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"What happened to your head?" Arthur asks, on the way back to Camelot, with Gwaine—passed out cold, probably still drunk, and absolutely dead to the entire world with the knife lodged firmly in his thigh—slung over his saddle. "Looks like you took a bad blow back there."
"I didn't," Merlin waves him off. It would be a lie to say the impact didn't rattle him a bit, but he's sure he'll be all right when he's had some sleep—his magic usually heals his everyday bumps and bruises in the night, and there's no reason to think it would let him down now. "I'm fine. I got lucky, he only just clipped me."
Or, well, he supposes the man only just clipped him, because he has to suppose that, because supposing is all he can really do about it, because—if he's being completely and wholly honest with himself here—he doesn't know for sure. He doesn't know what the chair did. He doesn't even know what the man with the chair did. All he knows is the moment right before—a real big muscly fellow, as Gwen would call him, with long, scraggly blond hair hanging limp and greasy around his filthy, sneering face, clutching a truly enormous wooden chair in his massive, meaty hands, and his mean, dark eyes narrowed, and locked firmly on Merlin—but that's it, that's all, that's where it cuts out, that's where it fades to black, in that tiny handful of seconds between one heartbeat and the next.
He didn't pass out.
And he knows he didn't pass out.
But he opened his eyes, and he was on the floor, with the chair some ten feet away, tipped over on its side, one of the thick legs snapped off in a shower of sharp splinters, and that's all he knows, that's all he remembers.
"Well, it is bad form to hit a girl, you know," Arthur tosses a quick, smug glance back over his shoulder, but the minute his eyes fall on Merlin, his face does a funny little spasm, and the smirk slides off his lips like water. "Merlin, you're bleeding."
Merlin hastily rubs away the wet, warm, bright red trail streaking down his temple with the edge of his jacket sleeve, until the blood smears into a dull brown stain on the thin cloth. "I'm fine. He just scraped me when he—" I suppose he just scraped me, but if he says it like that, Arthur will ask, and he's sure it'll come back to him, he's sure he'll remember, there's no need to fuss about it right now, "—head wounds bleed a lot," he says, instead, a little too quickly. "It's normal. Gaius told me."
"Gaius said that?" Arthur's wrinkled brow smooths back out. "Oh, that's all right, then." He pokes lightly at Gwaine's limp frame, sprawled slackly out in the saddle in front of him, and adds, "Reckon he'll have his hands full with this bloke, anyway."
"Yeah," Merlin nods, "I reckon he will."
As it turns out, Gaius does have his hands full with Gwaine, and Merlin feels fine, so he just doesn't bother to bring it up with the old man at all.
When he finally scrubs off the last of the dried, sticky blood still clinging to the side of his head in dark streaks, he sees the scrape runs far deeper than he thought—less of a scrape, and more of a cut, but it's fine, it's nothing, it will probably be scabbed over and well on its way to healing up in the morning—one of the many benefits of magic—so he rinses the red stains out of the clean white rags he used, and he goes to bed, and he thinks no more about it.
From the minute Merlin opens his eyes, he knows something's wrong.
The world feels wrong—uneven and off-center, like the earth's off its axis, and when he stands up, he feels almost lopsided, like a little girl's doll, too limp and loose to hold himself up, but that's nothing to the way the chamber spins and spins and spins around him, like a child's top. The cut hasn't scabbed over, and he's got what has to be the worst headache he's ever had in his entire life, with a dark, furious bruise on his brow, purple and swollen and painful.
But he hasn't got the time to wait around here for Gaius and tell him about it—he's got far too much to do today to bite his nails over a headache of all things—and anyway, his magic has never let him down before, so he's sure he'll be fine in an hour or so, it's probably just taking a bit longer because, well, a chair clipped him 'round the head, it's not so simple as a bad fall or a brutal spar with Arthur.
He doesn't bother with breakfast—he feels a bit sick, honestly—but he does take a plate up for Gwaine and check the man's leg while he's at it (one less thing for Gaius to worry about when he gets back) before he heads down to Arthur's chambers.
"You're bruised," Arthur says, the minute Merlin walks in the door, like he thinks maybe Merlin hasn't got a mirror, or a pair of eyes in his head.
"You take a hit like that to the face and see how you look," Merlin fires back, and that's the end of that.
Merlin thinks, maybe, it was a mistake to not talk to Gaius.
Merlin thinks, maybe, it was a mistake to come in to work at all today.
