Merthur One-shots

Insomnia

Summary: Merlin, once more, couldn't sleep.

Merlin wanders around the castle, surprised where he ends up, but overall pleased with the result.

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Merlin, once more, couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t that he was being called on by the Great Dragon, or any other magical being for that matter, or that he had to keep scurrying around to finish some chores, he had somehow managed to finish all of the tedious tasks Prince Arthur had given him exceptionally early. Merlin knew that he was tired, he just couldn't sleep. Simple as that.

Merlin thought about getting a sleeping draught from Gaius, but he wasn’t sure if there were any in store. He got up from his bed, anyway. The sheets were tangled from him tossing and turning so much to try and find a comfortable enough position to lull himself to sleep.

With bleary eyes, Merlin quietly crept into the main room, careful not to wake Gaius. He looked through a few cupboards, ultimately surprised that he hadn’t dropped anything, until he got to the last cupboard. He had found a sleeping drought, but in classic Merlin fashion, he accidentally knocked it to the floor with a crash made louder by the surrounding silence. He cringed and immediately dropped to the ground to hide himself and clean the mess, and looked over to see Gaius had only barely stirred.

He let out a breath he had been holding and finished cleaning the mess with a quick flash of his eyes and wave of his hand. Merlin decided he’ll gather extra herbs to make up for the wasted drought when he had the free time. For now, Merlin had to figure out a way to get to sleep.

Merlin was fairly certain a spell wouldn’t work, and he wasn’t going to brew anything now, he was already on thin enough ice trying not to wake Gaius. Maybe he could go for a walk. It would be easy enough to avoid the guards at this point, and he could go out and gather those herbs now.

Except, when Merlin walked out of the physician’s tower, he realised he had forgotten both his coat and his herb bag. For some inane reason, instead of simply going back, Merlin just sighed and kept walking through the castle. In his sleeping clothes.

No real destination in mind, Merlin walked around and evaded guards with ease. Really, Uther prided himself on having the best security in all of Albion, but if some klutz of a manservant could get past the guards so easily, he should probably think about getting better security measures.

After maybe an hour or so of aimless wandering, Merlin somehow found himself outside the doors to Arthur’s chambers. He had no clue how he got here, or why. He knew he was doing his best to avoid going down to the dungeons, because he really didn’t want to talk to the Dragon. That would make him even less tired.

But here he was, now, in the empty corridor standing in front of Arthur’s closed doors. Wait, there was no one else around but him. Where were the guards? Surely there were supposed to be guards outside his doors, so where did they go?

Then he heard a sound coming from within the room.

Thinking the worst, Merlin quickly opened the door as quietly as he could, only to find Arthur standing by his wardrobe. They stared at each other for a second, Merlin quickly looked around the rest of the room for any sign of invaders before looking back at the very much awake and alive prince.

The moonlight made his bed-mussed hair look silver, and soft shadows defined his shape. He was only wearing a pair of loose hanging sleeping trousers. Merlin tried not to think too much about that, despite the flush on his cheeks.