Fic: A Life, No Matter How Small
Title: A Life, No Matter How Small
Author: Matriaya
Rating: PG, for pure fluffy goodness and mention of small, adorable animals
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur
A/N: For the lovely apparentlyidiot, whose birthday is soon, who requested something with a piglet.
Wordcount: 2.1K
Summary: A frantic Merlin plays doctor to a sick piglet, and Arthur helps, while trying very hard not to show how smitten he is.
_______________________________________________
“Merlin, where the hell are you?”
Arthur Pendragon’s voice resonated loud through the castle, then even louder out into the courtyard as he shouted to hell, high water, and all who would listen that Merlin was the most useless servant on the face of the planet and that once he got his hands on the idiot, unspeakable acts of violence were going to occur.
Two hours later, when Merlin still hadn’t been located, and Arthur had searched every inch of the castle and it’s grounds, he was practically purple with rage.
“Gwen!” he spotted the beautiful brunette down by the well. She looked up at him, blinking with those fawn eyes at him in surprise for a moment before surprise melted into a fond greeting.
“Hello, your highness.” She said, but her smile faltered at the rage on his face.
“Have you seen Merlin?” he asked. He tried very, very hard not to let all of his anger explode onto his face.
He smiled. God, she was so pretty, so innocent and kind that sometimes it hurt to look at her. A guilty look crept up into her eyes as she processed his question, and paused over an answer. That told Arthur more than anything. The answer was yes. Yes, Gwen knew exactly where Merlin was, but she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. More specifically, she wasn’t supposed to tell Arthur.
“Where is he, Gwen?” he asked before she had a chance to lie to him. She looked down for a moment, bit her lip, then looked up.
“Down at Old Ben’s place.” She said, not quite able to meet his gaze. Her lips parted to let more words out, but he didn’t quite have the patience anymore to listen to the excuses Merlin no doubt put her up to, so he put a hand on her shoulder and smiled.
“Thank you, Gwen.”
She flushed a very attractive shade of pink, and picked up her water bucket. Arthur was a good twenty feet away before she called out.
“Be gentle on him, my lord. He’s…. well, you’ll see.”
That put a bit of a hitch in his step, but he didn’t slow down as he moved down the hill towards Old Ben’s place. It was a tiny farm, tucked in a corner of the lower town, nestled against a fair number of acres. Ben himself, who had been nicknamed Old Ben for as long as Arthur could remember, ever since the man was younger than Uther. He was perhaps the quintessential picture of the perfect citizen. Payed his taxes on time, and without complaint, always had a friendly smile on his face. Never told on Arthur when Arthur used to steal his potatoes when he was young, let him play in his fields. When Arthur made it down the hill to Old Ben’s farm, he had only warm smiles and a clap on the back for the aging man. Ben, on the other hand, looked at Arthur as one might a mother who just lost all her children in a fire.
“Ben?” Arthur asked as he surveyed Ben with his white tufts of hair poking out the top of his head alarmingly. “What’s wrong?”
Deep tracks of red were carved into the otherwise pale skin around Ben’s eyes, as he clutched his floppy hat in his plate-sized hands and snuffled loudly.
“It’s Martha,” he said in a voice so choked with tears Arthur quite literally wasn’t sure what to do with himself for a moment. “She had ‘er piglets this morning, and the youngest one…”
He glanced back to where the small barn was, not much bigger than his actual house, and hung his head.
And there, Arthur found Merlin. Hunched over in a pile of hay, shoulders slumped in an unmistakable sign of sadness, Merlin was cradling a small piglet in his lap, trying desperately to get the tiny creature to drink from a skein filled with milk. Arthur’s intent was to give him an ear-lashing he would never get, to bombard him with a verbal tirade so scathing that Merlin wouldn’t be able to hear for a week. But when he stood in the doorway and saw Merlin there, dirty and cold and practically shaking from nerves, the tirade shriveled up on his tongue. Instead, he just stood for a long moment and watched Merlin. Watched those long fingers move soothingly across the new baby pig’s skin. Listened to his familiar voice whisper words of encouragement and praise to the piglet.
“Merlin.”
When Arthur finally spoke his name, there wasn’t a single trace of hostility in his voice, only concern. Merlin started, and when his eyes snapped over to meet Arthur’s, Arthur saw the panic and the sadness that swallowed up his whole face. He saw tear tracks to match Old Ben’s, though the tears had long since dried.
