[fic] The Unbroken Thread, 1a/1
Jan. 8th, 2011 03:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
da_ya_riTitle: The Unbroken Thread
Fandom: Merlin BBC
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 11,804
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur
Warnings: illness (though not terminal), medical inaccuracies, very slight gore, descriptions of dehydration, body issues
Summary: Originally posted here @![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
kinkme_merlin. In which Arthur has Micturition syncope, and Merlin develops the annoying habit of burrowing into every part of Arthur's life that's not under lock and key.
A/N: *de-anons* ... Um. Hi? :D I still remember how uncertain I felt about this fic back in the day, but the response at KMM has overwhelmed me into thinking that it's worth de-anoning. ♥ Once again, I apologize for any and all medical inaccuracies—I did my best—and the title is from the song by Symphony of Science. I'm still a bit \o? about posting this but I trust you guys not to make fun of me. xD Hope you like it!
ETA: There is now podfic of this by the amazingly talented![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sophinisba!
Arthur would like to think that by the time Merlin becomes his manservant, he has already gotten used to it.
Which is a lie, of course—but of all the little half-truths he has told his father in his life, this is one he can't bring himself to regret, not when it erases the dark shadows around the king's eyes, little by little. Although it never slows to a stop, the string of executions dwindles the longer Arthur maintains the lie, and Arthur tells himself that he should be grateful.
It started just after his twentieth birthday, and for about a week Arthur had thought he was just coming down with something. He'd carried on with his life as usual, he'd gone hunting, sniped at Morgana, and stood behind his father's throne during audiences. And when he really had caught quite a nasty summer cold a few days later, he'd thought that that was all there was to it.
Two weeks after that, a few carefully-chosen words from Gaius had shattered the false sense of security, although the physician had avoided Arthur's gaze in a somewhat futile attempt to soften the blow and allow Arthur a few much-needed seconds to rearrange his features. Nevertheless, it had taken all of Arthur's self-control not to simply throw Gaius out of the room and huddle in on himself, curl up under the bedcovers until the hollow feeling of bone-deep mortification went away.
But he hadn't said a word, because his father was already speaking for him, expressing the disbelief and sudden fury that couldn't work their way through the shame roiling in Arthur's stomach. And so he'd just lain there, let Gaius' careful hands dab ointment onto the impressive bruise on his arm where he must have crashed into the nightstand during his earlier fall into unconsciousness, and kept his eyes studiously on the clench of his father's gloved hand on the bedpost.
A long string of ineffective, foul-tasting remedies later, Arthur had realized that his father thought it was a curse, and that it was the reason for the sudden increase in executions. Uther suspected sorcery, and kept frantically sentencing people to death in the hopes of rooting out whatever magic was afflicting his son.
The thought had made Arthur feel sick, especially after Gaius sat him down in his study and explained the concept of nerves to him, with well-chosen words that soothed the scratchy sting of embarrassment just a little. Nerves were like threads, Gaius told him, like needlework keeping the human body together—not like muscles did, but in a way that allowed his mind to communicate with his limbs, so that his arm lifted when Arthur wanted it to, and his feet took steps when he went for a walk on the battlements. And one of Arthur's threads, it seemed, was oversensitized somehow, or had forgotten what exactly it was supposed to keep together.
"If it's a thread," Arthur had said, inwardly just a little proud of how steady his voice sounded, "why can't we just— break it?"
Gaius replied that it didn't work that way, that he wouldn't dabble in the crown prince's nervous system even if he did know how. He had told Arthur to come to him immediately if anything changed, and promised to continue looking for a cure anyway.
Shortly after that, Arthur told his father that he was feeling a lot better, and that the curse, or whatever it was, appeared to be wearing off, enough for Arthur to get used to it. Uther's relief had been so palpable that Arthur added, before he could stop the words from tumbling out, that the recent executions must have scared off the sorcerer who was responsible.
The next day had dawned bright and sunny, without smoke obscuring the windows of Arthur's room from the courtyard. Arthur had been so relieved that he even allowed himself a rare moment of just leaning against the wall to allow the ringing in his head to subside, after having kicked the chamberpot back under the bed. He had watched the room spin as though spurred into motion by the black spots that still danced across his vision, but even that couldn't tamper his relief at the clear sky and the silence outside, unbroken by the screams of someone burning alive.
The lie had come so easily, and sometimes Arthur still thinks he should feel guilty. He doesn't, though, and so he and Gaius remain the only ones who know that it's not over. And if the dark shadows under his father's eyes seem to transfer to Gaius' as he spends the long hours of the evening still searching through his books for a remedy, Arthur tries to pretend that he doesn't notice.
Then Merlin becomes his manservant, and a few weeks after that, with the memory of a bright ball of light guiding him to safety still seared into his memory, Arthur finds out about Merlin's magic.
***
It's not really a conscious decision, but even after the flare of betrayed anger has run its course, Arthur doesn't tell Merlin that he knows. Mostly, it's because he's well aware of how much Merlin seems to want to tell him sometimes, and Arthur can't take that away from him. He sees it in the way Merlin sometimes looks at him when he thinks Arthur doesn't notice, with a curiously soft expression that can't hide the pull of longing in his eyes. But Arthur does notice, and so he finds himself willing to give Merlin the time he needs without second thought.
He lets his mind settle around the knowledge, not all that surprised when, after the initial shock and disbelief, it becomes just another piece of the oddly endearing puzzle that is his manservant. And Merlin is none the wiser—as far as he's concerned, Arthur spent about a week throwing things at him in a terrible temper for no apparent reason, went another few days without talking to Merlin at all, and after that, things went back to normal.
If there's anything that Arthur's affliction has taught him, it's that everyone has secrets. Some spill over the edges with barely any coaxing at all, some are divulged only with the loosening of the tongue that comes with copious amounts of wine, and some are buried too deeply to ever be unearthed. A few of them want to be told, like Merlin's magic, and others don't.
Sometimes Arthur goes days, even weeks without ever feeling the sickening lurch of the floor being pulled away from under his feet, the rush of air past his ears and the faraway realization that he's falling. Every time he tells himself not to hope that it's gone away for good, but he always does anyway, and when it comes back, the irrational frustration never lessens. It's so profoundly unfair, somehow, that his body betrays him like this when he's spent years stretching its limits on the training field and had believed that he knew it inside and out.
In a way, it reminds Arthur of an ink stain on a fresh sheet of parchment, spilled by a careless hand before the first stroke of the quill—if it can't be washed off, you just need to write around it, and hope that whatever story you're telling will still be legible. And that's just what Arthur does, once he's fooled himself into thinking that he's gotten used to it.
But the scratchy, anxious feeling never quite goes away. Lucky as he is to live in a time of relative peace, Arthur has never experienced a war first-hand, but all the same, he can't help thinking that this is what being under siege must be like. It's an incessant, irritating nag at the back of his mind, like the dulled edge of a knife that Arthur keeps snagging his hand on, no matter how careful he is.
Mostly, he tries not to think of the unbroken thread in his spine—or in his bladder, or wherever this disobedient nerve might be. In a way, he's glad that he doesn't know where it is, because sometimes he wakes in a cold sweat from dreams of calmly digging through his abdomen with the bejeweled dagger his father gave him for his sixteenth birthday, in search of just the right thread to pull out.
When he wakes up, his stomach is always knotted into a ball of tension, as though the the nerve had seen his dream and was hiding itself behind every muscle in its reach. The seconds it takes him to realize that there is no blood on his hands and the dagger is still safely tucked between the bedframe and the mattress never get less scary, no matter how often he wakes from that particular dream.
Another stain, then, and either way, Arthur will be damned if he lets himself be disturbed by the images his mind provides him with. He watches dawn creep into the night sky, knowing from experience that trying to go back to sleep with the remembered stickiness of his own blood still seeming to cling to his fingers would be a futile effort, and gets up in the morning as if nothing had happened. And if he's even more impatient with Merlin on those days, if the knights notice at all that his movements at training are just a little sluggish with how little he slept, no one makes the mistake of mentioning it.
***
Of course, just like Arthur caught on to the magic pretty quickly, Merlin eventually finds out.
(And what had his father been thinking, giving him a manservant—oh wait, Arthur concludes dryly as his mind is slowly roused back to consciousness, it's his own fault for lying to Uther and telling him that the illness or curse or whatever it is has faded.
