runaway_smith | Merlin/Headache

The day after Gwaine takes to his bed, Elyan wakes up with a sore throat.

He thinks nothing of it, puts it down to the dregs of the wine, and goes about his day. Gwaine looks better, which is a good thing because Arthur has them running around like headless chickens. Training, Council, more training, and then, oh look, more training. Arthur's determined that the Mercians won't show them up and he's worried that Gwaine won't be well in time. Elyan brings Gwaine dinner, then catches an early night.

The next day, he has a sniffle and suspects he might have caught Gwaine's cold. But he barely has time to breathe, running straight from morning training to lead a patrol to the northern border to deal with a band of smugglers. It's a brief scuffle and they barely have a bruise between them when they ride back in time to catch Arthur's evening training.

Exhausted, Elyan falls into bed with a groan, his muscles aching and his head pounding.

Dawn comes and Elyan feels like he's been flattened by masonry. He shifts weakly against the pillow, his head like lead, as he coughs against the pain in his chest.

Elyan has 'flu.

Through no fault of his own, Gwaine is given the job of going to find Elyan when he fails to turn up to training at dawn. If he'd given a snide remark to the king along the lines of nobody wanting to be there, then he'd only been speaking in the best interests of the rest of the knights.

"Elyan!" He hammers on the door. "You're in trouble with the king and it's not even full light outside, yet."

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