Fic: Where Legends Lie - Part 4
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7
When the man introduced himself, Merlin's first thought was oh, right. It fitted, even if this Gwaine wasn't exactly how Merlin had pictured the most gallant of Arthur's knights. He was gorgeous, yes, but there was something altogether too familiar about him. Not physically, though he did have hair that wouldn't have looked out of place in a Loreal advertisement, but the way he acted seemed closer to those men that Merlin knew in his own time, rather than any of those here. He still had the chivalry that Lancelot and Leon had, of course, and from what Merlin could tell he was as good at fighting as any of the knights that Merlin had met, but there was something in the way he grinned at Merlin when Merlin brought him breakfast and the way he seemed utterly at ease, chatting half-naked in a stranger's bed, that seemed a bit like - well, a bit like Will.
“So you know the prince,” he said after Merlin had walked through the door.
“Yes,” Merlin replied, setting down the tray on his bedside table and turning to look at the man. Gaius had tended to the wound on his leg as best he could, and the physician had told Arthur that the man would be fine, but Merlin had still agreed to let him sleep in Merlin's bed. Between himself, Lancelot and Gwaine, Merlin's bed was getting around quite a bit. Merlin envied it.
Gwaine was still thinking over his last answer, looking at him with a knowing smile pressed into the corners of his mouth.
“I'm his manservant,” Merlin explained. “I clean his things.” And take care of him when he's drunk and protect him from sorcerers and spend far too much time thinking about him, he added silently.
Gwaine nodded, shifting on the bed until his hands were thrown behind his head and his chest was pushed out. Merlin's eyes flicked down to it. He couldn't help it - it was a nice chest. Not as nice as Arthur's, of course, but there was something about the brown, smooth curve of it that Merlin liked.
“See anything you like?” asked Gwaine. Merlin jumped, looking quickly back up into Gwaine's face.
“I didn't -” he said. “I don't -” But Gwaine grinned.
“Stop stammering, princess, it's okay,” he interrupted. “I'd do the same if you were shirtless.” He swept his gaze slowly over Merlin's body and then winked. Merlin laughed, relaxing.
“Don't tell anyone though, will you?” Merlin asked, because the last thing he needed was to interfere with Arthur's life even more, by letting him discover a whole other side of his manservant.
“I wouldn't,” Gwaine said. “Though I've heard some things about this king of yours, Merlin. Tavern talk is as good as any for learning about a kingdom, and this Uther Pendragon might not have been so different from us, back in his younger days.” Merlin blinked. Uther wasn't like that, surely.
At that moment, Gaius rapped on the door of Merlin's room and poked his head around the edge.
“Arthur wants you,” he said, nodding at Merlin. “And Gwaine, you should be resting.” He raised an eyebrow at the two of them and then ducked back out of the room again.
Merlin sighed. Arthur would want him to clean the man's chambers - he'd turned them almost upside-down when he was looking for his hunting gear the previous day. Merlin walked over to his backpack and slid his ipod up the sleeve of his tunic, using his body to shield the motion from Gwaine. Arthur generally didn't stick around to watch Merlin work anymore and Merlin had found that it was a lot more interesting when he could sweep the floor in time with the music.
He'd used his ipod several times since arriving in Camelot, mostly on days when it was dark and the skies were emptying water over the castle, and Merlin had felt the need for music. He'd been so worried that he was draining the battery last time he'd used it that he'd tried to charge it up with magic, but all he'd succeeded in doing was turning the underside an odd gold colour and vanishing the battery sign completely.
He pulled on his boots and turned to Gwaine, who was watching him with interest.
“Gaius is just next door if you need anything,” he said, and Gwaine nodded.
“Go on,” he said. “Your prince is waiting.” Merlin stuck his tongue out at the man on the way out the door.
Arthur was lying across his bed when Merlin came into the prince's chambers, his legs crossed at the ankle and his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
“How is Gwaine?” he asked when he heard Merlin come in, keeping his eyes fixed on the roof.
“He's awake,” Merlin said. “Gaius thinks he'll be fine.”
“Good,” Arthur replied, sitting up and looking at Merlin. “He's an excellent fighter, isn't he?”
“Compared to you, sire?” Merlin asked, a grin sliding onto his face. “I'd say he's the best.” Arthur scowled and reached out a hand for something to throw, but he was still sitting on the bed and the only thing within reach was his rug. He threw it anyway, and Merlin ducked, but it landed squarely on top of him. Arthur roared with a laughter as Merlin struggled to fight his way out of it.
He ended up sprawled on the ground beside Arthur's feet. Arthur leaned over to stare down at him and then started laughing all over again.
“Prat,” Merlin said, nudging one of his arms against Arthur's foot, and Arthur nudged him back.
“Idiot,” he replied, and Merlin grinned.
Arthur was quiet for a moment, and Merlin looked up to see the edge of an expression he didn’t recognise flickering over his face. Arthur didn’t say anything about it, though, instead standing up, stepping over Merlin and strapped on his sword belt.
“My floor needs cleaning,” he said, voice oddly rough, and then he left to run through some drills with the knights. Merlin thought that he'd probably look in on Gwaine, too, because he'd seemed particularly concerned about him.
Merlin slid his ipod out as soon as Arthur left, and - frowning a little at its new colour - he slid it into the waistband of his breeches, running the earphones up beneath his tunic to his ears.
He wondered what it would have been like if Arthur was born in Merlin's time, as an ordinary man, rather than in this world as a prince. Arthur would probably still have been arrogant and a bit of an ass, Merlin supposed, although he didn't know how much that was because he was a prince and how much of it was just Arthur's natural attitude. He opened the cupboard in the corner of Arthur's chambers and reached for the broom, a rough wooden thing he'd splintered his hands with a hundred times.
Perhaps they would have met, he thought, dragging the broom across the stone floor, the handle hard beneath his fingers. Arthur would have been a model in Merlin's time, perhaps, or maybe a businessman. He couldn't quite tell, couldn't pin Arthur into any other profession than the one he was in. He was born to be a prince and raised to be a king, and that was as much a part of this time as the castle was. Merlin couldn't really see him living in the 21st century, when his destiny was, and always would be, here.
