Title: Hunger
Rating: A strong T?
Warnings: Language, arguments, idiocy, and little in the way of happiness.
Notes: Yeah, I know. It's been forever. Life hasn't been cooperative of late, and Mordred has trampled all over pretty much everything I've written lately. Some of the next one is already written, though, and I'll try to have it up within a month rather than half a year. Until then, Peach.
(Okay. Attempt number two at getting this to show up...)
(Number three, now. Please, ff.n. It's not a lot to ask, is it?)
Hunger - Chapter Twenty-Six
Lancelot raps sharply on the door to Gwaine's room then pushes it open, regardless of the fact that the only answer he gets is a brief pause in Gwaine and Gareth's argument, the former yelling, "piss off," while the latter offers a somewhat more civil, "hang on a minute, please."
The yelling continues regardless of his presence – Lancelot is not completely certain they are aware he is there, actually – and he pieces together the content of the disagreement now that it is no longer semi-muffled by two inches of oak.
"You're a grown man, Gwaine," Gareth says emphatically, as Lancelot takes up a comfortable and hopefully unobtrusive stance just inside of the door, most of the way closed behind him. "How long do you intend to sulk in here and ignore all your friends?"
Gwaine apparently decides that the best response to this question is to lie back down and hide under his blankets again, the words, "fuck off to breakfast, 'Reth," barely decipherable.
"Oh, real bloody mature," Gareth continues, sighing far louder than necessary and waving his hands dramatically, although for what audience Lancelot does not know. "Yep, you just set the perfect example, don't you? Who wouldn't want their sons to grow up like you?" Lancelot steps forward, preparing to intervene – if Gwaine's injury was bothering him so much that he could barely even walk last night, it is unlikely he will be faring any better this morning, and Gareth's anger cannot be helping him – but Gareth softens somehow, dragging a hand through his hair before dropping into one of the seats by the fire.
"Gwaine," he says, sounding far older than he is. "Gwaine, these guys are your brothers, just as much as me and Bertram. They're worried about you. Everyone is worried about you."
Gwaine's silence seems a remarkably uncommunicative one to Lancelot, but apparently Gareth reads something in it that he does not. "Yeah, I know you don't want us to be. You've made that obvious, what with how you've spent your life running away from anyone who might possibly care for you. But this is your home, Gwaine. They do care, and you care about them, and if you really don't want them to worry you'll stop hiding and you'll stop raging at them for whatever mistake they made that upset you so much and you'll try sort things out with whoever it is you're still head-over-heels in love with."
Lancelot sucks in a breath, surprised and deeply concerned, and this time it is he who knows something Gareth does not, namely that however well Gareth may have presented his case prior to mentioning Merlin, that last suggestion was a deeply unwise thing to say. Certainly, it is one Lancelot has wanted to make himself, one he has skirted carefully around, but clearly Gareth has no idea of the need to take things slowly when it comes to Gwaine and his emotions.
"Get out," Gwaine says, pulling his head far enough off his pillow to be understood, and the only thing in his voice is tiredness, complete and utter exhaustion, and not even an ounce of anger. "Go get something to eat, Gareth. And find some other way to spend the afternoon."
"Alright," Gareth sighs, standing again. "Sorry, Gwaine."
That, Lancelot decides, is his cue to leave; his intervention is clearly not required, and he would rather not have Gwaine know that he has been deliberately listening to them. He opens the door only as far as he needs to in order to slip through it, then closes it carefully after him. Only then does he knock a second time, slightly more insistently.
Gareth emerges a minute later, with a smile and a soft apology for making Lancelot wait, then sets off immediately in the direction of the mess hall. Lancelot allows him to walk on without him, and then reopens the door to Gwaine's room, choosing not to wait for an invitation he is not going to be offered.
Sure enough, his first action on entering is to duck, allowing the pillow that was very recently under Gwaine's head to sail straight over his own and into the corridor.
"Good morning, Gwaine," he says. "I have to say, I preferred you when you were overly grateful yesterday to you throwing things at me." Still, he turns and picks up Gwaine's pillow for him, if only because he wants to have the opportunity to throw it back at him.
"Thought you were 'Reth, coming back to nag some more," Gwaine answers, propping himself up against the headboard of his bed. "Sorry," he adds a moment later, then, when Lancelot remains silent, "you want something, Lance?"
