Captain McHappy (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} aestheticized) wrote,@ 2008-12-26 04:35:00 |
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| Current location: | in bed |
| Current mood: |  exhausted |
| Current music: | missy higgins - "the special two" |
| Entry tags: | #fanfiction, (tv) merlin, (tv) merlin } arthur, (tv) merlin } gaius, (tv) merlin } gwen, (tv) merlin } merlin, (tv) merlin } morgana, (tv) merlin } uther, [fic] (misc) undermistletoe, [fic] (rating) pg, [fic] (tv) merlin } arthur/merlin |
[Fanfiction] "Accidental Magic"
Fandom: Merlin
Title: Accidental Magic
Rating: PG
Summary: When Merlin gets a bad cold, he begins accidentally granting Arthur's wishes. ~2420 words
Pairings/Characters: Arthur/Merlin, Gaius, Uther, Morgana, Gwen
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Warnings: Set after 1.13. Spoilers.
Notes: For ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
undermistletoe Day 24: Someone gets three wishes. (Yes, technically it's four.) Many thanks to slanted_edges for looking at this in its roughest state (and while it was totally kicking my ass) and telling me to forge ahead. ♥
It rains for a week after Merlin kills Nimueh.
The storms turn Camelot’s roads to mud puddles and make a mess of ladies’ hemlines, but they are most troublesome for those poor workers whose duties lay outdoors. They are the messengers who trek across the city, the stable boys who tend to their masters’ horses, even the less fortunate salesmen who peddle goods from door to door with little success – all dripping, shivering victims of the weather. So it can be no surprise that when Merlin spends too long in the angry torrents and ends up with a fever, it is on Arthur’s behalf.
Merlin can’t count how many times he’s almost died while running errands for Arthur, and he can’t help but feel mostly irritated when he wakes up in his bed with a worried Gaius at his side. Mostly irritated, because a flare of concern surges on instinct, and after a few gulps of water from the jug in Gaius’s hands, he manages to ask after the prince.
“He’s fine, Merlin,” says Gaius with a quirk of his eyebrow. “Arthur has survived twenty years without you to look after him. I promise you he can survive two days.”
Recent history says otherwise, but Merlin is happy to hear that Arthur is all right. Mostly happy.
The rest of him just feels dizzy.
When Merlin returns to work, still sneezing and woozy, Arthur looks at him with a put-upon expression and says, “My armor needs polishing.”
Arthur has recovered quickly from his near-death. He looks healthy, strong. It’s heartening, like something settling into place. Things are right when Arthur is well – they’re good. If Merlin knows anything, he knows that Arthur cannot die.
“Merlin,” says Arthur, his tone sharp. He betrays no concern for Merlin, for his days absent. He doesn’t even offer a smile. “My armor.”
No, Arthur cannot die – even if occasionally Merlin wants to kill him.
His mouth still tastes bitter, like whatever medicines Gaius fed him, but Merlin swallows the taste and his unpleasant expression when Arthur storms into his chambers, his body coiled tight with fury. His foul mood from this morning has only worsened, and even through the haze of his thoughts, Merlin knows to tread carefully.
This afternoon, he’s making up the prince’s bed. This is not always Merlin’s duty, but there is something comforting in reacquainting himself with Arthur’s life, his space, as tangible as he can get without touching Arthur himself. He is still grappling with how close he came to losing Arthur, and his mother, and Gaius – with how far he was willing to go to protect them. He’s striving to find equilibrium again, and it’s not just his fever affecting his sense of balance.
Muffling his cough and turning his mind to other things, Merlin watches Arthur, who doesn’t say anything.
Merlin knows Arthur’s habits, the way he holds himself when he’s angry or proud, what the rigid length of his spine means. He stands at the window now, arms folded tightly over his chest, jaw clenched into a hard line. The pose is almost regal in its controlled anger, but Arthur’s expression calls to mind every child Merlin ever knew in Ealdor, whenever they’d been scolded.
There is only one person with the power to so efficiently emasculate Arthur.
Morgana.
The name makes Merlin’s nose itch. She’s been sharper than usual lately, quicker to fright and to snap. Gaius checks on her almost every day, and when he returns, his brow is furrowed and his mouth downturned. When Merlin sees her, which is less and less often – “She’s hardly left her room in days,” Gwen told him sadly on the morning before he fell ill – she looks much too pale.
