Fic: Merlin: Patience (pre-slash: Merlin/Arthur)
Title: Patience
Rating: PG
Warning: character death (neither Merlin nor Arthur)
Word Count: 2799
Disclaimer: Merlin is not mine, and I'm not making any profit from this whatsoever.
Summary: In the aftermath of the events of The Last Dragonlord, Merlin asks to go back to Ealdor, to break the news of Balinor's death to his mother. Arthur is left wondering what on earth is going on n Merlin's mind, and how he can get to the bottom of the mystery.
AN: Written for helva2260, who gave me a variety of lovely prompts to choose from. I went with: "Merlin thinks his mother should hear the news of Balinor's death from him directly, and asks Arthur's permission to visit Ealdor." I hope this is something like what you were hoping for!
Sidenote: I am offering three fics of 1000+ words to the three highest bidders here at help_japan.
**
When Merlin requested leave to go back to Ealdor for a few days, Arthur had been thrown. Whilst Merlin clearly doted on his mother, he’d never shown any inclination to go back to Ealdor, even after she had apparently appeared in Camelot terribly ill, just as Arthur himself had been recovering from his wound.
Unfortunately, the very fact that Merlin never asked for leave meant Arthur had barely any grounds to refuse it.
“You’re a terrible manservant,” he said, as he had said so many times before, attempting to adjust quickly to the sudden request. “And if you come back from this worse than you were before, I will never give you leave every again, do you understand me?”
The pseudo-insult failed to raise a smile, as did the implicitly granted permission to visit his mother. Merlin’s only response was a curt nod and a half-bow, and now Arthur thought about it, he couldn’t remember seeing Merlin’s ridiculous grin for a fair while. Arthur put his cup down carefully, stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed his arms.
“So, tell me, Merlin,” Merlin glanced up at him. “Why the sudden enthusiasm to visit your mother?”
“I haven’t seen her in a long time,” Merlin said simply, and Arthur shrugged.
“I wasn’t aware you missed her so much.”
“She’s my mother,” Merlin said. “She’s all I have.” There was a strange twist to his words, but Arthur couldn’t decipher it. “Have you finished eating, sire?”
“Yes, take it away,” he said, with a careless wave. “When do you expect you’ll be back?”
“If I leave tonight, I should be back within a week. It’s not too far to walk.”
“Walk? No, you’ll go on horseback, Merlin, it’s barely two days ride. Even if you are a terrible rider, it’s better than walking.” He floundered for a minute, wondering how to cover up something which could be construed as ‘care’. “And anyway, I can’t spare you for a week.” Arthur tried very hard not to think how true that was.
An admission which would normally have been met with a grin and some vacuous, teasing comment was now received with nothing more than another of those tiny bows that Arthur was beginning to hate. “Yes, sire.”
“Gods, man, what’s wrong with you?” Arthur burst out. He had never had much patience, and he was getting increasingly irritated with Merlin’s hang-dog attitude. “The dragon is vanquished, Camelot is safe, and you’ve just got yourself a holiday, what is wrong?!”
For a moment, the expression on Merlin’s face was utterly terrible, loss and sorrow and pain rolled up into one, but he covered it by leaning forward to collect Arthur’s used plates. When he straightened up again, his face was blank. “Nothing’s wrong, sire. I’m a little tired, that’s all.”
“Oh, I see,” Arthur said, a distinct bite of sarcasm to the words. “You’re tired. That’s it, is it?”
“Yes, that’s it,” Merlin agreed, refusing to respond to the sarcasm.
“Merlin, I think you’re forgetting something.” Merlin barely glanced at him, so Arthur continued, his words more biting still. “When you are as tired as you claim to be, you moan and complain and make an utter nuisance of yourself. I have never, in all your time at Camelot, seen you keep quiet about anything, especially when you are tired.”
When Merlin replied - and there was a long moment of silence during which Arthur thought he wasn’t going to - his voice was perfectly respectful. “Then maybe I’m growing up. I’m told it happens.” The Merlin of a few days ago would have made that a dig at Arthur, and Arthur, to his surprise, found that he missed that. “Will that be all, sire?”
“Yes,” Arthur nodded. “You can go.” Merlin bowed, and gathered up the plates. “And Merlin - try to stay safe. The roads are dangerous these days.”
Again, no answering smile. Merlin bowed again and left the room.