He let himself imagine it, though, just for a while. He stooped to pick up several pairs of breeches Arthur had tossed around the room and tried to picture where he would meet Arthur first, and what it would be like if they were both on the same level and Arthur didn't have some huge legend to create with his life.
Perhaps he would have run into Arthur on the bus - only Arthur wasn't really the sort Merlin could imagine catching a bus. Merlin frowned as he swept the broom over the top of Arthur's cupboard, the song on his ipod thudding low in his ears.
That was where Merlin would meet him, he decided. A club, or perhaps a concert - somewhere dark and throbbing with music. Somewhere where Merlin would have too much alcohol in his system and Arthur would be relaxed enough to consider dancing with tall, pale boys wearing skinny jeans.
Merlin wondered what it would be like, to show Arthur the pulse of a dancefloor, the hot press of bodies and the hard thrust of hips. He would love to show Arthur the way a bassline could move through a body and the way it felt to have someone dancing flush against you while the music shook the air around you both. He wondered if Arthur - ordinary, 21st century Arthur - would like that sort of thing.
He set aside the broom and reached a hand beneath his tunic, turning up the volume of the song until it was loud and throbbing in his ears.
Merlin closed his eyes, imagining the scene. He would have headed straight for the dancefloor, leaving Will to chat up some girl on the sticky floor over by the bar. He would push into the centre, letting the music flow over him until his veins were full of it and his chest was pounding with sound. Arthur would see him then, and stare for a moment, before pushing his way through the crowd to Merlin, walking with that bouncing, arrogant stride of his. Merlin would pull him close, smile up at him, and move his hips like that, hard against Arthur, until they could feel each other there in the darkness and the beat was thudding like a cord between them. He would be free to press up against that Arthur, to slide his hands across the man and to grind him, filthy and hard.
Merlin heard a soft noise from the doorway, and opened his eyes to see Arthur standing there, gaping at him. Or, more specifically, at his hips, which Merlin had been moving in a way that he generally reserved for the very darkest and filthiest of clubs back home, when he’d wanted to lure some man or other into dancing with him. Merlin jumped, tugging his earphones quickly out of his ears and beneath his tunic.
“I was dancing,” he said defensively, cutting off Arthur's question before he could ask it.
“You were dancing,”Arthur echoed faintly. “That wasn't dancing, Merlin. That was...” he trailed off, his blue gaze back on Merlin's hips again. Merlin tried not to think about how that sort of dancing would have looked to someone from this time. It couldn't have been good.
“Arthur?” he asked carefully. Arthur's eyes snapped back up to his face, his jaw tightening as he realised that he'd been staring.
“Out,” he said suddenly, his voice sounding strained. “Go and muck out the stables.”
“But I did that yesterday,” Merlin protested, because he had - and alright, yes, he'd used magic and it had only taken five minutes, but Arthur didn't know that.
“Do it again,” Arthur ordered, his gaze now pointedly fixed on the wall behind Merlin. He kept it there until Merlin had put the broom back and walked out of the chambers, completely mystified by Arthur's sudden change of temper.
It took days for his mood to lighten, during which time Merlin spent a lot of time talking with Gwaine and dealing with the latest threat to Arthur's life. He sometimes thought that Arthur must walk around with a 'come kill me, I'm the king's son' sign on his back, because he'd been attacked more often than anyone Merlin knew.
Of course, when Merlin was so used to saving Arthur’s life it was often hard not to intervene when Arthur was doing things that were dangerous but that he didn’t need saving for, like jousting. He’d continually ignored all Merlin’s warnings about how dangerous the tournaments were, even though Merlin had told him all of the things that could possibly go wrong, from death to brain damage to getting splinters in his eyes. Merlin had seen enough horror movies to know that getting splinters in your eyes would hurt.
But Arthur wouldn’t listen. It was his duty, he said to Merlin, and the people expected him to do it. How could they support a prince who did not prove himself to be a worthy leader? He didn’t seem to understand that there were other ways to prove yourself, ways that didn’t involve galloping full speed towards a wooden spear.
The more time Merlin spent with Gwaine, the more he came to realise that the man was wonderful. Sure, he was happy to hit on anything that moved, and he ended up lying on the floor of the tavern, drunk, even more than Will did, but he was gorgeous, brave, cheerful, kind, funny - in short, everything that Merlin had ever looked for in a man.
But Merlin realised one other thing during those few days he spent with Gwaine, while Arthur was still keeping him at a distance and Merlin barely said two words to him - that it didn't matter how amazing Gwaine was, because he wasn't the man that Merlin wanted. The man Merlin wanted was Arthur.
There was something about Gwaine that made it impossible for Merlin not to tell the man when something was bothering him. He bounced cheerfully over every problem and sought out trouble more often than any man Merlin had ever met.
So when Gwaine made his way up to the roof, where Merlin was sitting and watching the clouds float past above him, and settled himself down beside Merlin, Merlin couldn’t help but tell him that he cared more than he should about Arthur.
“It isn’t that I like him, or anything,” he said, running a hand through his hair. Gwaine made a soft noise that Merlin thought it was best to take as agreement. “It’s just that he’s Prince Arthur.”
Gwaine sighed, slinging a warm arm around his shoulder. “There are plenty of other knights to get yourself besotted over, Merlin,” he said. “And there are plenty that’d be willing to have you.” He winked and Merlin felt a blush spreading over his cheeks.
“Now that’s a tempting offer,” he said after a moment. “But are there any you haven’t gotten to first?” Gwaine grinned and shoved an elbow playfully into his side and Merlin almost tumbled over sideways.
“Come on, princess,” Gwaine said, climbing to his feet and holding out a hand to help Merlin upright. “I know just how to cheer you up.”
As it turned out, Gwaine seemed to think that the best way to help Merlin forget his troubles was to take him down to the tavern and ply him with mead until he was half-slumped across the table and he couldn’t tell whether he was spinning around, or whether the room was.
