Quite right, too.” He looked at the ground again and sniffed, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “In fact, that might be the first sensible thing I’ve heard you say about it. Honestly, Merlin, anyone would think you wanted to be caught. I watched you conjure apples and dry logs and knock out bandits and heat my bathwater, it’s like you don’t even care who knows it.”
Merlin dried his eyes on his sleeves, shifting on his log. Arthur thought maybe he shifted a bit closer, but it was hard to tell, because he was refusing to look directly at him again.
“That’s not true,” said Merlin. “You’ve got no idea what it’s been like. Of course I care.”
“Well, you’ve got a funny way of showing it,” complained Arthur. “I don’t know how you’ve survived this long, careless as you are. I haven’t slept in a fortnight for thinking about it, and we both know your constitution’s far more delicate than mine.”
“You haven’t been sleeping?”
Arthur flushed, and folded his arms. The stick got trapped between them.
“Not much, no.”
“Because of…?”
Arthur pulled a face, hoping very much that it adequately conveyed what he was thinking, which was “fuck off”. Merlin’s eyebrows crinkled together, looking touched and awed all at the same time.
“You were worried about me,” he said, like he hadn’t listened to a word Arthur had been saying.
“Of course not,” retorted Arthur, but it was no good. His mood sobered again, and his voice came out as honest as it were hoarse. “Of course I was,” he said quietly. “I am. Merlin, you have got to be more careful, I’m begging you. If you won’t give it up entirely, then at least stop bandying it about.”
“I don’t bandy it about!”
“Camelot’s felled forests would beg to differ.”
Merlin scowled, and crossed his arms. “That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?” Arthur uncrossed his own, just to be contrary. “Look, I don’t suppose it’s any good asking you to stop, is it? To just give it up entirely?”
“Give up doing magic?” said Merlin, aghast, and Arthur nodded.
“Yeah.”
Merlin shook his head. “No. That isn’t how it works.”
“But—” Arthur knew it was delicate, and re-evaluated his words. “Now, look, don’t get in a huff. I’ve thought about this. You can’t have been practicing for very long, and as far as I know you aren’t secretly looking to lob off my head and claim the throne, so I want you to try and stop, alright? I’ve seen what the thrall of magic can do, how it can twist men’s hearts, and I don’t want—I couldn’t watch—I just don’t want you to do it anymore, alright?”
“I can’t do that,” said Merlin, and Arthur growled.
“Why not,” he demanded, and Merlin cried:
“Because! Because magic isn’t some tool like a sword, it’s part of me, it’s—you’ve only ever seen magic used to hurt people, but it can do so much good, Arthur, I swear—”
He broke off, and Arthur saw his throat bob as he swallowed, eyes still shining in the firelight. He sounded so earnest, so desperate, and Arthur had never heard him like that, not once, and it scared him. He clutched his stick.
“Go on, then,” he said eventually, and even managed to make it come out rather even. “Show me.”
Merlin stared at him. “Show you?”
Arthur nodded. “You said it could be used for good. Prove it to me, right now, and I’ll believe you.”
Merlin looked at him a few seconds more, searching Arthur’s face, and then he shook his head. “You’re kidding,” he said. “What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know, Merlin, you’re the sorcerer.”
Merlin gulped again. “Okay,” he said. “I—here.”
Arthur stiffened as he outstretched his hand, and regretted it instantly when Merlin’s eyes flew to him. He had watched Merlin do magic before, several times, but not with such purpose. Not without plausible deniability. He nodded sharply, and Merlin looked at the fire.
He said something, in a language that sounded a bit like Latin were it not so guttural, and twisted his hand slowly at the wrist. Arthur wasn’t sure what he was meant to be looking at, but then several sparks broke off from the fire, and rearranged themselves in the air into a dragon.
It was very pretty, but, still.
“That’s it?” said Arthur, feeling disappointed. He didn’t know what good light shows would do to help people, and it certainly wouldn’t convince his father. “I should have known you’d be a girl about this.”
The dragon evaporated in the air, and Merlin crossed his arms tight against his chest. “Well, if you don’t want to see it,” he snapped, and Arthur winced.
“Hang on,” he said, but Merlin ignored him.
“No, forget it,” he said, and got to his feet. He wouldn’t look at Arthur, but Arthur recognised that curl of his mouth, and knew he’d upset him. “It doesn’t matter, I’ll stop doing it. Let’s just go home.”
He stalked off, and Arthur hurried to stand and follow him.
