Dumb Luck
Prompt: the usual "Everyone knows Merlin has Magic but Merlin doesn't know they know" but Arthur's being really fucking thick about it. Everything that could possibly be magic Arthur has brushed off as luck or something. At some point Merlin realizes that the knights know (or maybe he's known all along) and the knights tell Merlin that Arthur knows but he's being stupid, which leads to Merlin performing increasingly extravagant/impressive/silly magic in front of Arthur until the point Arthur just asks if Merlin would like him to acknowledge the fact that he doesn't care that Merlin has magic
no brain cells for these boys, leon stop hoarding them
Read on Ao3
Warnings: none!
Pairings: merthur, can be platonic or romantic who tf knows
Word Count: 2943
Alright. Merlin’s going to be honest. Is the absolute best at hiding his magic from people? No. Is he a damn sight near better than some other bastards would be if they had his magic? Yes, yes, he is, thank you very much. They would do quite well to remember that he is magic, and he’s had it since he was born, so he knows what he’s doing when it comes to knowing that he has it. Yes, thank you, he doesn’t go around doing every single thing he could with magic because well, then he’d never get to do much of anything ever again.
And that would be boring.
But yes, maybe he’s a little petty or lazy sometimes. Honestly, he’s just being efficient. Yes, he can justify pettiness as efficient. He’s just getting them back for something that he would otherwise have to expend so much effort doing. It’s very handy.
So the knights work out he has magic. Big surprise there, he knows. Lancelot is Lancelot, Gwaine is Gwaine. Percival stumbles in on him lifting too much a little too easily and cracks a joke about having Merlin pull his weight more on hunting trips and patrols. Elyan watches him fix armor and immediately clamors to bring Merlin to his and Gwen’s forge so he can actually show him how to fix armor.
Leon takes him aside quietly one day and thanks him. Merlin doesn’t start crying, he doesn’t end up breaking down into Leon’s arms, and Leon definitely doesn’t promise that although Merlin may not have been knighted, he thinks of him as his brother in arms.
Leon is very rude sometimes, as a matter of fact.
But Arthur doesn’t seem to notice.
Now, Arthur doesn’t notice a lot. Doesn’t notice Merlin shifting his chair a little bit so he crashes onto the floor, doesn’t notice Gwen spending just a hair too much time with Morgana in the evenings, doesn’t notice the guards that don’t even pay attention to the dungeons. Like, at all.
But there are some things he…should notice.
Like when a branch suddenly lifts itself up from a forest floor to trip a bandit.
“Bandits,” Merlin mutters under his breath, “why is it always bandits?”
He deflects a blow and sends one of them flying into a tree. Behind him, Elyan parries a blow and deftly clubs the man over the head. Arthur is battling another bandit a few paces away as one tries to run up behind him.
Merlin’s hand is out in a flash and the tree branch right in front of Arthur wheels up and smacks the man across the face.
Arthur whirls around and cuts the other man down, successfully putting an end to the fight. Around the clearing, the knights shake their heads and go about picking up the rest of their camp. Really, being far too calm for men who just killed a bunch of people.
Except for Merlin.
Merlin, while this is happening, is slowly coming to the conclusion that he would like to be swallowed up by the ground and never emerge again.
He just used magic, very obviously, in front of Arthur.
Is this the first time he’s done it? No, not by a long shot, but it is the first time he’s done it without any regard for whether Arthur can see.
Arthur turns and Merlin’s heart drops to his stomach.
Arthur wrenches his sword out of the ground and stalks over to him.
Arthur roughly grabs his shoulder. Shakes. Hard.
“Merlin! Merlin, answer me?”
“…Arthur?”
Arthur’s face is drawn. Grim. Almost his father’s. His grip hurts.
“Where are you hurt?”
Merlin blinks. What? Where is he what?
“Where is it, Merlin,” Arthur growls again, already looking him over, “where did they hurt you?”
“I’m—I’m not hurt.”
“You’re paler than a damn sheet, Merlin, you must be losing blood.” Arthur’s hand is…surprisingly gentle as it lifts his chin. “Tell me where. Come on. Now’s not the time for shame.”
“No, no,” Merlin mumbles, “I’m not—not hurt. Didn’t get hurt.”
Arthur slows, grim expression morphing to confusion. “Then why do you look so…”
If in doubt, poke fun at yourself.
“Just scared, I guess,” Merlin tries with a self-deprecating laugh, “wasn’t expecting bandits.”
Arthur huffs, lightly shoving his shoulder. “Leave it to you to be such a drama queen that I think you’re bleeding out.”
“’S nice of you to care.”
“Just glad I don’t have to drag your corpse back to Gaius.”
2.
So that was…bizarre. Not the most bizarre thing that’s ever happened to Merlin, not at all, but bizarre. Arthur may be a little unobservant at times but he’s not that oblivious.
But, in fairness to him—which is something Merlin tries not to do too often—he was in the middle of a fight and had just killed a man. Knights may not be known for the smarts but they are known for their overprotectiveness.
Yes, he can hear you lot protesting over there, it’s true and you know it.
