#so little is known about will and gwaine that you technically cant even say im wrong

[fishoutofcamelot]

Will 🤝 Gwaine

Hating nobility because their father died fighting for a king who wouldn’t help their family

Loving Merlin

Shenanigans (especially with Merlin)

Think Merlin is too good for Arthur

Reluctantly end up fighting with Arthur, ending up getting injured

I don’t know what it all means, but I’ve been thinking about this for days. Where are my fics where people wonder why Merlin gets along so well with Gwaine until Will comes to visit? Where are my fics where Hunith meets Gwaine and goes “oh my god I can’t believe you found another one”? Where are my fics where Will, Gwaine, and Merlin team up to make fun of Arthur or pull pranks or complain about Uther? Or Will and Gwaine egging Merlin on to use his magic for silly/bizarre/should-be-impossible things? Damn if fandom doesn’t make you want more content of two characters who never met, or were even in the same season.

My first instinct is to say that Merlin just has his oddly specific type down on lock, but please consider the following instead:

So Will died, right? But like. He’s in love with Merlin and doesn’t want to leave the bae behind, and also the idea of dying for Arthur Pendragon makes him want to vomit, so he strikes up a deal with a dubious magical spirit to bring him back.

Technically he’s not coming back to life. He’s still dead. The definitely-evil spirit - for the sake of simplicity, we’ll call him Carl - didn’t resurrect him in the traditional sense. Will’s soul is still dead, but now it’s inhabiting an empty human puppet that Carl created. Hence why Will now has fancy hair and a smooth voice and a beard. 

And, since Carl is a bastard and knows that Will is agreeing to this so he can reunited with his lover, he comes up with this Fun Little CatchTM: the moment Merlin finds out his true identity, the resurrection magic will finalize and he’ll be brought back 100% - but since magic operates on equivalent exchange, Merlin’s soul will be given up as payment. Essentially, Merlin can never know his real identity. If anyone tells him, if he even finds out all on his own, then Carl will have total ownership of Merlin’s soul.

(Naturally, this has all been a needlessly convoluted long con on Carl’s part to try and get his grubby little hands on the soul of Emrys. But Will doesn’t know this yet)

But wait, that’s not the full extent of Carl’s bastard-ness! Without telling Will, he steals all of Will’s memories of Merlin upon putting his soul inside the meat puppet. So he knows the basic gist of his life, and he knows all the rules and conditions of his and Carl’s deal, but he can’t remember Merlin. The very person he started all this for. 

He knows that his loved one is out there somewhere, possibly in danger, and he sold his soul to a probably-nefarious higher power in order to track down said loved one and keep them safe - but he recalls nothing about them. There are a lot of details about his past life that he struggles to remember, actually, besides just the basics. 

From the fragmented, vague recollections of his memories he pieces together a new identity for himself. He calls himself Gwaine, says his father was a knight who died for an ungrateful king, and engages in all sorts of shenanigans. 

He wanders Albion in search of this lover he can no longer remember, and maybe the reason why he joins that barfight is because the sight of Merlin (and to a lesser extent, Arthur) jolts a strange sense of familiarity inside him. Desperate for any connection to his past life and possibly his missing lover, Gwaine throws himself into the fray.

The longer Gwaine spends with Merlin, the more memories of his past life begin to resurface. After a while he can remember that he used to be named Will, and that he used to live in Ealdor, and that he and Merlin grew up together, and that he died to save Arthur. Merlin is the missing lover he’s been searching for all this time, the lover he sold his soul to reunite with and protect. The lover whose soul Carl will steal if they ever find out Gwaine’s real identity.

So Gwaine can’t tell Merlin. Even though he remembers who he is, remembers all the times they shared together, remembers how deeply he loved Merlin...he can’t say a word. He hasn’t told Merlin that he knows about his magic, simply because he only know about that because he used to be Will and he’s understandably very nervous about anything that has to do with his true identity.

Sometimes, Merlin will talk about his childhood friend Will. He’ll have wet eyes and a tremble in his voice and the saddest smile Gwaine has ever seen, as he reminisces on one of the best friends he’s ever had. In the worst possible way, Gwaine finds out how Merlin felt about him, how deeply Merlin loved him.  (And maybe Gwaine confesses his love to Merlin, but Merlin turns him down saying that he’s still in love with his dead childhood friend, and Gwaine just screams because dammit Merlin I AM your dead childhood friend). 

Gwaine sits and listens quietly as Merlin tearfully tells stories that Gwaine already knows, because he was there when they happened, and he longs to comfort Merlin. To tell him that it’s okay, Will isn’t gone, he’s right here, I’m right here Merlin. But he can’t. 

Merlin misses Will. Gwaine would give anything to tell him that Will misses him too. 

Thanks for the ask! <3