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Gwen once saw Merlin lick an apple before giving it to the Prince Regent.
She knew, of course, that he regularly stole food from Arthur’s plate before serving it; Gwen typically didn’t think anything of it. Surely Arthur would have made a fuss years ago, if it bothered him. The two of them had always had a peculiar and certainly unconventional working relationship. Others may describe it differently— Gwaine in particular seemed to revel in having some choice adjectives close at hand— but Gwen had long ago decided that it wasn’t any of her business, as long as no one was getting hurt.
But when Merlin licked the apple, Gwen raised an eyebrow.
“Bad form to give him an apple with a bite out of it,” Merlin said regretfully, as though that explained it.
Gwen raised her other eyebrow, but Merlin ignored her.
It was at this point that Gwen realized it may not be merely a matter of him being a perpetually hungry young man sneaking food from wherever he could, including from the mouth of his unusually permissive employer, but something more.
Perhaps it was some sort of prank? Except that Arthur either didn’t notice or didn’t appear to care. Perhaps, Gwen thought, the two of them got some sort of thrill out of sharing the same food. Perhaps they had an even more anomalous relationship than she had suspected? Perhaps it was some kind of…. No, she wasn’t going to go there.
She did eventually ask the prince outright, but he had merely shrugged and implied it was one of Merlin’s many quirks and not worth fighting over. Somehow, she doubted that was it.
Gwen wasn’t always able to observe Merlin’s serving habits, as she had her own duties to attend to, but eventually the pattern was undeniable. Merlin wasn’t taking occasional bites of Arthur’s food, after all. He was systematically sampling one bite of everything he set before the prince.
It was some time before Gwen’s suspicions were confirmed, and it was during a formal dinner, of course.
And Merlin was late.
Every other person at the tables had been served a large portion of roasted vegetables, a savory tart, and a slice of roasted pork that had been spiced so generously that the smell alone could have seasoned meals in the lower town for a week.
But the table before Arthur was bare. He clutched an empty flask in his hand and the set of his jaw implied his patience was waning. Gwen met his eye and nodded meaningfully before retreating to find his wayward manservant.
As she approached the kitchens, the door slammed open and one of the newer kitchen hands fled past, looking like a horse that had seen a snake. His clothes were in disarray and his face was pale beneath damp brown hair.
“Witta! Are you–?” Gwen started, but the boy did not stop and he was gone before Gwen could finish her question.
She pushed into the kitchen to find Merlin standing alone among the cookpots, face flushed.
He looked thunderous.
“What happened?” Gwen asked.
Merlin pushed a shaking plate into Gwen’s hand and she took it automatically: two pieces of roast pork and a pile of vegetables that poorly obscured the obviously missing bites.
“Can you bring this to Arthur? I have something I need to do.”
Before he could escape, Gwen grabbed him by the wrist. His skin was hot and Gwen could see sweat beading his brow.
“Merlin, wait! What’s going on?”
“I need to get to Gaius before– I just need a few minutes. I’ll be right back, I promise. Then Arthur can yell at me all he wants. Don’t let Arthur eat the tart!” Gwen looked back at the plate.
There was no tart.
Gwen released him and Merlin dashed from the room, parting phrases trailing in his wake: “Tell him it’s got– something he doesn’t like in it. Rat! Rat tart!”
Gwen stared after him for a moment before making her way back to the banquet hall in a daze.
As soon as she was within sight, Arthur caught her eye, his expression incredulous.
“Guinevere.”
“Um.” Gwen said as she approached. “Merlin needed to… get something from Gaius?”
She set the plate down before Arthur, unsure how to communicate what she had just seen and what she was beginning to suspect.
“Did he say what was more important than this?” Arthur gestured at the surrounding banquet pageantry.
“Not… exactly. But it did sound… um. Important. Urgent. He did say he would be back shortly and you could yell at him all you like.”
“Oh, how generous of him,” Arthur grumbled, poking at the vegetables on his plate until the missing bite was fully exposed.
“He said you wouldn’t like the tart,” Gwen said in a rush. “He said it had… rat?”
Her face must have communicated something different than her words, or perhaps Merlin’s message meant something other than what Gwen had thought because Arthur’s eyebrows raised and he pursed his lips in what was very carefully not a smile.
“Ah, of course. Thank you, Guinevere.”
Arthur tucked into his meal, starting with the missing bite. Gwen backed away, feeling wrong-footed. Although dismissed, she did not go far and she did not have to wait long.
Merlin snuck into the hall from the servant’s entrance and silently took his usual position behind Arthur’s chair. He looked as though he had walked through a rainstorm to get in, his dark hair plastered flat to his forehead.
“Rat?” Arthur said out of the corner of his mouth.
“You would have hated it,” Merlin wheezed. “my lord.”
He took Arthur’s goblet with a shaking hand and filled it, taking a generous drink before setting it back in its place.
“Merlin!”
“Your highness.”
Gwen suspected there was more than one conversation happening. Merlin gripped the back of Arthur’s chair, knuckles white.
Arthur finished chewing and started to reach for his drink, but before his hand could close around the stem of the goblet, Merlin batted it to the floor with a loud clang, body listing to the side as he briefly overbalanced.
The cheerful chatter of the room collapsed into silence. Arthur and Merlin stared at one another. Gwen stared at the cup; that had very obviously not been an accident. The dark liquid spread across the floor and under Arthur’s seat.