“That’s the spirit,” Gwaine said delightedly, grinning down at him. “You’ll feel better in no time.”
Merlin mumbled a half-hearted protest into the wood of the table, wondering how on earth Gwaine was still conscious. Over the past few hours, he’d drunk almost twice what Merlin had and Merlin could barely sit up straight. Christ, he was going to regret this in the morning.
Things got steadily worse after one of the knights - Merlin suspected it was Bedevere - decided that a drinking competition was needed, and soon after that Merlin found himself sitting on top of the table downing a flagon of mead while Gwaine and Percival cheered him on. Sometimes, Merlin thought hazily as he slammed the empty flagon back down onto the table, there wasn’t so much difference between Ealdor in his time and Camelot in this one. It was good to know that some things lasted. Even if it was only this.
It was sometime after midnight when Gwaine decided that he’d had enough to drink - or at least he’d decided that he couldn’t leave Merlin slumped under the table for the rest of the night, which was where he’d been since he’d tried to pull off his shirt and had gotten tangled up in it and fallen over backwards. Gwaine stumbled his way over to Merlin and threw an arm around him, pulling him upright and roaring a goodnight to Leon and Percival, who were now sitting by the bar and playing some sort of a dice game. The cold wind outside the tavern whipped harshly against Merlin’s face, waking him up enough that he could walk back towards the castle without his arms wrapped around Gwaine for support.
“Stupid,” he mumbled. Gwaine glanced over at him.
“You or me or Arthur?” he asked, sliding his arm firmly around Merlin’s waist. Merlin frowned, thinking.
“All of you,” he said after a moment. “And Will.” It was generally Will’s fault when Merlin ended up so off his face that he could hardly walk straight, and Merlin didn’t think the man would let something as insignificant as a few centuries stop him. Gwaine snuffed out a laugh.
“Who’s Will, then?”
Merlin tried to shrug and almost fell over, throwing out a hand to stop himself. It collided hard with the stone of the castle courtyard and he rubbed it, frowning.
“Friend,” he said. “M’ best friend. Usually the one getting me drunk.” He waved his sore hand at Gwaine accusingly.
“Sounds like a good fellow,” Gwaine said with a smile. He caught Merlin’s waving hand and turned it over, looking at it.
“Hardly a scratch,” he said, and before Merlin could stop him he pressed his lips against Merlin’s knuckles, just once, his mouth soft against Merlin’s skin, and then looked up at Merlin with a gleam in his eye.
“Oh,” Merlin said, staring at his hand, and he probably would have stood there for the rest of the night if Gwaine hadn’t tugged on his shirt and led him inside.
“Why’d it have to be Arthur?” he said as they walked along the passageway, Gwaine’s hand still pressed around Merlin’s. “Legend of Gwaine, that’d work.” It wasn’t fair that he’d had to go and fall in love with King Arthur as a boy, and then like Prince Arthur far too much as a man, when there were nice men like Gwaine who were perfectly willing to - well, Merlin didn’t exactly know what Gwaine was perfectly willing to do, but the man’s thumb was tracing gently across the back of his hand and Merlin had a feeling that it wouldn’t be too difficult to find out.
“And I didn’t even get a TARDIS,” he added sadly. He was supposed to have some simple way of getting home. Time travel always seemed to work like that - the brave young hero would have a machine that he pressed buttons on, one where he could flick a dial or two and jump in and out of whatever time he wanted. Merlin didn’t have that - he didn’t have anything but his magic and that didn’t even work properly, half the time. He was stranded in this era and, as the months stretched onwards, he was beginning to feel that he might not ever get back. What if he was stuck here forever, destined to creep around the edges of this world, afraid to change anything, afraid to live?
He blinked and tried to drag his thoughts painfully back to the present as he realised that they’d stopped walking. They were somewhere inside the castle, though Merlin didn’t know exactly where, because all of the passageways looked the same when it was dark and you had a stomach full of mead. He hoped that they were near his chambers, because Merlin’s head was spinning a little faster than he was used to and why was he suddenly leaning against the wall?
“Come on, princess,” he heard Gwaine say and he felt the man’s hands wrap around his waist and pull him upright. Gwaine’s face was close to his, his teeth flashing in the dark as he tried to keep Merlin from slumping over sideways again. Merlin reached up a hand to the side of Gwaine’s face, feeling the rough scrape of the man’s beard against his fingers. He paused for a second, waiting for his brain to give him a reason why he shouldn’t lean forward and press his lips against Gwaine’s. Arthur, it supplied feebly. But Arthur didn’t like him; Arthur wasn’t supposed to like him. Arthur was wrong for him in every single way.
Merlin leant forward, sliding one hand around the back of Gwaine’s neck. What happened next was probably supposed to have been a kiss, but it was dark and everything was still spinning and when Merlin leant forward he smacked his forehead hard against Gwaine’s.
“Ow,” he said, reeling backwards and tumbling over onto the hard stone floor.
Gwaine peered down at him, rubbing his forehead. “What was that?” he asked.
Merlin frowned. “A kiss?” he offered, even though Merlin had done enough kissing to know that he’d ruined that one completely. Gwaine laughed and reached out to take Merlin’s hand, pulling him upright and swinging him around until he was leaning safely against the wall with Gwaine’s arms warm on either side of his body.
“Try again,” he said softly, his breath warm against Merlin’s ear. Merlin leant forward and pressed his mouth against Gwaine’s, feeling the man’s lips part beneath his own and his tongue sliding hot and slick into Merlin’s mouth. It was slow, a warm tangle of lips and teeth and tongues that didn’t seem like the other drunk kisses Merlin had had, where Merlin was more focused on tugging off clothes and getting them both into bed. Merlin had his hands pushed through Gwaine’s hair and Gwaine’s fingers were running up and down Merlin’s sides, burning against his skin, but he made no attempt to tug at the laces of Merlin’s breeches.
