![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: The Offering
Rating: PG+
Characters: Merlin, Arthur
Warnings: Brief mentions of torture
Summary: written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sarievenea for this Prompt over at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
gentable. My first reveal fic.
A/N: I'm just a posting fiend today ;)
The Offering
Merlin hadn't cared. He was so cold, and Arthur was so cold - shivering so hard he fumbled with the flint, cutting his nicked and bloodied hands. Friendship and the future, Destiny and uncertainty - Merlin let it all come crashing down because it didn't matter anymore. He hurt and he was so, so tired but he couldn't leave Arthur like this, if he was going to leave at all; he didn't know anymore. But it didn't matter now. None of it mattered.
Please.
Please Arthur.
Please don't hate me.
~oOo~
Merlin was an idiot, a stupid, self-sacrificing idiot and if he lived – which he would. He would, damn it! – then Arthur was going to kill him.
It was with a dull pain in his shoulders that he ignored and a grunt he couldn't help that Arthur lowered Merlin's broken and shaking body to the ground. Relief warred viciously with worry when Merlin curled into himself (he moved, he was still alive) shivering so hard his teeth were chattering, and in between each erratic breath Arthur thought he could hear a pained whimper.
Lords it was all such a mess. Merlin was such a mess – bloody and tattered and convulsing with shakes. Because the idiot just had to stay behind and distract the brigands so Arthur could get away. Merlin just had to go and get captured and tortured in Arthur's place because Arthur was so important and servants weren't worth spit...
Arthur covered his mouth, trying not to be sick. Merlin's arm was bent at the wrong angle near his wrist, and it hurt him so bad that Merlin gagged if it was so much as jostled. He had broken ribs, because no one breathed that shallowly and hugged themselves that protectively if they didn't. There were cuts and bruises, a swollen eye and a swollen lip, three gashes across his skinny back the length of a hand when the bastards had taken to cutting Merlin just before Arthur showed up to stop it. They'd taken his jacket, torturing him outside in the deluge of a late autumn rain.
Merlin's face was white. His lips were turning blue.
Idiot. Idiot, idiot, idiot. Arthur ripped his gaze from Merlin's battered body. He needed to find wood, build a fire, get Merlin warm.
“Merlin, don't you move and don't you dare die on me,” Arthur growled. Then he was up and running, back into the downpour as he gathered what wood he could find. He brought it into the cave, dumped it onto the ground, then knelt before it as though in supplication.
Please. Please catch fire, please. He clacked two stones together over and over. They sparked each time. Each spark died on the wet wood.
“Come on.”
More sparks.
More nothing.
“Come on!”
Arthur's hands shook, his blood like ice, his bones coated in frost. The next time the stones collided they slipped, cutting his knuckles. Blood dripped down his fingers, across the stones and splattered onto the dark wood. Arthur didn't care.
“Come on, please!”
~oOo~
Please don't hate me Arthur.
I'm so sorry. So, so sorry.
Arthur cursed the wood and ignored his bleeding hands. He was pale with the cold, stiff and growing stiffer. Water dripped from his hair, his nose, into his eyes, onto the wood that ignored his abuses and pleas.
This was all Merlin's fault. He'd been in so much pain, so cold, that he had forgotten about his magic. Imagine that. Born with the power to move Heaven and Earth, and he had forgotten all about it. If he hadn't forgotten, then he could have freed himself and Arthur wouldn't have come back for him, wouldn't have been caught in the rain. Now he would freeze to death, like Merlin was freezing to death, and it hurt so much, being cold. It tightened Merlin's muscles and made his broken bones grate against each other. It made Arthur fumble with the stones and cut himself more.
Arthur was bleeding, and Merlin hurt so much. They had kicked him and punched him and cut him, laughing as he screamed. Then Arthur had saved him, which he shouldn't have had to do.
But Merlin hadn't cared, because it had hurt so much.
This was all Merlin's fault.
“Come on!” Arthur cried.
Merlin shook and let out a quiet sob.
“Please...” Merlin said in a voice too small and broken for Arthur to hear above the cracking stones.
Don't hate me.
Merlin brought his hands to his mouth. They were shaking terribly, knocking against each other. His breaths were shallow and uneven, as unsteady as the rest of him. It hurt to breath, it hurt to speak, it hurt so horribly to move and for a moment he thought he was going to be sick. A little exhale, meant to be a word, brushed small and warm against his palms. He took a breath – lord, it hurt! Like being stabbed. He bit his lip, fighting through the riptide of pain and terror, and then he said the word again. He cupped the warmth in his hands, so bright and golden and small. But he was so tired, and it was taking everything he had to hold onto that warmth even as his hands dropped. They fell to the floor, and the warmth trickled away like water. It flowed to the wood, propelled by a wish instead of a command.
