Magic, Marriage and Mayhem, Part 5
Title: Magic, Marriage and Mayhem
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: mpreg as a major plotpoint, unabashed fluff, and Gaius' Inappropriate Touching(TM). It's not that inapprorpiate, really. But this fandom has made it so every time he touches ANYONE, I think it. *sigh*
Summary: Uther warns Arthur about his dalliance with his servant, and reminds him that Camelot will need an heir. Well, it looks like that's not a problem any more...
AN:Sorry for the delay in this part! It doesn't really go anywhere, and there are a couple of vaguely unpleasant OCs, but I hope people will enjoy anyway! And thanks, as always, to everyone who's commented. ^_^
**
Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four
**
Merlin woke up early the next morning, due mostly to the fact that whatever Arthur might be during the day, he was a snuggler at night - he had wrapped himself round Merlin completely. When Merlin so much as shifted to one side, Arthur shifted with him, wrapping the arm at his waist more securely round him, and Merlin sighed before poking the other boy awake.
He had already known that Arthur was no morning person, and it was currently so early that it was still dark outside; the bleary, accusing blue eye which met his came as no surprise. “You’re on top of me,” he told him simply, and Arthur shrugged, burying his head back into the pillow. Apparently, it was too early even for Arthur’s princely arrogance to make an appearance. “No, see, when I said that, what I meant was ‘get off me’,” Merlin told him helpfully.
Arthur half-compromised by disentangling his legs from Merlin’s and shifting a little away from him. The arm stayed firmly wrapped round him, and Merlin sighed again, but admitted that was probably as good as it was going to get.
They lay in the early half-darkness for about ten minutes before Arthur finally spoke up. “So you don’t like your physicians?”
Merlin paused before answering, trying to work out where that question had come from, before remembering their conversation of the previous day and deciding that a nod would do for the moment. His head was still resting on Arthur’s shoulder after all, so the other man would know he responded.
“Why not?”
He considered his answers to that. ‘They don’t like me’ sounded childish, whilst ‘they’re not Gaius’ would be even worse. “Your father employed them to make sure I’m not lying,” he said finally. “And I’m sure they’ll be great when they find out I’m not, but until then... they don’t believe me, they don’t like me, and they’re a bit - obvious about it. I guess.” He waved as much of a hand as he could get free from the bed clothes. “I was being stupid when I told you that, ignore it.”
“No.” Arthur’s voice was mulish, and Merlin winced a little. Arthur had the bit between his teeth now, and there was no way he was going to let this drop. “This is enough of an ordeal for you - for both of us - without other people making it even worse. I’ll talk to them.”
“You do know that that’ll make them very polite while you’re around and even worse when you’re not, right?” Merlin asked, genuinely curious. He had no way of knowing whether Arthur had ever experienced a situation like that.
“What?”
Apparently not. “They’re not going to like being told where to get off,” he explained patiently. “So they’ll just be vile where no one can see them.”
“Then if they are, tell me,” Arthur said slowly and carefully, as if to a very small child.
Merlin frowned. “I can deal with it myself.”
“Oh, so that’s why you decided to complain about it to me. Because you don’t need my help.”
“No, I just needed someone to - talk to,” Merlin returned, stung.
“Right.” Arthur’s voice was heavy with scepticism. “Of course.”
“This may be a foreign concept to you, your Highness, but not everyone expects you to do things for them all the time,” Merlin told him firmly, tone only half-amused. “I can manage.”
“I know you can,” Arthur said, managing to turn what should have been a nice moment into something half a step away from an insult, “I’m just saying you shouldn’t have to.”
Merlin considered this answer for a moment or two, then decided that this was probably something he should nip in the bud. If they ever did end up married - and that was looking less and less likely by the hour - he didn’t want Arthur to be trying to fix all of his problems as well as running the kingdom. “I want to deal with it in my own way,” he said slowly, and Arthur frowned, confused. Merlin shifted away, rolling onto his side so he could look the other man in the eye. “This is my problem,” he explained, “and I don’t want anyone else dealing with it. I needed to talk it through with you because I was angry, not because I wanted you to come sweeping in to save me like I’m one of your maidens in distress.”