“I—Merlin,” he said, and jogged forward a bit. “Hang on, alright, I’m sorry.” He grabbed Merlin’s arm, and tugged him to a stop. “I shouldn’t have made fun of your lights.”
Merlin scowled. He had allowed Arthur to stop him, but still wouldn’t meet his eye. He looked angry and tense and like he’d very much like to hit Arthur, and for a moment Arthur contemplated letting him.
Still looking to the side, Merlin said: “Magic isn’t— it doesn’t just come from nowhere. My magic is— me. And I’ve used it to save your life at least a dozen times now, actually, so you should be more grateful.”
“I’m sorry,” said Arthur again. He thought, inexplicably, of the time Merlin had found Arthur’s shoddy attempts at poetry, and the way Merlin had clearly wanted to mock him but hadn’t, because he was a good friend. He squeezed Merlin’s arm. “Show me again.”
Merlin narrowed his eyes at him, and Arthur waited. Finally his mouth twitched.
“Fine,” he said, and spoke in that language again, and Arthur yelped when a flame erupted in the centre of Merlin’s palm.
“It’s alright,” said Merlin, in a voice that shook between reassuring and frightful. “It won’t hurt you.”
Arthur watched it dance, and raised a hand. He passed his fingers across it and felt the heat, and admired the way it seemed to move at Merlin’s direction.
“Does it hurt?” he asked, and Merlin shook his head. He looked a little more at ease, the firelight shining under his chin like a buttercup.
“It tingles,” he said. “But that’s the magic, not the fire.”
Arthur looked up. “You can feel it?”
“I told you, it’s part of me.”
“Yes, but—” He had thought Merlin meant it figuratively, the same as Arthur’s sword was an extension of himself in battle. He frowned. “Could I feel it?”
Merlin’s head snapped up. “You want to?”
He shrugged, the back of his neck hot. “Maybe.”
“I don’t know if you can,” said Merlin, and looked at the flame again. “I wish you could.”
Arthur’s hand stayed hovering. “What does it feel like?”
Merlin shrugged. A very, very tiny smile had wormed its way onto his face. “Spring?” he suggested. “I don’t know. It’s just nice. Shouldn’t you be freaking out a bit more?”
“I already did,” said Arthur, a little absently. “I told you, I’ve known for a while. I’ve adjusted.”
Merlin squinted at him. “Wait,” he said. “Is this what you were talking about yesterday?”
Arthur shrugged, the flame flickering around his fingers. It hurt a bit, but he could move them out of the way easily. “Sort of,” he said, and dropped his hand. “You can’t seriously expect I’d see you hanged.”
He was close enough, and the fire was bright enough, to see the muscle in Merlin’s jaw jump. The queasy feeling reared its head again.
“I don’t know,” said Merlin, with poor joviality. “Sorcerers are evil, remember?”
“You’re not evil,” said Arthur.
“I still have magic.”
“I know that,” said Arthur, and looked at him. Merlin was looking back fiercely, a mixture of determination and fear and defiance written into his features.
“I’m not different,” he said, and it sounded like a warning. “I mean it, Arthur, I’m not an exception, or an anomaly, or anything else. You can’t give me a free pass just because I’m on your side. You have to— I need you to mean it, Arthur. Please.”
“Merlin,” said Arthur, and tried to clap him on the shoulder, but decided at the last second to place his hand near the base of Merlin’s neck instead, which was dangerous. Merlin’s skin was cold under his hand. “I know that. You’ve singlehandedly changed my mind on the subject. Congratulations.”
He said it so flippantly because he meant it so awfully. He had known for a while that not all magic users could be evil, at least not inherently, but he had never known it as well as he had when reconciling the idea with Merlin. Merlin’s face wobbled.
He wanted to carry on, to try and explain that just because Merlin himself wasn’t evil the magic might still corrupt him, but Merlin looked so thrilled and easy and hopeful that Arthur couldn’t. He just looked at him, and hoped Merlin understood.
Merlin nodded, and Arthur gave in to an incredibly frightening urge, and bowed his head to press it against Merlin’s. It was a gesture he usually reserved for knights dying on the battlefield, and it felt entirely different here, in the forest and the dark and Merlin’s warm light.
Merlin pressed back, and clutched at Arthur’s arm. Arthur’s thumb was on Merlin’s neck.
“We’ll figure it out,” said Arthur when he’d drawn away, and realised Merlin’s fire had since gone out. “Just. Don’t be an idiot about it.”
“I’ll try,” said Merlin, and that was the best Arthur could really hope for.