Arthur pulled some reports towards him and tried to concentrate on them, but found his attention kept slipping back to Merlin. What could he possibly be hiding? If something had been wrong with Hunith, Merlin would have told him, Arthur was sure, and if someone in the castle was being unkind to him, he would have told Arthur that, too - surely he would have done.
Arthur leant back again, suddenly unsure. Would Merlin have told him? Was it possible that Merlin had been being bullied right under his nose, and Arthur hadn’t noticed anything at all? Arthur had been aware something had changed between them, a little of the easy camaraderie lost over the Cedric incident and never quite rebuilt, but he wouldn’t have thought that it would have gone anything like that far.
This was driving him insane, and Arthur’s patience broke. He was going to get to the bottom of it if he had to ask everyone in Camelot what the hell was going on with his manservant.
**
He started the next morning with Gwen, when she brought him his breakfast instead of Merlin.
“Merlin asked Acheron to fill in for him,” she told him, laying out the food. “I think you’ll like him, he’s a good man.”
“Not like Cedric, then,” Arthur muttered, half to himself. Cedric had been weighing on his mind since the night before.
“Um, no, sire,” Gwen said, a little awkwardly. “Can I do anything more for you?”
“Yes,” Arthur said, suddenly, unwilling to let the opportunity go by. He kicked out the chair opposite him. “Do please, have a seat.” Gwen perched uncomfortably on the edge of the chair and eyed him nervously. “Have you noticed anything strange about Merlin recently?”
“Strange, sire?”
“Yes,” Arthur kept the impatience in his voice to a minimum. “Strange. Well, more strange than usual. He’s seemed - withdrawn. Since the incident with the dragon.”
“I suppose he has been a little down,” Gwen agreed quickly. “But he’s probably tired.”
Tired, again. Why did no one realise that Arthur knew Merlin better than that? He certainly knew how Merlin acted when he was tired. “I don’t work him that hard,” he said dryly, and sighed as Gwen flustered over her unintentional implication. “He didn’t mention anything to you?”
“No,” Gwen said, getting over her consternation as quickly as she could. “But - maybe Gaius would know?”
“Of course,” Arthur nodded. “Thank you, Guinevere.”
She stood and bobbed a quick curtsey. “Of course, sire. Um, Acheron will be up later, I’m sure.”
“Yes, thank you.” He waved her absently away, quite forgetting in the puzzle of Merlin that he was supposed to be in love with her.
**
As soon as his morning duties were done, he stopped by Gaius’ rooms, which Merlin would long have vacated by now. Gaius was bent over a book, and didn’t appear to hear him come in - they were going to have to find someone who could help him full-time soon - and Arthur coughed loudly to get his attention.
“Prince Arthur!” Gaius straightened up rather stiffly and bowed. “To what do I owe the honour...?”
“To Merlin, Gaius,” Arthur said shortly.
“Merlin is-”
“I am aware that he’s not here,” he said, keeping the sarcasm out of his tone in deference to Gaius’ age, and the way he used to look after him when Arthur was a child.
“Then what can I do for you, sire?”
Arthur decided not to go down the ‘have-you-noticed’ route this time. “Merlin has been acting strangely ever since we got back from - well, from the trip to find the dragonlord,” he said. “I was hoping you could tell me why.”
For a moment, Gaius looked older than he really was, but eventually he sighed. “Merlin is not as used to trekking through the woods as you are, sire, perhaps he was-”
“Please, Gaius,” Arthur interrupted him. “Don’t try and tell me he was tired.”
Gaius eyed him. “Sometimes these things build up,” he said slowly. “Merlin has had a great deal to do in recent weeks, between working for you and running errands for me - it may have all - hit him at once, as it were.”
A horrible thought occurred to Arthur. “He will be coming back from Ealdor, though?” he asked, then cursed himself for sounding so needy.
“I’m sure he will, your Highness,” Gaius said, his demeanour thawing just a little.
“Have you no idea why Merlin might have been-”
“Yes, your Highness,” Gaius said heavily. “I am aware. But,” he carried one when Arthur opened his mouth to ask, “I am sure you would not wish me to betray something told me in confidence. Your best option is to ask Merlin and wait until he is ready to tell you.”
It was sound advice, Arthur knew, for all he hated waiting. “Thank you, Gaius,” he nodded, and turned away.
