After All The Days Of Darkness

by Kari Kurofai

The steps they take to get there are hesitant, slow, careful. But somehow they get there all the same. "You're stuck with me," Gwaine promised.

After All The Days Of Darkness

"Now I am a very wretch, and most unhappy above all other knights."

-Sir Percival (The Quest Of The Sangreal)

The first time they had a real conversation was when they were helping to move the rubble from the throne room. Arthur refused to assist them after he saw the damage and heard the story of what happened from Merlin, instead using his time to lurk in the infirmary area they'd set up while his manservant's injuries were attended to. Gwaine may or may not have resented him for it, but he didn't say anything aloud as he lifted and rolled chunks of castle ceiling out of the middle of the room. Or at least he didn't for the first half hour.

"I don't know why Arthur can't lend a hand," Gwaine muttered indignantly, wincing as he felt something pull in his wrist when he tried to move a huge slab of stone too fast.

Percival was lifting the other end of said piece of stone and he narrowed his eyes as Gwaine spoke. "He has every right not to," he replied smoothly.

Gwaine made a face and they shuffled across the room to dump the chunk of rubble in the hall with the rest of them where another team of soldiers and knights were working on moving them from the castle. "I thought the point of the round table was equality," he snorted, "not for Arthur to turn his back and find better things to do when the work got down to the nitty gritty."

Percival frowned, raising an eyebrow at the term, "nitty gritty," though Gwaine couldn't tell if it was an action of amusement or disdain. "It's not about the work, Sir Gwaine," he said as they moved to grab another piece of rubble from the heap. "It's about what he might find."

"Merlin said the Lady Morgana probably got away," Gwaine huffed.

"And if she didn't? There's always the chance we're digging to find a body here, Sir Gwaine," Percival pointed out, to which Gwaine eyed the pile of stone and glass apprehensively. Shaking his head, Percival hefted up the slab by himself, leaving Gwaine to stare at him. "Have you any siblings, Sir Gwaine?" He asked as he left the stone in the hall.

"No."

Percival nodded, "Well I did, once. A sister." He gestured at the rubble as he spoke and Gwaine's heart sunk as he remembered what Percival said happened to his family, his village, at the hands of Cenred's army. "I loved her dearly," Percival continued, "And seeing her lifeless body was the worst moment of my life." He looked away and Gwaine swallowed, sorry he'd ever brought it up. "If I can spare Arthur that pain I will gladly clear all of this debris."

Gwaine stood there a moment, unsure of what to say as Percival went back to moving the rubble as if he'd never spoken. After a pause he hesitantly stepped forward to grab the other end of a particularly heavy looking piece though he knew the other knight was perfectly capable of lifting it by himself. "I'll help," he said quietly, to which Percival gave the smallest of smiles in response.

OoOoOoOoOoO

The second time they talked was during the feast at the end of the week celebrating Arthur's return and the restoration of peace. Gwaine was the first, if not the only one to notice that after the toasts and speeches were made Percival slipped away. Amidst the hustle and bustle of the feasting, the laughter and the drunken songs that were just beginning as the night stretched on, no one even acknowledged him when Percival got up and simply left. Gwaine frowned to himself before following suit, his own departure followed by a chorus of lighthearted insults from the other knights for skipping out which Gwaine waved off.

He found Percival sitting on the edge of the well in the smaller courtyard. For a moment he hovered under the arches of the castle, wondering if he was intruding on some deep and thoughtful moment the other knight was having. Percival seemed like the thoughtful type, a little like Merlin. Unlike Merlin, however, if Gwaine got punched in the face by him for being rude it would actually hurt, if not kill him. So instead he waited and watched, thinking he should just go back to the feast because he was pretty sure Percival didn't like him very much and feasting until he was pissed was preferable to dying for stepping where he wasn't invited.

But when Percival started absently picking at his sleeves, both chain mail and cloth, and looking at them as if they were the scum of the earth Gwaine couldn't help but laugh. A laugh which made his presence known as Percival looked up in vague surprise when he did so. "Is it just formal attire you dislike or sleeves in general?" Gwaine called, crossing the courtyard.

"Both," Percival muttered. His fingers clenched around the red sleeves as if he was making to tear them off. Gwaine shook his head and sat down beside him with another laugh.

"I wouldn't do that if you ever want to attend another feast again."

Percival pursed his lips and looked at his feet, his fingers still tangled in his sleeve. "I don't know if I want to." Gwaine blinked. "I don't fit in."

"If this is a matter of being taller than everyone else in the entire kingdom you do not have my sympathies," Gwaine joked. He tried to laugh as a follow up but grew quiet when Percival just looked at him, saying nothing in return. "You are a knight, my friend," whispered Gwaine, "Why would you not belong here?"

It took a moment of fidgeting and Gwaine twiddling his thumbs before Percival finally looked up again, his eyebrows furrowed together with some emotion Gwaine couldn't name. "I am not of noble blood, nor have I known Camelot very long, or its prince. My motives were my own in fighting Cenred's immortal army, but . . ."

Gwaine tilted his head to the side, "And now? I didn't fight for Camelot, Percival, but for what Camelot could be if given the chance and the right person to lead it." He laughed softly and leaned back as he did so, almost tipping over into the well they sat on the side of. "You don't have to stay, by any means, but I for one can't wait to see what this kingdom will become in the right hands."

Percival stayed quiet, staring at his hands. After a heartbeat Gwaine leaned across the space between them and put his hand on the other knight's arm. "You won't regret it. Stay."

"I have nowhere else to go," Percival whispered.

"Neither do I."

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

Percival was an observer, as all quiet types are. Sometimes he wondered if people just assumed that because he didn't talk to them that meant that he couldn't hear them as well, couldn't see them. Being quiet did not mean being stone, did not mean you were incapable of noticing everything that happens around you, without you. And Percival was very much aware of everything.

Often times he wondered how people didn't pick up on the things he saw and heard. How did they miss the way Lancelot watched Guinevere when she wasn't looking? The way Merlin was never more than two steps behind Arthur at any point in time? The way Lancelot's and Merlin's eyes looked the same whenever their paths crossed because Arthur and Gwen's paths were also crossing? Percival wasn't one to miss things, but he was one to keep them to himself. There was nothing to say when he caught sight of the endless dance between those four. It was like a circle, Lancelot walking away from Gwen and looking over his shoulder for her at the same time, Gwen following him without meaning to, Arthur behind her, and Merlin trailing after him just to circle back around to Lancelot again, two steps behind Merlin and two steps ahead of Guinevere, but second best to both.

And then there was Gwaine. Percival raised an eyebrow when he noticed the fifth member of the circle, the one who hovered on the outside until Merlin remembered that there were other people in the world besides the prince. It was Gwaine and Merlin who would break away from the circle and sit on the ramparts of the castle together, eating apples and chucking the cores at unsuspecting citizens below. It was Gwaine and Merlin who would cause havoc on the kitchens while dinner was being prepared, who went to the lower town and came back caked in mud, and who tossed pieces of bread at each other across the room during feasts when Arthur wasn't looking. It was Gwaine who waited on the ramparts alone when Merlin forgot about him amidst his daily duties.

"You are very loyal," Percival remarked when he took up Merlin's usual spot beside Gwaine. The sun was setting and Gwaine was all but out of apples and he rolled the only one he had left around across the palms of his hands as Percival spoke.

"A loyal idiot," Gwaine sighed.

"He's only human."

"But he-" Gwaine stopped and tilted his head up to stare at the sky, narrowing his eyes at the setting sun. "He's my only friend. I just . . ."

Percival frowned, "Your only friend?"

"Uh . . ."

"You need to make more friends."

Gwaine raised an eyebrow, "As if you're one to talk."

"I have-" Percival paused, clearing his throat as he corrected himself, "Had. I had lots of friends, back home."

Gwaine put a hand to his forehead. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm so stupid. I keep bringing it up and I-"

"I don't mind." Blinking, Gwaine turned to stare at him in shock. "If I never talk about it, ever I never talk about them, it will be like they were never there at all." Percival swallowed, "And I can't let that happen. I'm the only one left, the only one who remembers. If that means carrying a whole village worth of memories with me then so be it. But memories are nothing if they can't be shared."

An uncomfortable silence settled between them before Gwaine reached over and pressed the last apple into Percival's open hand. "Tell me about your friends," he said quietly.

Percival smiled.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

"I'm bad at making friends."

Merlin looked up, a piece of bread from his breakfast still hanging out of his mouth, to stare at Gwaine across the table. "Huh?"

"How do you make friends?"

". . . . Be nice to people?"

Gwaine put on a mock offended expression. "Are you implying that I'm not nice?" he gasped.

"No!" Merlin waved his hands in front of his chest defensively, " 'Course not!" Gwaine narrowed his eyes. "Well, maybe a little." Merlin sighed as Gwaine's expression fell. "It's not that," the young warlock pinched the bridge of his nose, "It's not that you're mean, per say. It's more like you're rude because you blurt out the first thing that pops into your head without thinking it through."

"Thanks."

"I'm just being honest."

Gwaine rested his chin in his hands, "Great. But then why are you friends with me?"

Merlin smiled, getting up from the table to grab an apple from one of the cupboards and toss it to the knight. "Because I wait on Arthur every day, and in comparison to him you're as nice as a daisy."

"I'm not sure if that was a compliment or not."

"Take it as one," Merlin laughed.

Gwaine considered this a moment while he watched Merlin gather up Arthur's armor to take back to the prince before training started for the day. "What do you and Arthur do?" The way Merlin's eyes widened was almost comical, hysterical even if Gwaine had the guts to laugh in his friend's face. He covered up any such thing with a hand over his mouth though. " I mean, what do you do as friends."

"Er. We're not friends. At least not according to Arthur," Merlin made a face as he said that, as if the prince himself was standing in front of him for Merlin to show his indignant attitude towards the subject to firsthand. Gwaine really did laugh then.

"What do you do for fun?" he rephrased.

Merlin's eyes lit up at this question and he fumbled with the armor for a minute. "Well, sometimes when Arthur doesn't want to do any, uh, princely things like train the knights or attend council meetings and the like, he has me sneak him out of the castle." Gwaine snorted. "We go to the lower town, or out of the city entirely and to the forest, or the river, or the fields behind the castle, and just waste the day away." He sighed wistfully, "Usually I end up in the stocks for it, but it's worth it."

"Just waste the day away?"

"Yeah," Merlin readjusted the armor in his arms. "We went wading in the river once, and fishing. Another time we just lay in the fields and stared at the clouds until we were sunburned and dirty. And once when we went into the forest I slipped into a ravine and sprained my ankle. Arthur carried me to the castle on his back."

