Merlin fic: Viva La Vida; Arthur/Gwen 1/1
Title: Viva La Vida
Author: shootingstars88
Characters/Pairing: Arthur/Gwen
Rating: G
Disclaimer: All characters/settings etc property of the BBC
Spoilers: 3x01
Summary: A post-ep/missing scene for 3x01. Arthur doubts. Gwen believes.
A/N - I sort of drifted away from this fandom when the series wasn't airing but I'm back now and I have fic to prove it! My attempt to get back into writing these two crazy kids, so forgive me if I'm a little rusty. Unbeta'd as I wanted to get it up before Saturday and because that's just how I roll. Title and quote courtesy of Coldplay.
~
Being the only heir to a powerful throne is a dangerous thing to be. As a result, Arthur Pendragon has never been a heavy sleeper.
He is awake, though not really awake, the moment the latch of his door is released.
He dimly registers the sound of footsteps padding across his floor, something heavy deposited on a table.
Someone approaches, light footed and quick. He is troubled by this, without knowing quite why. Eyes still closed he sifts through vague fragments of memory until, crystal clear, it comes to him: Merlin’s warning that Cenred has a man in the Castle. Eyes snapping open, he reaches for the intruder as he passes.
The first coherent thought Arthur has is that the arm of the intruder is far too thin and soft to be a man’s.
A familiar voice gives a startled yelp and Arthur’s senses catch up with his instincts at once.
“Guinevere?”
He focuses his tired eyes and finds Gwen frozen beside him, her arm held tightly in his hand. Blinking rapidly, he releases her at once and scrambles up from where he’d fallen asleep, slumped awkwardly across his bed.
“Is there news of my father?” he asks urgently. Cold dread falls like a weight on his heart as the memories of the past days finally slot into place.
“No news Sire,” she assures him quickly. “Gaius is with him now.”
His stomach drops. No news. So his father, his King, is still lying insensible in his bed, neither knowing nor caring that an army approaches to take his kingdom and his son will not be able to stop them.
Arthur looks across at Gwen and sees concern in her wide eyes, worry in the slant of her eyebrows. “I’m so sorry I startled you,” she says quickly, taking advantage of his momentary silence. “I only wanted to make sure you ate something but perhaps I shouldn’t have -”
“Not at all, I’m glad you woke me,” he says, brushing aside her concerns with a wave of his hand. “I shouldn’t have even been asleep. I only came up here to look at these,” he gestures at the sketches of the Castle’s defences laid out across his bed in explanation. “I suppose I must have dozed off.”
“Understandable Sire, you must be very tired,” Gwen sympathises.
“I’ve no time for tiredness,” he admits heavily, hating the self pity that colours his tone.
He stretches, willing his aching muscles to relax. He runs a hand over his hair without thinking, trying to flatten where it sticks up awkwardly and he sees a tiny smile creep across Gwen’s face at his unthinking vanity.
“Not looking my best I suppose,” he says, tugging at his shirt to rearrange where it had rumpled as he slept.
“I’ve seen you looking worse my Lord,” Gwen reminds him lightly.
He wants to reply with something silly, anything to make Gwen laugh and bring a little warmth into his chambers. But she’s looking at him like she just might understand and he hears himself admit, without really intending to confide it, “but not feeling worse I’d wager.”
Gwen’s brows furrow and something that might be tears sparkles behind her eyes.
Embarrassed, he looks away and casts around for another subject. “Where’s Merlin?”
“I don’t know. Gauis said he didn’t come home last night and he hasn’t seen him all day.” She sifts uneasily. “He’s worried. I am too.”
Arthur follows her eyes as her gaze flits for a moment to his window and the drop beyond. He knows she’s thinking of the guard they’d found attacked at the foot of the tower. Concern settles into his heart for the idiotic, ever cheerful manservant who is somehow irreplaceable to him.
“He’ll turn up,” he says, more cheerfully than he feels. “Merlin can take care of himself.”
