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They kept it small. Gwen insisted.
“We don’t want to make him feel...overwhelmed. Or trapped.” She’d said. “This isn’t a confrontation, it’s an intervention.”
“So that’s why we’re luring him here under false pretenses, then?” Gwaine said.
Gwen just sighed. He was right, but they all knew how evasive Merlin could be. The other servants joked that he knew secret passages all over the castle. And with how he’d been lately...well, Gwen wasn’t sure he’d come if she’d asked him outright. Better to tell him Arthur needed him. It wasn’t so far from the truth, anyway.
The door to the state room swung open and Merlin walked in. He seemed a little surprised—like he’d expected a council meeting—but didn’t stop in his stride.
“You needed something, Sire?” He asked.
It was a little strange that Arthur (standing by the window, looking out into the courtyard) hadn’t told him what to do already. It was even stranger when Gwen asked him to take a seat. She had her hands clasped on the long table—in the way she did when she was trying not to pick at the hem of her sleeves, Merlin knew. Even Gwaine, usually slumped back casually in his chair, sat forward when Merlin came in.
“...Is there something wrong?” Merlin asked.
“No, nothing wrong.” Gwaine was quick to reassure him. “We just need to have a family talk...while Arthur stares moodily at the horses, I suppose.”
Arthur sent Gwaine a look that was more tired than exasperated, and Merlin cautiously took a seat at the end of the table. He was already going through the list of things that could be wrong in his head. It was a list that played out constantly these days—who was sick, who was dying, who didn’t make it back from patrol? Where was the next threat coming from?
Could they suspect him of magic?
“Before we start, we—we want you to know everyone in this room loves you. All the knights do, really.” Gwen said, giving in and playing with the hem of her sleeve.
“Well, except Sir Pellinore.” Gwaine helpfully added, trying to diffuse a bit of the tension.
“Sir Pellinore’s eighty. And he doesn’t like anyone but his dogs.”
“What’s this about?” Merlin asked. He had a number of chores he still had to do, and this conversation was getting more awkward by the minute.
Gwen and Gwaine looked at each other, but it was Arthur who turned from the window and spoke up.
“Last week you disappeared to the tavern for two whole days.”
Merlin mistook his tone for disappointment and tried to smooth things over in the quickest way possible. “I said I was sorry. I didn’t mean to be gone that long. Things just got...out of hand. It won’t happen again.”
“That’s what you said last time.”
Okay. Maybe he did. But he couldn’t control when or how threats to Camelot would show up. And...really, he shouldn’t have to apologize for saving Arthur’s life.
“Forgive him.” Gwaine said, cutting off any further hollow apology. “Arthur’s put himself in the corner because he’s bad at talking about feelings. He didn’t mean it that way.”
Arthur turned back to the window, and Merlin started to put two and two together.
“He means we’re worried about you.” Gwen came right out and said. And as she was afraid he’d do, Merlin smiled.
“There’s no need to be worried about me. I’m fine.” He said, leaning back in his chair and spreading his arms as if to say, ‘See? Still in one piece.’ Despite the femorrah, the serket’s venom, and everyone who had tried to stab or poison him when his friends thought he was off at ‘the tavern’, he was fine. He was scarred. But fine. He still showed up to wash Arthur’s laundry and keep him alive. That was all that mattered, really.
But Gwen opened her mouth and it was like years of anxieties came out at once.
“You’re not .” Gwen said, sure and insistent in a way that scared Merlin a little bit. “You’ll turn up days later, after not so much as a message telling us you’re alright. And—and if it was just that, that’d be fine! What you do in your time is your business alone! You don’t owe us all of you, all the time, but Lord , Merlin—sometimes you come back half dead. You won’t—you can’t tell us where you slept those two days, or who you were with. What if something happens to you? How will we know where to look when you disappear and don’t come back?”
In the ringing silence after that outburst, Merlin felt his heart break. There was a chasm between himself and the rest of his friends. Some days it seemed yawning, impassable. They didn’t know all of him. He knew so much about them, but they didn’t know the most basic thing about him. And what was worse was...He could tell them he had magic, and all that entailed. At any moment. Hell, he could wake Arthur up at three in the morning to tell him if he felt like it. But would they look at him the same? Would they even count him as a human being?
Maybe seeing the look on his face (the look he wasn’t quick enough to hide), Gwaine spoke up.
“All we’re saying is, we care about you and we want you to get better.”
“...Better.” Merlin echoed.
“There are people you can talk to, about your problem with the drink. Alwyn, in the lower town, for instance—“
“Alwyn? Paranoid-of-miasmas, always-in-that-beak-mask Alwyn?” Merlin couldn’t help interrupting. He knew the lower town’s doctor in all his eccentricities.
