Warnings: Graphic violence, mentions of spirituality (largely bastardized), homosexuality, and various post-apocalyptic settings.

Pairings: Merlin x Arthur

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Chapter One: Flies

It starts like this: Arthur holds out his hand. "Hello, I'm Arthur."

Arthur does not introduce himself to people. He is introduced to them and adored at once (and envied). He does not care what they think as long as he is above them, as long as he is more than them. He does not shake hands.

The boy sitting on the concrete doesn't look up at Arthur when he sighs raspingly. It almost sounds like a real word, something like "merlin." So until he can be bothered to answer properly, that will be his name. The boy doesn't take Arthur's hand. He huddles deeper in his jacket and it is cold, so very cold, snowing in early spring, so why does Merlin's jacket have so many holes? Arthur wants to make him warm. He has stolen away from the guards for this very purpose, and now all Merlin needs to do is take his hand.

But he won't.

Arthur reaches for him instead and the boy jumps away, staring at Arthur with the bluest eyes in the world. Maybe it's because the rest of him is fading and dying. His skin is the color of snow, stretched tight and dull over hollow cheeks and brittle bones. He will blow away in the slightest breath of wind, but his eyes are the color of the whole sky, eternal and beautiful.

He is afraid and his eyes say Don't Touch Don't Touch, and Arthur is a contrary boy—a bit of a bully, really—he grabs Merlin's fragile skin and tries to take a fistful of it. Merlin hisses like a stray cat, wild and resentful, and he claws at Arthur with weak hands. He bites and his teeth are sharp.

Arthur retreats with a yowl of his own—pain is not something he's accustomed to—and his hands fly free of the blue-eyed boy's skin. He leaves it unbroken.

The impression Merlin leaves him is of beautiful eyes and being stronger than he looks.

XxX

Merlin is chained down, and he struggles with the mad, fervent abandon of a wild creature. He foams at the mouth, shrieking, spitting, straining for the chance of freedom. His captors are clever. He cannot move. The chair is a thing of beauty; it can hold even Merlin fast.

They turn on the electricity, and Merlin's screams shake the earth. His blood vessels burst, his saliva runs pink with blood, and as the minutes pass, there is a smell.

He is being cooked alive, a human hot pocket, and still he screams.

XxX

Arthur is accustomed to it—to seeing Merlin. The guards are there day and night and have impressed on Arthur why he must never leave them. Arthur understands and he does not try to disappear. But whenever they take him out, Merlin is always there. Arthur can feel his presence with the prickle of his skin, and occasionally will catch a glimpse through the gaps in the bodyguards surrounding him. Merlin ducks back into an alleyway, he catches Merlin's eyes watching from a dimly lit window, he picks him out on the other side of the street, vanishing with a passing car.

On the days where he is not quick enough or Merlin is not bold enough, the prickling becomes paranoia. Arthur wonders—Is he hurt? Has he gone? Will I ever see him again? Arthur makes himself sick, sometimes, until he is shaking on the floor and retching with bile, terrified of some premonition of blue eyes glazed over and covered with flies. He does not know which of them he is afraid for. It could be him just as easily, which makes the scenes all the more horrific.

He tells himself this parallel is why these nightmares disturb him. After all, Arthur shares nothing with Merlin but the feel of cold, chapped skin and snarled black curls. It's only his imagination that finds Merlin everywhere in the outside world, pretends that Merlin waits to see Arthur. Merlin is not really there. There is no reason for him to be.

The world is a scary place, all full of monsters. Logic is a sword that Arthur needs.

Arthur's nightmares show Merlin dead and doctors are brought in with strange words and stranger tonics and pills and prescriptions. Arthur is young, children are prone to sudden illness. Arthur is emotionally unstable; he needs medication. Something is wrong with his mind; Arthur may die.

Arthur, personally, knows he won't die. He's waiting too hard to die.

Once he is well enough to get out of bed and go for a walk outside, this time Merlin will be sure to linger just long enough for Arthur's eyes to catch him.

Merlin grows quickly in these shutter-snapped images. He grows tall and pale and thin, like a tree blanched white and then dark again. His eyes stay blue as the sky and impossible to miss.

Arthur's insecurities fade when he is thirteen and Merlin's voice is in his head, whispering his name softly again and again.

Arthur.

Arthur.

Arthur, Arthur, ArthurArthurArthurArthur.

He cannot shut Merlin out and he cannot draw Merlin into conversation, though he does try. He knows that Merlin hears him. He can feel it—feel Merlin's mind running alongside his, alien and intriguing, like a river with the wrong color. Merlin pays attention to everything he says, but never replies. He chants Arthur's name and in time Arthur forgets what it's like to have his head to himself. His name becomes his lullaby, his theme song, his study music. It is the sound of breathing. It is the sound of the world turning.

