A/N: I have never written in this fandom before. Idk. I just got inspired? I was thinking about making this a multi-chapter fic where they try to find out who the sorcerer was and what he wants with Merlin. Thoughts?

Warnings...
-Yaoi relationship implied. That's about it. Pretty darn mild.

Disclaimer: I own nothing about these characters.

The Unbound Truth

A tongue darted out to wet one thin lower lip before it was tucked in between two rows of teeth and gnawed on nervously. As he continued to orally fidget, Merlin scanned the stretch of road laid out before him. His eyes darted to the far left, ensuring that nobody was strolling down the cobblestone road from that direction. Although, that was toward the castle, and it just didn't seem likely for anyone he should be nervous about to come from the castle. Then again, they were deep into the outskirts of the city. Anyone could come from anywhere. That only made Merlin's anxiety spike.

His eyes darted to the far right, ensuring that no one was approaching from that end of the cobblestone road either. He scoured every nook and cranny surrounding the houses across the road, making sure a figure wasn't skulking in the protection of the darkness. Then, just for good measure, he glanced over his shoulder down the narrow alleyway he was currently in. Nothing but sparse bales of hay and the wheelbarrow he expected to see. Still, his heart continued to hammer uncomfortably hard in his chest.

"Arthur," Merlin whispered.

His eyes took to retracing the pattern they'd just created and checked the far left, then the right, then the houses. Just as he looked back over his shoulder to check behind him, he heard a gentle thud come from the street, which caused him to jump and slap his hand over his mouth to keep from yelping audibly. When he whipped his head around to catch the culprit in his sights, he saw first a swishing tail and then two feline eyes. His hand dropped in what should have been relief, but his anxiety reached up to a peak again as he grabbed and shook Arthur's shoulder. The blond simply waved his friend off dismissively, brushing the man's hand from his shoulder.

"Arthur," Merlin insisted, almost whining.

"What?!" Arthur snapped, turning to face Merlin sharply.

As if Merlin's incessant pestering wasn't frustrating enough, Arthur had just about had it with the man's blatant stupidity. While Arthur crouched smartly behind a bale of hay to stay hidden, Merlin just stood standing there behind him fidgeting and looking every which direction. He assumed Merlin needed a moment or two to put on his big boy pants, but this was just getting ridiculous.

"Down," Arthur commanded, pointing to the ground with the authority one might use with a dog.

Merlin, still stunned by the harsh tone Arthur had just used on him, obeyed. He sank to his knees behind Arthur and once they touched the ground, his eyes continued to shift downward until he was staring at the stone between his knees.

Arthur sighed, knowing that look. Merlin was not soft-skinned, but sometimes when he was feeling truly vulnerable he would become hurt by Arthur's words. Brought to the very end of his stores of tolerance, Arthur had just reacted without thinking. He sighed, knowing that no matter how irritated he became he would never intend to really treat Merlin so gruffly.

"What, Merlin?" Arthur retried, his tone significantly softer but still slightly sharp to the edge.

"I just..." Merlin trailed off and cleared his throat awkwardly, his eyes shifting to the left in an attempt to get even further away from Arthur's gaze.

"Just what?" Arthur prompted, lost somewhere between genuinely curious and annoyed with the drama of the delay.

"I just think this is a very bad idea," Merlin answered. "I think we should return to—"

"Really?" Arthur interrupted, his tone not exactly sharp but turning more toward mocking. "You, Merlin, want to shy away? You, Merlin, the man who trails on behind me even when I command him to stay at gome? You, Merlin, who thinks its his destiny to run head-first into every dangerous situation?"

"That's not true," Merlin interjected, looking up at Arthur and shaking his head. "It's my destiny to protect you. It's your destiny to protect the kingdom."

Arthur chuckled lightly and patted Merlin on the shoulder. "Alright, Merlin."

"And even if that were true," Merlin went on, "even if I did like danger, this would not qualify."

Arthur's delight, no matter how slight, slipped away as his hand slid off of Merlin's shoulders and he rolled his eyes grandly.

Merlin hurried to finish before the prince cut him off again. "This isn't danger, it's—"

"—necessary," Arthur supplied firmly.

"—suicide!" Merlin corrected emphatically. "Arthur, we are no—"

"Merlin, you must be kidding me," Arthur interrupted yet again, his tone hardening once more. "This is no time for questioning."

With that, Arthur promptly turned back to his task of watching the road, but Merlin would not be deterred so easily. He reached out to tug on Arthur's shoulder again.

"But—"

"I said," Arthur growled, turning his head just enough to shoot Merlin a glare full of daggers, "this is no time for questioning."