**
Arthur had issued Gaius with a standing order to send Merlin to him the minute he arrived back in Camelot, safe in the knowledge that whilst Gaius might allow Merlin a little while to recover from his journey, he would never flout the Crown Prince’s orders too much. The result was that Arthur knew of Merlin’s return and was able to prepare a little before Merlin actually appeared in his rooms.
It was dark outside, and even in the forgiving candlelight, Merlin did not look well. He looked wrung out, more than should really be caused by a couple of days’ riding, even for so poor a horseman as Merlin; his skin was waxy and his eyes heavy-lidded, bruised with tiredness.
“You look terrible,” Arthur said bluntly, gesturing him to a chair.
Thankfully, Merlin didn’t try and bow. His lips actually twitched into a tiny, short-lived smile before he answered, and Arthur was shocked to find he was genuinely pleased. “Thank you, sire,” Merlin said simply, the barest trace of sarcasm in his voice. It was still progress from the automaton Merlin had been before he left. Clearly, whatever he had needed, he had found it in Ealdor - at least in part. The thought stung a little more than it really should have done. “Was there anything you wanted me for in particular?”
Arthur paused a little, trying not to let his mind dwell on Merlin’s phrasing. “I think we need to talk,” he said, moving directly to the point.
“Oh?” Merlin looked suddenly wary.
“Yes,” Arthur said firmly, but since he wanted Merlin to relax, at least a little, he attempted to soften his approach. “You really do look awful, would you like anything to eat? I’m sure I can find something for you-”
“I’m fine, Arthur,” Merlin said, and Arthur hadn’t realised until that moment how long it had been since Merlin had called him by his given name, and how much he had missed it. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”
Arthur took a moment to gather his thoughts and nodded. “Yes. You’ve seemed - off. For a while now.”
“Have I, sire?” Merlin asked, a little of the blankness Arthur recognised too well returning to his expression.
He wanted to ask Merlin not to do that, not to block him out to such an extent, but he had no idea how to do that without showing rather more than he wanted to. Instead, he nodded awkwardly. “You have. And I was wondering - I mean, you shouldn’t take this for an indication that I care, of course-”
“Of course,” Merlin agreed, but it was said with that same tiny smile, which heartened Arthur ridiculously.
“-but I was wondering whether - there was anything I could do. To help.”
Merlin looked at him for a long moment, and not for the first time Arthur wondered whether there was more to his idiot manservant than met the eye. “There isn’t anything you can do to help,” he said, after the silence had dragged on just a hair’s breadth too long. Arthur let out a long breath, but before he had to question further, Merlin continued. “My - my father died.”
Arthur caught his breath without quite meaning to. He would never have said he was close to his father, but the thought of him dying was strangely alien. “Merlin - I’m-”
“‘So sorry’?” Merlin asked dully.
“Yes,” Arthur said simply. “I had no idea. And - I’m sorry, I’d assumed that he was already dead.”
“My parents weren’t married,” Merlin said, as though he wasn’t admitting something faintly scandalous. Apparently having confessed one thing, Merlin was determined to tell Arthur everything. “I always knew they weren’t. The people in the village sometimes treated us differently, when they could afford to-”
“What do you mean?” Arthur asked, already wondering how he could get them retroactively punished.
“It’s a small village,” Merlin shrugged a little. “Morals are often sacrificed to necessity.”
“I see,” Arthur said. “So, your father...?”
A look of pain flickered over Merlin’s face and was gone in an instant. “They weren’t married, but I knew he was - alive. Around, somewhere. He was a recluse,” he said slowly, and Arthur got the impression he was editing the story as he went. “I only really knew of him. He died just when it seemed that I might - that we - he died.” There was a horrible finality to Merlin’s voice. “My mother loved him, and I thought she should be told. I mean, I thought I should tell her.”
Arthur was often surprised by Merlin’s character, and this was one such time. “That was good of you,” he said, a little helplessly.
“She’s my mother,” Merlin said simply. “And she’s all I have, and all I’ve ever had. She deserved to know.”
Arthur couldn’t think of any response to that. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I wish I had known.”
“Now you do,” Merlin said, the dull note back in his voice. “Was there anything else, sire?”