As long as Merlin is whispering Arthur's name, Arthur knows he is alive. They both are.

XxX

They tie Merlin to the stake—his eyes roll, panicking like a horse led to its slaughter. He does not scream—they have gagged him to keep him silent. He does not try to make a noise, but his fear is a tangible vibration. Thick, foul fear; the smell of shame and indignity. It can be found on any street in this world, in the pockets of cities where monstrosities breed. What he fears they do not know. It is not the pain—he has had so much of that that surely he cannot fear pain.

They assume that therefore what he fears is death. They are eager to grant him unto his terrors.

They light the fire and the flames lick his body greedily. They consume his white flesh as the onlookers chant his name like it's a spectator sport, "Merlin, Merlin" and alongside it they pray "kill the witch." The smoke covers any other smell, thick and black and somehow weary. The wind kicks up ash and sprays it, and the fire splits the warlock's skin over and over. It blisters and blackens, sloughing off in bloody heaps and there is always something more under it.

The ropes are magical and do not burn away. The fire burns for a fortnight, until the rain puts it out.

XxX

When Arthur is fifteen, things go wrong. The guards are panicking—they hustle Arthur higher and higher, up flights of stairs over and over again. Their numbers thin. There is shouting, gunshots, the sudden smell of blood before Arthur is steered up another flight of stairs. His home was his palace, they told him, all his tutors and servants and slaves. He could do as he wished there, could have anything he wanted. If only he would behave.

Arthur behaves now, but the blood does not stop and they lock him on the roof. The last of the bodyguards are gone. There is screaming and it is very close now. Arthur shivers in the wind. It is too cold to be outside without a jacket, so he puts his hands upon his skin and wills himself to warm. Steam curls from his body, and Arthur approaches the edge of the roof to look down at the mob surrounding his palace. They are shouting and dirty and armed. They talk about blasphemy and witchcraft and other unenlightened things. They are from the Religion, the old archetype of morality of the times of before. Arthur has been taught about it many times.

"You must not go out unguarded because you are special. And they will kill special people because they blame them for what has become of this world…"

They see him and begin to shoot. Arthur ducks back onto the roof, heart hammering. He hears them start to climb. He hears some of them fall and crunch against their fellow man and the ground. He hears them telling him to jump, to die, to have God strike him down, to confess, to atone, to beg for mercy.

He hears Merlin.

Arthur Arthur Arthur Arthur.

He turns his eyes to another rooftop, and there is the boy, black curls whipping in the wind, face as white as fear, eyes that remind Arthur of what the sky is meant to be. It is gray today, fat with rain that will not fall; but Merlin's eyes are blue like what comes after the rain. Merlin is hope.

"Merlin," Arthur says, shaping the world with his mind and mouth at once.

Merlin crooks a finger at him and Arthur jumps because yes, he will jump for this boy. He will die, have God strike him down, confess, atone, beg for mercy.

And he lives, he is shriven, he is saved. Merlin strides through the air like nothing can harm him and Arthur is in his arms before gravity can claim him. The mob is howling down below them, so far down below, writhing in the filth and dust. Arthur does not even know what he is being forgiven for, but he trusts Merlin. Arthur has been raised to trust. He wraps arms around Merlin's neck and lets Merlin take them where he wants.

When they at last collapse in the mouth of a cave, kept warm from the wind by Arthur's hands and kept safe by Merlin's invisible wings, Merlin curls up in the corner without giving Arthur food, water, or a bed. None of these things are in the cave. There is only Merlin and stone.

Arthur curls up against Merlin and is shoved away. Wounded, he returns, and again he is battered with ankles and elbows. They crash into each other like inevitabilities, again and again. Merlin scratches and bites and growls and Arthur is shouting at him,

"Why would you—why won't you—"

And his screaming turns into tears and shaking and Arthur grabs ahold and won't let go. His head is full of blood and screaming and why does he have to die? What has he ever done? Why has this happened?

Arthur does not say please. Arthur does not ask. Arthur holds out his hand and expects it to be filled, but Merlin gives him nothing. He keeps a foot of distance between them and watches Arthur's tears with eyes full of withheld hope.

Arthur throws himself at Merlin again and they roll on the stones, tangled, voices raised in incoherent angerfearsorrow until they are too tired to scream anymore. Too tired to fight. Arthur's stubbornness has him clutching Merlin tight and after that there is no other way to sleep.

XxX

A/N: Wow. I wrote this a long time ago... and it's better than I remember (I think?). I'm... not really sure how to explain this. Erm. Anyway, it's already completed, so I cannot justifiably withhold the updates from you for long. If you like this, lemme know. The ending of Merlin was kind of heartbreaking and I want to keep our wonderful fandom alive as best I can.