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Arthur is ruminating on the faint thrum of magic humming through his body when Gwaine walks into the kitchen. The magic, inside and all around him, warm like a sip of hot tea and a blanket wrapped around him, is muted as Merlin sleeps, but no less comforting.
Gwaine does a comical double-take when he sees Arthur sitting at the table. His hair is mussed and his eyes are half-closed and unfocused.
“Sire. Why are you up at such an ungodly hour?”
Arthur raises his eyebrows. “Why are you?”
Gwaine shrugs and makes his way to the kettle. He moves around the kitchen with ease that Arthur can’t help but be envious of. It’s been months, and he still forgets the name of the large cold box that holds most of their food. He still searches for candles in the night.
“Couldn’t sleep. Not for lack of trying, mind you. But every time I fall asleep…” He doesn’t need to finish his sentence; they’re all going through it. Every time Arthur is a hair’s breadth from slumber, his body jerks him awake most viciously, his heart racing in fear. Sleep is the bastard sibling of death, and it doesn’t come easy to anyone in the house save Leon and Merlin.
Merlin has told Arthur about his “deaths”. Each story inspires bittersweet relief. To know Merlin has died over and over again and yet returned each time fills him with pain at the thought of it, and gratitude that each time didn’t stick. Centuries of impotent deaths lessen its impact, and Merlin sleeps with no care that he may never wake up again, unlike the rest of them.
Leon, for his part, is the same, although he is apparently conscious while his body heals from injury. Arthur certainly doesn’t envy that.
Gwaine sits across from Arthur as the kettle boils. “Same for you?” he asks around a yawn.
“Yes,” Arthur admits. “We spent a few years sleeping, surely we don’t need much more of it.”
Gwaine huffs out a breath that could be a laugh. “I’d sleep soundly if I had someone to share my bed,” he says. His tone is serious, rather than lecherous. “I’d kill to be in your shoes, princess. Or rather, your bed.”
Arthur studies him. It’s a rare sight to see Gwaine so serious and mopey. It’s rather refreshing, despite how sad he looks.
“Did you really sleep with my manservant?” Arthur asks, doing his best to sound interesting instead of accusatory. He doesn’t succeed.
The kettle rattles with boiling water and clicks off, but Gwaine doesn’t move. He stares at Arthur, his face unreadable until a smirk takes over.
“Well, back when he was your manservant, yes. A few times. Does that make you jealous?”
Arthur considers it for a moment. “Not jealous,” he replies slowly. “Just… sort of uncomfortable.”
Gwaine shrugs, his face carefully blank. “We agreed that it was just a fun way to burn off some steam between friends. It was never serious.”
“It was to you, wasn’t it?”
Gwaine gets up and turns his back to Arthur while he makes tea. He breaks the silence between them before it gets any more awkward. “It was. But he never knew that.”
Arthur can’t hold in his snort. “What an oblivious idiot. Even I picked up on that.”
Gwaine narrows his eyes at him over his shoulder. “You didn’t even know that we… were intimate.”
Arthur waves a hand. “Yes, but it would take a blind fool not to know how you looked at him. Or an oblivious idiot.”
Gwaine sets a mug of tea in front of Arthur and sits back down. “I knew there was no chance, not for me. Not with you around. I used to curse the day he ever met you, but without you, I would never have met him, I guess.”
Arthur’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
“I mean , you were everything to him. You know how the earth spins around the sun? You’re his sun. Pissed me right off sometimes, especially with how you treated him. Suppose that’s before I understood, you know, how you guys work.”
Arthur isn’t sure how to take this. He could pity the man in front of him, though Gwaine doesn’t beg for pity. He could apologise for getting in the way, except he could never be sorry.
It’s one thing to know, belatedly, the extent of Merlin’s devotion to Arthur. He thought he knew how great it was until that fatal wound dragged the extent of it up to the surface. But to hear it from Gwaine, from his perspective - Arthur is blown away.