Arthur leant across the table, and covered Merlin’s hand with his own, a sudden gesture which surprised even him. When Merlin glanced up at him, he managed a smile which he hoped was reassuring. “Merlin, I am sorry for your loss,” he said formally, “and I wish I had known earlier. Since I didn’t-”
“Arthur, it’s alright,” Merlin said, but something about his posture or his manner had relaxed, and he was a little more the cheerful idiot Arthur knew and had come to like so much, to value so much. “I couldn’t have expected you to know when I - was hardly ready to tell anyone. Other than Gaius, who might as well have been another father to me.”
Arthur nodded. “If you should need it,” he said, more than a little awkwardly; this was not a situation anyone had ever prepared the Crown Prince for, “I am here. For whatever it is. That - you might need.”
He knew he’d sounded like as much of an idiot as he accused Merlin of being, but Merlin’s response was to smile, almost as widely as Arthur remembered him doing. “Thank you, sire,” he said simply.
“Arthur,” he said quickly, before he could regret it or second-guess himself. “It’s ‘Arthur’, Merlin. Anyone would think you couldn’t remember it, I can’t have that.”
“No, I suppose not,” Merlin agreed, entering into the joke for the first time in what felt like far too long. “Thank you, then, Arthur.”
“I don’t want you to think you can abuse this privilege, though,” Arthur said grandly, and sat back when he realised that his hand was still covering Merlin’s, the gesture becoming more intimate the longer it dragged on.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Arthur,” Merlin said, a hint of mischief in his tone, and Arthur waved him away.
“Oh, get out,” he said easily. “Go and sleep and eat and be back here tomorrow morning. I have training at nine.” Merlin bowed to him with a smile. Somehow, this bow didn’t seem so out-of-place as those Merlin had kept giving him before he went away, and Arthur thought, to his horror, that it was probably the faint hint of mockery that he’d been missing. Merlin left quietly, with one last backwards smile, leaving Arthur once more alone with his thoughts. Whilst he couldn’t say he was pleased to have solved the mystery - not given how much Merlin clearly felt the loss of his father, however absent the man might have been - he was at least relieved to know something concrete, some information to work with. There were surely ways to help Merlin through this.
At some point, he was bound to consider why he had been at such pains to find out what was troubling Merlin, and he was bound, at some point, to realise that Merlin quite probably meant more to him than any other person he knew.
But those realisations can, perhaps, wait a little longer.
**
FIN
Rating: PG
Warning: character death (neither Merlin nor Arthur)
Word Count: 2799
Disclaimer: Merlin is not mine, and I'm not making any profit from this whatsoever.
Summary: In the aftermath of the events of The Last Dragonlord, Merlin asks to go back to Ealdor, to break the news of Balinor's death to his mother. Arthur is left wondering what on earth is going on n Merlin's mind, and how he can get to the bottom of the mystery.
AN: Written for helva2260, who gave me a variety of lovely prompts to choose from. I went with: "Merlin thinks his mother should hear the news of Balinor's death from him directly, and asks Arthur's permission to visit Ealdor." I hope this is something like what you were hoping for!
Sidenote: I am offering three fics of 1000+ words to the three highest bidders here at help_japan.
**
When Merlin requested leave to go back to Ealdor for a few days, Arthur had been thrown. Whilst Merlin clearly doted on his mother, he’d never shown any inclination to go back to Ealdor, even after she had apparently appeared in Camelot terribly ill, just as Arthur himself had been recovering from his wound.
Unfortunately, the very fact that Merlin never asked for leave meant Arthur had barely any grounds to refuse it.
“You’re a terrible manservant,” he said, as he had said so many times before, attempting to adjust quickly to the sudden request. “And if you come back from this worse than you were before, I will never give you leave every again, do you understand me?”
The pseudo-insult failed to raise a smile, as did the implicitly granted permission to visit his mother. Merlin’s only response was a curt nod and a half-bow, and now Arthur thought about it, he couldn’t remember seeing Merlin’s ridiculous grin for a fair while. Arthur put his cup down carefully, stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed his arms.
“So, tell me, Merlin,” Merlin glanced up at him. “Why the sudden enthusiasm to visit your mother?”
“I haven’t seen her in a long time,” Merlin said simply, and Arthur shrugged.
“I wasn’t aware you missed her so much.”
“She’s my mother,” Merlin said. “She’s all I have.” There was a strange twist to his words, but Arthur couldn’t decipher it. “Have you finished eating, sire?”
“Yes, take it away,” he said, with a careless wave. “When do you expect you’ll be back?”
