When Arthur is seven, he realizes he doesn't like stepping on more than one cobblestone at once.
He's not sure why, but when he looks down and sees his foot crossing the crack between two stones, something about it just feels off, like he's doing something wrong. It makes his lips pull down into a frown, something inside him twisting up in a way he's never experienced before.
It nags at him until he slides his foot back until it's balanced on just one stone, safely away from the crack. He walks that way for the rest of the day, alternatively tiptoeing and twisting his feet out to the sides so as to keep himself within the boundaries of one stone at a time.
His governess looks at him oddly, as do the guards escorting them, but they seem to write it off as a child's flight of fancy.
And maybe it is. He does it consistently for a few months, but by the time he's eight, he's forgotten all about it, able to step wherever he wants without any problems.
.
When Arthur is nine, Uther agrees, very hesitantly, to take him to Ygraine's grave. It's the first time he's ever made such a promise—practically the first time he's even acknowledged that Arthur had a mother at all—and the boy is overjoyed.
He races back to his room, giddy with anticipation, and throws himself on his bed, already thinking about all the things he wants to say to her. He stays there for some time—he has quite a lot to think about, after all, he's been waiting nine years—but thirst finally draws him back to reality.
He stands up and crosses the room to the table where a pitcher of water sits, condensation sliding tantalizingly down its silver surface.
Arthur reaches for it, but his hand stops halfway there, a sudden anxiety gripping him.
The pitcher was sitting right there when his father finally agreed to take him to his mother's grave. In fact, everything in this room had been just as it still is.
What if the arrangement of all the objects was lucky, and had influenced his father's decision? What if touching it, moving even one little thing, would negate all that and make him change his mind?
Arthur's hand hovers, fingers trembling as he wars with himself. Touch it, don't touch it, bad luck, good luck, don't touch it, don't risk it, it's not worth it—
He goes to sleep thirsty that night.
.
When Arthur is eleven, his history teacher tells his father, very tactfully, that he thinks his son might have a slight 'learning impediment'. His reason for believing this is that Arthur seems to struggle with reading—he takes twice as long to finish a text as he should, and frequently he has trouble summarizing what he's just read.
Arthur scowls and turns his nose up, but doesn't bother trying to defend himself. It's not as though the simpleton would understand.
Arthur himself isn't even really sure he understands.
He reads fine—rather quickly, in fact. He knows all the meanings of the words, and he can string them together.
It's just . . . when he comes to the end of a sentence (or, sometimes, a whole paragraph) his eyes frequently dart back and forth between the words and the margin of the page and he finds himself twisting up with anxiety, unsure if he'd missed a word.
For some reason, Arthur can't stand the thought of missing a word.
So he rereads the sentence or paragraph, sometimes more than once. He concentrates so hard on each single word that he loses the meaning of the whole, and by the time the anxiety recedes he has no grasp of what he just read.
Thankfully, he never has to explain this. Uther fires his tutors, all of them, and tells him that words are for monks. The things a future king should be concerning himself with are matters of war—weapons and fighting and strategy.
Arthur is relieved. Those are all much easier to handle.
.
When Arthur is thirteen, he begins to feel dirty.
It's a gradual thing. First it's his feet—he realizes, almost like an epiphany, that they are in constant contact with the floor and the ground, scuffing through all kinds of dirt dragged in on the soles of shoes that have been in contact with God knows what. Gradually, the pads of his feet begin to feel sticky, and he finds that he can't sleep with the sensation of them and their filth brushing against his clean sheets.
The only relief is a bath every night, to wash away the dirt and preserve the sanctity of his bed. Everyone from his father to his manservant find it excessive, but he could care less—it's the only way to function.
Soon, Arthur begins thinking about the history of the things he comes in contact with. He thinks about dirty hands on door handles, which suddenly become alive with filth ready to contaminate him. He thinks about boots that have trudged through mud and manure, and suddenly they're so untouchable he has to force his feet into them without use of his hands. Plates and goblets that have been passed between the royal family suddenly disgust him, his stomach rolling at the thought of eating after his father and Morgana.
And there are other things. Using the chamber pot becomes torture; he scrubs his hands up to the elbow for ten minutes afterward and wishes he could bathe. Using the woods while out with the knights is excruciating like nothing else, because he can't wash afterwards; he spends the nights in his bedroll with his hands up above his head in the dirt, trying not to touch anything.
The slightest feel of oil on his hair nauseates him. Blowing his nose prompts another round of hand washing. Being touched makes his skin crawl, even if it's just his father or Morgana or Gaius, because he can never help but wonder if their hands are clean.
He's not sure why he dislikes dirt so much. It's not a fear of sickness. It's more a fear of . . . a feeling.
