Happy New Year everyone! I wanted to post this yesterday but I didn't quite finish it.

This will most likely be a two-shot/ three-shot, but its not a cliffy or anything and second part of this probably won't be the next chapter as I am working on a few different ones first.

A few authors have done some sort of take on this topic, and I'm adding mine to the list.

WARNING: There is a very, mild Season 4 SpoilerAlert! So please don't get angry with me.

Comparing Scars

"I got this one when I was just learning how to fight. The man who was teaching me accidently got me in the side." Leon was saying, his lips pulled into a smirk of remembrance.

"Alright, well I've got this huge thing right here from when a giant of a man tried to gut me after I beat him at cards." Gwaine countered, his voice slightly muffled because his shirt and chainmail were lifted up, blocking out his face, while his finger pointed to a fine white line across his front.

The King of Camelot and his knights were heading back home after a routine hunt and patrol duty.

Elyan had begun the show-and-tell by showing the burn mark he carried on his right forearm from when he had been learning the blacksmith trade from his father. After that comment, the rest of them had joined in mentioning their various scars and injuries. Even Arthur was participating by bragging about the marks he still bore on his chest from the Questing Beast.

Meanwhile Merlin had just continued to clean up the campsite, smiling at their antics.

"What about you Merlin? Got anything to add?" Arthur teased, turning to his servant, already knowing the answer but wishing to give Merlin a hard time anyway. The others caught on rather quickly,

"You want to show us your dry hands from washing dishes?" Leon said jokingly.

"Yeah, maybe some scars on your hands from picking herbs." Perceval added with a snort.

They all laughed and shouted comments, and Merlin just rolled his eyes and like always, remained quiet.

That incident happened only a few days before the festival that was thrown to signal the end of the darkest month of the year.

So enough time hadn't passed for that incident to recede in Merlin's memory, for his subconscious to 'let it go'.

Which is why when Gwaine had the bright idea to get Merlin drunk during the New Year celebration because he thought it would be funny to see Merlin utterly sloshed, things got rather out of hand. Gwaine you see, with help from Elyan, had managed to essentially drug Merlin's drinks. Merlin only drank a few ales but the effect was if he'd had nine or ten. It wouldn't make him sick, it would just make him hilarious, or so Gwaine had thought.

Elyan, Leon, and Perceval were in on it too. Arthur had even seen what they were doing and hadn't stopped them, thinking it would only be harmless fun and something he could later humiliate Merlin with.

Which was why at the end of the night, after Merlin had sung a total of eight ballads, and had giggled at everything anyone had said to him, Merlin insisted on performing his duties as Arthur's manservant.

Arthur had ordered Merlin to go to bed but Merlin had outright refused.

"Na-a…sssmy job…" He had muttered with a large goofy smile and then had run off before anyone could grab him.

"God Gwaine, I ought to have you hanged." Arthur muttered, stalking after Merlin.

Gwaine just laughed and followed Arthur.

"What do you think Merlin's going to do to Arthur's room?" Elyan asked with a chuckle.

"Who knows? I've never seen him this drunk." Leon answered.

"Any damage is coming out of all your pay!" Arthur hollered back, now running in pursuit.

Arthur, Gwaine, Elyan, Perceval, and Leon arrived in Arthur's chambers a little after Merlin. The idiot was sitting at the table, his head propped on his hands, a big joyful smile on his face.

"Merlin, its time for you to leave now." Arthur ordered.

Merlin shook his head, "Don't want to."

Arthur gritted his teeth, "Go now and I'll let you sleep in tomorrow."

"Come on mate, lets get you to bed." Perceval said, striding over with every intent of swinging Merlin over his shoulders and carrying to his room.

"Ah, that's not fair Perce! I never got to play the game!" Merlin exclaimed, his voice as indignant as his expression. Perceval paused and looked back at Arthur who shrugged in response.

"What are you talking about Merlin?" Elyan asked with a smile, the situation was still extremely amusing.

Merlin suddenly stood up, his hands resting on the table..

"I have scars too you know." Merlin said with an little laugh/hiccup. And without further ado Merlin yanked off his neckerchief, set it on the table, and then proceeded to pull off his shirt.

He was thin of course, and his skin was incredibly pale. Surprisingly though, Merlin looked far from weak, and there was a quiet dignity in his stance and appearance that stopped the others for a heartbeat before their eyes honed in on the most obvious blemish on Merlin's pale front.

There was a large burn on the front of his chest where the skin was still tinted red. Merlin strode over to them, his silly smile still on his face and turned around.

Gwaine gasped, Arthur's mouth dropped open, and there were various other intakes of breath because the wound on Merlin's back was nothing like anyone had ever seen before.

