For the Weary
Title: For the Weary
Wordcount: ~5,000
Summary: When Arthur becomes King, Merlin overworks himself.
A/N: Shock! Canon era! For this prompt on the kink meme, hurt/comfort, so preslash it sort of hurts a little. Tiny bit of implied Arthur/Gwen if you squint.
jusska_89 has done a Russian translation of this story, and you can read it here if Russian is your preferred language.
Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin.
“Sorry, Gaius, don’t have time for breakfast, Arthur wants me to look over the report from the Mercian border patrol before I bring him his, I’ll just take a bit of bread, thanks,” Merlin says all in one breath, adjusting his neckerchief and running out the door before Gaius can answer him.
Arthur has plenty of advisors, all of them eager to curry favor with the young king only two months into his reign and just starting to make his mark after mourning his father. Merlin doesn’t know why he’s the one Arthur talks to in his quiet moments, or the one who reads over reports to make sure Arthur hasn’t missed anything important, but it’s an honor, and he doesn’t dare tease Arthur about it for fear it will be taken away. Maybe if he realizes he can trust Merlin with this, Merlin will finally find the courage to tell him …
“You’re in a hurry this morning, Merlin,” says Gwen, with a cheery smile. Merlin doesn’t know why she isn’t taking advantage of being able to sleep past dawn; he certainly would, if he were acknowledged as nobility. “You can’t possibly be late with Arthur’s breakfast.”
“Got something to do before breakfast, actually. Papers to look over.”
Gwen’s smile falls, and he curses himself even though he doesn’t know what did it. It’s been a bit too easy to upset her, since Uther died, even though by all rights she and Arthur should be celebrating and planning their wedding. Merlin wants to do something, but he’s hardly had the time to say more than “hello” in weeks. “Are you free in the afternoon? I thought I might walk down to the market, and it’s been a while since we spent any time together.”
Merlin winces and shakes his head. “Council meeting, and the stables need mucking out, and I need to help Gaius in his workshop as well.”
She puts a hand on his arm. “Gaius isn’t doing any better? I know it upset him, losing Uther like that.”
There isn’t much to say about the subject that they haven’t all been exchanging looks about for months, so Merlin just gives a helpless shrug. “I’m just trying to help,” he says, and then pats her hand before he has to run off again.
Arthur is awake and half-dressed when Merlin comes in, and Merlin steps forward right away to adjust his tunic and find the right belt. “Papers are on the table,” says Arthur when they’re finished. “Shouldn’t need more than a skim, I just want to make sure I haven’t missed a glaring error, and if an idiot like you could find one, then it’s certainly glaring.”
“Sit, take a rest, you were still awake when I left last night, you shouldn’t even be awake,” says Merlin, grabbing the papers to read with one hand and clearing Arthur’s table of his snack from the night before with the other. “You work yourself too hard.”
“You still aren’t my nursemaid, Merlin, you great girl.” Merlin just snorts and keeps reading, then puts the papers back in front of Arthur when he’s finished. “Well?”
“No mistakes that I saw. Should I go get breakfast? You’ve got training this morning, haven’t you? Been a few days since you had the chance.”
“Training in the morning, council in the afternoon--you’re coming, by the way, there’s a new Lord Bors in from the North and I want to know what you think of him--dinner with the Court. Speaking off, I need my red jacket laundered for that, spilled something on it last week.”
“It’s already at the laundry. Should I get breakfast?”
Arthur looks up from staring at the table, straightening from the habitual sprawl that Merlin had missed in the first tense weeks after Uther’s death. “Of course you should get breakfast, Merlin, I’m hardly going to train without it.” He pauses, looks Merlin up and down. “Get a bit extra for yourself. One would think we weren’t feeding you.”
“You’ve been saying that for years, sire, but I’m sure not going to turn down a royal breakfast.” That said, he breezes out of the room and down to the kitchens, fielding three requests from people with petitions for the king on the way. He wonders if this is why Uther’s old manservant always looked like he’d swallowed a lemon whole, but he really can’t object, because he feels like what he does matters now, and not just in the secret way that his magic has always allowed him. In a way Arthur can recognize.
So he goes on doing everything Arthur needs him to do, because Uther was lonely on the throne and Merlin doesn’t want the same thing happening to his king.
“I think … sometimes I think I ought to remove the ban on magic,” says Arthur one night four months into his reign, and Merlin drops the sword he’s cleaning with a clash. “No need to look so horrified, Merlin.”
“I’m not horrified.” Arthur just looks at him, and Merlin realizes distantly that he’s shaking, and that Arthur looks uncertain, nervous. “I’m not, Arthur. What makes you say it?”
“We could do a lot more, with magic on our side. There would have to be strict regulations, of course, and they would have to swear oaths, but sorcerers could be of use.” The king looks down at the stack of papers he’s been summarizing for Merlin. “It might stop Morgana trying to kill me.”
Merlin doubts that, but doesn’t say it. Morgana is still a touchy subject. She probably always will be. “Would you trust them? Treat them like people, and not just resources to be used?” He pauses to swallow. “Use the oaths like you do for your knights, and not so you can have them killed if they step out of line?”
Arthur stares at him for a long minute. “You’ve been thinking about this, Merlin.”
There could be more ideal circumstances for his confession, he suspects. When he isn’t bone tired from a day that began before dawn and has continued till midnight, running around after Arthur and going to meetings and helping Gaius as his health fails further. When Arthur isn’t snapping at everyone because one of his newest knights was killed in a stupid, stupid mistake that anyone should have been able to avoid. “I have. For quite a long time.”
And Arthur, for all he’s impetuous and impatient and is about as observant as a mole aboveground, is not a fool. He recognizes the confession, but he won’t say anything until he’s certain. “Why would that be?”
“I have magic. I am magic,” he amends, tripping over the words he’s been planning for years now.
Arthur just nods, and goes back to his papers. Merlin, for want of anything better to do or say, goes back to sharpening Arthur’s sword. At least if Arthur loses his temper Merlin won’t be beheaded with a blunt weapon. “Make a case for it,” Arthur says half an hour later, after Merlin’s finished sharpening and polishing the sword, and two daggers besides. “As if you were arguing in a council meeting, tell me why I should bring magic into this kingdom when it killed my mother and has tried to kill me countless times.”
