Arthur needed a new manservant.

He didn't particularly want one, really – and no, this was not because he cared for Merlin or anything like that, no, of course not, don't be ridiculous, Leon, it was just that training up somebody new would take far too long, Merlin had been at it for seven years now and he was still utterly useless, after all, who was to say his replacement would prove any more competent?

But Arthur supposed it didn't really matter what he wanted anymore, anyway – even if he hadn't made the decision to ennoble Merlin after lifting the ban on sorcery, it simply wouldn't have been proper, to keep the most powerful warlock the world had ever known washing his socks or mucking his stables; even if said warlock had insisted, several times now, that serving Arthur was what he wanted, that his lowly status didn't bother him in the slightest, Arthur just couldn't let the man who'd saved his kingdom a thousand times over to go overlooked or unrecognized a moment longer.

Unfortunately, merely finding one to fill Merlin's shoes was proving to be a bit more difficult than he had originally anticipated.

"All right, what did you think of Lionel?" Arthur ventured, propping his chin in his hands to fix Merlin with an inquiring look.

Merlin glanced up from sorting the laundry – until they'd found a suitable substitute, he was to continue his chores as normal – and scowled darkly. "I think he was absolutely insufferable."

"Oh, come on, he's not that bad," Arthur objected.

"It's like he only knew a handful of words!" Merlin countered, gesturing viciously with Arthur's shirt still clutched in his fist. "Yes, sire, no, sire, yes, my lord, no, my lord, it was awful! And he was boring!" he added, after a moment's pause. "No sense of humor at all. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure he even had a personality."

"All right, I'll give you that," Arthur conceded – though he liked to think he wouldn't have put it near so harshly as Merlin, it was sort of true. For all he knew, Lionel was physically incapable of cracking a smile. "We'll keep looking."

"At least this one's got a sense of humor," Arthur said, as optimistically as he could manage.

Merlin threw him a dark look. "His name was Thomas, and he made fun of my ears."

"Merlin, I make fun of your ears," Arthur reminded him, as though this would be any consolation.

"And he was ugly!" Merlin added savagely. "Did you see him? He looked like a toad!"

"Merlin!"

"Arthur, if you try and take him on, I will resign as your Court Sorcerer. I mean it."

"All right," The king relented – he didn't like Thomas much, either. "I'll keep looking."

"No. Absolutely not."

"What?" Arthur glanced up from the rapidly dwindling list of candidates, shoulders sagging when Merlin wordlessly jabbed a finger at the name he'd just circled. "What's wrong with Aiden? He's got a personality, and he hasn't made fun of your ears!"

"I don't trust him," Merlin said darkly.

"What? Why not?" Arthur half-rose from his seat, one hand going unconsciously to the sword at his hip – what did Merlin know about Aiden that he didn't?

"Gut feeling," Merlin replied shortly.

"Did he laugh at your ears?" Arthur's hand drifted back to rest once more at his side as he relaxed, unease vanishing as quickly as it had come.

"Arthur!"

"All right, all right. You've got to admit, though, he is brave. And pretty handy with a sword. Could come in useful."

"Then make him one of your knights and be done with it," Merlin responded, impatience edging his tone.

"Thought you didn't trust him?" Arthur raised his eyebrows.

"If he's a knight, that means he's probably too thick to plot against you."

"I'm a knight!"

"Case in point."

"Noah?"

"He likes to whistle," Merlin replied, without ever missing a beat. "You hate whistling."

"All right, fair point," Arthur conceded, pausing to cross Noah off the list before reading out the name below. "Henry?"

"No, he's boring," Merlin waved a dismissive hand. "Besides, he was down in the kitchen laughing at George's jokes last I saw him."

"Ah." Arthur crossed Henry off the list.

"Borrin? Are you serious? He's built like a tree, Arthur—no, worse than a tree, he's built like Percival! I'm not even sure he'd fit through the castle corridors!"

"But I rather liked him," Arthur protested. "Well, maybe I'll knight him, too, then. You don't need to fit down corridors to do that."

