Sir Gwaineinevery episode-The Sword in the Stone (Part One) [0412]
↳ “Is that all you have? I was promised a decent fight. You’re a very angry man, I can see that. It must be hard… being so ugly. Children crying, women screaming. Come on.”
[ID: Sketch in dark red on grey of Gwaine and Lancelot in modern clothes,both wearing t-shirts and sunglasses. They’re sitting at a bar, each holding a small glass and with a bottle in a cooler in front of them, and a coconut with two straws also on the table. Their hands are raised as if to toast and they’re smiling at each other. End ID]
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Modern Gwaincelot drinking together in the sun. Or, maybe pre-Gwaincelot, as Gwaince has probably just rocked up to start flirting with Lance, and Lance is far from opposed to this.
“It likes to eat people, remember? Hey, lindworm! Got a nice feast for you here!” Gwaine patted himself and turned in a circle. No giant serpent came out to attack them.
But then a scream rent the air, and they all whirled in the direction it had come from—the village. They burst into a run and arrived to find the lindworm slithering around the huts, hissing and snapping at the closed doors behind which its prey were hiding. The knights drew their swords and charged.
The lindworm whipped its attention to them and went diving the opposite direction. It crashed through a paddock fence, sending goats scattering in fright. Merlin raised his hand and uttered a spell. The magical attack hit the serpent and made it jerk. It turned and spat at him in response.
Gwaine and Elyan barreled into the paddock after it, swinging their blades at its lower half. It twisted around and snapped its fangs at them, but they ducked and darted around, steel still flying. Then the serpent snapped its tail like a whip and hit Elyan in the chest, which sent him flying through the air into the goats. Leon raised a crossbow and fired, but the bolt ricocheted off its scales.
Gwaine leaped forward in that split second of distraction and stabbed his blade into its third quadrant, managing to pierce its armored side. The lindworm screeched and whipped its head around at him. Merlin prepared to cast another spell before it could strike, but the serpent didn’t lunge with its fangs. Instead it belched out a plume of noxious green fumes that engulfed Gwaine whole. He staggered back out of the cloud, coughing, and after three steps collapsed.
“I love Guinevere,” Arthur said after a moment of pondering, taking a swig of wine he rather shouldn’t be taking, given how he was already baring his heart to Gwaine, of all people. “She is my chosen one, the one I want to rule alongside me, the Queen of Camelot. Merlin is… a part of me. Like my own extension. I don’t think about him being there, I assume that he will be - and if he’s not, I miss him like a limb, or an organ.”
Gwaine snapped his fingers as if having an amazing idea. “He’s your brain, princess!”
Arthur’s face contorted in rage, but when he aimed a punch at his most loud-mouthed knight, he missed and slumped to the side. “’S treason, Sir Gawaine.”
Gwaine just laughed and settled back more comfortably.
After another moment of silence, he sighed. “Do you never worry you’d have to choose, someday?”
That had Arthur’s face darken into a bitter grimace, and suddenly, their silence felt smothering.
“I already did, didn’t I?” An inquiring sound from Gwaine had him elaborating. “On one of my dates with Guinevere, I once told her I’d take Merlin with me if I’d ever leave Camelot. We’d become farmers, I said, and I’d have him do all the work.” Arthur smiled fondly, before searching Gwaine’s eyes with his own hazy, blue ones. “Merlin’s place is always at my side. There’s no role, no title, no name for it; but he’s there.”
Then, the smile dropped from his face. “Or at least in my mind.” Feeling drained, Arthur stared into the fire. “We have to find him. I can’t return home without him.”
“No,” Gwaine agreed, throwing back the last wine in his waterskin. “And we won’t.”
![Merlin, don’t….[<< Pining]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/7b8900438d467ed035a48ffa28e9fe67/00733536185406de-1a/s1280x1920/38b58ffb1b0898b32e5c49d8ab8e26ba792ba6e1.jpg "Merlin, don’t….[<< Pining]")
![Merlin, don’t….[<< Pining]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/a59a8a85f64c2dc7a0fcb6e9e2e2167d/00733536185406de-10/s1280x1920/0f4b8733ca8e25eb3c78a57deefe43e6a94be057.jpg "Merlin, don’t….[<< Pining]")