Merlin froze, made speechless by Arthur's tone. Slowly, he peeled his hand from Arthur's shoulder and deflated. He averted his eyes and fell back to sit on his ass, pulling his knees up to his chest and staring at them intently.

With no more room for compassion or sympathy in his heart, Arthur coldly commanded, "Get into position."

Merlin looked up at the back of Arthur's head and sighed. He scooted up closer to the blond, beginning to wedge himself between Arthur and the wall, which earned him an icy glare.

"Behind another bale of hay," Arthur clarified.

"Oh, right." Merlin nodded, partially embarrassed for not realizing that was the implication, partially concerned because he preferred to be at Arthur's side, but mostly disheartened by Arthur's stubbornness. While it would usually be no big thing to play along with Arthur's wishes, this was a whole different ball game. In this situation, Merlin knew Arthur's skill would be useless. They were simply doomed.

Taking position behind a bale of hay adjacent to Arthur's, Merlin leaned out and began to hiss, "Arthur, this is an extremely bad—"

Arthur silenced him with a sharp hand gesture that almost made Merlin seethe, but he didn't need Arthur's next gesture to realize that the man they had been awaiting all the while was finally approaching they trap. He could feel the energy. At that point, Merlin became utterly silent. He had already known beforehand that the man Arthur was so hell-bent on engaging was a sorcerer, and that had made him very wary of Arthur's plan to ambush him. He hadn't, however, known that the man would be so powerful. Merlin had never seen him before in person, only heard rumors of him among the tight-knit and very secretive magical society he had begun to weave throughout the city and its surrounding areas. The rumors were terrifying, but they did him no justice. Merlin hadn't even peeked up to physically lay eyes on the man's form and he could already feel a coldness emanating from the man's being, instilling a primal fear in Merlin's gut. He wanted to reach out, snatch Arthur, and run. Yes, run. They needed to run. Now.

Merlin poked out from behind his bale of hay and reached for Arthur with purpose, but all he saw was the prince's back with a sword raised in his grip as he sprung from his position.

"No," Merlin whispered reflexively. "Arthur, don't!" he shouted.

There was a moment of pause and everything seemed to abruptly descend into slow motion. Merlin could see the eyes of the sorcerer glint in the light as his head lifted and the shadow of his hood receded. They were a silvery-blue color, just the same color as his cloak, and they were locked on Arthur's form. Merlin felt that he could feel that man's every intention, as if he could tell exactly what would come next. He could practically see the future scrunching up and crowding behind Arthur, casting a black shadow around his shoulders that Merlin knew to be death.

The sorcerer's lips pulled into a slight smirk, and Merlin knew that he had to act immediately. He had to do something, anything, to protect Arthur. He'd, obviously, cast this spell without thinking about it. Now that he had time on his side, he'd had a few more seconds to intercept what was sure to be Arthur's demise. When he jumped up to a standing position, though, he was shocked to see the sorcerer flicker his gaze to him at an alarmingly normal speed.

"Ah," the man said, his voice soft and chilling.

Merlin swallowed thickly, paralyzed by the man's eyes, so much so that he couldn't even question how the sorcerer was moving freely under Merlin's spell.

"A sorcerer," the man added. He stepped smoothly to the side and just as he began advancing on Merlin, his bone-white staff clanking with every step, time reset itself and Arthur bowled forward into nothing.

Arthur paused for a moment to be shocked and confused about why there was no one standing where someone had just been. Nonetheless, he recovered quickly and turned to see the sorcerer about 4 paces away. Raising his sword again, Arthur charged. Merlin's automatic reaction was to lift his hand in a "stop" motion, but his voice gone and his eyes unable to stray from those of the sorcerer. The man flicked his hand lazily and time once again slowed.

"Your friend is persistent," he pointed, then chuckled darkly. "Quite fun, actually." As that last word slipped sickly from the sorcerer's tongue, he came to a stop, only a couple of paces away from Merlin's body. When his eyes moved down to assess the state of Merlin's body and the stare was broken, Merlin sucked in a gaping breath and quickly looked away.

'Don't get lost in his eyes,' he told himself mentally.

His gaze quickly readjusted to Arthur, who was still flying at an impossibly slow speed to slash at the sorcerer's back. Merlin could feel the man's eyes back on his face again, but he refused to look at the man's face for fear that he would get stuck again.

"You will be mine," the sorcerer said simply.

