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The curtains of Arthur's bed, Merlin notes about five hours into yet another sleepless night, are perfectly spotless, freshly laundered and without dust. Decorative silk brocade gleams in the moonlight. They've never looked like that with him in charge of the king's chambers; if he needed any more proof that he's been thoroughly replaced as a manservant, well, there it is.
Not that anyone bothered to give him a new position instead. Merlin's abilities as a physician have been improving to a point he's quite proud of, but he won't be replacing Gaius anytime soon; he has also been appointed something along the lines of Royal Bed Companion, but he doubts that's an official title.
Of course, Merlin knows exactly what official title Arthur wants him to have. He's gotten very good at pretending he can't hear the words court sorcerer.
The thing is: Merlin thought – with the kind of naïve hope he hasn't allowed himself since Morgana's betrayal – that putting his big secret out in the open, hearing Arthur decide to repeal the ban on magic, being freed of years and years of subterfuge, and so on and so forth, would actually bring him relief. And yet here he is, weeks later, unable to sleep because he's waiting for the other shoe to drop. For Arthur to change his mind, or to give in to the pressure of his more conservative council members, or to ask Merlin to commit unspeakable magical atrocities against an enemy kingdom in service of Camelot.
And Merlin knows he would. Wouldn't even hesitate. He'd do anything, for Arthur. He used to wonder, years ago when he still cared about those things, if his magic made him a monster or if it was the unjust law that just made him feel that way. Now the law is about to be changed, and he is more monstrous than ever.
Arthur has rolled away from him in his sleep, his back rising and falling with every quiet breath. That's Merlin's other big secret out in the open, or at least some of it. Arthur knows Merlin wants him, and doesn't seem too put off by it; he doesn't know just how far Merlin is willing to go for him. Merlin would like to keep it that way, if he can help it. Arthur has enough things to worry about. There's no point in burdening him with the unsettling depths of Merlin's devotion.
For that matter, there's no point in lying in bed and cycling through these same thoughts for the thousandth time, either. Merlin pushes back the silken sheets, careful not to make a sound or jostle the mattress too much, and slips out of bed. Since Arthur is unlikely to give up on his quest of making Merlin court sorcerer whether he wants it or not, he might as well get some spell practice in, now that he doesn't have to worry anymore about his head staying on his shoulders. He steps into his breeches and throws on the first tunic he finds – Arthur's, judging from the fabric and the cut – and tiptoes over to the door.
“Where are you going?”
Merlin suppresses a sigh. Nothing can ever be easy. “To the physician's quarters, sire.”
Arthur slowly props himself up on his elbows, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. A sliver of moonlight catches in his hair. “At this time of night? Has something happened to Gaius?”
“No.” Merlin hesitates, takes a moment to square his shoulders. “My spell books are there. Can't sleep, so I thought I'd practice.”
Voicing it out loud still sounds wrong to his ears, too harsh. Treasonous. Still, he refuses to feel shame for something he was born with, has worked so hard to master on his own and in complete secret. Arthur rubs a hand across his face, parsing his words.
“Fine,” he says eventually, magnanimous as though this is his decision to make. “Go fetch your books. But come back quickly, or else you'll wake up half the castle.”
Merlin had not, in fact, planned to come back to the king's chambers at all, but now that Arthur has asked him, he can't come up with any good reason not to. He slips through the door without another word.
The corridors are quiet this time of night. There are very few guards around, courtesy of Merlin telling Arthur about the protective spells he's set up all around the castle and Arthur apparently deciding that was good enough for him. It's the kind of show of trust Merlin can't allow himself to think too much about. He walks past Gwaine and Percival playing cards, just starting their shift; they both raise their eyebrows at the tunic he's wearing.
“Good morning, your Majesty,” Gwaine says with a teasing grin. With a flick of Merlin's hand, the stack of cards flips into Gwaine's face, which makes Percival laugh.
