No Law - Chapter Seventeen: Intertwined, 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
Merlin felt like he was breaking apart on the inside. He still couldn’t believe what he had overheard, not really. The part of him he had always called Emrys in the privacy of his mind was surging to the forefront, raring to take the old man apart piece by piece. But it’s Gaius’ cried the rest of him. It’s Gaius!
Arthur, his magic hummed, and Emrys was fuming.
No. Stop lying to yourself. Not Emrys. Merlin. Merlin was fuming, seething, and it was all he could do not to unleash his magic on the old man without giving him the chance to explain himself.
Good God, the look on Arthur’s face! The tiny whisper of I think I’m going mad in Merlin’s ear and the tremor in the powerful muscles pressed against his chest. It made him want to smash things. Possibly people. Maybe even the whole of Albion. Sometimes it scared Merlin what he might to do in order to protect Arthur, not merely his life, but the entirety of him, body, heart, and soul. It was ludicrous. It was dangerous. It was inescapable.
And yet, there was Gaius sitting on his bench, looking old and breakable and scared, and it was like a fire wall, keeping Merlin’s fury at bay.
To think that half an hour ago his biggest problem had been how to curb salacious rumours concerning him, Arthur, and what happened in their beds or possibly behind the throne! It seemed ridiculous in comparison, although Merlin could recall very well how upset he had been, trying to talk himself into keeping his distance from Arthur to counteract the gossips. He almost laughed out loud at the thought and probably would have if he hadn’t been convinced that Gaius would drop dead out of fright at hearing him cackle. He had been kidding himself. He wouldn’t be able to keep his distance from Arthur if he tried. His magic wouldn’t even let him, nor would his heart. Merlin had finally discovered the one thing he wouldn’t do to secure Arthur’s rule over Camelot.
He had been on his way to his old mentor to ask him if he knew anything about the rumours and to dig for the last morsel of information Cook had refused to share with him, when the sight of a Gwaine-shaped lump of misery huddled up against the physician’s door had stopped him short.
“What are you doing here?” he had asked in what was surely not his nicest tone of voice. His friend had been getting on his nerves of late with his constant death-glares directed at Arthur, and he didn’t believe for one second that Gwaine, one of the most companionable people in Merlin’s acquaintance, had known nothing of the latest juicy palace chatter. And yet, Merlin had to learn about it from Cook. From Cook. It was as if none of his friends deigned to talk to him anymore, at least not about anything more consequential than the weather. God, what was wrong with everyone?
The pitiful scolded-puppy-look Gwaine gave him from where he was sitting on Gaius’s doorstep almost did him in despite himself. However, it only took a few disjointed sentences from the knight about his own temporary foray into the realm of lunacy (Gwaine’s words, not Merlin’s), about Arthur’s frightening accuracy when throwing cleaning supplies, and about Gwen giving the knights the tongue-lashing of a lifetime, until Merlin had heard enough.
“Stop right there,” he had said. “I’ll deal with you later. What is going on in there?”
“I don’t know! Arthur was furious of course, and I can’t really blame him, to be accused of murder like that. But he seems to think that Gaius did it on purpose, and I don’t understand …”
Merlin silenced the knight with his raised hand, a gesture he had stolen from Arthur and found to be marvellously effective. Inwardly, he was cursing himself. He had bloody well known that something was wrong between Gaius and Arthur, hell he had even asked them about it. But both of them had deflected, and Merlin had let them, because for once in his life he had been happy and he hadn’t felt much inclined to pursue anything that could have disturbed his bliss. Idiot.
Well, enough was enough.
Merlin had lost count on how many doors he had eavesdropped on since he had come to Camelot. More or less, it had always been on accident. He wasn’t above using a bit of magic to get the information he wanted or needed, though. Like right now.
Without paying any heed to Gwaine or sparing a thought to what his friend might guess or not guess by now, Merlin had pressed his hand against the door and let his magic push.
“… and then you make horrible mistakes,” he heard Gaius say, and that was that.
Merlin didn’t know why it had taken him so long to react, to make his presence known, to intervene. He had felt every word Gaius had uttered like it was cutting into his own flesh because he had known what it was doing to Arthur. Despite all his self-confidence bordering on or sometimes even merging into arrogance, the right words coming from the right person (or the wrong one, as the case may be) could cut through Arthur’s defences like a hot knife through butter. Merlin knew that. Gaius had to know that. The ruthlessness that thought implied had frozen Merlin to his spot in front of the door.
By the time he had pulled himself together, Arthur was already laying into Gaius with ugly words Merlin couldn’t really blame him fo, seemling having regained his bearing.
Seemingly.
I think I’m going mad.
Oh, Arthur, Merlin thought. Oh love, please, don’t leave me.
**
When Arthur stormed into the rooms he shared with his wife, his emotions were in a complete turmoil. The foremost, however, was a suffocating feeling of failure.
Without looking left or right, Arthur strode up to the window and threw it open, drawing deep breaths that did absolutely nothing to calm him down. He half feared, half hoped for Guinevere’s soft, small hands coming to rest on his shoulders, but when that didn’t happen within moments of him entering their chambers, he knew that she wasn’t even there. Probably still back in the armoury, dragging the rest of his unbelievably stupid knights over the coals for their lack of trust and judgement.
Arthur had never seen his wife quite that angry before, and part of him loved her fiercely for her fire and her matter-of-factness. The other part was mortified at the ease with which she had cut through the tangle of lies and half-truths and fears and misgivings his knights had gotten caught up in. Her aplomb made him look even more like an incompetent fool than he had already managed all by himself.
