Arthur clenched his jaw until he felt it hurting.
The prince himself was amazed how he managed to stay put in his manservant's small room. He tensed, when he heard Merlin wake and it was sheer willpower and a good deal of miracle that he hadn't darted out from the back of the chamber. He wanted to rush to Gaius and help him calm Merlin, but he knew all too well that would get them all in even more trouble. The king wouldn't ponder much about the torture he inflicted; he would be too distracted and outraged about what his son was doing in the room of a servant.
Uther had strange priorities, Arthur sometimes wondered.
Then he heard the dark haired boy's pleads and whimpers, and it felt like a heavy punch right in the stomach.
No.. This was so wrong..His loyal bumbling idiot of a servant shouldn't be like that.
They have been captive together for so long; and they have endured so much; endured the beatings and the terror; the cold and the hunger; and Merlin had shown a side of himself that surprised Arthur. A realization of something that never occurred to the prince before; something he never even suspected of his manservant: Merlin was strong. Stronger than he'd imagined.
He could have fled when the fighting started, but he didn't; he could have turned on him while their captors questioned him, and he didn't. He could have broken, but he resisted. He taunted them; he defied them every step of the way; he defied them all.. and now he seemed to have run out on that resistance.
No wonder, Arthur thought. It wasn't a bandit or an enemy, it was his own king that had inflicted so much suffering on him, and the prince noted he still needs to find out why.
He wanted to know what was going on, he desperately looked for a crack on the door, trying not to make much noise. Eventually he found one just near the hinges and got on his knees, - as undignified as that was for a prince, - and he peeked to get a glimpse of what was happening in the main chamber.
He heard glass breaking as the vials got shoved off the table and saw Gaius trying to keep the horrified young man still; soon the rustling died down, but there still were whimpers and mumbling, the obvious dread that was soaked into his servant's every fiber at that moment.
He saw the physician's struggle with Merlin, and his father as he just stood there staring at him. Arthur figured the king couldn't have calmed Merlin at that point no matter what he did, even his words he meant to be reassuring seemed to only send another wave of panic onto the dark-haired servant. Eventually he eased up on his flailing; no doubt not on his own terms, but on the weakness that made him to.
At last his father left, and Arthur staggered to his feet as fast as he could to leave the small room, but his hand froze on the handle of the door as he hear his manservant speak again.