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Gwaine stood on a battlefield, surrounded by dead opponents. He had fared well in this fight for his king, red cloak lost somewhere behind him. Sounds of his people urging the opposite side to surrender caressed his ears in the distance. He’d gotten a little further from the main part of the battle, separated from the rest of the knights. His ears still rang from the sound of steel on steel. He almost didn’t hear the soft sound of crying close by. Instantly alert, he prepared himself and his sword came up out of habit.
He crept closer to the sound, over unmoving chests and unseeing eyes. There was little to no cover, but the sound came closer as he moved closer to a set of shields dropped when they’d become almost useless in the melee. With a feral grown, Gwaine pointed his sword at the quivering body now in front of him.
A whimper escaped his foe, and as the enemy raised their head, Gwaine’s eyes went wide. Hands were over a bloody wound in a mere boy’s chest as tears rent their way across his sooty face.
“Please, don’t…” There was a bloody cough from the boy. “Don’t hurt me anymore.” The voice was weak, and it was then that Gwaine noticed the amount of blood the child had lost from his wounds. He couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen years old, not even old enough to raise a blade to his own face to shave, let alone raise a sword against his Liege Lord’s enemies. “Please,” the boy rasped as more blood made its way down his chin and onto the boy’s plain clothes. He wore no armor, just protective leathers.
Frozen in place for precious seconds, Gwaine could do nothing but blink before the gruesome spell swept over him at last, and allowed him to sheathe his sword. “It’s all right, I’ll bring you to a physician. It’s okay.” The boy flinched back from the reaching hands, and it took Gwaine more dire seconds to convince the child to let him close enough to pick him up. He fought valiantly for a moment or two, before he was too weak to continue as Gwaine bore him toward where he thought he could hear his allies.
“I want my mum,” he sobbed brokenly. Gwaine’s heart wrenched in two. As the boy shivered, Gwaine wished for his cloak, if only to offer the boy some warmth and so he wouldn’t have to see his own injury. His mail offered no comfort and less warmth.
When the boy coughed again after a few minutes of travel, and Gwaine still couldn’t see his comrades, he took a chance and raised his rough voice, “I need a physician!” He hoped his bellow could be heard as he picked up his pace. Though already exhausted and out of breath, Gwaine attempted to rouse his groggy charge. “What do they call you?” He tried to keep his voice light, and failed miserably.
Soft green eyes blinked up at him from beneath shaggy blond hair. “Brian,” he said, body trembling finely.
“Well, Brian, I’ll have you know we have one of the best physicians in all the kingdoms,” Gwaine panted and attempted to pick up his pace further. He bore his burden with a little lift to the corner of his mouth.
“Gwaine!” A voice called from the din, and Arthur, Merlin at his side, came running up. Arthur had nary a scratch on him, and attempted to take the boy from Gwaine’s exhausted arms. “Here, I’ll take him.”
All Brian had to do was flinch, and Gwaine’s arms held tighter at the boy. “I’m fine.” Arthur’s gaze told him he looked quite the opposite. “Merlin, can you…?” He turned pleading eyes on the physician’s assistant.
Merlin leaned in to look at him. “Set him down, Gwaine. I can’t examine him in your arms, and I don’t know if he’ll make it to Gaius back at the tents like this.”
“Hear that, Brian? Merlin is one of those physicians I told you about. We’ll fix you right up, eh?” His smile was as shaky as his arms as he lowered the boy back to the ground. Though the child had at first wanted nothing but to get away from Gwaine before, he looked up at him now with something akin to trust in his eyes as he gripped Gwaine’s hand and wouldn’t let go. Gwaine tried not to think of how the green eyes dulled every time he blinked them back open again. Gwaine kept up a quiet stream of chatter about how Brian would love Camelot, and that they would find his mum once he got better.
When Merlin touched his hand, he registered the outside world again. The soft shake of Merlin’s head told Gwaine all he needed to know. With a trembling breath, and Merlin’s hand in his, he told lighthearted stories, and made promises that would never be fulfilled while Arthur stood behind him, a stalwart presence.
When the time came, the boy died with a smile on his face, clutching at Gwaine’s hand after he’d told him that it was alright to go to sleep now. That it was all going to be fine while the green eyes bored into his stained soul and somehow deemed it worthy. The air left his own for a moment before he took his hand from Brian’s and hesitated over the open eyes.
