Chapter Text
Merlin didn’t expect, when he first came to Camelot, to fall in love, not either of the times it happened. He didn’t expect to save the life of the king’s son and be rewarded with indentured servitude. He didn’t expect the selfish, arrogant, gorgeous prat to have anything substantial to his character, didn’t anticipate becoming his friend, risking exposure and execution to keep him alive, didn’t think the idiot would ever embed himself so thoroughly in Merlin’s thoughts and dreams and heart.
He wasn’t prepared for acceptance, either, when people inevitably found him out. He had spent too long listening to his mother, Gaius, Kilgarrah, impress upon him the importance of secrecy to ever believe he could let people know what he is. That people would like or trust him enough not to care that he is, by official declaration, evil, could never have crossed his mind.
But they do. Lance, Sir Leon, Arthur, Gwaine.
Of all the utterly unpredictable things that have happened since he left his home, Gwaine is one of the most unlikely.
Will would have liked Gwaine, he knows, more than he could ever have liked Arthur. He doesn’t think he’ll ever understand why his only friend as a child died to save the crown prince of a different land, but it certainly wasn’t because he liked him. Will respected Arthur, maybe, at the end, but no man gives his life because he respects someone. Love, friendship, honour, vows; Merlin knows these to be reasons to die for someone, but respect? Perhaps Will just knew Merlin would never have forgiven him if he could have done something and hadn’t.
Gwaine, though, would have got on with Will like a house on fire. Merlin can almost see the pair of them, drinking and carousing, getting into trouble and dragging him down with them (although, of course, they have both done more than their fair share of rescuing him from troubles of entirely his own making).
At least, they’d have gotten on until Will realised he was sleeping with Gwaine, at which point things would have turned very sour, very quickly. It wouldn’t have been jealousy, because Will had never wanted Merlin like that, and Merlin had never wanted Will either. Will’s need to protect Merlin had only ever been born of the affection of friends so close they were practically brothers, but it was strong enough that he could never have really approved of Gwaine as anything more than Merlin’s friend. And maybe Merlin would have considered listening to him, because Will had never led him wrong before.
Merlin still misses him, still sees his face each time someone new learns of his magic and he has to take responsibility for him or her staying alive.
Hunith would like Gwaine, too. Maybe not at first, but he would charm her as he charms almost everyone. She might even be happy to let him steal away her only son, because while she had been able to see from the beginning how Merlin feels for Arthur, she would also be able to see that Gwaine does more than anyone else in keeping Merlin sane, more than Merlin has any right to expect.
It is a pity they will probably never meet.
He loves living in Camelot, loves all the amazing, unexpected, terrible things that have happened here, loves his friends and loves his prince, but sometimes he wishes he’d never left home.
X
Their first real argument – if that is indeed what it is – happens when they have been together about a month, and is almost entirely Gwaine’s fault (though no two people would agree on precisely why he is to blame).
“You know,” Merlin says to Gwaine in their room, one day after he finds him chatting with Bonnie just a little longer than was required to buy drinks, “I don’t mind if you like that barmaid.”
It is a decidedly peculiar thing for Merlin to tell him, because Gwaine has never for a moment thought that Merlin doesn’t want him to befriend people. He tells him so, adding, “Of course I like her, anyway. She’s a friend.”
“Have you ever...” Merlin trails off, but Gwaine knows how the sentence ends.
“Have I ever slept with her?” Merlin has never once asked Gwaine about any of the people he has slept with in the past, and the fact that he is doing so now makes him more than a little uncomfortable, but saying that he doesn’t want to answer will be taken as a yes. “No, Merlin. Her father is scary as anything, and I don’t sleep with my friends.”
“You sleep with me.”
Well, okay, that is a fair point, and not one Gwaine can explain away. Or, rather, not one that he wants to explain to Merlin, though it would take only three words to do so. Instead, he fidgets slightly in his chair and says, “Why are you asking me about this?”
Merlin blinks at him, looking slightly like he has just been chided. “Sorry. I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to.”
There are some conversations Gwaine has with Merlin that are very straightforward and simple, and others that leave him wondering why he is even bothering to find out what he is talking about and why; this is turning pretty quickly into one of the latter. “It isn’t that you’re not supposed to, Merlin. You can ask me anything; you know that. But this isn’t something you’ve wanted to know about before.”
“Yes, well, she likes you.”
“We’ve just established that Bonnie and I are friends. I’d be a little upset if she didn’t.” Yep, here they are, going around in circles, and Gwaine has absolutely no idea why.
“No, she likes you likes you.”
Well, that clarifies matters; it’s one of those wonderful conversations eight years olds have. Gwaine is pretty sure it isn’t true, and even if it is he doesn’t understand why Merlin is telling him it. “I don’t know where you’re going with this anymore,” he says, then amends, “Not sure I ever knew where this was going, actually.”
He gets an eye roll for that, as if he’s the one being foolish here, and Merlin says, “It’s just...I don’t mind.”
“You said that already, and I still don’t know what you mean by it.”
“I mean, if you want to go home with her one evening. Or bring her back here, I don’t mind. I can go somewhere else.”
Gwaine spends a moment feeling pleased that Merlin has finally said what he set out to say when he started the conversation, and then he realises what the actual words he used are. “Did you mean that how it sounded?” he asks, because he thinks he’s still misunderstanding Merlin, probably quite dramatically.
“Did it sound like I was saying you could sleep with her?” Merlin replies, sounding emotionally flat in a kind sort of way.
“Am I going to get yelled at if I say yes?”
“No,” Merlin laughs. “Why would I yell? That’s what I meant.”
Gwaine is surprised by how much this physically hurts, the reminder that Merlin doesn’t feel as strongly about him as he feels in return. Hurts, and makes him more than a little angry. “Why would you say that?” he says, and can hear how insulted he feels in his voice, how upset he is by the indifference with which Merlin is talking.
Merlin, apparently, cannot, since he answers the question seriously rather than apologising for what he’s just said. “I don’t want you to feel like you’re stuck with me, or that I’m in your way if there’s someone else you want.”
“Is this you saying that you want to sleep with other people?” Gwaine asks, because that is the only interpretation of this that makes any sense to him at all; he can’t remember saying or doing anything that would suggest that he is in the slightest bit discontent with the way things are.
Merlin frowns, the confusion written across his face a perfect mirror of that Gwaine was feeling just minutes ago. “No, it isn’t. I’m happy with just you. It’s exactly what I said; I don’t want to repay all you’ve for me done by making you feel tied down. I know you aren’t used to being with just one person all the time, and I’d understand if you wanted...I don’t know, variety, or something.”
Gwaine stands up, wondering just where he has left his boots, because he does not want to have this conversation anymore and he doesn’t think he can walk as far away as he knows he will want to in bare feet.
“Where are you going?” Merlin asks, clearly thrown off balance by Gwaine’s desire to be elsewhere, and be there quickly.
“What do you care, Merlin?” Gwaine sneers. “You’ve just given me permission to do whatever the hell I want.” He finds his left boot under a table, the right lying behind the door, and leaves before Merlin can say anything else to piss him off, waiting until he is out of the room and down the corridor before stopping to put them on.
X
He doesn’t speak to anyone other than the barmaids for the next couple of hours, and isn’t remotely sure how long Lancelot has been sitting next to him before he says anything.
“I thought you had stopped that,” he announces, and Gwaine figures he is talking about the remarkable number of empty tankards on the table before him.
He grunts disparagingly, but sort of answers anyway, because Lancelot, nosy bastard though he is, is a good friend most of the time. “Yeah, I did, too.”
“Have you at least had something to eat this evening?”
Seeing as Gwaine hadn’t even realised that it had become evening while he has been in the tavern, he thinks probably not. Some of his time-related confusion must be clear on his face, because Lancelot sighs and stands. “Stay here, I will be back in a moment. Do not let him go anywhere, will you, please, Leon?”
Gwaine turns to his other side as Lancelot walks up to the bar, where he sees Leon looking displeased with this request. “Where’s he going?” Gwaine asks him, and hears the way his voice slurs.
“To get you food, I would imagine. How long have you been here?”
“Not that long. Eight drinks long, maybe. Is that eight?” It seems to Gwaine that his tolerance for alcohol has decreased somewhat in the month or two he hasn’t been drinking as much, because it used to be he could handle twice as much without sounding anywhere near as stupid as he does now (and he knows he sounds stupid, even if he can’t stop it).
Leon counts the tankards then nods at him, smiling in slightly patronising amusement. “Not quite, no, but I suppose it’s close enough. Do you think that you should go home when you’ve eaten?”
“No!” Gwaine knows that comes out as a shout, but doesn’t care enough to tone it down. There’s a decent chance Merlin is in their room – because he doesn’t appear to be here with everyone else – and he is still far too irritated to talk to him.
“I’m sorry I asked. Are you going to get any louder if I ask why?”
“No,” Gwaine replies, slightly softer and, he thinks, rather cleverly, “But I’m not going to tell you, either.”
“Okay, then. I’ll just sit quietly and keep an eye on you until Lancelot gets back, shall I?” He mumbles something after this about how it really shouldn’t be his responsibility to babysit stubborn alcoholics. Gwaine would quite happily tell him that he doesn’t have to, only Percival has just arrived at the table with a number of drinks and he is preoccupied with making sure he gets the best one.
Leon looks relieved when Lancelot comes back a moment later. “Fantastic. He’s all yours, Lancelot.”
“Marvellous,” Lance replies, “I have ordered you some stew, Gwaine. They will bring it over in a minute.” He pauses, and then sighs. “Where did the drink come from?”
“Percival. You can’t have it. Yours is...somewhere.” Was being drunk always this tedious, he wonders. In his memory, it used to be far easier, far lighter, to always be slightly sloshed, but right now he just seems to be saying unintelligent things and not feeling any better whatsoever about the fact that he is engaged in an emotionally one-sided relationship with his best friend.
Lancelot stares at him rather than searching for his missing drink. “Is there any chance that you will tell me what the matter is?”
“Nothing’s the matter. I’m fine,” Gwaine lies, only to ruin it by laughing sceptically at his own statement.
“Right, then. You just eat, nice and quietly, and then when you have got some food in you, we can take you back to your room and you can sleep off whatever the problem is.”
Gwaine gives the same disbelieving laugh again. “Yeah, that’ll work.”
Bonnie, one of the causes of this freaking problem, sets a large bowl of stew in front of him and speaks softly to Lancelot, but not quite so softly that Gwaine can’t hear. “Are you going to take him out of here when he’s eaten? He’s been in here for hours and...well, he’s probably had enough.”
“Yes,” Lancelot answers. “If we had known he was here, we would probably have come earlier.”
Gwaine snorts and picks up his spoon, suddenly aware of how hungry he is. “And you could have made me leave, Lancelot? I’m fine, anyway.”
Lancelot doesn’t reply, just smiles at Bonnie, “Thank you. And sorry, I suppose.”
“Not a problem, Sir Lancelot. I hope he fixes whatever the difficulty with him and whoever his mystery person is.” Gwaine had thought that, because she hadn’t mentioned it in a while, Bonnie had dropped her theory that he was on a voyage of self-improvement to impress someone into sleeping with him, but apparently not. He doesn’t argue with her, though, because the stew really is incredibly good.
When he has finished, Gwaine stands – swaying very slightly – with the intention of heading to the bar for another bowl and possibly another pint as well. Lancelot, it seems, has a different idea. “Come on. Let’s get you back, shall we?”
“’M happy here, actually.” He tries and fails to fight off the grip Lance has on his arm, and reluctantly allows himself to be steered from the tavern.
In an impressive (for him) display of tact and intelligence, Lance waits until they are outside before playing what he presumably imagines to be his trump card. “Really, Gwaine. You know Merlin will be worried about you.”
Of course, it works somewhat less well than Lance probably hoped it would, in the light of recent circumstances.
“Like fuck he will,” Gwaine mutters, finally yanking himself free. “Merlin doesn’t give a shit where I am or what I do.”
“Of course he does not. That is why he is living with you, is it? Because he does not care about you at all?” Gwaine is too flummoxed to respond to this, because Lance is never sarcastic. It isn’t that Gwaine doesn’t think he deserves sarcasm sometimes (half the time, he knows he deserves far worse), but he was, until this moment, fairly certain Lancelot didn’t know how it worked. He follows when Lance chivvies him in the direction of the castle, but, on reaching a fork at which his room is one way and Lance’s the other, stops.
“Gwaine, I know you have been drinking, but you must know where your room is,” Lancelot tells him, heading to the right, only looking back when he realises Gwaine isn’t following.
“Know where it is. ’M not going there, though. Merlin’s there.”
Lance walks back to join him, his expression one of intense confusion. “Surely that is a good thing, no? I thought you were happy with him.”
“I am. Was. Am.” Gwaine can’t decide which tense he wants to be using. He has been happy with Merlin, and would still be, if Merlin weren’t such an idiot sometimes. “Am,” he announces, finally, with a greater level of certainty. “He said-” He can’t actually believe he’s going to tell Lancelot – the only knight not to have hooked up with at least one person while they’ve been in Camelot and really not the person to ask about relationships, but the only person other than Arthur who knows about Gwaine and Merlin, and there is nothing on earth that could make Gwaine ask Arthur for advice – this, but apparently he is.
“What did he say?”
Okay, he is definitely talking about it, because Lancelot is helpful sometimes and he really wants to complain to someone, but he isn’t doing it here where anyone could walk past. “Can we go somewhere else? Your room?”
Even though Lancelot’s exasperation is almost palpable, he nods, pulling a key from his pocket as they walk down the left fork.
Gwaine is not quite as easy sitting on the floor (Lancelot, having lived a life no less nomadic than Gwaine’s own, hasn’t felt the need to secure extra furniture in the same way the rest of them have, most probably because he rarely has company) by the fire in Lancelot’s room as he would be in his own (were it not occupied by Merlin), but he is comfortable enough. Lancelot seems to have the same aversion to Pendragon colours that he himself has, though Gwaine suspects the reason the room is predominantly yellow is because he likes the colour rather than because he just wanted somewhere to hide from all the red.
“So,” he says, pouring Gwaine a large mug of water and rejecting the single chair in the room to sit on the floor next to him, “What did Merlin say that upset you, then?”
Gwaine knows how stupid a source of misery his next sentence is going to sound, but he says it anyway. “He told me I could sleep with other people.”
Lancelot blinks. “He what?”
Gwaine laughs, despite the fact that he is finding this all so very far from funny, because that was precisely what he thought when Merlin first said it. “Exactly. He, he said, wouldn’t mind if I wanted to go home with other people, or take other people home with me.”
“Right,” Lance replies with a small nod, then looks to be steeling himself for the rest of this conversation. A small part of Gwaine’s brain – the bit that isn’t entirely self-absorbed or obsessed with thoughts of Merlin – pities him a little; he’s pretty sure Lance is regretting volunteering to listen to his complaints, but he’s too good a person to try to back out now. “Do you – and I ask this in the nicest way possible, so please do not get angry with me – do you think he was trying to leave you?”
He isn’t really all that bothered by this assumption, because it was the first thing he thought when Merlin said it. “I asked. He was worried I was bored with him, thought I might like...‘variety’ was the word he used.” He makes a vague attempt at air quotes, lowering his hands quickly when Lancelot flinches at how close they are to his face.
“Okay. What did you do when he said that?”
“Left, obviously. Didn’t want to say something I’d regret.” Lancelot frowns disapprovingly at him, and Gwaine feels the need to be even more honest with him. “And, er...I might have shouted at him. Just a little. He asked where I was going, and I sort of suggested that it wasn’t any of his business.” The weight of Lance’s disapproval becomes too much and he breaks eye contact, staring instead at his feet, stretched out on the rug in front of him.
“You shouted at him and left, without any explanation whatsoever? Did you not think about how that would seem to him?”
Gwaine can quite honestly say that he didn’t, not in the slightest, because he was just a little more concerned with how it all seemed to him. In hindsight, that looks to be a mistake. “He’s going to think I’m with someone else, isn’t he?”
“He might, yes. If you go back now, and explain why you left, he will understand.” Gwaine shakes his head; the full explanation will require him to tell Merlin that he loves him, and he can’t. Or won’t, maybe, but either way the result is the same. Lancelot sighs, softly. “Why not, Gwaine?”
“Same reason you don’t tell Gwen how you feel. Neither of them wants to hear it.” He doesn’t explain that it is literally for the same reason that neither of them wants to know, but it hasn’t escaped his notice, and if he genuinely thought there was some way he could dispose of Arthur without getting caught, he would probably give it a go. As it is, even when out of his mind with drink, there’s no way he can imagine that wouldn’t seriously upset Merlin as well, so it really isn’t an option. “Look,” he says, trying to sound reasonable rather than confrontational, “Can I just stay here tonight, please? I don’t want to see him like this. Or him to see me, I mean. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
Lancelot visibly weighs up the pros and cons of this suggestion before finally standing and opening a cupboard across the room from where Gwaine remains seated. “Fine. You can stay. For tonight only, and you are sleeping on the floor.”
“Didn’t think for a moment that I wouldn’t be,” Gwaine replies, mostly as a joke even though it’s true. He takes a stack of blankets from Lance and, with a greater level of seriousness, adds, “Thank you.”
“You would do the same for me,” Lancelot tells him, honest and determined, and Gwaine knows that for all he criticises Lance – mostly internally, but not always – he would, because when you needed him, Lancelot always came through. “Sleep, now, and you can fix things in the morning.”
He obeys, laying out the blankets on the rug next to the fire and curling up under them, running through the possible ways to explain this to Merlin in his head until sleep takes him.
X
Merlin doesn’t know what it was that he said that upset Gwaine, but he knows something did. He thinks about running after him to apologise, though he knows that an apology won’t cut it with Gwaine unless he knows what he is supposed to be sorry for.
What they have isn’t love. He wishes it was, because being with Gwaine is easy, makes him happy in a way he hasn’t thought possible since Freya died, but it isn’t. The only thing Merlin can say for certain about them is that they are together, exclusively so. And it isn’t like he was lying when he told Gwaine he didn’t want anyone else, not really, because even though he would say yes to anything Arthur asks of him, Arthur won’t ever ask anything of him, and he certainly won’t ask that. With Gwaine, who manages to be reliable despite his best attempts to prove he isn’t, that doesn’t even matter all that much; he has someone to turn to, someone who wants him, and that is so close to being enough that he doesn’t often notice that it isn’t.
Gwaine isn’t used to relationships, though, being with the same person consistently, night after night after night, and they have already lasted far longer than Merlin imagined they might. He thinks – and the thought scares him a little – that Gwaine will grow tired of him soon, move on to someone or someones else, and he really doesn’t think he can handle being alone again. His offer was an entirely selfish one, although not in the way Gwaine thought it was, because the only way he can see to keep Gwaine with him is to let him go a little.
He wonders, as he sits in Gwaine’s room by the fire, counting down the minutes until he has to return to work, where Gwaine has gone. Is he still in the castle, or in the city, or somewhere else entirely? He likes the woods, Merlin knows, says he likes how quiet they are but also how alive. Merlin had laughed when he first said that, and replied that Gwaine just liked all the hiding places they had found out there.
“Well, yes, those too,” Gwaine had answered. “But listen. Close your eyes, stop thinking so hard. Listen.”
Merlin obeys the voice in his memory, even though all he can really hear now is the soft crackle of the fire in its grate, the low hum of people living outside the window. He feels the possessive press of Gwaine’s hand on his side, the warmth of the sun, a soft breeze ruffling his hair. Hears the simple three note melody Gwaine had whistled to him, maybe, or to the woods in general, and senses the moment of stillness before something whistled back. A second bird picked up the tune, and a third, until Merlin understood what he meant by the woods being alive.
He remembers the awe in his voice as he had asked what they were, and the soft happiness in Gwaine’s as he had replied. “Don’t know what they’re called. My brother pointed them out to me when I was a kid. Saw them when we got here, wanted to show off a little. Not magic, I don’t think, or at least not human magic, but they’re really something, aren’t they?”
Merlin opens his eyes slowly, and rises from his chair, walking to the set of drawers at his side of Gwaine’s bed. He opens the second one down, pressing gently on the knot that releases the secret base – Gwaine paid for them to be built for him, because there is no other decent hiding place in the room – and pulls out his book, determined to find some way of recreating sounds from memory before Gwaine comes back. It won’t be an apology, so he won’t need to explain why he is offering it, but it will serve the same purpose.
He turns pages carefully, with the reverence such a text deserves, wondering how long he has, and where Gwaine has gone. He hopes the woods, but chances are he never made it that far. Chances are, Gwaine is drinking.
He pictures Gwaine talking to his friend the barmaid, flirting with her a little, like he usually does. Pictures him going further, catching her by the wrist as she hurries past and whirling her into his arms, whirling them into her bed and not leaving it until morning arrives.
His hand clenches involuntarily at the image and he puts the spell book away, not wanting to damage it. He has no time to waste on silly magics, anyway, when Arthur will be whining about his meal soon enough.
X
Leon is leaving Arthur’s room as Merlin arrives there, murmuring a goodbye, telling the prince of his plans to join the others for a drink or two. “Merlin,” he says in greeting and farewell both, smiling slightly as he holds the door open for him.
Merlin returns it, trying to work out how long he was lost in memories and the magic of mimicry and how much of an apology he owes Arthur for his lateness. He places Arthur’s meal tray on the table before him and closes the curtains on the dark, starless sky outside.
“Is there anything I can do?” he asks, noticing as he does how pale Arthur looks, how the candles by the papers he is working on make the shadows under his eyes seem endless. “Not just my normal stuff, I mean. You look tired.”
“I’m fine, Merlin. Just do your job.” This has the tone of finality that suggests arguing will lead to him being told to shut up, again, but that tone has never stopped him before.
It doesn’t now, either. “Are you sure? I don’t know that you’ve looked this terrible since Morgana.”
Arthur decides against the predicted response, apparently. “And you have never turned up to work looking rumpled and sleepless, have you, Merlin?”
This is certainly far more effective than telling Merlin to shut up, because it actually succeeds in rendering him speechless. He doesn’t know what Arthur means by it – surely he can’t be implying what he seems to be implying? – so he doesn’t really know how to reply. Saying nothing, he decides, is the best course of action, and he banks the fire and lays out Arthur’s nightclothes in silence.
“Thank you,” Arthur says when he is done, putting his papers to one side and pulling what Merlin imagines is now a cold plate of food towards him. “That will be all for today. Go join the others in the tavern; I’m sure that’s where you want to be.”
Merlin doesn’t disagree, because now that Lancelot and Gwaine are around, he is so easily accepted into the camaraderie that the knights share on their evenings out, and with the gentle fizz of alcohol in his blood and a warm bed to go back to, it feels like family. But showing up there only a few hours after telling Gwaine he can find someone else if he wants to isn’t what he wants to do. He doesn’t want to know if Gwaine picks someone else, doesn’t want to know who they are.
He doesn’t want to picture all the girls he has seen making eyes at Gwaine, all the men who have smiled casually at him across the room, the look in their eyes as lustful as that in Gwaine’s own. He doesn’t want to see the faces of everyone he has watched Gwaine walk out with in the past, before they were together, as he bids Arthur goodnight and makes his way to Gwaine’s room. Merlin hates feeling like he should knock before opening the door, even though he knows Gwaine would never bring someone back to the bed they share without warning him.
The images don’t leave him, though, as he sits fully clothed on the bed with his feet curled under him. It probably won’t be the barmaid, he thinks, because as much as Gwaine loves risking his life for little reason, he is not likely to do so for a woman. He wonders if Gwaine has chosen someone Merlin knows by name, someone Merlin will talk to in the days to come and hear about the night they spent with him, as he occasionally would before. He wonders if they are male or female, tall or short, slender or curved, beautiful or plain. He wonders if Gwaine is comparing them to him in his mind as he does whatever he does with them, if he will decide he likes them better after all.
It will be a woman, he thinks, after so long of just being with a man. Not too tall, or too thin, with big breasts, wide hips, and long blonde hair. She will be beautiful and willing, because who isn’t willing when Gwaine propositions them. Gwaine will tell her a joke, and he will find her laugh glorious, enchanting. She will let him charm her; persuade her into leaving the tavern and her friends and inviting him back to her chambers. The story Merlin is telling himself makes his stomach churn in a way that has him grateful he missed dinner, but he can’t stop. He can see it all playing out, like he’s standing in the room watching them; the way she blushes as Gwaine undresses her, the way his eyes light up when he sees her naked, all the ways Gwaine finds to entwine their bodies, keeping them both awake long into the night.
