Archive of Our Own ^beta

Arthur was dreaming, he had to be. Or perhaps, more logically, he was delirious from pain and blood loss, and that what he was seeing was merely the product of an addled brain. In which case he needed to have a serious discussion with his brain about what it chose to hallucinate about, because he did not approve of visions in which skinny, naked young men with maddeningly familiar faces were tending to his injuries.

Except that the young man in question wasn’t entirely naked per se. He may have been without shirt but he did, at least, still retained his trousers. But they were filthy, just like the rest of him, and had the young man not been attending to Arthur’s leg injury with some skill, and had the young man’s face not struck a cord of distant familiarity within Arthur, Arthur would have assumed him to be some feral boy scuttling about these woods in search of raw meat.

Still, that the boy was half-naked, abysmally thin and covered head to toe in filth while wrapping the gash in Arthur’s legs with rags and dirt-caked hands was disconcerting enough.

“I know it’s not ideal,” the young man said. “In fact, infection is probably a guarantee at this point, but right now slowing the blood flow is all I can manage.”

Arthur continued to stare at the apparition. Said apparition smiled contritely.

“I’m Merlin, by the way. Er… Lieutenant Emrys, actually. Field medic for the 109th. And you are…?”

Arthur blinked, and said as if this really were a dream (which it couldn’t be, because you usually didn’t feel such an agonizing amount of pain in dreams), “Captain Pendragon. Arthur.”

Merlin smiled and gave a quick salute. “Captain Pendragon, sir. Sorry I can’t be of more assistance.” He tore more strips from the bottom of Arthur’s uniform, exposing a bit of flesh on Arthur’s right side to the cold. The day was frigid, and Merlin’s hands shook as he wrapped the strip around Arthur’s leg.

“There,” Merlin said, sitting back on his haunches. “That will have to do. Think you can walk?”

“Why are you without half your uniform?” Arthur finally asked.

“Oh,” Merlin said, his cheeks flushing scarlet. “Apologies, sir. I needed bandages at the time and my shirt was all I had.”

“Bandages for who?” Arthur asked, his eyes darting about in search of his fellow injured, even though he already knew he was alone. He couldn’t say how long he’d been separated from his men, but he knew it had been a good while.

Merlin cleared his throat, shifting uneasily as though partially loathe to explain. “I… they’re still prisoners.”

“Prisoners?” Arthur echoed with dazed alarm.

“I was part of a prison camp. I managed to get away while we were being relocated. Well, I say get away. I passed out, actually, and they left me for dead. At least I assume they did.” He chuckled nervously. “All I know is that I woke up, they were gone and I took my chances. I suppose it pays, sometimes, to be so bone deep exhausted you drop where you stand. Er, or walk in my case.”

Merlin did indeed look exhausted. More than that, he looked ready to drop at that very moment and this time not get up. Even through all the filth Arthur could see Merlin was pale from the cold, his paltry body shivering hard and his shoulders hunched against the chill wind. With next to no fat on him, that cold would be seeping through his skin and clinging to his bones like icicles.

And yet he was enduring it all just to wrap Arthur’s leg.

The nagging familiarity the boy was eliciting poked and prodded at Arthur’s brain until he wished it were a physical presence that he could swat away. Never had anyone’s face been so insistent in dredging up recalcitrant memories.

“Come on,” Merlin said, rising on shivering legs then bending down enough to help Arthur climb upright. Pain immediately erupted from the wound in Arthur’s ankle up his leg to his hip, nearly dropping him. Merlin, however, was quicker, leaning Arthur against a tree for support.

Merlin sighed dejectedly. “I suppose there’s nothing for it. Here, lean against me.”

Arthur scowled at Merlin’s immediate reluctance to offer further aid, then he did lean against the boy, and both men nearly went down when Merlin’s legs tried to buckle. But Merlin locked his knees, and after pulling Arthur’s arm across his bony shoulders with more determination and stubborn resolve than actual strength, started shuffling forward carefully.

“Do I know you?” Arthur asked, because Merlin’s familiarity was driving him mad.

“What?” Merlin said, already panting from even so short an amount of exertion. “I don’t know, do you?”

“You seem familiar.”

“Maybe I just have one of those faces. The kind that looks like every other face.”

“So I don’t know you.”

Merlin sighed. “I don’t know. You’re the one who thinks I look familiar.”

“And yet I don’t look familiar to you in any way.”

Merlin’s next sigh was heavier and a bit unsteady as his breaths became more uneven. Arthur could just hear the click of his chattering teeth. Merlin looked at him, and as he did his brow furrowed.

“You know, now that you mention it… I do feel like I’ve seen you before.” Then he shook his head. “I think we’d be better off working this out someplace safe.”

