Hurt, Harm and Mayhem

(A collection of whump scenes from the author's published fanfiction)

A/N: So I got this idea from "Whumptober 2020" by LiGi, who wrote 31 days of whump based on prompts from Tumblr, a new chapter/scene every day. Mine, however, is going to be simply a compilation of 'the best of' whump scenes that I've already written that match the prompt. So regular readers should recognize some, but they've been edited to better function as oneshots. Also, I used some of the alternative-list choices, to have 40 chapters in all…

And PS, the nature of these oneshot prompts is the whump, not the resolution of the scene or conflict, so the ending might often seem abrupt.

Trying to focus on original final drafts, for a while, before beginning a new Merlin WIP. Even though this collection is gathered from existing fiction, I'm not promising a posting schedule – just that the wait shouldn't be too long…

1. Part 1: Waking Up Restrained

(from The Penned Dragon)

Rumbling motion roused Merlin. He opened his eyes and blinked dimly at a large boxy shape around him.

Smell of engine grease. Feeling of wheels bumping rhythmically.

Weakly he tried to move and found he couldn't, muscles cramping in a forced fetal position. His fingers met sticky bonds wrapping his wrists together. His knuckles and hair and clothes brushed cardboard.

Seriously? She'd tazed him and drugged him and put him in a cardboard box.

He imagined it said Refrigerator on the side. He imagined she'd used a mover's handcart and the lift at the back of the van he'd seen across the street when he opened the door to her knock. He imagined his neighbors marveling that a slender blonde woman could move such a thing by herself.

Dammit. Where… and why… and Arthur.

He closed his eyes and began to imagine his room at home in preparation to use magic to shift there. Bedroom-office. Slightly musty when it rained. Fresh paint in the bathroom. Sunlight at the window and knobby rug under his socks…

Nothing happened.

Perhaps he couldn't move from a place that was itself in motion, if he couldn't erase physical conditions that were constantly changing. Maybe when he got out of this mess, he could test the theory…

Consciousness drifted away.

She was humming when he opened his eyes again.

Humming, and using a pair of box cutters. Vigorously, and he cringed at the sound of ripping cardboard and tape; he couldn't quite convince himself that skin and veins weren't next.

He could tell that he wasn't crammed into a pretzel anymore, breathing his own breath in a box – he was stretched out, though he still couldn't move. Everything was white and smelled of antiseptic… but this wasn't a hospital.

His fingers could move, but not his hands – feet, but not legs. Eyes but not head – and that was what caused panic to rise in his throat. It hurt, all through his chest, and he wondered if she'd strapped him down tightly enough to hamper his breathing.

He heard a buzzing whine, and simultaneous tugging and chill on his scalp.

"What the hell," he managed.

"Ah." Morgause moved into his restricted field of vision above him. Upside down, with her messy ponytail hanging down. Eyes dark and intense, and smile cruel and careless, and an electric hair-razor in her hand, trailing cord down and away. "Finally. I expected to hear from you two full minutes ago. Perhaps your system is weaker than I thought – that would be a shame."

"Why?" he said. His eyes were blurring – abruptly, and not at the same time, and his sense of depth perception was all off. He could have been strapped to a ceiling or the bottom of a pool, for all his eyes could tell him. It was disorienting enough to make him sick to his stomach; he hoped he didn't vomit, because he couldn't move to make sure he didn't choke on it.

"I told you I would tell you, didn't I?" she said, looking past him and beginning to tug his hair and cool his scalp again. "But can't you guess? Don't you recognize where we are?"

He couldn't focus. "Where are we?"

"The Penned Dragon."

A place where a paying guest could meet with the spirits of the departed, in a series of rooms not unlike a dentist's office, due to an incomprehensible mixture of science and magic… and the particular knowledge and skills of this woman.

"I knew there had to be options we hadn't yet explored."

"You mean me?" he said stupidly. "Why me?"

The buzzing whir stopped, and she spun away from his sight, chilling his bare scalp with a draft. All he could hear was beeping and clicking – and then she was back, touching his head again, tugging at his skin. The touch was too intimate; he hated it, and he couldn't move.

"What the hell?" he said again. Movement and control were impossible, which left only knowledge to be utilized. "What are you doing?"

"When you eliminate the possibilities," she said, sounding distracted, "all that remains is the impossible. My guess is you have an ability in teleportation – am I right? I seem to be better at this game than you, Merlin."

