Now Law - Chapter Three: Later
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 un unwelcome surprise and things start to get wonky
Later
Arthur stared at Gaius in the flickering candle light. The flame trembled and so did the old man, and Arthur was so furious he felt like he was choking on all the yelling he was biting back. And yet, everything was sharp and crystal-clear, as if there were no such things as doubt and uncertainty. It was not a feeling unfamiliar to him. In fact, it had been happening more and more often, the warrior taking over his mind even when there was no physical battle to fight, turning the world into distinct lines and clear-cut patterns. It was the only way Arthur knew how to be king, besides putting his trust in the people closest to him, and there was no one …
Arthur flashed back to Merlin in his chambers, drawn and exhausted, telling a tale of eight years, of lies and deceit, of bravery and desperation, of silence that suffocated the life out of you, of loneliness and frustration, of a wall between yourself and the world, of the inability to reach out because, because …
Merlin hadn’t known why, not really. But Arthur had. Merlin wasn’t even aware of having told him, because in this, oh, in this, Arthur was so much more clear-sighted than his ridiculous manservant with his ridiculously perfect mother.
Gaius.
It was the story about Morgana’s nightmares that first clued Arthur in, the sheer audacity of keeping their true cause from her, robbing her of the opportunity to make an informed decision, leaving her no choice in what to be afraid of. And maybe, it even had even been then that it all began to go wrong, then, when everything else had still been easy and salvageable. If only …
Arthur had struck the bed post at that point, having long abandoned his seat in favour of frantic pacing, and had startled Merlin who had jumped like a frightened fawn.
“Don’t be angry, Arthur,” he had said. “Gaius did what he thought best.”
Because that was what Gaius did, apparently, what he thought best, and making Merlin do it, too.
“Why was I never told about my birth?” Arthur had asked to confirm his suspicion. “When I was not just about to kill my father, I mean.”
“Well, Gaius said that …” Merlin anwered, and Arthur closed his eyes, didn't even bother to listen to the rest. It was the same as before anyway. Gaius had said that it was best. And thus, it went on.
“The love potion …” Arthur said. And Merlin said “Gaius …”
“My sister …” Arthur said.
“Gaius …” said Merlin.
“Agravaine …”
“Gaius …”
“The tavern ...”
“Gaius …”
Gaius, Gaius, always Gaius. And it wasn’t even just the big things. It was the most ludicrous, inconsequential things, too, that he hadn’t been told because Gaius had deemed it unnecessary or imprudent or counterproductive, until Arthur had the feeling that nothing about the last eight years had happened the way he had believed, be it big or small. Hell, he hadn’t even been told the truth about Merlin’s bloody drinking habits.
Of course, his manservant didn’t tell the story that way. Because - and somehow that made it all the worse - he didn’t even know, didn’t even realize what had happened, what he had let happen, what he had been made to let happen. Arthur, at least, had understood at some point what his father had done to him, or so he thought. He was pretty sure at any rate. Be that as it may, Gaius had always seemed so much kinder and wiser than Uther, to anyone. Arthur would have never guessed that that wasn’t a good thing. Until today.
“Sire?”
Gaius’s voice, rough with fear, brought Arthur back to the present. The old man’s face was pale in the dim light, and Arthur wondered what Gaius thought he would do. After all, he must be very much afraid of his tyrant of a king to have advised Merlin the way he did. Arthur forced another yell down and reached past Gaius for the candle on the table. The physician flinched. Dispassionately, Arthur turned his back on him with the candle in his hand to light the other tapers in the room.
“I have a problem, Gaius,” he said, still with his back to the old physician. His voice was very quiet. It was the kind of quiet the warrior got before he struck. “And I’ve come for your advice.”
“Sire,” Gaius said again, and Arthur began to hate the word and the all the different ways the old man would say it. He ignored his feelings, however, and kept lighting candles.
“Suppose that there is a man in Camelot, a man trusted by all, but especially by the king. Suppose that this man, while repeatedly saving the lives of both the king and his subjects, is also keeping knowledge from his king, knowledge that could radically alter the way the king conducts the affairs of state and secures the welfare of his people.” He turned around, facing Gaius and stepping towards the table. The old man looked like a ghost, pale and almost see-through.
“Tell me, Gaius,” Arthur siad slowly, voice low. “Is this man a loyal man, or isn’t he? And what should the king do with him?”
“Sire,” Gaius said once more. “Where is Merlin?”
Arthur smacked the heavy candle stick on the table. The flasks bounced and rattled, and Gaius flinched.
“I’m not talking about him!” Arthur roared. He stared at Gaius, inches from the old man’s face, his hand still clutching the candle stick.
“Let me try again,” he forced out. “Suppose that there is a man who gets a letter from a long-time friend entrusting her son to him. Suppose that this man takes the boy under his wing because he is old and lonely and thinks he knows what is best for the boy. Suppose that the man takes the trust the boy puts in him and twist it, turning that innocent, wide-eyed, open-hearted person into a liar!”