“It’s hard, isn’t it?” Gwaine continues. His eyes are brighter now, more awake. It is a sobering conversation. “Seeing him now, and how different he is. I know Merlin hasn’t changed in the ways that matter, but he has changed.”
Arthur hums in agreement. “He’s… less open, now. Time was I caught him crying over something at least once a week.” Now he knows that if anyone had the right to cry about something, it’s Merlin. “He’s gone through so much. How can I be there for someone who has over a thousand years of experience? How can I possibly console him when I can’t even tell when he’s upset?”
Gwaine shrugs. “Learn how to tell. You got a second chance. Don’t think I missed the way you looked at him back then, either. You two were attached at the hip for over ten years, and you still didn’t know the most important thing about Merlin. Now, everything is out in the open.”
It’s a lot for Arthur to think about. When he first woke, the world was foreign to him, and so was Merlin. Still is. But every time Merlin shares a small portion of his vast past with Arthur, he doesn’t feel like it’s a stranger in front of him. He feels hungry for more, eager to see every part of this new Merlin, this old Merlin.
“Relationships with age gaps are hard. I once had a dalliance with a widowed innkeeper - she was as spry and comely as anything, mind you, and the things she could do with her-”
Arthur holds his hand up. “Yes, thank you, I get the picture.”
Gwaine smirks. “My point is, it’s not a bad thing. Just… challenging at times.”
“Why did it end?”
“Well, it turns out her husband wasn’t actually dead, see, he was a prisoner of war. They were a handsome couple. I couldn’t bear to get in their way.”
This is possibly the longest conversation Arthur has had with Gwaine, despite considering him as one of his closest friends. And he understands him better now, though he almost wishes he didn’t. Because it’s clear, past his drinking and whoring, that Gwaine has a heart of gold, a heart that denies itself happiness for others.
Arthur wants to tell him that he’ll find someone for himself, one day. Someone that has eyes only for him, that he can keep and care for without sacrifice. But the words stick in his throat. Merlin is much more suited to that kind of comfort than Arthur.
Arthur studies his hands, curled around the warmth of the mug. He hasn’t taken a sip, just drawing heat and comfort from it. A sudden wave of longing washes over him, to crawl back into bed and lay his head on Merlin’s chest, feeling it rise and fall as his heartbeat drums through Arthur’s ears.
“Merlin may have changed, but he’s also forgotten a lot. You both have to learn how to love each other again, you know,” Gwaine continues.
“You’re very wise this morning,” Arthur mutters.
“Someone in this house has to be,” Gwaine replies cheerfully. “Even Leon seems to have lost his wits over the years.”
“Probably from dealing with Merlin for twelve hundred years.”
Gwaine laughs, a warm, quiet thing. How he can be so happy amongst so much heartbreak, Arthur doesn’t know. But he’s grateful for it.
“I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to answer truthfully. If Merlin had ever left Camelot - for whatever reason - would you have stayed?”
Gwaine raises an eyebrow. “You mean if you had banished him or killed him for having magic?”
“I wouldn’t have killed him!” Arthur protests. The shame that rises in him is a familiar thing, something he sits with for hours on end, something he battles every night when Merlin is asleep and safe in his arms and he thinks - just for a moment - what he would have done had he found out about the magic at literally any other time in his life. And he knows, more than he knows anything, that he could never have condemned Merlin to death.
“I would have left with him in a heartbeat, if he let me. Even if he didn’t let me. Lancelot and I both.”
Arthur narrows his eyes. “Lancelot as well?”
Gwaine’s grin sharpens. “You didn’t think I was the only one head over heels for your manservant, did you? You already know they… had a dalliance.”
“ Lancelot ?!” Arthur shakes his head in disbelief. “He- my- Merlin ?
Gwaine’s shoulders shake with laughter, though he keeps it at a volume appropriate for the hour. “Gods - your face , oh that is golden. I thought you knew!”