He drew another deep, shuddering breath, but it wasn’t helping. To think that just this morning he had been so happy and hopeful despite his fruitless seduction attempts the night before, and now he wasn’t even sure what he was feeling anymore. Arthur had been put through an emotional grinder the last few hours, from red-hot rage at Gwaine over stunned disbelief in the face of his knights’ various shades of idiocy to growing horror at Gaius’s words, culminating in the utter shock of seeing Merlin stand at that door, having heard every last cruel threat Arthur had spat into the old man’s face. Oh God, Merlin! What was he thinking right now? What was he doing? What was the old man saying to him?
Arthur pressed his eyes shut and tried to breathe.
It was his fault anyway. He could rage all he wanted at the conniving quack, at Gwaine’s gullibility and the others’ insecurities, when the truth of the matter was that none of this would have happened if he truly were the king he was supposed to be.
You’re a failure, the voice in his head hissed. Your knights don’t trust you. Your people think you a fool. You’re not even able to deal with a tottering old man without making a mess of things.
Arthur started trembling. The voice had been quiet for so long that he had thought he was finally rid of it. But then, he had been fooling himself a lot these past few weeks, hadn’t he? He had thought he had it all under control. The court. His kingdom. The change. His love. His life. His … everything.
“More the fool me,” he mumbled. Maybe, in some way, in many ways, the old man had been spot-on.
You will take us all down into madness with you. Take as all down …
God, Arthur needed something stronger than fresh air to get those words out of his head!
**
What little good the broth had done earlier to stem her nausea had all but evaporated. Her stomach was acting up and her head felt as if a whole bunch of washing woman had used it to beat the citadel’s entire supply of dirty laundry. Gwen pressed her hand on her bodice and leaned against the armoury wall, lest she fall down.
“Gwen? Are you alright?” her brother asked timidly.
“Leave me alone,” she mumbled, not even deigning to open her eyes. Of all the stupid, hare-brained things to do … At least her brother hadn’t believed all that nonsense about Arthur exploiting Merlin. He had just seen her as a jilted, long-suffering wife who was so devoted, if not subservient to her husband that she would let him walk all over her. Publically.
She groaned. “For the love of Camelot, where is Ninianne with that water?”
“I’ll go look for her,” Percival’s deep, steady voice said next to her, and she nodded her assent.
“Tell her to hurry. I’m really not feeling well.”
“Of course, milady.”
Good, trustworthy Percival, Gwen thought. Someday, they had to give him a reward for being the only knight with at least a thimbleful of sense in him.
God, she would have loved to pummel that bunch of nitwits into next week for their stupidity. What she would do to Gaius, on the other hand, she had no idea. And it would be her who would have to deal with the old physician in the end, even if Arthur was confronting him right now. The dirty job of the clean-up would fall to her, of that much Gwen was certain. She couldn’t leave it to Arthur and risk her husband becoming alienated from Merlin because of it. That was not a burden he was meant to bear.
Her stomach clenched painfully, a spell of dizziness washing over her.
“Gwen!” her brother exclaimed, and she wondered why he sounded so scared, even while the ground tilted and rose up to meet her.
**
“Why are you doing this?” Merlin finally asked. He could hear the wet in his own voice, his bewildered grief having won out over his quivering anger. He could be furious later. Now he needed to find out what was going on and fix it.
Gaius looked up with the air of someone who had just lost a crucial battle. Merlin hated to see his old mentor so defeated, but he had hated seeing Arthur gutted by the man’s words even more. When it came right down to it, there was no question about whose side he would choose, and that realization was part of what made him so sad. It also made him strong.
Gaius didn’t answer his question, and when Merlin took a step in his direction, he actually flinched. Merlin stopped again and swallowed around the lump in his throat.
“Gaius? I asked why you are doing this, and you will answer me.”
“What can I say?” the old man rasped. “How can I possibly convince you that I tried to do the best for you, and even for Arthur? You won’t believe what you won’t allow yourself to see.”
“You’re telling me that you actually believe what you said to him? That he is a failure as a king and dangerous to boot?”
“Yes. And you would, too, if you weren’t so blinded by …”
“By what? Love? Yes, I love Arthur, more than anything. I won’t deny that. Hell, I’m told it’s all over the castle anyway. There are probably some charcoal burners in the woods of Caerleon talking about it right now. If I’m lucky, there might exist a tribe of wandering Saxons somewhere over the sea who haven’t heard about it yet.”
“I told you that I’m not responsible for these rumours!”
“I wasn’t implying that you were. But you are responsible for the rubbish you fed Gwaine and for what you said to Arthur right now.” Merlin shook his head, very deliberately not fighting the tears watering his eyes. Let Gaius see what his actions were doing to him, Merlin. It might just be more effective than Emrys’s rage had any hope to be.
“How could you do that? These are two of the people closest to my heart and you go and hurt them like that. You, Gaius! I could always count on you to be there for me, to guide me, and to comfort me when I failed. And now? What do I have left now?”
“I did it for you, my boy.”
“How? How was setting these men against each other supposed to be for my benefit? What were you even hoping to achieve?”
**
When Gwaine arrived at the Royal Chambers, he found Arthur contemplating a jug of wine on the central dining table as if it were his best friend. Gwaine was very familiar with that look from far too much time spent in far too many taverns, and he closed the door behind him noisily to draw Arthur’s attention.
