For a prompt at Kinks of Camelot on LJ.
"Merlin, don't..."
Merlin stops before he even starts speaking, and swallows. His eyes flit to Arthur on his horse. Arthur's back is ramrod straight and he won't turn around. Merlin blinks repeatedly, beating back tears.
"Arthur..."
"No, Merlin," Arthur says, shaking his head. There's none of his usual easy manner about him today. "Stop talking."
"Arthur," Merlin tries again, hoarse.
"Shut up," Arthur says. Merlin can sense what it took for Arthur to wrench that from his throat. Arthur still won't turn around.
The trot of their horses is unhurried. Merlin knows Camelot like the back of his hand by now, but even at knifepoint he wouldn't be able to tell where Arthur was at that moment leading them.
"Gaius will worry," Merlin says.
"Let him."
"Please, sire," Merlin says, hungrily watching the way Arthur shivers at the address. "Please."
"Merlin, if you don't stop speaking, I shall—"
"Anything is better than horrid silence—"
Arthur snarls, digging his heels into his steed's sides and speeding up.
"Where are you taking me?" Merlin asks, following him.
Arthur's shoulders slump. "Ealdor," he says shortly, clipped but clear over the din of hoofs. Merlin can still only see the back of his divine, golden head. He memorises the way each shining strand rises and falls with the wind, and imagines he can smell Arthur's sweat and bath soap in his wake.
"We don't have provisions for that long a trip," Merlin calls.
"We don't," Arthur agrees, coming to a halt to the very edge of the dense forest at the borders of Camelot's capital.
Dread sinks Merlin's heart as Arthur finally meets his eyes.
There is no emotion in his gaze.
"Go home," Arthur says flatly. "You have no place in Camelot anymore."
Merlin stills.
"What did I do?" he asks softly and dismounts. Arthur does the same, a small mercy for Merlin.
Arthur looks back at Merlin, frost coating his glare yet.
"I have no need to explain."
"I can't leave you," Merlin says. "I've been at your side for years now, I've served you all this time, I've watched you yawn in the mornings and complain into your goblet at night, I've borne everything you've thrown at me—"
"Then bear this too," Arthur says. "Make yourself scarce, and never come back."
"But why," Merlin presses.
Arthur sighs, and any other day Merlin would smile at his own incorrigibility and expect Arthur to fondly clip his ear. Not today. Merlin would give anything to dive back into the past, where even if he couldn't understand the minutest of Arthur's mannerisms, he could grin and accept them all the same.
"Because, Merlin," Arthur begins. Merlin waits.
"Because I wish it so. I never want to see your face again."
Any other reason would have seen Merlin fighting tooth and nail to stay, I have to protect you, be by your side, Arthur, but this one is almost tangible in the way it shoves Merlin back into the flank of his horse and punches the breath from his lungs.
A not-insignificant part of him curls up and implodes. He can't understand, still. But he's always done what Arthur wants.
"All right," Merlin says, nodding more to himself than the prince rigid before him.
And before the rational side of him can overpower his visceral urge, he reaches for Arthur and draws him into a kiss.
For one brief, sublime moment, Arthur's mouth opens under his as he kisses Merlin back, tongue and teeth matching every ounce of Merlin's fire. Merlin's banishment makes even less sense in light of Arthur's hands desperately scrabbling at his back, but all too soon he's being pushed off and glared at.
"Leave," Arthur says, wiping at his lips with the back of his hand. "Take the horse."
"I loved you," Merlin says helplessly, because he will never say it again.
Arthur doesn't even blink.
Merlin climbs onto his horse and takes a piercing look at his beautiful golden prince before confronting the greenwood, heart as heavy and dismal.
Merlin can't have known of Uther's suspicions concerning his magic. He can't possibly know about the threat to his life posed by Uther's drunken fulminations to his son.
Merlin can, however, turn around one last time to glimpse grief and heartache and loss ravaging Arthur's countenance.
But he doesn't, and Arthur mourns with no one to see him.