Chapter Text
The next thing Merlin knew, hands were around his torso, burning.
It hurt; someone was hurting him.
Arthur…help…. he needed.
“Try to lay still darling, you’re going to be alright,” a soft voice was whispering next to his ear, “It’s just Gaius, he’s putting some…stuff on your chest to make it feel better. You’re going to be all okay…”
Merlin wondered if he was hallucinating from the pain. Arthur’s voice would never speak to him like that in it’s soft, sweet cadence, whispering words of comfort and kindness.
Then, the hands on his chest pulled off.
Merlin couldn’t see. Everything around him was black. Was he blind? Had he turned blind?
“I can’t see,” Merlin heard himself beg, “Why can’t I see?” His hands thrashed, fighting to grasp onto something, push someone away, he didn’t know what.
“Merlin!” His hands were being held down next to him in a gentle but unwavering grip. “You are fine. You’re not blind, just delirious and recovering. I don’t know how much you understand, but you need to lie back.”
Something else harsh touched his chest, not hands this time, but some kind of cloth, which seemed to be dripping something horrible onto his wound.
He bellowed in pain.
“It’s just the bandages Merlin,” came the hallucination of Arthur’s voice again, “just the bandages.”
Those hurt, too.
But not-really-Arthur’s voice would probably be the last he ever heard be nice to him, after he had failed so magnificently, and so he listened, hung to every word like it was a lifeline.
And not just his brain trying to make him happy one last time before the pain consumed him all together.
“Arthur? Arthur!” Merlin could hear himself calling out, but his body still seemed so out of his control. Was he there at the corner of the room, looking on in disgust? Would he even be there? What if the lady had done something?
“Merlin, I’m right here, you are okay. You are going to be okay.”
“Arthur!”
Merlin was shouting so loud his own head started to throb.
“Merlin! I’m right here, I promise. I’m not leaving.”
“Arthur!”
“Right here, all the way, I’m not leaving you.”
“Arthur…” Merlin’s own voice echoed longer than he stayed awake.
The next time he awoke, it was to the sound of more conversation, louder conversation.
Arthur’s voice.
Arthur was here.
Arthur!
“Thank you, sir Lucian, for protecting my...” Arthur’s voice died off before Merlin could catch the last word. He had the distinct impression that Arthur was talking about him.
“It is my greatest honour, my Lord. I am only ashamed I did not prevent him from getting into the situation in the first place.
“It is of no consequence. He is alive, and I must thank you for that. If there is anything at all I can give you as a reward, please, let me know.”
There voices returned to hushed whispers, allowing Merlin to drop off once more.
He had some awareness what felt like a few moments later, feeling hands underneath him, holding him through the air as heavy footsteps fell beneath.
The cloud, or maybe the giant who walked him had a heavy footfall, and a warm chest with a heartbeat that thudded against Merlin’s ear.
He could hear other sounds behind? Other people’s feet?
He strained his ears for any sound of conversation, but heard nothing.
After a while, he heard a door being cracked open and everything, once more, faded into nothingness.
***
When Merlin woke up again, really woke up, it was to the sound of hysterical sobbing.
He blinked his eyes, trying forcefully to open them.
His hands stretched out to the bedclothes under him, almost freezing as they realised they were not his own.
These sheets were thick and plush, warm, with a pillow that truly seemed to support his head and neck, and a mattress that didn’t poke him with straw every way he shifted.
All the memories rushed back to him in an instant, causing his eyes to fly open, sitting up in a start.
“Arthur?”
Merlin’s head turned, looking for the source of the crying, but he didn’t expect to almost completely crash into Arthur’s own face.
Arthur was sat in a chair he had pulled right up to the side of the bed, tears streaming down his face.
Through his bleary eyes, Merlin could see that in his hand, was his sigil, and the note Merlin had written.
“You’re awake.” Arthur finally said, standing up and walking back across the room.
“What’s wrong?” Merlin managed, watching in confusion as Arthur strode up and down, clutching the note in his hand. It’s you. You disappointed him.