Merlin’s other hand came to rest across his own. “I can do that,” he offered. Gwaine shook his head, and the hand withdrew, leaving only the entwined fingers on their other hands touching. His bloodied fingers hovered above the eyelids before sliding them shut for the final time.
“I killed him,” Gwaine said softly.
The warm hand on his shoulder startled him, even as Arthur’s voice, tight with emotion, spoke, “You couldn’t have known, Gwaine. You tried to save him.”
“It wasn’t enough!” His voice grated his throat like sharp pebbles.
When Merlin glanced back at Arthur, the hand on Gwaine’s shoulder disappeared, and water appeared beside him. “Here. I should get back to camp. It appears we’re safe here. Take some time.” With his cloak snapping behind him in the breeze, Arthur walked back from the direction they’d come.
Gwaine didn’t realize tears slipped from his eyes until Merlin’s fingers turned his head and brushed at them. Merlin’s own eyes were far from dry, and Gwaine couldn’t tell if he wept for him or for Brian.
“He was just a boy,” Gwaine said.
“I know. I’m so sorry,” Merlin said sincerely as he pulled Gwaine into a hug, offering further support.
They didn’t return to camp until the body was lit aflame at Gwaine’s insistence.
———-
With the battle won, the knights returned to Camelot for some well deserved rest. After the last brutal battle, their enemy had laid down arms and promised to talk of peace. But now was the time to mourn the dead, not barter peace talks.
Gwaine was silent all the way back, only pausing to talk if someone asked something of him. Wine was his closest friend next to Merlin, who had enough sense to keep most of the former away from Gwaine.
Arthur watched Gwaine when he thought he wasn’t looking, and it only made Gwaine’s feet itch more to run, to get away from everything once more.
He managed to stave it off for a few days once they’d returned to the castle. Drink and time in Merlin’s company kept the worst of the wanderlust at bay.
One particular night after too much time at the tavern, Merlin approached him with worry, and slung Gwaine’s arm over his shoulders to bring him back to his chambers. When confronted with Gwaine’s slightly hazy, sad eyes, Merlin’s lips found his own, gently coaxing away the worst of the sadness. “Just know I’m here for you,” he’d said, before tucking Gwaine into his own bed, and taking his leave before Gwaine gained enough wits about him to answer.
——-
When woken in the middle of the night, soaked with sweat, Gwaine knew he needed to leave. If he stayed, more lives would be at risk. It was the way of his life. He stayed, and people got hurt. He couldn’t see Merlin or his friends hurt.
He changed, and quickly packed just what he needed to survive and strapped on his sword. With surprising ease, he slipped out of the castle, and down to the stables to get a horse. An easy excuse for the guards at the gates, and he was on his way, the crest of Camelot on his cloak draped over the end of his bed back in the castle in silent farewell.
——-
Merlin had just gotten Arthur’s shirt, freshly laundered, when he was stopped by the man himself, still in his mail from training the knights. “Merlin? Have you seen Gwaine? He wasn’t at practice.”
“What? No. But he was at the tavern last night. Maybe he’s still asleep?” Merlin’s concern shone in his eyes, and he handed Arthur the shirt. “I’ll get him.”
When he opened the door and noticed its barren state, he cursed whatever he could, and grabbed the cloak. No note was written, no clue as to where Gwaine had gone. Merlin felt the flutters of outright panic in his chest. With Gwaine gone, and Arthur an unchanged King, Merlin felt a complete failure.
He heard the dragon’s voice in his head, reminding him of his destiny once more, despite the distance between them.
“What good is the land that Arthur and I will create together if Gwaine isn’t here to share it?” He hissed vehemently, and took the cloak with him. He had letters to write and a bag to pack. Gwaine already had a head start.
——
Arthur had taken it surprisingly well. “Find him and come home,” he urged as he laid a hand on Merlin’s shoulder and gave him one of the royal horses. “I know what he means to you.”
Which had flabbergasted Merlin, because until the other night, he hadn’t even known himself. A sword found itself with his bags, and the care Arthur had shown was touching.
Now, two days later, Merlin rode on in the dark, hoping to catch up some of the distance between himself and Gwaine. Merlin mused on how he was going to find the wayward knight. Then he reached up to tug at his hair. “Magic,” Merlin chuckled. He didn’t need to whisper words to summon a small light to hopefully lead him to his heart’s desire. It floated up as Merlin thought of Gwaine and his smile, and then his sadness. Then it gently wafted in the direction Merlin had already been heading. With a sigh of relief, he kept riding.
