TITLE: Parchments
GENRE: Fantasy
ORIGIN: Merlin
PAIRING: Arthur Pendragon x Merlin

FULL SUMMARY:
He could only turn to himself when he could not help but want to tell someone, something, of his thoughts.
He couldn't tell Gwen, nor Gaius, and naturally never Arthur. He could only think of one other option; parchments.


Merlin held the quilt in his hand firmly, struggling to find the words. Why was it so difficult to write what you already know in your heart? He chuckled. Now he understood why Gwen suffered so much when she had tried to do the exact same thing he was now. A sigh passed his pale light rosed lips.

He looked down at the empty pieces of parchment set on his table, stacked neatly in a pile, placed between a carefully shut ink bottle and a photoframe on either side of it. Pressing the quilt to the paper, Merlin managed to scribble down two words, but stopped just as he finished the curve on the last letter.

Arthur is...

Why was it so difficult? Merlin practically half murdered himself in his head as he sat at his desk, thinking. It wasn't as if he was writing a love confession letter to the prince. No. Far from it. He was just writing down his thoughts. Scribbling down the things he could not tell his guardian and would never tell the young prince himself. The blonde wasn't even going to read the pages, for god's sake! So why was he so frighten? More still, what was he so frighten of?

"Right…" Merlin murmured. He dipped the quilt into the ink bottle, after opening it of course, and hovered it over the parchment again. "Don't think," he told himself. "Just do it." If not, he probably would never have gotten it over with.

Arthur is a total and complete prick. Something I knew the moment I first met him all those months ago. He's arrogant and snobbish, thinks himself better than everyone else, especially people like me, and yet receives all the attention of all the girls in the kingdom as well as neighboring kingdoms!

I don't understand him.

I wash his clothing. I clean after him. I polish his amour. I feed and walk his dogs. I wait on him hand and foot! And has he ever, ever murmured a word of thanks? No. Naturally I don't expect him to kneel before me and worship me for all the little things I've done for him. Because that's all they ever were; small things, petty things. Things often taken for granted and forgotten. But still, I did them for him. He could at least say thanks when I do them, or whenever he sees me hauling his stuff behind him and his horse.

Merlin stopped, read back the words he'd scribbled and was surprised that now, once he'd started, the words seemed to just flow. So long as he doesn't think before writing any of it down. "It not a problem then," he grinned. "Gaius always tells me I really don't think sometimes." He laughed thinking of the old man.

It was his suggestion after all to write his thoughts down. 'A good way to vent,' he said.

I complain to Gwen about him a lot, I've started to realized. More than I should. However, as much as I complain, and grunt, and frown whenever he's near me, I can't seem to hate him either.

I don't have a brother. But I get the feeling that if I had Arthur would be one I'd be stuck with. For someone of royal blood he's got a quick tongue and rarely holds himself back with it with people he considers 'peasants'––myself included, naturally. If we were brothers, I wonder if I would still feel the same way about him. Would I still hate his guts whenever he creates lists of things for me to do in his head, spats them out at me suddenly, expecting me to remember them on the spot? Would I still feel the urge to kick him whenever he says something so hurtful and humiliating, yet know that if I do so I might as well have written 'kill-me' on my forehead in bright red ink?

Merlin sighed deeply.

Would I still wait every morning for him to call for me after he's washed up? Would I listen to him as he talked with the captain of the guard and plan events with his father advisors? Would I still consciously follow him with my stare every time he walks away from me during a banquet? Would I still… want to be his servant, even though he always takes me for granted?

My answer? Merlin smiled softly as he wrote slowly; Most probably.He was indeed hopeless. Nodding at his own neat handwriting, Merlin blew on the last paragraph on the parchment for the ink to die and closed the ink bottle lid. He took the pieces of parchment he had written on and rolled them up, and tied them securely with a string.

He then walked over to the other end of his bedroom, lifted the loose tile floorboard––the place where he always hid his spellbook––and carefully placed them ontop the spellbook, and shut the tile back into place.

He then tucked himself into bed and slept, thinking about what he had written, and whom he had been writing about. "Gods…" he breathed, half smiling.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:
I'm only at episode 5 of the series but I've fallen head over heels for the plot. It doesn't follow the normal order of the Merlin tales and the fact that Arthur is young and cute and sooo matching with Merlin... do I need to lay it out in black and white for you? No? Good. Heh. I actually haven't written a fanfiction in many, many months and I'm glad I've got it back. The satisfaction of writing something not because I think that it'll be great, but just to write down images in my head and see my own smile when I read it back to myself. It isn't the best (like I said) and definitely not the longest. I'm not even sure whether it'll become a chaptural fanfic or just a one-shot. But I've got something in my brain spinning at the moment about this. Just have to wait and see if my obsession with Merlin will hold out long enough to tell the full story. Or not. Anyways, comments are deeply welcomed and any helpful criticism is too (just don't go overboard).