"He is inhuman," he said at last, "But why should he be human? Are angels supposed to be human?" Lancelot about King Arthur
.***.
By the end of the week, Arthur's temper was such that the servants would scurry by him in the corridor, his father would send him away on inane missions whenever he entered the room, and his knights would quake in their boots whenever he showed up for sparring practice.
And Merlin…Merlin had arrived in Arthur's chambers after the incident with Matthias, shaking like a leaf from the stress of the day and from his terror at what Arthur's reaction to his appearance might be. His fears were justified: Arthur took one look at him and sent him from the room, saying that Merlin was no longer his manservant, and if he had anything to say about he wouldn't be staying in Camelot at all.
So Arthur was left to his own devices, having driven everyone around him away, and he found that this gave him ample time to brood. He analyzed his feelings, something he didn't do very often and would deny over and over again if anyone asked him, but he was trying to figure out why exactly he was so angry at this unexpected turn of events.
He'd caught Merlin with his oldest friend. The fact that they were both young men wasn't the issue – hadn't Arthur been tracking down Merlin to pursue similar ends? And indeed, Matthias had always shown much more interest in men than women, Arthur himself could attest to that.
It was more the fact that there was something burning in him, like a white-hot ember that flared at the sight of Merlin doing such intimate things with another man. Why, oh why couldn't it have been he, Arthur?
And then he'd get even more confused, because who was Merlin, anyway, but an extremely clumsy and rather incompetent manservant who was constantly getting in loads of trouble. Couldn't Arthur have found someone else to heap his affections on?
Of course, what Gwen or Gaius or any other "wise" person would say was that Arthur didn't get to choose who he fell in love with, it just happened. And then Arthur would have to point out that there was no way he could be in love with Merlin, because the latter was just a manservant and he was heir apparent to the throne of Camelot, and anyway it was highly unfair that he didn't get to choose who he fell in love with, because then maybe he wouldn't hurt so much.
And that was the real problem, wasn't it? Seeing Merlin on his knees in front of his old friend had made something inside of him burst, or break, until he felt nothing but a deep, throbbing ache all day long, a physical ailment like being struck too many times by a sword, or being thrown from his horse. And now Arthur understood the word heartbreak. He truly felt as if his heart was irreparably scarred.
Take, for example, that incident with his knights the day after the betrayal. He, Arthur, was highly regarded as one of the best teachers in Camelot. The best in the kingdom at fighting on horse and on foot, and the best jouster anywhere, he'd taught children as young as four how to be good knights. And he was gentle with them, pointing out mistakes and breaking defenses and always smiling.
Merlin used to come to watch him teach, Arthur remembered suddenly as he looked at the young knights in front of him, ranging in ages from four to twenty. Merlin used to say that he was different among the young children, gentler, kinder, and it was while he was teaching that Merlin could see that Arthur would be a good and fair king.
The memory of Merlin only made Arthur angrier still, and the ball of fire that had settled into the pit of his stomach flared painfully. "Who first?" He grumbled, holding up his sword in the ready position. "Who wants to challenge me?"
A burly twenty-year-old, Percy, who had long admired Arthur even if the young prince was thought of as something of a prat in the kingdom, stepped forward, his own sword up to meet the challenge.
Arthur beat him bloody. Perhaps it was the thought of Merlin's wide eyes when Arthur had walked into the bedroom, or of Merlin's quiet voice begging for his job earlier in the morning, but something fueled his fury and he attacked, forgetting to draw in his blows to cause the least amount of damage.
Percy never had a chance, and the other knights gathered there, even the senior ones who'd been working with Arthur for years, were taken aback by the young prince's spinning sword. He really was an excellent fighter, and soon enough he had Percy on the ground, sword raised over his throat, poised for the killing blow.
"Sire!" A voice cried, and that familiar title (after all, Merlin had called him that twenty times a day, thirty…) made Arthur blink, look down, and only Percy could see the confusion race across the prince's face.
"My lord?" Percy whispered, confused, and though he was hurting everywhere, though he was bleeding from three different places, he suddenly felt a rush of sympathy towards his attacker. Arthur looked truly lost. "My lord, is something wrong?"
Everything was wrong, but Arthur didn't say this, just rolled off the knight-to-be, lips pressed hard together. He told Leon to take over the session and sped away, towards the stables, because perhaps a horse could carry him far enough away to outrun the feeling of anger and pain that was threatening to consume him.
.***.
Merlin didn't know what to do.
If it was only his life at stake, he would have exposed Matthias for the bully and villain he was, told Arthur or Gaius of even the king if it would make the torment stop, but Matthias had already sworn so many times that if Merlin snitched that he would tell the king that Arthur had been harboring a sorcerer. Truth or not, the king would have to follow his own laws: a zero tolerance policy against magic-users and those who protected them.
And Merlin was too much in love with his master to let him die for his sake.
Still, the look of fury and open hurt on Arthur's face when Merlin had gone to him made Merlin's own heart ache. What the young prince must think of him, gallivanting around with a childhood friend right under his nose!
If Arthur knew that he, Merlin, was being coerced, that every second with Matthias was agony, that he wanted to be with Arthur so much he thought he would explode with longing…what would he do? Arthur, who had never shown interest in other men, let alone a manservant who he clearly disliked. Hadn't he called Merlin's actions the height of disloyalty?
No, the best Merlin could hope for was for the torment to be over, but he knew in his heart that Arthur would never, could never forgive him. Arthur was a good person, a better person than anyone in Camelot really knew, and he counted on those close to him to have similar morals and values.
How could he stand to be around Merlin, knowing what he had done?
But even if Arthur wouldn't take him back as manservant, let alone consider him as a lover, Merlin still needed a way to escape Matthias, who took every opportunity to corner him. The physical pain of the actions he could bear, and even the humiliation he could stand as long as he kept his mind on something else (usually Arthur, Arthur, who he was beginning to think of as his guardian angel, keeping him away from Matthias's torment).
It was the threats that made him want to curl into a ball and die, for whenever Matthias entered him he would whisper horrible things in his ear about what would happen if Merlin ever told anyone about their encounters. Gaius, the sweet old man, would be killed, and Matthias knew how to make it look like an accident. He would accuse Gwen of witchcraft, and how very simple it would be, too, for it would be a young lord's word against a servant girl.
And Arthur…always threats against Arthur, of exposing Merlin's secret and letting him be burned by his own father, of leading him on a hunt and killing him in the middle of nowhere, of poison and long falls and being trampled by horses.
And Merlin would wonder how this man had ever been Arthur's friend. He had so many different deaths for the young prince planned that Merlin could tell that Matthias truly hated Arthur Pendragon and everything he stood for.
But all that worked very well. Merlin didn't tell a soul, and as the week passed into the weekend, Matthias seemed to be getting away with his evil plan of killing the prince's soul (for that was his motive all along…) Merlin didn't tell a soul. For four days, he was forced to do terrible things with Matthias. He couldn't eat, could barely sleep, and was jumpy all the time for fear that Matthias would come around the corner and beckon to him again.
He thought that, perhaps, he would be able to survive it if he had Arthur by his side, but he was utterly alone. Alone with the knowledge that even after Matthias left, he and Arthur would forever be estranged.
And that was the biggest regret Merlin had in his whole life.
.***.
i really hate writting these chapters. really. we want them to lvoe each other as much as you guys do, but they have to be a little bit stupid first. we promise that they'll get together eventually. a lot of bad stuff just has to happen before then.
and please review.