Knight Gauvin now felt that inviting West to the tavern was the best decision he had ever made in his life.

Originally, after the Battle of Barton Hill half a year ago, he learned from Arthur that the young man was seriously injured and fell off the cliff and his life and death were uncertain, and it was a pity for a while. Although his communication with West on weekdays only ends at meeting, flirting, being beaten, stopping for a few minutes, and then flirting and being beaten by Merlin, in a fixed cycle of death. If you really want to talk about it, it is naturally impossible to be sadder than the little manservant and the old doctor. But it is rare to meet such a person with his appetite, Gao Wen still feels a little regretful...... And because of this, when they picked up West from the forest again, he really wanted to take the initiative to express his joy - such as actually inviting him to the tavern to relax, instead of making up a random reason to trick someone in and pay for him or something, as he did before.

I probably can understand the indescribable mood of the knight. Although he felt that Gao Wen's hellish temperament was actually going to see his own jokes, West thought about it and agreed very happily. And the moment he stepped into the tavern, he was forcibly pulled away from Merlin's side, pressed to the wine table, and forced two large glasses of mead before he gave up.

"To our brave boys."

He raised his glass and raised it in the direction of West. Gao Wen looked around at the Knights of the Round Table and laughed loudly.

"To our brave boys! To Camelot!! ”

They all echoed loudly. At this point, whether they knew West or not, whether they had a friendship with him or not, the knights all laughed and raised their glasses. For them, perhaps this is just a toast that is commonly used at the wine table, and a different form of toast...... As long as they could drink wine, they could even salute the whole of Britain.

"So, you don't have to take this kind of thing to heart."

He took a sip of the mead in his cup. Merlin raised his eyelids and looked directly at the indescribably complex expression on the face of the young man opposite, and his tone was so calm that it was outrageous:

"They also saluted Leon's stubble, Gaius's medicine box, and my saliva pocket...... After all, it's a group of guys with brains that aren't as developed as their limbs, and if you see a lot, you can't help but wonder why Camelot hasn't fallen into the hands of Mojana yet......"

"Hey, it's not fair for you to say that, little man."

He took two more glasses of mead from the bartender and stuffed them into the bewildered West's hands. Gao Wen, who had just walked back to them, shrugged his shoulders and jokingly gestured his fist at Merlin:

"A skinny chick like yours can't withstand a few punches from me...... At the very least, those girls prefer our muscles to your sleek ribs. ”

"Who said that! I've received a love letter from a girl, okay? His face turned red to the root of his ears, and the black-haired mage secretly glanced at the young man next to him who was choked by this sentence, and tried to save face for himself: "Just a few days ago, I found it in Arthur's lunch, which was pressed under the roast chicken, and there was a freshly picked camellia!" ”

“……”

Merlin, do you seriously think that a normal girl would hide love letters in that kind of place?

Almost biting his tongue, West hurriedly took a sip of wine from his glass, hoping to hide the corners of his mouth that could not help but twist.

And this is far from the most stunning-

"Ah, do you mean the note that Sir Dagnit asked me to help deliver?"

Originally, Gao Wen brought up this topic to provoke Merlin, but when he really said it, he was surprisingly calm. The manservant, who squinted his eyes and froze in place, thought that he would hear something rare and broke the news, and yawned lightly, and suddenly lost interest:

"I didn't find you that day, so I put it somewhere you could see it...... Oh don't be discouraged by this, Merlin, there are many people in the Order who have this hobby, and Sir Dagnit is the most temperate and discerning of them all—to be fancy to him is a sign that you are quite attractive. ”

"......" Merlin was loveless, and closed his eyes.

"Oh sure, Serena Williams is actually very popular in this regard. As you passed by the training ground that day, Aleeth and Bedwell saw that you had dropped their swords. ”

After a pause, as if he had remembered something funny, Gao Wen winked at the brown-haired young man slyly, and mysteriously leaned into his ear:

"I'm telling you this for my friend's sake. If you want to pick a boyfriend, Xiaobei is actually more innocent and single-minded. Still, if you want your other half to have good, well, skill, I've heard that Adair seems to be more experienced...... Or, Williams, do you prefer three people together? ”

…… Play threesome?

"Poof—"

Stunned by Gao Wen's wild state of thought, West squirted a mouthful of wine into the knight's face.

……

So, at the end of the day, the boy and the mage, who were deeply stimulated, were silent, and sat in the corner and drank for most of the night.

Because of his own good drinking, he has developed the habit of drinking alcohol all year round and never getting drunk for three minutes, and the degree of the mead itself is not very high, West actually doesn't feel much discomfort. It's Merlin, I don't know why he rarely drinks alcohol, but after three glasses of mead, he is already drunk...... I didn't expect this guy to drink so badly that he couldn't wake up his companion The young man shook his head helplessly, and began to be a little worried, how to get the delirious mage back.

But fortunately, it wasn't long before Gaius, who couldn't wait for Merlin and West at home, came to the tavern to find someone and successfully helped solve the problem.

"How did he get drunk like this?"

With great effort, he and West carried the dazed mage back to the hut. The old doctor thumped his waist, glanced at the young man who was also rubbing his shoulders with a bitter face not far away, sighed helplessly, grabbed the medicine box and began to dispense sobering medicine for Merlin.

