Merlin Fic: The Easiest Truth
Title: The Easiest Truth
Fandom: Merlin
Pairing/Characters: Merlin/Arthur
Warnings: None, worksafe.
Spoilers: 2x08 - Sins of the Father
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~2100
Summary: Merlin tells Arthur the hardest lie he's ever had to tell, and discovers it isn't nearly as hard as it should be. (Episode tag for 2x08)
(x-posted to merlinxarthur)
Notes: My take on the missing scene in 2x08--Arthur and Merlin's trip back to Camelot after meeting Morgause, and Arthur's mother. I started this pretty much immediately after watching the episode, and really meant to have posted it sooner, but...got busy. XD;; Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. <3 (And thank you for reading. ^_^)
***
Dawn has just crested on the horizon in front of them.
Above the trees and the mountains, a hint of light breaks through the cold, grey clouds, blanketing them with color.
They’ve been riding for hours now in silence, the scenery rushing past them, blurring the lines between reality and illusion--a bit of a frantic race against fate, as Merlin sees it, but something he understands well.
Arthur’s horse only knew its way there, however, not necessarily its way back and Merlin’s not sure if when Arthur picked a direction to run in he was really thinking very clearly. And above all else, he’s tired. He knows Arthur is too, but even so, he just hasn’t been able to bring himself to stop him.
He’s complied with Arthur’s silence, and with this wearying pace for hours and hours because he understands that this is what Arthur wants, and maybe what he needs, but now, with the morning light breaking on the horizon in front of them, the slump of Arthur’s shoulders is a little more visible, a little harder to ignore. Merlin can feel the level of his own exhaustion too, right down to his bones.
He knows they have to stop.
“Arthur,” he calls out, and then again, louder, shouting over the wind.
He’s relieved when the horse in front of him finally slows to a trot.
“What is it, Merlin,” Arthur asks, and his voice sounds rough at first from the hours spent in silence.
Merlin looks past the grim determination in Arthur’s eyes, the angry set of his jaw, and says diplomatically, “I was just thinking that we should probably stop. Just for a bit. It’s getting to be morning.” He gestures to the light above the trees.
“We’re not stopping until we reach Camelot.”
“I know, you said that before, but-"
“My father doesn’t deserve to spend another second not accounting for what he’s done. I-“ Arthur pauses, his expression dark, unyielding. “We’re not stopping.”
“Arthur, I understand-"
“How could you possibly understand, Merlin.”
“I didn’t mean-"
Arthur fixes him with a look that’s so cold and so vulnerable, that Merlin feels his mouth practically snap closed.
“Just shut up and keep riding,” Arthur says, turning forwards again, his back to Merlin.
“Right, of course. I’m sorry.”
And because there’s nothing else to do he just digs in his heels, lowers his head against the wind, and follows.
**
“Merlin, Merlin, for god’s sake-"
Merlin opens his eyes, and blinks-it’s almost sundown, and he’s-oh god-he’s lying on his back in what feels like a holly bush, judging by the prickles, and Arthur is crouched beside him, looking equal parts furious and concerned.
“Wha- What happened?” he asks, wincing as he tries sit up, trying to avoid the worst of the thorns as he props himself up on his elbows.
“You fell off your horse, you idiot, that’s what happened.”
“I must’ve-“
“Just because we’re not stopping to sleep doesn’t mean you can sleep on your horse, Merlin. Do you have any idea how stupid that is?”
“It does seem pretty dangerous,” Merlin says, and he can’t help but smile a little, because this is the most Arthur has said to him since they started back for Camelot, and if Arthur is berating him like this, it means he’s not totally-- Well, Merlin isn’t really sure how to finish that thought, but when he thinks of Arthur’s face back there with Morgause, and his silence after, it makes his blood run a little cold.
Arthur is still crouched at his side, eyeing him a little curiously. “Are you alright? We may be able to reach Camelot by morning, if we keep up this pace, but… Are you injured?”
Merlin studies Arthur’s face-the grim lines of exhaustion, the restrained anger, the grief-and tells a small lie.
“I do think I may have hit my head when I fell.”
Merlin is a little surprised when Arthur just nods, and helps him up, then steadies Merlin’s horse (who’d been a little spooked from the fall) while he climbs back into the saddle. They continue on at a fast walk, Arthur’s horse sticking close to Merlin’s on the wooded path, until they reach a small clearing.
Arthur turns to Merlin, eyes giving him a quick once over, and then nods decisively.
“We’ll rest here for a few hours, and then continue on.”