You broke his trust.
“I don’t know, Merlin, what do you think is wrong?” Arthur snorted up a sob, hand reaching up to rub against his face.
Merlin stared at the back of his head.
“Is this a joke?” Arthur demanded, “A bad joke?”
Arthur waved the note around frantically, gesturing towards Merlin.
“It really isn’t funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be,” Merlin managed, “Do you want to talk to me?”
Arthur turned to him again, panting with rage, or maybe, sadness.
“Why should I?”
That, Merlin could understand. After all the ways Merlin had betrayed him, why would Arthur want to talk to him?
“You don’t have to. It might make you feel better.”
“Really?” Arthur exploded, “Make me feel better? You tell me you no longer want to get married, and you are injured and nearly die all in one night from some damned sorceress? You’ve got a permanent scar on your chest, marking the day I failed to protect you, and you decided you didn’t want me anymore? Yeah, I’m sure talking will make that all alright. Great job, Merlin. Truly.”
Merlin froze.
“Married?”
Arthur threw the note at him.
“Well, clearly not anymore, unless you have another explanation for this!”
It was Merlin.
The thought ran through Merlin’s cleared mind with startling clarity. Everything over the last few days, everything that had happened.
The wedding was Merlin and Arthur’s.
In a different situation, Merlin’s jaw would be agape. But now, Arthur seemed ready to scream at him.
He had no idea what to say, which made the silence between them stretch further than he knew possible.
It stretched and stretched, until Merlin finally broke it.
“The sorceress didn’t do this to me Arthur,” Merlin gestures down at himself, wincing, breathing still heavy.
“What are you talking about?” Arthur threw his arms up in exasperation and distress, face still red and damp from tears, so very visible in the candlelight.
“She didn’t. It wasn’t her, it was…well,” Merlin gestured again, towards Arthur hand that held out the sigil.
His proposal. Oh god, Arthur’s proposal.
“What are you talking about? This is ridiculous. If you didn’t want to marry me, you could have at least told me! I thought this was real, I thought you loved me!” Arthur was almost shouting by the end, voice hoarse with his grief.
Arthur had stood up, running his hands through his hair and panting for breath.
“Arthur,” Merlin demanded, “Hand the sigil over, Arthur.”
Arthur turned to look at him again, throwing the sigil towards him.
“Go ahead. You were the only person I would’ve given it too anyway.”
Merlin grasped the sigil from where it had landed on the bedclothes, a whimper coming from his lips as he held it up to his arm.
From all the continued exposure, it began to darken his skin right away.
“Arthur, look! Just look!”
Arthur turned again, freezing when his glance caught the sigil, burning Merlin’s arm black. Merlin’s eyes were already leaking with tears, the pain burning down his fingertips and up into his arm, causing him to pant as if he had been running for hours.
It was so much worse than he had remembered.
Before Merlin knew it, Arthur was almost on top of him, ripping the sigil away from his skin and holding it to his chest.
“You idiot! Stop that now!”
The world seemed to stop as Merlin watched Arthur look down at the sigil held to his chest, before throwing it away across the room as if it had been him it had burnt.
Hands reached out to grasp Merlin’s arm, pulling it right by a candle under Arthur’s eyes.
Arthur’s chest was heaving up and down, his blue eyes darting back and forth over the (slowly fading) black mess under Merlin’s skin.
“What was that? Is it cursed? Are you allergic?”
“No, Arthur.”
“Oh, gods, your arm! Your chest!”
“Arthur, listen-”
“The sigil, I can’t believe this, I looked after it for years, I can’t believe this happened right under my nose.”
“Arthur!” Merlin’s voice finally overtook Arthur’s, seeming to jolt him out of his inner thoughts, the bruising grip on his arm slowly releasing, the man taking a step back, hand running over his mouth.
“Yes, Merlin?” Arthur’s voice was so very soft, so very, very vulnerable.
Merlin knew what he had to do, something he always knew would have to happen, but had never really been able to plan for.
