No Law - Chapter Thirteen: As Time Went By, Part Three: Odd Ends
Title: No Law
Pairings: Arthur/Merlin, Arthur/Gwen, Arthur/Gwen/Merlin
Rating: R
Summary: It was a silly thing. Just a wine stain on a very white shirt removed by magical means. But now, Arthur knows about the magic, and everything is not quite as Merlin would have expected. Arthur is weirdly vulnerable and brilliant, Gaius is growing distant and mysterious and maybe a little bit insane, and Gwen knows exactly just where she wants her boys to be. Or: The one where Arthur finds out about the magic, is angry about the lies but not at Merlin, and things keep changing. Also, fathers are a difficult thing to have.
Warning: Some intriguing sex (het, slash and threesome). Plotting Gaius is plotting. Goes AU somewhen in the hiatus between S4 and S5.
Disclaimer: The characters and concept of this version of the Arthurian legends belong to Shine and the BBC, not to me. I'm just playing with them.
Author's Note: Reply to this prompt on kinkme_merlin: http://kinkme-merlin.livejournal.com/33344.html?thread=34990656#t34990656
First Chapter:
Teaser: Where Gaius gets an unwelcome surprise and things start to get wonky
Arthur stayed in bed late that day, relishing the rare feeling of painlessness. Not even the willow bark tea he had George brew for him every morning took the edge off his headache quite like this. The tea was cooling on his bed stand while he watched the day dawning through his window and stretched like a sunbathing cat in his empty bed. For the first time since she had left, he truly missed his wife. Up until now he had been guiltily relieved that Guinevere had felt the need to come to grips with the whole mess surrounding Lancelot, as it gave him a reprieve from trying to conceal the real extent of his nightmares from her.
Deep down, Arthur kind of knew that it would have been probably quite advisable to share his nightly problems with her or Merlin or both, but he just couldn’t. They had seen him at his weakest once, and he was simply not able to allow it again. Maybe he was even physically unable to do so. It felt like that anyway (for the very same reason, he had put George in charge of the willow bark tea, since Merlin would have insisted that he’d explain himself and Arthur would rather have his head explode than consult the quack in the tower).
The magic, though, the magic didn’t need explanations or justifications. Arthur hadn’t had to tell it what he needed or even that he needed anything; it had just known and it hadn’t asked why. It had simply helped, soothing away his distress and his pain and assuring him that it would love him, no matter what.
Arthur rubbed his face and sighed. It was embarrassing how much he craved what Merlin’s magic had given him the night before, not to mention unkingly and unmanly. However, in the early, bright morning light he could at least admit his need to himself.
It had just been a one-off thing anyway, some unwitting reaction of Merlin’s to what Arthur had told him, nothing more. It had done him good, Arthur wouldn’t deny that, but it was very unlikely to happen again. He had the memory of the magic’s warm, golden touch, and he would always cherish it without being ashamed of it. He could allow himself that much, couldn’t he?
**
Only … it wasn’t a one-off. Far from it. It happened again and again, especially when Merlin insisted that Arthur needed desensitising in regard to magic and also pointed out that the king had to know what his Magical Protector was capable of.
“Not a chance in hell, Merlin,” was Arthur’s reaction to the self-bestowed title. However, he didn’t raise any objection to the demonstrations of magic, at first out of real interest and then … well … and then, because it kept happening, and Arthur needed it too much to have it taken away.
It was as if some part of Merlin - or Merlin’s magic or whatever - had broken loose that evening Arthur had told his tale of childish woe, and now that it was free, it did what it wanted. Shamelessly.
At first, the whole thing remained very innocent. The magic nestled around Arthur’s shoulders or played with his hair, while Merlin showed him exactly how he had been managing to juggle an amount of chores that normally necessitated at least three servants. It snuggled up against him in the evenings while Merlin made a little apple tree grow out of a tiny seed in less than an hour or conjured up white roses like the girl he was, and it purred in contentment whenever Arthur showed his appreciation (and even when he tried to hide it but failed to). It took his headache away with gentle touches when he thought he couldn’t bear it any longer, and it guarded his back while he was fighting on the training field to the utter dismay of his knights who couldn’t understand why they failed to land any blows on their king as of late.
“What’s your armour made of? Dragon skin?” Gwaine asked irritably on one of these rather mortifying occasions, and Arthur could only shrug. It wasn’t like he needed help to defeat his knights (at least not on a good day), but the magic obviously begged to differ, and that vexing cluckyness was so very much Merlin that it made Arthur feel all mushy inside. Only his manservant, his friend, his … sorcerer could subject him to this confusing-comforting mix of tingling annoyance and bone-deep fondness, and that as much as anything convinced Arthur that the magic caring for him, shielding him, and loving him was not something separate from Merlin but very much part of him.
He was equally sure, however, that Merlin had no idea what this particular part of him was doing. While Arthur could easily believe that his manservant would knowingly hug, heal and mollycoddle him (or even play with his hair), there was no way that Merlin would let his magic get away with the other stuff. Like pinching Arthur’s bum when he was being cheeky. Tracing the contours of his face while they were enjoying one of their leisurely talks in the evenings. Caressing his shoulders, arms, back, belly with the tender, casual touches of a long-time lover. Sometimes, he even thought he could feel the magic seeping through his skin, sending tiny, tingling shocks through his body that had quite interesting, but rather problematic effects, especially when it happened during an exceptionally boring council meeting or in the middle of a banquet in honour of Lot and his entourage. Arthur had had no other choice but to ban Merlin from serving at the High Table during the entire Lotian ordeal after that, as the heated looks the Horrid Wife sent Arthur’s way seemed to make the magic particularly amorous and possessive. It had even bit his nape once when he had felt obligated to flirt back just a little for the sake of diplomacy.
So, no: As sweet and clucky as Merlin’s magic could be, it was also far from innocent, all things considered. The worst part, however, was that Arthur was unable to put a stop to it. He knew he should tell Merlin what his magic was doing. It was one thing to keep silent as long as it contented itself with massaging his temples, but he should have spoken up the moment the cuddling morphed into caresses, or at the very latest when the magic first got under his skin and things became so very interesting. But he didn’t. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
It wasn’t even that Merlin would be mortified. There had been a time when mortifying Merlin had been sort of Arthur’s raison d’être, and he was still rather fond of doing it. The truth of the matter was that if Arthur told, Merlin would stop.
There was no question in his mind that Merlin would gain back all control over his errant magic the moment he was made aware of its shenanigans. And while Arthur could live without the magic fussing over him on the training field and could combat the headache with George’s willow bark tea, he craved the magic’s comforting, protective touches like nothing else. And as far as the inappropriate fondling was concerned …
A long time ago, Arthur had made a decision in regard to his manservant: He would not touch him. While he had wanted to from the first moment he had set eyes on that insolent, stupidly brave boy in the marketplace and was pretty sure Merlin wouldn’t push him out of bed either (or only to pull him right back in again), he had also been keenly aware that sleeping with Merlin would have been a spectacularly bad idea.
From the very start, his manservant had been different. He wasn’t like Iwain or Bruin or even Leon who he could bed and even adore, but ultimately let down gently without ripping his heart out when it became necessary. And it always became necessary. The kingdom didn’t care that Arthur liked strong arms holding him at least as much as melding himself to soft curves, and it certainly didn’t care that he desired being possessed more than doing the possessing. Camelot would need a queen, and Arthur knew with a certainty that had been quite out of character in those days that he wouldn’t be able to bear giving Merlin up once he’d had him.