Sure, he's had a manservant before, but the quiet elderly man had been assigned by the steward, and was instructed by the king himself to keep the necessary invasions of Arthur's privacy to a minimum. It only occurred to Arthur that Merlin had never received any such orders after the first few weeks, and then it had simply seemed too much of a bother to catch up on that.
Knowing Merlin, Arthur strongly suspects that Merlin would have ignored those particular instructions anyway, if they had been given to him—or at least he would have argued and nagged and asked inappropriate questions. He'd have refused to be kept at arm's length, with the way he just keeps burrowing in everywhere, effortlessly moulding himself into every part of Arthur's life even after little more than a month.
And Arthur doesn't even want him to back off most of the time, which is a dangerous thought in and of itself. He likes Merlin's company, likes how close they've gotten despite the constant bickering. He doesn't want to lose that, even though he knows he shouldn't, and the possibility of Merlin finding out is a risk that Arthur has found worth taking, at least until now.)
"—thur! Arthur, Arthur, sire, please wake up, Arthur—"
The shouting does nothing to alleviate the pounding in Arthur's head, and he groans without opening his eyes, swatting weakly at Merlin's hand where he's uselessly shaking his shoulder. The hand stills but doesn't let go, and Merlin heaves a great shaky sigh of relief that sounds like he's beginning to smile, in that half-crazed, relieved way that Arthur also saw on the tournament grounds after his duel with Valiant.
That prompts Arthur to finally crack his eyes open, and sure enough, Merlin's expression is the picture of relief, although he looks slightly paler than usual. He helps Arthur prop himself up into a sitting position, and Arthur only shakes off his touch when the floor seems to have stopped its dangerous swaying. His arm hurts, a dull, pounding, already familiar ache, and there's a smudge of pain where he must have hit the back of his head.
But apparently he fell onto his side, not flat on his face, and after a history of bruised foreheads and bloody noses, Arthur knows to be grateful for small favors. He'll wait a few hours, see how bad the bruising will get, and maybe go down to Gaius before supper.
Merlin is talking, Arthur realizes after a moment, a nervous rush of words that he can't seem to put a stop to. "—was coming back with your laundry," he babbles, gesturing animatedly. Sure enough, when Arthur looks towards the door, he sees a bundle of his clothes strewn across the floor where Merlin must have dropped them in shock. "And I saw you lying on the floor, and I was so scared, I thought—"
Arthur tunes him out again and carefully stretches his arm, testing the soreness there until he's sure that nothing's broken. Then he gets started on the long, tedious task of drawing himself back up into a standing position, because he can't properly deflect the worry shining in Merlin's eyes while sitting down.
"—Careful," Merlin warns, the word cutting through the stream of his own babbling. Out of nowhere, his hand is on Arthur's arm again, the left arm, not the one he just smashed into the floor with all his weight, and with his help, Arthur manages to prop himself up against the bedpost. The dizziness is receding just as speedily as usual, the pain in his arm is dulling already, and Arthur spares a brief moment for thanking whichever gods might be listening that he managed to lace his breeches back up before the darkness claimed him.
"I'm fine now," Arthur snaps, instinctively annoyed at the genuine concern in Merlin's voice. Then he thinks, just a little guiltily, that irritation is not really an appropriate reaction to someone worrying about him. Arthur doesn't quite know why he should be concerned about Merlin's feelings when they communicate through smartass competitions most of the time anyway, but nevertheless, he finds himself adding, in a slightly calmer tone, "I probably ate something funny."
Merlin nods, his face uncertain but still full of relief, and Arthur wonders what he thought when he came in and saw his prince lying on the floor. He must have started prattling away about something or other the second he opened the door (without knocking, surely), and probably didn't even notice Arthur at first. But he might have turned around at the distinct lack of a response, and apparently dropped everything he was holding at the sight of Arthur's blond head peeking out from behind the bed.
At any rate, Merlin's smile makes something strange and heated unfurl in Arthur's stomach, something unfamiliar that dizzies him anew, and he orders Merlin out of the room before he can think better of it.
Only later, when Merlin returns with a still-puzzled but slightly apologetic smile and a tray of food, does Arthur realize that the hot coil in his belly did not stem from embarrassment.
***
One of the first habits Arthur formed—and it's probably the most important one, next to the one he keeps forgetting ever since Merlin came along, namely to keep his door locked at nearly all times—was to carefully schedule his day around the times he allows himself to ingest anything liquid.
On an average day, he usually takes a few sips of diluted wine with his breakfast, just enough to relieve the dryness of his mouth (and to take Merlin's eyebrow down from its high, Gaius-esque perch on his forehead whenever his eyes come to rest on Arthur's still-full goblet). That way he can make it through audiences without having to retreat to his chambers even once, although his throat is usually parched to the point of painfulness when he sits down to eat in the middle of the day.
Despite Merlin's quizzical glances from the other end of the room, Arthur can never stop himself from downing goblet after goblet of water with his lunch, no matter how often he resolves to drink only just enough to relieve his headache. Before long, the pitcher of water on the table always empties, though, and Arthur sends Merlin away on some errand that will keep him occupied for a while when he feels the first tell-tale tightening in his abdomen.
The afternoon drills with his knights are more difficult, though, because even though Arthur prides himself on his constitution of steel, even the crown prince of Camelot can't endure hours of physical exertion without drinking anything. Frustration wells in his gut every time he has to jog to the sidelines for a quick swallow of the cool water that's waiting for him and his men in earthen jugs, but Arthur isn't fool enough to deny himself even that small measure of relief. Sometimes he can go back to his chambers with a measured walk in the evening, sometimes he has to run, but so far he hasn't had to beat a quick retreat into a random copse of trees and hope that no one sees him.
It's a routine he doesn't dare to let go of even during those weeks when his affliction seems to lie dormant. The hope bubbles up in his chest every time, no matter how much Arthur tries to squash the feeling, but he never knows when it might come back. When, not if—and that's a lesson that Arthur hates his subconscious mind for ever having learned so perfectly.
As much as Arthur enjoys the hunts with his knights—and, yes, with Merlin as well—they're the hardest. He never knows how long they'll be away from Camelot, and while the undergrowth at the heart of the forest is thick enough to hide him from prying eyes, Arthur knows that it would just be a matter of minutes until someone came looking for him.
That's exactly the type of worst case scenario that Arthur firmly does not allow himself to think about, and so he never even sips the goblet of water Merlin fills for him at breakfast when he knows that he'll be out hunting for the rest of the morning. He can't tell whether Merlin notices—and sometimes Arthur thinks he does, with the way his hands pause sometimes in the act of polishing Arthur's hauberk as his eyes travel from the goblet to Arthur's carefully blank expression and back. But even if Merlin does notice, he never says anything.
He didn't train his knights to be unobservant, though, and so Arthur has made a habit of never taking a group hunting more than once in a month—he selects different men to accompany him each week. That way, if any of the knights comment on the way he keeps handing them back the waterskins without having taken even a sip, Arthur can just say that he doesn't feel very thirsty on that particular day.
It's always at least a half-truth, of course, and unlike the one he keeps telling his father, this is a lie he regrets. The knights are his, in a way—they look up to him and follow him and sometimes try to take care of him, and the occasional spark of concern in their eyes stings more than Arthur would like to admit.
The alternative would be worse, though, and so Arthur does his best to ignore the increasing dryness in his mouth as the morning wears on and the sun starts warming their backs. Morning mist still hovers in the air between the trees, shimmering in the light like clouds taken down from the sky, and his knights are in a good mood, jovially trading jokes and taunts as they wonder aloud who will slay the first game of the day.
By the time they've shot two rabbits, sweat is beading on all of their foreheads, running into their eyes, and Arthur curses the surprisingly warm day as they settle down for lunch. He forces some bread and cheese down his parched throat and declines with an ease born only of practice when Sir Gareth offers him his waterskin.
It gets steadily worse from there, and when they finally find a suitably large deer to pursue, Arthur can't recall a time when his mouth didn't feel like the dusty inside of one of the long-neglected drawers in his cupboard. His throat is parchment-dry, and even the air seems to scratch thin bloody lines down to his lungs like fingernails. A fissure of pain is doing its best to cleave open his head, and Arthur is pretty sure that there are tiny spots dancing in his vision as he helps Sir Leon butcher the deer.
