No Law - Chapter Fourteen: At the Same Time, Part One
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
My love for you. Arthur’s words echoed in Merlin’s mind, over and over. My love for you. My love for you. Myloveforyoumyloveforyoumyloveforyoumyloveforyoumyloveforyoumyloveforyou.
He knew what he’d heard, even if Arthur didn’t appear to know what he’d said. Love. It made Merlin’s heart clench and his head spin. But instead of thinking about it, instead of getting the chance to figure it all out, he was chasing after Cook because the cursed woman was seeing ghosts.
“Hey, wait up!” Merlin called after her retreating back. She didn’t, of course. The woman was the bane of his existence, always had been. Only, if there was even the slightest chance that she hadn’t merely gone round the bend at long last, then he needed to find out. He couldn’t very well let Arthur be killed now, could he, when his magic was finally out in the open, after having kept him alive for so long with his powers hidden. It would be frankly embarrassing. And unbearable. The mere thought of losing Arthur made Merlin’s bones ache (it was weird, but then, so was his relationship with his king. My love for you, said Arthur in Merlin’s head, though Merlin tried to ignore it. Tried and failed. He couldn’t lose Arthur. Ever.)
“Cook!” Merlin bellowed and ran faster. “If you don’t stop right now, I’ll spit in every single one of your pots tomorrow!”
The woman turned around to glower at him. “What do you want?”
“As outlandish as it sounds, I want to talk to you,” Merlin replied, jogging up to her. He would never admit it out loud, but there were times when he was actually kind of grateful for all the hunting trips Arthur made him join. They did keep him fit, if nothing else.
Cook eyed him with a sour expression which made her sour face even sourer. “I’ve got a pig roasting over the fire.”
“And you’ve got about twenty people in your kitchen watching it.”
“They’ll let it go dry.”
“For God’s sake, Cook! You can’t just come storming into my chambers, make vague implications about the king’s safety and storm right back out again. You bloody well knew I’d follow you.”
Cook pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. Merlin thought it made her look like she had the collywobbles, but wisely kept his musings to himself. He could wait her out if he had to. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and raised his eyebrows. Cook wrinkled her nose and sighed. Merlin shifted his stance and squared his shoulders. Cook averted her eyes and smacked her lips as if she was sampling soup. Merlin started tapping his foot. Cook sniffed and huffed, and when she met Merlin’s eyes again, he knew he had won.
“Fine,” she said. “But not here. Come to the pantry in half an hour, alright? I need to take stock of the stores anyway.”
Merlin acquiesced and let her go. It might have been risky to allow her to gather her thoughts, but he had a feeling that he wouldn’t get anything out of her right now. Besides, she probably had a point about not discussing such a potentially sensitive matter in the middle of the hallway.
Rather than go back to Arthur’s confusing presence, however, Merlin went to visit the horses and to think. He kind of missed the animals and the peaceful air that always surrounded them since he didn’t have to muck out the stables anymore (although he didn’t miss the smell of horse dung on his person; Merlin had never been able to shake the feeling that he did something wrong when it came to that particular chore). He had just enough time to groom Arthur’s favourite mare, and proceeded to do exactly that.
The chestnut greeted him with a nicker, and he started crooning quietly at her. Merlin had been there when Arthur had purchased her as a yearling with shining eyes and an almost maniac grin, and he knew that she had surpassed Arthur’s highest expectations. She was strong, fierce, and loyal, but also steady and gentle, and Merlin trusted her to take care of their Arthur for him in battles and skirmishes. He had named her Sweetheart the very first day he led her into the royal stables, and the name had stuck, although Arthur had almost had an aneurism when he’d first heard it.
“She a charger, Merlin,” he had groused. “God, you’re such a girl!”
He had never renamed the mare, though, and not even Gwaine sniggered nowadays when Arthur called her his “sweetest”.
Merlin let out a heartfelt sigh and rested his forehead against Sweetheart’s broad back.
“What am I going to do, girl?”
Ever since he had woken up to Arthur lying next to him on his bed and maltreating his ribs, he had been one big, Merlin-shaped ball of confusion. Oh, and lust. Mustn’t forget the lust.
Seeing Arthur unselfconsciously undress in his rooms this morning, dripping with the water Merlin had thrown at him in a fit of pique, had done a real number on his head. God knew that he had seen Arthur in a state of undress as well as dripping wet before, but things had been changing (uncomfortably) over the last few weeks, so that now he had to actively fight the urge to jump his king’s bones, where formerly he would have mellowly enjoyed the view.
There was nothing mellow about the state Merlin was in now or had been for the last couple of weeks. Actually, lust was not the right word to describe his reactions anymore. Hunger. That was more like it. Gnawing, insatiable hunger that was slowly driving him insane.
Maybe it had been the dreams that caused the whole miserable situation. Not that it was the first time he had ever dreamed about Arthur (not by a bloody long shot), and the dreams that hadn’t been nightmares of his king injured, mangled, dead had always been a bit … well, steamy. However, that was nothing compared to where his fancy had been taking him for the last fortnight or so (or maybe it had been longer, Merlin wasn’t sure anymore, wasn’t sure of anything much in that regard right now). It was as if his dreams breathed Arthur of late, and fragments of it accompanied Merlin throughout the day, glimpses of his hand buried in wheat-blond hair or of a strong throat arched back to meet his mouth, bursts of pale golden skin gleaming with sweat and firelight, flashes of his king moaning his name while Merlin sunk into him, body and soul, flesh and bone and skin and heart and magic and all.
Merlin groaned, forcing himself back to the present and the feel of Sweetheart’s soft coat against the heated skin of his brow. The mare snorted and turned her head to nibble on his hair, as she was wont to do for some reason. Merlin pushed her away gently.
“It’s not hay, you goose. It’s not for you,” he admonished her and finally began to comb her down in earnest. His own words tasted bitter in his mouth, and he pressed his lips together, angry with himself. It’s not for you. He thought of Gwen and how radiant she had been the day before, how bold and outrageously she had turned the tables on the vile Lotian queen with one single inappropriate and utterly self-assured gesture. Mine, she had signalled by merely taking her husband’s hand and smiling, and Merlin’s heart had gone out to her.
And then, when the king and queen arrived late for the hurrah-the-Lotians-are-gone celebration-banquet and it had been very obvious why by the glow surrounding them, Merlin had been so bloody envious he had almost choked on it. Not jealous, never jealous, not of Gwen who belonged to Arthur like the earth belonged to the sun, but envious of what she had and what would always remain out of his grasp. It made him dream of another world where he had been honest with Arthur from the very beginning and where Arthur had always seen him as something more than clumsy, endearing, and loyal, a world where they had been loving and happily fucking each other for years and where Gwen was nothing but a trusted, most beloved friend - and Merlin had cursed his heart because it could never be content, no matter what it had been given.