“So sorry. I’ll get you a new one.” Merlin said loudly, dashing once more from the room. Arthur stood from his seat, carefully avoiding the spilled liquid and finding Gwen’s eyes yet again. She shook her head in response, but crouched to clean the spill. She straightened just as Merlin returned with a fresh drink vessel.
“Here you are!”
Gwen took it from Merlin’s hand. He was shaking harder than before.
Arthur stared expectantly at them both.
“You know me.” Merlin mimed knocking things over with one hand, his other hand once more gripping Arthur’s chair for support.
Arthur looked unconvinced, but stepped back towards his seat.
Gwen filled Arthur’s new goblet from a fresh decanter and handed it wordlessly to Merlin, who drank from it and then paused, holding it just out of Arthur’s reach.
The three of them looked at one another and Arthur sighed and sat back down, holding out his hand.
“Am I going to get to drink that at some point?”
Finally, Merlin let out a breath and passed it over.
“Yes, my lord.”
Stepping away, Gwen picked up the decanter Merlin had poured from earlier and inspected it. Merlin stepped closer and peered into it as well.
“Just the one, you think?” Gwen said, casually.
“Hopefully.”
“I’m not going to ask how you could tell by taste.”
Merlin grimaced.
“Probably for the best.”
“Whatever Gaius gave you, I think you need more. You’re shaking like a leaf.”
“I’ll be fine. Just give it a minute.”
“Do you have more?”
Merlin peered at Gwen sidelong and showed her a partially-empty vial before squirreling it away again.
“I’d rather save it, though. Just in case.”
Just in case. He meant just in case Arthur hypothetically needed an antidote, of course. Ridiculous thing to say after actually being poisoned.
“Was it Witta? In the kitchens?” she whispered.
Merlin pursed his lips, hands clenched behind his back to keep them from shaking. He grunted in acknowledgement.
“But it wasn’t his fault. And he didn’t do the wine. But I’m fairly sure it’s the same–” he hesitated, “you know. Thing.”
“Of course. The thing.”
Arthur shot them a look that said they weren’t being as quiet as they intended.
“I’ll tell you later,” Merlin said under his breath.
Despite what he’d said, Merlin did not appear to be improving and by the time the dinner was coming to a close, he had gone from flushed to sallow-skinned and had retreated to lean against the wall instead of standing behind Arthur’s chair. Gwen took up his position without being asked, knowing better than to suggest that Merlin retire early to seek further treatment from Gaius.
Arthur kept shooting little worried glances at both Gwen and Merlin and he excused himself earlier than usual from the meal, apologizing loudly and waving his goblet in farewell.
Gwen and Merlin both followed closely as he swept from the room, but as soon as they turned the first corner, Arthur rounded on them.
“All right, out with it.”
Gwen waited a beat, but when Merlin just stared at him with a glazed expression, she said simply, “Poison, your highness.”
Merlin opened his mouth, but instead of speaking he gasped a shuddering breath and then drooped against the wall. Gwen and Arthur both lunged for him.
“Take the rest of the antidote, will you?” Gwen hissed. “Arthur’s not going to eat anything else tonight.”
Arthur let out a choked little huff beside her and rasped, “You were poisoned and didn’t take the antidote?”
Merlin revealed the vial as he started to slide down the wall, Gwen and Arthur’s grip on him the only reason he didn’t get very far.
“Only someofit,” he slurred. “I can usually handle — it must have been s-stronger than I thought but issfine.”
And then his eyes rolled back and he fainted to a dead weight in their arms.
“Bollocks.”
Gwen snatched the vial before it could drop to the floor and the prince hefted Merlin over his shoulder.
“Right. Let’s go find Gaius, then.”
After relaying to Gaius all that had happened, discovering that Merlin had not, in fact, consulted with him about the original antidote, watching Gaius coax the rest of the potion down Merlin’s throat, and seeing Arthur’s scandalized expression at learning this wasn’t the second, third, or even fourth time Merlin had intercepted poison for him, Gwen excused herself for the night with a promise to return the next morning. She had a few self-appointed tasks of her own to take care of. As she was leaving, she saw Arthur take up the lone chair on Merlin’s left and she knew Merlin was in good hands.
When she returned in mid-morning, Merlin was alone, but surrounded by evidence of not having been so for long. There were two dirty plates on the nearby table and what appeared to be a short stack of reports on the cot by Merlin’s legs. He was looking a bit wan, but otherwise— thankfully— normal.
“Feeling better?” Gwen asked, settling her skirts atop the vacated chair and taking Merlin’s hand in hers.
“Much. Erm… thanks for your help yesterday.” Merlin pulled a face, squeezing her hand. “I think it hit me harder than I expected.”
“Yeah, I expect poison will do that,” Gwen said, shaking her head.
Merlin huffed a laugh.
“Do you need anything?”
“No, Arthur’s given me the morning off.”
“The morning?”
“Well, he tried to give me the whole day, but who knows what he’ll get into without me.” Merlin smiled goofily at this and produced an apple from somewhere. Gwen snorted.
“What?” Merlin asked, taking a bite.
“Oh, nothing. Just wondering if anyone had licked that for you.”
Merlin only coughed by way of reply, but Gwen didn’t miss the dark flush on his cheeks as he took another bite.