He hates the thirst, hates it with an unbearable fierceness that makes his blood boil, because he knows that he always loses the fight in the end. When they've returned to Camelot, Arthur practically throws himself off of his horse in his haste to get inside. He doesn't stop to return Morgana's greeting, not breaking stride as he rounds a corner and bounds up a stairwell, and so he misses the brief flicker of concern in her eyes.
The door to his chambers bangs open, and from the corner of his eye Arthur sees Merlin flinch and look at him in utter surprise—he's sitting on Arthur's bed, the insolent whelp, mending a pile of shirts. Merlin says something that Arthur doesn't listen to, something about how he hadn't expected the hunting party to be back this early, but then he falls silent and watches Arthur cross the room to the table with slightly confused eyes.
Arthur doesn't even bother with the goblet; he just tries to breathe deeply to dispel the dizziness, and props his hip against the table when that doesn't work. He lifts the pitcher with shaking hands, dimly noticing that it's still half full, and drinks and drinks until there's nothing left, until tiny rivulets of water are running down his throat and into his shirt, and he can't remember when water last tasted this heavenly.
He wipes his mouth with his sleeve when he sets the pitcher back down with a clang, feeling Merlin's bemused gaze on him. But it feels like his blood is already thinning, flowing easier with the cool weight of water settling comfortably in his stomach, and right there and then, Arthur can't bring himself to feel ashamed, or even self-conscious.
"Forgot your waterskin?" Merlin says from the bed, sounding a little like he's trying to put two and two together and failing.
The thought of his manservant struggling even with the easiest of mathematical tasks makes Arthur smile a little, although his head is still pounding and the vertigo hasn't receded yet. "Something like that," he replies, and allows himself to lean against the table for just a moment longer, feeling oddly safe with the unassuming invisible touch of Merlin's gaze resting on his back.
***
Some time ago, Gaius told him, in a carefully neutral tone that he probably meant to soothe the awkward tension in the air, that it would be advisable for him to use the chamberpot while sitting down.
Which makes sense, of course, and that's precisely the reason why Arthur has always refused to follow the well-meaning advice. Rationally, he knows it would be more convenient—the falls wouldn't be as bad, the bruises not as livid against his skin. He could even sit on the edge of the bed and simply slump back into the mattress until the black spots stop flickering through his vision or pull him into darkness at last. And if Merlin came in then, he'd be none the wiser, and later Arthur could claim that he just felt like taking a short nap.
But for some reason, the thought alone makes his blood boil and causes his teeth to grind on their own accord. Arthur is a prince, but he is also a knight, and he cannot, will not acquiesce and back down to this. It would feel like surrendering hard-won ground, like a retreat that would hurt Arthur's pride every step along the way, even worse than the hot coal of humiliated frustration that takes up permanent residence in his throat whenever he wakes with unlaced breeches after a fall.
Somehow he gets the distinct feeling that if Merlin knew of those thoughts, he would just call Arthur a prat. And that is kind of reassuring in its consistency, after all, and later, Arthur thinks that it might have been the feeling of always being able to rely on Merlin's utter disregard for anything like propriety that made him take Merlin with him to hunt.
Merlin seems to believe him the first four times Arthur turns down his offers of water with claims of not being thirsty, but little by little, suspicion creeps in. Even in the protective shade of the trees, it's uncomfortably hot for a spring day, and Arthur feels like a dried fruit by the time they sit down for lunch in a small clearing. He's shot two rabbits already, and Arthur knows that the kitchens are overflowing with meat from the bear he and his knights killed just a week ago. But he's still well aware of the pointed comments his father made about the decorative value of antlers last night, a thinly veiled order to bring home another deer, and so they keep advancing further into the forest.
The cheese is surprisingly salty, which tastes good but worsens Arthur's thirst, to the point that his eyes greedily follow the bob of Merlin's throat as he drinks deeply from the large skin they've taken with them. There's a fine sheen of sweat collecting on what little Arthur can see of Merlin's collarbones—the day really is quite warm, and Merlin kept falling over his own feet every few steps and scaring the game away (well, save for the two suicidal rabbits, that is). Still, Arthur can't tear his gaze away. Just watching Merlin drink makes him feel like water is running down his own throat as well, finally alleviating the scratchy woolen feeling in his mouth.
Merlin lowers the waterskin at last, and just looks at Arthur in silence for a moment before holding it out. He's absently licking the last drops of water from his lips, but his gaze is oddly calculating, as though he's testing a theory.
Arthur realizes that he must have stopped chewing some time ago, and swallows his mouthful of bread with some difficulty. He coughs once, and actually has to force himself to stop—his throat is itching, an incessant scratch just out of reach of what little wetness is still in his mouth. It makes him even dizzier, but he still shakes his head at Merlin and gently shoves the waterskin away.
Merlin blinks, raising his eyebrows. "Are you sure?" he asks, sounding suspiciously innocent. "You haven't drunk anything yet after that single sip of water you had with your breakfast."
It could just be the sting of sweat in his eyes, or the persistent burn in his parched throat, or just Merlin's tone. Either way, Arthur finds himself suddenly irritated, and gives Merlin a black look before he says, sharply, "So now it's your duty to monitor my eating habits, is it?"
By the time Arthur sees tiny frown between Merlin's eyebrows, he already knows that it was the wrong thing to say. "Actually, it is," Merlin replies, in a tone that sounds like he normally uses it to placate small children. He gestures at Arthur with the hand still holding the waterskin, and Arthur grits his teeth so hard they hurt when he hears the liquid sloshing around within. "You had a cramp in your leg earlier—don't try to deny it, any fool would have seen the way you were limping. You haven't been drinking enough."
And he holds the skin out once more. Arthur stares unthinkingly at the insistence in Merlin's eyes, the softness of concern that lurks just underneath. More than ever, Arthur feels like he's being tested, and it makes his resolve harden into stubbornness as he tries to squash the thin fissure of disappointment that threads its way through his thoughts. True, Merlin challenges him incessantly on an average day, but he has always seemed so sure of Arthur, so utterly certain in the awareness of who he is that Merlin, at least, never needed to test him at all.
But then again, Arthur thinks, with a sickening lurch of his stomach, there's always the possibility that this is not really about him. Maybe Merlin is suspecting something—maybe he aimlessly leafed through Gaius' books one day and found—
"Drink," Merlin snaps, the single word sounding like a command, and shoves the skin at him again. "I'll sit on you and force you if I have to."
Arthur snorts at that, almost against his will. His thoughts are reeling, chasing each other in a frenzied sprint across the blank horizon of his mind, and his stomach feels funny, although he's not sure why. "You think you could force me?" he asks, making an effort to sound suitably casual, but he takes the skin anyway, the motion little more than a knee-jerk reaction to having the thing practically shoved into his face, and a second later he wishes he hadn't.
He can almost feel the water through the leather, a liquid cooling weight between his hands that makes him swallow convulsively around the sandy dryness in his mouth. Just a sip, an alluring voice whispers from the back of his mind, a single sip wouldn't be so bad, just enough to wet his tongue until it stops feeling like he's been licking a dusty road...
Merlin is still staring at him, but his eyes remain blue, and so Arthur knows that it's not Merlin making his hands move as he uncaps the skin and raises it to his lips. Still, he certainly didn't tell his head to tip back, or his fingers to guide his mouth to the slosh and dribble of water. He feels his throat work of its own accord with every swallow, but no matter how sternly Arthur tells his arms to lower because one sip was all he intended to drink, they won't move.
He drinks until the skin is nearly empty and the occasional twinges in his calf subside along with the dull ache behind his eyes. It's only the thought of the warm weather that finally forces him to stop, because Merlin will need to stay hydrated as well for the rest of the hunt. Arthur hands him the waterskin and wipes his mouth, suddenly feeling self-conscious; Merlin's smile, relieved and maybe a little apologetic, makes his stomach clench slightly around the soothing coolness of the water.
"I just wanted to save myself the trouble of hauling your dehydrated carcass back to Camelot," Merlin says after a short silence, somewhat defensively, but to Arthur's surprise, his indignation at being ordered around has faded along with his thirst. "You're heavy, you know."