"Well that's . . . Platonic," Gwaine whispered to himself only to earn a blank look from Merlin. He chuckled, "Arthur's probably wondering where his armor is." He snickered as Merlin gasped, stumbling out of the room to get Arthur's armor to the prince before training.

It just so happened that while he was walking to the training field himself, Gwaine nearly smacked right into Percival in one of the castle corridors. "Running late as well, are we?" he smirked, glancing out the nearby window to the training field below where Lancelot and Arthur were already beginning to spar. "Um, do you want to, uh, get out of here?"

Percival stared at him. "What?"

"Arthur won't miss us. Let's take a day off. Want to come?" Gwaine pointed vaguely over his shoulder in the general direction of the outside world.

The smile that spread across Percival's face was slow and small, but Gwaine didn't miss it. He smiled in return. "Let's go," Percival replied.

They slipped away, out of sight of the training field and out of the castle to the stables. "Just act casual," Gwaine said as they rode out through the lower town. It wasn't as if it was unusual for a couple of knights to go out at this time of day, patrolling or hunting, but Percival still fidgeted in his saddle like a misbehaving child afraid of a scolding. Gwaine just rolled his eyes. They passed the guards at the city gates without a hitch and Gwaine chuckled when Percival sighed in relief. "You need to relax more or you'll get stress wrinkles." He pointed to the other's forehead, watching it wrinkle just above the eyebrows as he spoke. "Relax," he laughed, "And let's see if you can beat me in a race." With that he spurned his horse into a canter down the dirt path, whooping as the dust kicked up behind him. Percival merely stared a moment before he frowned, nudging his steed to the same pace and taking off after him.

Contrary to what he told most people, Gwaine was not the best rider. It wasn't a lack of skill, really, as much as the horse's lack of like for it's rider. When it came to riding itself, Gwaine was one of the fastest, the best at maneuvering between trees and people, at staying atop his steed in the heat of battle. It was a practice learned, he claimed, from years of skipping out on tavern tabs and needing to get out of town as fast as possible. It was these same tavern tab skip-outs, however, that cause a common dislike of him amongst the general horse population. More often than not he'd be leagues out of town before he realized the horse he left on was not the same one he took in. Or if he was really in a rush, he'd leave without any horse at all, even the one he rode in on, just to avoid his bill. And then sometimes when he got captured by slave traders or bandits he had no idea what happened to his horse at all. Thus, Gwaine had never had a horse for more than a few weeks, not enough time for the animal to trust him and certainly not enough to show that he could be trusted.

Which is why instead of jumping over a log in the path, Gwaine's horse pulled up short rather unexpectedly and sent him flying over its head and into the bushes. Percival pulled up beside the now riderless steed and dismounted, pursing his lips to keep from laughing. "Sir Gwaine? You alive?" he asked as he toed at the outside of the unfortunately thorn laden bushes.

Gwaine raised a hand out from the depths of the thorny hell and Percival huffed out a soft laugh as he took it and hauled the other knight to his feet. "You don't have to call me 'Sir' all the time, you know," Gwaine said as he started to pick thorns out of his clothes and skin.

Percival tilted his head to the side, "But you said-"

"There's this thing, it's called sarcasm," Gwaine chuckled. He blinked when Percival just looked at him, a faintly hurt sort of look, before he wandered over to Gwaine's still stirred up horse without another word. "Aaaannnddd I've messed it up again, haven't I," he sighed, watching Percival begin to sooth his horse with a hand to the animal's neck. "I'm sorry."

"No, you're fine," Percival said quietly as he took the horse's muzzle between both hands, pressing his forehead to the space between it's eyes. "I'm the one who's not doing anything right. I'm not used to this sort of life, I don't know the proper etiquette, what's acceptable and what's frowned upon. This isn't the sort of life I ever thought I would lead, let alone want to."

Gwaine shuffled over and patted his horse, frowning as it startled a bit and calmed only when Percival murmured something to it. "You're good with horses," he said offhandedly as if he wasn't trying to change the subject.

Percival smiled, the same small, almost hidden smile he always wore. "We had a farm, back home. We weren't rich but we had quite a few horses that we bred and sold to nearby villages. I grew up around them." He glanced at Gwaine with a teasing glint in his eyes, "You don't seem to get along with them, however."

"They just can't handle this much charisma," Gwaine grinned, "No one can."

Shaking his head Percival reached over and picked a thorn out of the other knight's hair. "Even thorn bushes can not deal with it," he agreed in a mock solemn tone. Gwaine snorted.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

Gwaine didn't go out and "Do things," much. At least not by the definition of "Do things" that Merlin gave him. To Gwaine, a day out meant tavern hopping and tromping around the lower town wooing ladies with his knightly status (It was not usually a successful endeavor but hey, at least he tried). Which was why he was at a loss for what to do as he and Percival trotted the horses down the road leading into the forest, away from the castle and the daily duties of a knight.

They steered the horses off the path and into the deeper unmarked parts of the woods. It was quieter there somehow, like a whole different world holding it's breath. The air slipped in between the trees as a breeze rather than the normal late fall wind and the birds sang only in the pockets of sun that leaked through the foliage. It was almost peaceful. Of their own accord the horses led them deeper into the trees, stopping under a tree where the forest floor beneath was littered with apples, its branches stretching far too high for the horses to reach. Gwaine whooped when he noticed them after his steed plucked one from the ground and he stood up in the saddle so he could reach the lowest branch.

"Careful," Percival warned as he watched Gwaine heave himself up into the tree. "I'm not carrying you back if you fall."

"You would too," Gwaine retorted as he snatched a ripe green apple from amongst the leaves and tossed it at the other. Percival caught it with a faintly amused smile. "Besides, it would be worth it. Wild apples are always so much better than the hand raised ones."

"Only bring back what you can carry," Percival cautioned lightly when Gwaine started curling up the ends of his tunic and stuffing apples into the pocket he created.

Gwaine gave him a blank look, "Carry back? I'm going to eat all of these."

"Now?"

"Yes," Gwaine replied matter-of-factly as he shimmied back down the trunk and took the reigns of his horse, leading it by hand with his other clutching his shirt roll of apples. "Come on then, I think there's a stream up ahead."

It ended up being good twenty minute walk to the stream on foot, as Gwaine couldn't very well ride with his shirt stuffed with apples. As it was his horse kept trying to eat said shirt as they walked, resulting in Gwaine swatting at it and yelling a lot while Percival just smirked. Once at the stream they debated the pros and cons of catching a fish or two before deciding that it was a lazy day and any fish catching other than as sport was work. Besides, Gwaine had about a dozen apples in his shirt.

They sat on the stream bank and ate, Gwaine declaring apple core races down the water to be a new game. They ate and tossed cores into the stream, watching them wash away and arguing about which one was which and whose was the winner. When Gwaine stretched out across the grass, his toes just inches from the water, he asked, "We're friends, right?" Because that was the point of this trip, or had been, to prove to himself that he wasn't the biggest prat ever and could have more friends than just Merlin.

Percival glanced at him from where he sat beside him, still chewing on his last apple. "I thought we already were. People don't just go out and do things like this with strangers."

"Yeah," Gwaine chuckled, "I guess they don't."

It was so easy to fall asleep on the bank in the silence of the forest, Percival tossing stones into the stream and watching the ripples disappear into the current while Gwaine dozed. The sunlight trickled in through the gaps in the canopy and it wasn't until the rays had stretched long over the water that Gwaine woke up with flower petals tickling his nose.

Percival stared down at him, a little white flower between his fingers and a smug smile on his face. "Everyone knows you shouldn't fall asleep when there are knights around," he said lightly.

Gwaine's eyes widened and he raised a hand to his hair, only to discover more of the little flowers tangled in it. "You, sir, are an arse," he muttered, sitting up to begin picking them out of his hair. Percival just grinned. "How long was I out, anyways?" Gwaine asked as he stuck one of the flowers between his teeth.

"Not terribly long."

Pointing down the stream Gwaine said, "I think there's an area farther down where it widens and forms a bit of a pool. You up for a swim?"

Percival raised an eyebrow, "Are you? I saw how many apples you ate."

"Slept it off," Gwaine scoffed with a wave of his hand. They left the horses by the bank and wandered down the stretch of the stream, following the current until they came to the spot Gwaine had indicated. The stream curved around a tree on the opposite side, causing a sharp turn on their end where the water slowed and dipped down deep. Gwaine punched the air at his success at remembering the spot from a recent hunting trip and stripped down, jumping in before Percival could stop him or make a comment about how the current might be strong even in the calm looking pool at this time of year.

After a heartbeat or two of Gwaine not resurfacing Percival started to panic. He kneeled at the edge of the pool, staring into the water to see if he could see his fellow knight beneath the ripples and gentle looking current. Which was, of course, the moment two hands shot out of the water and encircled his neck. Percival only had a moment to gasp in a single gulp off air before he was pulled into the icy pool headfirst, the sound of laughter ringing in his ears.

After a bit of struggle and more water than he would like in his nose, Percival made it back to the surface, heaving in air. Gwaine floated up not far away, absolutely screaming with laughter. "Your face!" he wheezed between laughs, "You should see your face!"

Percival scowled and slapped the water between them, splashing a spray of it at the other. "Are you kidding me? I thought you had drowned!"

Gwaine stopped laughing. He treaded water for a minute before swimming closer, a small frown on his face. "You know, I'm trying so hard here to be your friend, to not say dumb things that remind you of what happened to your family and your home. But whatever I do I still mess up. I'm starting to think it's not my fault at all, and rather yours."

"Gwaine-"

"No, shut up," Gwaine hissed, his fingers tangling in the front of Percival's soaking wet shirt as he floated in the water. "Listen to me. How long are you going to keep mourning? The rest of your life? Are you always going to stand with one foot in their ashes and the other in the present?" He swallowed as Percival's eyebrows furrowed, his mouth falling open in an unreadable expression. "I hate to be blunt but apparently that's something I'm good at so bear with me. They're gone, Percival. And you can't change that. You've mourned, you've taken your revenge, and now you're just standing on the brink between past and present. You look over your shoulder instead of ahead." He couldn't help but shake Percival a bit as he spoke, his voice breaking. "They're gone! Look ahead! You have a new home now, new friends, me. I can't pussyfoot around your feelings all the time because I always talk before I think and that will never stop. Start looking ahead, damn it."

