The Impersonated Self

by fourleggedfish

What if Arthur gave a different answer to the disir, but no one knew about it? No warnings, caveat lector.

1. Chapter 1

PROLOGUE: The Disir

"I would have you become the king you're destined to be."

Arthur leaned upright, gaze calculating. Even so, what he actually felt was more akin to curiosity. "If I do save Mordred, all my father's work will be for nothing. Sorcery will reign once more in Camelot." He watched Merlin, intent. "Is that what you'd want?"

Merlin seemed to be shaking, a subtle inability to hold still, and though he likely didn't realize it, his face – his eyes, fixed on Arthur – gave away so much. But he didn't speak.

"Perhaps my father was wrong." Arthur was willing to grant that – he'd said as much before, fought with him over his unyielding stance on magic, his paranoia about it, his lack of discernment or justice or mercy where it was concerned. This was nothing Merlin hadn't heard before, of course. But Arthur hadn't previously stared at him as he said it, trying to fathom out this…sorcerer. This man who stood by Arthur when by rights, Merlin should hate him like all the rest seemed to do. "Perhaps the old ways aren't as evil as we thought."

Across the fire, Merlin's breathing had picked up, but not in fear – not in anything so simple. He watched Arthur with the rims of his eyes reddened, a sheen over the irises. There was fear there, but more of other things – a terrible hope, and despair, and a perilous, treacherous want. And sadness. Because to counter that hope, something else seemed to seep in around the edges, and Arthur couldn't, for the life of him, parse it out just then, for all that Merlin's gaze never really wavered from his.

"So what should we do? Accept magic?"

Merlin was biting the inside of his cheek, agitated, and his nostrils flared as he exhaled through his nose, finally breaking eye contact for a moment. He was on the verge of tears, the giant petticoat. They weren't relieved or happy tears, though. That thing curling at the edges of the expression on his face seemed to be something else.

"Or let Mordred die?"

Merlin shook his head, sort of – it wasn't a very committed response, more a negation at being asked to choose at all. He looked down, still minutely shaking his head and holding back whatever it was he truly thought or wanted to say. The struggle fascinated Arthur, but in a terrible way. He looked at Merlin and saw a conflict that, to Arthur, was pointless. Surely the answer was obvious. Merlin was a sorcerer. Merlin was a good man. Magic had never been the problem – men were the problem. And a man's life was at stake. Merlin was not the sort of person to allow an innocent man to die for the sake of a principle – certainly not the same innocent man he'd saved once as a child.

Finally, some of the tension left Merlin's frame, and it was obvious that he'd come to a decision. He sank back a bit, more relaxed, and swallowed the vestiges of whatever emotion had left him in such turmoil. He took another moment to gather his thoughts though, words stuck behind downcast eyes, and then he leaned forward, swallowed several times. Nerves, likely. It had to be terrifying, Arthur thought, to keep a secret your whole life, one that could get you killed, and then one day just….tell it. To the very king who may kill you for it. Arthur nodded to encourage him. There was no better moment; the time for secrets had to be over.

"There can be no place for magic in Camelot."

Arthur didn't react at first. He'd heard the words, and the way Merlin forced the first half of them, but he couldn't quite believe it. He watched Merlin give those tiny head shakes, still denying, maybe some part of him refusing the lie he'd just told. Arthur narrowed his eyes and leaned back against his pack, still looking at Merlin, and the way Merlin had finally turned away, eyes downcast, not at ease, not pleased with himself. Just… He looked like saying that to Arthur had broken something in him. In which case, why say it?

Arthur nodded to himself, eyes straying to the cave, and contemplated his choice.

---

In the morning, Arthur ordered Merlin to wait outside with the horses while he spoke to the Disir. In the afternoon, when they returned to Camelot, it was to the news that Mordred had succumbed to his wound. Arthur's initial response was rage at the betrayal of the Disir. His next was confusion, because when he looked back at Merlin, he saw only relief on the man's face. Was it relief at thinking that Arthur had refused to cede to the demands of the triple goddess, or relief that Mordred – who Merlin had never really seemed to like or trust since meeting the boy again as an adult – was dead?

Arthur wasn't sure. But it gave him pause enough to reserve his anger until he could be certain that it was justified.

---

CHAPTER 1

Arthur remembered, vividly, the day Guinevere died.

It felt surreal, still. The sun had been high. Bright. It was a beautiful day, and the water at the cauldron had been so blue that Arthur found it hard to look at. He remembered pleading with Guinevere to remember her love for him. He remembered the bright, pure light of a goddess on the water, and Merlin wearing someone else's face, dressed up like an idiot as if Arthur wouldn't notice his worn, familiar boots poking out of the bottom of that hideous dress, giving him away. He remembered his sister, and yelling, blood and a small, crippled white dragon, and Guinevere stilled in his arms. And he remembered like sounds echoing in a thick fog, or heard from underwater, Merlin's voice crying, pleading with the light on the lake to save her, just please, in the name of all that was good, please save the queen.

Even Arthur knew that it was too late, however sympathetic the formless goddess might be. Guinevere was already gone. Her body died in his arms, but his wife, his first love, had been gone for far longer than he had noticed. He should have noticed. It would have made mourning her easier, he thought, if he had known when they rescued her from the tower that she was, for all intents and purposes, already dead. Arthur had been prepared for that – he could have handled that. It was the months that followed, the false security, the misplaced trust, the knowledge of his own blindness and the disservice that it did to his queen – his own betrayal of their love and knowledge of each other, for not even noticing that it wasn't her. That was what caused his grief to linger so strong, festering. The guilt that he felt at letting her down had nothing, in the end, to do with her actual death, and everything to do with how he had missed it entirely. He had defiled her by continuing to blindly love and trust her imposter. For gods' sakes, he had been intimate with her, with the perversion of her, right up until learning the truth.

They didn't bury his sister. The last Arthur saw of Morgana, the little white dragon had twisted its unnaturally angled limbs around her body, and though Merlin tried to convince him to pass it off as a mourning embrace, Arthur couldn't avoid the realization that it was probably eating her. He had no sorrow left for that, though. It seemed fitting that a predator and a betrayer should be betrayed and consumed by a predator, at the last.

Over a year had passed since that day. Arthur mourned, of course he did, and sealed the queen's chambers in a manner far too reminiscent of his father sealing Ygraine's. Merlin recovered from the head wound he sustained falling off of the path to the cauldron, though it caused some worry at first, and took a fair bit of time. Arthur recovered from the broken wrist he suffered from going down after him. They buried Guinevere near her brother and her father, on the hillside, where the sun would shine every day. It had become a pilgrim's path since then, and the entire hill was covered in flowers from the seeds that her mourning subjects spread. Arthur couldn't bring himself to go there anymore; it was too beautiful a place for a grave.

Arthur didn't think that Merlin visited her either, not since the ceremony itself. The only time Arthur really heard him speak of her was in the beginning, when Merlin tried to apologize for breaking his promise to Arthur – for failing to break Morgana's curse and restore Gwen to him. That should have been the moment when Arthur told him that he knew how hard Merlin had tried to keep his word – that he knew it was Merlin who summoned the goddess and drove the dragon away from Arthur where he crouched, refusing to weep on the shore, uncaring as the beast charged him. That it was Merlin, not some recluse lady sorcerer, who picked Excalibur up from where Arthur dropped it and drove it through Morgana from behind, so hard…so hard that a solid eight inches protruded out the other side of her. Driven by the kind of rage that can only come from grief. There was a terrible strength in grief.

But he didn't. Arthur yelled at him a bit, but not about the broken promise, and definitely not about the secret magic. In truth, he had no idea what he'd gone on about, only that eventually, he looked up to find his chambers empty, and a trail of broken crockery to show Arthur's path through the room. Merlin disappeared for a few days, and then showed up one dawn again as if nothing had happened. They went on as they always had, for the most part. Except that now, Merlin was quieter, and Arthur still didn't know why Merlin didn't trust him with the truth of his magic when it was clear that his loyalty to Camelot – to Arthur – could never be called a sham. He contradicted everything that Arthur thought he might understand about a sorcerer – he was good, and he was loyal, and he risked his life without even the slightest hope of gratitude, and he chose to be a servant. Merlin asked for nothing but that – he asked for that, to be allowed to keep his station. Arthur didn't even know why Merlin was there in the first place. Arthur's Camelot was not Uther's, it had no purge and never would, but it was still hostile to magic, and Arthur knew it just as surely as he knew that Merlin would never betray him, sorcerer or no. Surely that made Merlin a traitor to his own people – to those with magic – which was mystery enough in itself, but Arthur found himself far more preoccupied with why someone of Merlin's power would consent to lower themselves to be a servant at all, than with why he had turned so far against magic that he even advised Arthur to renounce it to the Triple Goddess herself.

