Sweetness

18

Arthur welcomed Lord Gerrod and young Tennysen warmly, as Uther had wanted. Then the three adjourned to the banquet hall to talk about alliances, while Merlin was ordered to cater to the little lord's every whim.

In truth, his work over the last few days had not only been in the kitchens, seeing as there were many hours of the day when the royal family wasn't eating, he was asked to do a hodge podge of other tasks. Most of which, he discovered, happened to need tending to far away from wherever Arthur happened to be at that moment.

He truly felt the heat of Uther's gaze.

Merlin knew

Even if he had tried to prepare some sort of meeting with Arthur, it would have been very difficult. Granted  he was used to dealing with difficult. It felt like all of Camelot was watching the two of them.

Whenever he happened to cross paths with the prince, he felt himself go tense, what if someone had been watching? Could he handle being cast out again? Or worse?

Arthur and he had not spoken in five days.
He hated himself for allowing this whole mess to happen. Or perhaps he hated that he allowed himself to feel this way about the only human being who wasn't allowed to feel it back.

Giaus seemed to be happy when he returned. Neither spoke of the current situation, but he could feel the physician's amazed doubtfulness.

Now, he was plagued with the task of amusing a snotty thirteen year old, who wanted to see every inch of the castle.

Merlin showed him the library first in the hopes that it would hold his attention for a while.

It didn't.

So if the kid isn't a scholar among other things, that must mean he's a complete idiot.

He decided to take him to the only place where all of Camelot's dumbest folk liked to congregate.

The armory.

Sure enough, Tennysen just had to try on all of the helmets and test all of the swords. He gleefully went from one to another, pretending to know something about the metals they were made out of.
After what had to be hours, it got dark and Merlin showed him to his room.

He drew the young lord a bath, and prepared his night clothes.

"If you need anything, your father is in the next room or there's a guard down the hall." Merlin nodded to himself and quickly left.

He returned to his own room for a quick bath, the kitchen for some supplies, and then he quietly left the castle.

In order to avoid the newly stationed guards, Merlin had to walk a half hour out his way and jump a low wall. He finally passed the castle gates, he walked a little further with his basket in hand until he reached the apple orchard near the pond.

He scoped out a nice patch of grass under a tree and laid out the food he brought.
The sky was getting darker, but one could still make out the details of the area surrounding when trying.
Luckily, he had brought a lantern.

Merlin started to munch on a slice of bread when he heard a stick crack.

Someone was approaching.

Arthur wandered out into the clearing.
Or at least it looked like Arthur.

"Oh, you meant this orchard. I thought you were speaking of the other." Arthur said with his usual arrogance.

"There's only one near Camelot."

"That's the joke, idiot."
Arthur walked up to him, a little closer than expected, shoving him up against the tree, and kissed him.

"Now, what have you brought me."