Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Arthur stared at the stained wood of his bedroom table, tracing the knots with his eyes. Once, this had been his mother’s table, she had had it in her study. Now Arthur sat at it, ate at it, worked at it and, sometimes, like tonight, failed to sleep at it.

He heard a soft murmur from the bed behind him, Gwen’s breathy stir of wakefulness. “Arthur?” she mumbled.

“I’m here,” he replied.

The candle on the table flickered, Arthur’s eyes itched tiredly. Gwen’s arms tangled around his neck, she kissed his cheek. “It’s alright, Arthur,” she said.

Arthur sighed. Tonight was a night in a hundred; the peace between quests and battles, an island of calm amid the madness; time for him and Gwen to be something other than King and Queen. And yet, despite this, Arthur was not in his wife’s bed. He could give her the balls and banquets, feasts and festivals. He could buy her dresses made from the finest silks imported from the mysterious east, through the Roman Empire whose war drums ever beat. Gwen could ask for anything and he would provide, with one sad exception. The one thing Gwen would never ask for but that Arthur owed her more than anything else.

“It doesn’t matter,” she promised to his unspoken words. “I love you.”

Arthur did not have a problem sleeping when he was with his knights. Camped on the hardest ground, on the coldest plain or wildest peak; Arthur could rest. Even Merlin’s inane chatter could not prevent him from entering the blessed Kingdom of Nod. But here, with Gwen, he could not relax. The soft pillows and clean linen could not entice his head. Gwen’s body, warm and welcoming as it was, reminded Arthur only of what he had failed so far to do.

Gwen stroked her King’s skin, running her hand lightly over his arm. He tensed, his fingers clenching. “Come to bed,” she said.

“I’m not tired,” he lied.

“Arthur, you’re exhausted,” she countered sharply. She bit her tongue. “Just lie with me. You must sleep or else when duty calls, you will be unable to perform it.”

“My duty is to provide for Camelot’s future,” Arthur snapped.

“And you will,” said Gwen.

“When?” Arthur challenged. “How long do we wait? Five years, ten? What if it never happens?”

“Then we will grow old together, you will name a successor and I will still love you,” she vowed. She linked their fingers.

Arthur squeezed them together and then disentangled himself. He stood. “I’m going to go for a walk,” he said with a sigh.

Gwen smiled wanly and nodded. He watched her watch him leave, and the last thing he saw as he closed the door was a single, silent tear roll down her cheek.

****

Somehow, he had found his way through the royal apartments and the guest chambers, his footsteps echoing down the corridors of the palace, until he reached the working part of the castle. His knights, those who were on active service and could not take to their own estates or those knights who he had raised from the commons, lodged there. It was also the permanent residence of the chancellor, the treasurer and the court physician.

He knocked quietly on the lattermost door. “Gaius?” he said softly. There came no answer. Despite his advancing years, Gaius had an unerring ability to rise to his King’s summons. Arthur toed open the door and stuck his head inside. The chambers were dark and smelled of books and potions. It was a green smell, as if nature had somehow been distilled into this one place in the city. He glanced at the small cot which Gaius typically laid in. It was empty.

“Gaius?” he repeated.

There was a clatter from the room at the rear; the sound of a clipped curse. The door to Merlin’s room was flung open. “My Lord?” asked the addled features of Arthur’s manservant. His hair was stuck in misshaped spikes and his eyes were wide with the sudden awakening. Dressed only in breeches, he had the look of a Wilderman to him; a hermit from the elder days.

“Is Gaius here?” Arthur asked.

“What?” Merlin blinked. “No. He has gone to attend a healer’s conference in Mercia. You gave him your leave last week...”

“Oh, yes,” said Arthur. “So I did.” He turned his back on Merlin.

“Did you need something?” Merlin called after him.

Arthur looked around. “Excuse me?”

“Well, it’s just that you’re here. In the middle of the night.”

“It’s my castle,” Arthur replied petulantly.

“Yes, it is,” Merlin agreed. “And there are a number of places in it more welcoming than an empty apothecary.”

Arthur huffed. He closed the door with him inside a little more noisily than strictly necessary. “I can’t sleep,” he said.