The whole thing had made him listless for the rest of the evening (Arthur trying to stuff him with food like a prize gander hadn’t helped either). Only the king’s excellent wine had finally done the trick and raised his spirits, although Merlin happened to not remember much of what had occurred after they had relocated to his chambers (he had never been so relieved to be dressed in his entire life than when he’d woken up next to Arthur this morning, and that was saying something).
Sweetheart was shifting skittishly, sensing Merlin’s agitation, and he started to hum under his breath to quiet them both down. He inhaled the calming scent of straw and horses and tried to be rational about the whole thing. He loved Arthur, there was no denying and no helping it. He also wanted Arthur. That also was nothing new. He was just going through some changes, and his mind and his body had weird ways of dealing with the entire upheaval, that was all. Maybe he had caught Arthur’s inaptitude for change like normal people would catch the flu.
Yes, that was a reasonable assumption, wasn’t it? Nothing to worry about. It would pass, his body and mind going back to normal as soon as he would have adjusted to Arthur being on board with the magic, to his sharp, blinding brilliance during the day and his soft vulnerability in the evenings. It was a lethal combination after all.
Or maybe, Merlin was simply losing his mind. Maybe all that happiness he wasn’t used to had addled his brain irrevocably.
For it wasn’t just that he lusted after Arthur with an intensity that was frankly ludicrous, or that he dreamed of touching him, sinking into him all the time. It was that he could actually feel it. Feel him. Pretty much constantly. At council meetings, Round Table gatherings, courtly feasts, diplomatic talks with King Lot. During their quiet evenings together (especially during their quiet evenings together), during magical demonstrations, training with the knights, short horseback rides through the woods surrounding Camelot, little outings into the Lower Town. All the bloody time.
Merlin would ride behind Arthur, trotting leisurely through a secluded grove, only to feel the supple texture of Arthur’s skin against his lips and taste the slight saltiness of it on his tongue, and he would know with the utmost certainty what it was that he was experiencing. The first time it happened his entire body started vibrating with the sheer Arthur-ness of it all, his cock perking up with delight and his ears growing uncomfortably hot.
Or he would sit next to Arthur at the Round Table (he still remained standing during council meetings, even if that didn’t prevent him from giving those plonkers a piece of his mind when they needed it) and would have to clench his fists because he could feel the solid muscles of Arthur’s thighs pressing against the palms of his hands that prickled with the texture of soft skin and the tender chafing of little hairs stroked against the grain. Merlin’s throat would go dry then, even when similar things kept happening, and his cock would … well, do the expected. Thankfully, the Table concealed everything from his waist downwards or he would never have lived it down that politics seemed to turn him on more than they did even Leon.
Or Merlin would lounge about in his chair while Arthur enjoyed a cup of wine in his chambers and would suddenly feel the shape of a broad back against his chest, as if his king were actually leaning against him instead of sitting across from him, as if Merlin were holding Arthur like he would a lover, caressing his sides, his hair, his belly, lacing their fingers together, and pressing his lips against Arthur’s brow. His cock was not quite as perky during those occurrences, but his heart was, and that might possibly have been even worse.
Sweetheart’s snort yanked Merlin back to the present once more. He had somehow managed to groom her despite being lost in his thoughts, but she was obviously getting fed up with his general lack of attention, nipping his arm less than gently and all but glowering at him (she reminded him a bit of his mother when she did that, and wasn’t that a perfectly disturbing thought?).
Merlin had to laugh at himself. “You’re right, sweetest thing. I’m an idiot.”
And maybe Arthur talking of love had just been another product of his imagination after all. It obviously did what it wanted nowadays. Merlin fed Sweetheart some carrots to apologise for his absent-mindedness and stroked her beautiful head.
“I wish he was as easy to deal with as you,” he murmured, although he was aware that it wasn’t true. He would never want Arthur to be any different. He adored Arthur as he was, all his little flaws included (although it became harder and harder for him to see the latter, and Merlin knew that wasn’t a good thing).
Merlin petted Sweetheart one last time and sighed. He wouldn’t solve the riddle of his suddenly ravenous hunger for Arthur right this instant, and he would probably never know if his king had truly said what Merlin had heard back in his chambers. He couldn’t let himself get distracted by that, however. There were other, more pressing matters he had to attend to. Like Arthur’s life. Always Arthur’s life.
It was time to see Cook and make her talk.
**
Arthur charged Gwaine like a stag or a ram going for his rival, head lowered and full on. Later, he would like to believe that something inside of him had still been aware enough to prevent him from drawing the sword at his side or grabbing any of the countless weapons lying around in the armoury. In truth, however, the red haze that clouded his vision was swallowing any rational thought, and he was acting on pure instinct.
He caught Gwaine with his armoured shoulder, ramming it right into the knight’s stomach. Gwaine had not expected the attack at all, and his light chainmail was no match against the breastplate Arthur had donned that morning. He went down under the impact of Arthur’s iron-clad shoulder, and Arthur dived after him, straddling Gwaine’s midriff and pinning him down with his entire weight, armour and all, while his gloved hands closed around the knight’s throat. His prey thrashed beneath him, and he tightened his thighs around the knight’s ribs like he would with an unruly horse, feeling the bone bend under the pressure despite the chainmail and all the padding protecting it. Gwaine gasped for breath and wasn’t getting any. Arthur’s fingers tightened around his throat. With a last, desperate effort, the knight surged upwards to dislodge his attacker and at least succeeded in loosening the grip of Arthur’s hands.
“God damn it, Arthur!” he croaked. Arthur punched him in the face. There was no particular force behind it since he didn’t have much room, but it was enough to shut Gwaine up and disorient him further, so that Arthur avoided his attempt at retaliation easily.
The knight let out an angry scream and went for a headbutt. This time, Arthur didn’t manage to duck, and the force of it finally sent him off Gwaine. He landed on his back, but was on his feet again before he had even blinked, circling his knight like the alpha-wolf would a stray that dared to challenge him.
“Arthur!” Gwaine rasped again, and Arthur bared his teeth.
“Call him something like that again, and I will shut your filthy mouth for good, Gwaine!”
The knight just stared at him, his hands slightly raised in readiness to defend himself. Arthur tried to blink the red haze away, struggling to remind himself that this was his friend standing there in front of him. His foul-mouthed and stubbornly stupid friend, but not a challenger. Not a rival. Not prey.
“Arthur …”
“He is your friend, for God’s sake! How can you even call him that?”
Gwaine’s face flushed. “I’m not the one treating him like a whore!”
Arthur charged again, but this time, Gwaine was ready, and whatever else his knight might have been, he was undoubtedly the superior brawler. They went down in a clatter of cuirass and chainmail, taking several other suits of armour with them.
Somehow, Gwaine managed to land on top of Arthur. He kind of grinned and opened his mouth, probably to say something incredibly dim-witted, but Arthur didn’t give him the chance, slamming the side of both his hands into the unprotected points left and right of Gwaine’s neck, just where it met the shoulder. Forcing his knee between their bodies, he pushed the knight off him.
Gwaine skidded to a halt a few feet away, holding his neck and groaning. “What is it with you and my neck, for fuck’s sake?”