His ribcage was shrinking. It felt like he couldn't breathe, even though each deep inhalation and deliberate exhalation proved that sensation wrong. He struggled against dread and uncertainty, trying to reach the internal serenity necessary for her guess to become his reality.

Not so far as his basement apartment. Just back outside to the square of sidewalk in front of the building, and then he could run… He was fairly sure she was alone.

And hells, had taken him so easily. Gwen was right; in his line of work he needed a partner to watch his back when things got crazy and shifty.

But in that one second, the crystals woke.

Not just one, set in the carpet two paces away like the meeting-rooms for paying customers, but dozens all around him – on him, touching his skin in some configuration of stone and wire. All of them shrilled curious malevolent rays at him, though him – like the stinging tentacles of a jellyfish, killing without meaning to even as the victim struggled to leave it alone.

She stepped back to check him over visually. Merlin tried to pull his chin down, to better see what she was doing by the bank of monitors and keypads, but the angle was wrong. Tried to wrench hands and feet free – or tip himself out of the chair – but he was slick with sweat and his muscles trembled more than responding.

"What are you doing?" he asked. He was unable to focus on his magic to release his bonds or levitate the unseen box-cutters, and the crystals weren't going to let him leave. Float motionless between jellyfish tentacles. "I'm not psychic – I can't make this place work. Is it about the teleportation?"

She cocked her head as a smile arced across her face, and moved back to his side – which was more unnerving than her fiddling with the controls and gauges. If she was done adjusting, what came next?

"I spent some time trying to devise a commercial use for that talent, I will admit," she said. "I came up with nothing that would be cost-effective in terms of potential problems. No. This, what we're doing today, what you're helping me with, this is something bigger. I always hoped… but til you came along, I didn't truly expect to make my dream a reality."

"Little more nightmare from my end," Merlin said. Damn, his chest hurt, all the way to his spine pressed into the uncomfortable vinyl of the chair.

Morgause hummed, a mockingly sympathetic sound. "It'll probably get worse, too. Look, I'll show you."

She spun away, triggering another round of dizzying blurriness of vision – then triumphantly held up what looked to him like an empty flower vase. It took him several seconds to focus on it – and then he noticed the lid.

Her sister had been cremated after her murder, but not interred.

"I have theorized," she told him, "that if one person of moderate ability can part the Veil and draw spirits through, why could not a person of greater ability rip the Veil in two and allow the spirit to return to its body permanently. I've spent years trying to figure out a way to boost or magnify that power – but someone who can teleport? Jackpot."

"Wait. Morgause…" She whirled away from him again, and he tried to raise his voice to reach her. "Your sister was cremated, there's no body for her to return to."

"That won't be a problem," Morgause said cheerily. "I believe you're powerful enough to reassemble her from ash."

"You're insane," he said, the sinking feeling in his gut pulling viscerally downward on his heart.

"They said that about Einstein… Now hold still a minute, I want to see if this works or if I'm going to have to recalibrate…"

There was a sound like a metallic flash, and his ears rang like a singing bowl – around and around, continuous noise subtle but increasingly unbearable. He blinked blindly for a second, then saw black instead of white – and a curtain hovering over him like the tattered agitated garment of a banshee.

Someone was shrieking. The crystals, maybe. Were they expressing delight or danger?

Over the noise Morgause declared, "Yep, that'll do fine. Okay, here we go…"

All the venomous crystal tentacles aligned with a snap and it felt like the tazer shock again – his whole body stiffened involuntarily, arching his back clear off the chair and squeezing his lungs against the restraints.

The Veil split like the belly of a dead fish, disembodied spirits spilling forth involuntarily.

But, with his fingers gripping the ends of the armrest like an eagle's talons, Merlin seized the two tattered ghostly sides of the spiritual barrier, cramming his own soul into the gap to keep the seal between the worlds of dead and alive functional.

And screamed.


1. Part 2: Waking Up Restrained

("To Protect Me" from Revelations)

Alvarr leaned casually on the trunk of a large box-elder tree, just out of sight of his two captives, toying with his handful of straw, twisting in preparation to tie. Congratulating himself on the success of another ambush.

A prize far more valuable than a wagonload of supplies bound for Camelot's citadel, and the chainmail and crimson cloaks to disguise their infiltration. A conquest far more certain than Lady Morgana's mercurial favor and assistance. Too bad Enmyria wasn't here to savor the moment with him. Too bad Mordred wasn't either – his captive's fault on both counts, and he expected to extract satisfaction for the loss of both.

