Title: World Shaking Down (Part 9/10)
Author: talesofyesac
Fandom: Merlin
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: Merlin, Arthur (gen)
Word Count: 3,106
Warnings: Some violence and eventual character death (minor character). Also, spoilers for 2x13 and anything before that.
Summary: You can't save the dying with words... and, yet, Balinor is still breathing. Arthur would know. He saw it. All of it. Including the part where Merlin used magic.
Disclaimer: Nope, don't own any of it. Just playing around
Merlin wakes to the smell of ashes and… something else that’s sweeter smelling, but far to sickly too be pleasant. At first, he doesn’t recognize it. He’s never actually been in Camelot when someone was burnt at the stake. Beheadings, yes, but this is very different. That smell, though-it winds into his nose until he sniffs in protest, turning his head to the side on the pillow.
The pillow smells like him, and that’s better-more familiar. Comforting. It’s slightly unwashed, but with sort of a warm scent, and he cuddles into it further, sighing aloud at the soft give under his face.
“Merlin.”
Gaius. That… sounds like Gauis. Has he overslept? He dearly hopes not-Arthur’s going to want his breakfast and his bath, and it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t wake until Merlin gets there-he’s always still put out about Merlin being tardy, even if he wasn’t awake to need anything.
Insufferable prat. Royal prat. No matter what he is, he’s still a prat.
“Mmm, yeah, Gauis, I’m up,” he mutters, reaching out to swat aside the blankets.
And for the love of-he has-that hurts- He bites off the thought, grinding his teeth and panting for the air pain pushed out of his lungs.
Well, he’s certainly awake now.
Good God, when did his arm decide it was going to protest all forms of motion? Did it suddenly decide that he needs a mental run-through of every curse he knows? Because he’s sure not bothering to try to stop them from streaming out of his mouth. He can’t really do much beyond just curling over into himself, grunting against the stabs of agony thrusting up and down his arm. “What happened--?” he manages to gasp.
And then promptly realizes his doesn’t need to ask.
“Where’s Balinor?”
Gaius doesn’t answer, but his face appears more lined-he seems older. How much did he see… of what happened? It’s not as though Merlin doesn’t know. But-couldn’t he be wrong?
Please?
Shuffling upwards with his arm clutched tightly to his chest, he whispers, “Gaius?” He’s too close to pleading. It’s too much--his voice breaks over the word, but he can’t imagine not asking.
Carefully, Gaius, who is seated in a chair next to his bed, raises his hand to Merlin’s forehead. He could be checking for fever; he might only be trying to soothe. “You need to lie down, Merlin,” he says, cool palm resting on Merlin’s head.
“I-“ He shakes his head, faster and faster until he feels a bit dizzy. “Gaius, please, no-“
“You need to keep that arm still. I’d only just set it before you woke.”
Not much time can have passed, then. Balinor-the pyre is probably still there. Maybe Merlin could… with the ashes… if he exchanged his own life? A life for a life in the old religion. He did it with Nimueh. It saved Arthur. Why not Balinor? Surely it can’t be so impossible…
Something of his thoughts must reflect in his eyes, because Gaius frowns and leans forward to physically push him down. Merlin would have expected him to withdraw his hand once he had him back in bed, but Gaius fingers remain on his shoulder.
“You don’t-aren’t you going to brace it?” Merlin asks tonelessly, looking down at his arm. The pyre-if he could just get to the pyre, then maybe-
Those fingers on his shoulder clench a bit, and Gaius’s frown deepens. Has he ever looked this old? If he has, Merlin hasn’t noticed. Maybe he ought to look more closely. Old means death, and he… can’t lose Gaius too.
Not that he’s lost his father. He-that can’t be true yet. There’s got to be a way…
“I believe we’ll wait for Arthur to make an appearance.”
“You don’t need Arthur for that.”
This is his room. He knows every inch of it, from the bed-a lump in the left corner-to the hole in his blanket from where he pushed through it with his toe, to the slight burn in the corner where he might have accidentally lost a bit of control while trying a new spell. No, this room is infused with him-Merlin-and it’s not Arthur’s place, especially not when he’s-not entirely responsible, exactly-too closely tied in Merlin’s mind to the situation where he got the injury in the first place. Having Arthur come into his place that is only Merlin’s and passing judgment on the treatment of an injury he inflicted… No. Just no.
