And the next chapter! In record time for me. ^_^ Thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far; I'm delighted you're enjoying it so far. Hope you'll continue to like it!
DISCLAIMER: Not mine in any way, shape or form.
Gawain had turned round, and though he had no right to be, he himself looked a little angry. "We are in love." He told Arthur, defiantly, and though Arthur didn't miss the slightly surprised glance Merlin sent his self-declared paramour, he couldn't seem to understand it.
"After two weeks?" he managed, through numb lips. Gawain's answering nod was still a little defiant. "Well…" He said, finally, after a long, awkward pause. "Good wishes to you both, then. Gawain, I will see you in the practice fields." It took conscious effort to make himself look at Merlin. In the end, it was all he could do to nod at him, before he turned and left the room.
Behind him, Merlin deflated against the wall. "Damn." He said, quietly, and Gawain looked at him, remorse written across his face.
"I'm sorry." He said, ruefully. "I shouldn't have said that. It's just…" his voice went very soft. "I really like you, Merlin. And he – only noticed you the moment you weren't there. It's not fair."
Merlin smiled at him, and took the hand Gawain offered. "It's alright."
"Really?" Gawain asked, hopefully.
"Of course." The mood was broken – Merlin could hardly remember what had prompted that in the first place – but he tried anyway, for Gawain's sake. God only knew the boy looked like someone had just killed his puppy. "Where were we?"
Arthur was in such a daze, he didn't even realise that his feet had carried him to Morgana's rooms until he stopped outside her door. Since he was here, it would be foolish not to at least enter, and since Morgana had proved herself willing to listen, it might do him some good to unburden himself of this. Some unworthy part of him wanted to see what her suggestion would be to get out of this little development.
Gwen opened his door on the second knock, and smiled when she saw him standing there. "Your Highness. Morgana will be delighted to see you."
Morgana's face lit up into a smile when she saw him, and Arthur could see why men wrote poems to her left eyebrow at the slightest provocation. He only wished he was one of them. Sadly, he couldn't see that Merlin would particularly enjoy poems to his eyebrows, even if he had the knack of writing them, or Merlin the knack of inspiring them.
Perhaps he and Merlin were well suited, then, he thought, a little hysterically.
Morgana was far from stupid, and she could see from her foster-brother's face that there was something wrong. "What is it?" she asked, her voice almost gentle. "I was following your advice." He said, rather numbly, "And went to Gawain's room to look for Merlin. Gawain was – kissing him."
Both Gwen and Morgana gasped. "Gawain tried to force Merlin?" Morgana asked, shocked, but Arthur gave a harsh bark of laughter.
"Oh, no." he said, bitterly. "They are in love; Gawain told me so himself."
"Forgive me, your Highness," Gwen spoke up again, apparently unable to keep silent. "But, Merlin hasn't mention anything about being in love. He doesn't even act like it! He's happy, but he doesn't seem to be desperately in love with Gawain."
"Maybe," Arthur said, as tactfully as he could manage in the circumstances, "He just didn't feel he could talk about such things with – a lady like yourself."
Gwen's smile was sweet, but faintly amused. "Maybe, sire, but Merlin's not exactly subtle, is he? If he was in love, the whole castle would know about it." Arthur acknowledged the point with a nod. "So there's hope there, isn't there?" she paused, then said, slowly, "I could talk to him, if you like? Find out about it?"
Arthur looked at her with new appreciation, but shook his head. "I can't ask you to betray his friendship." He said, and though he could have kicked himself, it was the right thing to do. And much, he reminded himself, would he have cared about that before his friendship with Merlin.
She looked a little relieved, and bobbed a curtsey. "Thank you sire." She nodded.
He turned to Morgana. "Well, what do you suggest?" he asked, hopelessly.
"Perhaps I should take over with Sir Gawain." She mused, thoughtfully. "See if I can't turn his thoughts in a – safer direction?"