All he had left were those three – Alvarr tossed a glance over his shoulder to the unwashed ruffians bickering over the bits and pieces hastily scavenged from the prince's slaughtered patrol. Oh, well. At least he had loyalty from them, if no brains or magic to speak of, among the three.

"Merlin."

The hissed whisper from his newly-conscious captive, out of sight beyond the tree that hid him, brought a twisted smile to his face, as he twisted the straw back upon itself. It had almost been too easy.

Of course old Uther would send a patrol immediately, upon discovery of Alvarr's escape from the cells of Camelot. His gamble had been that the prince would be ordered to lead it – not such a stretch – and that the peasant-clad servant would be included in their number. His true quarry.

He mouthed the name to himself as the prince hissed it with more urgency – "Merlin!" – and couldn't quite keep a snicker from escaping.

Oops.

"Who's there?"

Because while the Pendragons were amusingly ignorant and willfully blind about some things, Prince Arthur's woodcraft really was – formidable. He'd tracked their camp, after all, protected as it had been. If Alvarr didn't have magic on his side – one spell powerful enough to put half the patrol to sleep where they sat their horses, halted by the prince's raised hand of warning – this latest ambush might have failed.

"Who is it, who's there?" the prince continued, raising his voice in his most demanding tone.

Alvarr smirked toward his three men – their names forgotten, but it was their loyalty that counted – who took no notice.

"I can tell you're there, you might as well come out and face me. If you're man enough."

Alvarr let the silence hang a bit longer, to unsettle the Pendragon further, dividing the loose ends of the straw into quarters. And was rewarded with another furious murmur.

"Merlin! Dammit, wake up…"

Too delicious to be savored alone. But none of those three could appreciate the irony… Alvarr sighed, and pushed round the tree, keeping one shoulder leaned casually against the rough bark.

The prince, in spite of his assertion of knowledge of Alvarr's presence, inhaled swiftly through his nostrils and sat back, recognition in his eyes. His spine straightened and his chin lifted, but the dirt and blood on his face and in his disheveled hair – as well as the fact that that he was on the ground on his royal ass with his hands bound behind his back - ruined the effect.

Not for Alvarr, who grinned and enjoyed. "By all means, keep calling for your boy to wake and serve you," he drawled. And shifted only slightly to be able to hook the toe of his boot under the bent knee of the servant boy – on his back with his hands bound behind him also – and flip him to a new position of awkwardness. Not that he felt it.

"You leave him alone," the prince growled. "Your quarrel is with me."

"Too right," Alvarr agreed. "You lost me the Crystal of Neahtid and the boy powerful enough to use it." Dead or dying or fled, he didn't know; Mordred hadn't responded to any of his calls, and they'd found no trace of him in the woods, either. "You're responsible for the death of the woman I loved."

"Then loose my hands and return my sword and we'll settle this like men," the prince demanded. "Unless you're too much of a coward, and plan to kill me while I'm tied. In which case, get on with it; you're boring me."

"I'm not going to kill you," Alvarr said. "At least not yet." He gave the prince an evil, significant grin, and enjoyed the way the boy's eyes fell to the figure in his hands as he tied the third of the four quarter-sections.

"Ransom, then?" the prince asked. Trying for arrogant indifference, but he watched Alvarr finish the poppet.

"Do you even know how much of a hypocrite you are?" Alvarr asked curiously. He leaned forward to touch the servant's black hair, rub it til he had only about half a dozen strands between his fingers, then pinched and yanked. The boy's head jerked with the action, but he remained placidly asleep.

"I said leave him alone," the prince growled. The glance he gave his fellow-captive contained a flicker of hope – which turned to trepidation when the plucking of hairs failed to rouse him. "What are you doing? What've you done to him?"

"He won't wake til I allow it." The strands were short, but sufficient; Alvarr held the ends in place with his thumb and wrapped the length around the straw figure's throat. Paused to wonder aloud, "Does he know how much of a hypocrite you are?"

"What are you talking about?" the prince spat in frustration, shifting as he pulled at the cords binding his hands.

"I guessed that you didn't know," Alvarr said. "That he wouldn't have told you. But then, why remain in your service?" He spoke the spell to light the poppet's head on fire, and the prince flinched.