So Merlin does. He talks about all the times he’s saved Arthur, and about all the men with swords who have tried to kill him, and by the end of it he’s hoarse. He doesn’t say everything, not yet, this isn’t the time for that, but even the promise that there will be a time for it is dizzying. “Have I just signed my own execution order, telling you all that?” he asks at last, wary that Arthur’s stony expression hasn’t changed a bit.
“You’ll have to tell me all you know about how to regulate it. Gaius too. This won’t be simple,” is all Arthur says, and then dismisses Merlin for the night.
The next few weeks and months are something of a blur. Arthur keeps him in his chambers until all hours of the night going through reform after reform, changing the penalties for sorcery, stopping after each one to deal with the problems that arise. He tells Merlin to show him the uses magic can be put to, and Merlin uses his magic to do half the chores Arthur tells him to do--and only gets more, because Arthur’s a prat and still upset with Merlin for lying to him for five years and more. He learns protection spells and introduces Arthur to the dragon and meets with the druids when Arthur asks him to, and he fetches meals and puts on Arthur’s armor and trails after him on hunts because there’s not really anyone else to do it.
Gaius retires at last, and Arthur brings in a physician from the town, to Merlin’s private relief. Merlin and Gaius move to a different tower, and Gaius returns to the research--both magical and scientific--that he loves while Merlin gets busier and busier.
Gwen takes to pursing her lips and shaking her head at Merlin in the rare moments when they get to talk. “Don’t you sleep anymore?” she asks him one day when she catches him nodding off while watching Arthur at training.
“Of course I sleep, don’t worry,” he says, and goes off because Arthur’s signaled that he needs the skin of water Merlin’s holding. When he returns, she’s still there, looking worried, and he smiles and offers her a drink of the water. “Just wait till you’re Queen,” he says while she drinks. “You’ll be this busy too.”
There’s an uncomfortable pause. “I really don’t think--” she starts, and then shakes her head. “Just be careful with yourself, Merlin. Maybe go to Ealdor, visit your mother.”
“In another few months, when things are calmer after all these reforms. I don’t want to be gone too long in case Arthur needs me to …” He trails off and twiddles his fingers, because the laws are changing but Merlin’s magic isn’t widely known about outside of Arthur’s inner circle.
Gwen hugs him. “Just … take care of yourself, would you?”
“Don’t worry about me, Gwen, really, I’m fine.”
*
Arthur’s walking towards his chambers one day after a long council meeting, telling Merlin (trailing at his heels like always) about what needs to be done about the newest set of reforms, when he hears a quiet sigh and a thump. He turns around, ready to mock Merlin mercilessly for being so distracted he’s walked into a wall and finds his (warlock-manservant-advisor-friend) Merlin crumpled in a heap on the ground.
At first, he thinks perhaps it’s an assassination attempt; more people know about Merlin, these days. Morgana might have found out, and decided to take her revenge from afar. Or perhaps there’s a knife in him somewhere, meant for Arthur. The hall is empty, and Arthur drops to his knees, turns Merlin over to find him paler than usual, but without a visible injury. He’s breathing, and his heart beats, so Arthur allows himself the luxury of a few seconds to breathe through the panic. When the seconds pass and Merlin hasn’t opened his eyes or betrayed a joke by laughing, Arthur gathers him up to carry him to his chambers.
Merlin is light. Startlingly, painfully so, and Arthur’s supported him after injuries or nights of drink and knows that he hasn’t always been this thin. But he feels ribs as he slides his arm around him, and when he looks at Merlin’s face again once they’re situated, the skin around Merlin’s eyes looks bruised, like he hasn’t slept in days.
His armor sometimes feels like it weighs more, Arthur thinks as he starts walking towards his chambers again. How can he not have noticed that Merlin’s ill, if he’s this thin and exhausted? It certainly can’t be a new development. His guilt is interrupted before it gets too bad as he runs into Guinevere right around a corner. Her hand goes to her mouth when she sees who he’s carrying. “What’s happened to him? Is he hurt?”
Arthur looks down at his burden. Merlin’s head is slipping, and Arthur hitches him up a bit in his arms so he doesn’t strain his neck. “He just collapsed in the hall while we were walking. I’m taking him to my rooms. Get--get Gaius, would you? I hate to drag him out of his retirement, but he’s the only one I trust with--”
“He’ll want to know,” says Gwen firmly, but doesn’t move. “I knew he’d been working too hard, but he won’t listen to me. I don’t think I’ve seen him eat a meal sitting down for weeks, and--” She stops. “Never mind, it’s not like you don’t know that as well, I’ll get Gaius.”
Gwen bustles off, leaving Arthur feeling a bit bereft and staring at Merlin again. Gwen’s noticed something wrong. Who else has, and why hasn’t Arthur? Merlin is his right hand, and occasionally his left, and sometimes his conscience as well, around nearly every hour that Arthur is awake and--and doing chores for him the rest of them. Doing the work of a manservant and an advisor and a Court Sorcerer and a hundred other jobs at once, and all with a smile, simply because Arthur asks it of him. “No more of that,” says Arthur firmly, even though Merlin can’t hear him, and shifts his grip before walking the rest of his way to his chambers ignoring every alarmed glance he gets from maids and guards.
He dumps Merlin on his bed, because even if he had faith that Merlin’s mattress was at all adequate for a convalescent, he can’t remember where Gaius’s new chambers are anyway. Merlin doesn’t move, doesn’t even twitch, as Arthur takes off his boots and fusses uselessly. This is Merlin, who has somehow become indispensable, and Arthur didn’t notice anything was wrong. “Damn you,” Arthur snaps when a few too many minutes pass in silence. “You never had trouble complaining to me before.”
As if that’s a signal, Gaius pushes the door open, old familiar bag over his stooped shoulders. Gwen is behind him with another bag, and both of them look grim. “What happened, sire?” Gaius asks immediately, going to the bed and feeling Merlin’s forehead.
Arthur shrugs, feeling helpless, impotent in a way he never really has before. There’s no one to save, here. “He just collapsed, while we were walking. I brought him here, it’s a more comfortable place for him to recover.”