“Agreed,” Arthur said.

They limped and shuffled on through the mist-shrouded forest, trying and mostly failing to keep all noise at a minimum. But things were quiet where they were – no crack of gunshot, no distant thunder of an explosion, not even any bodies. Except that didn’t mean anything. Germans could be anywhere, sweeping the area for survivors, and the only thing standing between patrols and Merlin and Arthur was the morning mist that was already beginning to thin out. On top of that they were stumbling more, Merlin the more so as he fought to support Arthur’s weight and his own. However long Merlin must have been a prisoner, it was long enough for the obviously poor conditions to whittle him down to near skin and bones. His ribs stood out, his collarbones really stood out, and whatever energy he’d had and that stubborn resolve of his that had brought him this far was fading fast. It soon reached a point in which Arthur had no idea if Merlin was supporting him or if he was supporting Merlin. And Merlin’s skin was so bloody cold.

“Stop! Stop, stop,” Arthur said. “Stop for a moment.”

“Arthur, we need to go,” Merlin gasped, his chest heaving.

Arthur balanced on one foot as he shrugged out of his coat. “Just give me a moment.” Once free of the garment while miraculously remaining upright, he draped the coat around Merlin’s shoulders.

“There, now you won’t freeze to death before we find help,” He said. He draped his arm back over Merlin’s shoulders. “Let’s go.”

They hobbled on. As they did, Arthur continued to glance at Merlin, while Merlin continued to glance at Arthur.

The real problem wasn’t pain and fatigue alone clouding Arthur’s memory, it was also the grime, blood and what Arthur had mistaken for grime but was actually bruises marring Merlin’s face, with more filth having mussed up his hair. Because the more Arthur looked at the boy, the more familiarity nagged and nagged until, finally – like a bomb having finally been triggered - his memory exploded.

Arthur and his friends, teasing a young man attempting to balance several heavy parcels he was carrying out to Arthur’s chaise. Another young man, skinny and dark haired, telling them that that was enough, that they had their fun.

Lords, the dark-haired boy had even told Arthur his name.

Merlin.

Then came fisticuffs and Merlin proving to be quite good at dodging, ducking and flinging mud at Arthur’s face until Arthur finally tripped the boy, landing him in the mud as well and reveling in the raucous laughter of his friends.

Arthur remember all this in a single heartbeat, and his eyes widened as he stared at the battered, starved and grimy soldier beside him. Then Merlin stared at him in return, and it was made clear from the way his eyes popped wide and his pace began to slow to a stop that Arthur wasn’t the only one to be bombarded with sudden recollection.

They said in a unison as perfect as a choreographed choir, “You!”

“You know, I always knew my luck was sour but running into you again after having been a prisoner for nearly a month proves it,” Merlin grumbled even as they continued on.

“You’re luck! What about my luck? Of all the people that had to find me it had to be an incompetent, bumbling…”

“Hey!” Merlin cut in. “This bumbling incompetent is the one saving your life if you haven’t noticed.” He shook his head, scowling. “Stuck in another country with half your foot blown off and you’re still an ass.”

Arthur bristled. “At least I have the brains not to stick my nose into other people’s business.”

“And at least I have the decency not to be an ass to shop boys just doing their jobs carrying your bloody parcels.” And then, suddenly, as though someone had flipped a switch, Merlin’s face shifted from rage to something deeply sad and a touch horrified. “The last letter my mum sent me, she said she’d talked to that boy’s mum and found out he’d been killed.”

It was like being kicked in the chest with steel-toed boots. Arthur could remember the day he’d teased that boy and Merlin had stepped in to stop him, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember when it had happened. A year ago, two years? Ages ago, a lifetime ago, maybe even something that had only happened in a dream.

Arthur was ripped from his thoughts when Merlin suddenly pitched forward, almost bringing Arthur down with him. Arthur pulled his pistol as he forced himself to drop to his knees, ignoring the agony ripping through his foot. He looked swiftly around for danger, his right hand holding the gun at the ready, his other hand pulling back the coat covering Merlin. It was a moment before Arthur realized there’d been no gunshot.

Merlin had tripped, over a bloody root jutting out of the ground. Arthur rolled his eyes and was more than ready to chastise the idiot, when he finally took notice of Merlin curled into himself, his eyes squeezed shut and his jaw clenched as he shook from more than the pain.

“What? What is it?” Arthur asked. Merlin’s arms were wrapped around his chest. Arthur had to holster his pistol and free both hands to pry Merlin’s arms apart. No injury was immediately obvious, but then it wouldn’t be when Arthur could barely tell bruises from dirt. He felt Merlin’s chest then his sides, eliciting several whimpers and hisses of pain from the boy. But there was a definite give to the bones on the right side of his chest.