“Of course he can,” Gwen agrees readily, though she sounds far from convinced. She looks up at him, studying his face and apparently not pleased with what she sees there. “What about you? When was the last time you ate?”
“I don’t have time,” he admits, turning to the scattered defence plans and gathering them up in a bundle which he deposits on his desk. He begins rummaging through the papers, looking for nothing at all. It’s almost more than he can stand, to hear the worry in her voice, the fear in her eyes, and not be able to bridge the careful distance she keeps between them and put his arms around her.
“Make time,” Gwen insists, ignoring his attempts to start working again and blind to the reasons for it. “Leave those for a few moments. You’re exhausted, you’re worried, you haven’t eaten for hours, maybe days. You must keep your strength up, otherwise you’ll be useless to Camelot.”
He spreads a rough sketch of the castle across his desk and stands over it, fists down on the table. It is too much, all of it, his father thrown down, his people threatened, the woman he loves always out of reach and everyone calling on him, trusting him to make it all right. It isn’t possible. “I’ll be useless to Camelot anyway,” he admits.
He does not turn to look at her so he cannot see the tear that slips from her eye, how it breaks her to see him like this. All rules forgotten, she comes closer, so close he can feel her breath on the back of his neck.
“Don’t say that,” she says fiercely as her warm hand lands on his shoulder. “You don’t mean that.”
With an effort, he turns to her. She has been on her toes to reach him and as he turns she drops down delicately down onto her feet, small again before him.
“I can’t do this.” He tries to look away from her, waits for her to shrink away from his weakness but she ducks her head to keep his gaze.
“You can,” she says simply, eyes never leaving his face.
She is looking at him quite steadily, no trace of judgement in her face, nothing but affection in her eyes.
The doubts he could not admit to anyone else suddenly race to pour out of him so that his words run into each other in their hurry to be spoken. “You’re so sure. Everyone is. They always say what a great King I will be. I even do it myself, I talk about what I will do differently, how things will change. But it’s all talk Gwen, it’s not supposed to happen now. Not yet. I’m not ready.” He hears the catch in his voice and looks down at the floor so she will not see the effort it has cost him to say these things. “I’m not enough.”
He glances at Gwen and finds she is looking at him as she always does, as though he is something to believe in.
“Nobody expects you to be anything other than what you already are,” she assures him, reaching out to grip his arm with her hand. “You’re a good man Arthur and a good leader. The people love and respect you.”
“I cannot do this alone.”
“Who said anything about doing it alone?” Gwen says, sounding almost exasperated. “Your father may be ill but you have his advisors, you have your knights. Have you even spoken to them? Because I think you will find them willing to fight for Camelot, and for you. We all are. Cenred cannot take that from you and so he cannot win.”
She lets out a long breath, looking suddenly afraid that she’s said too much. He’s seen this look before, the sort of panic in her eyes after she speaks her mind to him. He finds himself inexplicably fond of it.
“You really believe that?”
“I do.”
She stares up at him, eyes blazing with conviction and just like that, he believes it too.
He moves without thinking, stepping forward into her embrace.
Her tiny frame fits perfectly into his and this time there is no awkward armour between them, no prying eyes to fear. He ducks his head to her hair and breathes out, relaxing properly for the first time in days. He closes his eyes and waits for her to pull away as she always must, sensible to the last. But she does not, instead she presses him closer to her, breathing out a long sigh that flutters against his neck.
For one long moment he is able to forget that battle is coming and his father is ill and all of Camelot needs him. He is himself again and he will never be able to repay her for reminding him of who he is.
They separate after a few moments and Gwen blushes as Arthur tucks a wayward strand of her hair behind her ear.
“Thank you,” he says quietly, smiling nervously and shifting his feet. “I really needed,” he falters, the word you on the tip of his tongue. “I needed to hear that,” he settles for.
“You’re welcome,” she replies in kind, and in her unguarded gaze there is an affection she rarely lets herself show. “Will you do something for me?” she asks, biting her lip.