Arthur could not pretend to understand Merlin's motivations, but he understood Merlin just fine. He was far too gregarious for a man who had no secrets, and far too simplistic for a truly simple man. Everybody liked him. He liked everybody back. Everybody looked at Merlin and thought, "That is a man I can trust with my life." And then they would make sure that they didn't let him carry anything fragile because he'd certainly trip or run into a wall and break it. But the reverse of that trust was not true; Merlin gave away nothing, and he did it with the guile of someone who has kept his secrets for so long that it no longer occurred to him not to. He was secrets. He was confidences unshared. He was… alone in a way that Arthur understood. Never show anything vulnerable – never let them see the cracks or the weaknesses or the way you doubt yourself at night. Never let them see you, or the things you love, or the things you believe in, or they might gain power over you, and end you. Of course Arthur understood that. He was King. A king can never be weak, which meant that he could also never be known.

It was second nature for Merlin to smile, bumble, grin, gripe and give the very skin off of his back if someone else needed it more. But he didn't confide. He shared something like wisdom when Arthur needed it, but he didn't do so the way other men did – by relating personal anecdotes. Everyone knew Merlin. But no one knew him. It took Arthur far too long to figure that out. When he finally parsed out what Merlin was hiding, it wasn't the sorcery that shocked him. It was realizing that as far as he was able, Merlin had been telling Arthur the truth about himself all along, and Arthur had dismissed him for a fool every time. Merlin never truly lied. Dissembled, yes. Misled, disguised, diverted, omitted – he did all of those things out of self-preservation. But otherwise, he was shockingly open for a man carrying a heritage that could get him killed. And he kept using his forbidden gifts to save the lives of people who would show their gratitude for it with a pyre.

It took a certain cunning to hide in plain sight like that, right under Arthur's nose. Right under Uther's, usually telling nothing but the plain truth, and yet still never seen.

It was disturbing.

It should have been terrifying.

Arthur should have wondered if Merlin's lies, his veiled truths, spelled treachery.

All Arthur wanted to do was grab him around the neck, squeeze a little bit, and then hang onto him for a while, waiting for the struggling and the squirming and the indignant (poor cover for terrified) protests to fade away. Long enough for Merlin to get it through his thick skull that Arthur knew. That Arthur understood, and why on earth shouldn't they finally just share the burden? Just a bit, sometimes, over mulled wine at night or under a canopy of stars by a campfire after a good hunt. The hardest part of being king was that Arthur found himself surrounded by people every hour of every day, alone in a sea of flesh and words and thoughts, and fetid breath, and false obeisance, in a shiny citadel where everyone knew his name and what he did and how to speak to him, how best to use him, and everything about him except who and what Arthurwas. And none of those people knew what that felt like.

Merlin knew exactly what that felt like.

Once he'd recategorized his manservant in his mind (loyal, stupid, insubordinate, noble, magical idiot), his first unfettered reaction to the new picture of Merlin in his mind had not been anger. Neither was it fear, or betrayal, or suspicion, or anything else that a sane king should feel upon discovering a liar and technical traitor sharing his most personal spaces. It was affection, and some kind of want that touched on a dark part of Arthur that he didn't much like. Some stupid part of himself simply wanted to grab it, wrestle it down, and own it. He always had, and it made him think of maces swung in the marketplace at a mouthy, gangly boy who dared call Arthur a bully to his face, at a time when he needed to be told it most.

Arthur frowned into the fire in front of him, the sky dark outside his chamber windows and the air sweet with peat and a waft of early autumn. The mulled wine tasted warm and spicy-sweet on his tongue, a billowing heat suffused in his veins. He had no idea where Merlin had found it; Cook wouldn't normally make it until closer to midwinter. It was Arthur's favorite drink of the season, though, and he'd mentioned it just that morning at court, wistfully, in a room filled with councilors, and Merlin lurking around the edges.

Speaking of Merlin, the (in)sufferable idiot hadn't once stopped chattering, his back bent in a curl over Arthur's chainmail as he inspected it for rust and breaks, sat on the floor near the fire at Arthur's feet. It had been a long time since Merlin last babbled on about nothing, his voice a soothing background to Arthur's thoughts the way rain or wind might be. Arthur eyed the lanky frame of the man, like a rack of antlers dressed in old peasant clothes. And he thought to himself, Yes, I want that. A giant, blabbering, grinning coat rack who always but never told the truth, would happily go to his death for the sake of men who would never stand by him if they knew what he was, who juggled to entertain street children and wrote noble speeches and lied by omission every day, and whose once brilliant smiles no longer reached his eyes. Where on earth did such a man even come from, let alone come to him?

"Where did you learn to read?"

" – and then Thomas told him to – what?"

"Read, Merlin. Where did you learn to do it?"

Merlin started to shake his head, but the confusion appeared too much for him and he cocked his head instead. "You…want to know where I learned to read?"

"Is it that complicated a question?" Arthur frowned into his goblet, which was still mostly full, and then looked at Merlin again, all sharp angles set off by the fire lighting him from behind. "You know, I could hang hats off of your shoulder blades." That was not what he'd meant to say, surely. The wine really was very nice.

Merlin blinked. "…you don't own any hats."

Arthur squinted at him. "I own all the hats. I'm the king, Merlin."

"You don't even like hats."

"I don't have to like hats. I'm the – "

" – king, yes, you said." Merlin paused. "Did you want me to fetch you a hat?"

Arthur glared at him for good measure. "Don't be ridiculous; I despise hats. Messy, wooly things." He waved the whole notion off with his goblet, which splattered around a bit, and then sipped at his wine some more. Or gulped. He tried to sip, really, but he came near to choking on it so he must have miscalculated. The sweetness of it carried just the right amount of heat to balance the sharpness of clove and cinnamon, and Arthur twisted his head around to lick the spatter from his thumb. When he looked up, he found Merlin staring, his eyes blank but his cheeks flushed.

Arthur cocked his head at him. Merlin shook himself and went back to the chainmail, sans blathering. Wine forgotten in his hand, Arthur stared at the knob of a vertebra at the base of Merlin's neck long enough that it, too, flushed pink.

Interesting. "Do you remember when you juggled?"

"Oh, not that again." Merlins scrubbed the back of his hand over his forehead, a cleaning rag dangling from his fingers.

"You were…" He twiddled his fingers a bit, expression distant. "…dexterous. Not like you. Clumsy."

"I told you, I have many talents, you're just not looking."

"Yes." It must have been magic juggling, the cheat. Arthur felt his mouth smear – he must be smiling. Good. Smiling was good. He set his goblet aside and struggled upright from his sprawl in the chair. "I have decided to look." He eyed Merlin's face, and then the rest of him for good measure. He twiddled his fingers, possibly too close to Merlin's face if the way he flinched back was anything to go by. "I would like to know what other sorts of talented things you might be able to do."

Merlin's mouth did something complicated and then his eyes went wide over a bit of slack jaw before it really occurred to Arthur how suggestive that sounded, and that he had purred a little too much.

"Oh god, no. No, sorry." Arthur shoved himself back again as Merlin balked, a proper balk at that, and let the chair catch him again when he couldn't quite stand as intended. "No, that was entirely inappropriate." He dug his palms into his eye sockets.

"It's alright," Merlin offered, but he sounded too cautious now.

"God, just, the wine," Arthur tried to explain. He could feel it thumping all of a sudden in his ear drums, a cadence to match the beat of his heart. "I don't know what came over me."

Merlin was on his feet when Arthur looked up again, chainmail and armor discarded on the floor. "It's alright. Come on." He gripped at Arthur's bicep and tugged. "Let's get you to bed."

"I drank too much. How did I drink too much?"

"It wasn't watered down as much as usual," Merlin said. "I know you like the taste better that way."

Arthur nodded, somehow on his feet and pointed at his empty bed with Merlin pressing lightly between his shoulder blades. God, he missed Guinevere, the ache more fierce tonight than it had been for the past year. He bumped into the bed and dropped his hands to sit. At least he felt more miserable over what he'd said to Merlin than over his absent wife, for once. He looked up when Merlin tugged at his tunic, and Merlin returned his gaze in only a flicker, wary, or maybe just contemplative, before focusing on the laces again at Arthur's throat. Just in case it was the former, Arthur said, "Don't be offended. I didn't mean it like that. I wouldn't. You're a servant, and I wouldn't make you do that. It's not right."

Merlin raised a brow, a bit like Gaius in that affect, and offered, his voice hesitant, "I'm not offended. I would, though. If it… If you wanted. I wouldn't mind, if you did mean it."

"What?"

"I mean, it's fine," Merlin backpedaled, one hand waving off while the other tugged the last of the knot out and loosened the tunic. "If you just need, you know…something. If you're lonely, I mean, or just cold, or whatever. With Gwen gone, I mean, you might…have needs, or just…" He flapped his hand, which really conveyed nothing as far as clarity went. "And I know some of the servants do that, sometimes. I wouldn't mind if you wanted a hand or something – "

Arthur was moving before he'd really registered the intent to do so in his wine-addled mind. Merlin squawked and it took a moment for Arthur realize that he'd made that noise upon Arthur slamming his back into the wall, one hand fisted in Merlin's collar and neckerchief, pulling it tight up against his throat. "Don't you ever – ever – "

"Arthur!" Merlin grabbed at his wrist to try and pry it off. "I won't – I'm sorry – I just thought it might – "

"What, help?! You are never to imply that you can take Guinevere's place!"