He paused, momentarily. "My father would be furious." He pointed out, slowly, and she gave him the smile which always sent shivers down his spine; the one which always meant mischief.
"It's all in a good cause."
It took Arthur a few days to get over the relative trauma of seeing Merlin and Gawain together, but once he had got his jealousy under control, he started playing to the plan again. Morgana had been slowly building up her flirtation with Gawain – though Arthur was rather viciously amused to see that the boy seemed to have no idea what to do with her polished compliments and delicate, suggestive smiles – and had been telling him to 'get a move on' with Merlin for the last couple of days. As she put it, 'when we succeed, you're going to have to be sure he's what you really want.' Both of them were refusing to think, for the time being, about the heir Arthur would definitely have to produce for Camelot at some point in the not-so-distant future. For the moment, they had bigger things to focus on.
He finally screwed up his courage, and headed down to the stables, where he knew he would find Merlin tending to Gawain's horse. Guiltily, he took a moment just to watch Merlin rubbing the animal down, watching the flex of muscle, surprisingly graceful movements for such a clumsy person, assured and-
"Stop staring at me, Arthur." Merlin said, jerking him out of his thoughts without even looking round. He paused momentarily in his brushing, and glanced over his shoulder at Arthur, "What are you doing here, anyway?"
"There's no law against standing here, is there?" Arthur managed.
Merlin turned round properly and fixed him with a raised eyebrow. "There probably will be if your father finds out that you're here when you should be on patrol." He said, pointedly.
The warmth Arthur felt on realising that Merlin still remembered his various appointments combined with the heat of Merlin's gaze and left him genuinely worried that he was blushing. "Days are getting shorter, patrol is earlier." He muttered, then changed the subject in the vain hope it would stop him blushing. "Didn't Gawain object to you looking after his horse and so on? You two being 'in love', and all?"
Merlin's grin looked a little forced. "Oh, yes. He got all chivalrous about it." He turned back to the horse and almost pointedly resumed his grooming.
Arthur raised an eyebrow at the darker boy's back. "And…?" he drawled, when it became obvious that Merlin wasn't planning to elaborate.
"And I'm not a girl who needs everything doing for her-"
"Don't let Morgana hear you say that." Arthur murmured, but was ignored.
"-and I'm a manservant. This is what I do – what else would I be doing? I can't get out of practice."
"No." Arthur agreed. "I won't have you getting all slack on me when you come back."
Merlin glanced at him once then away. "So, you do still want me back, then?" he asked, trying for casual, but only really managing 'nervous'. "Even with the whole 'Gawain' thing?"
"Oh, yes!" Arthur said, quickly, then tried to tone down the enthusiasm of his response. "I mean, this whole training up a manservant thing is hard." He said, languidly. "And my current one is even more useless than you were."
Merlin's grin was genuine this time. "Nice to know you're still as charming as ever."
"I'll have you know, I am incredibly charming." Arthur told him, mock-stiffly.
"What, so it's just me who gets to see this side of you? My goodness, I feel so special."
Arthur literally had to bite down his instinctive response to that. "Yes, Merlin." He said, careful to add the requisite amount of sarcasm to his tone. "You're certainly 'special'."
In retaliation, Merlin simply tossed a handful of hay in his direction. The horse, a placid bay gelding, simply flicked its tail at him, while Arthur brushed himself down and tried to frame what he wanted to say in his head.
"So – you will still be in Camelot in six months' time?" he asked, casually.
Merlin paused momentarily, hay wisp in one hand, then went back to brushing in long, soothing strokes. "Um, yes?" He asked, slowly. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Well, I thought, maybe – with this thing with Gawain… you might want to go back to Lothian…"
"Oh, no!" Merlin said, quickly. "It's – not really that… It's never going to, um, work that way, really."
"Good. Good. But, you know, if it was that serious, I want to know as soon as possible." Arthur said, and could have kicked himself for being so obvious. He was so caught up in embarrassment, he didn't notice the half-hopeful look Merlin was giving him. "Because I need to know whether I should start looking for a new servant." He adjusted, carefully not looking at Merlin, and missing his face falling as he said it.