So he had made a choice: Merlin was off-limits.
It was rather ironic, really, that the woman he eventually did fall for was almost as unseemly a choice as his manservant would have been. The gods knew he had struggled with the situation, pushing Guinevere away as often as he pulled her close, all for the sake of Camelot or, more specifically, for the sake of his father’s expectations, until he finally decided that he didn’t care anymore. If he had to bind himself to a woman, then it would be one he loved and desired, and while Guinevere was merely an improper choice in the end, Merlin was an impossible one.
Once Arthur had come to a decision, he stuck with it (well, most of the time anyway). He was also a master of compartmentalising. The moment he had forced his friend into a box safely labelled “adoringly clumsy, eternally ridiculous, vexingly loyal fool of a manservant; do not touch”, Merlin had been doomed to stay there. Arthur sometimes wondered whether he would have been able to recognize the sorcerer in hiding a lot sooner if he hadn’t pigeonholed Merlin that thoroughly. However, that had become a moot point, because Merlin had forced his way out of Arthur’s mental box by turning his world upside down and inside out, and the old rules didn’t apply anymore. Merlin was there, all the time and in a totally different way than he had been before (than Arthur had allowed before), and Arthur needed him there. Wanted him there. Craved him there.
He would never act on it, not physically. He truly loved his wife, even though he could finally admit to himself that their relationship was far from orthodox (things actually became much easier once he owned up to that after Guinevere came back from mourning Lancelot), and he didn’t want to become an adulterer and a hypocrite. But he allowed himself to give in to the magic.
For all that the magic was obviously acting out Merlin’s supressed impulses, it was also very attuned to Arthur’s moods, and if he had truly wanted it to stop anything it was doing, than it would have, Arthur was sure of that. He didn’t, though. He loved everything it did, be it innocent or sensual, caring or passionate. He loved the magic. And he loved Merlin. It was as simple as that.
So just this once, Arthur indulged himself. He let the magic have its way (with him), he didn’t tell Merlin, and he refused to feel guilty. It was his secret, and he was keeping it.
**
And thus, time went by. Arthur was king, reformer, and diplomat by day, a frightened child by night, husband and friend in between, sometimes still a prat, and all the while he was kind of having a secret affair with Merlin’s magic, even though he refused to see it as such. He was resolved to be happy, just this once, and simply ignored anything that could have interfered with that (Gaius and his lies, the knights’ discontent, the odd emotional limbo he found himself in, the fishiness of his subterfuge).
It all came apart the day the Lotians left Camelot. Round about at least. It was more of a slow crumble stretching over several days, really. But the entire thing started on the eve of the Great Farewell, when Arthur learned that his wife had a much dirtier mind than he would have thought. Or rather, a much more open mind than he would have thought. Or possibly both.
The night proved to be an eye-opener in more than one respect. When Guinevere first mentioned Merlin in the middle of their love-making (Do you need Merlin for everything?), Arthur downright froze. All his carefully compartmentalised boxes come crushing down in that moment, spilling what they contained all over the place and leaving his emotions in a jumbled heap of confusion. Wife and manservant and magic and sex and love and honour got all mixed up, and with the chaos came the guilt, because if one looked at it in a certain way, he had been conducting an illicit affair with Merlin, and his magical manservant had not even been aware of it.
He resorted to indignation, but Guinevere was too determined to get what she wanted from him to take notice of his emotional turmoil. And the more impatient she grew, the more outlandish his thoughts got. Why had she mentioned Merlin at all while she was in bed with him, Arthur? Did she know …? Did she mind …? Did she want …? Could she possibly want …?
He asked her then. Not exactly with the right words and mainly with his eyes anyway, but Guinevere was wonderful like that and understood him nonetheless.
Lovely, she said. That could be rather lovely. And judging by what happened afterwards, she really meant it. It was one of the most intense encounters they had ever had, and it was all because she wouldn’t stop moaning about Merlin’s lips and his hands and his cheekbones and his eyelashes of all things.
It was good’ she said afterwards in the midst of Arthur’s growing bewilderment, and since their relationship was what it was, Arthur believed her. He was helpless in that regard, but that was something he had accepted and even welcomed long ago.
Arthur spent the following morning in a kind of daze, not really getting a grasp on what had happened and what it all meant, until it suddenly clicked during his private goodbye to King Lot.
“You drive a hard bargain, Pendragon,” the old scoundrel proclaimed, while trying to crush Arthur’s hand with his powerful grip. “You have much more cunning than I was lead to believe. I suspect our alliance might actually prove to be a long and fruitful one.”
“Thank you,” Arthur said through his teeth, because in certain ways, a compliment from Lot was harder to swallow than an insult. The sly fox actually smiled at him.
“I can respect a man who knows what he wants and who takes it.” Lot leaned closer, as if he was about to impart an important piece of wisdom. “Just a bit of advice, king to king so to speak. Always let your wife in on it. It’s much less of a hassle that way.”
And then the bloody rascal winked at him. It was enough to scar a man for life. However, it was also rather enlightening, and while Arthur now suspected more about what went down in the Lotians’ bedroom than he had ever wanted to know, Lot’s words cut right through the jumble the plummeting boxes had made in his head.
For all intents and purposes, Guinevere had said yes. Arthur was not quite sure to what exactly (maybe they should have used actual words to communicate instead of looks, thrusts and moans), but she had given her consent, be it to take Merlin to their bed, be it to bring him into their relationship. - No, actually she had said he was already there, had always been there. And when Arthur was honest with himself, then he had to admit that she was right, labelled boxes and noble (fearful) abstinence notwithstanding. Merlin had found his way under his skin long before his magic had, too.
Arthur couldn’t supress an unmanly giggle and was infinitely grateful that Lot had already left by then. He felt like he had swallowed sunshine.
Guinevere had said yes. His wife was in on it. And that meant he was free to pursue Merlin.
Finally.
Arthur couldn’t help but grin. It probably came out a bit feral.
**
Of course, he couldn’t just jump Merlin’s bones, now that it had been brought home to him that he was allowed to. Although there was little doubt what Merlin wanted from him, given what the magic had been up to the past few weeks, Arthur was still convinced that his lover-to-be (the grin came back as he thought that) needed gentle, careful wooing.
“You’re just the man for the job then,” his wife said drily when he informed her of his intentions right before the hurrah-the-Lotians-are-gone celebration banquet (Arthur insisted that this was its official name). Arthur frowned at her and tried to remind himself that his queen was unspeakably wonderful. Guinevere chuckled when she caught sight of his expression.
“Just don’t give him any flowers, darling,” she cooed, and Arthur pouted, but gave it up quickly. The situation was half delightful, half terrifying, and he was more than aware of it.
“We should talk about this, you know,” he said, although he could hardly believe the words coming out of his mouth. “What … what are you comfortable with happening?”
She smiled and kissed him briefly. “I’m not sure, really. I have never done anything like this either, you know. Can’t we just make it up as we go along?”
“While a big part of me is crying ‘yes please’ right now, I don’t actually think that's a good idea.”
Guinevere sighed and adjusted his cape. She was wearing gold in her hair, and the last rays of the sun got caught in it.