The dark wound that had captured their attention was in the middle of Merlin's back, and it would have looked like a very small stab wound except that the skin around it was dark like a bruise and spreading out from the stab-looking wound were long, dark tendrils that looked like vines. The dark vines were black at the center but as they spread out from the wound they got lighter and eventually disappeared, but still…the whole thing took up a large portion of Merlin's back.

Their attention eventually shifted to the other various bruises and scars that littered Merlin's back and front.

"See", Merlin said after a while,

"I've got marks too right?" He swayed slightly and his mouth opened in a yawn.

"How- How did you come by this Merlin?" Gwaine spoke first, motioning to the scar on his back, afraid to touch it.

"It still looks fresh." Leon murmured in assent.

"Naw, that one's old. Serket sting." Merlin replied, his eyes blinking a few more times as the downing effects of the alcohol finally began to take hold.

Arthur, for his part was utterly speechless.

"Nobody lives after a Serket sting." Perceval muttered, his eyebrows raised in surprise.

Arthur met Perceval's eyes and his jaw clentched.

"You sure it was a Serket, Merlin?" Arthur asked, his voice had a hard edge to it.

"Sure was, a huge scorpion…was tied up with magical chains…couldn't get out…couldn't escape…would have died." Merlin answered in between yawns, his expression somewhat vacant.

Arthur shook his head in disbelief.

He couldn't believe it.

How could Merlin have almost died and he hadn't known about it at all? And more importantly, how was he still alive? He opened his mouth to ask another question but Elyan interjected before he could.

"What about the one in front Merlin?" The knight asked, his voice equally serious because of course, he recognized a severe burn mark when he saw one.

They had all realized, simultaneously almost, that the excessive drugs had been all to effective on their friend, and that in this state he had showed them a part himself none of them had ever seen before.

They all suddenly came to the conclusion that here, here was definite proof that Merlin kept things from them.

Hid stuff from them.

Possibly important things.

Important enough that their previously-thought frail companion had acquired severe marks upon his person without any of their knowledge.

Arthur's mind illuminated, and the other's weren't far behind in the realization that the man they had thought was incapable of lying had been deceiving them all along.

They knew a part of Merlin, but they didn't know all of him.

They understood now that they only knew what Merlin had allowed them to know.

Merlin, for his part, was unaware of the gravity of the situation. The most powerful warlock of the age had fallen prey to the same consequences that came from imbibing excessive amounts of alcohol.

"Nimueh shot me with a ball of fire!" Merlin replied loudly, mimicking the gesture of holding an invisible ball and lobbing it at an unseen opponent across the room. It would have been funny if the situation weren't so serious.

"That one hurt." Merlin intoned, his face forming a grimace at the memory.

Arthur refused to let his mouth drop open in surprise.

His mind was already flipping back the years to when Nimueh had been a threat to Camelot. Trying to remember when Merlin had ever gotten attacked by the evil sorceress.

"Where do you find the time to get all these scars Merlin?" Arthur growled, upset that he couldn't remember anything.

Merlin laughed then, he laughed loud and long. His expression was youthful, happy and un-tethered by the concerns he always kept so close to his heart.

"Oh that's funny," Merlin chuckled some more.

"I've done my job so well that no one pays any attention to me!" Merlin exclaimed, his smile still firmly in place. He didn't seem to be pitying himself at all, in fact, it was as if he found the situation truly amusing. His face slowly became less amused as he pondered Arthur's question. Neither the king nor his knights were inclined to speak, rather, for the first time they were content to simply watch and listen. Somehow they were all on the same page, an unspoken agreement to allow Merlin to continue this unintentional moment of truth.

"I find time though. I do." Merlin nearly whispered the last two words, his eyes blinking slowly, the alcohol making his body feel relaxed and tiered, quite tiered.

"What about this one Merlin? The one on your neck?" Perceval asked, his finger lightly touching the black mark on the base of Merlin's neck.

Merlin cocked his head to the side, trying to think through the haze surrounding his thoughts.

"Oh, that one was Morgana…" Merlin answered slowly.

When Merlin added nothing else, Arthur made a noise of incredulity, his countenance changing to a mixture of surprise and annoyance that Merlin thought a statement like that would be a sufficient explanation.

"Is that all your going to say? 'Morgana did it?' " Arthur intoned, his voice going higher with each word.

Merlin made a dismissive motion with his hand,

"I don't like talking 'bout Morgana." He said her name with a peculiar edge that Arthur had never heard.

"But if you must know, when those bandits captured me, they brought me to her and she proceeded to put into my neck a very dangerous version of a snake that controlled me." Here Merlin chuckled,

"She ordered me to kill you." Merlin said, looking at Arthur.

"You're lucky I'm such a rotten assassin."

"You never tried to kill me!" Arthur exclaimed.

Merlin smiled, "I never would Arthur, and I think that I was fighting it, and well luckily, Morgana doesn't know everything about me otherwise Arthur, you would probably be dead by now." Merlin said seriously, accentuating his point with an affirmative nod.