"Oh." Merlin's voice was rather flat. "Well, you needn't worry. I'm staying right here in Camelot."
There didn't seem to be anything else to say, and Merlin's shoulders looked rather set. Assuming he'd upset him – after all, he'd just rubbed his face in the fact that his love was going to be leaving him in a mere six months – Arthur mumbled a goodbye, and left him to it.
Arthur headed up to Morgana's room, only to find that his foster-sister was still out, and only her maid was there. He hesitated for a moment, but then she smiled at him, and he figured that since he was already in love with one servant, it could hardly hurt to strengthen ties with another.
"Guinevere." He nodded, forming her name carefully, and her smile widened just a little.
"Yes, your Highness. But, er, most people just call me Gwen."
"Gwen, then." He smiled, tentatively, and was rewarded with a beaming grin.
"I take it you've just talked to Merlin?" She asked, turning away to put away one of Morgana's dresses, and he threw himself into one of the chairs with a sigh that was very nearly a groan.
"I'm that obvious?"
She gave him a speaking glance over her shoulder, but shook her head. "No. It's just – you always come up here to talk about him."
"Oh." He paused, a little unsure as to how to go on, but fortified himself with the knowledge that speaking to one servant couldn't be so very different to talking to another, and he'd spoken to Merlin easily enough. Carefully, he ignored the little voice in his head which was telling him, very emphatically, that Gwen would not take well to the casual insults he heaped on his once-manservant.
"It's not like we mind, though, of course!" Gwen said, rather hurriedly, taking his silence as offence. "Well, it's not like she minds, really, because it's not my place, is it, to, er, criticise." Arthur realised with a jolt that Gwen was just as much at a loss as he was in all this.
That actually made things easier; and he could see now that talking to Gwen was actually much more like talking to a shy version of Morgana – a version who couldn't throw things at him when he was rude or unkind without running the risk of losing her job, and everything else she held dear. Which just meant he had to be polite, and kind, and not do anything to upset her. Arthur's moral code was a shaky one, but since Merlin's arrival, it did at least include not bullying people who couldn't fight back
His silence while he had this epiphany was making her nervous, though, and he hurried to say something. "Um, yes, I've just come from talking to Merlin." His mind caught up with what she had said, and he paused, awkwardly, before saying slowly, "Though, if you don't want to talk about it, I'll just, um… well, I won't."
Gwen looked so shocked at that that Arthur was almost insulted, but then she was speaking, rather tentatively herself, and he had no time to take umbrage. "Oh, no, I don't mind! I just wish I could do something to help. How did it go, then?"
He shrugged, rather listlessly, mind going back to his conversation with Merlin. "Not well." She made a sympathetic sound. "I think he really does love Gawain." He sighed. "And what's worse, I just don't know why! What does Gawain have that I don't?"
From the look of Gwen's face, she had a couple of ideas about that, but when she opened her mouth, her words were carefully polite. "Nothing, I'm sure, your-"
"What?" he interrupted. "What is it?"
"Well…" She paused, then said, quickly. "It's just, you're quite – open, you know?"
"In what way 'open'?" he asked, suspiciously.
"You can just seem a bit – overwhelming. Your Highness." She added, quickly. "And Gawain, from what I've seen of him, is a little less… frightening?"
"I've never frightened Merlin!" he said, insulted. "Stupid sod didn't have the wits to be frightened." He muttered, morosely, but Gwen didn't appear to hear it.
"No, I know!" she hurried to reassure him. "But – um…" She paused, then said, all in a rush, "You're quite – in your face, and Sir Gawain is quite gentle, isn't he? Maybe Merlin just… wanted a change? For a bit."