"I was just wondering how you were, after yesterday, and whether you wanted assistance in making your way to see Gaius." Lancelot also wants to remind Gwaine that he said he was going to seek Gaius' attention for his knee at all, but if anything is going to make Gwaine refuse to do something he ought to, it is implying that he is not likely to do it without prompting.
Gwaine frowns a little bit, then sighs. "I'll manage, thanks. Do you want to catch up with Gareth before he comes back?"
That is a dismissal if ever Lancelot heard one, and, really, Gwaine is an adult, however little he acts like it. Lancelot can hardly drag him to breakfast, or force him to seek medical assistance if he decides he does not want it.
Of course, there is no harm in encouraging Gareth to go on without him in order to drop in on Gaius in order to ask him to check on Gwaine if the fool has not made his way there himself by lunchtime.
X
"Absolutely not," Merlin hears Gaius state in a way that leave absolutely no room for argument. He doesn't know what lead up to such adamant refusal, given how completely incapable of dressing quietly he is, and he's in too much of a rush to stick around to find out now. His stomach kept him up half the night growling, and then, when he finally slept, he didn't wake up again, not until now, when he's going to have to run to the kitchen to get Arthur his breakfast in order to race down to the mess hall to get his own.
Except, of course, when he stumbles down the steps from his bedroom, untied shoelaces trailing behind him, Lancelot is standing there, frowning as Gaius tells him in no uncertain terms that if Gwaine needs help, he can come by in person like everyone has to do.
Merlin pauses, because how can he not, and how exactly is he supposed to worry about breakfast, Arthur's or his own, when Gwaine is either unwilling or incapable of making his way down to Gaius for help and Gaius is refusing to go to him? "What's up with Gwaine?" he asks, making Lance jump and Gaius do his frown-y eyebrow thing (all these years, and it still has Merlin wanting to shake in his boots).
"You're late, Merlin," Gaius answers, in a not even slightly subtle attempt to get him out of there without having to explain, and Merlin wonders if he even knew he was still in his room when he made his refusal, or if he thought Merlin was long gone, as he technically should have been.
"Arthur's used to it. What's wrong with Gwaine?" Gaius does his best I don't approve face, while Lancelot just looks concerned (but then when doesn't he, lately?). "Look," Merlin tells the pair of them. "I'm not going anywhere until I know, so either you can tell me why Gwaine needs help or you can have your conversation in front of me." When this gets nothing but silence, Merlin offers a prompt. "Gaius, I think you were just about to tell Lancelot why you won't help Gwaine."
"His knee is bothering him," Lance answers, apparently deciding it's the easiest option. "He walked slightly further than he intended to last night."
Even though it's Lancelot, and Merlin doesn't know anyone else who could say that sentence without a drop of blame – disapproval, yes, but nothing as strong as accusation – he still feels guilt swirling inside him. "Oh," he says, and yep, it's definitely noticeable. "Is he okay?"
"I believe so, but I am hardly an expert in the matter, hence my presence here." Lance looks to Gaius expectantly, and apparently Merlin is getting both an answer to his question and to witness this conversation for himself. Pity he doesn't have someone rushing to bring him breakfast as well, but then some things are too much to ask for.
"If Gwaine wants help, he can come here himself, just like everyone else," Gaius states plainly. "I am not required to go to him unless he requests it, and had he requested it I imagine you would have said so in the first place."
Merlin rolls his eyes, because even though Gaius isn't exactly well acquainted with Gwaine (mostly because Gwaine never wanted to be in his presence for more than a minute, at least not since Merlin started sleeping with him), he has to know he never asks for help unless he absolutely has to.
"Gaius," he protests, with almost no hope of success, but Lancelot cuts in before he can actually manage anything further.
"I am not asking you to go there immediately," he says. "I understand that you are a busy man, Gaius, and that you have no desire to chase down every injured person in the castle, nor are you obliged to do so. But if Gwaine has not made his way down here before lunchtime, I was hoping you could see him."