After a short pause, Arthur asks, "Are you calling me fat?" in a deceptively casual tone. He pounces before Merlin can think of a suitable reply, and Merlin's high-pitched giggles echo off the canopy of trees as Arthur tackles him to the ground, mercilessly exploiting his knowledge of Merlin's ticklish spots until Merlin shouts a laughing surrender into the sunlit trees.
***
By the time they're riding into the courtyard, Arthur has already cursed himself often enough to have lost count somewhere at the edge of the forest.
He orders Merlin to take care of the horses, and doesn't wait for a cheeky reply before he retreats to his chambers, and doesn't stop running until the door has closed behind him. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he thinks at himself, furiously, because he should have known better than that, especially because letting his guard down like that has long since been beneath him. Trust Merlin to sneak past his defenses like that and bloody goad him into—
As comforts go, the feeling of his bladder finally, finally emptying after an hour on horseback is a small one. It's so much like some of his nightmares that Arthur almost believes that it's just a dream, for a single, blessed moment after the doors of his chambers have banged open behind him. Then whatever Merlin has been carrying clatters to the floor, and he shouts Arthur's name in that tone that Arthur thinks he'll never get used to—it's somewhere between panicked dismay and the firmness of a command, as though he's trying to get Arthur out of whatever danger he's in by sheer force of will.
The wall is coming rather close, Arthur realizes with a dim sort of surprise as the floor seems to heave and buck under him, determined to shake him off. And it looks rather solid, too, and suddenly a hand is fisted in the back of his shirt, pulling his collar painfully tight around his throat in a futile effort to break his fall, and Arthur has just enough time to curse himself for not having locked the door in his haste before the darkness claims him.
The next thing he feels is a sharp sting of pain across his left cheek, and Arthur's eyes snap open on their own accord. His stomach muscles twitch weakly, trying to prop up his body into a sitting position, but then he recognizes the familiar sight of the canopy of his bed above and allows himself to slump back into the pillows.
Then he just lies there for a moment until the echo of his own heartbeat stops roaring in his ears. He feels vaguely nauseous lying down like that, and his shoulder kind of hurts, little stings that he knows will have increased into a full-blown throb by the time he'll finally feel steady enough to get up again.
Merlin, on the other hand, just looks immensely relieved, because he's smiling as though Arthur had performed some sort of heroic deed by waking up again. There's a blanket covering him, and a hand on his head—the blanket is a bit too warm, but the hand feels rather nice, all things considered, with the way Merlin's fingers keep sifting through Arthur's hair. It must be an unconscious motion, but it still warms him a little, especially when he realizes that Merlin must have lifted him onto the bed. Which is no mean feat, given how scrawny Merlin is and how he sometimes stumbles a bit even under the weight of Arthur's armor.
Arthur blinks up at Merlin in utter silence for a moment, taking in the relief in Merlin's expression that seems a bit exaggerated, before he says, very evenly, "Did you just slap me?"
Merlin's free hand immediately starts to fidget with the blanket. "Well," he starts, his tone torn somewhere between apologetic, worried and belligerent, "I had to wake you up somehow! It was that or pour a pitcher of water over your head!"
Arthur starts to roll his eyes, but stops immediately with a grimace when the motion causes a sharp sting of pain behind his eyes. Merlin's fingers tighten in his hair, a hint of the earlier frenzied worry returning to his gaze, but Arthur just raises his eyebrows at him until Merlin flushes and snatches his hand back.
"Sorry," he mumbles, ineffectively. Arthur's head feels oddly cold without the warmth of Merlin's touch, and with the vestiges of unconsciousness still clouding his mind, he almost tells him to put it back before he catches himself.
Merlin is sitting cross-legged on the bed, but he scoots backwards when Arthur tries to get up a second time. He watches in silence as Arthur struggles up into a half-sitting position, leaning heavily against the headboard; from the corner of his eye, Arthur can still see Merlin's fingers fidget with the blanket, as though he has to make a conscious effort not to reach out.
His head is spinning again by the time he has managed to prop himself up against the headboard, but Arthur ignores it, just tries to breathe deeply and clear his mind. He doesn't like the way Merlin is watching him, cautious and oddly patient, like one might look at a skittish horse. There's something in Merlin's eyes that Arthur can't quite place, a sort of understanding that makes an already familiar cold weight of dread begin to settle in his stomach.
Too late, Arthur realizes that under the blanket, the laces of his breeches are still undone.
When Merlin speaks, the weight slams ice through Arthur's veins and makes his heart jump into his throat, because he doesn't think he's ever heard his manservant use that tone before with him. Merlin sounds like he's suddenly tired of trying to come up with the best way of saying whatever he wants to say, and has decided to make it quick and hopefully painless, like peeling a scab off a well-healed wound. "So apparently, you—," he starts, his voice determined, and makes a vague hand motion that could signify 'faint' or 'do laundry', "whenever you—"
He falls silent again when words appear to fail him, and Arthur can't help but feel grateful that Merlin at least didn't say it aloud.
For just a moment, Arthur wishes fleetingly that he had listened to Gaius' tentative advice more often, if only just to be able to tell whether very realistic hallucinations can be an aftereffect of fainting. He stares at Merlin's vaguely embarrassed, persistent expression for what feels like a pretty long time, while his heart thrashes against his ribcage like the frenzied wings of a trapped bird. Merlin doesn't speak again, though, and Arthur thinks numbly that his manservant can't be that bad at mathematics after all, because somewhere along the line, he must have succeeded in putting two and two together without Arthur noticing.
Then he wonders, somewhat hazily, why he hasn't said anything yet, and why his thoughts aren't tumbling and spiraling out of control with the icy, unrelenting feeling in his gut. But trying to think of something to say is like dragging his feet through mud, although Arthur knows that he should be feeling something else but numbness, that this is a perfect moment for some yelling and candlestick-throwing until Merlin leaves. Or better yet, Arthur could just sack him on the spot and spare himself the pit of hollow, all-consuming mortification that's slowly starting to open up in his stomach.
But somehow the relief is still there, tucked away behind the quiet resolution in Merlin's eyes, and it takes Arthur a long moment to realize that Merlin is relieved because he knows now, because Arthur's silence was confirmation enough. He must have thought about it for some time, quietly watching and worrying and slotting puzzle pieces into place and maybe doing some research for backup.
It's hard to work up enough steam for yelling when faced with Merlin's earnest expression, though, and Arthur lets himself think that he's just waiting for Merlin to say the sort of outrageously stupid thing that would allow Arthur to mock him and take this conversation back to a ground with which they're both familiar.
"Gaius—," Merlin begins again, after a long pause that Arthur spent counting his unsteady heartbeats and wondering, with a distant sort of annoyance, why he can't summon the words to end this conversation right now.
"Knows," Arthur interrupts, his voice coming out scratchy with disuse, and of course his guts choose that exact moment to transform from what felt like stone into a bunch of squirming snakes.
He gets the feeling that Merlin sees that somehow, because he opens and closes his mouth a few times, and drops his hands back into his lap after a short, aborted movement that looks like he'd wanted to touch hesitant fingers to Arthur's shoulder. And Arthur can't help but feel relieved, because his hands have betrayed him once today in the clearing, and Arthur isn't quite sure whether they wouldn't come up to push Merlin off the bed, if Merlin made the mistake of touching him now.
There's another silence, this one even heavier. Merlin has started fidgeting again, and he's biting his lip, looking like he's not so sure anymore if his stumbling, straightforward words were the right way to go about addressing this. He seems to be searching for something to say, and Arthur fervently hopes that he won't find anything.
"Well," Merlin says at last, uncertainly. Too late, Arthur realizes that this is the tone he has never wanted to hear, the carefully hushed voice of someone wishing to comfort. "I always feel sort of woozy at the sight of my own blood—"
Arthur closes his eyes. Now he's starting to feel the first pinpricks of irritation, and the constricting wave of shamed, shameful humiliation that rises in his chest nearly chokes him. "Get out."
"Arthur—"
"Merlin," Arthur snaps back, unable to stop a little of the helpless anger from bleeding into his voice, and Merlin recoils as though he's been struck. "I am asking you to get out of this room."