"Not for a bit." Arthur told her, gloomily, leaning back into his chair with a sigh. "He got all upset when I reminded him that Gawain would be gone in six months." He sighed again, even harder this time. "I'm not even sure I want to break them up." He confided, his eyes shut. "Merlin seems to really love Gawain." He found he couldn't say Gawain's name without a sarcastic little emphasis on it, and made a mental note not to do it around the man himself. "And – if he's happy…" he shrugged, helplessly. This wasn't normal territory for him.
Gwen, however, seemed to have gone mushy in the ways that only girls seemed able to manage. "That's so sweet." She told him, then flushed darkly. "I mean, not that I think you're sweet, everyone knows you're a great warrior, it's just – you – that's a really nice thing to say. About Merlin."
He gave her a slightly confused look – did she always talk like that? – and she stopped abruptly. He offered her a smile he was sure looked as confused as he felt, but she seemed to relax a little; emboldened, he resumed talking. "So, how about you? I've heard all Morgana's ideas, d'you have any genius plans I should try?"
She bit her lip, thinking for a moment, before saying slowly, "Well… you don't really know much about their relationship, do you? Merlin and Gawain's, I mean." He shook his head, trying to see where this was going. "Well – maybe you should… find out a bit more about it? You know, spend time with them while they're together."
"They won't act normally while I'm around, and I'm not going to spy on them."
"No." She agreed, innocently. "But while you're with them, there are lots of things Gawain wouldn't be able to do to Merlin."
When she put it that way, of course, it was a fantastic plan.
Morgana was having a rather less productive time with Gawain, who, though polite and charming, was about as responsive to her advances as his horse. After another hour of subtle hints and delicate flirtations, she was starting to lose the will to live – it was as though he just didn't isee /ithem.
Finally, after listening to him maunder on about the differences between Camelot and Lothian for nearly a quarter of an hour, she interrupted, dropping her handkerchief with an artistic little sigh. "Oh, how clumsy I am!" She smiled, sweetly at him. "You couldn't possibly get that for me, could you?"
He gave her an engaging smile, and really, if he hadn't been so obtuse, she would rather have liked him. In an 'irritating little brother' sort of way. "Of course, my lady." He offered it to her with a rather absent bow, then straightened, looking a little awkward. "My lady, may I be plain?"
"Are you able to be both plain and brief?" she asked, under her breath, then favoured him with a wide smile. "Of course, Sir Gawain. I would so like to have a – closer relationship with you." Because then, I could call you a cloth-eared twit whenever you were being this thick, she added, mentally.
He looked deeply uncomfortable. "It's just – um, my lady, you've been very, ah… attentive, for several days now, and I'm truly grateful for your attentions, but… it's not-" he broke off, apparently unsure as to how to go on. "Well, you are Prince Arthur's foster-sister, and I assume he mentioned my, um, relationship with my – with Merlin?" he asked, flushing to the roots of his hair.
Morgana, who had heard and thought of very little else ever since she found out about it, managed to nod disinterestedly. "He mentioned it, briefly."
"Then – well, I'm truly flattered by your kindness, but I just feel you're maybe being a little… too kind?" he said, his tone a mix between gentleness and intense embarrassment. "Because you must know that I'm not – that way inclined." She hadn't thought it possible, but Gawain was even redder now than he had been before. "Not to mention, I could never – when Merlin… I couldn't."
As far as set-downs went, it was both the nicest and the most depressing Morgana had ever received. None of her other flirtations had been at all important, and the one time that it was, this was the result. "I just – you're too nice a man to be wasted on a servant?" She tried.
Gawain drew himself up. "This is an attitude I've encountered so often here-" he began, looking a little angry, and Morgana sighed.
"Sir Gawain, I'll be honest with you." She said, quietly, and he stopped in mid-flow. "My handmaid, Guinevere, is a close friend of Merlin's. We've all seen relationships like this, and she just didn't want him to get hurt. I had to try."