Merlin doesn't mind the teasing, truly; it was no different when Lancelot finally started courting Gwen in earnest. Then again, maybe it ought to be different. Maybe the knights ought to keep him away from their king, as punishment for his years and years of lies. At the very least, they ought to talk some sense into Arthur, preferably before Merlin falls in love with him any further than he already has, although there really isn't all that much leeway left.
He makes it through the physician's quarters into his old room without waking Gaius and pulls the floorboards aside. Hiding his books: another habit he hasn't quite kicked yet. He dusts them off a bit – no need to advertise how little he actually uses them – and, for a moment, considers just staying in this room in spite of what Arthur asked. It would certainly feel safer.
Arthur had recoiled, the very first time Merlin showed him. It was some innocuous thing, a spell to shape the flames in the hearth into a small dragon, carefully chosen not to scare the king. And yet he'd flinched, drawn away in shock. Merlin tries not to blame him, reminds himself of the terrible experiences Arthur's had with sorcerers and witches and golden eyes. It doesn't make it hurt any less.
Still, he has enough self-awareness to know he's terrible at denying Arthur anything even if it hurts Merlin, so he jams the least heavy tome under his arm and sneaks back into the king's chambers.
Arthur, unsurprisingly, has already fallen back asleep, sprawled across the bed, head all the way on Merlin's pillow. Not that Merlin begrudges him the rest. He sees how Arthur runs himself ragged, holding meeting after meeting dedicated to figuring out the right way to let magic back into Camelot – meetings that Merlin himself studiously avoids, unsure if he would be welcome there. Briefly, he considers sitting on the rugs in front of the hearth and lighting a fire, but he doesn't feel ready to give up on the possibility of sleep entirely. As quietly as he can, he climbs back into whatever corner of the bed isn't occupied by his king, conjures a small sphere of blue light to chase away some of the darkness, and flips open his book.
There's a healing spell he's been meaning to learn. Gaius always used to insist he shouldn't tackle those before he knew how to treat wounds “the proper way”, but with how often Camelot's knights get themselves into the kind of trouble that involves bodily harm, that point has been well and truly reached by now. This spell is for mending flesh wounds, not as complicated as the ones meant to repair organs or drive illnesses out of the body, but still useful if one doesn't want to bleed to death. Merlin repeats the words under his breath a few times until he remembers the rhythm, a gentle sway of words like a needle moving back and forth, stitching skin shut. He conjures a few butterflies, as well, just to get into the flow.
Then he casts around for one of the knives Arthur keeps close to his bed.
That's the unpleasant part of healing spells: in order to heal, one requires a wound. Self-inflicted, if need be. Merlin has tried it a few times, and it has always felt frustrating, like his magic refuses to flow back into his own body. He only hopes he'll be prepared enough once this particular skill is put to the test.
He finds a dagger tucked right behind the headboard. The blade is sharp, recently whetted; it likely won't hurt too much. He whispers a cleaning spell over it to eliminate the risk of infection and puts it to his palm.
“Are you about to perform a blood sacrifice on my silk sheets?”
Merlin flinches, almost jamming the dagger into his hand. He glares at Arthur, who must have woken up sometime during the past five minutes and now blinks up at him innocently. “Yes. I'm opening a portal to the world of the dead and shoving you through, so I'll finally have peace.”
Arthur frowns. Half of his face is still mashed into the pillow. "You couldn't actually do that, could you?"
It isn't in Merlin's habit to brag, but he promised Arthur he wouldn't lie to him again, so he shrugs. "Not much I can't do. Sire."
Arthur looks at him for a moment before laughing quietly. "Of course, o all-powerful sorcerer." He sits up to peer at the spell book. There's a small, fond smile on his face at the butterfly crawling over the page. Merlin swallows and looks away. “So what is it really?”
“Healing spell. For a flesh wound.”
Arthur grows still. “Flesh wound? Don't tell me you were just going to cut yourself open.”
His voice is a lot more urgent than the situation warrants; he must still be pretty tired. Merlin huffs out some air. “You make it sound so dramatic. It's just the palm of my hand; I've done it before.”
“Then why are you doing it again? If you already know the spell.”