"I wasn't – !"

"That's not your place! It's never your place! You never– "

"Arthur, please…"

Arthur dropped his hand as if scalded and breathed heavily, stumbling back a step as he watched Merlin cough and tug his neckerchief off to one side to better catch his breath. When he reached to help, Merlin skittered away without showing Arthur his back, his hand held up in that strange warding gesture that Arthur had seen him make whenever they were under attack. At a loss, Arthur retreated and sank back down onto his mattress, trembling. He was more drunk than he'd thought, and his temper, familiar as it was, had come just as unexpectedly as it had gone. He recognized Uther in that. It made him feel slightly sick.

Merlin lowered his hand and straightened, and his face hardened in anger. "For the record, sire, you are not the only one who misses her."

"I know that. Merlin – "

"No." Merlin strode to the cupboard, drew out Arthur's night clothes, and flung them across the room. They smacked Arthur in the face and fell into his lap, followed by Merlin appearing in front of him with alarming stealth to all but rip Arthur's arms off along with his tunic. "And in case you forgot, she was my friend first. If you really think I would disrespect her by trying to take her place, then you are an absolute cabbage head."

Arthur allowed the manhandling because really, Merlin probably deserved to get some of his own back, and he didn't like hearing the hitch and crack in Merlin's voice as he spoke back. Arthur waited for Merlin to turn away with his dirty tunic and then offered, "I don't want you whoring yourself out. That's all."

Merlin paused, and the very silence was murderous; Arthur didn't need to look at his face to know as much. "Whoring myself," he echoed, his voice deceptively flat.

"I mean, you're a servant, Merlin." He should probably stop trying to explain himself, since the words weren't coming out right at all. "And you shouldn't even be a servant, really, much less – " He didn't get a chance to finish that, for which he was perversely thankful, as Merlin chose that moment to try to suffocate him with his sleeping tunic. Once it was on all of the way, and Merlin had tugged his suspiciously heavy arms through the right holes, Arthur added, "Because of your birth. It's really not proper."

Merlin's face did something blank, and Arthur blinked at it, trying to figure it out. "You mean because of my parentage." Flat.

Arthur nodded. "Exactly! See? You understand." At least they could have that out in the open, finally.

"So, since I'm a fatherless bastard, I'm not good enough to be a whore, much less your servant."

Arthur's brow creased. "No, because your father – "

"Will there be anything more, sire?"

– was a noble. Had to be, really. Why else would a peasant know how to read? And lords should not be servants. And dragons had lords – some kind of lord – because Merlin told the white dragon off for trying to attack them, and it listened, and something… Arthur shut his eyes for a moment and knuckled his forehead. He was going to have a horrible headache in the morning. "No – look, Merlin, I know that – " The click of the door interrupted him and he looked up, only to find the space before him lacking in manservants. For good measure, he scanned the rest of the room as well to confirm that yes, he was alone. "Dammit." He was too drunk for this.

It was too much trouble just then to find a way under his blankets, and he was wearing riding trousers still, and he was the damn king, and why was everything so difficult all of a sudden? Stupid secret magical lord manservant. Arthur flopped back and let his body just sink into the mattress. Good enough. He could berate himself for his drunken idiocy in the morning.

---

"Merlin. Merlin! Wake up." Arthur flailed a foot out and tried to kick at him but missed. He could see Gwen lying on the path above them. "Merlin…"

He was free suddenly, sword bent, hilt scuffed from being used as a lever, arm throbbing and likely broken. He shook Merlin's limp form, blood along his hairline, and disentangled him from the multitude of packs. He'd made Merlin bring them all, but why? They didn't need everything. Petty – Arthur was being petty to make him carry them all like a pack mule, and now he wasn't moving. "Wake up, wake up, wake up – "

---

The shush of the curtains woke Arthur, followed by a stab of sunlight that he could have done without. He growled something inquisitive that sounded like, "Mrrrrln."

"Good morning, sire."

Arthur groaned. He really couldn't stand proper-servant Merlin. "Why must you do that?" Something needed to be done; he couldn't deal with Merlin being all…servant-y.

Merlin paused in arranging breakfast, then apparently deemed that rhetorical and went back to placing cutlery. The tray only held enough food for one. Arthur was convinced that Merlin previously only ate enough because he stole extras from Arthur's plate. He would need to have words with the kitchen staff about portion size going forward. It had been months since Merlin last ate with him. Well…with being a relative thing when one of the participants was consensually stealing the other's food.

"Breakfast is served." He approached Arthur and held out a bottle of foul green-brown sludge. "Hangover remedy. Gaius made it fresh this morning."

"Ugh." Arthur held his hand out for it without bothering to sit up. "Cheers."

"Down in one," Merlin echoed absently. Habit. He fussed with the breakfast service some more, poured a goblet of water, and then moved away to start tidying.

For lack of anything better to do, Arthur forced down the hangover remedy, gagged for a moment, then stumbled over to his chair and spent some time staring blankly at the food arranged neatly on a trencher. Clearly, no one had picked it over or filched any sausages from it, other than the necessary nibbles to test for poisons. It was hateful. "I can't eat this." Arthur thumped his elbow onto the table and smashed his face into his palm for good measure. And if Merlin was the one doing the poison-testing again, Arthur was going to throttle him. There were people for that – other people. People Arthur needed less. And of course, when he put it that way, it was a horrid thing to think. He smooshed his face a bit harder against his hand and dug his fingers in around the thumping places in his head.

"Can I get you something else, sire? There's probably pudding, or eggs and porridge."

"No…no food. You eat it." Arthur blinked his eyes open wide to peer through the webs of his fingers. The plate slid out from in front of him, and the whole situation made him want to shout. "Merlin, about last night."

"Nothing to worry about, sire." Merlin took the plate to the door and placed it on a side table. He pointedly did not eat it himself. "I shouldn't have kept your cup topped off – you didn't realize how much you drank."

"Right." Arthur gave him the side eye and hoped that Gaius's foul concoction kicked in soon. "Did I hit you?" He didn't think he did, but it was fuzzy, and he could recall thinking, at one point, that Merlin might use his magic to keep Arthur away from him.

"No, sire." He was picking up clothes now and tossing them into the laundry basket, seemingly pointed in how he kept his back turned. "Nothing but a little friendly asphyxiation."

"What? Merlin!" Arthur stumbled to his feet and tried not to notice how Merlin's eyes darted back and forth for a moment the way Arthur's might when under attack. He would have to think about that at some point, why Merlin seemed to think him a threat nowadays – why he always mapped the rooms he entered and checked for escape routes. But for the time being, Arthur reached out and managed to grab at the stupid neckerchief rag thing that Merlin was wearing, in spite of Merlin's flinching back, which seemed involuntary. Arthur froze at the sight of purple marks – a clear thumb on one side and three fingers blurred together on the other. "Merlin," he breathed. He wondered if he sounded or looked as horrified as he felt.

Merlin stepped back, his expression more ambiguous than impassive while the action itself could be nothing but calculated. Arthur's fingers slipped from the fabric of the neckerchief, and he let his hand fall slowly back to his side. After meeting Arthur's gaze for slightly longer than was comfortable, Merlin turned away and resumed picking up Arthur's mess from the night before, silent.

Arthur watched him for long enough to realize two things. First, that Merlin wasn't going to offer anything more, and second, that the mess wasn't really getting any better; Merlin was just moving it around in some sort of nervous need not to stand still or look at Arthur. Eventually, he passed close enough for Arthur to snag an elbow and use the momentum to propel Merlin around to face him. Rather than submit to a conversation, Merlin hunched up the shoulder nearest Arthur's hand, and simply waited, unmoving, with his eyes downcast. The Good Servant, as it were. On anyone else, it would be perfectly acceptable – even proper. On Merlin, it was just wrong.

Arthur shook his head at the lowered lashes and the thin line of Merlin's mouth, but he maintained his grip, which was more restraint than it should have been. Merlin could have been on the verge of being dragged to the cells by it, to judge by the stiffness of his limbs and the care with which he held his arm perfectly still in Arthur's hand, as if not to offer resistance that might be taken the wrong way by an overzealous guard. Merlin was passive. Merlin should never be passive.

"Tell me what happened last night."

Merlin twitched his chin to one side, but his eyes remained elsewhere. "You were drunk, sire. I put you to bed."

"That doesn't explain why I tried to choke you."

Merlin flinched. It was subtle, but there.