“That much is obvious.”

“I was hoping Gaius could give me a sleeping draught. Perhaps like the ones he used to give Morgana.”

“I, um, am not sure that it would do you much good.”

“Hmm,” said Arthur. He poked at a bundle of herbs hanging in the moonlight.

“Is there something I can do for you Sire?” Merlin asked.

“I don’t know. Is there?”

“Well, I...”

“Merlin, you have been Gaius’s apprentice for nearly a dozen years,” Arthur said. “And, as much as I hate to admit it, you have proved yourself a capable physician on occasion.”

“Thank you, Sire,” Merlin said, with an air of mingled surprise, pride and amusement.

“So do you think,” asked Arthur, “that you could fix me something to help?”

“I, uh... yes. Yes I guess so,” Merlin stammered.

“You fill me with so much confidence,” Arthur sneered.

“I can,” Merlin said more surely.

“Very well then.” Arthur took a seat.

Merlin used a spill from the fire to light the braziers and torches in the room. “Right,” he said, mostly to himself. “Where to start?”

“You could begin by putting your shirt on,” Arthur suggested.

Merlin looked down at his bare chest. “Oh. Yes,” he said, his cheeks colouring a delicate pink.

****

Merlin had been having a dream about the wind. He often dreamed in such these days: he heard the call of the wind and saw the invisible patterns of it. Mountains sang to him in deep, ancient voices. The rivers and streams laughed joyfully as they ran through forests of whispering trees. Sometimes, the noises of the world were so loud they awoke him from sleep, as if they were calling him to join them in their music. Tonight, however, it had been the somewhat less melodic notes of his master’s, and friend’s, persistent voice.

Merlin gathered the basic materials he needed and spread them across the desk. In the corner, Arthur was mindlessly batting at one of the hanging bushels of wyrmwort. He looked like an unenthusiastic kitten. Merlin smirked as he decanted some linseed oil into his mixing mortar.

3 leaves of comfrey, extract of valerian, lavender, sage. These were standard ingredients to salve the body and mind. He required something a little special to guarantee Arthur a good night’s sleep, so as not to receive the ever popular ‘can’t you do anything right’ admonishment come the morning. He moved to Gaius’s soporific section. Gaius espoused the systematic display of his medicines - this case held only items that would induce a state of unconsciousness. The lowest shelf held first tier ingredients, they could be guaranteed to make a man drowsy after a moderate imbibitions. Second tier, when correctly mixed, caused everything from a light snooze to the level of unawareness as to be used in surgeries. The third tier held the most potent drugs and poisons. These could produce coma, or take a man to the brink of death whilst preserving him virtually imperceptibly on the very fringe of life.

Merlin decided that the third tier was probably excessive. Arthur was looking to get some shut-eye, not a state funeral. He perused the middle shelf. It began with pickled ape gall (disgusting tasting but not really that effective) and next came crystallised chrysanthemum (effective but not disgusting enough - it was, after all, the middle of the night). Further along he found a ground preparation of owl-feather, mostly used as a short-term sleep-sand that could be blown into someone’s face - useful for dungeon escapes and the like. Snuggled up to this was a small, silver box. Merlin had never seen it before, but it bore a label in Gaius’s handwriting. Scales from the wing of the great owlet moth. Duration 6-8 hours. Arthur hated moths. Having faced wyverns and dragons, questing beasts and the undead, should a moth get into his chambers, he would hop and curse and yell for Merlin to ‘get the blasted thing away from me’. He had once, in an unexpectedly fierce outburst, called one a ‘flappy bastard’. Merlin smirked. He was unsure of the exact nature of the ingredient, other than it apparently lasted up to eight hours, but it carried no cross of poison nor did it sound particularly dangerous. Putting his faith in Gaius’s filing system, he returned to the bench.

“What’s that?” Arthur enquired.

“Rare ingredient,” said Merlin boldly. “Just for you, Sire.”

Arthur hummed unconvincedly.

Merlin opened the lid to the silver box. Inside were thin, almost invisible leaves; tiny petals that had once belonged to such a ‘flappy bastard’. He pinched a small amount and sprinkled it into the pot. Just for the briefest of seconds, the scales shone silver in the light of the sconce before being swallowed into the oil.

