Chapter Text
I was having the worst morning.
I had fallen out of bed at 10 am instead of his usual wake up at 6. So while I was well rested, I was bruised and late for training with the knights.
It was now 11 am, and Merlin still had not shown up. What was that idiot doing? Gwaine had shown up earlier to ask about my absence, laughed
at my apparent helplessness, which I would never admit to being true for I am a king with standards. I continued to sit on the bed in my knight
clothes because I am not going to do Merlin's job for him, he will do all his work and more is what I tell myself, when, in reality I know exactly
why I haven't gotten dressed.
At 12 am a servant that was not Merlin brought me food, they had a cloth covering their face. After weeks of anxious waiting, the pestilence
had finally made an appearance in Camelot and honestly the stories had not done it justice.
Ever since the first person started to cough up blood, panic had filled the streets. Gaius had pulled Merlin to help him treat people a couple
of times which I had let him do, even if it had pained me greatly and I had missed him so, it had never for this long. I had started to worry.
what had happened? I don't know what I would do without him, I loved- er, he was my best friend.
I asked the servant to fetch Merlin from his chambers, since I was still in my bed clothes. The servant nodded and left. I did some of the paperwork
I was supposed to have done while I waited. When the door opened again, it was not Merlin, nor was it the servant from earlier. Gwen came in
looking like I did when I first saw someone die when I was 12. She slowly walked up to my desk and said. "Arthur, you're going to want to see this."
I stood up already fearing the worst.
"Gwen."
I took her hands in mine. "What happened?"
She was shaking, she wasn't answering. Her breaths were fast. I put my hand on her chest and told her calmly,
" Gwen, breathe with me okay." She nodded. I may be proclaimed a prat by Merlin, but my father didn't put me in charge of training the noble
children to be knights for no reason. I knew how to stay calm in the midst of panic, even if I was scared to death for Merlin.
" Gwen, did something happen to Merlin?"
A shaky nod was all the motivation I needed to rush out to Gaius's chambers, night clothes be damned. I burst in to find Merlin on a cot, fingertips
black as coal. The pestilence had found its next victim.
The sweetest,
most selfless,
most undeserving person there was.
It had found Merlin.