“Arthur doesn’t need to be here,” he reiterates, more firmly this time. He can even feel the stubborn jut of his chin-that look his mother used to tease him about when he was smaller and trying to make a point.
Again, Gaius doesn’t answer, though this time he does look away, hair falling forward into his face as he sighs heavily. It’s not the arm he’s waiting because of, Merlin realizes suddenly: it’s because Gaius fears he’ll try to get out of bed if he isn’t left with at least a hand to deter him.
The thing is, he’s right.
He’s thinking about doing it now anyway: he could get around Gaius, far more quickly than he could Arthur. Gaius couldn’t stop him-
Whatever hold Arthur has over his magic, it doesn’t link their thoughts, but when the door pushes open and Arthur trudges inside, Merlin would almost like that to be the explanation. At least that would absolve fate from being this unbelievably vicious-what are the chances that Arthur would come just as he’s about to break for it?
If Arthur realizes the impeccability of his timing, he doesn’t show it. Truthfully, he doesn’t show much: he just stands there, filling up the doorframe, hands clenched into fists at his sides. His eyes, though-they’re fixed on Merlin, looking for something that Merlin can’t begin to define and certainly can’t understand, at least not any more than he can comprehend how Arthur still seems so composed when he can’t really be like that on the inside. Can he? Not right now, surely.
“Arthur-“ he tries to say, struggling up against Gaius’s hand again.
Predictably, Arthur will have none of it-not that, in Merlin’s opinion, he ever really does. “For God’s sake, Merlin, lie down,” he mutters, scowling and scrubbing a hand over his face. He’s tired-exhausted, even. That much is blatantly obvious in the darkening circles under his eyes and the way his mouth has worn thin, muscles fighting extra hard to keep his expression carefully checked.
When Gaius rises, Arthur moves forward and sinks down into the vacated chair.
“Arthur-“
“I told you to lie down.” A quick shove sends Merlin to his back. Immediately, he winces at the jostle to his arm.
The pain must catch Arthur’s eye. “Sorry,” Arthur mutters, eyes flickering close for half a second as he takes a deep breath.
“Balinor-“
“Don’t ask me that, Merlin. Just-don’t ask what you already know.”
At his side, Gaius is binding up his arm, immobilizing it as best he can now that he’s apparently content that there’s someone to insure Merlin doesn’t get out of bed while he does it. He’s saying something to Arthur about it being a clean break, and Arthur is nodding, like he knew it would be-which he probably did, given that he’s trained to break arms and probably knows the effects of what he does-but neither of them are really talking to each other so much as at each other. What they’re saying-it’s just a way to fill the silence.
The words drift back and forth over Merlin.
“-will need to be off-duty for a time-“
“-assumed as much-“
“-heal cleanly-“
“-given him something for the pain?-“
They’re talking about his arm. They are talking about him when his father is dead, burned alive in the courtyard like a criminal when he should have been lauded as the man who saved Camelot. That can’t be right. Merlin found him and lost him, he was everything and nothing like he thought, and he can’t understand. Nothing around him makes sense.
Swallowing down the rolling of his stomach, he takes a deep breath.
“Arthur.”
He’s not certain what it is about his voice that is different from his earlier tries, but this time Arthur stops talking and looks at him. “What?” he asks, voice stretched as thin as Arthur looks.
“I-“ What? What does he want to ask? “I-“
Arthur frowns. “What, Merlin?”
“Was it quick?”
Honestly. Quick? A burning. There’s nothing quick about it. It’s roasting a person alive. Stupid, stupid question. Why did that tumble out his mouth?
Yet, somehow, Arthur is nodding. “There was smoke,” he says quietly. “I don’t think he felt much of the flame.”
“Smoke?”