“I love you. You know that, right?” Arthur asked, and she inclined her head in a tiny gesture of affirmation.
“But you love him, too, don’t you?”
Arthur nodded. He had kept it hidden long enough. Guinevere smiled again. It looked very mischievous.
“Then go and get him for us.”
They arrived late for the banquet that night, and Guinevere laughed at him for tiring himself out. Arthur wasn’t tired, though. He was brimming over with energy and embarked on his mission to woo Merlin immediately. He started with rabbit and worked his way through beef and oysters to apple-pie and goat cheese, but Merlin didn’t quite seem to understand what he was getting at. So he tried truffles and strawberries and finally resorted to sausages, carrots, and Cook’s cream-filled puff pastry sticks out of sheer desperation (because really: how much more blatant could you get?). And still, Merlin remained entirely oblivious. Maybe his courting really came a little sudden?
Eventually, Arthur resigned himself to plying Merlin with the finest wines Camelot’s cellars had to offer, taking a leave out of the Horrid Wife’s book. He overdid it, though, and only ended up in Merlin’s bed that night because of his inability to make it safely back to the Royal Chambers after he had moved Merlin, himself, and the wine to Merlin’s rooms in the hope that privacy would be more conducive to his seduction attempts than the publicity of the banquet hall.
It hadn’t been. While the magic, sensible thing that it was, snuggled down in his lap as soon as he had seated himself in his old chair, Merlin himself acted no different than usual, asking Arthur why he was pouting like a spoilt cabbage-head just because he, Merlin, had refused to be fattened up like a gander right before yule-tide.
“You’re an idiot,” was all Arthur had managed in response to that ludicrous load of babble, and that was that.
When Arthur awoke the following morning next to Merlin, woefully dressed and with a very different kind of headache than the one that usually plagued him, he decided that he had to do better. Obviously, Merlin had no clue as far as sophisticated wooing went, and Arthur would have to think of something different altogether. Breakfast first, though. Breakfast and lots and lots of water. He poked Merlin, who was snoring softly (and not at all endearingly) beside him.
“Merlin! I need breakfast. And water, I’m parched!”
Maybe it should not have come as a surprise to him that he ended up with the contents of Merlin’s washbowl dripping from his face. Arthur decided that he liked Merlin’s magic a lot better when his dork of a manservant didn’t have control over it.
Being still thirsty, but rather clean and very awake, Arthur changed into some clothes he had left in Merlin’s chambers (it was possible that he should have admitted to the actual nature of his relationship with his dork a lot sooner), and poked his head out of the door to order a passing servant to bring the king’s breakfast to the chamberlain’s rooms. The girl frowned at him a bit before blushing and averting her eyes. By the time she had scurried off, Merlin had managed to climb out of bed and was blinking at Arthur bleary-eyed.
“How much did we drink last night?”
“Too much,” Arthur said with a heartfelt sigh. “I ordered breakfast.”
“Congratulations,” Merlin replied, and Arthur pouted. This was not at all going how he had imagined.
He politely averted his eyes while his manservant changed and rummaged through the magic books Merlin had pilfered from the secret section of the library while Geoffrey’s successor wasn’t paying attention. He idly wondered what a Fenris was and what you were supposed to do with it, when Merlin snatched the book in question out of his hand, looking deliciously exasperated.
“Don’t read that. What are you even still doing here?”
“I ordered breakfast.”
“Right. To my chambers?”
“Yes. We can share.”
“I bloody well hope so. You remember that you don’t actually live here anymore, don’t you?”
“Whew! What crawled up your arse during the night?”
A vivid flush coloured Merlin’s cheeks. “Oh, forget it. Fine, make yourself at home, why don’t you?”
Arthur sat down at the table gingerly, not wanting to vex Merlin even more than he obviously already had. His dork was probably hung-over, and that always made him particularly cranky.
They spent a few uncomfortable minutes with Merlin staring out of the window and Arthur sitting quietly at the table, until the door opened and Cook entered, carrying a tray of prettily arranged left-overs and freshly baked bread. Arthur furrowed his brow and almost got up from his chair out of sheer surprise. Normally, Cook would rather feed her dumplings to the pigs than take on common serving duties.
A snort came from the direction of the window. “What are you doing here?”
Cook gave first Merlin a dirty look and then the room in general, but when her gaze came to rest on Arthur, her face grew kind of soft.
“Good morning, Sire. I brought your breakfast.”
“Thank you, Cook,” he said graciously, if still rather confuddled. It was never advisable to get on Cook’s bad side, not even for the king.
He watched her keenly while she was setting the table with a pinched look on her face. Although he didn’t often come in direct contact with her anymore, the scent of her - kitchen fumes and spices - still made him think of the warm aniseed milk she used to give him as a boy whenever he snuck down to the kitchens although he wasn’t allowed to.
“Is something the matter?” he asked when she set down a jug of honeyed water so heavily that he feared for the stoneware. Cook threw him an uneasy look, but didn’t say anything, which prompted him to take the plate with cold beef slices she was holding out of her hand and gestured for her to sit down.
“Oh, great. Now she’s having breakfast here, too?” his manservant grumbled from where he stood at the window.
“Shut up, Merlin,” Arthur said quietly without taking his eyes off Cook’s troubled face.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her with his I-am-a-compassionate-king-and-you-can-tell-me-anything-because-I-will-fix-it tone of voice. He hoped it would work on a woman who had known him since he’d been a tiny squirt. Cook shifted edgily in her seat; it was quite unlike her.
“You’re a good king, Sire,” she finally said. Merlin gave another snort.
“And that’s a bad thing how?” he asked. Cook ignored him, looking at Arthur expectantly. He cleared his throat.
“Thank you, Cook. I value your opinion highly.”
She inclined her head. “I know you’re willing to listen to a servant, too, Sire, given who you made your queen and how you are with the pipsqueak over there.”
“Oi!” Merlin protested, but once again, Cook paid him no heed.
“You are a good king,” she repeated. “Don’t think that us servants don’t know that. The nobles probably don’t see what’s going on, but we do. Last week, when I went to the steward to get my pay and asked him why it was so much, he admitted that he wasn’t allowed to keep his farthing due from our earnings anymore.”
“It was an unfair system,” Arthur said calmly. “It should have been abolished long ago.”
“It was the custom,” Cook replied matter-of-factly. “We all knew that and didn’t think much about it.” She looked at Arthur shrewdly. “But you’re changing things, aren’t you? You’re making things better for us little people.”
“I hope to make things better for everyone,” he said, and Cook seemed to be pleased with his answer.
“You’re a good king,” she said a third time. “But … you should be careful, Sire.” Her gaze flickered to Merlin again. “Both of you.”
Arthur straightened in his chair. “What do you mean?”
Cook fiddled around with the plate Arthur had put down on the table.
“Oh, nothing much, Sire,” she said, although Arthur could tell she wasn’t being entirely truthful. “It’s just … Some people don’t like change much. There’s talk.”
“What kind of talk?” Merlin asked, coming closer. “And why haven’t I heard of it?”
Cook threw him a hard look. “Because they don’t talk to you any longer, you fool.” There was a bit of venom in her voice that had been absent while she had been talking to Arthur.
“What kind of talk?” Arthur repeated Merlin’s question. Cook shrugged uneasily.