Percival sucked in a breath, "If I do I'll forget them. I'm the last one, I have to-"

"Not alone," Gwaine snapped. "You've told me so many stories already. So tell me more. Every day, every minute, tell me another story about your home and I'll help you remember. But you can't keep this up. Take that step off the edge, stay here. Stay in Camelot, in the present. Please."

"Why do you care so much?" Percival whispered.

Gwaine gave him a wavering smile and looked him in the eye, "We're friends. Right? Am I not allowed to care?"

Percival shook his head, "A whole village of memories is too much for one man to bear alone."

"Which is why you should share them. And I promise you, I won't let you forget a single one of them. But no more of this." He smacked his hand into the water between them, "No more getting teary eyed over what you can't change. No more watching everything pass you by as if you're not a part of it. Because you are."

Dipping his head, Percival broke the eye contact. "Thank you," he breathed.

They sat back to back on the side of the pool while Percival's clothes dried, Gwaine's own getting soaked from the contact. He didn't mind. Percival started from the beginning, from the first stories his mother had told him when he was small, stories specific to their village, tales about the people and places he'd grown up with. Gwaine closed his eyes as he listened to them, painting a picture of the long gone place in his mind as Percival spoke until he felt as if they were his memories too. When each story was done, another memory recounted, he'd repeat it back to Percival to prove that he wouldn't forget them. So they sat, talking softly back to back, until the sun dipped below the horizon and vanished from the sky.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

The problem with skipping out on sparing with Arthur and the other knights in the morning wasn't that they were missed (Because they probably weren't), it was that they lost track of time and were left standing outside the closed gates after nightfall. Gwaine wondered to himself if it is some sort of punishment since he could have sworn that they usually left the gates open at night for any weary traveler, or at least posted a guard or two capable of raising them for such people. There were no guards that night, however, and the gates were quite clearly shut.

Gwaine glared at the gates as if that would somehow make them open before shaking them in frustration. Percival just watched him, torn between rolling his eyes and smiling in amusement. "You're strong," Gwaine whined when shaking the gates did absolutely nothing, "Can't you open them?"

"They're locked," Percival pointed out.

They stared up at the gates for a long moment, Gwaine debating about whether he could climb them or not and Percival deciding that a night outside wouldn't be half bad. It was as they were thinking these things that someone stepped out of the shadows beyond the gates and nearly startled them both half to death.

"You two are in so much trouble," Merlin laughed, standing on his toes on the other side of the still closed gates.

Gwaine sputtered at him, "You're the one who gave me the idea to skip out on training!"

"I didn't say be gone all day. Arthur thought you were ill and went to see if you were alright. He was mad as hell when he found out you were just out having fun." Merlin shrugged and nodded at Percival, "Not so much at you. He just assumes Gwaine has corrupted you to his idiot ways. His words, not mine," he added with a grin.

Rolling his eyes, Gwaine shook the gates again. "Just let us in," he snapped. "It's bloody mean to make someone stay outside all night."

Merlin smirked and let out a small laugh. "You do realize Arthur closed these for a reason, right?"

"So?"

"So I've been instructed not to let you in," Merlin was practically bouncing as he said that, grinning from ear to ear, elated that for once it wasn't him being punished for something so frivolous. "Accept your penalty with pride."

Gwaine opened his mouth to protest but Percival slapped a hand over it and silenced him. "Tell Arthur we'll wait here until he decides we are worthy of stepping inside the castle again," he told Merlin resolutely as he held Gwaine still, the other knight struggling in his grip to get a word of his own in.

Once Merlin left Percival let Gwaine go they sat with their backs to the wall next to the gates (after Gwaine had kicked said gates in frustration for a bit that is) and Percival threw his cloak over them. "He's right you know," he said when he caught Gwaine scowling, his arms folded over his chest. "We shouldn't have skipped out on morning training."

A moment passed before Gwaine turned to look at him, lips pursed. "You regret today then? It wasn't worth it? It wasn't fun?"

Percival smiled slowly, "No. I wouldn't have traded it for the world. Especially not for getting whacked around by Arthur on the training field."

Gwaine laughed and leaned against him, pulling the cloak up to his chin in the darkness. "Good," he whispered just loud enough for Percival to hear.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

When Arthur finally opened the gates for them in the morning the first thing he did was march them back up to the castle through the most crowded bits of the lower town. It was actually quite humiliating, Gwaine thought, to have the prince basically drag them back to the castle like misbehaving dogs. He muttered about how much he hated nobility the entire way, to which Arthur just leered at him in return, looking quite smug. It pissed him off.

The second thing Arthur did was make them clean the boots of all the knights who had actually showed up for training the day before. Gwaine muttered throughout most of that as well as he stared down the long row of dirty boots that reached all the way to the door, remembering the last time he'd had to do such a thing with Merlin at his side. He realized he was pouting a bit too much about their predicament after Percival chucked a particularly smelly boot at his face. Of course, this resulted in a bit of scuffle followed by a race to see who could get the most boots cleaned before Arthur came back. Arthur was almost pleased to return and find all the boots scrubbed clean in record time.

That didn't mean they were going to get out of doing any more work in the near future, however.

"I don't mind you having a bit of fun every now and then," Arthur said seriously, his arms folded and a half hearted cross look on his face. "But for the love of-" He sighed and put a hand to his forehead, "Just please inform me before you run off. I have enough insanity to deal with around here without wondering whether two of my finest knights ran off for a dip in the stream or were killed in their sleep and tossed in a ditch where no one could ever find them."

Gwaine almost, almost, felt guilty when Arthur said this as he realized the prince was more mad because he'd been worried than anything. Almost. "So can we go now?" he asked lightly, hoping to take advantage of the moment.

"No." This time when he spoke Arthur's voice was fringed with laughter. "The two of you will take charge of training the knights this morning and when you're done with that, you can do all of Merlin's chores." He held out a roll of parchment with a broad, rather evil looking grin in Gwaine's opinion. "This is a list of all of them."

Unrolling said list, Gwaine's mouth dropped open. "Are you joking? How does Merlin get all this done in one day? We can't possibly finish all this!"

"If Merlin can do it, you certainly can," Arthur chuckled. "Now get going." He turned on his heels towards the door before swiftly facing them again, a frown on his face, "Oh. And if anyone asks, I'm on a hunting trip and I'll be back before nightfall. Say anything otherwise and you can repeat everything you've done today tomorrow as well." With that he practically ran from the room. Gwaine didn't miss the laughter that echoed down the hall that was very quickly joined by Merlin's and a shout of, "Let's go to the town!" and "No, the lake!" finishing with an in unison, "Both!" and more laughter.

"They're using our pain for their gain," Gwaine whined. "Taking a day off while we do all their work."

Percival just smiled, "Let them. Arthur hasn't had any time to relax since Lady Morgana's take over. He needs it." Gwaine just grumbled in reply.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

The air changed between them somehow. Or maybe it was just they themselves that changed.

At the next feast Lancelot had to sit in between them to interfere with them whispering rude comments about the visiting nobility to each other over their meal. As it was he couldn't stop them from flicking bits of food at each other around him. From where he sat Arthur just looked amused by their actions, even if he did make them scrub the floor with the other servants afterwards.

Gwaine took time to teach Percival the art of nicking things from the kitchens. They snuck around the servants and the chef to grab everything from rolls to whole chickens. After they got cleanup duty there for knocking over an entire cauldron Percival showed Gwaine the grate in the ceiling of the kitchen that he'd discovered. After that most kitchen ventures were spent laying on their stomachs across said grate with a string and hook lowered into the thick of the food being prepared beneath them. When they had the chance to they'd spend whole days up there, pulling up bread and salted pork and talking between them while they ate. Percival would tell Gwaine more stories of his village and Gwaine would repeat them back to him until the kitchens had long grown quiet and cold beneath them. Gwaine woke up more than once with an impression of the grate on his cheek from falling asleep there.

Percival took him down to the stables one morning, to the horse Arthur had given him when he became a knight, a haughty stallion, and showed Gwaine how to make a sort of peace with it. They fed the animal bits of apple and carrot from the stores until it nuzzled at Gwaine's hand for more and he laughed in surprise.

They went riding one last time before the snows set in, over frost covered paths and barely used roads. Sometimes they raced across open ground, the cold wind biting at them as they did; and sometimes they took a steady, slow pace as they talked, their voices the only sound in the silence of a coming winter. When they stopped to hunt they brought down a large buck and built a fire to skin it beside, drying out the hide in its heat and packing the meat into their saddle bags. The first snow fell as they dozed by the fire and Gwaine woke up to catch some of it on his tongue while Percival slept through it. Only a light dusting on the ground remained when they rode back to the castle.

OoOoOoOoOoO

"Merlin," Gwaine said, slamming his hands down on the table and making Merlin jump, "What sorts of gifts does one get people for Midwinter?"

Merlin stared at him for a long moment before replying with a very confused, "Huh?"

"Midwinter. Gifts," Gwaine emphasized. "What do I get?"

"For who?"

"Anyone!" Gwaine snapped. "I don't know how this works! I haven't gotten anyone gifts since my mother." He drew off with a slightly distant look before focusing on Merlin again. "And I know you certainly don't want flowers or jewelry at the very least. What do you want?"

Merlin smiled, "Are you really going to get me something or are you just going to use what I say as a general example and get it for someone else?"

Gwaine paused and considered this, "Both."

Covering his mouth with a hand, Merlin tried to hold in a laugh. "Why did I expect anything else?" He asked aloud, more for his own benefit than Gwaine's. Leaning on the table Merlin steepled his fingers together and smiled, "Well, I myself would like a book of poems. Arthur has one, leather bound, it's very nice. He'll only let me borrow it so many times though." He shrugged, "I don't need the same one, any one will do, but it's not something I can afford myself. Books are expensive." Gwaine nodded in understanding and Merlin glanced at him with a knowing look. "As for whoever else you're buying gifts for, don't get them the same thing. It's rude. Also, sometimes the gifts not asked for, the simple things someone picks out themselves just for you, are better than any other."

Gwaine made a face, "Eurgh. You make it sound so girly." Merlin just raised his eyebrows in response.

Midwinter gifts were exchanged throughout the week of celebrations. As promised, Gwaine gave Merlin a little book of poetry that he found in a shop in the lower town. He wished finding a gift for Percival would have been just as easy.

He and Percival were leaning against a windowsill pressed shoulder to shoulder in the cold on the second floor of the castle overlooking the courtyard when Arthur presented Gwen with a lovely silver necklace. She smiled and blushed when it was given, but Percival noted aloud that her expression wasn't quite the same as when Lancelot had handed her a simple, single rose that same morning. (How he procured a rose in the middle of winter Gwaine didn't know). Gwaine nodded in agreement and wondered if this was what Merlin had been talking about.