——
“D’you suppose Gwaine’s alright,” Percival asked Leon and Elyan on patrol one morning.
Elyan looked sad for a moment. “I don’t think he’s been fine since the battle, Percival.”
Leon steeled himself. He missed his friend as well, but given his nature, it was only a matter of time before Gwaine went back to his old ways. “I’m sure he’s in a tavern with a woman now.” He didn’t truly believe it, and at the looks from his friends, he conceded, “Maybe Merlin’s found him by now.”
They hadn’t laughed on patrol since Gwaine had left them.
——-
It took six days before Merlin gained enough ground on Gwaine to see him. Relief flooded his chest, and he resisted the pricks of tears at his eyes. As long as the light had led him on, there had been a hope that he was okay. There had been no signs of skirmishes, but Merlin couldn’t help that little part of him that thought the worst; That he would find Gwaine’s lifeless body at the end of his search.
Gwaine was stopped at a stream up ahead, watering and feeding his horse as he took a rest. Their route had taken many senseless twists and turns. Gwaine clearly had no direction but away from Camelot.
Given that Gwaine had left the castle in the dead of night, Merlin figured he’d best not give Gwaine a chance to run away once more. He kept quiet and put his horse a ways from where Gwaine had stopped. Despite what Arthur thought, Merlin was fairly good at sneaking, and he got almost all the way to the camp before Gwaine noticed his presence. “Come out,” came the dangerous voice from Gwaine’s lips.
Merlin put his hands up and stepped from behind the tree he’d used to conceal his presence. “Hello,” he offered, probably a bit too cheerily.
Gwaine’s face was too expressive here in the solitude of the woods. Surprise turned to fondness, which in turn morphed into despair. “Oh, Merlin,” Gwaine said. “Why did you follow me?”
Merlin didn’t keep anything to himself. He went all out. “Because what’s the greatness of Camelot without you there with me?” He offered his brightest smile, like it was nothing in the world to leave his life there with Arthur to be here with Gwaine now.
The sunshine around them paled in comparison to Gwaine’s smile in return. Merlin’s heart soared as he practically leapt forward to claim Gwaine’s lips in his own.
——-
“George, this is done wrong,” Arthur griped as he adjusted his mail for the fifth time.
The substitute manservant adjusted the mail again, hoping the get the proper fit and comfort for his king. Arthur refused to think of George as a replacement for Merlin. He and Gwaine would return to Camelot and everything would go back to the way it was before. He wouldn’t take any other outcome.
Abruptly George pulled back, and a gentle, darker set of hands was upon him. The door clicked closed behind George as Guinevere finally got the mail into the position he liked.
“They’ll be back Arthur,” she soothed as he turned to face her in her fine dress, hair done up with a circlet resting upon her brow. After he kissed her, she continued, “This is as much their home as it is ours.”
——-
More nights passed for Merlin and Gwaine beneath the stars. Though Merlin tried to get Gwaine to talk to him, most nights were spent in silence as they held one another beneath Merlin’s blanket.
It was almost a fortnight after Gwaine had left Camelot before he spoke of why he’d left. “I swore I’d never kill an innocent after I came to Camelot,” Gwaine said. The clear stars above them as they slept in a clearing stood witness to the softly spoken words. “Obviously it had little snippets about them not working for an enemy army. But he was just a boy. A little boy who missed his mum. And I realized that I was the one who had cut him down like he was so much … enemy meat. That’s all he was to me.”
Merlin ran his fingers gently through Gwaine’s hair. He wouldn’t interrupt. He knew Gwaine needed to get this out to start to heal.
“And then I started thinking. I mean, what if some of those other enemies I cut down for Arthur were just boys in the same situation? How many boys have I stopped from going home on the whims of a king? I’ve become all I’ve abhorred.”
Here, Merlin used his other hand to rest a finger on Gwaine’s lips before he could speak again. “I think you’ve remained true to your beliefs. You don’t think your title makes you better than anyone, and you don’t abuse it. You’re only you, and I still love you.”
Gwaine’s eyes went wide and a little bright, but when Merlin lifted his finger, Gwaine slid over Merlin with something akin to reverence before he kissed him.
——-
When dawn broke above them, Gwaine blinked open his eyes, smiled, and said, “Let’s go home.”
——-
They say returning from a journey always seems faster than the road out. In this case, it was sadly truth, but this time Merlin and Gwaine had each other.
When they rode through the gates, their friends were waiting for them at the steps into the keep. It didn’t feel like Victory. It felt like Home, and Love.