When his hands have touched something dirty—when someone has touched him—when he's come into contact with anything he considers unclean, his skin almost tingles. He feels the filth, sitting there, on him, in him, and the need to get rid of it is like an itch deep in his mind. It builds and it builds, pushing him and sickening him until he's practically writhing, consumed by the filth and the need to just be clean, to just make it stop so he can not think about it.
Trying to fight it, to deny it, is a battle he cannot win.
So Arthur adjusts.
.
When Arthur is twenty, Merlin empties his chamber pot out the window of his room, shouting a sheepish apology when someone shrieks below, and then puts it back into place.
Arthur sits at the table, back ramrod straight, hand clenched tightly around his goblet, and tries to fight his anxiety. He tries to ignore it, to clench his teeth and divert his gaze, because he's learned in the past that sometimes just not looking, not knowing, is an effective technique. Ignorance can sometimes truly be bliss.
But it doesn't work this time. Arthur just stares at the table, almost thrumming, and thinks wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands wash your hands wash your hands washyourhandswashyourhands—
But Merlin just ambles over to the bed and begins making it, running his filthy, unwashed hands over the sheets and blankets and pillows, contaminating everything with a smile on his face.
For a second, Arthur wants to scream. He wants to go over and grab him by those filthy, filthy, disgusting hands and shove them down into some soapy water and scrub them, and then slap him across the face for being such an inconsiderate, ignorant, unclean fool.
But Arthur bites back the rage, because he knows that Merlin probably doesn't know anything about cleanliness in the first place. He's seen how peasants live, wallowing in their own grime day after day.
"Merlin," he says, trying not to grit his teeth. "Forget everything else I've assigned you. I have something else for you to do. I want you to strip the bed entirely, including all the pillows. Everything."
Merlin frowns. "Uh . . . okay. Do you want me to wash them?"
Arthur almost cringes at the thought. There's no salvaging something once it's been so dirtied. It's like the door handle to his room—no matter how many times he's wiped it off with a soapy rag, the filth is still there, lingering, unable to be removed.
"No," he says. "Burn them."
.
Merlin staggers across the room, arms laden with a pile of freshly washed clothes. He dumps them on the (newly redecorated) bed, sending a multitude of colored tunics and breeches sprawling in every direction.
Arthur turns away, eyes staring into the swirling red wine in his goblet. He always hates seeing his clothes brought in, as it reminds him of the fact that they had to be washed down in the tubs with everyone else's disgusting laundry. He also tries not to think about what Merlin might've brushed them against on the way up to his room, or if the idiot's hands were clean when he started washing them.
Arthur finally does look up when Merlin makes something of a startled, incredulous sound. He finds him staring down at the floor, which is littered with discarded articles of clothing.
"More laundry?" he demands. "I just took down an armful this morning! How many times do you change clothes?"
About five to seven times a day, depending on how many times he ventures out of his chambers and how dirty he gets on each trip.
"I believe your only concern is washing them, Merlin," he says snidely, gesturing at the pile of red fabric and leather.
Merlin rolls his eyes and starts muttering under his breath about how he's more of a girl than Morgana, to be so fashion conscious.
.
When Arthur is bitten by the Questing Beast, his last memory as his consciousness fades is Merlin standing somewhere high above him, looking horrified and very pale against the vibrant blue of his neckerchief.
Bad luck, he thinks as he floats through delirium, half dead but with a mind still determined to work its usual madness. Bad luck, Merlin usually wears his red neckerchief, disaster happened when he wore blue, bad luck blue, blue bad luck . . .
After he wakes up, he orders Merlin to never wear his blue neckerchief ever again.
.
His first outing from his room after the Questing Beast is taxing. He can barely stand by the time he returns to his chambers, his legs shaky and shoulder aching.
"Let's get you into bed, sire," says Merlin, bustling over to turn down the sheets.
Arthur stares at the bed, and feels the sticky filth of his feet in his boots.
"Draw me a bath, Merlin," he says, even as the room spins slightly with lightheaded nausea.
"But you can barely even—"
"Bath, Merlin," he snaps, slamming his eyes shut and trying to steady himself.
Merlin stares for a minute before turning on his heel and walking off to fetch the water.
Arthur takes deep breaths to calm his stomach and wishes, slightly deliriously, that he could just be sick enough to not care.
But he doesn't think that's possible.
.
In winter, Arthur's hands bleed. The skin of his hands is always inflamed and red, no matter the season, but as the air grows colder his knuckles split open, spilling thick drops of blood down his fingers until they scab over hideously.
Merlin, of course, notices, and appears in his chambers one day with a vial in his hand. He forces Arthur to sit down and pops the cork out, spreading some of the oily substance over his fingers.
Then he reaches out and snatches one of Arthur's hands, pulling it towards him as he begins rubbing the lotion in.