“You said it, not me,” Arthur returned, but the jibe was half-hearted at best. He really did seem to be thinking it through.
“Yes, thank you,” Merlin said sarcastically, rolling back onto his back. Arthur’s arm was back round his waist in seconds. “Look, let me deal with it, OK? But - back me up when I do.”
Arthur was still frowning, Merlin could tell, but he nodded anyway. “You’re sure I can’t do anything?” he asked, and Merlin grinned to himself. Arthur needed to be doing things for people - it was really the only way he knew to show affection; and he had just agreed to something fairly major in their new, odd relationship. Positive reinforcement couldn’t be a bad thing.
“You could occasionally drop by when they’re in my rooms? And look very intimidating?”
Arthur laughed low in his throat. “If you’re sure that’s all I can do…”
“I’m certain. But I’ll tell you if they’re still being difficult,” he offered by way of a compromise, and Arthur nodded.
“Deal.”
They lay in silence for a few minutes, until Arthur sighed. “I should probably get up.”
“Me too.”
Another few long, lazy minutes of silence, until Arthur broke it again “We’ve, er - we’ve barely - you know - since all this started.”
Merlin sighed. “We’re not back to ‘you know’-ing, are we?” Arthur’s arm tightened around him in fake-punishment, but he just shrugged. “Fine then, what have we barely done since all this star- oh.” He knew exactly what they hadn’t done since this started.
“Yes, ‘oh’,” Arthur agreed. “We used to the whole time.”
“It was a little different then!” Merlin pointed out. “I was in your rooms the whole time, for one thing, there were more opportunities.” If he sounded a little wistful at that, neither of them commented on it. “And it was that that got us in this situation in the first place.”
“It’s not so bad, is it?” Arthur asked diffidently, and Merlin sighed heavily.
“It won’t be, when everything settles down,” he conceded, and though he could tell from the way Arthur’s breathing changed a little that while the answer didn’t completely satisfy his - what? Fiancé? Lover? - he was willing to leave it for the moment.
“Well, so long as the poor child doesn’t end up with your brains-”
“Or your charming personality.” Merlin sniped back.
“Everything should be fine,” Arthur continued as though he hadn’t heard Merlin’s input. He favoured the darker boy with a wide smile, but Merlin just raised an eyebrow at him. “The baby might even be quite sweet.”
“It might,” he packed as much scepticism as he could into those two words, “But let’s make sure this whole thing isn’t the result of Gaius inhaling too many fumes before we start planning the nursery.” His tone was a little harsher than he’d intended, due mostly to nerves and confusion, and uncertainty as to whether or not he even really wanted this baby at all. But none of that was worth seeing Arthur’s face fall quite as fast as it did.
“I need to get up.” The Prince said, tersely, and threw the bed-covers off. “My manservant will be wondering where I am if I stay here any longer.”
“Arthur-” Merlin began, and Arthur turned back to him, his face rather set.
“Yes?”
Merlin really couldn’t think of anything to say to make things better, and let the hand he’d started to reach out to Arthur drop back onto the bed-clothes. “I, um… would it be alright if I spent tonight in your rooms? Mine get - cold - sometimes, too.”
Arthur’s expression softened, and he nodded. “I suppose it would be acceptable - but none of this hugging, cuddling nonsense you’re so into. I could hardly move when I woke this morning.”
Merlin gave him a look which let him know that Merlin knew exactly what he was up to. “Oh, please,” he said simply. “I’m sure your manliness can take it.”
“You’re the one who’s having a baby, Merlin. Out of the two of us, I’d say you’re the one who should be most worried about his manliness.”
Merlin went to reply, when he caught the glint in Arthur’s eye and subsided with a reluctant grin. “Oh, get out,” he said fondly. “I’ll see you later.”
“Good to know. You, er - you be careful, alright? And I’ll see you sometime mid-morning.”
Merlin nodded rather wryly. “Oh, yes. Because you scheduled that time into our timetables.”