Broken ribs, and Merlin had landed chest first.

Arthur readjusted the coat so that it was covering Merlin to his shoulders. He then clasped his shoulder, squeezing it as Merlin rode out the pain.

“Give it a moment,” Arthur encouraged softly. “It will pass.” He shifted, stretching out the leg of his injured ankle to one side when what had become a dull ache began to climb into something more painful. A bullet had skimmed it, and Arthur had no doubts it was broken.

Lords, they were a right mess, the both of them – injured, pained, lost, helpless as bloody infants and probably unable to move, now. But then, slowly, gradually, Merlin’s pain began to ebb. He shifted, and with much careful reluctance he began to climb to his feet.

“Here,” Merlin said, holding out his hand to Arthur. Arthur looked at the hand, then at Merlin – wobbly and groggy from pain and fatigue – dubiously. But Arthur took his hand, and while Arthur still ended up doing most of the work climbing to his feet, Merlin offered just enough support to keep it from being a lesson in agony.

Their going was even slower, to the point that Arthur was quite sure they weren’t moving at all. They probably managed to get as far as the next tree over when Arthur froze.

“Wait,” he said, straining his ears against the silence.

Yes, there, right there - voices.

“Quick, this way!” Arthur hissed, pulling Merlin in the direction of a tree hollow he spotted. It wasn’t large, but Arthur hoped it was wide enough to hide them. They leaned against it for support as they lowered themselves to the ground, Arthur pulling his pistol from its holster.

The voices were getting closer. Arthur looked at Merlin huddling tightly against the tree, and for a man so tall he looked impossibly small.

Arthur felt sick. Merlin could barely keep his eyes open. If they had to run, Merlin wasn’t going to make it. Arthur doubted he’d even be able to get up.

But there was no way in hell Arthur was leaving him behind.

The voices were closer, close enough for Arthur to make out words.

English words, without a lick of a German accent. Arthur peered around the tree and his heart leaped as though it wished to burst out of his chest. He could see the owner of the voices, five of them, and all dressed in British uniforms.

“Over here!” Arthur called. He scooted out from behind the tree and waved his arm. “Here!”

The men paused, rifles up, only to lower them on seeing Arthur. They hurried forward at a run.

Arthur laughed. He looked at Merlin, who, even while groggy, regarded Arthur as though he’d lost his mind.

“Merlin, mate,” he said, leaning to the side to clasp Merlin’s shoulder. “I believe our luck is no longer so sour towards us.”

Arthur hated crutches. Blasted things chafed him beneath the arms fiercely. But he did have to admit to their benefit of independent movement, otherwise he would have been resigned to the mercies of a wheelchair and any nurse with enough free time to push him around.

Things also could have been much worse. He could have lost his foot entirely, but as it stood the physicians were confident that, at worst, Arthur might have to walk with a cane. Arthur could live with that.

Especially seeing as how he was still alive.

Arthur hobbled down the row of metal-framed beds in the crisp, sterile white of a hospital ward, past soldiers in bandages and soldiers with missing limbs. He came to the end of the row, where Merlin lay clean but bruised and pale and still morbidly thin, but alive, just like Arthur. The hospital shirt was large on him, hanging low enough for Arthur to see the edge of the bandages around his chest. Merlin was awake (thank goodness, or Arthur would have had to cuff him across the head for making this trek pointless) and slowly consuming a bowl of some sort of pasty white porridge.

At Arthur’s approach, Merlin looked up and smiled. “I’m guessing your injury didn’t become infected after all?”

“Nope,” Arthur said, settling on the edge of the bed. He shifted, feeling a sudden bout of nerves and pride screaming at him to pick his crutches back up and hobble off. But like hell he was going to.

“Look,” Arthur said. “You saved my life--”

Merlin nodded. “And you saved mine. Glad we were able to establish that.”

Arthur huffed. “Is it in your nature to be insufferable or do you merely enjoy it?”

Merlin answered with a cheeky grin.

Arthur shook his head, trying not to chuckle. “Look, we’d obviously gotten off on the wrong foot when we met, so how about we begin again.” He held out his hand to Merlin. “Arthur Pendragon.”

Merlin, his smile no longer cheeky, took it. “Merlin Emrys.”

“So,” Arthur said. “Still think me an ass?”

Merlin looked up as if pondering the question. “Mmm… more like a prat, really.”

Arthur glared. “A prat?”

“Yes, a prat.” Then Merlin’s face softened. “And a good, decent sort, too.”

“And you’re still an idiot,” Arthur said. His smile returned. “But a brave one.”

Merlin beamed back.