Chapter Text
“Merlin! Merlin! Don't close your eyes, damnit!” Arthur shook his manservant and very nearly overbalanced and sent them both tumbling back down the hillside. He had Merlin halfway draped over his shoulders, one hand securely around his waist and the other holding his wrist to keep him from sliding. Rain poured down around them, it froze their bones and plastered their clothes to their skin. They should have caught up with the rest of the patrol yesterday, but then there had been the boar.
That damned boar had been the start of it all.
Only a fool tried to fight a wild boar at close range, but neither of them had spears or bows and there hadn't been much of a choice. Somehow - and Arthur had a pretty good idea now of how but he was trying not to think about that - they'd managed to kill it without major injuries to either of them. They'd just begun debating whether to take it back with them despite not having a cart or mounts when the bandits had shown up.
The bandits, evidently, had been tracking the boar. They weren't very happy about a knight of Camelot and a scrawny servant ruining their hunt.
Merlin had tried - bless his too big, too naive heart - to talk them down. He'd tried to bargain that they would simply cede the kill to the bandits if they only let them go without a fight. But one of them recognised Arthur, and it was all downhill from there.
Arthur could still see the exact moment it had all changed. Couldn't stop seeing it. A few heartbeats stuck on loop in the back of his mind even when he was trying to do other things. Like get up this damn hill before Merlin bled out!
Dark blue eyes blinked at him, Merlin hissed in pain as Arthur shook him again, even though he was more careful this time. “Gah- Arthur, wha?” He was barely audible over the storm, and his words were already slurring.
“Don't pass out on me now, idiot. You said there was a cave here we could shelter. Where?” Arthur growled, staunchly ignoring the terrible drumming in his chest where his heart had surely been that morning.
“Over..” He frowned slightly, clearly struggling to concentrate, “That.. Over the.. the crest, with the.. the pine..” He slumped again and Arthur saw his eyes flutter halfway shut.
“Damnit, Merlin. Don't you dare die.” He snarled and started his slog up the hill again. He could barely see the tree Merlin had pointed out through the downpour, only the occasional lightning strikes kept him oriented the right way. And if his vision was blurring and his cheeks were wet from more than just the rain, well, no one else was conscious enough to call him out for it.
Finally, finally, they made it to the pine tree, and sure enough, there was a cave mouth not twenty paces away. If Arthur wasn't already - and nobody ever had to know either of these things - he could have cried from relief. As it was, he simply stumbled to the dark maw. He had to crouch to fit through, and it was a tight fit for his broad frame, but it was shelter and that was what mattered. He pulled Merlin in right behind him, glad that Merlin's bird-thin shoulders made it somewhat easier than it might have been.
Inside, it was absolutely dark, the scattered illumination of the lightning didn't reach through the little entrance. Arthur set Merlin down and made quick work of exploring their shelter. It wasn't very big, barely tall enough for him to sit straight without bashing his head, and just wide enough for a grown man to lay down with his arms stretched above his head without touching either wall.
He returned to Merlin's side and made him lay down. It took less effort than it should have, with how stubborn Merlin usually was.
Arthur was no physician, and he would certainly have rather not done this blind or with fingers half numbed from cold, but Merlin needed help and treating him out in the rain wasn't an option. So, operating entirely by touch, he removed Merlin's shirt and set about cleaning and then bandaging the gash across Merlin's side. Luckily, Merlin had never lost his bag in all the fighting and running earlier, and he always carried basic medical supplies in it. Arthur had to take his best guess and rely a lot on hope and luck as he sorted through the supplies- But it was the best that could be done.
It said a lot that Merlin barely mumbled a few pained protests as he worked.
By the time he finished, he was shivering again - good, that meant he was warming up enough for his body to respond to being cold - and Merlin had succumbed fully to unconsciousness. Arthur tried to wake him again, but got no response.
He tried not to panic.
It was fine. It would be fine. Merlin just needed to sleep for a while so that his body could start healing. That was all. He wouldn't- He wasn't going to die.. He couldn’t.
He's a sorcerer. He's lied to you, for years. You should kill him now and be done with it while he's weak. That's what a worthy prince would do, what a real Pendragon would do.
Arthur forcefully shook away his father's voice. Merlin wasn't going to die. Not on his watch. He kind of wished Merlin was still at least a little conscious, he felt bad for what he had to do next without being able to communicate with him, but the cold would kill him as surely as the sword wound if he didn't do something.
He stripped off Merlin's wet things - which were, unfortunately, everything - and set them by the opening. There was no way to start a fire, but hopefully the air circulation would help them dry a little bit. His own wet outer layers went next, added to the pile, and then he stripped out of his - mostly dry - undershirt and shoved it over Merlin's head instead. A quick search of their bags revealed one kind-of-sort-of dry blanket at the bottom of Merlin's pack. He scooted to the back of the cave, as far from the draft as he could get, and pulled Merlin - gently, oh so careful and gently, he couldn't risk disturbing that cut - into his lap so that Merlin's back was to his chest, and wrapped the blanket around the both of them.