Arthur on his way out, gave him a Look. “I really don’t understand why that’s such a big deal to you,” he said simply, and left before Merlin could reply.
Merlin shook his head, smiled, and started dressing, a definite sense of purpose to his movements. He had some physicians to talk to.
**
As usual, the two physicians Uther had employed to ‘watch over him’ arrived in his chambers at nine o’clock, an hour or so after Arthur had left, and just before Merlin’s first ‘lesson’ of the morning with the court archivist on royal and noble bloodlines. Ostensibly, they were there to check him over, to be certain that nothing had happened to the ‘little heir’. In reality, Merlin was absolutely certain they were checking there was no real sign of the baby, and patted themselves on the back every time he looked like a perfectly normal male.
As soon as this baby made its presence visible, Merlin was insisting that both of them were sacked. Best in the land they might be, but they combined that merit by being the most patronising and irritating, as well.
Unfortunately, despite all his best intentions, that morning had seen the return of the nausea which had prompted this whole nightmare, and Merlin could do little more than retch miserably into a bowl as they entered. He had managed to send a message to Gaius before they arrived, and the old man was there with him, one hand on his shoulder, the other holding a cup of water for the few moments when Merlin didn’t seem to be trying to throw up a couple of internal organs.
“Gentlemen,” Gaius nodded at them, his expression very stiff, voice cold. “As you can see, Merlin isn’t in any shape to be examined this morning. Might I suggest you come back tomorrow?”
The more voluble of the two, a stout man of fifty called Gerontius, smiled patronisingly at him. “We can only treat a patient whose illness we have diagnosed, Gaius,” he said kindly, and Gaius drew himself up a little further.
“His ‘illness’ will be completely cured in several months time, and in the meantime, I would have expected such honoured physicians as yourselves to remember that morning sickness is not wisely treated,” he told him, his voice sharp as a knife.
“We have yet to be certain that this is morning sickness,” Gerontius’ expression was just a little less warm, his tone just a little harder. “I know you’re close to the boy, but really Gaius, this is-”
Merlin took advantage of a lapse in his retching to look up at them through his hair. “Have you ever thought,” he said, his voice scratchy, “That I might actually be telling the truth?”
Gerontius gave him a look of such avid dislike, Merlin itched to do something nasty and magical to him. “Not likely, though, is it?” he asked tersely. “I accept you may have been drugged, you’re obviously deluded-”
“I’m pregnant,” Merlin said baldly, “and in a few months time, I’m going to be married to Prince Arthur, god help me.” Out of some misplaced sense of loyalty, he did mutter that last part. “I’d start worrying about what will happen to you, not to me, if you continue to be this bloody difficult.” Some of the impact was taken out of his speech by the fact that he ended it with a particularly impressive bout of retching.
Gaius stroked a soothing hand down his spine, and handed him the cup of water. “You don’t seem to be helping here, gentlemen, I’d be grateful if you’d le-”
“Gaius, we respect your expertise,” the other physician, Hector, spoke up, a tall, thin, supercilious man, who constantly gave the impression that he only touched Merlin under duress, “but we have been assigned to your charge until the King dismisses us, and we are required to check him. If he is ill-”
“He has morning sickness!” Gaius snapped at them.
“Then you can have no objection to us checking him over,” Hector pointed out silkily. “Come over here, Merylin.”
“Merlin.” He muttered, and Hector shrugged irritably.
“As you like.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to move,” Merlin told him rather faintly. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not feeling-” he never actually finished his sentence, throwing up a little more bile while Gaius stroked his back comfortingly through it.
Gerontius, however, was frowning, and he strode over to them, pulling the bowl out of Merlin’s hands and handing it unceremoniously to Gaius. “Stand up, boy,” he told him irritably, yanking Merlin to his feet. Miserably, Merlin threw up on the man’s robes. “You stupid-”
“Get out.” The voice actually came from behind them, and Merlin wasn’t the only one to snap his head up to see who had said it. Arthur stood framed in the doorway, one hand on his sword, eyes snapping angrily. Merlin reflected, distractedly, that Arthur certainly knew how to make an entrance.