**
When Merlin opens his eyes, it’s to the crackle of a fire glowing in the darkness. He can see the outline of the horses’ silhouettes at the far edge of their camp, and as his eyes adjust a little more to the darkness, he can see Arthur too, sitting across from him, still in his armor, staring somberly into the fire.
“Arthur?”
Arthur looks up. “Sorry if I woke you. Couldn’t sleep.”
“No, no, I-" Merlin stops himself and gives Arthur a sideways look. “Wait. Did you just apologize to me? I think I must have hit my head harder than I thought back there, because-"
“Shut up, Merlin, I was only being polite.” But there’s a hint of a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, and this, Merlin realizes, is something that he’s really grateful to see again.
As Merlin sits up the grogginess of sleep fades away quickly into the brisk night air. He shivers, and moves a little closer to the fire. The sharp smell of pine reminds him a little of Ealdor, of cold evenings spent camping with Will, telling secrets in the darkness.
“You know, all my life my father has kept her existence from me,” Arthur says, his voice low, eyes fixed on the fire. “Maybe this is why. Maybe he doesn’t talk about her because he knows if he did he’d be betraying her memory as he betrayed her life.”
“Arthur, you don’t know that-"
“No, I don’t. But I know what I saw. You saw her too,” Arthurs says, his voice rising, eyes clouding over with anger. “My father gave her life in order to ensure an heir. He killed her!”
Suddenly he stands, and in one swift movement, takes his boot to the pile of wood Merlin had gathered for the fire earlier, knocking it over. Merlin finds himself hurrying to stand up too, feeding off of Arthur’s energy.
Arthur paces back and forth several times in front of the fire, and Merlin just watches him, feeling a little helpless.
“Arthur,” Merlin tries. “You don’t know if what you saw tonight is the whole truth.”
“What do you mean?”
Merlin clears his throat. Arthur’s eyes are filled with trust, an openness Merlin doesn’t witness often.
“From what I’ve seen of magic,” Merlin starts, “it’s… It can be more cunning than you think. It can make you believe things that aren’t true, or aren’t true in the way you think you’ve seen them. Magic can be,” Merlin pauses. Arthur’s eyes are clear now, and a little hopeful. “Magic can be deception, Arthur. Not--not all the time, but, you just… You can’t believe everything you see when magic is involved.”
Arthur stares at him for a moment. “You really think I’ve been deceived? Did you see my mother’s eyes?”
“I-"
“I know what I saw, Merlin. She had been betrayed. I saw how much pain she was in. I could feel it.”
“That may be true, but…”
“But what? What else am I supposed to think?”
Merlin shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
Arthur crouches down, and picks up a branch from the toppled-over pile, then pokes idly at the fire in front of them.
“I’m going to ask him,” he says calmly, the light from the flames flickering across his face. “I want him to admit it to me. I want him to admit his guilt.”
“Your father?”
Arthur nods. “He won’t, though. Not in this lifetime, anyway.”
“No, I’d imagine not.”
Arthur sits down in front of the fire again, and Merlin joins him after a moment. They’re quiet for a long time, taking turns tending the fire, but mostly just sitting there, staring into the darkness, trying to make sense of something that’s impossible to make sense of.
When Arthur finally stands and announces that he’s going to try to get a little rest he looks less tense somehow, calmer. He stops for a moment, glancing down at Merlin.
“I appreciate you making this trip with me. I know you didn’t have to go this far.”
Merlin blinks, a little taken aback.
“Thank you, Merlin.”
Arthur’s back is to him when Merlin finally manages to find his voice. “Thank you, for…for trusting me enough to bring me along.”
Arthur makes a vague noise of agreement as he adjusts his bedroll, and settles down to rest, leaving Merlin alone at the fire.
**
They don’t talk much during the rest of the trip back. It’s hard after all, with the wind whipping along as it does at Arthur’s pace, which they fall back into pretty quickly come morning.
The closer they get to Camelot the more hurried, and the more frantic this pace becomes, and Merlin wonders what Arthur is thinking, what turn his thoughts have taken.
He’s thinking too about what Arthur said to him last night, and about what he said to Arthur, whether it was a lie, or not. He finds that he’s honestly not sure. He doesn’t trust Morgause, that much is certainly true, but the vision of Arthur’s mother-that seemed real. It felt real. Her words seemed true.
Merlin knows too though, that there are many ways of interpreting the same words. And Arthur’s anger towards his father, this rage that’s driving him now, and has been driving them at this frenzied pace for hours--this feels wrong. It feels misplaced. It feels like Arthur playing into someone else’s game.