The day after that Gwaine passed the almost empty training field only to catch sight of Merlin and Arthur. Merlin was removing the dented helmet and armor he wore when the prince used him as a personal practice dummy and wasn't paying attention until Arthur pressed something into his hands. When Merlin held it up, his eyes alight, Gwaine could see that it was a brand new, very purple, tunic. If Gwaine was closer he knew they would have heard his gasp of utter surprise. He watched as Merlin thanked Arthur profusely, his ears red. Arthur just smiled and said something about how Merlin's other clothes were looking quite ragged, though Gwaine didn't catch all of it.

When he wandered away he couldn't help but wonder if Merlin was aware of how mighty a gift the shirt had been. Purple dye was expensive and rare, a color only worn by nobility and royalty. To receive such a gift was a sign of how much Arthur valued him, even if he never said it aloud. Gwaine couldn't help but laugh a little at Merlin's obliviousness to that fact.

The day before Midwinter night is snowed. The wind howled around the castle and through the lower town, blowing snow about so that a person was lucky if they could see a hand in front of their face in the thick of it. There was no training, little work, and for the most part everyone holed up in their rooms to wait it out, hoping the weather would be a little clearer for the feast the next day. Percival and Gwaine sat in front of the fire in Gwaine's room. They rubbed their hands together before the flames as they talked and Gwaine brought out a worn chess set. Chess was a game of the nobility for the most part, so Percival was lost for a good hour or so while Gwaine tried to explain the movements of all the different pieces to him. Once he got the hang of it, however, Gwaine was horrified to admit that he was a natural. At least according to how many times Percival said, "Checkmate," proudly and turned out to be correct in saying so.

For awhile they stood near the window while the wind scattered snow and turned the world white. Percival shivered as they watched and gave Gwaine an easy smile when the other knight raised an eyebrow. "I used to have this wonderful coat, you know, made of rabbit furs that my mother made me. It was nothing fancy, really simple, but I loved that thing." He kept his smile as he said his next words, but Gwaine knew well that it was forced, "It burned with my village." Gwaine nodded solemnly and turned his gaze back to the window without comment.

The feast the next day stretched well into the longest night of the year. It was filled with toasts and songs that became, as per usual, continually more slurred and ridiculous. At one point the daughter of a visiting nobleman made a toast to "The prince's fine arse," and was escorted out by her mortified father while Arthur covered his face with his hands and Merlin leaned against his chair, gasping for air. The rest of those attending were in similar, but slightly less hysterical states of amusement. When the festivities started to lull to a slow, almost lazy calm, a musician playing soft melodies on his harp while everyone listened, Percival nudged Gwaine and they left their seats.

Outside it was still snowing, though now in drifting flurries rather than the insane whiteout of the day before. They walked in comfortable silence through the deserted, quite courtyard. The only sound was the harp that could faintly be heard from the lit windows that cast shadows across the undisturbed white snow. Gwaine tromped through the unmarked blanket, grinning as he made the first footprints across its surface. They paused in a patch of light on the snow made by one of the windows above and Gwaine tilted his head back to stare up at the flakes falling from the heavens, lifting up his hands to let the flakes fall onto his exposed fingers and melt away to slide down his palms. Percival watched him for a moment or two with a small smile before he reached out and took the other knight's hands.

"Here," he murmured as he pulled something from his cloak. A pair of fine leather gloves. Gwaine stared as Percival slipped them over his hands before he could even think to protest. "Happy midwinter."

"I-" Gwaine was at a loss for words. He hadn't expected Percival to get him anything at all, honestly.

Percival frowned, an uncertain look flitting through his eyes. "Do you not like them? You lost yours a few weeks back when we were hunting so I thought-"

"No, no." Putting a hand on the other's shoulder, Gwaine smiled. "I love them. Just . . . Wait here a second, okay?"

A second, in the time it took Gwaine to run all the way to his room and back, was actually a good ten minutes. By the time he got back Percival was still standing out in the courtyard, except now he was shivering and looking around as if he didn't expect Gwaine to return at all. Gwaine thought he would wait, even if he didn't. When he spotted the other knight approaching a look of relief washed over his face before he jokingly said, "Will you hurry up? I'm going to freeze my arse off out here."

Gwaine laughed, "Wouldn't want that, now would we." He held up the bundle he'd returned with, "Here."

"What's this?" Percival asked as he took it, unfurling the thing to it's full length. He froze as he did so, his eyes raking up and down the rabbit fur coat in shock.

"Er," Gwaine said nervously, "It's a coat. That you wear," he added with a rather forced chuckle. He took it from Percival when the other remained where he was and draped it over the taller knight's shoulders. "Kind of like this? You know?"

"You remembered," Percival whispered almost inaudibly. "About . . . About the one I had."

Gwaine gave him a small smile, "Of course, idiot. I promised." He huffed in surprise as Percival's arms were suddenly around him, pulling him close into a strangely gentle hug for someone so huge. Gwaine sucked in a breath as Percival's head fell to his shoulder, the knight's arms trembling around him ever so slightly. "Oh, sheesh," he laughed softly. "It's okay, you don't need to cry about it." Percival shook his head and Gwaine rolled his eyes. "Look at me, you big lug, quit that." He placed his hands on either side of Percival's face and forced him to meet his eyes. "Stop. No crying." The last two words came out softer, almost breathless as he caught sight of the held back tears in the corners of Percival's eyes. At that moment Gwaine realized he'd never actually seen Percival cry before, not once during any recounts of the lives of people and places long gone. Not when he was hurt and battered after they defeated the immortal army, not when they'd had to collect the dead in the lower town from the attack, women and children placed in early graves, not once. Now his eyes crinkled at the edges, his eyebrows furrowed together, and the shine of unshed tears stood out in the soft light trickling down from the windows overlooking the courtyard. Gwaine swallowed and stood on his toes because he almost wanted to -

- And he did. Before he realized what he was doing he'd pulled Percival down to him and placed a kiss over the corner of his eye before the first tear could fall, sealing it there. In an abrupt shift, the silence of the courtyard suddenly seemed deafening.

Gwaine jerked back as what he'd just done sunk in, his eyes wide as he took in the startled expression on Percival's face. "Oh. Oh bollocks. I'm sorry. I didn't mean-" He cut himself off and stared for a moment before forcing out, "Forget it. I, uh, have to go somewhere. Right now. Bye." He turned on his heels and took off across the courtyard, over the already snow covered tracks he'd only just made, leaving Percival looking after him with his mouth half open.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

"What are you doing?"

Gwaine nearly jumped out of his skin as he turned to face Merlin, who had somehow snuck up behind him while he'd been trying to hide behind various corners throughout the castle on his way to the kitchens. "Nothing. Why are you following me?"

Merlin raised an eyebrow, "Because you're practically rolling around on the floor in your efforts to stay out of sight. And it's actually really funny," he smiled. "So, again, what are you doing?"

"Just getting a bite to eat," Gwaine replied as nonchalantly as he could.

Merlin shook his head and held up a tray loaded with dried fruits and a couple pieces of meat. "Want to share?" he asked.

Gwaine eyed him suspiciously, "If this is your way of tricking me into talking about my problems, then no."

Rolling his eyes, Merlin grabbed him by the front of his shirt with his free hand and began hauling him down the corridor. "Not tricking," he practically sang, "Forcing. Now come quietly and I won't hand you over to Arthur. He'd love to see you, since you've skipped out on training three days in a row now."

Which was how Gwaine found himself sitting across from Merlin at the little table in Gaius's work room while Merlin happily munched on dried fruit and waited for him to say something. Gwaine was determined not to say anything. Merlin flicked a piece of plum at his face. "Will you cut that out?" Gwaine muttered as he waved his hands in front of his face while Merlin took aim again. "I'm not talking about it!"

"Talk or I'll make you," Merlin said with a smirk, managing to hit Gwaine on the nose with a bit of apple. Gwaine paused before waggling his eyebrows at this. Merlin just glared in response. "Don't even start," he warned. "Now tell me what happened between you and Percival."

Gwaine froze. "Percival?" he choked out. "What about Percival? Nothing happened."

Merlin folded his hands under his chin with a patient look. "Really? Because yesterday you nearly killed yourself when you tripped, trying to hide when Sir Percival was coming down the hall. It was quite amusing, actually."

"I was in a rush."

"To go where?"

"Uh . . ."

When Merlin raised his eyebrow this time Gwaine decided he had to make sure the manservant got out more, he was starting to pick up a very uncanny Gaius impersonation without meaning to. "What did you do," Merlin said again. This time it wasn't really a question, and his tone was almost dangerous.

Gwaine exhaled and looked away. "I guess . . . I'm not very good at being friends with someone without wanting to get into their trousers?" Merlin promptly smacked a hand over his face and Gwaine couldn't help but smile. He looked away for a moment before he continued, "Except this time that wasn't my intention. I didn't mean to, uh, do what I did. And I've probably messed everything up."

Merlin slowly dragged his hand down his face in an expression of utter exasperation. "Did you jump him?" he asked into his palm.

"No."

"Kiss him?"

" . . . Kind of?"

The look on Merlin's face could have competed with one of Arthur's, "You incompetent fool," looks any day of the week. "What the hell does 'Kind of' mean? Either you kissed him or you didn't!"

Gwaine pursed his lips and pointed to the corner of his eye. "Not uh, lips to lips."

For a second Merlin just stared at him before he covered his mouth with his hands again, a loud snort escaping him. "And Arthur calls me a girl," he laughed. Gwaine scowled and flicked a raisin across the table at him. When he'd stopped laughing, practically wiping a tear from his eye as he regained his breath, Merlin looked up again with a slightly more serious expression. A forced one, as he kept almost smiling, but at least he tried. "And, wait," he said once he could breath again, "You're saying you think you just want to get into his pants?"

"What else is there to do?"

This time Merlin's expression was so serious Gwaine all but flinched away from it. "Are you joking?" When Gwaine didn't answer Merlin had to flatten his hands on the table to keep from smacking him across the face with them. "Gwaine, kissing someone like that isn't really a gateway to a roll in the hay sort of kiss. It's more intimate than that." Gwaine just blinked at him, confused, and Merlin sighed. "You're more emotionally stunted than Arthur, do you know that? That's saying a lot." He held out one hand to the side like half of a scale, "Okay, think of it like this. When you kiss a maid what usually happens afterwards."

"We take a tumble," Gwaine replied smoothly.

"And another man?"

Gwaine leered, "As if you don't remember the Perilous La-"

"Answer the question, Gwaine," Merlin hissed, his ears bright red and his eyes focusing on a point over Gwaine's shoulder now.