"You don't need to do much of anything to be a knight," Merlin muttered.

"Oi!"

"Jarrick?"

"Too vain. Always admiring himself in shop windows. Could take over for Gwaine."

Arthur nodded, and crossed Jarick off the list. "Frederick, then?"

"Red hair," Merlin recited in a bored tone, like it was a passage from a book he'd read a few too many times.

Arthur halted, quill poised and dripping ink all over the parchment sheet. "What's that got to do with it?"

"Suppose you take him on a patrol," Merlin leaned up in his seat a little to face his friend as he spoke. "And suppose you run into bandits, and suppose you haven't got me or any of the knights with you—

"Why would I go on patrol with just one servant?"

"—and suppose there are far too many for just the two of you to take on alone," Merlin completely ignored his question, clearly getting into his stride, "so you decide to hide from them until they pass by—

"I wouldn't hide from a bunch of barbarians!" Arthur spluttered, but Merlin still wasn't listening.

"—only they find Frederick and not you, because they caught sight of Frederick's hair." The warlock nodded slightly at the conclusion of his tale, evidently rather pleased with himself. "Red is much too noticeable, Arthur, you can't have someone with noticeable hair."

"Leon's got noticeable hair," Arthur pointed out, mostly because it was the only flaw in his friend's logic he could think to address. "Gwaine, too."

Merlin ignored him.

Arthur sighed wearily, and crossed Frederick's name off the list.

"How can you not like Erik?" Arthur demanded, fixing Merlin with a glare. "He's perfect for the job! He's got a sense of humor, but he didn't laugh at your ears, you haven't had a funny feeling about him since you met him, and he can definitely fit down the castle corridors! Oh, and he's got very unnoticeable hair!" The king beamed.

Merlin sniffed. "His nose is off-center."

Arthur's radiant smile slipped. "What?"

"His nose," Merlin repeated, in a voice like ice, "it's off-center. Very noticeable. You ought to keep looking."

"Merlin," Arthur had grown to respect the warlock a great deal in these past few months, but a line had to be drawn somewhere, "his nose is not off-center. And even if it was, do you really think I'd turn him away just for that?"

Merlin thought about it for a minute. "You should."

"His nose is fine, Merlin!" Arthur huffed. "Besides, he's a nice bloke! Guinevere likes him, too."

"Gwen likes everybody," Merlin pointed out. "No matter how off-center their nose is."

"His nose is not off-center!"

"I don't understand," Arthur grumbled to no one in particular – for certainly the knight beside him wasn't taking in a word – as he gazed moodily down into his tankard. "Merlin likes everybody! He can just—just walk down the street, and make a hundred new friends by the time he gets to the end of it! How can he dislike every candidate he's met so far? They're all decent men!"

Beside him, already deep in his third tankard, Gwaine nearly tipped off the stool before snorting and giving an impatient toss of his head. "Well, there's a surprise!"

Arthur frowned at the sardonic tone his friend had adopted. "How do you mean?"

With one tremendous gulp, the knight drained the last of the ale before slamming his empty stein down on the bar. "Merlin doesn't like any of your new servants! Isn't that hard to believe!"

Though it was Gwaine who had just quaffed the brew, it was Arthur's head that had begun to spin. "What did you say?" No, he couldn't be trying to say…no, he simply couldn't be implying…

Gwaine shot him an exasperated look. "You really don't notice much, do you, Princess?" He snatched Arthur's untouched tankard as he spoke, and took a hearty sip before leaning back on the stool with a contented sigh.

Arthur did not reply, insides coiling and writhing like a nest of angry snakes as he tentatively turned the thought over and over in his mind, reaching only one conclusion – Gwaine was wrong. He had to be.

It just didn't make any sense – well, if he let himself think about it, he supposed Merlin didn't make much sense, either, but he was not letting himself think about it, so it didn't much matter – it just didn't make any sense at all; why on earth would Merlin, the last dragonlord, the most powerful warlock to walk the earth, Emrys himself, go to such lengths to keep—what, doing Arthur's laundry? Scrubbing Arthur's floors? Mending his cloaks? Polishing his boots?