"Look." Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment to gather his thoughts, and then tried for soothing. "Obviously, something else happened. You don't need to spare my pride." He paused, then added, "It's not like to you pass on an opportunity to tell me I've done something wrong. You should be rubbing it my face."

"I apologize if I fail to live up to my lord's standards."

Arthur blinked a few times, more shocked than anything else. A wave of anger followed, unexpected in its intensity, and far beyond Arthur's ability to control in that moment. "What the hell is wrong with you?! This isn't you! You don't do this!"

He watched Merlin angling away, elbow still caught fast, lashes lowered so that Arthur couldn't see his eyes, as if in anticipation of a blow. Perhaps it was the resignation that did it – Merlin would have let him. Something in his posture screamed that Arthur could hit if he wanted, and Merlin wouldn't necessarily stop him.

Arthur released him and shoved them apart from each other as if one of them had the plague. His fury dispersed like smoke. "Merlin, I don't want this from you." It was perhaps the most honest thing he could have said, and yet still, it sounded wrong – could be taken so wrong. "You don't grovel. You don't keep silent. You're of no use to me like this." When Merlin still didn't say anything, Arthur sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose before turning away. "Look, just…pull yourself together. I need a servant I can rely on." Which was unfair, since no one he had ever met was more reliable, if he discounted actual cleanliness, punctuality and coordination.

Hesitant, Merlin simply asked, "Will you be joining the knights for practice this morning, sire?"

Arthur straightened up, facing the window. For no reason he could really pinpoint – though he suspected it was the sire that did it – he reached back, hooked Merlin by the scruff, pulled him around and squished him a bit.

Merlin went stiff and still in his grasp. "Sire – Arthur?"

"Just hold still." Arthur manhandled him into a more comfortable position, and then resumed the squishing. He had no idea how long these things were supposed to last, but Merlin wasn't trying to get away, so that had to be a good sign, right? Once he deemed a sufficient duration had passed, and before things could get any more awkward, Arthur patted Merlin's shoulder blades – really too sharp – and then nudged him back.

Merlin stumbled a bit, righted himself, and then stared. "Did you just hug me?"

Arthur shrugged and turned away toward the changing screen. "Looked like you needed it."

"Right." A shuffle of soft-soled shoes betrayed Merlin fidgeting but otherwise not moving away. "Is that an apology or something? Because that was hardly adequate as far as hugs go."

"Surely there's some etiquette about insulting the way a king bestows his embraces."

Silence.

"Look, if it was that horrible, then just forget about it." Arthur came out from behind the screen and put his hands on his hips. When Merlin merely stared at him a bit, he sighed and prompted, "Clothes? You know, those things in the wardrobe that you never fold correctly?"

"Oh." Merlin looked at the wardrobe, then shook himself as if from a stupor. "Yes. Clothes."

Arthur rolled his eyes and went back behind the screen. "Today, Merlin."

"Don't get your britches in a twist; I'm getting them."

"Get yourself something more suitable too; I don't want to listen to you complaining that I've ruined your only pair of trousers or some other ridiculous thing. You're sparing with me today."

"What?! No. No, I'm not. Why would you say that?"

With his head ducked over the wash basin, Arthur smiled. But he hadn't forgotten that he owed far more of an apology than one awkward hug and some banter could satisfy. And he wanted to know what happened last night so that whatever apology was due, he could be certain of making proper redress. Maybe bashing Merlin around the training ground for a while would make him more pliable.

---

"Merlin!"

Merlin rolled – flailed? – underneath the pile of armor, shield and sword that Arthur had shoved him into earlier that morning.

Arthur sighed at the clanking pile of manservant spilled over the practice field. "Honestly, it's like you're not even trying here. Get up."

"I am trying!"

"You're embarrassing yourself."

A flare of blue peeked out from one eyehole of the battered old helm crammed over Merlin's head. It was a surprisingly effective glare for being singular, and mostly hidden. "If you're so keen for a sparing partner, why don't you ask one of them?!"

Arthur glanced up at the collection of knights trying not to be noticed on the other side of the field. He might need to go a bit easier on them for a while; they were cringing again whenever he stepped onto the field. Rather than addressing anything in that vein, Arthur replied, "They already know how to defend themselves. You, on the other hand…" He regarded his heap of manservant with a sad frown. "I despair of you sometimes, Merlin. It's a miracle you haven't been killed already."

Merlin struggled and waved his armor-clad limbs around well enough that he managed to flop into a new position. "Maybe you just need to stop getting into so much trouble. Honestly, you can hardly walk through the market without getting attacked or enchanted, and then I have to – OW!"

"Stop squirming." Arthur hauled up on a pauldron until he'd dragged Merlin upright by it. They eyed each other, Arthur critical and Merlin wary. "I think you've had enough for today; you'll be useless at your chores later. Come on." He slapped Merlin's metal-clad arm and Merlin staggered again. "Just try not to fall over again."

"Easy for you to say," Merlin muttered. "Do you know how much all of this weighs?" He flapped his gauntlet at his own chest.

"Yes," Arthur replied. Because he did – he was wearing even more of it than Merlin. "Idiot."

"Well, do you know how much I weigh?" Merlin demanded as they made their way toward the armory.

Arthur gave him an incredulous look, his nose wrinkling on one side. "Why on earth would I need to know that?"

Without missing a beat (in the conversation, that is – his feet were literally everywhere), Merlin replied, "Because then you would realize that I can't stand up in all of this because it weighs as much as I do." He huffed, and then added, "Prat!"

"Does it?" Arthur scrutinized the skinny frame of his manservant – that was right: antlers for legs, and a hat rack up top. "Well. That just means you need to train harder. Put some muscles on those bones."

Merlin jammed his shoulder at the armory door until it opened for him, and Arthur suppressed the urge to either smirk at the spectacle of Merlin outdone by a door, or yell at him for going through before his king. "I have muscles," he muttered. "I have plenty of muscles – I have to carry practically everything you own over the course of a day."

"Stop exaggerating." Arthur grabbed his shoulder again when Merlin went to claw at the straps holding the armor in place. "The only thing your muscles are any good for is folding laundry, carrying plants and holding quills. So basically useless."

"What, because I'm bad with a sword, I'm not good for anything else?"

"Sir Hector is bad with a sword," Arthur said. "You are worse than a kitchen maid with a stick."

Merlin squinted at him but remained silent.

"See? Even you recognize it." Technically, Merlin should be taking Arthur's armor off first and then fending for himself on his own gear, but if Arthur insisted on propriety, neither of them would ever get out of their armor. And Merlin could barely move in his. "How did you even get this twisted like – Merlin, I put this on you myself! How do you manage these things?"

Merlin bared his teeth. It might have been a smile of some sort; Arthur rather thought he looked like a spitting kitten. "Maybe you did it wrong."

Arthur scoffed. "I've been putting on armor since before I could walk." He wasn't smiling though; he could feel the edges of his mouth pulling down in thought. He had a hazy recollection of the previous night, of Merlin polishing armor by the fire, talking about hats. Arthur had been trying to bring up the nobility thing. Or the magic, or both, but instead, they ended up talking about…hat racks? Maybe now was as good a time as any to try having that conversation again. "Where did you learn to write?"

Whatever Merlin had been expecting, it clearly wasn't that. He eyed Arthur, which had the side benefit of him holding still enough that Arthur finally untwisted the leather straps cutting up under Merlin's right arm and got it unbuckled. "That's what you focus on? Are you serious? How did you learn to write? Maybe just think about that and extrapolate."

"Give me some credit, Merlin. I know where you grew up; there wasn't a parchment in sight. And you certainly never had tutors in Ealdor."

Merlin's eyes shuttered and cut to the side, and there – that was the look Arthur was starting to notice more and more. Fear. Not the kind that knights displayed in battle, or that Arthur had seen even on Merlin's face when a situation went pear-shaped. It was something else. Deeper. A fundamental thing, like he didn't even need to think in order to feel it, and the feeling of it was so familiar that he took no notice of it at all. Like breathing. "I dunno. I suppose I picked it up from Gaius."

Arthur jerked unnecessarily hard at the back strap and ignored Merlin's faint grunt. "No one just picks upwriting. Come on – who taught you? It couldn't have been Gaius – you were reading his recipes practically since you got here. No one learns that fast."

"…Arthur…"

"Your mother can write too. She sent the missive to Gaius asking for your apprenticeship. Is she the one who taught you?"

"Sure. Right. My mother taught me."

"And how did she learn?"

They both paused, Merlin in his holding still and Arthur in his fruitless tugging of buckles.

After a moment, Arthur took a preparatory breath. He could feel it in the air, that subtle taste of all-or-nothing. He couldn't leave this conversation now. It needed to be seen through. "Merlin, even I realize how unusual it is for a peasant to be literate. You write my speeches, for gods' sake – I know how eloquent you are. And you don't even do it in the common tongue half the time. You've obviously had a nobleman's education."

