Top.Mail.Ru
? ?
 
 
15 January 2014 @ 10:16 am
Atonement  
Author: ur_lionheart
Title: Atonement
Rating: PG
Pairing/s: Merlin/Arthur
Character/s: Merlin, Arthur, Gwaine, Gaius, Gwen, Uther,
Summary: When Arthur touches him for the first time, the whole room glows.
Warnings: Angst? um.. exile?, betrayal?
Word Count: 494
Prompt: #91: Atonement
Author's Notes: Set in season 3, and 4? Arthur/Guinevere non-existent. Canon-divergence. I know not much creativity in the title, but I didn't have much time. Again, I'm late in posting this. Sorry.


When Arthur touches him for the first time, Merlin is too happy to realize what he’s doing. It’s not until Arthur is looking down at him, horrified, and then scrambling off the bed, looking for his sword that Merlin realizes the whole room is glowing with white spheres of pure light. Merlin tries to call them off, but his magic isn’t co-operating.

Arthur puts him in prison, but doesn’t tell Uther about his magic. Merlin spends a month in prison until one day, Arthur approaches him, looking lost and confused and despite everything, Merlin wants to comfort him. When Arthur asks him to save his father, all Merlin can do is nod.

The first thing Uther does when he wakes up is look at Merlin suspiciously. Arthur’s looks at him apologetically when Uther presses a bag of gold coins in his hands, and then orders his exile from Camelot.

Merlin leaves. He meets Gaius and Gwen, says his goodbyes when he leaves. He can feel Arthur’s eyes as he walks away from the castle, but he doesn’t turn to look.

Its months before the news of Uther’s death reaches him. Merlin’s first instinct is to go back to Arthur and comfort him. He must be grieving. But Merlin doesn’t.

Gwaine finds him six months into the young King’s reign. Merlin’s heard about how Arthur removed the ban on magic, of how he knighted commoners, but he’s still surprised when he sees Gwaine clad in chainmail and the Pendragon red cloak. Gwaine tells him they’ve been searching for him for months now. When he didn’t come back to Camelot after Uther’s death, Arthur sent out search parties. Merlin was hard to find.

When the knights bring Merlin back to Camelot, Gaius and Gwen are waiting for him with smiles and happy tears and there’s a brief reunion before Merlin has an audience with the King. Merlin doesn’t want to, not really, but it’s important if his exile is to be lifted.

Arthur can’t seem to take his eyes off Merlin, and when he asks everyone to leave them alone, Merlin tenses. Arthur embraces him, and Merlin goes, still. When Arthur pulls back and presses a soft kiss to his mouth, Merlin doesn’t respond, even though he wants to. But he can’t trust Arthur anymore, he may have lied to him, but he never betrayed Arthur. Arthur is the one who betrayed him when he threw him in prison, or let Uther exile him. It takes another kiss for Arthur to realize Merlin isn’t going to respond.

Arthur offers him the position of the Court Sorcerer and tells him Ealdor is now in Camelot, but he has to do something more if he wants Merlin to forgive him. Merlin turns around and leaves the throne room, breaking both of their hearts. Merlin can’t trust Arthur anymore, and if Arthur thinks that he’ll find forgiveness by giving him a position in the court, then he is mistaken.

-tbc-
 
 
Current Mood: sleepy
 
 
 
pawpawpaku on January 15th, 2014 08:12 am (UTC)
You could so get a whole 50k+ fic out of this snippet :P

I think Arthur was incredibly in-character - especially when he asked Merlin to save his father. Hypocritical, yes, but I enjoyed that you decided not to make Merlin all happy-go-lucky at the end. No doubt the betrayal would hurt Merlin just as much as Arthur, and I think sometimes people forget that :)
ur_lionheart on January 15th, 2014 08:28 am (UTC)
I know, I've been thinking about writing this fic in detail for a while now, of course with other plot devices and all, but I don't really have time. I might still write a longer fic for this same plot.

Anyway, thank you! I'm so glad you liked my Arthur! And that you liked how I painted Merlin. Glad you liked! \o/
osky291osky291 on January 15th, 2014 08:27 am (UTC)
Aww I was so rooting for them to get together, but I guess Merlin is right. Good one.
ur_lionheart on January 15th, 2014 08:30 am (UTC)
They will get together eventually! Haha. But not yet. I didn't think I could fit so much in just this small drabble. I'll need a a few hundred more words at least for that. :P
osky291osky291 on January 15th, 2014 08:34 am (UTC)
Oh phew! That makes me a whole lot happier :D
ur_lionheart on January 15th, 2014 08:49 am (UTC)
Haha. I couldn't bear to see those boys in pain, haha!
brunettepetbrunettepet on January 15th, 2014 11:07 pm (UTC)
Arthur first locking Merlin up then releasing him to help Uther and then not defending him to Uther was too much. I'm glad Merlin isn't giving in. Arthur is going to have to earn that trust again.
ur_lionheart on January 16th, 2014 10:46 am (UTC)
Haha, I know. Thanks for the comment! Glad you liked! :)
aeris444: gwaineaeris444 on January 19th, 2014 03:58 pm (UTC)
Wow... That was really sad... But the 'tbc' at the end gives me some hope!

Well done with this one!
ur_lionheart on January 20th, 2014 04:03 pm (UTC)
Thank you so much! Glad you liked! \o/
clea2011: Merlinclea2011 on January 19th, 2014 07:52 pm (UTC)
I didn't see the little tbc at first and was sitting here going 'but you can't leave it there!' - glad to see you haven't :-)
It would have been really trite if Merlin had just forgiven him, I like that he hasn't and that there's going to be more of this. And the comment above is right - you could have made this into a huge big bang. Looking forward to seeing some more of this :)
ur_lionheart on January 20th, 2014 04:05 pm (UTC)
Thank you so much for the comment! And yeah, I might still expand onto this fic, though it will be different from this one. There are various plot devices I've thought about and all in all it would look very different but the basic plot is this. Haha

And I think this week's prompt is perfect for a sequel for this. So you might get to read the sequel by tomorrow :) <3