"Right," Arthur says, finally, into the absolute silence of Gaius' wrecked chamber—all the tables and chairs overturned, all the big, dusty books open on the floor, torn pages and stained papers still fluttering around and around in the air like tiny white birds. "So." He lets himself think, for one long and happy moment, of the moment he sees Merlin again. He can't wait to drag the idiot down to the kitchens and tell the cook to chop him up and serve him for dinner.
"Now, Sire," Gaius says, like Arthur has just opened up his mouth and actually said I'm going to chop Merlin up and serve him for dinner out loud, except, Arthur's really very certain he didn't, so maybe Gaius really can read minds, like Gwaine always wants to bet thirty pounds on, "—mustn't be too hard on Merlin, surely, you know that, it was merely an accident—"
"Right," Arthur says, again. It'll be a tricky thing to boil Merlin. He's all skinny and stringy. He'll get chewy very fast. "Wouldn't dream of it, Gaius."
And maybe Gaius really can read minds, because he sees through that in less than half a moment—damn it, Gwaine wins, doesn't he, Arthur's going to have to hand thirty pounds over to the drunken fool tonight—
"—Sire, please, Merlin merely misunderstood the intent of the incantation—I cannot deny, he ought to have proceeded with far more caution, and of course, he must shoulder some of the blame, but it is not entirely his fault—"
All right. No. Absolutely not. Arthur cannot listen to that any longer. "Not entirely his fault?" He doesn't mean to shout it. That just sort of happens all on its own. "He's gone and split himself into eight! This is entirely his—!"
"Nine," Gaius says, gently, and reaches over, and pats Arthur lightly on the back of his hand. "Actually."
"Oh! Right! Yes! Of course!" Arthur yanks his hand away, and he thinks he might actually still be shouting a little bit. Maybe. "Of course! Nine! Why didn't I think of that! Eight would be too easy, I expect!"
"—Sire—"
"And God forbid Merlin ever make anything easy! He can't just go and have magic, oh, no, he's got to go and be a dragonlord, and have a dragon, and be married to a lake, and be the king of the druids and split himself into eight!"
"Nine," Gaius says, again. It feels very unhelpful right now.
The door swings open, with a long, low creak—a good thing, because if Gaius had got one more word out of his mouth, Arthur would have actually exploded—and the knights rush in, with a great swirl and swish of scarlet cloaks, and a heavy clatter of silver mail, and Guinevere follows on their heels, her red velvet skirt bunched up in her fists so she can run.
"Sire," Leon bows low, and flicks his sweat-soaked curls out of his eyes with the back of his hand, "Gaius," he nods at the old man, "we all came as soon as we heard—what's happened, what is it, what's—?"
"Merlin," Arthur says, at once, because it's like when Gaius rips out stitches after the wound has healed, the quicker, the better, the quicker, the less it will hurt, "has split himself into eight Merlins."
"Nine," Gaius says.
"Nine," Arthur amends with a little huff.
"Jesus Christ," Elyan says blankly.
Percival nods fervently.
"Nine Merlins?" Guinevere echoes, incredulously, and her brows arch up a bit, and she looks at Arthur like she thinks this is all a joke he wants to play on them, like any moment now, Merlin will pop out from behind one of the overturned tables, or come down the dark, narrow stairs at the back of the room, and laugh his idiot head off and say not really!
Arthur should be so lucky. Arthur really, really should be so damn lucky. "Nine Merlins." He nods.
"Fuck," Gwaine says, frankly.
Percival nods fervently again.
"Thank you, Gwaine," Gaius says dryly.
"Well, there has to be a way to fix him," Arthur says impatiently—honestly, yes, all right, he knows this is a bit of a shock, but it really doesn't take that long to come 'round to Merlin is an absolute idiot and he lost control of his magic and mucked up and now we have to go fix it, sounds like Tuesday in Camelot, huh, "can't we just—I don't know—" he doesn't know, actually, he doesn't know very much about magic at all, because magic lives in the lovely little place he likes to call Merlin's Problem, Not Mine, but Merlin's not here right now to make it his problem, so it looks like it's going to be Arthur's problem instead, "—can't we just take all the Merlins and shove them back into one Merlin, or something?"