The 'don't make me make it an order' remains unsaid, but after a short pause, Merlin goes anyway.
Part 2
Fandom: Merlin BBC
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 11,804
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur
Warnings: illness (though not terminal), medical inaccuracies, very slight gore, descriptions of dehydration, body issues
Summary: Originally posted here @
kinkme_merlin. In which Arthur has Micturition syncope, and Merlin develops the annoying habit of burrowing into every part of Arthur's life that's not under lock and key.A/N: *de-anons* ... Um. Hi? :D I still remember how uncertain I felt about this fic back in the day, but the response at KMM has overwhelmed me into thinking that it's worth de-anoning. ♥ Once again, I apologize for any and all medical inaccuracies—I did my best—and the title is from the song by Symphony of Science. I'm still a bit \o? about posting this but I trust you guys not to make fun of me. xD Hope you like it!
ETA: There is now podfic of this by the amazingly talented
sophinisba!Arthur would like to think that by the time Merlin becomes his manservant, he has already gotten used to it.
Which is a lie, of course—but of all the little half-truths he has told his father in his life, this is one he can't bring himself to regret, not when it erases the dark shadows around the king's eyes, little by little. Although it never slows to a stop, the string of executions dwindles the longer Arthur maintains the lie, and Arthur tells himself that he should be grateful.
It started just after his twentieth birthday, and for about a week Arthur had thought he was just coming down with something. He'd carried on with his life as usual, he'd gone hunting, sniped at Morgana, and stood behind his father's throne during audiences. And when he really had caught quite a nasty summer cold a few days later, he'd thought that that was all there was to it.
Two weeks after that, a few carefully-chosen words from Gaius had shattered the false sense of security, although the physician had avoided Arthur's gaze in a somewhat futile attempt to soften the blow and allow Arthur a few much-needed seconds to rearrange his features. Nevertheless, it had taken all of Arthur's self-control not to simply throw Gaius out of the room and huddle in on himself, curl up under the bedcovers until the hollow feeling of bone-deep mortification went away.
But he hadn't said a word, because his father was already speaking for him, expressing the disbelief and sudden fury that couldn't work their way through the shame roiling in Arthur's stomach. And so he'd just lain there, let Gaius' careful hands dab ointment onto the impressive bruise on his arm where he must have crashed into the nightstand during his earlier fall into unconsciousness, and kept his eyes studiously on the clench of his father's gloved hand on the bedpost.
A long string of ineffective, foul-tasting remedies later, Arthur had realized that his father thought it was a curse, and that it was the reason for the sudden increase in executions. Uther suspected sorcery, and kept frantically sentencing people to death in the hopes of rooting out whatever magic was afflicting his son.
The thought had made Arthur feel sick, especially after Gaius sat him down in his study and explained the concept of nerves to him, with well-chosen words that soothed the scratchy sting of embarrassment just a little. Nerves were like threads, Gaius told him, like needlework keeping the human body together—not like muscles did, but in a way that allowed his mind to communicate with his limbs, so that his arm lifted when Arthur wanted it to, and his feet took steps when he went for a walk on the battlements. And one of Arthur's threads, it seemed, was oversensitized somehow, or had forgotten what exactly it was supposed to keep together.
"If it's a thread," Arthur had said, inwardly just a little proud of how steady his voice sounded, "why can't we just— break it?"
Gaius replied that it didn't work that way, that he wouldn't dabble in the crown prince's nervous system even if he did know how. He had told Arthur to come to him immediately if anything changed, and promised to continue looking for a cure anyway.
Shortly after that, Arthur told his father that he was feeling a lot better, and that the curse, or whatever it was, appeared to be wearing off, enough for Arthur to get used to it. Uther's relief had been so palpable that Arthur added, before he could stop the words from tumbling out, that the recent executions must have scared off the sorcerer who was responsible.
The next day had dawned bright and sunny, without smoke obscuring the windows of Arthur's room from the courtyard. Arthur had been so relieved that he even allowed himself a rare moment of just leaning against the wall to allow the ringing in his head to subside, after having kicked the chamberpot back under the bed. He had watched the room spin as though spurred into motion by the black spots that still danced across his vision, but even that couldn't tamper his relief at the clear sky and the silence outside, unbroken by the screams of someone burning alive.
The lie had come so easily, and sometimes Arthur still thinks he should feel guilty. He doesn't, though, and so he and Gaius remain the only ones who know that it's not over. And if the dark shadows under his father's eyes seem to transfer to Gaius' as he spends the long hours of the evening still searching through his books for a remedy, Arthur tries to pretend that he doesn't notice.
Then Merlin becomes his manservant, and a few weeks after that, with the memory of a bright ball of light guiding him to safety still seared into his memory, Arthur finds out about Merlin's magic.
It's not really a conscious decision, but even after the flare of betrayed anger has run its course, Arthur doesn't tell Merlin that he knows. Mostly, it's because he's well aware of how much Merlin seems to want to tell him sometimes, and Arthur can't take that away from him. He sees it in the way Merlin sometimes looks at him when he thinks Arthur doesn't notice, with a curiously soft expression that can't hide the pull of longing in his eyes. But Arthur does notice, and so he finds himself willing to give Merlin the time he needs without second thought.
He lets his mind settle around the knowledge, not all that surprised when, after the initial shock and disbelief, it becomes just another piece of the oddly endearing puzzle that is his manservant. And Merlin is none the wiser—as far as he's concerned, Arthur spent about a week throwing things at him in a terrible temper for no apparent reason, went another few days without talking to Merlin at all, and after that, things went back to normal.
If there's anything that Arthur's affliction has taught him, it's that everyone has secrets. Some spill over the edges with barely any coaxing at all, some are divulged only with the loosening of the tongue that comes with copious amounts of wine, and some are buried too deeply to ever be unearthed. A few of them want to be told, like Merlin's magic, and others don't.
Sometimes Arthur goes days, even weeks without ever feeling the sickening lurch of the floor being pulled away from under his feet, the rush of air past his ears and the faraway realization that he's falling. Every time he tells himself not to hope that it's gone away for good, but he always does anyway, and when it comes back, the irrational frustration never lessens. It's so profoundly unfair, somehow, that his body betrays him like this when he's spent years stretching its limits on the training field and had believed that he knew it inside and out.
In a way, it reminds Arthur of an ink stain on a fresh sheet of parchment, spilled by a careless hand before the first stroke of the quill—if it can't be washed off, you just need to write around it, and hope that whatever story you're telling will still be legible. And that's just what Arthur does, once he's fooled himself into thinking that he's gotten used to it.
But the scratchy, anxious feeling never quite goes away. Lucky as he is to live in a time of relative peace, Arthur has never experienced a war first-hand, but all the same, he can't help thinking that this is what being under siege must be like. It's an incessant, irritating nag at the back of his mind, like the dulled edge of a knife that Arthur keeps snagging his hand on, no matter how careful he is.
Mostly, he tries not to think of the unbroken thread in his spine—or in his bladder, or wherever this disobedient nerve might be. In a way, he's glad that he doesn't know where it is, because sometimes he wakes in a cold sweat from dreams of calmly digging through his abdomen with the bejeweled dagger his father gave him for his sixteenth birthday, in search of just the right thread to pull out.
When he wakes up, his stomach is always knotted into a ball of tension, as though the the nerve had seen his dream and was hiding itself behind every muscle in its reach. The seconds it takes him to realize that there is no blood on his hands and the dagger is still safely tucked between the bedframe and the mattress never get less scary, no matter how often he wakes from that particular dream.
Another stain, then, and either way, Arthur will be damned if he lets himself be disturbed by the images his mind provides him with. He watches dawn creep into the night sky, knowing from experience that trying to go back to sleep with the remembered stickiness of his own blood still seeming to cling to his fingers would be a futile effort, and gets up in the morning as if nothing had happened. And if he's even more impatient with Merlin on those days, if the knights notice at all that his movements at training are just a little sluggish with how little he slept, no one makes the mistake of mentioning it.
Of course, just like Arthur caught on to the magic pretty quickly, Merlin eventually finds out.
(And what had his father been thinking, giving him a manservant—oh wait, Arthur concludes dryly as his mind is slowly roused back to consciousness, it's his own fault for lying to Uther and telling him that the illness or curse or whatever it is has faded.