Merlin fumbled his feet a bit and Arthur was struck with the impression that Merlin was trying to give himself space to flee. He shook his head a bit as if to clear it, or obscure his intention, but that nebulous fear was still there.

It rankled. How could Merlin seriously stand there and deny what was obvious? "You speak more languages than I do, idiot. Latin, Greek, Nordic, Gaius's old dusty pictograph things – you even talk to the traders from across the south sea, and I don't even know what language that is! Do you speak the Gauls' tongue too? The Saxons'? Merlin, there are lords and kings less educated than you. You're an idiot, but you're not stupid."

They stared at each other for a while, and Merlin seemed to be trying to make himself smaller. He'd lost the usual inch of height that he had on Arthur. "It's like you said – I never had tutors. We didn't…have books. I just…"

Arthur gave him a dubious look. "'Picked it up'?" he scoffed. Then he turned pensive. "Are you a noble?"

Merlin started, and squeaked, "What?"

"Well, it would explain some things," Arthur mused. He studied Merlin's face carefully, and then examined the rest of his closed-off body language. "I'm not…unaware of what my father did during the purge, you know. Entire noble houses ceased to exist because their bloodlines carried magic. Or not. Some of them just weren't eager enough to eliminate magic, I suppose. Or spoke out openly. Some did escape. My father used to speak of how he made raids all the way into Cenred's kingdom to chase them down, and Ealdor is just barely over the border. He would have been there at least once. You never speak of your father, and…well. I can only imagine he's dead."

Merlin winced.

Careful to remain neutral, Arthur nodded in acknowledgement, but he knew the likely conclusion of that thought – that Merlin's father was dead because of Arthur's, directly or not. "Your mother appealed to Camelot for aid. I know what reasons she gave, and I'll allow that it made some sense, but there's the awkward fact that my father wasn't surprised by it, even though it was entirely inappropriate to ask a king not-your-own for military aid, and she was familiar with the habits of our court. She's Gaius's relation, and she's not native to Ealdor, is she? She's surprisingly well spoken for a peasant, and she stood tall before a king – it was respectful and proper, but it wasn't the way peasants scrape. She knew her manners better. And when we stayed in her house, she didn't defer to me the way servants or peasants do – she deferred to me the way a noblewoman would to a prince. She had no shame for her poverty, made no effort to apologize for it or make up for it – she was proud. And then there's her accent…it's not of Essetir. Yours is, but you were raised there, so that makes sense. But Hunith…she came from Camelot. Didn't she?"

Merlin cut his gaze sharply to the door, but Arthur still had hold of him by the strap of a rerebrace. His nostrils flared and he shot a wild-eyed look at Arthur's face before twitching his head in the opposite direction.

Evidence seemed to bring itself into formation like a well drilled battalion. "You're a rubbish servant." Normally, that would earn him a squawk of indignation, but Merlin merely folded his shoulders a bit smaller. "Like you never learned your place. Because why would you, if you're not really a peasant?" He shook his head as yet more of Merlin's oddities slotted into place in this new tapestry. "You understand nobility. You have the sense of honor that a knight would have – responsibility for your actions, for the actions and wellbeing of those beneath you, a sense of the greater good. You counsel me on that daily, it seems." Arthur tried to catch Merlin's gaze, but Merlin was biting his lip and staring with wide, panicked eyes at some spot of nothing in the middle of the armory. "You're impertinent…for a servant. It wouldn't be so for a noble. You demand. You act entitled, even if it's polite when you do it. You speak your mind like you never learned not to. You speak to your betters like equals. You always look shocked when someone reminds you that you're not their equal. That you're just a servant." Very softly, lest he spook Merlin like a horse, Arthur added, "You have magic. Not just tricks and incants like sorcery. You have the kind a child is born with. The kind my father would have…would have drowned you for, in the purge. Had he found you. It's in your blood."

"Stop." It was only a shiver of a word, but it was enough. Merlin seemed unable to control his quickening breaths, or the trembling that ran through his arm where the backs of Arthur's knuckles rested, caught in the leather strap he'd been trying to undo just a few moments ago.

Arthur swayed a fraction back, concerned by the way Merlin couldn't seem to still himself, or look at Arthur, or control his breathing. "Merlin, breathe. It's alright," he murmured. "I'm not threatening you. It's not a threat."

Merlin shook his head in short, sharp jerks that increased in violence until he all but exploded out of Arthur's grasp. The fear tasted sharp in the air all around them, and Arthur held his hands out, palms facing Merlin. He tried not to be obvious about blocking the path to the door, but Merlin was like prey in that room, and his nostrils flared the moment Arthur shifted. The air turned acrid and for a moment. Arthur felt hairs raise along his arms and the back of his neck, a static tingling of what could only be magic congealing in a small space.

Arthur shook his head and fought his own knee-jerk reaction. He felt frantic at the charge in the air, like lightening struck into puddles and the smell of it like the air might crackle and burn. "Merlin, calm down." He hazarded a step closer and Merlin tripped back, his mouth grim and pressed into a thin line, but his throat working as if he might either swallow or choke. "Listen to me, Merlin. You need to breathe, and calm down, and listen to me. Just listen. Can you do that?" Arthur had shuffled back far enough that he could bar the door if he wanted to without taking his eyes from Merlin's shaking form on the other side of the room. He knew, he knew how bad that would look, but worse would be having some other knight or squire or servant walk in when Merlin appeared so close to an outright panic. Arthur felt as if his hair were standing on end. He could only imagine what Merlin might do – unconsciously, accidentally – if someone startled him by walking in. If he felt cornered or exposed.

Slowly, so that Merlin could see every movement clearly, Arthur reached back and to the right, and pulled the bar into place across the door. Arthur braced himself for all manner of reactions – flying swords, a storm, Merlin attacking him with his magic or even with his body, fire or lack of air or darkness or pressure or pain or –

But none of it came. After a tense series of heartbeats and held breath, Arthur felt the tension bleed out of the air, and the unpleasant tang of magic, like metal, faded from his nostrils. Across the room, Merlin stumbled back into a pillar and then folded like a paper doll with a short, sheer inhalation like a distant crack of ice sheets on a frozen lake. Armor and plate clanked and caught, scraping together at the joints as he hunched down into the grasp of his own arms folded around his torso and choked, "Please don't burn me."

Arthur blinked, and his stomach felt carved out for one awful, stretched moment. It hadn't occurred to him, honestly. Yes, he'd thought about that – a small horror in the back of his mind at the thought of Merlin chained in cold iron to a stake in the courtyard and set alight for the crime of being too kind, too noble not to use his magic to save someone, even if it meant his death. But he'd never actually thought that Merlin would fear that. He'd thought…. What had he thought? That Merlin didn't care? That since he'd come to Camelot, knowing the threat that hung over him like a Damocles sword, that he wasn't afraid of it? Of course he was afraid, Arthur thought. Only a monster wouldn't be, and whatever magic he may have done behind Arthur's back, behind Uther's – whatever atrocities he may have committed in his fumbling to do what was right – Merlin was not a monster.

Merlin shuddered in on himself, visibly making an effort toward calm where he knelt, a miserable pile of armor and bone. It was grotesque, all of a sudden. Not like gore and horror, but grotesque as in unnatural and twisted and wrong. Merlin looked so wrong over there propped alone against the pillar, small and shaking – wrong to be covered in armor he clearly couldn't manage and probably, if Arthur were being honest, didn't even need. Wrong because Arthur was no threat to a warlock – and that was what Merlin had to be. The subtle difference between warlock and sorcerer in Sir Geoffrey's books had not been lost on Arthur. Merlin was magic by blood, not choice. He didn't make potions and carve talismans and huddle over cauldrons at the full moon, even though he could. The point was that he didn't need to; he didn't need some outside draw on magic to obtain it. As far as Arthur could tell, Merlin didn't even need to speak his magic. Warlock. And really, what could Arthur possibly do to him unless Merlin let him?

And that was the crux, wasn't it. Let. Merlin would let him. Merlin would let him do anything. Hit him, hurt him…burn him if he wanted to. Merlin had given Arthur all of himself – he'd stated as much out loud just often enough that it stuck in Arthur's mind as some curious, awful truth. Everything that Merlin is…is Arthur's. Merlin's life whether Arthur wanted it or not. Merlin's death, if Arthur asked it of him.

Arthur was not necessarily a kind man. He knew that about himself. He had bullied and he had used, he had condemned, and hurled cruelty at those beneath him, and he had killed. He had killed innocents, actively and passively, by his own sword or by simply standing aside for another's. Arthur did know that, and he knew how it looked. It hadn't really struck him though, until that moment, that Merlin had watched him do these things. Be that man. Merlin, a warlock, had watched Arthur maim and kill men, women…children…for nothing more than having magic, or not having magic, or being different and standing accused. Merlin had watched their heads fall and their bodies burn for a crime of magic, true or not. Magic like what Merlin had. Arthur had killed people, some of them good people, for healing and growing crops and purifying water, same as for attacking Camelot or using magic to harm. And Merlin had watched him at it. Merlin had even stood at Arthur's side for some of it. What must that kind of thing take out of a man? Merlin wasn't evil – he wasn't duplicitous or cruel, no matter how many lies he used to safeguard his life at Arthur's hands – he was a good man. He was kind. And he stood beside Arthur, and Arthur was not.