Gaius glances from Lance (concern and sorrow and almost any emotion that could conceivably be said to lie between the two) to Merlin (hope, he is sure, absolute and desperate and, mostly likely, futile), and Merlin is sure another refusal is coming. He musters his courage, because Gaius wouldn't refuse to treat anyone, not even Uther who would see him burn without a second thought or a drop of remorse for keeping Merlin's secret, and Merlin knows it's because of him that he won't go to Gwaine. And if he has to explain every single way he has hurt Gwaine over their months together and apart, if he has to share every little, loathsome detail with the man who may as well be his father (and with one of his best friends, since Lance is here and unlikely to leave until he gets what he wants) in order to get Gwaine help, then he's bloody well going to do so, isn't he, uncomfortable as he is with the idea.
"It's not Gwaine's fault," he says, the words coming out jumbled in his rush to speak them, get them out and over and done with. "He can't be blamed for anything, and...even this, his leg, is my fault, isn't it?"
Lancelot doesn't say anything, which is about as close as his honour will let him get to an outright lie. A denial isn't necessary, though, and wouldn't be at all convincing, because Merlin knows damn well he's right.
"It is," he repeats adamantly. "It's- there's this spell, to bring people to you, not like poof and they're there, but walking. And it's so easy, it was so easy, just to use it whenever I needed help, and then last night there was..." He shudders, feels his hands ball into fists, but if Gaius is this angry at Gwaine for how messily things ended between him and Merlin, he really isn't going to deal well with knowledge of yesterday's argument with Roger, even if Merlin actually wanted to explain it, which he doesn't. "Well, suffice to say, I needed help, and I didn't even realise I'd done it until Gwaine was yelling at me for it. It was just instinct, my magic doing what it wants to, but it's my fault that Gwaine needs help."
Gaius' eyebrow seems to be torn between dropping into a frown (again) and rising even closer to his hairline, while a glance at Lancelot shows his expression to be one of panic, pure and – as with all things Lancelot – unadulterated. "I didn't mean to," Merlin continues, stumbling and urgent, because of course Lance would worry about him hurting someone with his magic, after what Merlin nearly did to him. He can't even blame Lance for worrying, because what he did was monstrous and unforgivable, even if he didn't mean to do that either. "I swear, I wouldn't. I'd never deliberately hurt anyone who didn't deserve it, never. I promise it wasn't on purpose."
"I know," Lance says, his face smoothing from its mess of worry, like slapping a bandage over a gaping wound. "Calm down, Merlin, we know."
Merlin smiles, a little unsteadily, surprised and amazed, as he so often is, but how very lucky he is to have a friend like Lance, that he still treats him with the same easy kindness as he always has, no matter how Merlin has wronged him. "Yeah," he says softly, a little bit sadly. "I'm sorry."
"Just don't do it again, my boy," Gaius says gruffly, like that settles the matter, like it's really so easy and Merlin can just decide to be calm and unemotional and entirely in control. But he can't argue, not when he doesn't stand a chance of winning, and he really doesn't want to make Lancelot look that concerned again.
That topic of conversation done with, they seem to be at something of an impasse: Lance isn't going to go anywhere without an assurance that Gwaine will receive help, Gaius refuses to give him one, and Merlin is far too involved in this to miss whatever the conclusion is going to be.
"I will make a deal with you, Sir Lancelot," Gaius says eventually, with visible reluctance. "If Gwaine has not made his way here for treatment by mid-afternoon, I will send Merlin up with the supplies necessary to see to him."
"Um," Merlin begins, and then stops himself. He is, as Gaius is currently explaining, perfectly competent (hardly a complimentary description of his skills as a physician's apprentice, but then it's not like it's a full time occupation for him), and it is a fairly reasonable reason to go see Gwaine (who probably isn't particularly inclined to see him at the moment, but if Merlin's treating his leg he can't exactly complain).
Concern is seeping through the cracks in Lance's calm facade again. "Are you okay with this, Merlin?" he asks, and then turns his gaze back to Gaius when Merlin nods. "Very well. Thank you, Gaius. Merlin, I will see you at training."
"Breakfast," Merlin corrects. "I'll be late, though; I still need to get Arthur his. Can you save me a plate, please?"
"For as long as I can," Lancelot promises, voice full of approving undertones that Merlin knows Gaius is going to question as soon as he gets the chance.
Thankfully, Gaius is more fond of punctuality than he is of lecturing Merlin; he waves Merlin out of the room after Lancelot with a frown and nothing more than a firm, "you're late, Merlin. We can talk about this later."
On the list of conversations Merlin would really rather not have, this one is so very close to the top.
Then again, most things are, lately.
