More Merlin Fic...
Um. Yeah. Seeing as I'm not super familiar with the fandom, I'm gonna need some help with Mordred's parents' names... Please help me so I can fix them to something appropriate? Also, I don't know where this is all coming from. Anyway, this is from Arthur's point of view, just a vignette, takes place before the other one in this verse. Which I should probably name, soon, seeing as it's turning into a THING.
Title: Cyborg
Fandom: Merlin
Pairing: Future Arthur/Merlin, past one-sided Merlin/Arthur (not that any of that even comes up in this one)
Rating: PGish for language, just to be safe
Warnings: No spoilers, modern AU
Word Count: ~1100
Disclaimer: So, so, so much not mine. Well, Merlin isn't, that's the BBC's. The original story before the name changes, though, that's mine.
Cyborg
It’s been three years, now, since I woke up in the hospital, pumped full foolish of the good drugs, to the base surgeon telling me I was lucky I’d survived, and Oh, hey, we had to chop off your leg. That’d been a shock. Honestly, until I’d looked down and seen it missing, I thought the doc was joking; the base hospital was always full of off-color and poor-taste morbid jokers. She hadn’t been joking-come to think of it, I don’t think that one even knew how. So I was down a leg and a career, because there was no way the Marines were gonna keep on a one-legged grunt, and when they sent me back State-side everyone was expecting that I’d be depressed and morose and miss my leg more than anything. Now, I’m not one of those happy-go-lucky, always cheerful types, but I can remember, to this day, that IED explosion-I still get nightmares about it, to tell you the truth-and I’d thought I was a goner.
I never expected to wake up at all. So the fact that one leg (and a bunch of pins in the rest of my body, and a re-inflated lung) was all the price I had to pay for getting the chance to fix up all those last minute regrets that’d flashed through my mind in that split second between when I knew something was wrong and when the APC hurled itself up in the air like it was trying out to be one of those bulls for the Professional Bull Riding Association, well, I kinda felt like it was worth it. It wasn’t like I was going to be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, neither, seeing as they’ve got fake legs nowadays that can probably hook up to your iPod, let alone help you get around just like a real one.
So the fact I still run up against that damn awkward pity in the eyes of my Aunt and Uncle whenever I visit them, well, that cheeses me off something fierce. If it’s a hot day, I’m gonna wear shorts, not hide away what is apparently supposed to be something shameful beneath a pair of jeans that’d have me roasting in minutes. I was in the service of my country when I lost that leg, which sure ain’t something shameful; I worked damn hard on my physical therapy to get back my freedom in the form of a new leg, rather than be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. My fake leg ain’t something to be ashamed of, no sir. It’s my freedom. I’m grateful to it each and every day I wake up and don’t have to sit my ass in a wheelchair just to get to the john to take a leak. I can run and jump and do most anything just as good as I used to, and if it took me a little more work to get back there, well, that’s something to be proud of, in my eyes.
So after three hours of purposefully not noticing the way Aunt Marge’s and Uncle Mike’s eyes always aimed themselves anywhere but my robot leg (hell, a little more technology in it and I could probably be a superhero), well, I just had to get out of that house. I was visiting them since I was in the area and it was the family thing to do, but I couldn’t handle it no more. So I excused myself politely, and went to search out my baby cousin Mordred to say a proper goodbye before I ran off.
After a fair while of searching, I found him in the back yard, of all places-it had to be a hundred degrees out if it was anything-hunkered down in an impressively deep hole scarring the overgrown and scorched brown field of the back yard. I stayed back a few feet from the edge of the hole as I peered down at him in the shadows of the bottom of the hole, seeing as the edge of it didn’t look too stable, the sideways light of the sun (just now starting to think about setting, as it was ‘round seven in the evening, by that point) barely reaching down far enough into the pit to glint bluely off his hair, which was still as night-black as the day he was born, even though everyone had predicted his baby hair would fall out and come back in lighter.
Mordred had always been a strange, quiet child, but this was something new. “What are you doing down there?” I asked him, because while he’d always been a little bit weird, well, weird was interesting. He was probably my second-favorite cousin out of the pack of them, because of it (right behind the eldest of all of us, Morgana, who’d always been like a big sister to me).
“Diggin’.”
“To China?” I asked with a grin, setting myself down on the edge of his pit so I could dangle my legs (well, real leg and fake leg. Robot leg. Superhero leg) down into the hole. They reached just far enough down that I could gently tap the side of his head with my shoes, if I felt like buggin’ him. I did.
He swatted at my legs. “No, dummy,” he huffed at me, sitting back on his heels and propping his hands on his hips-he looked just like my Mama (except for the way he took after the dark-haired side of the family and didn’t actually look like her at all) when he did that, which was a mite disconcerting-to glare at me disdainfully. “I’m practicing my archaeological excavation techniques. I’m gonna be an archaeologist.”
“Like Indiana Jones?” I teased him.
He rolled his eyes at me so hard I was a little afraid he’d never get them back normal. “No, Arthur, like a real archaeologist.” He stared at me a moment, looking older than his twelve years, before his eyes flicked down to my prosthetic. I braced myself for the look I knew was going to show up in his eyes any second now, and started shifting back from the edge of the hole in preparation for getting up; I was done with pity, today. He surprised me, though, by grabbing at my prosthetic to keep me from going anywhere. “Hey, is this the new one?” he asked excitedly, starting to feel up my robot leg in a way that might have disturbed me if I hadn’t done it myself the first few days of wearing it. “Wow, the connections on this must be awesome,” he squealed. “Rotate your ankle!” he commanded, and I obeyed as I laughed.