Sure, he's had a manservant before, but the quiet elderly man had been assigned by the steward, and was instructed by the king himself to keep the necessary invasions of Arthur's privacy to a minimum. It only occurred to Arthur that Merlin had never received any such orders after the first few weeks, and then it had simply seemed too much of a bother to catch up on that.
Knowing Merlin, Arthur strongly suspects that Merlin would have ignored those particular instructions anyway, if they had been given to him—or at least he would have argued and nagged and asked inappropriate questions. He'd have refused to be kept at arm's length, with the way he just keeps burrowing in everywhere, effortlessly moulding himself into every part of Arthur's life even after little more than a month.
And Arthur doesn't even want him to back off most of the time, which is a dangerous thought in and of itself. He likes Merlin's company, likes how close they've gotten despite the constant bickering. He doesn't want to lose that, even though he knows he shouldn't, and the possibility of Merlin finding out is a risk that Arthur has found worth taking, at least until now.)
"—thur! Arthur, Arthur, sire, please wake up, Arthur—"
The shouting does nothing to alleviate the pounding in Arthur's head, and he groans without opening his eyes, swatting weakly at Merlin's hand where he's uselessly shaking his shoulder. The hand stills but doesn't let go, and Merlin heaves a great shaky sigh of relief that sounds like he's beginning to smile, in that half-crazed, relieved way that Arthur also saw on the tournament grounds after his duel with Valiant.
That prompts Arthur to finally crack his eyes open, and sure enough, Merlin's expression is the picture of relief, although he looks slightly paler than usual. He helps Arthur prop himself up into a sitting position, and Arthur only shakes off his touch when the floor seems to have stopped its dangerous swaying. His arm hurts, a dull, pounding, already familiar ache, and there's a smudge of pain where he must have hit the back of his head.
But apparently he fell onto his side, not flat on his face, and after a history of bruised foreheads and bloody noses, Arthur knows to be grateful for small favors. He'll wait a few hours, see how bad the bruising will get, and maybe go down to Gaius before supper.
Merlin is talking, Arthur realizes after a moment, a nervous rush of words that he can't seem to put a stop to. "—was coming back with your laundry," he babbles, gesturing animatedly. Sure enough, when Arthur looks towards the door, he sees a bundle of his clothes strewn across the floor where Merlin must have dropped them in shock. "And I saw you lying on the floor, and I was so scared, I thought—"
Arthur tunes him out again and carefully stretches his arm, testing the soreness there until he's sure that nothing's broken. Then he gets started on the long, tedious task of drawing himself back up into a standing position, because he can't properly deflect the worry shining in Merlin's eyes while sitting down.
"—Careful," Merlin warns, the word cutting through the stream of his own babbling. Out of nowhere, his hand is on Arthur's arm again, the left arm, not the one he just smashed into the floor with all his weight, and with his help, Arthur manages to prop himself up against the bedpost. The dizziness is receding just as speedily as usual, the pain in his arm is dulling already, and Arthur spares a brief moment for thanking whichever gods might be listening that he managed to lace his breeches back up before the darkness claimed him.
"I'm fine now," Arthur snaps, instinctively annoyed at the genuine concern in Merlin's voice. Then he thinks, just a little guiltily, that irritation is not really an appropriate reaction to someone worrying about him. Arthur doesn't quite know why he should be concerned about Merlin's feelings when they communicate through smartass competitions most of the time anyway, but nevertheless, he finds himself adding, in a slightly calmer tone, "I probably ate something funny."
Merlin nods, his face uncertain but still full of relief, and Arthur wonders what he thought when he came in and saw his prince lying on the floor. He must have started prattling away about something or other the second he opened the door (without knocking, surely), and probably didn't even notice Arthur at first. But he might have turned around at the distinct lack of a response, and apparently dropped everything he was holding at the sight of Arthur's blond head peeking out from behind the bed.
At any rate, Merlin's smile makes something strange and heated unfurl in Arthur's stomach, something unfamiliar that dizzies him anew, and he orders Merlin out of the room before he can think better of it.
Only later, when Merlin returns with a still-puzzled but slightly apologetic smile and a tray of food, does Arthur realize that the hot coil in his belly did not stem from embarrassment.
One of the first habits Arthur formed—and it's probably the most important one, next to the one he keeps forgetting ever since Merlin came along, namely to keep his door locked at nearly all times—was to carefully schedule his day around the times he allows himself to ingest anything liquid.
On an average day, he usually takes a few sips of diluted wine with his breakfast, just enough to relieve the dryness of his mouth (and to take Merlin's eyebrow down from its high, Gaius-esque perch on his forehead whenever his eyes come to rest on Arthur's still-full goblet). That way he can make it through audiences without having to retreat to his chambers even once, although his throat is usually parched to the point of painfulness when he sits down to eat in the middle of the day.
Despite Merlin's quizzical glances from the other end of the room, Arthur can never stop himself from downing goblet after goblet of water with his lunch, no matter how often he resolves to drink only just enough to relieve his headache. Before long, the pitcher of water on the table always empties, though, and Arthur sends Merlin away on some errand that will keep him occupied for a while when he feels the first tell-tale tightening in his abdomen.
The afternoon drills with his knights are more difficult, though, because even though Arthur prides himself on his constitution of steel, even the crown prince of Camelot can't endure hours of physical exertion without drinking anything. Frustration wells in his gut every time he has to jog to the sidelines for a quick swallow of the cool water that's waiting for him and his men in earthen jugs, but Arthur isn't fool enough to deny himself even that small measure of relief. Sometimes he can go back to his chambers with a measured walk in the evening, sometimes he has to run, but so far he hasn't had to beat a quick retreat into a random copse of trees and hope that no one sees him.
It's a routine he doesn't dare to let go of even during those weeks when his affliction seems to lie dormant. The hope bubbles up in his chest every time, no matter how much Arthur tries to squash the feeling, but he never knows when it might come back. When, not if—and that's a lesson that Arthur hates his subconscious mind for ever having learned so perfectly.
As much as Arthur enjoys the hunts with his knights—and, yes, with Merlin as well—they're the hardest. He never knows how long they'll be away from Camelot, and while the undergrowth at the heart of the forest is thick enough to hide him from prying eyes, Arthur knows that it would just be a matter of minutes until someone came looking for him.
That's exactly the type of worst case scenario that Arthur firmly does not allow himself to think about, and so he never even sips the goblet of water Merlin fills for him at breakfast when he knows that he'll be out hunting for the rest of the morning. He can't tell whether Merlin notices—and sometimes Arthur thinks he does, with the way his hands pause sometimes in the act of polishing Arthur's hauberk as his eyes travel from the goblet to Arthur's carefully blank expression and back. But even if Merlin does notice, he never says anything.
He didn't train his knights to be unobservant, though, and so Arthur has made a habit of never taking a group hunting more than once in a month—he selects different men to accompany him each week. That way, if any of the knights comment on the way he keeps handing them back the waterskins without having taken even a sip, Arthur can just say that he doesn't feel very thirsty on that particular day.
It's always at least a half-truth, of course, and unlike the one he keeps telling his father, this is a lie he regrets. The knights are his, in a way—they look up to him and follow him and sometimes try to take care of him, and the occasional spark of concern in their eyes stings more than Arthur would like to admit.
The alternative would be worse, though, and so Arthur does his best to ignore the increasing dryness in his mouth as the morning wears on and the sun starts warming their backs. Morning mist still hovers in the air between the trees, shimmering in the light like clouds taken down from the sky, and his knights are in a good mood, jovially trading jokes and taunts as they wonder aloud who will slay the first game of the day.
By the time they've shot two rabbits, sweat is beading on all of their foreheads, running into their eyes, and Arthur curses the surprisingly warm day as they settle down for lunch. He forces some bread and cheese down his parched throat and declines with an ease born only of practice when Sir Gareth offers him his waterskin.
It gets steadily worse from there, and when they finally find a suitably large deer to pursue, Arthur can't recall a time when his mouth didn't feel like the dusty inside of one of the long-neglected drawers in his cupboard. His throat is parchment-dry, and even the air seems to scratch thin bloody lines down to his lungs like fingernails. A fissure of pain is doing its best to cleave open his head, and Arthur is pretty sure that there are tiny spots dancing in his vision as he helps Sir Leon butcher the deer.