Part of him wants to tell Arthur that none of this has been real, that Morgause had been enchanting him-he even has the feeling that Arthur might listen to him, that Arthur is, in a way, looking for a reason to let go of this. But instead Merlin finds himself saying that he doesn’t-can’t-know exactly what happened so many years ago at the hand of Nimueh.
Because while he suspects that what Arthur saw was some version of the truth, he also suspects that the whole truth is something much murkier, and darker, confused, and conflicted, and he just doesn’t know how to get at that truth without making things worse.
Arthur is angry though--Merlin can see in his eyes what he’s thinking when the turrets of Camelot appear before them on the landscape, and Arthur turns around and meets his eyes. Merlin can see all of it, the raw emotion, the anger, the confusion. It scares him, and makes him wonder at his destiny, makes him wonder if it involves this too--if it means saving Arthur from himself, by any means necessary.
**
And in the end, when it comes down to it, when it comes down to the murder of a king, and Arthur’s cold-blooded, uncontrollable rage, Merlin does the only thing he can do.
He can see the future if he lets this come to pass, can see the guilt that Arthur would never recover from, can see a death that would essentially be in vain, and so Merlin tells Arthur what he couldn’t tell him in the darkness the night before, staring into the fire, watching the flames crackle and pop in the cold night air.
Merlin tells Arthur what should be the hardest lie he’s ever told him--that Morgause’s magic is illusion. That there’s no truth, no goodness, in the one thing that might make Arthur see him for who he truly is someday.
But the funny thing is, it’s really not all that hard. Not when he can hear in Arthur’s voice that he’s asking Merlin for a way out, for an excuse.
When it’s all laid out in front of him like this, Merlin really has no choice.
He tells himself that it’s for Arthur’s own good, and part of him truly believes this, but another part of him can’t help but wonder if there couldn’t have been another, better way.
He’s just not sure what that other way could have been though, because no matter how many times he replays the scene in his mind, the outcome, if he doesn’t say what he said, is the same--Uther dead, Camelot in ruins, and Arthur… Arthur is broken, and there’s no way that Merlin can willingly allow this.
This, after all, is his destiny. To protect Arthur. To ensure that what’s supposed to be comes to pass. And when he thinks of it this way, his words, echoing against the walls of the castle, for whatever they’re worth, seem…inconsequential, really.
As always, Merlin's destiny has the power to transform the hardest lie into the easiest truth, in the blink of an eye.
***
Fandom: Merlin
Pairing/Characters: Merlin/Arthur
Warnings: None, worksafe.
Spoilers: 2x08 - Sins of the Father
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~2100
Summary: Merlin tells Arthur the hardest lie he's ever had to tell, and discovers it isn't nearly as hard as it should be. (Episode tag for 2x08)
(x-posted to merlinxarthur)
Notes: My take on the missing scene in 2x08--Arthur and Merlin's trip back to Camelot after meeting Morgause, and Arthur's mother. I started this pretty much immediately after watching the episode, and really meant to have posted it sooner, but...got busy. XD;; Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. <3 (And thank you for reading. ^_^)
***
Dawn has just crested on the horizon in front of them.
Above the trees and the mountains, a hint of light breaks through the cold, grey clouds, blanketing them with color.
They’ve been riding for hours now in silence, the scenery rushing past them, blurring the lines between reality and illusion--a bit of a frantic race against fate, as Merlin sees it, but something he understands well.
Arthur’s horse only knew its way there, however, not necessarily its way back and Merlin’s not sure if when Arthur picked a direction to run in he was really thinking very clearly. And above all else, he’s tired. He knows Arthur is too, but even so, he just hasn’t been able to bring himself to stop him.
He’s complied with Arthur’s silence, and with this wearying pace for hours and hours because he understands that this is what Arthur wants, and maybe what he needs, but now, with the morning light breaking on the horizon in front of them, the slump of Arthur’s shoulders is a little more visible, a little harder to ignore. Merlin can feel the level of his own exhaustion too, right down to his bones.
He knows they have to stop.
“Arthur,” he calls out, and then again, louder, shouting over the wind.
He’s relieved when the horse in front of him finally slows to a trot.
“What is it, Merlin,” Arthur asks, and his voice sounds rough at first from the hours spent in silence.
Merlin looks past the grim determination in Arthur’s eyes, the angry set of his jaw, and says diplomatically, “I was just thinking that we should probably stop. Just for a bit. It’s getting to be morning.” He gestures to the light above the trees.
“We’re not stopping until we reach Camelot.”
“I know, you said that before, but-"
“My father doesn’t deserve to spend another second not accounting for what he’s done. I-“ Arthur pauses, his expression dark, unyielding. “We’re not stopping.”