He wonders why the hell he thought telling Gwaine he didn’t mind was a good idea, why he ever thought for a second that he wouldn’t mind.
Mostly, though, Merlin just wonders how he is going to take it back without losing Gwaine entirely.
X
His musings and unpleasantly detailed imaginings are eventually interrupted by a gentle tapping, as though whoever is there isn’t sure he won’t be asleep and doesn’t want to wake him if he is. He is most definitely awake, though, and very grateful for the distraction of a visitor, even if – he realises this as he opens the door, which, really, is just a moment too late – they are looking for Gwaine and will be surprised to find Merlin in his room.
Fortunately, it is Lancelot there and he is not in the least surprised that it is Merlin who lets him in. “Gwaine isn’t here,” he tells him, slightly unnecessarily, as he returns to his perch on the bed and indicates a chair to Lance. “Or was it me you were looking for?”
“You,” he answers. “I know where he is.”
Merlin doesn’t want to hear it, beyond a doubt, but he asks anyway. He aims for a noncommittal look as he does so, but thinks he falls quite a long way short. “Oh?”
“Yes. I left him asleep, in my room.”
“Y-your room?” He has never known himself to stutter before, but if ever there was a time to begin, it would be finding out that your lover, offered the choice of anyone in the city, picks a mutual friend to sleep with. “You?”
The images of Gwaine and an improbably beautiful blonde woman vanish instantly from the corner of his mind to which he has banished them, replaced by alarmingly clear ones of Gwaine and Lancelot, doing everything Gwaine does with Merlin, everything that makes Merlin feel alive. He is so very glad he is sitting down right now, otherwise he knows he would end up on his arse, adding embarrassment and physical pain to the nausea he is currently suffering from. He claps his hand over his mouth, as if that will help hold everything he is feeling inside; it does little to control the jealousy, the anger, the feeling of betrayal, but it does leave him feeling slightly less like he is about to throw up. The way the air crackles slightly around him helps as well, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end, his magic coming out instinctively to protect him from whatever danger he is facing.
It isn’t that he is jealous that is new to him, because he has been jealous of every girl Arthur has fallen for, with or without magical assistance. But that he feels like Gwaine has disappointed him, been unfaithful, even though he hasn’t? That is something unfamiliar and entirely unpleasant. Merlin said he didn’t mind if Gwaine slept with other people and, regardless of the fact that he now realises that isn’t true, he can’t consider it to be a betrayal that Gwaine took him up on the suggestion. The lies, though, they hurt; Gwaine said that he didn’t feel anything for Lancelot, that he didn’t sleep with his friends, deliberately gave Merlin the impression that he was an exception.
And Lancelot, who has been Merlin’s friend since he first saved his life all those years ago. Lancelot, who Merlin has told everything to, who knows every single secret Merlin has but one, who has heard all the twisted ins and outs of this thing he has with Gwaine. Lancelot should know better.
Lancelot, he realises, as the crackling turns to the odd visible spark, should really be elsewhere, because as angry as Merlin is with him right now, he will regret doing anything to hurt him. Lancelot should not be rising from his chair and walking towards Merlin, his expression one of concern and compassion.
“Merlin? Are you-” he begins, worrying close.
“Am I what?” Merlin replies, loud enough to hear himself over the pounding of blood in his ears. “Hurt? Angry? Currently trying not to hurt you?”
“Why? Do you think that I did something with him?” The tone of shock with which Lancelot replies is enough to make Merlin question this assumption.
“You mean you didn’t?” he asks, more confused than anything else, because why would Gwaine be sleeping in Lancelot’s room if not because they had been together?
“No, Merlin, I did not.” Lance is no less offended by what Merlin has said than Gwaine was earlier, but at least he goes on to explain why. “Aside from the fact that I am not in the least attracted to him, Gwaine is your – to be honest, I have no idea what you two are, but I am beginning to think that perhaps it is not healthy – regardless, he is yours, so even if I did want him I would not act on it.”
This is something that Merlin knew already, something that should have been obvious to him; of course it should, because look how hard Gwaine had to try to get Lance to make a move on Gwen so many months ago, and almost everyone knows that he loves her. There is no reason for Merlin to think that Lance would ever do anything with Gwaine. “Sorry,” he mumbles, genuinely contrite. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“Believe it or not, I had already worked that out.” Lance sighs, and then sits carefully next to Merlin. “I came here so you would not be worrying about where he was. He was in the tavern when we got there, getting increasingly drunk and miserable. I bought him a bowl of stew and tried to get him to come back here. He would not, so I took him back to my room and gave him a stack of blankets and a place by the fire. Nothing more than that happened, and neither of us would have wanted it to.”
“He might,” Merlin replies, but does so quietly. “Did he tell you what I said to him?”
“Yes. Further evidence of your lack of thought, I believe.”
Merlin wraps his arms around his knees and stares at the hole in his left sock through which his big toe is poking. “I really didn’t think it would bother me this much. Otherwise I wouldn’t have suggested it.”
The hand Lancelot places on his shoulder is, whilst comforting, also a demand to look at him. Merlin obeys, and so sees the stern expression Lance wears as he asks his next question. “And did you consider how much it would bother him?”
Merlin’s expression alone is clearly answer enough, since Lance sighs again and the stern expression on his face melts into a sad one. “Gwaine has not been that drunk since the pair of you started this thing you have. Nor, I believe, has he done anything to suggest he wants anyone other than you. Has he?”
Merlin shakes his head. “No, he hasn’t. He still flirts, a little, but he doesn’t mean it, I don’t think. It’s just who he is. But...he’s never shown signs of wanting a relationship before. Of everyone who has come before me, I don’t see why he...I’m no one special. I’m just Merlin. If it was my magic, I’d understand, but he doesn’t even like me using it when we’re together.” That, if he is correctly interpreting Lance’s expression, is crossing the line into things that should not be shared, at all, ever, particularly not with an alarmingly straight friend, so he follows that tangent with the truth, whole and nothing but. “I am scared,” he says, and hears the raw honesty in his voice, “That he will see who I am, how selfish I really am, and he will leave.”
Of all the reactions he could have imagined Lancelot having to that sentence, laughter was really not one of them, but it is the reaction he has. Not cruel laughter, certainly, but laughter none the less. “That, Merlin, is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. For one, you are about the furthest thing from selfish I know of. For another, pushing Gwaine away is not the best way to keep him from leaving you, is it? Idiot,” he concludes, almost fondly.
Merlin sob-laughs, because he is, he knows he is. In love with one of his best friends, sleeping with another, seeking advice from a third, to whom he is only willing to tell half the story; idiocy is the only kind – if slightly inadequate – description of his actions. “Yeah,” he says softly, “Yeah, I know that. Sorry.”
Lancelot stands and squeezes Merlin’s shoulder once before letting go. “It is fine, Merlin. Just try not to do it again. Or at least deal with him yourself if you do. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
X
Gwaine wakes, unhappily, at some despicable time in the morning; on top of all his other numerous faults (or virtues, really, but Gwaine, due to the pounding in his head and the residual stiffness from sleeping on the floor, is not feeling particularly charitable today), it seems that Lance is also a morning person. He isn’t even one of the nice morning people who are content to be awake and go about their business quietly, but one of the noisy ones who think that because they are happy to be facing another day, so should everyone else be. Gwaine grumbles incoherently under his breath and pulls his blanket over his head in the hope of getting a few more minutes of sleep, only to be denied it in the cruelest way possible.
“Sorry,” Lance says, and if it were anyone else Gwaine would suspect them of insincerity. “I did not intend to wake you.”
That being the case, Gwaine thinks, Lance should really have known better than to say anything on realising that he was awake. Still, he throws back the blanket and sits up, not quite caring enough to attempt a smile but willing to bend the truth a little. “It’s alright, mate. Not like I sleep any later usually, what with Merlin having to be up at dawn. Don’t normally have the headache, but...you had breakfast yet?”
“No, I thought I would wait for you.”
Gwaine isn’t entirely sure if that is kindness on Lance’s part or just a reluctance to leave him unaccompanied in his room, but he thanks him anyway. “You go, and I’ll catch you up,” he adds. “I want to get changed first.” He picks up his belt and knife from the spot he placed them in beside his blankets before falling asleep, then stands and collects his boots from by the door, though doesn’t put then on – he’ll only take them off again when he reaches his own room to change.
They walk silently through the halls until such time as their paths split. Lance seems content to leave him without speaking, but Gwaine calls him back quietly. “How was he?” he asks, and Lancelot has the good manners not to pretend he doesn’t understand.
“Upset, though slightly better when I told him all you did was drink and fall asleep on my floor.” Lancelot rolls his eyes, then smiles (though Gwaine would call a smirk if it was attached to anyone else). “He also seemed to be under the impression that you have feelings for me.”
“Still?” Gwaine shakes his head. “You know he’s wrong, don’t you? I mean, it’s not that I don’t like you, but, really, no.”
“I did not think for a moment that you did.” Lance says, smiling in a way that says he remembers Gwaine using almost the exact same words yesterday, in a very similar context. “It is not me who needs convincing of that.”
“Thought I’d convinced him already. But thanks, mate. For telling him, and just for going to check on him.” Gwaine walks away before he can hear the inevitable, ridiculous response; that Lance was just acting out of concern for his friends, that anyone would have done the same, that he really doesn’t merit gratitude.
X
Merlin rushes through his morning duties, determined to find Gwaine before he has to attend to Arthur on the training field. He doesn’t know what the words he will use to explain himself are, but he knows that it will be better to say them sooner rather than later and, if at all possible, without an audience. Arthur frowns each time he does something with more haste than is wise, but, thanks to the fact that he no longer needs to hide his magic from him, Merlin is able to rectify any errors before they become disastrous.
“Do you have somewhere else to be, Merlin?” Arthur asks – as pompous as ever, but with the undercurrent of affection Merlin has learnt to notice only by its absence – when Merlin has his magic make the bed in only seconds rather than the minutes it takes to do it by hand.
“Yes,” he answers, because Arthur will know a denial for the lie it is and make up extra tasks for him out of pure spite. “I’ll see you outside,” he adds, and departs before Arthur has the chance to object.
Merlin knows from Lance’s first stay in the city that, even when hungover – which he is pretty certain he won’t be, since he didn’t sound at all tipsy last night – he is an early riser, and Gwaine sleeps too lightly not to have woken at the same time as him. Because of this, it is now too late to catch him in Lance’s room, and too early still for them to have finished breakfast. He knows as well that Gwaine rarely returns to his room between eating and heading out to the field, so the chances of catching him there are minimal; Merlin’s best bet, it seems, is to lurk outside the knights’ mess hall and grab Gwaine as he leaves.
A quick peek through the door shows Gwaine to be sitting between Lancelot and Leon, a mostly empty plate in front of him. Merlin might have waved in an attempt to get his attention, but Leon happens to glance up before he can, so he ducks back out of sight and settles for waiting.
His attempt to hide proves futile, though, because Gwaine walks out the door mere moments later, a slice of bread in one hand. “Leon said you were out here,” he says between bites. “You eaten yet?”
“Yes, I got breakfast from the kitchen.” Merlin takes a deep breath before his next words. “Look, Gwaine, I’m s-”
“Don’t be. Might’ve overreacted a little, anyway.” Gwaine shrugs. “Hardly grown up, was it, storming out like that. Lance said he came to see you, told you where I was.”
“Yeah, he did.” Before Merlin can elaborate further (or make a second attempt at his apology, and provide the explanation for it), the door opens and a couple of the other knights – the ones too highborn to pay much attention to a servant, and thus not anyone whose name Merlin is aware of – emerge. He waits until they have rounded the corner, then takes Gwaine’s free hand and leads him in the opposite direction to an oh-so-convenient alcove (possibly one of the many he has hidden in before, but just as possibly not). With two of them there, it isn’t the roomiest of hiding places, but it’s not like they aren’t used to being so close together.
Merlin directs his next words to their joined hands, concentrating on the way Gwaine has laced their fingers together, the gesture of commitment coming so easily, almost instinctively. “I take it back,” he says, so quiet he half expects Gwaine not to hear him.
“Take what back?” he asks, brushing his thumb over the back of Merlin’s hand in what is presumably supposed to be a calming gesture. Merlin has to look at him then, untwining their hands, needing to be free of the comfort such contact offers, because if he doesn’t say this now, he will so easily not say it at all.
“I would mind,” Merlin tells him.
Gwaine smiles, wide and honest. “Oh? Would you now?”
Merlin feels like he has to justify this, somehow explain it, so that they can be entirely free of misunderstandings, at least for today. “I wasn’t lying when I said I wouldn’t, because I really thought I’d be fine with it. But then I said it, and you left and...I wasn’t.” He braces himself slightly before finishing. “I don’t want you to be with other people.”
“That’s a shame,” Gwaine answers, smile no smaller, and entirely audible in his voice. “See, I had my heart set on chasing Lancelot until he gave in, and now you aren’t going to let me.”
Merlin feels his cheeks redden at this comment, then get even hotter as Gwaine laughs at his blush. “Lance told you what I thought?”
“Not so much.” Gwaine is still gleeful, apparently much more amused than the last time Merlin accused him of liking Lancelot. “He just suggested I make it plain to you that I have no feelings for him whatsoever. Thought I already had, to be honest, but seeing as you didn’t get it then, I’ll say it again now. I don’t want Lance. Never have, never will. We clear on that?”
“Yeah, okay. Sorry.” Merlin doesn’t resist when Gwaine takes his hand again, brushing calloused fingers across his knuckles; he has said what he had to, and Gwaine seems happy with it. Some stupid concerned part of him wants to make sure, though. “Are you really okay with this, us? You and me, just you and me?”
“Merlin, lo-ook, mate, if I didn’t want a relationship with you, I wouldn’t be here, would I?” He holds their joined hands up between their faces, squeezing gently. “This is good, isn’t it? Why would I go looking for more?”
Merlin doesn’t really have any words to follow that, but, if Gwaine’s reaction is any indication, leaning down to press their lips together is more than answer enough.
It isn’t love, he thinks, as Gwaine presses him back into the wall, their hands roaming with easy familiarity. It isn’t love, but it’s good.
X
Gwaine is, inevitably, late for training. He sees Lance shake his head at him when he arrives, slightly dishevelled and quite possibly grinning like a loon. Arthur glares, but says nothing, not even when Merlin arrives a few minutes later, looking a little more put together but not much.
X
“Gwaine?” Merlin asks him a week or so later, when they are still within the period of slightly cautious bliss that comes at the end of an argument, even a short one. This thing they have, whatever it is, seems less fragile now, Gwaine thinks, even if Merlin doesn’t know fully how he feels (despite Lance telling Gwaine repeatedly that he should). And maybe, maybe, Merlin is still casting the occasional long, lingering and hopeless glance at Arthur, but still; Gwaine knew this was how things would be, and it is more than he ever thought to hope for.
“Hmm?” he responds in a slightly distracted manner, continuing to fold Arthur’s freshly laundered shirts (honestly, he doesn’t even fold his own clothing, and then he befriends Merlin – his patheticness started long before they began sleeping together – and suddenly he is doing domestic chores for the prince. Well, for Merlin, and he did offer to help, but really?) Then he looks up to see that Merlin has stopped whatever he was doing and is staring at Gwaine with a deeply serious expression.
He quells his immediate reaction, one of slightly irrational panic that Merlin is going to say something else accidentally hurtful (a fear he has never really had before, because this is the longest he has been monogamous in more years than he cares to admit – and shame with regards to his pre-Merlin promiscuity is fairly new to him as well – and he has never actually had feelings before), instead managing a smile, just. “What is it?”
“Have you – and don’t get offended by this, or angry, please,” this is hardly inspiring confidence in Gwaine, to be honest. “Have you ever thought about going home?”
While Merlin is pretty damn odd, he probably isn’t odd enough to manage to turn this into something that will upset him, Gwaine thinks, in the brief time it takes for Merlin’s question to sink in. When it does, Gwaine is confused, mostly, and entirely unsure how he should be feeling about it. A fact that Merlin seems to realise, because he comes over to Gwaine, walking around Arthur’s bed and taking the half-folded shirt from him before placing a kind hand on his.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by asking. I was just thinking about my mother, and Ealdor, and then about how none of you – Arthur’s knights, I mean – none of you ever talk about your homes or families, really.” Merlin looks down at him, so sincere and a little sad.
Gwaine knows that his reply, “No, I don’t,” is terse, almost snapped, so he pulls Merlin into a hug that he hopes makes up for his tone of voice, just for a minute. Then he pushes him back, smiling, and takes back the shirt he’d been folding, saying, “Come on, then. I’m not doing your job all on my own here.”
X
That wasn’t really even a lie, anyway, because up until Merlin mentioned it, Gwaine never thought of going home. Occasionally, yes, he thinks of his mother, and his brothers, or, when his mind is feeling particularly treacherous, his father, but only in passing. It’s been so long since he left home, and he stopped missing them years ago.
Only now, he can’t stop. He thinks about the best time to travel, the route he’d take to get there. About what he’d take as gifts, and whether he’d wear full Camelot regalia or if he’d just go as himself; ragged, errant, prodigal son.
It is only when, one market day in the middle of the unseasonably warm autumn (a solid accompaniment to the despicably hot summer they have just endured), he finds himself fingering a fine silver bracelet and replying to Elyan’s joking question about if he has a sweetheart with, “Was thinking about it for my mother, actually,” that he realises he is seriously planning on going home.
He thinks, just briefly, about asking Merlin to come with him, but he won’t. He knows, without even asking, what he will say; Gwaine knows his place, both in Camelot and in Merlin’s heart, and it will always be behind Arthur.
X
Still, just because he knows Merlin won’t come with him (and, much as he loves both Merlin and his family, he isn’t entirely sure he wants them to meet, anyway. Particularly seeing as he thinks Merlin’s desire for secrecy will probably extend to them as well, and he really doesn’t think that’s something he could keep from his mother, even with years of separation between them) it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have to find some way to tell him. Which he isn’t sure how to do. He loves Merlin, but he is a little concerned with how Merlin will get on without him.
This sounds arrogant, Gwaine knows, especially since, seen from Merlin’s side, they are nothing more than an arrangement of convenience, even if they are friends. But Gwaine helps Merlin with his work (not that Merlin couldn’t do it far quicker with magic, if he wanted to) and he puts up with his feet dragging him places all the time. He is there when Merlin wants to talk about anything or nothing, and when Merlin has just got another ridiculous and/or heart-wrenching request from Arthur and just needs somewhere to escape to.
Gwaine loves Merlin, yes, but Merlin needs him.
This is what brings Gwaine to his current situation: talking to Lancelot. In itself, this is not usually such a chore, because once you get past the sappy, self-sacrificing nature and the slight dimness, Lance is an excellent bloke (and he’s always on Merlin’s side, which is enough to make up for at least a couple of his annoying character traits). This conversation, though, is about Gwaine’s feelings and, stone cold sober, usually Gwaine would be looking all over for an excuse to escape, but he can’t because he bloody well started it.
“So what you are saying is that you are going to see your family and you want me to keep an eye on your boyfriend when you are gone?” Lancelot says, when Gwaine has mostly explained the situation.
“Uh, sort of,” Gwaine replies. “But not how you’re making it sound. I just need to know someone’s there for him if things get too much and he needs someone to talk to, and seeing as you know pretty much all of his secrets...” He trails off, knowing he must just sound weirdly overprotective, because Lance is in possession of most of but not quite all the facts.
“Has it not occurred you to ask Merlin to go with you?” His voice is slow, bordering on patronising, prompting a glare from Gwaine.
“Of course it has. He wouldn’t come, though; he’d stay to protect Arthur.” Gwaine does not sound jealous, even if Lance is looking at him in sympathy.
It doesn’t last, anyway; his sympathy rapidly seems to morph into some kind of exasperated pity. “And you have not told him. Maybe if he knew you-”
“Shut it, Lance,” Gwaine hisses, because whilst this is a sufficiently private place to discuss looking out for Merlin, he will not have his feelings for him discussed anywhere where they might be overheard. “I’m not telling him, and I’m not having this conversation with you again.”
Lance snarls back (this in itself is scarier than it should be, primarily because Lance does not snarl, and Gwaine has to wonder just how much of a bad influence moving to Camelot permanently has been on him), equally quietly, at least. “Yes, you are, Gwaine. Tell him or you’ll keep having this conversation until you do. I might not be head over heels like you are, but he is my friend and I will not let you keep hurting him like this. Neither of you are really happy with the way things are, are you? He makes stupid suggestions that upset you because he does not know how you feel. And you did not see how sad he was when he thought you would leave him. That you would keep from him the one thing that would reassure him is not right.”
In Gwaine’s experience, nothing is truly right or wrong, and he is somewhat surprised that Lance, after the life he has lived, can argue that it is. He wants to tell him so, but that would require more explanation than he is willing to give, more than he is free to give; just because his vows are nothing more than blood and words, it does not mean he will willingly be forsworn. Besides, even if he isn’t the bad guy here, even if there is no bad guy, what they are doing is hardly all that fair on either of them.
But he can’t just let Lancelot carry on like this; he has to say something in his defence. He won’t tell Merlin that he loves him, because he knows exactly what will happen if he does. Merlin still loves Arthur and because of that, he won’t allow himself to be with someone who loves him. “Look, Lance. If I tell him, he will end this. Best case scenario, he pretends nothing has changed, even though we both know it has. He’ll start thinking carefully about how I’ll feel before telling me anything, then stop bothering to tell me anything at all. We won’t be whatever it is we are now; we won’t even be friends, just two people who fuck sometimes. And then eventually even that will end, and we’ll both be miserable and alone. Is that what you want?”
Lancelot isn’t even bordering on sympathetic or pitying now. He is just angry, and Gwaine is shocked by just how much this hurts him; he thought, just a little, that Lance might be on his side, or at least capable of seeing his side. “Merlin deserves better than you,” he says, and Gwaine can hear just how much he believes that to be true. “He deserves someone who trusts him, someone willing to tell him they love him. So you will tell him, and soon. Yes, I will watch over him while you’re gone, but not for you. If he does not know by the time you leave, I will spend your whole absence telling him to end this.”
He pauses, as if to allow Gwaine the chance to be a good person and agree to ‘fessing up to Merlin. Gwaine doesn’t, though, because he is happy now, Merlin is happy now and it might not be all down to him but it is in part, and he won’t let Lance take that away. “No, you can’t. Merlin,” Gwaine hears the way his voice breaks on the name, betraying everything he wants to keep secret, and he isn’t angry at Lance anymore, not at all, only at himself and the number of times his conversations with Lancelot end with Gwaine begging him to stay quiet about this. “Merlin needs this. Please, Lance, don’t.”
The pity is back in Lance’s eyes, more painful than the anger still staining his face and voice. Not even tempered by compassion or friendship, it is nothing more than the dispassionate emotion one feels for a bug just before standing on it. “And you do not, right? You get nothing from this dalliance you two have? Tell him, Gwaine. Tell him, or I will.”
It is only when Lance has stormed off that Gwaine sees Merlin watching calmly, cautiously. His stomach tenses for a moment, but Merlin would be neither calm nor curious if he knew all of what he and Lance had been discussing. Gwaine relaxes, smiles at Merlin, and leaves before he can ask any of his questions.
X
“I need to talk to you, Merlin.”
Merlin has been expecting this for a while. Ever since he heard Lancelot and Gwaine arguing in near-whispers, an argument that ended, “You tell him, or I will,” he’s been waiting for this.
He didn’t catch any more of the argument than that, but he didn’t have to; there are only two people that they could be talking about, and Lance would never threaten to tell something of Gwaine’s to Arthur. Most days, it’s all Lancelot can do to look him in the face, let alone spill another man’s secrets; the idiot still feels guilty. And seeing as he isn’t going to tell anything to Arthur, he must be planning on telling it to Merlin.
Still, just because Merlin has anticipated the conversation, it doesn’t mean he isn’t going to put it off as long as possible. He isn’t even sure what it’s about, but nothing good ever starts with I need to talk to you, and if it’s something Gwaine doesn’t want him to know, Merlin doesn’t want to hear it. He owes him that much, at least.