But fighting with Arthur is a good sign, even if Arthur doesn’t see it that way. He doesn’t realize that if she’s willing to insult him, she’s no longer crippled by her fear of what losing him may entail. He doesn’t realize that maybe it means Morgana is regaining her strength, that strange brand of bravery that makes her better even than Arthur sometimes.
“Sire,” Merlin says when he’s finished smoothing the blankets.
Arthur turns away from the pouring rain and makes s sudden, sharp gesture with his arm. “She thinks she knows everything.” His irritation colors his words and makes Merlin want to point out that she probably does know everything – when you grow up with someone, that sort of thing tends to happen. He and Will were like that, once.
Instead of speaking, however, Merlin rubs a hand over his face. The bitter taste is back in his mouth and, wondering if he should have listened to Gaius’s insistence that he spend the day resting, he closes his eyes for a brief moment.
He opens them again when he hears the sound of Arthur’s open palm striking the wall. Arthur is looking at him, his eyes intensely blue. “You’re fine,” he says, and the words are quiet, inexplicable, with the air of a question. Without giving Merlin a chance to answer, however, he continues venomously, “Morgana needs to learn to stay out of my affairs and out of my way.” He gazes through the window at the rain-drenched kingdom. “I wish she’d just disappear.”
At the words, Merlin sneezes and feels the world shift.
“You’re going to be king one day, Arthur, and you must learn to think before you act,” Uther says and has been saying for longer than Merlin cares to know. At least since Gwen mentioned that Morgana was nowhere to be found, and everyone leapt to the conclusion that she’s so torn up over her fight with Arthur that she’s secluded herself somewhere in the castle. Uther can’t have missed her skittish behavior of late, and he seems all too happy to lay the blame on Arthur.
Merlin, however, suspects magic is behind her disappearance, because he knows Morgana is stronger than Uther is giving her credit for, but now is not the time to mention that. Briefly, he wonders if one day he will have to speak of magic before the king, wonders if that king will be Arthur, but those are thoughts for another day. He’s not quite ready for them yet.
As they are finally leaving Uther’s presence, Merlin notices the frown pulling at Arthur’s lips and hears the prince’s sigh: “He’s never even tried to listen to me.” Arthur faces ahead, his nose a straight slope, his eyes soft in the dim light of the chamber. “I wish he’d try to understand,” he says, just loud enough for Merlin to hear – an offering that Merlin doesn’t know how to interpret.
He has no time to wonder about it, though, and barely has to time cover his nose before he sneezes so loudly that Arthur stops in place and turns toward him. He even opens his mouth to speak, but is interrupted by his name ringing across the room: “Arthur!”
“Yes, Father?” They both look at Uther, still on his throne, and Merlin knows they both notice his expression. It is almost tender, quite possibly gentle.
“Son, I – I want you to know that, whatever our differences, I love you and appreciate you,” says Uther – or the man who looks like Uther, in any case – and his voice is so sweet that Merlin’s stomach drops out. The heat of his fever makes his head swim, and he wonders how things have gone so terribly wrong.
Merlin gasps, “I think I’m granting wishes,” and the words hurt his throat about as much as his ragged breath does. He tries not to wince when Gaius doesn’t say anything, just purses his mouth into a familiar expression of exasperation.
In Merlin’s magic book, there is an answer to undoing everything he’s unwittingly done. Once Gaius stopped wagging his eyebrows disapprovingly, he began thumbing through, in search of the right page, while Merlin went to request to have the rest of the evening free from work. Most likely, he needn’t do more than sniffle and cough on Arthur before he’s ordered away – Arthur doubtlessly has little patience for the ill.
When Arthur catches sight of Merlin, however, his mouth tightens into a scowl. “Where have you been?” he demands. Largely uneaten dishes are spread out before him; one of the other servants must have brought his food up to him while Merlin was with Gaius. “It may surprise you to learn that you’re my manservant, which means you do as I say. You can’t simply go about as you please.”
“Yes, sire,” says Merlin, smothering his irritation. Best to agree and be out of there as quickly as possible. “But I was hoping – ”
“Merlin. I’m not done speaking to you.” Arthur’s lips curl up, but he isn’t smiling. “I wish – ”
“No, Arthur, don’t – ”
“ – you would just be quiet for once.”
His sneeze and his quiet noise of desperation are the last sounds Merlin makes before his voice is snatched away by his own magic.
Arthur’s speaking faster and faster, as if spurred on by Merlin’s silence, while Merlin’s mind races in circles. If he can’t speak, he can’t undo this magic. He can’t bring Morgana back from whatever nonexistence she’s been banished to, and he can’t return Uther to the man he was – a flawed man, certainly, but a better king than the foolishly doting father he’s become.
