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In his dream, Merlin’s there, with drops of blood trailing down the nick of his chin like condensation against a window. Beads of it sink into his shirt, the thin, flimsy fabric almost consuming it whole, absorbing the crimson in hurried sips.
Arthur pinches his eyes shut, though the image of Merlin, his stupid, wonderful, idiotic, blood-drenched best friend—oh, god, maybe his only real friend—doesn’t quite leave him. When he eventually opens them again, expecting to be thrown headfirst into another twist of dream-like logic, he hears a soft, pained laugh.
(If you could even call it that—it being a feeble exhale, coltish and weak and not too dissimilar from the noise a lamb in distress would make.)
The blood flow doesn’t seem to cease, the drip of it steady, like a line of broken stitches. Arthur blinks furiously, nausea beginning to rise up against the column of his throat, as slow and sure as ink saturating across parchment. Merlin makes that sound again, lips moving in a sluggish motion, a frail imitation of his usual tongue.
“Get up, you prat, please—” he’s saying, tripping clumsily over syllables. All of a sudden, he’s pressed up against Arthur, and looking down at his own shirt, Arthur sees ten little blotches of blood swallow his shoulders.
It’s warm and wet on his skin, and yet at the same time, it’s hot like he’s been branded with a cast iron. Like they’ve flown a little too close to the sun, this time.
“Arthur,” Merlin’s begging—begging, a feverish curl to his name that licks at Arthur’s being, painfully akin to a dog pawing at barren soil. And he’s trying to move, to raise up his hands, these limbs of a soldier, of a son, of a brother, but Merlin’s clutching too hard at him, nails digging straight into bone.
Merlin pitches forward a little bit further with each word, plea, until he’s carrying nearly all of his dead weight. Arthur thinks that he should be getting them to a bed, really, or at least a chair.
“I couldn’t find Gaius,” he manages to say in the crook of his neck. “I need you to do it, can you—”
“Do what, Merlin?” Arthur finally manages to spit out, chest heaving with the effort.
Merlin stills.
“Pull it out.”
He releases his grip from Arthur’s shoulders, instead reaching for his hands—tacky with dried blood, that awful in between of damp and dry—and tugs them to his sternum, insistent, leading him to ghost his fingertips around cold, cruel metal. A stark contrast to Merlin’s softer palm.
“You’ve done it before,” Merlin reasons, implores.
“Are you out of your mind,” Arthur says through his teeth, Merlin’s hands still gently steering his own towards the blade, quietly persistent like a child nudging at a loose tooth. “You would be bleeding out in seconds, we need to find someone who knows what to—”
“You know,” he repeats, feverish. “I need you to pull it out, Arthur.”
His words practically touch Arthur’s skin, humid. Arthur hesitates, instinct lodging in his throat—and he can't stop it, when his hand clasps around the rusted handle, slick with blood, he just holds Merlin closer as if he isn't condemning them both to a future of cold, irreversible distance—
"I need you!" Merlin grits.
—it's a trigger, and Arthur pulls.
When Merlin gasps, Arthur feels it more than he hears it. The slump of Merlin's body comes next, like his bones are snapping, marionette strings tearing. Elasticity sinking down, flowing from his body to the ground.
"Arthur," Merlin says, "thank you."
He doesn't even register the cymbal clash of the blade clattering to the ground, only Merlin’s final act: a grin against Arthur's collarbone, the apples of Merlin's cheeks suddenly dragging across his nape.
A bloody smile, tipped in farewell. His teeth graze Arthur's neck, and Arthur hopes with a disarming fervour that it breaks skin, lest it leave a scar.