“Just talk, Sire,” she said and got to her feet. “Stupid things. They’re saying you’re … distracted.”
“Distracted,” he repeated.
“It’s daft,” she said. “But they’re saying you’ve handed the reins over to your queen completely, letting Camelot be governed by servants. Some say you’re not clear-headed enough to rule anymore, that you’re too caught up in … well … you know.”
“Actually, I don’t. They have to at least see that I’m working on building alliances to make Camelot stronger. I don’t always have the time for everyday business anymore.”
“You don’t have to justify yourself to me, Sire,” Cook said hastily, possibly a bit mortified. She looked very flustered in any case. “I’ve already said too much. I don’t … I don’t want to point any fingers.”
“You love pointing fingers!” Merlin protested, but Cook only shrugged. She seemed a bit helpless.
“It wouldn’t do any good. I’ve already said too much. I just thought you should know, Sire. And maybe …” She looked at Merlin again and then back at Arthur, her expression gentling. “Maybe be a bit more prudent, yeah? And don’t eat anything that I didn’t bring, alright? Or at least send the pipsqueak to get it.”
She was out of the door, before Arthur could say anything else. He was completely stunned.
“Huh,” he finally huffed. “Well, that was weird.”
“Cook is weird.”
“Shut up, Merlin,” Arthur said distractedly. “She’s a good woman. You should settle your petty feud with her, or I might just reconsider my love for you and your magic.”
“Wh … what did you just say?”
Arthur raised his head from where he had been staring at the opulent breakfast Cook had set out.
“Huh?”
Merlin said nothing, looking pale and unhappy, and Arthur scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Merlin. It was a joke. I wouldn’t actually rethink my stance on your magic.”
Merlin swallowed and flailed around a bit. “But that wasn’t …! You said …”
“Don’t mind that now, Merlin. I want to know what Cook was really on about just then. However, she won’t talk to me about it. In the end, I’m still the king, and she won’t rat out another servant to me. She’ll rather try to protect me herself. Believe me, if I’ve learnt one thing about servants then it’s that! But I can’t just ignore it when she basically tells me to watch what I’m eating and where I get it from. So, you go after her and find out what she really meant. I don’t care if you annoy it out of her, but I want to know what’s going on.”
Merlin stopped flailing and nodded, looking very serious all of a sudden. “I’ll get to the bottom of it, don’t worry. It’s my job after all.”
“Not technically,” Arthur deadpanned. “But you have been doing it for eight years, so just keep it up, will you?”
Merlin gave another nod and hurried out of the door, leaving Arthur alone with his thoughts. What was going on? First, Guinevere expressed her concern about his knights and now this?
Arthur would have been a fool if he hadn’t expected some discontent as soon as the changes he had instigated made themselves felt, and the entire court was nothing but one big rumour mill, but what Cook had alluded to sounded more serious. Did she really think someone would temper with his food? In the midst of Camelot? It was hard to imagine, but Arthur knew from experience that he was too trusting. Or maybe Cook was just being melodramatic. Perhaps she had heard something that had spooked her, although she was the most sensible and matter-of-fact woman he could think of (next to his wife, that is).
Arthur turned the problem over and over in his mind, but didn’t come to a satisfying conclusion. He would have to wait and see what Merlin could find out, there was nothing for it. Meanwhile, Arthur had some knights to train or possibly thrash for unduly worrying his wife. He emptied half the jug of honeyed water and wolfed down some beef slices with a roll of bread and then headed off to the training grounds to do exactly that.
**
The knights were in a dreadful mood that day. If Arthur hadn’t known better, he would have thought that they’d suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Lot’s men during the last tournament instead of Gwaine winning the thing by a mile. Leon was playing around listlessly with his sword as if he had never seen one before, Percival pulled a face as if someone had made him eat his own boots, and Elyan was hacking at a pole with a gigantic mace like a man possessed. Arthur had half a mind to ask him if he had been drinking out of cursed wells again. He would have never thought that he would see the day when Gwaine seemed the most composed of all his knights.
Appearances were deceiving, though, as Arthur (once again) found out during the following half an hour. He had foolishly chosen Gwaine as his training partner due to his seemingly calm demeanour, only to come face to face with a berserker. Gwaine wasn’t training, he was fighting, no holds barred. What was even worse (or maybe not, come to think of it), he seemed to be so enraged that he was actually quite bad at it. Arthur had never seen his best knight fight that abysmally, and yet he almost feared for his life every time Gwaine’s sword came even close to his neck or flank.
Arthur reached the end of his tether when he held out his hand after laying Gwaine flat on his back for the fourth time, only to have the fallen knight swat his sword at him. It didn’t even come close to putting him in danger, but enough was enough.
“Gwaine!” Arthur bellowed at the top of his lungs. The entire training field stopped to stare at him, but Arthur had only eyes for the sullen look Gwaine gave him.
“With me! Now!” he yelled and grabbed Gwaine by the scruff of his neck for good measure to drag the reluctant knight behind him. He was past caring what it looked like. If Gwaine wanted to be treated with the dignity befitting a knight, he bloody well had to behave like one first.
Arthur didn’t let go of Gwaine until they reached the armoury, shoving him into the deserted room with a force that had the knight stumble to stay on his feet. He loved Gwaine like a brother, but he couldn’t let his behaviour slide any longer.
“What’s wrong with you?” Arthur growled without letting Gwaine get his bearings. “Talk! Now!”
Gwaine was panting with rage like a bull just before it attacks. “As if you don’t know!”
“Pretend that I don’t,” Arthur forced out, wondering why everyone seemed to think him a mind-reader all of a sudden.
“Merlin!” Gwaine yelled, almost baffling Arthur out of his anger.
“Merlin? What the hell does he have to do with anything? Don’t tell me you’re jealous because I’m showing him favours.”
Gwaine scoffed. It was an ugly sound. “Well, that’s one way of putting it.”
“That doesn’t even make sense! What are you even …? You always looked at me like I was committing a capital offence every time I treated him like the servant he was. And now, suddenly, you resent me for distinguishing him?”
“God, you conceited, egotistical … noble! You were supposed to be different, damn you! You were supposed to … How can you even live with yourself?”
Arthur blinked, caught off-guard. “Uh …”
“Really, is it not enough to fuck him? Do you have to flaunt it, too?”
“Erm … what?” How could Gwaine know already? Arthur hadn’t even gotten around to that yet! Did his knight have some kind of creepy sixth sense? Besides, Arthur really didn’t think he was flaunting anything.
“Gwaine …”
“I mean, I never got you two and why you couldn’t see what he’s worth, but at least you never used to treat him like a harlot back then!”
And then, quite suddenly, it dawned on Arthur that Gwaine couldn’t know. Maybe he had not been as discreet with his infatuation as he had thought (Cook’s furtive looks began to make some sense now), but as of yet, there was nothing to know. Arthur thought of the soft, golden touches the magic bestowed in him, of the mischievous sparkle in Guinevere’s eyes and the strength of Merlin’s arms around him, and he thought of the sheer, breath-taking beauty of it all, and Gwaine’s words started to ring in his ears. Fuck him like a harlot’ Arthur’s eyes narrowed, and his breath came in short, angry pants. A red haze blurred his vision, his hands curled into fists, and his teeth clenched.
“What?!”