This was Gwaine’s distraction, Merlin realised later. It wasn’t the mead, or the endless stream of innuendo he’d been spouting in the tavern that he’d intended as a way of making Merlin feel better, but this. He didn’t mean anything by it, it was simply his way of making Merlin forget about the prince, if only for a few minutes. It was his way of making sure that Merlin knew that even if Arthur didn’t want him, it didn’t mean that everyone didn’t, and Merlin loved him for that.
“Gwaine? What are you… Merlin?”
Merlin broke away, looking over Gwaine’s shoulder at the man standing in the doorway opposite. His brain was still spinning with the mead and the feel of Gwaine’s lips and it took him two seconds too long to realise who it was standing there.
“Arthur. Shit,” he said. Arthur was staring at him, open-mouthed, his eyes drifting from Merlin’s flushed cheeks to the way Gwaine’s hands were wrapped firmly around his waist. Merlin felt a dull edge of panic pressing in his chest, because Arthur wasn’t supposed to see this.
“Arthur,” Gwaine said, nodding at the prince, and then Gwaine was tugging him down the hall and they were laughing like idiots, even though Merlin knew that Arthur had seen and that Arthur would know, now, that he was completely, utterly queer.
Merlin didn’t know if Gwaine had known that it was Arthur’s room they’d been outside, or whether it was just another stupid twist of fate, or destiny, or whatever the hell the dragon called it, but he did know that however Arthur thought of him now would be defined by that moment in the passageway.
Gwaine didn’t let go of his hand until they had made it back into Gaius’ chambers. They collapsed on Merlin’s bed in a heap, laughing as their legs got tangled up in each other’s. Merlin ended up lying with his face pressed against Gwaine’s chest, and he stayed that way until morning broke pale across the sky.
Merlin woke with his head pounding in a way it hadn’t since he’d come to Camelot, and his leg numb from where Gwaine had been lying on it. There was something comforting about that, though, because it was the way he always used to wake after a night out with Will. Gwaine’s my friend, Merlin realised as he pushed the man’s arm off his chest and sat upright in bed. A friend he could drink with and tell things to and kiss outside of Arthur’s chambers.
“Shit,” Merlin said, as the events of the previous night came flooding back. He groaned, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes. Gwaine groaned beside him and cracked open an eye, peering up at Merlin.
“Morning, princess,” he mumbled, and then rolled over and went back to sleep. Merlin sighed and retrieved his boots, pulling them onto his feet. He’d just have to face Arthur and explain. It would be an uncomfortable conversation, but one that Merlin had had before.
But when Merlin arrived at Arthur’s chambers and pushed open the door, Arthur wasn’t anywhere to be seen. There were dirty plates on the table, as though Arthur had already eaten breakfast, and the pack Arthur usually took when they went on patrols was not hanging in its usual spot on the hook behind his door.
Merlin wandered back through the castle, heading for the training field, because whenever Arthur wasn’t around that was the most likely place that he’d be. He found Leon practicing with his sword, his face serious as he concentrated on each swing, but Arthur was nowhere to be found.
He saw Gwen sitting in on the steps of the castle as he walked across the courtyard. She was staring off into the distance, unfocused, and it was a few moments before she noticed that Merlin was standing in front of her.
“Have you seen Arthur?” he asked. She looked up at him in confusion.
“Uther’s sent him on patrol to some of the outlying villages,” she said. “Didn’t he tell you?” Merlin bit his lip. He usually went with Arthur on trips like that, especially since his horse-riding wasn’t half bad now. But this time, Arthur hadn’t even told Merlin that he was going.
“No,” he replied, sitting down on the stone step beside Gwen. “No, he didn’t.” She put her head on his shoulder and sighed.
“Everything’s changing, isn’t it?” she said after a moment. Merlin nodded. Everything was changing. Morgana had changed, Arthur had changed, Gwaine had arrived, and things felt different now. It wasn’t always there, there were some days when everything felt just as it had when Merlin first arrived in Camelot, but on others - at times when he was trying to stop Morgana from destroying the castle before its time, or when Uther had ordered the execution of someone Merlin knew, someone he liked - it was at those moments when Merlin felt that things weren’t the way they had always been. He felt as though the world was drifting close to the edge of something dangerous.
“It’ll work out, though,” he said, but he knew he was reassuring himself as much as he was her.
Gwen didn’t stay in the courtyard for long after that, because Morgana called her inside to tidy up her chambers. Merlin watched her face fall as she heard Morgana’s tone and he hugged her tight before she stood up to leave. It wasn’t fair that she had to be the one standing beside Morgana as Morgana turned away from all she’d once believed in, because all Gwen had was Morgana and it would hurt to see her fall.
He walked back up to Arthur’s chambers after that, but all of Arthur’s cupboards were neatly closed and there was nothing that needed cleaning. Merlin walked around the room for a while, then sat down on the windowsill and stared out over the courtyard, resting his pounding head on his knees. It was probably for the best that Arthur was angry at him, because Merlin wasn’t supposed to have gotten that close to him, anyway. But despite that, he couldn’t stop the ache inside his chest, the one that had appeared the moment he’d seen Arthur’s expression over Gwaine’s shoulder. He wrapped his arms around his knees and pushed his face into the crook of his elbow, inhaling deeply and trying not to think. This world wasn’t his. Or perhaps it was, but it was his in the way that any story belonged to its reader. He was supposed to love the characters for what he could read of them, not push himself in alongside them and try to change everything. That wasn’t his place.
“I thought I’d find you here.”
Merlin looked up to see Gwaine standing in the doorway, his arms folded across his body and his eyes fixed on Merlin’s face.
Merlin gave a weak smile and Gwaine walked over and sat down beside him, looking out the window and sighing. “I was in love once,” he said, and Merlin blinked, surprised. Gwaine didn’t seem to be the type to fall in love. He was - well, Merlin had assumed that he was Camelot’s equivalent of Will, and Will wouldn’t touch love with a ten foot pole.
Gwaine noticed his surprised expression and snuffed a laugh. “Don’t look at me like that, Merlin, I’m not all that bad.” Merlin raised an eyebrow, remembering the few nights that he’d accompanied Gwaine down to the tavern. The man had hit on everything that was alive in the room and a few things that weren’t.