“If I leave tonight, I should be back within a week. It’s not too far to walk.”
“Walk? No, you’ll go on horseback, Merlin, it’s barely two days ride. Even if you are a terrible rider, it’s better than walking.” He floundered for a minute, wondering how to cover up something which could be construed as ‘care’. “And anyway, I can’t spare you for a week.” Arthur tried very hard not to think how true that was.
An admission which would normally have been met with a grin and some vacuous, teasing comment was now received with nothing more than another of those tiny bows that Arthur was beginning to hate. “Yes, sire.”
“Gods, man, what’s wrong with you?” Arthur burst out. He had never had much patience, and he was getting increasingly irritated with Merlin’s hang-dog attitude. “The dragon is vanquished, Camelot is safe, and you’ve just got yourself a holiday, what is wrong?!”
For a moment, the expression on Merlin’s face was utterly terrible, loss and sorrow and pain rolled up into one, but he covered it by leaning forward to collect Arthur’s used plates. When he straightened up again, his face was blank. “Nothing’s wrong, sire. I’m a little tired, that’s all.”
“Oh, I see,” Arthur said, a distinct bite of sarcasm to the words. “You’re tired. That’s it, is it?”
“Yes, that’s it,” Merlin agreed, refusing to respond to the sarcasm.
“Merlin, I think you’re forgetting something.” Merlin barely glanced at him, so Arthur continued, his words more biting still. “When you are as tired as you claim to be, you moan and complain and make an utter nuisance of yourself. I have never, in all your time at Camelot, seen you keep quiet about anything, especially when you are tired.”
When Merlin replied - and there was a long moment of silence during which Arthur thought he wasn’t going to - his voice was perfectly respectful. “Then maybe I’m growing up. I’m told it happens.” The Merlin of a few days ago would have made that a dig at Arthur, and Arthur, to his surprise, found that he missed that. “Will that be all, sire?”
“Yes,” Arthur nodded. “You can go.” Merlin bowed, and gathered up the plates. “And Merlin - try to stay safe. The roads are dangerous these days.”
Again, no answering smile. Merlin bowed again and left the room.
Arthur pulled some reports towards him and tried to concentrate on them, but found his attention kept slipping back to Merlin. What could he possibly be hiding? If something had been wrong with Hunith, Merlin would have told him, Arthur was sure, and if someone in the castle was being unkind to him, he would have told Arthur that, too - surely he would have done.
Arthur leant back again, suddenly unsure. Would Merlin have told him? Was it possible that Merlin had been being bullied right under his nose, and Arthur hadn’t noticed anything at all? Arthur had been aware something had changed between them, a little of the easy camaraderie lost over the Cedric incident and never quite rebuilt, but he wouldn’t have thought that it would have gone anything like that far.
This was driving him insane, and Arthur’s patience broke. He was going to get to the bottom of it if he had to ask everyone in Camelot what the hell was going on with his manservant.
**
He started the next morning with Gwen, when she brought him his breakfast instead of Merlin.
“Merlin asked Acheron to fill in for him,” she told him, laying out the food. “I think you’ll like him, he’s a good man.”
“Not like Cedric, then,” Arthur muttered, half to himself. Cedric had been weighing on his mind since the night before.
“Um, no, sire,” Gwen said, a little awkwardly. “Can I do anything more for you?”
“Yes,” Arthur said, suddenly, unwilling to let the opportunity go by. He kicked out the chair opposite him. “Do please, have a seat.” Gwen perched uncomfortably on the edge of the chair and eyed him nervously. “Have you noticed anything strange about Merlin recently?”
“Strange, sire?”
“Yes,” Arthur kept the impatience in his voice to a minimum. “Strange. Well, more strange than usual. He’s seemed - withdrawn. Since the incident with the dragon.”
“I suppose he has been a little down,” Gwen agreed quickly. “But he’s probably tired.”
Tired, again. Why did no one realise that Arthur knew Merlin better than that? He certainly knew how Merlin acted when he was tired. “I don’t work him that hard,” he said dryly, and sighed as Gwen flustered over her unintentional implication. “He didn’t mention anything to you?”
“No,” Gwen said, getting over her consternation as quickly as she could. “But - maybe Gaius would know?”
“Of course,” Arthur nodded. “Thank you, Guinevere.”