“Can’t it wait ‘til later, Lancelot?” he says. “Only I’m kind of busy now.”
Lance looks disgruntled, but allows it. “Later, then. It really is important.”
X
He gets away with flimsy excuses for a few days, at least until Lance works out what he’s doing and offers to talk while Merlin works. He doesn’t even know why Lance wants to talk to him so desperately, only that he doesn’t want to hear it. Instead of lying and running, Merlin just summons Gwaine, even though he knows how much he hates that.
Lance glares at Merlin when Gwaine pops up, but doesn’t say anything, nodding at Gwaine before he stalks away.
“What was that about?” Gwaine asks, and Merlin doesn’t need magic to tell he’s only pretending not to know.
“Dunno,” Merlin replies, and smiles easily. “I thought it might be something you’d want to hear. Apparently it wasn’t all that important.”
X
“Sir Gwaine,” Arthur calls at the end of training a few days after Gwaine’s confrontation with Lancelot, and Gwaine winces; whatever the prince wants, it cannot possibly be good if he feels the need to begin with a title. “I wish to speak to you.”
Rather than following the others as they head back to the castle, Gwaine walks reluctantly towards Arthur, arriving in time to hear him firmly dismiss Merlin. “Little harsh,” he states, not making the slightest bit of effort to sound non-judgemental, as he watches the dejected slope of Merlin’s shoulders as he walks away.
“Since it has recently come to my attention that you spent a night with Sir Lancelot a couple of weeks ago, I hardly think you are in any position to be expressing concern for Merlin’s welfare.”
Gwaine knows, he really does, that the best response in this situation is to be honest and tell Arthur that, despite it being absolutely none of his business what Gwaine does, nothing happened. If he wants to stay in the city – and he does, mostly, or at least wants to have the opportunity of returning if he leaves – that is what he should be saying. As it is, though, he can only think of one thing to say.
“How? How can you possibly know that?”
Even as he asks, he’s aware that Arthur isn’t going to answer him. No, Arthur is just going to stand there entirely ignoring the fact that Gwaine has just asked a question as he waits for him to come up with some sort of explanation. Gwaine knows he can win a battle of egos against most men (though whether or not that’s a good thing is an entirely different matter), but challenging Arthur is going a little too far. The prince is a good man, yes, but he is proud, and Merlin is trying steadily to convince Gwaine to stay away from fights he isn’t going to win. It’s not a lesson he’s learning easily, because knowing for certain that you aren’t going to lose takes half the fun out of it, but this time...
“Fine, then,” he says. “However you found that out, you must also know that Lance went to talk to Merlin in my room far too soon after we entered his room for anything to have gone on between us, even if either of us had wanted it to.” Arthur’s expression is enough to confirm that he does indeed know that, but it also tells Gwaine that this is not reason enough for him to be let off the hook, so he continues. “By the time he left, I was asleep on his floor and he was telling Merlin that I was fine, just a little bit drunk, and that we could fix the argument we’d had in the morning. Which we did, not that that is any of your concern.”
“Merlin is entirely my concern, as are all of my other subjects.” Arthur answers, crisp and without inflection, and it really isn’t something Gwaine can stand hearing.
“You can’t even admit that he’s your friend, can you? Even knowing everything he risks for you, you won’t say it.” He makes an effort to hide his disgust at some of the things he sees in the city, for Merlin’s sake, but Merlin isn’t here right now and Arthur deserves it, he really does. “If I were him, I’d have let you die years ago.”
He knows he wouldn’t of course, because if what Merlin feels for Arthur is anything like what Gwaine feels for Merlin, there is no way Gwaine, in Merlin’s place, could let Arthur die, ever. It feels good to say it anyway, to see the expression on Arthur’s face, something that looks very close to actual hurt. He imagines the consequences will feel nowhere near as good, but seeing as Merlin apparently requires his presence very urgently, he gets to avoid them for the moment.
Even though he knows how very stupid it is, Gwaine takes his abrupt departure as opportunity to add, “And Lancelot and me? Are you blind or just really thick?”
Arthur is too confused or maybe just too shocked to demand Gwaine return as he walks away, not that he could have done so if he had.
X
Despite his gratitude for the interruption, Gwaine begins composing a speech in his head about how some time he might actually be in the middle of doing something important when Merlin summons him, or talking to someone who requires an explanation before allowing him to hurry off. A speech that vanishes entirely from his brain when he sees Merlin and Lancelot standing in an alcove down the corridor from Gaius’ work room, the latter looking very serious and the former desperately searching for some way to escape.
He can tell the exact second when each of them see him; Merlin looks relieved, the emotion painted all over his face, whilst Lance, nodding at him in a way that says you win this time, leaves. Gwaine feigns ignorance, and pretends to be mollified by Merlin’s reasons for playing puppeteer, trying instead to work out if Merlin knows he’s lying.
Mostly, though, he wonders why Merlin doesn’t want to talk to Lance. He doesn’t ask him, but he wonders, because, knowing what the conversation is about, Gwaine knows why Merlin wouldn’t want to have it.
He thinks, briefly, that Merlin might already know how he feels, might know and be pretending not to so he can carry on with things the way they are, in which case, Lance telling him would force him to end the relationship. This is too cold, though, too calculating for Merlin, who spends his time agonising over every difficult decision he makes (Merlin told him, recently, that he questions whether Morgana would never have turned out evil if he hadn’t poisoned her, if all that happened is really Merlin’s fault. Gwaine could do nothing, say nothing, except hold Merlin closer and tighter and tell him that what he did was right. He didn’t say that it wasn’t his fault, because he can’t lie to him, not even if he wants to, and he just didn’t know).
No, Merlin doesn’t know, and Gwaine will do his best to keep it that way.
X
Merlin moans as Arthur’s hands skim across his stomach, thumbs tracing patterns only he can decipher, meaningless swirls and curves and lines that leave Merlin’s skin feeling like fire. He bites his lower lip as Arthur’s tongue leaves similar shapes on his neck, tilting his head to one side to allow him easier access, more room to work with. Arthur moves his mouth away, just slightly, breath ghosting on Merlin’s neck, raising goosebumps partly from cold, partly pleasure, entirely a sensation Merlin loves and
“Open your eyes,” Gwaine whispers, mouth just south of Merlin’s left earlobe.
Merlin flinches, not even sure how Gwaine knew they were closed, guilt washing through his body to sit heavy in his stomach. He freezes, even as Gwaine’s hands continue roaming and he draws back to look at Merlin’s face, directly into his now very open eyes. “I...” Merlin begins, knowing only that he should say something, but having no idea what.
“Don’t,” Gwaine tells him, softly and with an emotion Merlin can’t interpret. He would say fear, almost, but Gwaine is the very antithesis of fear. “Don’t explain. I understand.” He moves steadily closer, until his lips are almost brushing Merlin’s, and Merlin wants so much to close that distance, but the weight inside of him tells him he can’t, won’t, mustn’t, until Gwaine is finished talking. “Tonight,” he says slowly, each syllable punctuated by a brush of his thumbs on Merlin’s hipbones, “Just tonight, stay with me.”
It takes an age for Gwaine to close the gap between their lips, and even then it is barely anything more than mere contact. Merlin opens his mouth slightly, just as slowly, and knows that Gwaine reads it as it is intended; apology, agreement, acceptance.
He wants to ask why. Why tonight, why only tonight, why has Gwaine never said anything before? But he knows the answers already; he has no need to hear Gwaine say them. This has to do with the secret Lancelot knows and thinks Merlin should as well, and whatever it is, Gwaine is scared of Merlin knowing it.
Merlin doesn’t comment when Gwaine holds him hard enough to leave bruises, doesn’t breathe a word about the air of desperation with which they move. He doesn’t acknowledge the dampness on his shoulder where Gwaine pillows his head afterwards, doesn’t close his own eyes until Gwaine is fast asleep beside him.
Merlin isn’t even sure he blinks before then.
X
Over the next week or two, Gwaine keeps a close eye on Merlin, going along almost happily when his feet walk him over to interrupt Lance, watching carefully enough that he is there before required sometimes. He is glad, truly, that Lance is scared away just by his being there; much as he wants Merlin to know the truth, apparently Lance is only willing to reveal it in the absence of Gwaine.
After those weeks, Lance seems to back off, and Gwaine is too busy feeling lucky about the reprieve – using it to think up ways to tell Merlin he’s leaving for a few weeks, and ways to convince Lance to keep his freaking mouth shut – to realise how suspicious this is after how persistent Lance was.
It is his complacency that is to blame for what happens, and Lancelot’s pigheaded refusal to listen to Gwaine (who isn’t always right, and will readily admit it, but is not wrong about this). It is not Merlin’s fault.
Not that anyone listens to him when he tells them this.
X
Lancelot smarts up pretty quickly when neither Gwaine nor Merlin show any sign of being willing to let him talk to Merlin alone.
Of course, Merlin doesn’t realise this; he just thinks (in retrospect, he’s just a little bit too optimistic) that Lance has given up, or that Gwaine has succeeded in convincing him not to tell Merlin whatever it is he wants to tell him.
And then Gwen attacks.
Well, no, she doesn’t. Merlin has a hard time imagining Gwen attacking anyone; she’s just too nice. Still, she is so much better at confrontations than Lancelot is, and it’s not like anyone is anticipating her being a problem.
Although, for that matter, Merlin cannot imagine how Lance worked up the courage to talk to her, because he hasn’t been near her without the presence of a chaperone in months. But clearly this is important enough for him to risk Merlin’s wrath, which only further convinces Merlin he doesn’t want to know what this is all about (even if he’s more than a little curious by now).
“Hello, Merlin,” she says, sweet as ever. “Lancelot says he’s got something he needs to talk to you about, but you keep running away or getting Gwaine when he tries.” Merlin looks at her blankly, and she falters a little. “Not that you aren’t allowed to not want to talk to him, but he swears you really need to listen.”
“I’m sure he does, Gwen, but I’m busy at the moment. You know the king is getting worse; Arthur has so much more to do, and I have to help him as much as possible.” This, whilst not strictly a lie, is not exactly the truth either. Yes, Uther is steadily going nutty as squirrel poop (something Hunith has always been fond of saying), and yes, Merlin does have more work than normal, but it is because he wants to do more, not because he’s been asked to, and he still has time to talk to people.
“Don’t lie, Merlin. If you wanted to talk to him, you would make time. I know you have magic, Arthur told me, so you could do everything far faster than you do now.” This isn’t as much of a revelation as Merlin would have first assumed it would be; Arthur tells Gwen anything he wants to, and Merlin isn’t fool enough to think that just because a secret isn’t Arthur’s to share, Arthur isn’t going to share it.
Gwen sighs. “Lancelot wouldn’t tell me what it was about, but he looked really worried. And you know he wouldn’t talk to me if it wasn’t necessary.” She flushes, only realising when she’s finished her sentence what she’s making reference to, then feels the need to explain it. “And, Merlin, you know that won’t happen again, don’t you? I really do love Arthur.”
The sincerity in that sentence makes Merlin want to cry; he does know it won’t happen again, and not only because Lancelot is shit-scared of Merlin’s revenge if he was to do anything with her. Gwen – however she might feel for Lancelot – loves Arthur, almost as much as Merlin does – well, she may actually love him more, but Merlin doesn’t think so (no, that is a lie; he doesn’t want to think so, because no one ever wants to think it possible for someone to love more than they do) – and she’s no more likely to hurt Arthur than Merlin is.
It is because he knows how sincere she is, this girl – woman – who will be queen and yet does not even think to give commands, that Merlin smiles and says, “Yeah, okay. I’ll talk to him.”
She pats him on the arm, then goes back to work with nothing more than a soft, “Thank you, Merlin. Thank you.”
X
Merlin doesn’t like to lie, and he doesn’t like to go back on his word. It is more for this reason that he seeks Lancelot out than it is because Gwen has managed to convince him. And he does actively seek him out, because if he’s going to have this conversation he really doesn’t want to have, he’s going to have it on his own terms.
He contemplates summoning Lancelot to the stables (his work place for the afternoon), as he would if it was Gwaine he wanted to talk to, but he decides against it; Gwaine is tolerantly amused by Merlin magically dragging him to and fro, but Lancelot probably won’t be. Besides, it feels somewhat disloyal, and it is easier to ignore that option entirely than it is to work out why.
Instead, he finishes mucking out Arthur’s horses (and Uther’s, too, because the king is certain he is at risk of a magic-wielding servant enchanting his horses to throw him to his death as soon as he mounts them, and the fact that this has never happened to Arthur shows that Merlin can be trusted. No one has worked up the nerve to point out that it has never happened to the king, either, and since Merlin isn’t stupid enough to do it himself, he’s stuck with the job) and goes hunting for Gwaine.
“Merlin,” he laughs, when Merlin finds him. “How surprising. Can’t remember the last time you came looking for me rather than dragging me off some place to find you.”
“Hmm,” Merlin replies, because he can’t think of anything more reasonable to say.
“There a problem, mate? Only you look kind of concerned.”
What Gwaine is mistaking for concern is actually Merlin’s quick, think up something plausible face. The unfamiliarity is understandable; since Gwaine either knows or is a pretty key part of all of Merlin’s secrets, Merlin hasn’t felt the need to lie to him in some time. The chances of Gwaine coming and interrupting this crucial conversation with Lance are minimal, so Merlin really doesn’t know why he’s lying to him, only that he is. Gwaine has always adored tiny odds, anyway, though usually only in relation to his survival (a fact that Merlin is trying to change, but not doing so well at).
“Not really. At least, no problem you can’t solve.” Well, that didn’t sound quite how it was supposed to, if the way Gwaine’s mildly surprised expression is followed by waggling eyebrows is any indication. “Not quite that sort of problem,” Merlin adds quickly. “More’s the pity. I’m supposed to be cleaning Arthur and Gwen’s room, but Gaius has asked me for help with something, and I can’t be in two places at once.” He once tried it a while ago, thinking it might make his life a little bit easier, and that one attempt was more than enough.
Gwaine nods, still grinning. “Which do you want me to do, then? I suck at cleaning” – given that he has lived with Gwaine since the middle of summer, this is a fact of which Merlin is well aware – “but I reckon I’d be just as bad at helping Gaius.”
He thinks for a moment, and Merlin assumes he’s trying to pick between two undesirable options. It hasn’t escaped his notice that Gwaine has been avoiding Gaius for quite some time, and Merlin’s banking on this being the deciding factor, because if Gwaine chooses that option Merlin will have just a little bit of a problem. Fortunately, though, it seems Merlin knows Gwaine just as well as he thinks he does, as he smiles and says, “I’ll take the cleaning. Less chance of anyone dying if I cock that up.”
Merlin grins, possibly slightly brighter than the non-existent problem Gwaine has supposedly solved merits, but Gwaine doesn’t comment so it’s fine. “Thank you. I owe you one.”
“Don’t worry, mate,” he replies, smirking. “Sure you’ll find some way to pay me back.” Gwaine checks the coast is clear (honestly, the level of crap he’s willing to put up with for Merlin’s sake is quite impressive, and Merlin doesn’t really know how – or why – he does it) before pressing a quick kiss to Merlin’s lips and ambling away.
X
That done, Merlin has nothing left on his list of avoidance techniques; it is time to talk to Lancelot.
He finds the other man in the forge, talking to Elyan about getting a new sword made (for reasons Merlin cannot quite comprehend, his current one is just not good enough). It seems to Merlin as good a place as any to talk – it’s loud, so the chances of being over heard are minimal, and few people are likely to want to eavesdrop badly enough to endure the temperature – so all he needs to do is get Elyan to leave, and that is simple.
Merlin clears his throat to announce his presence. “Elyan, your sister was looking for you. She seemed sort of worried.” This is all that is required for Elyan’s big brother streak to kick in and he is gone, barely mumbling a goodbye at the two of them. Merlin turns to a slightly startled Lancelot.
“You actually spoke to Gwen. This really must be a matter of life and death.” When Lancelot blanches, Merlin laughs – yes, he may have agreed to have this conversation, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to make it easy. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything.” The unless you give me reason to is so present it is almost audible.
Lancelot pales even further, but speaks anyway; of all the things Merlin has said of Lance, or heard said of him, that he is cowardly has never been one of them. “It is about Gwaine.”
“Is it really,” Merlin says, not a hint of a question to his voice; surely Lancelot cannot think that Merlin hadn’t worked that out already. “I’m fairly sure I told you that that was none of your business.”
“You are my friend, Merlin, and so is he. That makes it my business, because one of you is going to end up getting hurt, more than you have already.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Merlin isn’t quite sure how many times he’ll have to repeat this before Lancelot gets it, but he’s going to keep going until he does. “If I choose to talk to you about it, that’s one thing. He doesn’t want you to tell me this, and I don’t want to know it.” He pauses before his next sentence, but not for too long, because he’s fairly sure it’s something Lancelot has already worked out. “Gwaine is scared of me finding out whatever this is, Lancelot, actually, genuinely frightened. Isn’t that good enough reason for you not to?”
Lancelot shakes his head, softly, gently, but firmly. “Gwaine is an idiot to be scared. It is not anything bad, I promise you.”
“That isn’t your decision to make. I don’t talk to you about who you’re shagging. You could show us the same courtesy.” It is a final attempt to convince Lancelot not to share whatever this is, and Merlin knows how futile it is going to be, but he has to make the effort anyway.
“That is because you know I am not shagging anyone, since the only person I want to shag does not love me.”
Merlin suspects the noise he makes in response to that can probably be best described as a snort, unpleasant though the description is, both because there are few words he can imagine it less likely to hear from Lancelot, and because he should surely know that Merlin wouldn’t have threatened him so thoroughly if Gwen didn’t feel anything for him. “Well, we don’t all have your high moral standards, do we?” he answers, choosing not to explain his scepticism.
“Some of us do, Merlin.”
“Of course. Because Camelot is just brimming with knights as noble as you are.”
Lancelot looks deeply saddened by this, though that is only to be expected given his stupidly sunny outlook on people. “It is, Merlin.”
“Elyan missed his own father’s funeral,” Merlin responds harshly. “Gwaine will sleep with anyone capable of saying no and stupid enough not to.” He doesn’t really know what that says about himself, but it certainly isn’t something he wants to stop and consider now, so he just carries straight on. “I don’t know what Percival is hiding, but no one is that strong and silent without having some sort of dark secret to overcome. We all know there’s something not right with how fortunate Leon is, even if no one says it. The rest of the knights barely even bother to acknowledge my existence, or yours. And Arthur is-”
Lancelot interrupts him then, and Merlin is glad because he’s not sure which of the many things he has said in the past about Arthur is going to spill from his lips but it surely won’t be said with the tone of insult it should be said with. “Arthur is soon to be king, Merlin. That is enough.” The disdain with which this sentence is said is so similar to the contempt Arthur regarded almost everyone with when Merlin first met him that Merlin blinks in shock. Lancelot’s voice softens slightly for his final sentence, but is no less disapproving. “These men are your friends.”
“I didn’t say they weren’t. I just said that they weren’t perfect.”
“I did not say they were. The leap from not wanting to be with someone you do not love to being perfect is entirely your doing.”
Merlin is so very tired of this, and far beyond the realm of wishing he had never agreed to talk to Lancelot. “Would you just tell me what you want to tell me, please, seeing as nothing I say is going to convince you not to?”
Lance, with an intensely long-suffering expression, begins what Merlin hopes is an explanation. “When Gwaine first told me about you, I thought he was just bored, or using you. I was not...not happy with him.”
Merlin remembers the bruise painted on Gwaine’s face for at least a week after they first slept together. He never asked Gwaine how he got it, mostly because they weren’t on hugely friendly terms at the time and they’ve had plenty of other things to discuss since, but now he’s fairly sure he knows anyway. “How hard did you hit him to leave a bruise like that one?” he asks, angry and something like flattered all at once.
He doesn’t expect Lancelot to look ashamed. “That was before I knew. He said something – well, he did not say it, but it was made very clear anyway – that changed my mind. It all seemed fine after that, with what I knew, even though he said it was more complicated than I thought. I assumed he would tell you himself, when he worked up the courage, when things seemed more permanent for the two of you, but he refuses.”
Lancelot takes a breath, deep and uncertain, looking Merlin dead in the eyes. “And I know it is not my place to tell you this, but he is planning on going home and-”
“He’s what?” Merlin interrupts, because last he knew Gwaine had entirely dismissed the possibility of leaving Camelot for his home, and neither of them has made any mention of it since then.
“Let me finish, please, Merlin.” Lancelot says, his determination showing no signs of wavering, despite what Merlin knows his facial expression must look like. “Gwaine is planning on visiting home and he wants to ask you to go with him, but he is so sure you will say no. I see how jealous he is, and how insecure you are, and he could solve all of it so easily yet he tells me all sorts of rubbish about how you will react. And it all comes down to the same thing; you are both scared, and if he will not resolve this, I will.” This is the least coherent Merlin has ever heard Lancelot sound, and he is just the slightest bit concerned, somewhere in the midst of his growing irritation. Irritation wins, though, because he knows all this, all this and more, and he was expecting Lancelot to actually tell him something important. He is just about to tell him so, when Lancelot says, “Merlin, Gwaine is in love with you.”
Merlin doesn’t know what to say to this. It does not make sense, he thinks, so it cannot be true.
But why would Lancelot lie?
“Merlin, did you h-” Merlin knows something is wrong, that he needs to calm down and think this through properly, calmly, rationally, because he has just wished Lancelot would shut up and he has, completely, mouth still moving but no sound coming out. He closes his eyes, closes out the room, the temperature, the noise, trying to think, to breathe, to make sense of this.
Gwaine.
Gwaine cannot be in love with Merlin.
But why would Lancelot lie?
The only thing Merlin can think is that he wouldn’t; there is no reason for Lancelot to make this up, when Merlin could so easily ask Gwaine about it. So Lancelot isn’t lying, but all that means is that he believes it. It doesn’t mean it’s true.
This is Gwaine they’re talking about, Gwaine, who has walked the very fine line between being easy and actually being a whore for years, only sitting firmly in the territory of easy on settling down in the city. So maybe he’s been faithful to Merlin – well, okay, there’s no maybe to it, because Merlin knows he has – but that doesn’t mean he loves him. Gwaine doesn’t know how to love.
And yet, Lancelot isn’t stupid. Of everyone, he is the only person astute enough to work out that Merlin has magic without either seeing it directly for himself or being told about it. He also said that Gwaine told him he loved Merlin, or as good as told him it, and it’s not like that’s something easily misunderstood.
Fuck.
That’s really a word Merlin does his best not to use, but it’s appropriate now.
Because it makes sense now, everything does; this fact clarifies it all. The reason Merlin is the exception to Gwaine’s no friends rule, the reason Gwaine was so upset to wake up alone that first morning. The confusion afterwards, when Gwaine hid away and hated himself because Merlin said he wished it had never happened. How hurt Gwaine was when Merlin told him he could sleep with other people, how delighted he was when Merlin took it back.
The way Merlin has caught Gwaine looking at him, sometimes, looks that there are no words for, looks that Merlin has put down to imagination, exhaustion, poor lighting, because he didn’t know why Gwaine would be looking at him like that.
Of all the reasons he has considered for Gwaine being with him, that Gwaine loves him has never even crossed his mind.
Fuck.
Pretend, something deep in his mind whispers. Pretend you don’t know. And he could, so easily he could. Leave now, act like he doesn’t know, talk to Gwaine like nothing is different, slip into bed beside him like there are no feelings stronger than friendship involved. This doesn’t have to change anything.
Except it does.
“What did he say to you?” he demands, then opens his eyes when Lancelot doesn’t say anything. “He told you how I would react. What did he say?” His voice is more shrill than it normally is, higher than it should be, and he has no idea what his face must look like but he imagines it probably matches the tone of his voice in that it doesn’t belong to him. “Answer me,” he commands, and feels the power leech out of him to undo whatever it is his thoughts managed to do to Lancelot’s voice earlier.