“Merlin, “ he sighs, shaking his head with no hint of actual energy, “I may have refused to let you use your magic to save him, but I never said not to… ease the process. And you were…” He pauses then, leaning forward and pinching the bridge of his nose. “You were pushing so much magic at the situation that I suspect anything I didn’t explicitly close you off from…”
His mouth falls closed, and he just looks down at Merlin, waiting for him to understand. It’s easier than saying it, Merlin’s sure. You suffocated your father so he wouldn’t feel the flames doesn’t roll easily off the tongue. A mercy killing.
And still a killing.
“It’s possible that the magic recognized your intentions,” Gaius finishes for Arthur. “It knew what you wanted without being told, and it got as close to that as it could. If it couldn’t save your father, it was going to help him.”
Help him die. Right. Of course.
Merlin sinks his head back against the pillow.
“The whole courtyard stinks of smoke,” Arthur adds, though not unkindly. More… resignedly. He probably even believes what Merlin did should actually ease a conscience. Maybe it should. Merlin would like that. It’d be easier that way. Easier. That’s a laughable concept now, he thinks bitterly. “Thankfully, my father believes Balinor is responsible for it. A quicker way out, if you will.”
“I-how do you know it wasn’t my father who did it?”
Shrugging, Arthur leans back. One foot goes up, propping on the edge of Merlin’s bed. “I felt you do it.”
“Oh.”
I felt you help kill your father.
Is there a chill in the room? He shouldn’t be this cold, but he’s shivering, and looking anywhere but at Arthur seems like a very good option indeed. Arthur, though-he’s leaning back in his chair, his attention only half on Merlin now, the other half probably on matters at hand.
Not surprisingly, Gaius is the first to notice the unease Merlin is certain he’s wearing fairly obviously. Arthur-he doesn’t often notice things like that, not right away. He’s his own worries to care for, and reading the discomfort of others requires looking outside himself in a way that Arthur isn’t a natural at. Gaius, though, notices like a father-someone who’s more attuned to a child’s needs than to his own.
“Merlin,” he begins slowly, leaning in toward the bed, even stilling his attentions to Merlin’s arm for the moment, “what you did was a mercy.”
Trust Gaius to know right where the heart of the issue is. Merlin can only sigh inwardly (and maybe a little outwardly too). He should have expected.
“Yes,” he agrees blandly. Because it was a mercy. But it was still him who gave that death mercy.
“And you have nothing to feel guilty for.”
The contortions passing as an expression-that scrunched-faced, pursed-lip incredulity-that Arthur’s face starts attempting at the suggestion that Merlin could possibly feel guilty might be comical in another situation. “Well, of course he doesn’t,” he says, looking at Gauis like he’s lost his mind. “You know that, Merlin.” Merlin doesn’t answer; Arthur expression smoothes out into something more like confused worry. “Don’t you?”
“I still killed my own father.”
It’s not true. He knows it’s not. He’s being irrational. He just-he can’t get his mind around everything, and it’s as though his brain has stalled on this one point, something he knows he shouldn’t even be taking to heart, but damn it all, it’s easier to take this to heart than to consider the fact that his father is dead.
“What? You can’t possibly be that stupid!”
And then Arthur’s leaning down in front of him, forcing himself into Merlin’s line of sight with as much presumption as he does in anything else, and somehow-who knows how-that makes Merlin feel… not better, but less like his chest is about to explode. Arthur is Arthur: an arrogant ass with a good heart who is, despite denying it, Merlin’s friend, with whom Merlin would probably get on if Arthur weren’t a prince, and…
And Arthur’s still here. Supercilious and condescending and overbearing, but the world hasn’t completely gone to Hell if Arthur can look at him like that-like he’s utterly the most foolish human being Arthur has ever had the misfortune to encounter.
It feels good.
“That’s ridiculous, Merlin,” he scoffs, though the worried wrinkle of his brow takes the possible sting out of his words. “You know better.”
“Yes. I do.”
Gaius sighs. “Knowing is only one thing, sire.”
“Well, then he’s going to have to believe it too!” Because he’s Arthur, and surely emotions obey him as efficiently as people, yes? And why shouldn’t he declare that as though Merlin isn’t sitting right here listening to his every word? “You hear me?” he snaps, glaring down at Merlin. “I don’t care what you do. You blame me if you have to. But you do not put this on yourself. That is an order.”