“I was young,” he said. “Young and still living at home and she was just so beautiful, Merlin.” He grinned.
“What happened?” Merlin asked, but he knew the answer well enough. Time happened. With enough time, people could change. Women could fall out of love, men could fall into it. Princes could become kings.
“Her family didn’t approve,” Gwaine said. “We were too poor for them.” Merlin heard a sort of weary bitterness in his tone, one that suggested he’d been over the memory a thousand times in his head.
“Sorry,” Merlin said quietly. Gwaine shrugged, clapping a hand down on Merlin’s shoulder.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “At least I didn’t -“ he broke off when he heard a shout from the courtyard outside the window. They both looked down through the narrow pane of glass to see a servant running towards a horse -Arthur’s, Merlin realised - which was standing restlessly near the gate, its head tossing wildly.
Where was Arthur? was the first thought that flashed through Merlin’s mind, but then the horse turned towards their window and Merlin could see that Arthur was still astride the animal, his hands loose upon the reins and his body slumped motionless over its neck.
“He’s fine, Merlin, stop fussing.” Merlin looked up from where he’d been rearranging Arthur’s sheets to see Gaius frowning at him.
“He might not be,” Merlin said. “He might have brain damage, or something.”
Gaius sighed. “Honestly, Merlin, anyone would think you actually cared for him,” he said, putting the stopper back into one of his ointment bottles and sliding it back into his bag.
“I do not,” Merlin said quickly, and then bit his lip as Gaius raised an eyebrow at him. “I just - I don’t think Camelot would have much of a future with a bedridden king.”
“He will be fine, Merlin,” Gaius said, and Merlin nodded. Arthur had been knocked out before, but it was different this time, because he hadn’t seen it happen. Usually, in all those moments when Merlin had saved Arthur’s life, he’d done it with the prince lying unconscious at his feet, but Merlin had known that Arthur was safe, because Merlin wouldn’t let anyone hurt him.
But this time Merlin hadn’t been there. He had thought, in that moment when they pulled Arthur down from the saddle of his horse, that the prince was dead, and Gwaine’s fingers, which had been digging hard into his shoulder as they watched, suggested that he had thought the same.
There was a sound at the door and Merlin looked up to see Uther striding into the room, his eyes fixed on Arthur’s limp form in the bed and his hands clenched tight within their leather gloves.
“I came as soon as I heard,” he said. “How is he?”
“He’s fine, Sire,” Gaius said. “He’s sleeping now.” He stared over at Merlin, as though warning him off mentioning anything about brain damage while Uther was within earshot. Merlin kept his mouth firmly closed and resisted the urge to roll his eyes back at Gaius. He wasn’t an idiot.
“You,” Uther said, looking over at him. “Why weren’t you with him?” Merlin opened his mouth, looking frantically from Uther to Gaius and back again, because he didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t tell Uther that Arthur was angry at him, that Arthur had seen him in the passageway with Gwaine and chose not to take him along.
Gaius cleared his throat. “It was my fault, sire,” he said. Uther turned his head to stare at the old man.
“I needed Merlin’s assistance this morning.”
Uther considered that for a long moment, his gaze steady on Gaius’ face, then nodded.
“If you are finished with Arthur, I require your presence in my chambers,” he said. Gaius bowed his head.
“Keep an eye on him,” he said to Merlin, before picking up his bag and following the king out of the room.
Merlin sat down beside Arthur’s bed, staring at the prince’s golden head. Was this the way every other situation would have gone for Arthur, if he hadn’t been here? Would Arthur have returned to the castle bloody but alive after the confrontation with Nimueh, or after the fights with the numerous beasts that they’d faced over the years? It was terrible to think that he might have been killed in any of those instances, had Merlin not been there, but it was somehow worse to realise that he might not have - that Merlin was in Arthur’s way, and that Arthur would have won on his own and been stronger for it.
There were times when Merlin wondered how much of this world he’d changed. Times when he pushed past all the excuses he’d layered within his mind and saw the truth hiding beneath - that he’d done too much, that he’d shaped things, that if he ever got back home it’d be to a world where the book he’d loved had changed so much that he wouldn’t recognise it anymore. He wondered which was more important - the book he’d grown up relying on, or the experiences he’d had here. But both were a part of him now, he knew, and he couldn’t choose between them.
He took out the book sometimes and looked at it, holding it flat between his hands and feeling the comforting weight of its pages. He didn’t open it, partly because he didn’t want to remind himself of the fates of each of the people he’d met and touched and loved, but also because he was afraid. He was afraid that it might have changed, that the words he read would not be those he remembered, because then he’d know for certain that something had been lost forever. He hated the uncertainty of this place, but it was better than knowing for sure.
Merlin looked back down at the prince with a sigh. He looked tired, as though he hadn’t been sleeping properly for months. Merlin wondered whether there was something he hadn’t noticed, something that he was worrying about that Merlin hadn’t picked up on. His mouth was twisted down into a faint frown, even though he was asleep, and there was a tiny crease between his eyebrows. Merlin reached out a hand towards the prince, running the tip of his finger over the soft, crinkled skin, trying to smooth away Arthur’s frown.
“Merlin,” Arthur mumbled, rolling onto his back beneath the sheets. Merlin jerked his hand away, startled, but the man didn’t wake. Merlin waited a few seconds, until Arthur’s breathing had settled again, and then moved his hand to stroke down the side of Arthur’s face, just once, before he dropped it back into his lap. It gave him an odd, light feeling within his chest to hear Arthur say his name, even though it was probably just because the prince was dreaming of ordering him around.