The king looked pale and exhausted and frankly like an entire mob had kicked him while he was down and spat on him for good measure. Gwaine felt his insides squirm at the thought that he himself had done his share to bring the man low like this. Maybe he was just the useless scoundrel everyone before Merlin and Arthur had regarded him as.
“What do you want?” Arthur growled, but Gwaine could hear the brittleness behind the aggressive sound. He marvelled at how he could have believed even a fraction of the nonsense Gaius had been sprouting. Maybe the stress and hardship of the past few years had finally caught up with the old man - and with him, Gwaine, as well.
“I wanted to apologize,” he said, thinking better of mentioning that Merlin had sent him after the king as a kind of watchdog.
“You already did. And I already forgave you,” Arthur said, looking back to the jug of wine as though it was more important than Gwaine and his breach of trust.
Gwaine cleared his throat. “Just like that?”
Arthur sighed, rubbing his eyes. “What do you want, Gwaine? Shall I send you to the stocks? Would it make you feel better to let the townspeople pelt you with wilty salad leaves? Because believe you me, they wouldn’t dare to throw anything more substantial at you.”
“I don’t care about me feeling better!”
Arthur snorted and turned his back on Gwaine to fetch himself a dented cup from the sideboard between the two windows. Gwaine shifted from one foot to the other, weighing his options.
“Of course you do,” Arthur was saying meanwhile. “That’s all anyone ever cares about. ‘Ooooh, we screwed up! Let’s not tell Arthur and hope he never finds out. And if he does, we can always beg his forgiveness afterwards.’ Well, you have it, Gwaine! No go and do what you want with it!”
“Strangely enough, your words don’t reassure me at all,” Gwaine said drily and ducked as the cup came flying at him. And while he wasn’t very keen on starting another round of let’s-throw-things-at-Gwaine-until-he-gives-in-from-exhaustion, he very much believed that Arthur was much better off without a wine cup in his hand that early in the afternoon.
**
“I needed an ally,” Gaius said with a stubborn glint in his eyes. “Gwaine was the logical choice.”
“You’re not fighting a war!” Merlin hollered, his … Emrys’s … his temper finally getting the better of him. “And if you are, then I’m telling you now that you are standing on the wrong side. The wrong side of me, Gaius!”
Gaius seemed to shrink into himself. The old man was truly scared, and what would have saddened Merlin a day, an hour, a minute ago, only enraged him more right now.
“Don’t just cower there,” he spat. “Explain yourself! Tell me why you are suddenly opposing a king you helped come into his own. Tell me why you are so keen on hurting someone you as good as raised and who you loved. Tell me what happened!”
“He is a Pendragon!” Gaius exclaimed, and it was all Merlin could do to reign in his magic at hearing the by now familiar tune. “He betrayed me, and he will betray you. He will betray everyone who loves him. It’s what they do! They betray and use and burn and destroy you, until there is nothing left of you but ash and bone, or until your heart has become as black and twisted as their own. They are poison, and we all have to pay for their sins.”
Maybe it was the words, so similar to others he had heard before, or maybe Merlin just happened to remember the dream he had while Arthur was sleeping in his arms, but very suddenly, he got it. He still didn’t know what had caused it, but he finally understood who Gaius was really seeing nowadays when he looked at Arthur, who all this poison and fear was truly aimed at. Maybe he should have realized it sooner. But Gaius had always been his rock, his solid ground of reason, and although Merlin had seen him vulnerable and distressed before, he never truly thought Gaius could be brought down by anything, as if he would just weather and endure, like stone and soil and root and bark.
What did you break'?, Merlin remembered asking Gaius in his dream while a distorted, fang-toothed spectre of Uther Pendragon was looking on.
Faith, the undead Gaius in his dream had said.
Faith.
Merlin thought of all the sorcerers dying in the Purge, of a tiny Arthur clinging to the balustrade and watching bad people burn, and of Gaius standing amidst the carnage, wringing his hands and trying, trying, trying, and scared, scared, scared of burning as well, and he thought of the fear in his own gut sewing his mouth shut for years and years, and he wanted to cry and he wanted to rage, but all that came out was a rough “Arthur is not his father, Gaius. But I don’t know how to help you, if you can no longer see that.”
**
Ninianne followed the gorgeously cute Sir Percival almost at a run, very carefully trying not to spill any water from the jug she was carrying. It was meant for the queen after all.
Ninianne was a bit flushed from the fast pace and from embarrassment because it had taken her so long to fetch the queen’s drink (not to mention from getting to stare at Sir Percival’s delectable bum all the while, but that was neither here nor there). In her defence, she had thought the queen’s order had mainly been meant to get rid of her while Her Majesty talked about extremely important, but potentially delicate matters of the Court with the king’s most trusted knights (although Ninianne had to stifle a giggle or two at the ludicrous speculations the sirs knights were uttering; the king would never do anything to hurt the queen, and to suspect anything else was simply silly; she hadn’t known the sirs knights could be that daft, and it only got to show that Sir Percival was not only strong and adorable, but very clever and discerning, too).
“The queen is not feeling well, is she?” Ninianne asked Sir Percival’s bum while hurrying after it. “I thought it got better after this morning?”
Sir Percival looked over his shoulder at her. His kind, gorgeous blue eyes were worried. “The queen was poorly before?”
“Yes. But she told me she just had a bit too much wine last night.”
Sir Percival furrowed his brow, which made him look dashingly broody. “The queen doesn’t usually indulge.”