“ No ! I didn’t! How would I know that?!”
“It was so obvious! Lancelot isn’t the kind of man to sleep around, you know. He’s very loyal. Even after he fell in love with Gwen, he would have left with Merlin. If I were a lesser man, I would have hated him for that.” It’s said in jest, but Arthur knows how true it is, even if Gwaine himself doesn’t.
“Was anyone else in love with Merlin?” Arthur asks, entirely sure he isn’t going to like the answer.
“Well, Gwen was, but I’m sure you already know that.”
“ Gwen ?!”
“Or perhaps not.” Gwaine grimaces. “Never mind. Don’t worry about it. It’s in the past, which is very far away.”
“He never told me any of this,” Arthur grumbles.
Gwaine looks as though he’s doing his very best not to laugh at him. He’s not doing a great job.
“What are you ladies gossiping about at this ungodly hour? Boys?” Morgana asks, flouncing into the kitchen and raising her eyebrows at them both.
“I’ll have you know that normalising harmful gender roles is frowned upon here, Morgana,” Arthur snarks back. He gives her a smug smile, full of pride for having remembered one of Merlin’s many long lectures on modern-day etiquette. “You are not immune to misogyny just because you’re a woman.”
Morgana’s eyes widen. “What the fuck,” she mutters. She turns and walks back out of the room.
Gwaine holds his hand up for a high-five.
Merlin chews his fingernails, a bad habit he has had centuries to shake. He’s staring at the cars, his and Leon’s, trying to see them from a new perspective. Or rather, an old , medieval perspective.
“They’ll be fine,” Leon assures him. “I’ve told them a car is much like a carriage. Lancelot was alright in the car when we got Percival.”
“Lancelot isn’t Gwaine or Arthur,” Merlin points out. “ Lancelot is sensible.”
A hand clamps down on his shoulder. “You worry too much, Merlin,” Gwaine says, throwing his arm over Merlin’s shoulders. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
Merlin thinks of his toaster. He thinks of seat belts and airbags and road rage. “I’m not answering that.”
Gwaine squeezes him. “I’m dying of thirst. Why can’t you just magic us there?”
Merlin sighs. “It’s harder to explain a group of people appearing out of nowhere if we’re seen, than it is to explain just one. Besides, I need you all to get used to travelling by car. I can’t always be around to magic you everywhere. I’m not a taxi service.”
Gwaine grins. “I don’t know what a taxi is, Merlin, but I do know that nothing gets in the way of a trip to the tavern.”
“Pub,” Leon corrects him. “They’re called pubs now.”
“Whatever.” Everyone else spills out of the front door, bickering and laughing. “Can we go now?”
Merlin clicks his fingers and all of the doors on both cars swing open. Lancelot takes Gwen’s hand and leads her into Leon’s car. She grabs Morgana’s arm and pulls her with them, a hesitantly supportive smile on her face.
Morgana and Gwen had mainly taken to ignoring each other, but the ice between them thaws every day. Merlin, for his part, stays out of it. Lancelot, for his part, does his best to avoid Morgana. It’s quite difficult to do in a house so small, but there have been no explosive arguments yet.
Percival gets into Leon’s front seat. Arthur stands next to Merlin, staring at his small, blue car disdainfully.
“It’s rather ugly, isn’t it? Why on earth would someone have a car and not a horse?”
Merlin has been asking that question for the past hundred years, in truth. But the world does not accommodate horses as well as cars these days, and his hand was forced to purchase one of his own.
“Just get in, my lord,” Merlin responds wearily. He gestures to the front seat, and Arthur pulls a face before obediently clambering in. Merlin grabs his seatbelt and reaches across him to click it into place, jerking back when Arthur licks at his cheek.
“Gross. I’ll leave you here,” he threatens.
Arthur grins up at him. “No you won’t,” he says confidently.