Arthur freezes, horrified, staring at the contact between them. Skin on skin, his hand on a hand that might've come into contact with any number of things he wants no part of, oily filth being massaged into his skin.
"Gaius said this would lock in moisture and heal everything up," says Merlin, tracing his fingers up Arthur's wrist, where the red skin fades up into the healthy flesh on the rest of his arm.
It burns, every centimeter of skin searing as the oil seeps in. He's grown used to his hands aching dully, the skin brittle and dry, but this is enough to make him want to go back to that.
But then, as Merlin continues massaging it in, the burning starts to fade, bit by bit. And, miraculously, it takes the rest of the pain with it, leaving his skin feeling healthy for the first time in as long as he can remember.
"Better?" Merlin asks, smiling goofily. His hands are almost a lily white, standing out starkly against the red flesh and the scabbed knuckles. They don't look dirty, and though Arthur knows that they could be, he decides to ignore it.
Right now, all he cares about is that Merlin's hands are on his and it feels good.
He can always wash them later.
.
Arthur doesn't have lovers. Being the Prince, he's had many offers, but the very thought of it, of being so close to someone, skin on skin, touching, sweating, accepting another person's filth on his body—it's unimaginable.
He's never wanted it, and he was sure he never would.
Until Merlin.
The longer he knows him, the more Merlin begins to stir something inside him that he hadn't even known existed. He begins to want—he wants to reach out and touch, to feel human warmth under his hand, and to feel hands on him, experience what it's like to just be held. He wants to feel lips and skin and hair, a body moving under and against and around him, giving and taking pleasure.
The sick part of his mind, the insane part that scares him more than anything else in the world, rails against all of it. It tells him that Merlin is unclean, that in a good month he bathes twice, that he spends his days doing dirty laundry and mucking out stables.
Arthur has always buckled under his mind, for as long as he can remember. He can barely even recall a time when he fought, because it always proved useless.
But this time, he does something different. He doesn't buckle, nor does he fight.
He just doesn't care. He throws himself forward and lets his lips meet Merlin's, and even as unwashed teeth clank against his and his hands thread into greasy hair and the back of his mind screams in horror, ranting about filth,dirt, filth filth dirt FILTHDIRT, he does. not. care.
He's finally kissing Merlin, and that's all that matters.
.
He's reluctant to reveal his . . . sickness . . . to Merlin. He knows well enough about how people with afflictions of the mind are generally viewed and treated—most physicians would have you believe that you're out of favor with God, or possessed by a demon, which leads to being tied down to a bed for an exorcism or tied up in a church for prayer. If that failed, there were lunatic houses, places to be sent to not to improve but worsen and die.
In public, he's always tried to project an image of perfect health and total normalcy, and even with his manservant, he's played it down as much as possible, only asking him to wash his hands after dealing with the chamber pot and mucking out the stables and pretending that it was just good etiquette that would be expected from any master.
Asking Merlin to bathe before getting into bed with him is harder to excuse, as are his hesitant, almost fearful touches. His hands venture over Merlin's chest and back, but the familiar anxiety comes rushing back as he thinks of venturing lower.
Eventually, he does try, but Merlin stops him, catching his hand in his and caressing his scabbed knuckles with the pad of his thumb.
"It's okay, Arthur," he murmurs. "I've never done this before. We can take it slow. You don't need to do anything you're not comfortable with."
Looking into his eyes, Arthur pales. Usually they're bright and cheerful, but right now they're darkened with concern and . . . knowing. Merlin knows.
"You . . ." Arthur clears his throat. "You've known all this time, haven't you? That I'm . . . not right."
Merlin shakes his head. "It's not that you're not right."
"Yes," he hisses bitterly. "Yes, it is."
"We never choose these things, Arthur. They choose us. They may make us different . . . but, it's who we are. And that makes it okay."
Merlin smiles at him a little then, and Arthur reads in his expression something he didn't think he would ever find in another person: understanding. Somehow, Merlin understands perfectly, understands all the fear and the loneliness and the resentment and what it is to be different.
"It's okay," he says again, hand brushing the side of his face.
Arthur leans into the touch, and thinks that maybe, what he says is true.
.
Author's Note: I was watching a clip on youtube where Arthur is scalded by hot bathwater, and for some reason I thought: he seems to bathe a lot for somebody in early medieval Europe. Maybe he has OCD (like me)!
Obviously, this was extremely easy for me to write, as I based his symptoms off my own experiences with it, though his feeling crazy and abnormal is inspired more by what my mother and grandmother (who also have it) have told me about dealing with it in the 40s/70s. Obviously, being in medieval Europe would've been even worse, considering they didn't seem to know anything about psychology at all.
Hopefully there are no massive grammar/spelling mistakes, as I was up till five in the morning writing it and was so tired by the end I was woozy.
-Anna