X
Gwaine, much to his displeasure, has never been a particularly heavy sleeper. Sure, he can doze for a ridiculously long time if he's somewhere comfortable enough (and in a fair few places most would be reluctant to shut their eyes in), and he's mastered the art of dropping off almost as soon as he closes his eyes, but most of the time the slightest noise is enough to wake him. A side effect of sleeping rough and not having anyone to watch his back, where the difference between waking quickly and not quite waking quickly enough could leave him robbed blind (of what little he had to steal, at any rate) or worse, but it's a far harder habit to break than he'd have expected it to be.
So yeah, he drifts easily back into dreamland when Gareth goes to breakfast, not that his dreams are anything he particularly wants to be having. None of them are, lately, when the pictures playing on his eyelids are all the things he wishes he didn't wish for during the day, but it's not like he can complain, not when some of the things he's seen are enough to give any sensible person nightmares. Either way, he's grateful each time a thump of footsteps in the hall launches him in wakefulness, even if it doesn't last long before a lack of anything more interesting to do pushes him back into drowsing.
He doesn't wake fully, not until lunchtime, when Lance taps gently on the door then pushes it open, once against without waiting for a response; they're definitely rubbing off on him, he and Merlin and everyone else in the city with a complete absence of manners. Any other time, he'd probably think it was for the best, but when it's his privacy being invaded, Gwaine is a little less generous. Of course, Gwaine forgives him instantly when Lance closes the door softly behind him and places a plate on the table by Gwaine's bed, but still, it'd be nice for someone to wait for him to let them in.
It takes a moment for Gwaine to work out what is weird about Lance's appearance. "Where's your shadow?" he asks, as Lance sits on Gwaine's least comfortable chair (and he's the only person who ever sits on it, too, which says a lot).
"I escaped," Lance answers quietly. "Ah, I mean, your brother was still eating when I left the hall, and then Leon is going to help him with his inability to find his way around the city. I thought you might appreciate a break, after your argument this morning."
Gwaine laughs; much as he loves Lance, he's sure his motives weren't quite that selfless. "And you wanting to escape had nothing to do with it, of course."
"That was not quite how I meant it," Lance argues, even more quietly. "Gareth is a very pleasant young man."
"Please, he's a pest. And, you want my advice? Don't let him hear you say that."
Lance winces, apparently perfectly capable of picturing 'Reth's reaction to hearing Lance call him pleasant. "Eat your lunch," he says, rather than going for further attempts to extricate his foot from his mouth.
"You could try being a little less noble," Gwaine suggests, grinning as he slides the plate onto his lap and tucks in (lying around doing nothing is seriously hungry work). "He'd probably give you a break if he thought you were just as fallible as the rest of us."
"Do you really think that is a good idea, Gwaine?" Lance says, soft and sorrowful. "Do you think anyone would be happier if I acted on my every impulse, as you do, rather than trying to do what is right?"
You might be, Gwaine thinks, but saying it is both pointless (Lance isn't going to listen, because he never does) and mean, when Lance sounds so utterly heartbroken, and quite how they've managed to jump from Gareth's bout of stalking (harmless though it might be, it's still definitely stalking) to Lance's non-existent love life, Gwaine doesn't know. "It just me that things our lives would be much easier if he was an arsehole? If he wasn't such a good guy, we could just kill him and be done with it."
"I know Gareth can be persistent, but I hardly think it necessary to kill him." Lance's tone is so haughty (and his sense of humour usually so lacking) that it takes Gwaine a minute to realise he's joking. Actually, it takes until Lance grins at him for it to sink in, but then most of his mind is on the first meal he's had since this time yesterday. "That said, it might not be a good idea to make jokes about regicide outside the confines of your room. I am not sure other people would find it funny."
"Yeah, because you do," Gwaine mumbles, because it's Lance and he rarely sees the humour in Gwaine's remarks, even when it comes to bitching about Arthur. "And no one's dumb enough to think I'd do something about it, anyway. Hell, at this point, it's not like doing away with Arthur would do either of us any good."
Lance doesn't answer, and doesn't answer, and doesn't answer, sitting silently for so long that Gwaine thinks the conversation is dead and gone, as lost as both their hopes. He finishes his meal, scrapes his plate so thoroughly that he thinks he eats the odd wood chip, then dumps the plate on his table again, and still Lance is quiet.