“No, that’s true. I found it strange as well. There was a jug of wine on the dining table, though? Maybe she just … I don’t know, let her hair down for once? It must be so tiring, being queen, don’t you think?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Sir Percival answered, which Ninianne thought was a rather weird thing to say, but she was so excited to talk with her favourite knight at all that she chose to forgive him some awkwardness. They had reached the armoury before she could think of a witty reply anyway.
“Percival? Is that you?” called Sir Elyan from the inside, who Ninianne, by the way, found a lot less interesting than her current escort, but, of course, there was no accounting for taste, and Berta in the kitchens swore Sir Elyan was the most dashing of them all, but then, she would think so, having practically grown up next door to him, wouldn’t she? Oh, Camelot was such an exciting place to live, and you never knew what would happen next …
Ninanne almost bumped into Sir Percival and his delectable bum blocking the doorway. She got on her tiptoes to peek over his truly stunning and obligingly unclothed biceps, and almost let go off the precious jar of water with shock. In the middle of the armoury, amidst scattered pieces of armour and a random selection of cleaning supplies, lay the queen, pale and trembling, while her brother was holding her hand and trying to help her back to her feet. On the floor next to the queen was a little puddle of sick.
“She just collapsed! I don’t know what’s wrong with her!” Sir Elyan exclaimed, while Sir Percival kept just standing there. Ninianne swatted at his biceps.
“Move, you big lug, and let me through!”
Squeezing past his bulk, she tore off her apron and glared at him. “What are you waiting for? Go on! Get Gaius!”
He obeyed immediately, but Ninianne had already dismissed him from her thoughts, kneeling next to the queen and wetting the corner of her apron with some water from the jug. Carefully, she cleaned the queen’s face and cooled her brow.
“Milady? Can you hear me?”
The queen groaned. “The sun, Ninianne,” she mumbled. “The sun is so bright. Blow it out, please, please. It will scorch us all!”
“She’s been like this since she fell down,” Sir Elyan said. “I don’t know what’s wrong, but I didn’t want to leave her. Thank God you and Percival came back!”
“Gaius will be able to help her,” Ninianne said reassuringly, but she was feeling a little bit nauseous herself. There was no sickness she could think of that made itself felt that way. The queen’s forehead was like ice, and yet she talked as if having a fever. Her eyes were wide open, and her pupils seemed as big as saucers. Ninianne’s mother had been a bit of a hedgewitch, even though nobody was aware of that of course, and she knew her herbs and potions.
Surreptitiously, Ninianne made a sign against the evil in the world that her mother had taught her. Someone - and Ninianne couldn’t even imagine the pit of wickedness that vile person had crawled out off - someone had tried to poison the Queen of Camelot.
**
“Get out!” Arthur ordered, enunciating as clearly as he could so that the imbecile would understand.
“No,” said Gwaine.
“Then give me that cup!”
“No.”
“Gwaine. You’re treading on thin ice. Give me that cup.”
“Don’t you think it’s a bit early in the day to drink pure wine?”
“That is none of your business, Gwaine. Besides, who are you to talk to me about my drinking habits?”
“Someone talking from experience?”
“You are not my nursemaid, Gwaine!”
“And thank God for that. I’d make a terrible nursemaid. Could you even picture that? Whatever little tykes would be entrusted to me would be all kinds of depraved before they even started walking.”
“Give me the cup, Gwaine!”
“Wouldn’t you prefer throwing some more stuff at me? I’ve got the impression it relaxes you.”
“Gwaine!” Arthur barked, but the truth of the matter was that he was feeling better already. Bickering with Gwaine seemed to actually have an invigorating effect on him, and Arthur felt inclined to forgive his stupid knight all over again just because of that.
He sighed and gave the jug of wine a dirty look.
“Fine,” he groused. The wine was probably stale anyway, left over from last night or even longer. And when Gwaine was worrying about his drinking habits than it was probably truly time to think about changing them.
“Really?” Gwaine asked, looking for all the world like an eager puppy. If he’d had a tail he would have wagged it - and that was not an image Arthur needed right now.
“Just leave, Gwaine,” he said tiredly. “And take the wine with you if you have to.”
“Oh. Uhm … I can’t do that.”
Arthur looked at him sharply. “Why not?”
“Merlin said not to.”
Arthur groaned, rubbing his hands over his face and wishing he could erase this entire day. I think I’m going mad . What had gotten into him, saying something like that to his motherhen of a manservant? What had gotten into him full stop? He was not losing his mind. His was tired and overworked and he had to fight a pounding headache most days and he was drinking too much to drown out his nightmares and he was a failure as a king and a friend and a husband, but her was not mad.
Or was he? Did it even make a difference anymore?
“Arthur?”
He looked up, startled. When had Gwaine gotten so close?
“Are you alright?”
“What do you care?” he asked, lashing out like he always did when he shouldn’t. Despite his recent faux pas, Arthur had never had any reason to doubt Gwaine’s loyalty. He thought of all the times his unruly knight had been the only one besides Merlin to watch his back, and he felt so incredibly guilty for failing him he almost choked on it. He had been so blinded by all the magic and the love and the lust and the power and his own selfishness that he hadn’t recognized Gwaine’s struggles for what they were. He had left his knight, his friend all alone with his doubts and fear and trauma and confusion, and he hadn’t even noticed. Good grief, he shouldn’t be allowed to call himself a man, let alone a king.
Arthur looked up at Gwaine and caught the hurt and shame his words had caused. At that moment, he really and truly hated himself.