His nightmares had done that all for him.
But, Gods, Arthur had been planning to marry Merlin – as insane as that sounded – in just a few days, and apparently everybody around him had known, and expected this to happen, and if everything didn’t make so much more sense now.
“It isn’t cursed Arthur. And I’m not allergic, I mean, not in the typical way at least.”
“Then what? What is it, Merlin? What’s happened to you?” Arthur’s shoulder’s sagged, head lolling back on his neck to look up at the ceiling.
“It’s cold iron, Arthur.”
And Arthur….Arthur froze. Really froze, unlike a few moments before.
“It…it can’t be.”
“I’m really sorry Arthur, I promise I only use it for you, all my magic, it’s all for you, I-”
Arthur cut him off again.
“No, no you don’t understand. My mother liked sorcerer’s it can’t be cold iron. I can’t believe I gave this to you, I thought it was safe, gods, no wonder you want to leave me, I-”
“Arthur!” This time it was Merlin that interrupted. “Did you just hear me? I just said I was a sorcerer.”
“Yes? Yes, I know that,” Arthur said simply, as if his words hadn’t just shattered Merlin’s entire world, “I should have been so much more careful. My father wouldn’t have been so willing to give me anything of my mother’s, I can’t believe I didn’t realise! Merlin I am so sorry!”
Arthur never said sorry.
“You don’t need to apologise,” Merlin said weakly, just blinking at Arthur.
“Of course I do! I…I proposed to you with the equivalent of a phial of poison, making you promise to drink some every single day!”
“Well, it’s not like I haven’t done that before either.”
The joke landed uneasily in the air, all the life seeming to fall out of Arthur as he collapsed back into the chair next to his bed, letting out a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob.
“Your chest Merlin!”
“My chest,” Merlin confirmed quietly.
“It’s not going to go away Merlin. I’ve scarred you for life, it’s all my fault.”
Arthur reached out as if to hug Merlin, pulling his arms back at the last moment.
But Merlin wasn’t going to let that stand, reaching out himself, pushing through the ache, to grab Arthur’s arms and pull him into his chest for a deep hug.
Arthur’s arms were hesitant hands flexing for the first few moments. Then, grasping Merlin’s shoulders, he began to hold Merlin tighter, and tighter, as if afraid that he would disappear at any moment.
Then, when Arthur pulled back, just for a moment, lips opening as if to apologize to him again, Merlin lent down and captured Arthur’s lips with his own.
At first, Arthur seemed shocked, limbs going limp, before he dove into the kiss.
Arthur’s hands met behind Merlin’s head, pressing the two of them so close, Merlin wondered if he was trying to merge the two of them into one being.
When they finally drew back, they were both panting in a remarkably unromantic way.
One look into each other’s eyes, and they found themselves laughing. Not like Arthur’s crying-laugh from Merlin’s (bad) joke from before, but a half genuine laugh, not fully happy, and not pure joy. It was the kind of laugh between two men who had finally realised that everything could, and most likely, would be okay.
“We might have to adjust the wedding suit,” Merlin muttered, still holding Arthur close.
Arthur almost jumped to his feet.
“What?”
“For…for our wedding? I’m going to need the suit bought out for the bandages.” Merlin thought it seemed fairly obvious, for now, brain finally starting to spin in other ways, wondering how quickly he would have to get his mother over for the celebrations.
But Arthur had fully sat up, grabbing both Merlin’s hands in his own.
“You…you still want to marry me?”
“Well, I mean, you are a bit of a prat, and you don’t know how to clean your own socks and-”
“Merlin! Please, honestly, do you still want to marry me?”
“Course I do. We have to send a message out to my mum first, but-”
“Finally! I was wondering why she couldn’t come, I mean, I wanted you to have the wedding the way you wanted but I was so confused why you didn’t want her there. And you never did move those seating charts.”
Merlin blinked at Arthur.
Arthur’s mood had shifted so completely, almost seeming jittery in his skin, looking for all the world like pure sunlight, the happiest Merlin had ever seen him.