“Shut up!” Arthur snarled and chucked one of the vambraces scattered around at the moron for good measure. His aim was as true as ever, and the hapless piece of armour hit the knight right on the forehead.
“Ow! What …? You lunatic!”
“What did you expect?” Arthur yelled back. His searching hand found the second vambrace, and he threw that, too. Gwaine managed to dodge it, but barely.
“You … you royal arse! I can’t believe you!”
A square, old-fashioned helmet came flying towards Arthur (ah, that was Bruin’s), and he ducked, picking up a left boot in the process and jumping to his feet, only to find Gwaine facing him and brandishing the matching right piece of footwear. Arthur was panting in exertion and clenched his fist around the boot. He started circling Gwaine again, and the knight matched him step for step.
“You are mental,”Gwaine accused, shaking the boot at him. Arthur growled.
“You can call yourself lucky that I’m throwing pieces of armour at you instead of the gauntlet down, Gwaine! God, you’re a … you’re a dollop-head, that’s what you are! I swear, one more word against the man I love out of your mouth, and I might just kill you, do you hear me?”
Gwaine halted in his step and lowered the boot he had been holding in front of him like a sword. He looked at Arthur as though he had made very close acquaintance with a Saxon battle axe.
“You would truly do that? Over Merlin?”
Arthur threw his boot at him.
**
Merlin found Cook in the pantry counting apples. Her face was red, and if he hadn’t known her better, Merlin would have thought that she had been crying very recently. Probably she was just sweating, though, from observing her roasting pig too closely.
Silently, Merlin closed the door behind him. Cook threw him a look over her shoulder.
“Oh. It’s you.”
“Why? Did you expect someone else?”
Without consulting him, his treacherous brain supplied him with images of the covert meetings Cook might usually hold in this very pantry, and he shuddered. He had always thought that she looked way too chummy with George the Weasel, after all.
“Don’t answer that, please.”
Cook sniffed and looked him up and down accusingly as though she had read his thoughts (but then, Cook always looked at him either accusingly or like she thought him capable of burning water if let anywhere near a stove).
“Go on, then,” she griped. “Ask your questions.”
Merlin leaned against the wall next to the tiny pantry window and grabbed himself a pear. He had missed breakfast after all, and even though he still wasn’t particularly hungry after the heap of food Arthur had forced on him the night before, a bit of fruit could never hurt.
“Why don’t you just tell me what’s really going on?” he asked, munching his pear. “What is this talk you’ve been on about?”
Cook shrugged, eyeing the pear and Merlin sharply. He swallowed his mouthful and grinned at her. She snorted.
“I already told the king. It’s nasty stuff, but no one with half a brain would pay any heed to it.”
“If that was all, you wouldn’t have bothered talking to him in the first place. Come on, what’s the harm in telling me?”
She mumbled something unintelligible.
“Pardon?”
“I don’t want to offend the king.”
“Then tell me.”
“You won’t say anything to him?”
“Cook. You and I both know that nobles don’t have to be told everything, don’t we?”
The words were out of his mouth before he could think about it, and Merlin winced, remembering a moist hand shaking his, a shared oath in the dimness of his bedroom, and Arthur’s warm, supple body next to him. He felt a little bit nauseous. However, he also suspected that the reason he hadn’t heard anything of these supposed rumours this time was exactly that: everyone assumed he would run to the king immediately and tattle, unlike every other half-way sensible servant in the known universe. And Arthur had ordered him to do everything to make Cook spill the beans. Merlin bit the inside of his mouth, hoping the women wouldn’t guess his minor crisis of conscience merely by looking at him. She was creepy that way.
“I don’t believe you,” she promptly said. Merlin felt absurdly relieved, though, and did something he would never had thought he’d do: he walked over to her, wiping his pear-stained fingers on his new trousers (courtesy of Arthur), and took both her hands in his to firmly look into her troubled eyes (and yes, they were troubled. Even Merlin, who thought Cook incapable of any sentiment besides grumpiness, had to admit that).
“I’ll break it to him as gently as possible. He won’t be angry at you,” he promised. “But judging by the way you’ve been going on, this is something he needs to know. Better to upset him now than let him put himself into danger out of sheer obliviousness. For God’s sake, Cook, you cautioned him to watch what he eats! And unless you’re grossly overreacting, this isn’t just any old rumour going around, is it? Not like the thing about Agravaine, his horsewhip and the duckpond that everyone relished spreading around but that didn’t do any harm, more’s the pity. This is dangerous, isn’t it?”
Cook blinked at him, and Merlin suddenly could imagine what she had looked like as a young, head-strong, wide-eyed girl. It was rather disturbing.
“You really don’t know?” Cook asked. Her hands were still resting in Merlin’s. They were sweaty.
“Would I ask you if I did?”
She looked uncomfortable and finally freed her hands from his grip to start pacing up and down. Merlin followed her with his eyes.
“Alright. Someone has to tell you, I suppose. Although I’d never thought I’d have to be the one to do it. But never mind. I guess it started off as something harmless. Just some raised eyebrows and a handful of giggling kitchen maids. But you know that they’ve been giggling about the two of you for years, the silly geese.”
Merlin’s eyes widened. That was news to him. The kitchen maids had been giggling? About Arthur and him? For years?!
“I don’t quite know when the insinuations started, but it was still mostly tavern-talk in the beginning. The usual rude jokes and speculations about which one of you … well, you know.”
Merlin really didn’t. He was beginning to suspect, though, and felt his cheek grow hot. Oh God.
“But now, now the nobles are talking. Some of the servants, too, the thick ones. And it’s different. It’s … vicious. They say that he lets himself be ruled by anyone who makes it into his bed. That … that his taste for servants has addled his mind.”
“Servants?!” Merlin exclaimed. “Plural?!”
Cook stopped in her pacing and looked at him with her you’d-burn-water expression, only a lot more intensely than usual. “Oh, pipsqueak. Don’t play dumber than you already are.”
At that, Merlin had to sit down, and he did so on a sack of parsnips lying around in his nearest vicinity. Dratted parsnips.
“What else are they saying?” he asked hollowly. Oh God. This was all his fault. He bloody well knew how the palace worked, and he should have realized that all the extra time he spent with Arthur behind closed doors (practicing magic, talking, arguing, simply being) wouldn’t go unnoticed. Not to mention that he had been clinging to Arthur so hard after his magic had been revealed, needy and desperate for reassurance that no matter what, he would still have Arthur. Always Arthur. His king had promptly indulged him, and that, together with the secrecy Arthur had deemed necessary to instigate his political changes, might now cost him more dearly than Merlin was worth.
“What else, Cook?”
The woman sat down next to him on a barrel of salted meat. The look on her face almost amounted to pity.
“Some say that you’ve got him in the palm of your hand, making him elevate paupers above their station and seek an alliance with the kingdom you came from, bartering with that foul king of yours for your home village. Other things, too.”
Merlin thought he might just be sick.