“Of course,” he agrees readily.
She places both hands either side of his shoulders and for one wild moment Arthur thinks she is going to kiss him. But her face is suddenly businesslike as she pushes him to spin him around and face the table where, just a few minutes ago, she’d deposited a tray of food. “Eat,” she says sternly, breaking the moment between them entirely with her matter of fact request.
He laughs, and the sound echoes through his quiet chambers.
‘I mean it,” she says, laughing herself as he obeys the pressure of her hands and allows her to push him towards his table.
He sits obediently and drags the plate towards himself, suddenly ravenous.
His mind is buzzing now, half-formed plans for defence against Cenred taking shape amongst a mental list of those who will fight and how many men they can command to stand alongside them. As though she senses his thoughts, Gwen brings him the plans he’d been poring over earlier and spreads them out before him as he eats.
She flits about the room for a moment, tidying here and there, and he lets himself be distracted from the plans more than once to watch her graceful steps. After a moment she comes to stand behind him, and he turns his head to look at her.
“I’d better go,” she says, and he hears a reluctance in her voice that makes him strangely happy.
“Of course. Thank you again, Gwen.” He hesitates and then asks, “Promise me you’ll stay safe? This attack will be dangerous and I - I need to know you’ll be all right.”
She stoops suddenly and presses a fleeting kiss to his cheek. He freezes, stunned, as she lays her forehead against the side of his for a moment.
“Be careful,” she whispers fiercely, before pulling away and hurrying from the room.
When Arthur eventually turns his mind back to the approaching battle, he is newly resolved, ready for the challenge approaching. The burdens of his father still weight heavy on him but Gwen has taken some of the weight from him with her counsel and her faith.
He will defeat Cenred. He knows this as surely as he knows that when he does, he will owe a great deal of his victory to the woman who just left his side.
A fleeting thought crosses his distracted mind: what a very good team they could make.
He smiles at the suggestion and allows himself a brief moment to imagine all the possibilities of this.
King Arthur and Queen Guinevere.
Now there was an idea.
~
Comments are love :)
Author: shootingstars88
Characters/Pairing: Arthur/Gwen
Rating: G
Disclaimer: All characters/settings etc property of the BBC
Spoilers: 3x01
Summary: A post-ep/missing scene for 3x01. Arthur doubts. Gwen believes.
A/N - I sort of drifted away from this fandom when the series wasn't airing but I'm back now and I have fic to prove it! My attempt to get back into writing these two crazy kids, so forgive me if I'm a little rusty. Unbeta'd as I wanted to get it up before Saturday and because that's just how I roll. Title and quote courtesy of Coldplay.
~
Being the only heir to a powerful throne is a dangerous thing to be. As a result, Arthur Pendragon has never been a heavy sleeper.
He is awake, though not really awake, the moment the latch of his door is released.
He dimly registers the sound of footsteps padding across his floor, something heavy deposited on a table.
Someone approaches, light footed and quick. He is troubled by this, without knowing quite why. Eyes still closed he sifts through vague fragments of memory until, crystal clear, it comes to him: Merlin’s warning that Cenred has a man in the Castle. Eyes snapping open, he reaches for the intruder as he passes.
The first coherent thought Arthur has is that the arm of the intruder is far too thin and soft to be a man’s.
A familiar voice gives a startled yelp and Arthur’s senses catch up with his instincts at once.
“Guinevere?”
He focuses his tired eyes and finds Gwen frozen beside him, her arm held tightly in his hand. Blinking rapidly, he releases her at once and scrambles up from where he’d fallen asleep, slumped awkwardly across his bed.
“Is there news of my father?” he asks urgently. Cold dread falls like a weight on his heart as the memories of the past days finally slot into place.
“No news Sire,” she assures him quickly. “Gaius is with him now.”
His stomach drops. No news. So his father, his King, is still lying insensible in his bed, neither knowing nor caring that an army approaches to take his kingdom and his son will not be able to stop them.
Arthur looks across at Gwen and sees concern in her wide eyes, worry in the slant of her eyebrows. “I’m so sorry I startled you,” she says quickly, taking advantage of his momentary silence. “I only wanted to make sure you ate something but perhaps I shouldn’t have -”
“Not at all, I’m glad you woke me,” he says, brushing aside her concerns with a wave of his hand. “I shouldn’t have even been asleep. I only came up here to look at these,” he gestures at the sketches of the Castle’s defences laid out across his bed in explanation. “I suppose I must have dozed off.”
“Understandable Sire, you must be very tired,” Gwen sympathises.
“I’ve no time for tiredness,” he admits heavily, hating the self pity that colours his tone.
He stretches, willing his aching muscles to relax. He runs a hand over his hair without thinking, trying to flatten where it sticks up awkwardly and he sees a tiny smile creep across Gwen’s face at his unthinking vanity.
“Not looking my best I suppose,” he says, tugging at his shirt to rearrange where it had rumpled as he slept.
“I’ve seen you looking worse my Lord,” Gwen reminds him lightly.
He wants to reply with something silly, anything to make Gwen laugh and bring a little warmth into his chambers. But she’s looking at him like she just might understand and he hears himself admit, without really intending to confide it, “but not feeling worse I’d wager.”
Gwen’s brows furrow and something that might be tears sparkles behind her eyes.
Embarrassed, he looks away and casts around for another subject. “Where’s Merlin?”
“I don’t know. Gauis said he didn’t come home last night and he hasn’t seen him all day.” She sifts uneasily. “He’s worried. I am too.”
Arthur follows her eyes as her gaze flits for a moment to his window and the drop beyond. He knows she’s thinking of the guard they’d found attacked at the foot of the tower. Concern settles into his heart for the idiotic, ever cheerful manservant who is somehow irreplaceable to him.
“He’ll turn up,” he says, more cheerfully than he feels. “Merlin can take care of himself.”
“Of course he can,” Gwen agrees readily, though she sounds far from convinced. She looks up at him, studying his face and apparently not pleased with what she sees there. “What about you? When was the last time you ate?”
“I don’t have time,” he admits, turning to the scattered defence plans and gathering them up in a bundle which he deposits on his desk. He begins rummaging through the papers, looking for nothing at all. It’s almost more than he can stand, to hear the worry in her voice, the fear in her eyes, and not be able to bridge the careful distance she keeps between them and put his arms around her.
“Make time,” Gwen insists, ignoring his attempts to start working again and blind to the reasons for it. “Leave those for a few moments. You’re exhausted, you’re worried, you haven’t eaten for hours, maybe days. You must keep your strength up, otherwise you’ll be useless to Camelot.”
He spreads a rough sketch of the castle across his desk and stands over it, fists down on the table. It is too much, all of it, his father thrown down, his people threatened, the woman he loves always out of reach and everyone calling on him, trusting him to make it all right. It isn’t possible. “I’ll be useless to Camelot anyway,” he admits.
He does not turn to look at her so he cannot see the tear that slips from her eye, how it breaks her to see him like this. All rules forgotten, she comes closer, so close he can feel her breath on the back of his neck.
“Don’t say that,” she says fiercely as her warm hand lands on his shoulder. “You don’t mean that.”
With an effort, he turns to her. She has been on her toes to reach him and as he turns she drops down delicately down onto her feet, small again before him.
“I can’t do this.” He tries to look away from her, waits for her to shrink away from his weakness but she ducks her head to keep his gaze.
“You can,” she says simply, eyes never leaving his face.
She is looking at him quite steadily, no trace of judgement in her face, nothing but affection in her eyes.
The doubts he could not admit to anyone else suddenly race to pour out of him so that his words run into each other in their hurry to be spoken. “You’re so sure. Everyone is. They always say what a great King I will be. I even do it myself, I talk about what I will do differently, how things will change. But it’s all talk Gwen, it’s not supposed to happen now. Not yet. I’m not ready.” He hears the catch in his voice and looks down at the floor so she will not see the effort it has cost him to say these things. “I’m not enough.”
He glances at Gwen and finds she is looking at him as she always does, as though he is something to believe in.
“Nobody expects you to be anything other than what you already are,” she assures him, reaching out to grip his arm with her hand. “You’re a good man Arthur and a good leader. The people love and respect you.”
“I cannot do this alone.”
“Who said anything about doing it alone?” Gwen says, sounding almost exasperated. “Your father may be ill but you have his advisors, you have your knights. Have you even spoken to them? Because I think you will find them willing to fight for Camelot, and for you. We all are. Cenred cannot take that from you and so he cannot win.”
She lets out a long breath, looking suddenly afraid that she’s said too much. He’s seen this look before, the sort of panic in her eyes after she speaks her mind to him. He finds himself inexplicably fond of it.
“You really believe that?”
“I do.”
She stares up at him, eyes blazing with conviction and just like that, he believes it too.
He moves without thinking, stepping forward into her embrace.
Her tiny frame fits perfectly into his and this time there is no awkward armour between them, no prying eyes to fear. He ducks his head to her hair and breathes out, relaxing properly for the first time in days. He closes his eyes and waits for her to pull away as she always must, sensible to the last. But she does not, instead she presses him closer to her, breathing out a long sigh that flutters against his neck.
For one long moment he is able to forget that battle is coming and his father is ill and all of Camelot needs him. He is himself again and he will never be able to repay her for reminding him of who he is.
They separate after a few moments and Gwen blushes as Arthur tucks a wayward strand of her hair behind her ear.
“Thank you,” he says quietly, smiling nervously and shifting his feet. “I really needed,” he falters, the word you on the tip of his tongue. “I needed to hear that,” he settles for.
“You’re welcome,” she replies in kind, and in her unguarded gaze there is an affection she rarely lets herself show. “Will you do something for me?” she asks, biting her lip.
“Of course,” he agrees readily.
She places both hands either side of his shoulders and for one wild moment Arthur thinks she is going to kiss him. But her face is suddenly businesslike as she pushes him to spin him around and face the table where, just a few minutes ago, she’d deposited a tray of food. “Eat,” she says sternly, breaking the moment between them entirely with her matter of fact request.
He laughs, and the sound echoes through his quiet chambers.
‘I mean it,” she says, laughing herself as he obeys the pressure of her hands and allows her to push him towards his table.
He sits obediently and drags the plate towards himself, suddenly ravenous.
His mind is buzzing now, half-formed plans for defence against Cenred taking shape amongst a mental list of those who will fight and how many men they can command to stand alongside them. As though she senses his thoughts, Gwen brings him the plans he’d been poring over earlier and spreads them out before him as he eats.
She flits about the room for a moment, tidying here and there, and he lets himself be distracted from the plans more than once to watch her graceful steps. After a moment she comes to stand behind him, and he turns his head to look at her.
“I’d better go,” she says, and he hears a reluctance in her voice that makes him strangely happy.
“Of course. Thank you again, Gwen.” He hesitates and then asks, “Promise me you’ll stay safe? This attack will be dangerous and I - I need to know you’ll be all right.”
She stoops suddenly and presses a fleeting kiss to his cheek. He freezes, stunned, as she lays her forehead against the side of his for a moment.
“Be careful,” she whispers fiercely, before pulling away and hurrying from the room.
When Arthur eventually turns his mind back to the approaching battle, he is newly resolved, ready for the challenge approaching. The burdens of his father still weight heavy on him but Gwen has taken some of the weight from him with her counsel and her faith.
He will defeat Cenred. He knows this as surely as he knows that when he does, he will owe a great deal of his victory to the woman who just left his side.
A fleeting thought crosses his distracted mind: what a very good team they could make.
He smiles at the suggestion and allows himself a brief moment to imagine all the possibilities of this.
King Arthur and Queen Guinevere.
Now there was an idea.
~
Comments are love :)