"Shove them back into one?" Guinevere whirls around to scowl at Arthur. "No! No, we are not going to hurt him!"
"If we can get all the variants of Merlin together," Gaius says, calmly, but he's already raising that damned brow, "there is, indeed, a spell that will—gently—" his brow jumps a bit higher, "merge the facets back into one cohesive whole. But I need hardly tell you, I do not possess the power to even attempt such a thing, Sire. Merlin himself must do it."
"Great," Arthur says flatly. "Why do we always need Merlin for everything?" It's not like the idiot doesn't deserve it—might even do him some good, actually, to clean up his own messes—but Arthur thinks, sometimes, he would give his sword arm just to have a crisis in his kingdom he can solve without magic, and gold eyes, and a whole lot of odd gibberish.
"Hey," Gwaine says, "question."
"Yes, Gwaine," Arthur snaps, "you have to help." If he can't get out of this, his knights aren't getting out of this. "I don't care how many taverns have got a half-price deal going, or if that barmaid finally lost her last rational thought and decided to roll in the hay with you, but—"
"'Have to help'?" Gwaine echoes, like Arthur's just said a truly obscene swear. "Try and stop me, Princess. It's Merlin." Like that explains everything.
(It does, actually, because Arthur feels the same—if Merlin needs him, that's it, that's just it, end of story, nothing else matters, so long as he's there when Merlin needs him—but he would cut out his own tongue and chop it up for dinner before he would ever, ever say that out loud.)
"Please, Sir Gwaine," Gaius says, "I fear there's not much time. If Merlin remains in this disparate state for much longer, the facets will, gradually, begin to fade, and the Merlin we know will disappear from this realm forever."
"Disappear?!" Arthur snaps back around to look at Gaius. "Why the hell didn't you come right out and say that before now?!" It hits like ice in the bottom of his stomach—disappear, forever, Merlin will disappear from this realm forever, the Merlin we know will disappear from this realm forever, and what will I do without him, what will I do without him, I can't, I can't, I need him, I need him here, I can't do this without him, I can't, we haven't done all the things we're meant to do, and I need him here, so we can do them, I need him here to call me a prat and trip over absolutely everything and cry when he sees baby rabbits and hold a sword all the wrong ways because he's rubbish with a blade and I need him here to smile too much and say good morning too loudly and talk about druids and dragons and magic for hours if I don't shut him up and just be Merlin—
"All right, all right, so, just—one thing, then," Gwaine hastily holds up a broad, black-gloved hand, "just one thing, yeah? So, if Merlin tried a weird spell, and turned himself into nine—"
"Yes," Arthur huffs—maybe he should chop Gwaine up, and serve him for dinner, then, "wonderful job, Gwaine, truly phenomenal, now, come on, we have to find him—"
"—wait, wait," Gwaine says, "wait, now, just hang on, Princess, if Merlin tried a weird spell, and turned himself into nine—"
"Gwaine, if you don't sober up and take this seriously, I swear to God, I'll have Percival toss you in the horse trough!" Arthur snarls.
"Um," Percival says, "actually, I would rather not toss Gwaine in the horse trough."
"No need to hide it," Elyan says. "We all kind of want to toss Gwaine in the horse trough."
"—if Merlin tried a weird spell and turned himself into nine, which one is supposed to merge him back?!"
Oh. A hard, heavy stone drops down in Arthur's stomach, right next to the ice. God, Gwaine's actually got a point—would wonders never cease, and all of that, but no, this is not the time, because Gwaine's actually got a damn good point, if Merlin isn't just one Merlin any longer, if he's a whole lot of Merlins all running 'round the castle, is there a way to get one of them to—to do it, to put him back, to put him right, to make him Merlin again—?
"Oh," Gaius doesn't look even half so horrified as Arthur feels, "now that is very simple, Sir Gwaine. You must find the one that is truly Merlin."
Gaius' idea of "simple" looks very, very different from Arthur's.