“It doesn't work as well on myself. I have to get it right in case I need it for someone else.”
Merlin half-expects a jab along the lines of what happened to being an all-powerful sorcerer, but it doesn't come. Instead, Arthur looks at Merlin's hands for a moment, then picks up the one with the dagger and presses the blade against his own palm.
“Arthur,” Merlin says.
“You just said it works better on someone else,” Arthur says. “Well, I'm right here.”
Merlin's throat feels dry all of a sudden. “I couldn't – I can't … ”
“I'm giving you permission.”
Against his better judgement, Merlin raises his eyes to Arthur's. Arthur looks back steadily, the trust in his eyes so unshakeable one could build a castle on it. God, but Merlin would raze a kingdom to the ground for this man.
“Alright,” he says.
It feels wrong to hurt his king like this, watch the skin split and the blood well up in ruby-red droplets, and yet Merlin can't help but cherish it, cherish everything it means. Arthur barely winces, used to much worse, his other hand drawing idle patterns on Merlin's knee. Merlin spells the dagger clean and sets it aside, then puts his thumb and forefinger on either side of the wound and begins the incantation.
He feels the difference immediately: his magic is eager to spill out and settle into Arthur's skin, piece him back together. He carefully runs his fingers up the cut. Within seconds, there is no trace left of it.
Arthur clears his throat.
“Pretty useful,” he says. “I'll come back to that next time I'm bleeding out.”
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the levity in his voice is forced. Merlin's blood runs cold; already he regrets agreeing to this, braces for the involuntary revulsion on Arthur's face at the display of magic – except that he finds nothing of the sort. Only a faint colouring high on his cheekbones and ears, and eyes that suddenly won't quite meet his.
“Oh,” Merlin realises, a grin stretching across his face. “You liked that.”
“Let's not get ahead of ourselves,” Arthur evades.
A losing battle, obviously. Merlin picks up Arthur's hand, presses a kiss to the inside of his palm in the most overly romantic way he can think of.
“I'm not judging,” he says with a wink. “I'll cut you open whenever you like, your Majesty.”
Arthur blushes some more, but doesn't draw his hand away. He cups Merlin's face, his thumb at the corner of his eye.
“It's beautiful,” he says. “When you – use magic. I didn't know it could be.”
Just like that, all of the playful bravado drains out of Merlin again, leaving him unmoored. Raw. There should be a spell for that.
“It's not,” he says, leaning away. It's all suddenly too much. For so long, Merlin had hoped that Arthur would come to view magic as something other than a tool for destruction; now he does, and it's unbearable. “It's not. You – you haven't seen the things I'm capable of, the things I've done. The things I would do. You can't – I don't want you to see that.”
That last part spills out despite himself. Merlin hopes, begs it's enough to get his point across, but one look at Arthur tells him it isn't. His face is set in a stubborn frown, like it always is when he's about to say something irredeemably stupid.
“Merlin,” he says, sure enough. “I don't know what gave you that impression, really. But I am not interested in whatever version of you it is you think I want to see. I want to know you, as you are, nothing less and nothing more. Is that so hard to believe?”
Yes, Merlin thinks wildly. Yes, it is.
“Me, as I am,” he repeats. “I'm not sure who that even is.”
“Well, I am,” Arthur says with confidence. “A terrible nuisance, for one. A brooding worrywart. The bravest man I know, and the dearest friend I have. And of course, Camelot's future court sorcerer,” he adds, because he is Arthur Pendragon and will never let an opportunity to be a bastard go by.
Merlin shoves him back into the pillows. “You know, it's not too late for me to open that portal to the netherworld, after all.”
“I'll get you some nice robes for your new position,” Arthur continues.
“Not happening,” Merlin says, putting the spell book and the dagger on the nightstand and settling down next to him.
Arthur curls towards him, puts his head on Merlin's chest.
“I'm thinking dark blue,” he says, already halfway back to sleep. “With gold embroidery.”
Merlin closes his eyes and tries to let himself hope.