“You know, Gaius,” says Gwen, wetting a cloth from the bowl of water Merlin had filled from the well that very morning. “He’s hardly been sleeping or eating, and he’s had so much to do--well, we all have, of course we have, but--”
It’s painful, listening to her making excuses for him. She should be shouting recriminations, accusing him of cruelty and heartlessness. Morgana would have, long ago. Merlin might have. Arthur wants it, because if it were anyone else treating Merlin thus, he would have had them in the stocks the second he’d noticed. “Will he be all right?” Arthur asks when he trusts his voice.
Gaius gives him a brief glance. “It seems to be simple exhaustion, sire. When he wakes, we’ll just have to make sure that he’s rested and fed and doesn’t try to do too much again.”
“There’s no danger of that.” He may have failed Merlin up to now, but he doesn’t plan on continuing. “Gwen, if you wouldn’t mind letting Leon know that I’d like everything cancelled for today--and tomorrow as well, I think.”
“There’s no need for that, sire,” says Gaius. “We’ll have him taken back to his room and I’ll tend to him there.”
“I will take care of him. It’s the least I can do, and my chambers are far more comfortable. Just tell me what I need to do, and I’ll do it.”
Gwen smiles at him. “I’ll go speak to Leon. And if he’s caught up with state business, I’m sure Lancelot would be willing to do training for a few days.”
There’s something in her voice at that, the real reason they haven’t discussed marriage since his father died, but Arthur can’t worry about that now, with Merlin still pale and breakable on his bed. “Arrange it.” He doesn’t bother looking as she leaves the room. “Someone ought to have told me,” he tells Gaius at last.
“Perhaps, sire, but Merlin probably went out of his way to make sure you didn’t know.” And they all thought he would have noticed anyway, most likely. Arthur clenches his fists so he won’t throw something. “There’s little I can do for him at the moment. Are you sure you want to take on his care?” Arthur nods. It’s the least he can do. “There are teas that can be brewed, for when he wakes, and he’ll need hearty food for a while, but while he’s asleep just give him water every once in a while. I’ll go to the physician’s quarters for the teas now, if I may.”
Arthur dismisses him, and sits on the edge of his bed, watching the rise and fall of Merlin’s chest, regular and more of a miracle than he deserves after being such a damn fool. He stays there through Gaius’s return and Gwen’s, through visits from Leon and other advisors to check that he isn’t ill, and glares at anyone who suggests that they can take care of Merlin in his stead. Merlin is his, and the fault is his, so the care will be his as well.
“Tell the steward I’ll wish to speak to him tomorrow,” Arthur says as Leon leaves. “It’s come to my attention that I need a new manservant.”
Leon looks uncertain. “You aren’t sacking--”
“It is beneath my Court Sorcerer’s dignity to be polishing my boots,” he says firmly, and knows he isn’t mistaking Leon’s smile as he leaves.
Late that night, Arthur sits in bed with the day’s reports and correspondence, Merlin still unnaturally still next to him. “I’m getting a new manservant,” he says at last, checking Merlin’s temperature. He does it more to reassure himself through touch than out of any real fear that Merlin might turn to fever, and if it’s more of a caress than a businesslike gesture then there isn’t anyone there to mention it. “One infinitely more competent than you, even.”
Merlin doesn’t reply.
“I’ll probably hate him,” Arthur admits. “But you’ve got more important things to do.” He glances at the papers on the floor beside the bed. “Probably more important than looking at grain reports, as well. I need you for the magic laws, and to talk to Druids, and maybe to treat with Morgana when that time comes. No more of this.”
Not even a twitch.
“Never scare me like that again.” Arthur brushes his hand across Merlin’s hair, and Merlin makes a small noise in his sleep and turns into the touch.
Arthur leaves his hand there for the rest of the night.
*
When Merlin wakes, feeling slow and muzzy with bright sunlight across his eyelids, it’s into a world he almost doesn’t recognize. He’s in Arthur’s chambers, that much he can tell, but he isn’t asleep at the table or even in a pile of blankets on the floor. He is, in fact, in Arthur’s bed, with Arthur curled around him, still fast asleep.
There’s someone rustling around at the table, so Merlin blinks the world beyond the bed into focus and discovers that there’s a boy he’s seen around the kitchens laying out breakfast. “Hello, you’re new,” he says, careful to keep his voice low so he doesn’t wake Arthur. He isn’t sure how he got here, but Arthur was clearly exhausted if he let Merlin sleep in his bed. “What’s your name? I ought to take care of that.”
Merlin tries to sit up and all the blood instantly rushes out of his head. When he blinks the spots out of his vision, the boy is hovering nervously nearby. “Really, my lord, you ought to stay in bed.”
“-my lord?” Merlin manages after a few seconds of soundless gaping. “Who are you again?”
The boy puffs up with pride, but at least has the sense to keep his voice low. “I’m Gareth. I’m his Majesty’s new manservant.”
“New--what?” Merlin looks back at Arthur, who’s starting to shift in the way he always does when he wakes on his own instead of being woken. What happened? The last thing Merlin remembers is walking down the hall after a meeting, getting instructions for the rest of his day. Were they attacked? His stomach growls, loud enough for Gareth to hear.
“I only brought the king’s breakfast, my lord, I’ll go back to the kitchens and get some for you too, I had orders if you woke up while he was out.”
Merlin tries out a smile. He feels as if he’s been hit over the head repeatedly with something, and wonders if Arthur dragged him out for sword practice and injured him badly enough that Merlin is recuperating in his bed. “No, really, it’s fine.”
The boy looks panicked. Great, he’s one of the ones who knows about Merlin’s magic and is terrified of it instead of intrigued. “I had orders,” he repeats. “You’re not to get out of bed until you’ve been examined.”
“Examined for what?” Merlin asks, exasperated, and jumps when Arthur curls a hand around his wrist and glares blearily up at him. “Arthur, what’s going on? He says he’s your manservant, have you been enchanted again?”
“You’re awake,” says Arthur, voice still rumbling with sleep, and Merlin is suddenly terrified that they got inadvisably drunk or Arthur got enchanted and they got married or something. “No, I’m not enchanted. You’re an idiot. You fainted.”