Lancelot looks at him, pale, eyes wide with something that, if not fear exactly, is certainly very close to it. It gathers in Merlin’s stomach as a sickness, that he is causing this, but he needs to know just what Gwaine thinks he will do with this knowledge. “He said,” Lance begins, then has to pause to clear his throat in an attempt to push some of the hoarseness from his voice. “He said that you would end things with him if you know. You cannot be mad at him for thinking that, though; you know he has never-”
“Enough,” Merlin says, no less a command than before, and Lancelot stops talking again; Merlin doesn’t know if his magic made him or if it was a choice on Lancelot’s behalf, and cannot really bring himself to care. He doesn’t know how that sentence was going to finish, but he doesn’t have to. He knows he can’t blame Gwaine for thinking it, because he is right, and Merlin can’t even imagine being able to lie to Gwaine for any length of time when Gwaine knows him better than anyone. “Why,” he says, anger softening his voice, bringing it back down to its normal pitch, but still not sounding like himself, “Why do you have to believe everyone is as good as you are?”
Lancelot steps towards him, slowly, “Merlin, Gwaine is as-”
“I’m not talking about Gwaine,” Merlin snaps, and Lancelot freezes again. “I was happy,” he adds, barely noticing how quickly he has already moved to the past tense. “We both were. I thought you accepted that, even if you didn’t approve. But you couldn’t, could you? You just had to make everyone else as unhappy as you are.”
He remembers saying the same thing to Gwaine about his own motives, the night he told everyone that Arthur was going to propose to Gwen, when he wanted Lancelot to know how completely impossible it was for him to have the person he loves. When he wanted to make certain someone else was hurting as much as he was, and with no idea that Gwaine already was. Gwaine, the stupid fucking idiot, was kind, understanding, had tucked Merlin into his own bed and wouldn’t even join him there, just so they could avoid being in a situation like this one. Gwaine has always been understanding, self-sacrificing, willing to bend over backwards to make Merlin happy, and has never asked for anything in return.
Merlin thinks of all the times Gwaine has been there to tell lies for him, or to help him extricate his foot from his mouth. The times Gwaine has listened to his problems – showing no sign of how they must have made him feel, never even flinching at how often Arthur features in them – and thought about it for a moment, then kissed him quick and full of promise and said, “Right, mate here’s what we’re gonna do,” or just left it with the kiss when it’s not a problem he knows how to solve. The times Merlin has kept his eyes closed and just pretended, how Gwaine has spent months ignoring it, acting as though he didn’t notice, silently allowing Merlin to destroy him from the inside out because it made Merlin feel that tiniest little bit better.
He doesn’t think he has ever hated anyone as much as he hates Gwaine right now. Not his mother, when she sent him to a city in a kingdom that would see him dead if it knew what he was. Not Will, when he chose to put Arthur’s life above his own, all on Merlin’s word. Not even Arthur, the night he killed Freya, when Merlin said goodbye to any chance of a happy life away from Camelot. He hates Gwaine more than he has ever hated anyone, even if he doesn’t hate him at all because the person he actually hates is himself.
“Merlin,” Lancelot says, almost silently, still sounding cautious but now standing almost next to him. “Merlin, Gwaine...” The sentence goes no further than that, and this time Merlin knows for certain that it is Lancelot’s choice to stop, but he doesn’t know why.
“Gwaine isn’t the problem,” he replies, and it is true but for the fact that it isn’t. The problem is Merlin, and yet without Gwaine there would be no problem at all. “Gwaine is...is...” Merlin falters, stumbling to a halt, and feels Lancelot put a tentative hand on his arm, in some misguided attempt at comfort. Merlin shakes it off, turns his back, making for the doorway so he can hide away and finish shattering where no one will witness it, where no one will try make him feel less like the horrible person he is. Lance follows him, grabbing his elbow less timidly this time.
“Let me go,” Merlin says, and hears the threat in his voice, a threat that he doesn’t want to be there but doesn’t know how to hide away. “Please, let go of me.”
“Go where?” Lancelot asks, “Why are you so worked up? This is good, is it not?”
This is such a typical thing for him, and Merlin loves Lancelot like a brother, he really does, but he wishes he knew which lines not to cross, wishes he knew what not to say and when things should be dropped for the good of everyone. “Gwaine was right,” he tells him, “It’s over. It has to be. Now get off.” Merlin tugs at his arm, trying to get away, staring down Lancelot as he shakes his head and tightens his grip, opens his mouth to ask why.
“I said, let me go!” Merlin demands, and the last word is a shout, but is something more, too. It is him, his magic, his control, breaking out of him with that final syllable. The pressure on his arm vanishes instantly, as Lancelot is propelled violently away from him, arcing through the air, his head hitting the wall with an audible thud.
And then he doesn’t get up again.
X
Merlin is frozen, both inside and out. His thoughts loop between I never wanted this and oh, gods, what have I done? and yet he is powerless to move, his feet firmly planted where they are. He knows healing spells, so many of them, but he is not very good at them and this is Lancelot, his friend, confidant, brother in all but blood and Merlin watches carefully, so carefully, but he can’t see his chest rising.
He takes a shaky step towards him, then a second, and he is running, barely breathing himself, dropping to his knees next to Lancelot’s very still...he can’t bring himself to think the word body, even though that might be what it is. Merlin puts his hand to the back of Lancelot’s head, feeling the hot wetness there, and is not surprised by the smear of red he sees when he looks up at the wall.
Eyes back on Lancelot’s face, he chants something, anything, the words foreign to him in a way they have not been in years. He doesn’t know what they are, or what they mean, only stringing together the first things he can think of in the desperate hope that they will fix this. Over his magic, he hears footsteps, a loud gasp, and half-turns to explain that it isn’t what they think it is, that he never meant to do harm, that he is trying to undo what he has done. Before he can see who is there, something hits him on the back of the head, and he feels himself fall into a cold, empty darkness.
X
When Gwaine has finished cleaning (he uses the word fairly loosely), he goes to Gaius’ in search of Merlin. Who is not there, and, Gaius tells him, has not been there since that morning and – expressing his disapproval through the medium of eyebrow-dancing – if he and Merlin intend to keep their commitment to one another secret, Merlin should sleep in his own bed at least some of the time. The confirmation that Gaius knows that Gwaine is bedding his almost-son is so much more discomfiting than Arthur and Lance knowing that Gwaine can only flush and wordlessly open and close his mouth in a fishlike manner, slightly fearful. After all, Gaius has the king’s ear and, crazy or not, people still obey Uther when he gives them a command. There is an awful lot Gaius can do to make Gwaine’s life miserable if he decides he doesn’t like Gwaine and Merlin being together.
Gaius, mercifully, notices Gwaine’s discomfort. “Don’t worry, lad. It’s clear you care for him, and it would be hard to miss how much freer he’s been of late.”
Somewhat mollified – but still highly uncomfortable talking about this with Gaius – Gwaine chooses to ignore this. He is halfway through asking if Gaius knows where Merlin actually is, seeing as he is not here, when the door opens so forcefully it slams into the wall behind with an audible cracking sound and Elyan charges in, out of breath and quite possibly scared of something.
“Gaius,” he gasps, hunched over with his hands on his knees. “Lancelot, my forge. Hurt. Merlin, Merlin-”
“Slow down, please, Elyan,” Gaius responds with remarkable calm; Gwaine is panicking. Not that he knows what has happened, but it involves Merlin, Lance, a pretty serious amount of fear and cannot possibly be good. “I cannot understand unless you start from the beginning.” For all that he seems unruffled, Gaius is already collecting together a pile of things he might need.
“Lancelot is hurt. Badly, really badly. Merlin attacked him. Magic. He needs help, Gaius.”
Gaius doesn’t even blink, showing no sign whatsoever that this statement is hitting him as hard as it has just hit Gwaine, even though it has to be. “You can tell me more on the way, Elyan. Gwaine, if you could bring the prince to meet us, please.”
“But-” Gwaine begins, only to be interrupted almost immediately.
“Find Arthur,” Gaius repeats, and there is something in his tone that convinces Gwaine not to argue further; Gaius is as concerned as he is, whether or not he shows it. Gwaine nods, and Gaius sweeps out, at a pace rather quicker than his usual one, taking Elyan with him and leaving Gwaine alone, desperately trying to think of ways in which this is not the terrible situation it appears to be.
Failing that, he resorts to following orders; he will not find out anything more without talking to Lance or Merlin, but if he shows up with Arthur he will only be sent away again.
He has the good luck to find Arthur in the first place he looks (although this is not truly all that surprising, since Arthur can be found dealing with state related papers in his chambers most afternoons). Not that Gwaine has any idea what to say to him; he doesn’t know what happened, so how can he hope to explain it to anyone else?
Gwaine is still thinking about what to say when Arthur, after a long moment of increasingly impatient staring, finally speaks. “I take it there is a reason for your presence, Sir Gwaine.” It is not a question, and Gwaine – still not in Arthur’s good books after his deliberate antagonism of a few weeks ago – knows better than to treat it as one.
“There is,” Gwaine says, hoping he sounds more composed than he thinks he does; Gwaine feels like he is constant competition with the prince, even if Arthur has no idea, and it’s not like Merlin is around to compare them anyway. Besides, if whatever has gone down between Merlin and Lance is what he thinks it is, he and Merlin probably aren’t he and Merlin now. He pushes that thought away – now is neither the time nor the place to address it – and continues. “I was, er, looking for Merlin.”
“He’s not here,” Arthur interrupts, sounding about as patronising as it is physically possible to be. “Surely you’ve noticed, bearing in mind how long you’ve been standing there gawping.”
“Yes, I’d noticed. Wasn’t looking for him here. He sent me off to clean your room – not this one, the other – he said he had to help Gaius with something. So I went to Gaius’ when I was done, and apparently Merlin lied because he was never there, said Gaius.”
“This is going somewhere, isn’t it? Because I am rather busy running my father’s kingdom and I don’t have time to listen to your diatribes about my manservant’s many flaws.”
“Well, maybe if you stopped interrupting every time I pause for breath,” Gwaine snaps, then adds an apologetic, “Sire,” when he remembers whom it is he’s talking to. “Gaius was just saying...saying something, when Elyan came rushing in and said that...that Merlin had attacked Lancelot at the forge.” He pauses, just for a second, while Arthur finally gives him his full attention, looking away from the papers on the table in front of him, before adding the final – and undeniably most important – part. “With magic.”
Arthur stops midway through standing, making him look (Gwaine thinks, slightly gleefully, even with the rest of his life turning to shit around him) mildly deformed. “Ah,” he says, as he resumes motion. “Ah.”
“I don’t know, before you ask. I don’t know if Lance is okay, or Merlin, or why he did it.” This last part might be a lie, probably is, but until he knows for definite he’s keeping quiet. “Gaius went there with Elyan and made me come and get you, and so I am, and can we bloody go, please, because I need to know what happened.”
Arthur just looks at him, as if surprised either by his urgency or his rudeness (both of which are absurd, because he knows Gwaine and Lance are friends and Gwaine and Merlin are more, and Gwaine has never made any real effort to be polite to Arthur except for when he’s sure it’s going to get him something). Eventually, Arthur nods, announces, “Right,” and sweeps from the room as though moving was his idea, stopping the first made they encounter in the corridors. “Could you find Sir Leon and Sir Percival and tell them they are required immediately at the forge, please?” He asks – demands, really – and continues on his way before the startled girl can reply.
“Percival doesn’t know,” Gwaine hisses under his breath as he hurries to keep up (really, couldn’t he have been just a little taller? Or, for that matter, befriended a servant in a kingdom where the average height is somewhat closer to his own).
“He will now,” Arthur replies abruptly. “Depending on what has happened, everyone may soon know.”
This takes a moment more of walking to sink in, but when it does Gwaine finds himself gasp-shouting, “No!” and reaching for a sword he is not carrying.
“Be grateful,” Arthur states, sounding in that moment every bit his father’s son, “That you are not as armed as you want to be.” His voice softens slightly, almost sounding sympathetic. “I have no desire to see Merlin executed, but if he has deliberately used magic to harm another, I have no choice. The law is the law, and even I can only bend it so far.” He turns away from Gwaine, walking on in an ever tenser silence, and Gwaine can do nothing but follow behind him.
X
When Merlin wakes, it is in a room only slightly less dark than unconsciousness. His head is pounding, but when he reaches to feel for lumps on the back of it, he cannot get his hands there; he has been manacled, shackled to the wall behind him.
This clears the last of his mental fog and he realises where he is – not the dungeons, to his surprise, but the room where Uther locked Morgana, years ago now, when she argued with him about killing Gwen’s father – and why – Lancelot. Merlin nearly murdered Lance, may well have done so, smashing his skull against the wall in a fit of childish, selfish anger.
He is torn between the impulses of staying there and waiting for whatever or whoever is coming for him – he tried to kill Lance – and breaking his way out with magic and finding out just what the result of his rage is. The first wins, barely, and only because someone will be along to deal with him soon enough and he can ask then.
He isn’t even all that sure he wants to know, anyway, because although he’s killed people before with his magic, they have never been people who didn’t deserve it. He has never taken an innocent life before, only killed when the lives of those he loves were in jeopardy, and if he has – oh, gods – if he has killed Lancelot, he really isn’t sure he’ll be able to live with the guilt.
But, he realises, if he has killed him, he won’t have to. Elyan knows Merlin was left with Lancelot, and Gaius will be able to tell nothing natural, nothing non-magical, could have flung him that hard against the wall, and Arthur may have tolerated Merlin having magic before, when he only used it for good, but killing a knight of Camelot, one of Arthur’s knights, is definitely not good. If Lancelot is dead, so is Merlin.
It is a fact he almost relishes.
With the thought of just how badly he has fucked up clanging around in his mind, Merlin resolves himself to waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting.
X
Gwaine walks from Gaius’ rooms – where Lancelot lies, oh-so-still, in Merlin’s bed – to the basement – in which Merlin is locked – and back again. He isn’t allowed in either room, and cannot make himself want to be anywhere else.
Leon stands a tired watch outside the basement door, turning him away each time he arrives. Kindly, always, but firmly; Gwaine knows he won’t budge, no matter how often he is there, knows it so surely he isn’t even really trying to persuade him to anymore. He had at first, for hours, until Arthur told him that he could either offer his help to Gaius or find himself confined to his room for the foreseeable future.
Liking the idea of solitary confinement even less than his current state, Gwaine had agreed to trying to help Gaius. That had turned out to be just as much of a stupid idea as anyone would have expected it to be, he thought, as Percival dragged him out after just a few minutes, when he entered Merlin’s room to see Gwaine standing next to Lancelot, swearing to finish the job Merlin started on him if Merlin is executed. Lancelot wasn’t exactly in any state to respond, but Arthur certainly had a lot to say about that as well. Since then, Percival has stood outside the door to Gaius’, slumped against the wall, though he straightens up and steps in front of the door each time Gwaine turns the corner to the corridor.
So he paces, waiting to be told something has changed, so that he can think, make plans, find some way to deal with this that doesn’t have Merlin burning at the stake.
X
It is hard to track the passage of time when the room one is in is almost entirely without natural light. For this reason, Merlin has no idea how long he has been waiting for, but he is sure that someone should have come to see him by now. And yet they haven’t.
So he summons Gwaine, ignoring the remorse that attacks him as he does so. Gwaine will not want to talk to Merlin, not after what he tried to do, may have done. And Merlin does not really want to talk to him, either, because he doesn’t know how to look him in the eye after complaining so much about Arthur, about loving Arthur, without ever realising how much Gwaine must be hurt by it. But Gwaine is the only one who has ever experienced Merlin taking control of his body and, Merlin hopes, the only one who won’t react too terribly to it. And even if he does, Merlin’s need to know if Lancelot is...how Lancelot is outweighs all of that.
So he summons Gwaine.
It is something he has done so many times that he barely needs to think about it. Which is why when Gwaine doesn’t appear, doesn’t walk through the door kicking and screaming, shouting all the filth he can imagine at Merlin, Merlin just assumes he made a mistake.
He tries again, this time concentrating on what he is doing. Or trying to do, because another long wait makes it clear that Gwaine is not coming.
It is at this point that Merlin begins to cry. He is in love with his closest friend, who in turn is in love with another of his closest friends (though at least she loves him back). He has just tried to kill a third friend, whose only crime was to tell him the truth; that the fourth and final of his best friends, who he has been having frequent and most enjoyable sex with for several months, is in love with him. The fact that Merlin has done almost as good a job of entangling himself in a romantic disaster as Helen of Troy is probably good enough reason for crying (after all, things hardly ended well for everyone involved there), but Merlin doesn’t see it this way. He just sees how Lancelot will never forgive him for treating Gwaine so shabbily, Gwaine will never forgive him for letting Lancelot tell him things he thought best left unknown, and none of them, Arthur, Gwen or Gwaine, will ever forgive him for his attempt on Lancelot’s life.
Mostly, though, he cries because he will never forgive himself.
X
“Why?” Gwaine asks. “Why can’t I just see him?”
Arthur, who has taken over Leon’s post outside Merlin’s prison, shakes his head. “You know why, Gwaine.”
“I’m not even asking to see him alone. You can supervise,” he says, desperate, because he hates that Merlin is locked in there on his own, whatever he may have done. “Everyone can, to make sure I’m not trying to get him out or anything. I just want to see him.”
“Not until we know more.”
“What more is there to know? Lancelot is-”
“You will wait, Sir Gwaine,” Arthur states, in his what I say goes voice. “I suggest you join Percival and Leon at dinner, and then get some rest. You have my word that someone will find you, should something change.”
Gwaine treats this suggestion with the contempt it deserves. “Rest? You expect me to rest? Tell me, Arthur, if it was Gwen imprisoned like this, would you be able to rest?”
“When it was Guinevere in this situation, I was not, no.” Arthur looks at him with a discomforting level of speculation, and Gwaine almost turns to leave, just to get away from it. Almost. “However, I did not realise you considered the two situations comparable.”
“Because Gwen was innocent of whatever she was accused of?” Gwaine replies, and hears the challenge in his voice. “Am I not allowed to worry, just because Merlin really did use magic?”
“You may worry as much or as little as you deem appropriate,” Arthur says, sounding very sincere as he does so. “I was just not aware quite how much you loved him.”
Of all the things Gwaine imagined he would do today, confiding in Arthur is not one of them not by a long shot, yet he finds himself responding anyway. “Neither was he,” he says, resuming his pacing before Arthur can offer any comments in return.
X
Merlin cries until he can cry no more, and then he stops and starts to think again.
Gwaine has clearly found some way to avoid Merlin summoning him. He pushes down the tears this thought brings back up (because even when Gwaine wouldn’t speak to him, wouldn’t even go near him, he still would have been there if Merlin needed him. He would never have rejected Merlin so thoroughly that he wouldn’t even give him the option of talking to him) and carries on. After Gwaine, the next most logical person to summon would be Arthur, who has never had it done to him before but at least knows it is possible and will work out what is going on. Leon is his third choice, Gwen fourth, and then Lance – reluctantly, because he has no way of knowing whether Lancelot won’t arrive because Merlin’s magic isn’t working or because he isn’t able to.
Still nothing.
Deciding they must all have used the same thing as Gwaine, he moves on to people who do not know about his magic; Elyan and Percival first, then anyone else in the castle he can put a name and a face together for. Despairing completely, he tries to summon the king, because even if those in the know could somehow convince everyone else in Camelot to all some sort of spell to be worked upon them, Uther himself could never be persuaded.
When not even one person shows, Merlin makes one last attempt. Not to summon anyone, because he knows that will fail. He tries one of the earliest tricks he learnt, after moving things without words; he tries to produce a light. Just a little one, even a spark, a glimmer, the briefest flash ever would do.
It is this final, last-ditch resort, and the fact that nothing comes of it, that tells Merlin what he was avoiding accepting. He can no longer use magic.
This, Merlin admits, is not a realisation he is mentally equipped to deal with. He has had magic, or so he has been told, since the day he was born, and has certainly been using it for as long as he can remember. He could move objects before he could walk, could convey his wishes before he could talk, and was frequently caught, during his childhood, having conversations with things no one else could see (“Brings a whole new meaning to away with the fairies,” he once heard his mother say).
In one day, Merlin has lost everything, his friends, his freedom, his ability to protect Arthur. Anything that has ever mattered to him, almost, is gone, because he couldn’t control his temper, because he couldn’t see what should have been obvious and do something about it.
He is not sure how long he has been calculating the implications of his newfound inability when the door opens and a number of people walk in.
X
“Merlin?” The voice is as calm as it always is, patient, with just a tinge of disapproval. Gaius. It takes slightly longer for Merlin to identify the others present, because after so long in the darkness the light of their torch is blinding. Arthur, obviously, is there, and Gwaine and Leon, too – this he gathers when one dark shape takes a step forward, a second silhouette grabs him, and the first says, in a very distinct accent, “Get off, Leon. He isn’t going to hurt me.”
Merlin is heartened by this, very briefly, until his brain kicks in and he realises that he really does not deserve Gwaine’s trust in him after how much of a bastard he has been to him.
There is still a fifth unidentified person and he is, for a moment, terrified-relieved-unsure that it is Uther, but then Arthur produces a lantern, hustling everyone into the room, and he can see that it is Elyan. He takes that to mean that a seventh person in Camelot knows of his magic, but the supposition is largely irrelevant because right now the face Merlin most wants to see is not, for once, Arthur’s, and that face is not there.
“Lancelot?” he asks. “Gaius, is Lance okay? Is he...did I...? Is he alright?” Merlin cannot make himself say the words, just as he has been unable to make himself think them since he woke up. His meaning is clearly conveyed, though, since Gwaine answers.
“He’s fine, Merlin. You didn’t kill him.” Merlin relaxes slightly, but tenses again when Elyan adds, “You were bloody close, though.” He is vicious, angry, and Merlin knows he deserves it, but the rejection from a friend is excruciating and, Merlin thinks, the only way that pain can get any worse is when Gwaine jumps to his defence, the two of them arguing brutally, over Merlin and the truly terrible thing he has done.
“That is enough, both of you.” Arthur’s voice is enough to silence them, the power, the royalty, somehow audible. “Now, sit down, everyone. We need to talk, and we might as well be almost comfortable whilst we do so.” When they have all obeyed him, Gaius slowly and creakily, he continues. “Right. As established, Lancelot is still alive. He was unconscious for the best part of a day and a half, but seems to come out of the situation with nothing more than bruises. Gaius has recommended he remain under supervision for the next few days, otherwise he would have been here himself.”
Arthur clearly considers Lance a fool for this, and from Elyan’s snort and Leon’s disapproving headshake, they both agree with him. In fact, even Gaius looks doubtful; only Gwaine seems to be firmly on Merlin’s side, and he almost certainly wouldn’t be if he wasn’t so bloody love-struck. “It is only because Lancelot begged for quite some time that we allow you to explain,” Arthur continues firmly, “That your head is not currently distinct from the rest of your body, Merlin. So, please, explain.”
Three pairs of eyes turn expectantly to Merlin (Arthur and Gwaine were already watching him), and he swallows audibly. “Er,” he begins, then internally criticises himself for it, because for a speech that may possibly save his life, it isn’t a great way to begin. “I really can’t, ah, I can’t. I can’t explain, and I have no excuse.”
“Come on, Merlin, mate, you have to say something.” What Merlin wants to say is that he wishes Gwaine would shut the bloody hell up, because his mere presence is about the furthest thing from helpful Merlin can think of right now. Instead, he shrugs, hopelessly. “Oh, Merlin.” Gwaine turns to the rest of them. “Lance has been following Merlin for weeks, pestering him. Determined to talk to him about something, not willing to take no for an answer. Just generally being an annoyance. Not that that means he deserves to die, but you can’t say you can’t understand why he did it.”
“Gwaine, shut up,” Merlin shouts, and Gwaine’s head snaps around to look at him. Merlin finally meets his eyes, and is surprised by the spark of satisfaction there, because Gwaine has never shown any signs of the level of masochism necessary to be pleased by a loved one shouting at him. “That isn’t what happened, Arthur, I swear. I mean, yes, Lancelot has been trying to tell me something, but that isn’t what happened.”
Arthur arches a brow at him. “Then tell us what did happen, Merlin, and we’ll try to keep interruptions to a minimum,” he says, seconding Merlin’s glare at Gwaine. “From the beginning, if you please?”