It was awful nice to have someone else see my fake leg as the supremely cool invention it was, rather than something shameful like most people did. Even if he was my twelve year old second-favorite cousin.
ARRIVALS
Title: Cyborg
Fandom: Merlin
Pairing: Future Arthur/Merlin, past one-sided Merlin/Arthur (not that any of that even comes up in this one)
Rating: PGish for language, just to be safe
Warnings: No spoilers, modern AU
Word Count: ~1100
Disclaimer: So, so, so much not mine. Well, Merlin isn't, that's the BBC's. The original story before the name changes, though, that's mine.
Cyborg
It’s been three years, now, since I woke up in the hospital, pumped full foolish of the good drugs, to the base surgeon telling me I was lucky I’d survived, and Oh, hey, we had to chop off your leg. That’d been a shock. Honestly, until I’d looked down and seen it missing, I thought the doc was joking; the base hospital was always full of off-color and poor-taste morbid jokers. She hadn’t been joking-come to think of it, I don’t think that one even knew how. So I was down a leg and a career, because there was no way the Marines were gonna keep on a one-legged grunt, and when they sent me back State-side everyone was expecting that I’d be depressed and morose and miss my leg more than anything. Now, I’m not one of those happy-go-lucky, always cheerful types, but I can remember, to this day, that IED explosion-I still get nightmares about it, to tell you the truth-and I’d thought I was a goner.
I never expected to wake up at all. So the fact that one leg (and a bunch of pins in the rest of my body, and a re-inflated lung) was all the price I had to pay for getting the chance to fix up all those last minute regrets that’d flashed through my mind in that split second between when I knew something was wrong and when the APC hurled itself up in the air like it was trying out to be one of those bulls for the Professional Bull Riding Association, well, I kinda felt like it was worth it. It wasn’t like I was going to be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, neither, seeing as they’ve got fake legs nowadays that can probably hook up to your iPod, let alone help you get around just like a real one.
So the fact I still run up against that damn awkward pity in the eyes of my Aunt and Uncle whenever I visit them, well, that cheeses me off something fierce. If it’s a hot day, I’m gonna wear shorts, not hide away what is apparently supposed to be something shameful beneath a pair of jeans that’d have me roasting in minutes. I was in the service of my country when I lost that leg, which sure ain’t something shameful; I worked damn hard on my physical therapy to get back my freedom in the form of a new leg, rather than be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. My fake leg ain’t something to be ashamed of, no sir. It’s my freedom. I’m grateful to it each and every day I wake up and don’t have to sit my ass in a wheelchair just to get to the john to take a leak. I can run and jump and do most anything just as good as I used to, and if it took me a little more work to get back there, well, that’s something to be proud of, in my eyes.
So after three hours of purposefully not noticing the way Aunt Marge’s and Uncle Mike’s eyes always aimed themselves anywhere but my robot leg (hell, a little more technology in it and I could probably be a superhero), well, I just had to get out of that house. I was visiting them since I was in the area and it was the family thing to do, but I couldn’t handle it no more. So I excused myself politely, and went to search out my baby cousin Mordred to say a proper goodbye before I ran off.
After a fair while of searching, I found him in the back yard, of all places-it had to be a hundred degrees out if it was anything-hunkered down in an impressively deep hole scarring the overgrown and scorched brown field of the back yard. I stayed back a few feet from the edge of the hole as I peered down at him in the shadows of the bottom of the hole, seeing as the edge of it didn’t look too stable, the sideways light of the sun (just now starting to think about setting, as it was ‘round seven in the evening, by that point) barely reaching down far enough into the pit to glint bluely off his hair, which was still as night-black as the day he was born, even though everyone had predicted his baby hair would fall out and come back in lighter.
Mordred had always been a strange, quiet child, but this was something new. “What are you doing down there?” I asked him, because while he’d always been a little bit weird, well, weird was interesting. He was probably my second-favorite cousin out of the pack of them, because of it (right behind the eldest of all of us, Morgana, who’d always been like a big sister to me).
“Diggin’.”
“To China?” I asked with a grin, setting myself down on the edge of his pit so I could dangle my legs (well, real leg and fake leg. Robot leg. Superhero leg) down into the hole. They reached just far enough down that I could gently tap the side of his head with my shoes, if I felt like buggin’ him. I did.
He swatted at my legs. “No, dummy,” he huffed at me, sitting back on his heels and propping his hands on his hips-he looked just like my Mama (except for the way he took after the dark-haired side of the family and didn’t actually look like her at all) when he did that, which was a mite disconcerting-to glare at me disdainfully. “I’m practicing my archaeological excavation techniques. I’m gonna be an archaeologist.”
“Like Indiana Jones?” I teased him.
He rolled his eyes at me so hard I was a little afraid he’d never get them back normal. “No, Arthur, like a real archaeologist.” He stared at me a moment, looking older than his twelve years, before his eyes flicked down to my prosthetic. I braced myself for the look I knew was going to show up in his eyes any second now, and started shifting back from the edge of the hole in preparation for getting up; I was done with pity, today. He surprised me, though, by grabbing at my prosthetic to keep me from going anywhere. “Hey, is this the new one?” he asked excitedly, starting to feel up my robot leg in a way that might have disturbed me if I hadn’t done it myself the first few days of wearing it. “Wow, the connections on this must be awesome,” he squealed. “Rotate your ankle!” he commanded, and I obeyed as I laughed.
It was awful nice to have someone else see my fake leg as the supremely cool invention it was, rather than something shameful like most people did. Even if he was my twelve year old second-favorite cousin.
ARRIVALS