“I had to protect him!” Gaius protested, for the first time showing something else than meek fear and reckless concern. He looked different like this, stronger, less bowed down. He looked like the physician the boy Arthur would always obey when he was told to stay in bed because he had caught a cold and was under no circumstances to sneak down to the training grounds to covertly watch the knights doing mock-battle.
“I saved his live,” Gaius continued stubbornly, daring to meet Arthur’s gaze. Strike, thrust, cut, said the warrior, and Arthur smiled.
“Oh, yes, that you did. And why shouldn’t you? You know everything about saving lives, Gaius, don’t you? Especially your own.”
The old man grew even paler, if that was possible. There was a stern glint in his eyes, though, and if it had been the day before, if it had been this morning, Arthur would have backed down and most probably would have even apologized. Now, however, his world had been turned upside down and Gaius was no longer a man the king deemed worthy of his apologies.
“Where is Merlin?” Gaius asked a third time, and Arthur slammed the palm of his hand onto the table.
“Where do you think? Burning on the pyre as we speak!”
The dismay that distorted the old, wrinkled face even made up for the hurtful fact that Gaius obviously believed him. The warrior grinned, and something cold and dispassionate inside Arthur, something that hadn’t been there the day before, nor this morning, contemplated leaving and letting the stupid old man simply die from shock and grief. The king, however, just shook his head, slowly, sadly.
“You don’t trust me at all, do you, Gaius? I thought that you had looked after me since I was a nurseling. I thought that you loved me far too much to lie to me for years and years.”
Gaius’s eyes flickered towards to bed where he had lain while claiming something very similar, shaming Arthur into recognizing right from wrong, while, with the same breath, still lying to him. Arthur couldn’t wrap his head around that many shades of grey, he just couldn’t. He forced the air out of his nose, a frustrated, aggrieved sound.
“You couldn’t tell me the truth even then, could you? Good grief, I would have listened to anything you had to say right then, anything. I would have believed it. I would probably have legalized magic then and there if you had asked me, I felt so guilty.” He shook his head. “You played at being a puppet master, Gaius, but you’re not even a decent manipulator despite all your lies and subterfuge. Are you a decent anything?”
“You do me injustice, Arthur,” Gaius said roughly, finally dropping the “Sire”. “I did only what I thought best.”
Again, the king shook his head. “That is no excuse, Gaius. You were trusted by us all, but you failed us. You failed me. You failed Merlin. He relied on you to advise him rightly, and you turned him into someone who lies as often as he tells the truth, into someone who thinks he has to manipulate his king to get him to do what is right and just. In other words, Gaius: you remade him into your own image. Do you really think that is something I want to look at every day for the rest of my life?”
The last words were said with so much venom Arthur thought he might just choke on them himself. Gaius started trembling again. Arthur could see the defiant light leaving the man’s eyes.
“I did what I thought best,” he repeated. “I had to protect Merlin.”
Arthur straightened himself, looking down at the old man who had sagged against the table as if his last reserves of strength had left him.
“Well, yes. But did you? Did you really? You might have protected him from my father’s laws, but did you protect him from the burden he had to bear? Did you protect him from the danger he put himself into because he always had to act alone? Can you protect him from my wrath, now, after almost a decade of deceit?”
Gaius shook his head, wrung his hands. His skin looked like dead leafs, and his eyes where blank and empty. Arthur wished he were good enough a man to feel pity for him.
“You might have saved his life,” he continued, mercilessly. “Might. You taught him well how to hide, very well. But did it ever occur to you to say to him: ‘Now, Merlin, now is a good time. Arthur has made peace with the druids, we have liberated Camelot, he has just walked down the aisle, you just saved his life in an obviously self-sacrificing manner. Again. Got to him now, Merlin. Go to him and tell him.’”
Gaius said nothing, and Arthur stared down on his bent white head.
“No, of course not,” he continued after a moment. “Because you don’t talk. You keep quiet. You keep quiet and you lie and you manipulate, hoping that in the end, things turn out the way you think best.” Arthur crouched down, laying his hands on Gaius’s knees and catching his eyes.
“Gaius?”, he whispered, as if he were telling him a secret. “It was not your place to decide.”
Then he got up and went to the door.
“Arthur,” the old man behind him croaked, and the king halted in his step to turn around. Gaius had raised his head, but his eyes were still somewhat empty.
“What will happen now?” the old man asked. He was stubborn, Arthur had to give him that. The warrior smiled again. He had finally learned how to be cruel with words and mean it.
“Don’t worry, Gaius. Nothing is going to happen to you. There is no law against fathers wrecking their sons' lives. Justice would have too much to do if there was.”
Then he left.
