Just one thing in advance: This little story of mine is set early in the course of the show, at some point during the second or third series, but before the events of 'The Coming of Arthur' and 'The Wicked Day'. So [not to be spoilered] is still alive, and Arthur doesn't know yet that [not to be spoilered] will betray him.

CHAPTER ONE — HOW YOU HOLDIN' UP?

Two travellers were riding abreast through an autumnal forest, far away from any human settlements.

One rider was armoured, wearing a hauberk with metal rings that sparkled in the setting sun. At his hip hung a sheathed sword that quietly clanged with each of his movements. To his right rode his servant, slouching, quietly groaning in pain. His left arm was bandaged with the red scarf he usually carried around his neck; the cloth was dripping with his blood.

The servant had serious troubles staying ahorse; every now and then, the armoured rider would grab him by the shoulders and pull him back into a safe position.

It had been an eventful day: After an unexpectedly long and perilous journey, the prince had successfully brought the wicked warlock Gormes to justice. Arthur should have been overjoyed, but there were two flaws that made this impossible:

Firstly, he had wanted to capture the warlock alive, so that the perpetrator could be put to trial in front of the royal court. But fate wouldn't have it: During the battle, a brick had fallen from the ceiling, fatally wounding Gormes.

Secondly, Arthur's faithful servant Merlin had been grievously wounded during the battle, and had lost a lot of blood.

This injury was the reason why both riders travelled abreast: Normally, Arthur would stay a few paces ahead, but now he had to take care of Merlin, for he feared that his servant might fall to the ground and aggravate his already grave injuries.

They had been riding quietly for some time now. The only sounds accompanying them were the rustling of the leaves under their horses' hooves, the clanging of Arthur's armour, and the occasional chirping of a bird. The scion and his servant were hungry, exhausted, and the rhythmical clip-clopping and the swaying motion had a lulling effect on both of them.

Besides, both didn't feel like talking anyway. Merlin had no breath to be wasted on his usual small talk, and the prince was plagued by his conscience: Because it was his fault that his friend was possibly riding boldly towards the jaws of death. Because it was he who had asked Merlin to accompany him on this journey, although there was no real need for that (apart from Arthur's wish to have him close to his side), and because it was he who had opened that terrible wound on his friend's arm.

'How you holdin' up?', the prince suddenly said, looking anxiously at his servant's bandage.

'Don't worry, Sire ... I'll survive', said Merlin after a pause that was long enough to unsettle Arthur even further. The prince realized that Merlin's present reticence was way more annoying and alarming than Merlin's incessant prattling had ever been: More than anything else Arthur longed now for that cheerfully meaningless babble.

'I hope so.' He tried to lighten up his servant's mood by adding jokingly, 'Because if you don't, I'm gonna kill you once we meet again on the other side.'

Merlin answered by faintly raising the corner of his mouth, but neither did he laugh nor did he smile nor did he utter any retort; he just stared with unfocussed eyes at his horse's mane, breathing heavily as if a great weight was pressing on his chest.

'It'll get dark soon', Arthur went on, turning away his eyes from his servant and looking backwards over his shoulder, towards the setting sun. 'I think we better search for a place to spend the night.' No answer came—not even the slightest murmur of agreement or disagreement. 'We won't reach Camelot today anyway, not in your condition.'

Half an hour later, they halted at a place Arthur deemed suitable for the night: It was dry, big rocks sheltered it against wind from the north and the west, and a canopy of leaves would protect them in case of rain.

Not that rain would have been a problem: The sky was clear and its perfect azure wasn't blemished by a single cloud—though Arthur wouldn't have minded some clouds: They'd cover the land like a duvet and keep it warm at night. And since it was already late in autumn, this meant that they'd have to make a fire to keep warm. But a fire would attract brigands and footpads, so the two travellers would need to keep watch as well. And since Merlin was hardly in shape for that, it meant that Arthur might have to keep watch all night.

That was a sacrifice he was willing to make for Merlin, but he would have preferred not to.

The prince got off his horse and helped Merlin doing the same. Then he commanded his servant to rest, while he himself, limping a bit from the long ride and from a wound he had suffered in the warlock's tower, took care of the horses and gathered fire wood.