“You’re going to be a great king one day, Arthur,” he said softly, and he found that, for the first time, he fully believed those words. He’d forgotten how he used to imagine King Arthur, back when he’d first arrived in Camelot, because somehow, in those tiny moments between the fighting and the arguing and the running about and saving the castle, he’d begun to notice that this Arthur could be great. He could be wonderful, even. He wasn’t as strong as Merlin had pictured King Arthur, but he had strength enough to force himself to keep going when everyone else had given up. He wasn’t as wise as Merlin had imagined the king to be, and nor was he as infallible, but he had wisdom enough to know how to care for his people, and he was as good as it was possible for a man to be. He wasn’t the king Merlin had dreamt of, but Merlin didn’t want that king anymore. What he wanted was Arthur, the Arthur who called him an idiot and stood up for his subjects and had proven himself to be the best man that Merlin had ever known.
He stood up from the chair beside Arthur’s bed, tucking the prince’s sheets more tightly around his body, and then left the room quietly, pulling the door shut behind him.
Arthur, as it turned out, had run into a low-hanging branch while riding through the forest, which Merlin thought was unusual, because he was usually the one doing things like that. Arthur assured the king when he awoke that he had nothing more than a bruise and that he would be fit for the tournament.
When Merlin walked into his chambers the next afternoon, Arthur kept his eyes averted from Merlin, his head tilted down and his hair shining deep gold in the sunlight. He held out his arms soundlessly for Merlin to begin putting on his armour and Merlin knew that something had changed in the way Arthur saw him. It was as though they were back to the way they'd been in his first few weeks at Camelot and that realisation, that the way he was had turned Arthur away from him, ached tight and cold within Merlin's chest.
His goodbye to Gwaine when Uther banished the man from the kingdom was a hard one. They spent the final night of Gwaine's stay curled together on Merlin's bed, with Merlin's head on Gwaine's chest and Gwaine's arms loose around his shoulders.
“You'll come back,” Merlin whispered to the man after he'd blown out the candle and they were lying warm and wrapped together in the dark. Merlin knew Gwaine would come back, only it would be too late for Merlin, because he would be back in his own world long before Arthur became king of this one.
“I will,” Gwaine said, tightening his arms around Merlin's body. “The taverns here are too good to miss.”
Merlin snuffed a laugh. “I'll miss you,” he said quietly. He hadn't had anyone he could talk to - really talk to, like he had with Will - since Lancelot left, because Gwen was always busy with Morgana's chores and Arthur was… well, he was Arthur, and he was barely talking to Merlin at all anymore.
Gwaine hummed, running a hand down Merlin's arm.
“You'll have Arthur,” he said, and Merlin let his eyes drift closed without reply, because he didn't know how to explain to Gwaine that no, he wouldn't have Arthur. That wasn't the way that things turned out.
The months passed quickly after that, and somewhere between autumn and winter Gaius stopped pulling out new books from the secret, hidden places in his chambers and started going through the old ones again, reading over the familiar words as though they might suddenly give him the right spell. He’d begun to try and get Merlin to cast them, too, and there were long hours in the evenings when Merlin would stand reading strings of strange words, both hoping and dreading that they’d be the ones which could lift him up from this time and send him home.
They never were, though, and at the end of each night Merlin would put aside the book with a faint sense of relief, because despite the fact that he knew this world was not his, he still found that he didn’t want to leave it. He’d grown to like it here - he liked the way he knew how to be around Arthur now, and he liked the way he lived here. It was a simple existence, but one that was filled with things that Merlin had never had before, and things that he hadn’t known he’d wanted. It felt like his life, even if it wasn’t supposed to.
Things weren’t always easy, though. There were days when death hung over the castle and Merlin saw fear in the faces of the townspeople. There were days when Merlin could feel their lives brushing along the lines of the legend, pushing ever closer to the point when Arthur’s world as Merlin knew it would begin.
There were times when Merlin could not even begin to understand how they could possibly get through this, when he could see the dust falling from the roof of the castle and he was reminded that this, too, would fall. This castle did not exist within Merlin’s life. The people within it would not live to see all that Merlin had seen. He knew two centuries, separated by an abyss of time, whereas they knew only one. They did not know that this would end, that their houses would crumble and their names would be forgotten and their graves would be lost. Merlin knew, and oh, it scared him sometimes.
There were moments, too, when Merlin let the legend slip out of his sight, like in the weeks after Gwaine left. He came across the caves, shining and glassy-walled, when Arthur had fallen beneath the arrows of bandits. The crystals spoke to him of a future he did not understand, one that he knew was not the future, but perhaps one that could still come to pass. Morgana could not kill Uther, of course, and she could not reign upon the throne of Camelot for all the years of her life, because Arthur was destined for that.
And yet - and yet. Those half-glimpsed, burning images, pressed into the folds of his mind while he stood within the caves, stayed with him long after he’d pulled Arthur onto his horse and galloped back through the trees towards Camelot.
“They seemed so real,” he told Gaius, after Arthur had fallen asleep.
Gaius frowned at him, his brows raised high upon his forehead.“They may not come to pass,” he said. “You can’t predict the future, Merlin, you can only guess at the path it will take.”
Merlin sat down at the table and filled his mouth with chicken to stop himself from replying.
Later that night he found himself trying to fix things anyway, because those visions mixed themselves up with his knowledge of what was supposed to happen and what already had, until he couldn’t tell what he was meant to avoid doing and how he was supposed to do it.
He followed Morgana out through the passages of the castle and then, when she reached the final door, he struck out with his magic, a deep flood of power that sent her tumbling through the air in a burst of red and gold. It was not until he saw her crumpled at the foot of the stairs that he realised, with a sickening, sinking feeling, that perhaps he’d gone too far, this time.
And then he needed to save her, to return everything to the way that it was supposed to be, even though the dragon did not want it to be so. It was his fault that she was lying in Gaius’ rooms with her face pale and her body motionless. He wasn’t supposed to have interfered, but he had.
It was the way things happened sometimes - like that time months before when he’d poisoned Morgana, when he’d thought that it was the only way to make sure that things played out in the way that they were supposed to. He found that more and more, he was so focused on saving Arthur that he forgot that there were other people in the book too. Half the time he only remembered too late that, if he was going to be saving Arthur, he would also have to try and save everyone else, because he didn’t know how many other lives were hooked into the huge, tangled knot of the legend. He didn’t know who counted.