The everyday noise of the castle is just such a nightmare—the quiet chatter of the busy servants going about their work, the boisterous prattle of the bored guards stuck at their stations, the click and thud of high heels and heavy boots on cold marble floors and hard stone stairs, the soft clinks of the dishes down in the kitchens, it all makes his head pound like a drum, until it feels like his brain might burst with it—but the courtyard is nothing short of murder.
The sun stabs into his skull like a knife, even when he shuts his eyes and turns his head, but it's the sound that really does him in. The snorts and whines of the horses fresh from a hard ride, the clank and clang of swords and shields, the groan and grunt of the water pump as a thin, nervous maid fills up her bucket, the shouts and hollers of the knights and squires out on the training grounds.
It's all so loud, and it's all so much, and he can hardly think past the sharp shocks of pain up and down his brow, and maybe he should just tell Arthur—he knows Arthur will be fair about it, he knows Arthur is a good man, he knows Arthur will give him a few hours off to see Gaius, he knows it, but the melee is only a few days off, and Arthur needs a servant to see to him while it's going on, and it'll all go a lot smoother for him if he's got his servant, who already knows everything, his schedule and his preferences and his quirks, seeing to him until it's over.
Where Arthur strolls down the wide stone steps to say hello to Sir Oswald, Merlin stumbles—his legs feel funny, shaky and weak, and he's sure he'll trip over and fall flat on his face any moment now (and won't Arthur love that) but he makes it all the way to the ground without a single nosedive.
"—my servant, Merlin," Arthur claps a hand on Merlin's shoulder—
—and he has to bite his bottom lip to hold in a gasp, because it jostles his neck, sore and tender from where his head snapped back when the chair hit him and that—
—that—
—that can't be right, can it?
No, no, that simply can't be right, because the chair only clipped him, remember, because he was all right on the ride back to Camelot—a little dazed and a little dizzy, sure, but who wouldn't be after a blow like that?—and he was all right that night, too, nothing but the slight sting when he cleaned the cut, when the edges of the broken skin stretched with the scrub of the cloth over it. No, no, he's all right, he's fine, it didn't hit him in the face, it did not hit him full in the face, because his head would hurt a lot more if it had.
It clipped the side of his head a bit hard, that's all.
"—loves hard work," Arthur says, with another painful clap on Merlin's shoulder, and he bites back a wince this time, "so, anything you need, just give him a call."
"Believe me," Sir Oswald says seriously, "I will."
Sir Oswald is as bad as his word.
Merlin's ears ring louder than the biggest bells in the Camelot cathedral, and it feels he's got a blunt sword stuck in his skull, and he's shaking all over, dripping with sweat and shuddering with cold, and little white stars pop and pop and pop before his tired eyes, but he stays on his feet, and he finally shoulders the door open.
He hauls the heavy trunk inside.
"What took you so long?" Sir Oswald, leaning elegantly back in his chair, his dirty boots up on the table, pops a blueberry in his mouth.
"What?" Merlin rasps, because it takes him a second to really hear it, takes a second for the words to make sense to him. Everything is taking a second to make sense to him today. "It—it weighs a ton," he points out, rather fairly, in his opinion.
Sir Oswald stares coldly back at him.
"The stairs," he adds quickly, because he knows what it means when a knight looks at him like that, he knows it means if he doesn't come up with a damn good excuse, he'll be in the stocks—or in the dungeons, or tied to a whipping post—faster than he can blink. "It's seven flights." He's so exhausted, it might as well have been a thousand.
"That's very kind of you," Sir Ethan smiles at him, almost kind, so he musters up a small, tired grin of his own before he pushes himself back up on his feet—the room spins and spins and spins, like Gaius' chambers, around him, and he thinks he might really be sick, here on Sir Oswald's pristine floor—
"—but you can't leave it there."
Merlin turns—the room spins and spins and spins like Gaius' chambers, like a child's top, and his stomach churns and his head hurts. "I-I can't?" he says, uncertainly, mostly to make sure he's heard right, because everything sounds different with the funny ringing in his ears, because everything is taking a second to make sense to him lately, because the world is wrong, because the world is uneven and off-center, because the earth is off its axis.
"It's in the way," Sir Oswald jerks his chin at the trunk—which is, admittedly, very much in the way.
"Okay," Merlin nods, but it hurts, and he has to stop. "Where do you want it?"