“Your Highness,” Hector’s tone was very different now. “You must see that-”
“I’ve seen - and heard - quite enough, thank you.” Arthur’s voice was very cold, and Merlin thought, rather absently, that he had never seen the other man sound so intimidating. “Rest assured I will be telling my father just how lacking your care has been. In the meantime, I, as Prince of Camelot, am telling you to get the hell out.”
Gerontius drew himself up to his full, unimpressive height, somehow aiming to look intimidating with vomit on his clothes. “Your Highness, we make allowance for your youth, but this is a farce…”
“It will be less of a farce when Merlin is delivered of a healthy heir to Albion. Now will you get out, or do I have to make you?” Arthur kept his voice level, but his eyes were cool and angry.
“He has bewitched you!” Hector spat.
“He was bewitched protecting the Pendragon throne,” Arthur corrected firmly. “And I’d thank you to remember it. And,” he lowered his voice a little, a threat implicit in every word, “I would be very careful about using such words as ‘bewitched’ around Camelot. Now, I swear to God, either you leave or even your own skills won’t be sufficient to save your lives.”
In a flurry of angry robes, the two physicians withdrew, black expressions promising very little chance of reconciliation.
For a moment, the three of them stood in silence, until Merlin, now reunited with his bowl, coughed, and looked up at Arthur. “Drama queen,” he said weakly, and Arthur managed a smile.
“You’re the one who’s going to be a Queen, Merlin, not me,” he said, and though he sounded off-hand, his eyes were worried. “And what happened to ‘I can deal with it’?”
“To be fair,” Merlin wiped his mouth with the handkerchief Gaius handed him, and took a long drink of water, “I would have been able to, if I hadn’t been busy throwing up.”
Arthur nodded, looking a little concerned. “You’re sure that’s normal?” he asked, Gaius, carefully. Gaius simply nodded, and he frowned a little harder. “Is there nothing you can give him?”
“Some herbal teas may ease the nausea, but there’s nothing stronger that’s safe.” Gaius said, with a helpless shrug.
“Ah. Well, at least it’s only morning sickness!” Arthur tried for cheerfulness, but Gaius’ heavy sigh stopped him.
“I am afraid, your Highness, it can come on at any time. Merlin may react strongly to certain kinds of food and certain smells, and while it may disappear around the fourth or fifth month, it could continue for the entire pregnancy.”
“Fits.” Merlin rasped. “Not only am I having a darn baby, I’m also being punished for it by my own body.”
“Think of it as the price you have to pay for our very own little bundle of joy,” Arthur told him amiably, and if Merlin hadn’t been otherwise engaged, Arthur would have found the contents of the bucket of vomit thrown all over him.
“Why can’t youpay this price?” he asked, wiping his mouth and taking deep breaths to try and fend off the nausea.
“This may not seem like particularly good news to you at the moment, Merlin,” Gaius’ voice was very gentle, “but you should be showing in a couple of weeks time, and your problems with physicians should be over.”
Merlin nodded tiredly. “Wonderful,” he agreed, rather half-heartedly.
Just as long as the King had continued to ignore him, Merlin had felt he could just about handle things; he was secretly dreading the moment this baby decided to make its existence known and he would be an acknowledged member of the royal party.
“It will at least make things a little easier practically,” Arthur said quietly. “But it will make things more difficult in other ways. Look at it from my point of view, I’ll actually have to be seen with you in public.”
“Oh, shut up,” Merlin told him, hunched over his bucket. “I’m suffering through this because of you, you might at least be nice to me.” But Arthur’s casual teasing did actually make him feel a little better.
“You’d worry if I was,” Arthur assured him breezily.
“And that tells you nothing very positive about yourself,” Merlin returned, managing a wan smile.
“If I might interrupt?” Gaius said pointedly, leaving them with no illusions as to whether or not he was going to. “Now we can be relatively certain that Merlin is indeed expecting-”
“And here I thought we were about the only three in Albion who weren’t in any doubt.” Merlin muttered, but was ignored.
“Have you started to think about the baby itself? Names, and so on?”
Merlin and Arthur exchanged a glance and fell silent. Neither of them were in any way ready for that.