Merlin rolls his eyes and straightens up. Gwaine and Percival get into his back seat, and Elyan climbs into Leon’s front seat. It takes a few minutes to get them all buckled up. Leon starts his car and the radio blares with air horns and a radio host’s obnoxious voice. The wards shudder with an onslaught of power, and he stops them from expelling Morgana from the premises just in time, squinting at the car in front of him. The radio shuts off just as it starts to play a pop song, and Merlin can see Morgana arguing with someone in the backseat.
Leon winds his window down and puts his arm out with a thumbs-up.
By the time they reach the nearest town and park in front of the pub, everyone has calmed down. Gwaine and Percy are bickering quietly in the backseat, and Arthur has run out of questions to ask incessantly.
When they’ve all successfully exited the cars, Merlin gives them one last once-over. The knights are all dressed in casual pants and loose, plain t-shirts. Gwen is wearing another purple dress, altered only slightly into a more modern style. Morgana has taken to wearing pants all the time, black tight ones with ankle boots and a loose, green blouse.
“Stop worrying,” Arthur murmurs into his ear. “You look as though we are about to go to battle. It’s just a tavern.”
“Pub,” Merlin mutters.
“Whatever. I doubt they’re all that different.” Arthur starts tugging him towards the pub, a quiet old establishment that is mainly frequented by generations of locals. Now that they’re there, Merlin is suddenly struck with the realisation that this is a Bad Idea. Mainly due to the amount of taverns Gwaine has been kicked out of, but to be fair the only reason all of the knights hadn’t been kicked out of the tavern in the lower town was entirely due to their status as knights. Also, there’s Morgana.
The night proceeds well enough, though Leon orders a round of peanut butter craft beer in pints and Merlin has to stop Morgana from cursing a man who tries to flirt with her at the bar. He doesn’t stop her from throwing a drink in his face, however.
He’s deep in conversation with Gwaine about hangover cures when Leon comes back to the table a tray balanced on his hand full of shots, lemon wedges, and salt.
“Tequila!” he announces, his cheeks already flushed. Merlin steadies the tray with his magic when Leon sets it down clumsily. Gwen is leaning into Lancelot’s shoulder, but she’s the first to grab one of the glasses.
Merlin stops her. “No, wait. You need to do salt, then tequila, and then the lemon.” He demonstrates for them, licking the salt and downing the shot with the practised ease learned from his most recent days at university. He sucks the lemon and raises his eyebrows at the table, and they all clamour to follow his lead, fighting over the salt shaker.
Arthur turns his nose up at it. “Can’t we just drink ale?”
Merlin gives him a cheeky grin. “Where’s the fun in that?” When Gwaine finishes his shot he makes to smash the shot glass on the ground, and Merlin halts it with his magic. “Here.” He brings Arthur’s hand to his mouth and turns it to lick a stripe on his wrist, maintaining eye contact so he can see when Arthur blushes and his eyes darken. He shakes salt onto it and grabs the shot. “Lick it,” he encourages.
“I’d rather lick it off you,” Arthur replies, his voice low and rough. Gwaine snickers around his lemon wedge.
Merlin leans forward and whispers, “Later,” his mouth curved into a promising smile. Arthur holds his gaze when he licks the salt, and his fingers trail Merlin’s when he takes the shot glass from him. He winces as it goes down, and when he turns back to Merlin he bursts into laughter at the lemon wedge in his mouth. Merlin waggles his eyebrows, and Arthur leans forward to grab the lemon with his teeth. Everyone jeers, the other patrons side-eying their table with obvious annoyance.
“This isn’t so different,” Elyan says, his words slurring together. “They way you two carried on, I would have thought it an entirely foreign experience.”
Percy snorts. “Well, Gwaine hasn’t started a brawl yet so it is a foreign experience for me.”
“The night is young!” Gwaine exclaims. “Good knights of the round table, we have been through much together. War, betrayal, death… Morgana. And with the help of Merlin’s mighty power, we have conquered them all! Sorry, Morgana,” he adds. Morgana shrugs.