Chapter Fourteen:
Where Merlin learns a lot of things and Arthur learns nothing at all
Pairings: Arthur/Merlin, Arthur/Gwen, Arthur/Gwen/Merlin
Rating: R
Summary: It was a silly thing. Just a wine stain on a very white shirt removed by magical means. But now, Arthur knows about the magic, and everything is not quite as Merlin would have expected. Arthur is weirdly vulnerable and brilliant, Gaius is growing distant and mysterious and maybe a little bit insane, and Gwen knows exactly just where she wants her boys to be. Or: The one where Arthur finds out about the magic, is angry about the lies but not at Merlin, and things keep changing. Also, fathers are a difficult thing to have.
Warning: Some intriguing sex (het, slash and threesome). Plotting Gaius is plotting. Goes AU somewhen in the hiatus between S4 and S5.
Disclaimer: The characters and concept of this version of the Arthurian legends belong to Shine and the BBC, not to me. I'm just playing with them.
Author's Note: Reply to this prompt on kinkme_merlin: http://kinkme-merlin.livejournal.com/33344.html?thread=34990656#t34990656
First Chapter:
Teaser: Where Gaius gets an unwelcome surprise and things start to get wonky
Arthur stayed in bed late that day, relishing the rare feeling of painlessness. Not even the willow bark tea he had George brew for him every morning took the edge off his headache quite like this. The tea was cooling on his bed stand while he watched the day dawning through his window and stretched like a sunbathing cat in his empty bed. For the first time since she had left, he truly missed his wife. Up until now he had been guiltily relieved that Guinevere had felt the need to come to grips with the whole mess surrounding Lancelot, as it gave him a reprieve from trying to conceal the real extent of his nightmares from her.
Deep down, Arthur kind of knew that it would have been probably quite advisable to share his nightly problems with her or Merlin or both, but he just couldn’t. They had seen him at his weakest once, and he was simply not able to allow it again. Maybe he was even physically unable to do so. It felt like that anyway (for the very same reason, he had put George in charge of the willow bark tea, since Merlin would have insisted that he’d explain himself and Arthur would rather have his head explode than consult the quack in the tower).
The magic, though, the magic didn’t need explanations or justifications. Arthur hadn’t had to tell it what he needed or even that he needed anything; it had just known and it hadn’t asked why. It had simply helped, soothing away his distress and his pain and assuring him that it would love him, no matter what.
Arthur rubbed his face and sighed. It was embarrassing how much he craved what Merlin’s magic had given him the night before, not to mention unkingly and unmanly. However, in the early, bright morning light he could at least admit his need to himself.
It had just been a one-off thing anyway, some unwitting reaction of Merlin’s to what Arthur had told him, nothing more. It had done him good, Arthur wouldn’t deny that, but it was very unlikely to happen again. He had the memory of the magic’s warm, golden touch, and he would always cherish it without being ashamed of it. He could allow himself that much, couldn’t he?
**
Only … it wasn’t a one-off. Far from it. It happened again and again, especially when Merlin insisted that Arthur needed desensitising in regard to magic and also pointed out that the king had to know what his Magical Protector was capable of.
“Not a chance in hell, Merlin,” was Arthur’s reaction to the self-bestowed title. However, he didn’t raise any objection to the demonstrations of magic, at first out of real interest and then … well … and then, because it kept happening, and Arthur needed it too much to have it taken away.
It was as if some part of Merlin - or Merlin’s magic or whatever - had broken loose that evening Arthur had told his tale of childish woe, and now that it was free, it did what it wanted. Shamelessly.
At first, the whole thing remained very innocent. The magic nestled around Arthur’s shoulders or played with his hair, while Merlin showed him exactly how he had been managing to juggle an amount of chores that normally necessitated at least three servants. It snuggled up against him in the evenings while Merlin made a little apple tree grow out of a tiny seed in less than an hour or conjured up white roses like the girl he was, and it purred in contentment whenever Arthur showed his appreciation (and even when he tried to hide it but failed to). It took his headache away with gentle touches when he thought he couldn’t bear it any longer, and it guarded his back while he was fighting on the training field to the utter dismay of his knights who couldn’t understand why they failed to land any blows on their king as of late.
“What’s your armour made of? Dragon skin?” Gwaine asked irritably on one of these rather mortifying occasions, and Arthur could only shrug. It wasn’t like he needed help to defeat his knights (at least not on a good day), but the magic obviously begged to differ, and that vexing cluckyness was so very much Merlin that it made Arthur feel all mushy inside. Only his manservant, his friend, his … sorcerer could subject him to this confusing-comforting mix of tingling annoyance and bone-deep fondness, and that as much as anything convinced Arthur that the magic caring for him, shielding him, and loving him was not something separate from Merlin but very much part of him.
He was equally sure, however, that Merlin had no idea what this particular part of him was doing. While Arthur could easily believe that his manservant would knowingly hug, heal and mollycoddle him (or even play with his hair), there was no way that Merlin would let his magic get away with the other stuff. Like pinching Arthur’s bum when he was being cheeky. Tracing the contours of his face while they were enjoying one of their leisurely talks in the evenings. Caressing his shoulders, arms, back, belly with the tender, casual touches of a long-time lover. Sometimes, he even thought he could feel the magic seeping through his skin, sending tiny, tingling shocks through his body that had quite interesting, but rather problematic effects, especially when it happened during an exceptionally boring council meeting or in the middle of a banquet in honour of Lot and his entourage. Arthur had had no other choice but to ban Merlin from serving at the High Table during the entire Lotian ordeal after that, as the heated looks the Horrid Wife sent Arthur’s way seemed to make the magic particularly amorous and possessive. It had even bit his nape once when he had felt obligated to flirt back just a little for the sake of diplomacy.
So, no: As sweet and clucky as Merlin’s magic could be, it was also far from innocent, all things considered. The worst part, however, was that Arthur was unable to put a stop to it. He knew he should tell Merlin what his magic was doing. It was one thing to keep silent as long as it contented itself with massaging his temples, but he should have spoken up the moment the cuddling morphed into caresses, or at the very latest when the magic first got under his skin and things became so very interesting. But he didn’t. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
It wasn’t even that Merlin would be mortified. There had been a time when mortifying Merlin had been sort of Arthur’s raison d’être, and he was still rather fond of doing it. The truth of the matter was that if Arthur told, Merlin would stop.
There was no question in his mind that Merlin would gain back all control over his errant magic the moment he was made aware of its shenanigans. And while Arthur could live without the magic fussing over him on the training field and could combat the headache with George’s willow bark tea, he craved the magic’s comforting, protective touches like nothing else. And as far as the inappropriate fondling was concerned …
A long time ago, Arthur had made a decision in regard to his manservant: He would not touch him. While he had wanted to from the first moment he had set eyes on that insolent, stupidly brave boy in the marketplace and was pretty sure Merlin wouldn’t push him out of bed either (or only to pull him right back in again), he had also been keenly aware that sleeping with Merlin would have been a spectacularly bad idea.
From the very start, his manservant had been different. He wasn’t like Iwain or Bruin or even Leon who he could bed and even adore, but ultimately let down gently without ripping his heart out when it became necessary. And it always became necessary. The kingdom didn’t care that Arthur liked strong arms holding him at least as much as melding himself to soft curves, and it certainly didn’t care that he desired being possessed more than doing the possessing. Camelot would need a queen, and Arthur knew with a certainty that had been quite out of character in those days that he wouldn’t be able to bear giving Merlin up once he’d had him.