Part Six
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: mpreg as a major plotpoint, unabashed fluff, and Gaius' Inappropriate Touching(TM). It's not that inapprorpiate, really. But this fandom has made it so every time he touches ANYONE, I think it. *sigh*
Summary: Uther warns Arthur about his dalliance with his servant, and reminds him that Camelot will need an heir. Well, it looks like that's not a problem any more...
AN:Sorry for the delay in this part! It doesn't really go anywhere, and there are a couple of vaguely unpleasant OCs, but I hope people will enjoy anyway! And thanks, as always, to everyone who's commented. ^_^
**
Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four
**
Merlin woke up early the next morning, due mostly to the fact that whatever Arthur might be during the day, he was a snuggler at night - he had wrapped himself round Merlin completely. When Merlin so much as shifted to one side, Arthur shifted with him, wrapping the arm at his waist more securely round him, and Merlin sighed before poking the other boy awake.
He had already known that Arthur was no morning person, and it was currently so early that it was still dark outside; the bleary, accusing blue eye which met his came as no surprise. “You’re on top of me,” he told him simply, and Arthur shrugged, burying his head back into the pillow. Apparently, it was too early even for Arthur’s princely arrogance to make an appearance. “No, see, when I said that, what I meant was ‘get off me’,” Merlin told him helpfully.
Arthur half-compromised by disentangling his legs from Merlin’s and shifting a little away from him. The arm stayed firmly wrapped round him, and Merlin sighed again, but admitted that was probably as good as it was going to get.
They lay in the early half-darkness for about ten minutes before Arthur finally spoke up. “So you don’t like your physicians?”
Merlin paused before answering, trying to work out where that question had come from, before remembering their conversation of the previous day and deciding that a nod would do for the moment. His head was still resting on Arthur’s shoulder after all, so the other man would know he responded.
“Why not?”
He considered his answers to that. ‘They don’t like me’ sounded childish, whilst ‘they’re not Gaius’ would be even worse. “Your father employed them to make sure I’m not lying,” he said finally. “And I’m sure they’ll be great when they find out I’m not, but until then... they don’t believe me, they don’t like me, and they’re a bit - obvious about it. I guess.” He waved as much of a hand as he could get free from the bed clothes. “I was being stupid when I told you that, ignore it.”
“No.” Arthur’s voice was mulish, and Merlin winced a little. Arthur had the bit between his teeth now, and there was no way he was going to let this drop. “This is enough of an ordeal for you - for both of us - without other people making it even worse. I’ll talk to them.”
“You do know that that’ll make them very polite while you’re around and even worse when you’re not, right?” Merlin asked, genuinely curious. He had no way of knowing whether Arthur had ever experienced a situation like that.
“What?”
Apparently not. “They’re not going to like being told where to get off,” he explained patiently. “So they’ll just be vile where no one can see them.”
“Then if they are, tell me,” Arthur said slowly and carefully, as if to a very small child.
Merlin frowned. “I can deal with it myself.”
“Oh, so that’s why you decided to complain about it to me. Because you don’t need my help.”
“No, I just needed someone to - talk to,” Merlin returned, stung.
“Right.” Arthur’s voice was heavy with scepticism. “Of course.”
“This may be a foreign concept to you, your Highness, but not everyone expects you to do things for them all the time,” Merlin told him firmly, tone only half-amused. “I can manage.”
“I know you can,” Arthur said, managing to turn what should have been a nice moment into something half a step away from an insult, “I’m just saying you shouldn’t have to.”
Merlin considered this answer for a moment or two, then decided that this was probably something he should nip in the bud. If they ever did end up married - and that was looking less and less likely by the hour - he didn’t want Arthur to be trying to fix all of his problems as well as running the kingdom. “I want to deal with it in my own way,” he said slowly, and Arthur frowned, confused. Merlin shifted away, rolling onto his side so he could look the other man in the eye. “This is my problem,” he explained, “and I don’t want anyone else dealing with it. I needed to talk it through with you because I was angry, not because I wanted you to come sweeping in to save me like I’m one of your maidens in distress.”
