"Are you sure you're alright, mate?"

"I'm fine, Gwaine."

"It's just that you have, well, stuff sticking to you." Gwaine nodded quickly at the glare Merlin cast in his direction, backing away with his hands held in front of his chest. "Sorry. Never mind." He turned back toward his horse with a badly concealed grin.

Merlin turned back to his own horse and just rested his head against the saddle, sighing. One day, there would be a proper explanation for why he was the one fate had chosen to protect Arthur. Why he had this grand destiny. Merlin remembered reading something in one of Geoffrey's tomes, "Glorious Destinies get you Glorious Funerals."* Merlin wasn't too keen on that idea, even if he was sure his destiny was an appointment with the chopping block if Uther ever came to his senses and found out about Merlin's magic. Merlin was pretty sure Arthur would be more likely to just exile him. He hoped, anyway.

"Merlin, you look like hell. What did you do while we were fighting? Hide in the bog?" The dulcet tones of his master filled his ears and he lifted his head and cast the same glare that kept Gwaine at bay in Arthur's direction, hoping it would work on the dollophead. No such luck, of course, which was just the way his luck had been going that day. "You look disgusting. I'd say you should bathe a bit before you get back on your horse, but I rather think you'll just fall in and drown."

At the moment, that didn't sound like such a bad idea. At least it would mean a proper sleep for once. No sneaking out of the city in the middle of the night to find a rogue sorcerer who wanted nothing more than the Pendragon heads on pikes. No more battles where he dropped poor, defenseless tree limbs on idiot bandits who were stupid enough to tangle with Camelot knights while Merlin pretended to be helpless and hid behind tree trunks. No more shifting rocks under the feet of people attacking the prince so he would be able to gut them when they bobbled. No more following the sorcerers who decided to make mad dashes to get away into bog-infested ground and nearly drowning in the smell of unwashed feet.

Yes, sleep sounded pretty good right now. So did punching the face of the prince standing next to him. One of these days Arthur was going to find out about Merlin's magic because he made one too many cutting remarks on a day Merlin just wasn't up to sparring with him. Granted, usually Merlin enjoyed their verbal battles but not on days where he had gotten little to no sleep because he was, yet again, doing most of the camp chores, then had to save the Royal Ass from a magically directed crossbow bolt, then fell into a bog trying to get the sorcerer who had shot the bolt and nearly drowned himself in the stinky process. On days like this, Merlin found himself wishing he had never dropped the chandelier on Mary Collins' head.

"Merlin?" Arthur put his hand on Merlin's shoulder. "What happened to your inane grin? You haven't even spoken for the last five minutes. Did you actually get hurt out there?"

And then Arthur had to go and do that. He had to suddenly care about Merlin's well-being. Merlin was happily starting to sulk and was going to do it complete justice. He sighed. Damn Arthur for not letting him have that sulk by being kind. It wasn't that it didn't happen often. The prince actually was a kind man in his own way. It just seemed to happen right when Merlin didn't want it to. Merlin's shoulders slumped and he turned back to the prince. "I'm fine, Arthur. Just tired."

"Yes, well, you look like hell. Seriously." He moved a bit closer to his best friend and manservant as he quietly spoke. "When we get home, you can take the rest of the day off. Just sleep."

Merlin smiled, a pale imitation of his usual grin, but he did manage a real smile, not one conjured up from the depths to make Arthur feel better. "Thanks. I'll hold you to that, you know."

Arthur smiled back briefly before the smile turned into his normal smirk. "That doesn't mean you're out of the woods yet, you know. We still have half a day's ride before we get home." He started to walk away and turned back, "Seriously, Merlin, why don't you wash up a bit. You smell a bit like Gwaine's feet right now."

"Better than yours, then. Remember who washes your socks." Merlin pulled up the quip out of the scant reserve of energy he had. He was going to be able to just fall in bed and sleep for a full night for once. That was almost worth being pulled out of a sulk by the man who managed to be the source of most of them. Besides, it was worth it just to see the real smile on Arthur's face and the worry leave his brow. Merlin knew it was pitiful, but he really did want to make Arthur happy, especially now with the additional stress of the regency. If throwing snarky remarks at the prince was what it took to do so, then Merlin would continue to push himself to the breaking point. He just hoped that if he ever did break, none of his friends were around to see it because he wasn't sure they wouldn't be frightened by the sheer power he could wield and he simply didn't want to lose them that way.

Hmm. I'm an idiot. I intended when I published this originally to cite my sources, but I didn't. Bad writer! Bad!

* this line comes from Winds of Fury, by Mercedes Lackey. I'm sure the boys would have had fun in Valdemar and Uther would have hated it. Arthur would have had a heart attack the first time a Companion spoke to him, though. Gwaine probably just would have been Chosen by a Companion as addicted to apples as him.