For the first time all day, Merlin doesn't feel sick, so when he gets home, he downs an entire bowl of soup, and he thinks, maybe, he should wait for Gaius to get back, so he can tell him about his head, about how awful he feels, but he hasn't even rinsed his bowl before the door swings open, and Gwen peers inside.
"Merlin," she says, seriously, "I think you need to come with me."
Merlin follows Gwen all the way down to the tavern, where he finds Gwaine in a stupor, with a tab longer than his own leg, and a red-faced, furious barkeep.
He drags a very drunk Gwaine back home and gets him settled safely in bed where he can't hurt himself (or drink anymore) before he goes back downstairs, to a dark and empty room, and vomits up that bowl of soup.
"S-Sorry," Merlin rasps out, the next morning, as he comes into Arthur's bedchamber and puts his breakfast down—even the light little thud of the plate on the desktop makes his head ache, and he doesn't think he'll ever remember what it's like to not be dizzy ever again. "I-I know I'm late."
"Not at all," Arthur says easily.
"Um," Merlin says, blankly. Is he not late? He certainly feels late. But Arthur's not looking at him like he's late, so that must mean— "Good." He takes a small step back—his skull screams at the sudden move, but his skull screams about everything lately—and turns away to make Arthur's bed.
"You're not sick?" Arthur says, all of a sudden, out of the blue. "Unsteady? About to burst into song?"
Merlin thinks this must be one of Arthur's jokes (like how he says shut up, Merlin at least a hundred times a day, but God knows he'll get all huffy and pouty and moody if Merlin ever actually does shut up) so he doesn't say, yes, my head hurts so badly I can barely think straight anymore, and I think that chair might have hit me harder than I realized. He only pulls the blankets up higher and tucks in the edges and says, "No, why?"
Arthur snatches up a sheet of parchment off his desk, shakes it out with a soft rustle, and reads off, so loudly it makes Merlin's skull scream again, "Fourteen quarts of mead—"
Oh. Merlin's stomach drops. Oh, so that's what this is about.
"—three flagons of wine," Arthur drones on, relentless, "five quarts of cider—"
Merlin comes 'round the bed, head ducked down so the light won't hit his eyes. "I—I can explain," he says, weakly.
"—four dozen pickled eggs," Arthur never looks up from the paper in his hands, but he raises his voice even more, and Merlin has to wait until the pain—so sharp he sees the white stars again—dulls down enough to let him talk.
"That was Gwaine," he says finally, and a little shakily. "He went to the tavern, and he couldn't pay for it."
"So you said I would," Arthur says, in a huffy sort of tone that leaves no doubt as to his opinion on this decision.
"You know, if I hadn't," Merlin says, quickly, but he can already tell Arthur is well past listening, "th-that innkeeper, he would have strung us both up."
"I fail to see the downside," Arthur says harshly—which feels, just now, tremendously unfair, so Merlin fires back with the first thing he can think of.
"You said he should be given anything he needs."
"Four dozen pickled eggs?" Arthur wails, incredulously.
Merlin squeezes his eyes shut and swallows back a wince. "I'm sorry," he says and, before he can stop himself, before he can really think about it, before he can tell himself to shut up, to have some sense, to stop making absurd and impulsive promises he knows he can't possibly keep, he adds, "I'll pay for it."
Arthur sits up in his chair and flings the paper back down on the desk with another soft rustle. "You most certainly will."
Well, on the bright side, Merlin has to admit, it could be far worse than a few hundred pairs of filthy boots.
Gwaine disagrees. "Arthur is a thoroughbred little braggart."
Merlin has to swallow back a laugh—if only his head didn't hurt so much, he's sure he wouldn't mind the work at all, now he's got Gwaine here to crack his usual jokes. "Why?"
Gwaine peers down at the boot in his lap like he thinks the tough, cracked leather will tell him what he's supposed to do with it. Hasn't he ever cleaned his own boots? "For making us do this."
Merlin shrugs—it's easy work, even if it is, admittedly, a touch tedious, certainly repetitive, and hopelessly mundane, and it's a far lighter load than he expected in the face of Arthur's fury this morning. "I think it's fair."
Gwaine throws him an incredulous look and jabs a finger at the endless line of grimy boots stretched out ahead of them. "For the entire army?"
Merlin clicks his tongue. "If you admitted your father was a knight, you wouldn't have to."