“And then, there are those who … well …” Cook shrugged helplessly, a gesture Merlin wasn’t aware of ever having seen her make before today but which seemed to rapidly become a habit for her. “They say he keeps you practically chained to his side. You know, the way he takes you everywhere, to training, to council meetings, to diplomatic talks even. Like a … like a favourite pet. They think he uses you to show them that he can do whatever he likes, no matter how inappropriate, rubbing their noses in his … depravity.”
Merlin made a whimpering sound and Cook looked at him unhappily.
“That are their words, not mine, pipsqueak. They … they say it’s an arrogant, brazen display of power, and they don’t like it.”
Merlin met her eyes, utterly speechless. He never would have thought … He knew courtiers could be as malicious as their minds were dirty, but most of them adored, admired, or at least respected Arthur. That was what he had always believed in any case. How could it have come to this?
“They can’t truly mean that,” he whispered. “They have to at least see a little bit of the good he’s trying to achieve. You did.”
Cook snorted. “People see what they want to see. You should know that. And he has been stepping on a lot of toes lately. Accepting change is hard. Blaming you, or his common queen, or his depravity is easy. Once the idea was planted in people’s heads, there was no stopping it, I guess.”
Merlin nodded absently. Oh God. What had he done? Someone must have noticed … His inappropriate thoughts had probably been written all over his face the last few weeks, fuelling a fire that had only been gleaming before, if he put any credence in Cook’s claims of giggling kitchen maids and salacious tavern-talk (and he didn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t).
“Does everyone think one or the other? That I’m manipulating him or that he is parading me around, I mean,” he asked weakly. Cook shook her head immediately.
“As I said: only the thick ones. But you know as well as I that there are enough of that sort running around to do real damage once they set their mind to it. And I don’t think there is anyone left in Camelot who doesn’t believe that you supplanted the queen in the king’s bed.”
Merlin buried his face in his hands. “I didn’t! You have to believe me,” he groaned, although he wasn’t sure why he was appealing to his arch-nemesis like that. Maybe because at some point during their conversation, he had come to suspect that Arthur may have been kind of right about the blasted woman.
“Pipsqueak,” Cook said again, and she sounded so much like his mother that he almost started bawling. “I brought his breakfast to your chambers this morning. When I came in, the sheets were still rumpled and he was looking at you like a lovesick puppy. Clearly, if you’re not getting any by now, you’re doing something wrong.”
Merlin raised his head and stared at her with a mixture of shock and incredulity. My love for you, Arthur said in his head, and he gulped. Oh God. Something warm tingled right behind his belly button. At the same time, his throat was closing up, and he was tasting bile on his tongue. Oh God. It was all his fault. Why couldn’t he do anything right?
“Why aren’t you more upset with me then?” After all, the entire citadel seemed to think that he was making a fool of the queen and, if it came right down to it, of the king as well.
Cook pursed her lips, and it looked almost threatening, to Merlin anyhow. He ducked instinctively, expecting a slap to the back of the head at the very least. Suddenly, however, Cook’s lower lip started to wobble, and there was a sheen of water shimmering in her eyes. She sniffed, and Merlin looked on a bit horrified.
“Do you know that I’ve known that boy up there since he was this high?” Cook indicated the height of the barrel she was sitting on. “I watched that child grow up, and he was so desperately lonely you can’t even imagine. No child should ever be so alone. There was a wall around that boy, and nobody could get through it. He came down to the kitchens sometimes, ever since he was eight years or so. ‘Do you want to stay, sire,’ I asked him in the beginning, and he didn’t even nod, just looked at me with those huge blue eyes. You see, the little squirt didn’t even know why he had come down to where it was warm and stuffy and where there were always people and talk and laughter. He wasn’t really allowed down here with us anyway, but he still showed up every once in a while, like he didn’t know where else to go. It got better when he started training with the knights, of course, but he still came down now and again, and after the first few times, I would just let him be, sitting in front of the fire in the middle of all our hustle and bustle, and I’d give him some hot, aniseed milk, because I didn’t know what else to do. He never said anything, but he sometimes looked at me like … Oh, I don’t even know. Like I’d saved him somehow. Sometimes I … I wanted to hurt someone when he did that. Can you understand that?”
And Merlin could. I was five, the Arthur in his head said, and the anger that had quivered in every fibre of his being when he’d first heard the words surged up again. He had never hated Uther more than in that moment when he had learned that the blasted tyrant had made a five-year-old watch people burn. Merlin almost didn’t feel sorry anymore that Morgana had used him as a means to finish the man off.
“I don’t like you, pipsqueak,” Cook’s voice startled him out of his thoughts. “You’re disrespectful and have no sense of rank and status. You wouldn’t know appropriate if it came and bit you in the arse. But do you know when that boy came last to my kitchen?”
Merlin shook his head.
“Two days after you became his manservant. And then he stopped. Do you know why?”
“He had someone to get his milk for him?” The flippant words had slipped out before he knew it and finally earned him the long-awaited slap to the back of his head. Merlin couldn’t honestly claim that he hadn’t deserved it, but he’d had to say something, or he would have burst apart at the seams. That was what it felt like anyway. Arthur, his magic hummed like a furious wasp, and he couldn’t have agreed more.
“You’re an idiot,” Cook said, and Merlin began to wonder if Arthur might have caught some of his vocabulary as well as his attitude from her. “But you did it, boy. You breached that wall. Nobody else did, not before you anyway. Afterwards, yes. But not before. You cleared the way. That wasn’t Gwen, as much as I like and respect her. That was you.” She huffed and puffed like the admittance had been painful and rubbed her hands against her apron. “And that’s why I don’t care what the two of you do. As long as it makes him happy, I don’t care.” There were tears in her eyes, and Merlin gulped, feeling very much out of his depth. She grabbed one of his hands, and he almost flinched.
“It’s not right, what they say about him,” she snivelled. “It’s just not right. He’s the best we could have hoped for, more than that, and they don’t even see it for all their pettiness and rumour-mongering. It’s not right.”
And before Merlin knew what was happening, he found himself hugging his arch-nemesis to him, patting her meaty shoulder and letting her sob into his neckerchief (Arthur had gifted him with an entire new wardrobe, but he still wore his old neckerchiefs with his posh new threads).
His thoughts were racing. This was an utter disaster. The entire thing could ruin all that Arthur had built over the past two months, and it was all because of Merlin. No matter how little truth there was to those ugly rumours, they could cost Arthur the respect of his people on the long run, whether they thought him a lust-blinded fool ruled by his bed-warmer or a lecherous, power-drunk despot uncaring of decorum or general decency. Cook had been right: it would kill Arthur to lose the trust of his people. Merlin had no idea what to tell his king about what he had found out.
He did know one thing, though: there was only one sure way of counteracting those destructive rumours. He had to divest them of their foundation. And that meant that Merlin would have to keep his distance from Arthur.
His magic twitched at the thought. He had the absurd feeling that it was pouting.