"Right, thanks," Gwaine says. "One more thing, though. What the actual fuck does that mean?"
"Gwaine!" Elyan reaches up and cuffs his friend, hard, 'round the head.
"I'm sorry," Gaius says, seriously, "I'm afraid I don't know that. I suppose you will know the true Merlin once you find him."
Great. Arthur's stomach sinks, under the weight of all that ice and stone. So he has to track down nine magical idiots, because just one apparently isn't magical or idiotic enough, and he's got to work out which one is actually, truly his magical idiot. Wonderful. Can't wait.
"All right, well," Guinevere bites her bottom lip, and turns to look at the others, a wrinkle in her dark brow, "well, then, we have to find him first." She shakes her head—her thick, brown curls bounce a bit, up and down. "Them. We have to find them. Where do you think they'd have gone?"
"Perhaps," Leon speaks up before Arthur's got the chance to even think about it, "perhaps he's gone to the king's chambers? That's usually where he goes every morning, so, maybe—"
Oh. The ice and stone in Arthur's stomach lifts a little. That's actually not a bad idea. No, that's—that's a good idea, actually, that's a very good idea, that is where Merlin goes every day, and where else does Merlin go every day? Where else would Merlin be at this time?
It hits Arthur hardly half a moment later. "The armory!" He glances over at Leon. "And the training field—he's usually down there with me right now, we usually spar 'round this time—"
"Spar?" Gwaine snorts. "No, you don't 'spar', you just hit him over and over until he can't stand up. That's not a spar. That's a beating."
"Shut up, Gwaine."
"Oh! The kitchens!" Guinevere's face lights up. "He goes there all the time to fetch Arthur's meals! And to steal food," she adds, with a little scowl, "honestly, you'd think he doesn't hear me at all, I've tried a hundred times to tell him not to—"
"What d'you expect?" Gwaine cocks a dark brow. "Princess hardly gives the poor guy time to breathe. It'd be a miracle if he ever got to actually sit down and eat a proper meal."
"Gwaine," Arthur says, "the horse trough is still very much on the table right now." Of course Merlin has time to eat. Plenty of time. Loads of time, even. The idiot knows how to talk—unfortunately—and he certainly knows how to whine and whinge if he ever gets too hungry.
"Oh!" Percival brightens. "Maybe that's where Merlin's gone!"
"The horse trough?" Elyan arches a doubtful brow at Percival.
"No, no," Percival waves him off, "the stables! He has to see to the horses every day, right? And he'll hang 'round sometimes to spoil his old nag, I've seen him at it."
"Excellent idea, Percival!" Guinevere beams at him. "Thank you!"
A tiny little bit of relief stirs in Arthur's stomach. Maybe this won't be nearly as hard as he thinks. "All right, everyone, let's all fan out. Sir Percival, you'll take the stables, since you thought of it, Guinevere, if you could see to the kitchens, Sir Elyan, the armory and the training field, Sir Leon, check the throne room, it's worth a look, and Sir Gwaine, get yourself down to the archives—"
"I really don't think there's a Merlin in the archives," Gwaine breaks in. "Pretty sure if he ever picked up a book that wasn't just magic cover-to-cover, Gaius might actually cry of joy."
"It is a long-cherished dream of mine," Gaius admits.
"Shut up, Gwaine," Arthur says, again, "just check the archives. Maybe he's there, maybe he's not, but we just can't take the risk. We can't miss one of him. We have to find all of them. Quickly."
Notes: so, I could say I'm sorry for this, because, let's be honest, we all know y'all didn't ask for this heap of garbage. yet here it is. big and stinking and right on your doorstep. you're fucking welcome.
already have an additional 15k devoted to this concept, so buckle in, there's more. might actually take this and turn this into a short multi-chap under the Arthur Knows umbrella, or post it all as small, interconnected bits and pieces here and there, but honestly, i'm not one hundred percent sure on the way i want to present this just yet. for now,i'm marking it as a standalone, just like all the others, but if y'all think one would work better than the other, feel free to let me know, because i'm on the fence and open to suggestion.