“Or the bishop.” Gwaine finished.
The absolute absurdity of this started to hit Merlin. He should’ve been nodding along thoughtfully—thank you, Gwaine, I’ll see him right away—but for the life of him, Merlin couldn’t keep a straight face. He stood up and made to excuse himself before he insulted any of them with his laughter.
“Well, I’m sorry to waste your time, but I don’t have a problem with the drink. As I said before, I’m fine. Arthur, if you trust me on the battlefield, trust me now when I say—I’m fine.”
“Sit.” Arthur commanded.
Gwen quietly said his name in admonishment, but Arthur stayed firm, blue eyes locked on Merlin. Merlin didn’t sit. But he also didn’t leave.
“...All right, I know this looks bad, me in the tavern every other day, but—Gwaine? Pot calling the kettle black, here.”
It was kind of a low blow. But Merlin was feeling desperate to get out of there before he got caught between the truth he couldn’t admit and the possibility of getting executed. He hadn’t slept properly in...well, he couldn’t remember how long, and he stopped caring if he hurt Gwaine this little bit. It was for the greater good, really.
“...I’ve got my demons.” Gwaine admitted. “But I’m here every morning for patrol. And my friends always know where to find me.”
“You haven’t smiled in days.” Arthur said. Merlin was genuinely struck that he noticed. Merlin himself hadn’t noticed. He had no snappy retort to that, no joke or made-up nickname that would distract Arthur from the truth. The only way out was leaving, but with Arthur’s eyes still on him, Merlin found himself frozen.
“...Maybe...maybe I have a problem.” Merlin finally admitted. Gods, it was bad if even Arthur noticed. How long had it been since he really laughed? Or slept without running that list through his mind a hundred times first?
“You can talk about it. That way, you won’t be suffering alone.” Gwen said, in that sweet, genuine, helpful voice Merlin had missed so much.
“I can’t.” Merlin said. It was the truth. Though gods, he wished it wasn’t.
“...What have I done wrong?” Arthur asked into the deafening silence of the room.
The question both shocked and infuriated Merlin in a single measure. It touched the young warlock that Arthur would care enough to ask—if that is what this was, and not something selfish. Either way, Merlin brushed it off.
“Nothing.” He lied. “You haven’t done anything—“
Arthur came down from his spot by the window to stand at his own chair at the head of the table. “Then, tell me—where were you last week?”
“Here and there. I already said.”
“Does our friendship really mean so little that you can’t tell me where you were?”
“Hey! For once, this isn’t the Arthur Show. Lay off him.” Gwaine cut in.
Gwaine was always a necessary counterbalance to Arthur’s ego. But just this one last time, Arthur wasn’t going to heed his advice. Instead he leaned on the chair, sorting through the thoughts jumbled up in his head, looking less like larger-than-life royalty and more like the desperate, confused man he only let Merlin see.
“...I know I haven’t been good to you.” He started. “There were times I was a total ass. But I always thought of you as someone I could confide in. I think...you know me better than my father ever did. But you can’t even bring yourself to tell me where you were last week.”
“Arthur—“ Gwaine started.
“He doesn’t have to tell us.” Gwen cut in.
“No, I know! It’s stupid and selfish! He’s been a loyal friend even when I didn’t deserve it! Seeing him like this, it—...” He cut himself off and looked down at his hands. Sometimes Arthur hated that he was trained out of little bad habits so early. A piece of string to pull on would be nice to have while he wrestled with the voice of his father, an ever-present ghost in his mind. This went against all Uther taught him a man should do. Men don’t use feelings words. But god damn it—
“—It hurts.” Arthur admitted to Merlin. “It hurts to think I’ve done something to make myself unworthy of secrets in your eyes. I...I don’t know how to fix it.”
He thought he’d tried everything. Everything he knew, anyway—there was a whole world of social interaction he’d never learned from his father and the knights that trained him. Gwen and even Gwaine—his social crutches in this stupid intervention—had some magical way of making someone feel better. What did Arthur do when Merlin was clearly suffering? Punch him in the arm. That’s all he knew how to do.
Trying to give Merlin time off didn’t work, he didn’t take it. Giving Merlin more work to take his mind off things clearly didn’t work either. So whenever some earth-shattering thing Merlin wouldn’t name had happened—like the week after that were-cat was killed, and rainstorms battered Camelot for days and days, or after the dragon was defeated and the town rebuilt through a bitter cold snap—they’d settled into an uncomfortable routine. It was business as usual, but any conversation they had was tense and rang hollow. Arthur would order him around and Merlin would obey like they both had no other options but to go through the motions till things were right again.
These days, the unspoken chasm between them seemed infinite. They had more business-as-usual days than days where the world was right. And Arthur was tired of it.
