Battle Scars (Merlin)

Chapter 9

I am so, so sorry for the wait! I've had so much school and stuff and I just never got the time - I stayed up all last night to do this, appreciate me!

"I don't believe this," Arthur says, climbing to his feet. "I don't fucking believe this."

"Arthur-" Merlin starts to say, but he's cut off by the king once more.

"Don't even say anything!" Arthur spits the next word like the venom it is to him: "Sorcerer."

Pain fills Merlin's eyes as easily as the tears do but he doesn't let either show. Instead, he takes up the defensive. "Don't judge me just because of Morgana."

Merlin knows he's gone too far that time. However long ago it was, the scar of betrayal is still as open and fresh as the one on his side, and he just poured a jar of salt into it. Hurt floods into Arthur's face just as the cut made by the very same person gives a painful twinge. Arthur retreats, backtracking a few steps, his legs making broken, jagged movements. Then he turns and runs, his sword banging against his leg.

A few moments pass, in which the wound in Merlin's side increases the pain from before to an intense burning and he unconsciously scratches at the hole in his arm. Leon's the first to react, slowly standing to grip a tree trunk and almost drunkenly making his way to a certain manservant and gripping his arm to make him stop from reopening the wound. "Merlin, stop," he says sternly when the manservant tries to flinch away.

"I just made everything worse. Again," Merlin says in reply, so softly Leon nearly misses it. But very bad this time."

"No, Merlin -" Leon starts, trying to guide the younger man back to the security of the camp, an action which he's sure will have proved futile even if Merlin chooses to stop struggling.

"I need to go. Explain to Arthur," Merlin explains, pulling his uninjured arm out of Leon's vice-like hold. He stumbles off, the cut in his side hindering him as he trips on a rock, but he still won't stop. Before Leon can say anything else, Merlin's started running and even in his handicapped state all near him know they'll never be able to keep up.

The small drop of salt water glides down the smooth, unblemished skin slowly. It finally ends its path at the point of his chin, and drips down onto the forest floor, landing of a piece of moss that's bloated and swollen with rainwater. The teardrop is quickly sucked up by the spongy plant, becoming something insignificant in the mass of torrential water falling in the form of pattering rain.

But it's all so significant to Arthur.

Another tear courses down his face, and with the realization that he's actually crying Arthur stops. He takes in great panting breaths, his lungs trying to account for the twenty minutes of solid running in armour. More like sprinting, in fact.

"Arthur!" comes a shout from behind him. The king feels his anger flare up at the familiar tone of voice.

"What do you want?" Arthur growls, turning his head. The sight that meets him is a pitiful one.

Merlin's chest is heaving, just like his, but the manservant – ex-manservant, Arthur reminds himself – is so scrawny and thin it looks a lot worse and a lot more pathetic. Blood mingled with the rainwater has stained the material of his shirt on the arm, and a few patches of blood from where Merlin's dug his fingernails too hard into the flesh in the palm of his hand show startlingly bright. The liquid still hitting both of them has made his hair slick and slippery and clumps of it stick straight up in the air whilst others lie flat and plastered down to his scalp. It takes a fit of coughing for Arthur to realize that the coldness can't be all that good for him in his current state and anything Arthur's feeling will only be tripled in Merlin's case because the idiot's only wearing his shirt whereas Arthur's in full armour.