Arthur took care to set his sword aside and remove the bulk of his armor before he approached Merlin, a whisper of chainmail swinging against his legs in the shadowed room. Merlin had found a rhythm to breathe by, finally, his ribcage heaving with it, and he had calmed, but he remained curled down into his own arms on the floor, his head hanging limp on his neck, air rasping still in his throat, and he didn't look up when Arthur's boots came to rest beneath his nose. He looked…defeated. He looked small. And it was grotesque.

"No one is going to burn you," Arthur told him, and his own voice sounded soft and warm, and a bit broken around the edges. "I won't burn you." It seemed important to add that qualification, because clearly, Merlin didn't know that already – that Arthur would never put him in the fire. That if he had to take that offered death from Merlin, he wouldn't make a torture of it like that.

A thin wisp of air curled out from Merlin's mouth, and with it a whispered, "You should."

"You're an idiot," Arthur replied, but there was no bite to it. He sank down until he could take hold of the bits of armor still strapped across Merlin's thin frame. His knees dug into the cold stone near enough to Merlin's that Arthur could feel the heat from them. "Come on, now. Let's get you out of this." He tugged until Merlin loosened his arms enough to allow Arthur to slip off the padded shoulder guards, and then vambraces and wrist guards.

Some gentle prodding had Merlin sitting up, and then the breast plate was off as well, and Merlin had to make the actual effort of refusing to look at Arthur right in front of him. "I didn't ask for this," Merlin said, voice small and unsteady. He was just a crumple in front of Arthur, really, like a wadded-up piece of parchment or a discarded, dirty dish rag. "I didn't ask for any of this."

"We never really ask for what we're given." Arthur reached for the clasps of the fauld, his arms impersonal where they circled Merlin, for all that the act of it seemed intimate. Merlin sniffed to clear the congestion in his nose and Arthur made quick work of folding his fingers beneath the armor, against the cloth of trousers covering Merlin's waist, and the sharp jut of a hipbone, before pulling the metal away.

It was a curious thing, divesting someone of the trappings of war. On the surface, such a simple act, but on review, it was a stripping. It seemed intimate and strangely violent, to peel away the protection and confront the soft flesh beneath. Like a violation. One that Merlin allowed him to commit, and afterward, thanked him for.

Briefly, Arthur kept pressing at Merlin's arms and chest with his hands, as if there were still armor to take off, because in a way, there was; Merlin had gone armored ever since he stepped foot in Camelot. The weight of it had bent him underneath it. Eventually, Arthur's palm came to rest over the knob at the base of Merlin's neck, and Arthur kneaded at it where he knew that it must hurt just now, tense and stiff as it was. Merlin shivered, his body a taut bowstring of exhaustion, as if he were cold. It was just shock, Arthur knew – the dull rush of nothing that followed the wake of battle, a sap on even the strongest of men.

The words a mere breath, Merlin told him, "I'm sorry." And then he repeated it with a hitch and a stronger tremble, and Arthur wondered what on earth Merlin thought he had to be so sorry for. A lie alone couldn't do this to a man.

"I know," Arthur told him, just to stop any further litany of it, because Arthur did know that he was sorry, even if he wasn't sure what for. And then because it really was such a silly thing to have caused all of this, Arthur asked again, "How did you learn to write?"

Merlin twined his fingers together in his lap and seemed not to notice Arthur's fingers dug into the back of his neck. Maybe it was grounding. "I'm not a noble."

Debatable, Arthur thought. But he let it go.

"I just…picked it up. I didn't mean to…I mean, I didn't notice…the languages were all different."

Arthur shook his head, because the idea that Merlin would write Arthur's speeches in a rotating collection of Briton, Latin and who knew what other languages, and not realize it? It was ridiculous. That he'd pick up a book, any book, and not be hampered by the tongue it was written in, and not notice…? "Gaius didn't ever mention it? His herb catalogues, his potion books… It never struck him as odd that he didn't need to teach you to read them?"

Merlin shrugged, and his eyelashes fanned out along the rim of his cheek as he blinked, long and sluggish. Maybe he'd told Gaius the same thing, and unlike Arthur, Gaius hadn't pressed the subject. Maybe it wasn't as strange a thing as Arthur thought. Maybe it had to do with magic, or maybe Gaius hadn't understood and thought that Merlin had received tutoring after all. The boy had been sent specifically to be a physician's apprentice, after all; Gaius may not have realized that Merlin hadn't prepared for that role – hadn't studied for it. "Sorry," Merlin said yet again.

"Stop apologizing." Arthur shifted his hand to scrub at the sweat damp hair of Merlin's head and then let him go and leaned back. "We need to talk about this. I need to understand. But not now. I think… I think we've both had enough for one day."

Merlin nodded. He looked done in.

"Take some time to clean yourself up, and then tend me for the evening," Arthur said. "I need to think for a while."

Again, Merlin nodded. "You need to figure out what to do with me."

Arthur cocked his head.

"I won't run," Merlin promised softly.

Arthur shook his head. "Of course not. Merlin, I'm not planning to punish you."

This should not have been such a confusing statement. Merlin blinked stupidly at the stone tiles beneath his knees, fingers fiddling with the cuffs of his sleeves like a nervous tick, and twitched his head to one side as if trying to jolt the words about in his ears. Eventually, he weaved his head upright on his neck and gave Arthur a dull look. He looked drunk, or maybe just exhausted.

Either way, he didn't appear in full possession of his faculties, and that worried Arthur. He felt his brows draw inward of their own accord, and reached out to cup Merlin's face in one hand. "Merlin? Are you listening to me?"

Merlin's eyelids seemed to grow heavy, his head tipping against Arthur's hand as if he couldn't quite hold it up anymore, and oh – oh, no. Arthur knew what this was – he'd seen it once before. In the mountains, at night, halfway back to Camelot with his queen's beloved body in a crude stretcher they were pulling behind them, killed by her own mangled heart. Arthur had thought that the magic was responsible – that whatever had been inside of Guinevere, whatever force had refused to loose her – had turned on Merlin. The idiot had tried to stop it ravaging her – he'd called a goddess and then fought the malignancy that Morgana had twined into Gwen's soul. Arthur had seen it creep like tendrils up the so-called Dolma's arms before whatever deity summoned on the lake intervened. It hadn't happened since, the fit. But Arthur remembered it so vividly – the clench of teeth, the rolling white of Merlin's eyes, the unnatural arch of his neck and spine as he seized, and Arthur, barely functional in his grief, doing all he could just to keep Merlin from hurting himself or smashing his own skull against the rocks yet again. He couldn't stomach the thought of losing yet another person he cared about.

Arthur grabbed and managed to yank Merlin around and partly down onto his side before the rigidity set in. There was a moment of struggle when Merlin seemed to think that he was being attacked, and then he let out a harsh, strangled grunt as his head arched back to thump against Arthur's chest. His fingernails dug into Arthur's forearm, thankfully cushioned by the gambeson that he had yet to take off. "Alright – I've got you." Arthur fought a moment to keep him in place without hurting him. More for himself than Merlin, who likely wouldn't recall this anymore than he'd recalled the last one, he repeated, "It's alright," and loosened his arms only enough that he wouldn't hinder the convulsions any more than necessary.

Arthur unfocused his eyes and stared forward, unseeing, the only privacy he could really offer right now as the fit shook Merlin's frame, muscles cording in a palsy under Arthur's hands like cramps that would not let up. The force of it jolted Arthur as well, but he refused to offer Merlin any more indignity than he was already suffering from it. He tried not to listen either but it was harder to close his ears than his eyes when the man in his arms sounded like he might be choking. He let Merlin's limbs contract and curl him into a loose comma, and used that tight furl to roll him sideways, letting Merlin's face tip toward the floor just in case he actually was choking. Arthur could feel a slimy wetness against the back of his hand where Merlin's cheek pressed along with an occasional scrape of clenched teeth, and sincerely hoped that it was saliva, or even vomit, rather than blood.

It lasted long enough for Leon to start pounding at the armory door, demanding that Arthur reply or they would break it down. He glanced at the still-trembling form in his arms, gradually going limp as the tremors shook themselves free, unknotting Merlin's limbs from their rictus. He slumped in Arthur's grasp, breathing ragged. Arthur lowered him to the stone floor, careful that he would not smother himself, before shouting at Leon to stand down. He had to pry Merlin's fingers from his gambeson, after which they twitched weakly against the floor where Arthur placed the hand. Though he knew that he needed to deal with Leon before the knight decided that Arthur was in danger after all, he remained bent over his knees for a long moment, calming the race of his own heart. Merlin had gone too still on the floor in front of him, but he could see the stutter of his ribcage as he breathed, and the latent twitching here and there along his frame caused by the protest of abused and overexerted muscles.