“Okay, well. I was going to talk to Lancelot, because Gwen made me promise I would. And so I tracked him to the forge” – he leaves out the part where he sent Gwaine away on some phony task so he wouldn’t come looking for him, because even if they are over now (and how can Merlin allow them not to be?), he cannot face everyone knowing, Arthur knowing – “and I told Elyan Gwen wanted to talk to him. And so...and so Lancelot said what he wanted to say, and it was something that I...I really didn’t want to know, and...” Merlin pauses, studiously avoiding looking at Gwaine, and takes a deep breath. “I lost control. I didn’t mean to hurt him, I really didn’t. I just had to leave, and he wouldn’t let me go, and I shouted at him and he hit the wall, hard, and there was blood and I tried to help, I did, but I didn’t know how, and someone was there, and...that’s all I remember.” That, he thinks, is enough for now; he will explain about his magic, or lack thereof, later, when he knows it’s actually going to be an issue.
There is silence for a moment, before Arthur says, “Elyan?” Merlin is clueless, but apparently Elyan is not; he starts talking.
“Yeah, that’s sort of how it was, I think. The first bit, definitely. I went to find Gwen, only she said she didn’t know what Merlin was talking about. I went back to ask him why he lied, and he was kneeling on the floor with Lancelot in his lap, unconscious, and his eyes were...” That sentence stops there, as Elyan clearly cannot find a suitable way to describe Merlin’s eyes. “It was magic, and the words...I thought Lancelot was dead, or that Merlin was killing him, so I hit him with the shovel used to load the fires. Although I suppose you know all this, sire.”
“I do,” Arthur says, but tells Elyan to continue anyway, presumably for Merlin’s benefit.
“I went to find Gaius, because I thought it was more important to see if anything could be done for Lancelot than it was to lock up Merlin. I went back to the forge with him, while Gwaine went to find you.”
Merlin looks at Elyan, raising his eyes from the cuffs at his wrists for the first time since he finished his explanation. “Thank you, Elyan.”
Elyan looks back in disgust. “If it were up to me, I’d have handed you in to Uther. It’s Prince Arthur you should be thanking.”
“No, Elyan.” Merlin replies, hoping the sincerity in his voice is clear. “Thank you. Not because you didn’t turn me in to be killed, but because you put helping him first.” He knows, really, that it was fear of magic – the same fear that almost everyone less than five or six years older than Arthur and raised in Camelot has had forced upon them – that motivated Elyan to attack him, more than it was concern for Lancelot, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is grateful. Things could so easily have been what Elyan thought they were, and that Elyan would put helping a friend above dealing with a potentially dangerous sorcerer is heartening as much as it is foolish.
Elyan just blinks at him, looking slightly less unforgiving, and there is silence for a moment, until Arthur turns to Gaius. “In your opinion, medically speaking, how likely is it that Merlin’s story is true?”
Merlin would be offended – as Gwaine clearly is on his behalf, given the way he moves to stand, only to be stopped by Leon, sat next to him – if it weren’t for the fact that even this is more trust than he deserves.
Gaius also gives the question the contemplation it merits, though Merlin is pretty sure that he does not doubt Merlin’s word. “It seems to make sense, sire,” Gaius says, slowly, thoughtfully. “There was certainly more blood than a wound the size of Lancelot’s could account for, even given how heavily head wounds tend to bleed. The length of time for which he was unconscious, too, suggests a serious head injury, yet there was no evidence of anything more than a minor bump that I could detect.” He turns to Merlin, “I don’t suppose you know what spell you used to heal him, do you?”
Merlin shakes his head; he’d mostly been stringing words together, any words, in the desperate hope that they helped, and it is as much of a surprise to him as it is to anyone else that it was successful. Gaius nods, and continues, “Shame. It would have been useful to have. That spell – and Elyan’s decision to fetch me immediately – is probably the only reason Lancelot is still with us.”
All eyes return to Arthur, waiting for him to continue questioning someone, but he does not. Eventually, after Merlin has opened and closed his mouth several times, wanting to say something more but not knowing what, Arthur says, “Right,” and then stops, apparently just as wordless as Merlin. Gwaine also opens his mouth to talk, but shuts it very quickly when Merlin glares and Arthur arches a brow at him, again (he really is remarkably good at that, almost as impressive as Gaius).
“Right,” Arthur says again, and this time continues. “Merlin, have you tried using magic since you woke up?” When Merlin nods, Arthur asks, “And?”
“I couldn’t,” he says sadly. “Not a thing. I tried summoning pretty much everyone in the city, and nothing. I can’t use it at all.”
Arthur smiles, slightly triumphantly. “Good. It was something Gaius created, a potion of sorts, designed to suppress magic. We weren’t sure it would work on you; Gaius tells me your powers are somewhat greater than average.” He returns to contemplative silence, and Merlin thinks that perhaps there is something to what Gwaine once told him; Arthur’s thinking face does look remarkably like a pout.
“Perhaps, sire,” Leon says, “Perhaps we should move this conversation somewhere more pleasant. Your father will be wondering where you are, and will eventually come looking for you. This will not be easy to explain to him, since we have, after all, manacled your manservant to the wall, so unless you wish to explain Merlin’s magic and have him executed...” Gwaine winces as Leon trails off. Merlin does not; he has been permitted to break the law for quite some time already, and if Arthur decides this is one time too many, Merlin does not really have a whole lot of choice in the matter.
Arthur frowns. “Yes, I suppose we should move. Un-cuff him, Leon.”
“Arthur!” Elyan cries, forgetting his usual politeness – despite the fact that they are soon to be brothers-in-law, Elyan is almost unfailingly respectful to Arthur. “You can’t just let him go! He has magic, he tried to kill Lancelot. You can’t-”
“I can and I will, Sir Elyan. Merlin cannot use magic at the moment, and I’m certain myself and three of my best knights are perfectly capable of subduing him if he tries to run. Which you won’t, will you, Merlin?” Arthur’s voice is confident, as trusting as ever, and Merlin thinks he almost smiles at him.
Then his hands are free. He rubs at his wrists, expecting them to be raw, or at the very least reddened, but they are not, and he realises he was not actually cuffed as tightly as he could have been, as he should have been. He wonders who was responsible for that small kindness, that stupidity, but then Leon tugs him, gently, to his feet, and supports him when his knees wobble. “Where to, sire? Your chambers?”
“I think that unwise, if we wish to keep this from my father. Gwaine?”
“No,” Merlin says, no less vehement for the fact that it comes out more as a croak. “Lancelot. I want to see Lancelot.”
Gaius nods. “My chambers, then? They should be private enough for this conversation, and Lancelot deserves a say in the matter, does he not?”
“Very well. Leon, if you would continue to assist Merlin, please, and Gaius go with them. The rest of us will follow shortly.”
Merlin is carefully helped up the stairs from the room, his right arm over Leon’s shoulder and Leon’s left around his waist, seeing true daylight for the first time in he’s not sure how long, trying to ignore the low conversation taking place in the room they have just left.
X
Gwaine isn’t entirely sure how he ended up here, bickering in lowered voices with Elyan and Prince Arthur; his lack of sleep has left the last day and a half something of a blur.
Percival, whilst really rather unimpressed by Gwaine’s threatening Lancelot, took the news that Merlin has magic and used it to attack Percival’s closest friend in the city spectacularly well; so well that Gwaine wondered if Lance hadn’t already told him about Merlin being a sorcerer. Only briefly, though, and then he remembered Lance is nothing if not honourable and would never betray a secret that important, even to one of his oldest friends. Elyan, of course, is still fuming over the fact that Merlin has used magic and has yet to be executed for it. Gwaine is fuming too, because stupid royal arseholes and their oh-so-noble knights had forbidden him from seeing Merlin until now, when it has finally been ascertained that Lance will make a full recovery. And then there’s the fact that all this could easily have been avoided if Lancelot, the stupid prick, had just listened to Gwaine when he told him to keep his bloody mouth shut.
Gwaine is pissed, and doesn’t see any possibility of becoming less pissed in the future, because even if they all manage to convince Elyan that Merlin doesn’t deserve death (and he’s pretty sure even Arthur is on Merlin’s side here, which should sort of help matters), Merlin wouldn’t even look at him when they were in the same room, except for when Gwaine goaded him into defending himself and he glared. Gwaine cannot imagine looking at someone with that much hatred (except, of course, he probably has in the past, but right now he is just hurting and mad).
“I can’t believe you’re just letting him go!” Elyan rants at Arthur, which is decidedly a bad idea; ranting at royalty tends to be frowned upon, particularly by the royalty in question.
“I,” announces Arthur, cold and angry, “Am not just letting Merlin go. I am allowing him, under supervision, to visit a friend and determine his well-being.”
“A friend whose well-being is only in question because he attacked him. And with magic, which no one seems all that bothered about.”
“Of course no one is all that bothered, you arse,” Gwaine jumps in before Arthur can say anything, which of course brings the prince’s gaze of fury down on him. “Apart from Percival and you, we all already knew. And none of us reacted like idiots when we found out.” Well, Arthur wasn’t exactly cool and collected, but he never seriously suggested Merlin’s death.
“Gwaine, you are not helping matters,” Arthur snaps, “So if you could keep quiet it would be greatly appreciated.” Elyan smirks, but stops quickly when Arthur transfers his attention to him. “As for you, Elyan; contrary to what you seem to think, I know exactly Merlin has done. I also know that he is the only reason any of us – and the city as a whole, for that matter – are still standing. Furthermore, Sir Leon, Lancelot, Gwaine and I witnessed Merlin swear an oath that would bring about the total destruction of everything and everyone he has ever loved if he uses his magic in a way that causes harm to the kingdom. What is of importance here is what Merlin has done, not the means by which he did it.”
That this is very similar to the argument Leon used to convince Arthur to calm down when he first found out is not lost on Gwaine – or, apparently, Arthur, if the don’t say a word look he sends in Gwaine’s direction is any indication. “Now,” Arthur continues, “If you think you can both be civil and keep your disproportionate biases to yourselves, I believe we should make sure Merlin has not overpowered Sir Leon, Percival and Gaius in order to finish the job he started on Lancelot.”
Gwaine surprises himself by laughing, while Elyan scowls and Arthur looks rather pleased with himself. Elyan leaves the room first, still furious but no longer voicing it, the prince following in a much less uptight fashion, and Gwaine bringing up the rear, wondering just how much of what happened Arthur has managed to put together, if he is so clearly proud to have made Gwaine laugh.
X
At first glance, Gaius’ rooms seem to be empty, and Merlin wonders why he has been brought here. Then he hears the voices coming from his bedroom and pushes open the door to see Lancelot sitting in his bed, Percival on a chair next to it, the pair of them playing a game involving sheep’s bones that Merlin has never understood the rules to. They both look up as he enters, Percival standing with a hand on the hilt of his sword, only relaxing when Leon and Gaius follow Merlin in.
“Merlin,” Lance says, smiling apologetically.
Merlin feels his knees shake for a second before they give out entirely, Leon’s timely interruption the only thing preventing him from ending up in an untidy pile on the floor. It is relief that hits him, makes his bones light and insubstantial, because even though Gwaine said Lancelot was fine, Merlin couldn’t let himself believe it until he saw the proof for himself.
“Lance,” he gasps. “I’m so sorry, Lancelot. They said you were fine, but I – I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” He hears his voice catch, and only then notices the dampness on his cheeks.
“Stop crying, fool,” Lance says, though his own eyes are looking suspiciously bright. “I know that, and I am sorry too. I should not have pushed you to talk to me. I should have listened to – well, I am sorry.” He gestures to the seat beside him, and Merlin takes a shaky step towards it, only to be stopped by Percival. Not angrily, but he has clearly been asked to keep an eye on Lancelot and intends to do so. Nothing is said in response to his questioning look over Merlin’s shoulder, but some sort of reply is given because he nods and lets Merlin past.
“I did not tell them,” Lance says conspiratorially, when Merlin is sitting next to him. “What it was that I said to you. They wanted me to, Arthur and Gaius in particular. Only Gwaine knows.” This is said in the same tone, as if there aren’t three other people in the room watching Merlin’s every move.
Merlin takes his hand and squeezes it in a way that he hopes conveys gratitude. Lancelot nods, and says – at a normal volume, to let the others know they can listen again –, “So where is Prince Arthur, then?”
Leon answers. “He is, I believe, attempting to get any arguments out of the way now, so that the conversation we are about to have can be carried out among adults rather than squabbling children.” Merlin feels oddly chided by this remark, even though he wasn’t involved in the argument at all (beyond being the reason for it, he supposes). “He, along with Sir Elyan and Sir Gwaine, should be here shortly.”
“In light of which,” Gaius continues, “We should probably find some more chairs, since I suspect this will not be a short discussion.” Leon follows Gaius from the room obediently and Percival only hesitates briefly before also doing so. Merlin can hear them murmuring over the clatter of furniture, trying to work out how much is required for the eight of them to sit comfortably and then, when comfortable is clearly not an option, how much will fit in Merlin’s room.
“I really am sorry, Merlin,” Lancelot tells him, eyes glowing with sincerity. “I wish I had not, and not just because of this.” He makes a half-hearted gesture that is somehow supposed to encompass the whole situation; Lancelot bedridden, Merlin no longer in fear for his life but certain to face some kind of punishment, Elyan spitting mad, and Gwaine...well, he isn’t sure how Gwaine is, but it can’t be good. “Gwaine said – he said that you needed this, him, and that you would leave him if you knew. I thought he was just being...I do not know what I thought, other than that you should know how he feels. I should have listened to him.”
Merlin smiles, but doesn’t answer immediately, not until he is sure he knows what it is he wants to say. “I’m...glad, that you didn’t. I deserved to know, even if I didn’t – don’t – want to. I can...I can do the right thing now. Thank you, Lancelot.”
Lancelot looks at him for a moment with almost unbearable sympathy. He opens his mouth to speak, but is interrupted by Percival and Leon carrying one bench, Gwaine and Elyan a second, and Arthur and Gaius supervising intently.
With some negotiation, they are all sitting – cramped and uncomfortable, but definitely sitting. Merlin offers his chair up to Arthur, who in turns offers it to Gaius, who sits upon it gratefully. Lancelot, of course, is still in Merlin’s bed, Gwaine, Leon and Arthur on one bench, Merlin, Percival and Elyan on the other. Merlin is truly impressed by Leon’s ability to manage them all without anyone noticing he’s doing it; he’s pretty sure no one else saw him indicate to Percival to take the seat between Merlin and Elyan, then carefully place himself between Gwaine and Arthur (and Merlin probably wouldn’t have noticed that if he didn’t already know about Leon and Gwaine trying to keep Lance and Arthur apart during training). He is also worryingly certain that Sir Leon knows pretty much everything that happens in Camelot, and that on the rare occasion he is confronted with something he didn’t already know, he is nearly flawless at hiding his surprise.
“Right,” says Arthur, looking around at all of them and apparently returning to the state of mind in which repeating this simple word is a good idea, because he says it again. “Right.”
Leon, saint that he is, and somewhat better at speaking than their collective lord and master, continues for him. “We have, I believe, established what Merlin has done and, if not the precise reason why Merlin did it, at least the general idea.” Merlin is not quite too busy shuffling guiltily to notice Gwaine and Lancelot doing the same, but it is a close thing. “What remains, then, is to decide what to do with him.” If Leon had sounded more disapproving, Merlin would have flinched, but he doesn’t; he just sounds kind, as if he has already judged and forgiven Merlin. He is not comfortable with it, not at all, but seeing as the alternative to being forgiven too quickly is to be executed, Merlin cannot bring himself to actually complain, even though quite a large part of him tells him that he should.
“Quite,” Arthur replies, regaining coherent speech. “In light of the fact that I do not intend to continue my father’s strict anti-magic regime when I reign, I think executing a friend who has saved all our lives at least once is perhaps not the best course of action.” He sighs when Elyan looks displeased. “However, I will put it to a vote, since I am aware not everyone agrees with me.” Elyan looks mollified, even though it is clear that whilst Arthur is offering a vote, chances are he will do what he wants to regardless of the outcome. “Those in favour of letting Merlin live, raise your hands.”
It is impossible to say whether Gwaine or Lancelot raises their hand first. Gaius, Leon and Arthur are less enthusiastic, the former due to his age, the others as a matter of decorum. Percival hesitates slightly, but agrees before Lance has the chance to turn a glare on him. Only Elyan’s hand remains firmly down.
Arthur nods, looking both proud and disappointed. “Okay, good. However, Merlin, I do not think you should be entirely unpunished. It seems you did not break your oath, yet you did, in a fit of temper, attack one of my best knights. Were you a normal man, fighting by non-magical means, I would not be wasting my time with your petty disputes.” Usually, Merlin would chide Arthur for referring to the near-death of a man as a petty dispute, but he doesn’t now, can’t, won’t, because Arthur is letting him live and that is more than he deserves. “You are not normal, though, so I find myself forced to act.”
He lapses into silence. No one else speaks, unsure if Arthur has finished entirely or if he has just paused to collect his thoughts.
As the minutes go by, the latter seems increasingly improbable, and Merlin’s unspoken prayers for someone, anyone, to say something are finally answered when Sir Leon – who is now raised from the status of saint and is almost certainly a child of the gods – asks, ever so politely, “Might I make a suggestion, sire?” At Arthur’s nod of agreement, he turns to Gaius. “Are there any detrimental effects known to come from prolonged usage of the potion you have given Merlin?”
Gaius looks pensive. “I do not believe so, but I shall have to consult my books to be certain.”
“And how long do the magic-blocking properties of this potion last?”
The pensive looks morphs steadily into a frown. “Two to three days, at the potency of this particular blend. There are both weaker and stronger versions available.”
Leon finishes his suggestion, somewhat unnecessarily; Merlin has already worked out where this is going, as – he thinks – have Arthur and Lance, if their respective thoughtful and grim expressions are anything to go by. “I propose, then, that Merlin take this potion as often as is required for his magic to remain subdued, for a suitable duration of time.”
Faces around the room range from approving smirks (Elyan) to blatant disgust (Lancelot). Merlin has resumed his former plan of avoiding looking at Gwaine as much as possible, but he imagines his face to be a mirror of Lance’s, if not stronger. It is not Gwaine who speaks first in Merlin’s defence, though.
“Are you mad?” asks Lancelot, sounding both polite and proper and completely disparaging (a combination up until this moment universally thought to be impossible). “Merlin is defenceless without his magic. Camelot is defenceless without his magic.”
“Camelot managed perfectly well before Merlin and his magic, Sir Lancelot,” Leon replies reasonably. “As for Merlin being defenceless, I see no reason why he cannot join us for training. It will do him good to learn how to defend himself without the use of his gifts.”
Merlin is not entirely sure of this idea; not so much the suppression of his magic – although he is not by any means fond of that, he accepts it is necessary to provide a feeling of security in the others – but training with the knights. He has done that before, sort of, and it was neither fun nor useful. Still, he will bear the punishment they see fit without complaint, when it is so much less than he deserves.
“With all due respect, Sir Leon,” Lancelot resumes his point, “Camelot was not being attacked by two angry witches before Merlin arrived.”
Leon nods, taking this on board, but says nothing. Arthur does, however. “A less potent version of the potion, then, one that lasts a day, possibly less. That should give it time to wear off if we find ourselves facing a magical threat beyond Gaius’ ability to handle.” When no one objects, he continues. “A vote, then. Those in favour of Merlin’s powers remaining bound, raise your hands.”
Gaius raises his hand with visible reluctance, and Lancelot and Gwaine keep theirs lowered. Leon votes in favour of his own plan, as do Arthur and Percival, whilst Elyan’s face indicates that this punishment is acceptable only if no harsher one is under consideration.
“Five in favour, two against. Very well. I suggest we reconvene to discuss this further in a week.” There are murmurs of agreement, though none seem to be required. “I see no further need to continue this conversation. Gaius, if you could begin preparing a less potent potion, please, and give Merlin another dose of the one we have available at the moment. Sir Leon, I would appreciate your assistance with some state matters. I will see you back at work tomorrow, Merlin, and the rest of you in the courtyard at the usual time.” With that, Arthur departs, Leon and Gaius following, leaving behind four knights, a temporarily powerless warlock, and a very uncomfortable silence.
X
Gwaine is not entirely sure where they go from here. He almost wishes that Arthur had given them instructions as he did with Gaius and Leon, even though he hates following the blond prat’s orders, because at least then he would know what to do.
After a minute or two of silence, Merlin crosses the room to take the seat recently vacated by Gaius. Gwaine tries to hide his...something, he isn’t sure what, because sorrow and guilt and jealousy and grief all seem too small and too singular to describe what he is feeling right now, as Merlin takes the hand of the man he almost killed.
He has had people accuse him of being cold, without feelings, before, and he almost certainly was, for years. Because he felt things, but only selfishly; anger when someone got between him and what he wanted, happiness when he got there first, concern when everything went to shit and he thought that it would work out with him dead or worse. He was never jealous, really, because no one ever had something he wanted so much that he couldn’t just find something else he wanted more. He has never grieved, because he never cared for anything enough to be saddened by its loss. He has never felt guilty, because it never mattered to him what others think of how he lived.
And now he does; now he feels everything and nothing, alive and dead and so, so angry at anyone and everyone and mostly himself that he thinks he might explode if he doesn’t find some way to rid himself of all the love and hate that fills him.
“I’m hungry,” Percival says, and Gwaine contemplates proposing to him. “Do you want food, Lancelot? Merlin?” The second name seems to be something of an afterthought, but Lance still smiles approvingly at him, and there is a semblance of appreciation in Merlin’s eyes.
“Yes, please,” Merlin answers, almost meekly. Lance nods, and Elyan adds, “I’ll have something as well, if you’re offering.”
Percival looks at Gwaine in a way that is both an offer and a request for assistance (clearly, being silent so much of the time has lent him an impressively vocal array of facial expressions).
Gwaine, grateful for both an excuse to leave the room and a reason to come back again, says, “I’ll help you out, mate. If you think you three can manage not to cause any more trouble before we get back.” He hopes it comes off as a joke, but the room-wide wince sort of suggests it doesn’t. “Okay. I’ll just go, then.” He doesn’t flee, he doesn’t, no matter how much it looks like he does.
Well, okay, the fact that he has to pause while Percival catches up maybe implies running away, but he can pretend.
Thankfully, Percival isn’t the type to make meaningless conversation, so he doesn’t ask Gwaine why he ran (or any of the other questions people have been wanting to ask him since Merlin accidentally attacked Lancelot). Indeed, their walk to the kitchen is quiet, peaceful – Gwaine would almost be relaxed, if it wasn’t for the churning in his gut and the clamour of voices in his head. He hopes his face is calm enough that the former is unnoticeable, and tries to ignore the latter; whatever his brain keeps telling him, he knows it’s not that the thought of Gwaine loving Merlin is so terrible that Merlin felt the need to literally (almost) kill the messenger.
Still, it is a far from comfortable situation they are all in now.
Gwaine does notice when they reach the kitchens, but it doesn’t really register until Perce’s elbow plants itself – with not inconsiderable force – in his side. He looks up to see a cook glaring at them impatiently, because apparently Perce has used up his daily quota of words so it’s up to Gwaine to say what they want.
“Food for five, please.” Never bite the hand that feeds you, his mother told him once, and it’s a rule he’s followed carefully since then, extending it to include general politeness to anyone who comes into contact with his meals.
“And you couldn’t eat at lunchtime like everyone else, could you?” the cook snaps, and then waits for an answer (Gwaine had taken the question to be rhetorical).
“We were otherwise occupied. Sorry.” The woman still wants more, apparently, so Gwaine tries to think up a reason that doesn’t give away too much, settling for, “We were helping Prince Arthur with something, and only just got the chance to get something. Please.”
The woman states a little longer, then goes to gather food for them. Gwaine never knew how hard it was to get food from Camelot’s kitchens outside of mealtimes; even with as little money as his family had, he’s certain it was never that difficult at home.
The bag of food they are presented with is somewhat lighter than he was expecting, so he opens it to find a few slices of bread, a hunk of cheese, and a couple of apples; enough to feed two men, maybe three if they’re not too hungry. He shows the fare to Percival, who – helpfully – shrugs. There is nothing to do but brave the angry cook again. “We asked for food for five, I think?”
“That’s what you’ve got,” she replies, sounding even sharper than before. “There’s rationing on.”
Percival’s face is a picture of confusion, and Gwaine says, “First we’ve heard of it.”