"I don't understand."

"It's a serpent with a few heads, ss' called a Fumaroo- something…and it allows the enchanter to control their victim, give them tasks to perform and the like. The only drawback is that the victim ceases to become himself you see, because after Gaius was able to neutralize the snake to where it wasn't influencing me anymore, I didn't remember anything see? Gaius and Gwen saved me from trying to kill you."

"Wait, wait, Gwen knew about this? She never said anything."

"Well she wouldn't now would she? She'sa a verry gooffriend." Merlin answered with his signature goofy smile.

"So Gaius stopped it then? He fixed you?"

"Nope…not exactly. He tried to cut it out right, but the thing grew its head back! I ended up having to go find Morgana's lair, and kill it at the source!" Merlin clapped his hands together for emphasis, and spoke like he was talking about having to do a particularly tiresome chore. Not at all like he had gone off on his own, sought out Morgana, and somehow managed to free himself from her spell.

The king and his knights were utterly flummoxed.

"How did you do that Merlin?"

Merlin smiled again and shook his head, "Can't tell you. 'Isa secret"

A statement which only increased their curiosity because Merlin didn't have the skills necessary to pull off a quest like that unaided.

"Morgana was surprised for sure." Merlin giggled a little, but quickly grew serious. The mention of Morgana always made him serious.

"She's been spoiled. Morgana cares about nothing anymore except revenge. She has gone past the point of misunderstandings and ill gotten role models. Her heart is desolate and without mercy, I see no remnants of anything that can possibly be saved. She is far beyond my reach now." Merlin began this speech steadily, but his words grew louder with his increasing anger, until finally, at the last sentence he just seemed worn and exhausted. Like a man who has lost a battle. He spoke and his wisdom seemed to shine through his features in a way Arthur had only witnessed a few times.

Also, there were no drunken mistakes in Merlin's speech, although the words themselves seemed to suck the remaining energy out of him.

"Are there any more scars I should know about?" Arthur asked quietly, Merlin's words about his sister having been registered and stored away for further analysis. He recognized that Merlin had been keeping things from him in regards to Morgana as well.

Merlin opened his eyes fully, meeting his king's intent stare.

The servant smiled wistfully.

"Nothing you can see anymore."

The Merlin gave the smallest chuckle, and looked at all his friend's briefly,

"Its funny isn't it? How the worst scars heal perfectly, but the superficial ones mark you forever? I don't care about that one," Merlin motioned to the one on his back,

"And this one doesn't really matter to me anymore either. They don't hurt or anything." Here Merlin looked down at the table, his voice quieter, the last words spoken just above a whisper.

"They don't hurt anymore, but the others do."

Merlin looked back up at Arthur, swaying slightly where he stood.

Arthur waved Perceval away and the king himself stood next to Merlin, and it was Arthur who pulled Merlin's arm across his own shoulders with the intent of helping Merlin walk all the way down to his chambers.

"It doesn't stop hurting no matter how much time passes." Merlin spoke as he and Arthur were making their way out of his rooms.

"No Merlin, no it doesn't." Arthur answered quietly.

The knights they left behind were equally sober.

Gaius was sound asleep when Arthur dragged a half asleep Merlin through the door and up to his room. Arthur made sure Merlin had fully laid down before he moved to leave.

"Goodnight Merlin." Arthur said, turning back slightly only to find that Merlin's eyes were still open.

"'Night Arthur." Merlin said back, yawning again.

On a whim, Arthur walked back over to stand over Merlin, aware that what he was about to do was very wrong.

"Merlin, what's the secret? How do you get out of these situation alive?" Arthur spoke quickly.

Merlin tilted his head, his eyes already starting to close again as Arthur waited, holding his breath.

"Hmm…magic." Merlin yawned before rolling over onto his stomach, masking Arthur's sudden intake of breath.

Then Merlin was asleep.

Arthur could only stare at his sleeping manservant and professed sorcerer.

Arthur could rationalize this.

Merlin was drunk, and surely it couldn't be true…

But there was no hope for it now. Too many things were beginning to add up in Arthur's head.

Too many things made sense now.

Arthur straitened up, his expression determined as he stared hard at his manservant…his friend, sleeping on his small bed in Gaius's chambers.

If there was anything Arthur was sure of, the only thing that had remained that he was absolutely certain of was that he trusted Merlin.

Despite all the previous betrayals, and despite the turmoil Arthur was facing now, that fact still remained.

Where once he would have brushed off Merlin's confession, because he could have never pictured Merlin having magic. Now all he could say was,

"I believe you Merlin."

Then Arthur, the King of Camelot, turned away and went back to his chambers, determination in his every step.

Tomorrow, tomorrow he was going to begin fixing those scars Merlin carried.

After he enacted a little payback of course.

Merlin would not be sleeping in tomorrow.

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Thanks for reading!