She stood and bobbed a quick curtsey. “Of course, sire. Um, Acheron will be up later, I’m sure.”
“Yes, thank you.” He waved her absently away, quite forgetting in the puzzle of Merlin that he was supposed to be in love with her.
**
As soon as his morning duties were done, he stopped by Gaius’ rooms, which Merlin would long have vacated by now. Gaius was bent over a book, and didn’t appear to hear him come in - they were going to have to find someone who could help him full-time soon - and Arthur coughed loudly to get his attention.
“Prince Arthur!” Gaius straightened up rather stiffly and bowed. “To what do I owe the honour...?”
“To Merlin, Gaius,” Arthur said shortly.
“Merlin is-”
“I am aware that he’s not here,” he said, keeping the sarcasm out of his tone in deference to Gaius’ age, and the way he used to look after him when Arthur was a child.
“Then what can I do for you, sire?”
Arthur decided not to go down the ‘have-you-noticed’ route this time. “Merlin has been acting strangely ever since we got back from - well, from the trip to find the dragonlord,” he said. “I was hoping you could tell me why.”
For a moment, Gaius looked older than he really was, but eventually he sighed. “Merlin is not as used to trekking through the woods as you are, sire, perhaps he was-”
“Please, Gaius,” Arthur interrupted him. “Don’t try and tell me he was tired.”
Gaius eyed him. “Sometimes these things build up,” he said slowly. “Merlin has had a great deal to do in recent weeks, between working for you and running errands for me - it may have all - hit him at once, as it were.”
A horrible thought occurred to Arthur. “He will be coming back from Ealdor, though?” he asked, then cursed himself for sounding so needy.
“I’m sure he will, your Highness,” Gaius said, his demeanour thawing just a little.
“Have you no idea why Merlin might have been-”
“Yes, your Highness,” Gaius said heavily. “I am aware. But,” he carried one when Arthur opened his mouth to ask, “I am sure you would not wish me to betray something told me in confidence. Your best option is to ask Merlin and wait until he is ready to tell you.”
It was sound advice, Arthur knew, for all he hated waiting. “Thank you, Gaius,” he nodded, and turned away.
**
Arthur had issued Gaius with a standing order to send Merlin to him the minute he arrived back in Camelot, safe in the knowledge that whilst Gaius might allow Merlin a little while to recover from his journey, he would never flout the Crown Prince’s orders too much. The result was that Arthur knew of Merlin’s return and was able to prepare a little before Merlin actually appeared in his rooms.
It was dark outside, and even in the forgiving candlelight, Merlin did not look well. He looked wrung out, more than should really be caused by a couple of days’ riding, even for so poor a horseman as Merlin; his skin was waxy and his eyes heavy-lidded, bruised with tiredness.
“You look terrible,” Arthur said bluntly, gesturing him to a chair.
Thankfully, Merlin didn’t try and bow. His lips actually twitched into a tiny, short-lived smile before he answered, and Arthur was shocked to find he was genuinely pleased. “Thank you, sire,” Merlin said simply, the barest trace of sarcasm in his voice. It was still progress from the automaton Merlin had been before he left. Clearly, whatever he had needed, he had found it in Ealdor - at least in part. The thought stung a little more than it really should have done. “Was there anything you wanted me for in particular?”
Arthur paused a little, trying not to let his mind dwell on Merlin’s phrasing. “I think we need to talk,” he said, moving directly to the point.
“Oh?” Merlin looked suddenly wary.
“Yes,” Arthur said firmly, but since he wanted Merlin to relax, at least a little, he attempted to soften his approach. “You really do look awful, would you like anything to eat? I’m sure I can find something for you-”
“I’m fine, Arthur,” Merlin said, and Arthur hadn’t realised until that moment how long it had been since Merlin had called him by his given name, and how much he had missed it. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”
Arthur took a moment to gather his thoughts and nodded. “Yes. You’ve seemed - off. For a while now.”
“Have I, sire?” Merlin asked, a little of the blankness Arthur recognised too well returning to his expression.
He wanted to ask Merlin not to do that, not to block him out to such an extent, but he had no idea how to do that without showing rather more than he wanted to. Instead, he nodded awkwardly. “You have. And I was wondering - I mean, you shouldn’t take this for an indication that I care, of course-”
“Of course,” Merlin agreed, but it was said with that same tiny smile, which heartened Arthur ridiculously.
