Warnings: Minor Character death, violence, noncon, dubcon.
Pairing: Uther/Arthur, Merlin/Arthur
Thank you K_Nightfox for the beta!
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Uther's hands were cold; uncaring.
Large, gloved hands probed the prince's nights in monstrous dreams that were all too real. It has been an eternity since he has slept soundly without those fingers curling and grasping at his blonde hair.
A longing, far-off gaze would consume his father's features as those gloves would touch Arthur everywhere. It seemed as if the monarch was seeing someone who was not the Prince. Seeing someone else entirely, someone who also had soft blonde hair and bright blue eyes.
Arthur learned her name in his preteen years, when his only parent had first begun stripping the prince of his soul.
"Igraine. You look just like Igraine," The King mused, holding the Prince's hair in a tight grip, just before he threw the smaller body over the bed. Arthur began to despise the woman he resembled from that point on.
As the years wore on, Arthur forgot how to feel.
What was emotion but a meaningless weakness one should overcome?
It was easier for the prince when he could not feel sickness or betrayal or resentment when his father was inside of him. It was easier when he no longer had the urge to scream, bite and claw as he had at first, when he was younger and this all began. Everything was simpler and more bearable in his mind now.
Those cold, uncaring gloves roaming his body every night, or every morning, whenever Uther had the need of release; Arthur could no longer hate them. He could no longer feel enough inside to loath anything or anyone.
It wasn't until another set of hands began to touch him that he could smile.
It wasn't until those new hands touched him that he could remember something else existed inside it him other than an empty abyss.
At first, he thought it was happiness. That it was joy and laughter.
Soon, he realized that was exactly what those feelings were.
Happiness, lust, Those were the sparks he felt when he touched Merlin's lips with his own.
Joy with laughter came when that smile made him bellow with glee.
It wasn't until there were those soft long fingers, and full lips and blue eyes, that Arthur could recall all and express his emotions.
Then, eventually, everything came crashing down.
And, what the prince felt was rage.
Dark thoughts long suppressed, buried inside of him, burst forth when he found Merlin unconscious on his father's bed one night. The servant's naked form seemed so pale on the dark red mattress, while his hands were tied above his head. He was laid out and bound like Arthur had been when he was younger and still fought his inevitable fate at the hands of the man he called father.
Arthur noticed how the blue eyes that had taught him to remember so much were dull and void of everything. Uther had stripped his manservant of it all, just as he had done to Arthur.
The prince couldn't remember grabbing the sword, or delivering the blow.
However, he did remember the long forgotten feeling of freedom as his hands clasped the sword, the blade oozing red. When he saw his father's body lying still on the ground at his feet, and released a breath of freedom.
And then he remembered holding Merlin in a protective embrace. Arthur would help Merlin, as the servant had helped him.
" He cannot hurt us again, Merlin," he told the other as Merlin laid against his chest.
Uther's hands, his leather gloved hands, would be remembered no more. Not by Arthur, not by Merlin.
Arthur would make sure of it.