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In summer they go hunting. Arthur is determined to get rid of whatever gene in Merlin made him such a clumsy, bumbling fool—his words, not Merlin’s—and drags him out, over the ridge and into the forest where the trees crowd together and block out the sky. Merlin lags behind him for the first five minutes, desperate to think about anything other than killing something, and Arthur shouts back at him the whole way: come on, Merlin, are you slow as well as stupid now, keep up or I might leave you here. He won’t, of course—or if he did, he’d come back for him. Merlin humours him anyway.
He doesn’t know how to hold a bow, he realises, even after all the times he’s seen Arthur do it. Arthur snatches it from him to show him the ropes, and Merlin watches his hands and the way he pulls the arrow and pretends to care more about the words in his mouth than the oddly-shaped birthmark at the base of his thumb; like a star, maybe.
There is a grouse in the underbrush. It’s really quite beautiful. Merlin has no particularly strong feelings about birds up until this moment, but now there’s an arrowhead blurring in the forefront of his vision and a white tail flashing in the shadow of the trees, and he thinks anyone would feel this way, faced with the choice to kill something or not kill it. Arthur hovers at his shoulder, and Merlin wonders why this is his idea of fun, or anyone’s.
“Merlin,” Arthur says, very quietly, “stop hesitating.”
“Shut up,” Merlin hisses, under the pretense of focusing. And he is—that is, focusing; but it’s a lie, in a way. He’s watching the movement of the feathers simply because they are feathers, and because the bird is a living thing with autonomy and the body to prove it. He can almost see the oncoming flash of blood on the leaves. There is a long moment of silence, and then—three, two, one—the whizz of an arrow.
Of course, he misses on purpose. Stares for one second too long and watches as the arrow embeds itself into the trunk of the nearest tree. The grouse, startled into escape, makes a noise that could almost pass as terrified, and Merlin feels something wonderful and horrible twist in his stomach.
He has never been so sure of a decision in his life, even as Arthur scoffs behind him.
“It wasn’t a hard kill, either,” he’s going on, later, as they mount their horses for departure. “If you’d just aimed a bit lower you would’ve gotten it, easy.”
“Yeah, well,” Merlin says, feeling strangely unaffected by the jab. He is thinking of white and black feathers and a chest that rises and falls. “I didn’t. Don’t get pissy about it.”
Arthur makes a derisive noise. “Tell me, Merlin, are you actually good at anything?”
“Oh, lots of things. Mainly I’m not a knobhead. You should try it sometime.”
For this comment he earns a glare, which is nothing he isn’t already used to. He wonders, dimly, if Arthur knows of the things he is good at—of botany and literature and now, unfortunately, sewing (all thanks to Arthur and his terrible propensity for tearing his own clothing). And of course, the obvious. But nobody knows that, so he’ll take whatever else he can get.
It’s getting late, so they stop towards the edge of the forest. Merlin has no idea why Arthur took them so far from home, why they’re in the middle of nowhere with only the sky for company. But he hardly misses Camelot, so he doesn’t complain about having to set up camp, even if it means he spends the rest of the outing shivering from the cool night breeze.
“It was on purpose,” he confesses over their very vegetarian dinner, cross-legged by the fire, watching Arthur attempt to stack in more kindling. “Earlier.”
“What?” Arthur says, wincing as the sparks fly dangerously close to his hand. “What was?”
Merlin rolls his eyes, but Arthur seems not to catch it. “When I missed that grouse.”
This Arthur catches. Over the fire, he looks up at Merlin, his face flashing bewildered and maybe, a little offended. “You mean to tell me we could’ve been eating grouse for dinner, but instead…” he gestures vaguely at his bowl of stew, wrinkling his brow. Merlin doubts he knows what’s in it. More quietly, he adds, “Why did you?”
Caught off guard by the question, Merlin can only shrug. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. “It just. Felt like the right thing to do.”
“Ah, yes. Your wonderful sense of magical intuition.”
It’s a joke. Merlin tries to remember that. “Hey, it’s not magic to feel bad about killing an animal. That’s just common humanity.”
“They’re animals, Merlin. They don’t care.”
Merlin watches his face closely, trying to figure out what those traces are. “And you do?”
Arthur pauses. He takes another large bite of stew—he is enjoying it, isn’t he. Merlin allows himself a moment of smugness. “No,” he asserts. “I just know you’re incompetent. What if you get stranded out here one day and you can’t even kill a measly pheasant?”
“Well, I know that won’t happen,” Merlin counters. He crosses his legs beneath himself, feeling the ground press in against his knees.
“And why’s that?” Arthur demands.
“Because,” he says. “You’ll come and find me. I won’t even be gone a day.”
Arthur, apparently, cannot think of anything good to say to this. He pokes at his stew for a while, and Merlin can see on his face that quiet pensiveness that comes when he gets tired. Something else, too, but there’s always something else. Merlin has made his peace with not understanding it.