It was still freezing, but it was better than nothing. Arthur could only wait and hope it was enough.
“That's the prince of Camelot that is. Uther's own heir.” The bandit had said, killing any hope they had of getting out of this without a fight. Arthur watched Merlin shuffle a half step back as his conciliatory smile turned nervous and uncertain.
“Who, this? The Crown Prince of Camelot? Nonsense, this bloke is a far sight uglier-”
“Oh that's him alright.” Another one chimed in. “I'd recognise those colours anywhere.”
“A boar and a prince's ransom then. Must be our lucky day.”
“I'd rather a prince's head on a pike.”
He had known then, that things were about to get very, very bad. He knew Merlin, could guess what was about to come out of his mouth next, knew what would happen when it did. And he could do nothing to stop it.
Arthur could admit, in the privacy of his own mind where he was his only witness and with Merlin half dead in his arms, that even if Merlin was an audacious idiot with more loyalty than sense and a mouth that moved three times faster than his brain and always landed him in trouble before he could figure out how he'd gotten there, Arthur wouldn't change a thing about him.
“You'll be getting nothing from him. Let us leave and you'll all live. That is the best offer you'll be getting.”
The bandits laughed, of course they laughed, Merlin was many things but threatening was hardly one of them.
“Idiot, move!” Arthur yelled. He grabbed Merlin's shoulder and yanked him backwards, lifting his sword just in time to block the first bandit. They were horribly outnumbered, there was no way they were both walking away from this alive. But Merlin was a servant, he had no monetary value to these men. If the fool would use his brain for once, he could run while Arthur kept them engaged, and hopefully they wouldn't chase him.
He threw himself into the fight instead of dwelling on what other value a bunch of thugs might find in his too skinny manservant.
Arthur was the best swordsman in Camelot, one of the best in the five kingdoms, but the odds were stacked against him from the start and it wasn't long before he started flagging.
Of course, that was when everything changed.
“The other one is a sorcerer!” Arthur knew better than to look up, really, he did. But he couldn't help it. That wasn't Merlin's voice, which meant it had to be a bandit yelling, and there was only one person that they might call “the other one.”
Merlin stood a bare few dozen paces away, facing down a bandit whose sword had come to a stop in middair, with eyes unnaturally gold.
Arthur had exactly two heartbeats to register the competing thoughts of betrayal, shock, and the little swoop in his stomach that always came when he saw Merlin acting with the controlled confidence that he usually hid. He was surprised that the last came coupled this time with a little, Oh, he's beautiful. And then one heartbeat to watch Merlin's expression shift throigh panic, fear, then terror as his gaze settled on something just behind Arthur, and then determination.
A sorcerer he might be, but that didn't change the fact that Arthur had spent years fighting by Merlin's side, and even if his brain was still stuck on a looped sorcerer, sorcerer, sorcerer, his body still recognised when Merlin had identified a threat. He was throwing himself to the side and rolling before he had time to think about it, he barely caught sight of the bandit inches away from plunging a sword into the spot he had been standing, and then that same bandit was swept back by an invisible force and sent tumbling back.
The forest was silent for only a few moments as they all stared at each other, Arthur cast his gaze back and forth between the bandits and his best friend. His best friend who was a liar and a traitor and a sorcerer and-
And who was staring at him with the most painful combination of fear and hope and fear fear fear, so much fear.
“Arthur?” His voice came out small, and that was wrong wrong wrong. Merlin was skinny, yes, but he'd never been small. He was- He wasn't paying any attention to his surroundings, damnit!
“Merlin!” Arthur was on his feet in an instant and stretching and running as if he could ever reach him in time.
The sword cut into Merlin from behind, his eyes blazed a brighter gold than Arthur had ever seen as he cried out. Arthur screamed. He barely registered the last few steps, barely felt anything as his own sword slid home in the bandit's chest. The only thing that mattered was Merlin crumpling into his arms.
“Merlin!”
“Arthur.. I'm sorry..”
“Don't apologise, idiot.” He glanced up at the remaining bandits, only to find them gone. His heart stuttered in his chest. “What-?”
“I'm sorry… I didn't mean.. I'd never hurt you, Arthur, please, please believe that. Nothing I've ever done.. Nothing I could ever do… I could never hurt you. I've only ever used it to protect you, I swear. I swear it, Arthur. Please don't- Don't think I- I couldn't think of another way to- I didn't think about it, I just knew you'd be in danger if I didn't and- And I couldn't let that- But never against you, Arthur.”
He was rambling, barely coherent, and it took Arthur entirely too long to figure out what he was trying to say. He chose to blame it on shock.
The bandits. Merlin had gotten rid of all of them in the span of the time Arthur had stabbed that last one and caught him. He didn't know how, or where they'd gone, or if they were still alive. All of which were questions he really wanted the answer to. It was more than a little unsettling that his clumsy, hapless manservant, who cried on hunts, had just made nearly a dozen fully grown men vanish into thin air.
That was, of course, when thunder announced the storm rolling in. Arthur decided that questions would have to wait.