Merlin was shaken enough for him to look at the man's face again. This time, he focused on the sorcerer's lips, which pulled from a smirk into a sinister grin. Merlin could not unravel the meaning of that statement, but he could absolutely feel the man's intentions rush from his insides like a tidal wave. It was almost as if an image of what the man would do was planted into Merlin's head. Driven by a need so deeply ingrained into his body, beyond what even destiny could sew, Merlin reacted before that future could play itself out.

His body seemed to mellow out into an instant calm. In fact, he would almost swear he was made of air. His hand lifted as if a breeze had caught it like a feather in midair. His eyes drooped and he could feel his lips moving rapidly but softly all the same. He couldn't hear himself though, and his vision was quickly obstructed by a blindingly white light that seemed to come from his own chest. No, if he looked more closely, it came from his hand, though he did notice a slight, white glow to the rest of his body.

Taken by the brilliance with which he shined, Merlin shifted his had to better take in the scene of his glowing. He brought the hand that had held the ball of white light close his body and looked into his palm as the light receded and the glow about his body dwindled. His lips, he could feel, were still moving, though far more slowly now. When the final word slipped from his lips, he heard the loud clanking of metal dropping onto stone. Startled, he jerked his head up to see Arthur staring at him and looking utterly stunned. Arthur's brain raced for a long second as it tried to make sense of what he was seeing. And then, in an instant, a decision was made and Arthur quickly closed the gap between them in two convicted strides.

"You're floating!" he exclaimed, grabbing Merlin's wrist as if to pull him out of this strange state.

The light diminished on the spot and Merlin felt all the lightness in his body evacuate. Immediately, his body sunk back to the ground. Though he really only lifted a few inches into the air, it felt like he had plunged feet to get back down to earth. His body, feeling weak to the pull of gravity and trying to adjust, buckled and he fell to one knee. He felt confused.

The next few moments were hard for him to comprehend. It was almost as if his brain had shut off all complex functions in that state. He could only remember being amazed by the glow of his body and feeling awfully freed by the lightness that overtook him. What he was doing and why he was doing it totally escaped his grasp. Hell, he didn't even know what he'd said. But his brain slowly clicked its gears back together and complex thought returned to him, and with the return of thought an unavoidable truth became obvious. Magic. He'd used magic. His eyes grew wide and all he could do was just stare for a long moment, stupidly silent.

"F-Forgive me... sire..." finally fell from his lips, as if pleasantries would help him now.

He looked up to Arthur's face, only to see an utterly unreadable expression. It held no hint of what he was feeling in that moment. It only expressed that the prince was very interested in hearing an explanation.

"I know you... must be..." Merlin trailed off, his throat having gone dry. He averted his eyes and quietly tried to finish. "You must be..." But, again, he could only trail off.

Arthur gently tugged Merlin's wrist, silently encouraging him to stand. Merlin nodded once and obliged, bracing his free hand on his knee to stand up. Arthur offered help by letting Merlin grab his wrist and push into him for support. Once Merlin was standing, and it was clear that his body had been severely weakened, his eyes stayed glued to the ground. He released his own hold on Arthur and tried to pull his wrist free, but Arthur's grip tightened in defiance. Merlin's eyes looked over at the connection between their bodies. Arthur followed the movement of Merlin's head so that when Merlin's gaze finally did trail up Arthur's arm and reach his face, their eyes met instantly.

"What?" Arthur murmured, his face still vacant of any truly defining emotion. "I must be what?" he asked.

Merlin's gaze slid down Arthur's face, to his neck, to the cloth of his chest. "Outraged," he finished. And after a moment, he added, "Betrayed, disgusted... appaul—"

"No," Arthur interrupted.

Though his tone was soft, perhaps softer than any tone he'd ever used on Merlin, it held more than enough conviction to stop Merlin's words. Merlin's eyes lifted back up to Arthur's face, though he could not quite reach the prince's eyes. Instead, he watched the man's lips as they spoke.

"Merlin, no," Arthur repeated. "All that and whatever else you think I feel right now, it is wrong." Merlin stayed silent, so Arthur went on. "You cannot believe that I would betray you so?"

"And why not?" Merlin asked, somewhat more sharply than intended. But he could not help it, for the emotion was sharp.

To listen to Arthur say such things was unbearable. Merlin believed Arthur to be an honest man—truly, he did—but he could not help it if he felt as if the king's teachings lay sewn deeply into Arthur's heart, and that those teachings would not find exception to Merlin.

"You may give trust today, but what about tomorrow? Why should you not betray your trust in me, Arthur? I am..." Merlin's faced scrunched up into a grimace, as if the truth were stinging him in an open wound. "I am a sorcerer, and you are your father's son."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Arthur demanded, his tone as sharp as Merlin's had begun in.