No, either Gwaine had completely misread the situation, or he was staggeringly drunk. Perhaps both. Arthur wasn't going to try and figure it out. All he knew for certain was that the knight beside him, still enthusiastically chugging what had been his ale, just had to be wrong.

Still, he couldn't help thinking about it.

It was perfectly ridiculous, of course – Merlin was not deliberately finding fault with every candidate Arthur considered simply to maintain his own position, that would just be…well, the mere notion was…it wasn't as though Arthur had sacked Merlin, not really—well, he supposed he had, in a way, but only so he could rehire him as Court Sorcerer—and it wasn't as though Merlin didn't want it, he'd said himself to see magic free in Camelot once more was everything he'd ever dreamed of—and it was mad, downright mad, for any newly-appointed noble to long once more for their lowly status, to prefer threadbare garments and endless labor to silken finery and a life of ease…right?

No, Gwaine was wrong, of course he was wrong, but this conviction didn't quite stop Arthur from watching Merlin closely from the corner of his eye when he made his announcement the next morning. "You needn't attend me tomorrow, Merlin – I've…I've found my new servant." For some reason he couldn't entirely explain, even to himself, Arthur rather thought the words tasted wrong on his tongue – he'd gotten used to seeing the warlock's buoyant grin every morning, gotten used to his friend's incessant chatter, gotten used to his upbeat yet insolent attitude…he just couldn't imagine waking up to someone different, no matter how cheerful or talkative they may be—but he was doing it for Merlin, he reminded himself, Merlin who deserved the silken finery and life of ease, who didn't and shouldn't prefer the threadbare garments and the endless labor, and it'd be selfish beyond belief for Arthur to try and force him back to them.

He couldn't help but notice, though, how Merlin stiffened, just the slightest bit, before replying in a strangely tight voice. "Oh? Well, who's the unfortunate fool?"

Arthur rolled his eyes – and tried not to dwell on how dearly he'd miss the warm, familiar banter once he'd gotten Merlin properly ennobled and they only saw each other when both their undoubtedly hectic schedules permitted – before he responded. "The one we discussed yesterday. Erik."

"The one with the off-center nose?" Judging from the tone of his voice, Merlin was thoroughly dismayed.

"His nose is not—!" Arthur caught himself, and paused a moment to regain his composure before he continued. "The one with the allegedly off-center nose, yes."

Merlin was silent for several moments, needlessly rearranging the scarlet pillows at the head of the newly-made bed, fidgeting wordlessly with the golden tassels at the edges of the beautifully embroidered cushions, before he finally spoke, in a voice that seemed even tighter and stiffer than before. "I think you should keep looking."

"What, just because his nose is off-center?" Arthur repeated incredulously – of course, Gwaine's theory lingered still in the back of his mind, buzzing about his thoughts as a particularly irksome insect, but he shoved it aside swiftly and savagely; his knight had been drunk, he hadn't really known what he was saying…

Merlin smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle in the warm woolen quilts in lieu of response.

"Merlin, I won't turn away a perfectly decent servant because you happen to be dissatisfied with him. He's not going to be your servant, so I can't imagine why it should matter to you."

"It doesn't," Merlin said at once, but there was an edge to his voice now that most definitely said otherwise. "I just…I just think you ought to keep looking for—for someone…better."

"What, someone like a warlock?" The snide, pointed words slipped out before Arthur had even so much as thought them, much less given them permission to pass his lips; he fell silent at once, teeth tearing violently into his tongue as if to make sure it had indeed formed the words.

Merlin straightened up immediately, stunned expression rapidly giving way to a fierce anger, even as the tips of his ears turned red with shame. "Well, it wasn't my idea for you to go looking for a new servant!" The last two words were said with such bitterness, Arthur suddenly couldn't think Gwaine's theory quite so ridiculous anymore.

"Well…well…" the king sputtered, in a most un-kingly fashion, for several seconds before finally finding his voice once more. "Well, it wasn't my idea for you to—to not want that!"