That sounds far more likely than them getting married. There have been a few nights in recent weeks where he suspects the fact that he made it to his bed is the only reason he could claim sleep instead of unconsciousness. “You’re sacking me because I fainted?”
Arthur just watches him, then finally turns away to address Gareth again. “Go get the Court Sorcerer something to eat, would you? Porridge, probably, at this time of day. And when that’s done let Gaius know he’s awake.”
“Yes, sire.” Gareth scurries out of the room and Arthur sits up, only to return to glaring at Merlin, who is still trying to convince his legs to move well enough to get out of bed.
Merlin stares back, still fuzzy and unsure of exactly what’s happening. “Court Sorcerer? He keeps calling me ‘my lord,’ Arthur, what the hell happened while I was unconscious?”
“We could have had a whole war while you were unconscious, Merlin. Well, a battle anyway. You fainted the day before yesterday.” Merlin winces, and Arthur tugs his arms out from underneath him so he collapses back onto the mattress. “Gaius and Gwen tell me you’ve been overworking yourself, and after that spectacular display I have to say I agree. So you are no longer my manservant. You were abysmal at it anyway. Try to sit up and I’ll have you put in the stocks,” he adds when Merlin tries again.
“Very well, sire, do you plan to keep me in your bed forever? Is that why you’ve sacked me?”
Arthur ruffles his hair, but the thoughtful frown doesn’t leave his face. “I would, if I thought you wouldn’t go right off and do something else stupid. No, I’ve got to give you something to do. That’s why you’re my Court Sorcerer, idiot.”
“Well … thanks. But I don’t mind, really.”
“I do.” Arthur rolls out of bed and goes to the table, and glares at Merlin when he struggles his way back to sitting and makes his headache instantly worse. “And you should. For pity’s sake, Merlin, you complained enough in the past when I asked you to do your job! Now you’ve been doing at least three and didn’t say a thing. You will in future. I won’t have you exhausting yourself like that again.”
“Fine, I’ll be more careful.” It’s not as if he meant to faint like a damsel and have to be dragged off to recuperate. Arthur will probably mock him mercilessly when he’s finished berating him. “It’s just … Court Sorcerer? Really? I don’t need a title or anything, I’m happy to--”
“Shut up, Merlin. This is an honor, you know. Did you prefer mucking out my stables?” Merlin shakes his head, which just makes him dizzy again, and Arthur brings his plate of breakfast back to the bed and sits down. “You worried--us. You worried all of us. And I don’t plan to let you do it again. You’ll have time to yourself, to explore the magic. You don’t want to keep trotting around at my heels all the time, do you?”
Yes, Merlin almost says, but he stops himself and just looks at Arthur instead. “I get it now,” he says instead, smiling. “This is your excuse to get rid of me.”
He expects Arthur to roll his eyes and make a joke about how he’s pleased to finally have an excuse to shove Merlin off elsewhere. Instead, Arthur just looks at him steadily before turning to his breakfast. Merlin’s stomach growls. “Gaius said we ought to be careful of what you eat, or I’d be feeding you this,” says Arthur, tone a little bit too level. “Gareth will come back with something better, and then I’ll take care of you.”
“I think I can feed myself.”
“Clearly you can’t,” Arthur snaps, and freezes. “Lay back down, would you? Just rest.”
“According to you I’ve been resting for a few days now.”
“You have a lot of it to make up for. And you aren’t to do something that stupid again. What if Mor--what if someone was to attack, while you were sleeping the day away like some princess in a fairy tale?”
“Well then, someone would just have to kiss me and wake me up, wouldn’t they?”
Arthur glares at him again. “This isn’t funny, Merlin.”
Merlin gets it then, and feels like the idiot Arthur’s always calling him. Arthur was worried, and not only that, he’s feeling guilty. “I know, I know it’s not, Arthur. But I’m fine now.”
“You aren’t fine, you can barely sit up. You are staying in this room until Gaius tells you that you may leave, and then when you do leave you are going to be my Court Sorcerer and nothing else, is that clear? You are Camelot’s only defense against--”
Merlin leans forward to reassure Arthur and almost falls on him, not strong enough to move without better planning than that. “Okay, Arthur. Keep Gareth. I’ll concentrate on the magic, but I can’t do only that, you know. I’ll keep dogging your heels until you get sick of me.”
“I’ll keep a better eye on you now. I apologize for not doing it before.” Arthur grabs his wrist and circles it with his fingers. “You’ve always been thin, but this is growing ridiculous.”
“I’m fine. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you dare apologize.” Without warning, Arthur puts an arm around his neck and pulls Merlin’s face to his shoulder. “Just don’t do it again,” he says against Merlin’s hair, then releases him so abruptly it almost feels like a push. “While you’re laid up, we’ll talk about your duties, and just what you’re supposed to do as my Court Sorcerer.”
Gareth chooses that moment to come back with another tray, this one with porridge and a few other things Merlin recognizes as convalescent food on it. “Sire,” he says, not seeming a bit surprised that Arthur is sitting only a few inches away from Merlin. “Should I leave this on the table?”
“No, bring it here, he can’t get out of bed yet. Which reminds me, if you could please tell Gaius and Guinevere that he’s up, they’ll both want to speak to him. And then I’ll want you to take a message to Sir Leon for me.”
“Yes, sire.” He brings the tray over and gives Merlin a nod before setting it down on the bedcovers. “It’s good to see you up, my lord. Whole castle’s been worried.”
Merlin grimaces, but luckily Gareth leaves before he has to think of anything to say. “Well, I’m starving,” he says, and reaches out for the tray, only to have Arthur catch his wrist again. “What now? Afraid someone’s going to poison me in my weakened state?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Arthur puts his own breakfast down and picks up Merlin’s bowl of porridge and a spoon. Oh, no. “You’ll drop your food all over my bed if you feed yourself, you’re still shaky.”
“You are not feeding me.”
Arthur fills the spoon and holds it out with an expectant look until Merlin opens his mouth. “I am. You are my responsibility, and I will be taking care of you until you’re on your feet again.” Merlin swallows and opens his mouth to object, only to get another mouthful of porridge and a stern look. “Merlin. We are not arguing about this. You are mine to care for and that is that.”
Merlin smiles and manages not to roll his eyes. “Yes, sire,” he says, and lets Arthur take care of him.