“I have something else to confess as well,” Merlin managed out, cursing himself every way back and forth.
Arthur titled his head.
“Is this about bringing your magic books up to my chambers? Or, well, any of your things. I know it’s a bit soon, but I’ve already had a holder built for your magical staff, or whatever it’s called. I thought you might like it if we held it and Excalibur together.”
If he didn’t have something so important to say, Merlin might have ignored the way his heart seemed to soar in his chest, at the very thought that Arthur really did understand. He knew. He got it, or, at the very least, he had some idea.
Merlin didn’t have to explain.
And the idea of a holder for both his staff and Excalibur together made his eyes go big.
“No, nothing like that. Just, some…misconceptions of my part.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I may have…not known we were getting married?”
This time, it was Arthur’s turn to blink at him dumbly.
“What does that mean?”
Merlin found a grin sneaking up onto his face, a dry laugh escaping his lips as Arthur stared on in confusion.
“I may have…misunderstood your intentions. I mean, I’m not a noble, we don’t use sigil’s to propose. I just thought you wanted me to look after it until you were ready to propose to someone else, and then when you asked me to handle the wedding planning, I just couldn’t help but try to picture whoever it was that you were marrying, so it really isn’t planned like how we would do our day at all, or, at least, our day. I made it for you, it was all for you.” Merlin had started so confidently, easily explaining every thought that had crossed his mind in the last few days, but towards the end he started to speed up throwing everything he had at Arthur who still stared at him with amazement.
“Idiot.”
And they were kissing again.
“You.”
Another kiss.
“Absolute.”
Hands were in Merlin’s hair.
“Lovable.”
The next kiss was awkward due to the smiles that had crept up onto both of their lips.
“Idiot.”
And they were together again, wrapped between a halfway point of a hug, a passionate kiss, and a laugh.
Merlin had missed their laughter together so much over the last season, and now it seemed that they just couldn’t stop.
Arthur knew about Merlin’s magic.
Arthur loved him. Loved him, anyway, knew and loved.
Arthur wanted to marry him. Him!
His chest still burned, less so than the days before due to Gaius’s potions.
Merlin finally understood.
All was good. The world was good.
And, perhaps for the first time in years, Merlin was happy. Utterly, deliriously, completely, happy.
“We’re getting married.”
“Yes, Merlin.”
“Married. Us. Me. You.”
“I think that’s the point, yes.”
“Married!”
“Shut up, Merlin.”
***
Arthur had offered to push the wedding back by a few days, to give Merlin time to recover, to make some of the changes that would have made the day personal to him.
But Merlin refused.
Once he knew, safely, that his mother would be in attendance, and that Gwen and Gaius would be sitting for him, all together in one row, he knew there was nothing else about the day he would change.
In all honesty, he would have married Arthur in the smallest stall of the horse stables, but he knew Arthur wouldn’t be thrilled by that idea.
Besides, he had reasoned with Arthur, they had so many royal and noble guests in attendance, it would be such a shame to disappoint them now.
The morning of, the last morning, Merlin had begun to think of it in his mind, he awoke to the knocking of his door.
Gwen stood there, arms filled with Merlin’s new wedding clothes, and began to help dress him. His chest still hurt enough if he tried to move his arms too much, and Gaius (as well as Arthur) had categorized dressing as one of the things he was unable to do. (Alongside almost everything else).
He swore up and down to Gwen that she would not be dressing him for long, that after the wedding he would dress himself just fine. It was the damned noble formal clothes with there clasps and buttons and laces that made them so complicated.
The fabric was thick, heavy, and so ridiculously expensive that he couldn’t help but stretch out his shoulders, shaking his head.
The last day.
The last day he woke up in Gaius’s extra room.
The last day he would see anything other than Arthur’s face in the morning.
The last day that he would be still considered a peasant.
And, most of all, the last day he would not be married to Arthur Pendragon.
And, in all honesty, he couldn’t wait.