Returning a few minutes later, he tried to kindle the fire as well, but to no avail.

After a minute of striking the flint and sending but fruitless sparks into the tinder, he got annoyed: He didn't like failing at things, and failing at things in front of a snide-mouthed servant was even less agreeable for him. Though he'd have given a lot to hear Merlin's sarcastic remarks: Because they would have been a sign of recovery.

Luckily, the sorcerer was fit enough for that. Talking obviously pained him, but the servant couldn't let Arthur's failing miserably stay uncommented: Like a mother who'd demonstrate superhuman strength to save her child from harm, Merlin would have used the last ounce of his strength to make fun of his master.

'Behold Arthur, ... Prince of Camelot', the sorcerer said with failing voice, coughing, 'too clumsy to make a fire.' Then he dragged himself to the fireplace, weakly took the flint out of his master's hands and tried it himself. Due to his injuries, it took him three strikes, but then a small flame went up in the dry tinder and turnt right away into a warm, bright blaze.

'Watch your tongue. I'd have all the right to have you whipped for this remark.'

'Yeah, but you won't ... The Prince of Camelot ... wouldn't dare laying a finger ... on the ailing.'

'But he will dare laying his fingers around the throat of a recovered', Arthur said while he laid some dry fir twigs onto the flames. 'Besides, I don't have to do anything for you; you're the servant, or have you forgotten that?', the prince said, then started preparing the food.

Merlin wanted to help him, but Arthur wouldn't allow it. Not that there was much to do for him—because there wasn't much to eat: When they had set out that morning at first light, they had reckoned that they'd be back at Camelot long before sunset, so they had left only with drinking water. But finding Gormes in a tower filled with traps and battling against the evil warlock had lasted way longer than expected, and Merlin's and Arthur's injuries had been slowing them down even more. Luckily, they had found some provisions in Gormes' tower, some bread, some meat, some cheese; not enough to fill the stomach of a grown man—let alone of two men—, but at least enough to stave off hunger.

Quarter an hour later, the feast was set. Merlin offered his share of the meal right away to Arthur. 'I'm not that hungry', he lied, pushing back the plate Arthur handed him.

Arthur scowled at him. He was not in the mood now for Merlin's playing the selfless. Wondering if it would have been appropriate to force-feed his servant, he said, 'Your stomach has been growling since we left the tower.'

'Has not!', Merlin protested weakly.

'It has. It was growling so loud, you even scared your horse once!—But maybe you didn't realize it because you were too weak!' He held the plate once more to his friend, and said in a commanding tone, 'Now eat! And you'll eat my share as well.'

'Sire, I couldn't! ... You're injured as well.'

'It's just a bruise I got, while you've lost a lot of blood. I don't need food nearly as much as you do.—And I shouldn't eat anyway. It'll only make me drowsy when I'm supposed to keep watch.'

Merlin knew that his master was just making up things: Arthur had hardly eaten anything that day, and he wouldn't get drowsy from the little amount of food they had. And because the scion wasn't used to skipping meals, he probably was hungrier than Merlin.

But Merlin knew as well that that stubborn prince—even if he might have been a supercilious prat who liked insulting his servant—always thought of others first when it came to the crunch, and that he would have made undaunted the final sacrifice to save somebody else. That was one of the many, many reasons why the sorcerer had fallen in love with the scion.

And because of that, he couldn't allow Arthur to go hungry all night. The royal prat had that stupid heroic urge to constantly sacrifice himself for anyone, risking the future of the whole of Albion for any random subject of his. Arthur needed someone who'd save him from his own valour.

'At least have some of this', Merlin said and offered the prince a piece of bread and half of the cheese. And to make sure that Arthur would accept, he added with a threat, 'I won't eat anything ... knowing that you're hungry.'

Arthur grudgingly accepted, but not because of the threat. He did so because he knew that Merlin was very much like him: One couldn't enjoy the sparsest of meals, knowing that the other one hungered.