Wordcount: ~5,000
Summary: When Arthur becomes King, Merlin overworks himself.
A/N: Shock! Canon era! For this prompt on the kink meme, hurt/comfort, so preslash it sort of hurts a little. Tiny bit of implied Arthur/Gwen if you squint.
jusska_89 has done a Russian translation of this story, and you can read it here if Russian is your preferred language.
Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin.
“Sorry, Gaius, don’t have time for breakfast, Arthur wants me to look over the report from the Mercian border patrol before I bring him his, I’ll just take a bit of bread, thanks,” Merlin says all in one breath, adjusting his neckerchief and running out the door before Gaius can answer him.
Arthur has plenty of advisors, all of them eager to curry favor with the young king only two months into his reign and just starting to make his mark after mourning his father. Merlin doesn’t know why he’s the one Arthur talks to in his quiet moments, or the one who reads over reports to make sure Arthur hasn’t missed anything important, but it’s an honor, and he doesn’t dare tease Arthur about it for fear it will be taken away. Maybe if he realizes he can trust Merlin with this, Merlin will finally find the courage to tell him …
“You’re in a hurry this morning, Merlin,” says Gwen, with a cheery smile. Merlin doesn’t know why she isn’t taking advantage of being able to sleep past dawn; he certainly would, if he were acknowledged as nobility. “You can’t possibly be late with Arthur’s breakfast.”
“Got something to do before breakfast, actually. Papers to look over.”
Gwen’s smile falls, and he curses himself even though he doesn’t know what did it. It’s been a bit too easy to upset her, since Uther died, even though by all rights she and Arthur should be celebrating and planning their wedding. Merlin wants to do something, but he’s hardly had the time to say more than “hello” in weeks. “Are you free in the afternoon? I thought I might walk down to the market, and it’s been a while since we spent any time together.”
Merlin winces and shakes his head. “Council meeting, and the stables need mucking out, and I need to help Gaius in his workshop as well.”
She puts a hand on his arm. “Gaius isn’t doing any better? I know it upset him, losing Uther like that.”
There isn’t much to say about the subject that they haven’t all been exchanging looks about for months, so Merlin just gives a helpless shrug. “I’m just trying to help,” he says, and then pats her hand before he has to run off again.
Arthur is awake and half-dressed when Merlin comes in, and Merlin steps forward right away to adjust his tunic and find the right belt. “Papers are on the table,” says Arthur when they’re finished. “Shouldn’t need more than a skim, I just want to make sure I haven’t missed a glaring error, and if an idiot like you could find one, then it’s certainly glaring.”
“Sit, take a rest, you were still awake when I left last night, you shouldn’t even be awake,” says Merlin, grabbing the papers to read with one hand and clearing Arthur’s table of his snack from the night before with the other. “You work yourself too hard.”
“You still aren’t my nursemaid, Merlin, you great girl.” Merlin just snorts and keeps reading, then puts the papers back in front of Arthur when he’s finished. “Well?”
“No mistakes that I saw. Should I go get breakfast? You’ve got training this morning, haven’t you? Been a few days since you had the chance.”
“Training in the morning, council in the afternoon--you’re coming, by the way, there’s a new Lord Bors in from the North and I want to know what you think of him--dinner with the Court. Speaking off, I need my red jacket laundered for that, spilled something on it last week.”
“It’s already at the laundry. Should I get breakfast?”
Arthur looks up from staring at the table, straightening from the habitual sprawl that Merlin had missed in the first tense weeks after Uther’s death. “Of course you should get breakfast, Merlin, I’m hardly going to train without it.” He pauses, looks Merlin up and down. “Get a bit extra for yourself. One would think we weren’t feeding you.”
“You’ve been saying that for years, sire, but I’m sure not going to turn down a royal breakfast.” That said, he breezes out of the room and down to the kitchens, fielding three requests from people with petitions for the king on the way. He wonders if this is why Uther’s old manservant always looked like he’d swallowed a lemon whole, but he really can’t object, because he feels like what he does matters now, and not just in the secret way that his magic has always allowed him. In a way Arthur can recognize.
So he goes on doing everything Arthur needs him to do, because Uther was lonely on the throne and Merlin doesn’t want the same thing happening to his king.
“I think … sometimes I think I ought to remove the ban on magic,” says Arthur one night four months into his reign, and Merlin drops the sword he’s cleaning with a clash. “No need to look so horrified, Merlin.”
“I’m not horrified.” Arthur just looks at him, and Merlin realizes distantly that he’s shaking, and that Arthur looks uncertain, nervous. “I’m not, Arthur. What makes you say it?”
“We could do a lot more, with magic on our side. There would have to be strict regulations, of course, and they would have to swear oaths, but sorcerers could be of use.” The king looks down at the stack of papers he’s been summarizing for Merlin. “It might stop Morgana trying to kill me.”
Merlin doubts that, but doesn’t say it. Morgana is still a touchy subject. She probably always will be. “Would you trust them? Treat them like people, and not just resources to be used?” He pauses to swallow. “Use the oaths like you do for your knights, and not so you can have them killed if they step out of line?”
Arthur stares at him for a long minute. “You’ve been thinking about this, Merlin.”
There could be more ideal circumstances for his confession, he suspects. When he isn’t bone tired from a day that began before dawn and has continued till midnight, running around after Arthur and going to meetings and helping Gaius as his health fails further. When Arthur isn’t snapping at everyone because one of his newest knights was killed in a stupid, stupid mistake that anyone should have been able to avoid. “I have. For quite a long time.”
And Arthur, for all he’s impetuous and impatient and is about as observant as a mole aboveground, is not a fool. He recognizes the confession, but he won’t say anything until he’s certain. “Why would that be?”
“I have magic. I am magic,” he amends, tripping over the words he’s been planning for years now.
Arthur just nods, and goes back to his papers. Merlin, for want of anything better to do or say, goes back to sharpening Arthur’s sword. At least if Arthur loses his temper Merlin won’t be beheaded with a blunt weapon. “Make a case for it,” Arthur says half an hour later, after Merlin’s finished sharpening and polishing the sword, and two daggers besides. “As if you were arguing in a council meeting, tell me why I should bring magic into this kingdom when it killed my mother and has tried to kill me countless times.”