Ah, yes, an order, which Arthur so often gives when he feels that he’s lost control of a situation. Totally in opposition to reason, though-and in complete contradiction to anything Merlin would ever admit out loud-this time it… helps. It’s an odd feeling, the way Arthur’s order gets under his skin and digs, wiggling around until Merlin, you idiot, that’s the stupidest idea you’ve had yet suddenly seems logical. Because Arthur? He doesn’t lie-not to Merlin. He doesn’t tell him what he wants to hear. He doesn’t coddle. No, Merlin thinks, Arthur hits him until he’s bruised, because an opponent will do worse. He insults and picks and mocks, and then he lets himself be insulted and picked and mocked in return when anyone else would send a servant who talked like that straight to the dungeons. He sacks Merlin one day in a fit of temper and then is willing to die for him the next. He’s arrogant, entitled, and sharp-tongued, and he has a temper that he really ought to work on, but somewhere mixed in with that, there’s an honor and a loyalty that makes the rest of him not always pleasant, but tolerable. And certainly worthy of loyalty.
And there is nothing more comforting than the fact that none of that has changed.
Merlin doesn’t smile. He doesn’t even really feel like smiling. But, if he did, that would be the thing to make him do it.
Apparently discontented with not receiving an answer, Arthur leans a little more firmly into his line of sight and adds, “Understand?” in a tone that is just the barest bit gentler.
Merlin finds himself nodding, and, more surprising in his mind, meaning it. “Yeah.”
Slowly, Arthur’s face relaxes, easing from what is probably satisfaction… and perhaps a bit of relief. Still, he peers at Merlin for just a moment longer, though he does finally look away and up at Gauis. If Arthur intends to hide the pointed glance he gives Gaius-implicitly laced with the everything-is-fine-now-I-fixed-it look that should be arrogant but is somehow kind of endearing-he does a poor job.
“Good,” Arthur says finally.
“I think-“
Arthur frowns. “Thinking is not a habit of yours, and now isn’t a good moment to start. Sleep. You need it.”
“I’d rather not-“
“Gaius, do you have something to help him?”
As if Gaius wouldn’t. That’s as sure a thing as Arthur needling him… and in a different way, it’s just as important: Gaius goes to fetch whatever inevitably foul tasting concoction he’ll pour down Merlin’s throat, because it’s what Merlin needs. Some part of it is incomprehensible-Merlin’s only really experienced it with his mother before, who is his mother, which means it simply made sense because he was hers by blood, no questions asked-but Gaius is intent on that concept in a way that is beyond what he’s called to do in just housing Merlin.
Whatever his reasons, he does it, though.
Just like he overrides Merlin’s protests and gives him something to help him sleep while Arthur looks on approvingly, traces of worry and exhaustion still etched in the wrinkles of his brow while he somehow manages to sit there with crossed arms looking confident. It’ll all be fine he’s essentially saying, just like he always does for everything, even when it’s all going horribly wrong. Sometimes Merlin hates that about him, but the thing with Arthur is that he truly means that aura he’s giving off-he’ll make things right or die trying-and to have that person beside you when your world seems incomprehensible-that’s heartening. Arthur will do his best, even down to staying until Merlin slips under. Or Merlin assumes that’s what he does.
Because Arthur is still there, talking softly with Gaius, when Merlin feels his magic suddenly flare. Arthur must know it’s happening, but there’s no wall stopping the magic. Okay, then, Arthur-he doesn’t seem to want to stop this. It’s nothing much, anyway-just one last burst of energy-but it stretches out of him and snakes across the room, seeking. Merlin just lets it go, eyes fluttering, wondering if maybe, possibly, Arthur meant what he said about not abusing that control unless he has to. Maybe, maybe, maybe, Arthur might accept what he is. He’d like that, he thinks as his magic gives one last, sharp jerk.
The tiny carved dragon resting on the table by the opposite wall comes to stand next to him on the bed just as Merlin finally feels sleep pull him all the way under.