"Also a tumble." Gwaine tilted his head to the side. "And then I usually don't see them again, except for-" Merlin glared at him, "Er, or we don't do again because someone has terrible unrequited feelings for royalty. And that's that."

"So," Merlin said, blatantly ignoring most of what Gwaine had just said. "The difference with Percival then would be . . ." He waved a hand in Gwaine's general direction, prompting him as obviously as he could.

Gwaine stared at the table. "I . . . Don't want to not see him again." He rolled his shoulders when Merlin looked at him expectantly. "It's nothing though, I'll get over it. I'll forget about it and -" Before he could finish Merlin had suddenly launched himself over the table, tackled him to the floor, and cracked his head against the stone. All with a very, extremely scary, angry flare in his eyes.

"You utter arse!" Merlin snapped, shaking him by the collar of his tunic. "These past few months you've become his whole world, the one person he trusts, and you're just going to toss that aside? He cares about you!" His eyes narrowed dangerously, "And you obviously care about him. So don't you dare turn your back. Do you even understand how lucky you are? To have someone who probably holds the same affections for you as you do for them?" Gwaine yelped as Merlin purposefully smacked his head back into the stone floor again, stars swimming in front of his eyes from the impact. "Do you know," Merlin hissed, "How very lucky you are? Don't you dare turn your back to him, do you understand me?" Gwaine untangled Merlin's hands from his collar as Merlin's voice broke around the words and sat up to but his arm around him.

"You're such a girl," Gwaine whispered, one arm around Merlin's shoulders as the manservant refused to look at him while he scrubbed a sleeve over his face.

"No, you are," Merlin mumbled.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

Even without consciously trying to avoid Percival, somehow Gwaine still didn't see him for almost another full day. Of course, he wasn't actually looking for him, because he couldn't figure out what he'd say if they actually bumped into each other, but it was still frustrating. It was after breakfast the next morning that Gwaine started to wonder if maybe Percival was avoiding him, like he himself had been previously. It was this thought that made his steps feel heavy as he stomped (not sulked, stomped, like the manly knight he was) through the courtyard. Halfway across he kicked up some snow, completely on accident, and decided that doing more of that with a lot more purpose was a good stress relief. If someone had looked out into the courtyard that morning they would have turned away and muttered about how insane the people of Camelot were as one of their finest knights ran around and over dramatically kicked and stomped at the snow on the ground below.

It was in the midst of this that Gwaine was suddenly hit on the back of the head with a snowball. He froze, one leg still raised to aim another kick at the snow, and raised a hand to the snow stuck to his head in bewilderment. "Hey, git!" a voice rang out when Gwaine pulled his hand away, gloved fingers covered in snow. "How long are you going to avoid me?"

Percival.

It turned out that even after all his thinking, and frustrated snow mutilation, Gwaine's first reaction was entirely instinctual. He ran. In snow up to his ankles he didn't get very far, and when Percival caught up to him and shoved him face first into the snow Gwaine wasn't really surprised. He tried to scramble to his feet but Percival practically tackled him back down, an act which resulted in them rolling around in the snow for a few minutes, Percival trying to pin Gwaine down and Gwaine trying to shove snow in his face to make him stop. Both slightly succeeded, and in the end Gwaine was in his back with a very heavy Percival on his chest sporting a dripping face full of snow. Gwaine huffed out a laugh, "Don't you look lovely."

"Shut up," Percival growled, wiping the snow off his face. "Don't say anything unless you're going to explain what happened at Midwinter."

"You're still wearing the coat," Gwaine remarked. Percival blinked and glanced at the rabbit's fur coat he was sporting and he flushed. "But yeah, Midwinter . . ." Swallowing, Gwaine tried to find a combination of words that didn't sound completely mental. "I, uh, feelings." Percival gave him a blank look and Gwaine bit his lip. "I'm bad at feelings," he tried again. "Me and feelings do not get along." When Percival just continued to look at him with a confused expression Gwaine sighed and covered his face with his hands. "I care about you, okay?" he mumbled into his palms. "And I don't do feelings. So sorry if I'm already messing it up. Feel free to punch me in the face any time now."

Percival punched him in the arm instead, which probably hurt less than the face would have but it still smarted. A lot. While Gwaine was in the middle of holding said arm and saying "Ow" as many times as humanly possible in a single breath, Percival grabbed his face and kissed him, taking away what little breath he had left. For a heartbeat Gwaine just lay there in the snow, stunned, before he reached up and laced his fingers behind Percival's neck and dragged him closer. When Percival pulled back for a breath Gwaine smiled. "I'm bad at feelings," he repeated.

"I know," Percival whispered, still close enough that their noses brushed when he spoke.

"You're going to end up hating me," Gwaine added softly.

"Never."

"It'll never work."

Percival chuckled, "Thank you for your input of reasons to stop this before we really start, but it's not going to work. You're stuck with me," he murmured, threading his fingers into Gwaine's hair as he leaned in to kiss him again.

"Public indecency in the courtyard!" An obnoxious, pompous voice rang out not a second later.

"You have rooms for a reason!" another joined it.

Gwaine sat up and Percival slid off him, both looking up to see Arthur and Merlin hanging out of Arthur's open window, shoulder to shoulder as they yelled at the two knights. "Hey, Gwaine, is this why you've been missing training?" Arthur called. "Because I have some boots that need scrubbing again."

"Can I kill him?" Gwaine asked, his head on Percival's shoulder as he hid his face he just knew was bright red.

"Unadvisable," Percival replied.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

This time the shift in the air was more noticeable this time, like the melting of winter into spring. Or at least it was to them. For Gwaine it was so very, very different from anything he'd done before. With Percival he had to be patient. He took his time, he was careful. He may have joked with Merlin about it, made up stories of tumbles that he knew very well that Merlin didn't believe, but in reality all there had been was time.

Time spent waiting for Percival after practices and training so they could go raid the kitchens together. Time spent laying on their stomachs on top of the grate, pulling up food with their makeshift hook and line. Time spent listening to Percival's stories of his village by the fire, Gwaine on the floor with his back to Percival's legs where the other knight sat on a chair, his fingers tracing circles across Gwaine's shoulders. Time spent next to the stream when winter became spring, Gwaine drawing spirals in the soft earth while Percival fell asleep against his shoulder. Time spent in the grassy plains behind the castle, Gwaine stretched out across the grass with the early spring sun on his face until Percival leaned over him and practically blocked the sun out as he leaned down to kiss him.

But that's all that ever seemed to become of that spent time. Gwaine lost count of the number of times Percival had pushed him away before things got too heated, so he'd for the most part stopped trying, too confused to work out what he was doing wrong.

"Are you just shy?" he asked one day as he pressed a kiss to Percival's palm, his lips linger over the skin and his eyes looking up at the other knight where he sat beside Gwaine on a windowsill, a book in his lap.

"Hmm?" Percival hummed as he turned the page in his text. It was a simple thing, a short collection of already well known tales. Every now and then Gwaine would read them aloud to Percival, over the words the other knight struggled with because he simply hadn't been taught them.

Gwaine smiled and locked their fingers together. "Are you shy?" he repeated.

"Hardly," Percival smirked. He glanced at Gwaine a moment, studying him before he continued. "If this is about your admirable, but fruitless persistence to get me into your bed-"

"Yes."

"-You said yourself," Percival continued as if he hadn't been interrupted, "That you're bad with feelings." Gwaine blinked slowly at him to get to his point, because he had nothing to say on that matter. "So, with your track record, I figure it's better to let me pick the time for our first tumble, don't you agree?"

"Eurgh," Gwaine made a face, "Is that time going to be in the very near future?"

Percival grinned, "That depends on you."

"Huh?"

"I'm waiting for you," Percival said more clearly. "So-"

"You do realize that makes no sense, right?"

"It does to me," Percival said smugly, turning back to his book. Gwaine smacked it out of his hands in response and flopped over backwards across Percival's lap instead.

"Well if you're going to be an arse about it, you can at least kiss me until then. Quit paying more attention to books than my pretty face," Gwaine declared dramatically. Percival just laughed.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

They liked to hit each other. How that particular part of their relationship came about no one could remember, but they still did it. It went something like this:

"Your turn to man sentry duty, Perce'." Smack.

Wap. "You're not walking fast enough, Gwaine."

"We're splitting up. You go that way." Abnormally hard pat on the back.

Shove. "I see you and the ground haven't had some quality time together in awhile, Gwaine. It's missed you."

And so on.

Lancelot was the first to make a comment on it. While they were on a hunt with Arthur, Merlin, and some of the other knights he purposefully sat between them on their side of the fire and just gave them both this look.

"Can we, uh, help you with something?" Gwaine asked under Lancelot's rather intimidating stare. Percival just snorted and went back to eating a roasted pheasant leg.

"So, is hitting your thing, or something?" Lancelot asked, "Because I can't tell if it's being done out of friendly banter or unsatisfied sexual tension." Percival choked on his pheasant.

Gwaine took the opportunity to glare around Lancelot and say, "See?" before thumping Percival on the back to help him start breathing again.

Lancelot made a soft, amused sound, before saying, "You realize that you guys almost, almost, unnecessarily touch each other more than Merlin and Arthur?"

"No one touches more than Merlin and Arthur," Gwaine said very seriously. "It's painful to watch."

Percival nodded, "Plus, Merlin and Arthur are unsatisfied everything tension. Even their eye contact is unsatisfied everything tension charged. You could start on fire if you stepped into the middle of that." He grinned and glanced at Gwaine who smirked in reply. Lancelot held up his hands over his head.

"Well I'm out," he said, standing up. "Just being in the middle of that for five minutes was bad enough."

Gwaine laughed and pointed over to a spot a little farther off where Arthur and Merlin were sitting, Arthur tying Merlin's kerchief around his manservant's hand where he'd cut himself while skinning one of their catches. "Go sit over there then and see how long you live. We're not half as bad by comparison."

Lancelot cast a wary eye in the prince and his servant's direction before shaking his head. "They're having a serious silent moment. Best not disturb them."

"Quite right," Percival agreed.

When they lay around the fire that night, Elyan dutifully standing guard, Gwaine stayed awake, thinking. He could hear Percival breathing next to him, not quite the gentle breaths of sleep but close to it. Which was why he didn't feel bad about rolling over onto the other knight and waking him. "Hey, Percy," he whispered in the shadows of the firelight, Percival blinking sleepily up at him. "We're not . . . We're not like Merlin and Arthur, are we?"