“‘What have you done wrong’? I don’t think you’ve done a single thing right.” Merlin said.
He didn’t even realize he was talking before the words fell out. Gods, where had that come from? Why were his fists clenched so hard his knuckles were turning white? It wasn’t like him. It wasn’t fair. Arthur was a good person. And yet, every time he thought he felt close to Arthur, safe with Arthur, something Arthur said would come back to him. Will’s funeral played out again and again in his mind. Just like every time Arthur called magic evil to his face. Every time he had to hide his scars from Arthur, or pretend he was out partying instead of burying a friend—he kept them like lists in his mind (whether he wanted to or not). They weren’t all Arthur’s fault. But they weren’t fair. None of it was.
Years ago, Arthur would’ve argued. Now he just nodded, accepting the criticism.
“I didn’t mean that. I’m just—I’m tired.” Merlin tried to recant.
“I think you did, and it’s all right. I hope you can forgive me for this one last ass thing I’m about to do.”
“Arthur...” Gwen warned him.
“Hold on, Gwenhwyfar, you haven’t even heard what it is yet. Merlin, I’m ordering you to take the next three days off. You’re going to get some sleep. You’re going to give Gaius a hug. You’re going to yell at me, which—Gwaine will be the first to tell you—I’ve had a long time coming. And from now on, if you have to go out drinking, you’re taking Leon with you.”
“Ooh, government-assigned buzz-kill.” Gwaine said with a low whistle.
“Whatever wrong we’ve done you, I, for one, am not going to sit idly by while you destroy yourself.”
When Merlin looked to Gwen for some support, she only said, “We’ll be here for you, every step of the way.”
Oh, gods. He’d forgotten that this was all about his fictitious alcohol addiction. A laugh bubbled up from deep in his chest, and try as he might, he couldn’t stop it. He felt dizzy—he felt a bit insane—and he more collapsed than sat back in his chair. All the ridiculousness of this whole half-baked intervention mixed with the sleep deprivation, which mixed with the stress and the depression and the realization that everyone in that room cared about him unconditionally...Merlin put his head down on the table. He hid his face in his arms as his shoulders shook. Bit by bit, his laughter turned to sobs. The last few years had been harder than he’d ever admitted to himself.
Where one of Merlin’s hands lay on the table, Gwen reached over to take it, stroking the back of his hand with her thumb. She didn’t dare touch him any more. In that moment, he seemed so fragile. Gwaine awkwardly reached over the table to try and stroke Merlin’s back, but couldn’t reach and ended up petting his hair. (He tried.)
“Gwen was telling the truth. Earlier. I...” Arthur trailed off.
“You can say it. It’s just us.” Gwen reminded him.
“I...love you. You’re going to be okay.” Arthur admitted.
Merlin suddenly sat up, hiccuped, scrubbed his eyes with his sleeve and said, “This is so stupid. I’m not an alcoholic, I just have magic.”
It was...honestly not the reaction he was expecting. Arthur glanced, concerned, at Gwen. And Gwen just gave him a look of barely-concealed pity.
“This isn’t the time for jokes, friend.” Gwaine said.
“No, really. I have magic. Watch.”
He snapped, and lights like fireworks fizzled in and out above the table.
“Bam.”
He muttered a word in the ancient language, and the long-dead flowers on the armoire burst back to colorful life.
“Bam.”
Then he pointed at his own shirt and it turned from blue to red.
“Ta-da. Magic.”
And there it was. The reaction he’d been dreading and longing for for years. A shocked silence filled the room, making the air thick and heady. Arthur sat down in his chair. His eyes were wide, and he’d never looked dumber (even when he was a donkey). Merlin should’ve been enjoying that, but after the emotional whiplash of the last thirty-odd minutes, he couldn’t bring himself to really care.
Seconds felt like minutes before that blessed, damned silence was broken. Gwaine reached for his belt. Merlin was so tired, he didn’t notice in time to react—to cast a spell or run or defend himself. He just jumped when Gwaine dropped a coin purse on the table.
“Gwen, you win.” Gwaine said.
“Not NOW, Ga waine —“ Gwen hissed, pushing the money back towards him while Merlin and Arthur watched on in dumb astonishment.
Bit by bit, two and two clicked for Arthur. He fixed the dumbstruck look on his face into one of calm acceptance and said, with the utmost seriousness,
“Sorcerer or not, you’re still not getting out of this tavern business.”
Merlin laughed again, feeling lighter than he had in years. He scrubbed his face one more time and got up.
“I’m sure you’ve got questions, but you’re going to have to deal with them. I’m going to go take a nap. King’s orders.” Merlin said. Then he took his leave.