Chapter Four:
Interlude
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 un unwelcome surprise and things start to get wonky
Later
Arthur stared at Gaius in the flickering candle light. The flame trembled and so did the old man, and Arthur was so furious he felt like he was choking on all the yelling he was biting back. And yet, everything was sharp and crystal-clear, as if there were no such things as doubt and uncertainty. It was not a feeling unfamiliar to him. In fact, it had been happening more and more often, the warrior taking over his mind even when there was no physical battle to fight, turning the world into distinct lines and clear-cut patterns. It was the only way Arthur knew how to be king, besides putting his trust in the people closest to him, and there was no one …
Arthur flashed back to Merlin in his chambers, drawn and exhausted, telling a tale of eight years, of lies and deceit, of bravery and desperation, of silence that suffocated the life out of you, of loneliness and frustration, of a wall between yourself and the world, of the inability to reach out because, because …
Merlin hadn’t known why, not really. But Arthur had. Merlin wasn’t even aware of having told him, because in this, oh, in this, Arthur was so much more clear-sighted than his ridiculous manservant with his ridiculously perfect mother.
Gaius.
It was the story about Morgana’s nightmares that first clued Arthur in, the sheer audacity of keeping their true cause from her, robbing her of the opportunity to make an informed decision, leaving her no choice in what to be afraid of. And maybe, it even had even been then that it all began to go wrong, then, when everything else had still been easy and salvageable. If only …
Arthur had struck the bed post at that point, having long abandoned his seat in favour of frantic pacing, and had startled Merlin who had jumped like a frightened fawn.
“Don’t be angry, Arthur,” he had said. “Gaius did what he thought best.”
Because that was what Gaius did, apparently, what he thought best, and making Merlin do it, too.
“Why was I never told about my birth?” Arthur had asked to confirm his suspicion. “When I was not just about to kill my father, I mean.”
“Well, Gaius said that …” Merlin anwered, and Arthur closed his eyes, didn't even bother to listen to the rest. It was the same as before anyway. Gaius had said that it was best. And thus, it went on.
“The love potion …” Arthur said. And Merlin said “Gaius …”
“My sister …” Arthur said.
“Gaius …” said Merlin.
“Agravaine …”
“Gaius …”
“The tavern ...”
“Gaius …”
Gaius, Gaius, always Gaius. And it wasn’t even just the big things. It was the most ludicrous, inconsequential things, too, that he hadn’t been told because Gaius had deemed it unnecessary or imprudent or counterproductive, until Arthur had the feeling that nothing about the last eight years had happened the way he had believed, be it big or small. Hell, he hadn’t even been told the truth about Merlin’s bloody drinking habits.
Of course, his manservant didn’t tell the story that way. Because - and somehow that made it all the worse - he didn’t even know, didn’t even realize what had happened, what he had let happen, what he had been made to let happen. Arthur, at least, had understood at some point what his father had done to him, or so he thought. He was pretty sure at any rate. Be that as it may, Gaius had always seemed so much kinder and wiser than Uther, to anyone. Arthur would have never guessed that that wasn’t a good thing. Until today.
“Sire?”
Gaius’s voice, rough with fear, brought Arthur back to the present. The old man’s face was pale in the dim light, and Arthur wondered what Gaius thought he would do. After all, he must be very much afraid of his tyrant of a king to have advised Merlin the way he did. Arthur forced another yell down and reached past Gaius for the candle on the table. The physician flinched. Dispassionately, Arthur turned his back on him with the candle in his hand to light the other tapers in the room.
“I have a problem, Gaius,” he said, still with his back to the old physician. His voice was very quiet. It was the kind of quiet the warrior got before he struck. “And I’ve come for your advice.”
“Sire,” Gaius said again, and Arthur began to hate the word and the all the different ways the old man would say it. He ignored his feelings, however, and kept lighting candles.
“Suppose that there is a man in Camelot, a man trusted by all, but especially by the king. Suppose that this man, while repeatedly saving the lives of both the king and his subjects, is also keeping knowledge from his king, knowledge that could radically alter the way the king conducts the affairs of state and secures the welfare of his people.” He turned around, facing Gaius and stepping towards the table. The old man looked like a ghost, pale and almost see-through.
“Tell me, Gaius,” Arthur siad slowly, voice low. “Is this man a loyal man, or isn’t he? And what should the king do with him?”
“Sire,” Gaius said once more. “Where is Merlin?”
Arthur smacked the heavy candle stick on the table. The flasks bounced and rattled, and Gaius flinched.
“I’m not talking about him!” Arthur roared. He stared at Gaius, inches from the old man’s face, his hand still clutching the candle stick.
“Let me try again,” he forced out. “Suppose that there is a man who gets a letter from a long-time friend entrusting her son to him. Suppose that this man takes the boy under his wing because he is old and lonely and thinks he knows what is best for the boy. Suppose that the man takes the trust the boy puts in him and twist it, turning that innocent, wide-eyed, open-hearted person into a liar!”