"Hold, Leon – I'm coming!" Arthur pressed himself to his feet and crossed the armory to unbolt the door.

Leon startled back at the force with which Arthur flung the door open. "Sire, we thought – "

"Only you," Arthur interrupted. Several other knights littered the hall behind Leon, and Arthur gestured at them to clear the way. "Everyone else out."

Leon gave both Arthur and the other knights a wary look, but obediently followed Arthur back through the room, past and around the racks of weapons and armor, silent until they reached the back where both Merlin's practice armor and Arthur's lay discarded. "Merlin?" He hurried forward and made a cursory search, likely for wounds. "Should I alert the guard?"

"No. Just help me get him to Gaius." Arthur shook out an old tatty cape folded on one of the shelves and spread it out behind Merlin.

Without waiting to be told, Leon assisted in rolling Merlin onto the cape, and then folding it to cover him and preserve his dignity. Arthur forced himself not to acknowledge the loss of bodily control that they concealed by it. Leon tore off his glove with his teeth and held the backs of his fingers in front of Merlin's nose to confirm breathing. "What happened, sire?"

Arthur shook his head, because he didn't know beyond, "He had some sort of a fit."

"A fit?" Leon frowned. "Was he injured in practice?"

"No more than usual, and no bumps on the head. It happened once before, though, over a year ago." Arthur knelt down and maneuvered Merlin up until his could get his arms up under Merlin's and around his chest. "Get his legs."

Leon lifted, and together they shuffled through the rows of weaponry, careful not to knock Merlin into anything. Thankfully, Leon asked no further questions as they navigated the corridors to the physician's quarters, a short trip seeing as they were adjacent to the armory. The chambers were empty when they arrived, though, so Arthur tipped his head toward Gaius's bed, which was the closest clear surface. Merlin was lean and bony, but he wasn't light by any means.

They hoisted him over onto the old straw mattress and Arthur gestured Leon back when he started at Merlin's boots. "I've got this. Go find Gaius. He's usually making rounds in the lower town this time of the morning."

"Yes, sire." Leon gave Merlin one last, concerned look, and then hurried out, shutting the door behind him.

The silence was oppressive once Leon had gone, and Arthur wondered when he had gotten so used to Merlin's noise that he had to fight the urge to fidget without it. "Merlin?" Arthur pursed his lips and looked around as if some treatment might be sitting on one of the tables, conveniently labeled with Merlin's name. Of course, there was nothing, and it would take some time for Leon to find Gaius and walk him back. He shook his head and shrugged off the useless feeling that tended to settle over his shoulders whenever he sat alone in a room that wasn't his personal chambers. This was ridiculous.

Arthur pulled Merlin's boots off and tucked the old cloak closer around him before dragging a stool over and reflecting on the absolute travesty of his kingship. He was worried. More worried than a king should be over a servant. It made him angry, but it also made him feel small, and he had no idea what to do with either of those feelings. He never did.

Movement drew his eyes back to the pallet and Arthur abandoned his introspection at the flash of blue visible behind slit eyelids. "Merlin!" He leaned forward and rested his hand on Merlin's chest. "Gaius is on his way. Can you speak?" The last time this had happened, Arthur had waited half the night for Merlin's speech to come back to him. He would never admit how absolutely terrifying it had been to watch his manservant struggle to find words, or to recognize Arthur, or remember where they were, and come up blank. "Merlin – do you know where you are?"

Merlin made some kind of gesture, but its meaning was lost on Arthur. His pupils were the size of pins, though, like two ink splatters on a blue canvas, which couldn't have been good considering the faded sunlight that provided only weak illumination to the room.

Arthur scrubbed his hands through his hair and shoved himself to his feet. He couldn't abide the inactivity of just sitting there while Merlin stared vaguely through him. After a moment of indecision, he located an old horn cup tipped over amongst the remains of a partially eaten bowl of porridge. Probably Merlin's breakfast; he was no better at picking up after himself than he was at picking up after Arthur. Another short hunt turned up clean water on the washstand, and Arthur dunked the cup into the ewer to fill it. Merlin seemed to be watching all of this from the other side of the room, but there wasn't much comprehension in his face as to what he saw. Arthur wanted to make some crude comment about how he'd always known that Merlin really was a halfwit, but he couldn't make the words come.

Arthur had convinced Merlin to drink most of the water in the cup by the time Gaius returned, looking harried and leaning rather heavily on Leon. Arthur backed away and let the physician take over, hovering with Leon near the door. It was with some relief that Arthur caught the faint sound of Merlin mumbling out proper answers to Gaius's questions, voice little more than a crackle of whispers. Do you know where you are? Camelot. And who is standing over there? with a nondescript gesture to Arthur. The King. Arthur. What is the month? …Muin? Leon seemed to unwind some as well, and Arthur nodded at him to go ahead and see to his other duties now that the crisis was past.

Once they were alone, Gaius gestured Arthur to join them. "He's alright now, sire. Just a bit of lingering disorientation."

Arthur nodded. "He is to take whatever time he needs to recover."

"Thank you, sire." Gaius's hand remained splayed over Merlin's chest in much the same place as Arthur's had rested earlier. "I've given him a sleeping draught for now; he needs rest more than anything else."

"Yes." Arthur let his eyes wander past Gaius and off into the room. "What caused this? He wasn't always like this, was he?"

"No, sire." Gaius stood, clearly restless, and busied his hands rearranging the various herbs and tinctures bottled on his work table. "This is an acquired affliction, I'm afraid."

Arthur nodded. "Was it his magic?"

Too late, it occurred to Arthur that simply blurting that out with no preamble might have been a mistake. The color drained from Gaius's face at an alarming rate and Arthur had to catch at his arm to guide him to a stool before he sank to the floor right where he stood.

"I'm sorry," Arthur offered. "I assumed you knew – "

Gaius waved off the apology. "Merlin has only ever used it for good. He's protected you – "

"I know," Arthur soothed.

"He doesn't deserve execution. I'm begging you – "

Again, Arthur cut him off. "I know, Gaius. I have no intention of executing him. It would be rather the opposite of what I swore anyway. Merlin's not evil. He's an idiot much of the time, and I'm sure he's done questionable things with it, but I cannot believe that he means me or Camelot any harm. He could have destroyed us ten times over by now if he really wanted to."

Gaius appeared to be catching his breath. "How…" He stopped himself, and though it was clearly not the question he wanted to ask, he amended, "You swore a vow?"

Arthur nodded. "To the disir."

Gaius shook his head. "You swore never to allow magic back into Camelot. To renounce the old religion. Magic is the old religion. The two cannot be unwound."

"That's not what I swore."

Gaius blinked at him. "But…Merlin said – "

"Merlin was not with me." Arthur pursed his lips. "I bade him wait outside, the fool. He tried to convince me that there was no place for magic in Camelot. Him – a warlock. I didn't say anything afterwards to disabuse him of the notion – I didn't want to say anything until I knew why he'd done it." Arthur glanced around and located a stool for himself now that he could be assured that Gaius wouldn't expire of fright right in front of him. With his elbows on his knees, Arthur studied his hands carefully. "I still don't understand. For a while, I thought that was his aim – to ingratiate himself to me and then use me to bring magic back to the land, and as much as I want to believe that what he said to me was some kind of a ploy, he isn't actually the best liar, not once you know what to look for." He glanced up to see that yes, Gaius knew Merlin's tells as well, and understood what Arthur was saying. "Why would he do that, Gaius? He all but bade me condemn him, and everyone like him."

Gaius started to speak several times, and then finally frowned, mirroring Arthur's pose. "I think you misunderstand Merlin's goals, sire. Whatever the druids or prophecy or fate, or anything else demand of him, his aim was never to restore magic. It never died in the first place – it can't. Freedom might appeal to him on some level, but in practice, he hasn't any ambition so simple."

"Or selfish," Arthur agreed. He thought of Mordred, dead and gone, and how he had almost gone back on his word at returning to find that the disir had supposedly reneged on their bargain. Arthur had thought that his vow was meant to save Mordred and lift the curse from his wound. But Merlin…he'd seemed relieved by it. It had occurred to Arthur later that night that perhaps Merlin denounced magic in order to achieve Mordred's death. After all, his and Arthur's assumptions about which choice would lead to which outcome for Mordred had been the same.