“You said it, not me,” Arthur returned, but the jibe was half-hearted at best. He really did seem to be thinking it through.
“Yes, thank you,” Merlin said sarcastically, rolling back onto his back. Arthur’s arm was back round his waist in seconds. “Look, let me deal with it, OK? But - back me up when I do.”
Arthur was still frowning, Merlin could tell, but he nodded anyway. “You’re sure I can’t do anything?” he asked, and Merlin grinned to himself. Arthur needed to be doing things for people - it was really the only way he knew to show affection; and he had just agreed to something fairly major in their new, odd relationship. Positive reinforcement couldn’t be a bad thing.
“You could occasionally drop by when they’re in my rooms? And look very intimidating?”
Arthur laughed low in his throat. “If you’re sure that’s all I can do…”
“I’m certain. But I’ll tell you if they’re still being difficult,” he offered by way of a compromise, and Arthur nodded.
“Deal.”
They lay in silence for a few minutes, until Arthur sighed. “I should probably get up.”
“Me too.”
Another few long, lazy minutes of silence, until Arthur broke it again “We’ve, er - we’ve barely - you know - since all this started.”
Merlin sighed. “We’re not back to ‘you know’-ing, are we?” Arthur’s arm tightened around him in fake-punishment, but he just shrugged. “Fine then, what have we barely done since all this star- oh.” He knew exactly what they hadn’t done since this started.
“Yes, ‘oh’,” Arthur agreed. “We used to the whole time.”
“It was a little different then!” Merlin pointed out. “I was in your rooms the whole time, for one thing, there were more opportunities.” If he sounded a little wistful at that, neither of them commented on it. “And it was that that got us in this situation in the first place.”
“It’s not so bad, is it?” Arthur asked diffidently, and Merlin sighed heavily.
“It won’t be, when everything settles down,” he conceded, and though he could tell from the way Arthur’s breathing changed a little that while the answer didn’t completely satisfy his - what? Fiancé? Lover? - he was willing to leave it for the moment.
“Well, so long as the poor child doesn’t end up with your brains-”
“Or your charming personality.” Merlin sniped back.
“Everything should be fine,” Arthur continued as though he hadn’t heard Merlin’s input. He favoured the darker boy with a wide smile, but Merlin just raised an eyebrow at him. “The baby might even be quite sweet.”
“It might,” he packed as much scepticism as he could into those two words, “But let’s make sure this whole thing isn’t the result of Gaius inhaling too many fumes before we start planning the nursery.” His tone was a little harsher than he’d intended, due mostly to nerves and confusion, and uncertainty as to whether or not he even really wanted this baby at all. But none of that was worth seeing Arthur’s face fall quite as fast as it did.
“I need to get up.” The Prince said, tersely, and threw the bed-covers off. “My manservant will be wondering where I am if I stay here any longer.”
“Arthur-” Merlin began, and Arthur turned back to him, his face rather set.
“Yes?”
Merlin really couldn’t think of anything to say to make things better, and let the hand he’d started to reach out to Arthur drop back onto the bed-clothes. “I, um… would it be alright if I spent tonight in your rooms? Mine get - cold - sometimes, too.”
Arthur’s expression softened, and he nodded. “I suppose it would be acceptable - but none of this hugging, cuddling nonsense you’re so into. I could hardly move when I woke this morning.”
Merlin gave him a look which let him know that Merlin knew exactly what he was up to. “Oh, please,” he said simply. “I’m sure your manliness can take it.”
“You’re the one who’s having a baby, Merlin. Out of the two of us, I’d say you’re the one who should be most worried about his manliness.”
Merlin went to reply, when he caught the glint in Arthur’s eye and subsided with a reluctant grin. “Oh, get out,” he said fondly. “I’ll see you later.”
“Good to know. You, er - you be careful, alright? And I’ll see you sometime mid-morning.”
Merlin nodded rather wryly. “Oh, yes. Because you scheduled that time into our timetables.”
Arthur on his way out, gave him a Look. “I really don’t understand why that’s such a big deal to you,” he said simply, and left before Merlin could reply.