“Gwaine? Give me that cup. Please.”
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
Merlin felt like he was breaking apart on the inside. He still couldn’t believe what he had overheard, not really. The part of him he had always called Emrys in the privacy of his mind was surging to the forefront, raring to take the old man apart piece by piece. But it’s Gaius’ cried the rest of him. It’s Gaius!
Arthur, his magic hummed, and Emrys was fuming.
No. Stop lying to yourself. Not Emrys. Merlin. Merlin was fuming, seething, and it was all he could do not to unleash his magic on the old man without giving him the chance to explain himself.
Good God, the look on Arthur’s face! The tiny whisper of I think I’m going mad in Merlin’s ear and the tremor in the powerful muscles pressed against his chest. It made him want to smash things. Possibly people. Maybe even the whole of Albion. Sometimes it scared Merlin what he might to do in order to protect Arthur, not merely his life, but the entirety of him, body, heart, and soul. It was ludicrous. It was dangerous. It was inescapable.
And yet, there was Gaius sitting on his bench, looking old and breakable and scared, and it was like a fire wall, keeping Merlin’s fury at bay.
To think that half an hour ago his biggest problem had been how to curb salacious rumours concerning him, Arthur, and what happened in their beds or possibly behind the throne! It seemed ridiculous in comparison, although Merlin could recall very well how upset he had been, trying to talk himself into keeping his distance from Arthur to counteract the gossips. He almost laughed out loud at the thought and probably would have if he hadn’t been convinced that Gaius would drop dead out of fright at hearing him cackle. He had been kidding himself. He wouldn’t be able to keep his distance from Arthur if he tried. His magic wouldn’t even let him, nor would his heart. Merlin had finally discovered the one thing he wouldn’t do to secure Arthur’s rule over Camelot.
He had been on his way to his old mentor to ask him if he knew anything about the rumours and to dig for the last morsel of information Cook had refused to share with him, when the sight of a Gwaine-shaped lump of misery huddled up against the physician’s door had stopped him short.
“What are you doing here?” he had asked in what was surely not his nicest tone of voice. His friend had been getting on his nerves of late with his constant death-glares directed at Arthur, and he didn’t believe for one second that Gwaine, one of the most companionable people in Merlin’s acquaintance, had known nothing of the latest juicy palace chatter. And yet, Merlin had to learn about it from Cook. From Cook. It was as if none of his friends deigned to talk to him anymore, at least not about anything more consequential than the weather. God, what was wrong with everyone?
The pitiful scolded-puppy-look Gwaine gave him from where he was sitting on Gaius’s doorstep almost did him in despite himself. However, it only took a few disjointed sentences from the knight about his own temporary foray into the realm of lunacy (Gwaine’s words, not Merlin’s), about Arthur’s frightening accuracy when throwing cleaning supplies, and about Gwen giving the knights the tongue-lashing of a lifetime, until Merlin had heard enough.
“Stop right there,” he had said. “I’ll deal with you later. What is going on in there?”
“I don’t know! Arthur was furious of course, and I can’t really blame him, to be accused of murder like that. But he seems to think that Gaius did it on purpose, and I don’t understand …”
Merlin silenced the knight with his raised hand, a gesture he had stolen from Arthur and found to be marvellously effective. Inwardly, he was cursing himself. He had bloody well known that something was wrong between Gaius and Arthur, hell he had even asked them about it. But both of them had deflected, and Merlin had let them, because for once in his life he had been happy and he hadn’t felt much inclined to pursue anything that could have disturbed his bliss. Idiot.
Well, enough was enough.
Merlin had lost count on how many doors he had eavesdropped on since he had come to Camelot. More or less, it had always been on accident. He wasn’t above using a bit of magic to get the information he wanted or needed, though. Like right now.
Without paying any heed to Gwaine or sparing a thought to what his friend might guess or not guess by now, Merlin had pressed his hand against the door and let his magic push.
“… and then you make horrible mistakes,” he heard Gaius say, and that was that.
Merlin didn’t know why it had taken him so long to react, to make his presence known, to intervene. He had felt every word Gaius had uttered like it was cutting into his own flesh because he had known what it was doing to Arthur. Despite all his self-confidence bordering on or sometimes even merging into arrogance, the right words coming from the right person (or the wrong one, as the case may be) could cut through Arthur’s defences like a hot knife through butter. Merlin knew that. Gaius had to know that. The ruthlessness that thought implied had frozen Merlin to his spot in front of the door.
By the time he had pulled himself together, Arthur was already laying into Gaius with ugly words Merlin couldn’t really blame him fo, seemling having regained his bearing.
Seemingly.
I think I’m going mad.
Oh, Arthur, Merlin thought. Oh love, please, don’t leave me.
**
When Arthur stormed into the rooms he shared with his wife, his emotions were in a complete turmoil. The foremost, however, was a suffocating feeling of failure.
Without looking left or right, Arthur strode up to the window and threw it open, drawing deep breaths that did absolutely nothing to calm him down. He half feared, half hoped for Guinevere’s soft, small hands coming to rest on his shoulders, but when that didn’t happen within moments of him entering their chambers, he knew that she wasn’t even there. Probably still back in the armoury, dragging the rest of his unbelievably stupid knights over the coals for their lack of trust and judgement.
Arthur had never seen his wife quite that angry before, and part of him loved her fiercely for her fire and her matter-of-factness. The other part was mortified at the ease with which she had cut through the tangle of lies and half-truths and fears and misgivings his knights had gotten caught up in. Her aplomb made him look even more like an incompetent fool than he had already managed all by himself.