Too quiet, actually.
And he's wearing his thinking face.
Bollocks.
"What?" Gwaine demands, almost exactly the same moment as Lance opens his mouth.
"Gwaine," he says. "Gwaine, Merlin- he...they are not the same, your situation with Merlin and things between...between Guinevere and I."
Gwaine would laugh, because isn't that something he knows so well? Gwen has real feelings for Lance, feelings they all pretend she does not, a filthy secret made no less real for the fact that no one talks about it, but to Merlin, Gwaine has never been anything more than a distraction. Lance looks so painfully guilty for even mentioning it (well, he's never liked upsetting people, and everyone knows how awful Lance feels about the Gwen stuff, even if he's utterly blameless) so Gwaine just reaches out to pat his knee, the only – and entirely useless – comfort he can offer him.
"So, other than our deep and every-intensifying misery, how are things elsewhere in the castle?" Gwaine asks, because he's had about all he can take of their collected woe for today, and he's falling seriously behind on gossip thanks to his temporary confinement to his room.
X
Hitting Gwaine across the head is wrong, Lancelot reminds himself. It is not proper to hit those who cannot defend themselves, and Gwaine currently cannot.
Of course, Gwaine has taken enough blows to the head in the time Lancelot has known him to conclusively prove that no, it is not actually possible to knock sense into a person.
And yes, it really would be bad to try it.
He is tired, though, of having conversations like this with Gwaine, whose deafness can only be deliberate, who is not listening because he does not want to listen, and Lancelot has had more than enough of being the go-between in Gwaine and Merlin's relationship.
"Merlin is," he starts, and then pauses, because things ended so well the last time he pulled this stunt. Gwaine does not have magic though, has little reason to be angry when this has to be something that will make him happy, and Gwaine is not going to be able to chase Lancelot down on the off chance that he does lose his temper. There is nothing to lose in telling this, and everything to gain. "He fell apart when you left," Lancelot continues, talking quicker than usual in order to say as much as he can before Gwaine pulls himself together enough to interrupt. "He stopped eating, he was barely sleeping, and you were the only thing he thought about."
"Are you trying to make me feel guilty?" Gwaine demands. "Don't you think I feel bad enough about this already?"
"I do not want to make you feel bad, Gwaine. If anything, I am trying to make you feel better."
Gwaine fidgets in a way that suggests he wants very much to stand up and start shouting; Lancelot considers himself lucky that he cannot do the former and chooses not to do the latter. "Really not working, mate," he says.
"Well, no. I have not got to the part that will, yet," Lancelot replies, a little more snappishly than Gwaine possibly deserves. "Gwaine, Merlin is-"
"Merlin is what?" Merlin asks, walking into Gwaine's room without knocking, eyes glowing faintly and hands full of medical supplies, a stick tucked under his arm.
X
Merlin is incapable of knowing where he is not welcome, Gwaine thinks. Merlin is unwilling to allow him to find anything close to peace or contentment. Merlin is a selfish git and, gods help him, the only person Gwaine will ever truly love.
"Here," Lancelot finishes, just a tad unnecessarily. "Merlin is here, and perfectly capable of telling you himself."
Gwaine drags his palms over his face, contemplates holding them over his ears until everyone just leaves him alone. But his kid brother is too mature to pull shit like that, so Gwaine has to try not to be that ridiculous himself, even if he wants little more than that.
"Telling him what?" Merlin asks.
Lance sighs, standing. "Everything," he answers, making his way to the door. "I will leave the two of you to talk."
"Thank you," Merlin murmurs, moving Gwaine's empty plate and placing his bag on the table, just as Gwaine says, "No!"
"No?" Because Lance suddenly has no idea what the word means, of course, and Gwaine is just going to have to make it plain as anything, no room for confusion or mistake.
"No," he repeats. "Whatever the fuck this is, you've clearly planned it, but I'm telling you, Lancelot, no. If you leave me with Merlin, not only will I follow you out of here and to hell with how messed up my leg is, but I will personally ensure my brother stalks you every single hour of every single day until one or both of you dies."
Clearly, this is a difficult decision for Lance to make, since he hovers vacantly, glancing between Merlin and Gwaine for quite some time, his frown deepening with each moment his eyes rest on Gwaine. "I am sorry, Merlin," he says eventually, returning to his hideous chair and resting his elbows on his knees, head hanging low.