He gave her what was evidently the first true smile he had given in the whole of their conversations, and she could feel her heart melt a little. He was a couple of years younger than her, but his smile was radiant. "You are very good." He told her, simply, and she only just restrained her wince. If Arthur hadn't been so miserably in love with Merlin – and he was sickeningly in love with the boy, it was obvious in the way he spoke about him, the great gaby, and in that doe-eyed, stupid look he got sometimes when Merlin was around – she might well have called the whole thing off right there.
As it was, she simply smiled. Gawain was a nice boy, but everyone had been able to see for weeks that what Merlin and Arthur had was special, and, however nice he was, Gawain just couldn't hope to compete with that.
Rallying, she decided that if she couldn't be of any use as a distraction for Gawain, she could at least gain as much information as possible before she beat an honourable retreat. "How is your relationship with Merlin?" She asked, lightly, smoothing down her skirt.
He looked momentarily troubled. "Should I be talking about such a thing in front of – a lady?" he asked.
She laughed, gently. "This is Camelot, Sir Gawain. As you said yourself so, er, volubly – things are different here."
"Yes. Well, my lady, I – my intentions to him are completely honourable." A brief echo of his earlier, beaming smile passed briefly over his face. "You can tell your handmaiden that I won't pressure him into anything he doesn't want to do. I-I… love him."
Morgana nodded, sympathetically. "And he loves you, of course?" She asked, careful to keep her voice light and disinterested. "After all, he must be grateful for your kind attention."
He shook his head, but she couldn't tell what he was disagreeing with. "I hope not." He said, but his voice was a little flat. "He- I want our relationship to be equal."
"But he does love you, I'm sure." She pressed.
His mouth was rather set, but he simply shrugged. "We haven't talked about it." He said, before making some excuse, and leaving her there, rather abruptly. Morgana was left staring after him, mind racing.
She hurried back to her rooms, only to find Gwen talking quite amiably with Arthur about their current problem. He was slumped in a chair at the table, while she went about her normal tasks, and there didn't seem to be anything in the way of awkwardness in the air; Morgana, who was used to watching Arthur keep strict boundaries between himself and the servants, simply stared. Then again, he had no problems getting close to Merlin, she supposed, and let it go. She just hoped he didn't set his sights on poor Gwen if his adoration of Merlin fizzled through.
"Arthur, to what do I owe this pleasure?" she asked, calmly, and he gave her a Look.
"Gwen tells me you know perfectly well."
"Merlin, of course." She tempered her words with a smile, and caught the slight smirk Gwen was hiding in the background.
"How did things go with Gawain, my lady?" Her maidservant asked, pulling out a chair for her, and she sank into it gracefully.
"We-ell… There's good news and bad news." She said, slowly, and Arthur groaned.
"What's the bad news, then?"
"Gawain is a faithful boy at heart," She gave Arthur a pointed glance, and he had the grace to blush, "And he had no interest in flirting with me." Another groan. "I think iyou'd /ihave to flirt with him for him to be at all interested, Arthur, and even then, he seems to really love Merlin. It's going to take more than flirting to distract him."
"Oh, perfect. Him and Merlin are a right pair then." Arthur muttered, and Gwen smiled, sympathetically. Morgana, certain she was missing something, paused for a moment but continued anyway.
"Oh, yes." She smiled, twisting the knife just a little. "He was very clear about it. He wants Merlin to feel that they're iequals/i, that he's not pressuring Merlin into anything. Oh, and his intentions are," Arthur stood up and began to pace. "Completely honourable." She finished, with a little grin at Gwen. "He told me he loved Merlin icompletely/i…" Just as Arthur was starting to look almost suicidally miserable, she took pity on him. "But from what he said, I don't think Merlin is completely in love with him."
Arthur stopped his pacing, staring at her hopefully. "Really?"
"Truly." She confirmed, solemnly.
"Well, then." He said, slowly. "I guess there's hope after all?"
And there it is! ^_^ I hope you enjoyed it - do tell.
-amitai