And maybe…maybe Merlin’s been getting a little sick of Gaius screaming about how secret his magic must be kept in broad daylight with the door wide open. Listen, if you think he’s about to get scolded by your parental unit and not immediately find some way to rebel, you don’t know Merlin very well.
And yes, maybe there’s a sick little thrill he gets out of doing magic in front of Arthur.
Maybe.
So. The next time they’re on a hunting trip and he’s as sure as he can be that there aren’t any bandits around, he decides to push a little bit.
Arthur is lounging around because you can take the prince out of the castle but you can’t take the castle out of the prince and he thinks he’s still about to receive the finest of dishes that Camelot’s kitchens can prepare. Well, no, but he is about to not have to cook it himself.
“Light the fire, Merlin, it’s not that hard.”
“Have you ever lit a fire a day in your life?”
“Sure, when I was training.”
“Training? You needed training to learn how to light a fire?”
“It was survival training, with the elder knights. Had to survive a night on my own.”
“On your own?”
“Well, my own campsite. They stayed about a league away.”
Merlin just sighs and crouches down. He eyes Arthur, who is tending to his sword, and then very slowly but pointedly sets the flint and steel aside. Arthur isn’t paying much attention to him.
Slowly, Merlin leans forward and lights the fire with his magic.
Arthur looks up. Merlin looks back at him. Arthur swings the sword off his lap. He sets it on the log, his hand still wrapped around the pommel. The tip of the blade points straight at Merlin’s chest. It gleams in the firelight.
“See? I told you it wasn’t hard.”
Is…is he serious?
3.
As it turns out, yes. Arthur is completely serious.
And at this point, this is science, now, what Merlin’s doing. Experiments. He has to know the limits! He has a hypothesis, he has a method, he wants to reach a conclusion.
Hypothesis: Arthur is really, really oblivious to anything magical.
Method: do increasingly obvious magic in front of Arthur until he notices.
Conclusion: how oblivious is Arthur?
An important caveat: Merlin doesn’t know how Arthur will react to finding out he has magic, but he can burn that bridge when he gets there.
So when he wakes Arthur up the next morning, he draws the curtains with a flourish and when Arthur turns over and pulls the blanket up to his cheek in protest, he flicks his wrist and yanks the covers off the bed.
What does Arthur do?
Mumble and groan and stumble out of bed saying Merlin’s worse than his first governess.
“Wait, first?”
“Morgana and I snuck a toad into her bed. She quit after that.”
“You two did what?”
“Think there’s still frog spawn in that bed frame. Father had that chamber closed off for a while.”
“You—eat your breakfast, you prat.”
“You’re the one that pulled my blankets away!”
4.
…okay, so he needs to take it up a notch.
One of the ones that pisses Gaius off the most is when Merlin uses magic to polish multiple pieces of Arthur’s armor at the same time. So when Arthur is at his desk, Merlin lays his shield across his lap and grabs two polishing rags. He sets the can of polish next to him and starts working on the shield. When he’s sure Arthur is focusing, he uses his magic to lift the breastplate up next to him and start to beat out the dents.
“Merlin,” Arthur sighs, “can you keep it down any?”
Showtime. “Don’t know what you mean, sire.”
“That bloody racket! Can you at least be a little quieter?”
“What racket?”
Arthur shoves the paper away from him and glares at the ceiling. “That banging! It’s so loud I can barely hear myself think!”
“It’s no louder than you normally are, sire.”
“Oh, you—I ought to—“ Arthur just mutters to himself as he claps his hands over his ears.
But he never looks toward Merlin.
Huh.
5.
So maybe Arthur isn’t ignoring him because he’s oblivious. Maybe…maybe he knows already and is…is trying to protect Merlin.
Uther is still King of Camelot. Morgana is outspoken against his cruelty but he is still very much in charge. There’s only so much protection the knights can afford him. There’s only so much protection Arthur can afford him.
So…so maybe Arthur is pretending he doesn’t see because he knows he can’t save Merlin if he has to acknowledge it.
Merlin takes a few days to process that. The knights are concerned, they ask him what’s wrong, what does he need, how can they help? He waves them off, says he’s just thinking.
“Maybe,” Lancelot says kindly, “but with you, Merlin, you’re never just thinking.”
“Or at least it doesn’t stay that way for very long,” Gwaine agrees, slinging an arm around Merlin’s shoulders, “and I don’t know about you lot but I like a little bit of forewarning before I wake up to ale in my shoes.”
“You asked for another round, you didn’t say where.”
“Why the hell would I want them in my shoes?”
Gwaine does what Gwaine always does and steers the attention away from Merlin, leaving Leon and Lancelot to carefully prod him a little more privately. He waves them off too, even though he’s sure he isn’t keeping as much as he would like to be from Leon.
Merlin stops using his magic as much. He does his chores as much as he can using his two hands, lugs buckets of water without complaint, polishes armor until his nose burns and his eyes sting. He uses his magic for particularly stubborn stains in his room and keeps a sharper eye out for how to move this bandit’s sword a little to the right, or how to make this knight’s staff a little heavier.
He thinks Arthur is trying to hide for him, so he hides for Arthur.
Then he can’t hide.
A sorcerer is threatening to collapse the walls of Camelot in on themselves. The entire citadel shakes as Merlin and the knights rush out, dragging as many people as they can. The stone trembles and the wood groans and there are screams. More screams than Merlin could ever bear to hear join the chorus of more than he could ever know that plague him every time he closes his eyes.
He shuts them anyway and runs.
He runs away from the knights, magic pushing him faster, faster, faster with the need to protect the castle, protect the people, protect Arthur. The sorcerer is pulling him away from his people and for that…for that, he must pay.
By the time he gets to the field, it is rippling with magic. Merlin’s fingertips, his ears, even his nose tingles as he rushes deeper, deeper, deeper, trying to get to the eye of the storm.
There, in the middle of a patch of grass, stands a sorcerer. In robes deeper than night and hair whipped up in the wind of the spell.
Merlin grits his teeth and says no.
And when the Greatest Sorcerer to Ever Walk the Earth calls, Magic answers.
The sorcerer is dust before he manages to open his mouth. The field settles. Magic returns to the earth. And Merlin collapses to his knees as the knights run up behind him.
He isn’t a fool, despite what others may have led you to believe. He knows this was magic, could only be magic, and could only be stopped by magic.
So when the knights rush up to him and collapse to their knees around him, muttering that he’s alright, he did it, he’s safe, he did it, is he hurt, all he can think of is how he’s going to have to explain this to Arthur.
They tell him he doesn’t need to explain anything. That Arthur already knows, that he doesn’t care.
Merlin doesn’t believe them. Even if he saved Camelot, which he’s already done, he has magic. He used magic to do it.
They tell him again that it doesn’t matter, that Arthur doesn’t, won’t care.
But Merlin still has to tell him.
“Tell me what?”
+1.
Arthur rushes into the clearing. He can hear him behind them. He can’t find it in him to get up. The knights are still around him, he can hear Lancelot’s voice in his ear, feel Leon’s hands on his shoulders, but he can’t move. Can’t speak.
“Tell me what,” Arthur repeats, and oh, he sounds angry, “what is it?”
“Merlin,” someone—Gwaine—is muttering, “Merlin, it’s alright, he won’t care, he doesn’t care—“
“Of course I care,” comes the cold, cold voice and Gwaine falters, “now move.”
Merlin’s chest clenches. There’s the sharp sing of steel as Gwaine draws his sword.
“Put it down.”
“Nope, can’t do that.”
Then Leon stands up. “Arthur, please think carefully about this.”
“I don’t have to think carefully about anything. Merlin is hurt, let me tend to him. He’s mine.”
“You won’t hurt him.”
“No, I certainly don’t intend to, so move.”
Lancelot’s hands are the last to leave him. Merlin is cold. It’s so cold. His magic buries deep inside his chest and it feels hard to breathe.
Boots. Boots on the ground in front of him. They flatten the grass as a shadow blocks the light. Armor creaks as the figure kneels down. A gauntleted hand cups his chin.
“Merlin,” comes a voice that’s soft, too soft, “Merlin, I need you to look at me.”
And what is he supposed to do, disobey?
Arthur’s face is too warm when Merlin looks up at him. His mouth tugs up into a little smile as Merlin finally makes eye contact with him.
“There you are,” he says, still in that soft voice that doesn’t make sense, “now, are you hurt?”
Merlin can only blink.
“Merlin,” he says, and his voice is a little firmer as he cups Merlin’s chin properly, “are you hurt? What happened?”
His throat is too dry. “Not hurt.”
Arthur relaxes, only marginally. “Then why do you look so upset?”
The world could collapse and Merlin would be frozen here, trapped in the silence of Arthur’s gaze.
Unbidden, his eyes flash gold.
Arthur takes a sharp breath in. Merlin braces for a hit only for—
“Oh, you idiot,” Arthur whispers, “do I actually need to tell you I don’t care if you have magic?”
Pause.
Go back.
One more time.
What?
“I don’t care, you idiot,” he says in a tone that is too fond, “I don’t care that you have magic. You have it, you’re still Merlin, I don’t care.”
Rough metal gauntlets cup his face and oh—it’s cold—
“Merlin, look at me.”
“I—I am.”
“No, look.”
He blinks and has to focus on looking at Arthur.
“I’m not mad,” Arthur says firmly, “and I don’t care that you have magic.”
Merlin starts to laugh. Because of course, of course, Arthur doesn’t care. He’s been so stupid. Arthur doesn’t care. Arthur doesn’t care. He’s doubled over before he can stop himself. The laughs keep pouring out of him, his magic rushing back to his fingers, his nose, his chest. He laughs long and loud and hard and then Arthur is murmuring at him again because no, no, he isn’t laughing anymore, he’s crying.
“Come here, you big baby,” Arthur murmurs, tucking him into the gentlest embrace he’s ever had from someone wearing armor, “yes, there you go, that’s it.”
He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care.
Arthur has known Merlin has magic and he doesn’t care.
…wait, does that make Merlin the oblivious one?
Nah, that couldn’t be it.
It’s not like Arthur is hiding anything else from Merlin.
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