So Merlin does. He talks about all the times he’s saved Arthur, and about all the men with swords who have tried to kill him, and by the end of it he’s hoarse. He doesn’t say everything, not yet, this isn’t the time for that, but even the promise that there will be a time for it is dizzying. “Have I just signed my own execution order, telling you all that?” he asks at last, wary that Arthur’s stony expression hasn’t changed a bit.
“You’ll have to tell me all you know about how to regulate it. Gaius too. This won’t be simple,” is all Arthur says, and then dismisses Merlin for the night.
The next few weeks and months are something of a blur. Arthur keeps him in his chambers until all hours of the night going through reform after reform, changing the penalties for sorcery, stopping after each one to deal with the problems that arise. He tells Merlin to show him the uses magic can be put to, and Merlin uses his magic to do half the chores Arthur tells him to do--and only gets more, because Arthur’s a prat and still upset with Merlin for lying to him for five years and more. He learns protection spells and introduces Arthur to the dragon and meets with the druids when Arthur asks him to, and he fetches meals and puts on Arthur’s armor and trails after him on hunts because there’s not really anyone else to do it.
Gaius retires at last, and Arthur brings in a physician from the town, to Merlin’s private relief. Merlin and Gaius move to a different tower, and Gaius returns to the research--both magical and scientific--that he loves while Merlin gets busier and busier.
Gwen takes to pursing her lips and shaking her head at Merlin in the rare moments when they get to talk. “Don’t you sleep anymore?” she asks him one day when she catches him nodding off while watching Arthur at training.
“Of course I sleep, don’t worry,” he says, and goes off because Arthur’s signaled that he needs the skin of water Merlin’s holding. When he returns, she’s still there, looking worried, and he smiles and offers her a drink of the water. “Just wait till you’re Queen,” he says while she drinks. “You’ll be this busy too.”
There’s an uncomfortable pause. “I really don’t think--” she starts, and then shakes her head. “Just be careful with yourself, Merlin. Maybe go to Ealdor, visit your mother.”
“In another few months, when things are calmer after all these reforms. I don’t want to be gone too long in case Arthur needs me to …” He trails off and twiddles his fingers, because the laws are changing but Merlin’s magic isn’t widely known about outside of Arthur’s inner circle.
Gwen hugs him. “Just … take care of yourself, would you?”
“Don’t worry about me, Gwen, really, I’m fine.”
*
Arthur’s walking towards his chambers one day after a long council meeting, telling Merlin (trailing at his heels like always) about what needs to be done about the newest set of reforms, when he hears a quiet sigh and a thump. He turns around, ready to mock Merlin mercilessly for being so distracted he’s walked into a wall and finds his (warlock-manservant-advisor-friend) Merlin crumpled in a heap on the ground.
At first, he thinks perhaps it’s an assassination attempt; more people know about Merlin, these days. Morgana might have found out, and decided to take her revenge from afar. Or perhaps there’s a knife in him somewhere, meant for Arthur. The hall is empty, and Arthur drops to his knees, turns Merlin over to find him paler than usual, but without a visible injury. He’s breathing, and his heart beats, so Arthur allows himself the luxury of a few seconds to breathe through the panic. When the seconds pass and Merlin hasn’t opened his eyes or betrayed a joke by laughing, Arthur gathers him up to carry him to his chambers.
Merlin is light. Startlingly, painfully so, and Arthur’s supported him after injuries or nights of drink and knows that he hasn’t always been this thin. But he feels ribs as he slides his arm around him, and when he looks at Merlin’s face again once they’re situated, the skin around Merlin’s eyes looks bruised, like he hasn’t slept in days.
His armor sometimes feels like it weighs more, Arthur thinks as he starts walking towards his chambers again. How can he not have noticed that Merlin’s ill, if he’s this thin and exhausted? It certainly can’t be a new development. His guilt is interrupted before it gets too bad as he runs into Guinevere right around a corner. Her hand goes to her mouth when she sees who he’s carrying. “What’s happened to him? Is he hurt?”
Arthur looks down at his burden. Merlin’s head is slipping, and Arthur hitches him up a bit in his arms so he doesn’t strain his neck. “He just collapsed in the hall while we were walking. I’m taking him to my rooms. Get--get Gaius, would you? I hate to drag him out of his retirement, but he’s the only one I trust with--”
“He’ll want to know,” says Gwen firmly, but doesn’t move. “I knew he’d been working too hard, but he won’t listen to me. I don’t think I’ve seen him eat a meal sitting down for weeks, and--” She stops. “Never mind, it’s not like you don’t know that as well, I’ll get Gaius.”
Gwen bustles off, leaving Arthur feeling a bit bereft and staring at Merlin again. Gwen’s noticed something wrong. Who else has, and why hasn’t Arthur? Merlin is his right hand, and occasionally his left, and sometimes his conscience as well, around nearly every hour that Arthur is awake and--and doing chores for him the rest of them. Doing the work of a manservant and an advisor and a Court Sorcerer and a hundred other jobs at once, and all with a smile, simply because Arthur asks it of him. “No more of that,” says Arthur firmly, even though Merlin can’t hear him, and shifts his grip before walking the rest of his way to his chambers ignoring every alarmed glance he gets from maids and guards.
He dumps Merlin on his bed, because even if he had faith that Merlin’s mattress was at all adequate for a convalescent, he can’t remember where Gaius’s new chambers are anyway. Merlin doesn’t move, doesn’t even twitch, as Arthur takes off his boots and fusses uselessly. This is Merlin, who has somehow become indispensable, and Arthur didn’t notice anything was wrong. “Damn you,” Arthur snaps when a few too many minutes pass in silence. “You never had trouble complaining to me before.”
As if that’s a signal, Gaius pushes the door open, old familiar bag over his stooped shoulders. Gwen is behind him with another bag, and both of them look grim. “What happened, sire?” Gaius asks immediately, going to the bed and feeling Merlin’s forehead.
Arthur shrugs, feeling helpless, impotent in a way he never really has before. There’s no one to save, here. “He just collapsed, while we were walking. I brought him here, it’s a more comfortable place for him to recover.”