So he had made a choice: Merlin was off-limits.
It was rather ironic, really, that the woman he eventually did fall for was almost as unseemly a choice as his manservant would have been. The gods knew he had struggled with the situation, pushing Guinevere away as often as he pulled her close, all for the sake of Camelot or, more specifically, for the sake of his father’s expectations, until he finally decided that he didn’t care anymore. If he had to bind himself to a woman, then it would be one he loved and desired, and while Guinevere was merely an improper choice in the end, Merlin was an impossible one.
Once Arthur had come to a decision, he stuck with it (well, most of the time anyway). He was also a master of compartmentalising. The moment he had forced his friend into a box safely labelled “adoringly clumsy, eternally ridiculous, vexingly loyal fool of a manservant; do not touch”, Merlin had been doomed to stay there. Arthur sometimes wondered whether he would have been able to recognize the sorcerer in hiding a lot sooner if he hadn’t pigeonholed Merlin that thoroughly. However, that had become a moot point, because Merlin had forced his way out of Arthur’s mental box by turning his world upside down and inside out, and the old rules didn’t apply anymore. Merlin was there, all the time and in a totally different way than he had been before (than Arthur had allowed before), and Arthur needed him there. Wanted him there. Craved him there.
He would never act on it, not physically. He truly loved his wife, even though he could finally admit to himself that their relationship was far from orthodox (things actually became much easier once he owned up to that after Guinevere came back from mourning Lancelot), and he didn’t want to become an adulterer and a hypocrite. But he allowed himself to give in to the magic.
For all that the magic was obviously acting out Merlin’s supressed impulses, it was also very attuned to Arthur’s moods, and if he had truly wanted it to stop anything it was doing, than it would have, Arthur was sure of that. He didn’t, though. He loved everything it did, be it innocent or sensual, caring or passionate. He loved the magic. And he loved Merlin. It was as simple as that.
So just this once, Arthur indulged himself. He let the magic have its way (with him), he didn’t tell Merlin, and he refused to feel guilty. It was his secret, and he was keeping it.
**
And thus, time went by. Arthur was king, reformer, and diplomat by day, a frightened child by night, husband and friend in between, sometimes still a prat, and all the while he was kind of having a secret affair with Merlin’s magic, even though he refused to see it as such. He was resolved to be happy, just this once, and simply ignored anything that could have interfered with that (Gaius and his lies, the knights’ discontent, the odd emotional limbo he found himself in, the fishiness of his subterfuge).
It all came apart the day the Lotians left Camelot. Round about at least. It was more of a slow crumble stretching over several days, really. But the entire thing started on the eve of the Great Farewell, when Arthur learned that his wife had a much dirtier mind than he would have thought. Or rather, a much more open mind than he would have thought. Or possibly both.
The night proved to be an eye-opener in more than one respect. When Guinevere first mentioned Merlin in the middle of their love-making (Do you need Merlin for everything?), Arthur downright froze. All his carefully compartmentalised boxes come crushing down in that moment, spilling what they contained all over the place and leaving his emotions in a jumbled heap of confusion. Wife and manservant and magic and sex and love and honour got all mixed up, and with the chaos came the guilt, because if one looked at it in a certain way, he had been conducting an illicit affair with Merlin, and his magical manservant had not even been aware of it.
He resorted to indignation, but Guinevere was too determined to get what she wanted from him to take notice of his emotional turmoil. And the more impatient she grew, the more outlandish his thoughts got. Why had she mentioned Merlin at all while she was in bed with him, Arthur? Did she know …? Did she mind …? Did she want …? Could she possibly want …?
He asked her then. Not exactly with the right words and mainly with his eyes anyway, but Guinevere was wonderful like that and understood him nonetheless.
Lovely, she said. That could be rather lovely. And judging by what happened afterwards, she really meant it. It was one of the most intense encounters they had ever had, and it was all because she wouldn’t stop moaning about Merlin’s lips and his hands and his cheekbones and his eyelashes of all things.
It was good’ she said afterwards in the midst of Arthur’s growing bewilderment, and since their relationship was what it was, Arthur believed her. He was helpless in that regard, but that was something he had accepted and even welcomed long ago.
Arthur spent the following morning in a kind of daze, not really getting a grasp on what had happened and what it all meant, until it suddenly clicked during his private goodbye to King Lot.
“You drive a hard bargain, Pendragon,” the old scoundrel proclaimed, while trying to crush Arthur’s hand with his powerful grip. “You have much more cunning than I was lead to believe. I suspect our alliance might actually prove to be a long and fruitful one.”
“Thank you,” Arthur said through his teeth, because in certain ways, a compliment from Lot was harder to swallow than an insult. The sly fox actually smiled at him.
“I can respect a man who knows what he wants and who takes it.” Lot leaned closer, as if he was about to impart an important piece of wisdom. “Just a bit of advice, king to king so to speak. Always let your wife in on it. It’s much less of a hassle that way.”
And then the bloody rascal winked at him. It was enough to scar a man for life. However, it was also rather enlightening, and while Arthur now suspected more about what went down in the Lotians’ bedroom than he had ever wanted to know, Lot’s words cut right through the jumble the plummeting boxes had made in his head.
For all intents and purposes, Guinevere had said yes. Arthur was not quite sure to what exactly (maybe they should have used actual words to communicate instead of looks, thrusts and moans), but she had given her consent, be it to take Merlin to their bed, be it to bring him into their relationship. - No, actually she had said he was already there, had always been there. And when Arthur was honest with himself, then he had to admit that she was right, labelled boxes and noble (fearful) abstinence notwithstanding. Merlin had found his way under his skin long before his magic had, too.
Arthur couldn’t supress an unmanly giggle and was infinitely grateful that Lot had already left by then. He felt like he had swallowed sunshine.
Guinevere had said yes. His wife was in on it. And that meant he was free to pursue Merlin.
Finally.
Arthur couldn’t help but grin. It probably came out a bit feral.
**
Of course, he couldn’t just jump Merlin’s bones, now that it had been brought home to him that he was allowed to. Although there was little doubt what Merlin wanted from him, given what the magic had been up to the past few weeks, Arthur was still convinced that his lover-to-be (the grin came back as he thought that) needed gentle, careful wooing.
“You’re just the man for the job then,” his wife said drily when he informed her of his intentions right before the hurrah-the-Lotians-are-gone celebration banquet (Arthur insisted that this was its official name). Arthur frowned at her and tried to remind himself that his queen was unspeakably wonderful. Guinevere chuckled when she caught sight of his expression.
“Just don’t give him any flowers, darling,” she cooed, and Arthur pouted, but gave it up quickly. The situation was half delightful, half terrifying, and he was more than aware of it.
“We should talk about this, you know,” he said, although he could hardly believe the words coming out of his mouth. “What … what are you comfortable with happening?”
She smiled and kissed him briefly. “I’m not sure, really. I have never done anything like this either, you know. Can’t we just make it up as we go along?”
“While a big part of me is crying ‘yes please’ right now, I don’t actually think that's a good idea.”
Guinevere sighed and adjusted his cape. She was wearing gold in her hair, and the last rays of the sun got caught in it.
