A/N So here we are. Only one week (and a tiny bit) waiting time for this next chapter. Will wonders never cease? Lol. I am trying to be better. I have even done some work on the next chapter of screaming but that one might take a little more time yet since I lost a vital set of notes for the beginning of the chapter when I moved house. As soon as I find it that fic can move along too.
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He's at the tavern Chapter 3.
He hated being right.
No sooner had his bout of illness passed, with his almost wishing he could pass out here in full view of everyone and bugger the fact he'd be ribbed about it for weeks afterward. At least then Gaius would be called for and he could explain and be allowed to sleep, but the anonymous hand had snaked out once again and helped him regain his feet. He wasn't altogether surprised to note it belonged to Percival. He really should have realised sooner, those hands were like spades and pretty hard to mistake for anyone else's, though to be fair he was not exactly feeling his best at the moment.
He stood there pale and shaky and feeling marginally better for purging his stomach but he knew how his migraines worked and this was one of the worst types, when even Gaius's strongest remedies failed to take the edge off and the pain in his head would just grow again until he held a repeat performance in the not too distant future. He needed to lie down in a darkened room, with a cold compress across his forehead, dosed up on Gaius's poppy syrup which would make him sleep for at least two hours. It always left him feeling loopy and dazed afterward and he would swear he would never take it again; until the next time one as bad as this hit and he would practically beg his guardian to make it go away. But one look at Arthur's face, at the contempt simmering just beneath the surface and he just knew the mercy he longed for would not be forthcoming any time soon.
No there was no softness to Arthur at this moment in time and that was unlike him too. There must be something more bothering the king than just whether or not Merlin drank too much. His habits had never come under such close scrutiny before, and though Arthur had always grumbled when Gaius had mentioned the tavern as Merlin's alibi of the moment he'd never seen fit to be completely vindictive about it before today. Unless he counted George's rather...eccentric teaching methods.
He could only come to the conclusion Arthur had been under more stress than usual and he Merlin, had become the convenient target for the king to vent his frustrations on. It had occurred before not, usually as bad as this seemed to be shaping up to be granted, but Merlin nearly always had methods of handling him even so.
Deflecting and cajoling and dealing with a couple of days of ill temper until Arthur declared a hunting trip and Merlin could breathe easier knowing he then had an outlet, and was able to take his frustrations out on the unsuspecting wildlife rather than one overworked warlock. So quite apart from not knowing just what had taken place to set him off, he really, really wished it hadn't happened just now when he was so tired and very ill equipped to deal with whatever crisis Arthur was trying to work around.
And now Arthur was striding toward him where he was being propped against Percival's side, knowing whatever was coming would just add to the misery. "Stable duty, now!"
"Sire he wasn't..."Percival tried to come to the rescue but even he knew it was too little too late. He should have spoken up earlier. Now if he argued, it would just look like he was defending a servant for the sake of their friendship; that or he hadn't been entirely honest and make Arthur look a little too closely at those trips. Which for the most part was fine, there were many legitimate reasons for Merlin to leave even if the knights had seen his usual habit of being surreptitious in his movements. However, it was those very rare and sometimes not so legal occasions the young man worried over. It would be just his luck for Arthur to follow him at precisely the wrong time and see something unexplainable.
Merlin could see the conflict playing out with the knights slowly grinding jaw, but to say anything now would most likely result in his own punishment rather than a lessening of Merlin's. It was better if only one of them bore the brunt of Arthur's foul mood.
"He wasn't what? Too rat arsed to know when to stop?" Merlin swallowed heavily knowing to keep silent. "You will clean every stall in the royal stable not just those of my own horses. At least if you are ill there you are in a position to clean it! Report to the steward after, I'll not have you anywhere near our royal guests before you've sobered up and can conduct yourself with dignity." And for the second time that day he showed his back to the warlock. This time Merlin never even tried to call him back or explain. He knew from experience it would do little good as he watched him depart with pain filled eyes. At least with Arthur's mention of royal guest's he now knew the probable cause of his latest bout of prattishness.
Turning back to the knights crowding around him, he took note of the silence taking over this end of the grounds. "Merlin...I..." Percival tried looking altogether sorrowful and the rest weren't much better, Gwaine even went so far as to have a positively, kicked puppy type of expression.
"Save it! He's long past the point he'd listen to anyone, even you. All we can do is whether it out and hope whatever bad humour he's gotten himself into works itself out before we all collapse." He stated wearily, his earlier irritation with the knights all but forgotten.
"You're ill Merlin. Gaius could confirm it." At this point, Merlin thought, even a prognosis of impending death from Gaius with himself laying prostrate in his bed and attended by his tearful mother, might not be enough to sway his irate monarch. Only a headache, even of the intensity of this particular migraine, had no chance of garnering so much as a kindly glance with Arthur's current level of frustration.
"Yes well, Gaius isn't here. He's dealing with yet another accident in the lower town. And this is just a headache from being up all night collecting for Gaius and the night before doing Arthur's spare chainmail since he just had to have it ready just in case." The slightly sing-song, bitingly sarcastic quality held more than a hint of bitterness and Merlin hastily quashed it till it was merely worn out. These were still knights in front of him. "I'll be fine. Best make yourselves scarce lest he devise a worse fate for you lot."
"There's a worse fate than mucking every stall in the royal stable and then having to work for old prune face Derril?" Gwaine's half smile perhaps wasn't the most comforting in the circumstances but at least he was trying.
"There will be and trust me, with the mood Arthur's in at the moment he'll know exactly what it is." It wasn't meant to be a joke but the knights laughed anyway as he made his weary way to the stable block. With the luck he had today, whatever was worse than the stables would be waiting for him once he'd done with the castle steward? He could say with perfect honesty this was shaping up to be one of his worst as a servant. Not perhaps the worst as a defender of Camelot. No the worst of those could be counted in the lost lives of his friends and loved ones, but on those he'd usually had the support, albeit of the oblivious type, of a princely clot pole.
As it was, King Arthur seemed to have taken a shift in his thinking in the weeks since Morgana's second defeat. Withdrawing from all those he had thus far called friend, he most of all. And since the retaking of the Castle it had seemed to get subtly worse month by month as spring waned into summer and then the days started shortening. All these new treaties and trade bargains becoming ever more important just so they could survive through the coming winter after Morgana burned their crops to ash.
But even then Arthur had never let the stresses inherent with hosting the gathered allies interfere with his days. Or maybe they had? Maybe this had been building for quite some time, and Merlin had become the oblivious one with all the added pressures of being the only physician's assistant qualified, loyal and trustworthy enough to work independently within the court in such harrowing circumstances.
Whatever the case he would look into the whys and wherefore's later when this interminable day finally drew to a close.