Percival just looked at him, mildly bemused, and Gwaine swallowed. He didn't know how to put into words what he meant by that. It was hard to explain that he didn't want to be tragic and heartbreakingly doomed like the prince and his manservant. While it seemed like a trivial thing to say, something easy to overlook, it still stuck in Gwaine's mind like a stain. Something of his thoughts must have reflected in his eyes because Percival smiled in the darkness, a small, careful smile. "No," he replied.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

It was just supposed to be a hunting trip. They were supposed to be out for a few days before coming back with some game to feast on. There wasn't supposed to be a gang of bandits lurking between the trees, there wasn't supposed to be a battle for their lives.

When it got down to that sort of situation, Gwaine and Percival tended to end up back to back. It wasn't that they didn't trust anyone else to protect their blind side, it was more that there was no one they trusted more.

"It's been awhile since we've been cornered like this," Gwaine panted as he pulled his sword out of the bandit he'd just swung it at, grimacing at the blood that stained the blade. "Messy, isn't it."

"Tedious," Percival added. Gwaine gave him a look as he maneuvered to the other knight's side to dispatch another bandit and Percival shrugged, "I thought we were stating the obvious."

"Slow," Gwaine said as he kicked a rather lopsided looking bandit in the shins and sent him skittering backwards.

"Dirty," Percival remarked as he wrinkled his nose at the appearance of another, sidestepping to press his back to Gwaine's again.

"Smelly," Gwaine chuckled.

"Are you two commentating or fighting?" Arthur yelled from a ways over.

"Both!" they said together.

It ended up not being the smartest of moves, to turn their attentions to Arthur at the same time. One second they were back to back, facing their own foes, and the next Gwaine had flung an arm behind him, around Percival, and had switched their positions in one swift movement so that Percival was facing his newly dispatched bandit and Gwaine the sharp end of a spear as it embedded itself into his side. The bandit who had thrown it had only a moment to look elated about his aim before Percival had launched himself at him. Gwaine stood there, his hand slowly going to his side where the spear protruded from mail, cloth, and skin. When he pulled it back, his fingers dripping with blood, his vision swam.

"Shit," he whispered as he swayed on his feet. This was not good, it was really not good. At the very least the spear had ripped through skin and muscle, he could probably live through that if he didn't bleed out in the next ten minutes. But if it had gotten anything vital . . . Gwaine tried to remember what was considered a vital part of his body and came up blank. Was the side vital? Was the sky blue? He felt his legs give out under him as he stared at the blood on his hand and he sunk to his knees on the ground. The ground was rather soft today. Had it rained recently? Maybe he should pull the spear out . . . Where was Percival? Gwaine looked away from his hand and to the chaos winding down about him, to the red capes the same color as his blood and the knights trying to form a circle around him, trying to shield him from further harm. Merlin pushed through the circle and knelt at his beside him, his hands going to where the blood was oozing out around the spear in Gwaine's side.

"It's going to be okay," Merlin said over the clang of steel around them.

Gwaine blinked at him, uncomprehending. "Where's Perce'?"

Merlin grimaced as he pulled his hands away and replaced it with a strip of his shirt. "Gutting the man who threw this. You don't want to see." Gwaine hissed as Merlin touched the spear shaft with a careful hand and Merlin's eyebrows furrowed together in worry. "We have to take it out or it'll get infected. But . . ." He met Gwaine's eyes, "You'll bleed more. Probably really bad."

"Don't let me die," Gwaine said with a grim smile, placing Merlin's hands over the spear. He glanced up as the circle of knights shifted a bit and Percival backed in to take his place among them. Gwaine met his gaze as he glanced back and shuddered at the way Percival looked returned it, eyes narrowed and teeth gritted as he joined the circle determined to protect their injured comrade. Merlin chose that moment to tug the spear out of his side and Gwaine gasped in pain, teetering where he kneeled before he keeled over backwards onto the ground. Vaguely, he heard Percival yell and felt Merlin press something against his side as more blood spilled out, but neither really registered. The clanging steel echoed in his ears and he dazedly took a minute to hope it wasn't the last sound he'd hear.

Percival must have broken away from the circle because in the next minute he was leaning over Gwaine, his eyes wide, scared, and his chest heaving. "It's not that bad, right?" Gwaine heard him ask Merlin, his eyes never leaving Gwaine's. "He'll be alright?" What Merlin's response was, Gwaine didn't know, but when it was given Percival's face contorted into an utterly anguished expression. Not good then, Gwaine surmised.

"Hey," Gwaine breathed, reaching up to take Percival's face between his hands. "It's going to be okay."

"Don't," Percival pleaded.

" S'going to be just fine. You're going to be fine. Don't need me."

"Gwaine-" Percival's voice broke and he closed his mouth, unable to say anything else.

Gwaine just smiled. "Know I . . . Love you, hmm?"

"Why do you have to say that now, you great git," Percival whispered with a shaky smile

"Figured my last words should be epic and angst filled," Gwaine tried to laugh, the sound coming out as a bubble of blood.

Percival shook his head, "Please don't. Don't say that. Please."

"Sorry," Gwaine murmured. He ran his thumb over the corner of Percival's eye, wiping away the tears that pooled there. "Don't cry over someone like me. Don't look back on me with guilt. Took that spear for you, ya'know, my choice. Was glad to."

"Gwaine . . ." Percival pleaded, his voice shaking. But Gwaine's hands were already slipping from face, his eyelids drooping and the rise and fall of his chest slowing. Percival looked to Merlin, the manservant's hands stained with blood. "Do something!"

Merlin glanced up and met his eyes with a determined expression. "Look away," he instructed.

Percival did, his hands gripping Gwaine's still ones to him and his eyes purposefully pointed at the ground.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

Gwaine had heard tales of what lay beyond the veil of death. There were many different versions, a light, a river, a boat. He saw a village.

It was a little place, not much different than any other he'd seen in his lifetime. But something about it stood out to him, seemed almost familiar. Maybe it was the fields to the south of it, or the heavily patched fence on the west side. It could have been the smell of baking bread that hit his nose, even from where he stood far above it on an overlooking hill, but maybe it was the way the sun hit it just right so that the main road leading into it looked almost like a river. The smoke rose out of the chimney of a small blacksmith's shop, and though it was nothing remarkable Gwaine was reminded of small children standing by the windows, eyes alight as they watched the master at his craft. The large stable near the edge of the little village spoke of newborn foals and gentle caretakers, of well trained riders and fair trading of well-bred stallions and mares. He knew this place.

It was Percival's home.

As he realized that Gwaine caught sight of someone ascending the hill towards him. Instinctively his hand went for his sword, only to find that he was without it. When he looked up again the person was only a few steps away. Gwaine started as he saw her, for it was indeed a girl, with long golden hair and familiar eyes. He had never seen her before, save for in his mind's eye, but Gwaine recognized her all the same. The shade of her hair and eyes, the way she stood and held herself as if she hadn't a care in the world, the young light in her eyes that would never fade because she would no longer age.

"Dindrane," Gwaine whispered. Percival's sister.

"Sir Gwaine," she replied politely. "A friend of yours sent me."

"Oh?" Gwaine didn't know what else to say to that, really. "To, uh, lead me to the afterlife?"

Dindrane's eyes widened in an expression that reminded Gwaine very much of her brother. "No. Why would I lead you away from somewhere you're still needed?" She held something out to him, "I was sent to give you this."

A cup. Gwaine stared at it, wondering why he felt like he'd seen it before as it was thrust into his hands. "Drink," Dindrane told him. "Drink and live." So Gwaine did. Who was he to argue with someone giving him another chance at life? As he brought the cup to his lips Dindrane put a hand on his arm. "Take care of my brother for me," she said softly. It was the last thing Gwaine heard before his world went black.

OoOoOoOoOoO

When Gwaine cracked open an eye the first thing he saw was the warm glow of a fire he was unusually close to. The first thing he noticed was that, despite his proximity to said fire, he was freezing. Also that someone had kindly provided him with some sort of pillow something for his head and although he couldn't feel his icy fingers, he was quite comfortable. "S'cold," he mumbled, trying to wrap his arms around himself but failing after realizing that moving was too much effort and it hurt.

The "pillow" shifted and Gwaine was suddenly staring up at Percival's face. "You're alright," Percival breathed in relief.

"Fresh as a daisy," Gwaine said blearily.

A snort came from somewhere off to the side and Merlin leaned into his view, "As a daisy stomped on and thrown around and left to wilt in the middle of a thunderstorm."

"Very descriptive metaphor there," Gwaine commented. He made a halfhearted effort to sit up before Percival's hand pushed him back down onto the "pillow" which Gwaine came to realize was Percival's lap, his cape covering him like a blanket.

"Don't get up," Percival scolded softly. "You lost a lot of blood."

"It was a bit touch and go for awhile," Merlin added helpfully. "But I saved you."

"A friend of yours sent me."

Gwaine smiled, "Thank you." He didn't know how Merlin had done it, and he honestly didn't care, but he was grateful all the same. Turning his attention to Percival he said, "Your sister is very kind." Percival's eyes widened. "Told me to look after you. So here I am."

"You . . . Saw Dindrane?"

"If by saw you mean hallucinated, then yes. Yes I did." He gave Percival a reassuring smile, "But she was a very nice hallucination. Except that she wouldn't let me die in peace."

"She always was the stubborn type," Percival laughed. His slight smile turned into the smallest of frowns as he dropped his hand to Gwaine's side, over where the spear had pierced him. "Does it hurt?" he asked quietly, his fingers gently grazing over the wrappings.

Gwaine nodded, "Yeah. A bit." He closed his eyes, wincing under even the lightest touch. When he opened them once more Percival was staring down at him with a mixture of worry and sadness in his eyes. Gwaine's gaze softened and he lifted a hand to the other knight's face. "You big baby. Don't you dare cry on me. I don't need to wash both tears and blood out of these clothes."

Percival shook his head, "I just . . ." The rest of what he was going to say fell unspoken, but Gwaine could read it in his eyes all the same. He could see it in the way they stayed locked on his face, as if looking away for even a moment would cause Gwaine to vanish. He could feel it in his hands, in the trembling, feather light touches to his injured side and over his own fingers, like reality was something felt rather than seen. The "I thought I had lost you," went unspoken, but Gwaine heard it all the same.

"You're stuck with me," he murmured.

Merlin, who they'd conveniently forgotten was there, spoke up at that point. "You both make me want to gag."