“Arthur, I understand-"
“How could you possibly understand, Merlin.”
“I didn’t mean-"
Arthur fixes him with a look that’s so cold and so vulnerable, that Merlin feels his mouth practically snap closed.
“Just shut up and keep riding,” Arthur says, turning forwards again, his back to Merlin.
“Right, of course. I’m sorry.”
And because there’s nothing else to do he just digs in his heels, lowers his head against the wind, and follows.
**
“Merlin, Merlin, for god’s sake-"
Merlin opens his eyes, and blinks-it’s almost sundown, and he’s-oh god-he’s lying on his back in what feels like a holly bush, judging by the prickles, and Arthur is crouched beside him, looking equal parts furious and concerned.
“Wha- What happened?” he asks, wincing as he tries sit up, trying to avoid the worst of the thorns as he props himself up on his elbows.
“You fell off your horse, you idiot, that’s what happened.”
“I must’ve-“
“Just because we’re not stopping to sleep doesn’t mean you can sleep on your horse, Merlin. Do you have any idea how stupid that is?”
“It does seem pretty dangerous,” Merlin says, and he can’t help but smile a little, because this is the most Arthur has said to him since they started back for Camelot, and if Arthur is berating him like this, it means he’s not totally-- Well, Merlin isn’t really sure how to finish that thought, but when he thinks of Arthur’s face back there with Morgause, and his silence after, it makes his blood run a little cold.
Arthur is still crouched at his side, eyeing him a little curiously. “Are you alright? We may be able to reach Camelot by morning, if we keep up this pace, but… Are you injured?”
Merlin studies Arthur’s face-the grim lines of exhaustion, the restrained anger, the grief-and tells a small lie.
“I do think I may have hit my head when I fell.”
Merlin is a little surprised when Arthur just nods, and helps him up, then steadies Merlin’s horse (who’d been a little spooked from the fall) while he climbs back into the saddle. They continue on at a fast walk, Arthur’s horse sticking close to Merlin’s on the wooded path, until they reach a small clearing.
Arthur turns to Merlin, eyes giving him a quick once over, and then nods decisively.
“We’ll rest here for a few hours, and then continue on.”
**
When Merlin opens his eyes, it’s to the crackle of a fire glowing in the darkness. He can see the outline of the horses’ silhouettes at the far edge of their camp, and as his eyes adjust a little more to the darkness, he can see Arthur too, sitting across from him, still in his armor, staring somberly into the fire.
“Arthur?”
Arthur looks up. “Sorry if I woke you. Couldn’t sleep.”
“No, no, I-" Merlin stops himself and gives Arthur a sideways look. “Wait. Did you just apologize to me? I think I must have hit my head harder than I thought back there, because-"
“Shut up, Merlin, I was only being polite.” But there’s a hint of a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, and this, Merlin realizes, is something that he’s really grateful to see again.
As Merlin sits up the grogginess of sleep fades away quickly into the brisk night air. He shivers, and moves a little closer to the fire. The sharp smell of pine reminds him a little of Ealdor, of cold evenings spent camping with Will, telling secrets in the darkness.
“You know, all my life my father has kept her existence from me,” Arthur says, his voice low, eyes fixed on the fire. “Maybe this is why. Maybe he doesn’t talk about her because he knows if he did he’d be betraying her memory as he betrayed her life.”
“Arthur, you don’t know that-"
“No, I don’t. But I know what I saw. You saw her too,” Arthurs says, his voice rising, eyes clouding over with anger. “My father gave her life in order to ensure an heir. He killed her!”
Suddenly he stands, and in one swift movement, takes his boot to the pile of wood Merlin had gathered for the fire earlier, knocking it over. Merlin finds himself hurrying to stand up too, feeding off of Arthur’s energy.
Arthur paces back and forth several times in front of the fire, and Merlin just watches him, feeling a little helpless.
“Arthur,” Merlin tries. “You don’t know if what you saw tonight is the whole truth.”
“What do you mean?”
Merlin clears his throat. Arthur’s eyes are filled with trust, an openness Merlin doesn’t witness often.
“From what I’ve seen of magic,” Merlin starts, “it’s… It can be more cunning than you think. It can make you believe things that aren’t true, or aren’t true in the way you think you’ve seen them. Magic can be,” Merlin pauses. Arthur’s eyes are clear now, and a little hopeful. “Magic can be deception, Arthur. Not--not all the time, but, you just… You can’t believe everything you see when magic is involved.”
Arthur stares at him for a moment. “You really think I’ve been deceived? Did you see my mother’s eyes?”
