Cosmic Babe :)

He's going to cry, he can feel it from the pressure behind his eyes, and he doesn't want to. He tries to lean into the anger that flickers red-hot across his teeth. "I'm sure it was Adrian," he mumbles, staring into the floorboards. "Just got let go yesterday after some other staff caught him going through their stuff. I'm so stupid, I didn't think to check until now…."

His nails dig into his palms, the sting grounding him as he pulls his knees up to his chest. There's a creak in the floor as Arthur shifts his weight, and Merlin suddenly remembers that the King of Camelot is indeed still standing there.

Arthur seems to realize that he should probably say something. "I didn't realize that you had. Well. a hoard."

Had. The past tense stings like an arrow. "I didn't always," Merlin mumbles. "'think it just started up when my magic started getting stronger. Couple years ago I just started picking things up and just… I always kept it in my room. Under my bed." Where it was safe goes unsaid.

Merlin still hasn't brought himself to look at Arthur. "I'll reimburse any coin you had," Arthur says, stiff, but Merlin's known him long enough to hear the sincerity underneath. "Consider it a bonus—"

"There wasn't anything of value in there," Merlin says, cutting Arthur off. "At least, not to anyone but me."

His fingers trace the lines in the floorboards. There's a scratch where he dragged his chest out every night, and then pushed it back under. He'd place a new object with the others, or just hold them in his hands, feeling his skin warm the surface.

Merlin hears a thump, and looks up to see Arthur sitting down on the floor across from him. He leans back against the dresser, propping a leg up and resting his hand on his knee. "What did you have in there?" Arthur asks.

Merlin inhales. "Gloves my mum knitted for me before I left for Camelot," he says. "Flowers I'd find while gathering herbs for Gaius. Or rocks from the rivers to the southeast— the round ones that shine when the sun catches them."

It sounds so childish even to Merlin's ears, this animalistic part of himself he still barely understands, but no mockery crosses on Arthur's face. He's still listening, so Merlin continues. "A few dropped buttons or broken pieces of jewelry I'd found." A golden embossed button from Lancelot's doublet. A tiny shard of moonstone chipped off from the hilt of Gwaine's dagger. "Gwen made me a casted leaf from scrap metal from the forge. A couple of glass vials from Gaius's collection. A— a gift from my father."

And now there are tears rising to Merlin's face, and he quickly scrubs at his eyes with his sleeve. Arthur graciously doesn't comment upon it. "Was there anything of mine?" he finally asks, quietly.

Merlin drops his head to half-hide his expression. "The Pendragon patch off of a cape you'd torn and told me to get rid of. And—" His stomach lurches. "Gods, Arthur. I'm so sorry. Your mother's— the sigil's— I should have kept it on me, I'm sorry—"

"You kept the sigil in your hoard?"

Merlin cringes at the surprise in Arthur's voice. He never wanted Arthur to discover how his own possessiveness latched on to the only remaining relic of Ygraine Du Bois. That Merlin wrapped it over and over in Arthur's cloak until it was nestled just right, where Merlin could keep and care for it. "I'm sorry—"

"No, don't apologize, it's—" Arthur sighs. "It's not your fault, Merlin."

Merlin knows that. He still feels miserable.

But Arthur sits with him, and Merlin supposes that being miserable with another person is better than being miserable alone. When Arthur finally has to leave, he does so by gently ruffling Merlin's hair, which turns into his hand sliding down to cup the nape of Merlin's neck. He tells Merlin to take the next day off, and when Gwaine finds Merlin later in the evening and drags him to the tavern, Merlin's sure it's at Arthur's suggestion.

The drink numbs the grief, and the hangover distracts him from it, but Merlin can't help the gnawing emptiness he feels in the space under his bed, where all he loves is kept safe and warm.

That emptiness stays until a week later Merlin enters his chamber to find a plain sack resting on his bed. There's a small rolled note tied up with it, which Merlin curiously opens.

Tracked Adrian down to the Northern Plains. He swore he hadn't had the chance to sell anything yet. He's still in the dungeons if you find otherwise. - Arthur

Merlin's hands are shaking when he opens the sack. His flowers are slightly crooked, small chips on the corner of his rocks, but as he carefully takes every item out and places it on his bed, there's not a single scrap of fabric or shiny button out of place.

Which led to his current position of kicking an unwashed mercenary in the teeth, hand wrapped tightly around Excalibur's hilt. The melee rages fierce and furious around them, and while the mercenaries may have had the benefit of preparation, Arthur and his men have skill. He plunges his sword through a man's chest and yanks it out with a ferocious motion, whirling around—

— and freezes. There's a man holding a dagger to Merlin's throat, other hand fisted in black hair and yanking his head back. He smiles when he sees that Arthur has stilled. "Drop your blade, king. Or I'll rip your pet sorcerer's throat wide open."

Arthur's eyes flicker down to the iron shackles around Merlin's wrists, then back up. "Draw his blood," Arthur says softly, "and you'll regret it for the rest of your miserable life."

The man laughs, fixated on Arthur. "All bark but no fangs to carry the threat. You don't have the power here, Pendragon. Now, if you want his pretty head to stay attached to his shoulders, you'll—"

There's a clang as the iron shackles fall to the ground, undone by the lockpick pin Gwaine had slid to Merlin in the fray. The next heartbeat, Merlin's eyes glow gold.