He hates the thirst, hates it with an unbearable fierceness that makes his blood boil, because he knows that he always loses the fight in the end. When they've returned to Camelot, Arthur practically throws himself off of his horse in his haste to get inside. He doesn't stop to return Morgana's greeting, not breaking stride as he rounds a corner and bounds up a stairwell, and so he misses the brief flicker of concern in her eyes.
The door to his chambers bangs open, and from the corner of his eye Arthur sees Merlin flinch and look at him in utter surprise—he's sitting on Arthur's bed, the insolent whelp, mending a pile of shirts. Merlin says something that Arthur doesn't listen to, something about how he hadn't expected the hunting party to be back this early, but then he falls silent and watches Arthur cross the room to the table with slightly confused eyes.
Arthur doesn't even bother with the goblet; he just tries to breathe deeply to dispel the dizziness, and props his hip against the table when that doesn't work. He lifts the pitcher with shaking hands, dimly noticing that it's still half full, and drinks and drinks until there's nothing left, until tiny rivulets of water are running down his throat and into his shirt, and he can't remember when water last tasted this heavenly.
He wipes his mouth with his sleeve when he sets the pitcher back down with a clang, feeling Merlin's bemused gaze on him. But it feels like his blood is already thinning, flowing easier with the cool weight of water settling comfortably in his stomach, and right there and then, Arthur can't bring himself to feel ashamed, or even self-conscious.
"Forgot your waterskin?" Merlin says from the bed, sounding a little like he's trying to put two and two together and failing.
The thought of his manservant struggling even with the easiest of mathematical tasks makes Arthur smile a little, although his head is still pounding and the vertigo hasn't receded yet. "Something like that," he replies, and allows himself to lean against the table for just a moment longer, feeling oddly safe with the unassuming invisible touch of Merlin's gaze resting on his back.
Some time ago, Gaius told him, in a carefully neutral tone that he probably meant to soothe the awkward tension in the air, that it would be advisable for him to use the chamberpot while sitting down.
Which makes sense, of course, and that's precisely the reason why Arthur has always refused to follow the well-meaning advice. Rationally, he knows it would be more convenient—the falls wouldn't be as bad, the bruises not as livid against his skin. He could even sit on the edge of the bed and simply slump back into the mattress until the black spots stop flickering through his vision or pull him into darkness at last. And if Merlin came in then, he'd be none the wiser, and later Arthur could claim that he just felt like taking a short nap.
But for some reason, the thought alone makes his blood boil and causes his teeth to grind on their own accord. Arthur is a prince, but he is also a knight, and he cannot, will not acquiesce and back down to this. It would feel like surrendering hard-won ground, like a retreat that would hurt Arthur's pride every step along the way, even worse than the hot coal of humiliated frustration that takes up permanent residence in his throat whenever he wakes with unlaced breeches after a fall.
Somehow he gets the distinct feeling that if Merlin knew of those thoughts, he would just call Arthur a prat. And that is kind of reassuring in its consistency, after all, and later, Arthur thinks that it might have been the feeling of always being able to rely on Merlin's utter disregard for anything like propriety that made him take Merlin with him to hunt.
Merlin seems to believe him the first four times Arthur turns down his offers of water with claims of not being thirsty, but little by little, suspicion creeps in. Even in the protective shade of the trees, it's uncomfortably hot for a spring day, and Arthur feels like a dried fruit by the time they sit down for lunch in a small clearing. He's shot two rabbits already, and Arthur knows that the kitchens are overflowing with meat from the bear he and his knights killed just a week ago. But he's still well aware of the pointed comments his father made about the decorative value of antlers last night, a thinly veiled order to bring home another deer, and so they keep advancing further into the forest.
The cheese is surprisingly salty, which tastes good but worsens Arthur's thirst, to the point that his eyes greedily follow the bob of Merlin's throat as he drinks deeply from the large skin they've taken with them. There's a fine sheen of sweat collecting on what little Arthur can see of Merlin's collarbones—the day really is quite warm, and Merlin kept falling over his own feet every few steps and scaring the game away (well, save for the two suicidal rabbits, that is). Still, Arthur can't tear his gaze away. Just watching Merlin drink makes him feel like water is running down his own throat as well, finally alleviating the scratchy woolen feeling in his mouth.
Merlin lowers the waterskin at last, and just looks at Arthur in silence for a moment before holding it out. He's absently licking the last drops of water from his lips, but his gaze is oddly calculating, as though he's testing a theory.
Arthur realizes that he must have stopped chewing some time ago, and swallows his mouthful of bread with some difficulty. He coughs once, and actually has to force himself to stop—his throat is itching, an incessant scratch just out of reach of what little wetness is still in his mouth. It makes him even dizzier, but he still shakes his head at Merlin and gently shoves the waterskin away.
Merlin blinks, raising his eyebrows. "Are you sure?" he asks, sounding suspiciously innocent. "You haven't drunk anything yet after that single sip of water you had with your breakfast."
It could just be the sting of sweat in his eyes, or the persistent burn in his parched throat, or just Merlin's tone. Either way, Arthur finds himself suddenly irritated, and gives Merlin a black look before he says, sharply, "So now it's your duty to monitor my eating habits, is it?"
By the time Arthur sees tiny frown between Merlin's eyebrows, he already knows that it was the wrong thing to say. "Actually, it is," Merlin replies, in a tone that sounds like he normally uses it to placate small children. He gestures at Arthur with the hand still holding the waterskin, and Arthur grits his teeth so hard they hurt when he hears the liquid sloshing around within. "You had a cramp in your leg earlier—don't try to deny it, any fool would have seen the way you were limping. You haven't been drinking enough."
And he holds the skin out once more. Arthur stares unthinkingly at the insistence in Merlin's eyes, the softness of concern that lurks just underneath. More than ever, Arthur feels like he's being tested, and it makes his resolve harden into stubbornness as he tries to squash the thin fissure of disappointment that threads its way through his thoughts. True, Merlin challenges him incessantly on an average day, but he has always seemed so sure of Arthur, so utterly certain in the awareness of who he is that Merlin, at least, never needed to test him at all.
But then again, Arthur thinks, with a sickening lurch of his stomach, there's always the possibility that this is not really about him. Maybe Merlin is suspecting something—maybe he aimlessly leafed through Gaius' books one day and found—
"Drink," Merlin snaps, the single word sounding like a command, and shoves the skin at him again. "I'll sit on you and force you if I have to."
Arthur snorts at that, almost against his will. His thoughts are reeling, chasing each other in a frenzied sprint across the blank horizon of his mind, and his stomach feels funny, although he's not sure why. "You think you could force me?" he asks, making an effort to sound suitably casual, but he takes the skin anyway, the motion little more than a knee-jerk reaction to having the thing practically shoved into his face, and a second later he wishes he hadn't.
He can almost feel the water through the leather, a liquid cooling weight between his hands that makes him swallow convulsively around the sandy dryness in his mouth. Just a sip, an alluring voice whispers from the back of his mind, a single sip wouldn't be so bad, just enough to wet his tongue until it stops feeling like he's been licking a dusty road...
Merlin is still staring at him, but his eyes remain blue, and so Arthur knows that it's not Merlin making his hands move as he uncaps the skin and raises it to his lips. Still, he certainly didn't tell his head to tip back, or his fingers to guide his mouth to the slosh and dribble of water. He feels his throat work of its own accord with every swallow, but no matter how sternly Arthur tells his arms to lower because one sip was all he intended to drink, they won't move.
He drinks until the skin is nearly empty and the occasional twinges in his calf subside along with the dull ache behind his eyes. It's only the thought of the warm weather that finally forces him to stop, because Merlin will need to stay hydrated as well for the rest of the hunt. Arthur hands him the waterskin and wipes his mouth, suddenly feeling self-conscious; Merlin's smile, relieved and maybe a little apologetic, makes his stomach clench slightly around the soothing coolness of the water.
"I just wanted to save myself the trouble of hauling your dehydrated carcass back to Camelot," Merlin says after a short silence, somewhat defensively, but to Arthur's surprise, his indignation at being ordered around has faded along with his thirst. "You're heavy, you know."