"I've been your servant seven years, you absolute clotpole! Why would I want to be anything else?"

"Because you're going to be a lord, you idiot!" Arthur snapped; what little patience he had left was diminishing rapidly. "I'm going to make you a noble, like you deserve, and you'll finally be able to practice your magic, like you deserve, and you're not going to have hide anything from anyone anymore, and you're going to be free and everyone is going to know what you've done for the kingdom, and it's going to be exactly what you deserve, isn't that what you want?"

"Not if I can't be with you!" Merlin seemed to think he was genuinely stating the obvious, staring at Arthur as if he suspected the king had gone mad.

A warm bright bubble of hope grew slowly in Arthur's chest, expanding steadily until he felt certain it thoroughly encompassed his heart. "You…you want to keep…?" Gwaine had been right, Gwaine had actually been right…Merlin didn't want things to change, any more than he did, and it seemed he never had.

"Of course I do," the warlock interrupted his thoughts, and he sounded so certain of himself, his words could be nothing but the absolute truth. "Why wouldn't I?"

"You could do anything you want." It wasn't often Arthur expressed his perpetual awe at Merlin's power – didn't want the idiot getting a big head, after all – but he simply couldn't help voicing his astonishment. "You could do anything you want, you could be anything you want—you shouldn't be a servant, of all things, you shouldn't…" He ground to a rough, uncertain halt – he'd never been good with words, never, and there was just no way to say the things he needed to say, to explain to Merlin that which ought to be explained…

"Arthur," Merlin did not seem to mind how he fumbled and faltered in his speech – but then, he never had, "I'm proud to be your servant. I wouldn't change a thing."

Arthur couldn't speak – merely swallowed several times in quick succession, unable to stop staring at Merlin, because this was really not how he imagined the conversation would go, and well, it was quite one thing for Merlin the foolish and clumsy and altogether far too loyal for his own good manservant to swear his allegiance in word and deed, but this new Merlin, well, Arthur had begun to feel he scarcely even knew this Merlin at all – the Merlin who could command dragons, who could take down armies, who could raze kingdoms and halt tempests and hold back the sea itself, this Merlin had felt a distant entity, someone powerful and remarkable, but also very formal, and at times, unknowable.

But this Merlin, Arthur realized, with a great rush of affection, was still his Merlin, his idiotic and cowardly and clever and courageous servant, and it seemed Arthur had been the fool this time, in thinking having magic had ever made him any different at all.

"Well…" the king managed at last, though his voice still emerged a harsh croak. "Well, that's—I mean, that's good, because…" He considered, for just a moment, falling silent, or changing the subject, steering them in a different direction – hopefully, one that involved less feelings and other such nonsense – but pushed down the urge, and pressed on. "…because I don't think I would like to change it, either."

Arthur couldn't help the grin that spread over his own face as he watched Merlin's brows rise, corners of his mouth lifting, dimples appearing, eyes brightening, until a positively radiant smile adorned his lips, expression one of such unbridled joy it could only be described as a beam.

And then quite suddenly, Merlin bounded across the room, closing the distance between them in three, perhaps four strides, grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him into what he reckoned was the tightest hug he had ever received. He froze a moment, uncomfortable in his new position as long arms wrapped round him, and a narrow chin came to rest upon his shoulder, before he reluctantly relaxed into the embrace, giving Merlin a few hesitant, clumsy pats on the back. "Stop being such a girl, Merlin," he grumbled, rather halfheartedly (and dearly hoped the warlock wouldn't notice that he made no moves to pull away). "It's only because I couldn't find anyone better,that's what this is."

Merlin chuckled softly in his ear before finally stepping back, bright grin dimming into a warm, fond smile and regarding Arthur contentedly for several moments before this expression, too, slipped from his face, and he said, almost guiltily, "Erik's nose wasn't really off-center."

"I know."

notes: so this one was pretty silly, not to mention shamelessly self-indulgent, but i hope you guys liked it anyways! i'm not too pleased with how the last few scenes played out but i'm just really happy i got it done tbh.