Come Back When You Can
Arthur Pendragon is dead in almost every sense of the word. He hardly speaks, if only to report to his father or to reprimand a knight. God knows he can't even glance at a servant now. He doesn't smile, laugh, scream; he just isn't there. He doesn't even seem to be breathing, so silent he is now, if it wasn't for the blood in his veins and the crown on his head, Arthur would be invisible.
But those two things are precisely why people notice.
The first year was the worst. Arthur would be training with his knights, and a laugh would drift over from the market, or the courtyard and Arthur would turn so quick to search for it's source; his opponent would accidentally wound him.
Arthur has more scars now after Merlin left.
He conversed somewhat normally once you were able to draw him into one, but then there were the moments where he would pause, and flinch; unable to go on. No doubt these were the moments where Arthur would have been forced to call Merlin an idiot, and in return be called a complete and utter prat; these moments were silent now, filled with nothing but Arthur's footsteps as he retreated to his room and the silent sobs that threatened to rack the prince's body.
Arthur cut off all personal contact with everyone. Arthur's heart, already small and hard and impenetrable gripped onto every piece of Merlin he had left. Every wink from across the banquet hall, every proud smile he was graced with when he wasn't being a complete prat, every eye roll, every caress, every conversation, everything.
Everything. And he just didn't have room, didn't want to make room for anyone else inside his heart. Only Merlin got through those iron walls; with his easy smile and warming laughter.
Only Merlin.
The things done in privacy of his rooms were the worst. The walls mocked him, loud and unbearable, the bed seemed too big now for just one person, the fireplace too cold now that it wasn't Merlin who tended to it, the rooms; all devoid of sound that once would have been filled with friendly banter and affectionate laughter.
But if one was silent, in the dead of night; one might hear a whisper, a mere exhale of breath as the crown prince of Camelot sobbed into his lovers' bloody, torn shirt.
Uther may have been the last to notice the change in his son. But when he did, the grief hit him hard, and it hit him fast; for Arthur had turned from being his son, to simply being his heir; all in the moment it took for Uther to call for an executioner. Uther wonders how it escaped his notice, that his son, no- his heir, was simply waiting for him to die.
When he finally does, it is five long years since the day Merlin fled Camelot, under the sentence of execution for the use of magic. And for the first time in years, a conversation with King Arthur was not halting, those silences not filled with painful flinches and grimaces. Instead filled with a small, hopeful smile; that maybe those silences would soon be filled with what they used to be.
As Arthur stands on the castle roof, he looks out on Camelot and it's people, his people. He is filled with so much hope and longing for Merlin, he cannot keep from whispering into the night air, hoping they would bring his words to his lover. So they could rule their people, together.
"Come back when you can, Merlin."