After a short pause, Arthur asks, "Are you calling me fat?" in a deceptively casual tone. He pounces before Merlin can think of a suitable reply, and Merlin's high-pitched giggles echo off the canopy of trees as Arthur tackles him to the ground, mercilessly exploiting his knowledge of Merlin's ticklish spots until Merlin shouts a laughing surrender into the sunlit trees.
By the time they're riding into the courtyard, Arthur has already cursed himself often enough to have lost count somewhere at the edge of the forest.
He orders Merlin to take care of the horses, and doesn't wait for a cheeky reply before he retreats to his chambers, and doesn't stop running until the door has closed behind him. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he thinks at himself, furiously, because he should have known better than that, especially because letting his guard down like that has long since been beneath him. Trust Merlin to sneak past his defenses like that and bloody goad him into—
As comforts go, the feeling of his bladder finally, finally emptying after an hour on horseback is a small one. It's so much like some of his nightmares that Arthur almost believes that it's just a dream, for a single, blessed moment after the doors of his chambers have banged open behind him. Then whatever Merlin has been carrying clatters to the floor, and he shouts Arthur's name in that tone that Arthur thinks he'll never get used to—it's somewhere between panicked dismay and the firmness of a command, as though he's trying to get Arthur out of whatever danger he's in by sheer force of will.
The wall is coming rather close, Arthur realizes with a dim sort of surprise as the floor seems to heave and buck under him, determined to shake him off. And it looks rather solid, too, and suddenly a hand is fisted in the back of his shirt, pulling his collar painfully tight around his throat in a futile effort to break his fall, and Arthur has just enough time to curse himself for not having locked the door in his haste before the darkness claims him.
The next thing he feels is a sharp sting of pain across his left cheek, and Arthur's eyes snap open on their own accord. His stomach muscles twitch weakly, trying to prop up his body into a sitting position, but then he recognizes the familiar sight of the canopy of his bed above and allows himself to slump back into the pillows.
Then he just lies there for a moment until the echo of his own heartbeat stops roaring in his ears. He feels vaguely nauseous lying down like that, and his shoulder kind of hurts, little stings that he knows will have increased into a full-blown throb by the time he'll finally feel steady enough to get up again.
Merlin, on the other hand, just looks immensely relieved, because he's smiling as though Arthur had performed some sort of heroic deed by waking up again. There's a blanket covering him, and a hand on his head—the blanket is a bit too warm, but the hand feels rather nice, all things considered, with the way Merlin's fingers keep sifting through Arthur's hair. It must be an unconscious motion, but it still warms him a little, especially when he realizes that Merlin must have lifted him onto the bed. Which is no mean feat, given how scrawny Merlin is and how he sometimes stumbles a bit even under the weight of Arthur's armor.
Arthur blinks up at Merlin in utter silence for a moment, taking in the relief in Merlin's expression that seems a bit exaggerated, before he says, very evenly, "Did you just slap me?"
Merlin's free hand immediately starts to fidget with the blanket. "Well," he starts, his tone torn somewhere between apologetic, worried and belligerent, "I had to wake you up somehow! It was that or pour a pitcher of water over your head!"
Arthur starts to roll his eyes, but stops immediately with a grimace when the motion causes a sharp sting of pain behind his eyes. Merlin's fingers tighten in his hair, a hint of the earlier frenzied worry returning to his gaze, but Arthur just raises his eyebrows at him until Merlin flushes and snatches his hand back.
"Sorry," he mumbles, ineffectively. Arthur's head feels oddly cold without the warmth of Merlin's touch, and with the vestiges of unconsciousness still clouding his mind, he almost tells him to put it back before he catches himself.
Merlin is sitting cross-legged on the bed, but he scoots backwards when Arthur tries to get up a second time. He watches in silence as Arthur struggles up into a half-sitting position, leaning heavily against the headboard; from the corner of his eye, Arthur can still see Merlin's fingers fidget with the blanket, as though he has to make a conscious effort not to reach out.
His head is spinning again by the time he has managed to prop himself up against the headboard, but Arthur ignores it, just tries to breathe deeply and clear his mind. He doesn't like the way Merlin is watching him, cautious and oddly patient, like one might look at a skittish horse. There's something in Merlin's eyes that Arthur can't quite place, a sort of understanding that makes an already familiar cold weight of dread begin to settle in his stomach.
Too late, Arthur realizes that under the blanket, the laces of his breeches are still undone.
When Merlin speaks, the weight slams ice through Arthur's veins and makes his heart jump into his throat, because he doesn't think he's ever heard his manservant use that tone before with him. Merlin sounds like he's suddenly tired of trying to come up with the best way of saying whatever he wants to say, and has decided to make it quick and hopefully painless, like peeling a scab off a well-healed wound. "So apparently, you—," he starts, his voice determined, and makes a vague hand motion that could signify 'faint' or 'do laundry', "whenever you—"
He falls silent again when words appear to fail him, and Arthur can't help but feel grateful that Merlin at least didn't say it aloud.
For just a moment, Arthur wishes fleetingly that he had listened to Gaius' tentative advice more often, if only just to be able to tell whether very realistic hallucinations can be an aftereffect of fainting. He stares at Merlin's vaguely embarrassed, persistent expression for what feels like a pretty long time, while his heart thrashes against his ribcage like the frenzied wings of a trapped bird. Merlin doesn't speak again, though, and Arthur thinks numbly that his manservant can't be that bad at mathematics after all, because somewhere along the line, he must have succeeded in putting two and two together without Arthur noticing.
Then he wonders, somewhat hazily, why he hasn't said anything yet, and why his thoughts aren't tumbling and spiraling out of control with the icy, unrelenting feeling in his gut. But trying to think of something to say is like dragging his feet through mud, although Arthur knows that he should be feeling something else but numbness, that this is a perfect moment for some yelling and candlestick-throwing until Merlin leaves. Or better yet, Arthur could just sack him on the spot and spare himself the pit of hollow, all-consuming mortification that's slowly starting to open up in his stomach.
But somehow the relief is still there, tucked away behind the quiet resolution in Merlin's eyes, and it takes Arthur a long moment to realize that Merlin is relieved because he knows now, because Arthur's silence was confirmation enough. He must have thought about it for some time, quietly watching and worrying and slotting puzzle pieces into place and maybe doing some research for backup.
It's hard to work up enough steam for yelling when faced with Merlin's earnest expression, though, and Arthur lets himself think that he's just waiting for Merlin to say the sort of outrageously stupid thing that would allow Arthur to mock him and take this conversation back to a ground with which they're both familiar.
"Gaius—," Merlin begins again, after a long pause that Arthur spent counting his unsteady heartbeats and wondering, with a distant sort of annoyance, why he can't summon the words to end this conversation right now.
"Knows," Arthur interrupts, his voice coming out scratchy with disuse, and of course his guts choose that exact moment to transform from what felt like stone into a bunch of squirming snakes.
He gets the feeling that Merlin sees that somehow, because he opens and closes his mouth a few times, and drops his hands back into his lap after a short, aborted movement that looks like he'd wanted to touch hesitant fingers to Arthur's shoulder. And Arthur can't help but feel relieved, because his hands have betrayed him once today in the clearing, and Arthur isn't quite sure whether they wouldn't come up to push Merlin off the bed, if Merlin made the mistake of touching him now.
There's another silence, this one even heavier. Merlin has started fidgeting again, and he's biting his lip, looking like he's not so sure anymore if his stumbling, straightforward words were the right way to go about addressing this. He seems to be searching for something to say, and Arthur fervently hopes that he won't find anything.
"Well," Merlin says at last, uncertainly. Too late, Arthur realizes that this is the tone he has never wanted to hear, the carefully hushed voice of someone wishing to comfort. "I always feel sort of woozy at the sight of my own blood—"
Arthur closes his eyes. Now he's starting to feel the first pinpricks of irritation, and the constricting wave of shamed, shameful humiliation that rises in his chest nearly chokes him. "Get out."
"Arthur—"
"Merlin," Arthur snaps back, unable to stop a little of the helpless anger from bleeding into his voice, and Merlin recoils as though he's been struck. "I am asking you to get out of this room."
The 'don't make me make it an order' remains unsaid, but after a short pause, Merlin goes anyway.
Part 2