He drew another deep, shuddering breath, but it wasn’t helping. To think that just this morning he had been so happy and hopeful despite his fruitless seduction attempts the night before, and now he wasn’t even sure what he was feeling anymore. Arthur had been put through an emotional grinder the last few hours, from red-hot rage at Gwaine over stunned disbelief in the face of his knights’ various shades of idiocy to growing horror at Gaius’s words, culminating in the utter shock of seeing Merlin stand at that door, having heard every last cruel threat Arthur had spat into the old man’s face. Oh God, Merlin! What was he thinking right now? What was he doing? What was the old man saying to him?
Arthur pressed his eyes shut and tried to breathe.
It was his fault anyway. He could rage all he wanted at the conniving quack, at Gwaine’s gullibility and the others’ insecurities, when the truth of the matter was that none of this would have happened if he truly were the king he was supposed to be.
You’re a failure, the voice in his head hissed. Your knights don’t trust you. Your people think you a fool. You’re not even able to deal with a tottering old man without making a mess of things.
Arthur started trembling. The voice had been quiet for so long that he had thought he was finally rid of it. But then, he had been fooling himself a lot these past few weeks, hadn’t he? He had thought he had it all under control. The court. His kingdom. The change. His love. His life. His … everything.
“More the fool me,” he mumbled. Maybe, in some way, in many ways, the old man had been spot-on.
You will take us all down into madness with you. Take as all down …
God, Arthur needed something stronger than fresh air to get those words out of his head!
**
What little good the broth had done earlier to stem her nausea had all but evaporated. Her stomach was acting up and her head felt as if a whole bunch of washing woman had used it to beat the citadel’s entire supply of dirty laundry. Gwen pressed her hand on her bodice and leaned against the armoury wall, lest she fall down.
“Gwen? Are you alright?” her brother asked timidly.
“Leave me alone,” she mumbled, not even deigning to open her eyes. Of all the stupid, hare-brained things to do … At least her brother hadn’t believed all that nonsense about Arthur exploiting Merlin. He had just seen her as a jilted, long-suffering wife who was so devoted, if not subservient to her husband that she would let him walk all over her. Publically.
She groaned. “For the love of Camelot, where is Ninianne with that water?”
“I’ll go look for her,” Percival’s deep, steady voice said next to her, and she nodded her assent.
“Tell her to hurry. I’m really not feeling well.”
“Of course, milady.”
Good, trustworthy Percival, Gwen thought. Someday, they had to give him a reward for being the only knight with at least a thimbleful of sense in him.
God, she would have loved to pummel that bunch of nitwits into next week for their stupidity. What she would do to Gaius, on the other hand, she had no idea. And it would be her who would have to deal with the old physician in the end, even if Arthur was confronting him right now. The dirty job of the clean-up would fall to her, of that much Gwen was certain. She couldn’t leave it to Arthur and risk her husband becoming alienated from Merlin because of it. That was not a burden he was meant to bear.
Her stomach clenched painfully, a spell of dizziness washing over her.
“Gwen!” her brother exclaimed, and she wondered why he sounded so scared, even while the ground tilted and rose up to meet her.
**
“Why are you doing this?” Merlin finally asked. He could hear the wet in his own voice, his bewildered grief having won out over his quivering anger. He could be furious later. Now he needed to find out what was going on and fix it.
Gaius looked up with the air of someone who had just lost a crucial battle. Merlin hated to see his old mentor so defeated, but he had hated seeing Arthur gutted by the man’s words even more. When it came right down to it, there was no question about whose side he would choose, and that realization was part of what made him so sad. It also made him strong.
Gaius didn’t answer his question, and when Merlin took a step in his direction, he actually flinched. Merlin stopped again and swallowed around the lump in his throat.
“Gaius? I asked why you are doing this, and you will answer me.”
“What can I say?” the old man rasped. “How can I possibly convince you that I tried to do the best for you, and even for Arthur? You won’t believe what you won’t allow yourself to see.”
“You’re telling me that you actually believe what you said to him? That he is a failure as a king and dangerous to boot?”
“Yes. And you would, too, if you weren’t so blinded by …”
“By what? Love? Yes, I love Arthur, more than anything. I won’t deny that. Hell, I’m told it’s all over the castle anyway. There are probably some charcoal burners in the woods of Caerleon talking about it right now. If I’m lucky, there might exist a tribe of wandering Saxons somewhere over the sea who haven’t heard about it yet.”
“I told you that I’m not responsible for these rumours!”
“I wasn’t implying that you were. But you are responsible for the rubbish you fed Gwaine and for what you said to Arthur right now.” Merlin shook his head, very deliberately not fighting the tears watering his eyes. Let Gaius see what his actions were doing to him, Merlin. It might just be more effective than Emrys’s rage had any hope to be.
“How could you do that? These are two of the people closest to my heart and you go and hurt them like that. You, Gaius! I could always count on you to be there for me, to guide me, and to comfort me when I failed. And now? What do I have left now?”
“I did it for you, my boy.”
“How? How was setting these men against each other supposed to be for my benefit? What were you even hoping to achieve?”
**
When Gwaine arrived at the Royal Chambers, he found Arthur contemplating a jug of wine on the central dining table as if it were his best friend. Gwaine was very familiar with that look from far too much time spent in far too many taverns, and he closed the door behind him noisily to draw Arthur’s attention.