“-but I was wondering whether - there was anything I could do. To help.”
Merlin looked at him for a long moment, and not for the first time Arthur wondered whether there was more to his idiot manservant than met the eye. “There isn’t anything you can do to help,” he said, after the silence had dragged on just a hair’s breadth too long. Arthur let out a long breath, but before he had to question further, Merlin continued. “My - my father died.”
Arthur caught his breath without quite meaning to. He would never have said he was close to his father, but the thought of him dying was strangely alien. “Merlin - I’m-”
“‘So sorry’?” Merlin asked dully.
“Yes,” Arthur said simply. “I had no idea. And - I’m sorry, I’d assumed that he was already dead.”
“My parents weren’t married,” Merlin said, as though he wasn’t admitting something faintly scandalous. Apparently having confessed one thing, Merlin was determined to tell Arthur everything. “I always knew they weren’t. The people in the village sometimes treated us differently, when they could afford to-”
“What do you mean?” Arthur asked, already wondering how he could get them retroactively punished.
“It’s a small village,” Merlin shrugged a little. “Morals are often sacrificed to necessity.”
“I see,” Arthur said. “So, your father...?”
A look of pain flickered over Merlin’s face and was gone in an instant. “They weren’t married, but I knew he was - alive. Around, somewhere. He was a recluse,” he said slowly, and Arthur got the impression he was editing the story as he went. “I only really knew of him. He died just when it seemed that I might - that we - he died.” There was a horrible finality to Merlin’s voice. “My mother loved him, and I thought she should be told. I mean, I thought I should tell her.”
Arthur was often surprised by Merlin’s character, and this was one such time. “That was good of you,” he said, a little helplessly.
“She’s my mother,” Merlin said simply. “And she’s all I have, and all I’ve ever had. She deserved to know.”
Arthur couldn’t think of any response to that. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I wish I had known.”
“Now you do,” Merlin said, the dull note back in his voice. “Was there anything else, sire?”
Arthur leant across the table, and covered Merlin’s hand with his own, a sudden gesture which surprised even him. When Merlin glanced up at him, he managed a smile which he hoped was reassuring. “Merlin, I am sorry for your loss,” he said formally, “and I wish I had known earlier. Since I didn’t-”
“Arthur, it’s alright,” Merlin said, but something about his posture or his manner had relaxed, and he was a little more the cheerful idiot Arthur knew and had come to like so much, to value so much. “I couldn’t have expected you to know when I - was hardly ready to tell anyone. Other than Gaius, who might as well have been another father to me.”
Arthur nodded. “If you should need it,” he said, more than a little awkwardly; this was not a situation anyone had ever prepared the Crown Prince for, “I am here. For whatever it is. That - you might need.”
He knew he’d sounded like as much of an idiot as he accused Merlin of being, but Merlin’s response was to smile, almost as widely as Arthur remembered him doing. “Thank you, sire,” he said simply.
“Arthur,” he said quickly, before he could regret it or second-guess himself. “It’s ‘Arthur’, Merlin. Anyone would think you couldn’t remember it, I can’t have that.”
“No, I suppose not,” Merlin agreed, entering into the joke for the first time in what felt like far too long. “Thank you, then, Arthur.”
“I don’t want you to think you can abuse this privilege, though,” Arthur said grandly, and sat back when he realised that his hand was still covering Merlin’s, the gesture becoming more intimate the longer it dragged on.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Arthur,” Merlin said, a hint of mischief in his tone, and Arthur waved him away.
“Oh, get out,” he said easily. “Go and sleep and eat and be back here tomorrow morning. I have training at nine.” Merlin bowed to him with a smile. Somehow, this bow didn’t seem so out-of-place as those Merlin had kept giving him before he went away, and Arthur thought, to his horror, that it was probably the faint hint of mockery that he’d been missing. Merlin left quietly, with one last backwards smile, leaving Arthur once more alone with his thoughts. Whilst he couldn’t say he was pleased to have solved the mystery - not given how much Merlin clearly felt the loss of his father, however absent the man might have been - he was at least relieved to know something concrete, some information to work with. There were surely ways to help Merlin through this.
At some point, he was bound to consider why he had been at such pains to find out what was troubling Merlin, and he was bound, at some point, to realise that Merlin quite probably meant more to him than any other person he knew.
But those realisations can, perhaps, wait a little longer.
**
FIN