-
For all the fun he pokes at Merlin about their last escapade, Arthur does not make him go out on another hunting trip. Seemingly, he gets the message. Merlin doesn’t know whether to be relieved or not.
-
Another scar for the list, Merlin thinks dismally when they’ve lost the bandits and he finally has the time to think about things other than running until his legs ache. Somewhere along the trail they lost the rest of the knights, and Merlin can’t even hear the faintest traces of them. Of course, it’s just his luck that he got stuck with Arthur. He thinks he’d even take Gwaine over this.
“Every good warrior’s got a few battle wounds,” Arthur is—joking? not joking?—as he grabs Merlin’s arm to keep it in place. There’s a strip of cloth from his shirt held loosely in his other hand. “Okay. Stay still.”
“I can do it myself,” Merlin reminds him, keeping still anyways. It’s not even an honourable battle wound. The knights all have scars from swordfights and beasts with huge teeth and Merlin’s is from falling an embarrassingly long distance and crashing into a rock. His arm isn’t even what hurts the most. He sincerely hopes he hasn’t broken any ribs.
“Shut up,” Arthur says distractedly. “Your brain’s all addled from all that running. You’ll mess it up. Let me do it.”
“Knock yourself out.”
After all it’s not that he minds it. It’s really just because Arthur is touching him like that, and if he gets too used to it he’ll forget that Arthur doesn’t do this sort of stuff with him. That’s not how they are. They don’t even hug.
This thought does not seem to have crossed Arthur’s mind as he very-platonically lifts Merlin’s wrist and turns it over in his palms so he can secure the bandage around his arm. His hands are firm and steady. “There,” he says, briskly. “Any better?”
“Um,” Merlin says, resolving to cast a healing spell the first moment he can afford to. “Not really. Still hurts.”
“Don’t be an idiot. Of course it does.”
“Right. Er— thanks.”
Arthur shrugs. “Any good knight would do the same.”
“I can still thank you,” Merlin points out. “Anyone with manners says thank you.”
“Suppose so,” Arthur says. He looks around furtively, his eyes scanning from ground to treetops. There’s a mess of blond hair in his eyes. He looks markedly disheveled. “We better have lost them. I feel half-dead.”
“You look like it.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I think I actually am half-dead.”
“Well, so long as you can still walk.”
Merlin sinks down against the nearest tree, throwing his head back to stare up at the sky. It’s getting dark, the stars all winking into place through the gaps in the branches. “You don’t think,” he says, drawing his knees up to his chest, “you couldn’t just— talk to them?”
“What on earth,” Arthur says, sliding up next to him, “are you talking about.”
“Oh, come on. These aren’t knights, Arthur. They’re just very confused and lost and whoever led them to you did it because you’re— you’re Uther’s son. You’ve got a prize on your head.” He helpfully neglects to mention Morgana, because neither of them wants to think about the finer details of it right now. “If you just— reasoned with them—“
“Some things can’t be reasoned with. I would’ve thought you knew that.”
“Yes, I do,” Merlin says evenly. “I’m saying these people can.” And then he adds, because it can’t hurt, “If it were me, Arthur, I’d try it.”
“You’re the one who got hurt,” Arthur says incredulously. “You still think that?”
“That wasn’t their fault. And anyways, I’ve gotten hurt worse before. I’ll be fine.”
“..You worry me sometimes, Merlin,” Arthur murmurs. Merlin glances over at him and is startled to find him looking right back. A test, maybe. He isn’t sure whether to look away.
“What d’you mean,” he says and it comes out odd, the wrong way, half-stuck to his tongue. He curses himself. He’s never gotten any better at asking it, not in all these years, not even when he promised himself he would do.
“Just.” Arthur makes a distrait sort of noise. “You say things. Stupid things, don’t get me wrong, but.” He squints at Merlin. He seems to be trying to count every one of his eyelashes. “Contrary to popular belief I actually quite like you alive. And sometimes, I think you’d go off and fall into a pit by mistake if you didn’t have me here to protect you.”
“You think I can’t take care of myself,” Merlin says amusedly. “Arthur, you’ve never had to make your own breakfast a day in your life. Who do you think does all that for you? Worry about yourself.”
“That’s. Not,” Arthur starts, and Merlin realises quite suddenly that he is serious. “Look. I don’t know what it is, Merlin, but i-it’s something. Something about you.” His voice goes strangely hushed, as if worried someone will hear him, even with no one around for miles. “I thought I knew what I cared about, and what I didn’t. And then…”
And Merlin knows what he means: you’re the only friend I have. What a thing to say. Crueller than most poisons, and Merlin would know, too. God, if this isn’t the slowest way to die.
“If it makes you feel better.” Merlin hesitates. “I won’t go and fall into a pit on you. I’m not that stupid.”
“Aren’t you,” says Arthur, softly. And Merlin has no idea what he’s saying, anymore, but he knows there’s a dull ache in his arm and Arthur is sitting next to him, so close he can feel the buzzing warmth of his skin.