The king looked pale and exhausted and frankly like an entire mob had kicked him while he was down and spat on him for good measure. Gwaine felt his insides squirm at the thought that he himself had done his share to bring the man low like this. Maybe he was just the useless scoundrel everyone before Merlin and Arthur had regarded him as.
“What do you want?” Arthur growled, but Gwaine could hear the brittleness behind the aggressive sound. He marvelled at how he could have believed even a fraction of the nonsense Gaius had been sprouting. Maybe the stress and hardship of the past few years had finally caught up with the old man - and with him, Gwaine, as well.
“I wanted to apologize,” he said, thinking better of mentioning that Merlin had sent him after the king as a kind of watchdog.
“You already did. And I already forgave you,” Arthur said, looking back to the jug of wine as though it was more important than Gwaine and his breach of trust.
Gwaine cleared his throat. “Just like that?”
Arthur sighed, rubbing his eyes. “What do you want, Gwaine? Shall I send you to the stocks? Would it make you feel better to let the townspeople pelt you with wilty salad leaves? Because believe you me, they wouldn’t dare to throw anything more substantial at you.”
“I don’t care about me feeling better!”
Arthur snorted and turned his back on Gwaine to fetch himself a dented cup from the sideboard between the two windows. Gwaine shifted from one foot to the other, weighing his options.
“Of course you do,” Arthur was saying meanwhile. “That’s all anyone ever cares about. ‘Ooooh, we screwed up! Let’s not tell Arthur and hope he never finds out. And if he does, we can always beg his forgiveness afterwards.’ Well, you have it, Gwaine! No go and do what you want with it!”
“Strangely enough, your words don’t reassure me at all,” Gwaine said drily and ducked as the cup came flying at him. And while he wasn’t very keen on starting another round of let’s-throw-things-at-Gwaine-until-he-gives-in-from-exhaustion, he very much believed that Arthur was much better off without a wine cup in his hand that early in the afternoon.
**
“I needed an ally,” Gaius said with a stubborn glint in his eyes. “Gwaine was the logical choice.”
“You’re not fighting a war!” Merlin hollered, his … Emrys’s … his temper finally getting the better of him. “And if you are, then I’m telling you now that you are standing on the wrong side. The wrong side of me, Gaius!”
Gaius seemed to shrink into himself. The old man was truly scared, and what would have saddened Merlin a day, an hour, a minute ago, only enraged him more right now.
“Don’t just cower there,” he spat. “Explain yourself! Tell me why you are suddenly opposing a king you helped come into his own. Tell me why you are so keen on hurting someone you as good as raised and who you loved. Tell me what happened!”
“He is a Pendragon!” Gaius exclaimed, and it was all Merlin could do to reign in his magic at hearing the by now familiar tune. “He betrayed me, and he will betray you. He will betray everyone who loves him. It’s what they do! They betray and use and burn and destroy you, until there is nothing left of you but ash and bone, or until your heart has become as black and twisted as their own. They are poison, and we all have to pay for their sins.”
Maybe it was the words, so similar to others he had heard before, or maybe Merlin just happened to remember the dream he had while Arthur was sleeping in his arms, but very suddenly, he got it. He still didn’t know what had caused it, but he finally understood who Gaius was really seeing nowadays when he looked at Arthur, who all this poison and fear was truly aimed at. Maybe he should have realized it sooner. But Gaius had always been his rock, his solid ground of reason, and although Merlin had seen him vulnerable and distressed before, he never truly thought Gaius could be brought down by anything, as if he would just weather and endure, like stone and soil and root and bark.
What did you break'?, Merlin remembered asking Gaius in his dream while a distorted, fang-toothed spectre of Uther Pendragon was looking on.
Faith, the undead Gaius in his dream had said.
Faith.
Merlin thought of all the sorcerers dying in the Purge, of a tiny Arthur clinging to the balustrade and watching bad people burn, and of Gaius standing amidst the carnage, wringing his hands and trying, trying, trying, and scared, scared, scared of burning as well, and he thought of the fear in his own gut sewing his mouth shut for years and years, and he wanted to cry and he wanted to rage, but all that came out was a rough “Arthur is not his father, Gaius. But I don’t know how to help you, if you can no longer see that.”
**
Ninianne followed the gorgeously cute Sir Percival almost at a run, very carefully trying not to spill any water from the jug she was carrying. It was meant for the queen after all.
Ninianne was a bit flushed from the fast pace and from embarrassment because it had taken her so long to fetch the queen’s drink (not to mention from getting to stare at Sir Percival’s delectable bum all the while, but that was neither here nor there). In her defence, she had thought the queen’s order had mainly been meant to get rid of her while Her Majesty talked about extremely important, but potentially delicate matters of the Court with the king’s most trusted knights (although Ninianne had to stifle a giggle or two at the ludicrous speculations the sirs knights were uttering; the king would never do anything to hurt the queen, and to suspect anything else was simply silly; she hadn’t known the sirs knights could be that daft, and it only got to show that Sir Percival was not only strong and adorable, but very clever and discerning, too).
“The queen is not feeling well, is she?” Ninianne asked Sir Percival’s bum while hurrying after it. “I thought it got better after this morning?”
Sir Percival looked over his shoulder at her. His kind, gorgeous blue eyes were worried. “The queen was poorly before?”
“Yes. But she told me she just had a bit too much wine last night.”
Sir Percival furrowed his brow, which made him look dashingly broody. “The queen doesn’t usually indulge.”