Merlin opened up his mouth to spew out something - apologies? Excuses? - but Arthur just shook his head, and moved into the barn. Then, to Merlin’s very great surprise, he sat down in the hay next to Merlin and reached out a finger to stroke along the piglet’s head.
“Ben said it wasn’t doing well?” he asked. He felt Merlin’s eyes wide on his face, staring at him with shocked surprise, but he couldn’t bring himself to meet his servant’s gaze. He didn’t trust himself not to react to the emotions he knew were spilling out of them. A few silent moments passed where Arthur traced the soft skin of the piglet, and tried not to notice how close his fingers came to brushing against Merlin’s.
“She’s not eating,” Merlin said finally. “She’s the littlest so she got pushed away, so I’ve been trying to feed her, but she’s…”
He trailed off when his voice threatened to break.
“What’s her name?” Arthur asked on a whim, and was rewarded with a small smile from Merlin. Christ, he could feel the man literally trembling next to him. He wanted to ask if Merlin had slept at all, if he’d been here all day, if he’d eaten anything, but he knew the answers to all those questions without asking.
“She doesn’t have one.” Merlin said.
“There’s your problem.” Arthur said. “How can she fight if she doesn’t know who she is?”
Merlin looked over at Arthur then with a smile so pretty it nearly blinded him.
“How about Betsy?” Arthur suggested and Merlin could only nod in agreement because he wasn’t so sure the next words to come out of him wouldn’t be you’re wonderful, Arthur Pendragon.
“So Betsy,” Arthur brought his face down close to the pig’s, and Merlin could feel Arthur’s breath hot against his fingers. “You need to eat now, love. You need to get better, or Ben will have our skins.”
The little piglet squirmed a bit in Merlin’s hands, still trying weakly to keep the drips of milk from touching her lips. At the sound of Arthur’s voice, though, her thrashing seemed to slow a bit, and her movements stilled. For a heartstopping moment, Merlin thought perhaps she was finally dying, that the hours and hours of no milk and constant strain had finally caused her little tiny heart to give out, and that the poor innocent piglet would slip from the world right there in his hands. His breath hitched as panic wrapped around him like a cloak, and he couldn’t help the little murmured No- that escaped his lips. At the word, Arthur tensed beside him, and put a hand on his arm. It stayed there. And stayed there. And through the breathless moments when they waited to see what newly christened Betsy would do, Arthur’s fingers remained on Merlin’s arm, and his thumb rubbed small circles into the fabric of Merlin’s shirt.
Then she began sucking.
Merlin could have sang. He could have shouted sweet music to the rafters. As it stood, a very undignified little giggle escaped his lips as Betsy, at long last, began sucking on the skein of milk, her tiny snout moving up and down. Arthur skipped right over little giggle and moved on to great whoop of joy as he stood up from the hay bale and did an awkward half-thrust, half-dance of victory that sent the chickens around them clucking away nervously.
It was another two hours before little Betsy had drunk her fill, and the whole time, Merlin cradled her in his arms like an adoring father. His whispered encouragements had taken on a more cheerful note now, and every couple of minutes, he would look over at Arthur with his so full of gratitude and hope that Arthur would forget to breathe, or - in one memorable and rather embarrassing occasion - walk into a beam. Merlin felt her heartbeat grow stronger, felt her movements grow more and more insistent, and after two hours of slowly feeding her, Merlin actually set her down and watched her toddle around the dirt floor of the barn, looking for all the world like a proud parent.
Old Ben peeked his head around the doorway around hour three, but Merlin didn’t notice him. He had eyes only for the piglet. Arthur took the liberty of rising up out of the straw, and stepping outside.
“Betsy is going to be just fine.” He said, putting a hand on the old man’s shoulder.
“Betsy?” Ben asked, quirking a very fuzzy eyebrow. Arthur was surprised at his slight rush of embarrassment then.
“The piglet. We, uh… we named her Betsy. To make her feel more needed.”
“A right good name, that.” Ben said with a nod that was so much more than just agreement. It was a thank you, an expression of gratitude, and the relieved nod of an old man who averted one more moment of death.
Arthur helped Ben carry the rest of the chicken feed from his house to the bar, and when he returned, he found Merlin sprawled out in the hay with Betsy tucked up against his chest, asleep. Merlin was staring up at the rafters, watching the dust float idly through the warm evening sunlight that filtered in. Arthur knew he should tell Merlin to put the piglet down, that they had things to do and places to be, and that spending the rest of the evening in a dusty barn with farm animals was no way for a prince’s servant to spend the evening, let alone the prince himself.