“I love you. You know that, right?” Arthur asked, and she inclined her head in a tiny gesture of affirmation.
“But you love him, too, don’t you?”
Arthur nodded. He had kept it hidden long enough. Guinevere smiled again. It looked very mischievous.
“Then go and get him for us.”
They arrived late for the banquet that night, and Guinevere laughed at him for tiring himself out. Arthur wasn’t tired, though. He was brimming over with energy and embarked on his mission to woo Merlin immediately. He started with rabbit and worked his way through beef and oysters to apple-pie and goat cheese, but Merlin didn’t quite seem to understand what he was getting at. So he tried truffles and strawberries and finally resorted to sausages, carrots, and Cook’s cream-filled puff pastry sticks out of sheer desperation (because really: how much more blatant could you get?). And still, Merlin remained entirely oblivious. Maybe his courting really came a little sudden?
Eventually, Arthur resigned himself to plying Merlin with the finest wines Camelot’s cellars had to offer, taking a leave out of the Horrid Wife’s book. He overdid it, though, and only ended up in Merlin’s bed that night because of his inability to make it safely back to the Royal Chambers after he had moved Merlin, himself, and the wine to Merlin’s rooms in the hope that privacy would be more conducive to his seduction attempts than the publicity of the banquet hall.
It hadn’t been. While the magic, sensible thing that it was, snuggled down in his lap as soon as he had seated himself in his old chair, Merlin himself acted no different than usual, asking Arthur why he was pouting like a spoilt cabbage-head just because he, Merlin, had refused to be fattened up like a gander right before yule-tide.
“You’re an idiot,” was all Arthur had managed in response to that ludicrous load of babble, and that was that.
When Arthur awoke the following morning next to Merlin, woefully dressed and with a very different kind of headache than the one that usually plagued him, he decided that he had to do better. Obviously, Merlin had no clue as far as sophisticated wooing went, and Arthur would have to think of something different altogether. Breakfast first, though. Breakfast and lots and lots of water. He poked Merlin, who was snoring softly (and not at all endearingly) beside him.
“Merlin! I need breakfast. And water, I’m parched!”
Maybe it should not have come as a surprise to him that he ended up with the contents of Merlin’s washbowl dripping from his face. Arthur decided that he liked Merlin’s magic a lot better when his dork of a manservant didn’t have control over it.
Being still thirsty, but rather clean and very awake, Arthur changed into some clothes he had left in Merlin’s chambers (it was possible that he should have admitted to the actual nature of his relationship with his dork a lot sooner), and poked his head out of the door to order a passing servant to bring the king’s breakfast to the chamberlain’s rooms. The girl frowned at him a bit before blushing and averting her eyes. By the time she had scurried off, Merlin had managed to climb out of bed and was blinking at Arthur bleary-eyed.
“How much did we drink last night?”
“Too much,” Arthur said with a heartfelt sigh. “I ordered breakfast.”
“Congratulations,” Merlin replied, and Arthur pouted. This was not at all going how he had imagined.
He politely averted his eyes while his manservant changed and rummaged through the magic books Merlin had pilfered from the secret section of the library while Geoffrey’s successor wasn’t paying attention. He idly wondered what a Fenris was and what you were supposed to do with it, when Merlin snatched the book in question out of his hand, looking deliciously exasperated.
“Don’t read that. What are you even still doing here?”
“I ordered breakfast.”
“Right. To my chambers?”
“Yes. We can share.”
“I bloody well hope so. You remember that you don’t actually live here anymore, don’t you?”
“Whew! What crawled up your arse during the night?”
A vivid flush coloured Merlin’s cheeks. “Oh, forget it. Fine, make yourself at home, why don’t you?”
Arthur sat down at the table gingerly, not wanting to vex Merlin even more than he obviously already had. His dork was probably hung-over, and that always made him particularly cranky.
They spent a few uncomfortable minutes with Merlin staring out of the window and Arthur sitting quietly at the table, until the door opened and Cook entered, carrying a tray of prettily arranged left-overs and freshly baked bread. Arthur furrowed his brow and almost got up from his chair out of sheer surprise. Normally, Cook would rather feed her dumplings to the pigs than take on common serving duties.
A snort came from the direction of the window. “What are you doing here?”
Cook gave first Merlin a dirty look and then the room in general, but when her gaze came to rest on Arthur, her face grew kind of soft.
“Good morning, Sire. I brought your breakfast.”
“Thank you, Cook,” he said graciously, if still rather confuddled. It was never advisable to get on Cook’s bad side, not even for the king.
He watched her keenly while she was setting the table with a pinched look on her face. Although he didn’t often come in direct contact with her anymore, the scent of her - kitchen fumes and spices - still made him think of the warm aniseed milk she used to give him as a boy whenever he snuck down to the kitchens although he wasn’t allowed to.
“Is something the matter?” he asked when she set down a jug of honeyed water so heavily that he feared for the stoneware. Cook threw him an uneasy look, but didn’t say anything, which prompted him to take the plate with cold beef slices she was holding out of her hand and gestured for her to sit down.
“Oh, great. Now she’s having breakfast here, too?” his manservant grumbled from where he stood at the window.
“Shut up, Merlin,” Arthur said quietly without taking his eyes off Cook’s troubled face.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her with his I-am-a-compassionate-king-and-you-can-tell-me-anything-because-I-will-fix-it tone of voice. He hoped it would work on a woman who had known him since he’d been a tiny squirt. Cook shifted edgily in her seat; it was quite unlike her.
“You’re a good king, Sire,” she finally said. Merlin gave another snort.
“And that’s a bad thing how?” he asked. Cook ignored him, looking at Arthur expectantly. He cleared his throat.
“Thank you, Cook. I value your opinion highly.”
She inclined her head. “I know you’re willing to listen to a servant, too, Sire, given who you made your queen and how you are with the pipsqueak over there.”
“Oi!” Merlin protested, but once again, Cook paid him no heed.
“You are a good king,” she repeated. “Don’t think that us servants don’t know that. The nobles probably don’t see what’s going on, but we do. Last week, when I went to the steward to get my pay and asked him why it was so much, he admitted that he wasn’t allowed to keep his farthing due from our earnings anymore.”
“It was an unfair system,” Arthur said calmly. “It should have been abolished long ago.”
“It was the custom,” Cook replied matter-of-factly. “We all knew that and didn’t think much about it.” She looked at Arthur shrewdly. “But you’re changing things, aren’t you? You’re making things better for us little people.”
“I hope to make things better for everyone,” he said, and Cook seemed to be pleased with his answer.
“You’re a good king,” she said a third time. “But … you should be careful, Sire.” Her gaze flickered to Merlin again. “Both of you.”
Arthur straightened in his chair. “What do you mean?”
Cook fiddled around with the plate Arthur had put down on the table.
“Oh, nothing much, Sire,” she said, although Arthur could tell she wasn’t being entirely truthful. “It’s just … Some people don’t like change much. There’s talk.”
“What kind of talk?” Merlin asked, coming closer. “And why haven’t I heard of it?”
Cook threw him a hard look. “Because they don’t talk to you any longer, you fool.” There was a bit of venom in her voice that had been absent while she had been talking to Arthur.
“What kind of talk?” Arthur repeated Merlin’s question. Cook shrugged uneasily.
“Just talk, Sire,” she said and got to her feet. “Stupid things. They’re saying you’re … distracted.”