Arthur turned his head. He looked just in time to see the last of the heat flow onto the wood and catch it, to hell with it being wet.
Arthur saw just as the gold faded from Merlin's eyes.
~oOo~
The fire danced on the once wet wood, throwing their shadows against the rough wall where they writhed as though insane and reveling in it.
It shouldn't be possible.
It isn't possible.
The rocks fell from Arthur's limp hands. He stared at the flames. Those impossible flames.
He was just seeing things, that was all. The wood had caught, despite how wet it was. Arthur looked at Merlin.
Merlin wasn't looking at Arthur. He was looking at the flames, his eyes wide, full of so much sorrow, so much resignation. Tears were falling fast from his eyelids. He was saying something, but his voice too weak and breaths too stuttering for Arthur to hear.
But Arthur listened, stilling his own breaths. He thought Merlin was saying sorry.
Sorry. I'm so sorry.
Arthur hadn't been seeing things.
While a part of Arthur's mind became paralyzed by this revelation, another part – the part that dictated action – moved his body without his permission. His hands pulled Merlin closer to the fire. Those same hands removed Merlin's sodden, ragged shirt. They tended to Merlin's wounds, using the tattered shirt to clean the cuts, some left over sticks to splint his arm, wrapping him in the rolls of cloth Gaius liked to have all the knights and Merlin, even the king, carry. Arthur's hands covered Merlin in a shirt from Arthur's pack. Arthur's hands shed him of his mail and doublet, and changed him into something dry and warm.
Arthur's hands lifted Merlin gently, easing the thinner man against his side. They wrapped them both in the only blanket left to them, gathering what little heat they had between them and the heat the fire was giving them.
The paralyzed part of Arthur's mind thought only of Merlin and magic.
Merlin had magic.
Merlin was a sorcerer.
Arthur wondered if this was a dream. Merlin can't have magic. He's an idiot - a bumbling, self-sacrificing idiot who was too loyal and too stupid and too... too... too bloody Merlin.
“M'sorry.”
Arthur looked down at Merlin – shaking, twitching Merlin, tears streaming one after the other down his pale face. His breathing was even more erratic, each breath a hiccup and a shudder, and for a moment Arthur panicked, thinking Merlin was suffocating.
Then he realized Merlin was sobbing.
“M'Sorry. So sorry, sorry. I didn't mean to. Sorry, sorry, sorry...”
Arthur wished Merlin would stop, wanted to tell him to shut up because maybe... maybe Arthur could pretend it hadn't happened.
But Merlin wouldn't stop – sobbing, shaking, apologizing, begging.
“Please. Don't hate me. I'm sorry.”
Then Merlin was sobbing so hard he couldn't speak at all. He could barely breathe.
Arthur wrapped both arms around Merlin – so he wouldn't fall, that was why, the idiot was shaking so hard.
“Why?” Arthur asked. “Why didn't you tell me?”
“Scared,” Merlin said, his voice like a child's and so small Arthur could barely hear it. Merlin sniffed. “M'sorry.” He renewed his weeping.
“Why use it at all, then?” Arthur asked irritably.
“Born with it.”
“Impossible.”
He could feel Merlin shaking his head. “S'true.”
Arthur clenched his jaw, feeling his teeth grate together. “Why now? After all this time, if you were so bloody scared, why use it now?”
Merlin sniffed wetly. “You were cold.”
“I was cold,” Arthur parroted. “I was cold.”
Then he laughed. “I was cold. Your biggest bloody secret and you give it up because I was cold. Lords, Merlin...”
He looked down at the other man, more like a boy in Arthur's shirt that was too big for his skinny frame, pale and shaking and tired in more than just body. Arthur remembered sneaking into the bandit's camp, creeping up on the one's torturing Merlin as they cut him, making him cry out in agony.
“Why didn't you save yourself with your magic?” Arthur said.
“Hurt,” Merlin said, and shuddered, hard, as though remembering that pain.
That agony.
“Lords, Merlin,” Arthur breathed. He rested his chin on top of the boy's wet head. Arthur's eyes burned and blurred. He blinked. When he felt a tear roll down his face, he didn't bother to wipe it away.
“M'sorry,” Merlin said, and Arthur could tell by the high, broken strain of his voice that he was weeping again.