It's less of a battle after that, more of a drubbing. The mercenaries' weapons turn to feathers, some of the men turn to goats, and at the end of it all Merlin is lazily stretching, complaining about the crick in his back from being tied to the post for hours. And Arthur—

Arthur's words get caught in his throat, and he's turning on his heel, storming out of the hut.

He barely takes ten steps away before there's a pair of gangly legs following him. "What's your problem?" Merlin demands. "Don't tell me you're actually cross with me about this?"

Arthur turns back around, fists clenched. "You can't be serious."

"Yeah, I am!" There's high spots of color on Merlin's checks, hair still tousled from where the mercenary yanked his head back. "So sorry I disturbed your schedule because we got ambushed on a hunt that was your idea, I might add—"

"You sent me away," Arthur interrupts, his teeth clenched. "You had a chance to use your magic and you— you sent me away."

"Yes, and I don't regret it." Merlin's chin juts out defiantly. "It was you they wanted, not me. They weren't prepared to capture a sorcerer, judging by the shoddiest pair of cold iron manacles I've ever seen—"

"And what if they decided you weren't worth the hassle?" Arthur's heart is pounding, and something that tastes traitorously like fear builds in his mouth. "What if they decided it would be better to just—" his chest stutters "—kill you, and be done with it? Gods, Merlin, do you have any idea what it would do to me if you—"

His mouth slams shut at the same time Merlin's drops open. He turns away, flushed raw with humiliation. He's said too much, he didn't mean to.

There's a hand on his shoulder, spinning around with more strength than Arthur was expecting, and then Merlin throws himself at Arthur. His arms loop around Arthur's shoulders, and his mouth is hot on Arthur's, wanting, claiming. Arthur takes a step back to steady himself, and his hands instinctively rest on Merlin's waist. He must forget to breathe with Merlin's assault on his lips, because they're both flushed and panting for breath when Merlin pulls away.

Arthur peeks up over the low cliff face, and pulls back just in time for the arrow from the tree line to spark off the stone instead making purchase in his head.

"Here's what we're going to do," Arthur says, shooting for his best "I'm the king and you're not" voice. He sticks Excalibur into the small, smooth rocks that roll up and down with the tide, wet with ocean spray, and turns to face Merlin where he's slumped against the ledge.

Arthur wraps his hands around the shaft jutting from Merlin's side. Merlin gasps. The black feathered fletching quivers like a warning. She is coming.

"I am going to break this off," Arthur says, and he cinches his grip close, wet fabric of Merlin's clothing cold even through his gloves.

"And then you are going to run."

"You're s-seriously demented if you think I'm going to just leave -"

Arthur snaps the arrow shaft, as close as he can to Merlin's skin. Merlin's cry comes through clenched teeth that dig into Arthur's heart.

"You will, because this is all I can do. I can't heal you, and right now, you can't heal yourself."

Not without losing more blood - he's already watched Merlin try, and all they have to show for it is the ghostly, hypoxic complexion of Merlin's already pale skin, the darkened, blood-bruised circles under his eyes. There was a time Arthur didn't know what those meant, hadn't learned the signs of magic exhaustion, of Merlin pushing himself too hard for Arthur's sake.

These days, he's all too familiar.

"Morgana's men approach from the west, so head south until you can't hear the battle, then inland towards camp. Whoever - whoever is still out there will have regrouped, they'll get you the rest of the way to Gaius. You need to go, you need a physician."

"No, you absolute prat, I need you -"

But before he can finish, Arthur brings his hands up to Merlin's angry face and kisses him on the mouth.

And, given the circumstances, that'll have to do. Arthur will have to pretend that's what Merlin was actually trying to say, that there was nothing else coming after it. He'll have to cut the words off and hold them in isolation, away from any interfering context, locked in the same box where he's kept his own all these years.

At least he'll only have to delude himself for a minute, though maintaining the fantasy for even that long might be difficult in light of the abject horror on Merlin's face when he pulls back.

Then again, Arthur's always been good at lying to himself.

So he pulls his sword out of the cobblestones and readies it, smiling as he risks one last glance at Merlin's eyes.

"Come now, Merlin, you must know - you can't address me like that."

And he leaps to vault himself up over the top of the cliff.

The first arrow he knocks away, and the second. The wall of his sister's legion breaks through the low scrub brush that covers the hillside, flailing and gnashing and desperate. A few have mistaken their speed for an advantage and broken the line, and Arthur cuts them down easily. Two, three, four of hundreds. Not enough.

Salt ocean air fills his senses as a harsh, cold breeze shifts, blowing in off the water. Sunlight fades and shadows spread. A ringing in his ears narrows his focus, blocking out all other sounds.

Almost all other sounds.

"Arthur."

He shouldn't turn, but he does. Is powerless not to, drawn as ever by Merlin's voice. Merlin, who has backed up towards the sea, icy waves of the Morimaru licking at his boots. Merlin with his arms outstretched and aloft, hands bloody, broken arrow falling from his fingers

Merlin, with his eyes blazing gold. Brighter and brighter, rays searing skyward, burning like captured stars finally set free.

Arthur starts towards him.

"No, Merlin, don't -"