“Distracted,” he repeated.
“It’s daft,” she said. “But they’re saying you’ve handed the reins over to your queen completely, letting Camelot be governed by servants. Some say you’re not clear-headed enough to rule anymore, that you’re too caught up in … well … you know.”
“Actually, I don’t. They have to at least see that I’m working on building alliances to make Camelot stronger. I don’t always have the time for everyday business anymore.”
“You don’t have to justify yourself to me, Sire,” Cook said hastily, possibly a bit mortified. She looked very flustered in any case. “I’ve already said too much. I don’t … I don’t want to point any fingers.”
“You love pointing fingers!” Merlin protested, but Cook only shrugged. She seemed a bit helpless.
“It wouldn’t do any good. I’ve already said too much. I just thought you should know, Sire. And maybe …” She looked at Merlin again and then back at Arthur, her expression gentling. “Maybe be a bit more prudent, yeah? And don’t eat anything that I didn’t bring, alright? Or at least send the pipsqueak to get it.”
She was out of the door, before Arthur could say anything else. He was completely stunned.
“Huh,” he finally huffed. “Well, that was weird.”
“Cook is weird.”
“Shut up, Merlin,” Arthur said distractedly. “She’s a good woman. You should settle your petty feud with her, or I might just reconsider my love for you and your magic.”
“Wh … what did you just say?”
Arthur raised his head from where he had been staring at the opulent breakfast Cook had set out.
“Huh?”
Merlin said nothing, looking pale and unhappy, and Arthur scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Merlin. It was a joke. I wouldn’t actually rethink my stance on your magic.”
Merlin swallowed and flailed around a bit. “But that wasn’t …! You said …”
“Don’t mind that now, Merlin. I want to know what Cook was really on about just then. However, she won’t talk to me about it. In the end, I’m still the king, and she won’t rat out another servant to me. She’ll rather try to protect me herself. Believe me, if I’ve learnt one thing about servants then it’s that! But I can’t just ignore it when she basically tells me to watch what I’m eating and where I get it from. So, you go after her and find out what she really meant. I don’t care if you annoy it out of her, but I want to know what’s going on.”
Merlin stopped flailing and nodded, looking very serious all of a sudden. “I’ll get to the bottom of it, don’t worry. It’s my job after all.”
“Not technically,” Arthur deadpanned. “But you have been doing it for eight years, so just keep it up, will you?”
Merlin gave another nod and hurried out of the door, leaving Arthur alone with his thoughts. What was going on? First, Guinevere expressed her concern about his knights and now this?
Arthur would have been a fool if he hadn’t expected some discontent as soon as the changes he had instigated made themselves felt, and the entire court was nothing but one big rumour mill, but what Cook had alluded to sounded more serious. Did she really think someone would temper with his food? In the midst of Camelot? It was hard to imagine, but Arthur knew from experience that he was too trusting. Or maybe Cook was just being melodramatic. Perhaps she had heard something that had spooked her, although she was the most sensible and matter-of-fact woman he could think of (next to his wife, that is).
Arthur turned the problem over and over in his mind, but didn’t come to a satisfying conclusion. He would have to wait and see what Merlin could find out, there was nothing for it. Meanwhile, Arthur had some knights to train or possibly thrash for unduly worrying his wife. He emptied half the jug of honeyed water and wolfed down some beef slices with a roll of bread and then headed off to the training grounds to do exactly that.
**
The knights were in a dreadful mood that day. If Arthur hadn’t known better, he would have thought that they’d suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Lot’s men during the last tournament instead of Gwaine winning the thing by a mile. Leon was playing around listlessly with his sword as if he had never seen one before, Percival pulled a face as if someone had made him eat his own boots, and Elyan was hacking at a pole with a gigantic mace like a man possessed. Arthur had half a mind to ask him if he had been drinking out of cursed wells again. He would have never thought that he would see the day when Gwaine seemed the most composed of all his knights.
Appearances were deceiving, though, as Arthur (once again) found out during the following half an hour. He had foolishly chosen Gwaine as his training partner due to his seemingly calm demeanour, only to come face to face with a berserker. Gwaine wasn’t training, he was fighting, no holds barred. What was even worse (or maybe not, come to think of it), he seemed to be so enraged that he was actually quite bad at it. Arthur had never seen his best knight fight that abysmally, and yet he almost feared for his life every time Gwaine’s sword came even close to his neck or flank.
Arthur reached the end of his tether when he held out his hand after laying Gwaine flat on his back for the fourth time, only to have the fallen knight swat his sword at him. It didn’t even come close to putting him in danger, but enough was enough.
“Gwaine!” Arthur bellowed at the top of his lungs. The entire training field stopped to stare at him, but Arthur had only eyes for the sullen look Gwaine gave him.
“With me! Now!” he yelled and grabbed Gwaine by the scruff of his neck for good measure to drag the reluctant knight behind him. He was past caring what it looked like. If Gwaine wanted to be treated with the dignity befitting a knight, he bloody well had to behave like one first.
Arthur didn’t let go of Gwaine until they reached the armoury, shoving him into the deserted room with a force that had the knight stumble to stay on his feet. He loved Gwaine like a brother, but he couldn’t let his behaviour slide any longer.
“What’s wrong with you?” Arthur growled without letting Gwaine get his bearings. “Talk! Now!”
Gwaine was panting with rage like a bull just before it attacks. “As if you don’t know!”
“Pretend that I don’t,” Arthur forced out, wondering why everyone seemed to think him a mind-reader all of a sudden.
“Merlin!” Gwaine yelled, almost baffling Arthur out of his anger.
“Merlin? What the hell does he have to do with anything? Don’t tell me you’re jealous because I’m showing him favours.”
Gwaine scoffed. It was an ugly sound. “Well, that’s one way of putting it.”
“That doesn’t even make sense! What are you even …? You always looked at me like I was committing a capital offence every time I treated him like the servant he was. And now, suddenly, you resent me for distinguishing him?”
“God, you conceited, egotistical … noble! You were supposed to be different, damn you! You were supposed to … How can you even live with yourself?”
Arthur blinked, caught off-guard. “Uh …”
“Really, is it not enough to fuck him? Do you have to flaunt it, too?”
“Erm … what?” How could Gwaine know already? Arthur hadn’t even gotten around to that yet! Did his knight have some kind of creepy sixth sense? Besides, Arthur really didn’t think he was flaunting anything.
“Gwaine …”
“I mean, I never got you two and why you couldn’t see what he’s worth, but at least you never used to treat him like a harlot back then!”
And then, quite suddenly, it dawned on Arthur that Gwaine couldn’t know. Maybe he had not been as discreet with his infatuation as he had thought (Cook’s furtive looks began to make some sense now), but as of yet, there was nothing to know. Arthur thought of the soft, golden touches the magic bestowed in him, of the mischievous sparkle in Guinevere’s eyes and the strength of Merlin’s arms around him, and he thought of the sheer, breath-taking beauty of it all, and Gwaine’s words started to ring in his ears. Fuck him like a harlot’ Arthur’s eyes narrowed, and his breath came in short, angry pants. A red haze blurred his vision, his hands curled into fists, and his teeth clenched.
“What?!”
Chapter Fourteen:
Where Merlin learns a lot of things and Arthur learns nothing at all