Chapter Fifteen:
Where Gwen gets angry and Gwaine gets very confused
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
My love for you. Arthur’s words echoed in Merlin’s mind, over and over. My love for you. My love for you. Myloveforyoumyloveforyoumyloveforyoumyloveforyoumyloveforyoumyloveforyou.
He knew what he’d heard, even if Arthur didn’t appear to know what he’d said. Love. It made Merlin’s heart clench and his head spin. But instead of thinking about it, instead of getting the chance to figure it all out, he was chasing after Cook because the cursed woman was seeing ghosts.
“Hey, wait up!” Merlin called after her retreating back. She didn’t, of course. The woman was the bane of his existence, always had been. Only, if there was even the slightest chance that she hadn’t merely gone round the bend at long last, then he needed to find out. He couldn’t very well let Arthur be killed now, could he, when his magic was finally out in the open, after having kept him alive for so long with his powers hidden. It would be frankly embarrassing. And unbearable. The mere thought of losing Arthur made Merlin’s bones ache (it was weird, but then, so was his relationship with his king. My love for you, said Arthur in Merlin’s head, though Merlin tried to ignore it. Tried and failed. He couldn’t lose Arthur. Ever.)
“Cook!” Merlin bellowed and ran faster. “If you don’t stop right now, I’ll spit in every single one of your pots tomorrow!”
The woman turned around to glower at him. “What do you want?”
“As outlandish as it sounds, I want to talk to you,” Merlin replied, jogging up to her. He would never admit it out loud, but there were times when he was actually kind of grateful for all the hunting trips Arthur made him join. They did keep him fit, if nothing else.
Cook eyed him with a sour expression which made her sour face even sourer. “I’ve got a pig roasting over the fire.”
“And you’ve got about twenty people in your kitchen watching it.”
“They’ll let it go dry.”
“For God’s sake, Cook! You can’t just come storming into my chambers, make vague implications about the king’s safety and storm right back out again. You bloody well knew I’d follow you.”
Cook pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. Merlin thought it made her look like she had the collywobbles, but wisely kept his musings to himself. He could wait her out if he had to. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and raised his eyebrows. Cook wrinkled her nose and sighed. Merlin shifted his stance and squared his shoulders. Cook averted her eyes and smacked her lips as if she was sampling soup. Merlin started tapping his foot. Cook sniffed and huffed, and when she met Merlin’s eyes again, he knew he had won.
“Fine,” she said. “But not here. Come to the pantry in half an hour, alright? I need to take stock of the stores anyway.”
Merlin acquiesced and let her go. It might have been risky to allow her to gather her thoughts, but he had a feeling that he wouldn’t get anything out of her right now. Besides, she probably had a point about not discussing such a potentially sensitive matter in the middle of the hallway.
Rather than go back to Arthur’s confusing presence, however, Merlin went to visit the horses and to think. He kind of missed the animals and the peaceful air that always surrounded them since he didn’t have to muck out the stables anymore (although he didn’t miss the smell of horse dung on his person; Merlin had never been able to shake the feeling that he did something wrong when it came to that particular chore). He had just enough time to groom Arthur’s favourite mare, and proceeded to do exactly that.
The chestnut greeted him with a nicker, and he started crooning quietly at her. Merlin had been there when Arthur had purchased her as a yearling with shining eyes and an almost maniac grin, and he knew that she had surpassed Arthur’s highest expectations. She was strong, fierce, and loyal, but also steady and gentle, and Merlin trusted her to take care of their Arthur for him in battles and skirmishes. He had named her Sweetheart the very first day he led her into the royal stables, and the name had stuck, although Arthur had almost had an aneurism when he’d first heard it.
“She a charger, Merlin,” he had groused. “God, you’re such a girl!”
He had never renamed the mare, though, and not even Gwaine sniggered nowadays when Arthur called her his “sweetest”.
Merlin let out a heartfelt sigh and rested his forehead against Sweetheart’s broad back.
“What am I going to do, girl?”
Ever since he had woken up to Arthur lying next to him on his bed and maltreating his ribs, he had been one big, Merlin-shaped ball of confusion. Oh, and lust. Mustn’t forget the lust.
Seeing Arthur unselfconsciously undress in his rooms this morning, dripping with the water Merlin had thrown at him in a fit of pique, had done a real number on his head. God knew that he had seen Arthur in a state of undress as well as dripping wet before, but things had been changing (uncomfortably) over the last few weeks, so that now he had to actively fight the urge to jump his king’s bones, where formerly he would have mellowly enjoyed the view.
There was nothing mellow about the state Merlin was in now or had been for the last couple of weeks. Actually, lust was not the right word to describe his reactions anymore. Hunger. That was more like it. Gnawing, insatiable hunger that was slowly driving him insane.
Maybe it had been the dreams that caused the whole miserable situation. Not that it was the first time he had ever dreamed about Arthur (not by a bloody long shot), and the dreams that hadn’t been nightmares of his king injured, mangled, dead had always been a bit … well, steamy. However, that was nothing compared to where his fancy had been taking him for the last fortnight or so (or maybe it had been longer, Merlin wasn’t sure anymore, wasn’t sure of anything much in that regard right now). It was as if his dreams breathed Arthur of late, and fragments of it accompanied Merlin throughout the day, glimpses of his hand buried in wheat-blond hair or of a strong throat arched back to meet his mouth, bursts of pale golden skin gleaming with sweat and firelight, flashes of his king moaning his name while Merlin sunk into him, body and soul, flesh and bone and skin and heart and magic and all.
Merlin groaned, forcing himself back to the present and the feel of Sweetheart’s soft coat against the heated skin of his brow. The mare snorted and turned her head to nibble on his hair, as she was wont to do for some reason. Merlin pushed her away gently.
“It’s not hay, you goose. It’s not for you,” he admonished her and finally began to comb her down in earnest. His own words tasted bitter in his mouth, and he pressed his lips together, angry with himself. It’s not for you. He thought of Gwen and how radiant she had been the day before, how bold and outrageously she had turned the tables on the vile Lotian queen with one single inappropriate and utterly self-assured gesture. Mine, she had signalled by merely taking her husband’s hand and smiling, and Merlin’s heart had gone out to her.
And then, when the king and queen arrived late for the hurrah-the-Lotians-are-gone celebration-banquet and it had been very obvious why by the glow surrounding them, Merlin had been so bloody envious he had almost choked on it. Not jealous, never jealous, not of Gwen who belonged to Arthur like the earth belonged to the sun, but envious of what she had and what would always remain out of his grasp. It made him dream of another world where he had been honest with Arthur from the very beginning and where Arthur had always seen him as something more than clumsy, endearing, and loyal, a world where they had been loving and happily fucking each other for years and where Gwen was nothing but a trusted, most beloved friend - and Merlin had cursed his heart because it could never be content, no matter what it had been given.
The whole thing had made him listless for the rest of the evening (Arthur trying to stuff him with food like a prize gander hadn’t helped either). Only the king’s excellent wine had finally done the trick and raised his spirits, although Merlin happened to not remember much of what had occurred after they had relocated to his chambers (he had never been so relieved to be dressed in his entire life than when he’d woken up next to Arthur this morning, and that was saying something).
