AN_ Here is the long awaited rewrite of Ulterior Motives. Sorry it's been so long (though I doubt a lot of you were actually waiting for this) anyway please R&R

Arthur

Everything hurt from my perspective. The life was drained from my body, muscles deteriorating from lack of movement and the malnourishment I was suffering. My bones creaked with each and every breath I took and the old cuts that were now healing were only a vague memory. But the only thing that hurt more than the pain in my body, was the sight of him lying there. My best friend bleeding out on the cold stone floor. His body was bruised in ways that no person, no matter how evil, should have to deal with. He looked broken. Every now and then he would peel his crusty eyelids back over fading pools of crystal to look over at where I was held by two guards. The person who did this to him? A blond witch who refused to reveal her identity.

Speak of the devil… The witch walked in, her heels clicking monotonously against the floor as her long purple, tattered dress dragged slightly against the ground. She walked slowly, curly locks pulled over her shoulder, away from her eyes that were a bright emerald green so unnatural that it was chilling. I shuddered as she pulled familiar ruby red lips over albino teeth and walked towards my poor servant- my poor friend. I tried to call out his name, but could not get the word around the salty lump in my throat. The witch walked around him, like a lioness circling her prey. She drove her toe into his stomach and he flipped onto his wounded back. He groaned.

"Merlin." she purred in a way that was sickly sweet.

I felt tears run down my cheeks as she stooped to where he lay. She wiped the crusting blood away from the cut on his forehead, only to reopen it and have sick liquid iron pour over his face. She stroked his cheek lightly and he tried to back away into the solid ground.

"Release him." she commanded the guards and they dropped me to the ground. The chains were removed from my wrists and the guards followed the witch from the room. The lock clicked in place before I ran towards Merlin. I scooped him up into my arms and stroked his blood crusted hair. This was the first time I got to see him clearly in a week. His cheeks were shallow, the normally high bones even more prominent. His skin was ghastly pale. No, it was beyond pale. It was grey, like paper that could easily be torn. Or at least, the few spaces that weren't bruised or swollen were grey. The rest was painted in ghastly purples and yellows, some so new and so hard that they were blackened.

Tears were pouring off of my cheeks, washing away the dirt and grime that coated his hide. My heart broke in each little salty drop that fell. He cracked open his eyes and through his obvious pain, his chapped lips pulled up into a smile.

"Oh God Merlin…" I whispered, stroking his hair and combing through the knots. "I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault…" he whispered as his eyes drifted shut. I patted his bruised cheek lightly.

"Hey. Hey Merlin you need stay awake for me okay? You hurt your head today. If you go to sleep you might not wake up."

He looked up at me and I pulled him tighter to me so his head was rested on my shoulder. His forehead was pressed against my neck and I hugged him tightly, rubbing a hand up and down his shoulder. I tried not to think of the pain he might be feeling be it emotional or physical, or both. I simply wished I could keep him safe. Lancelot once told me that I didn't have to be strong around him and the Knights of the Round Table when it came to Merlin. Lancelot had said that Merlin was the brother I never got to have before my mother's death. The more that I thought about it though, the more I believed it to be true. Merlin was my brother in all but blood, but I wondered why it took his blood spilling out over my hands for me to realize that… Merlin had gone through so much at my stake… He had drank poison, been sentenced to death, sat at death's door, and undergone torture without a second thought… It brought more tears to my eyes.

It was my fault that he was in this situation… If I hadn't been so careless and stupid, and such a prat we would be back in Camelot, safe and sound eating dinner and bantering the way we always did.

One Week Earlier…

Merlin and I walked out of the castle and towards two waiting horses. I had told my father that we would be searching for a magical creature with the body of a tiger, the wings of an eagle, and the face of a mole. Really, I was just trying to get away from Camelot. I had been under a lot of stress. Something was turning, a storm brewing on the horizon though I couldn't be sure when it would strike or what it would bring. I had been under so much stress so I decided to get away and take Merlin with me. Merlin most have sensed the storm too, because he kept looking around real nervous. At one point he had even suggested we go back.

Of course I had ignored him. Not fifteen minutes later, we were ambushed. Bandits burst through the tree line, battle cries ripping from their lips. And leading the bandits, standing up on the crest of the hill, was the blond witch. She laughed and as Merlin and I tried to fight off her 'army', she walked down the hill. The bandits scattered from where Merlin stood as the witch walked over to him. They stared each other in the eye for a while. She said something, a single word that I could not here, and he panicked. He looked terrified, and shocked as if a great secret had been revealed. Then a spell ripped from her throat, Merlin screamed, and he fell to the ground.

The last thing I remembered was her looking at me with those terrifyingly beautiful emerald eyes and I fell unconscious. Then, I woke in the god forsaken place…

Present Day…

"It is my fault Merlin." I sobbed. "If I had listened to you, we'd be back in Camelot, and you'd be safe…"

But then I realized while I was caught in my flashback, Merlin had blacked out. I sighed and hugged him tighter. I couldn't understand why she, or ANYONE would do this to Merlin. For a while, she had been questioning me on everything, Camelot's defenses, the Knights, my father. Every time I refused to speak, she would torture him in some way. Eventually I was about to break but Merlin intervened, yelling and saying that Camelot was more important than him. But that was just like him. He was self sacrificing, overly-loyal, and had NO sense of self preservation…

"Merlin… I promise you… I'll get you out of here." I hugged him one last time before laying on my back next to him and locking my fingers around his trembling wrist. "Good night Merlin." and I drifted asleep.

The next morning, I woke to the sound of the door being thrown open on its rusty hinges. I sat up quickly and pulled Merlin towards me. He groaned but as the witch walked in I held him tightly against me. She laughed coldly and tossed her hair. "Pendragon, do not attempt to protect him. You will only bring pain to yourself."

"I'd suffer at your hands a thousand times before I willingly gave him to you."

She let out an angry sigh and whispered a spell. My body froze, arms still protectively around Merlin. I panicked as the witch walked over and pulled him from my grasp. I wanted to protest, scream, fight, but the spell kept me in place. I growled because it was the only thing I could do. The witch laughed and attached heavy chains to Merlin's wrists. They wound up to the ceiling, so he was dangling by his hands which were raised above his head. She drew a dagger as Merlin opened his eyes.

The witch ran the dagger along his cheek tauntingly, leaving a thin line of blood on his cheek. She whispered something to him and he gasped, trying to jump back. She laughed manically before driving the dagger into his stomach. I screamed, or tried to. The witch laughed and let him down from the chains leaving the dagger in his flesh. She walked towards the door and snapped her fingers. As the door locked, I was let free of the spell. I scrambled over to Merlin, pain shooting through me as my feet slipped through the dust. I grabbed at Merlin, pulling his barely awake form towards me. I looked at his stomach and pulled the dagger out before pressing my hands on the gaping hole.

"Merlin." I choked out past tears.

His head leaned against my arms and I pressed my lips to the top of his head, crying and hoping. I didn't know what to do but I knew what might happen. One of the knights had been pierced with a sword in the stomach while we were patrolling and attacked by bandits. He had died in the night. I'd seen it happen multiple times. If they survived through the night, they normally made it. If not, they were gone. I cried and prayed that I could keep him through the night. Because if he died, half of me died with him.

Oh! I forgot this at the top.

DISCLAIMER: IDOM