Merlin looks hurt, so horribly, horribly hurt, and Gwaine feels a stab of that vicious, violent triumph, that you deserve nothing less after how you've hurt me delight, swamped almost immediately by bitter regret. He won't take it back, though, because he isn't ready to be alone with Merlin just yet, never mind alone with him in his bedroom, with him stuck in his bed thanks to his blasted knee. It can't possibly end well, can't possibly result in anything that won't make everything Gwaine feels at the moment fifty times worse, so Lancelot is staying, and Merlin can just deal with it.
"Fine," Merlin says, looking at Lancelot before snapping his gaze back to Gwaine. "Fine, if that's how you want it. Take your trousers off."
"Take my what off?!"
"Lancelot," Merlin says, with what might on a far less nice person be considered a sneer as he says the name, "asked Gaius to look at your injury. Gaius sent me. Here I am. Take your trousers off."
Gwaine stares, momentarily baffled and then betrayed; does Lancelot really not trust him to look after himself? How old does he think he is, four? Five? Gwaine has been looking out for himself for years, in the absence of having anyone else to do it for him, and that might have changed but he still hasn't quite accepted it yet. "Right then," he mutters, shaking his head. "Thanks, Lance. Really fucking appreciate this, mate." And then, to Merlin, "turn around."
Surprise paints itself across Merlin's face, then hurt (again), and finally a sulky stubbornness. "Really, Gwaine, anything you've got I've seen already."
"Yeah, and you lost the right to see it months ago. Turn around, or fuck off." Merlin isn't the only one who can be stubborn, after all, and while he might have drawn the first line in the sand Gwaine is drawing this one. He is going to be friends with Merlin again, maybe not just yet and maybe not as close as before they began and ended, but he is, and showing him his cock is not the way to go.
Merlin stares, seemingly waiting for Gwaine to provide some sign that he's joking, that he doesn't mean what he said, but he isn't getting one. Gwaine isn't joking, much as he wishes he was; this is the way things are now. Eventually, Merlin seems to register this fact, turning his back on Gwaine with a huffy sigh. A glance at Lance shows that he's staring quite fixedly at the floor, not that he hasn't seen Gwaine naked before as well, a good while ago and largely against his will.
With some wriggling, Gwaine manages to get out of his soft, comfortable sleep trousers (something he's had to invest in since Gareth came back with him and he started sharing his room in a context where naked wasn't the appropriate way to be), supporting all his weight on his left foot while he pulls them down over his hips. He's capable of kicking the left leg off completely, but his right knee has frozen up again while he's been resting it and even if it hadn't Gwaine doesn't think he could have handled the pain long enough to fidget out of them; his knee is exposed, and that's good enough.
Unfortunately, so is everything else, so Gwaine settles a pillow in his lap – the same one he threw at Lancelot that morning – and attempts to act like he isn't half naked in front of his ex-lover and one of their closest friends. "I'm decent," he announces.
"First time for everything," Merlin mutters, facing him again with a grin that falls flat when Gwaine doesn't answer it in kind. "Okay, then. No more joking." He walks around the bed and stands beside Gwaine, just looking at the bruised, swollen mess of his knee. "Shit, Gwaine. If I'd known it was that bad I'd've come this morning."
"And done what?" Gwaine asks. "Stood and stared? That certainly seems to be all you're doing now."
Merlin nods, and, without warning, begins prodding at his knee, probably in a way that's supposed to be gentle but it still bloody hurts. Then again, Merlin follows up the prodding by resting his palm flat across the area he's just prodded and sliding his other hand under Gwaine's shin, holding reasonably tightly and forcing Gwaine's knee to bend, and that hurts a whole fucking lot more, so, really, it's all relative.
"Fuck!" Gwaine damn near screeches, then flings Merlin's hand away from him. "Damnit, Merlin, did you have to do that?"
"Yes, actually," Merlin answers, "I can hardly treat you if I don't know how bad the damage is, can I?"
Gwaine huffs at him, but it's not like he can disagree, and even he isn't enough of a fool not to realise how much his leg needs treating, or at the very least how much he needs something to make the pain of it manageable. He doesn't want to be stuck like this forever, and he's seen people in the past who have suffered similar injuries and not given them time to heal properly, permanently crippled by what should have been nothing, young men stuck walking with a stick if they can walk at all, and Gwaine will not let that be him. "Fine," he says, settling his hands back on the pillow in his lap and making a conscious effort not to look at Merlin. "Get on with it, then."