“No, that’s true. I found it strange as well. There was a jug of wine on the dining table, though? Maybe she just … I don’t know, let her hair down for once? It must be so tiring, being queen, don’t you think?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Sir Percival answered, which Ninianne thought was a rather weird thing to say, but she was so excited to talk with her favourite knight at all that she chose to forgive him some awkwardness. They had reached the armoury before she could think of a witty reply anyway.
“Percival? Is that you?” called Sir Elyan from the inside, who Ninianne, by the way, found a lot less interesting than her current escort, but, of course, there was no accounting for taste, and Berta in the kitchens swore Sir Elyan was the most dashing of them all, but then, she would think so, having practically grown up next door to him, wouldn’t she? Oh, Camelot was such an exciting place to live, and you never knew what would happen next …
Ninanne almost bumped into Sir Percival and his delectable bum blocking the doorway. She got on her tiptoes to peek over his truly stunning and obligingly unclothed biceps, and almost let go off the precious jar of water with shock. In the middle of the armoury, amidst scattered pieces of armour and a random selection of cleaning supplies, lay the queen, pale and trembling, while her brother was holding her hand and trying to help her back to her feet. On the floor next to the queen was a little puddle of sick.
“She just collapsed! I don’t know what’s wrong with her!” Sir Elyan exclaimed, while Sir Percival kept just standing there. Ninianne swatted at his biceps.
“Move, you big lug, and let me through!”
Squeezing past his bulk, she tore off her apron and glared at him. “What are you waiting for? Go on! Get Gaius!”
He obeyed immediately, but Ninianne had already dismissed him from her thoughts, kneeling next to the queen and wetting the corner of her apron with some water from the jug. Carefully, she cleaned the queen’s face and cooled her brow.
“Milady? Can you hear me?”
The queen groaned. “The sun, Ninianne,” she mumbled. “The sun is so bright. Blow it out, please, please. It will scorch us all!”
“She’s been like this since she fell down,” Sir Elyan said. “I don’t know what’s wrong, but I didn’t want to leave her. Thank God you and Percival came back!”
“Gaius will be able to help her,” Ninianne said reassuringly, but she was feeling a little bit nauseous herself. There was no sickness she could think of that made itself felt that way. The queen’s forehead was like ice, and yet she talked as if having a fever. Her eyes were wide open, and her pupils seemed as big as saucers. Ninianne’s mother had been a bit of a hedgewitch, even though nobody was aware of that of course, and she knew her herbs and potions.
Surreptitiously, Ninianne made a sign against the evil in the world that her mother had taught her. Someone - and Ninianne couldn’t even imagine the pit of wickedness that vile person had crawled out off - someone had tried to poison the Queen of Camelot.
**
“Get out!” Arthur ordered, enunciating as clearly as he could so that the imbecile would understand.
“No,” said Gwaine.
“Then give me that cup!”
“No.”
“Gwaine. You’re treading on thin ice. Give me that cup.”
“Don’t you think it’s a bit early in the day to drink pure wine?”
“That is none of your business, Gwaine. Besides, who are you to talk to me about my drinking habits?”
“Someone talking from experience?”
“You are not my nursemaid, Gwaine!”
“And thank God for that. I’d make a terrible nursemaid. Could you even picture that? Whatever little tykes would be entrusted to me would be all kinds of depraved before they even started walking.”
“Give me the cup, Gwaine!”
“Wouldn’t you prefer throwing some more stuff at me? I’ve got the impression it relaxes you.”
“Gwaine!” Arthur barked, but the truth of the matter was that he was feeling better already. Bickering with Gwaine seemed to actually have an invigorating effect on him, and Arthur felt inclined to forgive his stupid knight all over again just because of that.
He sighed and gave the jug of wine a dirty look.
“Fine,” he groused. The wine was probably stale anyway, left over from last night or even longer. And when Gwaine was worrying about his drinking habits than it was probably truly time to think about changing them.
“Really?” Gwaine asked, looking for all the world like an eager puppy. If he’d had a tail he would have wagged it - and that was not an image Arthur needed right now.
“Just leave, Gwaine,” he said tiredly. “And take the wine with you if you have to.”
“Oh. Uhm … I can’t do that.”
Arthur looked at him sharply. “Why not?”
“Merlin said not to.”
Arthur groaned, rubbing his hands over his face and wishing he could erase this entire day. I think I’m going mad . What had gotten into him, saying something like that to his motherhen of a manservant? What had gotten into him full stop? He was not losing his mind. His was tired and overworked and he had to fight a pounding headache most days and he was drinking too much to drown out his nightmares and he was a failure as a king and a friend and a husband, but her was not mad.
Or was he? Did it even make a difference anymore?
“Arthur?”
He looked up, startled. When had Gwaine gotten so close?
“Are you alright?”
“What do you care?” he asked, lashing out like he always did when he shouldn’t. Despite his recent faux pas, Arthur had never had any reason to doubt Gwaine’s loyalty. He thought of all the times his unruly knight had been the only one besides Merlin to watch his back, and he felt so incredibly guilty for failing him he almost choked on it. He had been so blinded by all the magic and the love and the lust and the power and his own selfishness that he hadn’t recognized Gwaine’s struggles for what they were. He had left his knight, his friend all alone with his doubts and fear and trauma and confusion, and he hadn’t even noticed. Good grief, he shouldn’t be allowed to call himself a man, let alone a king.
Arthur looked up at Gwaine and caught the hurt and shame his words had caused. At that moment, he really and truly hated himself.
“Gwaine? Give me that cup. Please.”