Gwaine tosses his head to get his shaggy hair out of his eyes. "Maybe," he concedes with a little huff, "but I'm not making the same mistakes that he did." He runs the brush lightly over the boot—oh, so he does know how to do it, and thank God, Merlin thought he really might have to teach the poor man—and a bit of dried mud crumbles off and floats down to the wood floor below.
Merlin turns back to his own work without a word—he's not going to push it—and the quiet swish of the soft brush on the dirty leather is a faint but familiar music to his ears.
"How's your head?" Gwaine asks, finally, with a quick glance over at Merlin. "Looks pretty bad to me."
"It's fine," Merlin says, and he's not sure what shuts him up, what holds him back, what makes him say it's fine when he's almost certain he's never felt less fine in his life, but there's simply nothing else for it—he has to be here for Arthur until the melee is over, so there's no point in whining or moaning about it when he's got no choice but to grit his teeth and get on with it, anyway. "I'm fine."
Merlin isn't sure what makes him pull back the red silken cloth on the table—he's only here to take the dinner plates back to the kitchens—but he pulls back the cloth, and the glint of the swords beneath fascinates him, in a way swords have never fascinated him before. The cold gleam of steel is murder on his throbbing head, but it's like he can't look away, and before he knows it, he's picked them up, the hilts cool and heavy in his hands, and he stares and he stares and he stares.
He's not sure what's wrong with him. It feels like his mind is moving too slowly, all of a sudden, like a hand has ripped his skull open, and poured thick, sticky syrup inside, gumming up his brain until he can't think straight, until he can hardly think at all, and it takes him far too long to remember he's only here to pick up the dirty plates, he shouldn't be playing with the swords, he has to put them down and get on with it and—
—and the blunt blade slips, and cuts him, much deeper than a blunt blade should.
He stares at the blood on the tip of his finger, bright and thick and red—
"What are you doing with that, boy?"
He whirls around—he knows he shouldn't, he knows it will only make his head hurt, and it makes him look guilty besides, like he's doing something he shouldn't, like he's doing something he knows he shouldn't— "Uh," the sword slips from his slack fingers, and he presses his bleeding hand, on reflex, into his chest, so the knights can't see the cut, but—but why's it is so important that the knights can't see—? "I-I was just tidying—"
"Keep away from things that don't concern you," Sir Oswald snaps, sharp and cold as the sword at Merlin's feet, and his eyes like ice as he glares, and for the first time since he met the man, Merlin feels the tiniest thrill of fear.
He gathers up the plates, and he leaves, and he's much happier than he should be, to get away from Sir Oswald.
Merlin tells Gaius about the sword.
It takes him the entire walk down to the kitchens, and the entire walk back to his chamber, to work out what the knights want with blunted-sharp blades, and that feels unbelievably, embarrassingly long, and he's sure if this horrible headache would just go away, he could think much clearer, he's sure if he could just stop stumbling and tripping, if the world would stop tilting, if those white stars would stop popping—
So Merlin tells Gaius about the sword—or, he means to tell Gaius about the sword, but the minute the old man sees him, he lets out a little gasp, steers him over to the nearest cot, and pushes him down onto it, and Merlin is far too tired to fight him on it.
"What happened to your head?" Gaius demands at once.
Oh. Oh, that's right, isn't it, Gaius hasn't seen him in days—the old man is always out when he gets home at night, and he's just too tired lately to wait up the way he usually does. He rubs lightly at his temple, where the pain burns hottest, with a little wince, before he forces himself to shake his head, to shove it down. "It's nothing," he says, and he tries to sound firm about it, too, but his voice sounds slow and slurred and small in his ears, "it's nothing, I'm fine—listen, I was in Sir Oswald's chambers just now, and I—"
"Merlin," Gaius says sharply, "what's happened to your head?"
"Yeah, I'm no physician," Gwaine tosses out, from his spot on the bottommost step in the dark, narrow stairway, "but you really don't look so good, mate, you should get yourself checked over."
Merlin throws him a glare.
Gwaine stares back, entirely unrepentant.
Gaius raises his brow.
"Okay, fine, I-I hit my head," Merlin concedes, because he knows he can steer the talk back around to the sword much quicker if he gives a bit of ground here, "in that fight in the tavern, but it's not important, it doesn't matter—I have something to tell—"
"The fight in the tavern?" Gaius echoes, like he hasn't heard about that already, like Merlin and Arthur didn't fill him in when they brought Gwaine to him, except they did. "Merlin, that was days ago!"