“You know, Gaius,” says Gwen, wetting a cloth from the bowl of water Merlin had filled from the well that very morning. “He’s hardly been sleeping or eating, and he’s had so much to do--well, we all have, of course we have, but--”
It’s painful, listening to her making excuses for him. She should be shouting recriminations, accusing him of cruelty and heartlessness. Morgana would have, long ago. Merlin might have. Arthur wants it, because if it were anyone else treating Merlin thus, he would have had them in the stocks the second he’d noticed. “Will he be all right?” Arthur asks when he trusts his voice.
Gaius gives him a brief glance. “It seems to be simple exhaustion, sire. When he wakes, we’ll just have to make sure that he’s rested and fed and doesn’t try to do too much again.”
“There’s no danger of that.” He may have failed Merlin up to now, but he doesn’t plan on continuing. “Gwen, if you wouldn’t mind letting Leon know that I’d like everything cancelled for today--and tomorrow as well, I think.”
“There’s no need for that, sire,” says Gaius. “We’ll have him taken back to his room and I’ll tend to him there.”
“I will take care of him. It’s the least I can do, and my chambers are far more comfortable. Just tell me what I need to do, and I’ll do it.”
Gwen smiles at him. “I’ll go speak to Leon. And if he’s caught up with state business, I’m sure Lancelot would be willing to do training for a few days.”
There’s something in her voice at that, the real reason they haven’t discussed marriage since his father died, but Arthur can’t worry about that now, with Merlin still pale and breakable on his bed. “Arrange it.” He doesn’t bother looking as she leaves the room. “Someone ought to have told me,” he tells Gaius at last.
“Perhaps, sire, but Merlin probably went out of his way to make sure you didn’t know.” And they all thought he would have noticed anyway, most likely. Arthur clenches his fists so he won’t throw something. “There’s little I can do for him at the moment. Are you sure you want to take on his care?” Arthur nods. It’s the least he can do. “There are teas that can be brewed, for when he wakes, and he’ll need hearty food for a while, but while he’s asleep just give him water every once in a while. I’ll go to the physician’s quarters for the teas now, if I may.”
Arthur dismisses him, and sits on the edge of his bed, watching the rise and fall of Merlin’s chest, regular and more of a miracle than he deserves after being such a damn fool. He stays there through Gaius’s return and Gwen’s, through visits from Leon and other advisors to check that he isn’t ill, and glares at anyone who suggests that they can take care of Merlin in his stead. Merlin is his, and the fault is his, so the care will be his as well.
“Tell the steward I’ll wish to speak to him tomorrow,” Arthur says as Leon leaves. “It’s come to my attention that I need a new manservant.”
Leon looks uncertain. “You aren’t sacking--”
“It is beneath my Court Sorcerer’s dignity to be polishing my boots,” he says firmly, and knows he isn’t mistaking Leon’s smile as he leaves.
Late that night, Arthur sits in bed with the day’s reports and correspondence, Merlin still unnaturally still next to him. “I’m getting a new manservant,” he says at last, checking Merlin’s temperature. He does it more to reassure himself through touch than out of any real fear that Merlin might turn to fever, and if it’s more of a caress than a businesslike gesture then there isn’t anyone there to mention it. “One infinitely more competent than you, even.”
Merlin doesn’t reply.
“I’ll probably hate him,” Arthur admits. “But you’ve got more important things to do.” He glances at the papers on the floor beside the bed. “Probably more important than looking at grain reports, as well. I need you for the magic laws, and to talk to Druids, and maybe to treat with Morgana when that time comes. No more of this.”
Not even a twitch.
“Never scare me like that again.” Arthur brushes his hand across Merlin’s hair, and Merlin makes a small noise in his sleep and turns into the touch.
Arthur leaves his hand there for the rest of the night.
*
When Merlin wakes, feeling slow and muzzy with bright sunlight across his eyelids, it’s into a world he almost doesn’t recognize. He’s in Arthur’s chambers, that much he can tell, but he isn’t asleep at the table or even in a pile of blankets on the floor. He is, in fact, in Arthur’s bed, with Arthur curled around him, still fast asleep.
There’s someone rustling around at the table, so Merlin blinks the world beyond the bed into focus and discovers that there’s a boy he’s seen around the kitchens laying out breakfast. “Hello, you’re new,” he says, careful to keep his voice low so he doesn’t wake Arthur. He isn’t sure how he got here, but Arthur was clearly exhausted if he let Merlin sleep in his bed. “What’s your name? I ought to take care of that.”
Merlin tries to sit up and all the blood instantly rushes out of his head. When he blinks the spots out of his vision, the boy is hovering nervously nearby. “Really, my lord, you ought to stay in bed.”
“-my lord?” Merlin manages after a few seconds of soundless gaping. “Who are you again?”
The boy puffs up with pride, but at least has the sense to keep his voice low. “I’m Gareth. I’m his Majesty’s new manservant.”
“New--what?” Merlin looks back at Arthur, who’s starting to shift in the way he always does when he wakes on his own instead of being woken. What happened? The last thing Merlin remembers is walking down the hall after a meeting, getting instructions for the rest of his day. Were they attacked? His stomach growls, loud enough for Gareth to hear.
“I only brought the king’s breakfast, my lord, I’ll go back to the kitchens and get some for you too, I had orders if you woke up while he was out.”
Merlin tries out a smile. He feels as if he’s been hit over the head repeatedly with something, and wonders if Arthur dragged him out for sword practice and injured him badly enough that Merlin is recuperating in his bed. “No, really, it’s fine.”
The boy looks panicked. Great, he’s one of the ones who knows about Merlin’s magic and is terrified of it instead of intrigued. “I had orders,” he repeats. “You’re not to get out of bed until you’ve been examined.”
“Examined for what?” Merlin asks, exasperated, and jumps when Arthur curls a hand around his wrist and glares blearily up at him. “Arthur, what’s going on? He says he’s your manservant, have you been enchanted again?”
“You’re awake,” says Arthur, voice still rumbling with sleep, and Merlin is suddenly terrified that they got inadvisably drunk or Arthur got enchanted and they got married or something. “No, I’m not enchanted. You’re an idiot. You fainted.”