Sweetheart was shifting skittishly, sensing Merlin’s agitation, and he started to hum under his breath to quiet them both down. He inhaled the calming scent of straw and horses and tried to be rational about the whole thing. He loved Arthur, there was no denying and no helping it. He also wanted Arthur. That also was nothing new. He was just going through some changes, and his mind and his body had weird ways of dealing with the entire upheaval, that was all. Maybe he had caught Arthur’s inaptitude for change like normal people would catch the flu.
Yes, that was a reasonable assumption, wasn’t it? Nothing to worry about. It would pass, his body and mind going back to normal as soon as he would have adjusted to Arthur being on board with the magic, to his sharp, blinding brilliance during the day and his soft vulnerability in the evenings. It was a lethal combination after all.
Or maybe, Merlin was simply losing his mind. Maybe all that happiness he wasn’t used to had addled his brain irrevocably.
For it wasn’t just that he lusted after Arthur with an intensity that was frankly ludicrous, or that he dreamed of touching him, sinking into him all the time. It was that he could actually feel it. Feel him. Pretty much constantly. At council meetings, Round Table gatherings, courtly feasts, diplomatic talks with King Lot. During their quiet evenings together (especially during their quiet evenings together), during magical demonstrations, training with the knights, short horseback rides through the woods surrounding Camelot, little outings into the Lower Town. All the bloody time.
Merlin would ride behind Arthur, trotting leisurely through a secluded grove, only to feel the supple texture of Arthur’s skin against his lips and taste the slight saltiness of it on his tongue, and he would know with the utmost certainty what it was that he was experiencing. The first time it happened his entire body started vibrating with the sheer Arthur-ness of it all, his cock perking up with delight and his ears growing uncomfortably hot.
Or he would sit next to Arthur at the Round Table (he still remained standing during council meetings, even if that didn’t prevent him from giving those plonkers a piece of his mind when they needed it) and would have to clench his fists because he could feel the solid muscles of Arthur’s thighs pressing against the palms of his hands that prickled with the texture of soft skin and the tender chafing of little hairs stroked against the grain. Merlin’s throat would go dry then, even when similar things kept happening, and his cock would … well, do the expected. Thankfully, the Table concealed everything from his waist downwards or he would never have lived it down that politics seemed to turn him on more than they did even Leon.
Or Merlin would lounge about in his chair while Arthur enjoyed a cup of wine in his chambers and would suddenly feel the shape of a broad back against his chest, as if his king were actually leaning against him instead of sitting across from him, as if Merlin were holding Arthur like he would a lover, caressing his sides, his hair, his belly, lacing their fingers together, and pressing his lips against Arthur’s brow. His cock was not quite as perky during those occurrences, but his heart was, and that might possibly have been even worse.
Sweetheart’s snort yanked Merlin back to the present once more. He had somehow managed to groom her despite being lost in his thoughts, but she was obviously getting fed up with his general lack of attention, nipping his arm less than gently and all but glowering at him (she reminded him a bit of his mother when she did that, and wasn’t that a perfectly disturbing thought?).
Merlin had to laugh at himself. “You’re right, sweetest thing. I’m an idiot.”
And maybe Arthur talking of love had just been another product of his imagination after all. It obviously did what it wanted nowadays. Merlin fed Sweetheart some carrots to apologise for his absent-mindedness and stroked her beautiful head.
“I wish he was as easy to deal with as you,” he murmured, although he was aware that it wasn’t true. He would never want Arthur to be any different. He adored Arthur as he was, all his little flaws included (although it became harder and harder for him to see the latter, and Merlin knew that wasn’t a good thing).
Merlin petted Sweetheart one last time and sighed. He wouldn’t solve the riddle of his suddenly ravenous hunger for Arthur right this instant, and he would probably never know if his king had truly said what Merlin had heard back in his chambers. He couldn’t let himself get distracted by that, however. There were other, more pressing matters he had to attend to. Like Arthur’s life. Always Arthur’s life.
It was time to see Cook and make her talk.
**
Arthur charged Gwaine like a stag or a ram going for his rival, head lowered and full on. Later, he would like to believe that something inside of him had still been aware enough to prevent him from drawing the sword at his side or grabbing any of the countless weapons lying around in the armoury. In truth, however, the red haze that clouded his vision was swallowing any rational thought, and he was acting on pure instinct.
He caught Gwaine with his armoured shoulder, ramming it right into the knight’s stomach. Gwaine had not expected the attack at all, and his light chainmail was no match against the breastplate Arthur had donned that morning. He went down under the impact of Arthur’s iron-clad shoulder, and Arthur dived after him, straddling Gwaine’s midriff and pinning him down with his entire weight, armour and all, while his gloved hands closed around the knight’s throat. His prey thrashed beneath him, and he tightened his thighs around the knight’s ribs like he would with an unruly horse, feeling the bone bend under the pressure despite the chainmail and all the padding protecting it. Gwaine gasped for breath and wasn’t getting any. Arthur’s fingers tightened around his throat. With a last, desperate effort, the knight surged upwards to dislodge his attacker and at least succeeded in loosening the grip of Arthur’s hands.
“God damn it, Arthur!” he croaked. Arthur punched him in the face. There was no particular force behind it since he didn’t have much room, but it was enough to shut Gwaine up and disorient him further, so that Arthur avoided his attempt at retaliation easily.
The knight let out an angry scream and went for a headbutt. This time, Arthur didn’t manage to duck, and the force of it finally sent him off Gwaine. He landed on his back, but was on his feet again before he had even blinked, circling his knight like the alpha-wolf would a stray that dared to challenge him.
“Arthur!” Gwaine rasped again, and Arthur bared his teeth.
“Call him something like that again, and I will shut your filthy mouth for good, Gwaine!”
The knight just stared at him, his hands slightly raised in readiness to defend himself. Arthur tried to blink the red haze away, struggling to remind himself that this was his friend standing there in front of him. His foul-mouthed and stubbornly stupid friend, but not a challenger. Not a rival. Not prey.
“Arthur …”
“He is your friend, for God’s sake! How can you even call him that?”
Gwaine’s face flushed. “I’m not the one treating him like a whore!”
Arthur charged again, but this time, Gwaine was ready, and whatever else his knight might have been, he was undoubtedly the superior brawler. They went down in a clatter of cuirass and chainmail, taking several other suits of armour with them.
Somehow, Gwaine managed to land on top of Arthur. He kind of grinned and opened his mouth, probably to say something incredibly dim-witted, but Arthur didn’t give him the chance, slamming the side of both his hands into the unprotected points left and right of Gwaine’s neck, just where it met the shoulder. Forcing his knee between their bodies, he pushed the knight off him.
Gwaine skidded to a halt a few feet away, holding his neck and groaning. “What is it with you and my neck, for fuck’s sake?”
