Merlin One Shots

The Nice One

Arthur had guessed it for some time now. The way that his manservant was always around when strange things happened. The way he disappeared for days at a time only to come back with a lame excuse. Or how Merlin would always stiffen up at the mentioning of the topic.

There was no doubt that Merlin had magic.

Arthur used to deny it and simply believe Merlin's little white lies. After years the evidence was just too much to ignore. So Arthur accepted it. He was furious at first, using Merlin for target practice a little too often during training. Shoving him just a little too hard during their playful banter. Merlin suspected nothing.

Then Arthur began to calm down, realizing that no sorcerer in their right mind would stay in Camelot for as long as Merlin had. Arthur began to follow Merlin around. Eavesdropping on his conversations and spying on him as he did his chores. Nothing was out of the ordinary until he went to Gaius. As hard as Arthur tried he could never hear entire conversations between those two. They were secretive and quiet. From what he did hear he came to the conclusion that Merlin wasn't evil and was in fact very loyal to Arthur.

With this in mind Arthur began trying to draw out the truth from Merlin, actually hear his servant confess. He also began to concentrate on lifting the death penalty on magic, in secret of course.

Arthur continued to prompt Merlin into telling him his deepest secret. He gave him plenty of opportunities. Hoping that his servant would eventually take one.

"Merlin?" Arthur asked one day.

"hm?" Merlin asked as he gathered the kings dirty clothes from their heap on the floor.

Arthur took a moment to study his servant. "I don't know that much about you."

"You don't?" Merlin responded with a question.

"You never talk about your life before Camelot."

"I don't like to talk about it." Merlin said shortly.

"Why not? You know all about my family's crazy history. I don't know much about yours."

Merlin took a deep breath and set the clothes down on a chair and turned to face his king.

"What do you want to know?"

"Oh stuff like who your parents were. What you did as a kid, where your secret hideouts were, and what not."

Merlin took a deep breath. "My dad left before I was born leaving my mom alone with a bastard child, she worked in the fields, gathering and harvesting. I ran a lot as a kid. Ran away from all my problems, all the people who wanted to hurt me."

"Who would want to hurt you?" Arthur asked shocked.

"Did you not hear? I'm a bastard, Arthur." Merlin said quietly, "I wasn't exactly loved by everybody."

"Camelot has loads of bastards they don't have to fear beatings every day."

"Ealdor was different."

Merlin obviously did not want to be on this topic any longer. He turned back to the clothes, but Arthur was not going to let it go.

"That can't be the only reason," Arthur prompted.

Merlin stayed silent.

"What did you do? Piss someone's father off?"

"I did nothing." Merlin said through gritted teeth.

Arthur was taken aback at Merlin's tone of voice, but did not let it show.

"There had to be something else."

"There was nothing else."

"Merlin!" Arthur pleaded.

Merlin turned and stared into Arthur's eyes almost as if he was reading his thoughts.

Silence fell between the two.

"There might have been something else." Merlin said finally after several moments of silence.

Arthur waited expectantly.

Merlin's eyes fell to the floor and his fingers began to fidget.

"You see when I was born, many of the women from the village were there for my mom's support in labor. When I came out... well..."

Arthur could see that this was hard for Merlin to get out.

"It's okay keep going." Arthur urged.

Merlin clamped his mouth shut and shook his head.

"I just- I just don't want you to hate me. Or see me differently." Merlin muttered.

"I won't." Arthur promised.

"I doubt that."

"You don't have a lot of faith in me, do you?" Arthur said his heart breaking a little.

"It's not that. I trust you with my life."

"That's not the type of faith I meant."

"I know, I'm sorry."

"It's okay Merlin, I understand."

"You really don't."

"Then let me understand."

Merlin took a deep breath and continued.

"When I came out, my eyes- they uh... glowed. Everyone freaked out and called my mother a witch and they all hated me and blamed me for all the villages problems."

"You were born with magic." Arthur stated in a voice a little too deep than he intended.

Merlin bit his lip and hung his head nodding.

Arthur looked at his manservant waiting to see if he was going to say anything more.

"Merlin."

Merlin looked up quickly and Arthur could see the fear in his eyes. Arthur was surprised. Merlin didn't really think that Arthur would ever hurt him, did he?

"Tell me more."