"It's fine," Merlin says, again, except he sounds worse than ever, weak and wavery, and he balls his hands up in fists on his knees so Gaius won't see he's shaking, "it's not a big deal, it doesn't matter, it'll heal up soon, I'm sure the chair didn't even hit me that—"
"The chair?" Gaius' brow has never jumped so high so fast.
"The chair?" Gwaine squawks and leaps up off the stairs.
Merlin realizes far too late that he's said far too much. "It doesn't matter, it was just—" he shakes his head, "—some madman chucked a chair at me, all right, but some other madman is going to—"
"A chair?" Gaius says, again, his pale eyes very wide. "Merlin, you could have died from a blow like that! Why didn't you come to me and—?"
"Please, Gaius!" Merlin blinks against the sudden burn of furious tears behind his eyes. "Please, listen to me, this is important. Sir Oswald's using a trick sword! He means to murder Arthur in the melee!"
And Merlin has never, ever been more grateful for the old man in his entire life, because Gaius listens. He sits up, a bit straighter, on his stool, and he drops his withered white hand back into his lap—out of the corner of his eye, Merlin can see Gwaine edging a bit nearer—
"All right," Gaius says at last. "All right, Merlin. Tell me everything. But let me have a look at your head while you're here."
Oh, thank God. Merlin drags in a shaky little breath of relief, and hastily gabbles it all out as quickly as he can. "H-He's got a sword in his chambers, and to the eye, it appeared—" it takes him too long to come up with the word, because thinking too hard makes his head pound, "—blunt—but when I touched it…" he holds up his bleeding finger for Gaius to see.
The old man clicks his tongue. Like it's Merlin's fault he thought a blunt sword wouldn't cut him.
"Trick sword?" Gwaine frowns. "Then you were lucky it was just your hand. I've seen those blades in action. They're forged using sorcery."
Gaius lets go of Merlin's hand and stands up to prod at his bruised head again instead. "But what would they want with such a blade?"
"To kill Arthur," Merlin says, because it's obvious, now that he's finally realized it. "In the melee."
"But in front of all those people?" Gaius says, doubtfully, his brows pinched, and he presses his finger lightly to Merlin's temple.
"—perfect cover—" Gwaine's voice, quiet and loud and quiet again, rings suddenly through the room, "—nobody will suspect—"
"I-I need to warn Arthur," Merlin pulls back from Gaius' touch with a little wince, and hegets up, but he is so dizzy, and so tired, that the minute he's on his feet, he crashes right back down to the cot in mere moments.
"Not so fast, Merlin," Gaius says grimly, like Merlin was making any great leaps and bounds to the door, "—bad shape—no fit state to—"
"—I-I've got to!" Merlin tries to stand up again, but it's so hard, and his head feels so heavy— "—I've got to—I've got to tell Arthur—"
"Sir Oswald's a knight—from a well-respected family—" Gaius says, "—good friend to Arthur—can't accuse him without proof—"
"—then—" a sudden shock of pain pulses through his head, and Merlin rubs at his brow, "—then I need to—to get the sword from Sir Oswald—"
"No, Merlin, absolutely not—completely ridiculous—no fit state, as I said—a chair to the head, and you still—foolish boy—" Gaius' voice goes quiet and loud and quiet again, too, like Merlin's slipping in and out of deep, dark water, over and under the rolling black tide of pain.
"I'll get it," Gwaine says, suddenly. "I'll get it, Gaius."
And the last thing Merlin hears—before the stars flare up in front of his eyes again, big bright bursts, radiant and blinding and almost beautiful, before he slumps down sideways onto the cot, and passes out—is the quiet creak of Gaius' door, and the thud of Gwaine's boots as he leaves the room.
Merlin wakes up slowly.
The room is dark. The windows are shut, the curtains pulled tight over the dirty glass, and the candles on the table burn low.
It's cold. Gaius has taken his jacket from him while he slept—he can see the rough brown cloth flung over the back of the nearest chair—and his shirt is wrinkled from where he slept on it. He's not sure he wants to go to all the hassle of straightening it.
He still feels funny—fuzzy and bleary, like he's lost in a thick fog, like he's looking out at the world through dirty glass, like he's looking out at the world through a dark veil—but there's only the barest ache at the back of his skull, and when he opens his eyes, the room only slopes a little to the left.
He's still so exhausted, and he already wants to go back to sleep, but he can't go back to sleep—he's supposed to be with Arthur right now, or he's supposed to be doing something for Arthur, isn't he? Isn't that right? Hasn't he got something to do for Arthur? Hasn't he got something really important to do for Arthur? Isn't there something really bad he can't let happen to Arthur—?
