Arthur scrubbed tiredly at his eyes. He hasn't slept in almost thirty hours, hadn't had a decent nights sleep in triple that, and he was exhausted, in both mind and body. The weird dreams - nightmares, more like - had kept him awake, and he was grouchy and irritable. He hadn't talked to anyone in a few days, ignoring even his father and Morgana, his half-sister.
In these dreams he saw a woman, her hair white with age and wrinkles lining her weathered face. She screamed and struggled uselessly against two faceless men, reaching out towards two figures. One was young, maybe nineteen, and he could feel the woman's unwavering love and desperate determination to get to her son. The taller and very obviously stronger of the two held the limp man against a wall, repeatedly smashed his fist into the man's stomach, chest, and face. He could see just beyond them a shadowed figure, standing calmly and exuding a professionally indifferent air. Arthur could feel the woman's hate for this man like a physical sheen on his skin, and she snarled and spit curses at him. He barked something sharply, and one of the men holding her grabbed her shoulder and slapped her harshly across the face. She, being old and more frail than she would want to admit, fell.
Her head cracked sharply on the ground, and the last thing she knew was blood pooling under her head like a tearstained pillow, and a none too gentle foot to her ribs.
Which brought Arthur to the present. He looked blearily around and noted a few things about the place he sat in. It was undoubtedly a doctors office, with a few motivational posters and a PhD on the wall that read "Dr. Augustus Wilson MD." The tan carpet and light green walls helped his drowsy state a bit, and he managed to get enough energy to pull his phone out of his back pocket to check the time. He growled softly to himself when he realized his appointment should have started five minutes ago, and he had yet to see the doctor.
Five more minutes passed and he decided to go check with the desk person. He didn't know what they were supposed to be called, and at the moment he didn't care. He shuffled to the desk and glared at the young man sitting at the desk.
"Do you know when the doctor's going to get out here?" he asked impatiently.
The man gave him a nervous compassionate look, and said, "I'm sure Dr.Gaius will be out in a minute or two. He was helping a patient-"
"Look-" he glanced at the nameplate on the desk, "Morris, I have not slept in a day and a half, and if I don't see the doctor immediately, I am going to blow a gasket and-"
"That's enough, friend." A voice startled him from behind, and he jumped a little, flushing at having been caught unawares. He hadn't even realized he had worked himself up to a shout.
Instead of doing the decent thing, he whirled around at the intruder and growled, "Do I know you?"
The man was definitely younger than Arthur, if only by a few years, but was a few inches taller. His black hair curled down his forehead and at the nape of his neck, and his startling blue eyes stood out from his pale face. He wore a blue shirt and and dark jeans, and had a chain glittering around his neck and disappearing underneath his shirt.
"I'm Merlin."
"So I don't know you."
"No."
"But you called me your 'friend.'"
Merlin's friendly smile dropped by centimeters. "My mistake."
"Yes, I think so." Arthur sneered.
"I could never be friends with such an ass."
Before Arthur could utter a no doubt equally scathing reply, a shorter man with longer white hair and a doctor's white coat bussled into the waiting room and called his name.
Arthur shot a glare at the lanky man behind him and turned to follow the doctor. Dr.Gaius led him to plain office, with both white floors and walls. Combine that with the doctor's generally white appearance, and it made Arthur slightly uncomfortable with all the sterileness.
"So," began Dr.Gaius, "what had you so concerned?"
He began telling Gaius all about how he couldn't sleep, and with a little prodding, reluctantly told him about the dream.
Gaius nodded once and said, "I know exactly what this is, Mr. Penn. I'm afraid you may have a bit of trouble believing me, however."
"At this point," Arthur said resignedly, rubbing both hands over his face to get a bit of the sleepiness out, "I'm willing to try anything."
Gaius nodded. "Well Mr.Penn, I'm afraid you have a spirit haunting you."
"A...spirit." he said sceptically.
"Yes, and I believe it is very vengeful, though not at you. Why it is attacking you and not whoever it is really angry at, I have no idea, but the problem is it wants you to suffer for what someone else did."
"Okay," said Arthur, still not completely buying the whole situation but willing to play along for now, "How do we get it to stop?"
"We don't." Gaius said, already turned away and shuffling a few papers, presumably his medical records. "I do, however, have a consultant for these kinds of things."
"You've dealt with something like this before?" Arthur said in surprise as Gaius shuffled to the door.
"Yes, and my consultant is quite possibly the best at what he does, so you'll not have to worry one bit."
And then he was gone, the door firmly shut. Arthur sat dumbly on the tissue paper covered plastic bed, fiddled with his phone for a second, then tossed it aside in favor of contemplating the sanity of this doctor and his "consultant."