But he couldn’t.
Not with the way Merlin had been staring at him all afternoon, with his enormous eyes all lit up with sunshine.
So instead, Arthur dropped himself down and lay back in the hay bale next to Merlin, then reached over a hand to gently scratch Betsy’s head.
“Old Ben thinks you did a fine job, Merlin.” He said. He looked at Merlin’s distinct profile - those devastating cheekbones, the curve of his lips, the gentle slope of his nose. Then Merlin looked over him, eyes bright and smile wide, and Arthur wondered vaguely if he’d ever be able to look anywhere else.
“That was you, Arthur. That was all you.”
Arthur had to smirk at the perfect opportunity Merlin had handed him.
“You helped a bit.” He said, and smirked over at Merlin.
“Just a little bit.” Merlin conceded. They lapsed into a comfortable silence, both listening to the sound of Betsy as she snored into the folds of Merlin’s shirt. It didn’t take too long for Merlin, too, to begin drifting off, the combination of the hay and the heat and the absolute stillness sending him off. His head may jhave lolled a bit to the side, and his lips parted just a bit as he faced Arthur, all sweet-faced and sleeping. And Arthur might have spent an inordinate amount of time staring at those lips, daring himself to lean over in the quiet and press a kiss against them, because it was Merlin, and he wanted to so badly it hurt in places he never knew he had, and… and because he just wanted to, damnit.
But he didn’t. Instead, he scooted a few inches over so that his arm was pressed into Merlin’s side, so that he could let the fabric of Merlin’s shirt slide between his fingers. He stared at Merlin for a long beat, to make sure he wasn’t going to wake up, then tilted his head ever so slowly to the side so that he rested it on Merlin’s shoulder. Then Arthur Pendragon, future king of Albion, drifted off to sleep in a pile of hay with a servant and a pig for company.
Old Ben came in two hours later to find the three of them fast asleep. He lifted an old blanket off a crate, and lay it gently across them to keep them warm as night twisted in slowly. He noticed with a small smile that one of Merlin’s hands had fallen away from Betsy, down into the hay, and that it was now wrapped around Arthur’s.
~end~
Author: Matriaya
Rating: PG, for pure fluffy goodness and mention of small, adorable animals
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur
A/N: For the lovely apparentlyidiot, whose birthday is soon, who requested something with a piglet.
Wordcount: 2.1K
Summary: A frantic Merlin plays doctor to a sick piglet, and Arthur helps, while trying very hard not to show how smitten he is.
_______________________________________________
“Merlin, where the hell are you?”
Arthur Pendragon’s voice resonated loud through the castle, then even louder out into the courtyard as he shouted to hell, high water, and all who would listen that Merlin was the most useless servant on the face of the planet and that once he got his hands on the idiot, unspeakable acts of violence were going to occur.
Two hours later, when Merlin still hadn’t been located, and Arthur had searched every inch of the castle and it’s grounds, he was practically purple with rage.
“Gwen!” he spotted the beautiful brunette down by the well. She looked up at him, blinking with those fawn eyes at him in surprise for a moment before surprise melted into a fond greeting.
“Hello, your highness.” She said, but her smile faltered at the rage on his face.
“Have you seen Merlin?” he asked. He tried very, very hard not to let all of his anger explode onto his face.
He smiled. God, she was so pretty, so innocent and kind that sometimes it hurt to look at her. A guilty look crept up into her eyes as she processed his question, and paused over an answer. That told Arthur more than anything. The answer was yes. Yes, Gwen knew exactly where Merlin was, but she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. More specifically, she wasn’t supposed to tell Arthur.
“Where is he, Gwen?” he asked before she had a chance to lie to him. She looked down for a moment, bit her lip, then looked up.
“Down at Old Ben’s place.” She said, not quite able to meet his gaze. Her lips parted to let more words out, but he didn’t quite have the patience anymore to listen to the excuses Merlin no doubt put her up to, so he put a hand on her shoulder and smiled.
“Thank you, Gwen.”
She flushed a very attractive shade of pink, and picked up her water bucket. Arthur was a good twenty feet away before she called out.
“Be gentle on him, my lord. He’s…. well, you’ll see.”