Merlin shook his head, smiled, and started dressing, a definite sense of purpose to his movements. He had some physicians to talk to.
**
As usual, the two physicians Uther had employed to ‘watch over him’ arrived in his chambers at nine o’clock, an hour or so after Arthur had left, and just before Merlin’s first ‘lesson’ of the morning with the court archivist on royal and noble bloodlines. Ostensibly, they were there to check him over, to be certain that nothing had happened to the ‘little heir’. In reality, Merlin was absolutely certain they were checking there was no real sign of the baby, and patted themselves on the back every time he looked like a perfectly normal male.
As soon as this baby made its presence visible, Merlin was insisting that both of them were sacked. Best in the land they might be, but they combined that merit by being the most patronising and irritating, as well.
Unfortunately, despite all his best intentions, that morning had seen the return of the nausea which had prompted this whole nightmare, and Merlin could do little more than retch miserably into a bowl as they entered. He had managed to send a message to Gaius before they arrived, and the old man was there with him, one hand on his shoulder, the other holding a cup of water for the few moments when Merlin didn’t seem to be trying to throw up a couple of internal organs.
“Gentlemen,” Gaius nodded at them, his expression very stiff, voice cold. “As you can see, Merlin isn’t in any shape to be examined this morning. Might I suggest you come back tomorrow?”
The more voluble of the two, a stout man of fifty called Gerontius, smiled patronisingly at him. “We can only treat a patient whose illness we have diagnosed, Gaius,” he said kindly, and Gaius drew himself up a little further.
“His ‘illness’ will be completely cured in several months time, and in the meantime, I would have expected such honoured physicians as yourselves to remember that morning sickness is not wisely treated,” he told him, his voice sharp as a knife.
“We have yet to be certain that this is morning sickness,” Gerontius’ expression was just a little less warm, his tone just a little harder. “I know you’re close to the boy, but really Gaius, this is-”
Merlin took advantage of a lapse in his retching to look up at them through his hair. “Have you ever thought,” he said, his voice scratchy, “That I might actually be telling the truth?”
Gerontius gave him a look of such avid dislike, Merlin itched to do something nasty and magical to him. “Not likely, though, is it?” he asked tersely. “I accept you may have been drugged, you’re obviously deluded-”
“I’m pregnant,” Merlin said baldly, “and in a few months time, I’m going to be married to Prince Arthur, god help me.” Out of some misplaced sense of loyalty, he did mutter that last part. “I’d start worrying about what will happen to you, not to me, if you continue to be this bloody difficult.” Some of the impact was taken out of his speech by the fact that he ended it with a particularly impressive bout of retching.
Gaius stroked a soothing hand down his spine, and handed him the cup of water. “You don’t seem to be helping here, gentlemen, I’d be grateful if you’d le-”
“Gaius, we respect your expertise,” the other physician, Hector, spoke up, a tall, thin, supercilious man, who constantly gave the impression that he only touched Merlin under duress, “but we have been assigned to your charge until the King dismisses us, and we are required to check him. If he is ill-”
“He has morning sickness!” Gaius snapped at them.
“Then you can have no objection to us checking him over,” Hector pointed out silkily. “Come over here, Merylin.”
“Merlin.” He muttered, and Hector shrugged irritably.
“As you like.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to move,” Merlin told him rather faintly. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not feeling-” he never actually finished his sentence, throwing up a little more bile while Gaius stroked his back comfortingly through it.
Gerontius, however, was frowning, and he strode over to them, pulling the bowl out of Merlin’s hands and handing it unceremoniously to Gaius. “Stand up, boy,” he told him irritably, yanking Merlin to his feet. Miserably, Merlin threw up on the man’s robes. “You stupid-”
“Get out.” The voice actually came from behind them, and Merlin wasn’t the only one to snap his head up to see who had said it. Arthur stood framed in the doorway, one hand on his sword, eyes snapping angrily. Merlin reflected, distractedly, that Arthur certainly knew how to make an entrance.
