A/N: I haven't written anything for a while, but this little idea took shape while I was watching some Merlin with my niece the other day. It's not much ... but I can't help but think this would have been good for both of them ...

It was the kind of morning that always gave Gwaine a pause of nostalgia for his roving life—crisp without being cold, damp without being wet, shivering with a deep silence to which the birdsong and the rustling of breeze-tossed limbs only seemed to add. The first crackle of the morning cookfire sounded behind him, a hum of satisfaction from Merlin, and then his friend thumped onto the edge of the little cliff beside him, folding his gangly limbs beneath him and holding out a cup of water. Gwaine took it with a nod of thanks. It was a bit of a walk to the little stream from their campsite, but worth it for water that didn't taste of heat and stale leather.

"Just in time," he murmured. The edges of the hills off to the east glowed a fiery gold, the few wisps of clouds painted pink and orange.

Merlin stretched, took a drink from his own cup, then leaned back on his elbows. "I hope Gaius never finds a source of sticky black nettle any closer to home. I love this spot."

Gwaine nodded. It was a trip Merlin took two or three times a year, and Gwaine could see now why his friend didn't put up more than a token objection. Normally Merlin needed no escort, but reports of bizarre magical creatures had been numerous of late and Arthur had made it a general rule than anyone traveling more than an hour or two from the city should go accompanied. Mostly this meant a guardsman rather than a knight, it was true … but when had Merlin ever done anything as expected?

Anyway, Gwaine was glad to be asked along. He'd been restless lately, lonely even in a crowd—it happened sometimes, and although coming to Camelot had changed the kind of loneliness it hadn't decreased the fact of it—but there was something about Merlin that took the edge off. He had other friends now, sure. Comrades in arms with whom he spent far more time than Arthur's manservant. Merlin, though, had been his friend before the mail and cloak and Round Table, before Sir Gwaine … and there was something to be said for that.

"We lived by an orchard after my father died." Gwaine swirled the water in the cup. "My ma used to make us hot apple cider sometimes and send us out to watch the sunrise, if it was a fine morning. Still can't see one without thinking about that."

Merlin was silent. Gwaine took another drink. The first blinding glimpse of the sun itself appeared on the rim of a far peak. Merlin took a long breath, and muttered something Gwaine couldn't quite catch. Gwaine almost dropped his cup when it warmed and the spicy, tangy scent of hot cider drifted up to him.

What?

He turned an incredulous stare on Merlin, who wasn't looking at him at all.

"I have magic."

The soft, terse words were … anticlimactic, really.

Magic.

In Camelot.

In the palace.

Under Uther's nose.

With Arthur every single day.

"You really are the craziest, most reckless bastard of us all, aren't you?"

And then he was laughing, because for the love of Camelot, Merlin had them all beat for sheer stupid insanity, and this was the best joke he'd heard in ages. Merlin's lips twitched, and suddenly he was laughing too, gasping for breath, sagging against Gwaine and Gwaine against him until they were both too exhausted to do more than chuckle out across the expanses between them and the sun-sharpened hills. Gwaine flopped onto his back, and managed a sip of his cider without spilling it all over himself (it was good, and he wondered how Merlin was with magic ale), and felt a warmth that had nothing whatsoever to do with the drink.

Because … this was trust, it was, and that wasn't a gift he'd been too often given.

He had a thousand questions, but this wasn't the time for any of them.

Well, for most of them.

"Why are you telling me this now?"

Merlin shrugged, and sighed, and there was something bleak in the sound that Gwaine recognized from his own recent ponderings.

"Not many people know about … this, but I always had somebody that was … just a friend. Not a mentor, or a mother, or a kingdom full of druids expecting things from me that I don't know how to give." Huh. That was a story that needed telling. "My friend Will knew, growing up, but he's dead now. And … and Lancelot, but he's dead too." Lancelot? Another story for later, but it surely explained a few things about Merlin's state of mind after the whole Dorocha incident. Actually, this entire conversation explained more than a few things. Merlin rubbed at his eyes. "And I … I miss that. I need that. I didn't realize how much until it was gone, but … it's lonely, what I do. What I am. And, Gaius would do anything for me," (ha, of course Gaius, no surprise there), "but to have a friend who knows, and still wants to be my friend … it just … it helps a little. Takes the edge off."

Merlin's words were steady, but there was a question in his tone and quick glance that Gwaine understood all too well.

Trust, indeed. This was more than he'd ever been given.

More than he deserved.

And no way was he messing this up.

"My friend … you honor me greatly." The situation felt formal, somehow, though nothing Merlin said had made it so. Gwaine sat up, and swirled the liquid in his cup, and returned his gaze out across the newly sunlit plains. "Though a time comes when half the world knows of your magic and secrecy is no longer required, still no one will learn of this from my lips without your leave."

A nearly inaudible sigh, and the smile was back in Merlin's voice. "Thanks, Gwaine."

Gwaine drained the cooling cider and cast a faint grin at Merlin, relaxed in the grass beside him.

"Thank you, Merlin."