The straw blackened as the hairs lit and shriveled; the unconscious sorcerer on the ground frowned and inhaled and moved sluggishly. For a moment. Then subsided as Alvarr blew out the flame.

The smoke that rose from the poppet twisted with his breath as he spoke. "Let's ask him, shall we? I need to know what I'm up against if I'm to make a proper counter-offer."

"Are you mad?" the prince said incredulously. "All this because you wanted my servant? And he's a useless one, why would you–"

Alvarr smiled and released the sleeping spell. The prince cut himself off as his companion half-rolled, groaning.

"Ar-thr…"

"Right here, Merlin." The prince's voice was steady, but the way he cut his glance at Alvarr said, he was fully aware the other's waking was the renegade's doing, according to plan.

Alvarr grinned, and blew a pattern in the trail of smoke from the poppet's head. "Good morning," he said to the boy, who'd gotten a shoulder under him to raise his head from the ground. "Or afternoon, rather."

Merlin made sure of the prince with a quick look, before struggling around to where he could sit up. Interestingly enough, the prince swung his upper body away, in trying to reach to help him with the hands tied together behind his back.

"I do apologize for this," Alvarr told him, twirling the poppet slightly. The boy's eyes fixed to it longingly, but with a puzzlement Alvarr didn't immediately understand. "Oh, you've not seen one of these used before? It binds one's magic – temporarily, of course, I needed to be sure you would hear me out."

"What?" Arthur exclaimed, as Alvarr watched fear shoot through the younger sorcerer's eyes.

"He didn't know," Alvarr said sympathetically. "I understand. You lied and hid because you didn't have a choice – but now you do."

"I don't have magic," Merlin said immediately. "You thought I had magic? You're wrong, though, I–" he dry-swallowed revealingly, but didn't look at the prince, who still looked confused – "don't."

Alvarr hummed and twirled the poppet again. "Not at the moment, no."

"Merlin?" the prince said, scowling in irritated bewilderment.

Merlin shied away from the Pendragon's glare, ducking his head and lifting his shoulders slightly. "I… don't."

"You didn't know he had magic," Alvarr said gleefully to the prince, "but he does. And now that the prince knows – Merlin, isn't it? – only death awaits you in Camelot, so you see it's a very easy choice, after all."

"To join you, you mean?" the prince turned his anger on Alvarr. "You're a sorcerer, and sorcerers lie."

The boy called Merlin flinched at that, and Alvarr laughed. "Only too true," he said. "Would you believe him if he told you himself? Go on, Merlin, tell him. The truth at last, won't it feel good?"

The black-haired boy bit his lips shut and shook his head. Slowly, mutinously. He was stubborn. Alvarr liked that – and able to avoid detection, living in Camelot under the king's nose, which meant also, clever and deceptive. He liked that even more.

"If I shove a pin through this narrow straw chest," he said, "guess what'll happen?"

"I'll die," Merlin said dryly to his knees, and the prince's blue eyes widened in horror.

"Hells, no." Alvarr was offended. "No, I don't want to kill you. I'm recruiting you, boy. Just – snipping the ties that bind you to your former life. Encouraging you – maybe a little forcefully – to tell the truth, and don't look back. Where is that needle, now?"

He knew he didn't have one. Enmyria had carried one. There might be one among the patrols' belongings, though; Alvarr's three men were more the type to kill a man for his jacket than sew a tear in their own.

"Why do you even want him?" the prince said boldly. "He's perfectly useless, you know. And a coward, to boot."

"Do you remember I told you, you couldn't wield the crystal, none of you had the power?" Alvarr said conversationally.

The prince looked puzzled; Merlin abruptly lost all color.

"I was wrong. You tossed it at him, like an old bone to a pup with milk-teeth, and rolled yourself in your cozy blanket by your warm fire." Alvarr still couldn't believe it, and shook his head. "You didn't see him. But I had my eye on that crystal–" it'll still be mine, one day – "and I saw him."

The prince turned his head to stare at his companion, who swallowed and closed his eyes, and held very still.

"He used it. Or rather, it used him; it does require a bit of training, I understand. But it proved his potential." Alvarr grinned down at them, but neither reacted to him, and he added, "What did you see, by the way? I'm curious."

Merlin shook his head so vigorously his hair flopped like a child's.

"What did you see?" the prince repeated, then started as if he'd spoken without intending to.