“Shut up!” Arthur snarled and chucked one of the vambraces scattered around at the moron for good measure. His aim was as true as ever, and the hapless piece of armour hit the knight right on the forehead.
“Ow! What …? You lunatic!”
“What did you expect?” Arthur yelled back. His searching hand found the second vambrace, and he threw that, too. Gwaine managed to dodge it, but barely.
“You … you royal arse! I can’t believe you!”
A square, old-fashioned helmet came flying towards Arthur (ah, that was Bruin’s), and he ducked, picking up a left boot in the process and jumping to his feet, only to find Gwaine facing him and brandishing the matching right piece of footwear. Arthur was panting in exertion and clenched his fist around the boot. He started circling Gwaine again, and the knight matched him step for step.
“You are mental,”Gwaine accused, shaking the boot at him. Arthur growled.
“You can call yourself lucky that I’m throwing pieces of armour at you instead of the gauntlet down, Gwaine! God, you’re a … you’re a dollop-head, that’s what you are! I swear, one more word against the man I love out of your mouth, and I might just kill you, do you hear me?”
Gwaine halted in his step and lowered the boot he had been holding in front of him like a sword. He looked at Arthur as though he had made very close acquaintance with a Saxon battle axe.
“You would truly do that? Over Merlin?”
Arthur threw his boot at him.
**
Merlin found Cook in the pantry counting apples. Her face was red, and if he hadn’t known her better, Merlin would have thought that she had been crying very recently. Probably she was just sweating, though, from observing her roasting pig too closely.
Silently, Merlin closed the door behind him. Cook threw him a look over her shoulder.
“Oh. It’s you.”
“Why? Did you expect someone else?”
Without consulting him, his treacherous brain supplied him with images of the covert meetings Cook might usually hold in this very pantry, and he shuddered. He had always thought that she looked way too chummy with George the Weasel, after all.
“Don’t answer that, please.”
Cook sniffed and looked him up and down accusingly as though she had read his thoughts (but then, Cook always looked at him either accusingly or like she thought him capable of burning water if let anywhere near a stove).
“Go on, then,” she griped. “Ask your questions.”
Merlin leaned against the wall next to the tiny pantry window and grabbed himself a pear. He had missed breakfast after all, and even though he still wasn’t particularly hungry after the heap of food Arthur had forced on him the night before, a bit of fruit could never hurt.
“Why don’t you just tell me what’s really going on?” he asked, munching his pear. “What is this talk you’ve been on about?”
Cook shrugged, eyeing the pear and Merlin sharply. He swallowed his mouthful and grinned at her. She snorted.
“I already told the king. It’s nasty stuff, but no one with half a brain would pay any heed to it.”
“If that was all, you wouldn’t have bothered talking to him in the first place. Come on, what’s the harm in telling me?”
She mumbled something unintelligible.
“Pardon?”
“I don’t want to offend the king.”
“Then tell me.”
“You won’t say anything to him?”
“Cook. You and I both know that nobles don’t have to be told everything, don’t we?”
The words were out of his mouth before he could think about it, and Merlin winced, remembering a moist hand shaking his, a shared oath in the dimness of his bedroom, and Arthur’s warm, supple body next to him. He felt a little bit nauseous. However, he also suspected that the reason he hadn’t heard anything of these supposed rumours this time was exactly that: everyone assumed he would run to the king immediately and tattle, unlike every other half-way sensible servant in the known universe. And Arthur had ordered him to do everything to make Cook spill the beans. Merlin bit the inside of his mouth, hoping the women wouldn’t guess his minor crisis of conscience merely by looking at him. She was creepy that way.
“I don’t believe you,” she promptly said. Merlin felt absurdly relieved, though, and did something he would never had thought he’d do: he walked over to her, wiping his pear-stained fingers on his new trousers (courtesy of Arthur), and took both her hands in his to firmly look into her troubled eyes (and yes, they were troubled. Even Merlin, who thought Cook incapable of any sentiment besides grumpiness, had to admit that).
“I’ll break it to him as gently as possible. He won’t be angry at you,” he promised. “But judging by the way you’ve been going on, this is something he needs to know. Better to upset him now than let him put himself into danger out of sheer obliviousness. For God’s sake, Cook, you cautioned him to watch what he eats! And unless you’re grossly overreacting, this isn’t just any old rumour going around, is it? Not like the thing about Agravaine, his horsewhip and the duckpond that everyone relished spreading around but that didn’t do any harm, more’s the pity. This is dangerous, isn’t it?”
Cook blinked at him, and Merlin suddenly could imagine what she had looked like as a young, head-strong, wide-eyed girl. It was rather disturbing.
“You really don’t know?” Cook asked. Her hands were still resting in Merlin’s. They were sweaty.
“Would I ask you if I did?”
She looked uncomfortable and finally freed her hands from his grip to start pacing up and down. Merlin followed her with his eyes.
“Alright. Someone has to tell you, I suppose. Although I’d never thought I’d have to be the one to do it. But never mind. I guess it started off as something harmless. Just some raised eyebrows and a handful of giggling kitchen maids. But you know that they’ve been giggling about the two of you for years, the silly geese.”
Merlin’s eyes widened. That was news to him. The kitchen maids had been giggling? About Arthur and him? For years?!
“I don’t quite know when the insinuations started, but it was still mostly tavern-talk in the beginning. The usual rude jokes and speculations about which one of you … well, you know.”
Merlin really didn’t. He was beginning to suspect, though, and felt his cheek grow hot. Oh God.
“But now, now the nobles are talking. Some of the servants, too, the thick ones. And it’s different. It’s … vicious. They say that he lets himself be ruled by anyone who makes it into his bed. That … that his taste for servants has addled his mind.”
“Servants?!” Merlin exclaimed. “Plural?!”
Cook stopped in her pacing and looked at him with her you’d-burn-water expression, only a lot more intensely than usual. “Oh, pipsqueak. Don’t play dumber than you already are.”
At that, Merlin had to sit down, and he did so on a sack of parsnips lying around in his nearest vicinity. Dratted parsnips.
“What else are they saying?” he asked hollowly. Oh God. This was all his fault. He bloody well knew how the palace worked, and he should have realized that all the extra time he spent with Arthur behind closed doors (practicing magic, talking, arguing, simply being) wouldn’t go unnoticed. Not to mention that he had been clinging to Arthur so hard after his magic had been revealed, needy and desperate for reassurance that no matter what, he would still have Arthur. Always Arthur. His king had promptly indulged him, and that, together with the secrecy Arthur had deemed necessary to instigate his political changes, might now cost him more dearly than Merlin was worth.
“What else, Cook?”
The woman sat down next to him on a barrel of salted meat. The look on her face almost amounted to pity.
“Some say that you’ve got him in the palm of your hand, making him elevate paupers above their station and seek an alliance with the kingdom you came from, bartering with that foul king of yours for your home village. Other things, too.”
Merlin thought he might just be sick.