Merlin does, but his hold on Gwaine is lighter, more cautious, and he flinches every time Gwaine so much as breathes, let alone the moments when he can't hide his wince. He doesn't say anything, though; none of them do, and it is probably one of the most awkward silences Gwaine has ever encountered (and, from a man who finds all silences deeply unsettling, that's really saying something).
Merlin's fingers skitter up over his knee, probing gently, then carry on, far higher up his thigh than can be necessary, and if Gwaine wasn't so determined to pretend this isn't happening (a feat that gets somewhat harder to manage with every second of Merlin's steadily warming fingertips on his skin), he'd say something, or at the very least clear his throat. Before he can scrape together the resolve to do so, Merlin's hands retreat again, moving down the sides of his thigh to his knee again, curling around it so that his fingertips rest on the soft, vulnerable skin on the underside of Gwaine's knee whilst the heels of his hands almost meet above it, and he can't remember Merlin's hands against his skin ever feeling as warm as this. No, Merlin has cold hands, and his feet have always sat like ice against Gwaine's legs while they sleep together, and yet today they are fire, massaging lightly, not just pleasantly warm but hot, painful, and actually fucking burning him.
Gwaine doesn't flinch, still doesn't even look at him, because it's all in his mind, it has to be. He's imagining it, because Merlin wouldn't hurt him physically, no matter how much his occasional disregard for Gwaine's feelings might damage him in a less literal way. Not ever, and particularly not when he's trying to help him.
At that moment, four things happen almost at once.
Merlin breathes in sharply, loudly, not quite a gasp but close to it.
Lance jumps to his feet, a desperate horror on his face that barely lessens when he moves into Merlin's line of sight.
The heat becomes unbearable, and Gwaine's knee throbs once, rich and strange and excruciating in about a dozen different ways, sending a spasm of contracting muscles all the way from his toes to his hip and then gone, forgotten as soon as it passes in the wake of an equally extreme wave that can only be described as hungry, and
Gwaine groans, clamping down on the pillow in his lap as he looks to Merlin, sees the gold blaze of his eyes swimming back at him through the fog of his sudden attack of lust, and only then does he realise that sometimes, Merlin's efforts to help are just a little bit much.
Merlin stares back at him, his eyes leeching back to blue, fixed, unblinking, both terrified and terrifying, and far too able to sweep Gwaine away with little more than a glance, whether or not he means to. Even so, even knowing that this is just a peculiar reaction to Merlin's magic flooding through him, Gwaine has to resist the urge to reach out to him, drag him close and bring back the memories of everything that they used to be, and to hell with all their problems and the fact that Merlin doesn't sodding love him and poor Lancelot standing only feet away from them.
Lancelot, bless his soul, has a presence of mind that Gwaine lacks right now (and, from the look of things, Merlin isn't faring a whole lot better than him, although when Gwaine's eyes stray against his will to below Merlin's waist, he can see that Merlin isn't in the same awkward, uncomfortable situation he is); he steps forward, pointedly not looking at Gwaine, and closes his hand upon Merlin's upper arm, dragging him away from Gwaine and out of the room.
Merlin doesn't take his eyes from Gwaine the whole way.
X
Lancelot shoves Merlin into the hallway and shuts the door behind them with unnecessary noise, then pushes Merlin against the wall, and finally, finally, Merlin finds himself able to blink.
"What, Merlin?" Lance asks. "What was that?"
Merlin swallows, staring at the floor like it'll tell him what he needs to know, and, really, it was bad enough that Lance was witness to what just happened between he and Gwaine. Does he really have to ask questions about it? For that matter, why on earth would he want to?
Except, apparently, he does want to, because when Merlin forces his eyes back up to meet his, Lancelot is gazing back at him dispassionately, not even close to the empathy he is usually so full of. "Um," Merlin says, hesitatingly and with extreme reluctance. "I don't know. That...doesn't usually happen. It's not-"
"Not that," Lancelot cuts in harshly, looking more than a little unsettled. "I am choosing to pretend that never happened, and I would like it very much if you would allow me to do so. I do not want to know about..." He wrinkles his nose rather than finishing his sentence, which, quite frankly, Merlin thinks is probably for the best. "Before that."