What Merlin can do is continue performing accidental magic, remaking the world one sneeze at a time.
His stomach turns at the thought.
All at once, he realizes that Arthur has stopped talking – has stopped berating Merlin, more precisely – and is waiting for a response. When Merlin doesn’t give him one, he lets loose a bark of angry laughter and snaps, “Morgana’s avoiding me, my father is mocking me, and now even you are insolently refusing to speak to me!”
Recognizing fear in Arthur’s tone, Merlin shakes his head vigorously – no, he’s not refusing to speak to Arthur. No, he’s not ignoring him. Arthur was the one who told him to be quiet, and Arthur could undo it if he only admitted that it wasn’t what he wanted.
Arthur can’t read all those layers into the gesture, though, but understands the main thrust of Merlin’s objection. “You’re not being insolent?” he asks, slowly, carefully. “You – are unable to speak.”
Merlin nods.
Arthur drops his head into his heads, and out comes the muffled question: “Because you’re ill?”
Merlin nods again, bewildered when Arthur looks up at him and seems pained. His expression is uncomfortable, his eyes flickering uncertainly over Merlin, and Merlin can almost feel the weight of his gaze on his body.
“Of course she was right,” says Arthur at long last. He takes one of the slices of bread in hand and begins picking it apart intently. “That’s what Morgana and I fought about. She said it was cruel to force you to work when you were so obviously still unwell. That it was my fault you got ill in the first place. Guinevere told her that you were so badly off that evening you got caught in the rain that you might’ve died, if Gaius hadn’t been there.” He tosses the shred of bread aside and meets Merlin’s eyes.
Drawing nearer, Merlin wants to say that it wasn’t Arthur’s fault. It was, of course, but if one more lie will wipe the strange expression from Arthur’s face, he would be more than willing to carry that burden.
When Merlin reaches out to comfort him, to pat his shoulder, perhaps, or his arm, Arthur clutches at his hand. His fingernails dig into Merlin’s wrist. His palms are damp. He says, “I’m sorry,” and the words are like a foreign language in Merlin’s ear.
Merlin moves on instinct and out of fear – he pulls his hand from Arthur’s grasp, and even if he could speak, he couldn’t find words. Only when Arthur turns away with sad eyes does Merlin know what to say, but no matter how much calls out, Arthur doesn’t hear him.
It’s one hand behind Arthur’s shoulder that finally gets through to him. It takes Merlin too long to work up to it, too long to cross the space between himself and Arthur, but once he does it – once his palm fits against the smooth muscle of Arthur’s back – he finds everything else is easy.
It’s easy touching Arthur’s face, feeling the muscles in his cheeks move as he fights a smile. It’s easy pulling him in. It’s easy kissing him.
And every time he feels Arthur hesitate against him, it is easy to coax his body to curve, and his mouth to open, and his voice to whisper Merlin’s name until it means I love you.
Merlin mouths the words against Arthur’s neck, slowly, with precision. “I feel it,” Arthur says. He knows what Merlin’s doing, knows the letters he’s tracing with his tongue. “I feel it,” he repeats, “but I wish I could hear it, too.”
It’s close enough: Merlin sneezes.
The next morning, the worst of his sickness has passed. His throat still hurts, and his head feels thick, but there is no tingle of a sneeze.
On his way to see Arthur, he passes Morgana and Gwen, arm and arm as they stroll through the courtyard, both looking happier and healthier than they have in weeks. “My lady,” he says with a slight bow as he passes, and when Morgana smiles at him, he feels a rush of gratitude for Gaius. He doesn’t know how he’d get along without him.
Uther’s voice can be heard from the throne room. He’s instructing his servants on preparations for the upcoming visit of a foreign dignitary. The visit is just over a fortnight away, and someone is bound to try to kill Arthur, but Merlin doesn’t feel too disheartened just yet.
Everything is back to normal.
Everything, Merlin hopes, except Arthur.
When Merlin arrives in the prince’s chambers, Arthur says, “My horses need grooming” – but not before he smiles, his cheeks a little pink, and passes the back of his hand over Merlin’s forehead like he’s checking for a fever. Merlin’s fever broke late last night, but Arthur’s skin is cool, comforting, and he doesn’t object to the touch.
The moment Arthur tries to pull away, in fact, he makes a small noise of discontent.
“What?”
“Don’t stop,” Merlin says, his voice soft as leans into Arthur's hand.
Arthur grins. “As you wish.”
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