“I-"
“I know what I saw, Merlin. She had been betrayed. I saw how much pain she was in. I could feel it.”
“That may be true, but…”
“But what? What else am I supposed to think?”
Merlin shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
Arthur crouches down, and picks up a branch from the toppled-over pile, then pokes idly at the fire in front of them.
“I’m going to ask him,” he says calmly, the light from the flames flickering across his face. “I want him to admit it to me. I want him to admit his guilt.”
“Your father?”
Arthur nods. “He won’t, though. Not in this lifetime, anyway.”
“No, I’d imagine not.”
Arthur sits down in front of the fire again, and Merlin joins him after a moment. They’re quiet for a long time, taking turns tending the fire, but mostly just sitting there, staring into the darkness, trying to make sense of something that’s impossible to make sense of.
When Arthur finally stands and announces that he’s going to try to get a little rest he looks less tense somehow, calmer. He stops for a moment, glancing down at Merlin.
“I appreciate you making this trip with me. I know you didn’t have to go this far.”
Merlin blinks, a little taken aback.
“Thank you, Merlin.”
Arthur’s back is to him when Merlin finally manages to find his voice. “Thank you, for…for trusting me enough to bring me along.”
Arthur makes a vague noise of agreement as he adjusts his bedroll, and settles down to rest, leaving Merlin alone at the fire.
**
They don’t talk much during the rest of the trip back. It’s hard after all, with the wind whipping along as it does at Arthur’s pace, which they fall back into pretty quickly come morning.
The closer they get to Camelot the more hurried, and the more frantic this pace becomes, and Merlin wonders what Arthur is thinking, what turn his thoughts have taken.
He’s thinking too about what Arthur said to him last night, and about what he said to Arthur, whether it was a lie, or not. He finds that he’s honestly not sure. He doesn’t trust Morgause, that much is certainly true, but the vision of Arthur’s mother-that seemed real. It felt real. Her words seemed true.
Merlin knows too though, that there are many ways of interpreting the same words. And Arthur’s anger towards his father, this rage that’s driving him now, and has been driving them at this frenzied pace for hours--this feels wrong. It feels misplaced. It feels like Arthur playing into someone else’s game.
Part of him wants to tell Arthur that none of this has been real, that Morgause had been enchanting him-he even has the feeling that Arthur might listen to him, that Arthur is, in a way, looking for a reason to let go of this. But instead Merlin finds himself saying that he doesn’t-can’t-know exactly what happened so many years ago at the hand of Nimueh.
Because while he suspects that what Arthur saw was some version of the truth, he also suspects that the whole truth is something much murkier, and darker, confused, and conflicted, and he just doesn’t know how to get at that truth without making things worse.
Arthur is angry though--Merlin can see in his eyes what he’s thinking when the turrets of Camelot appear before them on the landscape, and Arthur turns around and meets his eyes. Merlin can see all of it, the raw emotion, the anger, the confusion. It scares him, and makes him wonder at his destiny, makes him wonder if it involves this too--if it means saving Arthur from himself, by any means necessary.
**
And in the end, when it comes down to it, when it comes down to the murder of a king, and Arthur’s cold-blooded, uncontrollable rage, Merlin does the only thing he can do.
He can see the future if he lets this come to pass, can see the guilt that Arthur would never recover from, can see a death that would essentially be in vain, and so Merlin tells Arthur what he couldn’t tell him in the darkness the night before, staring into the fire, watching the flames crackle and pop in the cold night air.
Merlin tells Arthur what should be the hardest lie he’s ever told him--that Morgause’s magic is illusion. That there’s no truth, no goodness, in the one thing that might make Arthur see him for who he truly is someday.
But the funny thing is, it’s really not all that hard. Not when he can hear in Arthur’s voice that he’s asking Merlin for a way out, for an excuse.
When it’s all laid out in front of him like this, Merlin really has no choice.
He tells himself that it’s for Arthur’s own good, and part of him truly believes this, but another part of him can’t help but wonder if there couldn’t have been another, better way.
He’s just not sure what that other way could have been though, because no matter how many times he replays the scene in his mind, the outcome, if he doesn’t say what he said, is the same--Uther dead, Camelot in ruins, and Arthur… Arthur is broken, and there’s no way that Merlin can willingly allow this.
This, after all, is his destiny. To protect Arthur. To ensure that what’s supposed to be comes to pass. And when he thinks of it this way, his words, echoing against the walls of the castle, for whatever they’re worth, seem…inconsequential, really.
As always, Merlin's destiny has the power to transform the hardest lie into the easiest truth, in the blink of an eye.
***