Merlin feels the shock of Gwaine looking at him like that again wear off, slowly overtaken by the realisation of what Lancelot means. "I healed him?" he tries, well aware that it sounds like a question, but even if he knows what has Lancelot looking so worried he still doesn't know why. Sure, it wasn't exactly what he planned on doing when he came to see Gwaine, but it wasn't a bad thing to do. If anything, it was good, a way of reversing some of the harm he's done, even if it was accidental.
"Precisely," Lancelot answers. "So tell me, Merlin, are you an idiot or are you out of control?"
X
Merlin's expression shows quite clearly how uncalled for he thinks that question is, and perhaps it is. Perhaps Lancelot is wrong to treat him so harshly, but then they – he and Arthur – have made a lot of effort to keep from Merlin how severe this situation is, how great the risk of Merlin never regaining control of his magic again is. It was necessary, they decided, lest Merlin's panic at the idea only increase the risk, but it does make it very hard for Lancelot to explain now the reasons behind his seemingly extreme reaction.
"I don't understand," Merlin says mulishly, unhappily; Lancelot knows full well that he would rather be on the other side of Gwaine's door, and he is not entirely certain that Gwaine does not wish the same. A few hours ago, he would have been quite happy to leave them to work things out between themselves, even if he is not entirely sure that allowing what he has just witnessed to proceed as it looked likely to would not have been a morally dubious thing to do, but now...now he is scared, both for Merlin and – much as he wishes otherwise, because this is hardly Merlin's fault, and he does not deserve Lancelot's fear – of him, and perhaps now it is time that Merlin understands everything, even if Lancelot still hopes his healing Gwaine's leg was foolishly deliberate.
"You know exactly what Gwaine is like," Lancelot states; he may as well start this explanation in a place that will make sense to Merlin, and the longer it takes, the longer it is before he has to make a suggestion he suspects will not go down well, because he has never been able to put all that much stock into hope.
"Gwaine is dramatic, and you know how much of a fuss he made about his knee," he continues. "Half the castle has seen us practically carrying him around, and they will have told half the city. The king battling one of his knights like that is prime fodder for gossip. So either you healed him deliberately, risking exposure of yourself and Gwaine at the very least and quite clearly demonstrating how big a fool you are, or you did it accidentally, in which case..." Lancelot stops, because he does not have the heart to tell Merlin that everyone around him is potentially in great danger. He has to know, though, for everyone's sake, and Lancelot has never in the past wished for Merlin to be a moron but he is now. "Which is it?"
"I'm not stupid," Merlin mutters, which is answer enough, although the sullenness with which he speaks suggests that the reason behind consciously healing Gwaine being unwise had not occurred to him before Lancelot stated it. "It wasn't entirely intentional," he adds, after a long moment. "I wanted to help him. The healing just happened."
"Just happened?" Lancelot finds himself echoing as the last vestiges of his hope for things not being as dire as he had worried they were disappears. "Oh, Merlin. You really do not like things to be simple, do you?"
Merlin ducks his head, so tired and unhappy that Lancelot cannot help but hug him. "I am sorry, Merlin," he says softly, then pulls back; this needs to be said, before he allows himself to change his mind. "You need to stay away from Gwaine."
Merlin looks back at him rather than the floor, gaping slightly. "I thought you wanted us to fix things. Earlier you told me to tell him everything."
Lancelot nods slowly, and wonders how to explain to Merlin his abrupt change of heart. He still wishes for Merlin and Gwaine to be happy, but they may have to be put on hold for a while, until Merlin recovers control of his magic. And Merlin will recover control of his magic, because the alternative is unthinkable. "I know, Merlin. And I am sorry, but unless you have evidence that your magic" – he hisses the word under his breath, aware that while the corridor appears empty it does not mean discussing sorcery at an audible level is a good idea – "is as unpredictable around others as it is around him, then you need to keep your distance until you regain control."
He gives Merlin a moment to absorb this, then asks, "which is it?"
X
Merlin blinks, then closes his eyes fully, thinking. He wants really quite desperately to find an occasion where his magic has sparked out that doesn't relate to Gwaine, but he can't.
He can't.
When it comes to Gwaine, his magic does its own thing.
Lancelot is right. He needs to stay away.