“First you’ve...” the woman seems more than a little incredulous. “Where’ve you been eating, upstairs with the toffs?”
“Yeah, actually,” Gwaine laughs, because of course she has no idea who they are, what with their lack of uniforms and his sounding far from noble. “Sir Gwaine, an’ this is Sir Percival. We’re-”
“The prince’s knights, yes. I’ve heard your names before, particularly yours, though not for a while.” Gwaine breaks eye-contact, as her expression makes it clear in just what context she has heard his name. “Bollocks. I’ll just got find you more food, and you can forget I said anything.” She is suddenly all smiles, snatching the food bag back from Gwaine and bustling off.
She returns quickly, the bag somewhat heavier than it was, shoving it at them and backing away. Gwaine, not yet satisfied, passes the bag to Percival and mutters, “Take that back, would you? Give Gaius my share, and tell them I’ll be there later. Want to find out what’s going on here first.”
Perce nods and leaves, and Gwaine presses through the kitchen staff after the cook who served them. He catches up to her before she can escape through a side door leading somewhere he doesn’t know, grabbing her wrist to stop her moving. “So, what’s this about rations, then?” he asks, mildly aggressively, then backs down when he sees that her eyes are wet. “Why are you crying, eh?”
She shows him a terrified face for a second, then masks it well. “It’s nothing, Sir Gwaine. I was chopping onions earlier, for tonight’s soup.”
Gwaine, being an expert bullshitter himself, can spot it from miles away – not, of course, that this takes all that much expertise to spot. “Now now, love. Sorry, I didn’t catch your name earlier.”
“Mary,” she mumbles under her breath, as if hoping he’ll mishear her.
“Mary,” he repeats. “Now, then, Mary, I’m not really sure that lying to me is a good idea.” He leans in a little, offering her his best smile, knowing he won’t do any more than flirt but willing to pretend if necessary to find out what he wants to know. She dabs her eyes with her sleeves, mouth tilting up at the edges, just a little. “That’s better. So, what’s this about rationing, and why aren’t I allowed to know?”
She tells him, slowly and softly, checking over her shoulder frequently. He smiles whenever she pauses, trying to hide the anger steadily growing in his stomach. He thought Camelot was different, that the nobility here were actually noble. So much for that idea.
“And Prince Arthur?” he says when she’s done. “What does he think of this?”
“He doesn’t know, sir. You won’t tell him, will you, please?” Her fear, which had mostly abated during her story, is back in full force now. “The king...King Uther said that anyone caught telling Prince Arthur would be executed. Please, don’t say anything to him. Please.”
“I won’t,” he lies, mostly to stop her panicked begging; the first thing he’s going to do now is find Arthur and get him to bloody well fix this. Still, Mary looks happy with his lie, so he smiles and bids her goodbye, trying to ignore the guilt her gratitude inspires in him.
X
When Percival and Gwaine have gone, Lance turns to look at Elyan – though, thankfully, keeps hold of Merlin’s hand, as if aware of how much he still needs the contact, the confirmation of continued life and friendship. And then he waits. And waits, and waits.
Elyan looks increasingly uncomfortable, with both the long staring and the complete silence. Eventually, he cracks, when it finally sinks in that Lancelot isn’t going to say anything.
“What?” he snaps.
“I am waiting,” Lancelot replies simply. This, Merlin thinks, is sort of stating the obvious.
“For what?”
Lance gives him an are you really that stupid? look, and when Elyan’s expression of blank confusion seems to suffice as an affirmative, he elaborates. “I am waiting for you to explain, because maybe then you can make this all okay.”
Merlin is really rather baffled by all of this, and it doesn’t seem to be making a whole lot more sense to Elyan, who answers, “I’m sorry?”
“That, I suppose, is a start, but it is not really me you should be apologising to.”
“What are you talking about, Lancelot?” Merlin asks, before Elyan can voice a similar inquiry.
“What do you think I am talking about, Merlin?” Lance barely pauses in his glaring to look at him, and then his attention is straight back on Elyan. “You wanted to kill him.”
“And he wanted to kill you!”
Lancelot only sighs in response to his anger, speaking softly, calmly. “No, he did not. Trust me, Elyan, I care about my life enough that if a mad sorcerer wanted me dead, I would not be arguing to keep him alive. What Merlin did was not deliberate. It was not even me he was angry at, was it?”
It takes Merlin a moment to realise that this is directed at him. When he does, he finds himself without words anyway, and settles for shaking his head.
Lance continues. “Merlin lost control, just for a moment. He was angry at himself, because...well, it is up to him if he wants to say why. But the rest of us are willing to accept this. The problem is that you are not, and I do not understand why.”
“You don’t understand? I don’t understand. I don’t understand why he gets to break the strictest law in the kingdom and you all skip around saying he didn’t mean to do anything wrong.”
“He did not,” Lance says, even as Merlin shakes his head and wants to agree with Elyan; regardless of where this argument is going, Merlin knows that what he did was wrong, seriously so, and in the face of that fact it doesn’t really matter whether or not he actually intended to do it.
“Yes, he did. Or do people often lose control of their emotions and spontaneously develop the ability to use magic?”
Lancelot blinks at him.
“Yeah, I thought not. How many years has he been doing magic? How long have people lied for him? How many have died because of magic while he gets away with nothing more than a couple of months without it?”
This serves to do more in explain Elyan’s anger than almost anything else could have, Merlin thinks (although Lancelot, not being around at the time, finds it to be less clarifying). “Your father?” Merlin asks, trying to sound as non-confrontational as possible.
“My father was innocent. Uther killed him anyway. Why should you get to live, when no one else does?”
There is no real answer Merlin can give to this question, because it is all so horribly unfair that Uther’s mistakes should bring about so much misery, so many people, innocent or guilty, good or evil, all paying the price for Arthur’s life and Igraine’s death, and it is even more unfair that Merlin should live when they do not. Yes, he is Arthur’s friend, but then Gwen is to be his queen. Yes, he has saved their lives with his magic, but Gwen’s father was only an unwitting, accidental accomplice. There is nothing at all that he can say, because it is wrong.
“Arthur is different,” Lancelot says, and Merlin remembers telling those words to others, and thinking them himself, so often followed by the thought things will be better when he is king, even when he wasn’t sure they would. “He tried to save your father. He has tried to save others. Nothing he says or does with ever bring back those who are dead. He can only do this, what he is doing now; making sure no one else dies because of his father or his sister, if they do not deserve it.”
Of course, no words will ever make things okay, because, as Lancelot said, the dead are dead. Perhaps this isn’t such an irreversible state as one would think, but Merlin has seen enough dead men rise from the grave to know that he doesn’t want to add to their numbers. The promise of an end to the injustice of Uther’s reign cannot undo what has happened, but maybe it is enough to help Elyan feel less betrayed (after all, Merlin thinks, and kicks himself internally for doing so, it’s not like Elyan was all that close to his father anyway).
“I know,” Elyan replies to Lancelot. “I know what he’s doing, and why. Understanding something and being happy about it are not the same thing.”
This seems to Merlin to be an entirely unnecessary statement; he and Lancelot know more than anyone could want to about terrible, unhappy, unavoidable problems. Silence, though, seems to be for the best.
X
Arthur, it turns out, is as easily locatable as he was the last time Gwaine searched for him. Sir Leon is still with him; a good thing, too, because sometimes the prince sorely needs a voice of reason (usually Merlin’s burden to bear) and what with Gwaine feeling the need to sock the king in the face, mental instability or not, that voice is not going to be his.
He knocks on Arthur door, but enters before he gets a reply, too antsy to wait. “We have a problem, sire.”
“Oh, for fu- I’ve not been gone an hour. You cannot possibly be here to tell me there’s been another near death amongst the lot of you in that time.”
“No, it’s-”
“Good,” Arthur cuts in. “You can handle it amongst yourselves, then. I’m busy.”
Gwaine, in a moment of unprecedented stupidity – and he has done some impressively stupid things throughout his life, more so in the past few months than all the years before them – steps forward and snatches the quill from the prince’s hand as he goes to return to his papers.
Arthur himself is too stunned respond, but Leon makes a move for his sword. Gwaine drops the quill quickly. “Sorry,” he says, trying to actually look it, then continues speaking in the hope that his next words will distract them from what he has just done. “The castle kitchens are rationing food.”
Arthur visibly thinks for a moment, as if trying to recall whether he has heard or read anything on the matter. “No, I’d have known about that. You must be mistaken.”
“Yeah, I’m not. Was just there with Percival. Cook we spoke to thought we were servants; that’s how I found out. It’s only for the lower classes, not nobles. I don’t know who knows, but your father is threatening to execute whoever tells you.” Gwaine thought nothing of this threat when Mary told whim; of course he was going to tell Arthur, though he would do so without mentioning names. Not, however, it is his neck on the line, and from Arthur’s face he is apparently doing something very brave rather than just what he is obligated to do.
“Okay,” Arthur says, face grim. “Why is food being rationed?”
“Blight on crops. Not all of them, I was told. Just the outer regions, but it’s moving towards the city. Closing in. There’s enough to last the winter, if we’re all rationed and what’s saved gets stored properly, but...” he trails off there. To go any further would be to criticise the king, and although there is a definite anti-Uther sentiment going around, no one is foolish enough to express such views in front of his son.
“This blight is natural, I take it?”
“Your father certainly thinks so. And, ‘cause I know it’ll be your next question, none of us knew. We would’ve told you. Not Merlin or Gwen either; he has breakfast with me, lunch and dinner with all of us, and Gwen eats with Elyan or you. They aren’t really servants, anyway, everyone knows that. They’re exempt as well.”
“Hmm.” Arthur stacks his papers neatly then stands. “Thank you, Gwaine. Go back to what you were doing. I’ll deal with this. Leon, if you could come with me, please.” Arthur, unlike Gwaine, is not angry; he just looks weary, and sort of sad.
Gwaine wants to protest, to go with them to confront the king, but he sees Leon shaking his head behind Arthur’s back, so he just leaves, heading back to Merlin’s.
He finds the silence there has abated somewhat. Merlin and Lance are talking almost happily, and even Elyan is adding something occasionally. Perce is quiet, but then he usually is, unless he’s drunk. He shoots a questioning look at Gwaine, and Lance smiles. “What kept you, mate?”
“Hmm? Oh, nothing. Had to check something, speaking to Arthur. He’s taking care of it.”
“‘It’?” Elyan asks. “What ‘it’?”
“It’s fine. He’ll explain later, or tomorrow. Don’t worry about it.” Gwaine could explain himself, but why deny Arthur the privilege, particularly when doing so will sort of suggest he’s the one who told Arthur, and he’s rather too fond of his life to let more people than necessary know that fact.
Merlin looks at him speculatively, clearly wanting to ask more, but he doesn’t. Amazingly, he pulls off the speculation without making eye contact, though that might be because Gwaine won’t do much more than glance at him from the corner of his eye.
Conversation resumes while Gwaine is too preoccupied with not looking at Merlin to work out what they’re talking about. He ignores most of what is said, trying instead to plan for the time – inevitable as it is – when he will have to talk to Merlin without anyone unaware of the situation there to act as a buffer. He is sure that as soon as Elyan and Percival depart, Lance will start talking and not stop until Gwaine and Merlin join in.
He could leave first, he supposes, but he won’t, for reasons he doesn’t quite get himself, let alone expecting anyone else to understand.
Eventually, eventually, the sky darkens and Gwaine’s stomach beings to growl.
“Gwaine,” Lancelot says, “Did you not have lunch?” His voice is full of reproach, and Gwaine would call him a hypocrite for his concern now, after what he’s done recently, if he didn’t know that all that was motivated by concern as well, misplaced thought it may have been.
“No?” And why that comes out as a question, he hasn’t a bloody clue.
Lance sighs, and Gwaine is simultaneously touched by the fact that he cares and pissed off because he is not a child. “Go on, then. They will be serving up pretty soon. All of you go, in fact; if you found it hard to get one meal from the kitchens, imagine how hard it will be to get a second.”
Elyan obeys without question, Percival thinks for a moment first. Only Merlin seems truly reluctant to leave.
“Go, fool,” Lance tells him. “I promise not to expire while left unsupervised. You do not need to come back tonight, either. Gwaine will bring me food when he has finished eating, and I will be back on my feet tomorrow.”
Gwaine rolls his eyes at the order, but knows he’ll do it. Of course he will, because whatever Lancelot wants to talk about will be far easier to face than the conversation he knows he will have with Merlin afterwards. “Come on, then,” he says, deliberately not watching as Merlin hugs Lance before they all leave the room.
X
Dinner is uneventful in the way that precious few meals are, and the amount of food on the tables is no less than it usually is. No one comments as Gwaine stacks a plate high – he has, after all, not eaten since breakfast, and he didn’t have much then, or the day before – until he passes it across the table to Merlin.
He ignores Elyan’s questions and Merlin’s complaints, saying, “You should eat that. Might be that last decent meal you get for a while.” He isn’t all that concerned with how odd this is; they will understand his cryptic remarks soon enough, and he has spent more than one night counting the ridges of Merlin’s spine or tracing his fingers along his ribs.
Halfway through his own plate (less stacked than the one he gave Merlin, but not by much), a soft voice over his left shoulder tells him to, “Budge up, please.” He does so, allowing Sir Leon to sit on the bench beside him.
“You’ll want to keep your head down, Gwaine,” Leon murmurs. “Arthur didn’t tell Uther who told him about the rationing, but the king will be making inquiries. If anyone remembers seeing you make your way from the kitchens straight to Arthur’s chambers before their confrontation...Well, it’s best for all concerned that you don’t draw any attention to yourself.”
“Not a complete idiot, Leon. What’s being done about it all?” Gwaine keeps his voice equally low, aware that Percival is listening in on his other side. Merlin and Elyan opposite them are talking with almost as little hostility as they ever have, ignorant to all the muttering, and Gwaine wonders what was said while he was gone that served to push Elyan into understanding.
“City-wide rationing starts tomorrow, for everyone. Breakfast will be as usual; Arthur isn’t making the announcement until mid-morning, although the kitchen staff are being told tonight. Have you told-?”
“Nah. Didn’t know what Arthur wanted known, so I thought it best not to say.”
Leon nods. “Wise.”
Gwaine tries to decide whether he should be offended by the tone of surprise, settling finally for not; he knows he doesn’t particularly give an impression of intelligence, and surprising people by surpassing their expectations is far better than surprising them by falling short.
When he finishes eating, he prepares another plate to take to Lancelot. He claps Leon on the shoulder as he stands, then leans down to say goodbye. “Thanks for filling me in, mate. See if you can get this lot to have seconds, yeah? No point in it going to waste, particularly with the future looking less than impressive.” He’s heard from Merlin that anything left from the knights’ tables goes to feed the pigs; servants caught taking food without permission are regarded as thieves and punished appropriately. Gwaine smiles, grimly, and says at a normal volume, “Right, then. See the lot of you tomorrow,” before making his way once again to Merlin’s room.
Gaius is not in his rooms; Gwaine has no idea where he is, or what good a court physician who is rarely where you’d expect him to be is, but that isn’t really any of his business, he supposes. Lancelot, however, is dozing lightly when Gwaine taps on Merlin’s door and enters.
“Gwaine,” he says, by way of greeting. “You have brought me food, I hope. And eaten properly yourself.”
“Yeah. From the table, not the kitchen. And yes, I ate. Only missed lunch ‘cause I had to talk to Arthur.”
“You did not?” Lance looks alarmed, and it takes Gwaine a moment to realise why.
“Didn’t what?” He asks, when he works it out. “Tell him what you said to Merlin, and why that set him off? Nah. Not Merlin I’m unhappy with, so I’ve no reason to spill his secrets, particularly not ones that will embarrass me in the process. Your secrets, however...”
Gwaine smirks as he settles himself in the seat beside Lance, enjoying the horrified look on his face. He isn’t a saint, after all, and Lance has fucked up both Gwaine and Merlin’s happiness in a most spectacular fashion. When it looks like Lance is about to cry, though, he stops. A little meanness every now and again is fine, but this feels unnecessarily cruel, and it’s not like telling Arthur anything had actually crossed Gwaine’s mind until Lancelot seemed worried that it had.
“Relax, Lance. I didn’t tell him anything. Wouldn’t do that to you. We’re mates, right?”
Lance scoffs. “I would not blame you if you had. It would be no less than I deserve.”
“Maybe. Not up to me to say. I know why you told him, anyway. Hell, if I were you, I might’ve done the same. Can’t really punish you for something I would’ve done, and nearly dying is probably punishment enough. You’ll want to eat that,” he gestures to the plate sitting in Lancelot’s lap. “Never know where your next meal is coming from.”
Lance looks at him strangely – whether because of Gwaine’s final statement or the rest of his words, Gwaine doesn’t quite know – but complies anyway. He chews in silence for a minute before asking, “Why?”
“Why what? Need a bit more to go on, if you want me to answer that one, mate.”
“Why,” Lance pauses, looking from Gwaine to his plate and back again, and when he continues his voice is cautious, as if he is almost rethinking his question. “Why is Merlin ending things between you?”
Gwaine is glad he isn’t eating or drinking at this moment, because he is sure anything that would have been in his mouth would have exited it pretty quickly. As it is, he just looks at Lance, slightly stunned, before retrieving his composure. “Because you told him that I love him.”
If it weren’t Lancelot he was talking to, Gwaine suspects that remark would have gotten an eye roll. “That is not what I asked, and you know it.”
“I do, yeah. But I don’t really think that the answer to the question you’re asking is any of your business.” Lance looks sort of disappointed with this response, and Gwaine curses whatever sentimental streak has grown in him recently because it means he has to answer him. “There’s someone else,” he says, and leaves it to Lance to fill in the gaps between that and what he actually wants to know. Gwaine can almost see the thoughts passing through his brain; Lancelot knows that Gwaine and Merlin are exclusive, so he knows that there isn’t someone else in that sense. He also knows that Gwaine loves Merlin, which leaves...
“Merlin loves someone else?” he asks, sounding sceptical. “You really believe that?”
Gwaine shakes his head. “I wish I only believed it.” At Lancelot’s frown, he explains. “If I believed it, there’s a chance I could be wrong. Not a large one, ‘cause this is me, but a chance nonetheless.” Lancelot doesn’t crack a smile, but then as jokes go it isn’t a very funny one. “This is something I know. Merlin doesn’t love me. I’m okay with that fact, most of the time. He isn’t.”
“Supposing I think you are right,” Lancelot says, in a tone that suggests he doesn’t, not in the slightest. Of course, the tone is largely unnecessary, since Gwaine can pretty much read his desire to argue with him written across his face. “If Merlin does not love you, why are you with him? How can you possibly consider that happiness?”
“Really, Lance?” Gwaine answers, because if there’s anyone in the city who knows more about sacrificing his own happiness for the sake of the one he loves than Gwaine, it’s Lancelot. “Wouldn’t you do anything you could to make sure Gwen was happy, regardless of the cost?”
“Gwaine, that is-”
“Wouldn’t you give up your own happiness for her?” Gwaine carries on, as if Lance had never spoken. “Wouldn’t you die for her?”
Lancelot looks him in the eyes, sighing slightly, “In a heartbeat. You know I would.”
“I do, yeah. So how is this supposed to be any harder than that?” It is, of course, because Gwaine cannot imagine dying for Merlin to be anywhere near as difficult as sharing a bed with him, knowing that Merlin is wishing it was someone else’s arms wrapped around him, but at the same time, Merlin’s happiness almost makes it okay.
Lancelot just watches him, like he’s waiting for him to crack. When it becomes clear that Gwaine isn’t going to – not now, not here – he speaks. “Who, then? Who does Merlin love?”
“Nope,” Gwaine says, shaking his head. “Not saying.”
“Because you do not want to, or because you do not know?”
“Of course I know. I knew from the start – before the start, even. It’s not my place to tell you. And you aren’t going to ask him, either, or watch until you work it out.” After all, if Gwaine could tell from just paying attention to Merlin, Lancelot has a more than decent chance of working it out himself. “Let this one of his secrets stay like that, yeah? And don’t...don’t be angry at him on my behalf. Knew what I was letting myself in for, and he isn’t to blame for it.” Gwaine chuckles weakly at Lancelot’s exasperated expression. He knows he’s being overprotective again, and that he probably doesn’t have the right anymore, but it’s not like he can just make it go away.
Lancelot finishes his mouthful (a display of manners Gwaine has rarely seen from any of the knights) before asking, “What are you going to do now?”
“I’m going home,” Gwaine answers, and is almost surprised by the certainty in his voice. “Only waited this long ‘cause I thought I could dissuade you.”
“Just like that? Without even talking to Merlin first?”
Gwaine looks at him blankly. “No. Not just going to take off tonight. Need to get permission, and pack things. And, yes, I’ll talk to him, let him say whatever he wants to say.”
This, apparently, meets Lancelot’s approval, because he says only, “Hmm.” Gwaine thinks this is the end of the matter, but only a few forkfuls later Lance continues. “Are you not concerned about how your running away will look?”
“Lancelot, I’ve spent my life running from place to place. Never worried before what people think about it.” Then again, of course, there’s never really been anyone who cared that Gwaine had gone, or who Gwaine cared about leaving. Instead of explaining this, he concludes with, “I’m coming back, anyway.”
“I never questioned it. I would make sure Merlin knows that, though.”
Gwaine smiles, and knows that he doesn’t look happy as he does so. “I will. Don’t know how much he’ll care, but I’ll tell him.”
“He will care,” Lance answers, and it’s like he’s forgotten all about the conversation they just had, like he thinks Merlin and Gwaine will somehow get through this mess happily and with hearts intact. He holds out his empty plate to Gwaine. “Would you take that with you when you leave, please?”
Gwaine takes it from him, standing. “Sure. Goodnight, Lance.”
“Goodnight, Gwaine,” Lance replies, and then, so quietly that Gwaine almost doesn’t hear it, “I am sorry.”
Gwaine doesn’t answer, because what can he say? Lancelot already knows that he understands, and he isn’t a big enough man to forgive so quickly. Maybe one day, given enough time and space, but not yet. He leaves silently, the snick of the door closing seeming very loud behind him.
X
Merlin, when he has finished his unnaturally huge plate of food and refused the suggestion of a second helping (Gwaine trying to make him eat he can understand, but Leon? That’s just weird), doesn’t really have anywhere to go. Lancelot as good as told him he wasn’t allowed to return to his own room, and he cannot continue to stay with Gwaine.
At the same time, though, he can’t just take his belongings and find somewhere to stay until Lancelot recovers. At the very least, Gwaine deserves an explanation (even if he already knows, which he must because why else would he have wanted to leave Merlin in the dark?).
He goes to Gwaine’s room to wait, because he owes him that much. He owes him honesty and apologies and anything he can do to make up for the pain he must have caused him. He just has to hope that ending things now will hurt Gwaine less in the long run than continuing it. Merlin doesn’t love Gwaine, can’t love him, and even if he could, destiny, Albion, Arthur would still come first. He stacks his belongings in a pile at the foot of the bed, remembering the day Gwaine told him he might as well just keep his clothes there, rather than sneaking back to his own room every morning to change. It had been so easy to say yes, even without loving Gwaine, because he cared for him – still does, even, or why else would he be doing what he is about to do? – and because this was something that was Merlin’s alone. His secret, theirs and no one else’s, and this, unlike all the other secrets Merlin keeps, was harmless. No one was being hurt by it.
Or so he thought.
X
Eventually, Gwaine arrives, snapping Merlin from his guilty reverie. He shuts the door behind him and slumps against it, his whole body screaming defeat. “Merlin,” he says gently.
“Hello, Gwaine.” Merlin knows he sounds just as gentle, and just as sad. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, Merlin. Sorry won’t change anything.”
“No,” Merlin agrees. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not.” He stands, wanting to go to Gwaine and hug him, holding him the way he’s always held Merlin when he was the one wearing that face. It would be a false comfort, with the conversation they are about to have, so Merlin just ends up stationary in the middle of the room.
“So is this it?” Gwaine asks, not sounding anywhere near as bitter as Merlin thinks he should do. “Is this when you tell me that you can’t be with me anymore, because you love him and not me?”
Those aren’t the words Merlin was planning to say; he was going to be more cautious about it, slower and steadier and – he hopes – kinder. But they convey his intent, if not all the emotion that goes with it. He stays silent.