That put a bit of a hitch in his step, but he didn’t slow down as he moved down the hill towards Old Ben’s place. It was a tiny farm, tucked in a corner of the lower town, nestled against a fair number of acres. Ben himself, who had been nicknamed Old Ben for as long as Arthur could remember, ever since the man was younger than Uther. He was perhaps the quintessential picture of the perfect citizen. Payed his taxes on time, and without complaint, always had a friendly smile on his face. Never told on Arthur when Arthur used to steal his potatoes when he was young, let him play in his fields. When Arthur made it down the hill to Old Ben’s farm, he had only warm smiles and a clap on the back for the aging man. Ben, on the other hand, looked at Arthur as one might a mother who just lost all her children in a fire.
“Ben?” Arthur asked as he surveyed Ben with his white tufts of hair poking out the top of his head alarmingly. “What’s wrong?”
Deep tracks of red were carved into the otherwise pale skin around Ben’s eyes, as he clutched his floppy hat in his plate-sized hands and snuffled loudly.
“It’s Martha,” he said in a voice so choked with tears Arthur quite literally wasn’t sure what to do with himself for a moment. “She had ‘er piglets this morning, and the youngest one…”
He glanced back to where the small barn was, not much bigger than his actual house, and hung his head.
And there, Arthur found Merlin. Hunched over in a pile of hay, shoulders slumped in an unmistakable sign of sadness, Merlin was cradling a small piglet in his lap, trying desperately to get the tiny creature to drink from a skein filled with milk. Arthur’s intent was to give him an ear-lashing he would never get, to bombard him with a verbal tirade so scathing that Merlin wouldn’t be able to hear for a week. But when he stood in the doorway and saw Merlin there, dirty and cold and practically shaking from nerves, the tirade shriveled up on his tongue. Instead, he just stood for a long moment and watched Merlin. Watched those long fingers move soothingly across the new baby pig’s skin. Listened to his familiar voice whisper words of encouragement and praise to the piglet.
“Merlin.”
When Arthur finally spoke his name, there wasn’t a single trace of hostility in his voice, only concern. Merlin started, and when his eyes snapped over to meet Arthur’s, Arthur saw the panic and the sadness that swallowed up his whole face. He saw tear tracks to match Old Ben’s, though the tears had long since dried.
Merlin opened up his mouth to spew out something - apologies? Excuses? - but Arthur just shook his head, and moved into the barn. Then, to Merlin’s very great surprise, he sat down in the hay next to Merlin and reached out a finger to stroke along the piglet’s head.
“Ben said it wasn’t doing well?” he asked. He felt Merlin’s eyes wide on his face, staring at him with shocked surprise, but he couldn’t bring himself to meet his servant’s gaze. He didn’t trust himself not to react to the emotions he knew were spilling out of them. A few silent moments passed where Arthur traced the soft skin of the piglet, and tried not to notice how close his fingers came to brushing against Merlin’s.
“She’s not eating,” Merlin said finally. “She’s the littlest so she got pushed away, so I’ve been trying to feed her, but she’s…”
He trailed off when his voice threatened to break.
“What’s her name?” Arthur asked on a whim, and was rewarded with a small smile from Merlin. Christ, he could feel the man literally trembling next to him. He wanted to ask if Merlin had slept at all, if he’d been here all day, if he’d eaten anything, but he knew the answers to all those questions without asking.
“She doesn’t have one.” Merlin said.
“There’s your problem.” Arthur said. “How can she fight if she doesn’t know who she is?”
Merlin looked over at Arthur then with a smile so pretty it nearly blinded him.
“How about Betsy?” Arthur suggested and Merlin could only nod in agreement because he wasn’t so sure the next words to come out of him wouldn’t be you’re wonderful, Arthur Pendragon.
“So Betsy,” Arthur brought his face down close to the pig’s, and Merlin could feel Arthur’s breath hot against his fingers. “You need to eat now, love. You need to get better, or Ben will have our skins.”
The little piglet squirmed a bit in Merlin’s hands, still trying weakly to keep the drips of milk from touching her lips. At the sound of Arthur’s voice, though, her thrashing seemed to slow a bit, and her movements stilled. For a heartstopping moment, Merlin thought perhaps she was finally dying, that the hours and hours of no milk and constant strain had finally caused her little tiny heart to give out, and that the poor innocent piglet would slip from the world right there in his hands. His breath hitched as panic wrapped around him like a cloak, and he couldn’t help the little murmured No- that escaped his lips. At the word, Arthur tensed beside him, and put a hand on his arm. It stayed there. And stayed there. And through the breathless moments when they waited to see what newly christened Betsy would do, Arthur’s fingers remained on Merlin’s arm, and his thumb rubbed small circles into the fabric of Merlin’s shirt.