After the meagre, silent dinner, when the sun had finally set and the dusk had turnt into a dark, moonless night, Arthur asked once more, 'Has your wound gotten any better?'

Merlin checked his arm once more, then said, ' Yeah, it stopped bleeding. Doesn't hurt any more either.' Slowly, he was regaining his energy and his cheerful disposition.

'That's good to hear', Arthur said, relieved.

An owl hooted. Both turnt their heads towards the direction the sound had come from.

When their gazes met again a moment later, Arthur said, 'You know, I'm very sorry I did that to you, I really didn't mean to cut you. I tried to fight it, but Gormes controlled my every movement. Otherwise, I wouldn't ever have—'

'Just forget about it, Arthur. I know you didn't mean to do that, I don't blame you for anything, you shouldn't do that either.'

'Still, I really am terribly sorry.—I shouldn't have made you come along in the first place. You could have helped Gaius at Camelot as well, there was no need to put you into danger. I should have chosen somebody else to accompany me, someone who knows how to parry an attack.'

'Sire, you know I like joining you on your missions, and I'm aware of the risks that await me. I might have joined you anyway.—Apart from that, you wouldn't have vanquished Gormes if I hadn't been there, Sire.'

'Oh?' Arthur raised his eyebrows. 'Wouldn't I? So it was you, crying like a little girl, cowering in a corner, who caused the ceiling to crumble down?'

Merlin rubbed his head and said, 'Right ... I must have been imagining things.—I was injured and suffering from blood loss.' And he added, 'Though I can't remember having cried.'

'I might have made that part up', Arthur teased him, grinning. 'But it's gonna be your word against mine. Whom will the good people of Camelot believe?'

'They'll believe you, of course.—But if I told them that I saw you picking your nose and smearing it on your doublet, they'll believe me.'

'I never did that!', Arthur protested.

Merlin shrugged his shoulders, grinning. 'I might have made that part up. But it's gonna be your word against mine.'

'Oh, shut up, Merlin', Arthur said, secretly enjoying that Merlin was fit enough for bantering.

Merlin did as commanded and leant back against the big rock behind him, contemplating the fire, ruminating the events of the day, while Arthur did the same.

The sorcerer repeated in his mind the words Arthur had said a few moments before. 'Crying like a little girl, cowering in a corner.' Glancing sideways to his right, to the prince—who was watching the campfire as if he were in trance—, Merlin felt an ever growing urge to finally confess his magic gift to Arthur.

He was tired of being ridiculed by the prince, of being called a craven by him, of having to lie to him every day. If Arthur knew just how much Merlin really had done all the time for him and for Camelot, how often he had saved Arthur's life and to what lengths he had gone to keep it secret ... If the prince knew that he—he, who was going to get all the honour for the feat, the praise from the King and the admiration of the court—that he had only been successful on this mission because the 'crying and cowering' Merlin had secretly disarmed a dozen of traps in the tower, had broken Gormes' control over Arthur's body, had saved the prince's life by causing the ceiling to collapse onto the evil warlock ... If Arthur had any idea of all that, then he'd acknowledge Merlin, he'd show appreciation for his ideas and his opinions and he'd no longer ridicule his purported lack of courage.

But then he looked at the prince, at his face bathed in the fire's warm light on the background of the cold, grey rock, and the same thing happened that always occurred when such thoughts crossed his mind: Arthur had no idea that magic could be used for good.

As far as the prince was concerned, magic was but an instrument for the wicked: Because all he knew about it, he knew from his father; from a person who had dedicated his whole life to the suppression and eradication of the Old Ways. And whenever Arthur was knowingly confronted with magic, it was used for evil: to overthrow the King, to torture and to kill innocent, to wage war, to force Arthur to hurt Merlin.

There was no doubt: The moment Arthur would have found out, any affection he ever had for Merlin would immediately be supplanted by hatred, contempt, and, quite likely, fear.

And Merlin couldn't bear the thought of being hated and dreaded by him. Being unacknowledged by him was but a minor inconvenience compared to that. So he kept that secret to himself.