“There’s no way I could convince you this isn’t necessary, is there?”
“No,” Merlin replies, though there probably is. “And if you really do care, you won’t try.” It is a terrible thing to say, because, in all the time he has known Gwaine, Merlin has never once had reason to question whether Gwaine cares for him, and he certainly doesn’t have reason now. But Merlin has been selfish so long that a few minutes more won’t really do any further damage, and he can’t listen to Gwaine present the many justifications he will have for them staying together. He doesn’t want to leave Gwaine, because it will hurt himself almost as much as it will hurt Gwaine, but he has to.
“Please, Gwaine, don’t make this any harder than it has to be. You’re a good man; you deserve someone who can feel for you what you feel for me. You deserve to be loved, and I can’t be that person.” Merlin can feel his eyes tearing up and wills himself not to cry. Of all the unforgivable things he has done, crying now, making Gwaine comfort him – and he will, of course, because Gwaine so clearly has no sense of personal well-being where Merlin is concerned – would be worse than most of them.
“I don’t want that person, whoever the hell they are.” Gwaine steps away from the door and paces towards Merlin, the mask he’s wearing too strong for Merlin to read anything more than the tiniest flickers of emotion he’s letting through. He doesn’t seem angry, though, only sad, and all the variant emotions that go with it. “I knew, Merlin, the first time I kissed you. I knew how you felt, how I felt. If I wanted someone who could love me back, I wouldn’t have started this.”
“You will, eventually. You’ll get over me. You’ll find someone else, if you look, if you leave me for long enough to try.”
“Like you’ll get over Arthur, right?”
Merlin could argue that this is something different, that what he feels for Arthur is different to what Gwaine feels for him, that it is more permanent, less likely to be forgotten. Gwaine will only ask why if he does so, and Merlin really doesn’t think he could say. He just has to hope it is.
“Will you be happier with me gone, Merlin?” Gwaine asks, changing track, Merlin assumes, when it becomes clear that Merlin isn’t going to reply to his remark about Arthur. “Will it make you happy to end things between us?”
Merlin’s heart lifts at the question, because all he has to do to convince Gwaine that this is for the best is to lie, and do so believably. This is a task made easier by the fact that he genuinely does believe it to be for the best. Not because he will be happier, but because he’s sure Gwaine will be, given time. “Yes,” he says, voice sounding steady to his own ears, and he’s fairly certain his face is calm and confident, as much as it can be. “I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you, Gwaine, I promise. But I will be happier.” Saying anything more will only make it obvious that he is lying; all he can do is wait to see if Gwaine buys it.
For a long moment, Merlin is sure he won’t, is sure Gwaine knows him well enough to see through this. He doesn’t know when during their conversation Gwaine stopped looking at him, but he turns back now, gaze intense and searching for a sign that this isn’t the truth. Merlin does all he can not to provide one.
“Okay,” Gwaine says finally. “If you’re happy, then it’s-” he doesn’t finish the sentence, turning his back and putting a hand to his forehead. Merlin doesn’t try to get him to look at him, because he knows Gwaine has given up on controlling his facial expressions, and he doesn’t want to see what he looks like right now, no matter how cowardly that might be.
Still, he can’t stay standing there watching Gwaine’s misery any longer. He walks forward and reaches out, puts a hand on Gwaine’s shoulder. “I’m so sor-”
“I swear, Merlin, if you say you’re sorry one more time...” The words are angry; the tone is not. “Just go, Merlin. Please, just...”
Merlin wants to obey, he really does, because the defeated slump of Gwaine’s shoulders is doing terrible things to his insides and if he doesn’t leave quickly he will change his mind. If it was only his mind that was in charge here, that wouldn’t be so bad, but changing his mind about leaving Gwaine will not change how he feels. Merlin can stay, but he still won’t love Gwaine, and regardless of how well he intends to treat him, it will be weeks – if not days – before he returns to old habits. He wants to leave, because he wants to do the right thing, but he doesn’t know where to go. “I don’t have anywhere else to go,” he says, only realising when Gwaine turns to look at him that he should have left without saying anything; if Gwaine’s posture had hurt him, it is nothing compared to how his expression makes Merlin feel.
“Lancelot’s,” Gwaine answers. “If he’s in your room, he can’t...” Merlin would laugh, if it weren’t so far from funny; an inability to finish sentences has always been much more his thing than Gwaine’s. Gwaine, who has always been so certain, who has always known exactly what to say, and Merlin has brought him to this.
He goes.
X
Gwaine knows Merlin doesn’t want to hurt him, because Merlin never wants to hurt anyone. It shouldn’t hurt, anyway; he’s known all along that it would come to this, that Merlin wouldn’t stay with him once he knew. He’s had two days to prepare himself for this conversation (even if he spent half that time worrying about whether or not Merlin was going to survive long enough for them to have it), and it still feels like his heart is shrivelling up to the size of a fruit stone, like he has just taken a knife, an arrow, an axe for someone he doesn’t even like.
He has spent years hearing and scorning the cliché of a person’s world ending when they are left by the one they love, and now...now he is fucking living it.
There is a list of things Gwaine will not allow himself to do. He will not beg. He will not cry. He will not argue when Merlin tells him that this is the right thing to do. He will not let the angry, instinctual part of his brain take over, the part that will want to hurt Merlin as much as Merlin is hurting him.
But he can’t stop himself from asking. He knows that Merlin will say yes, because he knows that Merlin knows his own happiness far outweighs Gwaine’s in terms of importance. He knows Merlin will say yes, but he doesn’t know if Merlin will be lying when he does so.
And then he realises how much of a mistake asking that question is, because he thinks Merlin lies to him, but he just isn’t sure. All he knows is that he wants Merlin to be lying, so that he can fight back, present all the reasons for them to stay together that Merlin has asked him not to give. And because he wants it, he can’t let himself accept anything he sees in Merlin’s face or hears in his voice. He wants it to be a lie, so he can’t trust the instinct that tells him it is.
“Okay,” he says. “If you’re happy, then it’s-”
But it isn’t. It isn’t fucking okay. It’s not all fine and dandy, and he can’t make himself say that it is. For the first time in months, Merlin’s happiness isn’t enough, and Gwaine doesn’t really know how to deal with it.
Merlin starts to apologise, again, and Gwaine just wants him gone before he snaps completely. He hasn’t told Merlin that he’s going home, or said any of the other things he should have said, and yet, when he calls Merlin’s name just as the other man lays his hand on the door handle, he can only say those three words that Merlin already knows, the words that are too insignificant to have caused so much unhappiness, too simple to convey emotions so complex.
“I love you,” he tells him, and even though he has never said it to anyone before he knows that isn’t how it is supposed to sound. I love you is supposed to sound joyful, alive, synonymous with hopes and dreams and promises of forever. I love you is supposed to sound good, is supposed to be brimming with happiness and light and Gwaine never realised until he said it to Merlin just how damnably romantic he actually is. Because it won’t fix anything, won’t change Merlin’s mind or heart, and yet he cannot let Merlin leave without saying it, just once, even though it sounds broken, apologetic, drenched in the knowledge that he is not Arthur and thus not enough.
Merlin doesn’t turn around, doesn’t say anything; a brief second of absolute stillness is the only thing that tells Gwaine he has been heard. Merlin goes, as Gwaine asked him to, shutting the door behind him, shutting Gwaine in his room alone.
Alone.
It is what Gwaine asked for, and not what he wants. Nor is it what he needs, but it’s what he is.
The end of the week, his mental deadline for departure, is suddenly so very much too far away. He wants out, and he wants out now.
To hell with packing and permission. To hell with responsible and obedient.
To bloody, fucking, bastardly, buggering hell with sober.
X
Beer.
Beer is his friend.
Beer makes everything just a little bit out of focus, just a little bit further away.
Beer doesn’t abandon him as soon as it finds out how he feels for it.
He needs another drink.
X
Gwaine cannot understand just how wrong he has been lately, how he could be so stupid. He doesn’t need Merlin. He doesn’t need anyone.
He just needs beer.
Beer is his friend.
X
Bonnie is not Gwaine’s friend. Nor is Beatrice, or whatever the other one is called.
“I think you’ve had enough now,” she says.
Bitch.
A hand connects, really kind of sort of painfully, with Gwaine’s left cheek, and the sting does something to lessen the fuzziness in his head. Fuck. That was out loud, wasn’t it?
“Yes, Sir Gwaine, and so was that. I think it’s best you leave now, before my father comes over.”
Well, that’s just fine, isn’t it? It’s not like there aren’t other places Gwaine can go to for a drink. See if he ever comes here again.
X
Except the next place won’t give him drinks, either.
No, okay, they give him one, two, three drinks (it might be more, but his vision is very definitely doubled and possibly tripled, so he isn’t entirely sure). But they don’t give him enough.
And then when he asks for (demands) another, they drag him out. Or someone does. Two someones.
So he maybe swung the first punch, but he didn’t make everyone else join in. It’s not Gwaine’s fault.
“Look, you,” one of the someones shouts at him. “I don’t know who you are, but I don’t expect to see you in here again. No one here deserves your anger.”
With that, they let him go, suddenly and violently; Gwaine staggers, barely managing to avoid landing in the muddy puddle outside the door. He still ends up with his arse hitting the floor pretty damn hard, but he is neither wet nor filthy so it’s more of a victory than experience has lead him to expect.
Besides, there is definitely someone who deserves his anger.
X
Merlin does not sleep well.
Of course, he wasn’t really expecting to.
Lancelot’s room is just so quiet, really. Quiet and unfamiliar. The sheets smell like Lance (and it isn’t that Lancelot stinks, but his smell isn’t the one Merlin is used to), and Merlin can’t seem to get warm, despite how well wrapped in them he is.
Objectively, he has always known that he is cold, his hands and feet in particular. Until he moved in with Gwaine, it was never really an issue, except for the rare occasions he ended up sleeping head to toe with Arthur when they’d get stuck camping unexpectedly for one reason or another. And then Gwaine, who complained every time Merlin’s icy toes brushed against him, but never moved away, who would warm Merlin’s hands with his own after whining about their temperature, who would hold Merlin closer and tighter whenever he shivered.
Now he is sleeping alone, in a bed that is not his own, with cold toes and no one to warm them on, no soft breath in his ear, no arms wrapped around him, no legs draped over his.
Or, technically, he isn’t. He is not sleeping. Merlin is cold, alone, and very much awake.
He tosses and turns for more hours than there should be in a night, finally giving up shortly before sunrise. It is far too early to wake Arthur (or anyone, for that matter), but lying in bed any longer is truly pointless, so he gets up, dressing in some of the clothes he took with him on leaving Gwaine’s room.
The kitchens, Merlin thinks, will be open, bustling and busy, and seeing as he has no desire to eat in the mess hall (chances are, Gwaine will be there) he can go to the kitchens for breakfast, then collect something for Arthur when he is done. It isn’t like Arthur doesn’t yell whenever Merlin wakes him; at least with him shouting, Merlin can pretend something is still normal.
Besides, in the absence of magic and sleep, he’s going to need all the extra time he can get.
X
Arthur does not seem to agree with him, or even understand, if his irritation is anything to go by. He doesn’t comment on how visibly tired Merlin appears (and, having seen his reflection, Merlin knows just how terrible he looks), or on the absence of quips when Merlin wakes him, serves his breakfast and sets about tidying his room.
Merlin doesn’t notice Arthur’s impatient stare, though he imagines that by the time he says, “Merlin, hurry up,” the staring has gone on for several minutes. He finishes tucking in the corners of Arthur’s sheets in an almost vaguely neat way, then follows him from the room.
It is far harder to help Arthur into his armour than it has been for years. Merlin’s hands do not seem willing to work in cohesion with his brain; he knows how to put on each piece of armour, how to fasten them together, and yet the information seems to get lost somewhere between his brain and his hands because nothing is doing what it is supposed to. Arthur allows him more than a couple of minutes of useless fumbling before pushing him away gently. “Go sit down, Merlin,” he tells him, not unkindly. “I can finish this myself, and you’re clearly too tired to begin training today.”
Merlin does, because disobedience would take far too much thought (and the fact that he hadn’t noticed the second set of armour lying next to Arthur’s until Arthur pointed it out to him sort of suggests that the prince isn’t wrong). Gwen isn’t there today, so Merlin sits alone and almost dozes, his back against the fence surrounding the field, until Lance shakes his shoulder gently. Even so, Merlin starts, and Lance takes a quick step back.
“Sorry, I was – did you sleep at all last night, Merlin?”
Merlin rubs his eyes, squinting blearily up at him. “I don’t think so, no. Did you want something?”
“I was wondering if you knew where Gwaine is.” At Merlin’s frown, he elaborates. “He is not here, Merlin. He was not at breakfast, either, so I checked your – his room, I mean, and he was not there.”
“Gwaine’s not here?” Merlin looks at the field behind Lancelot to find that, yes, Gwaine is not present. “Where...?”
Lancelot shakes his head. “That is what I was asking you. Really, Merlin, wake up. Why did you not sleep, anyway?”
“I slept in your room. Or didn’t, rather. Gwaine and I...” Finishing that sentence is too painful (and would make things sound like a mutual decision, which it in no way was, Merlin knows), so Merlin just stops, leaving Lancelot to work it out.
And he does, all of it. “You broke up? No, that is not what it was. You left him. Did you even let him explain?” Merlin hears the disapproval in his voice, just the faintest whisper of it, and wonders just how hard Lancelot is working to keep the rest of his opinions hidden, and why. This is Lancelot, first to point out and condemn any hint of unfairness, and yet he is trying to hide what he really thinks of Merlin’s latest crappy treatment of Gwaine. “I am sure you thought it was for the best,” Lancelot adds, as some peculiar sort of apology, the fact that he doesn’t even believe his own words audible in every syllable.
Merlin winces, too tired to be defensive, too sad to explain that he had to end it, that it wouldn’t be fair to continue relying on Gwaine, and that if he had to hear Gwaine fight his decision, he wouldn’t have been able to walk away. He just sits silently, absorbing Lancelot’s unspoken displeasure with him, accepting it as the punishment he deserves, because he knows no one else is going to treat him as he deserves to be treated.
He waits, trying not to waver under the weight of the disdain Lancelot probably thinks Merlin hasn’t noticed, until he hears Arthur shouting. “Sir Lancelot, we’re waiting for you. Since you saw fit to ignore the advice given to you with regards to your own health, it would be appreciated if you would do what you are supposed to. Leave my servant alone, please.”
“But I-” Lancelot begins, only to but cut off by Arthur.
“Now. No buts. You can talk later.”
Lancelot obeys, shooting Merlin a look that states very clearly that he will be doing just that, at the earliest possible opportunity. Merlin can’t even bring himself to worry about it.
He closes his eyes as the ring of steel on steel resumes, occasionally punctuated by a grunt or cry, and thinks that perhaps he actually manages to fall asleep for a short while; the next time he is definitely aware of his surroundings, training is over, the light shining through his eyelids is blocked slightly and he can hear Leon, Lancelot and Arthur talking in hushed voices.
X
“Is he asleep?” Arthur asks, very quietly, and Merlin doesn’t open his eyes.
“I hope so,” Lancelot replies. “He told me he did not sleep last night. I imagine Gwaine did not either, though I have no idea where he is.” Merlin’s breath catches at the mention of himself, Gwaine and sleeping in such close conjunction, and he expects Arthur or Leon to ask what the link between the two is.
When they don’t, Merlin slits his eyes open enough to see Arthur very deliberately avoiding Lancelot’s gaze, so he is prepared for his next words. “I do, actually. He-” Arthur looks at Merlin, his expression one of obvious and entirely genuine concern, something Merlin has never seen directed at him. He closes his eyes fully, before – he thinks – Arthur has the chance to see that they are open, and the prince continues. “He came to my room last night, shouting incoherently, completely drunk. All I managed to catch before the guards took him away was that something is all my fault. He spent the night in the dungeons; it was the only way I could convince everyone not to tell my fa- I know I saw you move then, Merlin. You can stop pretending.”
Merlin does so, reluctantly, cursing himself for flinching when he heard how (or, rather, where) Gwaine spent his night. “Sorry,” he mutters under the weight of Arthur’s disapprobation.
“I don’t suppose he told you what it is that you are apparently to blame for, sire?” Leon asks as Merlin uses the fence to pull himself to his feet.
“He may have done; I honestly could not say. He’s still down there, anyway, sleeping it off, so I shall ask later when he – I hope – won’t be slurring quite so much.”
Merlin doesn’t like that idea, not in the slightest, but he can’t really protest without providing a reason. He opens his mouth to say something anyway, regardless of the wisdom of doing so, and is surprised when his words are replaced by a jaw-cracking yawn.
“Merlin, go get some sleep,” Arthur instructs. “A servant as tired as you is of no use whatsoever. I shall send someone to wake you this afternoon.”
When a second yawn swallows his refusal, Merlin gives this suggestion the consideration it merits. “Yeah. Yeah, I – sorry.” He stumbles back to the castle, only noticing his destination when the pillow he lays his head on is softer than his own, and smells suspiciously like Gwaine. He is too exhausted to leave, and seeing as Gwaine is locked up until Arthur decides to let him out, Merlin might as well stay in the only place he has any chance of actually sleeping.
X
It is not as long as Gwaine would like since he last awoke without knowing where he is before opening his eyes (though it is quite a while). Far longer is the time since he last woke with such a splitting headache.
“Merlin,” he mumbles, opening his eyes ever so slightly, only to shut them immediately when the light feels like knives driving into his eyes. “Merlin, what happened last night?”
“Merlin isn’t here,” a voice replies, further away than Gwaine was expecting.
He tries again to see where he is, this time managing to bear the pain long enough for the room around him to come into focus. Well, he says room. What he actually means is cell. Grey stone, grey bars, grey blanket lying next to him. Even the straw he’s lying on manages to be grey. It’s sort of a relief, because Gwaine is fairly sure the combination of light and colour right now might actually kill him.
When he’s quite sure he’s not about to throw up all he’s eaten and drunk in the last day or two (which he gathers is quite a lot, more than it has been in months, possibly even years, based upon his current state of agony), Gwaine looks around him for the source of the voice.
Oh, joy. Arthur. Leaning against a pillar just the other side of Gwaine’s bars, smirking at him in a despicably pleased way.
“It seems you had a good night, Sir Gwaine.”
At this, Gwaine’s mind begins working at filling in the blanks. Obviously, he drank a hell of a lot, otherwise his head wouldn’t be feeling like a well-used anvil right now. But why? Apart from the brief misunderstanding about other people, he hasn’t felt the need to get out of his mind drunk since he and Merlin got together and...
“No. It was decidedly not a good night, Prince Arthur.” Whatever may have happened after the drinking and getting evicted from two taverns in the space of one night (something of a record for him, though that is probably just because he has rarely drunk in cities big enough to have more than one tavern), it was probably as far from good as he can imagine. To be totally honest, he’s happy enough not remembering it; his conversation with Merlin was misery enough for one night, and the odd gap in his memories can’t possibly do him more harm than filling those gaps would.
“You are not the only one,” Arthur replies. “Merlin, it appears, got not sleep whatsoever, and whilst my own night was not as uncomfortable as his, I did find myself woken by one of my knights, exceedingly intoxicated, shouting in a mildly embarrassing way.”
Gwaine struggles to his feet, fighting nausea and the drumming in his head in order to be slightly closer to eye level with the prince. “I didn’t?” he asks, shame running through him.
“I’m afraid you did.”
Well, that at least explains why Arthur looks so happy to see Gwaine locked up and visibly suffering from the cruellest of hangovers. And, for that matter, explains why he is locked up. It’s almost a pity he can’t remember it, if he apparently succeeded in annoying Arthur enough that imprisonment was the only solution. Although, when he thinks about it, there is only really one reason his alcohol impaired brain might have decided that speaking to Arthur was a good idea. Merlin.
“I don’t suppose I...said anything, did I? Anything...unusual, I mean.” Gwaine leans against his cell door as he asks this, looping his arms through the bars and trying his best to look relaxed (an absurd thing to do, because any sensible person knows that a dungeon – even a dungeon one recognises and probably won’t be imprisoned in for too long – is not somewhere one should relax).
“I couldn’t say. Beyond the fact that you apparently thought that something was – and I paraphrase a little, since your language was somewhat interesting – ‘all my fault’, I did not understand very much. So convinced were you of this belief, however, that you attempted to knock me unconscious. Fortunately, as I’m sure you’ll agree, your level of drunkenness was such that you failed to land a single blow.”
“Fuck, I’m sorry.” Gwaine even thinks he might be, and not just because he’s fairly sure attacking the heir to the throne probably merits fairly harsh punishment, even if said attack fails. Merlin would probably still be with him if he weren’t so hung up over his master, but Arthur never wanted Merlin’s affections. Hell, Arthur doesn’t even know he has Merlin’s affections; he is no more to blame than most people, and considerably less to blame than some.
Arthur watches Gwaine for a long moment before responding. “Yes, I suppose you are. Would you tell me what I am to blame for, if I were to ask?”
“I don’t know,” Gwaine blusters, hoping if he sounds assured enough Arthur will believe him. “Who knows what I thought? I was-”
“If the next word out your mouth is drunk,” Arthur cuts in, “you will find yourself residing here for quite some time.”
Gwaine nods, conceding; there are only so many times he can use that as an excuse, and Arthur has heard it more than most. “Okay, fine. I know what it was. But I won’t tell you. I was wrong anyway. Wasn’t your fault.”
“I see. And if I were to ask Merlin?”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t know what you’re talking about,” Gwaine lies, fully expecting Arthur to call him on it.
“Are you?” Gwaine expects Arthur to continue, because he knows full well that Merlin would know exactly what Gwaine meant, and would Arthur really have mentioned Merlin if he didn’t think he knew? However, nothing further follows this question. Gwaine doesn’t reply, regardless of how much Arthur seems to expect him to, because anything he says will only convince Arthur to ask Merlin about it, and Gwaine would really rather Merlin didn’t know about this at all. He still has the dregs of his pride to think of, neglected though they may have been of late.
Eventually, Arthur nods, and Gwaine feels like his silence has lost him this battle just as surely as speaking would have done. “Very well, Sir Gwaine. I have an announcement to make. The guards have orders to release you shortly before dinner this evening.”
He turns to depart, and suddenly Gwaine doesn’t want to be left alone there, even if his only companion is Arthur.
“Wait,” he calls, then stumbles to think of something to say when Arthur turns back with a frown on his face. “I intend to return home,” he announces, when nothing better presents itself to his mind. It isn’t the request for leave that he originally intended, nor is it the unflinching rudeness he vaguely recalls planning yesterday evening, before he was evicted from the knights’ tavern. Some sort of middle ground, he thinks, neither obsequious nor overly demanding.
Unfortunately, it does not have the effect he desired; Arthur’s only remark is, “I shall consider it,” and then Gwaine is left alone.
X
“Merlin.” The voice – he thinks it is Lancelot’s – is soft and careful. “Are you in there?”
“Yeah,” he replies, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he rolls from his – Gwaine’s – bed. “What is it?” He opens the door, letting Lance in, then sits on a chair to lace his boots.
“Arthur is letting Gwaine out soon. I did not think you would want him to return and find you asleep in his bed. Also, it is dinner time, and it has been announced this morning that food will only be served at mealtimes; something about crops dying across the kingdom.”
“Oh. Thanks, I guess,” Merlin is thinking, though, about the last time crops started dying and why. But even if Arthur does consistently feel the need to go after creatures he doesn’t have the ability to kill just because his father tells him to, surely he wouldn’t be so stupid as to repeat that mistake? This time has to be something else, obviously. Merlin pushes that vague concern from his mind, and is immediately confronted with the next one. “Do...do you know how Gwaine is?”
“No, Merlin, I do not. You can ask him yourself at the table.” Again, Lancelot is clearly trying to hide how unhappy he is with Merlin, and is not really doing a whole lot better than he was that morning. “We should be going there now, if you do not mind.”