“I had to protect him!” Gaius protested, for the first time showing something else than meek fear and reckless concern. He looked different like this, stronger, less bowed down. He looked like the physician the boy Arthur would always obey when he was told to stay in bed because he had caught a cold and was under no circumstances to sneak down to the training grounds to covertly watch the knights doing mock-battle.
“I saved his live,” Gaius continued stubbornly, daring to meet Arthur’s gaze. Strike, thrust, cut, said the warrior, and Arthur smiled.
“Oh, yes, that you did. And why shouldn’t you? You know everything about saving lives, Gaius, don’t you? Especially your own.”
The old man grew even paler, if that was possible. There was a stern glint in his eyes, though, and if it had been the day before, if it had been this morning, Arthur would have backed down and most probably would have even apologized. Now, however, his world had been turned upside down and Gaius was no longer a man the king deemed worthy of his apologies.
“Where is Merlin?” Gaius asked a third time, and Arthur slammed the palm of his hand onto the table.
“Where do you think? Burning on the pyre as we speak!”
The dismay that distorted the old, wrinkled face even made up for the hurtful fact that Gaius obviously believed him. The warrior grinned, and something cold and dispassionate inside Arthur, something that hadn’t been there the day before, nor this morning, contemplated leaving and letting the stupid old man simply die from shock and grief. The king, however, just shook his head, slowly, sadly.
“You don’t trust me at all, do you, Gaius? I thought that you had looked after me since I was a nurseling. I thought that you loved me far too much to lie to me for years and years.”
Gaius’s eyes flickered towards to bed where he had lain while claiming something very similar, shaming Arthur into recognizing right from wrong, while, with the same breath, still lying to him. Arthur couldn’t wrap his head around that many shades of grey, he just couldn’t. He forced the air out of his nose, a frustrated, aggrieved sound.
“You couldn’t tell me the truth even then, could you? Good grief, I would have listened to anything you had to say right then, anything. I would have believed it. I would probably have legalized magic then and there if you had asked me, I felt so guilty.” He shook his head. “You played at being a puppet master, Gaius, but you’re not even a decent manipulator despite all your lies and subterfuge. Are you a decent anything?”
“You do me injustice, Arthur,” Gaius said roughly, finally dropping the “Sire”. “I did only what I thought best.”
Again, the king shook his head. “That is no excuse, Gaius. You were trusted by us all, but you failed us. You failed me. You failed Merlin. He relied on you to advise him rightly, and you turned him into someone who lies as often as he tells the truth, into someone who thinks he has to manipulate his king to get him to do what is right and just. In other words, Gaius: you remade him into your own image. Do you really think that is something I want to look at every day for the rest of my life?”
The last words were said with so much venom Arthur thought he might just choke on them himself. Gaius started trembling again. Arthur could see the defiant light leaving the man’s eyes.
“I did what I thought best,” he repeated. “I had to protect Merlin.”
Arthur straightened himself, looking down at the old man who had sagged against the table as if his last reserves of strength had left him.
“Well, yes. But did you? Did you really? You might have protected him from my father’s laws, but did you protect him from the burden he had to bear? Did you protect him from the danger he put himself into because he always had to act alone? Can you protect him from my wrath, now, after almost a decade of deceit?”
Gaius shook his head, wrung his hands. His skin looked like dead leafs, and his eyes where blank and empty. Arthur wished he were good enough a man to feel pity for him.
“You might have saved his life,” he continued, mercilessly. “Might. You taught him well how to hide, very well. But did it ever occur to you to say to him: ‘Now, Merlin, now is a good time. Arthur has made peace with the druids, we have liberated Camelot, he has just walked down the aisle, you just saved his life in an obviously self-sacrificing manner. Again. Got to him now, Merlin. Go to him and tell him.’”
Gaius said nothing, and Arthur stared down on his bent white head.
“No, of course not,” he continued after a moment. “Because you don’t talk. You keep quiet. You keep quiet and you lie and you manipulate, hoping that in the end, things turn out the way you think best.” Arthur crouched down, laying his hands on Gaius’s knees and catching his eyes.
“Gaius?”, he whispered, as if he were telling him a secret. “It was not your place to decide.”
Then he got up and went to the door.
“Arthur,” the old man behind him croaked, and the king halted in his step to turn around. Gaius had raised his head, but his eyes were still somewhat empty.
“What will happen now?” the old man asked. He was stubborn, Arthur had to give him that. The warrior smiled again. He had finally learned how to be cruel with words and mean it.
“Don’t worry, Gaius. Nothing is going to happen to you. There is no law against fathers wrecking their sons' lives. Justice would have too much to do if there was.”
Then he left.
Chapter Four:
Interlude