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“You’re late” Arthur said without looking up from the documents and maps that covered his desk. “Where have you been?”
“I’m sorry, Sire” Merlin panted and Arthur shot his manservant a critical look, a look that turned concerned as he took in his appearance. Merlin’s hair was plastered to his forehead, his cheeks were bright red and his eyes were slightly glazed over. He clearly had a fever and was breathing heavily.
“Are you all right?” Arthur asked and immediately felt stupid. Merlin clearly wasn’t as he was practically swaying were he stood, holding a large plate of food. “You should go back to bed.”
“I can work” Merlin stubbornly insisted, before he leaned forward to put Arthur’s breakfast on the table, fainted and hit his head on the floor. Arthur jumped up, swearing, and hoisted his manservant’s limp body over his shoulder to carry him to Gaius.
::
“Will he be all right?” Arthur asked as Gaius finished examining Merlin.
“Yes, Sire, I believe so. He’s simply overexerted himself while coming down with a bad flu, with time and rest he will recover.”
“That’s good” Arthur said, and then he frowned. “But I don’t understand how he could have gotten so ill. With the castle practically snowed in there haven’t been many patrols, or training sessions outside. Are your chambers still too cold?” Gaius’ chambers had proven to be too cold during the harsh winter and he and Merlin had temporarily been moved to some of the guest quarters until it was warmer.
“No, Sire, these chambers are perfectly good. No, I do believe it is because Merlin spent the whole yesterday afternoon outside with Sir Gwaine. He was rather cold when he returned for supper.”
“Right.” Arthur nodded to Gaius and went to have a word with a certain knight.
::
“Gwaine!” Arthur shouted as he barged into the dining hall and impatiently scanned the tables were the knights were seated for the midday meal. “A word, now.”
“But of course” Gwaine smiled and gave a mocking bow. “Right this instant, Sire.” Arthur huffed and turned on his heel. As soon as the knight entered the hallway Arthur scowled at him.
“What gave you the right to drag Merlin outside and make him freeze his arse off yesterday?” he demanded to know and Gwaine raised an eyebrow.
“Well princess, if you must know, I had the day off and Merlin had finished his chores, which would leave both of us free to choose what we want to do, and with whom” he retorted easily and Arthur growled angrily.
“Well, Sir Knight, a fine choice you made then, seeing as Merlin is now so ill that he needs bed rest.” Worry immediately lined Gwaine’s brow.
“But how…? He seemed fine yesterday.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, Merlin’s as skinny as a twig” Arthur sneered. “It doesn’t take that much to make him catch a cold.” Gwaine’s posture stiffened and he glared at his king.
“Funny you’d noticed that, Sire,“ Gwaine shot back, “seeing as you’ve made no attempt to get him warmer winter clothes.”
“I didn’t expect you to drag him around in the snow” Arthur defended himself haughtily but he did feel a twinge of guilt. Merlin easily got cold and seeing that the winter had been unusually harsh Arthur should have paid attention to the fact that Merlin might need warmer clothes.
“He wanted to. If you listened a little more you’d know that Merlin loves snow.” They stood face to face now, the king and the knight, glaring at each other for several long moments. Then Gwaine spoke.
“So what’s really bothering you, princess? The fact that you’ll have to make do without a servant for the next couple of days or the fact that I spend time alone with Merlin?” With that Gwaine returned to his meal and left Arthur sputtering in his wake to consider what the knight had implied. Arthur composed himself and stalked off. He didn’t care one bit about what Gwaine thought. He most certainly was not jealous.
::
But the next thing that he did was to make sure that Merlin would have plenty of additional chores that would just happen to coincide with Gwaine’s free days, very unfortunate of course, but life can’t always be fair. And after that Arthur did commission a thick winter cloak lined with fur for Merlin. Really, even if Merlin was a terrible servant Arthur couldn’t be bothered with training a new one every time Merlin was out with a cold.
But he most certainly wasn’t jealous. Not at all.