Merlin nods, knowing that he isn’t going to talk to Gwaine about his feelings. Gwaine wouldn’t want to tell him, and no matter that he chooses to blame Arthur, Gwaine’s misery is entirely Merlin’s fault. He should have tried harder to be friends with him, rather than pestering until Gwaine gave up on resisting. If they had only been friends, Merlin wouldn’t have had to break Gwaine’s heart. If they had only been friends, only Gaius and Lancelot would know about Merlin’s magic. If they had only been friends, Merlin would be no happier now, and would have been a hell of a lot less happy the last few months.
If they had only been friends, Gwaine...and there is the problem. Merlin doesn’t know. Gwaine might’ve spent the last few months shagging his way through the citizens of Camelot, spent every evening drinking and carousing, instead of listening to Merlin whine. Gwaine might’ve moved on to pastures new, without anything to keep him in the city. All that Merlin can really be certain of is that Gwaine wouldn’t have spent last night locked in the dungeons after yelling at Arthur, wouldn’t be the terrible wreck he was yesterday evening when Merlin told him they were through.
He follows Lancelot to the knights’ mess hall, managing a small smile of gratitude when Lance tells him that Arthur has found someone else to serve his meal for the evening. He will go by Arthur’s room anyway, he resolves, after he’s finished eating, in an attempt to make up for his absence the rest of the day.
Gwaine joins them partway through the meal, making a solid attempt at his usual swagger. “So, I’ve been otherwise occupied for the day. I miss anything?” He smirks, almost, as he asks the question, despite the fact that they all know where he’s been all day. “And what’s with this plate of food?”
While Elyan answers him, Merlin thinks. After however long of being the closest person to Gwaine, he has watched him enough to tell when he is lying, and right now he definitely is. Gwaine knows why their food is being doled out by a number of servants from a table by the door, rather than being laid out along the tables for them to eat what they will. Gwaine already knew about the rationing. Did Arthur tell him before anyone else (anyone but Leon, Merlin amends, because this so clearly explains why Gwaine and Leon were so keen on feeing everyone up last night)?
But why would he? Leon, yes, would know, because Leon knows everything. Gwaine wouldn’t. Arthur doesn’t even like Gwaine all that much; he’d never tell him something like this before anyone else, and certainly not before telling Merlin.
“Damn,” Gwaine says, as Elyan finishes his explanation. “I’d hate to be the poor bugger who told Arthur when the king gets hold of him. Does anyone know who it was?” He glances, just briefly, at Leon as he asks this. Merlin wonders why, because while Leon probably does know, he isn’t going to tell anyone if Arthur has said not to. Unless...
Unless Gwaine is the one who told Arthur.
Without telling Merlin.
He doesn’t know which possibility feels worse; that Arthur told Gwaine before telling Merlin, or that Gwaine told Arthur with no intention of telling Merlin at all. Either way, he feels hurt, and absurdly jealous.
And certainly not hungry anymore.
“I have to go,” he says, standing and climbing over the bench upon which he had been sat.
“You have not finished,” Lancelot says, at the same time as Gwaine begins, “Mer-”
“Lost my appetite.” Merlin walks away before anyone can protest further. He will go see Arthur, who will explain everything in such a way that Merlin can make sense of these stupid emotions he’s feeling.
X
Talking to Arthur proves less than helpful.
The prince looks surprised when Merlin appears, letting himself into the room as he has so many times before. “Merlin, I was not expecting you tonight. I thought you might be- well, I expected someone else.”
“Oh.” Merlin suddenly realises just how terrible an idea this is. He doesn’t want to talk to Arthur about Gwaine, and there is absolutely no chance that doing so would make him anything other than extremely uncomfortable. “I’ll just go, then, shall I?”
“Actually, you can sit down.” That is decidedly odd. In all the time Merlin has worked for Arthur, he has never been encouraged to sit in his presence, except for the rat stew incident, and he really doesn’t want to repeat that one. “I wish to talk to you.” This is even more unexpected, since Merlin is fairly sure at least a quarter of the sentences Arthur speaks to him involve the words shut and up as key components.
“To talk to me,” he echoes, sounding every bit the idiot most people think him to be.
“Yes, Merlin, I wish to talk to you. Sit.” He does, and Arthur sits opposite him. “Merlin, I am concerned for your well-being. How are you?”
Merlin blinks, because with that question this conversation has spun further from their normal exchanges than he ever thought possible. “Confused. Are you sure you are feeling alright, Arthur?”
“I have inquired about your health before. It is not that unusual.”
Merlin can’t remember a single occasion on which Arthur has asked how he is and, while in the past he may have wished for that to change, right now he is really wishing it hadn’t. There is something more than a little wrong about Arthur openly expressing concern for him, although he knows Arthur does worry about him sometimes. If he thought Arthur would be put off by a joke, Merlin would ask whether he was currently inches from death and had just somehow managed to miss that fact, but now probably isn’t the best time. “I’m fine, sire,” he replies, though of course he isn’t.
“Of course you are,” Arthur agrees immediately, though he continues to stare unerringly at Merlin. After a moment, he resumes speaking, slowly, almost cautiously. “However, if you weren’t fine, you would be able to talk to me about it, regardless of what the problem might be.”
“Yes, of course,” Merlin answers, if only to end the discussion, because there are things he cannot talk to Arthur about; no matter how uncharacteristically sympathetic Arthur might be right now, he would be just a little discomfited to find out Merlin has feelings for him. He thinks about leaving then, but he figures he might as well say what he intended to when he arrived, because it cannot possibly make this conversation any more awkward. “Supposing,” he begins, hedging slightly. “Supposing I thought I knew who told you about the rationing, and was concerned about how you intended to protect them from your father...”
“Firstly, Merlin,” Arthur says, with a cool simplicity that tells Merlin he hasn’t managed to be quite as subtle as he thought he had, “I am not going to confirm what you are asking me to confirm. I would advise you to ask that person instead, if you really wish to know.”
Merlin shakes his head without really intending to, and sees a look flicker across Arthur’s face that isn’t so much happiness as...satisfaction; Merlin has convinced him of something he was not entirely certain of, without meaning to, without even being sure what it is.
“As for the matter of protection, there are three people who know for certain who told me: Leon, the person in question, and myself. Since none of us intend to tell my father, and I will not allow anyone to be executed on a suspicion or supposition, you have nothing to be concerned about. Particularly seeing as-” Arthur stops.
“Particularly seeing as what?” Merlin asks, managing to add a vague sense of curiosity to his confusion as to what he accidentally informed Arthur of, both of which are doing something to smother the jealousy-hurt-guilt-sorrow he was already feeling.
“Nothing.”
“If it was nothing, you wouldn’t have said anything. What is it?”
“Merlin, if I say it is nothing, it is nothing. Is that clear?”
Very little is clear to Merlin beyond the fact that Arthur doesn’t want to tell him anything, but he agrees anyway, mostly since arguing isn’t going to get him an answer. “Okay. I won’t ask anything else about it. Is there anything you want me to do this evening?”
“No, that will be everything. If you could be awake tomorrow, that would be much appreciated, and far more efficient. Since you are absolutely fine, that is.” Arthur smirks, but not meanly, if such a thing is possible. “Goodnight, Merlin.”
Merlin pulls his chair back and stands. “Goodnight, Arthur.” He pauses with his hand on the door handle and adds, softly, “Thank you,” because even if it is one of the least opportune moments possible for Arthur to develop an interest in his life, he is still sort of grateful for it.
As he heads down the corridor away from Arthur’s chambers, he wonders for the second evening in a row just where exactly he is going to go now.
X
Gwaine doesn’t particularly appreciate the sympathy Lance keeps directing at him during the meal, but he knows better than to complain with everyone there. He will be gone, soon, away from it all, the pity and the pain and the pretending that everything is fine. He can stomach it until then.
He eats his meal with little complaint, after making what he thinks was a good go at feigning ignorance of the food situation. Most of the others seem to be convinced, anyway, though if any of them were to ask outright whether he told Arthur what was going on, Gwaine wouldn’t lie; he’s pretty sure that none of them hate him enough to use it as an opportunity to engineer his death.
“Gwaine?” Leon says in a low voice, snapping Gwaine from his thoughts. He blinks at the sight of a fork hovering somewhere between his plate and his mouth and wonders how long he has been staring aimlessly – since shortly after Merlin left, he knows, but he doesn’t know when that was.
“Yeah,” he says, and then moves the fork the rest of the way to his mouth, even though the food on it is very much cold by now. “What is it?”
The sight of the half-chewed food in his mouth is enough to stop Lancelot, unfortunate enough to be sitting opposite him, expressing any sympathy towards him (his look of disgust makes Gwaine’s entire day seem just a little bit brighter, even if he’s pretty sure it’s only going to be temporary).
“Prince Arthur said he would like to see you when you had finished eating. I would advise you to do so without alcohol today, and politely, unless you wish to be banished.”
“Did he say why?” Gwaine asks, because he doesn’t really want to talk to Arthur unless he’s sure the conversation will be something sensible and simple and entirely without mention of Merlin.
Leon wrinkles his brow at Gwaine in a look that can’t quite be described as a frown. “No, he did not. Nor did I see fit to ask.” He stops, and the expression becomes a definite frown. “He did say that I was to make it clear that your presence was required rather than desired, however, and I do not wish to explain to Arthur tomorrow why you were not there.”
Gwaine nods and resumes eating, ignoring Lance’s wince. He doesn’t speed up any, because the little part of his brain that’s just slightly pissed at having spent the day in the dungeon enjoys keeping Arthur waiting, although he does intend to go; punishing Leon because he wants to go straight from dinner to his room – or, even better, the tavern – is hardly fair. When he is finished, he sighs in an overly dramatic fashion, glances at Merlin’s mostly full plate, and rises from his seat. “I’ll be going to talk to his majesty, then. Here’s hoping I don’t get locked away again.”
He is a good way down the corridor from the hall when he hears determined footsteps following him. “Gwaine,” Lance calls after him, and Gwaine curses himself for announcing his destination (even if he only did so for Leon’s peace of mind) and thus the direction in which he would be walking. “Hold on for a minute, please.”
He slows for Lance to catch up with him but does not stop. “Can you say whatever you have to say while I walk, Lance, because I’m sort of hoping to get my bags packed tonight.”
“I suppose so. It is about Merlin.” Gwaine bites back a sarcastic comment about how totally unexpected that statement is, even though the way Lancelot pauses practically begs him to provide some sort of derisive remark. “You told him to sleep in my room last night.”
This doesn’t actually make it into the realm of being a question, so Gwaine feels no need to reply to it. It is a statement, one Lancelot already knows to be true. The pause grows longer as Lancelot takes far too much time to work this out (he does work it out eventually, though, which Gwaine takes to be a sign that he is learning). “Why did you say that?”
Gwaine wants to congratulate him on his increasingly intelligence, but settles for just answering the question, obvious as the answer should be. “Because you were in his bed, and he had just told me that I would get over him, and he would be far happier without me. I didn’t see too many alternatives.”
Lancelot stops him with a hand on his arm, which is sort of a sign that Gwaine shouldn’t have told him that if he wanted the pity to stop. “He said that? I suppose that explains why you were drinking, then.”
“Yes, I suppose it does, doesn’t it?” Gwaine doesn’t even have to try to sound scathing; it happens all on its own. He thinks he is really doing quite a spectacular job of sounding unbothered by the whole matter, regardless of how much Lancelot’s expression seems to disagree with him.
“You do not actually believe him, do you?”
“Unless this is what you wanted to talk to me about, Lancelot, I’m going to have to go.” Privately, he adds that he wants to go regardless of what other things Lance has to tell him, and speeds up just a little bit.
Lancelot gives him an unpleasant glare, but allows Gwaine to get away with it. “I want to talk to you tomorrow, then. I am worried about you.”
Gwaine rolls his eyes, even has he concedes. “Yeah, if you must.” If he’s still in the city tomorrow, he won’t get away quite so easily, which is really just another reason not to be. He walks away without saying goodbye, pretending not to feel Lancelot’s eyes watching him as he goes.
He hears footsteps heading down the corridor towards him as he approaches Arthur’s room, and ducks behind a pillar. Gwaine doesn’t know why Arthur wants to see him, but he doesn’t particularly want to be seen heading there for the third time in two days. His hiding proves fortuitous, since the person to whom the footsteps belong is Merlin, staring blankly at what seems to be nothing and chewing his lower lip in what Gwaine recognises as his expression of confused thought. Part of Gwaine wants to ask Merlin what the problem is and offer his help, while the other part of him wants to shout that he has spent months doing all he can to help Merlin, only for Merlin to abandon him when he found out why. Merlin has no fucking reason to be confused or unhappy; he is supposed to be happy now, and Gwaine is under no obligation to offer his assistance.
Before either impulse can win out, Merlin has walked on by, none the wiser as to Gwaine’s presence. That is probably a good thing, he thinks, because he doesn’t want to be angry at Merlin, but he doesn’t want to be the same self-sacrificing idiot he was when they were together, particularly seeing as the bonuses of doing so are somewhat less now.
Really, he just wants to be elsewhere, away from having to make any decisions of the sort, and the best way to satisfy that desire is to tell Arthur that he is going home with or without permission. So he checks the corridor in both directions for anyone he wants to avoid – which is to say, anyone – and, on finding it clear, continues on towards Arthur’s.
The door is opened for him as soon as he knocks, confirming what Leon said about him being expected (not, of course, that he had any reason to doubt Leon’s word).
“What did you want to see me about?” Gwaine asks as soon as the door is shut behind him, quite determined not to beat around the bush.
“Good to see you’ve learnt some manners in your months here, Sir Gwaine.” Arthur gives Gwaine a look that is some combination of a smirk and glare, but he cannot really muster the energy to care. Masking his absence of caring is also far too difficult, so he just waits in a bored sort of way for him to carry on. “Fine. I shall cut to the chase.”
He surveys Gwaine for a moment in what can only be described as a kingly manner, and Gwaine is a little surprised to realise that he means that in an entirely complimentary way.
“I grant you permission to leave,” Arthur says, and Gwaine’s heart lifts a little from its resting place in the pit of his stomach, “On a number of conditions.”
That is less promising, but there is no reason for him not to agree to the conditions in order to leave and ignore them entirely once he is gone. “Right. What are they?”
“First, you are to make sure I or one of my knights will be aware of your whereabouts at all times for which you are absent. I expect the precise location of your home before you depart from the city, and notification should you choose to leave it.” He waits for Gwaine to offer his assent before proceeding. “Second, you are to return without delay should you ever be instructed to do so.” Again, Gwaine agrees, because it would have to be a pretty huge emergency if ever Arthur was to demand he return to the city, and somewhere along the line he has come to care for far more people here than just Merlin. “Finally, you are to inform Merlin that you are leaving, and why.”
This last condition is definitely a sticking point, but Gwaine sees no need to tell Arthur that. By the time the prince realises Gwaine has failed to do so, he will be far enough away that pursuit would be futile. Besides, it’s not like Arthur can do anything once he’s gone, except possibly to forbid him from returning, and Gwaine doesn’t think he’ll do that, given the second of the three conditions. “Fine, I agree to all of them. Anything else?”
“Only that I would advise you to think very carefully before you go. Leaving is far simpler than returning will be.” Arthur takes a deep breath before continuing, and does so with obvious hesitance. “Whatever it is you have done to upset Merlin, he will forgive you for it, in time. If you run away now, he might not.”
“Whatever I’ve done to upset Merlin?” Gwaine knows he shouldn’t be angry, because anyone who knows him and Merlin and knows about their relationship would make the same assumption. He has never made any effort to change his reputation, never tried to portray himself as the good guy in all of this, and even if he had no one would have believed it, not even himself, he thinks. But the accusation, coming from Arthur, the number one cause of Merlin’s unhappiness, still fucking hurts, and if this was anyone else he’d at least try to deny it or maybe explain. But it isn’t anyone else; it’s Arthur, and Gwaine so doesn’t want him to know more than he already does.
“You know that you aren’t one of my favourite people, and I know I am not one of yours,” Arthur replies. “But I would have to be blind not to see that you care for him as much as he cares for you. You can fix this.”
“With all due respect, your highness,” Gwaine sneers, as much sarcasm as he can manage going into the title, “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” Arthur so clearly has a great deal to say in response to this, but Gwaine is out of the door before he can finish his first sentence.
X
Merlin spends a second mostly sleepless night in what Gwaine has (un)affectionately dubbed Gwen and Arthur’s shag-room (Merlin, as the person who changes the sheets, knows that this isn’t what they do in there, but he never cared to correct Gwaine, at least in part because he knew Gwaine wouldn’t listen if he had). Somewhere between the early hour at which he locks himself in there and the equally early hour at which he wakes, he does manage a short period of sleep, but it’s hardly enough to count as rest.
He whiles away a few minutes manually erasing any sign that he has been there and hiding his clothes somewhere they’re unlikely to be noticed should anyone look in on the room (which is improbable, but Merlin doesn’t want to take the risk), then heads to the stables to begin the first and least pleasant of the tasks he skipped out on the previous day. He mucks out Arthur’s horses by the light of a lantern, then takes Arthur’s hounds out in the cold blue light of dawn, shivering the whole while. By the time he re-enters the castle and washes in cold water (having forgotten to source some hot in the absence of his magic), it is time take Arthur his breakfast, make his bed, help him on with his armour and start all the other myriad tasks that are inevitably waiting for him. And training, because he doubts tiredness will get him out of it two days in a row.
All without the possibility of gratitude, compassion, assistance from Arthur or amusing hindrance from Gwaine. Then he will return here to another cold, sleepless night, whiling away the hours with thoughts of ifs and buts that he knows cannot change anything, until he has to begin it all again tomorrow.
When he gets to Arthur’s room, though, there is an empty plate on the table and Arthur’s bed has been made. Poorly, Merlin has to say, but it is more of an attempt than Arthur has ever made before. There are still clothes on the floor, and papers to collect and tidy, so Merlin, whilst confused, does not feel entirely obsolete. He is trying to work out what is in need of washing and what has just been thrown out of the cupboards as a result of the prince’s latest fashion dilemma when Lancelot taps sharply on the door and walks in.
“Did you know about this?” he asks, handing a folded sheet of paper to Arthur.
Arthur reads the paper swiftly, his expression getting increasingly...something – and isn’t that unusual, Merlin being unable to work out what Arthur’s expressions mean? – as his eyes move down the page. “Interesting letter. He gave you permission to read the other one. Have you?”
Lance blushes, and Merlin, though he has no idea what the letter (letters?) may say, can see he is ashamed. “I did not want to give it to him without knowing what it said. They were left under my door when I woke this morning. I do not know what time he left at, but if we leave now we can probably catch him.”
“Probably, yes. Particularly seeing as he has left directions for us to follow.” There is a whisper of sarcasm to this sentence, the same whisper Merlin is used to hearing when Gwaine talks to Lancelot, a whisper he knows he is sometimes guilty of himself. “We won’t, though; I gave him permission to go. He was supposed to tell Merlin before he went. I suppose this counts, but...I did not expect he’d do it by letter.” Arthur passes the letter back to Lancelot, who tucks it into his pocket.
“I did not know you knew about them,” Lancelot says, glancing at Merlin, who makes no effort to look like he hasn’t been listening; if they are going to talk about him while he’s in the room, he thinks he’s entitled.
Arthur nods. “I know. We are not all entirely without subtlety, Sir Lancelot. Can I see the other letter?”
Since Merlin is fairly sure by this point that the letter Arthur has just read is about him and the one he has just asked to read is for him, he intends to object. Lancelot does it for him. “No. I doubt either of them would like that.”
Before Arthur can argue that he, as the future king, has the right to read it regardless of what anyone wants, Merlin speaks up. “Can I read it, please?”
“I think you should wait until later,” Lancelot tells him, and Arthur’s expression is one of unquestioning agreement.
The fact that they both know about this thing that concerns Merlin but are determined to keep it from him is enough to force his steadily simmering anger up through the fog of his tiredness and to the surface. “It’s mine, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes, but-”
“No, Arthur. I want to read it. Lancelot, give me it, please.”
Arthur and Lancelot have a whole conversation without words while Merlin watches, ready to do whatever he can to get his letter if their conclusion is no. Fortunately for their sakes, they decide it is okay; Lancelot takes the letter from a different pocket, walks to where Merlin is still standing next to a heap of clothes (most of which he thinks are clean, because he hasn’t seen Arthur wearing them recently), and hands him a slightly crumpled sheet of paper with Merlin’s name on the front of it.
He unfolds it carefully, smoothing out the creases before looking for the name at the bottom. Gwaine (though, really, he’d sort of guessed as much). The penmanship is neat and really rather ornate. Not what Merlin would have expected Gwaine’s writing to look like, but then he did grow up in a noble household and, from what little he has told Merlin of his mother, she isn’t the sort of person to let her sons grow up illiterate. A cursory look at the bulk of the letter shows that there is nothing crossed out, and he wonders how many times Gwaine practised writing this before he was happy.
At that point, it sinks in that he is putting this off far too much so, with a quick look up at Arthur and Lancelot (who are both decidedly looking anywhere but at him), he begins to read.
Merlin
I don’t really know how to write this.
I suppose I should start with an apology, maybe, or an explanation. So here it is: I’m sorry. I’m going home.
By the time Lance gives you this, I’ll have been gone for a couple of hours, I hope. I don’t want you to follow me. I don’t know that you would, but I hope not.
It’s something I’ve thought about doing since you asked me about it and now, I don’t really have a reason to stay, do I? I thought about asking you to come with me, when we were together, but I knew you would have chosen to stay with him. I don’t blame you for that. Knowing what I do, how can I?
I didn’t care. I know you feel terrible now that you know, but I don’t want you to. I want you to be happy, and me being here won’t help that any. It wouldn’t help me, either. I would say that the distance might let me find someone else, but I know it won’t, so I’ll just say instead that I will be back. I don’t know when, but I won’t be able to stay away forever. Camelot is my true home now. You are my true home.
If ever you have need of me, send word and I will be there.
Be happy, love, even if I am not.
Yours, only and always,
Gwaine
Merlin reads the letter through, twice, in complete silence. Arthur and Lancelot say nothing the whole time he is doing so, and when he looks up at the end of the second reading neither of them have moved. He folds the letter, running his nails precisely down the fold lines and pocketing it. “Thank you, Lancelot,” he says, and hears how inflectionless he sounds, without even making an effort to.
Lancelot takes a step towards him then stops, his face a picture of compassion, because apparently this is enough for him to briefly forget his anger at Merlin. “Are you okay, Merlin?”
“Yes,” Merlin answers. “I’ve been thinking, Arthur, about the problem with the crops.”
Arthur blinks at this, and Merlin supposes he can see why; as abrupt subject changes go, this is a fairly big one. But Merlin would rather talk about anything else. It will sink in soon enough that Gwaine is gone, that Arthur knew all along – and, presumably, Gwaine knew he knew – and Merlin would like to be alone when it does.
“Oh,” Arthur replies eventually. “What have you been thinking?”
“Well,” Merlin says, and aims for his usual tone of voice when talking to Arthur. “I have been thinking about unicorns.” Any other day, this would have been the cue for Arthur to call him a girl, but not, it seems, today, even when Merlin pauses to allow for it. “Now,” he continues, when Arthur says nothing, “It isn’t that I think you’re an idiot, but you do have a tendency to repeat your mistakes.”
Lancelot looks at him as if he expects an imminent breakdown. “Really, Merlin, are you sure you do not want to talk about this?”
“Quite sure, yes. Arthur, I would have thought you would have learnt from the first time, but perhaps not, which means I have to ask; you haven’t accidentally shot another unicorn and cut off its horn to hide somewhere in the vaults, have you?”
“Merlin.” Arthur says, when it sinks in what Merlin is doing. “Do you really think that’s funny?”
To be honest, he knows full well it isn’t, but it is the best he can manage, so he fibs, poorly. “A little funny, yes.”
“To the stables, then, seeing as you were so lax in your duties yesterday.” Arthur answers, seemingly deciding to play along.
“But-” Merlin begins, and actually manages to make it sound like a genuine protest.
“It is the stables or the stocks. Your choice, Merlin.”
He sighs dramatically. “Stables it is, then,” he replies, neglecting to mention the fact that this is a task he has already done today. “I shall see you in the field when I am done, shall I?”
“Thank you, Merlin,” Arthur says, and Merlin heads for the door. He has seen the exasperation in Lancelot’s face, can almost feel his desire to protest the charade being enacted around him, and wants to be far away before that happens.