That sounds far more likely than them getting married. There have been a few nights in recent weeks where he suspects the fact that he made it to his bed is the only reason he could claim sleep instead of unconsciousness. “You’re sacking me because I fainted?”
Arthur just watches him, then finally turns away to address Gareth again. “Go get the Court Sorcerer something to eat, would you? Porridge, probably, at this time of day. And when that’s done let Gaius know he’s awake.”
“Yes, sire.” Gareth scurries out of the room and Arthur sits up, only to return to glaring at Merlin, who is still trying to convince his legs to move well enough to get out of bed.
Merlin stares back, still fuzzy and unsure of exactly what’s happening. “Court Sorcerer? He keeps calling me ‘my lord,’ Arthur, what the hell happened while I was unconscious?”
“We could have had a whole war while you were unconscious, Merlin. Well, a battle anyway. You fainted the day before yesterday.” Merlin winces, and Arthur tugs his arms out from underneath him so he collapses back onto the mattress. “Gaius and Gwen tell me you’ve been overworking yourself, and after that spectacular display I have to say I agree. So you are no longer my manservant. You were abysmal at it anyway. Try to sit up and I’ll have you put in the stocks,” he adds when Merlin tries again.
“Very well, sire, do you plan to keep me in your bed forever? Is that why you’ve sacked me?”
Arthur ruffles his hair, but the thoughtful frown doesn’t leave his face. “I would, if I thought you wouldn’t go right off and do something else stupid. No, I’ve got to give you something to do. That’s why you’re my Court Sorcerer, idiot.”
“Well … thanks. But I don’t mind, really.”
“I do.” Arthur rolls out of bed and goes to the table, and glares at Merlin when he struggles his way back to sitting and makes his headache instantly worse. “And you should. For pity’s sake, Merlin, you complained enough in the past when I asked you to do your job! Now you’ve been doing at least three and didn’t say a thing. You will in future. I won’t have you exhausting yourself like that again.”
“Fine, I’ll be more careful.” It’s not as if he meant to faint like a damsel and have to be dragged off to recuperate. Arthur will probably mock him mercilessly when he’s finished berating him. “It’s just … Court Sorcerer? Really? I don’t need a title or anything, I’m happy to--”
“Shut up, Merlin. This is an honor, you know. Did you prefer mucking out my stables?” Merlin shakes his head, which just makes him dizzy again, and Arthur brings his plate of breakfast back to the bed and sits down. “You worried--us. You worried all of us. And I don’t plan to let you do it again. You’ll have time to yourself, to explore the magic. You don’t want to keep trotting around at my heels all the time, do you?”
Yes, Merlin almost says, but he stops himself and just looks at Arthur instead. “I get it now,” he says instead, smiling. “This is your excuse to get rid of me.”
He expects Arthur to roll his eyes and make a joke about how he’s pleased to finally have an excuse to shove Merlin off elsewhere. Instead, Arthur just looks at him steadily before turning to his breakfast. Merlin’s stomach growls. “Gaius said we ought to be careful of what you eat, or I’d be feeding you this,” says Arthur, tone a little bit too level. “Gareth will come back with something better, and then I’ll take care of you.”
“I think I can feed myself.”
“Clearly you can’t,” Arthur snaps, and freezes. “Lay back down, would you? Just rest.”
“According to you I’ve been resting for a few days now.”
“You have a lot of it to make up for. And you aren’t to do something that stupid again. What if Mor--what if someone was to attack, while you were sleeping the day away like some princess in a fairy tale?”
“Well then, someone would just have to kiss me and wake me up, wouldn’t they?”
Arthur glares at him again. “This isn’t funny, Merlin.”
Merlin gets it then, and feels like the idiot Arthur’s always calling him. Arthur was worried, and not only that, he’s feeling guilty. “I know, I know it’s not, Arthur. But I’m fine now.”
“You aren’t fine, you can barely sit up. You are staying in this room until Gaius tells you that you may leave, and then when you do leave you are going to be my Court Sorcerer and nothing else, is that clear? You are Camelot’s only defense against--”
Merlin leans forward to reassure Arthur and almost falls on him, not strong enough to move without better planning than that. “Okay, Arthur. Keep Gareth. I’ll concentrate on the magic, but I can’t do only that, you know. I’ll keep dogging your heels until you get sick of me.”
“I’ll keep a better eye on you now. I apologize for not doing it before.” Arthur grabs his wrist and circles it with his fingers. “You’ve always been thin, but this is growing ridiculous.”
“I’m fine. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you dare apologize.” Without warning, Arthur puts an arm around his neck and pulls Merlin’s face to his shoulder. “Just don’t do it again,” he says against Merlin’s hair, then releases him so abruptly it almost feels like a push. “While you’re laid up, we’ll talk about your duties, and just what you’re supposed to do as my Court Sorcerer.”
Gareth chooses that moment to come back with another tray, this one with porridge and a few other things Merlin recognizes as convalescent food on it. “Sire,” he says, not seeming a bit surprised that Arthur is sitting only a few inches away from Merlin. “Should I leave this on the table?”
“No, bring it here, he can’t get out of bed yet. Which reminds me, if you could please tell Gaius and Guinevere that he’s up, they’ll both want to speak to him. And then I’ll want you to take a message to Sir Leon for me.”
“Yes, sire.” He brings the tray over and gives Merlin a nod before setting it down on the bedcovers. “It’s good to see you up, my lord. Whole castle’s been worried.”
Merlin grimaces, but luckily Gareth leaves before he has to think of anything to say. “Well, I’m starving,” he says, and reaches out for the tray, only to have Arthur catch his wrist again. “What now? Afraid someone’s going to poison me in my weakened state?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Arthur puts his own breakfast down and picks up Merlin’s bowl of porridge and a spoon. Oh, no. “You’ll drop your food all over my bed if you feed yourself, you’re still shaky.”
“You are not feeding me.”
Arthur fills the spoon and holds it out with an expectant look until Merlin opens his mouth. “I am. You are my responsibility, and I will be taking care of you until you’re on your feet again.” Merlin swallows and opens his mouth to object, only to get another mouthful of porridge and a stern look. “Merlin. We are not arguing about this. You are mine to care for and that is that.”
Merlin smiles and manages not to roll his eyes. “Yes, sire,” he says, and lets Arthur take care of him.