"Just the – fire, reflected and – broken, by the – faces of the crystal," Merlin said jerkily. "It was – eerie, so I – dropped it."

The prince pulled back, his lip lifting toward an uncertain sneer.

Alvarr said gleefully, "He can hear the lie, now, Merlin. Might as well tell him the truth about your magic. You can tell me what you actually saw, later."

Merlin gave him a black glare from under his brows, one which would have been golden-deadly if not for the smoking poppet in Alvarr's hand. Loyalty. Good to see, just as good as stubbornness and cleverness and deceitfulness. But, misguided.

Alvarr snapped the fingers of his other hand, and called the fire back in a floating tongue of flame over his palm. He stepped – carefully, the prince was a warrior and trained strategist and not seriously injured – to Pendragon's side. The prince leaned back, lips pressed together and breathing quickened through widened nostrils; Merlin squirmed desperately and ineffectively.

"Tell your prince you have magic," Alvarr warned indulgently.

Merlin struggled. The prince's blue eyes almost crossed, staring at the flame that began to redden his skin.

"I have magic!" Merlin shouted.

Alvarr halted forward movement – then retreated in satisfaction so that the prince's attention could leave the threatening tongue of fire to snap around to his servant's face. A single tear coursed a clean path through grime on Merlin's thin cheek as he held the prince's gaze. Too loyal, maybe.

"I use it for you, Arthur," he whispered. "Only for you, I swear."

"Pendragons punish magic with death," Alvarr reminded him. "You're much better off using it for me – or for yourself, rather."

The prince narrowed his eyes, searching Merlin's another long moment. And when Merlin blinked, releasing another tear, the prince lifted his chin to address Alvarr with royal insolence. "I don't believe it," he announced. "I haven't seen any evidence that Merlin has magic, the idea is ridiculous. He'd say anything to protect me."

Merlin's body slouched as he exhaled relief, and Alvarr frowned. This wasn't going the way he wanted it to, at all.

"Fine," he huffed, dusting the flame from his fingertips to pick at the poppet. Finding one hardened, withered strand of hair, he teased it loose and dropped it to the breeze, weakening the enchantment. "Now you should be able to manage enough for a demonstration."

Merlin darted a quick look at Arthur's challenging stare, then shook his head. "No, I won't. I – can't. I don't have…"

"I'll get that pin," Alvarr threatened, losing patience.

Merlin didn't even hesitate, shaking his head again, with more determination.

This time Alvarr drew the dagger from his belt, stabbing it quickly and carelessly toward the meat of the prince's shoulder. Not a killing blow, but the Pendragon hissed and twisted away. Alvarr followed; he'd pin him to the ground if he had to, for the sake of demonstration and forcing Merlin to-

"No!" Merlin gasped. His eyes sparked gold – and the dagger twitched from Alvarr's hand, dropping with a rustle to the leaf-strewn ground.

"Very good," he approved, retrieving the blade. The boy hadn't even needed a spell. "Now do you see him for what he is, Pendragon?"

Merlin's head hung down between knees that sagged to either side, panting with the effort of pushing even a bit of magic past the poppet's loosened binding. The prince watched him a moment - then looked up at Alvarr with a blank sort of defiance.

"I still don't believe it," he declared. "For all I know, your little doll could be making it look like he's got magic when he doesn't."

"That's stupid," Alvarr hissed. "Why on earth would I be interested in him if he doesn't have magic?"

"How should I know?" Arthur shrugged. "Merlin's insolent and clumsy and foolish – though anything but boring… But sorcerers are stupid."

Merlin darted the prince a glare that he didn't even notice, and Alvarr was incensed.

"Stupid prince," he hissed. "Willfully blind." Furiously he picked at the melted strands around the figure's neck – but they wouldn't slacken further.

"Having trouble with your dolly?" The prince's voice dripped with mockery. "I've heard it said that magic rots reason, and now I suppose I'm seeing the–"

Alvarr cut him off, clenching his hand around the air in Pendragon's throat – anything to shut him up – and cursed, flinging the poppet to the ground. Where it was safe to obliterate it – and the spell – in an explosion of sparks.

"Now show him what you're capable of, Merlin!" he shouted.

A/N: Again, keep in mind that the nature of this collection is to focus on the whump, not on the plot or the resolution… But feel free to find the chapter/story these sections are taken from, if you need more information or reassurance!