Arthur raises his pint of peanut butter beer. “To Merlin!”
“To Merlin!” they all yell.
Merlin sinks low into his seat, his cheeks heating up. “No, that’s not-”
“ To Merlin! ” Gwaine yells louder.
“ To Merlin! ” they all repeat.
“Oh, and to our king,” Gwaine adds as an afterthought.
“Yeah, sure, him too,” Lancelot slurs. “And to Gwen!”
“Okay, okay ,” Merlin interrupts before they yell anything else. “Keep it down! You’re not knights of the realm anymore. They will kick you out of here.”
“Yes. I will.”
Merlin blinks up at the barmaid, standing before them with her hands on her hips and her lips pursed. She’s young, mid-twenties at most, but she looks at them all with barely-concealed annoyance. “I’m going to have to ask you all to leave. You’re disturbing the locals.”
Gwaine flashes her a flirty grin. “Come on, sweetheart. We’re celebrating our new lives! A round for everyone here! You too, gorgeous. You know, I've been knighted-”
Merlin massages his temples. “Gwaine-”
“Nope,” she snaps. “Out, all of you. Right now.”
“Nice one, Gwaine,” Percy mutters.
“Yeah thanks, Gwaine,” Elyan says. He stands, wobbles a little bit, and holds out his arm. “Dear sister? It looks as though Percy is going to have to carry your man out of here.”
Lancelot, who’s head rests against the sticky table, barely moves. Gwen nudges him, and then takes her brother’s hand. They both stumble into each other and laugh.
Merlin shakes Leon’s shoulder. “Ready?”
Leon sighs and straightens up, his eyes glassy and unfocused. “Fine. Do it. Magic me, wizard man,” he slurs.
With a whispered word, once the barmaid has turned away, a wave of magic washes over them. At once, the drunkenness leaves their bodies, leaving behind dry, foul-tasting mouths and light headaches.
Leon groans and licks his lips. “Easily my least favourite spell of yours. Shall we pop off, then?” He brings his keys out and shakes them to grab the attention of everyone else.
Merlin wipes his mouth with his sleeve and conjures himself a small glass of water, knocking it back like a shot. He refills it and hands it to Leon.
“Hold on!” The barmaid appears in front of the door just as Merlin reaches for its handle. “You’re not driving. You were drinking just as much as your friends over there. Keys, please.” She holds out her hand expectantly.
Merlin can’t blame her. It’s part of her job after all, however inconvenient.
“What’s your name?” he asks her.
She blinks at him, taking in his rumpled clothing and steady balance. “Wren.”
Merlin smiles, the same smile he’s learnt will often flush cheeks and stammer words. “Beautiful name. Mine’s Merlin. I’m the sober driver, and I swear I’m sober. I would never jeopardise your liquor licence, Wren, you have my word.” If a little magical charm threaded its way into his voice, who would know?
Wren frowns and thinks it over for a second, before dropping her hand and opening the door for him. “I hope you get these guys home safe,” she says, her voice lighter and more welcoming than it had been moments before. It's a power he hates to abuse, but now he's sober and ready to get everyone home before they all get arrested, so it's the only option he's got. Probably. It's certainly the easiest option.
Leon gives her a warm smile. “Thank you, miss. I apologise for their behaviour - they haven’t been inside a pub before.”
"Never-" Wren stops herself with a put-upon sigh. “I’ve dealt with worse. Just tell them to keep it down next time, yeah?” She turns to look at Leon for a moment before leaning closer to him. “Do you really all think you’re knights of the round table? Is this some sort of role playing game?”
Leon laughs, high and awkward. “Knights? What ? Um… no. No, no knights here.”
Wren narrows her eyes. “Right.”
Merlin rolls his eyes and tugs at Leon’s elbow. “Nice to meet you, Wren! Sorry!”