Sweets' Scars
Title: Sweets' Scars
Author: hopenight
Rating: PG-13
Warning: past child abuse
Spoilers: 4x21 "Mayhem on the Cross"
Pairing: Merlin/Sweets
Fandom(s): Bones, Merlin
Summary: Sweets hates his scars. He feels ugly with them. Merlin however has a different idea of it.
A/N: I've been dying to write this one after I saw 4x21. I totally wanted to give Sweets a hug during that episode. So I have a question for you all. How would you have Merlin be properly introduced to the Jeffersonian team? I need ideas.
Sweets hated the scars that littered his back with a deep rooted passion.
They were a constant source of torture for him. Besides the fact that he was so incredibly young when he tested off the IQ charts. He went to college at age fourteen with a sheer brilliance that astounded those around him. The ability just to retain as much information as he did made him a wonder kid. The fact that he was studying the incredibly complex field of psychology and comprehending it was a source of amazement. People wanted a hand in cultivating the genius of Lance Sweets.
However, his scars that littered his back were a sense of constant humiliation. It showed to others that brilliant prodigy was messed up, wasn’t as god like as they believed. When people saw the scars, he could feel their pitying stares. The people who tried to “save him” were the ones he tore to pieces in his sullen teenage preoccupation of metal, of his newfound understanding of the human mind.
His adoptive parents supported their son. Even if they did not quite understand him half of the time, they let their son know that he had their unconditional support.
Something he missed so much when they died.
They were the only people that he ever really felt comfortable showing his scars to. He knew that they loved him so much that they didn’t care that he was damaged goods.
Even girlfriends changed once they knew about the scars, his past. He would get accusing stares from them. Like it was something he was supposed to tell him in the beginning. How do you tell someone that you want to love that? Was it better for it to bring it up suddenly in conversation? Slip it into certain dinner talk. Still when whatever woman he was seeing at the time found out there were the demands on why they were not told, anger stares directed toward him.
Seriously was he supposed to go: “By the way I was horrifically abused as a young child and I have these thick, ugly scars on my back because of it. Can you pass the bread?”
Sorry he has a very dark sense of humor about that.
He could not tell them because he knew that the dynamics of their relationship would change. His dearest wish was that someone would understand that would look past the scars, just love him with the kind of love that he was deprived of since his parents died.
Booth and Brennan showed him some of that when they found out about it.
He didn’t mean for Merlin to find out about them until later, much later.
Still Merlin had walked into Sweets’ house (inherited from his parents) with the key given to him and saw him getting out of the swimming pool. He turned and there stood Merlin, with his spikes a dark red, staring at him.
He froze because he knew that Merlin had seen the scars. He toweled off quickly and threw on the too big shirt. His hair was dripping onto his shirt.
“Merlin…I…,” words could not come. He knew from past experience what would come next. He stood there petrified, waiting for Merlin to explode. Waiting for the inevitable ‘why didn’t you tell me Lance?’ that would spill out of those beautiful lips.
He was waiting for the rejection.
“Who…? Who did that to you, Lance?” questioned Merlin gently. He heard footsteps come closer.
“My first family after my birth mother gave me up,” answered the psychiatrist still waiting for the betrayal that would reflect into Merlin’s eyes. He couldn’t bring himself to look up and actually see that look.
“Um they sent me to my parents after I…was discovered.”
“Don’t tell me their names,” murmured Merlin gently under his breath.
“What?” Sweets looked up and allowed shock to wash over him.
Merlin did not have any sort of shadow of anger, betrayal, pity in his eyes. Instead Merlin was gazing at him with such a gentle gaze it almost made the psychiatrist weep.
Only his parents would look at him like that.
He realized with a sudden happy stab to the heart that this was unconditional love.
“I said don’t tell me their names. I don’t want to hurt them.”
“Merlin…”
“Lance, I understand why. You don’t to say anything at all.”
Sweets stared at his boyfriend. Merlin gave him a tentative smile. Sweets gently tugged the t-shirt off.
“Lance?”
“Can…can you touch them, Merlin?”
“Why?”
“Please?”
Merlin looked confused. The sheer desperation in Sweets’ voice spurred him into action. The sorcerer gently fingered the rough scars. With soft feather light touches, Merlin fingered the scars with almost reverence. He shuddered as his boyfriend touched the ugliest part of his body. He gently pressed a kiss to where one scar met his collarbone.
“You’re so beautiful, Lance,” the gentle British accent voice of his boyfriend floated into his ear.
Sweets stared at Merlin. Then suddenly his heart decided to speak.
“I love you, Merlin.”
It wasn’t a grand romantic gesture that made him believe it. It wasn’t magic that made him say that. It wasn’t anything other than that feeling of love. People will end up searching for it for most of their lives. Love is always preceded by friendship, acceptance, trust, and hope.
Sweets realized that Merlin really didn’t care about those ugly, thick scars that criss-crossed his back. All he cared about was Lance Sweets, the person. The scars did not matter one bit.
All this time, searching for himself, he found it in a fifteen century year old sorcerer.
“I love you too, Lance.”
Lance Sweets knew that Merlin Emerson meant it with all his heart.
So maybe he doesn’t like the scars that litter his back. He doesn’t mind it so much thought if its Merlin who is the one touching him, covering the scars with kisses.
He loves Merlin. Merlin loves him.
He could learn to accept the scars