Gwaine’s exile was hard. Merlin saw him a few times - on the quest to find the Fisher King, when they’d huddled around the fire in the Perilous Lands with their hands clasped together and thought about Arthur, somewhere out there ahead of them in the darkness, and later on, when they’d saved the kingdom from Morgana. He was thrilled when it became apparent that both Gwaine and Lancelot weren’t planning to leave again.
Merlin had missed them both - he’d missed Lancelot’s easy smile and the way that Gwaine would laugh off trouble - the way he would never stop to think about anything before he did it. He liked them; they were friends and they gave Merlin something in his life that didn’t revolve around Arthur. He knew that both Lancelot and Gwaine would be Arthur’s bravest, strongest knights one day, but for now they were just two men skirting around the edges of their destiny. Merlin could understand that.
The winter, when it came, pressed quickly down upon the castle. By the time the frost had truly set in, Merlin found that the world was far, far too cold. The snow dropped down from the sky as though it had been building up to it all summer and Merlin would walk through the town with three shirts on, his neckerchief wrapped tight around his throat and his face screwed up against the icy air. He would arrive in Arthur’s chambers each morning with his arms full of firewood and his clothes dripping, and would stand with his numb fingers held out to the flames until they were bright pink with the heat.
“You’re dripping on the floor,” Arthur commented as he strode into the room, leaving a trail of discarded clothing behind him. Merlin turned to stare at him, feeling oddly warm.
“You do know that it’s winter, Arthur,” he said. Arthur was picking up the first pieces of his armour and motioning at Merlin to come and help him put them on.
“And I suppose you think that Camelot isn’t going to get attacked in winter,” Arthur said dryly. But it was true - they hadn’t been attacked in an entire month and it was unsettling. Merlin still felt on edge, because they’d had to fight off some enemy at least once a week before now and he wasn’t used to all this calm. He often caught Arthur fidgeting over his meal, or after he’d had meetings with Uther, so he supposed that the prince wasn’t used to it yet, either.
Merlin took the chainmail off the table, feeling the metal bite cold against his fingers as he pushed it over Arthur’s head. Arthur had been like this all winter, focused in a way that Merlin couldn’t understand, as though he was waiting for something to happen, or trying to take his mind off something. He looked into Arthur’s face as he clasped the buckles of his chestpiece, wondering what it could be. Arthur had his eyes fixed on the far wall, his eyes almost grey in the shadowy, flickering light of the room. His jaw was set firmly and he wasn’t acknowledging Merlin’s presence - Merlin’s hands on his neck as he adjusted the chainmail, or Merlin’s fingers brushing over the line of his shoulder as he made sure the armour was sitting right. It was odd, because Merlin thought that they’d passed the point where Arthur cared about what he’d seen Merlin and Gwaine doing in the passageway. Arthur had been indifferent, he’d been angry, he’d insulted Merlin, but he’d never just ignored Merlin’s presence like this. Merlin had endured months of Arthur’s sullenness and his irritation - of Arthur sending him out twice a day to clean the stables and forcing him to make the prince’s bed three times over, because it was ‘not quite perfect, Merlin.’ It had been a little better when Gwaine had left, because even though Merlin had felt unbearably lonely for the first few days, Arthur stopped looking like he wanted to kill Merlin whenever he saw him, which had been nice for the few weeks that it lasted.
He had thought that they were finished with that, though. Several times now, he’d noticed Arthur looking at him when he was sitting on the prince’s floor polishing his armour, and it hadn’t been with the half-exasperated look he usually wore. Arthur had even smiled at him when he’d brought up the man’s supper just last week. He thought they’d reached some sort of an agreement, albeit one where Merlin still did far too many chores and Arthur was still oddly focused on training. But now, Arthur was staring at the opposite wall of the room like he wanted nothing more than for it to fall on top of the both of them, and Merlin couldn’t work out why.
“Is something wrong?” he asked as he handed the prince the leather gloves he usually used in training.
Arthur kept his eyes fixed on the far wall, as though he hadn’t heard Merlin speak at all. Merlin paused for a second and then lifted up a hand, waving it in front of Arthur’s face.
“What?” Arthur said, his eyes flicking to Merlin’s hand.
“Is there something wrong?” Merlin asked again, putting down the glove he’d been holding and stepping closer to Arthur, looking into his face, trying to understand. “There must be. You’ve been acting weird for months now.”
Arthur frowned, his gaze drifting back towards the opposite wall of the chambers. “I am perfectly fine, Merlin,” he said.
“You’re not fine,” Merlin said with a touch of annoyance. “I’ve seen homeless people who were more fine than you, Arthur. You’re going out to train your men in the snow, you’re even more grumpy than usual -“ Arthur frowned at that, “-and for god’s sakes, Arthur, why won’t you look at me?”
Arthur did look at him then, his gaze settling hot on Merlin’s face. He had an odd expression on his face, and Merlin could feel something cold radiating off him as Merlin spoke.
“If it’s about Gwaine,” he said softly, “we’re not - it’s not - it was just one time, and he’s still a good knight, Arthur. It’s just the way we are. It doesn’t make us bad people.” Merlin swallowed. He didn’t know why he’d brought that up; he hadn’t meant to have this conversation, not now, not with Arthur, because he knew the way it went. He didn’t want to lose Arthur.
“I thought -“ he shook his head. “I thought that you, of all people, would understand that.”
Arthur stared at him, eyes wide and jaw clenched. “What is that supposed to mean?” he said slowly.
“It means that you’re Prince Arthur,” Merlin said. “That you’re a good prince and that you’re going to be a great king, someday. The best of kings. It means that the Arthur I know doesn’t judge people for how they are born.” He stared back at the prince, resisting the urge to lower his gaze. Arthur stood motionless for a second, as though Merlin’s words had frozen him, and then he stepped away from Merlin and walked out of the door of his chambers, his armour still unfastened on one side.