“Your Highness,” Hector’s tone was very different now. “You must see that-”
“I’ve seen - and heard - quite enough, thank you.” Arthur’s voice was very cold, and Merlin thought, rather absently, that he had never seen the other man sound so intimidating. “Rest assured I will be telling my father just how lacking your care has been. In the meantime, I, as Prince of Camelot, am telling you to get the hell out.”
Gerontius drew himself up to his full, unimpressive height, somehow aiming to look intimidating with vomit on his clothes. “Your Highness, we make allowance for your youth, but this is a farce…”
“It will be less of a farce when Merlin is delivered of a healthy heir to Albion. Now will you get out, or do I have to make you?” Arthur kept his voice level, but his eyes were cool and angry.
“He has bewitched you!” Hector spat.
“He was bewitched protecting the Pendragon throne,” Arthur corrected firmly. “And I’d thank you to remember it. And,” he lowered his voice a little, a threat implicit in every word, “I would be very careful about using such words as ‘bewitched’ around Camelot. Now, I swear to God, either you leave or even your own skills won’t be sufficient to save your lives.”
In a flurry of angry robes, the two physicians withdrew, black expressions promising very little chance of reconciliation.
For a moment, the three of them stood in silence, until Merlin, now reunited with his bowl, coughed, and looked up at Arthur. “Drama queen,” he said weakly, and Arthur managed a smile.
“You’re the one who’s going to be a Queen, Merlin, not me,” he said, and though he sounded off-hand, his eyes were worried. “And what happened to ‘I can deal with it’?”
“To be fair,” Merlin wiped his mouth with the handkerchief Gaius handed him, and took a long drink of water, “I would have been able to, if I hadn’t been busy throwing up.”
Arthur nodded, looking a little concerned. “You’re sure that’s normal?” he asked, Gaius, carefully. Gaius simply nodded, and he frowned a little harder. “Is there nothing you can give him?”
“Some herbal teas may ease the nausea, but there’s nothing stronger that’s safe.” Gaius said, with a helpless shrug.
“Ah. Well, at least it’s only morning sickness!” Arthur tried for cheerfulness, but Gaius’ heavy sigh stopped him.
“I am afraid, your Highness, it can come on at any time. Merlin may react strongly to certain kinds of food and certain smells, and while it may disappear around the fourth or fifth month, it could continue for the entire pregnancy.”
“Fits.” Merlin rasped. “Not only am I having a darn baby, I’m also being punished for it by my own body.”
“Think of it as the price you have to pay for our very own little bundle of joy,” Arthur told him amiably, and if Merlin hadn’t been otherwise engaged, Arthur would have found the contents of the bucket of vomit thrown all over him.
“Why can’t youpay this price?” he asked, wiping his mouth and taking deep breaths to try and fend off the nausea.
“This may not seem like particularly good news to you at the moment, Merlin,” Gaius’ voice was very gentle, “but you should be showing in a couple of weeks time, and your problems with physicians should be over.”
Merlin nodded tiredly. “Wonderful,” he agreed, rather half-heartedly.
Just as long as the King had continued to ignore him, Merlin had felt he could just about handle things; he was secretly dreading the moment this baby decided to make its existence known and he would be an acknowledged member of the royal party.
“It will at least make things a little easier practically,” Arthur said quietly. “But it will make things more difficult in other ways. Look at it from my point of view, I’ll actually have to be seen with you in public.”
“Oh, shut up,” Merlin told him, hunched over his bucket. “I’m suffering through this because of you, you might at least be nice to me.” But Arthur’s casual teasing did actually make him feel a little better.
“You’d worry if I was,” Arthur assured him breezily.
“And that tells you nothing very positive about yourself,” Merlin returned, managing a wan smile.
“If I might interrupt?” Gaius said pointedly, leaving them with no illusions as to whether or not he was going to. “Now we can be relatively certain that Merlin is indeed expecting-”
“And here I thought we were about the only three in Albion who weren’t in any doubt.” Merlin muttered, but was ignored.
“Have you started to think about the baby itself? Names, and so on?”
Merlin and Arthur exchanged a glance and fell silent. Neither of them were in any way ready for that.
Part Six