"It means that you have an oath to follow," Merlin answered, sounding miserable. "It means you have a kingdom to protect, and you will protect it by the laws set before you."

"I will not let my father's laws touch you," Arthur promised fiercely.

"But you must," Merlin replied, his heart making him more upset than angry by the moment. Still unable to meet Arthur's eyes, though, he continued to speak instead at the man's chest. "If ever your father demands my head, you will be obligated to obey. You will abandon me not only because it is your duty, but because you will want to, Arthur. You once said to me that a sorcerer's words cannot be trusted, and you know that the day will come when, deep down, you will cast me aside because you think of me as... a..." Merlin strayed off again, finding the thought difficult to bear.

"As a what?" Arthur probed.

"As a traitor," Merlin murmured, turning his head away. "You will not be able to abandon the ideals your father has given you, not for me."

For a long moment, Arthur was silent. But the moment did eventually pass and his lips parted. "Only for you," he whispered in correction. "Do you really think so lowly of my loyalty?" he asked quietly. "You think that I..." He paused and his hand moved from Merlin's wrist to grasp his shoulder instead. Merlin swooned so heavily from the softness of the interaction that Arthur's words were almost lost on him. "Can you not even look at me, Merlin?"

The questioned processed and Merlin simply closed his eyes, casting his head further down in shame. No, he most certainly could not look at Arthur when he was accusing the mans of things that hurt Merlin himself to say. In fact, he may never be able to look at Arthur again.

"Loyalty is black and white, Merlin," Arthur went on, his grip loosening slightly. "You cannot waver in the middle of the spectrum. One is either loyal, or he is not. And when loyalties cross, a man finds out who he is." He paused and stepped closer to Merlin, asking softly, "Can you not give a man the courtesy of your eyes... as he confesses?"

If Merlin had thought he'd swooned before, his body downright swayed. It was only thanks to Arthur's hand still clutching firmly to his shoulder that he didn't just fall over in a dead faint right then and there. His insides bloomed and caught on fire, causing his heart to seem as if it had stopped and sped up at the very same time. He felt totally paralyzed by Arthur's implication, but Arthur did the work of gently lifting his chin until their eyes could meet again.

Once their gazes locked, the hand was gone. Arthur wasn't one to invest in overly romantic gestures. Merlin could never imagine him as the type to fondle and caress anything for more than a few moments tops. Nonetheless, Merlin's eyes stayed locked firmly in place, much like his inability to look away from the sorcerer. Except, that man had filled Merlin from head to toe with ice, but Arthur filled him with an almost unbearable fire.

"If the day comes that I must choose between loyalties," Arthur went on, "I will prove to you then where my heart lies. For now, though, I fear I cannot convince you in any other way that I will not betray you." He paused and stepped forward even more, really diminishing the space between them down to mere inches. "You are not a traitor, Merlin. I know that to be true. I know you. Better, in fact, than you know yourself." A tiny smile pulled at his lips. "You are far different from what you see in the mirror."

There was another pause, in which Arthur waited to see if Merlin had anything to say and things began to turn slightly awkward. After a moment, Arthur decided that he was thankful for the silence because it had given him time to think of something amazingly suave to say. The amount of times he'd played this moment over and over again in his head could not be counted, and he was admittedly disappointed in his redundant inability to come up with anything good to actually say. This had come to him with ease though, and he knew it was the perfect way to express his deepest desires.

"You are akin to water."

Merlin found his voice enough to stammer, "H-How s-so?"

Arthur, then, employed his free hand to boldly grasp Merlin's neck in a gesture that could not be mistaken for platonic. "You have influence enough to tear me apart, like an ocean storm. And, yet, you are gentle, gentle like a hotspring that I could find ease within. You have strength enough to hold me up, like a ship at sea. Yet, you so easily slip through my fingers... time and time again."

"A-Are you... saying..." Merlin trailed off, his breath coming to him shortly at their proximity. But Arthur understood, as he always did.

"That I have had these thoughts before? That I have felt these feelings? That I have dreamt this scene, and many others?" A soft smile graced his lips and Arthur nodded. "Yes. That is precisely what I'm saying." He moved even closer yet, so close that Merlin could feel their breath intertwine. "I am parched," Arthur whispered, his eyes falling to half-mast and Merlin's lids dropping to match.

Merlin's eyes strayed down until they reached Arthur's lips once again. He wondered how Arthur could be so steady in this moment when he himself trembled so much...

"If there is water nearby to quench me, then I pray it make itself known... before I go mad..."