“I'm not mad, Merlin,” Arthur said, because he wasn't, and wasn't surprised that he wasn't. If anything, it made quite a bit of sense, all things considered.
What did surprise him was that he didn't care. Maybe because dangerous sorcerers didn't sob in your arms, begging for forgiveness. Mostly because magic or not, it was still Merlin, and it would always be Merlin. Bumbling, idiotic, self-sacrificing, loyal Merlin who, hurting and scared, gave up his secrets and summoned fire because his master was cold.
Lords, how much more Merlin could you get?
“I'm not mad,” Arthur said, tightening his hold on his broken manservant. Because Merlin was cold, and rather unsteady even when only sitting up, that was why. That was all. Nothing to do with reassuring him. Not because Arthur had nearly lost him. Not one bit.
“We will need to talk about it,” Arthur said. “But I won't burn you on a pyre or boot you out of Camelot, if that's what you're worried about.”
Merlin made a sound that Arthur thought may have been a weak laugh. “Might have... crossed my mind.”
“I can imagine.” And, funnily enough, Arthur could. What a hell of a burden to have to carry – being born with magic in a world that either abused or hated magic.
“You'll be all right, Merlin,” Arthur said. “I swear it.”
When the rain had stopped, both men were warm and Arthur was sure Merlin would live another day (and learned that Merlin was rubbish at healing spells when he tried to command Merlin to heal himself) he brought Merlin home, where Gaius fixed what Arthur couldn't.
It was funny. Of all the questions Arthur had, of all the things that he wanted to say, the only question that seemed to matter was, “All right, Merlin?”
And the only answer that mattered was a smile and a, “Yeah, much better.”
The End
Rating: PG+
Characters: Merlin, Arthur
Warnings: Brief mentions of torture
Summary: written for
sarievenea for this Prompt over at gentable. My first reveal fic. A/N: I'm just a posting fiend today ;)
Merlin hadn't cared. He was so cold, and Arthur was so cold - shivering so hard he fumbled with the flint, cutting his nicked and bloodied hands. Friendship and the future, Destiny and uncertainty - Merlin let it all come crashing down because it didn't matter anymore. He hurt and he was so, so tired but he couldn't leave Arthur like this, if he was going to leave at all; he didn't know anymore. But it didn't matter now. None of it mattered.
Please.
Please Arthur.
Please don't hate me.
~oOo~
Merlin was an idiot, a stupid, self-sacrificing idiot and if he lived – which he would. He would, damn it! – then Arthur was going to kill him.
It was with a dull pain in his shoulders that he ignored and a grunt he couldn't help that Arthur lowered Merlin's broken and shaking body to the ground. Relief warred viciously with worry when Merlin curled into himself (he moved, he was still alive) shivering so hard his teeth were chattering, and in between each erratic breath Arthur thought he could hear a pained whimper.
Lords it was all such a mess. Merlin was such a mess – bloody and tattered and convulsing with shakes. Because the idiot just had to stay behind and distract the brigands so Arthur could get away. Merlin just had to go and get captured and tortured in Arthur's place because Arthur was so important and servants weren't worth spit...
Arthur covered his mouth, trying not to be sick. Merlin's arm was bent at the wrong angle near his wrist, and it hurt him so bad that Merlin gagged if it was so much as jostled. He had broken ribs, because no one breathed that shallowly and hugged themselves that protectively if they didn't. There were cuts and bruises, a swollen eye and a swollen lip, three gashes across his skinny back the length of a hand when the bastards had taken to cutting Merlin just before Arthur showed up to stop it. They'd taken his jacket, torturing him outside in the deluge of a late autumn rain.
Merlin's face was white. His lips were turning blue.
Idiot. Idiot, idiot, idiot. Arthur ripped his gaze from Merlin's battered body. He needed to find wood, build a fire, get Merlin warm.
“Merlin, don't you move and don't you dare die on me,” Arthur growled. Then he was up and running, back into the downpour as he gathered what wood he could find. He brought it into the cave, dumped it onto the ground, then knelt before it as though in supplication.
Please. Please catch fire, please. He clacked two stones together over and over. They sparked each time. Each spark died on the wet wood.
“Come on.”
More sparks.
More nothing.
“Come on!”
Arthur's hands shook, his blood like ice, his bones coated in frost. The next time the stones collided they slipped, cutting his knuckles. Blood dripped down his fingers, across the stones and splattered onto the dark wood. Arthur didn't care.
“Come on, please!”
~oOo~
Please don't hate me Arthur.
I'm so sorry. So, so sorry.