"Probably...... I have a little doubt about the meaning of my life recently. ”

The corners of his mouth twitched, and he sat at the table and kept stuffing oranges into his mouth to suppress the smell of alcohol all over his body. Naturally, it was impossible for West to tell Gaius the truth—otherwise Gauvin and the knight who dared to strike Merlin's attention would have died in a matter of minutes under the poison of the court physician—so he could only choose this explanation that was closest to the truth.

"It's a young man."

Although I still didn't understand, I didn't continue to ask. Gaius muttered dissatisfied, threw the potion into the boy's arms, and waved his hand for West to take the mage back to their room to rest.

- To be honest, Merlin's wine is pretty good, although he doesn't drink much...... At the very least, he still hasn't done anything like throwing someone close to him out with magic, or rushing out the door and shouting "I'm a magician" to everyone he meets.

Helping the mage to find his way to the position of the bed and sit down, he didn't care who it was. West stood beside the bed, pulled out the lid of the glass bottle in his hand, and handed it to Merlin accurately: "Drink it." ”

"Oh." Obediently answered, and the mage took the potion with hazy eyes. Although some of it spilled on the placket of his shirt due to hand tremors in the middle, he finally poured most of it down.

"Whoa." Obediently put the bottle back into West's hand. Probably because the bitter taste of the potion he had just drunk was still in his mouth, Merlin blinked, reached out and gently pulled the corner of the young man's clothes, and his tone was full of obvious grievances: "Xiao Wei......"

"What's wrong?" I just wanted to put the glass bottle back on the table, but I had to give up because I was pulled by the corner of my clothes. West reluctantly turned around, took two steps forward with Merlin's strength, and groped his shoulder: "Merlin? What do you want? ”

"I want you."

The answer was crisp and without hesitation. The black-haired mage moved his legs, trying to stand up in this position, but his center of gravity was unstable because he was pulling West too close, and he staggered to the small bed behind him, and his grip on the young man still did not let go.

"Merlin!"

Caught off guard, he fell on the bed with the drunk. Fearing that his weight would weigh on Merlin, West had to turn sideways in mid-air to avoid the mage, only to accidentally hit the hard bed board with his arm. The pain made him tremble, and when he came back to his senses, he had already been taken advantage of the opportunity by Merlin to clasp his waist and take him into his arms, so that each other's bodies were close together, and there was no more gap.

"Merlin?"

There was a momentary stiffness in the back. Because of the height difference, his forehead was just right against the mage's jaw, and as long as he raised his head slightly, he could touch the lips that were as soft as flower petals...... Feel the warm breath blowing on your skin, with a light scent of mead spreading from the center of your eyebrows to the corners of your mouth. West took a deep breath and couldn't help but shiver in the endless darkness.

Feel the warm breath blowing on your skin, with a light scent of mead spreading from the center of your eyebrows to the corners of your mouth. West took a deep breath and couldn't help but shiver in the endless darkness.

- He never seemed to feel the existence of the zài so clearly.

I don't know if the smell of alcohol escaping from the air played a role, the boy thought groggily, and his chest was suffocated as if he was deprived of oxygen. In those years that have been long enough for a person, in addition to the attachment that has long been engraved in his bones, he will rarely take the initiative to seek anything other than himself. More often than not, he walked alone through every sunrise and moonset, through every cycle of the seasons, like a hermit with a lantern in his hand, more like a self-exile of change of direction than the search for eternal silence in solitude.

He never seemed to have lived for himself in his life so far. Charles's ideals, X-Men's goals, Elijah's hatred, Adelaide's remembrance...... These marks of others were imprinted in every corner of West's will, like maggots attached to the bones, urging him to stumble forward, gray along the way.

Professor X once expressed very clear concerns about West's state, and the main reason why he wanted his adopted son to go to Oxford in the first place was to hope that the teenager could really find his own life. West Xavier has a long life that ordinary people can never hope for, and the endless years have given him enough time to explore the mysteries of this world one by one, to do what ordinary people can't do in their lifetime; But at the same time, it is also a curse from the fairness and cruelty of fate - when a hundred years later, the original Qiē is all human, and there is no Charles in this world who can give him emotional sustenance, and there is no more Elizhe who can spur him on, then what will become of such a dazed and dispossessed West?

It's nothing more than another eternal sleep of liberation.

And this time, there won't be another Adelaide who can pull him back from the edge of the cliff of loneliness.

But now, he met Merlin.

It's not about the mission, it's not about revenge, it's not about any particular person or thing. He was twice forced to fall into this millennia-old plane, and twice was found by a mage in the forest. If it was just an accident at the wrong hand of fate, then when Qiē got back on track, West felt that he might not be able to erase this slightly naïve, but loyal, intelligent and reliable big boy from the bottom of his heart.

So......

The breath that brushed the corners of his mouth gradually became slow and long, with the scent of grass that had been stored on Merlin's body all year round, infinitely amplified in the dark. West was silent for a long, long time, until the moon was shining outside the window, and the insects in the grass were all singing, and he finally sighed, turned his face slightly, and let himself sink into the silent dream that still smelled of mead and mint.

What the boy would never know was that the moment his breathing became calm, the mage he thought was drunk and unconscious slowly opened his eyes, and his eyes were so bright that they seemed to reflect the starlight of the entire night sky.

He looked at him, the corners of his mouth curling slightly.

Quiet, shallow, bitter, and gentle.