Then she began sucking.
Merlin could have sang. He could have shouted sweet music to the rafters. As it stood, a very undignified little giggle escaped his lips as Betsy, at long last, began sucking on the skein of milk, her tiny snout moving up and down. Arthur skipped right over little giggle and moved on to great whoop of joy as he stood up from the hay bale and did an awkward half-thrust, half-dance of victory that sent the chickens around them clucking away nervously.
It was another two hours before little Betsy had drunk her fill, and the whole time, Merlin cradled her in his arms like an adoring father. His whispered encouragements had taken on a more cheerful note now, and every couple of minutes, he would look over at Arthur with his so full of gratitude and hope that Arthur would forget to breathe, or - in one memorable and rather embarrassing occasion - walk into a beam. Merlin felt her heartbeat grow stronger, felt her movements grow more and more insistent, and after two hours of slowly feeding her, Merlin actually set her down and watched her toddle around the dirt floor of the barn, looking for all the world like a proud parent.
Old Ben peeked his head around the doorway around hour three, but Merlin didn’t notice him. He had eyes only for the piglet. Arthur took the liberty of rising up out of the straw, and stepping outside.
“Betsy is going to be just fine.” He said, putting a hand on the old man’s shoulder.
“Betsy?” Ben asked, quirking a very fuzzy eyebrow. Arthur was surprised at his slight rush of embarrassment then.
“The piglet. We, uh… we named her Betsy. To make her feel more needed.”
“A right good name, that.” Ben said with a nod that was so much more than just agreement. It was a thank you, an expression of gratitude, and the relieved nod of an old man who averted one more moment of death.
Arthur helped Ben carry the rest of the chicken feed from his house to the bar, and when he returned, he found Merlin sprawled out in the hay with Betsy tucked up against his chest, asleep. Merlin was staring up at the rafters, watching the dust float idly through the warm evening sunlight that filtered in. Arthur knew he should tell Merlin to put the piglet down, that they had things to do and places to be, and that spending the rest of the evening in a dusty barn with farm animals was no way for a prince’s servant to spend the evening, let alone the prince himself.
But he couldn’t.
Not with the way Merlin had been staring at him all afternoon, with his enormous eyes all lit up with sunshine.
So instead, Arthur dropped himself down and lay back in the hay bale next to Merlin, then reached over a hand to gently scratch Betsy’s head.
“Old Ben thinks you did a fine job, Merlin.” He said. He looked at Merlin’s distinct profile - those devastating cheekbones, the curve of his lips, the gentle slope of his nose. Then Merlin looked over him, eyes bright and smile wide, and Arthur wondered vaguely if he’d ever be able to look anywhere else.
“That was you, Arthur. That was all you.”
Arthur had to smirk at the perfect opportunity Merlin had handed him.
“You helped a bit.” He said, and smirked over at Merlin.
“Just a little bit.” Merlin conceded. They lapsed into a comfortable silence, both listening to the sound of Betsy as she snored into the folds of Merlin’s shirt. It didn’t take too long for Merlin, too, to begin drifting off, the combination of the hay and the heat and the absolute stillness sending him off. His head may jhave lolled a bit to the side, and his lips parted just a bit as he faced Arthur, all sweet-faced and sleeping. And Arthur might have spent an inordinate amount of time staring at those lips, daring himself to lean over in the quiet and press a kiss against them, because it was Merlin, and he wanted to so badly it hurt in places he never knew he had, and… and because he just wanted to, damnit.
But he didn’t. Instead, he scooted a few inches over so that his arm was pressed into Merlin’s side, so that he could let the fabric of Merlin’s shirt slide between his fingers. He stared at Merlin for a long beat, to make sure he wasn’t going to wake up, then tilted his head ever so slowly to the side so that he rested it on Merlin’s shoulder. Then Arthur Pendragon, future king of Albion, drifted off to sleep in a pile of hay with a servant and a pig for company.
Old Ben came in two hours later to find the three of them fast asleep. He lifted an old blanket off a crate, and lay it gently across them to keep them warm as night twisted in slowly. He noticed with a small smile that one of Merlin’s hands had fallen away from Betsy, down into the hay, and that it was now wrapped around Arthur’s.
~end~