Arthur cursed the wood and ignored his bleeding hands. He was pale with the cold, stiff and growing stiffer. Water dripped from his hair, his nose, into his eyes, onto the wood that ignored his abuses and pleas.
This was all Merlin's fault. He'd been in so much pain, so cold, that he had forgotten about his magic. Imagine that. Born with the power to move Heaven and Earth, and he had forgotten all about it. If he hadn't forgotten, then he could have freed himself and Arthur wouldn't have come back for him, wouldn't have been caught in the rain. Now he would freeze to death, like Merlin was freezing to death, and it hurt so much, being cold. It tightened Merlin's muscles and made his broken bones grate against each other. It made Arthur fumble with the stones and cut himself more.
Arthur was bleeding, and Merlin hurt so much. They had kicked him and punched him and cut him, laughing as he screamed. Then Arthur had saved him, which he shouldn't have had to do.
But Merlin hadn't cared, because it had hurt so much.
This was all Merlin's fault.
“Come on!” Arthur cried.
Merlin shook and let out a quiet sob.
“Please...” Merlin said in a voice too small and broken for Arthur to hear above the cracking stones.
Don't hate me.
Merlin brought his hands to his mouth. They were shaking terribly, knocking against each other. His breaths were shallow and uneven, as unsteady as the rest of him. It hurt to breath, it hurt to speak, it hurt so horribly to move and for a moment he thought he was going to be sick. A little exhale, meant to be a word, brushed small and warm against his palms. He took a breath – lord, it hurt! Like being stabbed. He bit his lip, fighting through the riptide of pain and terror, and then he said the word again. He cupped the warmth in his hands, so bright and golden and small. But he was so tired, and it was taking everything he had to hold onto that warmth even as his hands dropped. They fell to the floor, and the warmth trickled away like water. It flowed to the wood, propelled by a wish instead of a command.
Arthur turned his head. He looked just in time to see the last of the heat flow onto the wood and catch it, to hell with it being wet.
Arthur saw just as the gold faded from Merlin's eyes.
~oOo~
The fire danced on the once wet wood, throwing their shadows against the rough wall where they writhed as though insane and reveling in it.
It shouldn't be possible.
It isn't possible.
The rocks fell from Arthur's limp hands. He stared at the flames. Those impossible flames.
He was just seeing things, that was all. The wood had caught, despite how wet it was. Arthur looked at Merlin.
Merlin wasn't looking at Arthur. He was looking at the flames, his eyes wide, full of so much sorrow, so much resignation. Tears were falling fast from his eyelids. He was saying something, but his voice too weak and breaths too stuttering for Arthur to hear.
But Arthur listened, stilling his own breaths. He thought Merlin was saying sorry.
Sorry. I'm so sorry.
Arthur hadn't been seeing things.
While a part of Arthur's mind became paralyzed by this revelation, another part – the part that dictated action – moved his body without his permission. His hands pulled Merlin closer to the fire. Those same hands removed Merlin's sodden, ragged shirt. They tended to Merlin's wounds, using the tattered shirt to clean the cuts, some left over sticks to splint his arm, wrapping him in the rolls of cloth Gaius liked to have all the knights and Merlin, even the king, carry. Arthur's hands covered Merlin in a shirt from Arthur's pack. Arthur's hands shed him of his mail and doublet, and changed him into something dry and warm.
Arthur's hands lifted Merlin gently, easing the thinner man against his side. They wrapped them both in the only blanket left to them, gathering what little heat they had between them and the heat the fire was giving them.
The paralyzed part of Arthur's mind thought only of Merlin and magic.
Merlin had magic.
Merlin was a sorcerer.
Arthur wondered if this was a dream. Merlin can't have magic. He's an idiot - a bumbling, self-sacrificing idiot who was too loyal and too stupid and too... too... too bloody Merlin.
“M'sorry.”
Arthur looked down at Merlin – shaking, twitching Merlin, tears streaming one after the other down his pale face. His breathing was even more erratic, each breath a hiccup and a shudder, and for a moment Arthur panicked, thinking Merlin was suffocating.
Then he realized Merlin was sobbing.
“M'Sorry. So sorry, sorry. I didn't mean to. Sorry, sorry, sorry...”
Arthur wished Merlin would stop, wanted to tell him to shut up because maybe... maybe Arthur could pretend it hadn't happened.
But Merlin wouldn't stop – sobbing, shaking, apologizing, begging.
“Please. Don't hate me. I'm sorry.”
Then Merlin was sobbing so hard he couldn't speak at all. He could barely breathe.