“Something wrong?” Arthur asked, moving to stand by Merlin’s side.

“No, no,” Merlin assured, frowning at the preparation. “I just need a little warmed wine to mix the preparation and then it is ready to drink.”

“And about time, too,” Arthur pouted. “Some of us have a Kingdom to run in the morning, not just a bit of cleaning to do.”

Merlin ignored him, warming the mortar over a flame until the wine just started to steam. He decanted the medicine into five small bottles, finding he had the extra, and giving one to Arthur to drink. Arthur eyed it suspiciously, taking it to the table. He sat and removed the stopper. He looked at it some more.

“Drink up,” encouraged Merlin.

Arthur raised the plumy potion to his lips. “If I die because of this,” he said, “know that I will come back and haunt you.”

“You just want to know what I get up to when you’re not around,” Merlin smirked.

“We all know that, Merlin. You go to the tavern.” Arthur upended the bottle into his mouth. He swallowed. His eyes rolled and his head thudded against the wooden table.

Merlin was frozen with fear.

Arthur began to snore.

****

Merlin slumped into his own bed, worn out. He closed his eyes and listened to nightingales chattering noisily in the eve above his window. After Arthur’s sudden descent into slumber, Merlin had tried to first carry him, and then drag him, back to his room. But Arthur, even without his chainmail, was not a small man and lolloped like a sack of damp turnips in Merlin’s arms. Merlin had made it only half way to the door before reassessing the situation. Arthur’s bedroom was three flights of stairs away and along twice that many corridors. Gaius’s cot was less than ten feet. By those standards, Arthur was now snoring like a wild boar in just the other room.

Merlin closed his eyes and fell asleep.

****

It is a strange thing to be woken by a watcher. There is no reason for them to rouse you; they are silent and motionless. Somehow your body just knows.

Merlin’s body just knew. He came slowly to, the casual awareness of prickly embarrassment growing more and more defined. Then there came the moment between sleeping and waking, much like the dawn that is navy one moment and scarlet the next, and consciousness suddenly leapt into him. His eyes flew open.

“Arthur!” he yelped, bolting upright.

Arthur was sat at the end of his bed, silent and motionless; watching.

“Arthur,” Arthur agreed.

“What are you doing here?” Merlin asked.

“Here?” Arthur queried.

“In my room!” Merlin cast about in terror and, there - oh, God there - was his spell book sat open on his dresser.

“My room,” Arthur pouted.

“Look Arthur, I know this whole castle is technically yours but a man’s room is surely his own.”

Arthur blinked and tipped his head to one side. He mouthed much of Merlin’s prior statement, audibly pronouncing only ‘his own’.

Merlin frowned. He reviewed the exchange.

“Why are you repeating me?” he asked.

“Repeating you,” Arthur said.

“Ha! Caught you!” Merlin barked. “Look, I don’t know what kind of game this is...”

“Game?” Arthur said hopefully.

“No games!” Merlin said.

Arthur’s face fell.

“Go to bed, Arthur,” Merlin said tiredly.

Arthur grinned and in a fluid movement, slipped into Merlin’s bed. Merlin instantaneously skittered out the other side. “What are you doing!” he squawked.

“Doing?” replied Arthur. There was just the faintest hint of mirth in the way he said it.

Merlin scowled at him. Arthur was known for his jocular horseplay, but it usually came in the form of physical discomfiture, not inexplicable mind games. That said, Merlin was fairly uncomfortable right at that moment.

He considered his options. There was one cast-iron surety to break this silly charade. He glowered down at Arthur, now making himself comfy in Merlin’s bed.

“Dollophead,” Merlin stated.

“Dollophead,” Arthur agreed.

Merlin shook his head. “Fine,” he huffed. “You sleep here, I’ll have Gaius’s bed. But,” he cautioned boldly, “in the morning, you and I are having a chat about personal space.”

“You and I,” Arthur murmured, already drifting off.

With an exasperated shrug, Merlin went into the other room, casually scooping his book up on the way past.