Merlin leant against the table as soon as Arthur had left, his heart thudding out an uneven rhythm within his chest. He could feel the slow burn of something - shame, or betrayal, or some combination of the two - sparking to life within his veins and he bit down hard on his lip to stop himself from crying. He shouldn’t have said anything. He’d known that Arthur didn’t have to accept this, that there was no indication in the legend that he’d ever needed to accept it. Merlin had simply thought that Arthur was a good enough person that he would, but he’d just stared at Merlin and then walked out of the room. But Arthur had left, and Merlin was certain that whatever friendship he’d had with Arthur before now, delicate though it was, had left with him.
He recognised the feeling burning through his chest now. It was the way he felt when he saw Will with someone, because Will didn’t seem to care how it would end up. Will had only ever looked at the present, whereas Merlin could see all of the past, and now, with Arthur, he could see the future. He knew where it would end and it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he had to spend every single day around Arthur with the knowledge that Arthur was never going to accept him, and he was never going to love him. It wasn’t a vague suspicion, but the solid truth. He’d read the book. There was no Merlin in it.
It wasn’t fair that he had met the man he’d been dreaming of all his life, the only man who could punch through his chest with one smile and make Merlin want to hold onto him forever, and yet he couldn’t be with him. Arthur could barely even look at him anymore. Fuck destiny, Merlin thought. Destiny wasn’t good enough.
He pressed one hand against the table, head aching, and felt the tip of his finger brush against something soft. He looked down, confused, and realised that Arthur’s glove was still lying on the wood beside him. Merlin picked it up, turning it over in his hands. He should take it down to the prince, because he was still Arthur’s manservant, even if he’d ruined all chance of ever being anything else.
The castle seemed darker than usual when he walked through it. Merlin’s steps echoed off the stone, and there were no maids walking through the passageways. They were probably all huddled around the fires Merlin had seen lit in the kitchens. Merlin wondered briefly if Gwen was among them, her hands outstretched to the flames, with the other servants clustered tight around her, all of them completely unaware of the future. It was lonely, knowing what Merlin knew.
Merlin walked out into the courtyard, his head bowed against the icy wind. There was a light coat of snow on the ground and it was stupid for Arthur to be out in this. He hoped that Leon had talked Arthur out of training today, but he knew that if Arthur was angry there wouldn’t be much that any of the knights could do to dissuade him. He pushed on through the cold, walking quickly across the courtyard and out of the gate. The guards huddled around the fire beneath the stone arch barely looked at him as he passed.
The field was only a short walk from the castle, five minutes or so, but with the wind whipping beneath his neckerchief and the snow soaking through the thin soles of his boots, it felt like it took hours. Merlin was shivering by the time he reached the gate. He was so focused on getting his stiff fingers to open it that he didn’t notice the field was empty until he was standing in it.
He looked around the snow-covered grass in surprise, fighting the urge to laugh. He must look ridiculous, standing in thin clothes in an empty field in the middle of winter, with his limbs half-frozen and his hand clenched tightly around the prince’s glove. He hugged his arms to his chest, trying to warm them, and felt a sudden wave of homesickness. He was sick of this place. He was sick of never knowing what to do, and he was cold and tired and he’d had his emotions battered about more often than he could stand. He wanted his mother; he wanted Will; he wanted to be warm and safe and to not have to worry about everything he said.
He felt like he was breaking in two, and it hurt. It hurt every single day he looked at Arthur and realised that he couldn’t have him. It hurt every single day he saw Morgana, because he knew that she wouldn’t ever again be that girl she’d been when he first arrived in Camelot. It hurt when he saw Lancelot, because he would never be able to have Gwen wholly to himself, and when he saw Gwen, because she would never find a way to love both of her men without breaking one of their hearts.
He didn’t want to see the legend come into being, he realised, because the legend wasn’t what he wanted anymore. Don’t cry, he told himself fiercely, biting down hard on his bottom lip. He felt the same way he did on the day after his tenth birthday, when he’d come out into the kitchen and seen his birthday balloons half-deflated on the kitchen floor. He’d been so disappointed then, because all of the excitement was gone, and all that was left was a squishy sphere of red rubber and the feeling that everything he’d looked forward to was over, and the world was a little bit colder because of it.
It started to rain as he turned back towards the castle, a heavy, icy sheet of water that poured down from the sky and soaked through Merlin’s clothes in an instant. He held Arthur’s glove balled up to his chest, sheltering it from the rain, but by the time he’d climbed the castle steps it was soggy and dripping.
He walked back through the castle towards Arthur’s chambers, leaving a trail of water all along the passageway from his dripping clothes. The prince wasn’t in his room when Merlin walked through the door. He stood staring around the empty chambers for a moment, before moving over towards the fireplace and kneeling in front of it. He set the glove down on the hearth beside him, and it was stupid, it was just a glove, but being Arthur’s manservant was all Merlin had left and he was going to do it as best he could.
He ran a hand miserably through his dripping hair, trying to dry it off. The flames from the fire were hot against his face as he lay down on his side with his back to the fireplace. He would just stay here a moment, until his clothes were dry, because his other set were still filthy from when he’d had to muck out the stables in them earlier that week and Gaius’ room didn’t have a fire. It wouldn’t take long, he knew. He’d dried his clothes in front of Arthur’s fire before, warming his rain-soaked body while he was waiting for Arthur to get back from training or meetings with Uther.
He closed his eyes, feeling the warmth spreading slowly though his body, drying his clothes and his hair until he felt almost too hot, burnt at the edges, his cheeks hot and his throat dry. Swallowing, he curled his arms around his knees, trying to hold himself in place, because he hadn’t realised that he was shaking but it was either that or the room was, and Merlin didn’t really think that the second one was all that likely.
The minutes ticked by, each one painfully slow as Merlin waited for his body to warm up. He could feel his mind drifting away from consciousness, slipping into sleep even as he tried to stop it. He needed to get up; he knew Arthur would have him thrown in the dungeons if he found Merlin sleeping on his floor, and the prince could be back at any second. He tried to sit up, but his limbs felt far too heavy and he couldn’t seem to get them to move. Arthur isn’t going to be happy, Merlin thought, and then he didn’t think anymore and his mind dropped into darkness.
Part 5