It hits him in a cold shock of ice, and he bolts upright in the bed. "Sir Oswald."
"Merlin!" And, all of a sudden, out of the blue, utterly inexplicably, Arthur is there, his hands on Merlin's wrists, gentle but firm, his brow pinched, his face pale. "For God's sake, you idiot, lie back—!"
"S-Sir Oswald," Merlin gasps, breathless, frantic, "he's got a—a sword, and it—it looks blunt, but it's actually—"
"Merlin," Arthur says, sharper now, and he shoves Merlin back down to the bed, hard, "for God's sake, stop being an imbecile. Everything's all right, Gwaine showed me the sword, Sir Oswald's been dealt with."
Merlin almost doesn't believe it, but he can't think what would make Arthur lie to him, either. "H-Has he?"
"Yes." Arthur's blue eyes darken. "And it wasn't Sir Oswald. It was that thug from the tavern, Dagger."
"Oh." Merlin slumps down a little deeper into the pillows—now that he knows Arthur's not in danger, he's sorely tempted to go back to sleep again.
"Wonder if Dagger was the one," Arthur says, in that casual sort of voice that means he's actually seething with sheer rage, "who threw a chair at your head in the fight."
There it is.
Merlin winces. "Look, Arthur, I—"
"You know, there's one thing I'm a bit curious about," Arthur cuts him off, talking deliberately louder than he needs to. "Are you really stupid enough to think you can take a chair to the face and just walk 'round like nothing happened?"
Merlin flushes. "I thought I was all right, I-I felt all right—"
"You don't just take a chair to the face and feel all right!"
"Well, I did." Merlin feels he has to point this out, if only to see if it will finally shut Arthur up.
"Well, that's not normal!"
Apparently not. Merlin rolls his eyes. "What are you doing here, anyway? Haven't you got the melee to worry about?"
Arthur waves him off with an impatient little flick of his hand. "The melee's over."
"Over?" Merlin echoes incredulously, and he looks at once to the window, but it's still shut, and the only light in the room is the faint glow of the candles, so he whips back around to face Arthur. "H-How long have I been asleep?"
Arthur shrugs. "About five days. Give or take."
"Five days?"
"Well," Arthur says, in a rather sanctimonious sort of way, "that's what happens when you take a chair to the face and walk 'round like nothing—"
"Whatever," Merlin says, and it makes him feel sixteen all over again. "So," he adds, quickly, "so, the melee's over with, and Sir Oswald—Dagger," he corrects himself, "is gone?"
Arthur nods. "Dead. My father had them hanged for attempted treason and, once the life left them, the sorcery wore off, and their true faces were revealed."
"Right," Merlin says. It's rather hard to feel sorry for the brutes. "Right. Good." He nods, and he's surprised it doesn't make his head hurt. "How's Gwaine?"
The corner of Arthur's mouth ticks up in a small smile. "Highly offended. My father's just tried to give him a reward for his part in all this."
Merlin laughs. It's hard not to—he can already see Gwaine's outraged face in his mind. "He hasn't got much love for nobles."
"So I gathered," Arthur says peevishly.
"Well, you can't blame him," Merlin says fairly. "Hard to like nobles when they're all arrogant, supercilious prats—"
Arthur yanks one of the pillows out from behind Merlin's head and stuffs it in his face. "Shut up, Merlin."
The door creaks open and Gaius shuffles in. Merlin hastily peels the pillow away from his nose and mouth.
"Merlin!" Gaius tears the empty basket off his arm and tosses it onto the nearest chair before he hurries over to the bed. "You're awake!" He grabs Merlin's wrist to feel the pulse there. "Any pain? Nausea? Dizziness?"
"No," Merlin says, truthfully, "no, I'm fine."
Gaius' eyebrow creeps up an inch or so.
"Just tired," Merlin admits, a bit sullenly.
Gaius nods. "Right, then, that's good. Thank you for staying with him, Sire," he adds, over his shoulder to Arthur. "You may leave now."
"Of course, Gaius," Arthur nods and gets up on his feet, stretching his arms over his head. When the old man turns away to pull a few glass bottles down off a higher shelf, Arthur leans in and adds, in a low whisper, "Don't run into any more chairs while I'm gone. You really haven't got the brains to lose, you know."
And, with a light little pat to Merlin's shoulder, he's out the door.