"Yes. He never learned to be selfish." Gaius's eyebrows twitched and he glanced over his shoulder to ensure that Merlin remained unconscious. When he turned back, he appeared resigned. "I supported your father initially, you know. The purge did not start as an abomination – it was necessary to excise dark magic from the land. It had taken hold of the priestly orders – the priestesses of Avalon had grown drunk on their power; they cared little for consequences anymore. Their greed was souring all of Albion. Sorcerers were used as weapons of war, often against their will, by any two-bit warlord lucky enough to come by one. The dragons were often treated more as slaves than as kin. It was only later that the fervor took hold, and Uther's hatred and grief overrode his better sense. There is, regrettably, much darkness in the land, sire. Much of it is due to the misuse of magic. Merlin knows this. Power drives good men, and good women, to evil deeds – to corruption and the sins of avarice. He can see this as well as anyone. Much like you, most of Merlin's experience of magic is of trying to counter the darkness that sorcerers unleash on this kingdom. I believe that might be why he does nothing to upset the balance that you have struck between justice and the persecution of magic users."

Arthur flinched at the choice of words, but said nothing.

"His most fervent aim has always been to keep you safe and well, sire. It overrides all other concerns. If he advised you to reject the edict of the disir, then it was because he believed to do otherwise would harm you somehow. And that, Merlin could never allow."

Arthur scoffed. "How would that keep me safe?" He didn't give Gaius an opportunity to respond though before saying, "You say the druids make demands of him. What claim do they have on him?"

"It is a prophecy, sire. That he is the one they call Emrys, and that he will stand beside the Once and Future King to usher in a golden age of peace and magic."

Arthur frowned. "He used to call me that. I thought it was rubbish."

Gaius offered him a small, sincere smile. "You always did think remarkably little of yourself, sire."

Arthur glanced up sharply and then made an incredulous sound in the back of his throat. "You believe it. You actually think I'm this king of prophecy and that Merlin is some druid harbringer."

"I do." Gaius tipped his head to one side, and then back.

"Oh for gods' sake. And that nonsense you told him about the sword in the stone – you believe that too?"

"Well, no. That part was rubbish."

Arthur arched an eyebrow.

"I'm relatively certain Merlin made it up."

"'Merlin made it up.' Of course he did. Probably put the damn thing into the stone himself."

Tellingly, Gaius said nothing.

Arthur sighed in exasperation and smeared a hand over his face. "Right. I shouldn't be surprised by all of the lies, really. Seems to be the new procedure at court."

"Merlin had no choice," Gaius rebuked softly.

"Yes, he did!" Arthur slammed his palm onto the worktop with a crack. A few bottles toppled, and the one that rolled, Gaius caught before it fell from the table's edge. Arthur ignored it. "He could have told me what he is! I've known for years anyway – he could have come clean any time and – "

"He had no reason to believe that!" The volume of Gaius's voice, breaking thick over Arthur's brought a tense silence down between them. More quietly now, but no less intense, Gaius snapped, "He believed that you would hate him, at best. At worse, he believed his life at risk. It wasn't even about him not wanting to die – he was terrified at the thought of leaving youdefenseless against magical threats, because like it or not, he is probably the only creature of magic who would bother fighting for you – who would mourn to see you fall. You are not so different from your father, Arthur, and in this one thing at least, you have given no quarter. Merlin had no reason – none at all – to think that he could tell you what he is. He had no reason to doubt that you would put him on a pyre. Innocence has never mattered to you before, and you don't show favoritism – it would be toxic to your reign to make exceptions to the law for those you favor. Whatever you may think you say in private, as king you make no difference between good and evil in magic, only between sorcerer and not. Whatever secret promise you made to the triple goddess, nothing you have done gives any indication that your stance on magic has changed. It is still outlawed. You still execute those found practicing it, no matter why they practice it. You still denounce it. You still tell Merlin that you denounce it, which now that you confess you've known about it this long, is cruel. You tell him to his face that magic is evil, that sorcerers are inherently evil and should be put to death, all while knowing what he is, and knowing that if it were not for him, you would not still be alive to say anything at all!" He paused and seemed to deflate as he subsided, though with difficulty. "Sire."

Arthur took a moment with his eyes closed to swallow his temper, and then sucked in a calming breath. "In public, I must maintain – "

"You don't only say these things in public, and he has no inkling that in private, you think any differently."

"In public," Arthur bit out, ignoring the interruption. "I must maintain Camelot's laws and strength in front of her people and our enemies. I must – "

"No." Gaius snapped, his tone cold. "You are the king. You can say whatever you like, make whatever laws you like, pardon whoever you like. You simply don't." He gathered himself with a breath and rose. "Now if you will excuse me, I must tend to my patient. He should not be disturbed with all of this shouting."

Arthur fumed for a moment at being dismissed in his own castle, but when he rounded on Gaius to say as much, he caught sight of Merlin lying pale and still on Gaius's bed by the window. The fight leaked from him like water through a sieve. Please don't burn me. Was it really such a shock that those were the first words from Merlin's mouth when he realized Arthur knew? Such a simple plea, to say so much.

Without thought, Arthur demanded, "Is that what's been wrong all of this time?" He couldn't meet Gaius's gaze when the physician turned around to regard him again. "Have I been that close to losing him?"

Something in Gaius's outline softened, though Arthur's eyes remained fixed on the steady rise and fall of Merlin's chest. "Merlin is loyal to you," Gaius assured him, voice firm. "That will never waiver."

"Why, exactly?" Arthur tore his gaze away and directed it toward the door. "He has no reason to be loyal to me, has he?"

"Arthur, you are a good king. A kind king – "

"Apparently, I'm not." Arthur glanced back toward Gaius and found his face troubled, though he said nothing more to refute Arthur. And that was telling in and of itself. He gestured to Merlin, half hidden behind the protective stance of Gaius's body. "Is there a treatment for this? Something that will make it easier to bear, or less frequent?"

Gaius swallowed as if uneasy, or perhaps he was just swallowing more harsh retorts. "I have come into some herbs and compounds from beyond the south seas that may help, but I have yet to test them."

Arthur nodded and then hazarded to ask, "The fit near the cauldron, and the one today – were those the only ones he's suffered?"

The lines creased out from around Gaius's eyes, a lessening of the sternness of his regular countenance, which always seemed vaguely disapproving by default. He wore his physician's face now, the one that heralded unwelcome news. "No, sire. The one at the cauldron was likely the first, but there have been several over the past year. I had hoped that they would be temporary, and that he would heal, but it appears not. They have yet to fade."

Arthur nodded to acknowledge that. "I had difficulty rousing him after he slipped off the path."

"It was likely the final straw," Gaius agreed. "He has suffered multiple head wounds over the years, and other injuries and poisons besides."

Arthur took a breath, and carefully failed to look back at Merlin as he made his way to the door. Before slipping out, he ordered, "See that he has whatever he needs." Not that he thought Gaius would do otherwise, but sometimes, Arthur just needed to hear himself say things.

Through the dwindling crack in the door, he heard Gaius reply, "Of course, sire." Something about the way he said it sounded disappointed.

---

Arthur intended to go straight to his chambers, order a bath, and then try to order his thoughts, but instead, he found himself stood in front of the sealed doors of the queen's chambers. Guinevere. His hand came to rest against the wood of its own accord, grains and knots worn down by sanding, polish, and the brush of hundreds of hands and thousands of days. Smooth. Aged to a dark, rich mahogany that could have been polished, varnished with a coat of shine, but which was not. Simple wear had made the wood gleam like this.

Guinevere had been gone over a year now. The day of it remained stark in his mind, imbued with preternatural clarity: standing at the water's edge, begging Guinevere with all of his heart to step into the water; the atmosphere redolent with a sourness unbefitting the memory of a goddess, whatever that was; light that he couldn't dare bring himself to look at because it served as yet more proof that his father had never stood a chance of vanquishing the old religion, and should probably never have tried.

And Guinevere. His beautiful queen. Arthur knew that Merlin blamed himself for her loss, no matter that the only one truly to blame was Morgana. Arthur could have told him that, but he didn't know how. If anyone should have noticed that the queen was no longer herself, surely it was her husband? If any other blame waited to be laid, it was his. Arthur still couldn't understand how he had missed it. His Guinevere was a radiant, kind woman – how could he have failed to see the cunning that slipped in? The contempt? How could he not notice that she was gone, however steady her body stood before him day after day after day – he should have seen the manipulations. There were signs. Tyr Seward was only the first. Gwen was compassionate; she would never have agreed with executing the boy. Arthur should have seen as much. There were plenty of things that Arthur should have found suspicious, but instead chose to ignore. After so many betrayals, so many instances of what it looked like when a loved one lied to him, turned on him, surely he should have seen it in her. Or rather, that it was not her at all.

"You would have noticed," he told her out loud, voice soft in the perpetual twilight of the corridor. He let his fingers press and skate over the wood of her door as if he could use it to recall the feel of her skin. "If it were me. You could always see so clear." He thought about the tomb beyond those doors, so much like the one Uther had made of Ygraine. He wondered, briefly, if her things still smelt of her, or if he would find only dust inside.

Footsteps down the corridor broke his reverie and Arthur retreated before his own guards. The thought of a bath no longer appealed; it would just grow cold without Merlin working his literal magic to keep it the perfect temperature.

tbc