He was considering leaving and finding a different doctor when the door opened to reveal Dr.Gaius and, of all people, Merlin.
"Arthur, this is my nephew Merlin. He can help you."
"You!" they exclaimed at the same time.
Gaius raised a surprisingly authoritative eyebrow at the sudden hostility between the two men. "It appears you've already met."
"You could say that." Merlin ground out, still glaring at Arthur.
Gaius rolled his eyes and gently pulled Merlin the rest of the way into the room, shutting the door behind him. An awkward silence fell over them before Gaius said, "Well?"
Merlin grimaced and sat on the bed next to Arthur. Arthur watched with narrowed eyes as he held out his hand.
"Give me your hand." he said quietly.
Arthur stood suddenly and said, "You know what-"
"Sit." Gaius commanded.
Arthur sat and gave Merlin his hand.
As soon as their skin touched, Merlin sucked in a breath and whipped his head up to look into Arthur's startled eyes. His blue irises seemed to be flecked with gold as he searched for something in his eyes. Apparently not finding it, he took his hand back and said shakily, "Yep, definitely a vengeful spirit. And a pretty powerful one too." He avoided Arthur's eyes, instead looking to Gaius. "I can get it off him pretty easily, but it's going to take a lot of his energy and he'll probably pass out after."
Gaius nodded and Arthur, annoyed at being talked about like he wasn't there, said haughtily, "So what do you have to do? Perform some weird ritual?"
"Nope." Merlin said. He seemed to have gotten over whatever had startled him, but he was looking at Arthur differently, with something like reverence and caution. "Just have to pull it off you."
"It's that easy?" he said suspiciously.
"Yeah. I could do it now, if you'd like."
Arthur bit his cheek and nodded. "Yeah, just let me make a few phone calls."
He stepped into the hall quickly to make the phone calls. First he called Leon, his friend and one of his father's most trusted employees. He told him where he was and what was going on. Leon took the strangeness in stride, something Arthur admired about him. Next he called his secretary, to cancel any plans he had that day if they hadn't been already, his sister to inform her of the situation, and finally his father. Uther Penn has none too happy to be interrupted during work, nor was he happy that Arthur hadn't been to work in two days, or the fact that he would be gone today and tomorrow as well. He finally hang up on his father's ranting and went back to the patient room. He doubted his father had even noticed.
"I'm ready." he said entering. Gaius gestured for him to lay on the bed, and he did so stiffly.
Merlin approached him and said, "Get ready. It won't hurt, but you'll definitely feel it."
Merlin reached his hands over Arthur's chest and curled long fingers slightly. A feeling, not painful but definitely unpleasant, swelled up from a place inside him he couldn't name. It felt like a suction cup being pulled off his very soul - or maybe velcro. A loud pop sounded in his ears, though it had the oddest sensation of coming from inside him, and the last thing he saw before his eyes slipped close, suddenly exhausted, was Merlin slumping into Gaius's waiting arms.
Arthur woke slowly, a terrible ache in his neck. He blinked up at the ceiling tiles for a few seconds before realizing he felt great. Better than he had in days. He was only slightly drowsy, a major improvement from when he had fallen asleep, and he suddenly felt lighter in more ways that one. He jumped up from the uncomfortable doctors bed and spun around to see Merlin slumped uncomfortably in one of the hard plastic chairs. He felt a rush of random affection and surprise that someone that he was so rude to had done something so nice for him. He grinned and quietly exited the room, finding Gaius in the front room of the small doctor's practice. It was dark outside, and the sign on the door claimed the building to be closed. He guessed it was around midnight.
He waved at Gaius and the old man smiled, genuinely relieved the other man was fine.
"How do you feel?" the doctor inquired, quickly filling out the mandatory reports and papers.
"Great, actually." he said with a smile. "Thank you." and he meant it.
Gaius chuckled. "I really had nothing to do with it. It was all Merlin."
"Speaking of him." Arthur said said, digging in his pocket. He pulled out his business card and handed it over. "Have him call me. I'd like to buy him a pint in appreciation."
Gaius looked pleasantly surprised and said, "I take it your little feud is over then?"
"It is in my book." Arthur grinned, payed the man, and left the shop. As he walked down the road to his car, he couldn't help feeling as if something was going to go right with this.
(A/N) Hello! I somehow found the motivation to write, so here it is! Took me three hours straight of typing, as it is definitely not one of my strong suites. Anyway, I'm hoping to make more of this au, though I don't know for sure when or if it will actually come out. I'm super proud of this one, so I hope you enjoy. Dialogue is yet another thing I'm not particularly good at.