Arthur wrapped both arms around Merlin – so he wouldn't fall, that was why, the idiot was shaking so hard.
“Why?” Arthur asked. “Why didn't you tell me?”
“Scared,” Merlin said, his voice like a child's and so small Arthur could barely hear it. Merlin sniffed. “M'sorry.” He renewed his weeping.
“Why use it at all, then?” Arthur asked irritably.
“Born with it.”
“Impossible.”
He could feel Merlin shaking his head. “S'true.”
Arthur clenched his jaw, feeling his teeth grate together. “Why now? After all this time, if you were so bloody scared, why use it now?”
Merlin sniffed wetly. “You were cold.”
“I was cold,” Arthur parroted. “I was cold.”
Then he laughed. “I was cold. Your biggest bloody secret and you give it up because I was cold. Lords, Merlin...”
He looked down at the other man, more like a boy in Arthur's shirt that was too big for his skinny frame, pale and shaking and tired in more than just body. Arthur remembered sneaking into the bandit's camp, creeping up on the one's torturing Merlin as they cut him, making him cry out in agony.
“Why didn't you save yourself with your magic?” Arthur said.
“Hurt,” Merlin said, and shuddered, hard, as though remembering that pain.
That agony.
“Lords, Merlin,” Arthur breathed. He rested his chin on top of the boy's wet head. Arthur's eyes burned and blurred. He blinked. When he felt a tear roll down his face, he didn't bother to wipe it away.
“M'sorry,” Merlin said, and Arthur could tell by the high, broken strain of his voice that he was weeping again.
“I'm not mad, Merlin,” Arthur said, because he wasn't, and wasn't surprised that he wasn't. If anything, it made quite a bit of sense, all things considered.
What did surprise him was that he didn't care. Maybe because dangerous sorcerers didn't sob in your arms, begging for forgiveness. Mostly because magic or not, it was still Merlin, and it would always be Merlin. Bumbling, idiotic, self-sacrificing, loyal Merlin who, hurting and scared, gave up his secrets and summoned fire because his master was cold.
Lords, how much more Merlin could you get?
“I'm not mad,” Arthur said, tightening his hold on his broken manservant. Because Merlin was cold, and rather unsteady even when only sitting up, that was why. That was all. Nothing to do with reassuring him. Not because Arthur had nearly lost him. Not one bit.
“We will need to talk about it,” Arthur said. “But I won't burn you on a pyre or boot you out of Camelot, if that's what you're worried about.”
Merlin made a sound that Arthur thought may have been a weak laugh. “Might have... crossed my mind.”
“I can imagine.” And, funnily enough, Arthur could. What a hell of a burden to have to carry – being born with magic in a world that either abused or hated magic.
“You'll be all right, Merlin,” Arthur said. “I swear it.”
When the rain had stopped, both men were warm and Arthur was sure Merlin would live another day (and learned that Merlin was rubbish at healing spells when he tried to command Merlin to heal himself) he brought Merlin home, where Gaius fixed what Arthur couldn't.
It was funny. Of all the questions Arthur had, of all the things that he wanted to say, the only question that seemed to matter was, “All right, Merlin?”
And the only answer that mattered was a smile and a, “Yeah, much better.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-10-24 11:51 pm (UTC)From:That. Was perfect. THANK YOU!!!! I loved it. It was EXACTLY what I had in my brain, and framed just perfectly. Merlin's sad little whisper, his reason for doing it... *sniff*
The hug was so in-character for Arthur, his thoughts, everything. It was lovely. I am so happy now.
*does a wee jig*
no subject
Date: 2012-10-25 12:00 am (UTC)From:(also, your icon makes me squee).
no subject
Date: 2012-10-25 12:29 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-10-26 09:46 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-10-25 12:46 am (UTC)From:Gorgeous! This is probably one of the best reveal fics that I've read, not only for the lovely h/c, but for Arthur's logic of Merlin's unending loyalty. :)
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Date: 2012-10-26 09:48 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-10-25 02:38 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-10-26 09:49 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-10-25 05:50 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-10-26 09:51 pm (UTC)From:and, really, how could anyone be angry at a poor, broken, hurting and sobbing Merlin? ;) I just want to wrap that boy in a wool blanket even on the good days.
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Date: 2012-10-26 05:21 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-10-26 09:52 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-10-27 09:13 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-10-28 02:29 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-10-27 04:18 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-10-28 02:29 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-10-29 02:08 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-10-29 08:19 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2014-07-05 08:51 am (UTC)From: