Chapter Text
“I swear, it’s not what it looks like!” Elyan said desperately. Merlin had come into the armory to polish Arthur’s sword late in the afternoon, and found the knight there doing the same. The servant had assumed he just kept his chainmail shinier than anyone else’s because he was the son of a blacksmith, but now it seemed that it just took him a lot less work to do so than it would anyone else. The knight had looked up sharply when the door opened, his sword and whetstone crashing to the ground from where they had hung suspended in the air.
“Really?” Merlin replied teasingly, but he turned to make sure that the door closed and locked behind him. He dropped his voice too, so they wouldn’t be overheard. “Because it looks like you were using magic.” Elyan’s eyes went wider, if that was even possible.
“No, no, it was just-” he stammered, and he looked so scared that Merlin took pity on him. His own eyes flashed gold and the sword lifted back into the air along with the whetstone.
“Relax,” he said with a smile. “I’m not going to tell.”
“You have it too?” It took only a second before a smile broke through the scared expression on the knight’s face. Merlin nodded as he set the sword and stone down beside Elyan on the bench. “I don’t use it very much myself; just picked up a few things when I was traveling. I know I should have stopped when I came back to Camelot, but…”
“It’s convenient,” Merlin agreed. “I do the same thing.” He sat down beside the knight and the two of them let their magic control the whetstones as they polished the swords and armour.
“You’re not going to say anything?” Lancelot asked when Merlin came into the room. With his hand resting over Leon’s unconscious form, the echoes of a spell fresh on his lips, and his eyes glowing gold when he looked up, he had no doubt that the warlock had seen his magic.
“What is there to say?” Merlin replied, a huge smile splitting his face. “Except you should probably lock the door before using magic in Camelot.”
“Like you always do?” he retorted. “You’re starting to sound like Gaius.” Merlin made a face at him for that. “You’re not mad at me, though, for keeping it from you?” Though he knew he didn’t have much reason to, he couldn’t help but worry. It wasn’t like Lancelot had a good reason to lie to Merlin, not like the reasons the warlock had to lie to Arthur.
“Well, it’s not like we’ve had a lot of time to talk about it,” Merlin replied lightly. Clearly, he wasn’t upset by the revelation. How could he be? Lancelot was already one of his closest friends, and the discovery that he had magic would only bond them tighter together. “I mean, you were banished from Camelot right after you realized I had magic, and I understand why you didn’t say anything before that, obviously. I am curious, however, about why you didn’t use your own magic against the griffin.”
“I’m not good at that sort of magic,” Lancelot explained. “Not like you. In fact, my magic is kind of useless in battle. I have to concentrate too much to use it. There’s a reason I trained my skill with a sword instead.”
“What can you do, if not use it to fight?” That was most of what he used his own magic for. Fighting and protecting Arthur. And mischief.
“I’m mostly good at healing magic,” the knight admitted with a blush. He knew the warlock himself wasn’t at all talented at it, from experience when he’d been wounded, and it felt weird to be better at something magical than someone who was Magic.
“Yeah?” Merlin said, sounding excited. “Well, don’t be surprised if Gaius steals you more often now that we know that.”
“I’d be happy to help,” Lancelot agreed amicably.
“Help with what?” Leon asked, coming awake on the cot. Both the magic users looked at each other, terrified of how much of their conversation the other knight had heard.
“With the utter hassle of keeping you knights from getting hurt,” Lancelot teased, leaning forward to ruffle Leon’s hair. It was simply payback for the times the First Knight had done the same for him. In the few months since the new knights had come to Camelot, a strange bond had formed between the two of them.
“Us knights,” Leon corrected, reaching up from the cot to grab Lance’s arm and squeeze it comfortingly. His eyes focussed in on his own hand in apparent confusion after a minute. “I could have sworn I broke that wrist when I fell.”
“Nope, just a sprain,” Merlin quickly lied. “Not even a bad one even.”
“Huh, that’s lucky,” Leon said, sitting up. He raised his hand to his forehead. “I don’t have a headache either. Normally whenever I get knocked out, my head hurts for days.”
“Maybe you’ve got a guardian angel looking out for you,” Merlin supplied helpfully. “If you’re feeling better then, you can go rest in your own chambers for the rest of the day.” He was eager to get the knight out of the room, so he could interrogate Lancelot about the extent of his abilities.
“Are you sure? Gaius usually keeps me a few hours after I wake up whenever I’m knocked unconscious, to make sure everything is alright.”
“And you always complain the entire time,” Merlin retorted. Honestly, why was the knight questioning it? He made no secret of the fact that he hated the smell of the physician’s rooms, so he should be glad to be allowed to leave. “I’ll come check up on you in an hour, but there’s no reason why you would need to stay here.”
“Alright then.” Leon seemed perfectly steady on his feet once Lancelot helped him stand up, and Merlin decided they didn’t need to walk him to his chambers. Gaius would be furious when he learned about it, but he figured that they could just explain that Lance had healed him already, and could do so again if he fell down on his way there and broke something. Merlin closed the door after him and immediately ran over to Lancelot and practically launched himself into the other man’s arms. He was laughing, and Lance was almost disappointed about the hug, because it meant he couldn’t see the warlock’s smile.
“Tell me everything,” Merlin demanded.
Percival came to Merlin a few months after the whole business with Morgana. The new knight had quickly become friends with the other commoner knights, and, through Lancelot and Gwaine in particular, learned to trust the prince’s manservant almost as one of them. Merlin wasn’t surprised, then, when he found the large man waiting for him in Gaius’s chambers one afternoon.
“I hate to ask,” he started, “because I know it’s treason.” That was never a good start to a sentence. “But I know Gaius is known for still having knowledge about magic and I was hoping he had a spell or something to hide or suppress it.”
“What would you need it for?” Merlin asked, sitting down on another bench facing Percival. The large knight winced.
“Promise you won’t tell anyone? Especially Arthur?” he asked, and the servant nodded instantly. “I have visions, sometimes. About things that are going to happen.”
“And you want them to stop? It seems like that could be useful.”
“It is, sometimes,” Percy admitted. “But it’s… it’s too close to practicing magic. If anyone found out…”
“Anyone besides me, you mean.” He nodded. “Morgana used to have visions too. She thought they were just bad dreams at first, and Gaius gave her sleeping potions to try to help.”
“Did they? Help, I mean?” Merlin shook his head.
“Morgause gave her a bracelet that did help, and if you really want us to find you one like it, we probably could, but it might be more suspicious if you suddenly started wearing jewelry.”
Percival looked unsure about that. “Sometimes, well, sometimes I wake up screaming. I’m worried about people hearing.”
“Whose rooms are next to yours?”
“Lancelot’s. The other side is a hallway.”
A gentle smile crept over Merlin’s face. “Lancelot will understand, no matter if you tell him the real reason or not.” He knew Percival’s family had been killed by Cenred’s army, and Lance, sadly, could empathize with that. “And he’s good at coming up with cover stories, if anyone else overhears.”
“So you think I shouldn’t try to suppress the visions?”
“It’s your choice, Percival. Gaius and I will support you with whatever you choose.”
Percy looked a little shocked by this. He probably wasn’t expecting to find much sympathy in regards to magic within Camelot, and especially not from the manservant of the prince of the magic-hating royal family. “I’ll have to think about it, I guess. But… thank you.”
“Of course. You can come talk to me whenever.” Percival stood up and squeezed Merlin’s shoulder as he turned to leave. He was a man of few words, and seemed to have exhausted them. Merlin knew how nerve wracking and exhausting it could be to just talk about magic in Camelot, so he understood and let him go. Hopefully he would be back soon.
“Hey Merlin, I’ve got a bit of a confession to make,” Gwaine said. The two men were on a picnic outside of Camelot on one of Merlin’s few days off.
“Is it about how you got these scones? Because I already know you stole them,” he replied with his mouth full of said pastry.
“No, it’s, uh, a bit more serious than that,” he said, prompting the servant to actually pause in his consumption and look up at him. “You know how when we were on the quest to the Perilous Lands and the bridgekeeper said that we would need Courage, Strength, and Magic?” Merlin sucked in a breath. He wasn’t fearful, exactly, about what Gwaine was going to say or what he might do, since the man himself had admitted that he was more loyal to Merlin than to Arthur, but nonetheless he was a little nervous.
“Yeah?”
“Well, if you hadn’t realized already, I think each of those corresponded to one of us. You, me, and Arthur, I mean.”
“Yeah...”
“So I thought I should explain myself,” Gwaine said, and Merlin hadn’t expected that. “I know magic is illegal in Camelot, but it isn’t the fearsome thing Uther makes it out to be. It can be beautiful and helpful, as well as dangerous, and I wanted you to know that I would never use it to hurt either you or Arthur.”
“Wait, are you saying you have magic?” the servant demanded.
Gwaine smiled, but it looked a little more nervous than his typical grin. “If you’re gonna turn me in for it, I’d appreciate a head start out of town.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, I’m not going to turn you in,” he quickly reassured his friend. He could tell that the knight was trying to make light of the situation and pretend that he wouldn’t mind if he had to run away again, but one only had to see him training with Elyan or pulling a prank with Percival or collecting flowers with Gwen to know how much he actually liked it here in Camelot, and how much it would hurt him to leave. “Just between you and me, I think there’s actually a lot more undercover sorcerers in Camelot than you’d think.”
“That would explain why Cook seemed so unconcerned about that one time she dropped a chicken and I levitated it before it could hit the floor.”
“Gwaine! You didn’t!” Merlin exclaimed, but he was laughing. “You revealed your magic for a chicken ?”
“Hey, I couldn’t let food go to waste!” he said. “In all seriousness, though, Merlin, thank you for understanding and not making this a big deal.”
“That’s what friends are for, right?”
Out of all the potential causes of the noise Merlin had been expecting when he went to investigate the strange crying sounds coming from a supply closet, he had been expecting maybe a magical beast sent to kill Arthur or an injured spy or at least something decidedly more dangerous than what he found. He almost wished it was one of those, as at least he knew how to deal with them. The First Knight having a breakdown? Not so much.
“Leon?” he asked, a moment after opening the closet door, and the man looked up. His wavy hair was tangled and there were tear streaks down his face. Merlin quickly stepped inside the closet and closed the door behind him. He figured that the respected First Knight had retreated into it specifically for the privacy, so he didn’t want to drag him out of it or have the conversation that clearly needed to be had with the door open. It was dark inside, and that’s when Merlin realized that Leon was glowing. Not brightly enough that it could be seen in the daylight or that it would be visible in the crack beneath the door, but there was an undeniable golden aura hanging around him. His hair looked more red under the light and the glow seemed to pool just beneath his eyes where he might have otherwise had dark bags from crying or the perpetual exhaustion that seemed to plague the man.
“Merlin!” Leon barked in surprise and fear. “You shouldn’t be in here!”
“Why not?”
“Can’t you see?” he asked, gesturing down over his body. “Uther could have you killed for even just being in here with me.”
“If Uther was going to put me to death, this would not be the reason why,” Merlin said, which did not seem to reassure Leon, whose face went pale despite the glow. He reached out to hold his hand, and when the knight flinched away, settled for laying a hand on his ankle instead. The closet was of a size more suited to children playing hide-and-go-seek than to two grown men, so they were already pretty close together. “Tell me what happened.”
Leon looked terrified for a moment, before an odd sort of terrified calm washed over his face. “I suppose it can’t hurt. I was on my way to tell Arthur anyway when I chickened out and hid in here.”
“You were going to show this to Arthur?” Merlin asked in surprise. He managed to bite his tongue before he could exclaim that the prince could have him killed for it, as it was obviously magic related. Since Leon was one of his friends, and it was possible that the glow was due to a curse put on him by another, perhaps he wouldn’t be executed though. He didn’t understand why he would take that risk though.
Leon nodded. “I’ve been hiding it for so long, but he deserves to know,” he explained, and damn if that didn’t make Merlin’s own heart ache. “It’ll be better if I’m just put to death and it’s done with. I’m a danger to everyone in Camelot.”
“Why would you say that?” Merlin demanded. “You’re just glowing a little bit; it doesn’t seem dangerous to me.”
“It’s magic, Merlin, it’s all dangerous,” he retorted. “Even if I haven’t hurt anybody with it yet doesn’t mean it isn’t corrupting me, making me turn evil.”
“Do you feel like it’s turning you evil?” Merlin asked gently, and Leon seemed to hesitate. “Are you angrier? Do you want to hurt Arthur or anybody else?”
“Well, no, but that doesn’t mean I won’t at some point.”
“How long has this been going on?” From what the knight had said, he didn’t think that this was the first time it had happened.
“Since I was a child, but it’s gotten worse since I was healed with the Cup of Life. It used to be a lot fainter, and happened less often.”
“But it’s still been two decades,” Merlin estimated. “Don’t you think that if it was really going to corrupt you, it would’ve done so by now?” He reached out a hand to Leon, palm up. “Can I see?” Hesitantly, Leon mirrored the gesture, laying his hand in the servant’s. He flinched when Merlin ran a thumb over it, but didn’t move it away. The glow moved like a thick liquid, syrup maybe, pooling against the warlock’s thumb. Delicately, he scooped off a handful of it, cupping his hands. “It’s magic,” he confirmed. “I’ve heard that sometimes it can pool up, if you’re born with the talent but don’t use it. Little kids sometimes learn to control their magic by waiting until it builds up like this and then trying to form it into shapes.” That was how he himself had learned control. Sometimes Hunith had had trouble hiding the fact that their whole house glowed when his magic overflowed. “Here, do you want to try?” he asked gently, offering up the glowing liquid, to which Leon responded by furiously shaking his head and pulling his hand back so Merlin couldn’t pass it to him.
“Maybe it hasn’t corrupted me just because I refuse to use it,” he theorized, and the warlock suppressed a sigh. He should have realized that Leon would be more sensitive than the other knights of the Round Table when it came to his magic. Out of all of them, he was the only one who hadn’t been born or spent time away from Camelot, so he’d never had a chance to escape Uther’s brainwashing or see the good that magic could do. Merlin would have to be a lot more gentle with him. He didn’t want to reveal his own magic just yet, as he wasn’t sure that Leon wouldn’t turn them both in to Arthur if he did, but maybe he could recruit one of the other knights to help convince him that magic wasn’t evil.
“I don’t think that’s the case, but it’s okay if you don’t want to try to use it,” he assured Leon. “I think if we just brush off and pour away the magic, it’ll dissipate. May I?” He gestured towards the knight’s face, and when he nodded, reached over and dried the golden tears pooling under his eyes with his thumb. The magic ran down into his hands and he could feel the power thrumming in it. It was so hard to let it run off onto the stone floor rather than use it or pull it into himself. He reminded himself he was doing this for Leon, not himself, as he pulled his hands down the knight’s arms to wring the magic out of them until it pooled at his hands and dripped off his fingertips. The glow faded from around Leon and the gold bled into the stones until the closet was dark.
“Thank you, Merlin,” Leon said softly into the blackness.
“You’re welcome,” he replied cheerily. Hopefully, not treating his magic as some sort of serious terrible thing would help the knight become less afraid of it, and of himself. More seriously, he asked, “Are you still going to tell Arthur?”
“I don’t think he would believe me, now that it isn’t showing.”
“Well, when it happens again, come find me. I can help you with it, or just go with you for support if you want to tell Arthur.”
“Thanks.” There was an awkward silence.
“Oh, uh, I’ll get out first, and then signal when the coast is clear for you to come out?” he suggested, already getting to his feet. Leon didn’t say anything, but he assumed there to be a nod, and he stumbled out of the closet. Ava was passing by and gave him a strange look, but she already thought he was crazy so that was fine. His dignity was a small price to pay for helping a friend.