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

The recovery was painful, both physically and mentally. Gwaine had never been one to lay around in bed all day (unless he'd drunken far too much the night before) and doing so now was wearing upon his patience. He would do something about it, if it didn't hurt so much to sit up, but as it was even just rolling over and trying to get comfortable was agonizing. "Doesn't Gaius have anything better for the pain?" he complained to Merlin one morning when the manservant brought him breakfast.

Merlin just gave him an unreadable look. "He says you can't have anything other than a mild dose because you're a stubborn git and you'll end up doing something to reopen the wound just because you can't feel it."

Gwaine glared at him from amidst his nest of pillows, "Liar. You said that, not him."

"Possibly. But I do know a thing or two about idiots and pain relievers. So just lay back and get some rest."

The knight hurled a pillow at him and yelled, "I hate rest!" in response. Merlin just laughed.

After training and daily duties and the like, Percival would sit with him. He often brought books, fairytales and fables, and read them aloud until Gwaine fell asleep. When it was a clear day out he'd help Gwaine move to a chair by the window so they could look at out over the town and watch the thrum of life far below. On chillier nights they sat near the fire and Percival would whisper more stories of his childhood, of his village. It seemed he would never run out of them. Dutifully, Gwaine would always repeat them back, remembering the village as he'd seen it between this world and the next in his mind's eye as he did so.

He was starting to get used to having absolutely nothing to do when Percival literally threw the curtains open at the crack of dawn one day. "Let's have you, lazy daisy!" he declared loudly. Gwaine just did his best to roll over and smash his face into the pillows to spare his poor eyes the burning light of the morning sun.

"Gods. Have you been talking to Merlin lately?" Gwaine asked into his pillows.

"Yes," Percival hummed. He went to stand beside the bed and reached into the nest of pillows and blankets to haul Gwaine out of it by the back of his nightshirt. "Now, time to get up. We're going out."

It took a moment for Gwaine to realize what he was saying, and when he did his face lit up. "I can go outside now?"

"Gaius gave the approval this very morning," Percival grinned.

"Yes!"

He wasn't allowed to go riding yet, Gaius feared the motion of a horse would put too much strain on his freshly healed wound, but a walk wasn't out of the question. They only went as far as the wall of the castle on the edge of the training ground, overlooking the path leading down into the lower town. Gwaine batted Percival's hands away when he tried to help him and hauled himself up on the wall without a complaint.

They sat there, a stolen loaf of bread and some cheese to pass between them and the clash of sword on sword echoing behind them from the training field where a few of the other knights were working overtime. It wasn't until they had long finished the food and were left to sit in comfortable silence, their legs dangling over the edge of the wall and out into the air, that Gwaine noticed the way Percival was avoiding his gaze. His eyes would flicker over to his companion now and then, when he thought Gwaine wasn't looking, but the second Gwaine started to return the gaze Percival focused on something else.

Hesitantly, Gwaine edged closer until they were pressed shoulder to shoulder. He lifted a hand and ran his fingers down Percival's exposed arm, following the veins down to his palm until he slipped his fingers in between the other knight's. "What's wrong?"

Percival inhaled as if to reply but instead looked away again, his eyes on their intertwined hands. "I'm sorry . . ." He whispered after a few heartbeats.

Gwaine's eyebrows furrowed together. "Why? Are you about to chuck me off this wall? Are you preparing the 'I think we should just be friends' speech? Did you somehow break my favorite sword and forget to tell me?"

A small laugh escaped Percival before his smile turned downwards. "No. I . . . When you got hurt, when you thought you were dying . . ." His gaze wandered away again, out over the town stretching out below them and the thrum of everyday life. "You . . . Said you loved me."

"Hmmm," Gwaine hummed, remembering the moment vaguely. "So I did."

"And you meant it," Percival went on quietly, "Didn't you?"

"One is usually utterly serious about the things they say on their deathbed," Gwaine tried to joke, but Percival's expression remained conflicted, torn, and Gwaine fell silent.

Percival's fingers twitched in Gwaine's grip before he pulled his hand away, leaving Gwaine to stare at him in confusion. "I can't say it," Percival said so quietly Gwaine almost didn't hear him, "I can't tell you the same."

"I, uh, guess that's an effective way to say, 'we're done,' even if it is a bit mean," Gwaine muttered, starting to climb down off the wall. Percival's hand shot out for him and caught him by the wrist, holding him where he was before he could move very far, and Gwaine's eyes narrowed. "What? You can't just go around saying things like that and expect me to sit here like we're still mates. I'm going to go sulk in my room and reminds myself why feelings are a stupid thing to have. There will be ale. You are not invited."

"No," Percival protested, his eyes wide, "You're not understanding me. It's not that I don't want to say it. It's that I can't."

Gwaine paused but remained where he was. "Go on . . ." He prompted warily.

Percival swallowed, "It's just . . . You remember what I told you about the morning before Cenred's army came, right? How I rode out to the neighboring village to sell a few of our horses. The last thing I told my family, my mother and sister, as I did every morning . . ."

"You told them you loved them," Gwaine finished. "I remember."

"It was the last thing I ever said to them, and when I came back they were gone. I don't . . . People I love die, Gwaine. You nearly almost joined them." Percival drew his hand away from Gwaine's wrist, bringing it up to cover his face with it to hide the grief in his eyes. "What if I'm cursed? What if by saying it, I'm only sentencing you to death?"

Gwaine blinked at him, startled by this confession, before turning and facing the other knight fully. Just as he had on Midwinter, he reached up to take Percival's face between his hands to pull the taller man down to his level. "Say it, Perce'."

"Gwaine-" Percival started, real fear in his eyes.

"Say you love me. No one else has to hear." He stood on his toes and placed a kiss on the corner of Percival's eye before leaning towards his ear. "Say it," he whispered. "Just once. No curse can take me from you, Percival, feared or real. I've been there and back again, and I promised to stay with you for as long as you needed me. Say it."

Percival's hands fell to Gwaine's sides, one covering the newly healed wound with shaking fingers. "I love you." It came out as the barest of breaths, so quiet that truly, none but Gwaine would have heard it even if someone had been standing right beside them. Gwaine smiled and kissed the spot just under his ear in reply.

"Look, I'm still standing," he murmured.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

It was often thought that the ones who gossiped the most, who took delight in the spreading of rumors, were the kitchen maids. Sometimes it was said to be the members of the female nobility with their tales of affairs with their lord's squire. Others said it was the lucky few who waited on the royalty, the ones who stood in the shadows and heard all the secrets before they were spread, and it was they who spread them. All of these assumptions were wrong, however. While all three were well known for their slight of tongue, it was the knights who gossiped more than all of the competition put together.

Which is why Gwaine knew something was up long before Percival had any mind to tell him.

First, it was Lancelot. Lancelot who was usually so composed and orderly, the perfect knight (at least in Arthur's opinion). Except that that morning when Lancelot caught sight of him he turned the brightest shade of red Gwaine had ever seen before pointedly turning his back. Gwaine barely thought anything of it, other than that maybe Lancelot had gotten over his immunity to Gwaine's obviously irresistible charisma.

The second had been Elyan. Elyan spent more time in his father's workshop than he did with the other knights most days, so as one might suspect he heard his own fair bit of gossip from the lower town. "I saw him in town," Gwaine heard Elyan saying as he passed. "By himself. He was browsing at that one stall, yes that one," he confirmed as the other knight he was talking to gaped. "I guess virgin Percival is finally getting his act together. Gwaine promptly whirled around at this, eyes boring holes into the two until Elyan clammed up and skittered off, the other knight close behind.

Well that was odd.

The third person was Leon. Leon, the one Arthur looked to for advice during battle and who was the unanimous leader of the knights in the prince's absence. Leon who shoved a small jar into Gwaine's hands and muttered, "Aphrodisiac. Heard some things. Have fun tonight," and departed with a bit too nonchalant of a wave over his shoulder. Gwaine didn't even get a chance to thank him. Not that he knew what he would be thanking him for, exactly, but still.

Shortly after, Gwaine collided with Arthur and Merlin as they crossed paths in the hall. He'd been holding Leon's "gift" as far in front of him as he could, unsure of it's exact properties and not wanting to risk anything really awkward becoming of a close proximity with it. He was so focused on touching the little jar as little as possible that he smacked right into the prince, the jar tumbling out of his hands and towards the ground. Gwaine's silent scream of horror stopped when Arthur's quick reflexes kicked in and the blond caught it before it could smash disastrously on the stone floor.

"What's this?" Arthur held the jar up to the light, his eyes widening as he read the messily scrawled label before he grinned, both over his shoulder where Merlin was hovering and at Gwaine in turn. "I see. Knights' gossip bodes true once again." He tossed the jar to Gwaine and chuckled as he fumbled to catch it. "You can have tomorrow off then, my treat. But expect no other niceties from me for awhile." Arthur smirked before continuing to wherever he'd been headed, Merlin turning to give Gwaine a double thumbs up as he followed. Gwaine just stared after them in utter confusion. Camelot was a very silly place, he decided.

That thought was later revoked when he returned to his room that night to find it lit by far too many candles, dinner laid out on his small table, and Percival sitting on the windowsill. "I lied," Gwaine said aloud, "Camelot is glorious."

Percival just raised an eyebrow before gesturing to the meal set out on the table. "Dinner?"

"Famished," Gwaine grinned. They ate then, kicking each other under the table and smiling though nothing was said. "So . . ." Gwaine prompted as he cleaned a chicken bone and discarded it on his cleared plate.

"I haven't done this before," Percival blurted out.

Gwaine blinked. "You haven't done what before? Eaten? How in the gods did you grow to the size of a tree then?" He laughed when Percival tensed nervously across the table. "I'm just messing about," he soothed. "I thought you didn't want to do anything until I was ready, whatever that meant."

Percival smiled, "You were ready the moment you said you loved me."

"The sheer amount of sap in everything you say is painful to listen to, did you know?" Gwaine practically grimaced. "But that was well played. Waiting until you were sure you had me for good."

"Mother always said never trust a man until he's handed you his heart," Percival replied proudly.

Gwaine smacked himself on the face and groaned, reaching over to smack Percival on the arm as hard as he could a moment later. "Okay, I heard the knight's gossip about you being a, uh, pure maiden, but for the love of . . . We don't talk about parents at times like this!" Percival just tilted his head to the side in confusion, rubbing at his attacked arm. Gwaine sighed. "Ugh. Okay, let's see then what you picked up in town."

Surprised, Percival rummaged around in his pocket and produced a clear vial. "How did you-"

"Knights' gossip," Gwaine said before he could finish, examining the bottle in the candle light. "This is expensive," he observed, "The finest for its purpose. You did your research."

"Gwen took me shopping."