“And then, there are those who … well …” Cook shrugged helplessly, a gesture Merlin wasn’t aware of ever having seen her make before today but which seemed to rapidly become a habit for her. “They say he keeps you practically chained to his side. You know, the way he takes you everywhere, to training, to council meetings, to diplomatic talks even. Like a … like a favourite pet. They think he uses you to show them that he can do whatever he likes, no matter how inappropriate, rubbing their noses in his … depravity.”
Merlin made a whimpering sound and Cook looked at him unhappily.
“That are their words, not mine, pipsqueak. They … they say it’s an arrogant, brazen display of power, and they don’t like it.”
Merlin met her eyes, utterly speechless. He never would have thought … He knew courtiers could be as malicious as their minds were dirty, but most of them adored, admired, or at least respected Arthur. That was what he had always believed in any case. How could it have come to this?
“They can’t truly mean that,” he whispered. “They have to at least see a little bit of the good he’s trying to achieve. You did.”
Cook snorted. “People see what they want to see. You should know that. And he has been stepping on a lot of toes lately. Accepting change is hard. Blaming you, or his common queen, or his depravity is easy. Once the idea was planted in people’s heads, there was no stopping it, I guess.”
Merlin nodded absently. Oh God. What had he done? Someone must have noticed … His inappropriate thoughts had probably been written all over his face the last few weeks, fuelling a fire that had only been gleaming before, if he put any credence in Cook’s claims of giggling kitchen maids and salacious tavern-talk (and he didn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t).
“Does everyone think one or the other? That I’m manipulating him or that he is parading me around, I mean,” he asked weakly. Cook shook her head immediately.
“As I said: only the thick ones. But you know as well as I that there are enough of that sort running around to do real damage once they set their mind to it. And I don’t think there is anyone left in Camelot who doesn’t believe that you supplanted the queen in the king’s bed.”
Merlin buried his face in his hands. “I didn’t! You have to believe me,” he groaned, although he wasn’t sure why he was appealing to his arch-nemesis like that. Maybe because at some point during their conversation, he had come to suspect that Arthur may have been kind of right about the blasted woman.
“Pipsqueak,” Cook said again, and she sounded so much like his mother that he almost started bawling. “I brought his breakfast to your chambers this morning. When I came in, the sheets were still rumpled and he was looking at you like a lovesick puppy. Clearly, if you’re not getting any by now, you’re doing something wrong.”
Merlin raised his head and stared at her with a mixture of shock and incredulity. My love for you, Arthur said in his head, and he gulped. Oh God. Something warm tingled right behind his belly button. At the same time, his throat was closing up, and he was tasting bile on his tongue. Oh God. It was all his fault. Why couldn’t he do anything right?
“Why aren’t you more upset with me then?” After all, the entire citadel seemed to think that he was making a fool of the queen and, if it came right down to it, of the king as well.
Cook pursed her lips, and it looked almost threatening, to Merlin anyhow. He ducked instinctively, expecting a slap to the back of the head at the very least. Suddenly, however, Cook’s lower lip started to wobble, and there was a sheen of water shimmering in her eyes. She sniffed, and Merlin looked on a bit horrified.
“Do you know that I’ve known that boy up there since he was this high?” Cook indicated the height of the barrel she was sitting on. “I watched that child grow up, and he was so desperately lonely you can’t even imagine. No child should ever be so alone. There was a wall around that boy, and nobody could get through it. He came down to the kitchens sometimes, ever since he was eight years or so. ‘Do you want to stay, sire,’ I asked him in the beginning, and he didn’t even nod, just looked at me with those huge blue eyes. You see, the little squirt didn’t even know why he had come down to where it was warm and stuffy and where there were always people and talk and laughter. He wasn’t really allowed down here with us anyway, but he still showed up every once in a while, like he didn’t know where else to go. It got better when he started training with the knights, of course, but he still came down now and again, and after the first few times, I would just let him be, sitting in front of the fire in the middle of all our hustle and bustle, and I’d give him some hot, aniseed milk, because I didn’t know what else to do. He never said anything, but he sometimes looked at me like … Oh, I don’t even know. Like I’d saved him somehow. Sometimes I … I wanted to hurt someone when he did that. Can you understand that?”
And Merlin could. I was five, the Arthur in his head said, and the anger that had quivered in every fibre of his being when he’d first heard the words surged up again. He had never hated Uther more than in that moment when he had learned that the blasted tyrant had made a five-year-old watch people burn. Merlin almost didn’t feel sorry anymore that Morgana had used him as a means to finish the man off.
“I don’t like you, pipsqueak,” Cook’s voice startled him out of his thoughts. “You’re disrespectful and have no sense of rank and status. You wouldn’t know appropriate if it came and bit you in the arse. But do you know when that boy came last to my kitchen?”
Merlin shook his head.
“Two days after you became his manservant. And then he stopped. Do you know why?”
“He had someone to get his milk for him?” The flippant words had slipped out before he knew it and finally earned him the long-awaited slap to the back of his head. Merlin couldn’t honestly claim that he hadn’t deserved it, but he’d had to say something, or he would have burst apart at the seams. That was what it felt like anyway. Arthur, his magic hummed like a furious wasp, and he couldn’t have agreed more.
“You’re an idiot,” Cook said, and Merlin began to wonder if Arthur might have caught some of his vocabulary as well as his attitude from her. “But you did it, boy. You breached that wall. Nobody else did, not before you anyway. Afterwards, yes. But not before. You cleared the way. That wasn’t Gwen, as much as I like and respect her. That was you.” She huffed and puffed like the admittance had been painful and rubbed her hands against her apron. “And that’s why I don’t care what the two of you do. As long as it makes him happy, I don’t care.” There were tears in her eyes, and Merlin gulped, feeling very much out of his depth. She grabbed one of his hands, and he almost flinched.
“It’s not right, what they say about him,” she snivelled. “It’s just not right. He’s the best we could have hoped for, more than that, and they don’t even see it for all their pettiness and rumour-mongering. It’s not right.”
And before Merlin knew what was happening, he found himself hugging his arch-nemesis to him, patting her meaty shoulder and letting her sob into his neckerchief (Arthur had gifted him with an entire new wardrobe, but he still wore his old neckerchiefs with his posh new threads).
His thoughts were racing. This was an utter disaster. The entire thing could ruin all that Arthur had built over the past two months, and it was all because of Merlin. No matter how little truth there was to those ugly rumours, they could cost Arthur the respect of his people on the long run, whether they thought him a lust-blinded fool ruled by his bed-warmer or a lecherous, power-drunk despot uncaring of decorum or general decency. Cook had been right: it would kill Arthur to lose the trust of his people. Merlin had no idea what to tell his king about what he had found out.
He did know one thing, though: there was only one sure way of counteracting those destructive rumours. He had to divest them of their foundation. And that meant that Merlin would have to keep his distance from Arthur.
His magic twitched at the thought. He had the absurd feeling that it was pouting.
Chapter Fifteen:
Where Gwen gets angry and Gwaine gets very confused