He kept his other secret to himself because he feared being ridiculed by him. Because he knew that the inconsiderate clot pole Arthur would be a total arse about it, if Merlin were to tell him that he loved him. And since Arthur was obviously in love with Gwen, Merlin had long ago given up any hopes of the prince ever being more than a friend.

And that's why Merlin decided, once more, to do what Arthur was so fond of telling him: to shut up. And so, both his secrets were to remain what they were: secret.

Suddenly, Arthur cleared his throat and said, 'All right, Merlin. You sleep first. I'll keep watch now and wake you up when it's your turn.'

His servant was tired and exhausted after this day's ordeals, so he barely objected. While Arthur doffed his physical armour, so as not to wake his servant by the metals clanking, Merlin murmured a few words of thanks, wrapped himself into his thin, patched blanket of dun linen, and a few minutes later he was sound asleep.

The forest was not dangerous, but Arthur, wishing to be on the safe side, listened carefully to any sounds coming from the night around them. He heard nothing that could raise any suspicion: the crackling of the campfire, the occasional hooting of an owl, the distant snorting of the horses, the quiet murmur of a near rivulet and the calm breathing of Merlin's. Once he heard the howling of a wolf, but wolves were nothing to be afraid of: At this time of year, the wild animals still had plenty of prey, and they wouldn't dare going near humans, let alone a burning fire.

If there was any threat in the woods around, it wasn't armed with fangs or claws, but with knives or swords.

But even human threats were unlikely. Apart from the troubles that had been stirred by Gormes' presence, in these woods nothing of interest had happened for years. But still, Arthur saw no reason to let down his guard.

And so, time passed uneventfully. Arthur started to occupy himself by silently honing his sword, carefully flattening out any jags that were left by the impacts of unyielding materials like metal and stone; of materials other than the flesh of his faithful friend, whose reflection he saw regularly flashing up in the polished steel.

Arthur himself had barely felt it when the sword had cut Merlin's unprotected arm. There had been hardly any resistance compared to when the sharp steel struck the metal rings of a hauberk.

It was quite troublesome for Arthur to think of with what ease he was capable of hurting his friend. He might not have been in control of his actions, but this made no difference for his conscience: It were his hand and his sword that had opened that horrible gash on Merlin's arm, that had made his friend scream in pain, that had made Merlin almost collapse due to the blood loss, and that still might have been a threat to his friends life.

The wound pained Arthur's mind as much as it must have hurt Merlin's body.

But it wasn't just Merlin's wound that pained Arthur, it was Merlin himself as well: Because Arthur loved the sleeper.

Not in the platonic way; not in the way a man may love a friend or a brother. He loved him in the way a man may love a woman, he loved him in the way a man mustn't love another man. He desired him.

He dreamt not only of being with him, but also of being in him, of their unclad bodies entwined, of his servant's lustful whispering of Arthur's name.

Sometimes, Arthur thought of confessing his unnatural, forbidden love. Not because he thought that Merlin would reciprocate this feeling—anything else the scion considered impossible—, but because it would make his friend happy, because it would show him how much Arthur trusted him. Such a confession would allow him to make up at least partially for what he had done with his sword.

And Arthur could hope to gain something as well from this: a confidant. Merlin would become a person with whom Arthur could talk freely and honestly, on whose absolute secrecy he'd be able to count. Because secrecy was of utmost importance as well: If the public were to find out about Arthur's nature, the legitimacy of any son of his would be disputed, which might engender a war of succession after his death. And the prince couldn't do that to the people of Camelot.

He'd rather be alone and unhappy than have anybody else suffer.

But whenever Arthur thought of confiding in Merlin, in the end, he just dismissed this idea as ridiculous. Merlin was trustworthy, but—if Gaius was to be believed—he also liked spending time at the tavern. And wine could loosen the lips even of the most taciturn, and it could definitely loosen the lips of a certain servant who—even when sober—was prone to prattling.

While he reasoned thusly, gazing at the sleeper instead of at the sword he was honing, he cut his index finger on the metal's edge—having honed it very diligently, he didn't feel the cut at all until he saw the blood trickling on the blade.

