There can be no place for our love in Camelot [MERTHUR]

The return of Merlin

Hello everyone, this will be short I promise(: Thank you all for your contuined support, votes and comments it really does mean a lot to me and I appreciate all of it. I've dedicated this chapter to the brilliant PineappleAttack!

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From the outside of the Pendragon family everything seemed fine but that's just how Uther wanted it to seem. In reality, the family was falling apart and about to self-destruct. Arthur and Uther tried to avoid each other at all costs but somehow they always ended up getting into both verbal and physical fights nearly every day. The young prince was also spiralling into depression without Merlin and none of his friends could seem to cheer him up. A couple of days after Merlin left the prince, Gwaine had spent the entire day following him around, telling him jokes and funny stories but Arthur had barely smiled, let alone laugh. His friends weren't going to give up on him but some days things seemed pretty bad inside the walls of the Camelot castle.

On a bright, sunny Thursday, around a week after the break-up, Arthur swaggered into the training yard and saw his new man-servant, Kevin, fumbling around with the sword stand. The prince sighed and face palmed as he watched Kevin drop his favourite sword on the ground. The man-servant quickly fell to the ground and tried to pick up the sword while holding four other swords, inevitably failing. Arthur couldn't help but compare Kevin to Merlin in his mind and it was obvious who came up on top.

Arthur was still stood in the archway of the training yard when he had enough, "Kevin! What are you doing with my best sword?" The prince startled the man-servant and he dropped all the remaining swords in his arms.

"Uh... my lord. I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry... I was just trying to fix up the sword stand but it kind of failed" Kevin nervously confessed, staring at the mess on the ground next to him.

"Do you act like such an idiot on purpose or are you just naturally this stupid" Arthur commented rudely as he stared at the miserable man-servant. Kevin didn't reply as he carefully grabbed a few of the swords off the ground and shuffled around to place them on one of the shelves. The young Pendragon sighed, as much as he didn't like the guy he kind of felt sorry for him. Arthur walked over to Kevin and helped him pick up the rest of the swords and arrange them neatly on the sword stand.

"Thank you sire" Kevin smiled as they stood back and admired their work.

"Yes.... well someone had to help you" Arthur answered, hiding his actual pride from the man-servant. "Prepare my armour for me and I'll be back in half an hour to start training" The prince ordered as he turned to walk away.

"ARTHUR! ARTHUR!" Gwaine called as he came running around the corner, nearly slipping over on the way, and into the training yard.

Arthur secretly smiled at Gwaine's usual strange behaviour, "What is it Sir Gwaine?"

"I HAVE BRILLIANT NEWS!" Gwaine huffed, bringing his hand up to his chest as he nearly coughed up a lung.

"Just calm down or you're going to have a heart attack." The Pendragon warned, genuinely concerned for the knight in front of him but then again he was always concerned about Gwaine. As the knight caught his breath Arthur looked back to see if Kevin was still standing behind them but he had in fact already left the courtyard.

"My lord, Merlin is back in Camelot! He's only back for the day to pick up the rest of his stuff from Gaius' house but after seeing you being such a sook over the last week I figured... well... you could go see him" Gwaine announced, raising his brows suggestively. Arthur was going to scold Gwaine for calling him a sook but Merlin was back and he couldn't focus on anything else.