Again, Gwaine's face and his hand became acquainted. "You took Gwen . . . She knows that- You do realize that Arthur is going to kill us in our sleep now, don't you?"

Percival continued to look bewildered. "Gwen was the one who insisted we stop there. I was looking for a new belt. She practically shoved me at the stall and stayed a good ten steps back herself."

"We're still going to die if Arthur finds out," Gwaine said grimly.

"But-" Percival didn't finish whatever he'd been about to say, this time Gwaine interrupting him by reaching over and slapping a hand over his mouth.

"Don't say anything else. You'll ruin it. Get on the bed."

Astonishingly, Percival did as he was told and sprawled out across the mattress, his arms stretched over his head and a teasing smile on his face. "Like this?"

"Cad," Gwaine laughed as he crawled over the other knight, undoing the laces on his tunic and pulling it over his head. "And they say you're a virgin."

"Virgins know things too," Percival hummed.

Gwaine's smile turned positively wicked. "Show me." Before he could so much as breathe, Percival had grabbed him by the hips and flipped them over, pinning Gwaine underneath him with a satisfied look. Gwaine huffed out a startled laugh. "Look at you, big, strong Percy about to have his way with me. Oh, this is indeed going to be fun." He ran a hand down Percival's collar to the line of the top of his tunic. "Strip for me, beautiful," Gwaine practically purred.

So Percival did, tugging off first his shirt and then his trousers until he was kneeling naked above the other, a light flush on his cheeks. Gwaine's eyes raked down him appreciatively before he sat up to dance his fingers over Percival's bare chest, over the line leading down to his navel. He paused when Percival inhaled sharply. "Stay here," he murmured, placing a kiss to Percival's collar bone. Gwaine left the bed and returned less than a minute later with the little vial Percival had procured from the town in hand. "Nervous?" he asked as he caught Percival eyeing the thing with apprehension. Percival remained silent and Gwaine smiled. "While I would very much love to be pinned under you and ravaged like a harlot, why don't you let me lead for now, hmm?" He flattened a hand across Percival's sternum and pushed him back onto the mattress. "Be a good boy and stay." Gwaine uncorked the vial and cast the other knight a considering look where he lay across the sheets. "Put your hands on the headboard," he added after some thought. Percival did.

Gwaine grinned from ear to ear as he crawled over him to straddle his stomach, leaning down to capture Percival's mouth in a rough kiss. "Now don't move your hands from the headboard unless I tell you to," he ordered. The vial opened, he poured some across his hand and over his fingers, the oil glistening against his skin in the candlelight. Percival watched, fascinated, as Gwaine drew spiraling whorls down his chest with it, over his flushed skin in a way that made Percival's breath hitch as Gwaine's nails glided over old scars and battle wounds. "This one?" he would ask when he came to a particularly large mark on Percival's ribs, his hip, his arm. And Percival would answer, "An arrow, a bandit's knife, a poorly deflected sword." after awhile Gwaine's attention turned lower and he shimmied down Percival's body to hover near his knees, his fingers grazing the trail of light hair from navel onwards. Percival gripped the headboard tighter as Gwaine's oil slicked hand roamed further, gripping the base of his cock and jerking upwards.

Percival made a small noise in the back of his throat and Gwaine smirked, his thumb teasing the head. "Don't get too excited," he warned, "We've only just begun." He ran his hand over Percival a few more times, watching in awe as the other's previously composed demeanor slowly unraveled. After a bit he sat back and removed his hand, leaving Percival gasping, his hands still gripping the headboard. Gwaine moved forward to kiss him again, stealing the gasps from his partner's mouth and claiming them as his own. He paused for breath a moment to hook a thumb under the edge of his pants, pulling them down and discarding them over the side of the bed. As he pulled back he reached a hand behind himself, his eyes locked with Percival's.

For a heartbeat Percival watched, not understanding, until Gwaine hissed between his teeth and he flushed from cheeks to ears. Oh. A moment or two longer and Gwaine's legs started to tremble where he kneeled, the smallest of movements Percival almost missed in the dark and candlelight. He held his breath as he watched, his pupils blown wide as Gwaine closed his eyes, his breathing becoming erratic. "Hands on the headboard," Gwaine said without opening an eye and Percival froze, his fingers halfway uncurled from the wood as Gwaine spoke.

So Percival watched. He watched as Gwaine's lips parted in a soundless gasp each time he pressed his own fingers deeper inside himself. He watched the soft flush that seemed to spread across his whole body. He watched when Gwaine started to rock back against his fingers, unable to control the stutter of his hips as he prepared himself. Gwaine's back arched when he finally removed his fingers and Percival inhaled in anticipation, his breath catching when Gwaine ran those same fingers over the other knight's length. "Hands," Gwaine warned again when Percival's fingers twitched to release the headboard. He moved to position himself over Percival, one hand braced against his broad chest and the other he used to hold Percival steady as he guided himself down. Percival kept his gaze on his partner even while he shuddered, his breath hitching as Gwaine slid down onto him in one slow movement, the other's head thrown back and his eyes squeezed shut, his mouth open in a soundless gasp. Both of Gwaine's hands went to Percival's chest to steady himself, his own chest heaving and his whole body trembling. Percival itched to reach out to him, to hold him, but he kept his hands on the headboard as ordered.

"Keep still," Gwaine hissed when Percival's hips twitched under him, "Give me a second." He kept his eyes closed as he slowly calmed his ragged breathing, his frame still trembling despite his best efforts. "You should be so honored," he ground out, "I have never, will never, do this for anyone else." An unspoken, "Except for you," whispered between them and Gwaine opened his eyes only to look away, embarrassed.

"Oh," Percival blinked, too stunned to say anything else.

Gwaine pressed his palms flat against Percival's chest then and pushed himself upwards, his shoulder's shaking as he let himself fall back down. Percival groaned and Gwaine smirked, taking it as an encouragement to repeat the action. The headboard creaked ominously under Percival's iron grip on it, but he kept his hands where they were while Gwaine moved. "Keep still," was repeated when Percival's hips instinctively thrust upwards to meet Gwaine and Gwaine's hands moved, lower, pressing him back down on the mattress and holding him there. "Hands," was the order each time Percival looked as if to reach for him, to touch him, to stop the light trembles that rippled down Gwaine's body as he maneuvered himself, his chin against his collar and sweat trickling down his brow as he rode the other knight.

Percival's hands stayed on the headboard until the moment Gwaine seemed to catch the right angle, a muffled whimper escaping him before he bit his lip and silenced it. Before he could protest Gwaine found himself flipped over onto his back, what little breath he had leaving him as he hit the mattress. Percival was staring down at him in mid process of hooking the other knight's legs over his shoulders, one hand braced near Gwaine's head. "My turn," he murmured in Gwaine's ear, trailing a kiss down his jaw line.

Gasping, Gwaine reached behind him to fist his hands into the sheets. "I was wondering when you'd snap," he breathed, eyes wide.

"You're a git," Percival murmured against the side of Gwaine's mouth, kissing him as he thrust his hips forward. Gwaine's head fell back against the mattress and he moaned.

"You love it," Gwaine panted as Percival pressed into him again.

"Shut up."

The bed groaned underneath them with each movement and Gwaine's back arched as Percival pressed in deeper, harder, faster, his fingers still tangled in the sheets as an anchor. Percival reached between them as he moved, taking Gwaine's swollen cock in hand and stroking his thumb over the head, watching as Gwaine bit his lip to keep from crying out.

"Shite," Gwaine hissed between his teeth, one hand moving to Percival's shoulder, nails digging in to skin. "What is with your stamina? I thought it was big prick come-" He gasped, cutting himself off as Percival slammed into him again.

"You have a dirty mouth," Percival huffed in amusement. He jerked his hand around Gwaine again and leaned to kiss the other as he let out a loud groan. "But sayings are just sayings. You should know that." His hips stuttered and he gasped. "Come on then," he panted against Gwaine's shoulder, his hand picking up pace over the other's length, "I want to see you fall apart."

Gwaine's hand scrabbled at Percival's shoulder, scratching red marks across his skin as Percival moved in him, over him, against him. His chest rose and fell rapidly and his eyes fell shut as came over Percival's hand. Percival made a soft pleased noise and moved his hands to Gwaine's hips, thrusting once, twice, before letting go, Gwaine arching into him as he spilled inside.

"Look at you," Gwaine chuckled breathlessly, his fingers around the back of Percival's neck as the other knight carefully pulled out. "Not such a virgin anymore, huh?"

"Love you," Percival murmured tiredly, rolling over and curling an arm around him. Gwaine smiled.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

They didn't say it often. It was three words whispered when they pressed each other against walls, against sheets, against ground. It was three words promised on wall tops and over battlefields. It was three words given through touches and glances, fingertips and smiles. They didn't need to say it, almost preferred not to.

It was hidden in the hushed, "I'm afraid of ghosts," admitted around the fires that kept the dead away, Gwaine's head on Percival's shoulder as he spoke his fears aloud.

It was the strength behind every rough pat on the back, jostle of shoulder to shoulder, or the press of back to back as death breathed down on them.

It was the laughing, "Never knew you cared," and the sarcastic eye roll after the sickening moment Percival thought he was about to lose Gwaine again.

"I love you," Gwaine murmured as they stood at a window overlooking the ashes burned down over what remained of a fallen comrade, a single figure standing over his long cooled pyre. "I love you," he repeated when Percival didn't meet his eyes, because sometimes touches and smiles and glances were not enough.

"He brought me here," Percival whispered, his voice breaking around the words. "I barely knew him when we met and he brought me here, to this land, to you . . ."

"He'll be remembered," Gwaine replied, standing on his toes to kiss the tears from the corners of Percival's eyes before they could fall. "I'll remember him. I'll thank him for you every day, every night, even if you one day forget him."

Percival nodded, swallowing down a wash of grief and wrapped his arms around the other knight. "Don't leave me," he pleaded quietly."

"Never," Gwaine promised against Percival's neck, "You're stuck with me."

A/N: I did a lot of research on Percival through the legends for this piece. The title comes from a poem about the Holy Grail, which some of the legends depict as being kept by Percival's sister, Dindrane, who appeared in this fic (as well as the Grail, briefly). The quote at the top is said by Sir Percival in The Quest Of The Sangreal. Also, about Percy being a virgin, that comes from the fact that in some of the legends he DIED as a virgin. Anywho, there was a lot to work with, a lot of knots to untangle and pieces to fit into place with the one year gap between series 3 and 4, but after forty flipping pages, I think I've done a fair job of at least trying. So I hope you liked it, and please, review or comment! Thanks.