As he put his finger to his mouth to suck the blood, he heard Merlin turning in his sleep and groaning, probably still pained by the wound. Arthur stood up and walked slowly and as silently as he could over the rustling leaves to his servant, who was now lying on his back, and knelt down beside him.

The prince had wanted to inspect the bandage, but when he was kneeling next to his friend, he couldn't look at the bandage. Instead, his eyes were captured by the skin on Merlin's neck: the skin that Arthur usually couldn't see because it was always covered by a red scarf.

The prince felt almost enchanted by the light of the flickering fire as it danced on the patch of skin, showing clearly the outline of the collarbones, the Adam's apple and the jaw bones. Never before had he seen Merlin's clavicle so clearly, so closely—so enticing.

The sleeper probably wouldn't have noticed if the prince touched the neck, if Arthur let his fingertips tenderly brush the smooth, silky surface. And even if Merlin noticed, it wasn't forbidden to touch with the fingers somebody's neck. Or the chin. Or the lips.

Suddenly, the lights dancing on Merlin's skin disappeared: Something had stepped soundlessly between the fire and Merlin, something was casting a shadow on the servant. Arthur gasped, but soon he realized that the source of this shadow was his own body, was his head that had bent down and had drawn near to Merlin's body.

The prince flinched back. Kissing his sleeping servant was not acceptable, it was wrong in so many ways—no matter how much he yearned for this.

He looked down on the sleeping figure in front of his knees and tried to get rid of his forbidden thoughts. He was going to be King one day. He'd need offspring, children to rule after his death. Merlin was a forbidden fruit: They were two men, they were master and servant, they were going to be King and subject, and the most basic problem of all: What were the chances of Merlin feeling the same for him?

As King, Arthur would be able to change some rules, but he wouldn't ever be able to make Merlin love him back. In such matters, a king was as powerless as the lowliest of the lowborn.

Arthur sighed, as his gaze wandered along the body of his sleeping servant, from the tousled black hair and the closed eyes to the somewhat pale lips, from the chin where a rough stubble had begun to grow, to the slim figure hidden by the blanket, to the used, tattered boots. What good was all the power of the King of Camelot if he couldn't use it to get the only one thing he really wanted?

Surely, that crown—a crown he almost dreaded to carry on his head—that heavy crown was accompanied by many amenities that made life easier, compared to the lives of the lowborn. But at the same time it took away so many options and liberties. Had Arthur been a commoner, Merlin wouldn't be just an impossible dream. Such relations were just as forbidden among commoners as they were among royalty, but hardly anybody would have cared if two lowborn men were to share a bed from time to time. Because of that, Arthur would have gladly swapped his life as a prince for the life of a pauper if it meant being able to have the sleeper.

Arthur noticed that his right hand had surreptitiously slid onto his servants chest, onto the thin blanket over the thin blue shirt, under which lay Merlin's bare chest. Through the tissue, he could feel the calm beating of the heart that wasn't his.

While he was thinking about removing his hand, Merlin suddenly spoke in his sleep.

'Ic ... bebíede ... fealle ...'

Arthur forgot what he was thinking about and, puzzled, repeated the words. He thought that he had already heard them once, though he couldn't tell where and when. He judged that it probably was the name of a herb or something like that. But he didn't try to make meaning of it. Dreams had no meaning, so Arthur thought, and interpreting them was for his taste too much like soothsaying and magic.

'Morgana ... evil ... witch ...', Merlin went on.

For a moment, Arthur wondered why Merlin disliked her so much— compared to her foster brother, she always treated him in a way befitting to the fine lady she was. But then the prince realized that it was impolite to listen to what a sleeper said, and that he should check the surroundings. So he got up and was about to limp away, but he froze in his movements, when he suddenly heard Merlin mumbling Arthur's name:

'Arthur ... my hand ...'

The prince held his breath and listened.

Merlin went on, saying, 'Some prat ...'

Arthur, not wanting to hear something Merlin didn't want him to know, quickly covered his ears and rushed away to check the vicinity. But all he could hear was his own beating heart, and all he could think of was the possibility that Merlin had wanted to say, 'Arthur, my handsome prat.'