An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Happy New Year everyone! I'm back with 33000 words of kink and idiocy in true Merthur form. Canon Era/Protective Arthur/Repressed BDSM.
The first bad thing is that Merlin doesn’t bring him breakfast.
Merlin is not a reliable servant. He’s there when Arthur really needs him - mostly - but his attitude to working hours is nonchalant at best. Which is fine, of course. Arthur would never admit it to anyone, but it turns out that he’d rather have Merlin’s advice, or jokes, or presence over consistency. So he breakfasts with Morgana, and when she asks where Merlin is he just shrugs and says he gave him the morning off.
Merlin isn’t there at the start of training either, so Arthur borrows a squire and smiles tightly through Sir Bedivere's jokes about useless manservants. “Yes, I’ll be having words with my man,” he says. And he will. He’ll call Merlin an idiot and ask him where he was, maybe throw in another round of armor polishing to top it off. And hopefully, the next time Merlin decides to disappear, he’ll tell Arthur instead of just vanishing.
If it wasn’t ludicrously draconian, he’d put tell Arthur where you are at all times on Merlin’s list of duties. Not that Merlin pays attention to anything on that list anyway.
His armor is too tight the whole way through training.
At lunch, he drops by Gaius’s rooms for a salve for his aching muscles - it’s not a lie, the terrible squire really did a number on him - and gets told, once again, that Merlin is in the tavern. Two hours later, he asks Gwen if she knows where Merlin is. A half hour after that, Morgana is still shouting at him about “cornering my maid” and “tone of voice” and “behaving like a lunatic.”
“It’s all right, my lady,” says Gwen. “But I’m sorry, sire, I really don’t know where Merlin is.”
“Did he say anything?” snaps Arthur, and then holds up his hands at Morgana’s glare. “Sorry, sorry - I just haven’t seen him all day.”
“Because you gave him the morning off!” Morgana throws up her hands. “Honestly, the way you’re attached to Merlin is concerning. Let him have some personal time - “
“Merlin didn’t say anything about having the morning off last night,” says Gwen.
“You’ve seen him?” And let the record show that he says this in a perfectly calm, normal sort of way, and not, as Morgana mutters, “like a little blond bloodhound.”
“Yesterday evening. He - “ Gwen stops. “Um. Well. You see, sire - “
“Just tell me what happened,” says Arthur. “You won’t be in trouble, Gwen. Morgana will fillet anyone who tries.”
“He said he’d be coming back after curfew,” says Gwen, all in a rush. “Said not to worry, but asked me to leave a key out for him to the servant’s entrance. I checked this morning - it was still there. But I put it back! Gaius said he didn’t know where Merlin was, but that I probably shouldn’t worry.”
“Gaius.” Arthur snorts. “He told me Merlin was at the tavern!”
“Oh, how terrible,” croons Morgana. “Covering for a servant. So - when precisely did you give Merlin the morning off?”
Arthur grits his teeth. “I thought I’d let him have some personal time.”
“You know, Arthur, under all that armour, you’re really just a big, cuddly sweetheart.”
Arthur spends the next hour working at his desk, because he is a prince, goddammit, and Merlin is allowed to have his own life. It’s after dark when Gaius knocks and enters.
“Has Merlin finally remembered that he has a job?” He doesn’t look up. Merlin will be back and all will be well.
“Ah, no.” Gaius coughs. “Sire, when I said that Merlin was at the tavern, that was more of an - educated guess.”
Arthur looks up. “So you don’t know where he is.”
“No.” Gaius looks very, very tired, and older than Arthur wants to think about. “And I am afraid.”
Merlin is not in any of the taverns. Nor the whorehouses, the warehouses, the library. Arthur checks the castle dungeons with his heart in his throat - surely they wouldn’t, sure he’d have heard if - and finds nothing. For the first hour of searching, Arthur repeats, like a creed, Merlin’s things are still in his room and he wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye. If not to him - and oh, that thought makes his breath catch - then to Gaius or Gwen. As time wears on, as the list of places to check gets shorter and shorter until it dwindles away, the words transform, become menacing. He wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye. Not willingly. Arthur finds himself checking slumped figures in alleyways, pressing gold into the hands of beggars and drunks half in relief that they’re not Merlin’s corpse, half in a hope that - what? That the gods will let him buy back Merlin’s safety?
Gwen meets him on the street just as he’s about to start a third round of tavern hopeless checking. She’s been asking around the townsfolk. When she runs to Arthur, her eyes are glassy and terrified.
“Where is he?” Say he’s in the tavern. Say he shacked up with some pretty girl and lost the whole day in bed. Say anything but -
“The baker’s wife saw him last night,” she says. “I think I know where he is, but - Arthur, you have to help him. He can’t have done anything.”
“Where, Gwen?” She flinches, and he curses himself. “I’m sorry. Just - please. Where is he?”
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